John Reed (22 October 1887–17 October 1920) was an American journalist, writer and political activist best known for his firsthand account of the Russian Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World. Born in Portland, Oregon, Reed travelled to Russia to witness the revolution directly and documented what he saw with remarkable courage and immediacy.

Osho regarded Ten Days That Shook the World as a masterpiece and one of the greatest eyewitness accounts of a revolution. Reed did not simply repeat an ideology; he observed the events around him and recorded the reality of the revolution, including both its revolutionary promise and the destruction unleashed by the mob.

For Osho, Reed also becomes a doorway into a larger distinction: revolution is collective, while rebellion is individual. True rebellion, he says, arises from intelligence, awareness and the courage to refuse imposed conditioning rather than simply replacing one collective orthodoxy with another.

I had never heard the name Portland before I read a book in 1950 by John Reed: TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD. It was because of John Reed that I came to know Portland. John Reed was born in Portland, lived in Portland, was a journalist in Portland. I have read thousands of books but I can say John Reed's book stands separate in its own glory. He was really a courageous man. He went from Portland to Russia to witness the actual revolution.

And the book is a masterpiece. He was not a communist then but whatever he saw he described, and it is certainly one of the greatest descriptions, an eyewitness description.

When the people entered the czar's palace, he could not believe what they were doing. In the czar's palace there were perhaps more valuable things than in any other palace in the world. All kings were paupers compared to the Russian czar. The carpets were so valuable that nowhere were there such carpets available. They were specially made by craftsmen from the Middle East who had worked their whole life in making those carpets.

And what were the people doing? They were distributing... they were cutting up those carpets -- because how can you distribute those huge carpets made for huge halls? People were cutting whatsoever they could manage to get -- a piece, something like a souvenir.

There were paintings -- people were tearing paintings. Somebody was taking just the frame because the frame was gold, pure gold, solid gold. But the painting was far more valuable than the gold; the frame was only a frame. Somebody else... but it was such a crowd. You could not take the whole of the painting alone, there were so many people tearing it away from you, trying to get hold of it.

John Reed says at one place, "I was just watching -- what is happening? This is distribution? This is destruction! Nobody is getting anything, just a beautiful palace is being destroyed. Immensely valuable statues are being broken. People are tearing apart great chandeliers and taking pieces. Nobody can prevent it, it is now a mob. Where are the leaders? And who is going to listen to the leaders in such a situation?"

And this was happening all over the country. He saw that everywhere houses were being burned. The czar's whole family, including a six-month-old child -- in all, nineteen people -- were burned alive. Now, what was the crime of a six-month-old baby? Just that he was born in the family of the czar? That was just accidental he could have been adopted by somebody. And what was the reason to kill the czar also?

You were going to distribute wealth, not kill people. And now the czar is no longer the czar, you are in power: he is nobody, just a prisoner. What was the point of killing these people -- women, old women, children -- who have nothing left? You have taken everything from them -- now life also has to be distributed?

I remember one time in Jabalpur.... Jabalpur w as one of the most vulnerable cities for Hindu -- mohammedan riots because both communities were almost equally balanced. And strangely, the division of the city was such that the Mohammedan community lived in almost half of the town and the Hindu community in the other half So riots were very simple and easy. It was almost every two, three years that there would be a riot.

Anybody can create one, it is so simple. Somebody can just go and play on a flute before a mosque, and escape. That's enough! Music before a mosque is enough to trigger a riot in which hundreds of people will be killed, houses will be burned. Or just kill a cow before a Hindu temple in the night, and in the morning there is going to be a riot. It was anybody's... whoever has some vested interest in some riot will do it. And then the mob takes over.

I was in a bookstore... the bookstore was on the first floor sol could see from there what was happening on the street below. And there was no way to leave so I had to simply wait and see. There was, across the street, a big, the biggest watch company of Jabalpur, and people were taking watches, clocks.

One man, a Gandhian, was trying to say, "Don't fight! Hindus and Mohammedans are all brothers. Mahatma Gandhi has been telling us that both the religions are the same." But he was seeing also that people were taking things; nobody was listening to him.

Who bothers about such sermons in such a place where you can get a beautiful watch or a clock or anything, just free? It was yours, you just had to find it. And I saw in the end that man... nothing was left, just an old grandfather clock which was so heavy nobody had bothered to take it; he was carrying that.

I had to come down, and I asked, "What happened?"

