10 Human Rights For The New Man

- Declaration of Human Rights -
 

 

 

Question 1

Osho,

On december 25th, you spoke to us on the declaration of human rights. you exposed it as a political device to maintain man in his current state of physical and psychological slavery, and to ensure that he remains ignorant of his true potential for godliness. would you, tonight, make your own declaration of human rights for the new man?

 

 

The Declaration of Human Rights basically means that mankind still lives in many kinds of slaveries. Otherwise, there would be no need for the Declaration. The very need indicates that man has been deceived for thousands of years. And he has been deceived in such a cunning way that unless you rise above humanity, you cannot see in what invisible chains humanity is living, in what bondage, in what invisible prisons everybody is confined.

 

My declaration of human rights consists of ten fundamental things.

 

The first is life.

 

Man has a right to dignity, to health; a right to grow, so that he can blossom into his ultimate flowering. This ultimate flowering is his right. He is born with the seeds, but the society does not provide him the soil, the right caring, the loving atmosphere.

 

On the contrary, society provides a very poisonous atmosphere, full of anger, hatred, destructions, violence, war. The right to life means there should be no wars anymore. It also means that nobody should be forced into armies, forced to go to war; it is everybody's right to refuse. But this is not the case.

 

Thousands of people are in prisons -- particularly young people, sensitive and intelligent -- because they refused to go to war. Their denial has become a crime -- and they were simply saying that they don't want to kill human beings.

 

Human beings are not things you can destroy without a second thought. They are the climax of universal evolution. To destroy them for any cause -- for religion, for politics, for socialism, for fascism... it does not matter what the cause is; man is above all causes, and man cannot be sacrificed on any altar.

 

It is so strange that the UN declares the fundamental rights of human beings and yet says nothing about those thousands of young people who are wasting their lives in prisons for the simple reason that they refused to destroy life. But it has deep roots which have to be understood.

 

The right to life is possible only in a certain, different atmosphere which is not present on the earth at the moment. Animals are killed, birds are killed, sea animals are killed, just for game. You don't have any reverence for life. And life is the same whether it is in human beings or in other forms. Unless man becomes aware of his violence towards animals, birds, he cannot be really alert about his own right to life. If you are not caring about others' lives, what right have you got to demand the same right for yourself?

 

People go hunting, killing animals unnecessarily. I was a guest in Maharaja Jamnagar's palace. He showed me hundreds of lions, deer -- their heads. The whole palace was full, and he was showing them: "These are the animals I have killed myself."

 

I asked him, "You look a nice a person. What was the reason? What have these animals done against you?"

 

He said, "It is not a question of reason or a question of them doing anything against me. It is just a game."

 

I said, "Just look from the other side: If a lion killed you, would that be a game? Your wife, your children, your brothers -- will any one of them have the guts to say that it was a beautiful game? It will be a disaster. If you kill, then it is a game; if they kill, then it is a calamity. These double standards show your dishonesty, insincerity."

 

He said, "I have never thought about it."

 

But the whole of humanity is non-vegetarian; they are all eating other life forms. There is no reverence for life as such. Unless we create an atmosphere of reverence for life, man cannot realize the goal of getting his fundamental right of life.

 

Secondly, because the UN also declares life to be a fundamental right for man, it is being misused. The pope, Mother Teresa, and their tribe are using it for teaching people against birth control, against abortion, against the pill. Man's mind is so cunning. It was a question of human rights -- they are taking advantage of it. They are saying you cannot use birth control methods because they go against life; the unborn child also has the same right as you have. So some line has to be drawn, because at what point...?

 

To me, the pill does not destroy human rights; in fact it prepares the ground for it. If the earth is too overcrowded, millions of people will die of starvation; there will be wars. And the way the crowd is exploding it can lead humanity into a very inhuman situation.

 

In Bengal, there was a great famine in which mothers ate their own children. People sold their own children just for one rupee, two rupees. And do you think the persons who were purchasing them were purchasing human beings? No, they were purchasing food.

 

The pope and Mother Teresa will be responsible for all this.

