Soviet Union

Their fourth question is: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WENT TO THE SOVIET UNION?

"So it was not so bad that I was hungry and starving; Nansen was always holding out nourishment for me, through the window. And it was not only nourishment for my body; his attention, his care for me was also nourishment. I am nobody, and he took so much care. Every day he remembered me, that I would be standing outside. "Leaving his dining table, he would come and give me food, and he never asked, `Why do you go on standing outside?'" -- because that is one of the fundamentals of Zen: don't interfere into anybody's life. Everybody has a territorial imperative, a certain area. Don't enter into it; that is his dignity, that is his pride. Leave it to his intelligence. "And he was not only giving me food, he was giving me spiritual nourishment. It was not bad, Osho. Don't misunderstand me, and don't misunderstand my master,…

Beloved Osho, after six years of sannyas and a long, hard struggle with authorities and legal hindrances, I recently succeeded in leaving my home country -- the soviet union. Sitting in darshan just a few meters from you, and seeing you, and hearing you talk for the first time in my life, I remembered all my sannyasin friends who are not able to travel to you, and my joy was mixed with deep sadness. Do you see the soviet union under gorbachev becoming a more open society, so that your message of love and meditation will spread more easily there?

According to Karl Marx, communism can happen only when there is a very developed form of capitalism and a class struggle. Russia was still a pre-capitalist country, still living under feudalism, under the czars. There was no capitalist class, and there was no proletariat. Karl Marx could not have logically conceived that Russia would be the first communist country, the first to have the great revolution. But it happened like that: Russia was the first and China was the next -- and Marx could not have thought either of Russia or of China. Perhaps it is going to be again a mysterious phenomenon. People think America is a democracy -- which is utterly false. And people think that in America there is freedom of expression, freedom of individuality, that what the constitution of America says is not only written in the constitution but is lived by the country, and that…

Beloved Osho, seeing such unbelievable changes in russia these past two years, due to gorbachev's leadership, do you have a special message for him? Would you at all consider going to russia if he would have the courage to welcome you and your people? Do you think that one day russia could be the country of the future of humanity?

Jivan Mada, yes, it appears as if unbelievable changes have been happening in Russia in the past two years. But as far as I am concerned, I was waiting for those changes; they are not unbelievable. Sixty years of oppression, exploitation and mass scale butchery were preparing the ground. No night is without a dawn. Sixty years was more than enough; it was absolutely certain that it would come to an end. Gorbachev is the first ray heralding that the morning has come. Many more changes will be happening in the future. Their speed is going to accelerate, because for sixty years the people have not tasted freedom, have not tasted trust, love; they have known only a fascist regime, which was ready to kill anybody for any small excuse. They have lived under the shadow of death. I welcome the dawn; the birds have started singing, and the flowers…

One of the sannyasins has asked a question: WHAT IS MISSING IN COMMUNISM?

If you really want celibate people, then they need a brain operation. The center of sex should be removed. But then you will be simply impotent -- not celibate. Karl Marx was right, that such religions should be finished. They are against humanity. They protect poverty and they protect the rich. They are against revolution, they are against any change -- obviously, he was right to call them the opium of the people, the hope of the hopeless. If Christianity and Judaism were the only religions, then the Soviet Union would not have any need, any urge to find the inner world! But just think about it. You cannot have the outside world without having the inside world; they exist together like two sides of the coin. And there are scientific methods available. Zen is the most scientific method to inquire into your consciousness. It takes you beyond mind into…