Once God used to live just in the marketplace, but the whole day, even in the night people were knocking on the doors and complaining about everything: "This is not the right kind of world you have created. Why is there so much sickness? If you are the creator, then why do you create bodies which are sick? Why is there old age, and why is there death?"
So people tortured him so much, the old story says, that he called a council of his angels and asked them, "I will either die out of this constant torture, or I will have to commit suicide! Can you tell me what I should do? These people don't leave me for a single moment and their demands are such that I cannot fulfill them. And there are millions of people shouting and angry because their desire has not been fulfilled, their prayer has not been heard."
So the angels thought. One angel said, "It is good if you move to Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas."
God said, "You don't know it but I am omniscient, I know everything -- past, present, future. Soon there will be a man who will reach to the highest peak of the Himalayas. And once one man has found me, there will be buses and airplanes, and all kinds of vehicles. And they will make roads and hotels, and again there will be the marketplace. You don't understand: it will only be just a little peace for a short time. That won't do. I will have to change my place again."
So somebody suggested, "Why don't you move to the moon?"
He said, "You don't understand because you don't know the future -- just after Everest they are going to go to the moon. So I will have to change again. Show me something from where I have not to change!"
Then an old angel came close to him and whispered in his ear, "The only place man
may never think of is within his own heart. You just sit there ..."
He has disappeared from everywhere. Perhaps you can encounter something of divineness in your own being. In your own life you may find something which is godly. You will not find God as a person, you will find a quality, a fragrance, a presence; a certain air, a certain energy which is not yours, which belongs to the cosmos.
Book: I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here by Osho
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An ancient parable.... A man was continually wanting to learn the secret of miracles. He had heard so much about it -- that there are sages in Tibet, in the high peaks of the Himalayas who can teach you, who know all kinds of miracles. So he was always serving any kind of sage. In India there are so many sages -- just as here there are so many sage bushes. When I first came here and I came to know that there are so many sages here also, I said, "These people are not going to leave me alone!"
He found a very old, ancient sage and he was continually massaging his feet, bringing him food and doing whatsoever the poor man could do. The old sage knew, the whole town knew, why he served these people. The old sage said again and again, "I am a simple man, and I don't know any miracles."
The man said, "That's the true sign of a sage. Those who claim -- they are worthless. You are the person who knows the secret."
He said, "It is very difficult. If I say I know then there is difficulty -- you say,'Teach me.' And I am telling you the truth, that I don't know any miracle and I don't think that anybody does except people like you, who go on creating myths around somebody; otherwise there is no miracle."
But the man would not leave; day and night he was serving the sage. One night the old man wanted to sleep but the man was massaging him. So he said, "Stop!"
The man said, "I am not going to stop until you tell me -- if you want to sleep tonight, just tell me a simple secret so I can do miracles."
The sage said, "Okay, I am going to tell you. It is very simple. You go home, take a shower, sit down in the lotus posture... and this is the mantra: Om Mani Padme Hum, the Tibetan mantra. Just say it five times and in the morning you will be able to do any kind of miracle that you want to do."
Hearing this, the man simply jumped up and out of the room. The old man said, "Wait! You have not heard the condition."
He said, "In the morning I can come again."
The old man said, "No, the condition has to be followed, otherwise the mantra won't work."
The man said, "What is the condition?"
The sage said, "The condition is, while you are repeating the mantra five times, you should not think of a monkey.
The man said, "Don't be worried. In my whole life I have never thought of a monkey. I always think of sages and saints, so this condition is nothing."
But as he was coming down the steps of the temple, wherever he looked he started finding monkeys in the trees, they were hiding in the bushes....
He said, "My God! So many monkeys tonight!" They were always there, it was just that he had not renounced them; today he had renounced them. By the time he reached his house, he could not believe whether it was true or untrue: a crowd of monkeys all around him, making faces. But he said, "First let me take a bath -- perhaps that will help."
Nothing was going to help. While he was taking a bath, the monkeys were inside the bathroom. He sat in padmasana, closed his eyes, and just... the monkey -- not one, a whole crowd! He could not even repeat "Om mani padme hum" -- just a small mantra -- even once. The monkeys were continuously there. He tried the whole night: again a bath, again the posture, but those monkeys....
Before the morning, he rushed to the temple. The sage was laughing but the man was really angry; he said, "This is no time to laugh. Is it funny?"
The old man said, "I have always told you that I don't know any miracles, secrets, mantras, or anything -- ut you wouldn't listen to me, hence I had to lie.
The man said, "If you had to lie, you could have at least kept your mouth shut about the monkeys.
The old man said, "But without the monkeys, the mantra is incomplete. Did the monkeys trouble you?
The man said, "Trouble me! You are an old sage and I have accepted you as my Master, otherwise would have killed you!"
Once you renounce something forcibly -- and the very word renunciation means that you are forcing yourself against yourself -- you are dividing yourself. All renunciation creates a schizophrenic condition in you: one part renouncing, another part becoming more infatuated -- you are being split.
All these religions are criminal because they have made the whole of humanity split.
You can be one only if you are natural.
Book : From Ignorance to Innocence
Chapter 6: Mortgage today for a tomorrow that never comes by Osho
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You know the story of the famous Zen Master, Ikkyu? He was staying in a temple on a very cold night. There were many wooden Buddhas in the temple, so he brought two, three Buddhas and made a good fire, and enjoyed.

