TALKS IN AMERICA
From the False to the Truth 34
ThirtyFourth Discourse from the series of 34 discourses - From the False to the Truth by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Osho,
On the fortieth anniversary of the UN, the one-cent American postal stamp has the message, “We the peoples of the United Nations determine to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” Can the UN save humanity from war?
The UN has proved in these forty years only one thing: that it is as impotent as its predecessor, the League of Nations.
The members of the UN are the people who are going to create the third world war. The UN has no power to prevent it; it is only a debating club, and not of the best kind. It is not even democratic. The big powers like America and the Soviet Union have the capacity to veto any resolution. Just one nation, America or Russia, can stop any resolution which is being passed by the whole world. Is this democratic? Every nation, small or big, poor or rich, must have equal rights! In forty years the UN has not been able even to do that.
It is just keeping people consoled: “Don’t be afraid, we are going to save you.” In fact, from whom are they going to save us? They are the people we have to be saved from!
The UN has not been able to stop the increasing amount of nuclear weapons. That should be the first step if you don’t want the third world war. Why wait for the last moment? Why not start it now? And the basic step will be that no war preparations are made. When everybody is prepared to fight…in fact they will be forced to fight, just because each country has invested so much energy and power, and it has piled up nuclear weapons sky high: what are the nations going to do with those weapons? And they have poured such immense amounts of money into them. At what point will the UN stop them? And the Soviet Union can just veto it, America can veto it.
But this is how politicians have been cheating humanity all along, throughout the whole history of man. They say one thing and they do just the opposite. It is very easy to publish a postal stamp that says, “We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to save humanity from the scourge of war.” Who are these “we”? Have you asked the people of the world?
Nobody wants war around the world except these idiotic politicians, because without war they have no job. War keeps politicians powerful. People have to depend on politicians because the war is coming.
Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography, My Struggle…he has a few very important points to make. The first thing he says is that never in history has a great leader been born unless there is war.
That’s true. If there had been no second world war you would have never heard of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill, Roosevelt – they all became stars high in the sky. Of course, millions of people died to make them great leaders of men.
The same has been the case all along, throughout history. The politician wants to be on the top, as high as possible. If there is peace, no fight, no war, no preparation for war, he is just ordinary – perhaps a little bit less intelligent than the average person. His intelligence is not better than the average person’s; it can be worse.
Before the second world war, the same promise was given by the League of Nations: “We are going to save the world from war.” But those were the same people who fought the second world war. And I say to you, these same people who constitute the UN are going to create the third world war.
These stamps are cheap. You can go on befooling humanity, but for how long? It is time that humanity understands the politician and his cunningness. Even in the UN you cannot be peaceful, discussing in a friendly way. I said it is only a debating club and not the best one, because nobody is listening to anybody else. It is a tower of Babel: everybody is speaking for his government, his nation, his politics, and is not ready to listen to anything else.
Do you know what Khrushchev did in the UN? He was the premier of the Soviet Union…and this kind of behavior and the people who behave in this way, can they prevent the second world war? Then who is going to start it? Do they think I am going to start the third world war, that the red people around the world are going to start the third world war?
Khrushchev was delivering his talk to the UN, and he became so angry that he took his shoe off and started beating on the table with the shoe! A great history of forty years, not an ordinary history. They could not prevent even Khrushchev beating their faces with his shoe, shouting and screaming at the whole UN.
In forty years they have not been able to do anything at all. This is a sheer wastage of time. The fortieth anniversary should be declared as the death of the UN! Finished! There is no point, they cannot agree. But the existence of UN gives consolation to people: “We don’t need to be worried, the UN is taking care of us.” And the UN consists of warring nations who have nuclear weapons. They have been talking about putting a stop to it, but it is just pure talk; nobody stops.
I think it is time that the people of the world start understanding the politician and his hypocrisy, his double personality, because if the third world war happens, then there will be no life on this beautiful planet. I don’t believe at all in this declaration of the UN, but I have another program for the people:
First, don’t trust your politicians. Don’t be consoled by their cunning strategies.
Second, remember that you are going to be destroyed with your children, with your wife, with your parents, with your trees, with your animals – everything that is alive on the earth.
If the people of the whole earth simply refuse and say, “We are not going to fight, there is no point in it,” if they refuse and say, “We don’t want boundaries of nations. If there is going to be no war, why keep these boundaries? What purpose do these boundaries serve?”…. If the people of the world force their governments and say, “Disperse all your armies. Let those people be creative….”
Millions of people around the earth, in the army, are just doing nothing. In fact, they are hankering for war. They are not meditators who can just sit silently, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself. They are very ordinary people. To keep them holding their guns, watching their nuclear missiles…. How long can you keep them in this situation? Sooner or later, they will find it is better now to start – “We are tired and bored….”
This is an established fact, that during the war people are less sad, more excited, happier than they are in peaceful times, because so much is going on. Every moment brings new news; excitement is natural.
Human history can be divided in two parts: first when there is war; second, when they are preparing for a new war. There has never been a period of real peace. Preparing for war is cold war – getting ready, because the last has taken so much, destroyed so much, that you have to prepare again. Within ten to twenty years’ time they are again ready, the weapons are ready, the enemies are there.
If really they mean what they say, then take the preliminary steps. The first is to dissolve boundaries, dissolve passports and green cards. The world, the whole earth is ours. Wherever we want to be, it is nobody’s business to prevent us. Let there be freedom of movement. Let all the races, all the nations get mixed. And once the boundaries are not there, they will get mixed, they will spread all over the world – all kinds of races – and it will be a great experiment in crossbreeding. We will have better generations to come.
It is not enough to save the coming generations from war, if they are simply carbon copies of you. What is the point? If they are carbon copies of you, they will do the same as you have been doing. A New Man is needed, a New Man who feels the whole earth is his mother – not small segments of it.
Do you see? You call your land your motherland, and you have cut the mother into so many pieces – is your mother alive still? You are carrying only limbs of your mother. Somebody has taken the leg, somebody has taken the head….
I am reminded of a religious master. He had two disciples – just as every democracy has two political parties. Those disciples were competing in every way to get more attention from the master. And the question basically was, who is going to succeed the master? – he was getting old. So both were trying their best to serve the master, to follow the master, to practice the discipline that the master has given. But the motivation was neither the discipline nor the principles. They were not concerned with the master at all.
One summer day the master was sleeping, and they were not going to lose any opportunity. So they both were massaging the legs of the master. He was tired, naturally – he had come from a long journey. One was working on the left leg, the other was working on the right leg. The master was asleep.
The man who was working on the right leg told the other, “Remember, if your leg comes on top of my leg, I am not going to tolerate it.” The other said, “And what do you think? – I am going to tolerate it? I will cut off your leg if it comes on my leg!” And they both had their swords ready.
The master was not really asleep, no master ever is. He opened his eyes and said, “Boys, those legs are both mine! Who told you that the right leg is owned by one and the left leg is owned by the other?”
But this is the situation of the world. The mother earth has been cut into thousands of pieces. People have to be awakened to the fact, to stop calling America your motherland, stop calling Germany your fatherland. You see the difference? The whole world calls its country the motherland, except Germany! Their land is the fatherland. It is not a coincidence; they are more male chauvinistic than anybody else. Stop all this nonsense! – and people can do it.
I am preparing you to spread the fire around the world, that the whole earth belongs to us.
