Are dacoits and vikings considered rebels, and are they born or made into rebels?

Dear friend, are dacoits and vikings rebels? If so, are they born that way or made, turned into rebels? Which half of the definition do they fulfill, the negative side or the positive one?

Bhai Mehta, the dacoits and the Vikings are not rebels at all, they are part of a criminal society. Your so-called kings and emperors are great dacoits; the dacoits operate on a smaller scale, but they belong to the same category. The society depends on exploitation, oppression. A few people do it in an orderly way, a few people do it in a disorderly way, but their basic act is not different. A few people do it legally because they are intelligent and clever enough to use the law in their favor; and a few people who are not so clever and not so intelligent simply do the same thing but without using the law in their favor. They are condemned, but they are not rebels. They are part of this whole criminal situation that has remained prevalent from the very beginning of humanity till today. Hence the question whether…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE YOUR SANNYASINS ALL REBELS? IS IT TRUE THAT A REBEL IS BORN AND NOT MADE? OR ARE WE BORN REBELS BUT TAMED AND CONDITIONED BY OUR SOCIETIES? Jivan Mary, one who is not a rebel will not come close to me. The very fact that he comes close to me, becomes an initiate, is proof enough that he is a rebel. All my sannyasins are rebels; no other kind of people can be my sannyasins. Those who are not rebels are going to be against me, because whatever I am saying goes against the whole past of mankind -- all its traditions, cultures, civilizations, religions. Unless one is ready to disconnect himself from the past and the shadows of the dead, he cannot become a sannyasin; because my sannyas has no past, it has only future.

Osho, you say the rajneeshees need to be unorthodox, untraditional, unconventional. It is clear what this means in a world full of traditions and conventions, but in your commune I find it more difficult to understand. Would you speak about the flavor of rebellion in your commune?

You were going to distribute wealth, not kill people. And now the czar is no longer the czar, you are in power: he is nobody, just a prisoner. What was the point of killing these people -- women, old women, children -- who have nothing left? You have taken everything from them -- now life also has to be distributed? I remember one time in Jabalpur.... Jabalpur w as one of the most vulnerable cities for Hindu -- mohammedan riots because both communities were almost equally balanced. And strangely, the division of the city was such that the Mohammedan community lived in almost half of the town and the Hindu community in the other half So riots were very simple and easy. It was almost every two, three years that there would be a riot. Anybody can create one, it is so simple. Somebody can just go and play on…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR NOTION OF REBELLION AND OF A REBEL? The revolutionary is also conditioned by the past. He may not be conditioned by Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha, but he is conditioned by Karl Marx or Mao Tse-tung or Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini... it does not matter who conditions him. The revolutionary has his own holy bible -- DAS KAPITAL; his holy land -- the Soviet Union; his own mecca -- in the Kremlin... and just like any other religious person, he is not living according to his own consciousness. He is living according to a conscience created by others. Hence, the revolutionary is nothing but a reactionary. He may be against a certain society, but he is always for another society. He may be against one culture, but he is immediately ready for another culture.

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?

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…