Posts from Life is a dream. Auto-translated

Violence will always be a sure sign of a society gripped by the spirit of competition. In such a society, there are no friends. Everyone pretends to be your friend, but in reality, everyone is your enemy, because everyone strives to climb the same ladder. Everyone is your enemy because their success is your failure. Very quickly, people master the art of tripping each other up and using dirty methods, because this provides an advantage and allows them to take a shortcut...

From generation to generation, the same disease is passed on again and again. Out of the best intentions, parents, teachers, all sorts of leaders and preachers insistently promote the idea of competition, comparison, and ambitious drives, preparing the child for an irreconcilable struggle that they must enter in order to survive—or more simply, for cruelty and aggression. They know: if you are not aggressive, you will be left behind. You must assert yourself by putting all your strength into it. You must compete with such zeal as if your life depended on it. This is the structure of our entire educational system. In school, I was almost always the best student in class—not because I was very diligent or attended every single lesson. It was simply that I discovered the curriculum we were being taught could be mastered in two months, even though we spent a whole year on it. Therefore, I devoted myself to studying only during the last two months of the school year, and spent the rest of the time doing whatever I wanted.

The teachers were amazed by this. And when I returned home on the day final grades were posted and told my father that I had finished the year better than anyone in class, he invariably said: "That means your class is full of fools." "Strange," I replied, "when other children get good grades, their parents are happy, but you seem upset that I study with fools. You think that's the only reason I have the best results, and otherwise I wouldn't have had any chance." He never encouraged me; he never said, "Well done, you deserve a reward." He never praised me. The only thing he always said was: "Strange, but you always manage to get into a class of fools—naturally, you become the best." But such an attitude is rare. Parents use every possible incentive: "Be the best and you will be rewarded. Be the best—it will bring respect to your parents, to your family." You are taught that you must be ahead of others at any cost. And sooner or later, this takes a toll on the child—they try to run faster. Even if they have to harm someone to break ahead, they will do it. Violence will always be a sure sign of a society gripped by the spirit of competition.

In such a society, there are no friends. Everyone pretends to be your friend, but in reality, everyone is your enemy, because everyone strives to climb the same ladder. Everyone is your enemy because their success is your failure. Very quickly, people master the and art of tripping each other up and using dirty methods, because this provides an advantage and allows them to take a shortcut.

When I taught at the university, I had one student... there was something about him that on exam day, no teacher wanted to be left alone in the room with him. A real thug—he looked like he might kill someone at any moment. Here is what he usually did: he would come to the exam with a knife and place it next to him on the desk so everyone could see it. No professor dared to go near him. He brought cheat sheets and always passed the exam better than anyone. No professor wanted to be in the room where this student was taking his exams. And the rector asked me to do it. "No problem," I replied. "But no one else wants to," he marveled. "They understand nothing," I said. I went to a friend of mine, a Sikh, and asked: "Lend me your kirpan." A kirpan is a special kind of sword, a weapon far more dangerous than any other sword: one strike—and the head is gone!

"What are you going to do with this sword?" he asked. "I want to teach a student what it means to be a Sikh." He said: "That is good. Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh." This is a Sikh mantra: "By this way the master conquers. By this way the followers of the master conquer." He gave me his kirpan, and I went into the exam room. That guy was sitting at the desk, and his little knife lay before him. I approached him and plunged my kirpan into the desk right next to his knife. He looked at me, and I said: "Throw away all the cheat sheets you brought. See my kirpan?" And I took his same knife. "What are you doing?" he asked. "If you utter one more word," I said, "the strike of this sword will take your head." "You must be crazy," he said. "I have done nothing wrong, and you are ready to kill me!" I said:

"The question here is not about what is wrong or right. The question is who has the bigger knife—my knife is bigger! I have every right to throw you out of this room." And I threw his knife out the window. I said: "If you don't throw away all the cheat sheets you brought with you, your head will also fly out the window." He gave me all the cheat sheets, and I threw them out the window. The rector was watching this from the window of his office. "What is happening?" he shouted. "All sorts of things are flying out of the exam room windows—first a knife, then papers..." He rushed into the room. "Do you have some kind of problem?" "Don't worry," I said. "Give me one more minute... if this guy doesn't behave as he should, you will see something else fly out the window." "What exactly?" he asked. "His

head!" I replied. The rector led me out of the room and said:

"I regret asking you to proctor in this room. You are free to go; one cannot behave like that!" "But there is no other way to teach this idiot," I said. "All the professors you sent into this room were so afraid of his knife that now no one wants to go in here. What can he do? At most—kill you, which is why I brought a big knife. But this is exactly what society teaches each of us: you must be more aggressive, otherwise you will fail. You must carve your own path because everyone strives for the same result." The rector told me: "I am releasing you. You will never proctor exams again."

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed. "That is exactly what I wanted. I don't need this; I don't want to cause anyone any trouble. Life will give them enough as it is—why should I bring even more trouble into it? But I also won't allow anyone to trouble me. It is very good that you have released me from this duty forever.

However, our entire society is based on violence, and you must show more cruelty if you have ambitions. To become a rebel, one needs to be an unambitious person, not prone to competition, not striving for power. Every child can become such a rebel. The only thing needed is that their innocence is not taken away from them. Your feeling does not deceive you: a rebel lives inside you. There is a rebel in every person. But society is too strong—it makes you cowardly, it forces you to be cunning. It doesn't help you be yourself. It doesn't want anyone to be themselves, because then there would be nothing but rebels everywhere. But remember: before becoming rebels, you must fulfill certain conditions. I don't want old-type rebels to appear. My ideas about rebels are different—this is a completely fresh idea, a new understanding. Until there is enough compassion in you, until there is enough love—until there is enough silence in the heart, deep inner meditation bringing you more light, greater awareness—you will not meet my conditions. I want you to be rebels only under these conditions.

Then you will not be able to do anything wrong. Then everything you do will be right. When acting out of love, everything is right. Love is a magical force that transforms everything, makes everything right. I want the rebels to be enlightened. This is possible because enlightenment sometimes happens and there are rebels in this world, so all we need is a synthesis connecting both together. Rebellion and enlightenment; Gautama Buddha endowed with the rebellious spirit of Lenin—that is the most beautiful phenomenon in the world...
Osho

A simple person has never been the goal of society until now. A simple person cannot be a goal, because you are born simple! Every child is simple; they are merely a blank slate. Then parents begin to write on that slate who the child should become. Teachers, priests, leaders—they all continue to insist that you must become someone, otherwise your life will be wasted. But in reality, it is quite the opposite...©

Why has man created so many complexities and why does he not believe in the simple?
The simple is not a challenge to the human ego; the difficult is a challenge, the impossible is a wonderful challenge. To understand how inflated your ego has become, you must look at the difficulties you have decided to fight. The ego is measurable by your ambitions. But the simple does not attract the ego. The simple is the death of the ego.

And man chose complexities even where there was no need for them, for the reason that this allows him to continue growing and feeding his ego. He continues to become more and more important in politics, in religion, in society—everywhere.