 

The pill simply does not allow the child to be formed in the mother's womb, so the question of human rights does not arise. And now, recently, science has found a pill for men too. It is not necessary that the woman should take the pill, the man can take it. The child is not formed in any way; hence, this fundamental right is inapplicable in that case. But these religious people -- the shankaracharyas in India, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran... and all over the world, all religions are against birth control methods. And they are the only methods which can prevent man from falling into a barbarous state.

 

I am absolutely in favor of birth control methods. A child should be recognized as a human being when he is born -- and then too, I have some reservations....

 

If a child is born blind, if a child is born crippled, if a child is born deaf, dumb, and we cannot do anything.... Just because life should not be destroyed, this child will have to suffer -- because of your stupid idea -- for seventy years, eighty years. Why create unnecessary suffering? If the parents are willing, the child should be put to eternal sleep. And there is no problem in it. Only the body goes back into its basic elements; the soul will fily into another womb. Nothing is destroyed.

 

If you really love the child, you will not want him to live a seventy-year-long life in misery, suffering, sickness, old age. So even if a child is born, if he is not medically capable of enjoying life fully with all the senses, healthy, then it is better that he goes to eternal sleep and is born somewhere else with a better body.

 

The right to life is a complex thing. Nobody is entitled to kill anyone, either, in the name of religion. Millions of people have been killed in the name of religions, in the service of God.

 

No one should be killed in the name of politics. Again, the same has happened. Joseph Stalin alone killed one million people, his own people, while he was in power. Adolf Hitler killed six million people. And thousands of wars have happened.

 

It seems that on this earth we are doing only one thing: reproducing children because soldiers are needed, reproducing children because wars are needed. Even to increase the population, Mohammed said that every Mohammedan can marry four women or even more. He himself married nine women. And the reason is war, destruction of life. It is not out of love for nine women that he has married them, it is simple arithmetic. If a man marries nine women, he can produce nine children in one year. If nine women marry one man, this is okay but vice-versa, nine men marrying one woman may not be able even to produce one child. They will mess up the whole thing. Most probably they will kill the woman!

 

It seems man is nothing but a necessary instrument for more destruction, more wars.

 

The population has to be reduced if man wants to be, to have his dignity, honor, his right to live -- not just to drag, but to dance. When I say life is a fundamental right, I mean a life of songs and dances, a life of joy and blessings.

 

My second consideration is for love.

 

Love should be accepted as one of the most fundamental human rights, and all societies have destroyed it. They have destroyed it by creating marriage. Marriage is a false substitute for love.

 

In the past, small children were married. They had no idea what love is, what marriage is. And why were small children married? For a simple reason: before they become young adults, before love arises in their hearts, the doors have to be closed. Because once love takes possession of their hearts then it will become very difficult....

 

No child marriage is human. A man or a woman should be allowed to choose their partners and to change their partners whenever they feel. The government has no business in it, the society has nothing to do with it. It is two individuals' personal affair. The privacy of it is sacred.

 

If two people want to live together, they don't need any permission from any priest or any government. They need the permission of their hearts. And the day they feel that the time has come to part, again they don't need anybody's permission. They can part as friends, with beautiful memories of their loving days.

 

Love should be the only way for men and women to live together. No other ritual is needed.

 

The only problem in the past was what would happen to the children; that was the argument for marriage. There are other alternatives, far better. Children should be accepted not as their parents' property -- they belong to the whole humanity. From the very beginning it should be made clear to them: "The whole humanity is going to protect you, is your shelter. We may be together -- we will look after you. We may not be together; still we look after you. You are our blood, our bones, our souls."

 

In fact, this possession by the parents of the children is one of the most dangerous things that humanity goes on carrying. This is the root of the idea of possessiveness. You should not possess your children. You can love them, you can bless them, but you cannot possess. They belong to the whole humanity. They come from beyond; you have been just a passage. Don't think more than that about yourself. Whatever you can do, do.

 

Every commune, every village should take care of the children. Once the commune starts taking care of the children, marriage becomes absolutely obsolete. And marriage is destroying your basic right to love.