And let the UN go on discussing. If they want to wrestle against each other in the UN building, they can have good boxing matches. It is better than throwing shoes at each other. And it will be really great entertainment, seeing your great politicians wrestling. But that will not be decisive as far as the earth is concerned.
The people of the earth have to take the responsibility from the hands of the politicians. And this will be a first step: to erase all the boundaries. And see how many people they can put in jails; you cannot put a whole nation in jail.
All the constitutions of democratic countries accept in their list of birthrights the right of movement. But where is it? You can move only within the country. They have given you a little rope to feel that you are free, but an authentic freedom of movement will mean that anybody can go anywhere on the earth. Wherever he feels to live, he can live; no hindrance should be there. Removal of the boundaries will bring one world and one world functional government.
The UN has no power over anything. I know it…. In India, in 1947 after independence, Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which was part of India, and took over a large chunk of land. India fought against Pakistan. It could have been the beginning of a third world war, because the land that Pakistan had taken was very significant; it joined Pakistan with China.
Pakistan now could have a road – now they do have a road – going over the Himalayas to Peking. And China is not on speaking terms with Russia anymore. China is going to be with America, so that small piece of land is of immense significance.
And what did the UN do? It did not force Pakistan, because America would not like that land to be lost, it is a key point in any war in Asia. So the UN did something futile. They said, “First stop the war, have a cease-fire line.” On one side Indian armies have been standing for forty years, on the other side Pakistani armies have been standing for forty years. Between the two is the camp of the UN observers to make sure that the cease-fire line is not crossed till the matter is settled. Who is going to settle it? And if you cannot settle such a small matter in forty years, how many centuries will you take to settle the third world war?
They cannot settle the matter, because if they settle in favor of Pakistan, Russia will veto it; the settlement is finished. If they settle it in favor of India, America will veto it, and the matter is finished. So it is in limbo, and it is going to be in limbo perhaps forever, unless my people succeed in dissolving all boundaries; then that cease-fire line will also dissolve.
And this is a sheer wastage! – thousands of people unnecessarily standing there with their guns ready, on alert, on both sides. Just a single crackpot can start shooing, just out of boredom. Forty years…! He was young, now he is old, getting senile. Just for the sake of fun, if one man starts firing from the other side, then immediately both the armies will jump up – and nobody will care about the observers. Perhaps they will be the first ones to be killed.
What has the UN to its credit? Nothing at all. Without any credibility, to claim that they are going to stop the third world war is simply befooling the people. They cannot stop the war between India and Pakistan, between Pakistan and Bangladesh. They cannot stop the war between Israel and the surrounding Mohammedan countries, because everywhere these two great powers are involved.
Israel is supported by the Americans, because the American political parties cannot survive without Jews’ donations to their parties. If they want donations from Jews, they have to stand by the side of Israel. And Russia is behind the Mohammedan countries, which are bigger, surrounding the small Israel from all sides. And since the birth of Israel, the child has been in bed, almost dead. But America is keeping it alive by artificial breathing. If American steps out, Israel will be finished within a day.
America cannot step out, Russia cannot step out. In fact, it is a good opportunity; America has created it. They have a vast majority of Mohammedan countries of the whole Middle East sympathetic toward them, because in any case, these countries will need support. They are all oil countries, that’s why America is hesitating, is now in a fix: if it does too much, goes a little more toward support of Israel, then all the oil countries are in the hands of Soviet Russia. And oil is now far more precious than gold.
The UN in forty years has not been able to do anything – and still these people have the nerve to say they are going to save the world from a third world war. Even in small wars they have not been able…. What did the UN do in Vietnam? Poor people were being killed unnecessarily by Americans. It was none of America’s business. Vietnam belongs to the people who live there, and if they want to be communist, who are you to prevent them? What right have you got? The same was the situation in Korea. The UN has failed utterly, and I am amazed that they are not even ashamed, and are declaring that they will save the coming generations from the third world war.
Only one thing can save the world from the coming war – which will be a total war, for the first time; all other wars were child’s play. This is going to destroy the whole of life on the earth. Trees, birds, animals, man – anything living will simply be gone.
I say there is one way only, and that is to spread to people more meditativeness, more love, more friendliness, more rejoicing. If we can make the earth sing songs and dance in joy, in gratitude because existence has given so much – otherwise, it would have been impossible even to purchase one sunrise. The whole wealth of the earth would not be able to purchase one sunrise.
And a sunrise is a big thing – the whole wealth of the earth would not be able to produce a single roseflower. And all this is given to man without his asking. You don’t deserve it, you are not worthy of it! It is out of the compassion of existence, the overflowing joy of existence, the continuous creativity of existence that you are so rich. Millions of stars in the night….
Make people aware of their gratitude toward life, and make people love, sing, dance. If we can spread this at-ease around the world, the third world war will be prevented. We need not bother about it. Joyous people don’t want war; it is only those who are already dead who would like everybody else to be dead.
They are really suffering because they are dead. They cannot laugh, they cannot enjoy, they cannot love, they cannot feel. They don’t have any heart, and others have. It is making them so jealous! It will be far better that everything is finished. At least there will be no grounds for their jealousy – they will also be finished in it.
So I don’t say that there is any direct way to prevent the third world war. That is what the pacifists of the world say: “Protest. Have protest marches to Washington, to Moscow” – but nobody listens to those protest marches. And I have seen those pacifists shouting and screaming against the war – I could not see any difference between them and the people who are getting ready to fight. Their screaming was enough proof that they belonged to the same category.
If those pacifists had weapons and missiles, they would create a war to prevent the third world war! The way they are shouting and screaming and throwing stones, simply shows that they are of the same species as the politicians against whom they are throwing stones. The difference is just that the politicians have the power, and they don’t have the power.
Remember, the husband does not scream at the wife, the wife screams at the husband. When he gets tired of her nagging and screaming, he hits the wife, he beats her. And strangely, the wife simply becomes silent. If she is not beaten, then she is going to drive the man nuts.
In old countries like India and China, it was told to the newly-married couple by their elders – the husband was told, “Remember, once in a while a wife needs beating; otherwise, you will not be able to live peacefully.” But why does the wife scream? – because the husband has the muscular strength she cannot beat the husband. There are a few exceptions, but exceptions only prove the rule. She would like to beat him, but as far as muscular strength is concerned, she cannot compete with the husband. So the moment the husband starts beating her she becomes peaceful.
The weak, the powerless, scream. The powerful takes his gun, puts his army on alert. The pacifists continually go on protesting. This helps nobody. Nobody listens to their protest.
I used to know a man…. My house in one city was just near the high court of the state, so all protest marches, all kinds of pacifists were passing in front of my door. And I watched them – their behavior did not seem to be peaceful. They looked more ugly than the people in the high court. But I was amazed that one man was always there, whether the communist party was protesting, or the socialist party was protesting, or the people’s party was protesting. And in India there are so many parties…. He was always there, with every party.
One day I got hold of him, and I asked him, “You are an amazing man – to what party do you belong?”
He said, “Who cares? I am a member of all the parties.”
I said, “But how it is possible? Communists are against the socialists, socialists are against the communists. How can you be?”
He said, “I am not concerned with their politics – I enjoy screaming! It is such a healthy thing, that whenever there is a protest I close my shop; and whoever is protesting, I am always ahead holding the flag.” He said, “It is really healthy.”
I said, “I know. My people are doing it every morning, but they don’t protest about anybody.” I said to him, “It is better that you start dynamic meditation, because these protests happen only once in a while, and you have to be dependent on these political parties. There is no need, you can do it on your own.”
