It shows they feel cut off from family and scared to be alone, so they join any group to feel safe.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Teenagers have a strong desire to belong to a group, to anything. What does this need reflect?
It is just because they don't belong to the family any more, and they are too young and too afraid to be alone in the world. If there was not this gap between them and their parents, there would have been no need of any such groups. You can see in the East, you don't see this kind of thing happening -- hippies or punks or skinheads. You don't see such a thing happening at all for the simple reason that children belong to the family. They have roots in the family, they are not alone; there is not such a gap as exists in the West. This gap in the West is creating the whole problem. Then they want to belong to any group because they feel afraid to be alone. They are too young, too vulnerable, so they start belonging to any group that is available in the…
Osho, many things which once gave a person a sense of belonging are disappearing: the tribe, the family marriage, even friendship. What is happening? What will happen next?
A commune will have a totally fresh psychological health. This is possible only in a commune, because the child... of course the child will be born from a mother and will have a father, but that will not be the only boundary around him. He will be moving in the whole commune and all men of the age of his father will be his uncles -- and an uncle is a nice person. The father is always a little nasty, just because of his function. He is a powerful man, he has to show the power; he has to discipline the boy. The same is true about the mother: she has to discipline the girl. She is afraid of what the girl is going to be like if she is not forced into a certain ideal which fits with the society -- out of love, with good intentions.... But the…
Beloved Osho, all my life I experienced many situations in which I felt imprisoned, encaged. As soon as I could manage, I escaped -- as a child, not far away, but after the age of fourteen as far away as possible. Even living in your presence this habit is sometimes there, but it fades completely as soon as I look into your eyes -- then what a tremendous relief. What is happening, Osho?
That's why in old cultures, in old civilizations -- and they are still in existence -- the older person is respected, because there is no way for the younger person to know more than the older person. The only way to know is experience, and experience comes with age. You are respectful to the person who has more experience. The oldest person becomes the wise man because he has lived his whole life, and life has not been changing for centuries, it is just going on the same. So the wise man can suggest things to you which younger people cannot know; they have to be respectful. It is in the contemporary world that a tremendous revolution has happened. It has created a new phenomenon -- the younger generation. Because of the schools, colleges, and universities, these people have no responsibilities. The idea of child marriages is condemned, so they…
Osho, if we proceed on the basis of your own argument, then today in America, after sociological analysis, they have concluded that despite so much affluence, among twenty-one- and twenty-two-year-old youth a restlessness, derangement, and despair toward society has arisen—what...
I understand; let me tell you. The restlessness in the hearts of American youth is the beginning of a religious era. Such a thing has never happened in the world before. Such restlessness did occur, but only in a few households. People like Buddha or Mahavira felt this kind of restlessness. They had everything. The most beautiful women were gathered around them. As many beautiful women as could be found in Bihar were confined within a single household. All the beautiful girls were there, all the wealth, all the splendor. When all this is attained, a restlessness arises—Now what? A difficulty arises—Now what shall we do? This used to happen now and then to a few great families. America has reached the point where millions of families are in the condition once experienced by the families of Buddha and Mahavira. For the first time an entire society has become affluent.…
Osho, why are people so fanatically committed to groups and organizations of all kinds: religious, social, and political?
It is good that these people don't participate in your Olympic races; otherwise your great runners will just look silly. You cannot move like monkeys from one tree to another tree. They go on jumping from one tree to another tree for miles; they need not touch the ground. You cannot fight even with a monkey. This has to be accepted: that man is the weakest animal on the earth. And this is the foundation of his whole behavior, his commitments, his groupings. He has to be part of something bigger than himself; only then does he feel safe. He had to invent all kinds of weapons. No animal has bothered to invent weapons. There is no need; their hands, their teeth, their nails, are enough. From the earliest days man had to invent weapons -- first made of stones, rocks, then slowly slowly with metals. Then he had to…