Osho - Darkness is the absence of light, the devil is the absence of god

Osho - The devil is like darkness. It is and yet it is not. Darkness is the absence of light, the devil is the absence of god. You bring light in, darkness disappears; you bring god in, the devil disappears. There has never been a meeting between darkness and light, and there has never been an encounter between the devil and god.

There is an old hindu story. Once darkness went to god and appealed and said, 'I have not done anything wrong, but your sun every morning goes on chasing me, for no reason at all, and I am tired of running away from here to there, and the sun goes on chasing me round the earth! This is unjust.'

God said, 'I will call the sun.' The sun was called, and god asked the sun, 'Why do you go on creating trouble for my darkness? She has not done anything wrong to you. This is unjust.'

The sun was surprised. He said, 'I have never come across her. What are you talking about? What do you mean by darkness? I have never come across anything like that. Please call her in front of me.'

The case is still in the files. God has been trying but it is impossible to call darkness in front of the sun. It is not possible in the nature of things because darkness is not a reality. It exists and yet it does not exist. It is absence.

It is the same with the devil, and it is good that the devil is painted as dark, black. That is just to show that the nature of it is like darkness. God is called 'light' in the Koran, in the Bible, in the Vedas. In all the scriptures of the world, god is synonymous with light. Meaningful, significant. It simply says that when god is there, the devil cannot be.

Source - Osho Book "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol1"