By: Osho
Is a Harmonious World Possible?
The yearning for a utopia is basically the yearning for harmony in the
individual and in the society. The harmony has never existed; there has
always been a chaos.
Society has been divided into different cultures, different religions,
different nations – and all based on superstitions. None of the divisions
are valid. But these divisions show that man is divided within himself:
these are the projections of his own inner conflict. He is not one within,
that's why he could not create one society, one humanity outside.
The cause is not outside. The outside is only the reflection of the inner man.
Man has developed from the animals.
This is profoundly supported by modern psychoanalysis, particularly Carl
Gustav Jung's school, because in the collective unconscious of man there are
memories which belong to animalhood.
If man is taken deep into hypnosis, first he enters the unconscious mind,
which is just the repressed part of this life. If he is hypnotized even more
deeply, then he enters into the collective unconscious, which has memories
of being animals. People start screaming -- in that stage they cannot speak
a language. They start moaning or crying, but language is impossible; they
can shout, but in an animal way. And in the collective unconscious state, if
they are allowed to move or they are told to move, they move on all fours --
they don't stand up.
In the collective unconscious there are certainly remnants that suggest that
they have been sometime in some animal body. And different people come from
different animal bodies. That may be the cause of such a difference in
individuals. And sometimes you can see a similarity -- somebody behaves like
a dog, somebody behaves like a fox, somebody behaves like a lion.
And there is great support in folklore, in ancient parables like Aesop's
Fables, or Panchtantra in India -- which is the most ancient -- in which all
the stories are about animals, but are very significant for human beings and
represent certain human types.
And man still carries much of the animal's instinct – his anger, his hatred,
his jealousy, his possessiveness, his cunningness. All that has been
condemned in man seems to belong to a very deep-rooted unconscious. And the
whole work of spiritual alchemy is how to get rid of the animal past.
Without getting rid of the animal past, man will remain divided. The animal
past and his humanity cannot exist as one, because humanity has just the
opposite qualities.
So all that man can do is become a hypocrite.
As far as formal behavior is concerned, he follows the ideals of humanity –
of love and of truth, of freedom, of non-possessiveness, compassion. But it
remains only a very thin layer, and at any moment the hidden animal can come
up; any accident can bring it up. And whether it comes up or not, the inner
consciousness is divided.
This divided consciousness has been creating the yearning and the question:
How to become a harmonious whole as far as the individual is concerned? And
the same is true about the whole society: How can we make the society a
harmonious whole – where there is no war, no conflict – no classes, no
divisions of color, caste, religion, nation?
Because of people like Thomas Moore, who wrote the book Utopia, the name
became synonymous with all idealistic goals – but they have not grasped the
real problem. That's why it seems their idea of a utopia is never going to
happen. If you think of society as becoming an ideal society, a paradise, it
seems to be impossible: There are so many conflicts, and there seems to be
no way to harmonize them.
Every religion wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.
Every nation wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.
Every culture wants to spread all over the world and to destroy all other
cultures, not to bring a harmony between them.
So utopia became synonymous with something which is simply imaginary. And
there are dreamers – the very word "utopia" also means "that which is never
going to happen." But still man goes on thinking in those terms again and
again. There seems to be some deep-rooted urge.... But his thinking is about
the symptoms – that's why it seems to be never going to happen. He is not
looking at the causes. The causes are individuals.
Utopia is possible. A harmonious human society is possible, should be
possible, because it will be the best opportunity for everyone to grow, the
best opportunity for everyone to be himself. The richest possibilities will
be available to everyone. So it seems that the way it is, society is
absolutely stupid.
The utopians are not dreamers, but your so-called realists who condemn
utopians are stupid. But both are agreed on one point – that something has
to be done in the society.
Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, and their followers would like all the
governments to be dissolved – as if it is in their hands, as if you simply
say so and the governments will dissolve. These are the anarchists, who are
the best utopians. Reading them, it seems that whatever they are saying is
significant. But they have no means to materialize it, and they have no idea
how it is going to happen. And there is Karl Marx, Engels, and Lenin – the
Marxists, the communists, and different schools of socialism, connected with
different dreamers. Even George Bernard Shaw had his own idea of socialism,
and he had a small group called the Fabian Society. He was propagating a
kind of socialist world, totally different from the communist world that
exists today.
There are fascists who think that it is a question of more control and more
government power; just the opposite pole of anarchists, who want no
government – all the source of corruption is government.
