God is DeadCommuneBuddhafieldMeditative LifeFriendlinessMaster/DiscipleDon't follow anyoneDon't try to be a Master

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 I Teach Commune 

- When the Buddha is gone, a community is the only refuge -

"Celebration is my religion, 

Love is my message, 

and Silence is my truth."

-Osho, "Nansen: The Point of Departure, #10"

"The new commune, the new man,

can live without any law, without any order.

Love will be his law, understanding will be his order.

Science will be, in every difficult situation, his last resort."

- Osho, "The Golden Future, #24"

"We are not interested in going to paradise;

we are interested in making the paradise come here.

It all depends on our love, on our silence, on our peace,

on our meditation, and being aware and alert

not to fall again into any trap of the vested interests. 

Once the tree has become strong, has gained roots in the earth,

it will be difficult for anybody to destroy it. I believe in the earth."

- Osho, "The Invitation, #1"

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 A real commune 

- Each individual should be respected as he is -

"My sannyasins have to know the great difference between relating and relationship. And it is not only about love that I am talking, it has to be your very style of life. Never, never for a single moment lose your freedom. And never destroy anybody else's freedom. That's what religion means to me. A really religious person remains free and helps the people who come in contact with him to be free. He never possesses anybody and he never allows anybody to possess him. It needs constant vigilance because our minds always want to cling and in clinging we lose." 

- Osho, "The Golden Wind, #29"

"The new commune, the new man, can live without any law, without any order. Love will be his law, understanding will be his order. Science will be, in every difficult situation, his last resort."

- Osho, "The Golden Future, #24"

"Friendship is the purest love. It is the highest form of love where nothing is asked for, no condition, where one simply enjoys giving. One gets much -- but that is secondary, and that happens of its own accord."

- Osho, "Light on the Path, 

"There is no need to improve yourself. All self-improvement is a way to hell. All efforts to make something, somebody out of yourself, something of an ideal, are going to create more and more madness. Ideals are the base of all madness, and the whole humanity is neurotic because of too many ideals.

Animals are not neurotic because they don't have any ideals. Trees are not neurotic because they don't have any ideals. They are not trying to become somebody else. They are simply enjoying whatsoever they are.

So you are you. But somewhere deep down you want to become a Buddha or a Jesus, and then you go round in a circle which will be non-ending. Just see the point of it -- you are you. And the whole, or God, wants you to be you. That's why He has created you, otherwise He would have created you a better model. He wanted you to be here at this moment. He did not want Jesus to be here in place of you. And He knows better. The whole always knows better than the part.

So just accept yourself. If you can accept yourself, you have learned the greatest secret of life, and then everything comes on its own. Just be yourself. There is no need to pull yourself up. There is no need to be a different height other than you are already.

There is no need to have another face. Simply be as you are, and in deep acceptance of it, flowering happens and you go on becoming more and more yourself.

This is what I call let-go. Let-go is not an effort that you can do. It is an understanding that I am I and others are others, and that it is pointless to try to become somebody else other than who I am. That creates a tension in the mind; that creates worry. Once you drop the idea of becoming somebody, there is no tension. Suddenly all tension disappears. You are here, luminous, in this moment. And there is nothing else to do than to celebrate and enjoy."

- Osho, "Beloved of My Heart, #6"

"Remember: God created you. You cannot be unnecessary, you cannot be accidental. And God has created you as so unique, so individual, that there is no other "you" like you. You are the only one! He has never created a person like you before, and will never create another person exactly like you. See how much respect he has paid to you.

God is not like an assembly line that Ford cars go on coming out of -- the same Ford cars, millions of Ford cars, all alike. God is a creator, not an assembly line. Each individual has been made not according to a mould, not according to a certain fixed pattern -- each individual has been paid INDIVIDUAL attention. He has painted you individually, he has cut you in a certain way, given you a certain shape, a certain being. You are unique, you are original, you are not a copy. [....]

And that's a very obvious fact. People don't love themselves, they don't respect themselves. On the contrary, they condemn themselves. You are all self-condemners. That's what you have been brought by the priests, again and again, everywhere in the world: you have been conditioned to condemn yourself. And you go on condemning yourself. You don't think yourself of any worth. And this is one of the barriers, greatest barriers.

Love yourself, respect yourself, and you will be giving respect to God -- because to respect the painting is to respect the painter, and to love the poetry is to love the poet. And you are the poetry and you are the painting. You are the music created by him. You are the visible proof that God is; the creation is the visible proof that the creator is. Love the creation, relish it, celebrate it: this is the only way to celebrate God. And you are the closest creation.

The man who condemns himself cannot love anybody else either. And the man who condemns himself condemns the whole existence. The world is full of these condemners, they have poisoned everybody. And the first thing that a master has to do with the disciple is to take all this poison out of his being. The greatest problem is to make you respectful of yourself, to make you aware that you are precious, that you are incomparable, that you have a great potential in you, that buddhas are hidden in you, that you are seeds of buddhas."

- Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol 1, #5"

Even though you are living in a commune, it is not that you are part of the commune - no. On the contrary, the commune is simply a name: it has no existence of itself. Because you love each other and you feel to be together... it is just living together.

But your work remains individual.

Your growth remains individual.

And remember this, that the final freedom is possible only if from the very first step you are free. If you are not free from the very first step, you cannot hope for the last step to be out of freedom, because the last step is essentially the growth of the first step. What was a seed at the first step has come to a flowering at the last step.

No sannyasin needs to feel that he is stuck in the middle. But right now the feeling may be there because I removed all the structure that was created to have a centralized system about everything - erasing individuality, dissolving it into collectivity. So there is a gap right now.

So I want to meet all the sannyasins around the world to tell them, "You need not be worried at all. Wherever you are you can start growing individually."

- Osho, "Light on the Path, #28"

“A commune is a declaration of a non-ambitious life, of equal opportunity for all. But remember my differences with Karl Marx: I am not in favor of imposing equality on people, because that is a psychologically impossible task – and whenever you do something against nature, it becomes destructive and poisonous.

No two men are equal. But I can be misunderstood very easily, so try to understand my standpoint very clearly. I am not in favor of equality, but I am not in favor of inequality either! I'm in favor of creating equal opportunities for everybody to be himself. In other words: In my vision, each individual is equally unique.

The question of equality or inequality does not arise, because two individuals are not the same.

They cannot be compared. A real commune, a real communism, will create equal opportunities for growth, but accept the uniqueness of each individual.

There should be no private property. Everything should belong to the commune. There should be absolute freedom of expression in words or in creativity.

Each individual should be respected as he is, not according to any ideal. His basic needs should be fulfilled by the commune, and as the commune becomes richer, every individual should be provided with more comfort, with more luxury -- because I am not against luxury or comfort. I am not a sadist, and I don't want people to be tortured in any beautiful name. In the name of religion, or in the name of socialism, nobody should be sacrificed. No kind of self torture should be supported.

Man is here to rejoice, to live a life as beautifully, as peacefully, as comfortably as possible.”

