Question 1:

Osho,

You have been praising rebels, but it seems to me that so far rebellion has changed situations only for the worse. is it not better simply to accept what is? also it seems that whatever happens, the evil in the world becomes more powerful, more creative. can you comment?

 

 

REBELLION has not happened yet. What has happened s revolution. And you are in a deep misunderstanding of the differences between the two.

 

Revolution certainly has made things worse, for the simple reason that revolution has to use the same tactics which the older society was using. Not only does it have to use the same tactics, it has to use them more powerfully; only then can it succeed.

 

For example, in the Russian revolution the czar was one of the greatest violent powers in the world.

 

Now, to revolt against the czar you were compelled to be more violent than he was - the logic is simple. Hence the communist party trained itself in a far superior way, almost as militia. The czar and his regime could be destroyed because it was clashing with a bigger violent force.

 

You have to understand the whole extent of the logic of violence. The people who have come Into power through violence, as they did in Russia - once they are in power, do you think they will suddenly become nonviolent? Their whole training, their whole mind is full of violence, and that 462 violence has been their success. You cannot drop it. Dropping it will mean betraying the revolution, losing the success that was yours.

 

Moreover, the people who have come into power through violence are bound to be violent against each other, because there will be a struggle for power in the inner circle of the communist party.

 

Whoever proves to be more violent, more cunning, more inhuman, will become the most powerful man.

 

That's how Joseph Stallin became the greatest dictator the world has ever known. He w as a nobody in violence as far as the revolution was concerned: he was not even a significant figure, not even a national leader. He belonged to a very backward part of Russia, the Caucasus. And he was not included among the ten most important people who ruled the party and the whole country; he was only the general secretary of the communist party's organization. But he had seen how violence succeeds.

 

He had seen - before his eyes - the world's greatest empire evaporating through violence. He had seen and realized that nothing works except violence, cunningness, cruelty. He learned a great lesson. And he started using the same things in the inner party circles.

 

It is a well-known fact - although there is no way to say whether it is true or not, but every possibility is that it is true - that Lenin was poisoned by Joseph Stalin. Stalin controlled the organization of the party, and he controlled the care that Lenin needed - lenin was getting old, he was sick.

 

Lenin's wife, Krupskaya, was very much against Joseph Stalin being around Lenin, but she was helpless; she could not do anything. All orders were going through the general secretary: the doctors, the nurses, the medicines - everything was decided by him. And Lenin was poisoned very slowly, very slowly, over a two-year period. So slowly slowly, as Lenin became more and more close to death, power started moving into the hands of Joseph Stalin. Whatever he wanted to be signed, he managed to have signed by Lenin.

 

Lenin, in the last stages, was not even fully conscious - just conscious enough to sign, to say yes or no; otherwise he was in a cloudy state of consciousness, paralyzed. And in two years of continuous poisoning, his brain must have dwindled down. And he had to depend on Joseph Stalin because Stalin had broken all the bridges between Lenin and the other nine great leaders of the communist party. He was the only bridge.

 

The reason was given that Lenin needed absolute rest; no crowd, no problems. And he had the signed paper from Lenin that "all authority is given to Joseph Stalin to decide on my behalf" As Lenin died, Joseph Stalin started throwing out important figures one by one.

 

He was really clever. To fight with nine important leaders of the revolution would have been difficult.

 

He tried a simple political method; he would manage to set eight against one. He would create, invent situations in which that one man was caught. And the other eight were great leaders. They were not interested in that one man, but they never knew that this was the way that it was going to happen to all of them.

 

Within five years almost all the most important people - Zinovyev, Kamenev - were killed, murdered.

 

A few escaped from the country just out of fear. Those who remained understood perfectly well that they had to be supporters of Joseph Stalin if they wanted to live. They supported him, they lived - but they lived as nobodies. Joseph Stalin became sole and whole dictator of the great land, one-sixth of the whole world.

 

But one violence leads to another violence, there is no end to it - just as one lie leads to another lie and there is no end to it. This is one of the indications of evil. One evil always leads to another evil, then another evil, and you are caught in a vicious circle. If you don't create another evil your first evil will be exposed. Just to keep it hidden you have to go on continually creating more clouds of evil around it.

 

Stalin slaughtered almost one million people in Soviet Russia - because these nine leaders were not all, there were also provincial leaders. Russia is a big country, spreading from one corner of Europe to almost the other corner of Asia; it is a vast continent. He had to kill thousands of provincial leaders.