He said, “On my own? Alone?”
“No,” I said, “don’t be worried.” I had a meditation hall there. I said, “Every morning many people come there.” And he started coming. Now he is a sannyasin – I don’t think for any other reason, just every day, early in the morning, it is healthy to scream. It gives you stronger lungs, a better heart, more strength. And moreover, he need not close his shop anymore; financially it is good.
I am not a pacifist, and I don’t want my people to be pacifists. That is fighting with those who are preparing for war – but you are doing the same on a small scale, in a feminine way. No, that won’t help. We want to create our own movement which has nothing to do with the third world war.
Do you see my point? If we can make humanity happier, more loving, more silent, more peaceful, we will create a real barrier against the third world war. The leaders cannot go without their people. If the people refuse, the armies refuse, if everybody refuses and says, “I am so happy, I don’t want to die. And I love humanity, so I don’t want to kill. If you can manage on your own, you do it.” A peaceful and happy man does not want to die, and does not want to kill.
So spread the message far and wide:
It’s better to be red than dead!
Osho,
The other day you said that women create children, and men create arts and other material things. Is it unnatural or neurotic for a woman not to desire a child, and to prefer to be an artist? I never wanted to have a child. Dance, music, poetry, theater and painting were my passion and expression. Could you comment?
There is nothing unnatural in it. If you don’t want to have a child, you have the right not to have one. If you want to put your creativity into painting, into art, into music, it is perfectly good – far better than creating a child who is bound to be a burden on the earth. And who knows what kind of child will come out of you?
Adolf Hitler can come out of you. He is waiting, searching for a womb. Joseph Stalin can come out of you. Beware! – that greasy Italian, Mussolini, is waiting. All these people are standing in line, in a queue. This is not the time to give birth to a child!
A painting is harmless. Music is beautiful, dancing will do. No, there is nothing unnatural in it. It has been said by men again and again that it is women’s natural duty to give birth to children. That’s how they have been able to keep the woman in slavery, because if a woman goes on giving birth to children, where is the time for her to paint? Where is the time for her to create music, poetry, drama?
So on the one hand they have been forcing the woman to remain continually pregnant. Just a hundred years ago, every woman around the world was continually pregnant. One child takes nine months of her life, then she has to raise the child. And when the child is not even six months old, she is again pregnant. It is like chain-smoking. And even a single child is such a nuisance….
I agree with you. I have been asked many times, “Wouldn’t you like to have a child?”
I said, “Me? Either I would kill the child or I would kill myself; we could not coexist! A child in my room? Impossible!” Just to be alert, I have never married, because who knows? – the woman I marry may want a child. Then trouble will arise.
There is no problem, unless you feel there is. Don’t listen to anybody, what they say – that it is unnatural. It may be unnatural to them, so they can give birth to as many children as they want. If you feel good in painting, in writing poetry, in composing music, you are giving better children to the world – children who are harmless, who will make many rejoice. Nothing can go wrong. At the most, your poetry will not be worth anything, your music just a noise, your painting just a copy of some other painter, your literature…. Reading ten books anybody can write the eleventh book. That’s how books go on increasing.
There are very few books which are original. Other books are simply creations of average minds. You can see it in the films: the same story. Yes, a little bit different in details, but almost the same triangle. One woman and two men, or two women and one man – which is a little more exciting – but this triangle is the whole story of all the stories that have been written, of all the films that have been created. I sometimes wonder whether this is literature or geometry! And in geometry there are many other things, not just a triangle.
Details you can fit very easily, but this is not creativity. This is sheer theft, you are stealing. But that is not a harm to anybody; you are just wasting your time. And if you enjoy wasting it, why should anybody prevent you? But please, don’t give birth to a child. At the most he will be just an average idiot. And the world is so full of idiots that it is time that the woman refused to give idiots to the world.
That’s why I am for bio-engineering. It is not your birthright to go on giving birth to as many children as you want, because those children are going to live on this earth, and they will do something or other.
Only a medical board should decide about a couple. Unless you have a clearance from the medical board, you cannot produce a child. And since the pill it is so simple. Nobody is preventing you from making love; make love as much as you want, or as much as you can manage! But as far as children are concerned, you are doing something to the whole world. Making love you are not doing anything to anybody – just a little fun between two individuals; the world is not involved in it.
Children should be born only if a couple gets permission from the medical board. Still, that is not the best way to do it, because while he is making love a man releases millions of living beings, millions of living cells; and it is just chance in that race who will reach the female egg first. You cannot decide it, you cannot even know it. So this is not the best way. The medical board may feel that the woman is healthy, the man is healthy; they can look at your heritage – three, four generations back – and they can allow you. But this is not the best way.
The best way will be for intelligent people to donate their semen to the hospital, to donate the female eggs to the hospital, so the hospitals have banks – just like they have blood banks. And they can figure out which female egg and which male sperm are going to create a tremendously great, loving genius.
You can make a condition: “We are donating our sperm and our eggs; if you find that some combination can create a beautiful human being, we would like to adopt. If it is not possible, then from other eggs….” What is the problem? You can’t recognize your own sperm, your sperm has no seal on it; no egg has any seal on it. The medical board can find those of some other woman, some other man, and you can adopt the child.
It will be healthier for the society, it will be a beautiful experience for you to raise a child who is going to be an Albert Einstein, or a Bertrand Russell, or a Jean-Paul Sartre. What a joy, that your child is not going to be pope the Polack! that your daughter is not going to be Mother Teresa!
It is sheer joy. And knowing what your child is going to be…because the medical, the biological study of the sperm and the egg can give you all the predictions: how long he will live, what kind of man he will be – or woman; how he should be brought up so that his potential flowers and he is not distracted from his potential. It will be really a work of art, far more precious than any painting, because you will be giving to the world a treasure.
So I am all for bio-engineering. And this stupid way of producing children has done enough harm. The whole history is full of it. Don’t you ever think that if a gardener plants thousands of trees, and only once in a while one tree flowers – would you call that gardener a gardener?
Thousands of children are born, and rarely will someone become a Mozart or a Gautam Buddha. Most of them will be clerks, postmasters, stationmasters. Your son being a clerk, even if he becomes the head clerk, is not going to bring you the rejoicing that I would like. And these jobs soon will be transferred to the machines, to the computers. The clerks are going to be out of employment very soon.
Don’t produce clerks! Don’t produce stationmasters, postmasters. We have had enough. Now machines can take the place of all ordinary jobs. But the machine cannot become a Bertrand Russell, a Wittgenstein, a Martin Heidegger; that is beyond the computer.
You have to create a child which will be needed, and cannot be replaced by any machine. otherwise, everybody is going to be unemployed, hungry, starving. It will not be only in Ethiopia, it will be all over the world. And the machine is more reliable than your beloved son who has become the clerk.
Just now I got the information that they have made a computer specially for Mohammedans, because the Mohammedan has to pray facing toward Mecca, his holy land. But it is really a difficult job to be absolutely accurate. Most probably you are wrong, there is only a small chance that you are exactly facing toward Mecca. A computer has come onto the market: you just put the machine on, move the machine, and when it starts giving an alarm that means this is the place; you are absolutely accurate.
Perhaps my sannyasins will also need it. Where you face while you are doing your gachchhamis is just approximate. A computer can make it a hundred percent certain. The same computer that Mohammedans are using, with a little change, will be able to do your work too. Then around the earth, wherever you are, you can do the gachchhamis directed toward me!
