[In September 1977 a sannyasin, who is setting up a new school for sannyasin children in the ashram, asks about education in the new commune]

 

Question

The sannyasin who started the ashram school says: I just don't understand what it means to be a teacher to children here...

 

Yes, that is right -- it will be a totally different thing! It will be a totally different thing....It will be a totally different thing! It will be a totally different thing….

 

It can't apply here. A few things to remember, and then you can work them out…. The first and the most basic is that we are not to enforce any pattern on the children. We have just to help them to be themselves. So there is no ideal that has to be enforced on them. You just have to be a caring atmosphere around them, so whatsoever they want to do you can help them to do better. Just help them to do it better. And they are not in any game, ambition-game.

 

We are not trying to make them very very powerful, famous, rich, this and that, in their life, no. Our whole effort here is to help them to be alive, authentic, loving, flowing, and life takes care. A trust in life—that's what has to be created around them, so they can trust in life. Not that they have to struggle but can relax. And as for education, just help them to be more creative. Painting is good—they should try painting—or creating something else, but let it be creative; let them do things on their own. And don't bring in your criteria.

 

For example, when a child paints, don't bring in adultish criteria; don't say that this is not Picasso. If the child has enjoyed it and when he was painting he got absorbed in it, that's enough. The painting is great! Not because of any objective criterion—the painting may be just nonsense; it may be just colours splashed, may be messy…. It has to be because a child is a child; he has a different vision of things….

 

Help the child to be completely lost, and whenever a child is painting on his own, he will be lost. If you force him to paint then he will be distracted. So whatsoever the children want to do, let them do; just help them. Mm? you can help in many technical ways. You can tell them—if a child wants to paint—how to mix colours, how to fix the canvas, how to use the brush; that you can help with. Be a help there; rather than being a guide, be a help.

 

Just as a gardener helps the tree…. You cannot pull the tree fast; you cannot do anything in that way, nothing can be done positively. You plant the seed, you water, you give the manure, and you wait! The tree happens on its own. When the tree is happening you protect it so somebody does not hurt it or harm it. That is the function of a teacher: the teacher has to be a gardener. Not that you have to create the child; the child is coming on its own—god is the creator….

 

In this atmosphere of joy help them to learn two things—language and mathematics. History is meaningless bunk!

 

Just two small things—a little mathematics will be needed in their life. And about that too: we are not to make them great mathematicians, just a little mathematics so they can figure out things. And language is needed so they can communicate. They can read poetry, they can enjoy the great works.

 

And there is going to be no examination. There is going to be no gradation of who is first and who is second. Everybody is just the same. We make the space available for them to learn—they all have learned according to their capacities but who are we to judge? So no gradation, no examination. And when children are a little grown up let them learn practical things—carpentry, pottery, weaving—and they will enjoy all those things. When they are still more grown up let them learn something about electricity, cars, mechanisms, technology, but practical things.

 

That's why the other day I said the university that is going to be will be Rajneesh International Anti-University. We will make everything anti: no examinations, and the vice chancellor and the chancellor will not have any degrees. Only sweepers and cleaners will have degrees!

 

And you have to work it out soon because when we move, then at least one hundred children will be immediately available….

 

Start working so it takes some shape before we move. Because there you have to start a full-fledged school. But it is going to be a totally different kind of school, because I am all for de-schooling society.

 

Man can be saved only if society is de-schooled or if totally different kind of schools which cannot be called schools are evolved; then only humanity can be saved.

 

So no ambition should be there, no comparison ever. Never compare a child with another and say, 'Look, the other has done a better painting'. That is ugly, violent, destructive. You are destroying both the children. The one you say has done a better painting starts getting the idea of the ego, superiority, and the one who has been condemned starts feeling inferior. And these are the illnesses—the superior and the inferior—so never compare!

 

It will be difficult for you and other teachers because comparison is so much in us. Never compare. Each child has to be respected on his own. Each child has to be respected as unique—no comparison, no marks, no gradations. Because we are not going to create clerks or ugly things like that. We are going to create men and women.

 

Yes, they will need a few things in life so they are practically helped. Those things we should give them—and then they have to choose their own. In the new place we will make everything available—painting, music, dance—so wherever they want to join in, they can; whatsoever they want to do, they can do. They can have their own combinations. There will be no syllabus—there will be only opportunity….

 

Let children enjoy—there is no hurry; there is no need to have a programme of enforcement. Just let things happen; let it be a growing nursery. And be very careful, because out of this school will come a bigger school, then a college and a university, and everything will follow. This will be the seed.

 

And whatsoever I have said about education and about things you just go through so you have some idea about what has to be done. But it is going to happen.

 

And we have beautiful children around here - you just start, mm? Good.

 

-Osho, "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There, #16"

 

 

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[By the end of 1977 Rajneesh International University offers BA, MA or PhD courses under twelve departments, including special programmes in counsellor training and meditation.]

 

Question

A sannyasin, who is a doctor of Allopathic and Ayurvedic medicine, asks if he should become part of the university being set up here. Osho says: Become part of it, much has to be done.