- Osho, "The Golden Future, #22"

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 The Role of The Commune 

"Osho,

What is the role of the commune as it is now, regarding therapy and meditation as offered in the university; and vice versa? and what is your vision of both their growth processes?

The function of the commune is to create an atmosphere of encouragement - that you are not alone. The path that you have to travel, you have to travel alone; but if you know that so many people are traveling alone on the path, it gives tremendous encouragement. There is no fear: "If these people can manage, I can manage also." The commune is not a religion, following collectively on a super-highway. The commune belongs to individuals who have joined hands with each other because they are going on an inner journey where they will be alone. But with so many people going on that inner journey alone the fear of being alone is dropped.

You can share your experiences with each other; perhaps sharing your experiences with each other will help immensely. That's why therapies exist where people can open their heart and share their experiences. But the commune experience is a therapeutic experience - day in, day out.

My vision of a commune is of absolutely individual meditators living together, helping each other: "Don't be afraid, it is tremendously exciting to go in. Although you are going alone, you are not the only one who is going alone. One million sannyasins are going alone."

It is a very strange phenomenon: living together, yet exploring the truth in absolute aloneness. And whatever you find, you can share. It will be respected, it will be accepted. And everybody is to have different kinds of experiences on the way, until the person reaches to the ultimate omega point. That omega point is exactly the same for everyone. But on the way there are so many beauties, so much splendor.

You just need a little courage, and the commune provides you the courage. And I am here to encourage you to take the jump. You have nothing to lose, and you have the whole universe to gain."

- Osho, “From Bondage to Freedom, #17”

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 When the Buddha is gone, a community is the only refuge. 

He has created a new community. Buddha called his community SANGHA.

Buddha says to his disciples to seek three refuges. When anybody comes to surrender he has to surrender to three things. He says: "I surrender to Buddha, I surrender to sangha, I surrender to DHAMMA." Buddha is the alive, the presence herenow. But he will not be there always. Sooner or later he will disappear, just as a lamp disappears and then you cannot find where the flame has gone. Buddha will disappear - this body cannot contain him for long, because the body is mortal and he is immortal. The vehicle is weak, the vehicle cannot persist for long. Sooner or later the body will fall and the flame will disappear. Then to whom will you surrender? So Buddha says, "I am creating a community: the sangha."

Sangha is a community of those who live with the same attitude, who live a life in common, who commune with each other. It is a community, a community of seekers on the same path, a community of those who have been in love with the same Buddha, whose love joins them together.

The community is a group. When the buddha is there you can look at him - he can be helpful, he can guide you, he can take you out of your misery and darkness - but when he is gone, then there is only one possibility: you should join together to help each other. A few will be a little ahead, a few will not be so.

A few may be lagging behind, a few may be marching forcibly, a few may just be fast asleep; but if there is a community, then those who are lagging behind can also be helped. The community can take care of them: the community can think about them, can love them, can help them, can guide them. When a Buddha is alive there is no need, but when the Buddha is gone, a community is the only refuge.

Jesus was creating a community. This community is not the church, remember; this community is not a sect, remember. This community is a family of fellow seekers, not of fellow believers. When you believe, the community becomes a sect. When you seek, then it is a community. A community is an alive phenomenon of those who are all seeking together and helping each other.

There is a parable in India that once it happened that a great fire broke out in a forest. Two men were helpless there in the forest, they couldn't get out of it, because one was blind and another was crippled in the legs. The crippled one could not run: he could see, but he could not run. The blind one could run fast, but he couldn't see. So they formed a community. They talked to each other and they said, "We can help each other." So the blind man took the crippled man on his shoulders. They became one man. The blind could walk, the crippled could see. They helped each other. They came out of the fire; they were saved. Separate they would have died; together they found the way out.

A community is a community of blind people and crippled people. When a Buddha is there, there is no need. But when Buddha is gone, the master is gone, then the source of life disappears. The whole forest is on fire and everywhere there is darkness. Somebody is crippled and somebody is blind - everybody lacks something. But everybody also has something. Then the community can arise.

- Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 2, #5"

 Osho on Future Communes 
 

“The commune has a future. A commune means many independent individuals, not belonging to each other in the old ways of family, tribe, religion, nation. Only in one way are they related to each other: that is they are all independent. They respect your independence and the same they expect from you: to respect their independence. That is the only relationship, the only friendship, the only thing that is a cementing force in a commune: that we respect each other’s individuality, independence. The other’s way of life, his style of life is absolutely accepted, respected. The only condition is that nobody is allowed to interfere with anybody else in any sense”.

- Osho, “From Personality to Individuality, #1”

 “In the commune, when you come across people just like you and you have to trust them, you have to love them, and you have to be in a surrendering attitude- not in a fighting mood, not competitive, but ready to merge with them- it is difficult. But you will have to take that challenge. Unless you take that challenge, you cannot come close to me. These people are devices; the commune is a device. These people are just as frail as you are, as weak, as angry, as jealous, as immediately annoyed, irritated about anything. It becomes difficult for you to be loving towards them. But that is the test. In spite of them, you have to grow your strength of love. You can love me because I don’t give you any trouble. But that does not show that your love is growing within you. Your love has to become stronger, your trust has to become stronger- even of those who are not trustworthy. It does not matter; they are not the consideration, YOU are. In spite of all their hindrances, obstacles, still remain loving. Unless you pass all these tests in the commune, you will never be able to love me. These are the steps that come to my temple.”

- Osho, “From Bondage to Freedom, #32”

"The idea of a commune is beautiful: people living together in a non-possessive way, neither possessing things nor possessing persons; people living together, creating together, celebrating together, and still allowing each one his own space; people creating a certain climate of meditativeness, of love, and living in that climate.

I am certainly interested in the idea of the commune - it simply means where communion is possible. In the world there is no communion possible. Even communication is not possible, what to say about communion! Communication means a dialogue between two minds - even that is not possible - and communion means a meeting of two hearts. Where communion is possible, there exists a commune.

The idea of the family is rotten now. It has worked, it has done its work, it is finished. There is no future for the family. In fact, the family has been one of the causes of calamity. The family makes you identified with a very small group - the mother, the father, the brother, the sister - a very small group becomes your whole world. A man needs to grow more variety.

A commune means more variety: not just your father but many uncles, not just your mother but many aunts. A commune means the children will have more people to learn about, more people to love, more people to become accustomed to. They will become richer."

- Osho, “The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, #4”

"My work differs totally from Gurdjieff's. It is individual from the very beginning. Even though you are living in a commune, it is not that you are part of the commune - no. On the contrary, the commune is simply a name: it has no existence of itself. Because you love each other and you feel to be together... it is just living together.

But your work remains individual. Your growth remains individual. And remember this, that the final freedom is possible only if from the very first step you are free. If you are not free from the very first step, you cannot hope for the last step to be out of freedom, because the last step is essentially the growth of the first step. What was a seed at the first step has come to a flowering at the last step.No sannyasin needs to feel that he is stuck in the middle. But right now the feeling may be there because I removed all the structure that was created to have a centralized systemabout everything - erasing individuality, dissolving it into collectivity. So there is a gap right now. So I want to meet all the sannyasins around the world to tell them, "You need not be worried at all. Wherever you are you can start growing individually."

