What Can Be Done to End the Insanity Called Racism?

Part 2 of “Unpacking Racism — And Throwing Away the Suitcase”

As we have explained, clearly the endless discussions about these phenomena won’t help. The conscious mind can say whatever it wants to other conscious minds, but if the unconscious is not part of the conversation they might as well be talking different languages.All the hot air arguing about whether these phenomena are individual or systemic is absurd. It is part of the air we breathe. If you are brought up in the US, you are programmed to believe you are a US-American, that white-skinned people, males, the rich, the famous… whatever… are superior. Everybody is infected with this belief system. Some have a worse case than others. The mind’s in-built unconscious comparison, hierarchy, and judgment does the rest. Naturally, when we are not aware of our own biases and prejudices, it is very hard to see that the whole system is equally rotten.And what of that stupid idea of “color blindness.” Repressing reality is just a doorway to hypocrisy. The issue is not what we see, it is what happens with that seeing!So, what can be done?Firstly, violence must be resisted by whatever force is needed to prevent it, but no more. Talking about it, as everybody has been doing, won’t help. Have you heard, there is now a publishing boom about melanin, mischaracterized as being about “race” which doesn’t exist! This merely gives credence to ghosts. Violence is real. Prejudice is real. Judgment is real. Invented hierarchies are real. And should be exposed and prevented!Secondly, nothing will change till we stop brainwashing children. Instead of teaching them these idiotic beliefs, we need to explain to them what adults are doing, probably unconsciously, to their young unprejudiced minds! They are smart. They will get it.Thirdly, we need to let these kids know that the mind is a great tool, a fantastic servant, but a catastrophic boss! They need to learn to use it, but don’t be used by it.So, what about us adults?We seemed to be trapped in a loop: We are conditioned to use our conditioned mind to figure out how to solve problems caused by our conditioned mind.This is the shape of the human mind. Period.So, is that it? There is nothing that can be done? All we can expect is more of the same excruciating barbarism, till the young people slap our faces and wake us up?Maybe that is not the only option.It turns out that the belief in white male supremacy for example, likes to draw its strength from a narrative based on something called, “Western Civilization.” It starts with the Aristotle and Plato show in ancient Greece, flowers into the Roman Empire, then Christendom, the Christian empire, then the European empires, and now the US-American Empire.It is the story of how white male Christians exploited everything and everybody they could lay their hands on around the world for their own benefit. Animal, vegetable, or mineral — these guys raped the planet raw.So many courageous people have died resisting this ugliness. What is extraordinary is that almost without exception, these brave souls have mimicked the Western reactionaries they were resisting. They share the same kind of colonial arrogance. Even the revolutionaries assume that the human mind is some kind of divine inheritance from the logical heights of Athens.So, here is the news: Your Big Fat Greek Divorce is now coming to a theatre near you!It is time for these “revolutionaries” to drop this idea that the Western mind is superior and listen to a non-Western understanding. The fundamental point of distinction between the two approaches is the understanding of the mind — the key issue in this whole sad saga as we have explained.The West is driving itself nuts! — and everyone else as well because now we are all “Western.” All that wonderful Western progress and here we are with a global epidemic of problems with our “Mental Health.”Thousands of years ago, a man called Patanjali created “Yoga” and his first instruction was “cessation of the mind.”Confirmation of this wisdom has been carried down the ages, via Lao Tzu, Buddha, Socrates, Bodhidharma, Kabir, on into our own time with Krishnamurti, and finally, the most powerful contemporary expression of this East-West dilemma, Osho.Before it is too late, it would be good if people started listening to this wisdom.Osho explains:“The Eastern mind has not been much involved with the search to know how to manipulate nature, but it has been interested in how to be one with nature — not in how to conquer it, but in how to be in a deep friendship, a deep participation with it.“The Western mind has been in a conflict, a struggle; the Eastern mind has been in a mystique, a love relationship…. My feeling is that science is a hatred, a relationship of hatred with nature; hence, struggle, fight, conquering, the language of victory.“Religion is a love relationship; hence, no conflict, no struggle. In another way, science is a male attitude and religion a female attitude.“Science is aggressive, religion is receptive. The Eastern mind is religious. Or, if you allow me, I will say that wherever a religious mind is, it is Eastern. The scientific mind is Western. It makes no difference whether a man is born in the East or the West. I am using East and West as two attitudes, two approaches, not as two geographical denominations. You can be born in the West, but you may not belong there; you may be Eastern through and through. You may be born in the East, but you may not belong; you may be scientific, the approach may be mathematical, intellectual.”1Osho proposes a synthesis of the best of the East and the best of the West:“The East has treasures, the religious technologies, and the West has treasures, the scientific technologies. And if both can meet, this very world can become a paradise. Now there is no need to ask for another world; we are capable of creating the paradise here on this earth, for the first time. And if we don’t create it, then except for us, nobody else is responsible.” 2And for what has been in the past “religion” to become a part of science:“I would like to describe science as two dimensions, the outer and the inner. The word religion can be dropped. You have two sciences: one, objective science; the other, subjective science.“And that’s what is going to happen: whether you call it a religion or science does not matter — names don’t matter, but the methodology is exactly the same: you should not go in with a belief. No believer is ever going to know the truth. To believe is to miss.“You have to put aside your ideology. Howsoever beautiful it looks, howsoever systematic it looks, howsoever philosophical you have made and decorated it, you have to put it aside and see within. That’s the whole method of meditation, awareness, watchfulness.” 3Now, that would be a real revolution! No bullshit pretense about color-blindness or not being prejudiced and such like. No more Gold-Medal-winning expressions of self-deception like: I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body!Instead of this sham, the complete opposite. There is no escape from reality. What is, is, and what ain’t, ain’t. Each individual has to look at their own mind to see exactly what rubbish has been put there, and in the process let it go! A real deprogramming process.And it is time. Osho again:“I call this whole history of mankind a long, unjustified crime against every human individual. It has served the vested interests: the people who are in power, the people who are scholars, which is another kind of power, the people who are rich, which is another kind of power.“They would not like everybody to be centered in himself because a man centered in himself cannot be exploited, cannot be enslaved, cannot be humiliated, cannot be forced to grow a cancerous sense of guilt. These are the reasons humanity has not been allowed its growth.”4In fact, it is getting very late.END

• 1. Osho, The Book of Secrets, Talk #43 — Finding the Changeless through the Changing
• 2. Osho, The Secret, Talk #8 — A New Phase of Humanity
• 3. Osho, From Unconsciousness to Consciousness, Talk #19 — Meditation: The Science of Awareness
• 4. Osho, Om Mani Padme Hum — The Sound of Silence: The Diamond in the Lotus, Talk #10 — Education in the Art of Living

Part 1 — Unpacking Racism — And Throwing Away the SuitcaseWhat Can Be Done to End the Insanity Called Racism? was originally published in OSHO Times on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.