Please give birth to a child who cannot be replaced by machines, by computers. And that is possible only if you drop that old jealous idea that the semen has to be yours, that the egg has to be your wife’s.
I don’t see what is so special about your semen and your wife’s egg. Why bother about it? And you have practiced that thing for thousands of years – just look at the world, what you have done! Such a mediocre lot. And if this mediocre lot is there, it is very difficult to get rid of politicians.
If you can give birth to children which have the highest possibility of intelligence, I don’t think they will vote for any chimpanzee to be the president of America. In fact, all political parties will disappear, because every individual will have enough intelligence to decide on his own. He does not need any political propaganda, he does not need to be persuaded. It is an insult.
I have never voted in my life, for anything, but when there were elections politicians would come, not knowing. And then they would get into trouble, because I would ask them questions.
They said, “We have not come here to take an examination.”
I said, “But first, I have to examine your mind. How can I vote for an idiot? You have to prove that you have some genius in you.”
They said, “This is strange. Nobody asks whether you have genius in you or not.”
I said, “Unless you prove that you have genius in you, I cannot give my support to you to be in power. You can be dangerous to humanity.” I would criticize their political line, their ideology, and say, “You have to defend it.” They wanted to escape, they wanted to find some excuse. I would say, “This is not going to do. And remember, if you fail with me, I am going to tell all the neighbors, all the professors around, that this is not the man to vote for.”
I have seen tears in their eyes: why in the first place did they get caught with this man? Slowly it became known, and for years no politician has approached me in election time to vote. I have been waiting for them, I enjoyed the game.
No, these mediocre people are not needed. They are accidental. The children that you think are yours are only accidents. Because you are not giving birth consciously, you are groping in the dark; you don’t know what the result is going to be.
With bio-engineering, for the first time you can have guidelines for the child’s whole future. You can even tell the medical board what kind of child you would like, how long he should live, that you would not like him to have AIDS, that you don’t want him to be a homosexual, that you don’t want him to be a Catholic or a communist. You want him to be simply human and absolutely free from all ideology. You would like him to have the sharpest intelligence that has ever happened on the earth. You would like something better than Socrates.
And this is possible. When you can have Socrates as your child, then why go for Tom, Dick and Harry?
Just leave my Harry out of it!
Osho,
Sannyasins who are dying in your presence discover their enlightenment. Why is it so difficult for those of us who are still alive? Is it that life comes so close to death, and we are afraid of dying yet still not capable of being alive in this precious moment?
It is an important question. It may have arisen in many people’s mind: “Why, when a person dies, is it easy to become enlightened? The same person when he was alive was not capable of becoming enlightened.”
The reason is very simple. When you are alive you cannot drop your ego, you cannot drop your jealousy. You cannot drop your hatred, anger, greed, because you think these are all that life consists of. If you drop all these, what is there to live for? You cannot drop your ambition; otherwise your life will be simply meaningless. That is your reasoning. And enlightenment requires as a basic condition that all this luggage should be thrown. You should stand absolutely in purity, without any luggage, without even any clothes, just naked.
Those who can gather that much courage can become enlightened any moment. But when a sannyasin is dying it is easy for him. Now he knows that he is dying: what use is ambition? What use is hatred? What use is jealousy? What use is greed? What use is the ego?
Death standing in front of his eyes makes it clear that now he can drop all that unnecessary luggage: anyway, death is going to take all that away. It happens in a single moment – the whole idea, the revelation that now there is nothing to be lost – so why not try? “Osho has been saying, ‘Drop this, drop that.’ I could not do it while I was alive, but now there is no problem. Take a chance – see whether he was right or wrong.”
And this is not a long process of thinking. It is a simple experience in a single moment before death. And the person simply slips out of the old, rotten bag in which he has been living; now he can feel the stink and everything. Death immediately becomes enlightenment.
Then death is no longer ordinary death, then death is a door to the divine. You can do it while you are living, there is no problem. In fact, to do it when you are dying is not of much use: you never got to enjoy it. While you are alive, if you can do what I say, you will have time to enjoy enlightenment.
And enlightenment is not something that is given to you, handed over to you. Enlightenment is a growing process in you. The man who becomes enlightened at the moment of death has missed much. He has missed all the joys of life, which are available only to the enlightened consciousness.
He had loved, but that love was simply phony, American. If he had had the chance to love after enlightenment, he would have known the tremendous beauty of it, the ecstasy of it. He has been eating tasteful, delicious food all his life, but he was asleep, he had no sensitivity. He was never in the moment; while he was eating, he was somewhere else faraway – perhaps on the moon.
The enlightened man is always in the moment; hence, every experience becomes intense, enjoyed to the fullest.
It is better to die enlightened than to die unenlightened. At least there is one thing left for you to experience as an enlightened man: that is death. But much more you have missed.
So I will not suggest to you to wait for death. Certainly those who are with me are going to become enlightened at the moment of death, but why wait for it when you are young and alive and full of juice? Becoming enlightened at the time of death, you are just a dry bone, there is no juice left; otherwise why should you die? When you are full of juice, full of life, with all the dimensions available, become enlightened.
And the process is so simple that even a dying man can manage it. It is really a shame that you are alive and you cannot manage it. Perhaps you only think you are alive. Perhaps you only dream you are alive, and death is such a shock that you wake up.
But I am here to give you any kind of shock you need. I am giving you them already without asking your permission, because the moment you become a sannyasin I take it for granted that now I do not need any permission to give this man a shock – any kind of shock.
Drop all that nonsense which is holding you back from experiencing life in its totality. Drop all that which is keeping you in a narcotic sleep. And what I am asking you to drop is worthless, perhaps worse than worthless.
It is poison that you are not dropping, that you are holding on to: Jealousy is poison, hate is poison, greed is poison. The ego is perhaps the most dangerous poison.
Just the other night I was talking to a woman journalist. She had come directly from Billy Graham – she had been covering Billy Graham for three weeks, and of course she asked about him. And I said, “He is a worthless man. None of my sannyasins will be impressed with that idiot, and none of his audience is going to understand me. His audience consists of retarded people. His face itself looks retarded. Whenever I see his photograph I simply close my eyes. He looks like a chimpanzee, well shaved.”
I told her, “My work and his work are totally opposite, diametrically opposite. He is giving consolation to people so they can sleep better. He is telling them, ‘Have faith in Jesus Christ, he is the savior. He can do anything, he is the only begotten son of God. If things are not happening to you, if miracles are not happening to you, that only shows your faith is not enough. Have more faith and your life will be filled with miracles.’”
This is consoling people, helping them to go into deeper sleep. My work is totally different.
If you are asleep and snoring perfectly, I will do everything that can be done so that you have to jump out of bed. I know you will try every possible way…. I will tickle your nose, and you will throw my hand away. I will tickle your feet, and you will pull them in. I may tickle with a hair in your ear, and you will turn to the other side. To protect yourself you will pull the blanket over yourself. But nothing is going to help, no blanket can save you.
And sooner or later you are going to get tired of all these things that I am doing to you. You will have to open your eyes and see what is happening. Those who are not courageous enough to wake up, those camels start moving on the county road which goes to Santa Fe, with all their blankets, with their sleeping bags.
Only courageous people can remain with me, because I may throw ice-cold water over you. And if nothing else works, then some electric shock.
But I am determined to wake you!
Osho,
Do enlightened masters lie out of compassion?