And there are people, the fascists, who want all power in the hands of
dictators. They say that It is because of the democratic idea that the
society is falling apart, because in democracy the lowest denominator
becomes the ruler. He decides who is going to rule; and he is the most
ignorant one, he has no understanding. The mob decides how the society
should be. So according to the fascist, democracy is only mobocracy, it is
not democracy – there is no democracy possible.
According to the communists, the whole problem is simply the class division
between the poor and the rich. They think that if all government power goes
into the hands of the poor and they have a dictatorship of the proletariat –
when all classes have disappeared, and the society has become equal – then
soon there will be no need of any state.
They are all concerned with the society. And that is where their failure lies.
As I see it, utopia is not something that is not going to happen, it is
something that is possible, but we should go to the causes, not to the
symptoms. And the causes are in the individuals, not in the society.
For example, in seventy years, the communist revolution in Soviet Russia was
not able to dissolve the dictatorship. Lenin was thinking that ten or
fifteen years at the most would be enough, because by that time we would
have equalized everybody, distributed wealth equally – then there would be
no need for a government.
But after fifteen years they found that the moment you remove the enforced
state, people are going to become again unequal. There will be again rich
people and there will be again poor people, because there is something in
people which makes them rich or poor. So you have to keep them in almost a
concentration camp if you want them to remain equal. But this is a strange
kind of equality because it destroys all freedom, all individuality planet.
And the basic idea was that the individual will be given equal opportunity.
His needs should be fulfilled equally. He will have everything equal to
everybody else. He will share it.
But the ultimate outcome is just the opposite. They have almost destroyed
the individual to whom they were trying to give equality, and freedom, and
everything good that should be given to individuals. The very individual is
removed. They have become afraid of the individual; and the reason is that
they are still not aware that however long the enforced state lasts –
seventy or seven hundred years – it will not make any difference.
The moment you remove control, there will be a few people who know how to be
rich, and there will be a few people who know how to be poor. And they will
simply start the whole thing again.
In the beginning they tried... because Karl Marx's idea was that there
should be no marriage in communism. And he was very factual about it: that
marriage was born because of individual property. His logic was correct.
There was a time when there was no marriage. People lived in tribes, and
just as animals make love, people made love.
The problem started only when a few people who were more cunning, more
clever, more powerful, had managed some property. Now they wanted that their
property, after their death, should go to their own children. It is a
natural desire that if a person works his whole life and gathers property,
land, or creates a kingdom, it should go to his children.
In a subtle way, through the children, because they are his blood, he will
be still ruling, he will be still possessing. It is a way to find some
substitute for immortality, because the continuity will be there: "I will
not be there, but my child will be there – who will represent me, who will
be my blood and my bones and my marrow. And then his child will be there and
there will be a continuity. So in a subtle sense, I will have immortality. I
cannot live forever, so this is a substitute way."
That's why marriage was created; otherwise it was easier for man not to have
any marriage, because marriage was simply a responsibility – of children, of
a wife. When the woman is pregnant, then you have to feed her.... And there
was no need to take all that responsibility. The woman was taking the whole
responsibility.
But the man wanted some immortality, and that his property should be
possessed by his own blood. And the woman wanted some protection – she was
vulnerable. While she was pregnant, she could not work, she could not go
hunting; she had to depend on somebody.
So it was in the interest of both to have a contract that they would remain
together, would not betray in any sense, because the whole thing was to keep
the blood pure.
So Marx's idea was that when communism comes, and property becomes
collective, marriage becomes meaningless because its basic reason is removed
– now you don't have any private property. Your son will not have anything
as an inheritance.
In fact, just as you cannot have private property, you cannot have a private
woman; that too is property. And you cannot have a private son or daughter,
because that too is private property. So with the disappearance of private
property, marriage will disappear.
So after the revolution, for two or three years, in Russia they tried it,
but it was impossible. Private property had disappeared, but people were not
ready to drop marriage. And even the government found that if marriage
disappears, the whole responsibility falls on the government – of the
children, of the woman.... So why take an unnecessary responsibility? – and
it is not a small thing. It is better to let marriage continue.
So they reversed the policy; they forgot all about Karl Marx, because just
within three years they found that this was going to create difficulty, and
people were not willing.
People were not willing to drop private property either – it was forcibly
taken away from them. Almost one million people were killed – for small
private properties. Somebody had a small piece of land, a few acres, and
because everything was going to be nationalized....
Although the people were poor, still they wanted to cling to their property.