 

If man's love is free, there will not be blacks and whites, and there will not be these ugly discriminations, because love knows no boundaries. You can fall in love with a black man, you can fall in love with a white man. Love knows no religious scriptures. It knows only the heartbeat, and it knows it with absolute certainty. Once love is free, it will prepare the ground for other fundamental rights.

 

In fact, if you ask the scientists, people falling in love should be as different as possible. Then they will give birth to better children, more intelligent, stronger. We know it now; we are trying it all over the world as far as animals are concerned. Crossbreeding has given us better cows, better horses, better dogs. But man is strange. You know the secret, but you are not bettering yourself.

 

All the royal families are suffering. They create the greatest number of idiots, because they go on marrying amongst themselves. Royal blood cannot mix with a commoner's blood -- even in the twentieth-century we think in terms of royal blood. Blood is simply blood. But if just a dozen families go on marrying amongst themselves continually, they create many kinds of diseases.

 

Retardedness is one. Just have a look again at the picture of the Prince of Wales and you will see what I mean by a retarded person. They are fed up, but they cannot go out of their small circle. I have never come across any person belonging to a royal family who has intelligence, and in India I have been acquainted with almost all the royal families. It is not only that their minds remain retarded, their bodies lose many things.

 

You must have heard the name of Rasputin. Before the Russian revolution he had become the most important man in Russia, for the simple reason taht the child of the czar had a disease -- if he wounded himself accidentally then the bleeding could not be prevented. No medicine could prevent it, there was no way; the blood would go on flowing out. And that is one of the symptoms of marrying close relatives.

 

Rasputin was a great hypnotist. He was not a saint and he was not a sinner, he was simply a great hypnotist. He managed with hypnosis to prevent the blood from flowing out of the child. What no physician was able to do... and the child was going to be the successor to the greatest empire of those days. Rasputin certainly became very important. Without him the child's life was in danger.

 

But still those royal families, although they have lost their kingdoms, their empires, continue to marry amongst themselves. It creates a very weak personality.

 

Have you ever seen somebody from these royal families being declared as the beauty queen of the world? Do you think Queen Elizabeth of England can even be declared a beauty? All over England there is a rumor. I don't know whether it is true or not; hence I don't take any responsibility for it. The rumor is that Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, is a homosexual. I feel sorry for poor Philip. In fact anybody marrying Elizabeth would have been homosexual, so he should not feel worried about it. It is just natural.

 

And just two weeks or three weeks ago, one of the bodyguards of Prince Charles died of the disease AIDS. Now you cannot get AIDS from the sky. One does not know who the holy ghost is, but he must be in the royal family. And soon many more will die, because it is a chain disease.

 

There should be no boundaries -- that a Hindu should marry only a Hindu, or a brahmin should only marry a brahmin. In fact, the rule should be that the Indian should never marry an Indian. The whole world is there; find your spouse far away, beyond the seven seas, and then you will have children who are more beautiful, more healthy, long living, far more intelligent, geniuses. Man has to learn crossbreeding, but that is possible only if marriage disappears and love is given absolute respect. Right now it is condemned.

 

The third most fundamental right... because these are the three most important things in life: life, love, and death. Everybody should be given the fundamental right that after a certain age, when he has lived enough and does not want to go on dragging unnecessarily.... Because tomorrow will be again just a repetition; he has lost all curiosity about tomorrow. He has every right to leave the body. It is his fundamental right.

 

It is his life. If he does not want to continue, nobody should prevent him. In fact, every hospital should have a special ward where people who want to die can enter one month before, can relax, enjoy all the things that they have been thinking about their whole life but could not manage -- the music, the literature... if they wanted to paint or sculpt....

 

And the doctors should take care to teach them how to relax. Up to now, death has been almost ugly. Man has been a victim, but it is our fault. Death can be made a celebration; you just have to learn how to welcome it, relaxed, peaceful. And in one month's time, people, friends, can come to see them and meet together. Every hospital should have special facilities -- more facilities for those who are going to die than for those who are going to live. Let them live for one month at least like emperors, so they can leave life with no grudge, with no complaint but only with deep gratitude, thankfulness.

