Civilization

Has civilization done man any good?

Yes, it makes you sin so hard that one has to become a saint by and by. It throws you into such deep misery that you have to start looking for clues to go out of the imprisonment. Civilization helps tremendously. It helps you to grow, it helps you to understand the misery of life. Just look HERE -- many more people from the West come to me than from India. The West is more civilized, more cultured -- of course more miserable. Everybody is just on the verge of going berserk, just on the verge, a little push is needed... Out of four persons they say almost three are on the boundary line of becoming mad. Out of four persons almost one some day or other is going to become a victim of cancer. Out of four persons alive -- alive on this day -- out of those four,…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS CIVILIZATION? Milarepa, civilization has not happened yet. It is a false idea that we are civilized people -- civilized people and continuously preparing for war? Even the animals don't eat, don't kill their own species. It is only man who kills his own species -- no lion will kill another lion, no dog will kill another dog. No lion will eat another lion. Man is the only one who can be a cannibal. There are still small groups around the world in isolated places who are cannibals. They are remnants of the past, but they are still there. In Africa there is a small cannibal colony in the thick forest. There used to be three thousand at the beginning of this century; now they are only three hundred because, when they cannot find anybody else, they have to eat somebody from their own group.

What do you think about civilization? Are you absolutely against it?

THERE IS NO CIVILIZATION ANYWHERE -- so how can I be against it? It exists not. It is just a pretension. Yes, man has lost his primitive, primordial innocence, but man has not become civilized -- because that is NO way to become civilized. The only way to become civilized is to base yourself on your innocence, to base yourself on your primitive innocence, to grow from there. That's why Jesus says: Unless you are reborn, unless you become a child again, you will never know what truth is. This so-called civilization is fake, it is a pseudo coin. If I am against it, I am not against civilization -- because this is not civilization. I am against it because this is not civilization at all. It is fake. I have heard: Someone once asked the former Prince of Wales, "What is your idea of civilization?" "It is a good…

Question: First question: Osho, the ‘Indian Culture Parliament’ is completing twenty-five years. On this occasion, Dr. Prabhakar Machwe, addressing you as a thinker, philosopher, and sage, has invited your views for the volume ‘Indian Culture’, which he will publish at the beginning of the book and thereby feel honored. Osho, a request: please say something! Chaitanya Kirti! I am neither a brooder, nor a thinker, nor a man of intellect. We give great value to contemplation; we take thought to be a great fortune; in our view, intellectual acumen is the highest peak of life. But the truth is something else. Neither Buddha is a thinker, nor Mahavira, nor Kabir. Whoever has known is not a thinker. The one who does not know thinks. Thought is ignorance. A blind man wonders: what is light like, what is it? The one with eyes knows—he doesn’t think. So what sort of contemplation?