At least they had something; and now even that was going to be taken out of
their hands. They were hoping to get something more – that's why they had
had the revolution, and fought for it. Now what they had was going to be
taken out of their hands. It was going to become government property, it was
going to be nationalized....
And for small things – somebody may have had just a few hens, or a cow, and
he was not willing... because that was all that he had. A small house... and
he was not willing for it to be nationalized.
These poor people – one million people were killed to make the whole country
aware that nationalization had to happen. Even if you had only a cow and you
didn't give it to the government, you were finished.
And the government was thinking that people would be willing to separate...
but this is how the merely theoretical and logical people have always failed
to understand man. They have never looked into his psychology.
This was true, that marriage was created after private property came into
being – marriage followed it. Logically, as private property is dissolved,
marriage should disappear. But they don't understand the human mind. As
property was taken away, people became even more possessive of each other
because nothing was left. Their land has gone, their animals have gone,
their houses have gone. Now they don't want to lose their wife or their
husband or their children. This is too much.
Logic is one thing... and unless we try to understand man more
psychologically and less logically, we are always going to commit mistakes.
Marx was proved wrong.
When everything was taken away people were clinging to each other more, more
than before, because now that was their only possession: a woman, a husband,
children.... And it was such a gap in their life; their whole property had
gone and now their wife was also to be nationalized. They could not conceive
the idea because their mind and their tradition said, "That is
prostitution." Their children had to be nationalized – they had not fought
the revolution for this.
So finally the government had to reverse the policy; otherwise in their
constitution.... In the first constitution they had declared that now there
shall be no marriage; and the question of divorce did not arise. Just within
three years they had to change it.
And in Russia then marriage was stricter than anywhere else. Divorce was
more difficult than anywhere else, because the government did not want
unnecessary changes. That creates paperwork and more bureaucracy. So the
government wants people to remain together, not to unnecessarily change
partners. And divorce creates law cases about the children – who should have
them, the father or mother; it is unnecessary.
The government thinks of efficiency – less bureaucracy, less paperwork – and
people are creating unnecessary paperwork, so it is very difficult to get a
divorce.
And as time passed, they found that there was no way to keep people equal
without force. But what kind of a utopia is it which is kept by force? And
because the communist party has all the force, a new kind of division has
come into being, a new class of the bureaucrats: those who have power, and
those who don't have any power.
It is very difficult to become a member, to obtain membership of the
communist party in Russia, because that is entering into the power elite.
The communist party has made many other groups – first you have to be a
member of those groups, and you have to be checked in every way. When they
find that you are really reliable, absolutely reliable, trustworthy, then
you may enter into the communist party. And the party is not increasing its
membership because that means dividing power.
The party wants to remain as small as possible so that the power is in a few
hands. There is now a powerful class. For seventy years the same group were
ruling the country, and the whole country was powerless.
The people were never so powerless under a capitalist regime or under a
feudal regime. Under the czars they were never so powerless. It was possible
for a poor man, if he was intelligent enough, to become rich. Now it is not
so easy. You may be intelligent, but it is not so easy to enter from the
powerless class into the class which holds power. The distance between the
two classes is far more than it was before.
There is always mobility in a capitalist society because there are not only
poor people and rich people, there is a big middle class, and the middle
class is continuously moving. A few people of the middle class are moving
into the super-rich, and more people are moving into the poor class. A few
poor people are moving into the middle class; a few rich people are falling
into the middle class, or may even fall into the poor class... there is
mobility.
In a communist society there is an absolutely static state. Classes are now
completely cut off from each other.
They were going to create a classless society, and they have created the
strictest society with static classes.
It is almost a repetition of Hinduism.
What Manu did five thousand years ago, communists did in Russia. Manu made
Hindu society into four classes. There is no mobility. You are born a
brahmin, that is the only way to be a brahmin. And that is the highest
society, the topmost class. Then number two is the warriors, the kings – the
chhatriyas. But you are born in that caste, it is not a question that you
can move. Then third is the class of the vaishyas, the business people; you
are born in it. And the fourth is the sudras, the untouchables.
All are born into their caste. That's why, until Christianity started
converting so many Hindus, particularly the sudras, who were ready, very
willing to become Christians, because at least they would be touchable....
Amongst Hindus, sudras are untouchable, and there is no way to get out of
the structure.
For your whole life you have to remain the same as your forefathers remained
for five thousand years. For five thousand years there has been a stratified
society. If somebody is a shoemaker, his family has been making shoes for
five thousand years. He cannot do any other work, he cannot enter into any
other profession. That is not allowed.
