Civilizational Collapse? – When All Else Fails, Read the Goddamned Osho Manual!

In the first part of this article, “Your Civilization Is Collapsing – And You Still Won’t Listen to Osho! Mmmm?” – we explored how the Osho lens clarifies the root causes of the catastrophic direction our species is taking. As he points out, the impact of today’s systemic cycle of misinformation – and the insidious perpetuation of violence by the current power structures – cannot be remedied by the very structures that created it.
Osho also explains the fundamental misunderstanding that has led to these disastrous turns of events for this species:
“Society has been divided into different cultures, different religions, different nations – and all based on superstitions. None of the divisions are valid.

“But these divisions show that man is divided within himself: these are the projections of his own inner conflict.

“He is not one within, that’s why he could not create one society, one humanity outside.
“The cause is not outside. The outside is only the reflection of the inner man.” 1
So, any attempt to deal with the divisions between people that they fight about is pointless: it is the inner divisions that are the primary cause of conflict. If people heal their inner divisions, then the outer divisions will disappear. Then the religions and the nations, for example, will fade away and their leaders will be out looking for a job.

In order to keep this simple truth hidden from view, and maintain the status quo, it is necessary to persuade “the people” to look outward and never inward.

The religions jump in with Gods and angels, messiah’s and messengers, temples and statues…. Every possible opportunity to bow down to somebody or something “out there” who you need to talk to, get help from, whatever… called praying. Ultimately the final destination “out there” will be heaven or hell. So, don’t mess up!
The secular powers, the politicians and the money people keep up the momentum, exhorting everyone to fill any trace of inner emptiness – caused by this obsession with “out there” and the avoidance of “in here” – by buying more stuff!
Of course, the deceived masses are not stupid. They can see they are being ripped off left, right, and center – outwards and inwards. “Blessed are the poor, for they….” Try taking that to the pawn shop. Because the deception is ubiquitous, the anger is also ubiquitous. At work, at play, at home… and most obviously today, on social media.
Because the real causes of people’s frustrations are so well hidden, the anger is irrational, arbitrary, and unconscious – which is why, so often, it appears incomprehensible.

Osho explains how the clouds of war that are accumulating around the world right now are a precise result of this accumulating anger and frustration.

“People are miserable. Millions and millions of people are miserable – their misery collects like clouds. Have you sometimes seen smoke arising from every roof in an Indian village? That smoke goes on gathering, becomes a cloud, hangs over the village. Everybody has contributed to it. That’s what a war is. Rage, violence, ambition, aggression is rising from everybody’s roof, from everybody’s head, like smoke. Then it collects together, it becomes a great cloud – that’s what war is. Then one day you are all surrounded in darkness, in murder, in killing each other, in rape.” 2
Osho points out that this extraordinary power to control people’s minds depends on a very simple strategy. Every society has a primary goal of conditioning its newly arrived children to be obedient. In this way the individual is buried in the interests of the collective.

It is the original crime – to counter what the Christians call the original sin: disobedience.

Once we children have surrendered to obedience, as we must in order to survive, we are then persuaded to accept whatever beliefs and values are being promoted by those in power. This ensures that we are convinced by an ideology that maintains the status quo and the continuity of the powerful at the top of that society’s hierarchy.
As you can see Osho is exposing the priests and the politicians at the center of this criminal enterprise. The former keep control of people’s inner world while the latter control the outer world. A perfect combination.
Not only does Osho expose the methodology of our enslavement but even more pertinently, he explains how to escape from this endless loop of psychological imprisonment.
How? Firstly, we need to accept that “the collective” can’t help. Whenever you create “a group” the politicians will be on hand to takeover.

As Osho puts it:

“To be just a part of the collective, no intelligence is needed; any stupid person can become a perfect citizen. In fact, the more stupid you are, the more obedient you will be, the less rebellious you will be. Always you will be ready to fall in line with any fool who comes to command. Anybody who shouts loudly, you will fall at his feet; he will become your leader.” 3
This totally undermines the basis of all current “progressive” strategies. The compulsory belief is that only when “we” join together in some collective way, will “our numbers” finally overwhelm the ruling elite. Despite seeing that the “collective” energy today is predominantly reactionary. Shades of 1848, the 1930’s and now.

