Genetic Engineering

 

 

Never act out of fear. If man had acted out of fear there would have been no progress possible.

 

For example, the people who invented bicycles ... can you ever think of any danger? It is simply inconceivable that bicycles can be dangerous. But then the Wright brothers made the first flying machine out of the parts of bicycles. The whole world rejoiced -- because nobody could have foreseen that airplanes would be used to destroy cities, millions of people, in the first world war.

 

But the same airplanes are carrying millions of people around the world. They have made the world small, they have made it possible to call the world just a global village. They have made bridges between peoples, they have brought together people of different races, religions, languages in such a way that no other invention has been able to do. So the first thing to remember is that acting out of fear is not the right way.

 

Act cautiously, with consciousness, remembering the possibilities and the dangers, and creating the atmosphere to prevent those dangers. Now, what can be more dangerous than nuclear weapons in the hands of the politicians? You have put the most dangerous thing into their hands.

 

Now, in fact there is no need to be afraid; even nuclear weapons can be used creatively. And I have a deep trust in life, that they will be used creatively. Life cannot allow itself to be destroyed so easily, it is going to give tremendous resistance. In that resistance is hidden the birth of a new man, of a new dawn, of a new order, of the whole of life and existence.

 

According to me, nuclear weapons have made a great war impossible. Gautam Buddha could not do it, Jesus Christ could not do it. All the saints of the world together have been talking about nonviolence, no war; they could not succeed. But nuclear weapons have done their job.

 

Seeing that the danger is so big, all the politicians are trembling deep down, that if a third world war begins the whole of life will be destroyed -- and they will be included in it. They cannot save themselves. Nothing can be saved. This is a great chance for all those who love creation. This is the moment when we can turn the whole trend of science towards creativity.

 

Remember one thing: that science is neutral. It simply gives you power. Now, how to use it depends on you, depends on the whole of humanity and its intelligence. Science gives us more power to create a better life, to create more comfortable living, to create more healthy human beings -- rather than preventing ... just out of fear that some totalitarian power may misuse it.

 

Everything can be misused. And Devageet himself is a doctor; he himself belongs to the category of scientists. He should understand one thing, that everything that can harm can also be of tremendous benefit. Don't condemn anything, just raise the consciousness of human beings. Otherwise you are falling into the same fallacy into which Mahatma Gandhi has fallen.

 

Once you start acting out of fear, where are you going to stop? Mahatma Gandhi was using the same logic, and he stopped at the spinning wheel. That must have been invented at least twenty thousand years ago and he did not want to go beyond that. He wanted everything that has been invented after the spinning wheel to be destroyed. He was against railway trains, because in India railway trains have been used to make the whole country a slave.

 

These railway trains in India were not created for people's comfort and their service. They were created to move armies, so that within hours armies can move from one part of the country to another part. This is a vast country. There are places which, even by railway train, you can only reach in six days' time. It is almost a subcontinent; and to control this country they had to spread a big network of railway trains. Its basic purpose was the army and the army's movement.

 

But that cannot make us decide that railway trains should be destroyed. That would mean the movement of man is curtailed, he falls back into the Dark Ages. Mahatma Gandhi was not in favor even of innocent things like telegrams, telegraphs, the post office, because they were all used in India, in the beginning, to control the country. Slowly, slowly they were changed into public services. Every invention has been used first by the military, by the war-mongers, and finally they have come to be used by the people.

 

What is needed is not to go backwards; otherwise you will destroy the whole humanity. What is needed is to go forwards and learn some lesson from the past: so that, as scientific technology develops, simultaneously human consciousness should develop. And that will be the protection against technology being used as something harmful to mankind. [....]

 

So one should not act out of fear; one should see the whole perspective. If there is fear, that means the fear comes not from the power generated by science, the fear comes from the unconscious man. In his hands everything becomes poisonous, dangerous.

 

Change the man, don't stop progressive science. For example, what I have told you was the latest findings of genetic scientists. Up to now we have lived accidentally, in the hands of blind biology. You don't know what kind of child you are going to give birth to -- blind, retarded, crippled, ugly; and he will suffer his whole life. And in an unconscious way you are responsible, because you never bothered to figure out some way that only healthy children -- not blind, not deaf, not dumb, not retarded, not insane -- are born.

 

And particularly now, when children are born with AIDS, you have to take some steps to choose which children should be born and which children should not be born. The children born with AIDS are bringing death to themselves, to their family, to their friends. They will go to the schools, they will go to the colleges, and they will spread it. And finally they will get married, and they will produce children who will have AIDS.

 

Now, unless we listen to the genetic scientists, there is no way to prevent it. Devageet is perhaps not aware that genetic science is able to exactly figure out a few things: for example, whether the child born out of a certain combination of male and female energy is going to be healthy or not. [....]

