Interdependence

 

 

Osho,
In your vision of a model society, would there be one large commune, or a series of communes? If there is more than one, what would be their relationship to one another? Do you envisage people of different communes being able to be interdependent, sharing ideas and skills, and without any of the attitudes that grow out of possessiveness, like nationalism and fanaticism?

 

 

Maneesha, the question raises a very important thing: the concept of interdependence. Man has lived in dependence, and man has desired and fought for independence, but nobody looks into the reality -- that dependence and independence both are extremes.

 

Reality is exactly in the middle; it is interdependence. Everything is interdependent. The smallest blade of grass and the biggest star both are interdependent. This is the whole foundation of ecology. Because man has behaved without understanding the reality of interdependence. He has destroyed so much of the organic unity of life. He has been cutting his own hands, his own legs, without knowing.

 

Forests have disappeared, millions of trees are being cut every day. Just now scientists are giving warnings -- but nobody is ready to listen -- that if all trees disappear from the earth, man cannot live. We are in a deep inter-exchange. Man goes on breathing in oxygen, and throwing out carbon dioxide; trees go on inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. Neither you can exist without the trees, nor can the trees exist without you.

 

This is a simple example; otherwise life is interwoven in a thousand and one ways.... Because many trees have disappeared, so much carbon dioxide has gathered in the atmosphere, that it has raised the temperature on the whole earth by four degrees. To you it may seem insignificant -- four degrees -- but it is not insignificant. By the end of this century, this temperature will be enough to melt so much ice that every ocean will rise four feet higher. One degree of temperature more means the ocean rises one foot higher. So the cities which are on the coast of the oceans -- and all the great cities are there -- will be flooded with water.

 

If the temperature goes on increasing, as is the possibility, because nobody is listening.... Trees are being cut, without any understanding, for useless things; for third rate newspapers you need newsprint, and you are destroying life. There is a possibility that if the eternal ice of the Himalayas starts melting, which has never happened in the whole past, then all the oceans will rise twenty feet higher, and will drown almost the whole earth. They will destroy all your cities -- Bombay and Calcutta, New York,London, and San Francisco. Perhaps a few primitive people who live high in the mountains may survive.

 

Such is the interdependence that when your first astronauts reached to the moon, we became aware for the first time that the whole earth is surrounded by a thick sheet of ozone, which is a form of oxygen. That layer of ozone surrounds the whole earth, like a blanket. It has been because of this ozone blanket that life has become possible on this planet, because ozone does not allow in the death rays that come from the sun. It allows in only the life rays and prevents the death rays; it returns them.

 

But in our stupidity to reach to the moon, we have made holes in the blanket. And the efforts continue. Now we are trying to reach Mars! Each time a rocket goes beyond the atmosphere of the earth, that is two hundred miles beyond, it creates great holes. Through those holes, death rays have started entering in. Now scientists are saying that these death rays will increase the rate of cancer by almost thirty percent; and other diseases are not counted, small diseases are not counted.

 

The stupid politicians are not listening. And if you call them stupid, then you are jailed, you are punished; false allegations are made against you. But I don't see what else to call them. Stupid seems to be the most gentle and the most cultured word for them. They don't deserve it; they deserve something worse.

 

Life is a deep interdependence.

 

My vision of commune, Maneesha, is that nations disappear, big cities disappear, because they don't allow enough space for every human being -- and every human being has a certain psychological need for a territorial imperative, just like other animals. In big cities, man is continuously moving in a crowd. That creates great anxiety, tension, agony, and does not allow him any time to relax, any time, any place, to be himself -- to be alone, to be with the trees, which are life-giving sources, to be with the ocean, which is a life-giving source.

 

My vision of a new world, the world of communes, means no nations, no big cities, no families, but millions of small communes spread all over the earth in thick forests, lush green forests, in mountains, on islands. The smallest commune manageable, which we have already tried, can be of five thousand people, and the biggest commune can be of fifty thousand people. From five thousand to fifty thousand -- more than that will become unmanageable; then again comes the question of order and law, and the police, and the court, and all old criminals have to be brought back.

 

Small communes... five thousand seems to be the perfect number, because we have tried that. Everybody knows everybody else, all are friends. There is no marriage -- children belong to the commune. The commune has hospitals, schools, colleges. The commune takes care of the children; parents can visit them. It is simply insignificant whether the parents are living together or they have separated. For the child, they both are available; he can visit them, they can visit him.