 

Between these three comes the fourth: the search for truth.

 

Nobody should be conditioned from childhood about any religion, any philosophy, any theology, because you are destroying his freedom of search. Help him to be strong enough. Help him to be strong enough to doubt, to be skeptical about all that is believed all around him. Help him never to believe, but to insist on knowing. And whatever it takes, however long it takes, to go for the pilgrimage alone, on his own, because there is no other way to find the truth.

 

All others -- who think they are Christians, or they are Jews, or they are Hindus, or they are Mohammedans -- these are all believers. They don't know.

 

Belief is pure poison.

 

Knowing is coming to a flowering.

 

The search for truth... you should not teach anybody what truth is because it cannot be taught. You should help the person to inquire. Inquiry is difficult; belief is cheap. But truth is not cheap; truth is the most valuable thing in the world. You cannot get it from others, you will have to find it yourself.

 

And the miracle is, the moment you decide that "I will not fall victim to any belief," you have already traveled half the way towards truth. If your determination is total, you need not go to truth, truth will come to you. You just have to be silent enough to receive it. You have to become a host so that truth can become a guest in your heart.

 

Right now the whole world is living in beliefs. That's why there is no shine in the eyes, no grace in people's gestures, no strength, no authority in their words. Belief is bogus; it is making castles of sand. A little breeze and your great castle will be destroyed.

 

Truth is eternal, and to find it means you also become part of eternity.

 

Fifth: to find the truth, all education systems from the kindergarden to the universities will create a certain atmosphere for meditation. Meditation does not belong to any religion, and meditation is not a belief. It is a pure science of the inner.

 

Learning to be silent, learning to be watchful, learning to be a witness; learning that you are not the mind, but something beyond -- the consciousness -- will prepare you to receive truth.

 

And it is truth that has been called by many people, "God," by others, "nirvana." By others, other names have been given to it, but it is a nameless silence, serenity, peace. The peace is so deep that you disappear; and the moment you disappear you have entered the temple of God.

 

But strange it is, that people are wasting almost one-third of their lives in schools, colleges, and universities, not knowing anything about silence, not knowing anything about relaxation, not knowing anything about themselves. They know about the whole world -- it is very weird that they have forgotten only themselves. But it seems there is some reason....

 

In India there is an ancient story. Ten blind men pass through a stream. The current is very forceful, so they hold hands. Reaching the other side, somebody suggests, "We should count ourselves. The current was so forceful and we cannot see -- somebody may have gone with the wind, gone with the river."

 

So they count. Strangely enough the counting always stops at nine. Everybody tries, but it is always nine. One man sitting on the bank of the river starts laughing -- it is hilarious! And those ten blind people are sitting there crying, tears in their eyes because they have lost one of their friends.

 

The man comes to them and he says, "What is the matter?"

 

They explain the situation. He says, "You all stand up in a line. I will hit the first person -- he has to say `one.' I will hit the second person -- he has to say `two,' because I will hit twice. I will hit the third person three times; he has to say `three.'"

 

Strangely enough, he finds the tenth man who was lost. They all thank him, they touch his feet; they say, "You are a god to us. We were thinking we had lost one of our friends. But please, can you tell us... we were also counting; all of us tried, and the tenth was not there. How has he appeared suddenly?"

 

The man says, "That is an ancient mystery which you will not understand. You just go on your way."

 

What is the ancient mystery in it? One tends to forget oneself. In fact, one lives his whole life without remembering himself. He sees everybody, he knows everybody; he just forgets himself.

 

Meditation is the only method in which you will start counting from yourself: "one."

 

And because it is not part of any religion, there is no problem -- it should be all over the world, in every school, in every college, in every university. Anybody who comes home from the university should come with a deep, meditative being, with an aura of meditation around him. Otherwise, what he is bringing is all rubbish, crap. Geography he knows: he knows where Timbuktu is, he knows where Constantinople is, and he does not know where he is himself.

 

The first thing in life is to know who you are, where you are. Then everything in your life starts settling, moving in the right direction.

