We made clever machines but didn’t become kinder or wiser, so the wrong people use them and we end up hurting ourselves.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why have human beings gone through this struggle since the very beginning? Were there not already highly developed civilizations living on this earth? And yet their consciousness got lost and man had to start all over again. Right now it seems to be a particularly dark period. Is there such a cosmic law that says, "only out of the mud the lotus can grow"? And will this earth ever become a garden of flowers? In deep gratitude and love.
Prem Jaldhara, the question that you have asked has tremendous implications in it. First, there have been many civilizations before our civilization which have reached to even higher peaks, but they all destroyed themselves because all those civilizations, including ours, have been growing in a deep imbalance. They developed great technologies, but they forgot that even the greatest technological progress is not going to make man more blissful, more peaceful, more loving, more compassionate. Man's consciousness has not grown with the same pace as his scientific progress, and that has been the cause of all the old civilizations destroying themselves. There was no outer cause, no outer enemy -- the enemy was within man. He created monsters as far as machines are concerned, but he himself remained very retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very dangerous to give so much power to unconscious people. The same is happening today.…
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…
A friend has asked: Osho, even before the Mahabharata war began, Arjuna saw that within the Divine’s cosmic form all the warriors were entering the jaws of death. Then was that great war, in that very moment, an unavoidable destiny that everyone was compelled to fulfill?
In trying to drive the future, man becomes disordered. After many experiences India decided: leave the future to God. It is inevitable. What is to be will be. You are nothing in between. Its direct result is that you are instantly freed from the future. No worries remain. Whether happiness comes or sorrow, good or bad, whether you survive or not—it is no longer in your hands. You can live in the present—here and now. Many teachers—Krishnamurti, for instance—go on saying, “Live in the present.” But man cannot live in the present so long as he believes the future can be made. How can he? The teaching is correct but incomplete. How can he live in the present if he knows that, should he wish, tomorrow could be different—and if he does nothing, something else will happen? The notion that tomorrow can be changed will agitate today. If tomorrow cannot…
That is why I say over and over again that ignorance, unconsciousness and unawareness are a fire in which life is being consumed, and that understanding, consciousness and awareness bring about a totality in which one's life is transformed into bliss. The very energy that consumes a life of ignorance is transformed into bliss through awareness. There is nothing worse than ignorance and unawareness, but if a man lives in awareness every power he has becomes blissful. Energy is neutral, impartial. How energy is used depends totally on the individual. To a really religious mind, the inability of science to achieve fulfillment on its own is not a source of frustration. It can be turned into a medium for inner contentment. It can help make the world a paradise. The union of science and religion can give birth to an entirely new vista, to a totally new dimension for mankind.
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? It is because of the atom bomb that war has become total.