I do not know about other enlightened people, but I certainly lie!
On the fortieth anniversary of the UN, the one-cent American postal stamp has the message, “We the peoples of the United Nations determine to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” Can the UN save humanity from war?
The UN has proved in these forty years only one thing: that it is as impotent as its predecessor, the League of Nations.
The members of the UN are the people who are going to create the third world war. The UN has no power to prevent it; it is only a debating club, and not of the best kind. It is not even democratic. The big powers like America and the Soviet Union have the capacity to veto any resolution. Just one nation, America or Russia, can stop any resolution which is being passed by the whole world. Is this democratic? Every nation, small or big, poor or rich, must have equal rights! In forty years the UN has not been able even to do that.
It is just keeping people consoled: “Don’t be afraid, we are going to save you.” In fact, from whom are they going to save us? They are the people we have to be saved from!
The UN has not been able to stop the increasing amount of nuclear weapons. That should be the first step if you don’t want the third world war. Why wait for the last moment? Why not start it now? And the basic step will be that no war preparations are made. When everybody is prepared to fight…in fact they will be forced to fight, just because each country has invested so much energy and power, and it has piled up nuclear weapons sky high: what are the nations going to do with those weapons? And they have poured such immense amounts of money into them. At what point will the UN stop them? And the Soviet Union can just veto it, America can veto it.
But this is how politicians have been cheating humanity all along, throughout the whole history of man. They say one thing and they do just the opposite. It is very easy to publish a postal stamp that says, “We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to save humanity from the scourge of war.” Who are these “we”? Have you asked the people of the world?
Nobody wants war around the world except these idiotic politicians, because without war they have no job. War keeps politicians powerful. People have to depend on politicians because the war is coming.
Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography, My Struggle…he has a few very important points to make. The first thing he says is that never in history has a great leader been born unless there is war.
That’s true. If there had been no second world war you would have never heard of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Winston Churchill, Roosevelt – they all became stars high in the sky. Of course, millions of people died to make them great leaders of men.
The same has been the case all along, throughout history. The politician wants to be on the top, as high as possible. If there is peace, no fight, no war, no preparation for war, he is just ordinary – perhaps a little bit less intelligent than the average person. His intelligence is not better than the average person’s; it can be worse.
Before the second world war, the same promise was given by the League of Nations: “We are going to save the world from war.” But those were the same people who fought the second world war. And I say to you, these same people who constitute the UN are going to create the third world war.
These stamps are cheap. You can go on befooling humanity, but for how long? It is time that humanity understands the politician and his cunningness. Even in the UN you cannot be peaceful, discussing in a friendly way. I said it is only a debating club and not the best one, because nobody is listening to anybody else. It is a tower of Babel: everybody is speaking for his government, his nation, his politics, and is not ready to listen to anything else.
Do you know what Khrushchev did in the UN? He was the premier of the Soviet Union…and this kind of behavior and the people who behave in this way, can they prevent the second world war? Then who is going to start it? Do they think I am going to start the third world war, that the red people around the world are going to start the third world war?
Khrushchev was delivering his talk to the UN, and he became so angry that he took his shoe off and started beating on the table with the shoe! A great history of forty years, not an ordinary history. They could not prevent even Khrushchev beating their faces with his shoe, shouting and screaming at the whole UN.
In forty years they have not been able to do anything at all. This is a sheer wastage of time. The fortieth anniversary should be declared as the death of the UN! Finished! There is no point, they cannot agree. But the existence of UN gives consolation to people: “We don’t need to be worried, the UN is taking care of us.” And the UN consists of warring nations who have nuclear weapons. They have been talking about putting a stop to it, but it is just pure talk; nobody stops.
I think it is time that the people of the world start understanding the politician and his hypocrisy, his double personality, because if the third world war happens, then there will be no life on this beautiful planet. I don’t believe at all in this declaration of the UN, but I have another program for the people:
First, don’t trust your politicians. Don’t be consoled by their cunning strategies.
Second, remember that you are going to be destroyed with your children, with your wife, with your parents, with your trees, with your animals – everything that is alive on the earth.
If the people of the whole earth simply refuse and say, “We are not going to fight, there is no point in it,” if they refuse and say, “We don’t want boundaries of nations. If there is going to be no war, why keep these boundaries? What purpose do these boundaries serve?”…. If the people of the world force their governments and say, “Disperse all your armies. Let those people be creative….”
Millions of people around the earth, in the army, are just doing nothing. In fact, they are hankering for war. They are not meditators who can just sit silently, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself. They are very ordinary people. To keep them holding their guns, watching their nuclear missiles…. How long can you keep them in this situation? Sooner or later, they will find it is better now to start – “We are tired and bored….”
This is an established fact, that during the war people are less sad, more excited, happier than they are in peaceful times, because so much is going on. Every moment brings new news; excitement is natural.
Human history can be divided in two parts: first when there is war; second, when they are preparing for a new war. There has never been a period of real peace. Preparing for war is cold war – getting ready, because the last has taken so much, destroyed so much, that you have to prepare again. Within ten to twenty years’ time they are again ready, the weapons are ready, the enemies are there.
If really they mean what they say, then take the preliminary steps. The first is to dissolve boundaries, dissolve passports and green cards. The world, the whole earth is ours. Wherever we want to be, it is nobody’s business to prevent us. Let there be freedom of movement. Let all the races, all the nations get mixed. And once the boundaries are not there, they will get mixed, they will spread all over the world – all kinds of races – and it will be a great experiment in crossbreeding. We will have better generations to come.
It is not enough to save the coming generations from war, if they are simply carbon copies of you. What is the point? If they are carbon copies of you, they will do the same as you have been doing. A New Man is needed, a New Man who feels the whole earth is his mother – not small segments of it.
Do you see? You call your land your motherland, and you have cut the mother into so many pieces – is your mother alive still? You are carrying only limbs of your mother. Somebody has taken the leg, somebody has taken the head….
I am reminded of a religious master. He had two disciples – just as every democracy has two political parties. Those disciples were competing in every way to get more attention from the master. And the question basically was, who is going to succeed the master? – he was getting old. So both were trying their best to serve the master, to follow the master, to practice the discipline that the master has given. But the motivation was neither the discipline nor the principles. They were not concerned with the master at all.
One summer day the master was sleeping, and they were not going to lose any opportunity. So they both were massaging the legs of the master. He was tired, naturally – he had come from a long journey. One was working on the left leg, the other was working on the right leg. The master was asleep.
The man who was working on the right leg told the other, “Remember, if your leg comes on top of my leg, I am not going to tolerate it.” The other said, “And what do you think? – I am going to tolerate it? I will cut off your leg if it comes on my leg!” And they both had their swords ready.
The master was not really asleep, no master ever is. He opened his eyes and said, “Boys, those legs are both mine! Who told you that the right leg is owned by one and the left leg is owned by the other?”
But this is the situation of the world. The mother earth has been cut into thousands of pieces. People have to be awakened to the fact, to stop calling America your motherland, stop calling Germany your fatherland. You see the difference? The whole world calls its country the motherland, except Germany! Their land is the fatherland. It is not a coincidence; they are more male chauvinistic than anybody else. Stop all this nonsense! – and people can do it.
I am preparing you to spread the fire around the world, that the whole earth belongs to us.
And let the UN go on discussing. If they want to wrestle against each other in the UN building, they can have good boxing matches. It is better than throwing shoes at each other. And it will be really great entertainment, seeing your great politicians wrestling. But that will not be decisive as far as the earth is concerned.