In the middle of the night, with the fire and the crackling of the wood and the smoke, the priest awoke: "What is happening? What is going on?" He saw this monk who was a stranger, who had asked for shelter and was given shelter, and what had he done? Three Buddhas gone! Naturally he was in a rage. He said, "Are you mad or something? You have burnt three Buddhas!"

Ikkyu took his staff and started searching. Now there was nothing left, just ashes; he was searching for something in the ashes. And the priest asked, "What are you searching for?"

He said, "For Buddha's bones."

In India, in the East, the bones are called flowers, symbolically. So he said, "I am searching for the flowers, for the bones of Buddha."

Now it was the priest's turn to laugh. He said, "You are really mad! How can you find flowers, bones, in the wooden Buddhas?"

Ikkyu said, "Then you too are not as stupid as you look. Then bring a few more Buddhas, because the night is long and it is too cold. If you know that these are only wooden Buddhas, then what is the fear? We can enjoy! My Buddha inside is feeling cold. And what do you think -- should I care about the living Buddha or the wooden Buddha?"

It was too dangerous to keep this man inside the temple, and the priest had to go to sleep too, so he said, "You please get out, otherwise you may burn other Buddhas. You simply get out! I don't want anything of this nonsense!"

He threw him out into the cold night. When he was being thrown out Ikkyu again said, "What are you doing? Throwing a Buddha, a living Buddha, out on such a cold night to protect the wooden Buddhas?"

But the priest wouldn't listen, he closed the doors in his face. And in the morning when the priest went out of the temple he saw another miracle happening. Just by the side of the road there was a milestone. Ikkyu had gathered a few flowers from the roadside. He had offered the flowers to the milestone, was bowing down and was saying, "BUDDHAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI, SANGHAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI, DHAMMAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI :" I take shelter at the feet of the Buddha, I take shelter in your commune, my Lord, I take shelter in the DHAMMA, the Law that you have taught to us."

The priest said, "What are you doing? In the night you burnt a Buddha, and now you are worshipping the milestone as a Buddha?"

And Ikkyu said, "If you have gratitude you can show it anywhere. If you don't have it even thousands of wooden Buddhas cannot create it." If you have gratitude you can show it anywhere.... Now this is the man of Zen.

From the book: The Guest Chapter: A play with the devil by Osho
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Zen student: "So, master, is the soul immortal or not? Do we survive our bodily death or do we get annihilated? Do we really reincarnate? Does our soul split up into com-ponent parts which get recycled, or do we as a single unit enter the body of a biological organism? And do we retain our memories or not? Or is the doctrine of reincarnation false? Is perhaps the Christian notion of survival more Correct? And if so, do we get bodily resurrected, or does our soul enter a purely Platonic spiritual realm?"

Master: "Your breakfast is getting cold."

From the book "Take It Easy Vol 1" ~ Osho