 

All the communes should be interdependent, but they will not exchange money. Money should be dissolved. It has done tremendous harm to humanity. Now it is time to say goodbye to it!

 

These communes should exchange things. You have more milk products; you can give them to another commune, because you need more clothes, and that commune can provide you with more clothes -- a simple barter system, so no commune becomes rich. Money is a very strange thing. You can accumulate it; that is the strangest secret of money. You cannot accumulate milk products, you cannot accumulate vegetables. If you have more vegetables you have to share with some commune which has not enough vegetables.

 

But money can be accumulated. And if one commune becomes richer than the other commune, then comes from the back door, the poverty and the richness and the whole nightmare of capitalism, and the classes of the poor and the rich, and the desire to dominate, because you are rich. You can enslave other communes. Money is one of the enemies of man.

 

Communes will be exchanging. They will be broadcasting on their radio stations, that such and such a product is available from them. Anybody who has certain other products that they need can contact them, and things can be exchanged in a friendly way; there is no haggling, there is no exploitation. But the commune should not become too big, because bigness is also dangerous.

 

A commune's criterion of bigness should be that everybody knows everybody else; that should be the limit. Once that limit is crossed, the commune should divide itself into two. Just as two brothers separate, when a commune becomes big enough it divides itself into two communes, two sister communes. And there will be a deep interdependence, sharing ideas and skills, without any of the attitudes that grow out of possessiveness -- like nationalism and fanaticism. There will be nothing to be fanatic about. There will be no reason for a nation.

 

A small group of people can enjoy life more easily, because to have so many friends, so many acquaintances, is a joy unto itself. Today in the big cities, you live in the same house and you don't know your neighbor. In one house one hundred thousand people may be living. A one hundred story building can contain that many people -- almost a whole city. And they are absolute strangers to each other, living in a crowd, and yet being alone.

 

My idea of a commune is, living in small groups, which gives you enough space, and yet living in a close, loving, relationship. Your children are taken care of by the commune, your needs are taken care of by the commune, your medical care is taken care of by the commune. The commune becomes an authentic family without any diseases that families have created in the past. It is a loose family and a constant movement.

 

There is no question of any marriage, and no question of any divorce. If two persons want to be together, they can be together, and if one day they don't want to be together, that is perfectly good. It was their decision to be together; now they can choose other friends. In fact, in one life why not live many lives? Why not make it richer? Why should a man cling to a woman, or a woman cling to a man unless they enjoy each other so much that they want to be together for their whole life. But looking at the world, the situation is clear. People would like to be independent from their families; children want to be independent from their families.

 

Just the other day, one small boy in California did something unique and special. He wanted to go out and play. This was nothing special; all children should be allowed to go out and play. But the mother and father insisted, "No, don't go out; just play inside the house." And the boy shot both the mother and the father. He played inside the house. There is a limit... always listening to "no, no, no!"

 

In America the time rate of husbands and wives changing is three years. It is the same rate that people change their jobs; it is the same time-rate people change cities. There seems to be something special about three years. It seems it is the limit one can tolerate. Beyond that, it becomes intolerable. So people change wives and husbands, people change cities, people change jobs.

 

But in a commune, there is no need to make any fuss. You can say goodbye any moment, and you can still remain friends, because who knows? After two years, you may fall in love again with the same man, with the same woman. In two years time you may have forgotten all the troubles, and you want to have a taste again; or perhaps you had fallen into the hands of a worse man and a worse woman, and you repent, and you want to go back! But it will be a richer life; you will have known many men and many women. Each man has his own uniqueness, and each woman has her own uniqueness.

 

Communes can also exchange people, if somebody wants to move into another commune, and the other commune is willing to accept. The other commune may say, "If somebody else wants to go into your commune, exchange is possible -- because we don't want to raise our population." People can decide. You can go and advertise yourself; some woman may like you, some people may turn friends. Somebody may have been bored in that commune, and would like to change their commune....

 

The whole world should be one humanity, only divided by small communes on a practical basis: No fanaticism, no racism, no nationalism. Then, for the first time, we can drop the idea of wars. We can make life with honesty, worth living, worth enjoying; playful, meditative, creative, and give every man and every woman equal opportunity to grow and bring their potential to flowering.

 

[....]

 

Jesus was crucified only once. I have been on the cross almost my whole life. Jesus was crucified in a small unknown part of the world, Judea. I have been crucified in almost every country of the world. And my crime is that I can see the new house where man will live in the future: the new man, his new house, his new commune, his new future.

 

-Osho, “The Golden Future, #30, Q2”