He said, "What to do? Nobody listens, I was just losing out. So I thought, 'The sermon I can give again, but only one clock is left there."'

"But," I said, "that doesn't look right for you. You are a Gandhian, dressed in a Gandhi white robe."

He said, "That's all right, but one has to look to one's business too." Who is going to listen to leaders and their sermons once the mob takes over? Then it is all destruction, fire.

So I don't think they have been able to distribute any wealth in Russia. Yes, They have been able to destroy those two percent of the people. And the ninety-eight percent felt very happy; and since then they have not felt any jealousy because all people are equally poor.

This kind of revolution I don't call a revolution, it is nothing. It is just that you get fed up with one system, with one imprisonment, and you enter another prison; it is only a change. Hence, I use the word rebellion to make the distinction.

Rebellion is individual.

Revolution is collective.

You need a communist party for a Russian revolution. Without the communist party you cannot make the revolution. To be a rebel, you don't need to first organize a communist party.

You can be a rebel this very moment, the moment you understand that you have been forced by the society; that these Miss Manners and all kinds of stupid people have forced you to become what you are. This is not your reality, this is a facade, painted, created around you, and you have been carrying your own prison everywhere. You simply throw it out. You say, "To hell with Judith Martin and her kind!"

Rebellion is individual.

Hence, only very intelligent people can be rebels.

Revolution is the same mob; the mob that was going to the church starts going to the communist party office. It is the same mob, the same mob mind; they have just changed their church. Now they don't look towards the Vatican, now they look towards the Kremlin; but there is no change. Now, their old trinity of God, the son, and the Holy Ghost, they have dropped; they have chosen a new trinity. Marx, Engels, Lenin -- that is their trinity.

They have their religion -- materialism is their religion. They have an orthodox attitude. Those who were a little bit rebellious... for example, a man like Kerensky, who was the prime minister of Soviet Russia before the revolution.

He died just ten years ago in New York. For all these sixty years nobody even knew where Kerensky had disappeared to; he was running a grocery store in New York. He had to escape from Russia -- not only to escape, he had to hide in such a way that nobody came to know that he was the prime minister under the czar.

He was a very intelligent man, and it was not that he was against communism. Lenin was not as intelligent a person as Kerensky -- that was the trouble. Kerensky had said, "Karl Marx was right in his time, but things have changed, and we have to change the Marxian ideology according to the times. We cannot change the times according to the Marxian ideology; we cannot move the clock backwards. We can make Marx up to date but we cannot change the world and make it according to Karl Marx."

And he was perfectly right. But he was an intellectual, and the mob does not understand the fine, delicate subtleties of thinking and ideology. The masses went with Lenin because he was a great orator -- not a great intellectual, but a great orator. And the mediocre people are not interested in the argument, they are interested in how loudly, how forcibly, how emphatically the person goes on saying his thing. They are interested in authoritativeness. Lenin was an authoritative person.

It is strange authoritative people have always influenced the masses. Now what has Jesus got as an intelligent argument for his philosophy? Not a single word, just authoritative statements: "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." Now please give us the detailed argument, the procedure why, how? Why are the poor blessed?

It does not seem so; they are the cursed, the wretched of the earth, and you are calling them blessed -- please give some reasoning. And if they are so blessed, why does God make them poor? And why should He make His blessed people wait till after death to inherit the kingdom of God? Why not give them the kingdom of God right now? Are they not poor enough yet? Do you want them to become more blessed? For what are you waiting? But there is no argument.

In the whole gospel of Jesus there is not a single reasoning for what he is saying. But the "greatest" religion of the world comes out of this man. Certainly he had some authoritative impact on people.

People are not interested in very intelligent things because they can't understand them. They are impressed by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin -- all authoritative people. None of them can be said to be above average intelligence; in fact they are below average intelligence. Adolf Hitler cannot have more than the mental age of a thirteen-year-old boy. But people are impressed.

Revolutions have been created by authoritative people. And authoritative people are orthodox people. Yes, they are against the old orthodoxy, but they create new orthodoxy. And the new orthodoxy seems to be a revolution. It is not, it is simply changing your handcuffs.

You will have different handcuffs, perhaps better manufactured, more beautiful looking, more ornamental -- but handcuffs are handcuffs, and soon you will realize that the old ones were easier to break because they were already rotten and very old. These new ones it is impossible to get out of; they are well manufactured, well engineered, they are more scientific. Now, in Russia, try to make a revolution....

