Children are immensely intelligent, they just need a chance! They need opportunities to grow, the right climate. Every child is born with the potential of enlightenment, with the potential of becoming awakened, but we destroy it.
This has been the greatest calamity in the whole history of man. No other slavery has been as bad as the slavery of the child and no other slavery has taken as much juice out of humanity as the slavery of the child, and this is also going to be the most difficult task for humanity: to get nd of it.
Unless we arrange the whole society in a totally different way, unless a radical change happens and the family disappears and gives place to a commune, it will not be possible. The parental institution has become so deep-rooted in its struc-ture that unless the whole pattern is destroyed and replaced by a totally new phenomenon which I call the commune...
A commune is where many people live together collectively, not in single-family units. For example, this commune... Now, nearabout three thousand sannyasins are living here, fifteen hundred sannyasins are working in the commune. There are many children; these children are being loved by everybody. They are not just focused on their parents, they are enjoying immense freedom. They go and they visit other sannyasins, they remain with other sannyasins for days together. They have many uncles, many aunts.
Little Siddhartha has so many friends, from small children through grown-up people to very old people -- all ages, all kinds of friends. His mother, Neerja, has changed lovers many times, but every lover becomes an uncle to Siddhartha. It is a gain for him, because each time Neerja changes her lover Siddhartha gains one more uncle! Neerja's love affairs may come and go, but Siddhartha's love affairs remain. Even ex-boyfriends of Neerja are still friends with Siddhartha -- he goes on asking them... whenever he needs money he goes to them. And he gets money from everywhere -- he is the richest person in the commune!
He comes to Sattva every day and Sattva has to give him five rupees -- that's the fixed amount! One day Sattva had no money, so Sattva said, 'I'm sorry, Siddhartha, today I have no money.'
He said, 'Why didn't you ask me?' And after ten minutes he came with five rupees and gave it to Sattva!
He said, 'I have so many friends! Whenever you need money you can ask me -- I can find it anywhere!'
In a commune a child will not be obsessed with his parents. He win have more freedom, more liquidity. He will be more open to many people, many varieties. He will learn more. He will become multi-dimensional, he will become multi-lingual. And the most important thing will be that he Will not be conditioned by anybody, because when there are so many people with so many different backgrounds he will be able to learn this: that 'My mother's or my father's religion is not the only religion,' that 'My mother's country is not the only country,' that My mother's language is not the only language,' that 'There are many languages and they are all beautiful, and there are many religions and they are an beautiful, and there are many countries and they are an beautiful.' He will have a more universal approach towards things. He will remain liquid, flowing, he win not become fixated.
And psychologists say that each child becomes fixated: if the child is a boy he becomes fixated on the mother figure; if the child is a girl the child becomes fixated on the father figure And this is one of the problems in life, because once a boy has become fixated on the mother figure, his whole life he will be searching for a woman who exactly fits his mother figure. He will be expecting his mother's qualities from his beloved, which is not possible. Where can he find his mother? Each woman will have her own way, and the woman will not be there to be his mother.
And the strange thing is, the woman will be searching for her father. The man is searching for the mother and the woman is searching for the father -- and both are pretending to be lovers! Hence all marriages fail, hence no love affair succeeds for a simple reason: because of these obsessions. There is a criterion of how a really good woman should be or how a really good man should be.
If a child moves with many people he will not have a fixed figure of a woman or a man. He will not have an imprint -- that's what psychologists call it -- and without any imprint he will just have a vague idea of a woman. He will more or less have the idea of womanhood, not of a woman, and she will have the idea of manhood, not of a particular man. And then life can have a totally different flavour. Then you are not search-ing for the mother, not searching for the father. Then love affairs can bring immense joy; right now they only bring miseries and nightmares.
And if we can make children liquid, flowing, the countries can disappear sooner or later. The family is the basic unit of the nation, of the state, of the church, hence the church, the state and the nation, will all defend the family. They are not concerned about the misery of humanity.
I am against the nation, against the church, against the state, hence I am in favour of the commune not in favour of the fam-ily. Once this old pattern of family disappears into a more multi-dimensional set-up, humanity can have a new birth. A new man is needed and the new man will bring the very paradise that in the past we were hoping for in some other life. Paradise can be herenow, but we have to bring about a new child.
My sannyasins at least have to understand it very clearly. If you can be helpful in bringing the child to his uniqueness you win be helping humanity immensely. You will become the harbingers of a new dawn, of a new sunrise.
-Osho, "Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, #14, Q1"