Astrall
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A revolutionary is part of the political world; he sees everything through the lens of political life. He thinks that it is enough to change the structure of society — and the person will change too. A rebel, as I understand the word, is a spiritual phenomenon. In his worldview, he relies on the individual. He believes that if we want to change society, we must begin with the individual. Society as such does not exist; it is only an idea. Take, for example, the word 'crowd'. Try to find it — you won't succeed. You bumped into someone? But it wasn't a crowd; you bumped into a person. 'Society' — this is merely a collective name. It is not a reality, but just a concept; it cannot be seen or held in your hands. A person has a soul; a person can evolve, change, transform. So the difference between them is enormous. A rebel expresses the essence of religion.
He brings into this world a change of consciousness — and when consciousness changes, the structure of society is forced to change along with it. But the opposite does not work, as all revolutions have proven, for they all ended in failure. Not a single revolution has yet managed to change man, but it seems we still haven't realized this. In our heads, the ideas of revolution, changing society, changing the government, reforming the bureaucratic apparatus, changing legislation and political systems still live on. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism — all were revolutionary in their own way. But all failed, and spectacularly so, because MAN did not change…
...
Gautama Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus — these people were rebels. They believed in the individual. They also failed, but for a completely different reason. Their failure differs from the failure of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries tried to implement their ideas in many countries and by many means — and they got nowhere.
And the ideas of Gautama Buddha didn't work because, in truth, no one really tried to implement them. Jesus failed because the Jews crucified Him, and the Christians buried Him. His teaching was not brought to life — it wasn't even given a chance. The rebel remains an unknown quantity to this day. We must be rebels, not revolutionaries. The revolutionary belongs to very earthly realms; the rebel and his rebellious spirit belong to the realm of the spirit. A revolutionary cannot be alone: he needs a crowd, a political party, a government. He needs power. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power has corrupted all the revolutionaries who managed to seize it. They did not change the nature of power and its institutions — they could not. It was power that changed their souls and consciousness; it corrupted these people. Only the names changed, while society remained the same.
Human consciousness has not changed for centuries. Only occasionally does someone succeed — but for millions of people, the success of one person is not the rule, but the exception. And because such a person is always alone, the crowd does not accept him. His very existence humiliates you. You feel that his presence insults you, for he opens your eyes, shows you your potential and your future. Your ego is wounded; you realize you have done nothing for your spiritual growth, your consciousness has not expanded, there has been no increase in love, joy, creativity, or silence within you — the world around has not become better. You have given nothing to this world: your existence here is not a blessing, but a torment. And you give free rein to your anger and cruelty, your jealousy and desire to be first, your lust for power.
You turn the world into a battlefield: you thirst for blood and infect everyone around you with this feeling. You strip human nature of its humanity. You help man forget his human qualities and fall lower than animals. That is why Gautama Buddha and Zhuangzi affect you so deeply — they succeeded, while you are still standing still. The years pass, but nothing ignites within you. Birds do not fly to you, do not build their nests near you, and do not sing their songs beside you. It is easier to crucify Jesus and poison Socrates — better they not exist, so you don't have to feel your spiritual
inferiority.
History knows few rebels. But now the time has come: if humanity cannot give the world hundreds and thousands of rebels, if the rebellious spirit does not ignite, then our days on earth are numbered. Then the coming decades could be our last. We have come very close to this line. We must change our consciousness, we must give the world more meditative energy, give it more love. We must destroy the past — its ugliness, its rotten ideology, its foolish discrimination and stupid prejudices. We must create a new human being with a fresh perspective on the world and with new values. Refusal — that is the essence of rebellion. Here are three words that will help you understand: reform, revolution, and rebellion. Reform means modification.
The old remains, and you give it a new form, a new appearance — it's like renovating an old house. Its structure remains unchanged; you paint it a bit, clear away the rubbish, knock out a few new windows and doors. Revolution goes further than reform. The old remains, but the changes are more profound; they even affect the basic structure of the house. You not only change the color or knock out new windows and doors, but perhaps you add new floors, and the building grows upward. But the old is not destroyed; it remains, hidden behind the new; by and large, it remains the foundation of the new. Revolution preserves ties with the past.
Rebellion severs those ties. It is neither reform nor revolution; you simply break with everything old. Old religions, old political ideologies, the old human being — all have outlived their time, and you renounce them. You start life from scratch, from a clean slate. The revolutionary tries to change the old; the rebel simply bids it farewell and, like a snake slithering out of its old skin, never looks back. If we on Earth do not create people with such a rebellious spirit, humanity will have no future. The man of the past has led us to the final line. The old thinking, old ideologies, old religions — all together have brought us to the brink of global suicide.
Only a new human being can save the human race, our planet, and life on this planet. I teach rebellion, not revolution. For me, rebellion is the most important quality of a religious person. It is spirituality in its pristine purity. The times of revolutions are over. The French Revolution ended in failure, the Russian revolution suffered a fiasco, the Chinese revolution failed. Even Gandhi's revolution failed in India, and it happened before Gandhi's own eyes. All his life he taught 'non-violence,' and before his eyes the country was divided, millions of people were killed and burned alive, millions of women were raped. Gandhi himself was shot. A strange end for a saint who preached non-violence.