All psychology is geared toward making the ego stronger. Even those fools, the psychologists, emphasize that a person needs a strong ego. Therefore, education is programmed to use the carrot and stick method to create ambitions within you, to force you to move in a certain direction. From the very beginning, your parents have too many hopes for you. They think that perhaps Alexander the Great himself was born to them, or that their daughter is the reincarnation of Cleopatra. From the moment of your birth, parents drum it into your head that until you have proven your worth, you are worth nothing. A simple person is considered a simpleton.

A simple person has never been the goal of society until now. A simple person cannot be a goal, because you are born simple! Every child is simple; they are merely a blank slate. Then parents begin to write on that slate who the child should become. Teachers, priests, leaders—they all continue to insist that you must become someone, otherwise your life will be wasted. But in reality, it is quite the opposite.

You are being. You do not need to become anyone else. This is the meaning of simplicity: when you are at ease with yourself, you do not strive to become someone—and such striving never ends.

There is not a single place where you would feel: "Now my journey is over. I have reached the highest peak I sought." No one in all of human history has been able to do this for the simple reason that man walks in a circle. Therefore, someone is always ahead of you in something.

You may become the president of America, but you will feel inferior compared to Muhammad Ali. You do not have that animal strength. Muhammad Ali could give Ronald Reagan a good punch in the nose, and Ronald Reagan would lie motionless on the ground. You could continue the count: one, two, three—Ronald Reagan will not get up to get hit again. He is simply waiting for the count to reach ten so he can stand up and go to the hospital. You may be the prime minister of a country, but upon meeting Albert Einstein, you will feel like a pygmy—not a prime minister, but a pygmy.
Life is multifaceted. It is impossible to strive in all directions and be first in everything. It is simply impossible; existence does not work that way.

The ego is a human disease. Those in power want you to remain sick. They do not want you to be healthy and whole, because your health and wholeness pose a danger to their interests. That is why no one wants to be simple, no one wants to be nobody. And my entire approach is aimed at making it easy for you to be with yourselves, so that you accept your essence.

Becoming is a disease; being is health. But the simple, the whole, the healthy, the full of bliss—you know the taste of none of these. Your society leaves you not a single moment for yourself, therefore you know only one path: the path of the ego. You were told to become Jesus Christ. There are societies that set as their goal that everyone should become a god. This mad world! You need to free yourself from all this programming. If you want to experience pleasure, to relax, to feel the peace and beauty of existence, this false ego must fall away.

I do not want to take anything else from you. I only want to take your ego, which in any case is merely a fantasy. It is not real, so in reality, I am taking nothing from you. And I want to give you that which you are. Of course, I do not need to give this to you: you already have it! You just need to be shaken up and returned to the striking beauty of innocence.
At that moment, you reach the state of a child.
You risk nothing. But you run after a shadow that you can never catch, forgetting all the treasures you brought with you into this world. Death will finish you before your ego is satisfied. Life is short; it should not be wasted on such foolish games.
Osho

All of humanity is in the same situation. For thousands of years, we have been working to turn the Earth into a giant madhouse, and, unfortunately, we have succeeded.

The same thing is happening everywhere, not just in Italy: people are killing each other. Everywhere there is violence for the simple reason that we, using various ingenious methods, do not allow human energies to be creative, and whenever the movement of creative energies is hindered, they become destructive. The real problem is not violence. The real problem is how to help people be creative. A creative person cannot be violent, because his energies move in the direction of God. We call God the creator. Whenever you create something, you participate in the being of God. You cannot be violent, you cannot be destructive; it is impossible.
But for thousands of years, we have destroyed all possible paths to creativity. Instead of helping people to be creative, we teach them to be destructive. The warrior, the soldier – we have respected them too much. In fact, the warrior should be condemned, not respected – he destroys. The soldier should not be revered.

We need sannyasins, not soldiers. We need loving people, not fighters. But love is condemned, and violence is glorified. What is so great about Alexander the Great? Only violence. He is great because he was the most violent person of his time. He killed almost everywhere in the world known to him – he killed millions – and yet we continue to call him Alexander the Great. What is so great about your kings, emperors, and their history? Why do you continue to praise them? They should be completely forgotten. Nadir Shah, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane – why should they be remembered? Why should small children be told all these stupid things that people have done? Because we still want people to fight. The politician lives on violence, nations live on violence. If violence disappears, there will be no Italy, no India, no Japan. There will only be one humanity. What is the need for these borders? But without these borders, politicians must disappear, and they obviously do not want to disappear. They have invested a lot in borders, and the borders must be protected. The only way to protect them is to kill, and the one who kills more is the winner.

The same thing happens on a smaller scale in people's lives. People have been taught to be violent; if you are not violent, you will not succeed in life. You have to be very violent, only then will you be able to achieve your ambitions. A gentle person cannot succeed, he will inevitably fail, because he does not know how to be competitive. He cannot elbow his way through, he cannot walk over people's heads. All politicians are criminals for the simple reason that crime pays. You just have to be clever enough not to get caught. This is the most important rule of violent life: all means are good if they lead to the goal. And, of course, instead of arguing – because an argument may never end – it is better to draw a sword, this solves the problem immediately. It is easier to fight a person and find out who is right. "Might makes right." This principle is still alive – the principle of the jungle.

Do we call a person civilized? He still needs to be made civilized. Civilization is just an idea that has not yet been realized. Man is civilized only on the surface – less than even the depth of the skin. Just scratch a little, and you will see the animal appear – a fierce animal, much fiercer than any of the wild animals, because wild animals, however wild they may be, do not produce bombs – atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs. In comparison with man and his violence, all animals are far behind.

This was the rule in the past as well. Buddhas are exceptions. They are certainly the only civilized human beings. The rest of the people, the crowd, are not civilized at all. This is not only happening in Italy, the same thing is happening here, in India. A great spiritual country, a very ancient religious heritage, and yet people are killing. People don't care. Right now, there are riots all over the country. And this is what is striking. In Moradabad, where the riots began, Muslims gathered for prayer. They had a religious holiday, Eid, and they gathered for prayer. And after this prayer meeting, violence broke out. This means that the people who came to pray brought weapons with them. One hundred and thirty people were immediately killed. What is this hypocrisy? What is this madness? People who came to pray are hiding knives, blades, bottles of acid. They came prepared. Everything seems to have been planned in advance. And they came to pray. What kind of prayer is possible in such a situation? The word "Islam" means "peace" – Islam has generated more violence in the world than any other religion, and the word means "peace." Christianity claims: "God is love," and Christians have killed millions of people, they burned people alive. And God is love! This is a very unconscious state of affairs. People live unconsciously, not knowing what they are doing, why they are doing it, not even thinking about it.

People need to be helped to be a little more aware, a little more vigilant. They need a little more clarity to see what they are doing. But there is no clarity, and the privileged circles do not want any clarity. They want even more confusion. The more confusion, the more power the politicians have. The more confusion, the more power the priests have. They do not want man to become aware, they want him to live as unconsciously as possible. And this is the case not only with ordinary people, but also with all the others – the so-called intellectuals, the intelligentsia, the politicians, the monks. This applies to everyone, except for very few people, and these few people cannot help much.

