According to Osho, yes: as modern people are uprooted from stable traditions and grow accustomed to constant change—in jobs, relationships, and ideas—the intelligent become more open, questioning inherited beliefs and seeking fresher, up‑to‑date visions. Flexibility erodes rigid identities and dogmas, making innovative approaches and living experimentation natural. Openness grows where change is normal; hence contemporary, especially Western, minds receive his message more readily.
When people get used to lots of change, smart folks stop clinging to old rules and feel free to try new ways of living.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, is it possible that as modern intelligent people become more and more accustomed to change as part of their daily lives, they will also become more open to your radically innovative approach to life?
That was the reasoning of the pope when he said to Galileo, "You should change in your book where you have written that the earth goes around the sun. It should be changed because according to the Bible the sun goes around the earth." And Galileo said, "Just a small statement: what difference does it make to you?" And the pope said, "It is not a question of a small statement. If one statement in the Bible is proved wrong, then suspicion arises in the believers -- that if one statement is wrong then what guarantee is there about other statements? And if God can write one statement wrong, then he is not infallible. You have to change it. It is not a question of factuality, of science. The question is the whole prestige of the Christian religion." -- On that small statement, which has nothing to do with Christianity,…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, ALVIN TOFFLER WROTE A BOOK CALLED FUTURE SHOCK. IN IT HE DESCRIBED HOW THE WORLD AROUND US IS CHANGING FASTER THAN EVER BEFORE. AND NOT ONLY THAT: THE RATE OF CHANGE IS INCREASING ALL THE TIME. HE DESCRIBES HOW HALF OF ALL AMERICANS CHANGE HOMES AT LEAST EVERY FIVE YEARS; HOW PEOPLE CHANGE HUSBANDS, WIVES, JOBS, CITIES AND CAREERS WITH INCREASING RAPIDITY... NOT TO MENTION ALL THE TRIVIAL PROPRIETARY PRODUCTS FROM CARS TO SOAP POWDER THAT CHANGE WITH BEWILDERING FREQUENCY. HE ALSO OUTLINES THE ENORMOUS INCREASE IN INFORMATION, SCIENTIFIC AND OTHERWISE. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS SAID TO DOUBLE EVERY TEN YEARS, AND THE DOUBLING TIME IS GETTING SHORTER ALL THE TIME. COMPARED WITH THE RELATIVELY UNCHANGING WORLD OF OUR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS, THIS IS A NEW PHENOMENON INDEED.
Beloved Osho, as society's hold on people's minds begins to disintegrate, in times of social crisis such as now there seems to be a tendency for an increasing number of people to fall below the mind into madness. Also, is it true that this is paralleled by a tendency for people to look at the possibility of going beyond the mind into enlightenment?
Times of crisis are both dangerous and immensely important -- dangerous for those who have no courage to explore new dimensions of life. They are bound to disintegrate into different kinds of madness, because their mind was made by the society. Now the society is disintegrating, the mind cannot remain; its roots are in the society. It is constantly nourished by the society -- now that nourishment is disappearing. Because the society is disintegrating, a great suspicion, a doubt that was never there before, is bound to arise in the individuals. And if they were just obedient people who have never gone beyond any limit that society has decided, who have always been respected, honorable citizens -- in other words, just mediocre -- they will immediately go mad. They will start committing suicide, they will start jumping from high buildings... or even if they live, now they don't have a…
But suppose the tree, the person, is basically handicapped? Then he cannot change. Not because he doesn't want to, but because he can't.
But now a new possibility has opened up. For the first time, particularly in the West, man is free from his day-to-day needs. Now we can experiment with new possibilities for the mind. It was impossible to do this in the past, because bodily needs were such a heavy burden, so unfulfilled. But now the possibility is there. We live on the threshold of a deep revolution, a revolution such as human history has never encountered. A revolution in consciousness is possible now. With more facilities to know and understand, we can change. Much time will be needed, but the possibility is open to us. If we dare, if we have courage, it can become an actuality. The whole humanity is at stake. Either we will go back to the past or to a new future. It is not a question of a third world war, not a question of…
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.…