 

This was called purification of the party. He said that these people were really of the bourgeoisie, their minds were capitalistic: "And unless they are finished the country is not safe. The enemy is within - we can fight with the enemy outside, but if the enemy is within, then it will become impossible to fight with the outside enemy."

 

And of course there were enemies outside, because all capitalist countries wanted to destroy Russia.

 

So Joseph Stalin had a good argument: If you want to survive, then you have to be absolutely one.

 

No other voice - one single leader." And the people had to submit to it.

 

The people who had made the revolution were finished by the revolution itself. And the people who came into power after the revolution were not the revolutionaries. They were bureaucrats who knew the methods of bureaucracy and who were capable of becoming slaves of Joseph Stalin.

 

Sixty years have passed, but the same situation continues - the fear of the outside world. In Russia they go on magnifying it: the whole world is determined to destroy you, and your only possible way to survive is to remain absolutely committed to the party line. No disagreement is allowed. The whole country has to believe whatsoever comes out of the high command from the Kremlin.

 

The people who had thought of the revolution, the people who had for decades prepared for the revolution... this was not the revolution that they were preparing for - that the whole country would become a concentration camp, that everybody would be a prisoner.

 

In India, when freedom came, one of the most important Urdu poets, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, wrote a beautiful song. In the song he says, "This is not the morning for which we have been working hard, sacrificing everything, suffering every humiliation. This is not that morning. This is not the morning of our dreams. This is not that freedom.

 

"Nothing has changed, only the rulers are different. The jailers have changed, the jail is the same.

 

What difference does it make to the prisoner who is the jailer? The rules are the same; in fact, they are more strict now."

 

Obviously, because this jailer had been a prisoner... now he has become the jailer and he knows how prisoners can overthrow him: he will not leave any loopholes. He knows the way he became the jailer from being a prisoner; now he will break all the bridges so nobody else can take his place.

 

The new rulers are always more dangerous than the old rulers. Old rulers become relaxed, they start taking it for granted that they are rulers. They are not so alert, they need not be. The new rulers cannot afford that kind of taking-for-grantedness. They know that they can be thrown out.

 

They have thrown others out, and what they have done can be done to them.

 

For sixty years in Russia the prison has become more and more destructive of humanity, individuality, freedom.

 

The questioner is right: no revolution has helped - but please don't call a revolution a rebellion.

 

There is tremendous difference.

 

Revolutions have been happening down through history.

 

Rebellion has not happened yet.

 

And why have revolutions failed? They have failed because they had to use the same methods to throw out the old society, the old civilization, the old sovereignty. They had to use the same methods, there were no other methods - and slowly slowly they became the same as the old.

 

Now Joseph Stalin became nothing but a stronger czar than any czar. The strongest and the cruelest czar in Russian history was Ivan the Terrible, but Ivan the Terrible is just Ivan the Pygmy if you compare him with Joseph Stalin. He stands nowhere - and he was the strongest and the cruelest and the worst czar Russia had seen. That's why he is called "the terrible." But Stalin was a millionfold more terrible - and more scientifically terrible, technologically terrible. There was no way to escape the grip of Stalin.

 

But this is bound to happen.... In India I have seen the Gandhian revolution. Gandhi was aware of the fact that if the revolution became violent then its fate would be the same as that of other revolutions. Revolutionaries, once they are in power, prove to be worse rulers than anybody else.

 

So Gandhi tried to make the revolution non-violent; but he was not aware of many other implications.

 

It was not only the violence, it was also the power.

 

When a man who has never known power comes into power, he is no longer the same man. It is just as if a beggar suddenly finds a winning lottery ticket in his name. Do you think he is the same man? Yes, he looks the same, but he is no longer the same man.

 

Leo Tolstoy has a beautiful story. A poor shoemaker becomes interested in becoming rich - who does not? How long is he going to just go on making shoes for others? Just by making shoes he is not going to become rich, that much is certain; he has to find some quick way. So he starts purchasing a lottery ticket... every month he saves enough money to purchase at least one ticket.

 

This went on for almost twenty years. He even forgot why he went on purchasing them; it became a habit, an obsession. But one day what happened was, a big limousine came to the poor man's shop, and a man greeted him with suitcases full of notes. The man said, "You have won the lottery."