In czarist Russia, revolution was possible because it was an old, very old, ancient empire, tottering, just needing an excuse to be finished. But the new empire that is now communistic is fresh, young, with all high technology behind it -- well organized, because it knows what happened to the czar; it won't allow the same to happen to it.

Every revolution dies into another orthodoxy.

It has been always so.

That's why I am not for revolution:

I am for rebellion.

Rebellion is individual.

But when many rebels are there and they want to live together, respecting each other's individuality, each other's freedom, each other's uniqueness -- that's the meaning of a commune. It is not a society. It is not an establishment. It is not an organization in the old sense.

A commune is a communion of individuals who have all rebelled against all kinds of stupidities, superstitions. That is their meeting point. But that does not mean that they create an alternative society, another establishment. Then it would only be revolution.

Try to understand the difference clearly. If they don't create any establishment, and start living intelligently together, howsoever difficult it is -- it is going to be a little difficult; otherwise why have people chosen to make organizations and establishments? -- because it is less difficult.

The trend all over the world is to replace man with the machine, because the machine is more convenient. It never asks for more wages, bonuses, it never goes on strike, never tries to make a trade union; it is very convenient. So everywhere, man is being shifted out of employment; the machine is taking his place.

Soon you will see that people will be paid if they are ready to remain unemployed. If they are ready to give their place to the machine, they will be paid for it. It is going to happen in the advanced countries very soon because machines can do better work than you, more work than you. There is no question of a five-hour, six-hour, seven-hour day, or a five-day week, four-day week; there is no question. And no trouble -- if something goes wrong once in a while, you change the part.

With man there is constant trouble. Establishments, organizations, societies, were created to cut down the trouble, make it less and less. But to cut that trouble you have to begin just as Judith Martin says: "From the very beginning the savage child has to be civilized, nagging is the method."

The woman has some nerve! She says nagging is the method. I don't think... what happened to her husband? I don't think that he could have survived; either he would have escaped, or died, or perhaps he would have become a robot. While sleeping he will cover half his face so everybody can know whose husband....

All around the globe people had to create these systems just to create a convenient way to live together; otherwise, if all people are left alone, on their own, there will be chaos. Now, there are two ways.... Yes, there will be chaos if people are not intelligent; but if people are intelligent, there will be a chaos -- but a chaos out of which stars are born, a chaos which is creative. A certain anarchy will happen but it will not be destructive.

I am an anarchist.

I basically believe in the individual.

I don't believe in the society at all.

I don't believe in civilization, in culture. I simply believe in the individual.

I don't believe in the state, I don't believe in the government. I don't want any government in the world, any state in the world.

I simply want intelligent people to live harmoniously out of their intelligence. And if they cannot live out of intelligence, it is better to die than to become robots, to become machines, to be nagged and to be imprisoned in all kinds of slavery. It is better to be finished. We should live intelligently, and our order will come out of our intelligence, not vice versa.

That's what has been tried before; enforce order so that people can function intelligently. Now, that is absolutely stupid. Once you enforce order you destroy intelligence, you destroy even the possibility of it ever growing. There is no need.

I say, Live intelligently, even at the risk of disappearing from the earth. What harm will it be? If Hindus are not there, Mohammedans are not there, Christians are not there; if nobody goes to the church, and nobody goes to the temple, what harm?

The birds will be there, the deer will be there, the horses will there -- and they will be enjoying, really, that man is gone. There will be such a celebration that even trees will be dancing; they will forget that they are rooted and they cannot dance, they are not supposed to dance. They will dance if they come to know that man is gone.

Man has been a calamity, a curse to existence.

Rebellion means making man a blessing to existence, not a curse.

It is a risky step, but there is no gain without any risk. And this is such a tremendous change, almost a discontinuity with the past -- not any modified form of the past society, just a totally fresh and new society.

There is no paradox. Here you have to be a rebel, but your rebellion does not mean that you have to go against something which is intelligent, intelligible. You rebel against any stupidity. Any idiocy that happens in the commune, you rebel against it. That is your responsibility, to be on guard that no stupidity, no superstition, starts getting its roots within you. Be alert.

But rebellion does not mean that you have to be unnecessarily destructive just to prove that you are a rebel; otherwise, somebody may think that you look very orthodox: two days have passed and you have not rebelled even once! Rebellion is not something that you have to do every day. It is not some kind of exercise, like going for a morning walk.