That is why my efforts are aimed at creating a huge field of Buddha, to release as much energy as is released by an atomic explosion. Sannyas is an attempt to gather all those people who are willing to become aware, to become sane. And we will have to spread this color all over the world. This is the color of spring. Man needs a new life, a new birth. Everything that has been said to him and taught to him so far has failed. It was doomed to fail, because it was not intended to create a better humanity; it was intended to keep man in the state of slavery in which he is.

If violence disappears, there will be no Italy, no India, no Japan. There will only be one humanity...
The real problem is not violence. The real problem is how to help people be creative. A creative person cannot be violent, because his energies move in the direction of God. We call God the creator. Whenever you create something, you participate in the being of God. You cannot be violent, you cannot be destructive; it is impossible.
Osho

(Part 1).

...The human mind has become diseased; it has turned into a wound. It is no longer a healthy center; it has become a painful sore. That is why all your attention is focused on it. Perhaps you haven't considered the fact that when one part of the body becomes ill, all our attention shifts to it. You only become aware of your leg when it hurts; if there is no pain, you are completely unaware of it. If there is a wound on your arm, you begin to notice your arm; if there is no wound, you completely ignore it. In any case, your mind has undoubtedly become diseased because, twenty-four hours a day, you are only aware of it and nothing else. The healthier the body, the less it will be felt. You only feel the part of the body that has become unhealthy. And the only part of the body you are currently feeling is your head. Your consciousness moves only around it—it only knows it, it only recognizes it. A painful wound has appeared here. Without freeing yourself from this wound, without freeing yourself from this very tense and restless state of mind, no one can be happy.

Therefore, today we will discuss this structure, the mind, and how to change it. (Osho)...

Chapter 4: Understanding The first thing is that you must clearly understand the structure of the mind. If you sit in solitude for ten minutes and honestly write down on a piece of paper all the thoughts that pass through your mind, you won't want to show that paper even to your best friend because you will discover thoughts that are so insane that neither you nor anyone else could have expected them. You will discover so many irrelevant, useless, and contradictory thoughts that you will think you have gone mad. If you honestly write down everything that comes to your mind for ten minutes, you will be very surprised at what is happening there.

You will want to know whether you are in your right mind or whether you are crazy. You never look into your mind, even for ten minutes, to see what is happening there, or perhaps you don't look into it precisely because you already know deep down what is happening there. Perhaps you are afraid. That is why people are afraid of being alone and seek company twenty-four hours a day—they want to meet friends, go to a club, or do something else. And if they can't find anyone, they read a newspaper or listen to the radio. No one wants to be alone because, at the moment you are alone, you begin to learn the truth about your real state. When another person is present, you are involved in a relationship with them and are not aware of yourself. Seeking another is nothing more than seeking a convenient excuse to escape from yourself. The main reason you begin to be interested in other people is that you are afraid of yourself and know very well that if you fully know yourself, you will discover that you are absolutely insane. To get rid of this feeling, a person seeks company, seeks friends, seeks society, seeks a crowd.

A person is afraid of being alone. He is afraid of being alone because in solitude he may discover a reflection of his real state, meet the reflection of his own face. And this can be very frightening, very terrible. Therefore, from the moment he wakes up in the morning until the moment he falls asleep in the evening, he uses all sorts of methods to escape from himself and not meet himself. He is afraid that he may see himself. Man has invented thousands of ways to escape from himself. And the worse the state of the human mind became, the more new inventions he devised to escape from himself. If we look at the last fifty years, we will find that man has created more entertainment to escape from himself than ever before in history. Cinemas, radio, television—these are all ways to escape from oneself.

Man has become so restless. Everyone is looking for entertainment; you do all sorts of things to forget about yourself for a while because your inner situation is getting worse. Everywhere in the world, at the same time as civilization is developing, the consumption of drugs is increasing. New drugs have recently been discovered that are becoming very popular in Europe and America. These are drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and marijuana. In all the developed cities of Europe and America, among all educated people, the desire to try new drugs has reached a peak. The search for reliable means that allow a person to forget himself continues—without them, a person will be in great difficulty. What is behind all this? Why do you want to forget yourselves? Why are you so eager for self-forgetfulness? And don't think that only those people who go to the movies are trying to forget themselves; people who go to temples go there for the same reason; there is no difference.

The temple is an old way to forget oneself, and the cinema is a new way. If a person sits and repeatedly chants, "Ram, Ram," don't think that he is doing anything other than trying to forget himself in the chanting—just as someone else tries to forget himself by listening to a song from a movie. There is no difference between these two people. This desire to get involved in something outside of oneself—whether it is "Ram" or a movie or music—is essentially a desire to escape from oneself. You are all engaged in escaping from yourselves in one way or another. This indicates that your inner state is deteriorating, and you lack the courage even to look at it. You are very afraid to look in that direction.

You are acting like ostriches. When an ostrich sees an enemy, it hides its head in the sand because it thinks that looking at the enemy is dangerous. When the enemy is not visible, the ostrich's logic says, "Since it is not visible, it does not exist. I am safe." But this is incorrect logic. An ostrich can be forgiven, but a human cannot. A thing does not cease to exist just because it is not visible. If a thing is visible, then something can be done about it, but if it is not visible, then there is no way to do anything. You want to forget the state that exists inside; you don't want to see it. Perhaps your mind can be convinced that there is nothing there that is not visible, but this does not mean that it has disappeared. Invisible does not mean non-existent. If something were visible, you could change it, but since it is not visible, change is impossible. It will continue to grow inside like a wound, like a sore that you have hidden and do not want to look at...
Osho

(part 2) The mind became a wound... If an apparatus were ever invented with which we could see what is happening inside every person, then probably everyone would immediately commit suicide. No one would allow anyone else to see what is happening inside them. Sooner or later, this will become possible. Right now, we can be grateful that there are no windows in our heads through which we could peer into each other's minds and see what is going on there. What people hide inside and what they say on the outside differ greatly. What you see on their faces on the outside is completely different from what is happening inside them. Perhaps on the outside they speak of love, but inside they are full of hatred. They might say to someone: "Good morning. I am glad to see you. I am happy to have met you this morning," — but inside they are saying: "Why is the first thing I have to look at this morning the face of this fool?" If there were windows to look inside people's heads, we would experience great difficulties; life would become truly complicated.

We could speak with someone in a friendly manner while thinking: "When will this person die?" On the surface is one thing, and inside is something else, and we do not dare to look inside, to glance within and see. What a person says in their sleep is more authentic than what they say when they are awake, because it comes more from within. The way you see yourself in your dreams is more real than the way you are in the marketplace and in the crowd.

The face in the crowd is made up and artificial; deep inside, you are a completely different person. You may manage to hide things by attaching some good thoughts to the outside, but inside a fire of thoughts burns. On the surface, you may seem absolutely calm and healthy, but inside everything is unhealthy and disrupted. On the surface, it may seem that you are smiling, but it is possible that this smile only covers an ocean of tears. In fact, it is quite likely that you have trained yourself in smiling precisely to hide the tears inside. Usually, people act exactly this way.

