Communes

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE COMMUNES? I don't think much about the future because the future is born of the present. If we can take care of the present, we have taken care of the future. It is not going to come from nowhere, it is going to grow from this moment. The next moment will be growing out of this moment. If this moment is beautiful, silent, blissful, the next moment is bound to be more silent, more blissful. Now there are communes all over the world, and they are rejoicing in the present. Naturally, whatever comes in the future will be better.

I come from a european commune, and feel that here everything is more intense and more relaxed. Is there a difference between this commune and all the others around the world? Can sannyasins become enlightened in other communes? If a sannyasin dies here within a twenty-four-mile radius of you, they get enlightened. Can that happen in the communes?

Just a few days ago one Italian journalist -- a lovely and intelligent person, was taking my interview. I told him, "I recognize my people immediately." He asked me, "What do you mean?" I said, "I have recognized you. You are going to be my sannyasin soon!" He looked all around, because he had perhaps never thought of sannyas. He has come to know the commune, the sannyasins, what is happening here. And just the other day, Savita informed me he has taken sannyas. Intelligence, wherever it is, is going to belong to me sooner or later. You ask if any man dying here within a twenty-five-mile radius will become enlightened: the same will start happening in other communes soon. I am preparing for it. I am consolidating small centers into bigger communes, because a certain quantity of energy is needed. So if a commune has at least five hundred…

Beloved Osho, the communes of mahavira and buddha survived even after their lifetimes, but your communes are not surviving in your lifetime although they are self-sufficient. Does survival of communes depend on social structure, affluence of the society, prevalent religions, or national and international politics? Please comment.

And women have greater capacity for becoming fat than men -- it is a biological privilege, because the woman has to be able to become pregnant, to become a mother; then for nine months she cannot eat well, she throws up, she is carrying such a load in her belly. And every day the child needs more and more food. It is a very strange situation: the woman cannot eat, and the child wants more food because he is growing. Hence nature has made woman's body capable of collecting more fat for emergency measures. So even if she does not eat, the child can get as much as he needs from the reserve fat the woman has; and the woman can also go on eating her own fat -- and nine months is a long time. So the woman has immense capacity. If she uses her full capacity, then man…

In an interview you gave last year you said that your communes are the proof of your teachings. Is this still valid or have you got anything new to say, in spite of the fact that the commune in oregon closed down and many changes are happening in the european communes?

It is still valid -- but that does not mean that no changes will be happening. In fact, changes happen only when something is valid. Unreal things don't change; only real things change. A plastic flower remains always the same, but a real rose changes. Whatever I have said about the commune is true, still true. And the changes that are happening are making the commune wider, bigger, more open. My effort now is that the commune should not be open only to the sannyasins. It should be open to anybody who has a rapport with me -- he may not be a sannyasin; who has a feeling for me -- he may not be a sannyasin. My effort is not to create an alternate society; my effort is to change the whole of society into a vast world commune. So many more changes will be happening, many more doors…