Reformers

Osho, Lao Tzu has said that the sage reforms no one. But Krishna’s words are that he takes birth precisely to diminish evil and increase good. And our experience too is that whoever has come near you has begun to change from the roots. It feels as if your compassion pours so that a total transformation may happen in each life. So it seems it is the sage who brings about the true reform.

Both statements are the same. It is the sage who brings about reform; Lao Tzu has no quarrel with that. But the sage does not want to reform. From the one who does not want to do it, reform flowers. The one who wants to do it is precisely the one who cannot. Lao Tzu is saying only this: if you want to reform someone, what does it mean? First, it means you have put yourself above. “I am the reformer!” Pride has arisen. In a sage there is nowhere any pride. A sage cannot place himself above. The sage is not—so where would he place himself? And when you say, “I want to reform,” you have placed the other below—condemned, sinful, wrong, bad. Can a sage ever condemn anyone? Could such a thought ever arise in a sage’s mind? And where there is condemnation, there is no possibility of…

Therefore teachers, idealists, saints, sannyasins, leaders, revolutionaries, social reformers cannot change society; they distort it. And the shadow that trails them is of great degeneration. Whenever a great man tries to change people, a stream of darkness is inevitably born behind him. Lao Tzu says: do not change the other. Live in your swabhava—your intrinsic nature. If anything of value is present in your swabhava, the other will begin to change in your presence. That change will not be your insistence; it will not be your effort; you will not even be consciously active in it. The other will act, the other will strive; you will be only a silent presence, a silent inspiration. In that inspiration, no device comes from you. And when one is merely a presence—of joy, of celebration, of Samadhi, of meditation—others begin to flow toward him. In this flowing, they take the initiative.

Osho, from your talks we get a fairly clear sense of what ought to be done. But how should it be done? And not so much on an individual basis—please tell us, in more detail, what should be done as a community and as a society.

That would be easier if I came again and stayed a day or two. But for now, there is only one thing before the country: do not be in a hurry to do anything, and spread a climate of thought. Do not rush into action right now. Until the country has a right clarity, any attempt at doing will more likely lead to mistakes and upheaval. The country does not yet have a clear mind; haste for action will drop us into a ditch and take us nowhere. So I say: for the next five to ten years, the nation should strive to create a mind. Then action follows that mind the way a shadow follows you. Action in itself is not the main issue. Once the country’s mind is clear, what to do and how to do it both become easy. The real difficulty is: who is the doer,…

Osho, in the Gita Krishna forbids conduct that goes against society and scripture. But by that rule society will become a mere line-follower. Perhaps that is why Hindu society has been stuck in the status quo and rotting for centuries. This tendency will only increase obscurantism, making reform, change, and revolution impossible! Please shed light on this.

What thousands of revolutionaries cannot effect in society, a single self-realized person can. But it is not his wish; he is not trying for it. His very presence, the light of his life, transforms many. But that transformation is very gentle. It is not a “revolution.” It is a very gentle evolution. There is no noise. It happens quietly. It happens in silence. Buddha does not make a social revolution, yet after Buddha the world becomes different. The presence of Buddhas, the happening of their knowing, transforms human consciousness somewhere deep within; no one even notices. It is like a flower opening silently and its fragrance spreading in the air. No band plays, no drums beat; there is no hullabaloo; silently the fragrance fills the breeze. The flower may wither, but the fragrance continues to drift. For centuries people are bathed in that perfume and transformed by it. But these…