Someone once asked Nietzsche: "You are always laughing. You are so joyful. Do you really feel this way?" Nietzsche replied: "Since you asked, I will tell you the truth. I laugh so as not to cry. Before my weeping begins, I suppress it with laughter. I stop it inside myself. My laughter can convince others that I am happy. I am so sad that I feel relief only when I laugh. Sometimes I can comfort myself." No one saw Buddha laughing, no one saw Mahavira laughing, no one saw Christ laughing. There must be a reason. Perhaps they have no need to laugh because there are no tears inside, and nothing needs to be hidden. Perhaps no sadness remains inside to be hidden behind a smile. Everything that was disrupted inside has disappeared, so now there is no need to attach the flowers of laughter on the outside. He whose body smells bad needs to spray perfume on it. He whose body is ugly needs to make an effort to look beautiful.

He who is sad inside must learn to laugh, and he who is full of tears inside must constantly smile on the outside. He who is full of thorns inside must decorate himself with flowers on the outside. A person is absolutely not as they seem; they are the complete opposite. Inside them is one thing, and outside is something else. And it is well if others are deceived by what you have attached to the outside, but the problem is that you deceive yourself with it as well. If only others were deceived by appearances, everything would be fine — this is not very surprising, since people usually see only what is on the outside. But you yourself are deceived, as you think that you truly are the image that others see. You look at yourself through the eyes of others; you never see yourself directly as you are, authentic.

The image formed in the eyes of other people deceives you yourself, and you begin to fear looking inside. You want to see the image that people see in you, but not your reality. What do people say? You are very curious to know what is being said about you. Behind this curiosity lies only one thing: you think that you can know yourself through the image formed in the eyes of other people. This is truly amazing! Even to know yourself, you have to look into the eyes of another person. People fear that others will say something bad about them. They are happy when people say good things about them, because their knowledge of themselves depends on the opinion of others.

They do not possess direct knowledge of themselves; they have no direct experience of themselves. This experience can happen, but it does not happen because you try to run away from it. The first thing necessary when meeting the mind is not to worry about what others say or how you seem to others; instead, you must meet directly with what you are in essence. In solitude, you must fully open your mind and see what is there. This requires courage. It requires enormous courage — to decide to enter the hell hidden inside you. It requires great courage — to see yourself in your nakedness. Great courage is needed...
Osho

(Part 3) Our minds are completely confused, but we have never paid any attention to this problem and therefore have not created any methods to deal with it...

Once upon a time, there was an emperor. Every day, he would seclude himself in a room in the middle of his palace. His family, courtiers, friends, and ministers were very surprised by this habit. He always carried a key to this room with him, and when he entered it, he would lock the door from the inside. There was only one door leading to the room, and it had no windows. Every day, he would spend at least an hour in this room. Even his wives did not know what he was doing in that room because he never told anyone. If anyone asked, he would smile and remain silent, and he would not give anyone the key. Everyone was surprised by this, and curiosity grew with each passing day: "What is he doing in there?" No one knew. He would stay in that locked room for an hour, then silently leave and put the key in his pocket, and the next day he would do the same thing again. Finally, human curiosity reached its peak, and they conspired among themselves, deciding to find out what the emperor was doing in that room.

His ministers, his wives, his sons, and his daughters all participated in this conspiracy. One night, they made a hole in the wall so that they could see what he would do when he entered the room next time. The next day, when the emperor entered, they all took turns looking through the hole. But each person who put their eye to the hole immediately stepped back and asked, "What is he doing? What is he doing?" But no one could say what he was doing. The emperor entered and took off all his clothes. Then he raised his hands to the sky and said: "Oh, God! The person who wore this clothing is not me. This is not my true essence—this is my true essence." And he began to jump and shout, and yell curses, and behave like a madman. Everyone who looked through the hole immediately stepped back in shock and said, "What is our emperor doing? We thought that maybe he was doing some yoga or reciting some prayers. But this is something else! What is he doing?" And the emperor said to God

"The person who stood before you dressed and looked silent and calm is completely false. He is a cultivated man. I made him that way through my efforts. In reality, I am like this. This is my true essence, this is my nakedness, and this is my madness. If you accept my true essence, then everything is fine—because I can deceive people, but how can I deceive you? I can show people that I am not naked by wearing clothes, but you know very well that I am naked. How can I deceive you? I can show people that I am full of silence and bliss, but you know me in my deepest core. How can I deceive you? Before you, I am just a madman. Before God, we are all like madmen. In reality, if we set aside God and look inside ourselves, even in our own eyes, we will look like madmen.

Our minds are completely confused, but we have never paid any attention to this problem and therefore have not created any methods to deal with it. The first thing that is necessary is to meet the mind directly. But in order for this meeting to take place, you must understand two or three things. After that, you can think about how to change the mind. For a direct meeting with the mind, first of all, you need to discard all fears of self-knowledge. What is the fear of knowing yourself? It is the fear that you may be a bad person. It is the fear that after you have created an image of a good person, you will discover that you are a bad person. You give the impression of being a good person—sinless, innocent, authentic, truthful. Your fear is that you may find out that inside you are not authentic, but false. You are afraid to discover that you are not religious, contradictory, cunning, hypocritical, and not a sinless person. This is the fear that your self-image—what you think you are—may turn out to be false.

A person who is afraid of this will never be able to meet the mind. It is very easy to go into the forests, easy to go into the darkness, easy to sit fearlessly before wild animals, but it is very difficult to stand fearlessly before the wild person that is hidden inside you. This is very difficult. It is not at all difficult to stand in the sun for years—any fool can do that; it is not difficult to stand on your head—any idiot can be taught such circus tricks; and it is not very difficult to lie on thorns—the skin adapts to the thorns very quickly. If there is something truly difficult, it is to find the courage to have direct experience of what you are inside—whether you are bad, mad, or whatever you are.

So, the first thing that is necessary is to discard fear and prepare to see yourself bravely. The person who does not have this courage is in trouble. You are interested in reaching the soul, you are interested in knowing Existence, but you do not have the courage to simply meet yourself directly. The soul and Existence are very far away: the first reality is your mind. The first reality is the center of thinking with which you are most closely connected: you must first see it, know it, and become aware of it. First of all, there must be a desire to know your own mind in solitude, without fear.

Every day, for at least half an hour, give your mind the opportunity to express itself as it is. Lock yourself in a room—like that emperor—and give your mind complete freedom. Tell it: "Whatever you want to think about, whatever you want to contemplate, you can do it." Discard all the self-censorship that has prevented things from coming to the surface—discard all of that. Give your mind freedom, allow everything that comes to mind to come, allow everything that appears to appear. Do not stop or suppress anything—you are ready to know what is inside.

And you also should not judge what is good and what is bad, because at the moment you judge, suppression begins. Everything you call bad, the mind begins to suppress, and everything you call good, the mind begins to use as a cover. Therefore, you do not need to evaluate anything as good or bad. Whatever is present in the mind, whatever it is, be ready to know it as it is. If you allow your mind to be completely free to think, contemplate, and feel, you will experience a great fear and ask yourself if you are not crazy. But it is very important to know what is hidden inside in order to free yourself from it. Knowledge and understanding are the first steps to freeing yourself from it. You cannot defeat an enemy that you do not know or understand—it is impossible. A hidden enemy, an enemy standing behind you, is more dangerous than an enemy you know, an enemy you are familiar with, who stands before you. The first thing to understand is that because of the limitations and prohibitions that you have imposed on the mind from all sides, you do not allow the mind to express itself in its immediacy. You have limited all its immediacy. Everything has become unnatural and false.

