According to Osho, the communes' future will naturally flower from the quality of their present. If we make this moment beautiful, silent, and blissful, the next will be more so. Because sannyasins are rejoicing now, their future will be better. He rejects decline myths, trusts evolution, and insists the golden age is ahead, not behind.
Make today joyful and alive, and the communes’ tomorrow will become even better on its own.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE COMMUNES? I don't think much about the future because the future is born of the present. If we can take care of the present, we have taken care of the future. It is not going to come from nowhere, it is going to grow from this moment. The next moment will be growing out of this moment. If this moment is beautiful, silent, blissful, the next moment is bound to be more silent, more blissful. Now there are communes all over the world, and they are rejoicing in the present. Naturally, whatever comes in the future will be better.
Beloved Osho, rajneeshpuram was a rare experiment in the history of human consciousness where for the first time seekers of truth from the whole world gathered around a master. It was an international commune for the most intense and the fastest growth of human consciousness. The rajneeshpuram commune could not survive because of orthodox religions and international politics. Is there any hope of such a rare experiment happening again around you? Or is there any alternative experiment possible on an individual scale in the present situation? Or is it destined that such a rare opportunity for h
The commune in America was only a beginning; a beginning of many communes around the world. They will go on spreading -- because it is not only a question of orthodox religions and dirty politics, it is also a question of the future of humanity. And the future is always more important than the past. The past is heavy and long. The future is light, unknown. But the past is dead, and life belongs to the future -- and death cannot win over life. One commune can be destroyed. Thousands of other communes will arise. Of course my way of functioning will be different because the experiment in Rajneeshpuram needed me to be there, it was the first commune.... Every step had to be taken carefully. And within five years, so much was done that is not possible to do even in fifty years. But now the basic rules are…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE NEW COMMUNE? It is going to be the beginning of a new humanity. It is needed, absolutely needed. If we cannot create the new man in the coming twenty years -- by the end of this century -- then humanity has no future. The old man has come to the end of his tether. The old man is ready to commit a global suicide. The third world war is going to be global suicide. It can be avoided only if a new kind of man can be created. This is going to be an experiment, a great experiment on which much is going to depend. It has tremendous implications for the future. Be ready for it. Be prepared for it. This ashram is just a launching pad.... On a small scale I am experimenting.
This is the function of the commune, where so many people are just happy for no reason at all, where life is just fun, every moment of it. We can radiate from this commune for miles around. New people coming from some other country outside America have reported to me that the moment they enter Rancho Rajneesh something in the air changes. Suddenly they feel as if they have come home, and they have never been here before. Perhaps never in their millions of lives -- I don't think they have been born in the Big Muddy Ranch, but suddenly they feel at home, as they have never felt even in their own home. And as they come closer to the commune, a great joy starts arising in them for no visible reason.
Osho, you have been speaking on several occasions against socialism, and yet I feel that in this commune the first experiment of an alive socialism is happening. Is this another of your contradictions?
THE REAL SOCIALISM can only be the fragrance of a commune deep in meditation. It has nothing to do with the social structure or the economy. Real socialism is not a revolution in the society, it is not social: it is the revolution in the individual consciousness. If many people who are going through an inner revolution live together, then there is bound to be a new quality. You can call it socialism; the better word will be "communism", out of "commune". Only a commune can have communism, but a commune exists only once in a while. When Buddha was alive a commune grew around him; he called it sangha, another name for commune. The meaning of sangha is: where the initiates have dropped their egos and are no more functioning like islands but have become one with each other, where a communion is happening. Communication is between the heads;…