The true religious person cannot be a Christian and cannot be a Hindu and cannot be a Mohammedan. The true religious person can only be religious, prayerful, loving, alert, rejoicing in this beautiful gift of god, this existence.
But he will not have anything to do with the church and the temple and the mosque, because in the church there is only an ideology, in the temple only a man-made statue, and the mosque is nothing but a creation of man's mind.
These are shadows, symbols, and to worship a symbol is stupid.
It is as if you walk in the sun and the shadow follows you; but you are not the shadow, the shadow is not you. These so-called religions are nothing but shadows, long shadows.
When a Buddha walks on the earth a long shadow falls. Buddha disappears but we go on clinging to the shadow. These are footprints.
When a Jesus appears a long shadow falls on humanity and for centuries people will go on worshipping the shadow; that shadow is the church.
But once Jesus is gone there is nothing… just a painted picture of Jesus. It has no significance at all and worshipping it is utterly stupid.
And god is available; as he was available to Jesus he is available to you.
But you become too attached to Jesus and his shadow and that very attachment becomes a barrier between you and god.
God is alive in the trees as much as he was when Jesus walked on the earth. He is still meditating in the mountains as he was when Buddha walked on the earth. The world is as god-full as ever! It can't be otherwise.
One has to discard temples, mosques, churches, priests. One has to come into direct contact with god.
Shadows have to be renounced, and only when you renounce shadows are you capable of knowing the reality, otherwise one gets lost in shadows.
This may seem paradoxical when I say that the truly religious person is not religious at all in the ordinary sense of the word.
And the religious person in the ordinary sense of the word is not religious at all.
One has to be very careful, watchful, because there are many false coins in currency, and the false has to be understood as false, only then can the true be understood as true.
Unless you cease clinging to the false you will not be able to receive the truth. So be religious but don't be Christian and don't be Hindu and don't be Mohammedan. No ideology is going to help.
OSHO