Are communists or capitalists ready for the consciousness revolution?

Their first question is: are either communists or capitalists ready for the consciousness revolution of a spiritual terrorist like yourself?

The time is short, perhaps not more than ten or eleven years. By the year 2000, most probably we will have either committed suicide or we will have changed the whole structure of the human mind and raised the consciousness and created millions of meditators and thousands of buddhas. That is the only alternative: War or meditation. War or spiritual revolution. And the war has to be understood as the culmination of our whole human history. It is not coming from the sky -- it is coming from our past, accumulating more and more anger, more and more violence, more and more weapons. The first world war was smaller, the second became bigger. The third is going to be total. Because it is a total war, every person has to understand his responsibility. In smaller wars it was nothing to be worried about. If it was going on in Vietnam...…

Question: OSHO, TO ME THE FUTURE OF THE EAST APPEARS BLEAK WHICHEVER WAY ONE LOOKS AT IT -- EITHER POVERTY AND STARVATION THROUGH FATALISM, OR WESTERNIZATION THROUGH CAPITALISM -- FOR IS IT NOT NECESSARY FOR THE EAST TO BECOME WEST BEFORE PEOPLE AGAIN BECOME INTERESTED IN THEIR INNER SEARCH? IS IT NOT NECESSARY FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST TO BECOME MATERIALLY RICH BEFORE THEIR SPIRITUAL POVERTY AGAIN BECOMES EVIDENT? BUT THE BURDEN OF THE WEST ALREADY LIES HEAVY ON THE WORLD: THE ATOMIC BOMB; VIOLENCE THROUGH FRUSTRATION; THE AUTO-MATIZATION OF THE SOUL; THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS AND THE POLLUTION OF THE AIR AND SEA SO THAT IT IS UNCERTAIN WHETHER THE ENVIRONMENT CAN MAINTAIN ITS DELICATE BALANCE. CAN THE WORLD SUPPORT ANOTHER WEST? Communism can exist only in the climate of dictatorship. Communism cannot be democratic, socialism can never be democratic.

Beloved Osho, a sociologist has a theory that western civilization is taking over the whole world. Already the way of life in all the big cities of the world is the same, and wherever there is progress, it is according to the ways of western civilization. It was said that one of the by-products of standardization would be that communism and capitalism would become so similar that they would merge into a world government, so powerful that no minority could exist. Is that going to happen, or is there a way to avoid it?

Both powers are interested in looking into death rays. Both the powers are looking more and more into dangerous chemical warfare; a certain disease can be sent which spreads like wildfire; no need to drop bombs on you, just release a certain disease which is a sure killer, and which goes on spreading. As far as I can see, both are stubborn, adamant. If there is some possibility for humanity, it is going to come from the communists, not from the capitalists; it is going to come from the Soviet Union, not from America. My reasoning is that America is a decadent society which is dying of its own accord. There are poor people who are dying of hunger and starvation; and there are super-rich people who are dying because they don't have any meaning in life, they don't see any point in it. "Why go on living? Why get…

Question: OSHO, WHY ARE YOU AGAINST COMMUNISM? They all start almost at the same time, but from there, from the very impregnation, opportunities are different. Nobody knows those who have died, what kind of people they were. Somebody may have been an Albert Einstein, somebody a Ravi Shankar, somebody a Michelangelo. Nobody knows about those poor people who simply died in the first race and were not given any other chance. And then small things in the life of the child.... You cannot make them equal. For example, when Napoleon Bonaparte was six months old, his nurse, who was taking care of him, had just left him for a moment and a wild cat jumped onto Napoleon, put both his paws on his chest, and looked into his eyes. Immediately the nurse came back and chased the cat away, but Napoleon, for his whole life, remained afraid of cats.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, I AM CONVINCED THAT THE RICH EXPLOIT THE MASSES. NOW YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT CAPITALISM IS THE BEST SYSTEM FOR FREEDOM. I HAVE NEVER SUPPORTED RUSSIAN TOTALITARIANISM, BUT I THOUGHT THAT MAO ZEDONG IMPROVED LIFE FOR THE MAJORITY IN CHINA. YOUR STATEMENT ABOUT ANTI-CAPITALISTS BEING JEALOUS RINGS TRUE, BUT DON'T SOME RICH CAPITALISTS USE THEIR POWER TO EXPLOIT OTHERS THROUGH SUCH MEANS AS MONOPOLIES, SELLING AT A LOSS FOR SHORT PERIODS OF TIME IN ORDER TO RUIN SMALLER BUSINESSMEN, ACQUIRING MORE LAND THAN THEY NEED, AND THUS DENYING POOR PEOPLE THE ABILITY TO OWN AND USE LAND, ET CETERA? ALTHOUGH THE SOVIET-BLOC COUNTRIES RESTRICT FREEDOM, ARE NOT THE SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST PARTIES IN THE WEST DEDICATED TO MORE PERSONAL FREEDOM -- THAT IS, FREEDOM FROM THE POWERFUL, MANIPULATIVE, RICH CAPITALIST?