Violent

 

 

We have worked for thousands of years to make the earth a big madhouse, and we have succeeded, unfortunately. It is not only in Italy, it is everywhere the same: people are killing each other. There is violence everywhere for the simple reason that we have, in subtle ways, not allowed people's energies to be creative, and whenever creative energies are prevented they become destructive.

 

Violence is not the real problem. The real problem is how to help people to be creative. A creative person cannot be violent because his energies are moving in the direction of God. We call God the creator. Whenever you are creating something you participate in God's being. You cannot be violent, you cannot be destructive; it is impossible.

 

But for thousands of years we have destroyed every possible door to creativity. Instead of helping people to be creative we train them to be destructive. The warrior, the soldier, we have respected too much. In fact, the warrior is someone who should be condemned not respected -- he is destructive. The soldier should not be respected.

 

We need sannyasins, not soldiers. We need lovers, not fighters. But love is condemned and violence is praised. What is great in Alexander the Great? -- nothing but violence. He is great because he was the greatest violent person in those days. He killed over almost all the known world of his day -- he killed millions -- and still we go on calling him Alexander the Great. What is great in your kings and emperors and their history? Why do you go on praising them? They should be completely forgotten. Nadir Shah, Genghis Khan, Tamurlaine, why should they be remembered? Why should small children be told all the stupidities that man has done to man? -- because we still want people to fight.

 

The politician LIVES on violence, the nations LIVE on violence. If the violence disappears there will be no Italy, no India, no Japan. There will be only one humanity. Why these boundaries? But without these boundaries the politician disappears, and he does not want to disappear, obviously. He has a great vested interest in the boundaries and the boundaries have to be defended. And the only way to defend is to kill, and whosoever is the bigger killer is the winner.

 

And the same is true on a smaller scale in people's lives. People are taught to be violent because unless you are violent you are not going to succeed in life. YOU have to be very violent, only then you can fulfill your ambitions. A gentle person cannot succeed, he is bound to fail, because he cannot be competitive. He cannot push and pull people; he cannot step over people's heads.

 

All the politicians are criminals for the simple reason that crime pays. YOU only have to be cunning enough not to be caught. The most fundamental rule of this violent life is: all means are good if they fulfill the end. And of course, rather than arguing -- because argumentation is a long thing and it may never come to any conclusion -- it is better to pull the sword; it decides things immediately. It is easier to fight with a person and decide who is right. "Might is right." That rule still remains -- the rule of the jungle.

 

We call man civilized? He has yet to be civilized. Civilization is only an idea which has not yet been realized. Man is just superficially civilized, not even skin-deep. Just scratch a little and you will find the animal coming out -- a ferocious animal, far more ferocious than any wild animals because wild animals, howsoever wild they are, don't carry bombs — atom bombs, hydrogen bombs. Compared to man and his violence all animals are left far behind.

 

And in the past this has been the rule. The Buddhas are exceptions. Of course, they are the only civilized human beings The remaining crowd of people, the mob, is very uncivilized.

 

It is not, Francesco, only in Italy; it is the same here in this country -- a great spiritual country, a long long heritage of religion, and still people are killing. It makes no difference to people.

 

-Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #2, Q4"

 

 

⯎

 

 

Man can find peace only in two ways: either he becomes an animal again -- then he will be one, then there will be no division, then again there will be peace, silence, harmony.... And that's why millions of people try to be animals in different ways.

 

War gives a chance for man to become animal; hence war has great attraction. In three thousand years' history man has fought five thousand wars -- continuously, somewhere or other, the war continues. Not even a single day passes when man is not killing other men. Why such tremendous joy in destruction, in killing? The reason is deep down in the psychology of man.

 

The moment you kill, suddenly you are one; you become the animal again, the duality disappears. Hence, in murder, in suicide, there is a tremendous magnetic force. Man cannot be persuaded yet to be non-violent. Violence erupts. Names change, slogans change, but the violence remains the same. It may be in the name of religion, in the name of political ideology, or any absurd thing -- a football match is enough for people to get violent, a cricket match is enough.

 

People are so much interested in violence that if they cannot do it themselves -- because it is risky and they think of the consequences -- they find vicarious ways to be violent. In a movie, or on the TV, violence is a must; without violence, nobody is going to see the film. Seeing violence and blood, suddenly you are reminded of your animal past; you forget your present, you completely forget your future -- you become your past. You become identified; what is happening on the screen somehow becomes your own life. You are no more a spectator -- in those moments you become a participant, you fall en rapport.

 

Violence has great attraction. Sexuality has great attraction, because it is only in sexual moments that you can become one; otherwise you remain two, divided, and the anxiety and the anguish persist. Violence, sex, drugs, they all help you, at Least for the time being, temporarily, to fall back, to become all animal. But this cannot become a permanent state of affairs.

 

One fundamental law has to be understood: nothing can go backwards. At the most you can pretend, at the most you can deceive, but nothing can go backwards because time docs not move backwards. Time always goes ahead. You cannot reduce a young man to a child, and you cannot reduce an old man to a young man -- it is impossible. The tree cannot be reduced back to the original seed -- it is impossible.

 

Evolution goes on and on and there is no way to prevent it or to force it backwards. Hence all efforts of men to become animals and find peace are doomed to fail. You can be drunk through alcohol or through other drugs -- marijuana, LSD -- you can be completely drowned. For the moment all the worries disappear, for the moment you are no more part of a problematic existence, for the moment you move in a totally different dimension -- but for the moment only.

 

Tomorrow morning you will be back, and when you are back the world is going to be more ugly than it ever was before, and life is going to be more of a problem than it ever was before. Because while you were intoxicated, unconscious, asleep in the drug, the problems were growing. The problems were becoming more and more complicated. While you were thinking that you had gone beyond the problems, the problems were taking root more in your being, in your unconscious.

 

Tomorrow again you will be back in the same world -- it will look more ugly compared to the peace that you had attained by reduction, by intoxication, by forgetfulness. Compared to that peace, the world will look even more dangerous, more complex, more scary. And then the only way is: go on increasing the doses of your drug. But that too does not help for long. And this is no way to get out of the dilemma. The dilemma remains, persists.

 

The only way is to grow towards the divine, the only way is forwards. The only way is to become that which is your potential -- the only way is to transform the potential into the actual.

 

-Osho, "The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, #13“