According to Osho, when society’s grip dissolves, minds built by it lose their nourishment and collapse into doubt, neurosis, and even suicide; the obedient go mad. Yet for rebellious, individualistic seekers, it’s a golden opening: with condemnation gone and the prison doors open, they can transcend mind through meditation and claim vast inner freedom. Crisis births both mass madness and authentic spiritual awakening.
When society’s rules fall apart, conformists often panic, but independent seekers can use the chaos to find real inner freedom.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, as society's hold on people's minds begins to disintegrate, in times of social crisis such as now there seems to be a tendency for an increasing number of people to fall below the mind into madness. Also, is it true that this is paralleled by a tendency for people to look at the possibility of going beyond the mind into enlightenment?
Times of crisis are both dangerous and immensely important -- dangerous for those who have no courage to explore new dimensions of life. They are bound to disintegrate into different kinds of madness, because their mind was made by the society. Now the society is disintegrating, the mind cannot remain; its roots are in the society. It is constantly nourished by the society -- now that nourishment is disappearing. Because the society is disintegrating, a great suspicion, a doubt that was never there before, is bound to arise in the individuals. And if they were just obedient people who have never gone beyond any limit that society has decided, who have always been respected, honorable citizens -- in other words, just mediocre -- they will immediately go mad. They will start committing suicide, they will start jumping from high buildings... or even if they live, now they don't have a…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY IS IT THAT WESTERN SOCIETY REACTS SO STRONGLY TO ANY INDIVIDUAL DEVIATING FROM THE NORM, PARTICULARLY AS FAR AS HIS MENTAL STATE IS CONCERNED? IT LOOKS ON THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN BELOW THE MIND IN SUCH A WAY AS TO CAST A STIGMA ON THEM, AND REGARDS THE POSSIBILITY OF GOING BEYOND THE MIND -- ENLIGHTENMENT -- -WITH SKEPTICISM. IT DOES ALLOW A SLIGHT MARGIN OF DEVIATION IN ITS CREATIVE PEOPLE AND GENIUSES; HENCE SUCH PEOPLE ARE EXCUSED FOR THEIR "ECCENTRICITIES." IT IS AS IF THE MIND IS THE TOUCHSTONE OF ONE'S ADJUSTMENT TO SOCIETY, AND ANY ABERRATION THAT MIGHT THREATEN THE STATUS QUO IS REGARDED WITH FEAR. WHAT IS THAT FEAR? -- BOTH OF THE SICK MIND AND THE ENLIGHTENED NO-MIND? In the East we have tried for a breakTHROUGH, not for a breakdown.
But if people become rebellious, how can society control them?
It is the very concept of control that has made the whole world a mess. The moment you think in terms of control, you begin to suppress and you begin to destroy individuals and create types. And, paradoxically, when you destroy individuals and create patterns and types, much disorder follows. But this disorder is not because of rebellious minds, it is just a reaction against the dead order. If the rebellious mind wins even for a single day, there will be no disorder because there will be no order; order and disorder are two sides of the same coin. A person who tries to create order creates disorder: the attitude, the mind that tries to ordain discipline creates indiscipline, too. Your ego reacts against a person who is trying to discipline you, but this is reaction not rebellion. Rebellion only emerges after satori, so there are not many rebellious persons…
Osho, as I understand your teaching, you want every individual to be aware and to understand life in its totality. But today’s society is very complicated. Our environment is so complicated that it does not allow us to live a free life, to love people, or to live in the state in which we could live a very clean and smooth life.
Society is as it is; only by accepting this truth can anything be done. Society is like this—but if a person can see that apart from a simple, loving, joyous, clean life there is no life at all; if he sees that without becoming loving he will remain deprived of life’s joy; if he sees that without becoming simple there is no path to reach truth—then he will drop worrying about what society is like. For what can society give him—what is it giving? Once he sees that in another direction—which society does not offer and in fact obstructs—there lies the doorway to his life’s bliss, he will begin to move toward it. Certainly the social order will create obstacles. But for such a person they will not be obstacles; they will turn into challenges, and he will try to make steps out of them. The stones thrown onto his…
But Osho, as I understand it, there are certain subjects like chemistry, physics, or medicine where positive values are essential. What are your views about that?
Einstein was doing an experiment. He had failed seven hundred times, yet every morning he came into the laboratory laughing, ready to begin again. The young assistant with him was exhausted. “Is this old man mad? Seven hundred failures—and again he starts fresh!” The youth was tired; he said, “We should drop this now. How many times have we been defeated?” Einstein said, “Defeated? You’re crazy—each time we have won.” “Where have we won? Every experiment has failed.” Einstein answered, “In seven hundred directions we have searched, and we now know truth is not there. We have succeeded seven hundred times. Truth is being endlessly eliminated into nearness. Suppose truth will reveal itself on the seven hundred and fifteenth attempt; then fourteen more eliminations are needed. Then only that will remain; it cannot escape. Where will it go? We have searched seven hundred paths and found it absent. That much…