 

Genetic scientists cannot say in detail that this man will become a doctor, or an engineer, or a gardener, but they can say a few things very definitively and a few things as possibilities. About health they can say very definitively; what kind of diseases the child will suffer from they can say very definitively. So precautions can be taken, and the child can be saved from suffering from those diseases. They can certainly and very definitively say how long the child will live. Measures can be taken to prolong his life.

 

On the side of possibilities, they can say that this child has a possibility, a potential for being a musician. That does not mean that he cannot become a doctor; that simply means that if the right opportunities are given to him he will become a musician rather than becoming a doctor. And if he does not become a musician and becomes a doctor, he will never find fulfillment. His innermost being will remain missing something.

 

So if the genetic scientist can say that these are the possibilities, the society, the parents, the commune, can make certain opportunities available to the child. Right now, we don't know what his potential is. We have to decide; parents are in a dilemma where to send the child: to an engineering college, to a medical college, to a carpentry workshop, or to a car mechanic. Where to send him, and how to decide? Their decision comes out of financial considerations. That is the only way for them to decide -- which way the child will be a success financially, comfortable, prestigious. That may not be the potential of the child, but parents have no idea.

 

The genetic scientists can simply give you the possibilities. They are not saying these are certainties, that whatever you do this child will become a musician. They are not saying that, because nature can be diverted by nurture. If you stop all possibilities for him to become a musician and you force him to become a doctor, he will become a doctor; but he will be a doctor his whole life unwillingly, without any joy.

 

Nurture is important, but if we know exactly what the possibilities are, we can help the child through the right kind of nurture. Then nature and nurture can function harmoniously together and create a better human being, more contented with himself, more joyous, and creating a more beautiful world around him.

 

Only on one point are you right: genetics is capable of giving the potential about everything except enlightenment, because enlightenment is not part of a biological program. It is something beyond biology.

 

Hence, in genetic science there is no way to say that this person is going to become enlightened. At the most they can say this person will have a leaning more towards spirituality, mysticism, more towards the unknown; but if these leanings are known, we can provide the nurture for him. And the world will have more enlightened people than has ever been possible before.

 

The fear that Devageet feels is that if genetics falls into the hands of totalitarian governments, they will start choosing children who will be obedient to the status quo, who will not be revolutionaries, who will never become rebellious, who will be always ready to become slaves without any resistance.

 

That fear is there, but that fear can be avoided. Why give the power to totalitarian governments? I am giving you a whole program for society. [....]

 

But genetic scientists also say that everybody is by nature capable of living at least three hundred years -- and remain young. Old age can be abolished. And it will be a great revolution, because if an Albert Einstein can go on working for three hundred years, if a Gautam Buddha can go on preaching for three hundred years, if all the great poets and mystics and scientists and painters can go on working, refining their methods, refining their language, their poetry, refining their techniques, technology, the world will be immensely rich.

 

This is a very great wastage as it is now. When a man really comes of age, death starts knocking on his door. It is very strange -- it brings new people who know nothing. Now bring them up, educate them, train them, discipline them, and by the time they are really mature, retire them. When they are really capable of doing something, the time of retirement comes. And after retirement nobody lives more than ten or fifteen years, because after retirement one becomes absolutely useless, and he himself starts feeling a burden on the children, on the society. He loses all his respectability, prestige, power. He becomes an outsider, an unwelcome guest who is just reluctant to die.

 

You may not be aware that the generation gap has never been in existence in the past. The generation gap is a new phenomenon that has come into existence just now because people are living longer. Now a ninety-year-old father ... three other generations have come into existence. His son is seventy years old, his grandson is fifty years old, his great grandson is thirty years old. Now the distance is so great that the great grandson has no connection at all: Who is this old man, and why does he go on hanging around? -- an unnecessary trouble and always irritated, always angry, always ready to freak out. What purpose is there?

 

In the past, people never saw four or five generations together; hence there were no generation gaps. I don't even know the name of my great grandfather. I asked my father. He said, "I don't know myself. The names that you know are the names I know. More than that, I know nothing." [....]

 

As machines are becoming more and more capable of doing the work of man, more efficient than man, without asking for higher wages, without going on strike, without changing shifts -- twenty-four hours they go on producing; a single machine can work in place of a thousand people -- more and more people will be becoming unemployed.

 

It is better to plan, so that you have only as many people as you need. And why not have the best? Why not drop this mob that surrounds the earth? This mob is the most dangerous thing, because it plays into the hands of any cunning politician.

 

The mob has no mind of its own, no intelligence of its own. We can create individuals with great intelligence, individuality, and each generation will be a better generation than the outgoing one. Then evolution will be in leaps and bounds; otherwise we are stuck. We have been stuck for thousands of years, only things go on growing -- better cars, better airplanes, better bombs, but not better human beings.