- Osho, “Light on the Path, #28”

"So you have to decide two things: either find a commune, a commune of the future, where the future has already arrived, where people are living in the twenty-first century, or choose one person and forget the other. Otherwise sooner or later you will be in pieces, and once you start falling into pieces it will be very difficult to put them together. You have to settle this thing first, otherwise your search for God will not be possible, because a person who has not settled in his love will not be able to find God; you have

not fulfilled the basic requirement of it. God is nothing but the highest peak of love. So you can go on meditating, doing this and that, but those are not going to help. When new people come here they are puzzled because they cannot make any sense of what is going on here. People are meditating and people are falling in love, and people are doing groups, and all kinds of things are happening, because I would like you to become deeply grounded. So love is necessary. And only a person who is deeply grounded in love is able to meditate... a person who is able to be with somebody, can be capable of being with himself or herself; otherwise, you will not be able to be alone. And meditation is a process of being alone. Love and meditation are two poles and one has to settle both, but love is far more natural. Meditation is a lesser development.

So first settle your love energy and for the time being forget about God. For the time being let love be your God. And be integrated through it, then your search will be on the right lines."

- Osho, “The Open Door, #18”

 "In my vision, marriages in the commune should be dissolved. People can live together their whole life if they want, but that is not a legal necessity. People should be moving, having as many experiences of love as possible. They should not be possessive. Possessiveness destroys love. And they should not be possessed, because that again destroys your love. All human beings are worthy of being loved. There is no need to be tethered to one person for your whole life. That is one of the reasons why all the people around the world look so bored. Why can't they laugh like you?Why can't they dance like you? They are chained with invisible chains: marriage, family, husband, wife, children. They are burdened with all kinds of duties, responsibilities, sacrifices. And you want them to smile and laugh and dance and rejoice?You are asking the impossible. Make people's love free, make people non-possessive. But this can happen only if in your meditation you discover your being. It is nothing to practice. I am not saying to you, "Tonight you go to some other woman just as a practice." You will not get anything, and you may lose your wife. And in the morning you will look silly. It is not a question of practicing, it is a question of discovering your being.

With the discovery of being follows the quality of impersonal lovingness. Then you simply love. And it goes on spreading. First, it is human beings, then soon animals, birds, trees, mountains, stars. A day comes when this whole existence is your beloved. That is our potential. And anybody who is not achieving it is wasting his life. Yes, you will have to lose a few things, but they are worthless. You will be gaining somuch that you will never think again of what you have lost. A pure impersonal lovingness which can penetrate into anybody's being - that is the outcome of meditativeness, of silence, of diving deep within your own being. I am simply trying to persuade you. Don't be afraid of losing what you have."

- Osho, “From Death to Deathlessness, #17”

"Life is so short. It is not to be wasted in unnecessary foolishness. Live and love - and love totally and intensely but never against freedom. Freedom should remain the ultimate value. The family has destroyed that freedom. In my vision, the future is not for families. The future is for communes, and the commune is the refined, bigger family; so big that whatever the small family was creating - all kinds of perversions - is no longer created. And children should be taken care of by the commune, by the experts. In the first place, just because you have a wife, it does not mean that you have the right to become a father or the right to become a mother. The commune should have a training. Anybody who wants to become a father or mother must go through the training. You can remain married, you can remain together - that is between you two - but you don't disturb a third life. You have no right to produce a child if you don't have the right training to bring him up, to help him to be a blissful human being. The psychologists will discover, the doctors will think about it, the gynecologists will have to ponder over it, and unless you get clearance from these people, you are not to produce a child. Man can produce children without any difficulty. That does not mean that you become a father and a mother. Those are skills, arts. To help a living being grow needs someexpertise. And the society, the commune, will decide how many children it needs - so that children can be nourished well, educated well; so that overpopulation does not disturb things; so nobody is unemployed, nobody is uneducated, nobody is poor."

- Osho, “The Transmission of the Lamp, #31”

"My vision of commune is that nations disappear, big cities disappear, because they don't allow enough space for every human being -- and every human being has a certain psychological need for a territorial imperative, just like other animals. In big cities, man is continuously moving in a crowd. That creates great anxiety, tension, agony, and does not allow him any time to relax, any time, any place, to be himself -- to be alone, to be with the trees, which are life-giving sources, to be with the ocean, which is a life-giving source.

My vision of a new world, the world of communes, means no nations, no big cities, no families, but millions of small communes spread all over the earth in thick forests, lush green forests, in mountains, on islands. The smallest commune manageable, which we have already tried, can be of five thousand people, and the biggest commune can be of fifty thousand people. From five thousand to fifty thousand -- more than that will become unmanageable; then again comes the question of order and law, and the police, and the court, and all old criminals have to be brought back.

Small communes... five thousand seems to be the perfect number, because we have tried that. Everybody knows everybody else, all are friends. There is no marriage -- children belong to the commune. The commune has hospitals, schools, colleges. The commune takes care of the children; parents can visit them. It is simply insignificant whether the parents are living together or they have separated. For the child, they both are available; he can visit them, they can visit him.

All the communes should be interdependent, but they will not exchange money. Money should be dissolved. It has done tremendous harm to humanity. Now it is time to say goodbye to it!

These communes should exchange things. You have more milk products; you can give them to another commune, because you need more clothes, and that commune can provide you with more clothes -- a simple barter system, so no commune becomes rich. Money is a very strange thing. You can accumulate it; that is the strangest secret of money. You cannot accumulate milk products, you cannot accumulate vegetables. If you have more vegetables you have to share with some commune which has not enough vegetables.

But money can be accumulated. And if one commune becomes richer than the other commune, then comes from the back door, the poverty and the richness and the whole nightmare of capitalism, and the classes of the poor and the rich, and the desire to dominate, because you are rich. You can enslave other communes. Money is one of the enemies of man.

Communes will be exchanging. They will be broadcasting on their radio stations, that such and such a product is available from them. Anybody who has certain other products that they need can contact them, and things can be exchanged in a friendly way; there is no haggling, there is no exploitation. But the commune should not become too big, because bigness is also dangerous.

A commune's criterion of bigness should be that everybody knows everybody else; that should be the limit. Once that limit is crossed, the commune should divide itself into two. Just as two brothers separate, when a commune becomes big enough it divides itself into two communes, two sister communes. And there will be a deep interdependence, sharing ideas and skills, without any of the attitudes that grow out of possessiveness -- like nationalism and fanaticism. There will be nothing to be fanatic about. There will be no reason for a nation.

A small group of people can enjoy life more easily, because to have so many friends, so many acquaintances, is a joy unto itself. Today in the big cities, you live in the same house and you don't know your neighbor. In one house one hundred thousand people may be living. A one hundred story building can contain that many people -- almost a whole city. And they are absolute strangers to each other, living in a crowd, and yet being alone.

