OSHO,

THESE DAYS THE PAPERS ARE FILLED WITH REPORTS OF COMMUNAL RIOTS ERUPTING ALL OVER INDIA. NO REAL REASONS FOR THIS VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY ARE BEING GIVEN, JUST VAGUE REFERENCES TO “ANTI-SOCIAL ELEMENTS,” WHATEVER THAT PHRASE MEANS. CAN YOU THROW ANY LIGHT ON WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS COUNTRY, ON WHY THERE IS THIS OBVIOUS AND ANGRY UNREST?

Krishna Prem,

THE FIRST thing is: India is a religious country, and all the religions down the ages have depended upon fear. They have exploited the fear instinct of man, they have made man afraid. Hence the word “God-fearing” — it exists in almost all the languages of the world, and they say it means “religious.” It is pure nonsense.

A religious person is not God-fearing but God-loving. A God-fearing man is pseudo religious: a person who has not sought religion on his own but has been forced to be religious by others.

And there are only two ways to force things on people — not in fact two, but two aspects of the same coin — fear and reward, punishment and reward, fear and greed. Hence hell and heaven. Heaven is greed, reward, hell is fear, punishment.

India is a religious country, full of God-fearing people. And with the existence of fear many problems arise. The first problem is: love disappears.

Remember, hate is not the real opposite of love; the real opposite of love is fear. You can still love the person you hate. In fact, the latest research says that you always hate the person you love. Hate and love are two poles of the same energy: they are complementary, they are not Opposites. Hence you see the conflict between lovers, continuous conflict. They are always fighting, as if it is a necessary part of love affairs — and it is…Love and hate are not opposites. but love and fear are. The afraid person becomes incapable of love. (xanax) And all the religions have depended on fear, hence they have made millions of people incapable of love. And the people who are incapable of love are only capable of violence.

So, Krishna Prem, it is nothing new in India. It erupts almost every ten years; ten years seems to be the limit. Within ten years everybody accumulates so much violence within himself that it has to find an outlet otherwise it will destroy him. He will be burnt up by his own violence. So he has to find some excuses; political, religious, social — any kind of excuse will do. And this limit of ten years is not only limited to India; it seems to be universal.

Every ten years there is a great war. The whole of humanity gets involved in destruction. The responsibility is of the religions, because they have not taught you how to love, they have only taught you how to be afraid. Remember, fear is the same energy as love, but it has been poisoned — your energies have been poisoned for centuries. So it has become a routine phenomenon that after a few months, a few years, after a certain period, one accumulates so much violence… which would not have been there if love had been flowing. Because love has been stopped there is no flow in your life. Your own energies go against you; they become destructive. Then any excuse is enough

-such stupid excuses that if you look at them you will laugh; they are ridiculous!…

The real thing is that people are accumulating great violence, anger, in them. If you cannot release your love you will accumulate anger. Love standing on its head becomes anger. And when anger accumulates you are just looking for some excuse. If you cannot find an excuse you will invent one, but you will have to invent some cause so you can release, cathart. This is a catharsis — on what grounds it happens is immaterial. Hindi speaking people start killing non Hindi speaking people; non Hindi speaking people start killing Hindi speaking people. The Gujaratis start fighting with the Marathis, the Mohammedans with the Hindus the Jainas with the Hindus, the Sikhs with the non-Sikhs. Anybody is ready to fight with anybody else; just a small excuse, real or invented, is needed. The fight happens first, then later on we discover why it has happened.

People are gathering so much poison, anger, that these flare-ups are bound to happen. And then politicians have no understanding, so they simply go on dumping the whole thing on “anti-social elements,” as if these anti-social elements appear only once in a while and then suddenly disappear. They are always there, but the riots are not always there. For years these anti-social elements become very peaceful and very Gandhian, very non-violent, and then one day suddenly they erupt, and they erupt all over, it is almost like a chain reaction. The politicians have to say something. They don’t understand what is happening at all, and even if some of them do understand they don’t have the courage to say it. The real cause is thousands of years of imposed fear on people, condemnation of love. And you are well aware of it here… If two of my sannyasins are just standing holding each other’s hands in the garden, it is obscene. Two people lovingly holding each other’s hands is obscene or two lovers embracing each other is obscene — and two people killing each other is not obscene!

If two people are fighting on the road, a crowd will gather and they will all enjoy the fight. And everybody will go home very satisfied, very contented, because in a vicarious way they have also been able to cathart their anger through the fighters. But seeing two lovers, only jealousy arises, great jealousy and great anger. But this is how they have been brought up for centuries — this they call religion. Because I am against it, they think I am trying to destroy their religion, their morality. And what morality have they got? This is the morality: that every day somewhere or other there is violence. This is Indian culture, Indian morality — these Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas! They will all say beautiful things and they will all do ugly things. Because I am pointing at the naked truth, they are all opposed to me.