 

If man is stuck and everything goes on growing, it is a dangerous situation. Man will be burdened with his own progress, with his own technology, with his own science. Man should also grow; man should always remain ahead.

 

I understand Devageet's concern, but I don't agree with it. I always see a ray of light in the darkest night. And howsoever dark the night may be, there is always a possibility for the dawn to be very close.

 

I am in favor of every scientific progress, but the progress should be in the hands of creative people, the progress should not be in the hands of war-mongers. War can now be stopped and war-mongers can disappear. This is possible for the first time in the history of man. Hence, don't be afraid of totalitarian people.

 

It is true that genetic scientists cannot say anything definitely; perhaps in the future they will be more definite. It is a very new discovery, to read the future possibilities in human sperm. It is just the beginning. Perhaps within five years, ten years' time, what we are now just able to say as a possibility we will be able to say as a certainty. Then the nurture is in our hands, so that we can give a harmonious nurture, knowing the possibility, and create more harmonious beings. [....]

 

The genetic scientists have also been trying to change the program which is already determined by biology. Up to now they have not been able to split the living cell of the sperm, just the way they have been able to split the atom. But it took three hundred years of physical research to split matter into atomic energy. It may take a few years, but I am absolutely certain that they will be able to split the living human sperm also. And once they are able to split it, they can reprogram it. The whole program is there.

 

You will be surprised to know that once in a while there are twins born. Twins are of two types: two-egg twins and one-egg twins. Once in a while this accident happens, that the mother releases two eggs -- which is very rare. Then naturally two male sperm enter the two eggs. These are also twins, but they have differences because their mother cells are different. Once in a while just one egg is released but two male sperm reach the mother cell exactly at the same time, so as the door opens they get in. Then a rare variety of twins is born, which is one-egg twins.

 

They look exactly similar, and experiments on these twins have given great insights to genetic scientists, because these twins ... One may be living in Europe and one may be living in China. In China there may be some disease that the child falls sick of. In Europe the disease is not there, but the twin child in Europe will fall sick of the same disease of which his brother has fallen sick -- without being informed about it.

 

They will have at the same time colds, headaches, and they will die almost simultaneously, wherever they are. That gave genetic scientists the first idea that there must be a fixed and determined program; otherwise how is it happening? It cannot be infection because one boy is in Europe and one boy is in China. Why should they have headaches at the same time? They feel angry at the same time, they feel sad at the same time.

 

It seems it is beyond their capacity to be sad or angry -- it is something in their program. They die almost simultaneously; at the most the difference has been found to be three months, but not more than that. Mostly it is the same day, but at the most the difference has been only of three months.

 

If we can change the genetic program, life can have a very different flavor. We can change the many stupidities that man is prone to. We can change man's lust for power, we can change man's desire to be somebody special, we can change jealousy -- we can simply remove it and we can put in new qualities, as a program.

 

It is not that you are not ashamed of your jealousy, your anger, your lust for power, but what can you do? Somehow you feel that you are caught in some blind force that drives you nuts. [....]

 

We have to change the woman's genetic program, so that every time she discusses sensibly she does not have to lose. She knows perfectly well, that "sensibly" is not the way to win. Behave as crazily as possible, do absolutely absurd things. Make the whole neighborhood know and the husband will be afraid, and he will say, "You are right."

 

They know the whole question is not being sensible or not sensible. The question is, who wins. Victory decides whether your means were right or wrong. But this has to be changed. This destroys something in the individuality of women. Reason will give them a beauty. Intelligence will give them something that will make them not only physically beautiful, but will make them also mentally more developed.

 

Otherwise, even the most beautiful women in the world are not capable of having a good conversation. They are mostly vegetables. They look beautiful, so it is always good to look at somebody else's woman because you are only looking; the other man knows how she behaves, what she says, what she does. But she is not responsible, it is the biological programming.

 

Genetics relieves you of your burden. Man has a very chauvinistic, egoistic idea about himself. That is his program. It makes him look very stupid. [....]

 

I am in every way in favor of genetic reprogramming of men and women. What kind of nonsense is this? Pinching! And in every crowd men are doing that. Every woman knows when she has been pinched, and she cannot conceive what this man is getting out of it. But the man is ready to give five thousand dollars, which he has not got! Some blind force which is not within his control ...

 

Unless we change the whole program of men and women, we will not have a new world. We have to drop all fears. And I repeat again, never act out of fear. Any action out of fear is going to lead us backwards.

 

Act with consciousness, cautiously. Use every preventive measure so that what you are doing cannot be misused, but don't look backward. Life is ahead and in the future. Because of this point I have angered all of India's Gandhians; if it weren't for this they would be my followers. Even the president of the ruling party and the ministers and the chief ministers, all used to attend the meditation camps.

 

-Osho, "The New Dawn, #21, Q1“