My idea of a commune is, living in small groups, which gives you enough space, and yet living in a close, loving, relationship. Your children are taken care of by the commune, your needs are taken care of by the commune, your medical care is taken care of by the commune. The commune becomes an authentic family without any diseases that families have created in the past. It is a loose family and a constant movement.

There is no question of any marriage, and no question of any divorce. If two persons want to be together, they can be together, and if one day they don't want to be together, that is perfectly good. It was their decision to be together; now they can choose other friends. In fact, in one life why not live many lives? Why not make it richer? Why should a man cling to a woman, or a woman cling to a man unless they enjoy each other so much that they want to be together for their whole life. But looking at the world, the situation is clear. People would like to be independent from their families; children want to be independent from their families.

[....]

Communes can also exchange people, if somebody wants to move into another commune, and the other commune is willing to accept. The other commune may say, "If somebody else wants to go into your commune, exchange is possible -- because we don't want to raise our population." People can decide. You can go and advertise yourself; some woman may like you, some people may turn friends. Somebody may have been bored in that commune, and would like to change their commune....

The whole world should be one humanity, only divided by small communes on a practical basis: No fanaticism, no racism, no nationalism. Then, for the first time, we can drop the idea of wars. We can make life with honesty, worth living, worth enjoying; playful, meditative, creative, and give every man and every woman equal opportunity to grow and bring their potential to flowering. [....]

I have been crucified in almost every country of the world. And my crime is that I can see the new house where man will live in the future: the new man, his new house, his new commune, his new future."

- Osho, "The Golden Future, #30"

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 My effort here is to make this commune sexually free. 

"My effort here is to make this commune sexually free. And when I say sexually free, it has two meanings. In the beginning, people will be easily available to each other, and in the end the very availability will make their minds transcend sex. And that is happening every day. Hundreds of sannyasins write to me, "What has happened? When we came, we were so full of sex, and now all that has disappeared. There seems to be no desire for it. Even if we are interested in somebody, it is more like friendship than any sexual relationship. We love to be together, but there is no need to jump into bed immediately." In fact, there are many sannyasins writing to me that sex has so completely disappeared, that for months or for years they have been celibate. Go and ask a Catholic monk or a Hindu sannyasin: they are trying to be celibate, and their minds are full of sex. We are not trying to be celibate here, but celibacy is happening.

Whatsoever is easily available, automatically becomes uninteresting.

In the West many people are turning towards homosexuality, lesbianism, for the simple reason that a man seems for another man to be a faraway goal because he is so unnatural; a woman, for a woman, seems to be a faraway goal, it seems so unnatural. A man and woman relationship is natural. So people are turning into homosexuals, lesbians. The reason is that when you make anything difficult, condemn it, repress it, it will become more and more attractive.

In my commune nothing is repressed, hence everything, by and by, loses its attraction. One becomes more and more calm and quiet and settled."

- Osho, "Come, Come, Yet Again Come, #6"

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 This fragrance is an experience 

 of a totally new atmosphere that 

 does not exist in the outside world. 

Osho,

Passing through the gate of this mandir for the first time in eight years, i felt a kind of fragrance which has stayed with me ever since. is it possible to take this fragrance with me when i leave? 

Oh, beloved master, it is so beautiful, and i am so grateful to spend this time with you, even if i cannot take this fragrance with me.

Prem Maharaj, the fragrance that you have felt in this temple of seekers is not something that you can leave behind. This fragrance contains love, meditativeness, silence, trust, life-affirmative values, a song of gratitude, a dance with the trees and with the stars... This fragrance is an experience of a totally new atmosphere that does not exist in the outside world. If you meditate, you will become the same temple. Then, wherever you go the fragrance will go with you like a shadow; even others will feel it.

It is not the first time that such a question has come to me. The moment they enter the gate many people have felt suddenly, as if they are entering into another world -- the air is different, the vibe is different -- as if they have come home. And there is bound to be a certain fragrance, because so many people are meditating, and slowly, slowly their inner-being flowers are opening. The whole purpose of all these people to be here is absolutely different from any gathering anywhere outside in the world.

These are the people who are in search of the essential, existential life source. They are at different stages of evolution in consciousness, but they are all radiating something of higher stages. So when you enter the temple, you will find the air is different, the trees are different, the people are different. And if you also become a meditator, as I know you are becoming, this fragrance will start coming from within your own being. Even others may feel it wherever you go.

I want my sannyasins... I have taken away the clothes which made them distinct; I have taken away their malas. But still people feel that they look a little different from others….

A sannyasin will have a certain fragrance, a certain style, a certain way which is subtle; it may not be very apparent to the eyes, but it can be detected.

I would like you to be known as separate from the crowds, not by your clothes not by anything outer, but just by your very being -- your silence, your peace, your love, your eyes.

Every gesture of you should declare that you are a sannyasin.

One day the pope gets a phone call from God. God says to him, "Since you have been such a good pope, I wanted you to be the first to know."

"The first to know what?" asks the pope.

God says, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that from now on, the world will have only one religion."

"That's wonderful," says the pope. "Now everyone will be at peace, and everyone will get along with one another -- that's great. But what is the bad news?"

"In a few days," says God, "you will be receiving a phone call from Ma Anando in Poona!"

That one religiousness is not going to be Catholic or Christian. That one religiousness is going to be this fragrance, Prem Maharaj, that you have been feeling here. Once our people are ready, they will go on spreading it all over the world; it needs it tremendously.

Just remember one thing: Never be miserly. Share your experiences here with me your silences of the heart, your flowering of the being. Go on sharing the song that you have heard here, that music that is all around you.

Sometimes I feel sad for a few people. One old sannyasin, Kabir, wrote a letter to me, saying "Osho, I want to share what has happened to me in all these years living with you. But can I talk about you without mentioning your name?" This cowardliness should be dropped.

I want you not to be sheep, but lions.

I want you to roar about the experience, because the world is so deaf that unless you roar they won't pay any attention. And the moment you mention my name, even if they are dead, they will wake up! Without my name, they will feel goody-goody, and you will feel very goody-goody. But only with my name, will you be able to judge whether those people have any intelligence, any awareness, any understanding, or whether they are just mediocre people with prejudiced minds.

Share without being miserable, without being miserly, and share with authority. You have nothing to lose.

It is a tremendous challenge to change this whole earth into a paradise, but you will not be able to do that if you are cowardly or miserly. There are many sannyasins who remain silent and don't share just out of the fear that they may be condemned: "You have also fallen from the traditional religion, from the convention," they simply remain quiet. That's not right; that is not compassionate. That is cruel. If you know something, share it for two reasons, because the humanity needs it, and the second reason is that the more you share, the more you will have of it.

- Osho, "The Invitation, #20"

Image Courtesy: osho.com

 Go as my messenger 

"Whatsoever you have tasted here, share it

and by sharing it will go on growing."

"Question 1 :

Osho,

I have experienced the fragrance and the nectar of the buddhafield while i have been here. how do we keep this with us whilst we are away, especially in the midst of anti-buddhafield forces?