You have covered everything with veils, you wear false faces, and you never allow the mind to express itself directly. Therefore, first allow the mind to express itself directly, at least before you, so that you can become familiar with all its contents, which have been hidden and suppressed. A huge part of the mind has been suppressed and hidden in the darkness…
Osho

In reality, until you free yourself from your own problems, you will not be able to clearly see or correctly understand the problems of the world. As long as there is such disorder in your own home, as long as your own inner being is in such turmoil, how can you see and understand global problems? You do not even understand yourself yet. (Osho) ...Start with this—any other beginning will be a bad beginning. People whose heads are full of chaos begin to help others and offer them solutions. These people have created more problems in the world than they have solved. These are the true same-//wicked ones: politicians, economists, so-called servants of the people, missionaries. They are the real wicked ones: they have not yet sorted out their own inner world, but are already ready to interfere with the consciousness of other people and solve their problems. In reality, in this way, they escape from their own reality—they do not want to face it. Instead, they will occupy themselves with someone else somewhere else—this allows them to distract themselves, to keep themselves busy. Remember: you are the main problem of the world. YOU are the problem, and until you solve this problem, everything you do will only complicate the situation. First, put your own house in order, create a cosmos there—for as long as chaos reigns there. There is an old Indian fairy tale, a very old story, but it contains great meaning:

A certain great but foolish king complained that his feet hurt when he walked on the ground because it was terribly uneven. Therefore, he ordered all the roads of the kingdom to be covered with cowhides to protect his feet. But the court jester laughed at this—he was a wise man. He said: "This venture of the king is absurd." The king became terribly angry and said to the jester: "Then show me a better solution, otherwise you will be executed." And the jester said: "My Lord, order small pieces to be cut from the cowhide and wrap them around your feet." Thus, shoes were created.

There is no need to cover the entire earth with cowhides: it is enough to cover one's own feet, and then the whole earth will be covered. And that is where all the wisdom lies. Yes, there are problems, I agree. There are many problems. All of life is like hell. Suffering, poverty, violence are everywhere; all kinds of madness flourish—this is true. And yet I insist that all problems begin in the soul of man. Problems exist because chaos reigns inside every person. Universal chaos is a cumulative phenomenon: we all bring our own chaos into it. The world is nothing other than relationships. We are all connected to one another. If I am a neurotic and you are a neurotic, our relationship becomes very nervous. Our neurosis is not even doubled, but multiplied.

And since all people are neurotics, the whole world is neurotic. Adolf Hitler did not fall upon us from the sky—we created him. The war in Vietnam was not sent down by the heavens—we unleashed it. This is our own pus flowing outward; this is our own chaos collecting its toll from us. You must start with yourself: you are the problem of the world. So do not run away from the reality of your inner world—this is the most important thing. You ask: "Can it be said that a person who has attained enlightenment is no longer interested in the problems by which humanity lives?" No. In fact, only then do they truly begin to interest him. But this is an interest of a completely different kind: the person begins to seek their true cause. Now, when you show interest, you pay attention to the symptoms. But when Buddha or Christ shows interest, he looks at the root. You may disagree with this because you do not see the cause—you only see the symptoms. The person is interested in problems, but now he knows what their cause is and tries with all his might to eradicate it. Poverty is not the cause; the cause is greed. Poverty is a consequence. You fight poverty all the time—it will not help. The cause is greed; greed must be eradicated.

War is not the problem; the problem is individual aggression. And war is simply the result. You organize protest marches, but wars do not stop. None of this matters—protest marches and such things; you only flatter yourself with this. For some people, it is simply entertainment—such people can be seen at any demonstration. They are ready to protest for any reason; they organize demonstrations and protest actions all over the world. For them, it is entertainment; they like it. In my childhood, I liked it myself. I participated in all the demonstrations, and even the city administration began to worry. They said: "You are seen at every demonstration—be it a communist, or socialist, or anti-communist demonstration... you participate everywhere." I answered them: "I just like it. I am not interested in political philosophy—it's just great to shout; I like the process itself." You can do whatever you want, but it still changes nothing—wars continue. And if you look at the protesters, you will see that among them are many aggressive people; you will not see peace on their faces. They are ready to fight. Protest marches for peace can turn into riots at any moment. These are aggressive people—in the name of peace, they exhibit aggression. They are ready to wage war: if they had power and if they had an atomic bomb, they would drop the atomic bomb so that peace could be established. That is what all politicians say: they say they fight for world peace.

The problem is not in war, and Bertrand Russell will not help here. The problem is in the inner aggression of people. People have no peace within, therefore wars continue—otherwise, people would simply go mad. Every ten years a need for war arises to rid humanity of neurosis. You may be surprised, but during the First World War, psychologists discovered a rare and strange phenomenon. During the time the war lasted, the percentage of people who went mad dropped almost to zero. Suicides were not committed, murders were not committed, and people even stopped going mad. This is strange—what is the connection with war? Perhaps murders were not committed because all the murderers went to fight, but what happened to the suicides? Perhaps they also joined the army, but in that case, what happened to the people who go mad? Why did they suddenly stop going mad? And during the Second World War, the same picture was observed again, only on an even larger scale. And then the connection was established; it became clear what the matter was. Neurosis accumulates in humanity; it suffers from a kind of madness. And every ten years, all this begins to burst outward. Therefore, when there is a war—that is, when all of humanity as a whole goes mad—there is no need to go mad on an individual basis. What is the point? When there is total madness all around anyway, what is the point for a person to go mad alone? When one nation kills another, what is the point of killing oneself or one's neighbor? One can simply watch television or read about these horrors in the newspaper. The problem is not in war; the problem is individual neurosis..
.Osho ("Book of Awareness")

Not a single revolution has ever succeeded in changing man, but it seems we still have not realized this. In our heads, ideas of revolution still live—changing society, changing the government, reforming the bureaucracy, altering legislation and political systems. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism—all were revolutionary in their own way. But all failed, and failed miserably, because MAN did not change…
Osho

A person who has become enlightened sees the underlying causes. Buddha, Christ, Krishna looked at the root and tried to tell you: eliminate the root cause—a radical transformation is needed; ordinary reforms will not help. But this may be incomprehensible to you because I am talking about meditation, and you do not see the connection—you do not understand how meditation is related to war. I see the connection, but you do not. I will say this: if even one percent of all people living on Earth immerse themselves in meditation, wars will cease—and there is no other way. At least that amount of meditative energy is necessary. If one percent of humanity, that is one person out of a hundred, becomes meditative, everything will unfold completely differently. There will be less greed, and therefore less poverty. Poverty exists not because we lack something, but because people engage in hoarding, because of human greed.

