Global Crisis

Beloved master, at various times I have heard you describe your work as "an experiment to provoke god" and "a model city for the future." then there was the world tour. In the present context of accelerating global crisis, how would you describe your work now, and what is happening to those who have gathered around you here?

India has so much coal; Russia has no coal at all, but they have an overproduction of wheat. Half the population of India goes on starving; it needs wheat, it certainly cannot eat coal. But in the Soviet Union in the time of Stalin they were burning wheat in their railway trains instead of coal. They don't have coal but now they have a super-technological production of crops, fruits. It was easy for them to burn the wheat, but they didn't know that they were burning millions of people, who were dying because they didn't have anything to eat. Problems are worldwide. Solutions have also to be worldwide. And my understanding is absolutely clear, that there are things... somewhere they are not needed and somewhere the very life depends on them. A world government means looking at the whole situation of this globe and shifting things where they are needed.…

Question: A PEBBLE FALLING INTO WATER RIPPLES THE FAR SHORE. A SPARK FANNED BY THE BREEZE STARTS A FOREST FIRE. A MASTER'S PRESENCE SPREADS AWARENESS TO THE FAR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR WORK? KABIR, IT IS NOT WORK AT ALL. The very idea of work is irrelevant with me. It is not work because there is no WILL behind it. I am not here to impose anything upon anybody. I am not here to convert you to any ideology or to a certain way of life. I am not teaching a philosophy of life, I am not teaching anything at all -- I am not a teacher. I am simply sharing whatsoever has happened with me. Never think in terms of work. It is not work for the flower to bloom, it is sheer joy, it is play. Think in terms of play.

Osho, your words suggest that the coming ten years will be highly critical, catastrophic, and decisive for humankind. And perhaps your arrival is related to ensuring that, in the face of this impending calamity, humanity suffers the least possible harm and the core values of culture and religion are preserved as much as possible. Will you guide us in this direction?

Friends come to me and say, “Why don’t you do something so that ashes appear from your hand? Millions will come.” But they would be the wrong millions. Millions would come, but millions would be wrong. And among those millions, the few who are rightly close to me would be lost, they would be distracted. For those who are rightly close to me would not be able to survive before that crowd—the crowd would surge ahead. It would be a crowd of the ambitious, a crowd of the insane. Those who gather to see ash falling from a hand are mad; they should be in an asylum. They are diseased. And once you invite the diseased, they will not let the healthy remain. Economics has a simple rule: counterfeit coins drive genuine coins out of circulation. If there is a fake rupee in your pocket, you will try to spend…

Beloved Osho, your words indicate that the coming ten years are going to be full of crisis and disaster, and are going to be decisive for the human race. Your arrival is also perhaps connected with the fact that man comes to minimum harm from the imminent tragedy, and maximum values of the culture and religion are saved. Would you please provide guidance to us in this area?

Before the temple of religion falls down, either you take charge of it, or the West takes charge of it, but it should not be allowed to crumble and become the showpiece of a museum. Through it the door to the possibility of man's survival will open. The race for money only annihilates, ambition just destroys, and leads in the end to insanity. No one has ever come to contentment through ambition. No matter how great the ambition in which you succeed, each success brings only more discontent. Even an Alexander dies weeping; he seems to have attained nothing, in spite of conquering the world. Only religion brings contentment. Contentment is a miracle. Even a beggar can be contented, while even an Alexander dies full of discontent. Religion has some mysterious keys which open these doors of the heart that can shower nectar. It is these keys I am calling…