Has Western civilization advanced towards shunya (emptiness)?

Osho, so you’re saying that Western civilization has advanced far in the direction of shunya (emptiness)?

Absolutely certain. Absolutely certain. Absolutely certain. Absolutely certain. You are a materialist in that sense. No, don’t say that so quickly! Because I said exactly this: I am a man like Epicurus who becomes a Buddha. I am not a materialist. I hold that the fight between matter and spirit is the very essence of ignorance and foolishness. There is only one reality; call it matter or call it spirit—it makes no difference. Therefore I cannot call myself a materialist, nor can I call myself a spiritualist. Because I consider that division itself to be ignorance. I don’t stand anywhere within that division. I hold—there is only one thing: the same appears as matter when it is visible, and as soul when it is invisible. Two ends of the same thing. So what should I call myself? It’s become a difficult business. What should one call it? Truly, there is…

Osho, you said there are three successive steps of evolution—body, mind, and soul. Western civilization has evolved a great deal on the planes of body and mind, yet the outcome has been melancholy, meaninglessness, and despair. Please explain why, as a natural sequence, the Western intellect has not evolved toward the third stage?

Have you ever thought what you would ask if God appeared to you? Think honestly: if tomorrow morning God stood before you, what would you ask? On a piece of paper, write three things. You will be shocked at your own desires—“a beautiful wife, a film actress; a big house; a big car; victory in my lawsuit.” Whatever you ask will reveal where you are. Your asking will expose you. Will you start begging when you see God—or will the seeing itself so fulfill you that you say, “Nothing to ask”? In the very impulse to ask is hidden the fact that you did not seek God—you sought something else and were going to use God to get it. God was not the goal; what you want to ask for is the goal. If God appears and you ask for an Impala car, then the car was the real deity;…

Osho, you said that the Hindu genius was once supremely intelligent and succeeded in touching the ultimate heights of religion. As a result there came into being devas, dvijas, gurus and gnanis; the Upanishads, the Gita, the Dhammapada and the Jina-vani. Then what is the reason that the same people have fallen into the great abyss of decline for a thousand years, with no sign of rising?

The West too produces, once in a while, an Einstein—knower of the outer. But even that does not solve anything. The masses remain full of tension and anxiety. Is it not possible to accept the outer and the inner together? Both are; your acceptance or rejection makes no difference—only you get into trouble. Take breathing: it goes out and it comes in. If you insist, “I will only draw it in; I will not let it go out,” you will die. Another insists, “I will not let it go in; I will hold it out here”—he too will die. The East died; the West died—because both embraced only half. I call courageous the one who accepts both together, who says, “I will keep both pans of the scale in balance.” The East has lost; the West has lost. And the danger is: when you lose one thing, a craving arises…

Osho, you say, “As He wills, let us become mere instruments; whatever role in life we have been given, let us fulfill it.” But letting what happens happen—i.e., flowing along with the body, mind, and ego—gives rise to suffering. So should we keep applying the principle of instrumentality even in relation to the body, mind, and ego, and go on suffering? How do we solve the riddle between the principle of instrumentality and the continuous reality of suffering?

That supreme bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. It is neither like night nor like day. It is twilight. The sun has set, night has not yet come; the light remains—very gentle, sweet, non-aggressive—that is twilight. Morning has come, the sun is not yet risen, the night has gone—such is the twilight. One who abides in that twilight—that is what we call prayer. That is why Hindus call their prayer sandhya. Sandhya means one who has stopped in between the dualities, who has found the truce between the two. Between pleasure and pain, love and hate, victory and defeat, night and day, life and death—one who has found the pact and stands in that concord. Seek that interval of conjunction. Krishna says, it is simple to find. If you cease to be the doer, you will find it instantly. It is only through your doer-ship that you keep missing.…

Osho, with reference to the East—and especially India—a question has been pursuing me for a long time: those who once scaled the Gaurishankar of philosophy and reflection, of religion and meditation, how did they, in the course of time, become so broken, degenerate, and impoverished? Osho, please be gracious and shed some light on this question.

The question is meaningful. The East reached great heights—but crippled heights, like a bird that has flown very high with only one wing. How high can it truly go, and how far? Maybe it flutters a bit, rides the winds a little, drags itself some distance—but not for long. Seeing just one wing, you can already say: this bird will fall; its fall is inevitable. Flight happens with two wings. A lame man can walk, but how different that walk is from walking on two sound legs. The lame walk is painful, compelled. One with two healthy legs sometimes runs for no reason, even dances, strolls with nowhere to go. The joy in the meeting of those two legs is complete in itself. Therefore I do not tell my sannyasin to renounce the world. The world has been renounced and the result is clear—those who left it fell badly, flat…