If you live in the present moment, you will have enough of everything; the earth can provide you with all that is necessary in sufficient quantity. But we plan ahead and make reserves, and this is where the problems begin. Imagine if birds started hoarding… Then some birds would become rich, and other birds would become poor. American birds would become the richest in the world, and all others would suffer. But birds hoard nothing, therefore they know no poverty. Have you ever seen a destitute bird? The same applies to all animals in the forest—among them there are neither poor nor rich. In fact, you will never see a fat bird or a thin bird. All crows are almost identical; it is hard to distinguish them from one another. Why? They simply live and enjoy life; they hoard nothing. Even when you get fat, it means you are hoarding inside your body—this is how a miserly mind works. Miserly people often have constipation; they cannot even expel their waste. They hoard everything, controlling even defecation, hoarding all sorts of junk. Hoarding is a habit.

If you live in the present moment, live in the now, live with love, live in friendship, care for others… then the world will become completely different. Man as an individual must change, because the world is nothing other than a projection of individual souls. An enlightened person manifests interest—only such a person manifests interest—but his interest pertains to another dimension. This may be difficult for you to understand. People come to me and say: "What are you doing here? There is poverty and all sorts of troubles everywhere, and you keep teaching meditation. Enough. Do something to deal with poverty." But nothing can be done directly to poverty. Meditative energy is needed so that people can enjoy the moment. Then there will be no poverty. Communism will not eliminate poverty—it has eliminated it nowhere. It only created a new kind of poverty—harsher, more dangerous: now the Russian person is much MORE poor, because he has lost his soul. Now he is not even an individual—he has no opportunity to freely pray and meditate. This does not help; it is destructive. All these good intentions… avoid them.

When a person meditates, they begin to blossom. If a person is an artist, they will become a great artist. If they are a poet, suddenly stunning poems will be born in their soul. If they are a singer, for the first time a song will begin to flow from their very heart. No, no effort is needed. When you are silent, rooted in your being, centered, your talents begin to manifest automatically. You begin to do what existence wants from you, you begin to do what you were born for, you begin to do what destiny has intended for you. You become spontaneous. You begin to engage in your work—and now it doesn't even matter to you whether you receive something for it or not, whether it makes you more respected or not. It makes you happy, and that is enough. It brings you immense joy, and that is more than enough.

Meditation releases your energy, and nothing more is needed. A person who has achieved enlightenment has reached the summit—can one desire more?.. He acts as God. He is existence itself, manifested to the fullest. He has reached the highest blossoming—nothing else is required. Every moment of his life is creation, every gesture is creation, his very life is a blessing. But some people prefer to take detours: they want to change the whole world first, and only after that will they turn to themselves. Let me tell you: you will never come to yourself if you take such a long path. I heard…

An old man was sitting not far from the border of Delhi, and a young man drove past in a car. The young man stopped and asked the old man: "Is it far from here to Delhi?" The old man replied: "If you go in the direction you are going, then very, very far. You will have to drive around the entire globe, because you just left Delhi; it is two minutes' drive behind you." * * * If you turn back, the path will not be long—a matter of a couple of minutes. But if you set off to change the whole world and after that expect to change yourself, then you will never achieve your goal, you will never be able to return home. Start from where you are. You are part of this ugly world. By changing yourself, you change the world. Who are you? Part of this ugly world. Why try to change your neighbor? He might not like it, he might not want it; perhaps he is not interested in it at all. If you have come to the realization that the world needs substantial change, then you are the part of the world closest to you. Start with it. But some people consider themselves great philosophers. They reflect and take detours. I read a wonderful book by Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish". There he tells of a great Jewish philosopher named Sokoloff.* * *

Sokoloff regularly had lunch at the same restaurant on Second Avenue and always ordered chicken soup as a first course. Once he called out to his waiter: "Come here and taste this soup." "Now look here," grumbled the waiter. "Do you doubt the quality of our wonderful chicken soup?" "Come and taste it," Mr. Sokoloff repeated. "Fine, fine," agreed the waiter, "I'll taste it. But where is the spoon?" "Aha!" exclaimed Mr. Sokoloff. He simply wanted to say that they had forgotten to bring him a spoon, but he took a detour—"Taste this soup…" * * * Do not go in such large circles; do not pretend to be great philosophers. If you don't have a spoon, just say that you need a spoon. And that will quickly resolve the problem. All you need is a full spoonful of meditation.
Osho (Book of Awareness)

People come to me and say: "What are you doing here? There is poverty, war, and all sorts of same troubles everywhere, yet you keep teaching meditation. Enough. Do something to deal with poverty." But you cannot do anything about poverty or violence directly. Meditative energy is needed so that people can enjoy the moment...(c)

In reality, until you free yourself from your own problems, you will not be able to clearly see and correctly understand the problems of the world. As long as there is such disorder in your own home, as long as your own inner being is in such turmoil, how can you see and understand global problems? You do not even understand yourself yet. Start with this – any other beginning will be a bad beginning.

People whose heads are full of chaos begin to help others and offer them solutions. These people have created more problems in the world than they have solved. These are the true same-wicked: politicians, economists, so-called servants of the people, missionaries. They are truly wicked: they have not yet sorted out their own inner world, but are already ready to interfere with the consciousness of other people and solve their problems. In reality, in this way they escape from their own reality – they do not want to face it. Instead, they will occupy themselves with someone else somewhere else – this allows them to distract themselves, to keep themselves busy.
Remember: you are the main problem of the world. YOU are the problem, and until you solve this problem, whatever you do will only complicate the situation. First put your house in order, create cosmos there – for as long as chaos reigns there.
There is an old Indian tale, a very old story, but it contains great meaning…

* * *

A great but foolish king complained that his feet hurt when he walked on the ground because it was terribly uneven. Therefore, he ordered all the roads of the kingdom to be covered with cowhides to protect his feet. But the court jester laughed at this – he was a wise man. He said:
– This venture of the king is absurd.
The king became terribly angry and said to the jester:
– Then show me a better solution, otherwise you will be executed.
And the jester said:
– Lord, order small pieces to be cut from the cowhide and wrap them around your feet.
Thus shoes were created.

* * *

There is no need to cover the entire earth with cowhides: it is enough to cover one's own feet, and then the whole earth will be covered. And that is all the wisdom.
Yes, there are problems, I agree. There are many problems. All of life is like hell. Suffering, poverty, violence are everywhere, all kinds of madness flourish – this is true. And yet I insist that all problems begin in the soul of man. Problems exist because chaos reigns inside every person. General chaos is a cumulative phenomenon: we all contribute our own chaos to it.

The world is nothing other than relationships. We are all connected to each other. If I am a neurotic and you are a neurotic, our relationship becomes very nervous. Our neurosis is not even doubled, but multiplied. And since all people are neurotics, the whole world is neurotic. Adolf Hitler did not fall upon us from the sky – we created him. The war in Vietnam was not sent down by the heavens – we unleashed it. This is our own pus flowing out; this is our own chaos charging us a toll. You must start with yourself: you are the problem of the world. So do not run away from the reality of your inner world – that is the most important thing.
Poverty is not the cause; the cause is greed. Poverty is the consequence. You fight poverty all the time – it will not help. The cause is greed; greed must be eradicated.