 

The shoemaker could not believe it. He said, "What are you saying? I have won the lottery? I have been purchasing tickets for twenty years, and it has never happened. Are you sure?"

 

The man said, "l am absolutely sure. You just show me your ticket number. Yes, you have won the lottery!"

 

What happened to the poor man? He immediately locked the shop and threw the keys into the well - because now what was the use of those keys and that shop? - and he took the suitcases full of notes to his house.

 

In one year's time, he wasted all the money: prostitutes, alcohol, gambling - whatever was possible, whatever money could do - he did everything. But after one year, when he opened the suitcase, all the notes were gone.

 

He looked in the mirror - that whole year he had been so engaged he hadn't even looked in the mirror. There had been so much to do, and so much money; he had been perhaps the busiest person in the whole world. When he looked in the mirror he could not believe that it was he, because he had grown at least ten years older in just one year. Money does that too.

 

He had wasted himself. He looked sick, but he had never been sick. He was a healthy man, but now with alcohol and prostitutes and gambling - with all that together - he looked as if he was just going to die within a few days. He said, "My God, what have I done?"

 

He went to the well and jumped in to try to find his keys, because again the shop had to be opened, tomorrow morning. The next morning he opened the shop. People were puzzled; they said, "For one year you were not even seen here."

 

He said, "Seen here?... Paris, London, New York - I don't know where I have been, what I have been doing, but that year was one hell of a year. I have never suffered so much before. Now I am not going to purchase another lottery ticket."

 

But when the first day of the month came, just out of old habit he said, "Who is going to win that lottery again? Such things happen only once in a great while." He purchased the ticket, hoping that he would not win, because he didn't want to win, but old habit....

 

Just try to see how the human mind functions. You don't want to do it, and still you go on doing it.

 

You have been taking oaths, "I am not going to do it again." And you know, even when you are taking the oath, that you have been taking such oaths your whole life, and breaking them. And you know that this time too you will break it when the time comes.

 

A drunkard says, "In the name of God - I touch THE BIBLE - I say 'I will never drink again.'" But he knows even then that he has done this before. And tomorrow when the time comes then he will forget everything - all oaths, all God, all Jesus, all THE BIBLE - and he will say, "Such things people go on doing, and what harm have all those oaths that I have taken and broken done to me? One more will not make much difference." He drinks, and while he is drinking he is thinking that it is not good. It is bad, it is meaningless, he is simply destroying himself. He does not enjoy it either.

 

You have to understand man's duality. He does not enjoy something, he does not want to do it, but still he goes on doing it just like a robot.

 

And the miracle of miracles was that in the first month when the shoemaker purchased the ticket he won the lottery again! And when that limousine came, he said, "My God, don't do it to me again!"

 

But why are you saying this to God? You need not do it again. But he knows that is not possible.

 

He won the lottery, and when the suitcases came again, he did the same that he had done before, saying, "What am I doing? This is not right."

 

Saying all this, he locked the door of his shop, threw the keys into the well and took the suitcases, saying continuously, "This is not right. I should not be doing it because this time these suitcases are not going to leave me alive. Last time what did they do? They almost finished me! And what kind of cruel God is this? He won't let me rest for even one month. Again I have to go to Paris, to London, to New York - and who knows where and what kinds of things I will have to do again."

 

Gandhi was not aware of one thing - that power changes people.

 

Power brings out the worst that is in people.

 

Everybody carries that power to do evil - the will, the seed - but the opportunity is not there, it is only a potential. When power really comes into your hands then all your hidden devils start raising their heads and asking you, "Now is the time, do it; otherwise who knows whether next time you will get the power or not."

 

The people with Lenin were all violent people, so it is not surprising that the most violent of them did what he did. It seems to be absolutely logical. But the people who were with Gandhi were not violent people, as far as their surface was concerned, as far as their persona was concerned - they were not violent people.

 

Nobody could have thought that these people would turn violent, would exploit the country in every possible way. These people were servants of the people; they had lived a life of sacrifice, they had renounced their money, their families, their comforts, and they had suffered all kinds of punishments, imprisonments, beatings. Nobody could have thought....

 

These were the people whom Gandhi had trusted. And there was apparent reason to trust, because when British government soldiers were beating them, Gandhi's instructions were, "You are not to retaliate, you have just to stand here. Let them kill you, but no violence from your side should be possible" - and thousands of people behaved in that way.

