Osho on Future Communes

 

 

 

“The commune has a future. A commune means many independent individuals, not belonging to each other in the old ways of family, tribe, religion, nation. Only in one way are they related to each other: that is they are all independent. They respect your independence and the same they expect from you: to respect their independence. That is the only relationship, the only friendship, the only thing that is a cementing force in a commune: that we respect each other’s individuality, independence. The other’s way of life, his style of life is absolutely accepted, respected. The only condition is that nobody is allowed to interfere with anybody else in any sense”.

-Osho, "From Personality to Individuality"

 

 

 

 “In the commune, when you come across people just like you and you have to trust them, you have to love them, and you have to be in a surrendering attitude- not in a fighting mood, not competitive, but ready to merge with them- it is difficult. But you will have to take that challenge. Unless you take that challenge, you cannot come close to me. These people are devices; the commune is a device. These people are just as frail as you are, as weak, as angry, as jealous, as immediately annoyed, irritated about anything. It becomes difficult for you to be loving towards them. But that is the test. In spite of them, you have to grow your strength of love. You can love me because I don’t give you any trouble. But that does not show that your love is growing within you. Your love has to become stronger, your trust has to become stronger- even of those who are not trustworthy. It does not matter; they are not the consideration, YOU are. In spite of all their hindrances, obstacles, still remain loving. Unless you pass all these tests in the commune, you will never be able to love me. These are the steps that come to my temple.”

-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #32"

 

 

 

The idea of a commune is beautiful: people living together in a non-possessive way, neither possessing things nor possessing persons; people living together, creating together, celebrating together, and still allowing each one his own space; people creating a certain climate of meditativeness, of love, and living in that climate.

 

I am certainly interested in the idea of the commune - it simply means where communion is possible. In the world there is no communion possible. Even communication is not possible, what to say about communion! Communication means a dialogue between two minds - even that is not possible - and communion means a meeting of two hearts. Where communion is possible, there exists a commune.

 

The idea of the family is rotten now. It has worked, it has done its work, it is finished. There is no future for the family. In fact, the family has been one of the causes of calamity. The family makes you identified with a very small group - the mother, the father, the brother, the sister - a very small group becomes your whole world. A man needs to grow more variety.

 

A commune means more variety: not just your father but many uncles, not just your mother but many aunts. A commune means the children will have more people to learn about, more people to love, more people to become accustomed to. They will become richer.

-Osho, "The Dhammapada, Vol.4"

 

 

 

In the new commune there is going to be nobody higher and nobody lower. In this ashram, there is nobody higher, nobody lower. There are toilet cleaners and there are professors, therapists, and they are all the same - they are all doing some useful work, some essential work. The vice-chancellor here, in this commune, is on the same ground as the woodchopper. The great therapist has no more prestige, power, than the toilet cleaner. Hence, there is no problem. A Ph.D. can choose toilet cleaning - one Ph.D. IS doing that; another Ph.D. is just cleaning the streets of the ashram. If there is no hierarchy, there is no problem; otherwise, the Ph.D. will think, "How can I do this work, this menial job? I am not a hand, I am a head." In this commune there are no heads, no hands - people, whole people, respected, loved, for whatsoever they are doing, or whatsoever they can do, or whatsoever they LIKE doing. This whole existence is a commune. God is the center and we are all its circumference. There is no evolution, Digvijay, no ultimate goal. It is a play. Enjoy it, celebrate it! If this idea of ultimate goal and evolution can drop from your mind, I KNOW your potential; you can become one of the great sannyasins. You can be a new man. But you are going crazy because of this idea; your whole life is being devoted to it. And if it is

 

fundamentally wrong then you will repent one day. Forget all about it! Start meditating more and more about your own inner being. Don't be worried what is going to happen; rather, be involved with what is already happening. God is a presence, God is a being, not a becoming, and so is this whole existence.

 

The day we drop the idea of evolution and ultimate goal, the world will be freed from its bondage of future. It is the future that is keeping us in a bondage, and the past - and both are in conspiracy against man. Future and past dropped, you attain to freedom - freedom, Buddha says, which has no bounds.

-Osho, "The Dhammapada, Vol.3"

 

 

 

My work differs totally from Gurdjieff's. It is individual from the very beginning. Even though you are living in a commune, it is not that you are part of the commune - no. On the contrary, the commune is simply a name: it has no existence of itself. Because you love each other and you feel to be together... it is just living together.

 

But your work remains individual. Your growth remains individual. And remember this, that the final freedom is possible only if from the very first step you are free. If you are not free from the very first step, you cannot hope for the last step to be out of freedom, because the last step is essentially the growth of the first step. What was a seed at the first step has come to a flowering at the last step.No sannyasin needs to feel that he is stuck in the middle. But right now the feeling may be there because I removed all the structure that was created to have a centralized systemabout everything - erasing individuality, dissolving it into collectivity. So there is a gap right now. So I want to meet all the sannyasins around the world to tell them, "You need not be worried at all. Wherever you are you can start growing individually."