War is not the problem; the problem is individual aggression. And war is simply the result. You organize protest marches, but wars do not stop. None of this matters – protest marches and the like, you only flatter yourself with these. For some people it is simply entertainment – such people can be seen at any demonstration. They are ready to protest for any reason; they organize demonstrations and protest actions all over the world. For them it is entertainment, they enjoy it.

In my childhood, I liked this myself. I participated in all the demonstrations, and even the city administration began to worry. They said: "You are seen at every demonstration – whether it be a communist, or socialist, or anti-communist demonstration… you participate everywhere." I answered them: "I just like it. I am not interested in political philosophy – it's just great to shout, I like the process itself." You can do whatever you want, it still changes nothing – wars continue. And if you look at the protesters, you will see that there are many aggressive people among them; you will not see peace on their faces. They are ready to fight. Protest marches for peace can turn into riots at any moment. These are aggressive people – in the name of peace they manifest aggression. They are ready to wage war: if they had power and if they had an atomic bomb, they would drop the atomic bomb so that peace could be established. That is what all politicians say: they say they fight for world peace.

The problem is not in war, and Bertrand Russell will not help here. The problem is in the inner aggression of people. People have no peace inside, therefore wars continue – otherwise people would simply go crazy. Every ten years a need for war arises to rid humanity of neurosis. You may be surprised, but during the First World War psychologists discovered a rare and strange phenomenon. During the time the war lasted, the percentage of people who went insane dropped almost to zero. Suicides were not committed, murders were not committed, and people even stopped going crazy. This is strange – what is the connection with war? Perhaps murders were not committed because all the murderers went to war, but what happened to the suicides? Perhaps they also joined the army, but in that case what happened to the people who go insane? Why did they suddenly stop going insane? And during the Second World War the same picture was observed again, only on an even larger scale. And then the connection was established; it became clear what the matter was.

Neurosis accumulates in humanity; it suffers from a kind of madness. And every ten years all this begins to burst outward. Therefore, when there is a war – that is, when all of humanity as a whole goes insane – there is no need to go insane on an individual basis. What is the point? When everything around is already complete madness, what is the point for a person to go insane alone? When one nation kills another, what is the point in killing oneself or one's neighbor? One can simply watch television or read about these horrors in the newspaper.
The problem is not in war; the problem is in individual neurosis.

People come to me and say: "What are you doing here? There is poverty and all sorts of troubles everywhere, yet you keep teaching meditation. Enough. Do something to deal with poverty." But you cannot do anything about poverty directly. Meditative energy is needed so that people can enjoy the moment. Then there will be no poverty. Communism will not eliminate poverty – it has eliminated it nowhere. It only created a new kind of poverty – harsher, more dangerous: now the Russian person is much MORE poor, because he has lost his soul. Now he is not even an individuality – he does not have the opportunity to freely pray and meditate.
This will not help; this is destructive. All these good intentions… avoid them.
You speak of "limiting opportunities for the development of abilities and talents." In reality, there will be no need to develop them; they will begin to develop on their own.
Osho

When I try to imagine everything a person needs to cleanse themselves of, this task seems extremely difficult to me. It seems to me that the most difficult thing for a person is to give up their so-called power, authority, whether it is worldly or spiritual. In my opinion, such people would rather blow up the whole world than give up their power. Is this so?

Answer: Yes, it is. People are so unconscious that they are willing to do anything to maintain their power, their position – even if it means blowing up the whole world. They are willing to risk anything to protect their ego. And these are the people who usually hold leadership positions, because only such people strive for power.
No creative, intelligent person strives for power. No intelligent person is interested in dominating other people. First and foremost, they want to know themselves. Therefore, people with higher intellectual abilities usually tend towards mysticism, while the most mediocre people chase after power. This power can be worldly, political, it can be the power of money, it can be spiritual dominance over millions of people, but their main desire is to control as many people as possible.

This desire arises because you do not know yourself and do not want to know that you do not know yourself. You are so afraid to realize the ignorance that pervades your very being. And you run away from this darkness, using various methods – chasing after money, power, respect, honors. But a person who has darkness inside is capable of any destructive actions.

Creative activity is impossible for such a person, because creation comes from consciousness, you need to awaken to it. Light, love, and creativity are in no way connected with the desire for superiority – why do you need to dominate someone? Another person is another person; you do not want to dominate anyone, and you do not want anyone to consider themselves superior to you. The taste of freedom is the very taste you experience when you begin to awaken.

But those people are immersed in sleep. And in this state of deep sleep, they produce bombs, nuclear weapons, not knowing what they are doing. The only motivating factor for them is the thought of even greater power. Anyone who gets in their way must be destroyed. They know nothing else. These are savages who have not yet become human beings. Yes, they are capable of destroying the whole world – they have already prepared for this.

The people in power are already almost ready to destroy the world, just to avoid losing their power. I understand their logic – although they themselves may not be aware of it. Their logic is this: we are going to die anyway, so what difference does it make if the whole world dies; our death is inevitable, so why should we worry about whether the world will exist after our death; the main thing is that we must remain in power as long as we are here, and we do not care what will happen if a third world war breaks out.
The inner logic here is this: when a person dies, the whole world dies for him. You were not here before, and it does not matter much to you whether the world existed at that time or not. One day you will not be here – and it will not matter to you either whether the world will exist or whether it will be destroyed by nuclear weapons. For these people, only one thing matters: that they are in power, and they want to prove to the whole world that they are the most powerful.
Osho

The world of politics is, at its core, based on instinct. It belongs to the law of the jungle: might makes right. And people who are interested in politics are simply mediocre. Politics requires no qualifications other than one: a deep sense of inferiority. Politics can be reduced to an almost mathematical maxim. Politics is the will to power. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a book called "The Will to Power." It is very significant because the will to power manifests itself in many ways. Therefore, you must understand politics not only as the politics that is known by the name of politics. Whenever someone pursues goals of power, it is politics.

It doesn't matter if it's related to the state, the government, and so on... In any other field, for example, in a university: a lecturer tries to become a professor, a professor wants to become a dean, a dean wants to become a vice-chancellor – a constant struggle for power. At least one could expect that this would not be the case in the field of education. But no one is interested in education; everyone is interested in power.

The same is true in religion: a bishop wants to become a cardinal, a cardinal wants to become the pope. Everyone is on a ladder, trying to climb higher, while others pull him down by the legs. Those who are higher try to push him down so that he cannot rise to their level. And the same is done to those who are on the lower rungs of the ladder: one pulls them down by the legs, the other hits and kicks them so that they remain as low as possible. The entire ladder, if you see it as an observer, is just a circus. And this happens everywhere, in everything. Thus, for me, politics is an attempt to prove one's superiority. But why? – because deep down you feel inferior. And a person of instinct is doomed to feel inferior – he is, in fact, inferior. This is not an "inferiority complex"; it is a fact, a reality – he is inferior. To live a life of instinct means to live at the very lowest of all possible levels of life.

