Laws

 

 

A single leaf cannot become yellow without the knowledge of the whole tree. You cannot condemn the single leaf -- the whole tree knows it, allows it. If a single man becomes wicked, it is not without the innermost being of you all participating in his wickedness.

 

We are all leaves of a single tree. Don't condemn because you are green and one leaf has turned yellow. Perhaps that single leaf is simply dropping from the tree to allow space for a new guest to arrive, a new leaf, fresh and young. Perhaps you are a clinger and you will take a little more time to turn yellow. But before you turn yellow you will condemn that leaf that she betrayed the tree. But the whole tree is involved in every action of the smallest leaf.

 

This is a great insight, that if there is a murderer we are all responsible for it, and unless the whole humanity takes the responsibility of murderers and thieves and rapists, we are not going to change anything. We have condemned them for centuries, and what we have done to them is so ridiculous....

 

If a person is caught trying to commit suicide, then for centuries his punishment was death. Strange... great wisdom! What he was doing himself, you are doing to him as a punishment.

 

If a murderer is given a death sentence, your whole society is murderous, your law is murderous. What is the difference? That man destroyed a life and you are destroying another life -- do you think by destroying this murderer you are going to bring life back to the murdered one? No, instead of one man murdered now there are two men murdered -- great justice, great love.

 

If a man has murdered someone, somewhere deep in us is hidden the same desire -- and that has become the law in the court. We have made the law; our law is as murderous as any murderer. This is not justice, this is simply revenge. You are taking revenge in the name of justice. Because that man did not obey, he should not be left alive. But are you certain that if this murderer is not killed by the law, he may not turn into a great poet, or a musician or a painter? Or even a mystic?

 

You are taking away the opportunity for his growth, and without ever thinking why he murdered in the first place. Nobody bothers about the causes, everybody looks only at the symptoms. Perhaps that man has suffered so much at the hands of the society that you have reduced him into an animal. And once he is an animal he is going to behave like an animal. But remember -- he is a victim and you are the cause.

 

That's why laws go on growing, new laws are being made, new courts, new judges, more police, more armies -- and you have not been able to reduce the number of crimes. They are growing simultaneously; there must be some deep relationship between the two. The growth of your legal systems and the growth of the criminals is equal. It is a strange coincidence.

 

If you were right, then so many police, so many great armies, so many courts, so many parliaments, so many legal experts... and you have not been able to prevent anything. It is a blame on your very being, it is a condemnation of your intelligence. Something is very profoundly wrong with the whole system.

 

A murderer, a thief should be treated with dignity. He is a human being. And if he has committed a murder he is psychologically sick. You don't punish the sick people, you send them to a psychiatric hospital where they can be taken care of.

 

There is no need for any jail. All jails should be converted into beautiful psychiatric nursing homes, where people who have lost their humanity because of the ugly behavior of the society -- exploitation and oppression and all kinds of repression -- should be given back their dignity and honor, should be treated mentally and physically, should be trained and educated, should be made productive and creative, should be given the opportunity that they have missed before. Then only I will say there exists a system of justice, there exists a system of law.

 

But what exists is just the opposite. And I am saying it from my own experience.

 

-Osho, "The Messiah, Vol 1, #21“