Life is a dream.

Baba Yagg Gita.

lol


Why does humanity seem so driven to follow the path of global suicide?


The reason is clear. People have clearly realized that there is no meaning in their lives, that nothing happens except misfortune; that life has nothing to offer them but anxiety and inner pain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8EmyhHQcfI - two ships (Agatha Christie)

Individuals have committed suicide in all eras. And you will be surprised: the people who committed suicide were always slightly more rational than normal people. Among psychologists, suicides occur twice as often as among representatives of other professions. Artists, poets, and philosophers either go mad or commit suicide. Idiots never commit suicide; they never go mad.

Idiots never commit suicide because they cannot even think about meaning, significance, or purpose. They do not think at all; they simply live like vegetables. The higher the intelligence, the more dangerous it is, because it forces you to realize that the life you are living is simply hollow, completely empty. There is nothing to hold onto. You know that tomorrow will be a repetition of today, so what is the point of continuing?

Individuals committed suicide because only individuals reached a certain stage of intelligence where they pondered whether there was any meaning in life. And now, for the first time, millions of people across the Earth have reached a level of maturity where they feel that life is meaningless. This is precisely why humanity is moving toward global suicide. It seems there is no reason to continue — for what purpose? You have lived your life and found nothing. Now your children will live, and they will find nothing: generation after generation, in your hands there is only emptiness — no fulfillment, no satisfaction.

But, as far as I can see, this gives a person an invaluable opportunity. Only highly intelligent people committed suicide or went mad because they could not live in this crazy world. They could not adapt to all the various kinds of madness all around them. They felt themselves falling apart — that was their madness. But only such people also became enlightened.

Thus, here are three possibilities for intelligence. An intelligent person either goes mad because they cannot understand what is happening, why it is happening, or why they must do this or that. Or, seeing this situation, seeing that they are going mad, they commit suicide to end their life. This happens in most cases in the West.

In the East, people of the same kind tried to do something else — not madness, but meditation. The West is poor in this sense. It does not know the richness of meditation. It does not know that meditation can transform your entire vision of life; it can give you boundless meaning, beauty, and blessing. Then life becomes something sacred, and you cannot destroy it.

You should notice this: in the East, the suicide rate is very low compared to the West; the percentage of people going mad is very low compared to the West. Furthermore: in the East, those who go mad are actually not very intelligent people. They are psychologically ill. It was not intelligence that led them to madness; something was missing in their minds. Perhaps the food was wrong, or there wasn't enough of it for their minds to mature. Their vegetarian diet lacks certain proteins absolutely necessary for the growth of intelligence.

Thus, madness in the West and in the East is completely different. In the East, it is something psychological: people lack certain things, their growth is stunted, their minds were unable to grow as they should have.

The people who commit suicide in the East are also different from those who commit suicide in the West. In the East, people commit suicide due to hunger or poverty because they cannot manage to continue living — and life becomes such a torment. There is a qualitative difference between them.

But intelligent people in the East always turned to meditation. Every time they felt that there was no meaning in life, they tried to find meaning within themselves; this is precisely the path of meditation. They tried to find the very source of life and love, and they found it. Everyone who looks inside inevitably finds it. It is not far away; it is right inside you. You carry it within you all the time!

The Western intelligentsia seeks meaning outside, but there is no meaning outside. Western people seek a state of bliss externally. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it is not external. The same is true regarding meaningfulness, the state of bliss, and blessing. It is within your vision, within you. When you have it, you can project it onto all existence. But first, you must find it within yourself.

If Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, and people like them had been born in the East, they would have become enlightened beings. But in the West, they all ended up immeasurably burdened by spiritual pain and longing. They found that everything is accidental and meaningless, that there is no meaning in life, that joy is only a place, only a hope; in reality, it does not exist.

The West needs meditation. The East needs medicine; it is physically ill. The West is spiritually ill. Once we clearly understand this problem... Now it is not the East that is dangerous to the world; at most, its people may die of hunger, as they do in Ethiopia. But that is not dangerous for the world. In fact, in a certain sense, the starving East helps the world through its mortality. It reduces the world's population. This makes everyone richer, even if you don't know it yourself. A thousand inhabitants of Ethiopia die every day — perhaps you do not see that they contribute to your comfort, but they do, because if the world's population decreases, people can live in greater comfort, with more ease and joy. The problem does not come from the East; the problem comes from the West. The problem is that the Western intelligentsia has become sated with life, and therefore there is no truly strong resistance from the intelligentsia against nuclear weapons or a third world war. In fact, it seems deep down the Western mind hopes in one way or another that it will happen soon, because life is meaningless. If, instead of risking suicide yourself, politicians manage to destroy the whole world at once, it will be much easier. You won't have to face the dilemma of to be or not to be. You won't have to decide whether to destroy yourself or not, or wonder if perhaps tomorrow everything will be different.

Suicide is an individual responsibility, but in a global war, in a nuclear war, all your personal responsibility disappears. It is not your action; it just happens.

Why doesn't the Western intelligentsia truly fight against nuclear weapons? Why do scientists — part of the intelligentsia — still serve governments? The simplest way out would be if all the scientists who create nuclear weapons resigned. They should say: "Enough. We cannot create a weapon that will destroy life on Earth." And poets, philosophers, artists — it seems they do not protest. They simply remain spectators. There is a specific reason behind this. People of the Western part of humanity have turned into spectators — in every respect. You don't play football; there are twenty-four professionals for that, and their job is to play football. Millions of people are just spectators, and they get so excited... jumping in their seats, yelling, screaming. If they aren't at the stadium, they sit at home before a TV screen and make the same gestures. Someone else plays; you are only a spectator.

The average American watches television from five to six hours a day: for six hours he is just a spectator, not a participant. Then there are movies where you are spectators, boxing matches where you are spectators. It seems you have lost touch with life. You simply see how others live; your life consists only of watching. Someone participates in the world chess championship, and you watch. Can you really not play chess yourself? Can you really not play football yourself?

This is not far off, it's already happening... soon you won't make love to your wife or your girlfriend — someone else will do it, and you will watch, jumping: "Yes! Great! A little more!"

You give your entire life to others so they can live it for you, and then you ask where all the meaning went, why you don't feel alive, why there is no significance in your life. Spectators cannot have significance — only participants who are totally involved, intensely involved in every action.

Therefore, perhaps the Western intelligentsia simply remains in the position of TV viewers, waiting for a third world war to appear on the program schedule. Listening to the radio, reading newspapers... Are you going to do something yourself or not?

It is precisely action that makes your juices flow. If you just watch, your own juices will dry up. You will become simply a skeleton.

I am surprised that the West constitutes a strong, educated, rational majority in the world, but no one does anything, takes no measures. AIDS is spreading — and you just watch. Your governments pile up nuclear weapons, preparing a funeral pyre for you — and you just watch..
.Osho