According to Osho, optimism about the New Man is natural because existence evolves forward, and he senses an imminent dawn of consciousness—the horizon already red, birds singing, flowers opening. Pessimism comes from fixation on the past and addiction to self-created misery. By dropping backward-looking identities and ceasing to 'pedal' suffering, we become available to life, love, and laughter—allowing the New Man to appear.
He feels a new, brighter way of living is about to begin if we stop clinging to the past and stop making our own misery.
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.…
Beloved Osho, you have said that when the self surrenders, the whole existence then protects. Then why was the fakir who could see the formless everywhere, or who could feel the presence of godliness everywhere, murdered by the english soldiers?
It appears like murder to you, but not to him. You see it as murder because you are under illusion. He saw only the divine in that spear; he saw that the death was a meeting with the divine. Existence protected him in the sense that even death did not seem like death to him. Death became the door of the ultimate bliss. To you it seems that he died, he was finished. When the Ganges flows into the sea, to you it seems that it is finished. But ask the Ganges: it will say, "I have disappeared and thus become the sea." The Ganges will say, "The fear of annihilation was there before but now it has disappeared. Before this I was very narrow, bounded by the two banks. I could have been finished. I was limited so I could have died. But now I have become unlimited, now…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY ARE YOU SO OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE NEW MAN? I can't help it, because I see the sunrise so close. But people's eyes are focused on the past. In fact, nature should have given them eyes at the back of their head, so they can go on looking backwards -- or at least given them rearview mirrors. But nature has given you eyes only to look ahead, not even rearview mirrors. Existence does not want you to look at the past. The past is gone forever. It is dead, it is finished. And if you go on looking backwards and walking forwards, you are going to fall in a ditch sooner or later. That's why you find so many people in different ditches -- the Catholic ditch, the Protestant ditch, the Hindu ditch. They are all waiting for you. But you are responsible for it.
My concept of the new man is that he will be Zorba the Greek and he will also be Gautam the Buddha: the new man will be Zorba the Buddha. He will be sensuous and spiritual, physical, utterly physical, in the body, in the senses, enjoying the body and all that the body makes possible, and still a great consciousness, a great witnessing will be there. He will be Christ and Epicurus together. The old man's ideal was renunciation; the new man's ideal will be rejoicing. And this new man is coming every day, he is arriving every day. People have not yet become aware of him. In fact he has already dawned. The old is dying, the old is on its death-bed. I don't mourn for it and I say please don't mourn for it.
Beloved Osho, it touches so much when you talk about the new man. When you first mentioned this concept to us many years ago, the new man was simply that to me: a concept that was intriguing, a fascinating possibility. But lately, I feel as if I know this new man -- this new race of people -- and really care about him. It sounds audacious to repeat the words I have heard you use: "I am pregnant with the new man." but actually, that's how I feel; not only about myself, but about all of your people. What is our relationship to the new man?
The new man's dreams and his reality will be one because his dreams will be rooted here in this earth. They will bring flowers and fruits. They will not be just dreams -- they will make the world a dreamland. Realize the responsibility... man has never faced a greater responsibility before: a responsibility to renounce the whole past, to erase it from your being. Be Adam and Eve again, and let this earth be the Garden of Eden; and this time we will see who the God is who has the guts to drive man out of the Garden of Eden! It is going to be our garden, and if God wants to be in our garden, He will have to knock on our doors. This earth can be a splendor, a magic, a miracle. Our hands have that touch -- it is just that we have never tried it.…