The World of Brainwashing and the Slavery of Religious Labels

The first part of this question is answered in a separate article, “How to Stop Politicians Making Our World So Dirty?“
Osho,
Nowadays, right from birth till death everything is being controlled, guided, dictated, influenced, governed and handled by politics. So unless and until politics is set right, will all the efforts of religion and science prove futile?
“And the second part of the question.
“You think that today, nowadays, ‘right from birth till death everything is being controlled’ by politicians… ‘guided, dictated, influenced, governed….’
“Do you know of any time when it was not so? Why do you call it “nowadays”? It was always so; man was always guided, controlled. In fact today the control is not so strict, that’s why the question arises.

In the days of Rama the question would not have arisen because the control was perfect.

“Go further back and the control is so perfect that you cannot even ask the question. Now you can ask the question because the control is a little loose. You can raise the question; at least that much freedom has happened in the world. The further back you go, the more conditioned you will find people.
“In the past, there has never been a moment like this moment. It is the best moment up to now. You are living in the best moment – and this should be so. The past was not better than the present; it can’t be.

Now, at least, a facade of freedom exists in the world. At least you are allowed to talk; at least you are allowed to question.

“This is one of the greatest physiological insights to be understood.
“For example, in India, sudras, untouchables, have existed for thousands of years, but never in the past history was there ever a question raised against their slavery.
“Why? – the control was perfect. The control was so perfect, the conditioning was so absolute, they couldn’t even feel that they were being controlled. Who will feel it? How will you feel if the conditioning is total?
“You will think this is the only life there is. There is no possibility of any other life to compare with it. Sudras accepted that this was the only possibility. They lived one of the ugliest lives on earth, but they were never aware. The conditioning was perfect.
“You cannot find greater conditioners than brahmins. They have to be the best; they have been in the trade the longest. Because they have been in the trade for the longest, nobody knows more tricks than they know.

The whole world has to learn from brahmins how to condition. They are the oldest brainwashers.

“They conditioned so perfectly that sudras, a great mass of people, simply believed that they were suffering because of their past bad karmas. So there was no question of any revolt.
“You have to suffer. If you suffer silently there is a possibility that in the next life you may not be born a sudra. If you create trouble, then in the next life, even worse than this, you will also be born a sudra.
“So they not only conditioned one life, they conditioned a whole chain of lives. And the sudras were not allowed to read because when you start reading you start questioning.
“They were not allowed to know anything about the Vedas, the scriptures, because if you know the same secrets as the oppressors then it will be difficult. They were never allowed to have any understanding of any sort. They lived like animals.
“That slavery was perfect, and this has been so all over the world. It is the first time that man has got a little freedom, a little rope.
“So don’t say ‘nowadays’ because in that ‘nowadays’ there is a condemnation of the present and appreciation of the past; that’s not right.

The present is always better. It has to be because it has grown out of the past: a more experienced, richer future will be better.

“But conditioning is there and it has always been there. The society lives on conditioning; it conditions everybody.
“The methods may differ – in China they condition in a different way, in Russia in a different way, in India in a different way – but the conditioning is the same.
“And what do you think religious people have been doing?
“Do you think only politicians have been conditioning people?

Religion has been the greatest politics in the world; it has also conditioned people.

“How are you a Hindu? What is being a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan? It is a conditioning.
“The child is born, but politics will only be able to grab the child by the neck very late, when the child goes to school – only then. By that time he will be seven years of age.
“Now scientists say that by the age of seven the child is already eighty percent conditioned.
“So who is doing that conditioning? – the parents, the priest, the temple, the church.
“From the very beginning they are loading into your mind that you are a Hindu, that you are a Mohammedan, that you are a Christian or that you are a communist.

Every religion is interested in teaching children.

“Every religion is interested in teaching children. The moment they can understand words they have to be taught – immediately – because once they miss the opportunity of teaching them early, there is danger. Your unconscious should be completely conditioned, and that affects your whole life.

Whatsoever you become, that conditioning will be there always, coloring your attitudes, your mind.

“If you are a Hindu, born a Hindu, then by studies, intellectual understanding, meeting with other people, knowing other religions, other scriptures, you may become a little aware that not only Hindus are right. There are other people who are also right – the Koran is also good, not only the Veda is good – but if you look deep down in the unconscious, you will always find a hierarchy: the Veda will always be at the top.
“You may appreciate Christ, but Krishna will be at the top.
“Even a man like Bertrand Russell – who became absolutely agnostic in his later life, became religionless, stopped believing in God or in any future life – said that he knew well that Buddha seems to be the greatest person ever born in the world, but only intellectually could he say that: his heart goes on saying, ‘No, how can Buddha be so great – greater than Jesus?  Not possible.’
“So he says, ‘At the most I can put them on the same pedestal, but I cannot put Buddha higher. And I know intellectually that Buddha seems to be a greater phenomenon than Jesus.’ But childhood training goes on clutching your heart.
“Religions have been conditioning you, politicians have been conditioning you: you are a conditioned mechanism.

Only through meditation is there a possibility to uncondition the mind.

“Only a meditator goes beyond conditioning.
“Why? Because every conditioning works through thoughts.
“If you feel you are a Hindu, what is it? – a cluster of thoughts given to you when you were not even aware of what was being given to you.
“A cluster of thoughts and you are a Christian, a Catholic, a Protestant. Only in meditation thoughts dissolve – all thoughts. You become thought-less.
“In that thought-less state of mind there is no conditioning: you are no longer a Hindu, nor a Christian, nor a Communist, nor a Fascist.

You are no longer anybody – you are simply yourself.

“For the first time all conditioning has been dropped.
“You are out of the prison.

Only meditation can uncondition you.

“No social revolution will help, because the revolutionaries will again condition you in their way.
“In 1917 Russia went through a revolution. Before it, it was one of the most orthodox Christian countries.
“The Russian Church was one of the most orthodox – more orthodox than the Vatican. Then, suddenly, Russians changed everything.
“Churches were closed, converted into schools, Communist Party offices, hospitals – religious teaching was banned, and they started conditioning people for Communism. Within ten years everybody was an atheist.
“Just in ten years! By the year 1927 the whole of religion disappeared from Russia; they conditioned anew.

But to me it is the same. Whether you condition a man as a Catholic, Christian or you condition a man as a Communist, it makes no difference to me, because the whole question is of conditioning.

“You condition, you don’t give him freedom. What difference does it make whether you live in a Christian hell or a Hindu hell, or you live in a Christian slavery or a Hindu slavery?
“What difference does it make?
“There is no difference. You live in a Hindu prison – just the label.
“Then someday there comes revolution: they tear away the label and put ‘Communist Prison.’ Then you are happy and rejoicing that you are free – in the same prison! Only the words change.
“First you were taught there is a God, he created the world; now you are taught there is no God and nobody has created the world; but both things are being taught to you.

Religion cannot be taught. All that can be taught will be politics.

“That’s why I say religion itself has been the greatest politics in the past.
“And there is no possibility of any social revolution, because all revolutions will again condition you.

There is only one possibility: that is individual flowering of no-mind.

You attain to thoughtlessness.

“Then nobody can condition you, then all conditionings drop.
“Then, for the first time, you are free.
“Then the whole space is yours: without any limitations, without any walls, in life you move, you live, you love, you rejoice, you delight.”
END
Excerpted from Osho, Yoga: A New Direction, Talk #10 – When Conditioning Drops You Are Free

To read this complete talk and see all the available media formats, click here.

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