Osho’s solution is that only individual rebellion can succeed where collective revolutions keeps failing.

It involves each of us individually rebelling against our own conditioning. That means rejecting all those beliefs that were indoctrinated into us. It is those beliefs we obediently accepted as true which make sure the world stays the way it is.
At root it means transcending the mind that houses that conditioning. Rejecting the role of the mind as the master. Instead of just marching up and down with our banners, we can dance. Instead of angrily shouting slogans, we can play music and sing.
Instead of hating “them” because they are blind followers of an imposed belief system, we can love ourselves, love our freedom – celebrating that we can drop our dependence on the “other,” and live as natural interdependent human beings. Living people who are free to use the mind whenever we want, and free to turn it off when it is not required.

In that rebellion, we are no longer subject to the ideologies the system insists on, including the mother of all beliefs: that we are our minds.

This is a real revolution. We are no longer compelled to follow the inherent mechanism of the thinking process of the mind.
Suddenly everything falls into place:

The mind is a linguistic mechanism, a verbalizing machine which uses comparison and contrast to create meaning.

Its basic operating system gives meaning to white by comparison with black, or day with night, or up with down, higher or lower, superior or inferior, better or worse, winners or losers.
An amazing tool for working with matter, analyzing each and every component, uncovering a hierarchy of values like the atomic table, as we look ever more deeply into its structure.
At the same time the mind is exactly the wrong mechanism to apply to life. The moment we start comparing and contrasting individuals – or flowers, or children, or anybody – we are moving in the wrong direction.

Any system of comprehension that depends on comparison and contrast will inevitably highlight “opposites.” Opposition is the critical ingredient of conflict.

Or put it another way: as analytical system, the mind excels in its ability to drill down into matter, dividing the parts into ever smaller fragments. Such a mechanism is simply not of any use for seeing the whole, or for any holistic perspective, or for appreciating the wholeness of anything or anybody.
With the mind as the master we project our judgmental beliefs – based on that comparison model – onto the world around us, and particular onto other people. Prejudice follows and conflict and violence are not far behind.
Naturally people need protection from this violence and seek it any available collective.

Then the same judgmental and prejudicial process is amplified between groups who then end up going to war.

Families, gangs, ethnic groups, nations, empires, religions, etc., are endlessly fighting.
Osho explains, in so many different ways in those 9000 hours of public talks, what the source is of these divisions. It is within the human mind, now conditioned from childhood to identify who is on “our” side, and who isn’t: between “us” and  “them.”
We are also freed from the compulsion to compete – an inevitably outcome of a life where the hierarchical mind is the master. Then we have the option of allowing ourselves to cooperate instead. We can enjoy harmony within ourselves and with the world around us, animal, vegetable or mineral!
Once the mind becomes a super-valuable servant, but not a master, everything changes. Then the doorway to being one with the whole is a breath away – if we decide to take that route.

At least now we have the choice.

Needless to say, those in power are not so thrilled by this analysis. As Osho explains about the two major groups at the root of this stranglehold on Homo sapiens:
“These politicians and these priests have been constantly in conspiracy, working together hand in hand. The politician has the political power; the priest has the religious power. The politician protects the priest, the priest blesses the politician – and the masses are exploited, sucked; their blood is sucked by both.”4

So, naturally faced with that level of exposure, the powers that be have done – and will continue to do – everything possible to ensure that you are persuaded that Osho is a really bad guy.

Not only that, his insights into the human condition are even worse! – and should be ignored at all costs.
The rest of the establishment falls into line and the obedient masses are easily convinced.
Of course, no reasons are given. No arguments are ever offered against Osho’s proposals. It is like people evaluating Einstein’s contribution to the science of the outer world by ignoring whether E=MC2 and instead attacking his unruly hairdo!