If you understand this struggle, the struggle for superiority, you step out of the struggle – you simply say: "I am I, neither superior nor inferior." If you stand aside and observe the whole spectacle, you have entered the second world – the world of reason and consciousness. It only requires understanding the rotten situation that everyone gets caught in. You just need to devote a little patient observation to this situation: "What is happening? And even if I reach the highest rung of the ladder, what is the point?" You are just standing among the sky and look like a fool. There is nowhere to go. Of course, you cannot go down because people will laugh at you: – Where are you going? What happened? Are you defeated? You cannot go down and you cannot move further because there is no rung above, and so you are just standing in the sky, pretending that you have achieved something, that you have found the meaning of life.

And you know that you have found nothing. You have simply been left a fool, and your whole life has been wasted. Now there is nowhere to climb, and if you go down, you will become a laughingstock. Therefore, everyone who becomes president or prime minister of a country only prays to die in office. Because you cannot go down – it is very offensive, humiliating; there is nowhere to go up. You are stuck; only death can free you from this dilemma.
Osho

Humans try their best to be above others, to be someone special, outstanding – but all of this is politics. And from my point of view, only mediocre people are interested in it. Intelligent people are engaged in more important things. The mind cannot waste itself on fighting against third-rate, ugly politics, dirty politics. Only third-rate people become presidents, prime ministers. An intelligent person will not waste energy on this desert, which leads nowhere and in which there is not even an oasis.

Thus, the instinctive level of politics is simply "might makes right" – the law of the jungle. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini, Bonaparte, Alexander, Tamerlane – all these people are more like wolves than human beings. If we want to have true humanity in the world, we must completely erase the names of these people from history. We must forget that these people ever existed; they were a nightmare. But, strangely enough, all of history is full of the names of these people. What is history? Just clippings from the newspapers of ancient times. If you go and help someone, no newspaper will write a report about it; if you go and kill someone, all the newspapers will be full of it. And what is your history, if not these people who stood in everyone's way and left wounds in human consciousness? And this is what you call history? There is nothing but garbage in your minds.

It is very strange that the true flowers of the mind are not even mentioned. It was so difficult for me to find out anything about these people. I searched in many libraries, trying to learn more about these people who were the real creators! They laid the foundations. But we only know one side of the world – the world in which might makes right. Then the second level: might makes right. The one who is right is stronger.

The mind believes in finding the right. There is no need to fight with swords and bombs and kill each other, because force cannot prove anyone's rightness. What do you think, if Muhammad Ali went into the ring against Gautama Buddha... of course, he would win in the first round. There would be no need for a second round; the first would be enough; poor Buddha would become a patty! And, seeing this situation, he himself would start counting: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He will not wait for the referee to start counting. And he will not get up from the floor; he will count to ten, lying on the floor. He will say: "It's all over with me – you are the winner." But force does not prove rightness – it is quite appropriate in the world of animals and in the world of instinct. The mind changes everything: "The one who is right is stronger," and rightness must be determined by reason, logic, judgment, arguments…
Osho

You will never see animals wage war. Of course, they sometimes fight, but these are fights between individuals, not wars where all the crows of the East fight against all the crows of the West, or all the dogs of India fight against the dogs of Pakistan. That doesn't happen. Dogs aren't fools, and neither are crows. Yes, they sometimes fight, and there's nothing wrong with that. If their freedom is threatened, they will fight. But these are fights between individuals, not large-scale wars.

And what have you done? You have subdued humanity, preventing individuals from occasionally releasing their anger—which would be natural. As a result, every person constantly accumulates anger, suppresses it... and one day, every person becomes so full of poison that it bursts out in a world war.

Obedience does not require intelligence. Machines are obedient.

No one has ever heard of a disobedient machine.

And also—obedience is simple. It removes any burden of responsibility from a person. There is no need to react; you simply do what you are told. Responsibility lies with the source from which the order comes. In a certain sense, you are very free. You cannot be judged for your actions.

Power is in the hands of such people... any madman can press a button and end all of humanity, all life on Earth.

But perhaps, deep down, humanity wants to end itself. Perhaps, at the individual level, people lack the courage to commit suicide, but on a global scale, they are ready.

Remember firmly that individuals do not commit great crimes. Great crimes are always committed by the crowd, because in the crowd, the individual believes: "I am not responsible for what is happening." He thinks: "I am just following other people." Before doing something questionable at the individual level, a person will think three times. What am I doing? Is it right? Does it align with my conscience? But not in a crowd. In a crowd, you get lost, and no one will ever know that you belonged to it.

Religions, society, and politicians have given people only fictions as a guide to life. Now all these fictions have crumbled, and people no longer have a reason to live—hence their torment. This is not just ordinary anxiety.

Anxiety is always focused on a specific problem. You have no money, no warm clothes, and winter is approaching; you are sick, and you cannot get medicine—these are anxieties. Anxieties relate to specific problems.

Torment is not caused by a specific problem. Existence itself seems meaningless and futile. It seems that simply breathing is a useless waste of energy. You make plans for tomorrow, but there comes a moment when you realize that nothing will happen. This is where torment begins. When a person is overcome by torment, his only concern is to escape from this cycle of life. Hence, the increase in the suicide rate and the maturation of the subconscious desire of humanity for a third world war to begin, and... "I will not have to answer for the suicide I have committed. The world war will kill everyone, including me."

What is the point of having different countries?

The whole Earth is one.

Lines are drawn only on maps, and because of these lines, you fight, kill, and rage. Such a silly game, and if humanity is not insane, then it is completely unclear why it continues.
Osho

War exists not because different groups of people in the external world fight each other; at its root, war exists because man is in conflict. The root of war is within man; externally, you only see the branches and leaves. Every ten years, humanity needs a world war. In ten years, man accumulates so much anger, madness, and insanity within himself that he needs an eruption.

Until we transform the human script itself, until we give man a completely new program for life and existence, we can continue to talk about peace, but continue to prepare for war. This is what we have been doing for thousands of years: talking about peace and creating war. And the absurdity is that even in the name of peace, we fight: the greatest wars have been fought in the name of peace. The past has been utterly destructive. With the same energy, humanity could have created paradise on earth, but all we have done is create hell instead. But the question is not about changing political ideologies in the world, the question is not about teaching people brotherhood, because all this has already been done, and it has all failed.

Something deeper is wrong. Man is split; the very people who talk about peace are the cause of this split. They have divided man into good and bad, lower and higher, earthly and divine, material and spiritual. They have created a crack in the human soul, and there is a constant war within. All people are fighting with themselves, and when they get tired of it, they start fighting with someone else.

That is why, during times of war, people seem more cheerful. Their faces shine with enthusiasm, their gait becomes dancing. They tremble because, for at least a few days, they don't have to fight with themselves; they have found a scapegoat—outside. It can be a fascist, it can be a communist, it can be a Muslim, it can be a Christian—it doesn't matter, but someone outside. This is an escape from the inner struggle; and in a very unhealthy sense, it is relaxing. But one cannot continue war constantly; sooner or later, man is forced to return inside again.

My vision is of an integrated soul. The body is respected, not denied; it is loved, valued, and appreciated. Matter is not denied; it is enjoyed, and it is part of spiritual growth. There is no duality: there is a dialectic of growth. This is how we walk on two legs. This is how a bird has two wings. Matter and spirit, body and soul, lower and higher—these are two wings...
Osho

Why are you putting asterisks in the middle of random words?