Jagdeesh Bharti, to experience the presence of the divine is to be transformed so essentially that even if you want to lose it, you cannot lose it. It becomes part of your being, and more so when you are surrounded by anti-buddhafield forces. It will crystallize there. The contrast is always helpful. The contrast cannot destroy it; it becomes a challenge, it is an opportunity. Never think of it as a calamity.

I send my sannyasins to the farthest corners of the earth; that is a device, because when they go away, far away from me, they start relying more on their own awareness -- they have to. They start being more spontaneous -- they have to. They become more responsible, and each moment they have to be alert, watchful, because there are so many things to destroy their treasure. The very existence of the anti-forces becomes a constant challenge for them. It helps integration.

So you need not be worried; the fragrance will remain with you. The nectar is already a part of your being. And while you are in Chicago you will find yourself closer to me than you can be here, because here there are so many sannyasins, you are lost in the many. There you will be alone and you can relate to me more directly, more intimately. And the physical distance makes no difference at all. Love knows no distance. Then Chicago becomes a suburb of Poona. And whenever you close your eyes, you will find me there. The right way to see me is to see me with closed eyes. With open eyes you can see only the physical part of me, with closed eyes you can see the real me. [....]

My effort is to make this whole earth a buddhafield, so wherever my sannyasins are there is a mini-buddhafield. And now that you are one of my sannyasins, you will function there as a vehicle for me. Allow me to function through you and a mini-buddhafield will be created. Slowly slowly, each of my sannyasins has to become a buddhafield, he has to carry around himself the aroma of enlightenment, of love, of prayer. He has to create a small climate that follows him wherever he goes. He has to remain in that small atmosphere of his own; wherever he goes it follows him like a shadow.

Soon we are going to fill the whole earth with many many sannyasins, and wherever a sannyasin is, there is an oasis. And a single sannyasin can trigger the process, and many more souls can be ignited, can be made aflame. And this is going to happen with you.

I have seen in you a great potential, you can become a true vehicle for me, you can be a hollow bamboo and I can sing the song. Now spread the fragrance and the nectar that you have tasted – what else can we give to our friends? What else can we give to our lovers, beloveds, our wives, husbands, children, parents? What more is there to give or what is more precious than to give them a little taste of buddhahood?

Whatsoever you have tasted here, share it and by sharing it will go on growing. In the inner world the economics is totally different from the outer. In the outer, if you share you lose; whatsoever you give is lost to you. In the inner world whatsoever you cling to is lost, whatsoever you share is yours forever; not only is it yours forever but it is multiplied. Give more and you will have more.

Go with great joy, you are carrying a treasure with you. You are a messenger and you are carrying a message which is immensely needed by humanity today. It has always been needed, but never so much as today.

Man has never been in such anguish before, man has never been in such despair before, man has never felt so meaningless before. He needs people whose presence can make him feel again at ease, relaxed, whose presence can give him hope again that meaning is possible, that life can be lived in a totally new way, that there are new ways of life, new altitudes of life, that one need not remain empty. Then one can have a new kind of fullness which does not come by money, by power, by prestige, but comes only through a meditative awareness, a loving awareness.

Go as my messenger, spread whatsoever you have tasted here to as many people as possible, and you will see: the more you spread the message, the more deep-rooted you will become in it. You will not lose contact; don’t be worried at all. I will be coming with you, following you. You will find me always very close to you. Yes, sometimes you can chitchat with me, and if sometimes the idea arises to have a little dialogue with me, don’t feel that it is crazy. Let the dialogue happen and you will be surprised that your questions are answered in the same way that I am answering them here. They will be answered from the deepest recesses of your own being. They will be answered by your own center; the questions come from the circumference and the answers come from the center. In the beginning it will look as if I am answering you, but sooner or later you will discover that they are being answered by your own real self.

The master represents only your real self; he speaks to you only to provoke the sleeping center of your being. Once the center is awake the master becomes silent with the disciple. [....]

Jagdeesh is a professor of psychology in Chicago. Go there and bring as many insane people as you can. Help my work. And to help my work is to be with me, to help my work is real intimacy with me. And I will be constantly watching you.

Remember, wherever you are, that I am with you. And soon it will not just be an idea, it will become a reality; it IS a reality -- you just have to discover it. And the anti-buddhafield forces are going to help you immensely. Because of these anti-buddhafield forces you will become more crystallized, you will become more centered, more rooted.

This is part of the process of growth, to send you again and again into the marketplace."

- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5, #8"

Image Courtesy: osho.com

 The vision for the new commune 

Question 2:

Osho, 
What is your vision for the new commune?

The new commune is an experiment in spiritual communism. The word 'communism' comes from 'commune'. There is only one possibility of communism in the world and that possibility is through meditation. Communism is not possible through changing the economic structures of societies.

The change of economic structures of societies will only bring new classes; it cannot bring a classless society. The proletariat may disappear, the bourgeoisie may go, but then the ruler and the ruled...that's what has happened in Soviet Russia, that's what has happened in China. New distinctions, new classes have arisen.

Communism is basically a spiritual vision. It is not a question of changing the economic structures of the society, but changing people's spiritual vision. The new commune is going to be a space where we can create human beings who are not obsessed with comparison, who are not obsessed with the ego, who are not obsessed with the personality.

The new commune is going to be a context in which a new kind of man can become possible. Socrates says that the master is a midwife, and he is right: all masters are midwives. They always bring new humanities into existence. Through them a new man is born.

The old man is finished. The old man is no more valid. And with the old man, all that belonged to the old man has also become invalid, irrelevant. The old man was life- negative. The new commune will create a life-affirmative religiousness. The motto of the new commune is: This very body the Buddha, this very earth the Lotus Paradise.

The new commune is going to hallow the earth, to make everything sacred. We are not going to divide existence into this world and that world: we are going to live existence in its totality. We are going to live as scientists, as poets, as mystics - all together!

The scientist is partial. He believes only in the body, he cannot go beyond it; his vision is very limited, shortsighted. The poet clings to another aspect of humanity, the feeling part. He can see the beauty, but his beauty is very momentary. He has no idea of the eternal. The mystic lives in the being, he lives in the deathless, timeless state. Because he lives in the deathless, timeless state he becomes indifferent to the world of time and space. He becomes indifferent both to science and to poetry. These are all three aspects of reality, three faces of God, the trinity, TRIMURTI.

My effort in the new commune is to create a man who is not partial...who is total, whole, holy. A man should be all three together. He should be as accurate and objective as a scientist; and he should be as sensitive, as full of the heart, as the poet; and he should be as rooted deep down in his being as the mystic. He should not choose. He should allow all these three dimensions to exist together.

The East suffered because we became too much concerned with the being; we lost track of science, we lost track of art. The West has suffered, is suffering, because it has lost track of being. The East became inwardly rich but outwardly poor; the West has become outwardly rich, inwardly poor. The new commune is going to be rich in both ways.

I believe in richness. I am not a worshipper of poverty. That is simply stupid. I would like humanity to be rich in all possible ways: rich in science, rich in technology, rich in poetry, rich in music, rich in meditation, rich in mysticism. Life should be lived in its multidimensionality. God should be approached through all possible ways. Why impoverish your soul?