Rebellion is your attitude of looking at things, of watching things; what is happening in you and what is happening around you. No rust should be allowed to settle. Your sword of intelligence should remain shining, that's all. And everybody is keeping his own sword shining, nobody else is keeping your sword shining. Here, nobody is his brother's keeper.

You have to be on your own so orthodoxy cannot enter

Bertrand Russell's paradox is mathematical, it is not existential. He should have asked me; he asked the wrong person, Freger -- because even in that mathematical question there is a way out. All that is needed is simply that a catalogue should not be counted as a book, a catalogue is not a book. It is only a question of definition. That poor Freger unnecessarily got disturbed.

He should have simply said, "A catalogue is not a book, because a book has some message, some ideology, some philosophy. What ideology, what message, has a catalogue? A catalogue is only a list, a list of books. Now the list itself cannot be a book."

That is so simple, but what to do? Freger was a great mathematician, Bertrand Russell was a great mathematician and philosopher. I am nobody. But it is always from people who are nobodies that you can find the answers to life. These other people are all stuck with words. They got stuck with the word book; it would have been so simple just to change the definition.

In India there was a situation.... In the Himalayas there is a wild cow, it is called NILGAI 'blue cow'; it has a bluish tinge to its white color. It is wild and dangerous. It looks like a cow but don't be too much impressed by the word cow. It is not a cow, it is more like a wolf; but it looks like a cow, so its name is cow.

In the Indian parliament there was a problem because the population of these blue cows was increasing so fast and they were coming down from the Himalayas to the plains, destroying people's crops; and they are so dangerous that they were killing people. Their horns are such that they just put their horns into your chest, and their horns will go right through your chest and come out your back. You are finished in a single attack.

People were so afraid.... The cows never used to come down to the plains -- they remained in the Himalayas, so there was no problem. But their population increased so there was not food enough for them there; they started coming down.

Now, in India there is a problem -- the cow is a holy animal, the holy mother, so Hindus are against killing them. The parliament was thinking to kill all these cows which were coming to the plains, to just shoot them; there seemed to be no other way. But the Hindus were against that. They said, "You cannot kill our cows. If you kill our cows then there will be immense trouble" -- and there would have been immense trouble. "They are our mothers."

But one man, a very intelligent man, Doctor Babasaheb Ambedkar.... He was a sudra, an untouchable and he was against the Hindus. He was a Hindu, but the lowest, so he was continually trying his hardest: either the sudras should become Mohammedans or they should become Christians, but they should not remain Hindus; because what is the point? -- you live in a society, you are part of a society, and the society treats you absolutely inhumanly. And this treatment has continued for five thousand years.

The sudra cannot read any Hindu scripture. He cannot even hear somebody reciting it. If a sudra hears it, he will be punished -- he has heard the holy word. The holy word becomes unholy because a sudra has heard it!

Doctor Ambedkar, just by his sheer intelligence, became a world authority on law. He suggested a simple solution: change the name of the cow; call it a blue horse, drop calling it blue cow. And that worked.

A bill came against the blue horse. No Hindu bothered; who bothers about horses? They are nobody's fathers -- blue horses? Nobody bothered about who were these blue horses. Blue horses were shot, killed; and it was only after everything was finished that it was realized that these were the blue cows. But it was too late, and now what to do? They were dead already. Just by changing a little word!

In this paradox of Bertrand Russell's there is nothing much. The catalogue is a list, it is not a book. And the list cannot contain itself because it is a list of books. And the final, the master list can also be very simple. The master list cannot be included in the list itself because that list is not of master lists, it is of ordinary lists. How can a master list be included in an ordinary list? When you make a list of master lists of all the world libraries, then of course it will go into it. But then the super-master list will be left out. Something has to remain left out. There is no problem, no paradox in it; it is just jugglery of words.

In my commune you have to remain rebels.

Of course you won't have enough chances to use your rebellion -- that's the whole purpose of the commune. You have used your rebellion, your chance to rebel against the orthodoxy; now we will not give you any chances. And you should remain alert that no chances are given that you have to rebel against anything.

In a commune of rebels, every rebel is a guardian, a guard, of the rebellious spirit.

And remember, I am using the words rebellious spirit.

It is not a question of action. Action is needed only when something goes against the spirit.

So whenever anything in the commune goes against the rebellious spirit, destroy it, rebel against!

And you are not going against the commune:

You are saving the commune, the commune of the rebels.

You are saving the rebellious spirit.

Source

From Misery to Enlightenment

Chapter # 29 Chapter Title: Rebel or robot

Question 1