 

The British government was in great confusion - no government has ever been in such confusion. If these revolutionaries had been using violent methods, then there would have been no problem; the British government could have crushed them immediately, shot them all. There would have been no problem - they were a nuisance, violent, they deserved it.

 

But these people had not done any violence, had not been a nuisance to anybody. In fact what they were doing were strange things which no revolutionary had ever done. Standing before the governor's house they were reciting form the GITA, reading from THE BIBLE, quoting Jesus; saying prayers from the Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans - prayers from all these religions they were reciting. Now what to do with these people?

 

Even the cruelest person would have a second thought: "To shoot these people does not seem to be the right measure." But there was nobody to tell idiots like Winston Churchill, "When revolutionaries are using new methods, why don't you use new methods? Let them recite from THE BIBLE - your soldiers can also recite from THE BIBLE! What is the problem? You recite loudly! They cannot take over the government by reciting THE BIBLE - let them recite. You participate, it is good. Let all government people also join them in reciting, and let them be puzzled.

 

If I had been in Winston Churchill's place that's what I would have done. No non-violent revolutionary has to be sent to jail; this is absolutely ugly. He should not be beaten - for what? If he is praying, you join in; prayer is a good thing. And invite him: "Come every day. We had forgotten to do our prayers, you have reminded us. Come every day!" Treat them well, offer them a cup of coffee or tea, some sweets to take home for their children.

 

That would have been the right answer; but in that hollow head of Winston Churchill's it was impossible to have such an insight - such a simple thing. He started doing what was absolutely unnecessary, which destroyed the British Empire. It was not Gandhi, it was the stupidity of the British Empire itself.

 

If you confront people who are non-violent with bullets, you cannot survive. The whole world's sympathy was with Gandhi and his revolution; even in Britain the sympathy of British people was with Gandhi. Anybody who has a little sense and humanity - his sympathy will be with these poor people who are not doing any harm, whom you are shooting, killing... and killing in such a horrible way.

 

In Punjab there was a place, Jalianwala Baug - a public park, walled, with only one door. It was a secluded place for large meetings; one hundred thousand people could be seated. There was going to be a meeting of non-violent people, with not even a staff in their hands - and these were not people who were nonviolent by nature or by tradition. Punjabis, Sikhs... even the Sikh religion says that every Sikh should carry a sword with him - that is essential. That is part of his religion, he does not need any license.

 

Even in countries like India where you cannot carry a weapon without a license, the Sikh carries a weapon because it is a question of his religion. And you cannot hurt anybody's religious feelings - although it is not such a religious feeling at all. Carrying a sword? - you can kill anybody. This is not a religious thing.

 

But the Sikh religion makes it a point, and the British government had been allowing them for three hundred years, so there was a precedent. For three hundred years they had not been prevented; to prevent them now would make them unnecessarily angry. It is better to let them carry their swords.

 

In Jalianwala Baug most of the people were Sikhs, but because they followed Gandhi they had not brought their swords. Gandhi had said, "No weapons, not even a staff, not even a bamboo should you carry; you should be absolutely unarmed. And let them kill. How many unarmed people can they kill? Let us see how far they can go in inhumanity."

 

There were one hundred thousand people, and the British government attacked them unnecessarily - because they were doing nothing; they were just saying prayers and asking God to make the country free. Now, there is no problem in that.

 

You can ask God not to make the country free - what is the problem? If they are asking God, you ask God too. You have all the churches and all the priests: let all of them ask God not to make the country free. If it is a question of a fight in prayers, do it in prayers. But they sent General Dyer, a very cruel man, with machine guns and the army.

 

You can imagine that situation: one door, General Dyer with machine guns at the door, high walls which you cannot climb - and he started shooting. He killed thousands of people - children, women, old people - for no reason. But it created a world uproar. The British government even had to call General Dyer back to England. They had to appoint a special judge to inquire into the case, just for show, because the sympathy was with the Indian revolutionaries: something had to be done.

 

The responsibility had to be thrown on General Dyer, and he said, "It is none of my responsibility. I received the order from the governor-general, and I am simply a soldier. What can I do except follow the order? And if you want an investigation, then investigate the governor-general. And I know perfectly well that he received the order from Winston Churchill, the prime minister. From nowhere else could he receive the order." But who listens to a poor general? The investigation continued.

