Can present institutions fulfill the aim of education in love, nonviolence, and beauty?

Do you feel, Osho, that present institutions or universities can fulfill the aim of our education in love, nonviolence, and beauty?

Difficult. As things stand today—whether in universities or in schools—without changing the entire structure, it is difficult. Because that whole structure itself is part of the same game of cunning, hatred, ambition, violence, lust for position, inferiority, superiority. Our university is not something separate from our society. It is a small replica of our society. That is, the university is a factory that keeps reproducing society’s old structure in new children—nothing else. It is not truly a university; it is a factory whose job is to transplant the old social framework into fresh minds. There too the teacher is running in the same race in which the politicians are running. There too the vice-chancellor is afflicted by the same inferiority from which politicians and ministers suffer. The same race continues there. And it is these very people, caught in all this racing and madness, who are initiating the new children…

Do you suggest, Osho, any education that can so stimulate people's minds that they can give love or live in a state of love?

Certainly—absolutely! The way we have educated and “cultured” the person up to now, the kind of civilization we have taught—the whole of it, all civilization, all culture, all education—only makes him clever, makes him cunning. Cunning in the sense that the educated man learns how to turn other people into means. And the one we call educated is the one who can make the maximum number of people into means! The one who cannot make anyone into a means is labeled uneducated, rustic, illiterate. In this world, the more people a man can use as means, the greater he becomes—successful, a bigger politician, occupying higher posts—because he has turned more people into his instruments; he rides on them, on their chests, on their heads. All our education so far is education in cleverness, and all of it is education in ambition. Keep this in mind: a man filled with ambition…

Osho, what is your idea of true eduction?

Education has to serve revolution. But ordinarily it serves the government and the priest and the church. In a very subtle way, it prepares slaves -- slaves for the state, slaves for the church. The real purpose of education should be to subvert outmoded attitudes, beliefs and assumptions which no more serve growth and man, and are positively harmful and suicidal. An interviewer once asked Ernest Hemingway, "Isn't there any one essential ingredient you can identify which makes a great writer?" Hemingway replied, "Yes, there is. In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in shockproof, crap detector." And that's what my idea of true education is. The children should be trained, disciplined, so that they can detect crap. A really intelligent person is a crap detector. He immediately knows, the moment he says something, whether it is significant or just holy cowdung. The evolution of…

Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?

So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…

Beloved Osho, recently, in a radio address, president reagan urged parents to get involved in their children's education by insisting schools teach ethics, morality and values along with the three r's. He said, "to me, a value-free education is a contradiction in terms." addressing students, reagan said, "you are not only studying for yourself, but for your family, your community, your country, and your god." Osho, is this what education is all about? Would you kindly share with us your vision of education?

My idea of education is that it should help you get rid of all beliefs, because all beliefs are hindrances in your journey towards truth. You should be freed from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism. By the time you come out of the university you should be simply a human being, responsible to yourself and to the whole universe. But Ronald Reagan would not like that, that you are responsible towards the whole universe, because the universe includes the Soviet Union too. The universe includes Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans. No, to him the fundamentalist Christians are the only people who know the truth; everybody else is wrong. So when he talks about values, hidden behind the beautiful word "values" he wants every educational system to teach you the values that fundamentalist Christians think are right. Certainly I don't think Ronald Reagan will teach vegetarianism. In his values, vegetarianism cannot be included. I…