 

 

I need so many people because so much has to be done. I need so many hands. The work is so enormous that it is impossible for me to do it on my own. The whole of humanity is in such a great need and the need has to be fulfilled. Otherwise humanity is just on the verge of committing suicide. Its sources of joy have run out. It is desperately struggling to survive. Meaning is no more there, any kind of significance has disappeared. People are only living because they are afraid to die, otherwise there is no reason to live. It seems utterly absurd to live because unless there is something beyond, life cannot have any meaning. The day God disappeared from the human mind, man started dying. Our roots have been in God, in the beyond. By God I mean the beyond, I don't mean a person.

 

Man always lives in the hope of transcending, always lives in the hope of surpassing himself. The darkest hour comes when there is nowhere to go beyond, when there is no beyond. Then there is nothing to live for. You cannot just live—you have to live for something. Life needs a kind of significance, meaning. Religion is nothing but creating meaning in human life. Otherwise life becomes sad, dull, boring. Life becomes anguish, anxiety…without any kind of fulfilment.

 

Great things have to be done. I will need all kinds of people of all talents, of all possible talents, because this is not one-dimensional work; it is multi-dimensional work. Sannyas is just a device to find people who can take the message to the masses, to the people who are in need. People are spiritually starved. They can survive physical starvation but they cannot survive spiritual starvation. It is difficult to survive physical starvation but not impossible. To survive spiritual starvation is impossible. Then there is no reason to exist at all. Suicide becomes more significant….

 

And this university is not going to be an ordinary educational institution. This university is going to be education in life, education in God, education in meaning, in meditation, in prayer, in love. It is not going to teach arithmetic and geography and history. It is going to teach life as such and how it should be lived. It is going to become a great experiment in living, in new ways of living.

 

Become a part of it!

 

-Osho, "Let Go!, #8"

 

 

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We have created hierarchy in society. The lowest are those poor people who are chopping wood or cleaning the roads. Why are they the lowest?—because they are doing the most essential things. The professors can be discarded, the society can exist without them; but the society cannot exist without the street cleaners, the toilet cleaners, the woodchoppers—the society cannot exist without them. They are far more essential, far more fundamental, but they are the lowest.

 

The whole idea is wrong. There is no hierarchy. The professor is doing his work, and the woodcutter is doing his work, and both are needed. Neither is there a hierarchy between men and other animals, nor is there a hierarchy between men and men. I am against the whole idea of hierarchy.

 

And that's my vision of a new commune.

 

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.

 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3, #6, Q1"

 

 

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[At this time, Osho emphasizes creativity in the new commune]

 

Question

A sannyasin wonders if she should return to Germany; she is in the middle of a sculpture and pottery course.

 

 

That is worth studying—I will not disrupt it, mm? Go and continue your studies. Whenever you can come, just come and then go back, but finish your studies because I will need a few potters and sculptors. In the new place we will be doing many things and sculpture will be one of the most important things. So get into it as deeply as possible. Just don't go so-so, go whole-heartedly into it so we can create something out of it. Your skill will be very very useful to the new commune. We will have guilds there; guilds of potters and guilds of carpenters and sculptors and artists, so there will be different dimensions to creativity.

 

-Osho, "The Sun Behind the Sun Behind the Sun, #28"

 

 

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[A sannyasin had sent Osho some photos of his stone sculptures; stone arrangements.]

 

I looked at your stone sculpture - beautiful! In the new commune you will have to do a few things. When the new commune is ready you have to plan a small place for your statues. Just make as many Buddhas as possible!

 

-Osho, "The Sacred Yes, #18"

 

 

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[To a weaver, Osho says:]

 

I liked your idea of making a workshop for rugs. That is one of the old Sufi things we should do; it's very good. Start talking to sannyasins so that you can create a group and then start.

 

Don't Bite My Finger, Look Where I'm Pointing, #18

 

 

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The work also has to be play. It has to be done joyously, not for any result but for its sheer joy. That's why I called it the Sufi work.

 

Sufis have been weaving, spinning, carving; rug-making particularly has been one of the most cherished Sufi works, but it was a play, it was a game. They were in fact not making rugs; it was just a meditation. The rug was just a by-product; the idea was just to be meditative, to be playful, to be silent, to be utterly there. It was a kind of absorption, a creative absorption. And I respect Sufis very much for that, because in India the monks have been very uncreative; I am altogether against that. They have been sitting in their caves, very very inactive; they became almost oppressive in this country. They exploited it, they never contributed anything to the country. Their whole contribution was this, that they were meditating so the country had to look after them.

 

Sufis are right, on the right track: meditate but contribute something to the society too. And if it can be done playfully, then it is not business; then it is meditation. And that's what I would like my commune to become slowly, slowly. We have to do many things. This commune has to be utterly creative, but the creation has not to become work—that is the whole point. It has to be playful, sincere but not serious, devoted; one has to be committed to it, involved, but not for the result's sake. It is art for art's sake: the joy is intrinsic.

 

Start talking so that you have a few people in your mind and when we are ready you can immediately start working.

 

Don't Bite My Finger, Look Where I'm Pointing, #18

 

 

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My sannyasins are from the most educated classes of the world. We have all kinds of people—artists, painters, professors, scientists, psychologists, therapists, doctors, engineers—all well educated.

 

-Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol 1, #4, Q1"