The new commune is going to create a space, a context, for this multidimensional human being to be born. And the future belongs to this new man.

The old man believed in renunciation; the old man believed that if you want to come closer to God you have to be away from the world, as if there is a conflict between God and the world. It is obviously wrong. The world exists through God! The world is God's body - there can't be any conflict! If there had been any conflict, then the world would have disappeared long ago.

The world breathes, is alive, and life is God. The tree is divine because it is alive, and the rock is divine because the rock is also alive in its own way, the rock also grows. The whole existence is full of life, overflowing with life. God is not against the world - how can the painter be against his painting? and how can the poet be against his poetry? and how can the musician be against his music? The world is his poetry, his painting, his music - it is his dance.

The old man lived in renunciation, escaped away from the world to the caves, to the monasteries, to the Himalayas. The old man was escapist, the old man was afraid to live, he was more ready to die. The old man was somehow suicidal.

My new man is going to be deep in love with life. And my religion is not of renunciation but of rejoicing. The new commune will create every possible opportunity to rejoice, sing, dance.

The new commune is going to be of a totally new kind of religiousness, spirituality.

Nobody is going to be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Jaina, but everybody is going to be religious - just religious. To me, religion needs no adjectives.

And the moment a religion becomes attached to an adjective, it is no longer religion - it becomes politics.

Bayazid is not Mohammedan. Mohammed himself is not Mohammedan, cannot be.

Christ is not Christian and Buddha is not Buddhist. They are simply religious. They have a certain flavor, a certain silence, a certain grace, surrounding them. They are windows to the beyond. Through them you can see the beyond, through them God goes on singing a thousand and one songs.

The new commune is not going to be of any religion. It will be religious. But the religion will not be unearthly, it will be very down to earth; hence it will be creative, it will explore all possibilities of being creative. All kinds of creativity will be supported, nourished.

The real religious man has to contribute to the world. He has to make it a little more beautiful than he found it when he came into the world. He has to make it a little more joyous. He has to make it a little more perfumed. He has to make it a little more harmonious. That is going to be his contribution.

In the past we respected people for wrong reasons. We respected somebody because he was fasting. Now, fasting contributes nothing to the world. And the man who goes on long fasts is simply being violent with himself. To respect him is to respect violence, to respect him is to respect suicidal instincts, to respect him is to respect masochism. He is mentally ill! He is not natural, he is abnormal. He needs psychological treatment, he needs help. But you respect him, and because of your respect, his ego becomes puffed up; so if he was going to fast for one month, he will fast for three months. And the more he fasts, the more he tortures his body, the more respect you give to him.

The new commune will not respect any masochistic tendencies. It will not respect any asceticism, it will not respect any abnormal, unnatural tendencies - it will respect the natural man. It will respect the child in man, it will respect innocence, and it will respect creativity. It will respect a man who paints a beautiful picture, it will respect the man who plays beautifully on the flute. The flute-player will be religious, and the painter will be religious, and the dancer will be religious; not the man who goes on long fasts, who tortures his body, who lies down on a bed of thorns, who cripples himself.

It is going to be the beginning of a new humanity. It is needed, absolutely needed. If we cannot create the new man in the coming twenty years - by the end of this century - then humanity has no future. The old man has come to the end of his tether. The old man is ready to commit a global suicide. The third world war is going to be global suicide. It can be avoided only if a new kind of man can be created.

This is going to be an experiment, a great experiment on which much is going to depend. It has tremendous implications for the future. Be ready for it. Be prepared for it. This ashram is just a launching pad.... On a small scale I am experimenting. The new commune will be on a big scale: ten thousand sannyasins living together as one body, one being. Nobody will possess anything; everybody will use everything, everybody will enjoy. Everybody is going to live as comfortably, as richly, as we can manage. But nobody will possess anything. Not only will things not be possessed, but persons also will not be possessed in the new commune. If you love a woman, live with her - out of sheer love, out of sheer joy - but you don't become her husband, you can't. You don't become a wife. To become a "wife" or a "husband" is ugly because it brings ownership; then the other is reduced to property.

The new commune is going to be nonpossessive, full of love - living in love but with no possessiveness at all; sharing all kinds of joys, making a pool of all the joys.... When ten thousand people contribute, it can become explosive. The rejoicing will be great.

Jesus says again and again: Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! But he has not been heard yet.

Christians look so serious, and they have painted Jesus also in such a way that it doesn't seem that he ever rejoiced himself. Christians say Jesus never laughed! This is ridiculous. The man who was saying "Rejoice!" the man who used to love good food, good wine, the man who used to feast and participate in festivals, the man around whom there was always feasting - he never laughed? Christians have given a false Christ to the world.

In my commune, Buddha is going to laugh and dance, Christ is going to laugh and dance. Poor fellows, nobody has allowed them up to now! Have compassion on them - let them dance and sing and play. My new commune is going to transform work into playfulness, it is going to transform life into love and laughter.

Remember the motto again - to hallow the earth, to make everything sacred, to transform the ordinary, mundane things into extraordinary, spiritual things. The whole of life has to be your temple; work has to be your worship, love has to be your prayer.

This very body the Buddha, this very earth the Lotus Paradise.

- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, #8"

 The future is not for families. The future is for communes 

- The conventional family is already out of date. -

The conventional family is already out of date. It has served its purpose, and it has no future.

Psychologically it is very dangerous for the child to be confined to only two parents. If the child is a girl, she starts loving the father and creates an inner image of a man she would like to love. Of course she knows she cannot love the father the way her mother loves him, so she is jealous of the mother.

It is an ugly situation to create for the child: from the very beginning, the first woman in her life is an object of jealousy, and the first man in her life she is never going to get.

But her mind will carry the image of the father her whole life, disrupting all her marriages because in every husband she will be looking for the father - unconsciously - and no man can fulfill the requirements. And no man has married her to be her father.

From the man's side, he is searching for his mother. If the child is a boy, he falls in love with the mother, and he carries the image of that first woman his whole life, unfulfilled.

He will fall in love with many women, finding some similarity. But similarities are one thing - perhaps just the hair style is like his mother's or the way the woman walks, or the eyes, or the nose. But the nose is not the whole woman, and the hair style is not going to help in any way. So no woman is going to fulfill his longing for a mother, and no woman marries him to be a mother.

Now we are creating such a complex situation for children that their whole life will remain in a misery, and they will dump the responsibility on the other. The man will think the woman has betrayed him - because she was looking just like his mother, and after marriage she turns out to be something totally different. She deceived him.

The same is the situation from the other side. Every woman thinks the man has deceived her, cheated her, pretending to be nice and good and everything before the marriage. After the marriage the mask that he was wearing disappears, and she finds just a male chauvinist.

And both the parents are continuously fighting, nagging each other, trying to dominate each other; and the children are learning - because there is no other way, this is their first school. And it is not a question of arithmetic or geography or history; it is a question of life. They are learning life's ABC, and what they are seeing is that the mother is continuously harassing the father, and the father is continuously trying to dominate, subjugate, enslave.

