I so desperately want to save this incredible, beautiful planet, but I feel fear, because the advantage seems to be far from being on our side. And I feel so insignificant and helpless, unable to do anything! So is there anything at all that can be done?
I understand your despair, your helplessness. Probably, everyone who is aware of the existing crisis is feeling such emotions right now. However, you do not realize a greater power: destruction is a force of a lower category, creation is a force of a higher category. Destruction feeds on hatred, creation feeds on love.
You have seen where hatred can lead humanity – to final self-destruction; but you have not seen the possibility that love, striving to grow to its highest degree, can simply prevent this crisis. No person is insignificant, because everyone has a heart, everyone has love, and everyone has sensitivity and consciousness, and everyone is capable of reaching the ultimate peak of existence. A single person can prevent this great crisis, let alone millions of people filled with love, joy, and silence.
Let me remind you of the story from the Old Testament about two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. The people in these cities became utterly corrupt, and all kinds of vices flourished there. This is a beautiful story; it will instill courage in you and dispel your despair. It will help you establish yourself as an individual representing life and love, whom no nuclear weapon, no politicians can destroy. Even God could not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
* * *
There was a man – a Hasid, a mystic – who lived alternately six months in Gomorrah and six months in Sodom. He turned to God and said to Him:
– Do You not admit that a hundred completely normal, wise people may live in these two great cities? Do You intend to destroy them too – merely because the rest are vicious? But that would be a great injustice, a complete injustice, and it would be unmerciful of You. Think again!
God had not considered that surely in these two great cities, almost like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there would be a hundred reasonable, non-perverted, consciously living people. They too would perish, but that would not be in accordance with His divine plan; it would simply be terrible. Then God said:
– If you can prove that there are a hundred good people, I will not destroy these two cities.
– And if only fifty are found, will You destroy them? – asked the Hasid.
God was taken aback by the question of the Hasidic mystic. He said:
– Even if you find fifty…
– And if only twenty-five? – said the mystic. – What difference does it make? Is quantity or quality important to You? Do You care about quantity or quality?
– Quality, of course, – answered God.
And the Hasid said:
– If quality matters, then, to tell the truth, I am the only person who is not perverted, who lives a natural, righteous life. But I live alternately six months in Gomorrah and six months in Sodom. And You still intend to destroy these two cities?
God had never met such a clever man. The Hasid made it so that for Him, one became equal to a hundred. Only a Jew is capable of such a thing! Jews know how to bargain, and he bargained. According to the orthodox version of this story, God destroyed these cities, but according to the version of the mystics – no. The people were saved, because even one person filled with dignity, even one person filled with wisdom, God could not destroy, even if the whole city was mired in vices.
* * *
All that is needed is to be conscious. There is no need to give in to despair and no need to be afraid. One man managed to convince existence itself that two cities needed to be preserved, and among us there are thousands of such Hasids. Every sannyasin is a Hasid. Existence will not allow a handful of brainless politicians to destroy this world.
But this does not mean that you should simply remain silent. You must create a great atmosphere of love around yourselves, which will serve as protection. You must learn to dance and sing. Let these politicians know that the Earth is still full of beautiful people – so many songs, so much music, so much creativity, and so many meditating people… this will make them think.
For our part, we do not need superior stockpiles of nuclear weapons to stop a war – that is the point. We need something completely different. Love will give energy, meditation will endow you with immense power. Then you will not feel so insignificant; you will feel dignity and significance within yourselves, because your love, your meditation, your bliss are capable of saving the world.
And do not worry that you are too helpless to do anything. The thought of your own helplessness arose because no one ever told you what your resources are. You have never turned to your resources – to your love, silence, peacefulness, compassion, joy. You have never turned to this inexhaustible potential of your being. And if thousands of people open up in love, music, and dance, and the whole Earth is overtaken by celebration, then no mad politician will be able to destroy the world. He will be helpless; he will not dare to destroy such a beautiful planet and such beautiful people.
You ask: "Is there anything that can be done?"