 

That's how government investigations go on: they continue for a few years, and by that time people forget all about what the matter was, who did it, what happened. So many things have happened since, so many other investigations are going on. Finally the report comes; and the report is all in legal jargon, and nobody knows what the result is. Government investigations never come to any conclusion.

 

No punishment was given to General Dyer. In fact with what face could the British government punish General Dyer? Yes, he was retired with good arrangements for his future life. This is not a punishment, this is a reward.

 

These people stood before the machine guns barehanded, opened their shirt fronts, and told the soldiers, "You kill as many as you can, because anyway, living in slavery is worse than death." Finally the British government caved in.

 

Gandhi had never thought.... These people - trusted, well-known for years to be absolutely nonviolent, not power-hungry-suddenly changed. When the revolution succeeded and these people came into power they started doing the same things that the British government had been doing.

 

Now they were shooting communists, they were shooting socialists. They forgot completely about non-violence.

 

What to say about them; you will be surprised to know that even Mahatma Gandhi forgot all about nonviolence. He was asked by an American writer, Louis Fisher, who was writing Gandhi's biography - it is one of the most beautiful biographies of Gandhi - he asked Gandhi, "You are talking about non-violence, but if the country becomes independent, are you going to have armies or not?"

 

Gandhi said, "The answer is obvious. The moment the country is free, there will be no armies."

 

Louis Fisher asked, "If somebody attacks the country - because you have been attacked for two thousand years.... Even with armies and every way to protect yourself, you have been attacked for two thousand years continually, and you have been enslaved again and again. What will happen when you dissolve the armies and throw your arms in the ocean? Then from all around the borders of your country people will rush in. What will you do?"

 

Gandhi said, "We will welcome them, tell them, 'If you don't have a place in your country, we have enough - you can come here. Even if we don't have enough, we will share what we have. Live with us.'"

 

Louis Fisher persisted. He said, "Times have changed. People may not be coming directly, they may be bombing you from the air. What will you do then? - because there will be no encounter face-to-face to talk."

 

Gandhi said, "I believe in God and I believe in the soul. We will stand in the open looking upwards, praying that if this is the will of God then we submit to it. But we will pray to God to change the heart of these people who have come to bomb us." Now, this is the man before the revolution - not much before, just ten years before.

 

When the revolution succeeded, and Pakistan attacked Indian territory in Kashmir, the prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru told Gandhi, "We have to send forces, and you have to bless our forces"

 

- and Gandhi blessed the forces. Three planes flew over the place where he used to stay in Delhi; he came out into the garden and blessed the planes. Those were the first planes to attack, and then the army followed.

 

Now, what happened to this man? Armies were going to be destroyed and he was coming outside to pray to God - to bless the planes carrying bombs to be dropped on the same people who just a few days before were a part of India. They WERE Indian; but now, on the map, the color has changed, a new line has been drawn. These people are no longer Indians, they are Pakistanis.

 

Power has its own ways to destroy you.

 

It destroyed even the non-violent revolutionaries, it destroyed even the non-violent leader. Nobody bothers about it, how Gandhi can still be accepted as non-violent. In his crucial moment he failed.

 

He could not say to Jawaharlal, "Dissolve the armies and let Pakistan come - they are our people.

 

Let them conquer us, what is the problem? The country was one before, it will be one again. It may not be called India, it may be called Pakistan - just words."

 

If I was in his place I would simply have said that.... If that were my philosophy, non-violence - it is not my philosophy, but if it were my philosophy then I would have gone to the logical conclusion; it is simple. "You all wanted one country and those poor Pakistanis are trying to make it one again; let them do it, help them. The only difference will be, before, if it had remained one it would have been called India. What difference does it make if now it will be called Pakistan - which is a far more beautiful word."Pakistan means "the holy land." India is a meaningless word. It was just because the Persians who came to conquer India had no letter for "s" in their language in their alphabet, so the river Sindu they called Hindu, the closest to "s" was "H" - in their language they can come closest to "s" through "H." So when they crossed the river Sindu, which is the border of India, they called it Hindu, and the land that lies beyond they called Hind.

 

When the word Hind started moving from Persia into other languages, by the time it reached Rome it became "Ind," and from "Ind" comes the English word India. It is absolutely meaningless; just because Persian does not have the letter "s," that's why it is called India otherwise there is no reason.