 

The sixth: freedom in all dimensions.

 

We are not even as free as birds and animals. No bird goes to the passport office. Any moment he can fly into Pakistan; no entry visa. Strange, that only man remains confined in nations, in boundaries. Because the nation is big, you tend to forget that you are imprisoned. You cannot get out of it, you cannot get into it. It is a big prison, and the whole earth is full of big prisons.

 

Freedom in all dimensions means that man, wherever he is born, is part of one humanity.

 

Nations should dissolve, religions should dissolve, because they are all creating bondages -- and sometimes very hilarious bondages.

 

I was in a city, Devas. For twenty years the Jaina temple there has not opened. There are three locks on the temple: one lock from the digambaras, one of the sects of Jainism, one from another sect, svetambaras, and the third from the police. For twenty years poor Mahavira has been inside -- no food, no bath, no light. One wonders whether he is really alive or dead, because he does not make any noise... at least he could knock and shout, "Open the doors and let me out!"

 

When I saw it, I asked, "What is the matter?" I was just passing by and I saw three locks -- big locks, bigger than you may have ever seen -- and I came to know the story.

 

In Devas, there is only one Jaina temple, and this was the temple. Jainas are few; they don't have enough money to make two temples, so they have made one temple and divided the time. Up to twelve o'clock in the morning, Digambaras will worship, and after twelve, Svetambaras will worship... but there was a fight every day.

 

The differences between Svetambaras and Digambaras are not very big -- so childish and so stupid. Digambaras worship Mahavira with closed eyes and Svetambaras worship Mahavira with open eyes. This is the only basic difference.

 

Now a marble statue... either you can make the eyes closed or you can make the eyes open, unless you fix some mechanism, to switch on so he opens his eyes, and switch off.... But that much technology does not exist in India; otherwise it would not be difficult. You can find it in toys -- a beautiful girl, you lie her down and she closes her eyes. You put her back and she opens her eyes. Something could have been arranged.

 

And they had something arranged -- primitive, but they had arranged it. And it is being following all over India: When Svetambaras worship a statue which has closed eyes, they put false eyes on top; they just glue them on. That is simple, non-technical; not much technology is needed.

 

But every day the problem was there: at the time of twelve, exactly twelve, Svetambaras would be waiting. One minute more... and the Digambaras are worshipping -- and they are worshipping knowingly a little longer -- and the Svetambaras will come and start putting their eyes on the statue and the fight will start.

 

It happened so many times that finally the police locked the temple and said to them, "Go to the court and get a decision." The case goes on -- how can the court decide whether Mahavira used to meditate with closed eyes or with open eyes? The reality is, he used to meditate with half open eyes.

 

No child should be given any idea by the parents what life is all about -- no theology, no philosophy, no politics. He should be made as intelligent and sharp as possible, so when he comes of age he can go in search. And it is a lifelong search. People today get their religion when they are born. In fact, if you can get your religion when you die, you have found it early. It is such a precious treasure, but it is possible only out of freedom -- and freedom in all dimensions, not only in religion.

 

There should be no nations, no national boundaries. There should be no religions. Man should be taken as man. Why confine him with so many adjectives? Right now he is not free in any way.

 

I was arrested in America. In one jail in Oklahoma, the U.S. Marshal told me that I had to write my name as David Washington. I said, "This is the first time that somebody has told me my name. Do you read thoughts?"

 

He became a little puzzled. He said, "Is it really your name?"

 

I said, "Of course."

 

He said, "Then change it. Some other name will do."

 

But I said, "You know my name. David Washington is not my name. And why should I write David Washington? And you call this country a democracy! And not even the freedom to write one's own name. What other freedoms do you have? And on your coat there is written in big letters 'Department of Justice, U.S. Marshal.'" I said, "At least take this coat off. David Washington is not my name and I am not going to write it." I said, "This is for the first time in my life that I am seeing how democracy works, how freedom works. I am not even free to write my name. What is the purpose?"

 

He said, "That, I don't know. From high above I have been ordered: `David Washington should be his name and he should be called David Washington in jail.'"