Your love, your silence, your joy are enough. Nothing more is needed – more will only plunge you into unnecessary worry. And worry is like a rocking chair – it is constantly in motion, but it gets you nowhere! There is no need to worry and no need to feel despair and helplessness. A handful of idiots has prepared doom for the planet, but there are millions of sensible people who can prevent it only with their love, their joy, their awareness of their own beauty, their ecstasy. The power of these experiences is a hundred times greater – because atomic energy, or nuclear energy, is only a part of the material world. It is the explosion of the atom, the tiniest particle of matter.
We have not yet understood that nature possesses absolute equilibrium. If the explosion of a tiny atom can lead to such destruction… Have you ever thought about the living atom of your being and the possibility of its explosion? In other words, we call this enlightenment. It is nothing other than the explosion of your being, releasing light. With it, you suddenly acquire a much greater, higher power. It does not need to fight the lower – its very presence renders the lower powerless.
This is not something that happens every day and to many – such things occur only from time to time. But even these rare cases undoubtedly prove that any person, if they try, can experience the explosion of consciousness – giving them energy of a higher order – and thereby render all this nuclear weaponry completely useless and put to shame the people who possess it.
There are a few examples that will help you. They seem implausible, because such cases are rare and few have experienced them. * * *
One of Gautama Buddha's followers – Devadatta, who was also his cousin – envied the immense fame and the ability to impress and influence people that Gautama Buddha possessed. No one who came to him left unchanged. Something changed in the very being of the person. Buddha knew how to plant a seed – and the person returned to the true times, when the first clouds were just about to release their rain. But in his blindness, Devadatta did not see this. He was blind not physically, but spiritually. He could not understand what was going on. He was as handsome as Gautama Buddha – after all, they were cousins – equally educated, equally versed in the arts of his time. But there was no doubt that Gautama Buddha was close to perfection, while he was not, because he could not grasp the fragrance of perfection that surrounded Gautama Buddha.
Finally, one day Devadatta said:
– I want you to declare me your successor.
Buddha replied:
– Whoever is capable of following me will become my successor, and I do not intend to name him. In any case, I am still alive; I have only reached the middle of my life. And it is not for me to choose! Who am I to choose a successor? Existence itself will choose.
Devadatta was so wounded that he left the community and made many attempts on Gautama Buddha's life. It seems that all these attempts are fiction, but only because we do not know the power of love, we do not know the power of awareness, and we do not know the beauty of ecstasy and its incredible protective power.
Buddha usually meditated on a small rock at the foot of a huge mountain. Once, Devadatta decided to push a large stone down the mountainside, aiming it at Gautama Buddha. The stone was sure to kill him, and there would be no one to blame – no one would even think it was murder. The stone rolled down the mountain, and all those present were astonished and could not believe what happened next: just two feet from Buddha, the stone stopped, changed direction, and rolled away from him. And then it continued its fall. For a stone, this was very strange; no one could expect a stone to behave that way. Even Devadatta was puzzled.
Devadatta himself ruled a small kingdom, and he had a very dangerous, mad elephant. This elephant was kept in a cage, on chains, because it had already killed several people. And in this, Devadatta saw a new opportunity. The elephant was led to the place where Gautama Buddha was and released. It rushed at Gautama Buddha just as it had rushed at other people. But as it approached, it suddenly stopped, bowed before Gautama Buddha with tears in its eyes, and touched his feet with its head.
Who would believe that this mad elephant… what difference did it make to it? But the blind are the blind! Devadatta did not see what the stone had seen, what the mad elephant had seen – the subtle, invisible aura of love.
* * *
When millions of people are filled with love and meditation, there is no reason to feel despair or helplessness. You are naturally endowed with immense power that is capable of neutralizing any nuclear weapon.
This is exactly what I am trying to do: teach you to love unconditionally; teach you to be friendly even with strangers; prepare you to be able to renounce official religious teachings, because they breed conflict, and to renounce even your national identity. You will still have passports, but for you it will already be a mere formality. In the depths of your being, you should not be a Hindu and should not be an Indian; you should not be a German and should not be a Christian.
If this wave spreads – and I have every reason to hope that it will spread – then you can forget about the Third World War. The Second was the last. The Third is possible only if there is not enough love and meditative energy to prevent it...
Osho
Astrall
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