They also can see... and children are very perceptive, because they are very new in the world, their eyes are clear, their perceptions are not yet covered with the dust of experience. They can see the hypocrisy of it all - because if some neighbor comes in while they were fighting, they immediately stop fighting, start smiling at each other, talking beautiful things, receiving the neighbor, giving the impression to the neighbor that they never fight.

The child is also learning hypocrisy. Whatever you are is one thing; you have to present to the society what the society expects you to be - not what you are, but what the society wants you to be.

From the very early childhood we are creating a split personality in each child, schizophrenia, a dual being.

They are learning the ways - the girl is learning how a wife should be, according to the mother's behavior with the father; the boy is learning how the husband should be, according to the behavior of the father.

It is because of this that in generation after generation the same stupidities are repeated again and again. And the whole world lives in misery, lives in hypocrisy; and the root cause is the conventional family, where the child is exposed only to two persons, the mother and father.

In the future it has to be changed, because almost ninety percent of mental sicknesses are born out of this family. We have to make a bigger family. I call it a commune, where many people are living together.

In our commune in America five thousand people were living together, working together; in one single kitchen, five thousand people were eating together. Their children were getting acquainted with so many people - everybody of the age of the father was an uncle, everybody of the age of the mother was an aunt. They were learning from everybody.

They had a vast possibility of experience; and there was no way of having a fixed image of a woman or a man, because they were coming in contact with so many women who were all loving towards them, so many men who were all loving towards them. They were not living with their parents; they had their own campus. Parents could go there, meet them. They could come to the parents, live a day or two with the parents. They were invited by other couples, they were invited by couples who had no children. They were moving all over the commune.

The whole commune was their family.

Psychologically it created only a vague image of a woman in the boy's mind, and a vague image of a man in the girl's mind.

This is of tremendous importance. Because the image is vague and is made up of many impressions of different women, there is a possibility you may find a woman who can easily fit. Because you don't have a fixed idea, you only have a vague conception, any woman can fulfill it, any man can fulfill it.

And you have not been living with the parents, so you don't know how a wife has to behave, how a husband has to behave. You will start innocently, lovingly. You love the man - that's why you have married him. You love the woman, and you are not carrying a certain pattern of how the woman should behave.

The Hindu so-called saint, Tulsidas, is the most important Hindu saint in India; no other book is read as much as his. His book is the bible of the Hindus. He writes in his book "If you don't beat her - physical, corporal beating - you will lose control of her. By beating her, you prove that you are man enough."

Your manliness is proved by beating the woman; but if you beat the woman, the woman is also going to find a thousand and one ways to torture you. Whenever you want to make love to her, she will say she has a headache. There is no communication between the two of you. How can there be? You have enslaved her, and no slave can forgive the person who has destroyed his freedom. No woman can forgive the man who has taken away her freedom. But Hindus have been following their saint's advice - and it is not new: the five-thousand-year-old manusmriti, the moral code of the Hindus, says the same thing.

There is a book published by a psychoanalyst about the man-woman relationship. Its title is significant: THE INTIMATE ENEMY. That's how men and women have lived up to now, as intimate enemies. And the children are learning, and they will repeat it - they don't know any other way.

The family has to change into a commune. Five thousand people, ten thousand people living together, are economically better off than five thousand families living separately.

In our commune, just fifteen people were looking after the kitchen - for five thousand people.

Otherwise, twenty-five hundred women would have been crushed and destroyed in their kitchens!

And remember, not all women are good cooks! There is nothing in being a woman that makes you a good cook. In fact, all great cooks are men; in all the great hotels you will find that the great cooks are men, not women.

Every family cannot afford a great genius of a cook, but a commune can afford fifteen really inventive and creative cooks - men and women both. And we have experimented and found that it works so beautifully.

Because the children live together on their own campus, many other things happen. The parents don't feel burdened. They have a certain freedom which children destroy - you have to wait for the children to go to sleep, and by that time you are also feeling sleepy. And children are very strange people; if you want them to go to sleep, then they won't go. They become certain that there is going to be something happening, that's why they are being forced to go to sleep.

And they cannot understand the logic, that when they want to remain awake, they are forced to go to sleep; and when, in the morning, they want to sleep, they are pulled out of the bed and forced to be awake. They can't understand the logic of it. It seems so absurd.

But parents feel freedom, because their children living with other children. We discovered a new phenomenon; we were thinking that there might be trouble - the children might fight with each other.

But what we found was just the opposite of it: the older children took care of the smaller ones.

There was no fighting. And nobody had any personal things - all toys and everything belonged to the campus - so there was no jealousy.

The children enjoyed the tremendous beauty of being with other couples - not just their parents - and naturally, uncles are nicer people than fathers. In fact, the Jewish God in the Old Testament says: "I want you to be aware that I am not your uncle, that I am not a nice person, that I am an angry person, a jealous person, revengeful." His use of "I am not your uncle, I am your father" makes it clear that an uncle has a nice quality about him.

Thousands of uncles around him, aunts around him - the child feels almost surrounded in love; wherever he goes he is respected. Because people there are not his parents, they don't force any ambition of their own on the child. The child is not their own. Otherwise, every parent is trying to fulfill his ambitions, which he could not manage to fulfill in his life, through his children.

The child is not their own. Otherwise if a man wanted to become a doctor, but he could not become one, he wants to make his boy a doctor - whether the boy wants to become a doctor or not is not the question at all. So there are doctors who would have been better as butchers, and there are butchers who would have been better as doctors. Everything is upside down.

Nobody bothers about what the child's potential is. Everybody thinks of what his own ambition is - to see his boy become the president of the country or the prime minister, without bothering that the boy is potentially a musician, a Yehudi Menuhin, or an artist, a Michelangelo, or a mathematician, an Albert Einstein. Nobody cares abut the child, he is not to be considered at all.

In a commune, it is not the parents who are going to decide what their children should be. The children are born out of the parents, but they don't belong to them. They belong to the commune, and the commune will decide - through psychoanalysis, through hypnosis, through other methods - what is the potential of the child. And a child should be helped in every possible way to become what he has come here to become; then he will be immensely happy.

In life there is only one blissfulness, and that is to become what you have been carrying within you - the potential - and to bring it to a full flowering. A rose bush should become roses, and that is its joy.

One great surgeon was invited by his friends, because he was retiring. He was the greatest surgeon of his country, and people were celebrating the occasion, giving him a good farewell. But he looked very sad. And one friend came to him and asked,"Why are you so sad?"

He said, "I am sad because I never wanted to become a surgeon. I wanted to become a musician.

Even if I had to die on the street as a beggar with my guitar in my hands, I would have been more happy than to be the greatest surgeon in the country, because that was not at all my longing; it was not my destiny."

So much misery in the world - and the basic cause is that people are not allowed to move towards their destiny. Everybody is distracted.

The family is no longer needed, and it will be a tremendous blessing - not only to the children, but to the parents also, as it is because of the children that parents go on remaining together even though they don't love each other.