 

Pakistan is a beautiful word. I would have loved and welcomed them. Yes, the country would be Pakistan, their flag would be there - but what is wrong in it? Their flag is also beautiful - a green flag, with a star and the moon. It is a beautiful flag, there is nothing wrong in it. The color is good, the symbol is beautiful.

 

What difference does it make? Perhaps they may have forced Hindus to become Mohammedans - so what! You have been Hindus for thousands of years, what have you done? Just for a change it is perfectly good. Be Mohammedans! Rather than them converting you, you allow them; you say, "Please convert us." And then be Mohammedans, and you will be the majority; you will vote in the country, rule the country. It is so simple. Go non-violent the whole way.

 

If all the Hindus become Mohammedans, who is going to rule the country? These Hindus will still rule the country - because they are the majority, they are the most educated, they are the most cultured - and with no problem. And the people who would have attacked them would have been known in history as the greatest idiots.

 

But even Gandhi could not manage to have the courage to say to Jawaharlal, "This is not right - this is against our philosophy." No, when power comes in your hands, you think in terms of power, politics, you don't think in terms of philosophy.

 

Yes, revolutions have all failed.

 

By their very nature they cannot succeed; hence, I am not for revolutions.

 

You ask me: when all revolutions have made things worse, why should we not let things be as they are? You don't understand - that's what rebellion is: let things be as they are, don't disturb. Let nature take its own course. That's what I mean by rebellion.

 

A rebellious person does not waste his energy in fighting with this and that. I have never been fighting with anything - arguing against somebody is not fighting. I enjoy it! I enjoy it so much that many times I forget that I am arguing against myself. To me it is just a game. But I have not been rebelling in any destructive way. And I have not told you to destroy anything, or to destroy the society, or to destroy the government.

 

I have been telling you, just collect your whole energy from all the sources where you have it involved, and enjoy.

 

Bring your whole energy to this moment and let things be as they are.

 

Just the other day Sheela was asking me... she is puzzled, in great anxiety - it is natural because she has to think of the whole commune - because the world, economy is going to collapse any day.

 

That is certain, it Is going to collapse.

 

The dollar goes on rising every day. When I was in India a dollar was worth seven and a half rupees by government rates. From seven to twenty-two... the dollar has become three times more valuable, or, the rupee has lost so much value that it is only one third of its original value. The same is true about all other currencies in the world, because they are all connected The Australian dollar used to be costlier than the American dollar; even the Australian dollar has gone down below the American dollar. The American dollar is going higher and higher. Our people, who come from all over the world for the festival, are feeling in a great difficulty because this time they will have to arrange at least four times more money to participate because the dollar costs four times more. This cannot go on forever - economically there is a limit to everything. At a certain moment the dollar will collapse.

 

That's how it happened in 1930; first the dollar went higher and higher and higher.... But you cannot go higher forever; where you will go? It went so high that in China just to purchase a single packet of cigarettes you had to carry a bag full of notes. In Germany people were using notes for burning, to make a cup of tea. The notes had lost all value. Even wood was costlier, so it was better to burn the notes themselves.

 

But this kind of situation cannot last forever. When all the world was in such a turmoil, naturally other countries all disconnected from the dollar; then the dollar flopped. And thousands of people, millionaires committed suicide in America in 1930.

 

Wall Street became the greatest suicidal point. People were simply jumping from buildings because all was lost. Just a few minutes before they were worth millions of dollars; a few seconds later they were paupers - and they could not accept that. They would rather jump from a thirty-story building and finish themselves.

 

This situation can come again, because that's how it had come before: slowly slowly the dollar goes higher.... If President Reagan has any sense it is time to stop the dollar going higher. But he is enjoying, because all Americans are enjoying: "President Reagan has proved a great president - the dollar is going higher, American prestige is going higher, American money is going higher. We are at the top!"

 

But those fools don't understand that sometimes when you fall from the top then only do you understand that those who were at the bottom were far more fortunate because they could not fall. There was nowhere to fall, they were already sitting at the bottom. Only the people from the top fall.

 

If President Reagan has any sense... but I cannot conceive that he has that sense, because the whole euphoria in America will disappear. Right now he can do anything because the American feels in a euphoria; but soon the fall will come.

 

So Sheela was asking me what we have to do - because once the fall comes we will be in trouble.

 

I said to her, "Don't be worried, let it come. Before it comes let us enjoy. What can you do?" She thought perhaps we could collect at least enough food for two or three years.

