Technology

Beloved Osho, the world of tomorrow is a world that will see a significant play of science and technology. This is bound to affect the lives of people as is already happening dramatically, sometimes for the better, sometimes adversely. Do you think we should say goodbye to all science and technology; if not, how do we prepare for the future citizenry? What is your advice?

But Indian politicians are not interested at all. Just to conceive the idea... all around you there will be corpses, not even enough people to carry them to the cemetery or to the funeral pyre. The only people who will be benefited by it will be the vultures. Right now they are benefited only by the Parsees... One should go and see the place in Bombay where the Parsees leave their dead a beautiful place, surrounded with ancient trees. And all over the trees, thousands of vultures. You cannot conceive that there could be anywhere in the world a place where so many vultures are always meeting. That conference continues because the Parsees go on dying and they have only one place; no other city allows them. In fact they are not spread far; only Bombay is their world and a few branches here and there Poona and Lonavala and…

Osho, on the one hand you are in favor of modern technology and believe that the flower of religion will bloom only in countries that are industrially advanced. On the other hand, you also describe the paradoxes of Western industrial civilizations. “Either the machine will survive or man”—this is your own statement. Moreover, among the great ones, saints, and devotees of the past whose words you interpret, none of them believed that religion is not for the poor. How are all these to be reconciled?

Rajkishore! I am in favor of technology. But that does not mean there are no deadly possibilities tied to it. I warn about those dangers too. A wise person can turn poison into nectar, and a fool can turn even nectar into poison. Science has placed a tremendous power in human hands—technology, the world of machines. With it this whole earth can become a paradise. The age-old dream of a heaven somewhere high in the skies can descend upon the earth—upon our earth. Science has released a vast energy. But there are hazards. I caution about those as well. The greatest danger is that the mechanical may dominate the human, that man becomes a mere slave to the machine. Human mastery must remain. If man is the master and the machine the servant, it is auspicious. If the machine becomes the master and man the servant, it is disastrous. So…

Many people in the west are engaged in the creation of a science or technology of enlightenment. The need is certainly there, but how do you see the possibility? Is it irresponsible to engage in its creation without having reached the state of enlightenment? Is the arica method a valid approach?

Arica has chosen from different schools. Arica is very greedy, eclectic; but there exists no center. It is not an orchestra, it is a market noise. First thing: if you follow the Arica method too much, you will not arrive to your center. You will come to many experiences on the periphery, but you will never arrive to your center. And all your experiences will not be of a family, but fragmentary. And it is dangerous; you can fall into pieces. The second thing: there is no love, because there is no center -- and love arises only from the center. This collection of so many methods is soul-less, there is no soul in it. So you can become very, very efficient in the methods, and yet you will see that your heart is not flowering. You will become efficient, but you will not become blissful. You may become less…

Osho, modern science has taken humankind away from nature and developed many dimensions of life. Please tell us: given the complexity of the scientific way of living, how can a balance be established today with the Taoist era’s effortless, natural way of life?

There is no question of establishing a balance. It is not a matter of balancing Lao Tzu and modern science. If Lao Tzu’s vision truly comes into view, an entirely new science will be born—utterly new. A science founded on Lao Tzu’s vision would be born, because the whole perspective on life would be different. The science that has evolved on Aristotle’s foundations is very incomplete, ignorant. It has tried to understand such a tiny fragment of life and has left the whole. One should say it is childish. It has made no attempt to see the totality. But until now it could not have. Now it will have to. After the discovery of atomic weapons and the development of atomic energy, science has been compelled to reconsider all its basic premises. Why? Because if science keeps moving as it has till now—if it says, “We will go on this…