Civilization

 

 

Question 2

Osho,

What is civilization?

 

 

Civilization has not happened yet. It is a false idea that we are civilized people -- civilized people and continuously preparing for war?

 

Even the animals don't eat, don't kill their own species. It is only man who kills his own species -- no lion will kill another lion, no dog will kill another dog. No lion will eat another lion. Man is the only one who can be a cannibal. There are still small groups around the world in isolated places who are cannibals. They are remnants of the past, but they are still there.

 

In Africa there is a small cannibal colony in the thick forest. There used to be three thousand at the beginning of this century; now they are only three hundred because, when they cannot find anybody else, they have to eat somebody from their own group. They are getting reduced in numbers -- they eat their own children, they eat their own parents. Once in a while they get a Christian missionary, but that is very rare.

 

Once they caught a very fat Christian missionary and they were immensely happy. There was dancing and celebration, a big pot on the fire was boiling and the Christian missionary asked, "What is this celebration for? I have come here to give you a taste of Christianity."

 

They said, "You wait, soon we will have the first taste of Christianity."

 

He said, "How are you going to have the first taste of Christianity if I don't give it to you?"

 

They said, "Don't be worried, you will have to give it."

 

He said, "I don't understand what you are talking about."

 

They said, "Look at that fire and the big pot. We will put you in the pot. When the water is hot enough, we will make a soup of you and that will be our first taste of Christianity!"

 

Once perhaps the whole of humanity was cannibal.

 

In emergency situations one falls back. For example, when there was a famine in Bengal, people were found eating their own children. You cannot conceive it, but rather than die it seems to be logical and rational to eat your own children. Those who were not able to do such a thing sold their children, knowing perfectly well that the people who were purchasing their children would eat them. And with the money they purchased other people's children. This way they protected their conscience a little bit, but not much, because it was absolutely clear what was going to happen.

 

In emergency situations man shows his real face; otherwise our civilization is only a mask.

 

In a civilized humanity a few things are absolutely necessary. One: there should be no possibility of war because it is life-destructive. And a civilized humanity will have the sensitivity not to destroy life in any form.

 

George Bernard Shaw had around his house a beautiful garden where he had collected exotic roses from different countries, different colors, different fragrances. A friend had come to see him and he saw the roses. He could not believe that there were so many colors and so many different fragrances. When he went inside he asked Bernard Shaw, "You have such beautiful flowers, but you don't put them in a flowerpot inside your sitting room?"

 

Bernard Shaw said, "I am a civilized man. I love children, but that does not mean I should cut off their heads and decorate my sitting room with them. I love roses, but that does not mean that I have to cut the living flower from its life source and put it here in my sitting room. That would be uncivilized behavior."

 

Even to cut a flower is uncivilized behavior, what to say about people like Genghis Khan, who killed forty million people; Tamerlane, who killed thirty million people; Nadir Shah, he again killed forty million people, and statistics are not available about many others. Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible ... no data is available, but they must have killed more people than Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah. Data is available on Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and they were not very far away from our present time, just forty years ago. They killed millions of people for no reason at all.

 

This destructiveness is a death-oriented ideology and it is so deeply rooted in our minds that it keeps us below the animals.

 

Man is not yet civilized. His civilization will begin by dropping war, by dropping nations. What is the need of nations if you are not going to fight? Nations are needed for wars. Why create these stupid lines on the map of the world?

 

The world is one. There are no natural lines dividing nations. Then why do you go on? There is a deep desire to dominate and there are so many people in the world to dominate: they need many nations. Otherwise just a single government, a functional government for the whole world will be enough.

 

What is the need of so many laws, if man is civilized? What is the need of so many courts, jails, so many legal advisers, if man is civilized? A civilized man will not commit murders, a civilized man will not rape women ... but we keep this whole paraphernalia of courts, laws, constitutions, legal experts; for whom?

 

Man is still a criminal. And these jails, these judges and these laws prevent nothing. Jails go on growing, judges go on increasing -- more and more of them; more courts, more legal experts, thousands of colleges around the world producing legal experts every year. But even they cannot manage, for the criminals increase at a faster rate, and they don't have a college, they are not educated.

 

Something is basically wrong, something is missing. What is missing? I call it meditation.

 

Only meditation can make humanity civilized, because meditation will release your creativity and take away your destructiveness. Meditation will bring your compassion and will take away your cruelty. Meditation will make you responsible to your own being and then you cannot be a criminal.

 

To be a criminal needs great unconsciousness. Meditation destroys your unconsciousness, opens the doors of light and suddenly what you were doing in the darkness starts disappearing.

 

A civilization can be based only on meditation. The only people who have been civilized were people who were in touch with their own being: a Gautam Buddha, a Socrates, a Pythagoras, a Lao Tzu; these people are civilized. Only individuals once in a while have been found civilized, but the collective mass is still far below the standard of civilization. [....]

 

Just look around, look at people's behavior and you will be surprised. This idea that we have become civilized is very dangerous. It is preventing us from being civilized, because once you accept that you are civilized there is no need to work for civilization. Once you accept you are healthy, there is no need to remove any sickness that you may be suffering from. The first thing to be recognized is that you are sick! Then only can something be done for your health. But if you deny sickness, which has been done for centuries by your so-called politicians ... They deny that we are uncivilized people, they say we are civilized people.

 

And this camouflage prevents us from being civilized. We have completely accepted the idea and forgotten that we have to see whether it is true or not. It is certainly not true. Unless each man comes to the consciousness of a Gautam Buddha, there is no question of civilization. [....]

 

And this is a civilized world! And America is very proud of its civilization. Absolutely innocent people are being tortured. Thirty million people in America are beggars. They are just on the street, with no food, no shelter, no clothes; they don't know from where they are going to get their food tomorrow. And exactly the same number -- a strange coincidence -- thirty million Americans are suffering from too much weight. They are looked after in the hospitals, because they cannot be left alone in their houses. Devageet was right that in the middle of the night they empty the fridge.

 

Thirty million people are dying of overfeeding and thirty million people are dying without food. Is this civilization? Can't a simple understanding be there: "Don't eat too much and what remains can save thirty million people?" Not eating too much is going to save the other thirty million who are dying of starvation. As they go on eating, sixty million people are unnecessarily dying.

 

You call this an intelligent world, a civilized world, a cultured world? No, I refuse! A hundred times NO! This world is not yet civilized. It needs civilization, certainly. But up to now no effort has been made to civilize it. [....]

 

The fear is that if you are going to learn meditation you will end up in Poona. And this is the only effort which is being made on a large scale around the world to make people civilized. But no politician wants people to be civilized. No country wants people to be civilized. They want a pretense, a hypocrisy, but not a deeper transformation.

 

We have to create that revolt around the world. It is not against anybody, it is against your own false ideas, your false personality, your masks. You have to discover your original face, you have to discover your authenticity and you will be creating a small energy field. Whoever comes close to you will feel the flavor of civilization, of culture, of humanness, and if you go really deep into your being you can radiate something which is the only argument and the only proof that the world is not dead, that it is alive, it is intelligent, it is divine.

 

All religions should disappear from the world. Only religiousness is enough. And religiousness need not be organized: it is each individual's communion with the universe. There is no need of Christians or Hindus or Mohammedans. There is only need of religious people, seekers, lovers of meditation, dropping all their masks, courageous enough to expose their original face to the world.

 

When the world has its original face, it will be a civilized world.

 

-Osho, “Sat Chit Anand, #27, Q2“