Joining a group may feel like unity, but it usually means you’ve gone sleepy; real oneness comes only after you wake up as an aware individual.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You say to sannyasins to just worry about themselves -- and they do! In arica we have what is known as group unity. The rule is this: the group only gets as high as its lowest member. Therefore our evolution are interconnected. Humanity is one body; why stress individuality more than universality?
Yes, we are part of each other. Not only humanity is one, existence is one. But this oneness can be felt on two levels: one is in deep unconsciousness and another is in superconsciousness. Either you have to become a tree -- then you are one with the whole; or you have to become a Buddha -- then you are one with the whole. Between the two you cannot be one with the whole. Consciousness is individual, unconsciousness is universal; superconscious is universal, consciousness is individual. So if somewhere in Arica or somewhere else they are teaching you to be part of the group, you will become unconscious. The greater possibility is that you will fall from your consciousness. Unless you become a Buddha, you cannot become one, you cannot know the real oneness with the whole. The real oneness of the whole can be known only in two ways:…
Osho, in the west many group-psychoanalysts, such as bion, ezriel, anzien, pichon-priviere, treat a group as a unity and they analyze the group mentality, mood and resistances, but not as individuals. For them, as a man is made of many aspects and parts, but is a unity, so a group is made of many persons but is a unity too.
HERE WITH YOU, THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GROUP IS VERY MUCH STRESSED IN THERAPY, WORK, MEDITATION, ENERGY DARSHAN; ON THE OTHER HAND GREAT IMPORTANCE IS GIVEN TO INDIVIDUALITY. OSHO, PLEASE, HAS A GROUP A KIND OF UNIQUE SOUL BEYOND INDIVIDUALS, OR IS IT ONLY A BUNCH OF PEOPLE OCCASIONALLY GATHERED TOGETHER? ARE DIFFERENT SOCIAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS CONCERNED IN SUCH A CASE? PLEASE COMMENT. THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FASCISM, that individuals don't exist, only groups are real. But then the problem arises: where will you put the full point? If the group is real and individuals are not real, or are just parts of the group, then the church is far more real -- it is a bigger group; then the nation is far more real because it is an even bigger group; then the whole of humanity is still more real because it is an even…
Beloved Osho, one of the most beautiful things that happens around you is how we function as a group. Unlike many other groups of people perhaps, when we can see various of us having some beautiful quality, changing, coming closer to what you are talking about, we rejoice in it as much as if it were happening to us as individuals, because we recognize that what is happening to them will benefit all of us. I can recall you mentioning the phenomenon of group consciousness only in passing. Is it related to the collective unconscious? Would you speak to us a little more about group consciousness a
Whenever there is a similar state of mind, of consciousness, there is something invisible joining you and making you a collective phenomenon. If it is lower than consciousness then you are falling into barbarism, murder, violence, arson. If it is something higher than consciousness then you are creating a tremendous energy that whoever comes close to it will be immediately lit -- so much fire of consciousness that even an unconscious man will have to become conscious, will have to become awake. On this, secret schools of mysticism have existed: that what you cannot do alone, or may find arduous and difficult to do, is easy and more possible when many people are doing it together. Then suddenly you are taken by a mass energy, a wave you can ride upon. Alone perhaps you would have thought a thousand times, but when so many people are moving higher and rejoicing…
On man's path of evolution is it possible that at some time in the future humanity as a whole can attain enlightenment? At what point of evolution is man today?
The conscious choice to evolve is a great adventure, the only adventure there is for a human being. The path is arduous; it is bound to be so. Errors are bound to be there, failures, because nothing is certain. This situation creates tension in the mind. You do not know where you are, you do not know where you are going. Your identity is lost. The situation may even reach such a point that you become suicidal. Suicide is a human phenomenon; it comes with human choice. Animals cannot commit suicide, because to choose death consciously is impossible for them. Birth is unconscious, death is unconscious. But with man -- ignorant man, unevolved man -- one thing becomes possible: the ability to choose death. Your birth is not your choice. As far as your birth is concerned, you are in the hands of unconscious evolution. In fact, your birth is…
Osho, you say that in the presence of a buddha even animals, birds, and trees are no longer what they were. Then is a foolish human being worse than trees and plants?
Certainly. No tree or plant is foolish; they don’t have that capacity. To be foolish, one has to be human. And no tree or plant is a buddha either; that too is beyond their capacity. You cannot call a tree sinful, nor can you call it virtuous. No tree is virtuous or sinful. For that, one must be human. If a human being rises, he can become divine; if he falls, he can become demonic. Trees and plants can neither rise to become divine nor fall to become demonic. They are fixed. That is their inertia; they lack freedom. There is no freedom to go from this shore to that, or from that shore back to this; they are bound. Look closely: a rock just lies there. It is even more dependent than a plant. It cannot make even a single flower bloom, not even a single leaf sprout. It…