Hindus were not a converting religion, because the great question was, if
you convert somebody, in what class are you going to put the person?
Christianity is a converting religion because it has no classification; you
simply become a Christian. If Catholics convert you, you become a Catholic;
if Protestants convert you, you become a Protestant.
But in Hinduism you cannot be converted, for the simple reason: Where will
you be put? Brahmins won't allow you, and you would not like to be put with
the sudras, the untouchables. So then what is the point of coming to a
religion where you will not be even touched? Even your shadow will be
untouchable. And a brahmin has to take a bath if the shadow of a sudra falls
on him. The sudra has not touched him, but his shadow is also untouchable.
Being the ancientmost religion, still Hinduism has not been spreading; it
has been shrinking. Buddhism spread all over Asia, and it is only
twenty-five centuries old. Hinduism is at least ten thousand years old, or
more, but it could not spread, for the simple reason that birth is decisive.
You can be a Hindu only by birth, just as you can be a Jew only by birth –
and these are the two most ancient religions.
These are really the two basic religions.
Christianity and Mohammedanism are offshoots of Judaism; and Jainism and
Buddhism are offshoots of Hinduism. Jainism and Buddhism are both the
rebellion of the second class – the chhatriyas, the warriors – because they
had the powers. They were the kings, they were the soldiers, they had the
power – and yet the brahmin was on top of them. So naturally, sooner or
later they were going to revolt, and finally they did revolt. Gautam Buddha
and Mahavira are both from the second class. They wanted to be first class,
they had the power, and the brahmins had nothing: Why should they be the
highest class? So it was a rebellion.
But it was a strange thing that although these two religions got out of the
Hindu fold, only Buddhism could spread all over Asia. Jainism could not
spread out of India. Buddhism managed to spread out of India: from India it
disappeared, but it took over the whole of Asia. And the reason was that it
was through Gautam Buddha's very compassionate mind that he allowed anybody
to enter into Buddhism.
Jainas, although they had also rebelled against the brahmins, remained of
the same mind – that they are higher than the other two classes. They wanted
to be higher than brahmins too, but they never started converting anybody,
because who would they convert? Brahmins will not be ready to be converted –
they are already higher than everybody. Only sudras can be converted because
they will be raised on the evaluation scale. But Jainas – Mahavira and his
group – were not so compassionate as to take them in.
So Jainism is not a complete culture – it has to depend on Hinduism for
everything – it has remained only a philosophy. No Jaina can make shoes –
some Hindu sudra has to make the shoes. No Jaina can clean the toilets –
some sudra has to do that work.
Although they rebelled against brahmins, their rebellion was just against
the superiority of the brahmins, and they wanted themselves to be higher
than the brahmins. But they were also not in favor of the lower classes
being taken higher.
And the ultimate result was that Jainas have remained a very small religion,
confined in numbers. And because they left Hinduism, rather than rising
higher than brahmins, they even fell from the second category. Because they
left Hinduism, they were no longer chhatriyas. They were no longer
considered to be warriors, and they could not be because of their
nonviolence. They had to drop the idea of fighting, so the only way was to
become business people.
Lower you can go – nobody prevents you – so they had to go from the second
class to the third class, and they all became business people. So the
rebellion failed very badly. Jainas wanted to become higher than the first
class; the outcome of their revolution was that they went from the second
class to the third class.
And they are absolutely dependent on Hindus. For their manual work they need
workers – they cannot work. And because they became business people, slowly,
slowly the Hindu vaishyas, the Hindu business people, and the Jaina business
people came closer. Even marriages started happening between them.
By and by they even had to ask brahmins to do their worship work – and they
had money to pay for it. So brahmins worshipped for the Jainas – who are
against brahminism, against Hinduism; but they had to use Hindus for
everything.
Their shoes are made by the sudras; their toilets are cleaned by the sudras.
Their properties have to be protected by the chhatriyas, because they cannot
take the sword in their hands. They cannot kill, so they cannot fight, they
cannot go to war; they have their security force in the warrior race. And
finally their priests – the brahmins came in from the back door as their
priests.
Manu tried this immobile society – which is still the same – five thousand
years ago. That too was a kind of utopia, because he was thinking in terms
of there being no class struggle this way.
