What is the relationship between technology and human disturbance?

Osho, you seem opposed to Gandhian ideology and supportive of modern technology and machines. But you know that because of technology and machines the life of the West has become disturbed, tense, and agitated. It stands on the brink of collective madness. Then why do you blindly support it?

Man has almost arranged heaven on earth. Only one lack remains: within there is a sense of meaninglessness, a hollowness. Meditation will fill it. Add meditation to science, and what has never happened on earth will happen. Then heaven needn’t be kept in the sky; we can build it here. We put it in the sky only because we failed to create it here. The West is capable of building heaven; the East has the science of meditation. A trade is possible; neither will lose—both will gain. You ask, “Then why do you blindly support it?” Is it my blind support—or your blind opposition? I support what I see. But you do not see. How much do you know of the West? I have so many Western people around me, and I see in them a quality the Eastern man lacks: whatever they do, they do with total dedication—complete craftsmanship,…

Beloved Osho, by using modern technology, I feel we are hurting this vibrating, juicy earth with the dead garbage of plastic, radioactivity, bad air and so on.

Dhyan Tara, it is one of the most complicated questions.... It is true that, "by using modern technology we are hurting this vibrating, juicy earth with the dead garbage of plastic, radioactivity, bad air and so on." This question has two possible answers. One is that of Mahatma Gandhi: "Go back... to the point where all modern technology is dropped" -- which superficially looks right. If modern technology is creating an ecological crisis on the earth, disturbing the balance of nature, then it is a very simplistic solution to drop modern technology and go back. But you have to understand that in Gautam Buddha's time, just twenty-five centuries ago, this country only had twenty million people. The earth was enough to support them. Today, this country alone has nine hundred million people. If you want to go back to the days of Gautam Buddha, you will have to kill or…

Osho, on the one hand you are in favor of modern technology and believe that the flower of religion will bloom only in countries that are industrially advanced. On the other hand, you also describe the paradoxes of Western industrial civilizations. “Either the machine will survive or man”—this is your own statement. Moreover, among the great ones, saints, and devotees of the past whose words you interpret, none of them believed that religion is not for the poor. How are all these to be reconciled?

Rajkishore! I am in favor of technology. But that does not mean there are no deadly possibilities tied to it. I warn about those dangers too. A wise person can turn poison into nectar, and a fool can turn even nectar into poison. Science has placed a tremendous power in human hands—technology, the world of machines. With it this whole earth can become a paradise. The age-old dream of a heaven somewhere high in the skies can descend upon the earth—upon our earth. Science has released a vast energy. But there are hazards. I caution about those as well. The greatest danger is that the mechanical may dominate the human, that man becomes a mere slave to the machine. Human mastery must remain. If man is the master and the machine the servant, it is auspicious. If the machine becomes the master and man the servant, it is disastrous. So…

Beloved Osho, the world of tomorrow is a world that will see a significant play of science and technology. This is bound to affect the lives of people as is already happening dramatically, sometimes for the better, sometimes adversely. Do you think we should say goodbye to all science and technology; if not, how do we prepare for the future citizenry? What is your advice?

But Indian politicians are not interested at all. Just to conceive the idea... all around you there will be corpses, not even enough people to carry them to the cemetery or to the funeral pyre. The only people who will be benefited by it will be the vultures. Right now they are benefited only by the Parsees... One should go and see the place in Bombay where the Parsees leave their dead a beautiful place, surrounded with ancient trees. And all over the trees, thousands of vultures. You cannot conceive that there could be anywhere in the world a place where so many vultures are always meeting. That conference continues because the Parsees go on dying and they have only one place; no other city allows them. In fact they are not spread far; only Bombay is their world and a few branches here and there Poona and Lonavala and…

Question: OSHO, TO ME THE FUTURE OF THE EAST APPEARS BLEAK WHICHEVER WAY ONE LOOKS AT IT -- EITHER POVERTY AND STARVATION THROUGH FATALISM, OR WESTERNIZATION THROUGH CAPITALISM -- FOR IS IT NOT NECESSARY FOR THE EAST TO BECOME WEST BEFORE PEOPLE AGAIN BECOME INTERESTED IN THEIR INNER SEARCH? IS IT NOT NECESSARY FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE EAST TO BECOME MATERIALLY RICH BEFORE THEIR SPIRITUAL POVERTY AGAIN BECOMES EVIDENT? BUT THE BURDEN OF THE WEST ALREADY LIES HEAVY ON THE WORLD: THE ATOMIC BOMB; VIOLENCE THROUGH FRUSTRATION; THE AUTO-MATIZATION OF THE SOUL; THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS AND THE POLLUTION OF THE AIR AND SEA SO THAT IT IS UNCERTAIN WHETHER THE ENVIRONMENT CAN MAINTAIN ITS DELICATE BALANCE. CAN THE WORLD SUPPORT ANOTHER WEST? In fact, for the first time in human history millions of people will be able to become Buddhas.