 

I said, "Then you fill out the form" -- and it was in the middle of the night, twelve o'clock. I said, "You fill out the form -- I will not fill it out, I refuse -- and then I will sign it."

 

He was in a hurry to go home, so he filled out the form. I signed my name. He looked at it and he said, "But it doesn't look like David Washington."

 

I said, "How can it? I don't look like David Washington."

 

He said, "You are a strange man. You deceived me."

 

I said, "You are deceiving yourself. You know perfectly well what my name is. And tomorrow the whole world will know that the so-called democracies -- free countries, talking too much of freedom -- are not even able to allow people to write their own names." And I said, "You don't know the reason why your higher authorities have asked this?"

 

He said, "I don't know."

 

I said, "This is strange, because I know. It is a simple, logical inference that even if you kill me in the jail nobody will be able to find out where I disappeared. Because in your forms, on your register, I never entered your jail, so the question of my being killed in your jail does not arise."

 

He was shocked. I said, "This is a simple thing. Otherwise, there is no need to change my name; you don't have any authority."

 

But in this world there is no freedom in any dimension.

 

I was going to college. My parents wanted me to go to science college or to medical college. I said, "Am I going or are you going?"

 

They said, "Of course you are going; why should we be going?"

 

"Then," I said, "leave it to me."

 

They said, "We can leave it to you, but then remember: we will not support you financially."

 

I said, "That's understood." I left my home without a single rupee. I traveled in the train to the university without a ticket. I had to go to the ticket checker and tell him: "This is the situation. Can you allow me to travel without a ticket?"

 

He said, "This is the first time in my life that somebody has come to ask me! People escape, people deceive me, cheat me. Certainly I will take you, and at the university station I will be at the gate so nobody bothers you."

 

I went directly to the vice-chancellor and told him the whole story. And I told him, "I want to study philosophy, but it seems there is no freedom even to choose what I want to study. So you have to give me all the scholarships possible, because I will not be getting any financial help. Otherwise I will study philosophy, fasting... even if I die."

 

He said, "No! Don't do that, because then the blame will be on me. I will give you all the scholarships."

 

From the very childhood we go on crippling, cutting freedoms; we try to make a child according to our desires.

 

I was talking to a Christian missionary and he said, "God made man in his own image."

 

I said, "That is the foundation of all slavery. Why should God make man in his own image? Who is he? -- and to give his own image to man means he has destroyed man from the very beginning." And that is what every father is doing.

 

Man's basic right is to be himself.

 

And in an authentic human society, everybody should be allowed to be himself -- even if he chooses just to be a flute player, and he will not become the richest man in the world but will be a beggar on the streets.

 

Still I say freedom is so valuable.... You may not be the president of the country, you may be just a beggar playing the flute in the streets. But you are yourself, and there is such deep contentment, fulfillment, that unless you know it you have missed the train.

 

Seventh: one earth, one humanity.

 

I don't see any reason at all why there should be so many nations. Why should there be so many lines on the map? And they are only on the map, remember. They are not on the earth; neither are they in the sky. And the map is man-made.

 

Existence has not created this earth in fragments.

 

I am reminded of one of my teachers. He was a very loving human being, and he had his own methods of teaching. He was a kind of rebel.

 

One day he came with a few pieces of cardboard, placed them on the table, and said to us all, "Look, this is the map of the world, but I have cut it into pieces and I have mixed them. Now anybody who is confident that he can put them in their right places and make the world map should come up."

 

One tried, failed; another tried, failed. I went on watching him and watching the people who were failing and why they were failing.

 

Watching five persons fail, I was the sixth. I went and I turned over all his cardboard pieces. He said, "What are you doing?"

 

I said, "You wait, I am working it out. Five people have failed but I have found the secret."

 

On the other side of the map was a picture of a man. I arranged the man, which was easier. On one side the man was arranged and on the other side the whole map of the world was arranged. That was the key that I had been looking for, waiting to see if I could get some clue. And when the others were arranging the pieces, I saw that there was something on the other side.

 

The teacher said, "You are a rascal! I was hoping you would come first, but when you didn't come I understood that you were waiting to find out the key. And you have found the right key."