The politicians cannot say the truth, even if they know it. In the first place they don’t know, because they don’t have that much intelligence — otherwise they wouldn’t be politicians in the first place. Secondly, even if they have some idea of what really is happening in the psyche of the country they cannot say it because they have to ask for votes from the same people. If they say the truth they will lose their votes, so they invent some vague excuses — “antisocial” elements.” Now what is this “anti-social element”? — Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist? What is this anti-social element? — Just a word, a label. You can throw all the responsibility on it and you can feel very relieved.

You ask me, Krishna Prem: THESE DAYS THE PAPERS ARE FILLED WITH REPORTS OF COMMUNAL RIOTS ERUPTING ALL OVER INDIA. NO REAL REASONS FOR THIS VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY ARE BE.NG GIVEN, JUST VAGUE REFERENCES TO “ANTI-SOCIAL ELEMENTS”, WHATEVER THAT PHRASE MEANS. CAN YOU THROW ANY LIGHT ON WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS COUNTRY, ON WHY THERE IS THIS OBVIOUS AND ANGRY UNREST?

This is going to continue — unless this country drops this stupid idea of being religious, unless this country drops the rotten culture that it has carried for centuries, which is only a corpse. It is stinking, but they go on carrying it because it is so ancient; it is their past, their “heritage.” This country has to cut itself off from its past totally, abruptly; a discontinuity is needed. Only then will India be reborn.

One of my political friends, Seth Govinddas, he was a Member of Parliament in India for the longest period. In fact, except Winston Churchill and Seth Govinddas, nobody else in the world has been a Member of the Parliament for so long. He was called “the father of the Indian Parliament.” He has been a Member for nearabout fifty years.

He always used to say, “There have been many civilizations in the world, but they all died.” And with great pride; he was very proud of it. “Where is Babylonia? Where is Syria? Where is Greece? Where is Egypt? All have disappeared from the world. The only ancient civilization alive is the Indian civilization.”

And I always used to say to him, “Don’t be proud of it — be ashamed! because it is time that this ancient country should learn how to die and be reborn.

Unless you die you cannot have a rebirth. This country needs a death — and not a partial death, a total death — so that a new, fresh race can come up.

And it is not difficult. But the vested interests are against rebirth. They go on propounding the old tradition. The newly-born country, the newly-born race will not be so easily enslaved by them. They will lose, and they don’t want to lose. Hence they are against me. You can see. What reasons they give against me are worth considering, contemplating. They say that I am destroying their culture, I am destroying their morality, I am destroying their civilization, that I am an enemy. In one way they are right, but in another way they are absolutely wrong. They are right because I am certainly against all that is dead and I want it to be burnt — with all due respect, but burn it, say goodbye to it! Don’t look backwards. Look forward, look ahead!

So in one way they are right that I am against all these things. but in another way they are wrong. I am against these things not because I am against religion, culture, morality, civilization, I am against these things because they are dead.

I am absolutely in favor of a new culture arising, a new civilization arising, a new morality arising, a new humanity arising. Otherwise this country is going to remain poor, starved; continuously fighting, quarreling, murdering each other. This country needs to be taught ways of love. This country needs to be told: Except love there is no God. Drop all fears! Don’t go to the temples because of fear, and don’t go on worshipping stupid idols and gods because of greed. Drop greed and fear and live out of love. Love people, love trees, love animals, love this existence, because God is nowhere else. God is spread all over existence. God is simply another name for life, existence, that which is.

That’s my work here. It is dangerous work — dangerous because I am fighting against powerful forces, dangerous because I am fighting against almost all the vested interests. Nobody will be in favor of me; I have to stand alone. Just a few people who will be courageous enough to be with me, ready to risk their lives with me, will be with me; otherwise nobody is going to be with me. But it is a thrilling project; it is very adventurous. It is a great challenge; it is worth accepting. And through it not only can this country’s humanity have a new birth; through it we can show the way to the whole world, because the whole world needs more or less a new birth, a new man.

Source:

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

Discourse Series:

Theologia Mystica

Chapter #11
Chapter title: The Real Alcoholics
21 August 1980 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘violence, catharsis, suppression, anger, fear, greed’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3, 5, 8
Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, 2
The Supreme Doctrine
The New Alchemy: To Turn You On
I Say Unto You, Vol 2
The Goose is Out
My Way: The Way of the White Clouds
The Psychology of the Esoteric
From Death to Deathlessness
The Last Testament, Vol 2
The Razor’s Edge
Satyam Shivam Sundram
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4
The Path of the Mystic