Koplen Phir Phoot Aayeen #2
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, shortly before he died the famous thinker Aldous Huxley said it is hard to say who is more barbaric: the caveman or the man living in skyscrapers. You have said recently that man has not yet risen above the ape. Please say something about this.
Look at man’s actions. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars! His whole history is a story of murders, of burning people alive—not one, but thousands. And this story has not ended.
Recently I was in Greece, only for four weeks. And the Greek church and its chief authority, the archbishop, began to spew poison—telegram after telegram to the president, the prime minister, the newspapers—saying that if I was not expelled from Greece, they would burn alive this dangerous man along with the house in which he was staying. I did not even step outside. None of those who came to meet me were Greeks; they were sannyasins from different European countries, and they were meeting me inside the house. What danger was I? And to threaten to burn me alive—do you think man has evolved beyond the monkey? No monkey has ever burned another monkey alive. No monkey is a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian; a monkey is simply a monkey.
And if this is what you call evolution, then such evolution has no meaning. The truth is that man has not evolved; he has only fallen down from the trees. Now you cannot even compete with the monkey. You no longer have the strength to leap from one tree to another. That vitality is gone, that youth is gone, that energy is gone. And the whole story of your deeds is proof that you have not become human beings; you have become demons—yes, demons, but hiding behind respectable names. Under the cover of being a Hindu you can thrust a knife into the chest of a Muslim—without any qualm. Under the cover of being a Muslim you can burn a Hindu temple that has done you no harm—without any worry.
In the Second World War alone, Hitler killed sixty million people—one man did. Will you call this evolution? The Second World War was coming to an end; Germany had surrendered, and the president of America had atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even the American generals said it was absolutely unnecessary, because after Germany’s defeat Japan’s defeat was at most a matter of two weeks. If a five-year war had continued two weeks more, nothing would have been lost. But on great cities like Hiroshima and Nagasaki—whose inhabitants had nothing to do with the fighting: small children, old people, women—within ten minutes two hundred thousand persons were reduced to ashes. And the American president who gave the order—we have not even changed his name. That president’s name was Truman—“true man.” At least by now start calling him “Untruman”!
And the next morning when reporters asked the president, “Did you sleep well?” Truman said, “I have never slept as well as I slept last night, when I received the news that the atom bomb had succeeded.” The success of the atom bomb is important; the killing of two hundred thousand unarmed, innocent people creates no concern. And you call this a human being?
No, man has not evolved at all. There is only one evolution for man, and that is that he recognizes his inner consciousness. Apart from that, there can never be any evolution for man. The day I recognize my inner self, that day I have recognized yours too. The day I know myself, I have known all that is worth knowing in this world. And the fragrance that will be there in my life after that—that alone is development; the light that will be there—that alone is development. What we have been calling development till now is no development at all. We have more commodities than the monkeys, but we do not have more soul than the monkeys. Spiritual evolution alone is the only evolution.
It may even be that a man is blind and yet knows himself—then he is better than the one with eyes. After all, what will your eyes see? He, though blind, has seen himself. And on seeing himself he has seen the center which is the center of this whole existence. That experience is the taste of nectar, the experience of eternal timelessness. In the whole history of the human race only a few people have become truly human—those few who have experienced their soul. All the rest are human only in name. They carry the label of “man,” the carton of “man”; inside there is nothing. And whatever there is, is filled with every kind of poison—filled with jealousy, filled with hatred, filled with destructiveness, filled with violence.
In the end I want to say only this to you: if there is even a little intelligence in your life, accept this challenge—that without knowing yourself you will not allow the funeral bier to be lifted. Yes, having known yourself, even if the bier that was to be lifted tomorrow is lifted today, there is no harm. Because the one who has known himself has no death anymore.
The experience of the immortal is the only evolution.
Thank you.
Recently I was in Greece, only for four weeks. And the Greek church and its chief authority, the archbishop, began to spew poison—telegram after telegram to the president, the prime minister, the newspapers—saying that if I was not expelled from Greece, they would burn alive this dangerous man along with the house in which he was staying. I did not even step outside. None of those who came to meet me were Greeks; they were sannyasins from different European countries, and they were meeting me inside the house. What danger was I? And to threaten to burn me alive—do you think man has evolved beyond the monkey? No monkey has ever burned another monkey alive. No monkey is a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian; a monkey is simply a monkey.
And if this is what you call evolution, then such evolution has no meaning. The truth is that man has not evolved; he has only fallen down from the trees. Now you cannot even compete with the monkey. You no longer have the strength to leap from one tree to another. That vitality is gone, that youth is gone, that energy is gone. And the whole story of your deeds is proof that you have not become human beings; you have become demons—yes, demons, but hiding behind respectable names. Under the cover of being a Hindu you can thrust a knife into the chest of a Muslim—without any qualm. Under the cover of being a Muslim you can burn a Hindu temple that has done you no harm—without any worry.
In the Second World War alone, Hitler killed sixty million people—one man did. Will you call this evolution? The Second World War was coming to an end; Germany had surrendered, and the president of America had atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even the American generals said it was absolutely unnecessary, because after Germany’s defeat Japan’s defeat was at most a matter of two weeks. If a five-year war had continued two weeks more, nothing would have been lost. But on great cities like Hiroshima and Nagasaki—whose inhabitants had nothing to do with the fighting: small children, old people, women—within ten minutes two hundred thousand persons were reduced to ashes. And the American president who gave the order—we have not even changed his name. That president’s name was Truman—“true man.” At least by now start calling him “Untruman”!
And the next morning when reporters asked the president, “Did you sleep well?” Truman said, “I have never slept as well as I slept last night, when I received the news that the atom bomb had succeeded.” The success of the atom bomb is important; the killing of two hundred thousand unarmed, innocent people creates no concern. And you call this a human being?
No, man has not evolved at all. There is only one evolution for man, and that is that he recognizes his inner consciousness. Apart from that, there can never be any evolution for man. The day I recognize my inner self, that day I have recognized yours too. The day I know myself, I have known all that is worth knowing in this world. And the fragrance that will be there in my life after that—that alone is development; the light that will be there—that alone is development. What we have been calling development till now is no development at all. We have more commodities than the monkeys, but we do not have more soul than the monkeys. Spiritual evolution alone is the only evolution.
It may even be that a man is blind and yet knows himself—then he is better than the one with eyes. After all, what will your eyes see? He, though blind, has seen himself. And on seeing himself he has seen the center which is the center of this whole existence. That experience is the taste of nectar, the experience of eternal timelessness. In the whole history of the human race only a few people have become truly human—those few who have experienced their soul. All the rest are human only in name. They carry the label of “man,” the carton of “man”; inside there is nothing. And whatever there is, is filled with every kind of poison—filled with jealousy, filled with hatred, filled with destructiveness, filled with violence.
In the end I want to say only this to you: if there is even a little intelligence in your life, accept this challenge—that without knowing yourself you will not allow the funeral bier to be lifted. Yes, having known yourself, even if the bier that was to be lifted tomorrow is lifted today, there is no harm. Because the one who has known himself has no death anymore.
The experience of the immortal is the only evolution.
Thank you.