According to Osho, true civilization hasn’t happened yet; what we call civilization is a fragile mask. A civilized humanity would abolish war and refuse to destroy life in any form, cultivating deep sensitivity and reverence for all beings—even a flower. Only when compassion and nonviolence become our spontaneous way of living can we claim to be truly civilized.
Being civilized means always living kindly and peacefully, never harming people, animals, or nature—not even in hard times.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS CIVILIZATION? Milarepa, civilization has not happened yet. It is a false idea that we are civilized people -- civilized people and continuously preparing for war? Even the animals don't eat, don't kill their own species. It is only man who kills his own species -- no lion will kill another lion, no dog will kill another dog. No lion will eat another lion. Man is the only one who can be a cannibal. There are still small groups around the world in isolated places who are cannibals. They are remnants of the past, but they are still there. In Africa there is a small cannibal colony in the thick forest. There used to be three thousand at the beginning of this century; now they are only three hundred because, when they cannot find anybody else, they have to eat somebody from their own group.
What do you think about civilization? Are you absolutely against it?
THERE IS NO CIVILIZATION ANYWHERE -- so how can I be against it? It exists not. It is just a pretension. Yes, man has lost his primitive, primordial innocence, but man has not become civilized -- because that is NO way to become civilized. The only way to become civilized is to base yourself on your innocence, to base yourself on your primitive innocence, to grow from there. That's why Jesus says: Unless you are reborn, unless you become a child again, you will never know what truth is. This so-called civilization is fake, it is a pseudo coin. If I am against it, I am not against civilization -- because this is not civilization. I am against it because this is not civilization at all. It is fake. I have heard: Someone once asked the former Prince of Wales, "What is your idea of civilization?" "It is a good…
Has civilization done man any good?
Yes, it makes you sin so hard that one has to become a saint by and by. It throws you into such deep misery that you have to start looking for clues to go out of the imprisonment. Civilization helps tremendously. It helps you to grow, it helps you to understand the misery of life. Just look HERE -- many more people from the West come to me than from India. The West is more civilized, more cultured -- of course more miserable. Everybody is just on the verge of going berserk, just on the verge, a little push is needed... Out of four persons they say almost three are on the boundary line of becoming mad. Out of four persons almost one some day or other is going to become a victim of cancer. Out of four persons alive -- alive on this day -- out of those four,…
Osho, it is surprising that among animals there is hardly any hypocrisy or deceit, and among indigenous people it is also very little, whereas in the so-called educated and civilized society it is at its peak. Has humanity’s long and arduous journey from barbarism to civilization then gone in vain? And in that case, is the tribal order preferable?
Animals are without falseness, without hypocrisy—not because they have achieved something, but because they are incapable. They cannot be hypocrites; there is no way for them to be. They have no facility for being bad, no possibility of falling. But precisely because an animal cannot fall, it also cannot ascend to divinity. One who cannot fall cannot rise. And where there is no possibility of sin, there is no possibility of the divine either. The animal is in a kind of stupor; it does as nature makes it do. Its journey is mechanical. It has no free will. Therefore an animal cannot do evil, but it cannot do good either. It simply does what nature impels. It has no individuality of its own. Hence an animal can be neither wicked nor virtuous, neither a great sinner nor a great saint. An animal remains an animal. The animal is born complete.…
Osho, you say that a man’s needs are very few. But if man produces only as much as is needed, the building of civilization and prosperity will become impossible. And you also say that only in prosperity does religion arise. Then what should man do?
Consider the old paintings: Ajanta, Ellora, the Taj Mahal—they were born from a different state of mind. If you look at the Taj Mahal, even in agitation, after a while you will find the inside turning calm. Then there is modern painting—Picasso. If you look at such a painting for a while, you will feel you are going mad. You cannot gaze at it long; if you fix your eyes on it, you are in trouble—because the painting is only restlessness, derangement, tension, turmoil. When civilization is diseased, culture too becomes diseased—because culture is fragrance. When the flower is sick, its scent is no longer a perfume; it becomes a stench. Civilization is the flower; culture is its fragrance. But when the flower itself is rotten, where can fragrance be? Therefore in every direction culture has also fallen ill. No, culture will arise only when people are so fulfilled that…