The class struggle can be dropped in two ways. Either there should be no
classes; then there will be no class struggle.... That's what communism is
doing, but it has failed because a new class has appeared. The other way is
that the classes should be so stratified that there is no question of one
person moving into another class. No struggle will be there, so there will
be no competition. The brahmin will remain a brahmin. He will remain on the
top, whether he is poor or rich does not matter. The businessman will remain
a businessman. Just because he is rich he cannot become a brahmin, he cannot
purchase the caste. He cannot rise; he will remain third class, however rich
he is. The sudras will remain sudras: they have to do all the dirty work and
they cannot move from there.
This was also a utopia. The idea was that if the classes are completely
static, there is not going to be any struggle, competition. In a way Manu
succeeded more than Marx, because for five thousand years his idea has
remained in practice, and in India the Hindu society has never been in a
class struggle. The poor are there, the rich are there, but that is not the
real problem for the Hindu. His real problem is those four classes, which
are absolutely static. But that is very dangerous because you prevent people
from moving in a direction where they can find their potential fulfilled. A
sudra may prove to be a great warrior, but he will never be allowed. A
brahmin may prove a great industrialist, but he cannot lower himself.
So it saved the society from class struggle, but it destroyed the individual
and his potential completely. The genius was ruined. In just the same way it
is happening in communism: the individual is destroyed, his genius is
ruined. He cannot move upwards even if he has the capacity.
There have been attempts all over the world to make a harmonious human
society, but all have failed for the simple reason that nobody has bothered
why it is not naturally harmonious.
It is not harmonious because each individual inside is divided, and his
divisions are projected onto the society. And unless we dissolve the
individual's inner divisions, there is no possibility of really realizing a
utopia and creating a harmonious society in the world.
So the only way for a utopia is that your consciousness should grow more,
and your unconsciousness should grow less, so finally a moment comes in your
life when there is nothing left which is unconscious: you are simply a pure
consciousness. Then there is no division.
And this kind of person, who has just consciousness and nothing opposed to
it, can become the very brick in creating a society which has no divisions.
In other words, only a society which is enlightened enough can fulfill the
demand of being harmonious – a society of enlightened people, a society of
great meditators who have dropped their divisions.
Instead of thinking in terms of revolution and changing the society, its
structure, we should think more of meditation and changing the individual.
That is the only possible way that some day we can drop all divisions in the
society. But first they have to be dropped in the individual – and they can
be dropped there.
It is almost like the fourfold division as Manu conceived the society. You
have the conscious, you have the unconscious, you have the collective
unconscious, and you have the cosmic unconscious. These are the four
divisions within you; as you go deeper you go into darker spaces. Manu also
divided society in four. The most conscious part is the brahmin – he makes
up the topmost, the wisest part. But he starts with the society.
When Manu first divided the society, somebody may have been a wise man, but
it is not necessary that his sons and daughters will also be wise, that
generation after generation the wise man will create only wise people – that
is a stupid idea. So the first division may have been very accurate. He may
have sorted out people correctly: the conscious people on the top, then less
conscious people, then more unconscious people, then absolutely unconscious
people.
And if Manu calls absolutely unconscious people "sudras," untouchables,
there is nothing wrong in it; philosophically it is absolutely right. But
practically he went wrong because he did not think that it would not always
happen that the unconscious people would produce unconscious people.
It happened that all the enlightened people came from the second class –
that is from the warriors – not from the brahmins, which were the topmost
class. It is very strange. Even Hindu incarnations – Rama and Krishna – they
all belonged to the second class; they were not brahmins. Buddha and
Mahavira – they were not brahmins.
So the brahmin class has not produced a single enlightened person, because
they became very self-satisfied. They were on the top – what more do you
need? Everybody was going to touch their feet; even the king had to touch
their feet. They were the purest people, so there was no urge to find more;
it was enough. It was very satisfying and gratifying to their egos.
Why did it happen to the chhatriyas, the second class? My understanding is,
because they were second class, there was an immense urge for them to
surpass the brahmins, and the only way they could find to surpass the
brahmins was to become enlightened. Then only could they surpass the
brahmins; otherwise they could not.
The brahmins are the most learned scholars. The chhatriyas had to attain
something which is higher than learning and scholarship. They had to attain
something which is not given by birth, so brahmins cannot claim it. Just by
birth nobody can claim enlightenment.
And it only happened in the second class because it is part of human
psychology that the closer you are to the highest class the more
competitiveness is within you. The more distant you are the less hope you
have that you can manage to compete with the brahmin. The businessman cannot
think he can manage to compete. The sudra of course cannot even imagine or
dream that he can manage anything. He is not allowed even to read; he is not
allowed to be educated. He is kept completely enslaved in his
unconsciousness, so there is no question of a sudra becoming enlightened.
