According to Osho, the most significant event today is the birth of a new man - a new consciousness dawning across humanity. Deeper than the leap from ape to human, it shifts us from mind to soul: life-affirming, existential, rooted in love of this world. It must arrive through individuals, and sannyas prepares the soil for this urgent, survival-level transformation.
A new, kinder, more aware way of living is appearing now, focused on loving this life, and it begins with you choosing to grow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what according to you is the most significant thing that is happening today in the world?
The new man will have no use for sham, facade or pretense, he will be true, because only through truth is there liberation. All lies create bondages. Tell a single lie and you will have to tell a thousand and one to defend it -- you will have to tell lies AD NAT(SEAM. Then there is no end to it. A single lie sooner or later will spread all over your being. It is like cancer. Be truthful and you need not hide, you can be open. Be truthful and you need not protect yourself against existence, you can be vulnerable. In that vulnerability existence penetrates you, God reaches your heart. Tell a lie and you are afraid. You will be afraid of God too, you will be afraid of facing him. You will be afraid of facing yourself. You will be continuously escaping from yourself, from others, from God.…
Osho, what message do you have for the world symposium on humanity?
A great meeting I teach: the meeting of Zorba and Buddha. I teach ZORBA THE BUDDHA -- a new synthesis. The meeting of the earth and the sky, the meeting of the visible and the invisible, the meeting of all the polarities -- of man and woman, of day and night, of summer and winter, of sex and samadhi. Only in that meeting will a new man arrive on the earth. My sannyasins, my people, are the first rays of that new man, of that HOMO NOVUS. The inner division has led humanity into a state of suicide. It has created only slaves -- and slaves CAN'T really live, they have nothing to live for. They are living for others. They have been reduced to machines -- skillful, efficient, but a machine is a machine. And the machine cannot have the joy of living. It cannot celebrate, it can only…
I am not in search of another world, something that is beyond death; my effort is to transform this moment now and here into paradise. I am not for postponement. All those people who have been saying "If you are virtuous after death you will be rewarded," are being deceptive because who knows what happens after death? Nobody comes back to tell us. These people who are telling us have not known anything. They are just repeating like parrots. I say to my sannyasins never postpone -- postponement is a very subtle trick of the mind. Live the moment in its totality. Always remember this is the only moment yon have got, there is no other moment, there is no other world. This world is god, there is no other god. Once this vision settles in you it transforms your whole life.
So that means, Osho, you suggest direct communication and direct perception?
Yes—this is exactly what I am saying: each of us needs a direct experience of our own life. And those who have such an experience should also meet others personally, face to face, and communicate it. Even that—two individuals standing before one another and sharing their vision—is no light matter; it is so complex that if it becomes clear even to a single person, that is a great deal. For it to become clear to the crowd is very difficult. The crowd does not even think. So the point is direct communication and direct perception. Become directly present to yourself; let yourself be directly seen by yourself. And whoever comes to see should try to help those near him or her to see as well—through one’s very presence, one’s conduct, one’s speech, one’s thought, one’s life. Fire can spread; as one lamp lights another, so the flame can move on.…
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…