Leftism

Silvano, your question is meaningful. You ask: “Osho, most of the youth of Italy’s New Left are becoming associated with you. Would you call this an evolution of the Left, or a distortion of the true understanding of your experiment?”

I am opposed to both the past and the future. Because I see that those who have invested their dreams in the past think our golden age has already happened—Ram Rajya… Morarji Desai believes Ram Rajya has already been. Flames were leaping in Aligarh, Hindus and Muslims were hacking at each other—and what was Morarji-bhai Desai doing? What was the prime minister of this country doing? He was sitting in Ahmedabad reciting the Ramayana. Are prime ministers elected for this? You have heard the story of Nero, that when Rome was burning he played the flute—what difference is there between that and Morarji-bhai’s conduct? Rome is burning; Morarji-bhai is reading out the Ramayana! The same old, worn-out tale, in which nothing remains to be said! For ten days Aligarh sizzled in flames, and Morarji Desai was not even in Delhi! Who has time to stay in Delhi! Everyone is always…

Osho, what relationship will the Youth Revolution Party have with politics?

Our entire vision is of a social and cultural revolution. We have no direct concern with politics—not in the slightest. If, as the ideology of our cultural revolution spreads, its indirect consequences reach into politics, that is another matter. We are not concerned with that. We have no direct involvement at all. The youth organization has no direct connection with politics. Our aim in this country is to bring about a revolution of thought. Such a revolution of thought will change everything. It will influence politics too—that is an entirely different matter. But we have no direct concern with it. If we can teach the nation how to think, the nation’s politics will change.

The flower of consciousness opens up only when all the garbage that one has accumulated over many many lives is thrown out, otherwise there is no space for the one-thousand petalled lotus to open. It needs a space and we are so full of junk, useless junk, full of memories which are of no use any more. We go on piling up files and files of memories, not only of this life, of many many lives. They are all there, now absolutely useless, but the functioning of our mind is like the functioning of any bureaucracy. I have heard that in the White House the president was very worried because so many files had accumulated. He told his secretary to destroy all those files which were useless and to only keep those which had any use. The secretary immediately started working.

Osho, you are always immersed in bliss—what is the secret of it? When will I be able to attain this ecstasy?

Yogananda, I have given you the name Yogananda; the whole secret is in it. A human being can live in two ways: either cut off from existence, or in oneness with it. Whoever lives separate will live in sorrow—anxiety and anguish. That is natural, for to live apart from existence is like a tree pulling its roots out of the earth and trying to live. It will wither; the leaves will droop, flowers will cease to bloom. Spring will come and keep coming, but that tree will never become a bride, never a bridegroom. For it there will be no spring. If the roots have been torn from the soil, what remedy can even the honeyed month of spring offer? Then where is bliss, where is ecstasy! Then there is no dawn—only a dark new-moon night, a night with no morning. Such a life is called ego. And the tree…