In the process, he himself forgot everything he had taught. Even before the completion of the Indian revolution, the American thinker Louis Fischer asked Gandhi: — What are you going to do with the weapons and armies when India becomes independent? — I am going to throw all the weapons into the ocean, and disband the armies and send the soldiers to work in the fields and gardens, said Gandhi. — Have you forgotten? Your country could be attacked! — exclaimed Louis Fischer. — We will welcome the invaders. If someone attacks us, we will receive them as guests and tell them: 'You can also live here, just as we live here. There is no need for us to fight,' replied Gandhi.
And then he completely forgot his entire philosophy — that is how revolutions fail. How wonderful it is to talk about such things, but when power is in your hands... At first, Mahatma Gandhi refused any government post. The reason was fear, because he would have to answer if asked about the weapons he planned to throw into the ocean. And also about the armies working in the fields. When Gandhi saw what huge problems this would entail, he shirked the responsibility he had fought for all his life. If he had agreed to take a post in the government, he would have had to come into conflict with his own philosophy. But his disciples, people he himself had chosen, entered the government. And Gandhi did not ask them to disband the army. When Pakistan attacked India, he did not tell the Indian government: 'Let us go to the border and welcome the invaders as guests.'
Instead, he blessed the first three planes that flew to bomb Pakistan. These planes flew over the villa in New Delhi where Gandhi was staying. He went out into the garden and blessed them. With his blessing, the planes flew on to kill his former fellow citizens, who just a few days earlier had been 'our brothers and sisters.' He did this without any pangs of conscience and saw no contradiction in his action...
The Russian revolution failed before Lenin's eyes. Following Karl Marx, he declared: 'When the revolution triumphs, we will abolish marriage, because marriage is a manifestation of private property. When private property disappears, the institution of marriage will also disappear. People can love each other, can live together; society will take care of the children.' But everything changed when the communist party, whose leader was Lenin, seized power. When people come to power, they start thinking differently. Now Lenin reasoned thus: it is dangerous to give such independence and freedom from responsibility — people could become too individualistic. Therefore, they must be burdened with family — he completely forgot about abolishing the institution of marriage. It is astonishing how revolutions failed right before the eyes of those who made them. And all because, as soon as power was in their hands, they began to reason completely differently. Over time, they became too attached to their power. The only thing that concerned them was how to hold power in their hands forever and how to keep the people under control.
The future no longer needs revolutions. The future needs a new experiment, one that has not yet been conducted. For thousands of years, rebels were born, but they always remained alone. Perhaps the time for them had not yet come then. But now the time has not only come... if we don't hurry, it may run out. In the coming decades, either humanity will disappear, or a new man with a new way of thinking will appear on Earth. And this new man will be a rebel.
Osho (The Book of Awareness)
He brings into this world a change of consciousness — and when consciousness changes, the structure of society is forced to change along with it. But the opposite does not work, as all revolutions have proven, for they all ended in failure. Not a single revolution has yet managed to change man, but it seems we still haven't realized this. In our heads, the ideas of revolution, changing society, changing the government, reforming the bureaucratic apparatus, changing legislation and political systems still live on. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism — all were revolutionary in their own way. But all failed, and spectacularly so, because MAN did not change…
...
Gautama Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus — these people were rebels. They believed in the individual. They also failed, but for a completely different reason. Their failure differs from the failure of the revolutionaries. The revolutionaries tried to implement their ideas in many countries and by many means — and they got nowhere.
And the ideas of Gautama Buddha didn't work because, in truth, no one really tried to implement them. Jesus failed because the Jews crucified Him, and the Christians buried Him. His teaching was not brought to life — it wasn't even given a chance. The rebel remains an unknown quantity to this day. We must be rebels, not revolutionaries. The revolutionary belongs to very earthly realms; the rebel and his rebellious spirit belong to the realm of the spirit. A revolutionary cannot be alone: he needs a crowd, a political party, a government. He needs power. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power has corrupted all the revolutionaries who managed to seize it. They did not change the nature of power and its institutions — they could not. It was power that changed their souls and consciousness; it corrupted these people. Only the names changed, while society remained the same.
Human consciousness has not changed for centuries. Only occasionally does someone succeed — but for millions of people, the success of one person is not the rule, but the exception. And because such a person is always alone, the crowd does not accept him. His very existence humiliates you. You feel that his presence insults you, for he opens your eyes, shows you your potential and your future. Your ego is wounded; you realize you have done nothing for your spiritual growth, your consciousness has not expanded, there has been no increase in love, joy, creativity, or silence within you — the world around has not become better. You have given nothing to this world: your existence here is not a blessing, but a torment. And you give free rein to your anger and cruelty, your jealousy and desire to be first, your lust for power.
You turn the world into a battlefield: you thirst for blood and infect everyone around you with this feeling. You strip human nature of its humanity. You help man forget his human qualities and fall lower than animals. That is why Gautama Buddha and Zhuangzi affect you so deeply — they succeeded, while you are still standing still. The years pass, but nothing ignites within you. Birds do not fly to you, do not build their nests near you, and do not sing their songs beside you. It is easier to crucify Jesus and poison Socrates — better they not exist, so you don't have to feel your spiritual
inferiority.
