Contradictions

Beloved Osho, by now, millions of people are confused by your contradictory actions and statements. But also we, your friends, tend to diminish or simplify your words. Osho, what is at the heart of your contradictions? How can we enter your wild dance of consciousness?

There are no contradictions -- only apparently so. Logically you can find hundreds of contradictions; but I am not speaking logically. Once that is understood you can see that all contradictions disappear. They are created by a certain system of logic, and if you have the glasses of that logic on your eyes, you will see contradictions. I am not speaking logically. I have no respect for logic. I have respect for life. And life is vast enough to have contradictions as complementaries. Life cannot exist without contradictions. Logic is dead. It can exist very clinically, without contradictions. But it is a dead system -- it is just a man-made system; it does not breathe. So there is a way to speak logically, which the philosophers have been doing down the ages. Their whole effort was not to get into any contradiction, into any inconsistency. Avoiding contradictions, avoiding inconsistencies, they…

Osho, with reference to the East—and especially India—a question has been pursuing me for a long time: those who once scaled the Gaurishankar of philosophy and reflection, of religion and meditation, how did they, in the course of time, become so broken, degenerate, and impoverished? Osho, please be gracious and shed some light on this question.

The question is meaningful. The East reached great heights—but crippled heights, like a bird that has flown very high with only one wing. How high can it truly go, and how far? Maybe it flutters a bit, rides the winds a little, drags itself some distance—but not for long. Seeing just one wing, you can already say: this bird will fall; its fall is inevitable. Flight happens with two wings. A lame man can walk, but how different that walk is from walking on two sound legs. The lame walk is painful, compelled. One with two healthy legs sometimes runs for no reason, even dances, strolls with nowhere to go. The joy in the meeting of those two legs is complete in itself. Therefore I do not tell my sannyasin to renounce the world. The world has been renounced and the result is clear—those who left it fell badly, flat…

And it has gone so beautiful, and it is going so beautifully. And I don't see that I can ever be disappointed, because in the first place I don't bother whether the river is going to the north or to the south. Wherever it goes, wherever it lands, that's my home. That's where I always wanted to go, but I was not aware. Q:* THE MODERN AGE, THE SO-CALLED AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, IS AN AGE OF LIBERALIZATION FROM OLD BELIEF SYSTEMS AND RELIGIONS. YOU CLAIM YOUR RELIGION A MODERN RELIGION. ISN'T THIS A CONTRADICTION IN ITSELF? A:* It is. It is a contradiction to call it a modern religion, or better, a religionless religion, which will make the contradiction more clear. But to me, existence allows contradictions. it is not logical; it is very illogical. In fact, existence depends on contradictions. What is life and death? Are not they contradictory?

Osho, today I shall ask about contradiction. To me, sir, this issue has been very confusing. Socrates cleansed the system by advocating democracy; over time Aristotle’s attitude shifted toward changing the system. I agree with your view that our future organizations will be organizations of love, not of domination. But I must admit, sir, that to run a government—whether of small units or of work organizations—we will have to frame a code of conduct which checks the malpractices of bad elements and keeps the system sound. May I have, sir, the details?

Large nations are antagonistic to this; they obstruct. They too call for international government, but what they mean is to dominate—to become the international government themselves. The call for internationalism is very old, and it has come in two kinds: Alexander and Genghis Khan too wanted an international government—one world under their rule. But that could not be; the very feeling was wrong. In that way, an international government can never be formed. It will arise on the basis that the units are small—so small as to be negligible in terms of power—and thus able to unite and come together. Therefore the nation must go. In the future, there can be no place for nation-states. There will be small towns, small districts, small clusters that wish to associate. Those small clusters will organize themselves; they can manage within their small bounds. They will have no great power. Their administrative thread…