According to Osho, the coming decade will be a crisis point in humanity’s cyclical evolution: the wheel turns, East and West exchange roles, old institutions and moralities collapse, and chaos intensifies. Yet this upheaval is also a doorway—those who cultivate meditation, awareness, and flexibility can transform turmoil into insight, while rigid clinging will bring suffering.
The next ten years may feel upside down, but if you stay calm, flexible, and look inside through meditation, you’ll be okay.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, your words indicate that the coming ten years are going to be full of crisis and disaster, and are going to be decisive for the human race. Your arrival is also perhaps connected with the fact that man comes to minimum harm from the imminent tragedy, and maximum values of the culture and religion are saved. Would you please provide guidance to us in this area?
Before the temple of religion falls down, either you take charge of it, or the West takes charge of it, but it should not be allowed to crumble and become the showpiece of a museum. Through it the door to the possibility of man's survival will open. The race for money only annihilates, ambition just destroys, and leads in the end to insanity. No one has ever come to contentment through ambition. No matter how great the ambition in which you succeed, each success brings only more discontent. Even an Alexander dies weeping; he seems to have attained nothing, in spite of conquering the world. Only religion brings contentment. Contentment is a miracle. Even a beggar can be contented, while even an Alexander dies full of discontent. Religion has some mysterious keys which open these doors of the heart that can shower nectar. It is these keys I am calling…
Osho, your words suggest that the coming ten years will be highly critical, catastrophic, and decisive for humankind. And perhaps your arrival is related to ensuring that, in the face of this impending calamity, humanity suffers the least possible harm and the core values of culture and religion are preserved as much as possible. Will you guide us in this direction?
Friends come to me and say, “Why don’t you do something so that ashes appear from your hand? Millions will come.” But they would be the wrong millions. Millions would come, but millions would be wrong. And among those millions, the few who are rightly close to me would be lost, they would be distracted. For those who are rightly close to me would not be able to survive before that crowd—the crowd would surge ahead. It would be a crowd of the ambitious, a crowd of the insane. Those who gather to see ash falling from a hand are mad; they should be in an asylum. They are diseased. And once you invite the diseased, they will not let the healthy remain. Economics has a simple rule: counterfeit coins drive genuine coins out of circulation. If there is a fake rupee in your pocket, you will try to spend…
[NOTE: This was published in THE RAJNEESH TIMES, 2nd September 1983 while Osho was in silence.] OSHO EXPLAINS THE COMING CRISIS (IN A MESSAGE GIVEN BY SHEELA?) Beginning next year, the world will face 15 years of catastrophic natural and man-made disasters -- including nuclear war. Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Bombay all will be destroyed -- but the holocaust to come will not be confined to these major population centers. And unless human consciousness changes totally, man cannot survive. As he is right now, he is already outdated. There will be floods which have never been known since the time of Noah, along with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and everything else that is possible through nature. There will be wars which are bound to end in nuclear explosions, hence no ordinary Noah's Arks are going to save humanity.
But when for the first time something opens, the thrill is natural. Don't be worried about it; just enjoy it! It is going to become part of you -- even california cannot take it away. But don't be thinking in those terms -- that is not needed at all -- otherwise just by your thinking you may get too worked up. You may become so afraid and that very fear may be a destructive phenomenon. Simply do the groups, enjoy, and each group will deepen it. Pay more and more attention to the sufi dancing. That will be very helpful, that will soothe the excitement. [A sannyasin returning from the west says: It was inspiring to see... how the overall consciousness is evolving -- call it 'new age', call it 'aquarian age'. There's some hope that we're not going to self-destruct in the near future...
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IF THE WHOLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WERE CONDENSED INTO ONE YEAR, WITH US STANDING AT THE END OF THAT VAST YEAR, IT WOULD LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THE EARTH IS FORMED ON THE FIRST OF JANUARY. IT IS ONLY IN DECEMBER THAT THE CONTINENTS START DRIFTING INTO THEIR PRESENT POSITION. THE DINOSAURS BECOME EXTINCT ABOUT FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR, AND NOT UNTIL ABOUT MIDDAY ON THE 31ST OF DECEMBER DOES MAN EVOLVE FROM THE MONKEYS. FROM WHERE WE ARE STANDING -- AT MIDNIGHT ON NEW YEAR'S EVE -- THE ICE AGE TOOK PLACE JUST OVER A MINUTE AGO, AND BUDDHA, LAO TZU AND SOCRATES APPEAR ONLY SEVENTEEN SECONDS AGO. THE WHOLE OF MODERN TIMES SINCE THE BIRTH OF KARL MARX HAPPENS IN THE LAST SECOND BEFORE MIDNIGHT.