The businessman has another competition, and that is of money. That is a
horizontal competition amongst businessmen. He is trying to compete to have
more money, and he knows he cannot compete with the warriors: a businessman
is not a soldier. And he cannot compete with the priest because a
businessman is not a scholar.
And the brahmins kept a complete hold on all the great ancient scriptures
and literature. They were only to give those books to their children, to
their descendants. And for thousands of years those books were not printed,
although printing started in China three thousand years ago, and it could
have come to India without any difficulty. People must have been aware –
they were constantly coming and going to China. If Buddhism could spread all
over China, it is impossible that they could not have brought back the
mechanism and understanding to print.
But brahmins were against printing. They were even against printing their
scriptures when the Britishers came – three hundred years ago – and took
over India from the Mohammedans. It was against their will that the
scriptures were printed, because they were afraid that once they are
printed, they become public property. Then anybody can read them, and
anybody can become a scholar. They wanted to keep them to themselves, so
there were only handwritten copies which were kept as a family tradition: so
each family has its own handwritten copy of certain scriptures. The brahmins
monopolized it.
The chhatriyas, the second class, tried – and that was a great effort – to
become enlightened to surpass the brahmins. But it is very significant to
understand that by becoming enlightened they became divisionless, their
being became one. And certainly they became higher than any human being who
was divided. There was no question about their superiority.
So even brahmins would come to the enlightened people without bothering that
they came from the second class. So brahmins have touched the feet of
non-brahmins – which would have been impossible. But once the non-brahmin
has become enlightened then the brahmin knows that what he knows is only
parrot-like. What this man knows is not parrot-like. He is not a scholar, he
is really a knower. So hundreds of brahmins were disciples of Buddha,
hundreds of brahmins were disciples of Mahavira.
The world can come to a harmony if meditation is spread far and wide, and
people are brought to one consciousness within themselves. This will be a
totally different dimension to work with.
Up to now it was revolution. The point was society, its structure. It has
failed again and again in different ways. Now it should be the individual –
and not revolution, but meditation, transformation.
And it is not so difficult as people think. They may waste six years in
getting a master's degree in a university; and they will not think that this
is wasting too much time for just a degree which means nothing.
It is only a question of understanding the value of meditation. Then it is
easily possible for millions of people to become undivided within
themselves. And they will be the first group of humanity to become
harmonious. And their harmoniousness, their beauty, their compassion, their
love – all their qualities – are bound to resound around the world.
My effort is to make meditation almost a science so it is not something to
do with religion.
So anybody can practice it – whether he is a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew
or a Mohammedan, it doesn't matter. What his religion is, is irrelevant; he
can still meditate. He may not even believe in any religion, he may be an
atheist; still he can meditate.
Meditation has to become almost like a wildfire. Then there is some hope.
And people are ready: they have been thirsting for something that changes
the whole flavor of the society. It is ugly as it is, it is disgusting. It
is at the most, tolerable. Somehow people have been tolerating it. But to
tolerate is not a very joyful thing.
It should be ecstatic.
It should be enjoyable.
It should bring a dance to people's hearts.
And once these divisions within a person disappear, he can see so clearly
about everything. It is not a question of his being knowledgeable, it is a
question of his clarity. He can look at every dimension, every direction
with such clearness, with such deep sensitivity, perceptiveness, that he may
not be knowledgeable but his clarity will give you answers which knowledge
cannot give.
This is one of the most important things – the idea of utopia – which has
been following man like a shadow for thousands of years. But somehow it got
mixed up with the changing of society; the individual never got looked at.
Nobody has paid much attention to the individual – and that is the root
cause of all the problems. But because the individual seems to be so small
and the society seems so big, people think that we can change society, and
then the individuals will change.
This is not going to be so – because "society" is only a word; there are
only individuals, there is no society. The society has no soul – you cannot
change anything in it.
You can change only the individual, howsoever small he appears.
And once you know the science of how to change the individual, it is
applicable to all the individuals everywhere.
And my feeling is that one day we are going to attain a society which will
be harmonious, which will be far better than all the ideas that utopians
have been producing for thousands of years.
The reality will be far more beautiful.
Excerpted from Osho: Light on the Path, Chapter 30
Copyright © 2001 Osho International Foundation
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