History knows few rebels. But now the time has come: if humanity cannot give the world hundreds and thousands of rebels, if the rebellious spirit does not ignite, then our days on earth are numbered. Then the coming decades could be our last. We have come very close to this line. We must change our consciousness, we must give the world more meditative energy, give it more love. We must destroy the past — its ugliness, its rotten ideology, its foolish discrimination and stupid prejudices. We must create a new human being with a fresh perspective on the world and with new values. Refusal — that is the essence of rebellion. Here are three words that will help you understand: reform, revolution, and rebellion. Reform means modification.
The old remains, and you give it a new form, a new appearance — it's like renovating an old house. Its structure remains unchanged; you paint it a bit, clear away the rubbish, knock out a few new windows and doors. Revolution goes further than reform. The old remains, but the changes are more profound; they even affect the basic structure of the house. You not only change the color or knock out new windows and doors, but perhaps you add new floors, and the building grows upward. But the old is not destroyed; it remains, hidden behind the new; by and large, it remains the foundation of the new. Revolution preserves ties with the past.
Rebellion severs those ties. It is neither reform nor revolution; you simply break with everything old. Old religions, old political ideologies, the old human being — all have outlived their time, and you renounce them. You start life from scratch, from a clean slate. The revolutionary tries to change the old; the rebel simply bids it farewell and, like a snake slithering out of its old skin, never looks back. If we on Earth do not create people with such a rebellious spirit, humanity will have no future. The man of the past has led us to the final line. The old thinking, old ideologies, old religions — all together have brought us to the brink of global suicide.
Only a new human being can save the human race, our planet, and life on this planet. I teach rebellion, not revolution. For me, rebellion is the most important quality of a religious person. It is spirituality in its pristine purity. The times of revolutions are over. The French Revolution ended in failure, the Russian revolution suffered a fiasco, the Chinese revolution failed. Even Gandhi's revolution failed in India, and it happened before Gandhi's own eyes. All his life he taught 'non-violence,' and before his eyes the country was divided, millions of people were killed and burned alive, millions of women were raped. Gandhi himself was shot. A strange end for a saint who preached non-violence.
In the process, he himself forgot everything he had taught. Even before the completion of the Indian revolution, the American thinker Louis Fischer asked Gandhi: — What are you going to do with the weapons and armies when India becomes independent? — I am going to throw all the weapons into the ocean, and disband the armies and send the soldiers to work in the fields and gardens, said Gandhi. — Have you forgotten? Your country could be attacked! — exclaimed Louis Fischer. — We will welcome the invaders. If someone attacks us, we will receive them as guests and tell them: 'You can also live here, just as we live here. There is no need for us to fight,' replied Gandhi.
And then he completely forgot his entire philosophy — that is how revolutions fail. How wonderful it is to talk about such things, but when power is in your hands... At first, Mahatma Gandhi refused any government post. The reason was fear, because he would have to answer if asked about the weapons he planned to throw into the ocean. And also about the armies working in the fields. When Gandhi saw what huge problems this would entail, he shirked the responsibility he had fought for all his life. If he had agreed to take a post in the government, he would have had to come into conflict with his own philosophy. But his disciples, people he himself had chosen, entered the government. And Gandhi did not ask them to disband the army. When Pakistan attacked India, he did not tell the Indian government: 'Let us go to the border and welcome the invaders as guests.'
Instead, he blessed the first three planes that flew to bomb Pakistan. These planes flew over the villa in New Delhi where Gandhi was staying. He went out into the garden and blessed them. With his blessing, the planes flew on to kill his former fellow citizens, who just a few days earlier had been 'our brothers and sisters.' He did this without any pangs of conscience and saw no contradiction in his action...
The Russian revolution failed before Lenin's eyes. Following Karl Marx, he declared: 'When the revolution triumphs, we will abolish marriage, because marriage is a manifestation of private property. When private property disappears, the institution of marriage will also disappear. People can love each other, can live together; society will take care of the children.' But everything changed when the communist party, whose leader was Lenin, seized power. When people come to power, they start thinking differently. Now Lenin reasoned thus: it is dangerous to give such independence and freedom from responsibility — people could become too individualistic. Therefore, they must be burdened with family — he completely forgot about abolishing the institution of marriage. It is astonishing how revolutions failed right before the eyes of those who made them. And all because, as soon as power was in their hands, they began to reason completely differently. Over time, they became too attached to their power. The only thing that concerned them was how to hold power in their hands forever and how to keep the people under control.
The future no longer needs revolutions. The future needs a new experiment, one that has not yet been conducted. For thousands of years, rebels were born, but they always remained alone. Perhaps the time for them had not yet come then. But now the time has not only come... if we don't hurry, it may run out. In the coming decades, either humanity will disappear, or a new man with a new way of thinking will appear on Earth. And this new man will be a rebel.
Osho (The Book of Awareness)