According to Osho, politicians can never be contemporary because politics itself is obsolete. Power games and national egos hinder a humane future; we need a law-governed global village where international courts overrule parochial interests. Nations are unnecessary and harmful, and clinging politicians resist losing status. People should serve through practical, useful work—not through outdated political roles—so humanity can move beyond divisive identities toward shared responsibility.
Politics is an old ego game; treat the world like one neighborhood, follow fair world rules, and do helpful, practical work instead.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, you were talking about one world and one world government. Recently president reagan refused to accept the authority of the world court on political issues. Can politicians ever become contemporary?
No. Politicians can never become contemporary; politics itself is out of date. Politicians no longer have any function; they are unnecessarily bothering the whole humanity. It is time for them to disappear as politicians. They are acceptable as plumbers, as electricians, as pilots, as truckdrivers. But as politicians they are no longer needed. And if President Reagan refuses to accept the World Court's decisions about political matters, he is showing his real face. His mask has slipped. The World Court has the right to decide about every issue that concerns humanity. Politics cannot be above law. His refusal to accept it simply means that he is not ready to create, on this planet, a beautiful global village. Nations are no longer needed; they are absolutely unnecessary and harmful. But the politicians will lose all their egos if nations disappear. Then what is President Reagan going to do? Go back to…
Osho, do you think that it is not possible to be honest, intelligent, religious, and yet be in politics?
IT IS impossible. It is ABSOLUTELY impossible, CATEGORICALLY impossible. If you are intelligent, why should you be in politics? It is for the stupid, for the mediocre. The intelligent person will have much more important things to do. The intelligent person will not be interested in dominating others. His whole interest will be in knowing himself To dominate the other is a way of escaping from one's own inner meaninglessness, inner emptiness, inner hollowness. It is an escape from oneself. The intelligent person iS not an escapist. Politics is an escape, a GREAT escape. It keeps you so occupied, day in, day out, that you cannot find even a few minutes for yourself. Even when you sleep you think politics; it continues in your dreams. To be a politician is a twenty-four hour job. You cannot relax because if you relax you will be left behind. It is a tooth-and-nail…
Is it possible for a politician to be enlightened?
The politician is concerned with the outside world, he is an extrovert. The religious person is an introvert. He is not concerned with things, with the world with situations; he is concerned with the quality of his consciousness. A religious person is trying to find out how to be fulfilled; a politician is trying to show to the world that he is somebody. He may not be fulfilled but he pretends that he is fulfilled; he has opted for pretensions, hypocrisy. He simply wants the whole world to know that he is somebody special. extraordinary, very happy. Deep inside he may be carrying a hell but he believes that if he can fool everybody else, he will be able to fool himself. That dream is never fulfilled. You can fool everybody else by smiling a false smile, but how can you fool yourself? Deep down you know that everything is…
Osho, why does politics have so much prestige? Why are politicians sitting on everyone’s chest today?
Not just today—they’ve always been sitting on your chest. The fault isn’t the politician’s; the fault lies with those who let someone sit on their chest. If you allow it, someone will climb up—if not A then B, if not B then C. Man wants to remain a slave; that’s why. He wants a master. He doesn’t want to stand on his own feet, to find his own direction. He wants to follow, to be a follower. He doesn’t want to open his own eyes. He wants to walk holding someone’s hand. Because man is not yet a complete man, politics becomes important. And politics is important also because much animality still remains within man; as long as that animality remains, politics will remain significant. It is because of the animal in man that brute force seems valuable. What is a politician’s power? Only as long as he holds office…
Beloved Osho, I have heard you say that religion and politics are opposite dimensions: a religious man cannot be interested in politics, and a politician can never become religious while remaining a politician. If this is true, is there no chance for a better world?
I have said that, and I repeat it: the really religious person cannot be interested in politics. And the politician, remaining a politician, cannot have any religious experience, any taste of that flight to the unknown. But I have never said that there is no hope for a better world. This is true, that the politician cannot become religious -- for the simple reason that politics, all politics, politics as such, is power politics. It is will-to-power. One wants to dominate, one wants to possess, one wants to be the decisive factor in people's lives. These are the qualities of the ego. Obviously this type of person cannot be religious because religion is basically the experience of egolessness. In religion there is no place for will-to-power. In fact, in religion there is no place even for will. Will-to-power is far away; even will-to-be is not there. One is in the…