-Osho, "Light on the Path"

 

 

 

 

So you have to decide two things: either find a commune, a commune of the future, where the future has already arrived, where people are living in the twenty-first century, or choose one person and forget the other. Otherwise sooner or later you will be in pieces, and once you start falling into pieces it will be very difficult to put them together. You have to settle this thing first, otherwise your search for God will not be possible, because a person who has not settled in his love will not be able to find God; you have

 

not fulfilled the basic requirement of it. God is nothing but the highest peak of love. So you can go on meditating, doing this and that, but those are not going to help. When new people come here they are puzzled because they cannot make any sense of what is going on here. People are meditating and people are falling in love, and people are doing groups, and all kinds of things are happening, because I would like you to become deeply grounded. So love is necessary. And only a person who is deeply grounded in love is able to meditate... a person who is able to be with somebody, can be capable of being with himself or herself; otherwise, you will not be able to be alone. And meditation is a process of being alone. Love and meditation are two poles and one has to settle both, but love is far more natural. Meditation is a lesser development.

So first settle your love energy and for the time being forget about God. For the time being let love be your God. And be integrated through it, then your search will be on the right lines.

-Osho, "The Open Door"

 

 

 

 

Question :

Beloved Osho,
What is the role of the commune as it is now, regarding therapy and meditation as offered in the university; and vice versa? and what is your vision of both their growth processes?

 

The function of the commune is to create an atmosphere of encouragement

 

- that you are not alone. The path that you have to travel, you have to travel alone; but if you know that so many people are traveling alone on the path, it gives tremendous encouragement. There is no fear: "If these people can manage, I can manage also." The commune is not a religion, following collectively on a super-highway. The commune belongs to individuals who have joined hands with each other because they are going on an inner journey where they will be alone. But with so many people going on that inner journey alone the fear of being alone is dropped.

 

You can share your experiences with each other; perhaps sharing your experiences with each other will help immensely. That's why therapies exist where people can open their heart and share their experiences. But the commune experience is a therapeutic experience - day in, day out.

 

My vision of a commune is of absolutely individual meditators living together, helping each other:

"Don't be afraid, it is tremendously exciting to go in.

 Although you are going alone,

 you are not the only one who is going alone.

 One million sannyasins are going alone."

It is a very strange phenomenon: living together, yet exploring the truth in absolute aloneness. And whatever you find, you can share. It will be respected, it will be accepted. And everybody is to have different kinds of experiences on the way, until the person reaches to the ultimate omega point. That omega point is exactly the same for everyone. But on the way there are so many beauties, so many splendors. You just need a little courage, and the commune provides you the courage. And I am here to encourage you to take the jump. You have nothing to lose, and you have the whole universe to gain.

-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom"

 

 

 

 

 In my vision, marriages in the commune should be dissolved. People can live together their whole life if they want, but that is not a legal necessity. People should be moving, having as many experiences of love as possible. They should not be possessive. Possessiveness destroys love. And they should not be possessed, because that again destroys your love. All human beings are worthy of being loved. There is no need to be tethered to one person for your whole life. That is one of the reasons why all the people around the world look so bored. Why can't they laugh like you?Why can't they dance like you? They are chained with invisible chains: marriage, family, husband, wife, children. They are burdened with all kinds of duties, responsibilities, sacrifices. And you want them to smile and laugh and dance and rejoice?You are asking the impossible. Make people's love free, make people non-possessive. But this can happen only if in your meditation you discover your being. It is nothing to practice. I am not saying to you, "Tonight you go to some other woman just as a practice." You will not get anything, and you may lose your wife. And in the morning you will look silly. It is not a question of practicing, it is a question of discovering your being.

 

With the discovery of being follows the quality of impersonal lovingness. Then you simply love. And it goes on spreading. First, it is human beings, then soon animals, birds, trees, mountains, stars. A day comes when this whole existence is your beloved. That is our potential. And anybody who is not achieving it is wasting his life. Yes, you will have to lose a few things, but they are worthless. You will be gaining somuch that you will never think again of what you have lost. A pure impersonal lovingness which can penetrate into anybody's being - that is the outcome of meditativeness, of silence, of diving deep within your own being. I am simply trying to persuade you. Don't be afraid of losing what you have.

-Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness"

 

 

 

Life is so short. It is not to be wasted in unnecessary foolishness. Live and love - and love totally and intensely but never against freedom. Freedom should remain the ultimate value. The family has destroyed that freedom. In my vision, the future is not for families. The future is for communes, and the commune is the refined, bigger family; so big that whatever the small family was creating - all kinds of perversions - is no longer created. And children should be taken care of by the commune, by the experts. In the first place, just because you have a wife, it does not mean that you have the right to become a father or the right to become a mother. The commune should have a training. Anybody who wants to become a father or mother must go through the training. You can remain married, you can remain together - that is between you two - but you don't disturb a third life. You have no right to produce a child if you don't have the right training to bring him up, to help him to be a blissful human being. The psychologists will discover, the doctors will think about it, the gynecologists will have to ponder over it, and unless you get clearance from these people, you are not to produce a child. Man can produce children without any difficulty. That does not mean that you become a father and a mother. Those are skills, arts. To help a living being grow needs someexpertise. And the society, the commune, will decide how many children it needs - so that children can be nourished well, educated well; so that overpopulation does not disturb things; so nobody is unemployed, nobody is uneducated, nobody is poor.

-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp"