[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]
Interview with Ted Viramont, Madras Pioneer, Madras, Oregon
Question :
Does society have a responsibility to its disadvantaged people?
No. None. Society has destroyed people in the first place and then starts talking about responsibility. Each child is being destroyed by the society, distracted from his nature, distracted from what he was going to be, what existence has meant him to be.
First the society distracts him, disturbs him, and when he is disturbed, then these great public servants start coming and saying that the society has responsibility.
This is a very cunning game.
First make a man sick and then run to fulfill your responsibility, service, duty, humanity, compassion, and bring medicine. But why hit the person in the first place?
All children are born so innocent that if you can just leave them alone to be themselves.... If you love them, and love is not a responsibility.... I am reminded of an small anecdote. One Hindu monk was traveling towards the highest Hindu sacred place, Badri* Khedar*, in Himalayas. It is a long journey, tedious. And just in front of him, a small girl, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, was carrying a boy, fat and heavy. The sannyasin was too much tired and just when he was passing the girl, he said to the girl, "My daughter, you must be tired. You are carrying so much weight." The girl was very much angry. She said, "Weight?
You are carrying weight. This is my brother."
Love is not a responsibility. Love is not a duty. Love is your joy. So out of your love do whatever you can do, but not out of your Christianity, not out of your ideology, not out of a sense of responsibility. Otherwise you will never be able to forgive your son, and neither your son will be able to forgive you ever. Duty is a four-letter dirty word. Never do anything for the sake of duty, because you are doing it reluctantly. And whomsoever you are doing, you are humiliating.
Children are there just like flowers. What responsibility you have towards the roses? Yes, to give water, some manure, but that is not responsibility. That is your joy, because your roses will be bigger and more fragrant. What you are doing is nothing in comparison to what you are going to get. You are not doing any compassion on the rosebush. In fact the rosebush is being compassionate towards you.
What you have done? -- just put a little water, manure, taken care. And the rosebush comes with all its thankfulness, with all its flowers, and your whole house becomes fragrant. Suddenly you are no more in an ordinary house; you are in a palace, you are in paradise.
And the same happens with children. They are also flowers. Nourish them, but that is not your responsibility, that is your love. If there is no love, please don't do anything. Otherwise you are going to destroy the child. Love is the only safety. The child is too fragile. Handle it with care. Responsibility is too big a word and too heavy.
Duty is just ugly. Why not rejoice in nourishing the child? Why not enjoy in making him an individual? But you are trying to make him a Christian. You are dragging him to the church. You are forcing him to believe in a God. You are creating fear in him. If you don't believe, you will go to hell. You are creating greed in him. If you follow the church line, you will be rewarded thousandfold in heaven after death. You will destroy his whole life, and you will feel great that you have done your responsibility.
This is not responsibility; this is simply irresponsibility. A response should come only out of your loving heart. If you love the child, then you would like the child to find his own truth. You would not like him to live on a borrowed truth. your child and living on a borrowed truth. What are you doing? -- making him a beggar? You will not like your child to be obedient against his reason, against his will. You will teach the child that obedience is not a virtue. Neither disobedience is a virtue. You have to choose.
We can offer you whatever our understanding is, which is not perfect, which is not infallible. We can place everything that we have experienced in life, and it is up to you to choose or not to choose. You have to be yourself, not just my son.
He has come through you, but he does not belong to you. You have been a passage, but if roads start claiming people who walk on the roads, just think how much more difficult life will become. Once you travel on a road, the road said, "Stop! Now where are you going?"
And what are parents except roads?
- Osho, "The Last Testament Vol 2, #3"