The Zorba-Buddha Sythesis
One thing: a great synthesis is happening here – something that has never happened before, of which they are afraid – and which needs to happen. It is a must for humanity’s survival. I am trying to create a great synthesis: the synthesis between Zorba the Greek and Gautama the Buddha, the synthesis between materialism and spiritualism. I am trying to create a spiritual materialism. These two things have always remained separate, antagonistic to each other. And because of their antagonism man has remained schizophrenic because man is both, body and soul. Man is not only soul, man is not only body. To insist that man is only body is materialism; to insist that man is only soul is spiritualism. Both are half, and both are wrong because they are half. And both are unsatisfactory, they have proved unsatisfactory.
Man has to be accepted in his totality. As far as the body is concerned, a man has to be Zorba the Greek, and as far as the soul is concerned, a man has to be Gautama the Buddha. If body and soul can exist together, why cannot Buddha and Zorba exist together in a single man? That will be the highest synthesis.
The West has remained materialistic. It suffers from materialism. It has all the benefits of materialism: great technology, beautiful houses, better medical facilities, longer life, more beautiful bodies, more healthy bodies. It has all the benefits of materialism – it is rich, affluent – but it suffers because it has lost its soul, the inner world is empty, hollow. The West has all that is needed on the outside, but in managing the outside it has leaned too much towards materialism and forgotten its own inner world. The master is lost, the soul is lost; the kingdom is there but the king is dead. Hence the Western anguish, hence the Western search for the king, hence the inquiry into meditation, because meditation is the only way to seek and search for the inner king. Where has he gone? Where is the inner light?
The East has remained spiritual. It has all the beauties of spirituality: calmness, quietness, relaxedness, loving, compassion. It has a certain quality – a flavor of the inner – but the body is sick and there is great poverty and starvation all around, and the outer world is ugly. It has suffered much too. And both are tense, because unless you are whole you will be tense.
Can’t you see that the East is no more interested in meditation? That’s why you don’t see many Indians here. The East is no more interested in meditation, it is no more interested in Buddha; its interest has shifted, and it is natural. It wants to know more about physics, chemistry, engineering, medical science. The Eastern talent goes to the West – to Oxford, to Cambridge, to Harvard, to Princeton – to learn what has happened in the West. The Eastern talent has only one desire: how to go to the West and learn something of modern science. The Eastern talented person cannot believe: Why are you Westerners coming to the East? You have Oxford and you have Harvard, why are you coming here? We are trying to get there and you are coming here. It looks so absurd.
But the West has to come to the East; Harvard and Oxford have proved lacking. They have given much, but they have not given inner richness. The West is affluent, and because the West is affluent, the West has become more aware – in contrast to its affluence – of the inner poverty, the inner black hole. The outside is so full of light that the inner black hole, in contrast, has become very clear. The search has started: the West is moving towards the East, the East is moving towards the West.
- Osho, "The Secret of Secrets, #10"