 

The world is divided because man is divided; man is divided because the world is divided.

 

Start from anywhere; just let the whole of humanity be one, and the nations will disappear, the lines will disappear. It is our world -- one humanity, one earth, and we can make it a paradise. Right now there is no need to describe hell. You can just look all around; it is here.

 

I have heard a story. A man died. He was a thief, a murderer, a rapist -- you name it and he had done it. And when the angels started taking him away, he said, "Certainly you will be taking me to hell."

 

They said, "No."

 

He said, "What?"

 

They said, "Hell you have been in; now we are taking you to heaven. The old hell is empty because you have created a better hell, so all the sinners are sent here." And the story seems to be significant. Looking around the earth, man is in such misery and suffering that there seems to be no need for another hell.

 

But we can change the whole situation. This earth can become a paradise. And then there will be no need for any paradise; paradise will be empty.

 

Eighth: uniqueness of every individual.

 

A very beautiful word has been misused so utterly that it is difficult to imagine, and that word is equality.

 

A few thinkers say human beings are equal. To counter them, the UN declares that equality is man's birthright. But nobody bothers to see that man is not equal and has never been equal. It is absolutely un-psychological.

 

Every man is unique. The moment you are all equal you are a crowd, your individuality has been taken away. You are no longer yourself but just a cog in the wheel.

 

I teach not equality, not inequality -- I teach uniqueness. Every individual is unique and needs to be respected in his uniqueness. Because every individual is unique, the birthright should be: equal opportunity for their growth of uniqueness.

 

It is such a simple and obvious fact. Two thousand years have passed and you have not been able to produce another Jesus. Twenty-five centuries have passed and you have not been able to produce another Gautam Buddha. And still you go on saying man is equal?

 

Man is unique, and everybody should be respected as a world in himself. He is neither inferior to anybody nor is he superior to anybody; he is alone.

 

In this aloneness there is beauty. You are no longer a mob, a crowd; you are yourself.

 

Ninth: a world government.

 

I am absolutely against governments. I am for one government for the whole world. That means no war will be possible; that means there will be no need to keep millions of people in armies unnecessarily. They can be productive, they can be helpful, and if they are merged into humanity, all poverty will disappear.

 

Right now seventy percent of the national income of every country goes to the army and the rest of the country lives on thirty percent. If armies disappear, seventy percent of the income of every country will be available. There is no need to be poor, there is no need to have any beggars.

 

These beggars, these Ethiopias -- they are our creations. On the one hand, we are creating great armies and on the other hand, we are killing human beings through starvation. And these armies are doing nothing. They are simply professional killers, professional criminals, trained criminals. We are giving them training in how to kill.

 

And we talk about humanity, we talk about civilization, and still seventy percent of our income goes into killing.

 

One world government means a tremendous change, a revolution. The whole earth will be benefited by it.

 

Secondly, if there is one world government it becomes only functional. Right now government is not functional, it has real power. The president of a country or the prime minister of a country... in a functional government things will be different. Now you have the postmaster general; he is a functional person, he has no power. He has work, he has no function, but he has no power. There is no need. The man who heads your railways, what power does he have? The man who is the president of your airlines, what power does he have? It is functional.

 

If there is only one government, it will automatically become functional. Right now it cannot be, because the fear of other governments keeps you afraid: "Make your leaders strong, give all support to the leaders." But if there is no war there is no need of anybody having power -- war is the cause of power. And unless war disappears from the world, power cannot disappear; they are together.

 

A functional world government -- like the post office, the railways, the airlines -- will be efficient but without power. It will be a beautiful world where you don't know who the president is, who the prime minister is -- they are your servants. Right now they have become your masters, and to keep their power they have to keep you always completely afraid. Pakistan is getting ready to fight with India, so you have to give all power to the Indian leaders. China is going to attack....

 

Adolf Hitler has written in his autobiography that if you want to remain in power, keep people always afraid. And he is absolutely right. Sometimes mad people are also right.

 

And tenth: meritocracy.

 

Democracy has failed.

