Revolution

Question: Second question: Osho, are you against social revolution? I, against revolution! But there is no such thing as social revolution. I am in favor of revolution—of radical revolution. Yet “social revolution” as such does not exist; all revolution is individual. Revolution is only individual. “Social revolution” is a trick played upon revolution. Those who want to escape real revolution take shelter behind the slogan of social revolution. The same old disease: “When society changes, then we will change. How can we change right now? The whole society is wrong—how can we change?” When will society change? It hasn’t till now. Revolutions upon revolutions have happened, and man remains the same. Not a flicker of transformation has occurred in consciousness. Whether a man is Russian or American, Indian or Chinese—there is no difference: the same greed, the same lust, the same anger, the same everything.

And you have asked: what is the meaning of total revolution? In my vision, total revolution means that a person is left with no fixed notions and no prejudices. The person’s consciousness becomes like a pure mirror. Total revolution means samadhi.

Whatever a person established in samadhi does is a benediction, it is auspicious. Whatever a meditative person does will bring the auspicious, not the inauspicious. Because the energy of meditation makes you full of awareness. Your awareness saturates your actions. A person without meditation, whatever he does, will do it wrongly. So I know only one revolution: how meditation can be joined to your life. If you receive the wealth of meditation, you have attained the supreme wealth. And if meditation happens to you, the possibility arises that you can also kindle the light in your neighbors. Let one flame kindle another. And if from one to one the flame keeps spreading, I can fill the whole world with fire. That is why these ochre robes have been chosen. This is the color of fire; they are symbols of the flame. In them you are to be consumed. In them…

Why do revolutions fail?

First, because they are not revolutions. Revolution is possible only in the individual soul. The social revolution is a pseudo phenomenon, because the society has no soul of its own. Revolution is a spiritual phenomenon. There can be no political revolution, no social revolution, no economic revolution. The only revolution is that of the spirit; it is individual. And if millions of individuals change, then the society will change as a consequence, not vice versa. You cannot change the society first and hope that individuals will change later on. That's why revolutions have been failing: because we have taken revolution from a very wrong direction. We have thought that if you change the society, change the structure, economic or political, then one day the individuals, the constituent elements of the society, will change. This is stupid. Who is going to do this revolution? For example, in 1917 a great so-called…

Beloved master, what is the difference between a rebel and a revolutionary?

Hence a Gautam Buddha or a Kabir or a Chuang Tzu hurts you because he has blossomed, and you are just standing there. Springs come and go, nothing blossoms in you; no birds come and make their nest on you, and sing their songs around you. It is better to crucify a Jesus and poison a Socrates -- just to remove them -- so that you need not feel in any way spiritually inferior. The world has known only very few rebels. But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels -- a rebellious spirit -- then our days on the earth are numbered. Then this century may become our graveyard. We are coming very close to that point. We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness. We have to destroy the old man and…