According to Osho, there is no need for a third world war; AIDS is already enacting the devastation politicians imagine. Yet power-hungry leaders still prepare for war and suppress AIDS truth. The real prevention is meditativeness: inner silence dissolves fanaticism, sexual perversion, and support for nations, parties, and wars. Cultivating collective meditative energy—the 'red blanket'—can shield humanity more effectively than any weapon.
No, we don’t need another war; if people become peaceful inside through meditation, they stop supporting war and harmful behaviors, and safety spreads naturally.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, you have spoken many times on aids and on the third world war, but never about both of them together. Do you think there is still a need for the third world war even if two-thirds of the world population is going to die a natural death from aids?
Just think of a man -- put yourself in his position -- whose doctor says to him, "You have AIDS and you don't have more than two years to live, at the maximum; most probably six months will do it." Naturally, you don't want people to know that you have AIDS, because it is so humiliating. AIDS simply means you are a homosexual, perverted. So you are going to bribe the doctor, "Please keep your mouth shut." And there is no medicine for AIDS, so the doctor cannot be of any help. And as for you, when you see that you have at the most two years, or perhaps only six months, you will try to make the best of those six months -- make as much love as you can, find as many partners as possible, because life is finishing. The people who have AIDS become more focused on…
Beloved Osho, what do you say about the third world war? Is it going to happen or not? What should we do to prevent it?
Don't do anything to prevent it, because this humanity that you see around the earth is not worth anything. A good third world war will at least clean this planet of human garbage: cathedrals, temples, mosques, White Houses where only lies are manufactured. Perhaps that's why it is called the White House -- because we know the phrase "white lie." Lies are always white; they have to be painted white. All these politicians, with no awareness, no love, and with all the nuclear weapons in their hands.... The world right now contains so many nuclear and atomic weapons that this poor humanity can be killed seven times -- although that is not needed, once is more than enough. And they go on piling them up. But I am not a pessimist. I am saying it to you just to emphasize the fact that it is not a question of the…
But I don't see there is any way to find an antidote. For the simple reason that 300 years of continuous creation of war mechanisms, destructive weapons, has led to the nuclear weapon. You have never worked for life, you have never thought about how to create more beautiful life-healthier, intelligent, lengthier. If side by side you were working for these 300 years, putting your whole energy as you have been putting into war, perhaps you may be able to find an antidote -- but there is not time enough. If all the scientists of the world together start working now, perhaps in one hundred years they may be able to find a clue which nullifies all nuclear weapons. That seems to be impossible. So to me the third world war is over. We have passed it -- now think about the fourth. And prepare for the fourth.
The whole point in a war is to be victorious, but in this war nobody is going to be left alive. The question of who was victorious and who was defeated will remain unsettled and there will be no one to write the history, either. Just because of the totality of war, war is an impossibility. There is no need for pacifists, unnecessary to scream and take protest march. Just forget all about it; nuclear weapons have already done. They have finished the idea of war. Politicians can go on talking about war because that keeps them in power, but there is going to be no war. Q:* WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN YOUR OPINION IF A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY GOT HOLD OF A BOMB AND DETONATED IT AND STARTED ANOTHER WAR? A:* NOBODY can start it because everybody knows that starting it is finishing the whole humanity.
Question: OSHO, IS THE WORLD GOING TO SURVIVE THE THIRD WORLD WAR? The kid says, "You must be mistaken, because I was born after my father died. I have no idea at all what happened between you and my father. And what can I do about it? I apologize, although I had no hand in it, I was not even born." The lion becomes really angry. He says, 4You have some nerve: I am here to drink water and you are making the water dirty!" The kid says, "Please, just look; the stream is going downwards, and you are above me. I cannot make your water dirty, you are making my water dirty. How can... because the water I am standing in is going down, it is not coming to you. Excuse me, you are not looking rightly -- perhaps you need glasses.