On second of March, a Russian and former Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev was born. In June 1950, Gorbachev became a candidate member of the Communist Party. In March, the Congress of People’s Deputies held the first Soviet presidential election, in which Gorbachev was the only candidate. He secured 1,329 in favor to 495 against; 313 votes were invalid or absent. He therefore became the first executive President of the Soviet Union.

Out of the office also Gorbachev continued to receive honors. In 1988 India awarded Gorbachev the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development. In 1990 he was given the Nobel Peace Prize for “his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community”. He was honored with several other awards also.

Some of his admired works are memoirs, The new Russia, In the changing world, What is at stake now: My appeal for peace and freedom, Moral lessons of twentieth century, Gorbachev: On My Country and the World, On My Country and the World and many more.

Osho says communism has to be saved and communism has to be transformed into a great spiritual revolution and Gorbachev could do it; he has all the power, but it is going to be a tremendous loss if Gorbachev does not understand the implications.

Osho further says Gorbachev is not a politician. His every act proves that he is a man in politics but not a politician. My dedication to Gorbachev and the academic scientist Sakharov was for this simple reason, that he is not a politician and is immensely interested in having peace in the world. He is for friendship in the world, not for war.

Later Osho said that Gorbachev had made a great mistake in allowing the old priests back in the name of opening the doors of the Soviet Union. Rather he should Open the doors for science, open the doors for art, open the doors for meditation.

The Soviet Union is in a very vulnerable state, because all the old people who have seen the revolution, who have been participants in the revolution, are dead. The new generation knows nothing. Here is Haridas. He is one of my oldest sannyasins. He is German and he heard Adolf Hitler’s name for the first time from me! Can you believe it? But he was born after the second world war. Now in Russia nobody exists who has seen the revolution, who has seen how Stalin established communism with difficulty. Gorbachev is not aware of the whole past and he is bringing the same enemies back in. They will disrupt the whole society. And for seventy years the new generation that has come into existence after the revolution has been taught: “There is no God, there is no hell, there is no heaven. There is no future life, there is no past life — this is all.” But they are feeling a tremendous hollowness within themselves and that is a red signal for danger. Because they are feeling a hollowness — that everything is good outside, but inside there seems to be nothing — these people will rush in and fill their inside with beliefs, with SHRIMAD BHAGAVADGITA, with the Koran, with the Bible, with Vedas, and destroy a great opportunity for meditation. None of these people are meditative.

Open the doors for scientists, for mystics, for meditators, for poets, for painters, for engineers, for doctors, for psychoanalysts. But don’t open the door for orthodox, fanatic, organized religions. Don’t open the door for capitalists and their agents. Otherwise you will spoil something so precious that all the utopians, all the people who have any vision for the future, have been dreaming of for centuries. In the RIGVEDA, the ancientmost book in the world, comes the sentence, VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAKAM — “this whole earth should become one family.” Ninety thousand years ago some visionary, some mystic, was thinking in terms of this whole earth turning into one family. That was the old language for communism: this whole world becomes one commune. Rather than looking at possibilities for how to turn the whole world into communes, which will be supportive to all communist revolutions… and as I said, I can bring to the Soviet Union the second revolution. The first revolution was material; the second revolution will be spiritual. Only then will Soviet citizens be able to cope with all kinds of idiots. Right now these idiots will destroy their innocence. Then they will turn them towards being exactly as the whole world is.

A great country — one of the biggest countries in the world; it is one sixth of the whole earth — and it is going to be a tremendous loss if Gorbachev does not understand the implications. Communism has to be saved and communism has to be transformed into a great spiritual revolution. He can do it; he has all the power. And only when the whole of humanity is meditative is the state of no use. When the whole of humanity has become one family there is no need of anybody to dictate. When the whole of humanity has become intelligent, when the whole of humanity has dropped all miseries and is immensely blissful, the state has no function. The powerful will feel absolutely out-of-date, old hat. They will disappear because their function is no more. When no criminal turns up in the courts, what is the function of the courts? When there is no prostitution — and that is possible only if there is no marriage — what is the need of a registrar for marriage, and licenses for prostitutes?

Things are very clear if you have the clarity that comes only when you go beyond the mind. The higher you go the more you have a bird’s-eye view of the whole situation of humanity. Gorbachev himself, before he does any act against communism, needs a great training in meditation. And after that, whatever he will do will be right. I can see the man is certainly intelligent and has good intentions for humanity, is a peace-loving person, but he has no depth of meditation. These are all superficial mind values, which don’t go deep enough. They are only skin deep — scratch just a little and all those values disappear.

Meditation brings transformation from the inside. It is not an imposition of morality and commandments from outside. Anything that comes from outside is worthless — morality, religion, spirituality, whatever you call it. Only that which blossoms within you like a lotus has ultimate value. Out of that arising of consciousness, you cannot do evil. Your every action will be spontaneous; it will come from your deepest being, and the deepest being cannot do any harm.

Then the state disappears. Then the world needs no hierarchy, no bureaucracy, no presidents, no prime ministers, no KGB, no CIA. Every individual has to contribute to that final utopia — and I am preparing you for that final stage when the state is useless, when the police are useless, when armaments are useless, when armies are just stupid, when we can all work together, create together, love together, rejoice together.

This very body the buddha — this very earth the lotus paradise. But it will happen only — not according to Marx but according to me — it will happen only when the whole world is full of buddhas. There is no other way. It is not an economic revolution; neither is it a social revolution. It is a spiritual revolution, an individual-to-individual rebellion. Every heart starts blossoming.

When millions of hearts start blossoming it becomes a chain reaction. Just like one candle aflame can make thousands of candles aflame — just bring the other candle close enough and suddenly the flame jumps to the unlit candle. The lit candle loses nothing and the unlit candle gains everything. The whole life is in the flame. This I call Zen Fire, Zen Wind. Unless the whole world goes through the Zen Fire and becomes pure gold, unless the whole world becomes a Zen Wind passing through every heart, connecting every heart to the universal heartbeat — this utopia is not possible.

But I hope, I am absolutely certain, that every man’s destiny is to become a buddha. So whether it happens today or tomorrow or day after tomorrow does not matter. There are only seven days in the week. It will happen Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday — on some day, it is going to happen, I am absolutely certain. Because

I understand human nature. It cannot be satisfied with this miserable world. It cannot be satisfied with this ugly and violent world. It can only be satisfied when it finds its ultimate source of blissfulness, eternal source of life. And that is what meditation is a scientific methodology for.

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune.

Discourse Series:

Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind

Chapter #3
Chapter title: This I call Zen Fire, Zen Wind
1 February 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on many politicians and rulers like Abraham Lincoln, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Jawaharlal Nehru, Kennedy, Stalin, Gorbachev, Churchill, Roosevelt, Alexander, Napoleon, and more in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

From Bondage to Freedom
From Ignorance to Innocence
The Path of the Mystic
From False to Truth
From Misery to Enlightenment
Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap, Zing
Beyond Psychology
Live Zen
The Invitation
Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind
The Book of Wisdom
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3
The Golden Future

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