 

That would be dangerous. If you have food for two or three years collected here, then people all around will attack you because they will not have food, and you will have a three-year food reservoir with you. And when people are dying and hungry, they don't bother, they can do anything. So your food will become a magnetic pull for people.

 

It is better that whatever happens to the whole world happens to us. Why be worried? It is not only going to happen to us, it is going to happen to the whole world; so whenever it happens to the whole world it will happen to us. We will not be in any worse condition than anybody else. We will be in a better condition than everybody else because at least we have a commune.

 

Those people will be carrying their whole burden on their own heads, or on the head of a small family. We can share our joy. We can share our sadness. And the mathematics is: when you share joy it increases, when you share your sadness it decreases. We can share our bounty, we can share our poverty. We will not be in any way in more trouble than anybody else. And somehow the world survived 1930; it is going to survive this crisis too.

 

But who knows when it is going to happen? Perhaps it may not happen. A world war may begin before it. President Reagan may have a heart attack. If he has a heart then it is always possible to have a heart attack. If you don't have, only then are you secure. I suspect that he has, but who knows?

 

Even an artificial heart can fail; the battery can run down, anything is possible. So don't be worried about tomorrow. I told Sheela, "Don't be bothered about tomorrow. Today is enough unto itself.

 

Enjoy, live, and we will see when tomorrow comes; whatever we can do, we will do."

 

That's what I mean by rebellion.

 

Not bothering about the future, that is the rebel's mind. If death comes, then it is okay; we have lived, there is no grudge. Only those who have not lived will feel grumpy when death comes.

 

We are living totally; if death comes it is perfectly good. Any time is the right time, it will find us ready.

 

And we don't have much. You can keep your suitcases ready - if death comes, you just take your suitcase. Or you can even fold your tent, saying, "It will just take ten minutes for me to fold this. I am bringing my tent, because with such a crowd going with you there may be trouble." We can bring our tents.

 

Those who have lived do not bother about death. It is only the people who have missed life who are continuously afraid of death.

 

So I told her, "You forget about it. This moment is enough to live, to do, to create. Next moment we will see. We will be there, and whatever will be possible we will do. And if nothing is possible then one can always die gracefully. Death is not an indignity."

 

Yes, you can live with indignity, then you will die also with indignity. You can live without grace, then you will die also without grace.

 

Your death will be the culmination point of your life.

 

Live with dignity, live with joy, live with grace - and death cannot be anything else.

 

It will be the very climax of your life.

 

This is my meaning of the rebel. We are not revolutionaries - the very word is too orthodox. It is as old as anything else; you can find revolutionaries as far back as you can find human beings. There have always been revolutionaries who have been changing society. And the questioner is right, that each time the revolution comes, things become worse.

 

They are bound to become worse for the simple reason that if you can throw a regime.... For example, if you can throw the regime of Adolf Hitler, then you have to be a slightly bigger Adolf Hitler; otherwise you cannot throw it. It is a very simple phenomenon.

 

Why could Adolf Hitler not be thrown out? Do you think efforts were not made? There were communists, there were socialists, there were democrats - and the communist party was the most organized party in Germany. Adolf Hitler's success is simply the success of brutality. It will be helpful if you understand.

 

When he made his party, the Nazi party, there were only nineteen members. The communist party was the largest party with thousands of members. The old regimers was tottering. After the first world war, Germany had lost its nerve, it was no longer a strong nation. Every possibility was there that the communist party would take over. With nineteen people what could Adolf Hitler do? But he managed.

 

What did he do? He had a certain strategy. He would not allow anybody else's meeting to be arranged. For example, if a communist meeting was called, his nineteen people would be there among the crowd with weapons and tear gas bombs, and they would disturb the meeting. And they would beat the audience who had just come to listen, who had nothing to do.... A great communist leader was going to speak; some in the audience were simply people who had come to listen to what he wanted to say. And they were beaten; somebody was killed and the meeting was a chaos.

 

Slowly it became clear that you could not attend a communist meeting. They had thousands of members, but this small group of criminals managed one thing: nobody else except them could hold a meeting without any disturbance. In their meeting there was no disturbance because they were the disturbers.

 

So when Adolf Hitler was having a meeting.... And people are addicts. There are political addicts - if they don't go to a political meeting for a few days then something troubles them; they start feeling that something is missing.

