New Man

Osho, isn't the vision of the new man somehow similar to the idea of the superman?

Now he himself was not an athlete, he was not a soldier. I don't think he would have been able to hold a sword rightly, or know how to keep hold of it. He was a man who knew how to hold a fountain pen, not a sword. For his whole life he was simply writing; fighting he had never done. But he started projecting the idea of the superman. Nietzsche started condemning the old man without ever thinking that he belonged to the old. It happens... one can set oneself apart, and put the old man on this side and the superman on that side; and then you think you are not part of the old man. But because you are creating the idea of the superman, you start believing yourself that superman is your projection, your idea: you are giving birth to superman -- then of course you…

Beloved Osho, yesterday you spoke of science and how we could produce a new man -- more intelligent, creative, healthier and freer. It sounds fascinating and at the same time it is scary because of the feeling of some sort of mass product. Can you say something about the fear I am feeling?

What speciality has it got that it is your semen? What is the point of creating a crippled person, just because it is your semen? Science can manage to raise you above animality -- and it is not mass production, it will be just the opposite. There is not going to be an assembly line the way cars are produced. It is going to be very individual because every couple has the choice and the freedom to decide what kind of child they want. How has the idea of mass production come into your mind? Do you think everybody would like the same kind of child? You are wrong. Do you think science labs will go on producing children according to their own desire, and you have to adopt them? Then it will be mass production. I am not for it. You are absolutely free to choose. Right now you…

Beloved Osho, my fear around your vision of the birth of the new man through test-tubes and genetic engineering comes not from the technology itself, but from fear of who might control the technology. How can we guarantee that this knowledge will be used by conscious human beings, rather than the idiot politicians who would turn our brave new world into orwell's 1984?

Who controls the technology today? Who controls all your nuclear weapons? Who controls all your scientific discoveries? Have you raised your voice against it? Have you even thought that the whole life on the earth is now in the hands of idiotic politicians? And it has been always so. Anything discovered is immediately captured by the governments, so why is the question only about genetic engineering? Are you not afraid that the politicians have nuclear weapons which can destroy you seven hundred times? Although destroyed once, you will not need to be destroyed again -- because you are not the only begotten son of God, you will not resurrect; and messiahs are not around who will bring you back to life. But you are afraid -- I can understand -- that if this genetic engineering is in the hands of politicians, certainly they are not going to produce the man…

Beloved Osho, it touches so much when you talk about the new man. When you first mentioned this concept to us many years ago, the new man was simply that to me: a concept that was intriguing, a fascinating possibility. But lately, I feel as if I know this new man -- this new race of people -- and really care about him. It sounds audacious to repeat the words I have heard you use: "I am pregnant with the new man." but actually, that's how I feel; not only about myself, but about all of your people. What is our relationship to the new man?

The new man's dreams and his reality will be one because his dreams will be rooted here in this earth. They will bring flowers and fruits. They will not be just dreams -- they will make the world a dreamland. Realize the responsibility... man has never faced a greater responsibility before: a responsibility to renounce the whole past, to erase it from your being. Be Adam and Eve again, and let this earth be the Garden of Eden; and this time we will see who the God is who has the guts to drive man out of the Garden of Eden! It is going to be our garden, and if God wants to be in our garden, He will have to knock on our doors. This earth can be a splendor, a magic, a miracle. Our hands have that touch -- it is just that we have never tried it.…