According to Osho, society—with its laws and institutions—is an artificial device to manage humanity’s in‑between, chaotic state. Power structures preserve themselves by preventing individual growth. When individuals awaken into authentic humanity, love replaces law and society as we know it dissolves. The only real cooperation is: stop obstructing inner evolution and create conditions where needs are met and greed curtailed, so coercive systems become unnecessary.
We have rules because we aren’t fully wise yet; if each person becomes loving and aware, we won’t need rules—and the rule‑makers should stop blocking growth and help everyone have enough.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Social rules seem to be a basic need for human beings. Yet no society has ever helped man to realize himself. Can you please explain what kind of relationship exists between individuals and society, and how they can help each other to evolve?
Nobody will come to know about it, and it is better that nobody knows about it. You simply go on doing your ordinary work, living in the ordinary world, being simple and ordinary -- not becoming revolutionaries, reactionaries, punks and skinheads. That is not going to help. That is sheer stupidity. It is out of frustration, but still it is insane. The society is insane and out of frustration you become insane. The society is not afraid of these people; the society is afraid only of people who can become so centered, so conscious that laws become useless for them. They always do right. They are beyond the grip of the so-called powerful interests. If individuals grow, society will diminish. The way they have known society -- with the government, with the army, with the courts, with the policemen, with the jails -- this society will diminish. Certainly, because there…
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…
Osho, in this complicated society based on the division of labor—and division of labor requires communication—don’t we necessarily have to maintain certain links and make certain adjustments?
When I was in high school, a teacher used some abusive words toward me. I said to him, “If you are using abusive words, I take it you are not opposed to their use. Since you are using them, I can assume you permit them—so may I also use such words?” He became so furious that he went and entered a five-rupee fine against my name in the punishment register, writing that I had behaved indecorously. I followed him and, beneath that entry, I wrote a twenty-five-rupee fine against his name: if a student behaves indecorously, a five-rupee fine is fine; but if a teacher behaves indecorously, at least five times the fine should be there, because he is assumed to be five times wiser than I am. I wrote twenty-five rupees. The principal called me and said, “Have you gone mad? Has any student ever fined a teacher?” I…
Society is the enemy of the individual. Society wants you like sheep, not as persons. Because with the person begins the voice of rebellion. With the person begins awareness. And as soon as the first ray of awareness descends the person begins to search for his own path. Then he does not walk behind the crowd. No matter how beautiful the royal road is, how clean and neat, how free of thorns—still he does not walk behind the backs of the many. He begins to cut his own way. As soon as awareness arises you are severed from society. For the first time you are yourself. And in being oneself there is revolt, rebellion, revolution. Therefore no society tolerates the individual. From the first moment of birth to the last hour of death, society tries to destroy the person, to suppress him. It breaks you in every possible way.
What does your movement signify about the condition of society? Is it an escapist and self-regarding cult? Or do vou propose through changing human nature to change society and the world?
WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE IS NOT A movement: it is a mutation. It has no concern with the society: its whole concern is with the individual. It is a revolution in the true sense of the word. There is no idea of changing the society or the world, because there is no society at all. Only individuals exist -- society is an illusion. And because we believe in society, all the revolutions have failed. The belief that the society exists has sabotaged all efforts to change man -- because the belief is rooted in illusion. Ask the scientist: he says there is no matter but only electrons. Matter is an illusion. In exactly the same way, those who understand human consciousness will say that society is an illusion like matter. Electrons are true, so are individuals. The individual needs a mutation. And what we are doing here is utterly individualistic;…