As the author Tom Robbins so eloquently describes it:

“I have never sought out Osho in person. I’ve never been a disciple, I am not a disciple, but I have found certain of his ideas to be quite attractive and brilliant. And one of the things that first caused me to have interest in him was the fact that he was so soundly and roundly rejected and attacked by both the left and the right, by both the unthinking masses and educated, liberal intellectuals. And when someone and someone’s ideas are that universally attacked, that can arouse that much hostility, that was a signal to me that there must be something there worth paying attention to.”
And:
“The authorities intuitively sense something dangerous in Osho’s message. Why else would they have singled him out for the kind of malicious persecution they never would have directed at a Filipino dictator or a Mafia don? If Ronald Reagan had had his way, this gentle vegetarian would have been crucified on the White House lawn.”5

Osho has an urgent message to get us out of this mess.

He is clear that tomorrow’s world is going to be largely determined by the way we are bringing up children today! So, whatever we are “doing” – stop! Start “allowing” instead:

 “If a child can be left innocent, uncorrupted by the ideas of others up to seven years old, then to distract him from his potential growth becomes impossible. The child’s first seven years are the most vulnerable and they are in the hands of the parents, teachers, and priests.
“How to save the children from the parents, priests, teachers, is a question of such enormous proportion that it seems almost impossible to find an answer. It is not a question of helping the child. It is a question of protecting him.
“If you have a child, protect the child from yourself. Protect the child from others who can influence him….
“Protect the child from every kind of influence, so that he can remain himself – and it is only a question of seven years because then the first cycle will be complete. By seven years of age he will be well-grounded, centered, and strong enough.
“You don’t know how strong a seven-year-old child can be because you have not seen uncorrupted children; you have seen only corrupted ones. They carry the fears, the cowardliness, of their fathers, mothers, their families. They are not themselves.
“You would be surprised to meet a child who has remained uncorrupted for seven years. He would be as sharp as a sword. His eyes would be clear, his insight would be clear.” 6

And, fundamentally, discover the art of no-mind, that doorway to be able to see straight.

Our good fortune is that Osho is also pointing out the steps we individuals can take to free ourselves from the slavery to our own minds. He has taken the insights from the ancients, confirmed them, and often expanded on them, through his own experience. He has then created totally original and revolutionary methodologies specifically designed for modern people, for whom the old “bullock cart” methods are no longer appropriate. These OSHO Active Meditations provide a long jump in the space the ancients have been recommending since forever.

As the initial glimpses of this space become clearer, then we have the possibility of taking this new consciousness into our everyday lives. With potentially dramatic results:

“Keep hold of the consciousness and the experience you have reached, because you have to keep it like an undercurrent, twenty-four hours so that every act reflects your consciousness, your compassion, your love, your meditation.
“It is not something to be done for a few minutes and be finished with. It is something that has to become your very breathing, your very heartbeat.
“Only then there is a possibility for a future humanity, for a new man whose mind will not be destructive, whose earth will not be divided into nations, whose whole energy will be devoted to making life as rich, as blissful, as peaceful, as loving, as the poets have always dreamed of, and only a few mystics have experienced.
“Meditation is the way in, it is the way to wake up the master who can control the mind, who can chain the mind, who can use the mind in the service of greater values of truth and beauty and love and joy.” 7

It definitely beats human extinction which seems to be the only current alternative. Worth a shot!

Then we can give a new reality to that wonderful expression: “We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to win.”

END
1.        Osho, From Darkness to Light, Talk #3 – Help Your Child – Protect Him from Yourself!
2.        Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol. 2, Talk 12 – Different Breezes
3.        Osho, Learning Happiness, Talk #2 – Aloneness Is Your Reality
4.        Osho, From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, Talk #15 – Transformation, Not Consolation
5.        Wild Ducks Flying Backward Paperback – 29 August 2006 Tom Robbins
6.        Osho, From Darkness to Light, Talk #3 – Help Your Child – Protect Him from Yourself!
7.        Osho, Turning In, Talk #1 – The Absolute Host

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