The people of the earth have to take the responsibility from the hands of the politicians. And this will be a first step: to erase all the boundaries. And see how many people they can put in jails; you cannot put a whole nation in jail.
All the constitutions of democratic countries accept in their list of birthrights the right of movement. But where is it? You can move only within the country. They have given you a little rope to feel that you are free, but an authentic freedom of movement will mean that anybody can go anywhere on the earth. Wherever he feels to live, he can live; no hindrance should be there. Removal of the boundaries will bring one world and one world functional government.
The UN has no power over anything. I know it…. In India, in 1947 after independence, Pakistan invaded Kashmir, which was part of India, and took over a large chunk of land. India fought against Pakistan. It could have been the beginning of a third world war, because the land that Pakistan had taken was very significant; it joined Pakistan with China.
Pakistan now could have a road – now they do have a road – going over the Himalayas to Peking. And China is not on speaking terms with Russia anymore. China is going to be with America, so that small piece of land is of immense significance.
And what did the UN do? It did not force Pakistan, because America would not like that land to be lost, it is a key point in any war in Asia. So the UN did something futile. They said, “First stop the war, have a cease-fire line.” On one side Indian armies have been standing for forty years, on the other side Pakistani armies have been standing for forty years. Between the two is the camp of the UN observers to make sure that the cease-fire line is not crossed till the matter is settled. Who is going to settle it? And if you cannot settle such a small matter in forty years, how many centuries will you take to settle the third world war?
They cannot settle the matter, because if they settle in favor of Pakistan, Russia will veto it; the settlement is finished. If they settle it in favor of India, America will veto it, and the matter is finished. So it is in limbo, and it is going to be in limbo perhaps forever, unless my people succeed in dissolving all boundaries; then that cease-fire line will also dissolve.
And this is a sheer wastage! – thousands of people unnecessarily standing there with their guns ready, on alert, on both sides. Just a single crackpot can start shooing, just out of boredom. Forty years…! He was young, now he is old, getting senile. Just for the sake of fun, if one man starts firing from the other side, then immediately both the armies will jump up – and nobody will care about the observers. Perhaps they will be the first ones to be killed.
What has the UN to its credit? Nothing at all. Without any credibility, to claim that they are going to stop the third world war is simply befooling the people. They cannot stop the war between India and Pakistan, between Pakistan and Bangladesh. They cannot stop the war between Israel and the surrounding Mohammedan countries, because everywhere these two great powers are involved.
Israel is supported by the Americans, because the American political parties cannot survive without Jews’ donations to their parties. If they want donations from Jews, they have to stand by the side of Israel. And Russia is behind the Mohammedan countries, which are bigger, surrounding the small Israel from all sides. And since the birth of Israel, the child has been in bed, almost dead. But America is keeping it alive by artificial breathing. If American steps out, Israel will be finished within a day.
America cannot step out, Russia cannot step out. In fact, it is a good opportunity; America has created it. They have a vast majority of Mohammedan countries of the whole Middle East sympathetic toward them, because in any case, these countries will need support. They are all oil countries, that’s why America is hesitating, is now in a fix: if it does too much, goes a little more toward support of Israel, then all the oil countries are in the hands of Soviet Russia. And oil is now far more precious than gold.
The UN in forty years has not been able to do anything – and still these people have the nerve to say they are going to save the world from a third world war. Even in small wars they have not been able…. What did the UN do in Vietnam? Poor people were being killed unnecessarily by Americans. It was none of America’s business. Vietnam belongs to the people who live there, and if they want to be communist, who are you to prevent them? What right have you got? The same was the situation in Korea. The UN has failed utterly, and I am amazed that they are not even ashamed, and are declaring that they will save the coming generations from the third world war.
Only one thing can save the world from the coming war – which will be a total war, for the first time; all other wars were child’s play. This is going to destroy the whole of life on the earth. Trees, birds, animals, man – anything living will simply be gone.
I say there is one way only, and that is to spread to people more meditativeness, more love, more friendliness, more rejoicing. If we can make the earth sing songs and dance in joy, in gratitude because existence has given so much – otherwise, it would have been impossible even to purchase one sunrise. The whole wealth of the earth would not be able to purchase one sunrise.
And a sunrise is a big thing – the whole wealth of the earth would not be able to produce a single roseflower. And all this is given to man without his asking. You don’t deserve it, you are not worthy of it! It is out of the compassion of existence, the overflowing joy of existence, the continuous creativity of existence that you are so rich. Millions of stars in the night….
Make people aware of their gratitude toward life, and make people love, sing, dance. If we can spread this at-ease around the world, the third world war will be prevented. We need not bother about it. Joyous people don’t want war; it is only those who are already dead who would like everybody else to be dead.
They are really suffering because they are dead. They cannot laugh, they cannot enjoy, they cannot love, they cannot feel. They don’t have any heart, and others have. It is making them so jealous! It will be far better that everything is finished. At least there will be no grounds for their jealousy – they will also be finished in it.
So I don’t say that there is any direct way to prevent the third world war. That is what the pacifists of the world say: “Protest. Have protest marches to Washington, to Moscow” – but nobody listens to those protest marches. And I have seen those pacifists shouting and screaming against the war – I could not see any difference between them and the people who are getting ready to fight. Their screaming was enough proof that they belonged to the same category.
If those pacifists had weapons and missiles, they would create a war to prevent the third world war! The way they are shouting and screaming and throwing stones, simply shows that they are of the same species as the politicians against whom they are throwing stones. The difference is just that the politicians have the power, and they don’t have the power.
Remember, the husband does not scream at the wife, the wife screams at the husband. When he gets tired of her nagging and screaming, he hits the wife, he beats her. And strangely, the wife simply becomes silent. If she is not beaten, then she is going to drive the man nuts.
In old countries like India and China, it was told to the newly-married couple by their elders – the husband was told, “Remember, once in a while a wife needs beating; otherwise, you will not be able to live peacefully.” But why does the wife scream? – because the husband has the muscular strength she cannot beat the husband. There are a few exceptions, but exceptions only prove the rule. She would like to beat him, but as far as muscular strength is concerned, she cannot compete with the husband. So the moment the husband starts beating her she becomes peaceful.
The weak, the powerless, scream. The powerful takes his gun, puts his army on alert. The pacifists continually go on protesting. This helps nobody. Nobody listens to their protest.
I used to know a man…. My house in one city was just near the high court of the state, so all protest marches, all kinds of pacifists were passing in front of my door. And I watched them – their behavior did not seem to be peaceful. They looked more ugly than the people in the high court. But I was amazed that one man was always there, whether the communist party was protesting, or the socialist party was protesting, or the people’s party was protesting. And in India there are so many parties…. He was always there, with every party.
One day I got hold of him, and I asked him, “You are an amazing man – to what party do you belong?”
He said, “Who cares? I am a member of all the parties.”
I said, “But how it is possible? Communists are against the socialists, socialists are against the communists. How can you be?”
He said, “I am not concerned with their politics – I enjoy screaming! It is such a healthy thing, that whenever there is a protest I close my shop; and whoever is protesting, I am always ahead holding the flag.” He said, “It is really healthy.”
I said, “I know. My people are doing it every morning, but they don’t protest about anybody.” I said to him, “It is better that you start dynamic meditation, because these protests happen only once in a while, and you have to be dependent on these political parties. There is no need, you can do it on your own.”
