Don’t be scared of powerful leaders; choose love, laughter, and dance, because living joy is stronger and can change everything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, I love your vision, but whenever I listen to you speaking about the future of the world, I feel like politicians and priests are too powerful and too deeply asleep for our songs and our laughter to turn the world around. Is this skepticism?
You can ride upon your ecstasy to other planets; rockets are not needed. And remember, only bodies die, the soul within you is immortal. No nuclear weapons can destroy it. You have something indestructible in you; you just have to become aware of it, and you have to make others aware of it. I am not concerned about the future. I am concerned with you, with people who have been given a chance of drinking the wine of life, squeezing the whole juice of it every moment. The future makes no sense to me, but it is going to come whether it makes sense to me or not. And I am not worried about myself. I died thirty-two years ago, and the one who is speaking to you is beyond any nuclear weapon. I would like you also to be beyond nuclear weapons. And these are the methods: the laughter,…
Beloved Osho, on one hand the world is preparing for a global suicide; it looks like there is not much time left for our growth. On the other hand, what I heard from you is that growth is only possible when we relax, sit silently, and wait. This is a paradox. Beloved Osho, please can you speak about how to come out of situations where one part of me is restless and wants to do something? -- yet deep down I feel that this leads me nowhere.
In the Old Testament, there is a beautiful story of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. God became very angry with these two cities, because in both people were practicing perverted sex. In Sodom people were making love to animals; hence `sodomy' has become the word for making love with animals. In Gomorrah people had become homosexuals, and all kinds of perversions ... God finally decided to destroy both those cities completely, and in the Old Testament he did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. It does not look right of God, but the Jewish God is an angry God. That is our projection: it is not a question of whether God is angry or not. God is a hypothesis -- you can make anything out of it, whatever you want. God declares in the Jewish scriptures, "I am a very angry God, very jealous. I will never forgive you if you go…
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…
Osho, you know that right now the world is abuzz with talk of war. What can each of us do to avert this danger?
In one sense this is good, because we will have to decide. Only in moments of such danger do people decide; otherwise they don’t. When life itself is at stake, then decisions are made. Now life is at stake. Before this century ends, the world will have to decide: if you want war, let nations continue; if you do not, bid nations farewell. Once nations are gone, India need not keep an army—against whom would it keep one? Pakistan need not keep an army—against whom? And right now armies are devouring everything. Seventy percent of the world’s wealth is eaten up by armies. This world could become a paradise. Just imagine if that seventy percent were invested in productive work, and these idle people who do nothing all day but drill—foolishness! Left turn! Right turn! What is the point of left turn and right turn? Why on earth are you…
Beloved Osho, what effect on science would be felt if people stopped believing in the old religions?
Your parents are not to be condemned -- the same has happened to them. You can go as far back as possible -- to Adam and Eve, the original human beings on the earth -- and in their story you will find the same story that is yours. God, the father in that story, tells Adam and Eve, his children, that they are not to eat from two trees: one is the tree of knowledge and the other is the tree of eternal life. This story is not history, but it is certainly psychology. It is about every father. It is the very essence of all that has happened to humanity. I think of this story as being of tremendous importance. Can a father prevent his child from becoming wise? Can a father prevent his child knowing the eternal flame of life? And if a father can do this, then…