Osho VisionThe Golden FutureReligiousnessThe New ManRebellious SpiritEducationWoman

  The Golden Future 

 I believe in the earth 

"We are not interested in going to paradise; we are interested in making the paradise come here. It all depends on our love, on our silence, on our peace, on our meditation, and being aware and alert not to fall again into any trap of the vested interests.

Once the tree has become strong, has gained roots in the earth, it will be difficult for anybody to destroy it.

I believe in the earth.

I repeat Zarathustra who said to his disciples, "Never betray the earth." All the religions have betrayed the earth.

The earth is the only reality.

Everything else talked about by religions is only fiction to distract you. We don't want religions which are interested in a future heaven after death. Our interest is here, now -- before death. What is the point of thinking about after death? This has been the routine because people could not succeed to create something beautiful in life. They started postponing it beyond death because nobody knows what happens beyond death; so it was a very good postponement.

I am not for postponing it, not even for tomorrow. Whatever can be done should be done right now.

Don't betray the earth; don't betray the present.
Don't betray your dream; your dream is your very soul."

-Osho, "The Invitation, #1"

 We should be proud of this planet earth. 

It is one single whole; and we should be proud that our planet earth is the only planet in this vast universe, where there are millions of solar systems having millions and millions of planets. Our planet is the only one which has evolved not only life, not only consciousness, but has even produced the ultimate flowering of consciousness in people like Gautam the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Tilopa and many more. We should be proud of this planet earth.

-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #31, Q2"

 You are in paradise 

Paradise is nothing – paradise is a capacity to enjoy yourself right here and now. You are in paradise, but still you have lost it because you cannot enjoy here and now. You are thinking, planning for the future, somewhere when you become like gods, then you will enjoy it.

Knowledge creates future. Knowledge creates desire. Knowledge creates becoming. Knowledge is sansar, the wheel. When you are in the wheel you go on round and round and round reaching nowhere.

Knowledge is the world. When Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world," he means the world of becoming. He does not mean this world of the trees and the birds singing and the rain falling, and the sky and the clouds, no – he does not mean by “this world," this world that surrounds you. He means the world that surrounds your mind and your being, the world of becoming, desire – what Buddha calls tanha. The desire to be something other than you already are.

And that is impossible. You are going to be in a constant hell. You can be only that which you are already, nothing else is possible. You are simply trying to do something impossible.

You cannot be anything else. How can you be? A roseflower trying to become a lotus flower, a lotus flower trying to become something else...but they are not so stupid, they are still part of paradise. The rosebush just by your side is still in paradise but you are not. The child sitting by your side may be still in paradise but you are not. I am just here before you, am in paradise, but you are not. So paradise is not a question of geography, it is a question of inner space.“

- Osho, "Tao - The Three Treasures, Vol 3, #3"

Osho,

How do you manage always to find a paradise?

It is not a question of finding a paradise. It is a question of carrying it within yourself so wherever you are it is there. And if you don't have it within you, you cannot find it anywhere else. There is only one place where it exists and it is within you. It has no concern with houses, no concern with places. [....]

If you know, then every place is paradise. If you don't know, then every place is hell

-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #44"

Question 1

Osho,

Do you think that you will go to heaven when you die?

There is no heaven anywhere, it is here. It is always here, it is never there. It is always now, it is never then. The very idea of heaven somewhere else -- there, then -- is a strategy of the mind to deceive you, to keep you ignorant of the heaven that surrounds you every moment.

Existence knows no past, no future. The only time existence knows is now, and the meditator has to enter this 'nowness' of things. this is heaven. This very moment we are in it. You are of aware, I am aware of it. That's the only difference: you are sleep, I am awake. But we exist in the same space. There is nowhere to go!

-Osho, "Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, #2, Q1"

I want my people to jump out of this circle. Drop all fear. There is nothing to fear. There is no hell to be worried about and there is no paradise for which you have to be greedy.

This life, this sun, this ocean... What more do you want?

Paradise is here. And if we drop the idea of paradise beyond death, we can make this paradise a thousandfold more beautiful.

Once the priest disappears, the most criminal part of humanity will have disappeared. Freedom from religions is the fundamental principle if you want to be religious. To be religious needs no fear, no greed; to be religious needs no churches, no synagogues, no temples. This whole existence is the temple. [....]

Existence is so beautiful, so unique, with all these birds chirping and singing, that you need not be bothered about any paradise or any hell. Man has to be free of his childhood fears, his childhood greed for rewards; then religions will disappear, priests will be gone, and there will be an immense freedom to grow your individuality and your world.

-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #28, Q2"
 

 My Vision is for The Whole Man 

In my vision we don't have to wait for biological engineering to create the superman. It will go against all the masses, all the societies. All the religions will become hindrances, they won't allow it. Because I have proposed it, I am being criticized. I have received from all over the world criticism of my book, *THE GREATEST CHALLENGE, THE GOLDEN FUTURE, saying that I am a fascist just like Friedrich Nietzsche was a fascist.

But they don't understand me. Neither have they understood Friedrich Nietzsche. And they will misunderstand me even more because I am not going to wait for biological engineering. I am going to create the superman by a very different methodology.

My methodology is meditation.

I can change the ordinary, average human being into a buddha. There is no need right now to go into changing the ordinary structure of reproduction. Finally it has to be done, because that will be the easiest way. And if I have supermen to work with, then meditation will be so easy, immediately understood.

But Friedrich Nietzsche had no idea about meditation. I can change, through meditation, the very ordinary and average person into a superman. The moment you enter into your being -- centered, silent, the whole sky within has no clouds of thought -- you are turning into a superman. I call that superman the buddha.

Maneesha, you are right -- because I am looking at man from every angle: from his body, from his mind, from his soul. I am looking at man as a totality. So many half-circles are going to be complete in me. Buddha was looking only at the spiritual; Marx was looking only at the material; Sigmund Freud was looking only at the psychological. My approach is total, from all dimensions and directions. And I have gone through all these people as deeply as possible, and I know where they stand, where they have stopped. Nietzsche has stopped with intellectual analysis, Sigmund Freud has stopped with psychoanalysis, Marx has stopped with an economic analysis of the society.

But man is not partial. Don't deal with man part by part.

You can deal with a machine in a partial way -- you can change one part if it is not functioning well -- but man is an organic unity; you cannot do that with man. You have to take the whole man into your vision. My vision is for the whole man.

And the moment you also understand all your dimensions, all your directions, all your potentialities, suddenly a great transformation happens: the superman is born in you. You don't have to wait because you cannot change your programming of biology now. Perhaps your children's children may gather courage enough to change the biology of man.

When I am talking to you, I am taking care not only about you but about your children's children's children. My approach is not only concerned with you -- it is certainly concerned with you, but not only with you. My vision reaches far deeper. I am saying many things which should be said only one century from now. That's what creates controversies about me, unnecessary condemnation of me, but I am helpless.

In fact, I enjoy all the controversies, all the condemnation. At this moment, I am the most condemned man in the whole world. That gives me great joy! At least I am something....

-Osho, "Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind, #6, Q4"