He said, “On my own? Alone?”
“No,” I said, “don’t be worried.” I had a meditation hall there. I said, “Every morning many people come there.” And he started coming. Now he is a sannyasin – I don’t think for any other reason, just every day, early in the morning, it is healthy to scream. It gives you stronger lungs, a better heart, more strength. And moreover, he need not close his shop anymore; financially it is good.
I am not a pacifist, and I don’t want my people to be pacifists. That is fighting with those who are preparing for war – but you are doing the same on a small scale, in a feminine way. No, that won’t help. We want to create our own movement which has nothing to do with the third world war.
Do you see my point? If we can make humanity happier, more loving, more silent, more peaceful, we will create a real barrier against the third world war. The leaders cannot go without their people. If the people refuse, the armies refuse, if everybody refuses and says, “I am so happy, I don’t want to die. And I love humanity, so I don’t want to kill. If you can manage on your own, you do it.” A peaceful and happy man does not want to die, and does not want to kill.
So spread the message far and wide:
It’s better to be red than dead!
Osho,
The other day you said that women create children, and men create arts and other material things. Is it unnatural or neurotic for a woman not to desire a child, and to prefer to be an artist? I never wanted to have a child. Dance, music, poetry, theater and painting were my passion and expression. Could you comment?
There is nothing unnatural in it. If you don’t want to have a child, you have the right not to have one. If you want to put your creativity into painting, into art, into music, it is perfectly good – far better than creating a child who is bound to be a burden on the earth. And who knows what kind of child will come out of you?
Adolf Hitler can come out of you. He is waiting, searching for a womb. Joseph Stalin can come out of you. Beware! – that greasy Italian, Mussolini, is waiting. All these people are standing in line, in a queue. This is not the time to give birth to a child!
A painting is harmless. Music is beautiful, dancing will do. No, there is nothing unnatural in it. It has been said by men again and again that it is women’s natural duty to give birth to children. That’s how they have been able to keep the woman in slavery, because if a woman goes on giving birth to children, where is the time for her to paint? Where is the time for her to create music, poetry, drama?
So on the one hand they have been forcing the woman to remain continually pregnant. Just a hundred years ago, every woman around the world was continually pregnant. One child takes nine months of her life, then she has to raise the child. And when the child is not even six months old, she is again pregnant. It is like chain-smoking. And even a single child is such a nuisance….
I agree with you. I have been asked many times, “Wouldn’t you like to have a child?”
I said, “Me? Either I would kill the child or I would kill myself; we could not coexist! A child in my room? Impossible!” Just to be alert, I have never married, because who knows? – the woman I marry may want a child. Then trouble will arise.
There is no problem, unless you feel there is. Don’t listen to anybody, what they say – that it is unnatural. It may be unnatural to them, so they can give birth to as many children as they want. If you feel good in painting, in writing poetry, in composing music, you are giving better children to the world – children who are harmless, who will make many rejoice. Nothing can go wrong. At the most, your poetry will not be worth anything, your music just a noise, your painting just a copy of some other painter, your literature…. Reading ten books anybody can write the eleventh book. That’s how books go on increasing.
There are very few books which are original. Other books are simply creations of average minds. You can see it in the films: the same story. Yes, a little bit different in details, but almost the same triangle. One woman and two men, or two women and one man – which is a little more exciting – but this triangle is the whole story of all the stories that have been written, of all the films that have been created. I sometimes wonder whether this is literature or geometry! And in geometry there are many other things, not just a triangle.
Details you can fit very easily, but this is not creativity. This is sheer theft, you are stealing. But that is not a harm to anybody; you are just wasting your time. And if you enjoy wasting it, why should anybody prevent you? But please, don’t give birth to a child. At the most he will be just an average idiot. And the world is so full of idiots that it is time that the woman refused to give idiots to the world.
That’s why I am for bio-engineering. It is not your birthright to go on giving birth to as many children as you want, because those children are going to live on this earth, and they will do something or other.
Only a medical board should decide about a couple. Unless you have a clearance from the medical board, you cannot produce a child. And since the pill it is so simple. Nobody is preventing you from making love; make love as much as you want, or as much as you can manage! But as far as children are concerned, you are doing something to the whole world. Making love you are not doing anything to anybody – just a little fun between two individuals; the world is not involved in it.
Children should be born only if a couple gets permission from the medical board. Still, that is not the best way to do it, because while he is making love a man releases millions of living beings, millions of living cells; and it is just chance in that race who will reach the female egg first. You cannot decide it, you cannot even know it. So this is not the best way. The medical board may feel that the woman is healthy, the man is healthy; they can look at your heritage – three, four generations back – and they can allow you. But this is not the best way.
The best way will be for intelligent people to donate their semen to the hospital, to donate the female eggs to the hospital, so the hospitals have banks – just like they have blood banks. And they can figure out which female egg and which male sperm are going to create a tremendously great, loving genius.
You can make a condition: “We are donating our sperm and our eggs; if you find that some combination can create a beautiful human being, we would like to adopt. If it is not possible, then from other eggs….” What is the problem? You can’t recognize your own sperm, your sperm has no seal on it; no egg has any seal on it. The medical board can find those of some other woman, some other man, and you can adopt the child.
It will be healthier for the society, it will be a beautiful experience for you to raise a child who is going to be an Albert Einstein, or a Bertrand Russell, or a Jean-Paul Sartre. What a joy, that your child is not going to be pope the Polack! that your daughter is not going to be Mother Teresa!
It is sheer joy. And knowing what your child is going to be…because the medical, the biological study of the sperm and the egg can give you all the predictions: how long he will live, what kind of man he will be – or woman; how he should be brought up so that his potential flowers and he is not distracted from his potential. It will be really a work of art, far more precious than any painting, because you will be giving to the world a treasure.
So I am all for bio-engineering. And this stupid way of producing children has done enough harm. The whole history is full of it. Don’t you ever think that if a gardener plants thousands of trees, and only once in a while one tree flowers – would you call that gardener a gardener?
Thousands of children are born, and rarely will someone become a Mozart or a Gautam Buddha. Most of them will be clerks, postmasters, stationmasters. Your son being a clerk, even if he becomes the head clerk, is not going to bring you the rejoicing that I would like. And these jobs soon will be transferred to the machines, to the computers. The clerks are going to be out of employment very soon.
Don’t produce clerks! Don’t produce stationmasters, postmasters. We have had enough. Now machines can take the place of all ordinary jobs. But the machine cannot become a Bertrand Russell, a Wittgenstein, a Martin Heidegger; that is beyond the computer.
You have to create a child which will be needed, and cannot be replaced by any machine. otherwise, everybody is going to be unemployed, hungry, starving. It will not be only in Ethiopia, it will be all over the world. And the machine is more reliable than your beloved son who has become the clerk.
Just now I got the information that they have made a computer specially for Mohammedans, because the Mohammedan has to pray facing toward Mecca, his holy land. But it is really a difficult job to be absolutely accurate. Most probably you are wrong, there is only a small chance that you are exactly facing toward Mecca. A computer has come onto the market: you just put the machine on, move the machine, and when it starts giving an alarm that means this is the place; you are absolutely accurate.
Perhaps my sannyasins will also need it. Where you face while you are doing your gachchhamis is just approximate. A computer can make it a hundred percent certain. The same computer that Mohammedans are using, with a little change, will be able to do your work too. Then around the earth, wherever you are, you can do the gachchhamis directed toward me!
