According to Osho, he has little hope the world should or will survive a third world war; in its present rotten, uncreative state, mere survival would be worse than death. Unless a radical transformation toward consciousness, creativity, love, and harmony with nature happens, extinction may be a cleansing. Hoping against hope, he urges awakening rather than clinging to blind survival.
If we don’t change and become more aware, loving, and creative, then simply surviving another world war would be worse than ending and starting fresh.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, IS THE WORLD GOING TO SURVIVE THE THIRD WORLD WAR? I don't have any hope, but I am hoping against hope. There are many things to be considered. First, perhaps it is good that it does not survive. It has become so rotten, so ugly, that if it survives and remains the same it will be worse than not surviving. Our world is in almost the same situation as thousands of people... around the world they are just surviving because they can still breathe. In the hospitals, with all kinds of medical support, they can continue to breathe; even the breathing is not their own -- they need some mechanical device to help them to continue to breathe. Do you call that life?
Beloved Osho, what do you say about the third world war? Is it going to happen or not? What should we do to prevent it?
Don't do anything to prevent it, because this humanity that you see around the earth is not worth anything. A good third world war will at least clean this planet of human garbage: cathedrals, temples, mosques, White Houses where only lies are manufactured. Perhaps that's why it is called the White House -- because we know the phrase "white lie." Lies are always white; they have to be painted white. All these politicians, with no awareness, no love, and with all the nuclear weapons in their hands.... The world right now contains so many nuclear and atomic weapons that this poor humanity can be killed seven times -- although that is not needed, once is more than enough. And they go on piling them up. But I am not a pessimist. I am saying it to you just to emphasize the fact that it is not a question of the…
Osho, you said that there is a russian here. What do you think of russians? Will there be a third world war?
And they have learned one thing: how to prevent a revolution from the very beginning, from the very seeds of revolution, so not even freedom of opinion is allowed. You are even afraid to talk to your own wife because, who knows? -- she may be an informer. Nobody knows about anybody. You are afraid to talk to your own children because they belong to the Young Communists' League and they inform against their parents. Only in Russia do walls have ears -- only in Russia. Everywhere else it is only a proverb, in Russia it is a reality. You cannot even think independently because to think independently you need certain things to be made available. If Marx had been born in Russia he would not have been able to write DAS KAPITAL because there is no British Museum where he could have gone and consulted all kinds of books.…
But I don't see there is any way to find an antidote. For the simple reason that 300 years of continuous creation of war mechanisms, destructive weapons, has led to the nuclear weapon. You have never worked for life, you have never thought about how to create more beautiful life-healthier, intelligent, lengthier. If side by side you were working for these 300 years, putting your whole energy as you have been putting into war, perhaps you may be able to find an antidote -- but there is not time enough. If all the scientists of the world together start working now, perhaps in one hundred years they may be able to find a clue which nullifies all nuclear weapons. That seems to be impossible. So to me the third world war is over. We have passed it -- now think about the fourth. And prepare for the fourth.
Politicians go on saying, "Don't be worried, nothing is going to happen." It is the same as they were saying before the second world war, before the first world war: "Don't be worried, we will take care; and God is with us." The third world war can happen only if people are not alerted beforehand. If people are alerted in every country, in America and Soviet Russia, then these same people will hang their politicians rather than have a third world war. This will be far better, when I see the president of America hanging from the tree, and by his side the Soviet prime minister and the queen of England.... Just hang all these people on one tree, make it a great memorial, and be finished with the third world war.