Is violence a nature-given fact or a man-made concept?

Osho, in the previous discourse you said that nonviolence is man’s nature and violence is man-made. Would you please clarify this again and tell us whether violence is not a nature-given fact?

But how unfortunate it is that no animal attacks one of its own kind—yet man does! And no animal ever kills without cause—this too is curious—except man. An animal does not kill without cause. If it ever kills, there is a need. It is hungry, so it kills. It has to defend itself, so it kills. Man kills without need. There is no need, and yet he kills. Sometimes it even seems that because he has to kill, he manufactures the need! He cannot live without killing, so he creates the need. Sometimes he creates the need in Vietnam, sometimes in Korea, sometimes in Kashmir. There is nothing necessary in it—neither in Kashmir nor in any Vietnam nor in any Cambodia. Nowhere is there a real need. But man creates the need, because to kill without a need would not look proper! Man is rational only in one sense: he…

Man can become violent or nonviolent as he wishes. This is man's freedom. Beasts haven't got it. It is the helplessness of a beast. That is why there is no difference between the nature of beasts and the fact of being beasts. There is no distance between the future and the past of a beast. There is no difference in being a beast and in the possibility of what it can be. The beast is what it can be. That which is possible, is actual. There is no distinction between the actuality and possibility of beasts. The whole matter is different in the case of man. Man can be different from what he is The actuality of man is not his possibility. He can be something else tomorrow from what he is really today.

Osho, you have said that self-ignorance is the source of violence, and yesterday you said that man himself is responsible for the tendency toward violence. Then is man also responsible for self-ignorance? Please explain why and how.

Suppose it is a dark new-moon night and someone is sitting in his cave, immersed in darkness. Whether he keeps his eyes closed or open makes no difference. With eyes closed there is darkness; with eyes open there is darkness. But when morning comes, the sun rises, its web of rays spreads across the mouth of the cave, the birds begin to sing—and even then he keeps his eyes shut—now it makes a difference. In the night’s darkness it made no difference whether the eyes were open or closed. Nor was the darkness of the night the responsibility of the man sitting in the cave. Darkness was simply the situation. But when the sun has risen and still he sits with closed eyes, then the darkness he sees is his own responsibility. If he wishes, he can open his eyes and be free of darkness. The life of the animal…

I USED TO THINK A GREAT DEAL ABOUT NON-VIOLENCE, but everything I ever heard about it seemed so superficial. It touched my intellect but not my heart. And slowly I understood why. The non-violence everyone talked about was negative. The negative can never go deeper than the intellect; to touch life something positive is needed, If by non-violence one means nothing more than the renunciation of violence then it can never have any relation to real renunciation, something positive as well as something negative. It is the negative character of the term "non-violence" that has made it so deceptive. The word is negative, but the experience to which it refers is a positive one. Non-violence is an experience of pure love, of a love that is not attached to anything at all.