Equality

Osho, have efforts toward equality begun only now, since socialism came to Russia? Haven’t inequalities existed since the world began?

The evolution of consciousness—look! In the evolution of consciousness, equality is a very highly developed state. Inequality is the ordinary state. Even to be ready to regard yourself as equal to another is a great attainment—that the other is my equal! The mind keeps saying, “How can another be equal to me?” Inequality is the natural impulse. That is why creating disparity has been the norm. Consciousnesses that create equality have appeared—Mahavira is one of them—but they were individual. Gradually their density has increased, and it has reached a point where now a substantial portion of equalizing consciousnesses is present on the earth. The day the consciousnesses with the tendency toward inequality keep waning—when that tendency keeps diminishing—on that day equality will prevail across the earth. It takes a long time. But even that “long time” looks long to us only because our reckoning of time is very small. It…

Osho, in this connection someone has asked: Mahavira was a champion of equality, yet why was the order of nuns neglected in his sangha?

The entire mind of woman is poetic—of dreams, of imagination. It is passive: it cannot do, it can only imagine. There are reasons for this too. In truth, a poet means a passive mind. He can sit and imagine; he cannot do anything. He can build palaces—but only in imagination! Palaces that can be built sitting—those he can build. The ones that require standing up, breaking stones, collecting bricks—that is not his capacity. He can build palaces of words, because that can be done sitting. More interesting still: in science one has to do—one discovers; the masculine mind discovers, uncovers what is covered. The poet does not discover; he simply sits silently. In fact, when a great poem descends into him, he is utterly passive, totally feminine. Something descends into him. Rabindranath says, “What did I sing? When I am not, O God, you sing through me. When I am…

We want self-realization, and what you said last evening was something quite different. What has it to do with self-realization?

Have you ever heard ,a socialist say that man needs a soul too. Socialism ends up with three demands of mall: bread, clothes and housing. Man needs nothing more. He need not think at all -- thinking will land him in unnecessary trouble. It is good that he be deprived of the bother; then he will live undisturbed. like an animal lives. He should have plenty to eat and drink, he should be properly clothed, he should have good housing, he should work and live happily. What use is thinking? It only brings worry and trouble of every sort. It even leads to rebellion. The socialist not only says so, he also works to this end -- he creates devices to eliminate thinking. And their best device is this: Before the child begins to think, indoctrinate him with socialist concepts and beliefs so that his mind is in shackles --…

Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?

But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…