The moment a man does not love his wife or the wife does not love the man - and they still go on pretending that they love each other - it is nothing but prostitution, permanent prostitution. And the reason is just because of the children; otherwise, in the broken family, what will happen to the children?

In a commune there is no problem. You can be with a woman as long as you love her. The moment you find that the love has disappeared.... In life nothing is permanent, nothing can be permanent.

It is not within your hands to make anything permanent; only dead things can be permanent. The more alive a thing is, the more fleeting.

Stones may be permanent.

Flowers cannot be.

Love is not a stone. It is a flower, and of a rare quality.

Today it is there, tomorrow one knows not - it may be there, it may not be there. It is not in your hands to control it. It is a happening. You cannot do anything: you cannot create it if it is not there; either it is there or it is not there. You are simply helpless.

If children are being taken care of by the commune, then parents can move easily. There is no burden. And the children will not miss you, because they can find their father, they can find their mother - there is no problem. The mother can go to the children, the father can go to the children...

and the children will become aware from the very beginning that love is a changing phenomenon.

To make love permanent has been the greatest fallacy of mankind.

Love cannot become marriage. Marriage is law, and love cannot be put under any law. It is wild. It is just like a breeze that comes and goes away; fearing that it may go away, you close all the windows and all the doors - but then there is no breeze, just stale air.

Marriage is stale air and nothing else. The breeze that was felt - which led you to marriage - is not there anymore. But because of the children you have to pretend as long as possible - suffer, pretend. And it creates perversions of all kinds.

If the husband no longer loves the wife, he will start moving with some other woman - his secretary in the office. If the woman does not love the husband, naturally she will find somebody - the chauffeur.

Ready-made people - the secretary, the chauffeur. What else to do? Where to go?

This creates unnecessary complexities, ugly fights. The whole home becomes tense. The vibrations are no longer calm and quiet and peaceful. And because you are not satisfied with your woman, you have created prostitutes. It is one of the ugliest things that man has done - to force women to sell their bodies just for money. And remember well: you can get the body for money, but you cannot get love for money.

Love is not for sale.

Up to now, there were just women prostitutes - because it was a male-dominated society for thousands of years. But now there is a women's liberation movement. This liberation movement is creating more stupidities, because it is simply imitating man. It is not trying to raise the consciousness of women; it is simply trying to imitate man, creating hatred for man. And it has created it.

Now in big cities like London or New York or San Francisco, you can find male prostitutes. Naturally - the woman has equal rights. If there are female prostitutes, then male prostitutes should be available too.

The women's liberation movement is trying to create so much hate for man that there are a few of the leaders of that movement who are preaching lesbianism: women should love only women - just cut out man completely.

And this is happening. Homosexuality is happening. Men are tired of women, of being harassed by women, nagged by women. They have started looking for some substitute, and they have found that it is better to love a man - it is at least not miserable. It is not a coincidence that homosexuals are called gay people; they are gay. But this is turning the whole society into a madhouse. These perversions of sex are going to create great disturbances. Homosexuality has already brought the ultimate disease AIDS, for which there seems to be no cure.

Lesbianism also... because it is something new it may take a little longer, but it will produce something. They will have to produce something, otherwise the women's liberation movement will feel, "We are lacking something which men are having; they have AIDS and we don't have anything."

The women's liberation movement is making women ugly - they smoke because men smoke, use four-letter words because men use four-letter words, use the same clothes as the men use. But somebody has to tell these women that it is not liberation: "You are simply becoming second-rate men. It is very degrading, it is humiliating." All this is happening because of the family. Unless we dissolve the family into a bigger phenomenon, these things will not disappear. If nobody is forced to live with a man or woman for whom love has disappeared, then prostitution itself will disappear.

There is no need to fight and be intimate enemies. If you cannot be intimate friends, there is no need to be intimate enemies - it is better to say goodbye and become strangers again.

Life is so short. It is not to be wasted in unnecessary foolishness.

Live and love - and love totally and intensely but never against freedom. Freedom should remain the ultimate value.

The family has destroyed that freedom.

In my vision, the future is not for families. The future is for communes, and the commune is the refined, bigger family; so big that whatever the small family was creating - all kinds of perversions - is no longer created. And children should be taken care of by the commune, by the experts. In the first place, just because you have a wife, it does not mean that you have the right to become a father or the right to become a mother.

The commune should have a training. Anybody who wants to become a father or mother must go through the training. You can remain married, you can remain together - that is between you two - but you don't disturb a third life.

You have no right to produce a child if you don't have the right training to bring him up, to help him to be a blissful human being. The psychologists will discover, the doctors will think about it, the gynecologists will have to ponder over it, and unless you get clearance from these people, you are not to produce a child.

Man can produce children without any difficulty. That does not mean that you become a father and a mother. Those are skills, arts. To help a living being grow needs some expertise.

And the society, the commune, will decide how many children it needs - so that children can be nourished well, educated well; so that over-population does not disturb things; so nobody is unemployed, nobody is uneducated, nobody is poor.

So much is known now about the human child, and impregnation, that not to use that scientific knowledge would be simply idiotic. We are using it on animals, but we are not using it on human beings. In human beings we are still continuing with the accidental way of producing children.

One of the great poets of India, Rabindranath Tagore, was the thirteenth child of his parents. It was good that at that time there was no birth control; otherwise the world would have missed Rabindranath Tagore. And we do not know how many geniuses we go on missing, for the simple reason that as far as human beings are concerned, we are still behaving very superstitiously.

In a single intercourse a man releases millions of sperm. At that moment, politics begin - a great race, a competition, to reach to the female egg. To us the distance seems to be very small, but to the sperm, for his size, the distance is proportionately almost two miles - and his life is only two hours.

In two hours, millions of sperms are running to reach the female egg. Only one will succeed. And you can take it for granted that the better people will stand aside. The Ronald Reagans will reach first. Better people are better from the very beginning - they will give way to others.

Now it is possible to donate your sperm to the hospital, and they can find out how many sperm can become geniuses and how many sperm will be just mediocre human beings - Hindus, Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, that kind of people; they can be discarded from the very beginning.

The best can be chosen - you can find them. Floating in that crowd there are people like Socrates, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Moses, Jesus. Why bother with mediocre people? And why remain accidental when the scientific facts are perfectly known and established? Because when this crowd - and it is not a small crowd - starts moving, it may be that those who are just in front reach first, for no other reason than that they may be Adolf Hitlers, they may be Mussolinis, they may be Joseph Stalins. Why create these people?

And you go on saying history repeats itself! You are the reason it repeats itself, because you go on being accidental. History can be changed completely so that it will never be repeated again; one just has to use a little intelligence.

Choose the finest, the best, rather than filling the earth with billions of people. Right now there are more than five billion people; it is better to have just one billion people. But we can create supermen; we just have to change our old patterns of thinking.

And we have to use science in the service of man, too. Science should be used for children.

Families should be made very loose, relaxed, and bigger; and we can create a paradise on the earth.

-Osho, “The Transmission of the Lamp, #31, Q1”