Obedience

 

 

The people who are obedient, who have no individuality, no freedom of expression, never say no to anything, are always ready to say yes, even against their wills -- these are the people who gain much respectability in the world. They become presidents, they become prime ministers, they are honored in every possible way, for the simple reason that they committed suicide. They are no longer living, they are simply fossilized.

 

Here, people are alive. How can you fit living people into a certain pattern? Every individual is unique.

 

And why should he fit into another's mold?

 

The whole misery of the world can be explained very simply: everybody has been cut, molded, arranged by others without their even bothering to find out what he was supposed to be by nature. They don't give a chance to existence.

 

From the very moment the child is born, they start spoiling him -- with all good intentions, of course. No parent does it consciously, but he was conditioned in the same way. He repeats the same with his children; he knows nothing else.

 

The disobedient child is continuously condemned. The obedient child is, on the other hand, continuously praised. But have you heard of any obedient child having become world-famous in any dimension of creativity? Have you heard of any obedient child who has attained the Nobel prize for anything -- literature, peace, science? The obedient child becomes just the common crowd. All that is added to existence is added by the disobedient.

 

-Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #33, Q1"