 

We have lived under many kinds of governments -- aristocracy, monarchy, city democracies -- and now we have seen the whole world getting addicted to the idea of democracy. But democracy has not solved any problems; it has increased the problems.

 

It was because of these problems that a man like Karl Marx supported a dictatorship of the proletariat. I am not a supporter of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but I have another idea that goes far ahead of democracy.

 

Democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people -- but it is only in words. In India right now there are nine hundred million people. How can nine hundred million people have power? They have to delegate the power to somebody.

 

So it is not the people who rule, but the people who are chosen by them. What are your grounds for choosing? How do you manage to choose? And are you capable of choosing the right people? Have you been trained, educated for a democratic life? No, nothing has been done.

 

The ignorant masses can be exploited very easily by very insignificant things. For example, Nixon lost his election against Kennedy and the only reason was that Kennedy looked better on television than Nixon; this is the analysis of the psychoanalysts.

 

Nixon improved. When he discovered this, before the next election, he improved; he learned how to stand, how to walk, how to talk, how to dress. Even the color of your dress will make a difference on television. If you go there in white clothes you will look like a ghost.

 

Arbitrary reasons... somebody speaks well, is a good orator. But that does not mean that he will make a good president. Somebody makes good shoes -- do you think that will make him a good president?

 

It happened when Abraham Lincoln was chosen president. On the day of his inaugural address to the Senate, people were feeling very angry and hurt -- because Lincoln's father was a shoemaker, and a shoemaker's son has defeated the great aristocrats. They were offended.

 

One arrogant aristocrat could not tolerate it. Before Lincoln started speaking, he said, "Wait a minute. Do you recognize me? You used to come with your father to my house sometimes because your father made shoes for my family. You used to help him." And the whole Senate laughed. This was an effort to humiliate Lincoln.

 

But you cannot humiliate people like Abraham Lincoln. He said, "I am very grateful to you that you reminded me of my dead father at this moment. Because my father was the best shoemaker in the whole country, and I know that I can never be the best president as he was the best shoemaker. He is still ahead of me."

 

What criterion do you use? How do you manage?

 

That's why my idea is that the days of democracy are over. A new kind of system is needed, based on merit. We have thousands of universities all over the world. Why have ordinary, unknowledgeable, ignorant masses choose people who will be holding tremendous power for five years in their hands? And now the power is so much that they can destroy the whole world.

 

Meritocracy means that only people who are educated in a certain area should be able to vote in that area. For example, only the educationists of the country should choose the education minister. Then you will have the best education minister possible. For the finance minister, you should choose somebody who knows finance, somebody who knows the complexities of economics. But this choice is possible only for people who are trained in economics, in financial matters -- and there are thousands of people. For every post, the person who is chosen should be chosen by experts.

 

The health minister should be chosen by all the doctors, the surgeons, the medical experts, the scientists who are working in the medical field. Then we will have the cream of our genius, and we can depend on this cream to make the life of all humanity more peaceful, more blissful, more rich.

 

This idea I call a meritocracy. And once you have chosen all the people, then these people can choose the president and the prime minister. They will be our geniuses; they can choose the prime minister, the president from the country, or they can choose from the members of the parliament. And for the parliament we should also make gradations.

 

For example, people who have at least a post-graduate degree should be able to vote. Just becoming twenty-one years old does not mean you are able to choose the right person. At twenty-one years, you don't know anything about life and its complexities. At least a post-graduate degree should be held by those who choose the members of the parliament or the senate or whatever you call it. In this way, we can make an educated, refined, cultured government.

 

Before the world government happens, each nation should pass through a meritocracy. And once we have enjoyed the fruits of a meritocracy then these people will be able to understand that if we can combine the whole world into one government, life can certainly be a joy, worth living -- not to renounce, but to rejoice.

 

Up to now, whatever has happened has been accidental. Our history up to now is nothing but a history of accidents.

 

We have to stop this. Now we have to decide that the future is not going to be accidental. It will be created by us; and to create our world can be the greatest creation possible.

 

-Osho, "Sermons in Stones, #29, Q1"