 

Now, the socialist party, the communist party, democrats, liberals - nobody can hold a meeting. The first program of Adolf Hitler was to make it clear to the whole country that the only man who could hold a meeting without any violence to the audience was Adolf Hitler. And he made it clear with a simple strategy. He was the only man who was in the news, who was on the media, because he was the only political leader who was being heard - and thousands of people were coming to listen to him.

 

And those idiots - socialists, communists, liberals, democrats - could not even figure out his strategy.

 

It was such a simple strategy. They could not even figure it out why his meetings were not being disturbed. Who were the people who disturbed their meetings?

 

It was simple, there was no need to do any field work. Just sitting in your chair, in your room, you could have worked out that these were the people who were disturbing other people's meetings.

 

Their meetings were not disturbed because those people were functioning in a conventional way.

 

They had never thought that this would be a political strategy.

 

Then Adolf Hitler was the only speaker, Adolf Hitler was the only man in the news; the membership of the Nazi party started growing in leaps and bounds. Within two years he had thousands of followers - and all the other parties were simply crushed. Before the election he managed it - that there was no other party except the Nazi party. He came into power.

 

Now, if you want to throw Adolf Hitler out of power - and he needs to be thrown out - you cannot do it unless you go one step lower in humanity than him. Now, how is the revolution going to succeed?

 

If the revolution succeeds, that means a bigger Adolf Hitler succeeds. But that is the failure of the revolution, not the success. So it fails either way. Either you fail, then Adolf Hitler remains there; or you succeed, and you prove to be a bigger Adolf Hitler. Revolution fails in either case. So it is true, revolutions have not helped, they have created worse conditions for people.

 

But rebellion has never been tried.

 

Revolution is a collective effort to overthrow the government.

 

Rebellion is individual.

 

It overthrows nobody; it simply dissolves the individual's hypocrisy.

 

The rebel drops his facade.

 

He is not against any regime, against any society. He is not bothered by all that nonsense. Those who are interested in that, let them do their work. The rebel is simply very self-oriented.

 

I have been condemned by many sources around the world because I teach people selfishness. Yes, I teach selfishness. It is not a condemnation, this is my whole philosophy. I teach you to be selfish because unselfishness has been taught for thousands of years and it has not helped anybody.

 

I teach you to be just self-oriented.

 

Drop all the rubbish that is in you.

 

Clean yourself and start living as if you are the first and the last man in the world. The first, so that you don't have to carry the burden of the past, because there is no past. And the last, so that you need not worry about the future, about what will happen to your children. They will take care of themselves.

 

You think of yourself and live intensely at the innermost core of your being.

 

That's what rebellion is:

 

Let things be as they are.

 

But you are not a thing, you are a being:

 

Change yourself, transform yourself

 

Become a new man.

 

You have said that if there are only two hundred enlightened people in the world a third world war is not possible. Can You explain what You mean, how these two hundred people would make a difference among the billions of unconscious people?

 

Certainly. They will make tremendous difference. When the whole room is dark, just a small candle makes so much difference. In such a big room a small candle, lighted…the whole darkness disappears.

 

An enlightened person is a tremendous light—very subtle but for miles around him many people's lives will be touched. And if two hundred people are enlightened, which has never happened in history….

 

Two hundred enlightened people can create just the opposite situation. If they are together in a certain arrangement, they can create life rays which will protect people from death rays, which even may help somebody who has died through a death ray to come alive again. But those two hundred enlightened people have to be in a certain communication. Then they can create a circle around the world.

 

My own idea is that we can create two hundred enlightened people amongst our sannyasins. They are already connected and they are not alone, they are supported by the commune. Their energy can be enhanced, multiplied, by other sannyasins who may not be enlightened but are in search of it, on the way.

 

I mean what I have said. And if we can make a net of life rays around the earth, it can prevent even nuclear weapons from being destructive. But that is a totally different science and never experimented upon. But a few glimpses have happened in the past, and there is no harm in experimenting with it. Anyway, there is no other hope.

 

Our communes have to be ready for it. And they should not think of trivia, of small fights, egos. They should understand their responsibility is so great as it has never been of any human being before. And I hope that we will be able to do something. There is still time, and my people are working hard. Now it is a question whether we can manage within the time or not.

 

But I have a certainty that we have almost created a Noah's Ark of consciousness for the coming flood of death to the whole of humanity.

 

-Osho, "From Misery to Enlightenment, #30, Q1"