Please give birth to a child who cannot be replaced by machines, by computers. And that is possible only if you drop that old jealous idea that the semen has to be yours, that the egg has to be your wife’s.
I don’t see what is so special about your semen and your wife’s egg. Why bother about it? And you have practiced that thing for thousands of years – just look at the world, what you have done! Such a mediocre lot. And if this mediocre lot is there, it is very difficult to get rid of politicians.
If you can give birth to children which have the highest possibility of intelligence, I don’t think they will vote for any chimpanzee to be the president of America. In fact, all political parties will disappear, because every individual will have enough intelligence to decide on his own. He does not need any political propaganda, he does not need to be persuaded. It is an insult.
I have never voted in my life, for anything, but when there were elections politicians would come, not knowing. And then they would get into trouble, because I would ask them questions.
They said, “We have not come here to take an examination.”
I said, “But first, I have to examine your mind. How can I vote for an idiot? You have to prove that you have some genius in you.”
They said, “This is strange. Nobody asks whether you have genius in you or not.”
I said, “Unless you prove that you have genius in you, I cannot give my support to you to be in power. You can be dangerous to humanity.” I would criticize their political line, their ideology, and say, “You have to defend it.” They wanted to escape, they wanted to find some excuse. I would say, “This is not going to do. And remember, if you fail with me, I am going to tell all the neighbors, all the professors around, that this is not the man to vote for.”
I have seen tears in their eyes: why in the first place did they get caught with this man? Slowly it became known, and for years no politician has approached me in election time to vote. I have been waiting for them, I enjoyed the game.
No, these mediocre people are not needed. They are accidental. The children that you think are yours are only accidents. Because you are not giving birth consciously, you are groping in the dark; you don’t know what the result is going to be.
With bio-engineering, for the first time you can have guidelines for the child’s whole future. You can even tell the medical board what kind of child you would like, how long he should live, that you would not like him to have AIDS, that you don’t want him to be a homosexual, that you don’t want him to be a Catholic or a communist. You want him to be simply human and absolutely free from all ideology. You would like him to have the sharpest intelligence that has ever happened on the earth. You would like something better than Socrates.
And this is possible. When you can have Socrates as your child, then why go for Tom, Dick and Harry?
Just leave my Harry out of it!
Osho,
Sannyasins who are dying in your presence discover their enlightenment. Why is it so difficult for those of us who are still alive? Is it that life comes so close to death, and we are afraid of dying yet still not capable of being alive in this precious moment?
It is an important question. It may have arisen in many people’s mind: “Why, when a person dies, is it easy to become enlightened? The same person when he was alive was not capable of becoming enlightened.”
The reason is very simple. When you are alive you cannot drop your ego, you cannot drop your jealousy. You cannot drop your hatred, anger, greed, because you think these are all that life consists of. If you drop all these, what is there to live for? You cannot drop your ambition; otherwise your life will be simply meaningless. That is your reasoning. And enlightenment requires as a basic condition that all this luggage should be thrown. You should stand absolutely in purity, without any luggage, without even any clothes, just naked.
Those who can gather that much courage can become enlightened any moment. But when a sannyasin is dying it is easy for him. Now he knows that he is dying: what use is ambition? What use is hatred? What use is jealousy? What use is greed? What use is the ego?
Death standing in front of his eyes makes it clear that now he can drop all that unnecessary luggage: anyway, death is going to take all that away. It happens in a single moment – the whole idea, the revelation that now there is nothing to be lost – so why not try? “Osho has been saying, ‘Drop this, drop that.’ I could not do it while I was alive, but now there is no problem. Take a chance – see whether he was right or wrong.”
And this is not a long process of thinking. It is a simple experience in a single moment before death. And the person simply slips out of the old, rotten bag in which he has been living; now he can feel the stink and everything. Death immediately becomes enlightenment.
Then death is no longer ordinary death, then death is a door to the divine. You can do it while you are living, there is no problem. In fact, to do it when you are dying is not of much use: you never got to enjoy it. While you are alive, if you can do what I say, you will have time to enjoy enlightenment.
And enlightenment is not something that is given to you, handed over to you. Enlightenment is a growing process in you. The man who becomes enlightened at the moment of death has missed much. He has missed all the joys of life, which are available only to the enlightened consciousness.
He had loved, but that love was simply phony, American. If he had had the chance to love after enlightenment, he would have known the tremendous beauty of it, the ecstasy of it. He has been eating tasteful, delicious food all his life, but he was asleep, he had no sensitivity. He was never in the moment; while he was eating, he was somewhere else faraway – perhaps on the moon.
The enlightened man is always in the moment; hence, every experience becomes intense, enjoyed to the fullest.
It is better to die enlightened than to die unenlightened. At least there is one thing left for you to experience as an enlightened man: that is death. But much more you have missed.
So I will not suggest to you to wait for death. Certainly those who are with me are going to become enlightened at the moment of death, but why wait for it when you are young and alive and full of juice? Becoming enlightened at the time of death, you are just a dry bone, there is no juice left; otherwise why should you die? When you are full of juice, full of life, with all the dimensions available, become enlightened.
And the process is so simple that even a dying man can manage it. It is really a shame that you are alive and you cannot manage it. Perhaps you only think you are alive. Perhaps you only dream you are alive, and death is such a shock that you wake up.
But I am here to give you any kind of shock you need. I am giving you them already without asking your permission, because the moment you become a sannyasin I take it for granted that now I do not need any permission to give this man a shock – any kind of shock.
Drop all that nonsense which is holding you back from experiencing life in its totality. Drop all that which is keeping you in a narcotic sleep. And what I am asking you to drop is worthless, perhaps worse than worthless.
It is poison that you are not dropping, that you are holding on to: Jealousy is poison, hate is poison, greed is poison. The ego is perhaps the most dangerous poison.
Just the other night I was talking to a woman journalist. She had come directly from Billy Graham – she had been covering Billy Graham for three weeks, and of course she asked about him. And I said, “He is a worthless man. None of my sannyasins will be impressed with that idiot, and none of his audience is going to understand me. His audience consists of retarded people. His face itself looks retarded. Whenever I see his photograph I simply close my eyes. He looks like a chimpanzee, well shaved.”
I told her, “My work and his work are totally opposite, diametrically opposite. He is giving consolation to people so they can sleep better. He is telling them, ‘Have faith in Jesus Christ, he is the savior. He can do anything, he is the only begotten son of God. If things are not happening to you, if miracles are not happening to you, that only shows your faith is not enough. Have more faith and your life will be filled with miracles.’”
This is consoling people, helping them to go into deeper sleep. My work is totally different.
If you are asleep and snoring perfectly, I will do everything that can be done so that you have to jump out of bed. I know you will try every possible way…. I will tickle your nose, and you will throw my hand away. I will tickle your feet, and you will pull them in. I may tickle with a hair in your ear, and you will turn to the other side. To protect yourself you will pull the blanket over yourself. But nothing is going to help, no blanket can save you.
And sooner or later you are going to get tired of all these things that I am doing to you. You will have to open your eyes and see what is happening. Those who are not courageous enough to wake up, those camels start moving on the county road which goes to Santa Fe, with all their blankets, with their sleeping bags.
Only courageous people can remain with me, because I may throw ice-cold water over you. And if nothing else works, then some electric shock.
But I am determined to wake you!
Osho,
Do enlightened masters lie out of compassion?
I do not know about other enlightened people, but I certainly lie!