Your Civilization Is Collapsing – And You Still Won’t Listen to Osho! Mmmm?

If you are familiar with Osho’s way of seeing how humanity manages to lurch from one catastrophe to another, nothing happening today will surprise you. 
If not, you might be baffled by the madness you notice around you. 
Osho is not the most published non-fiction author in history for no reason! So, given the lack of a coherent understanding of what is going on from anyone, anywhere, it might be worth listening to his insights on the causes of the current catastrophes.

Without this clarity about these causes, there is little chance of preventing them from leading to disaster. 

As an example of that insanity, how did Homo sapiens reach a point that it is going to risk global annihilation over who rules a small Island off the coast of mainland China?
Or because one man, who already controls one-sixth of the world’s land mass, and is bristling with nuclear weapons, feels “threatened” by a much smaller neighbor with almost no weapons at all!
What about the horrors in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar…. Or all the rest of the violence listed here.

What happened to self-determination? Didn’t everyone in the UN sign up to that principle? 

How to explain 5000 wars in the last 3000 years? The members of this species seem to spend their time killing each other, themselves, and the natural world around them.

On an individual level, people kill themselves at the rate of some 800,000 a year. 

The number who kill themselves, or damage themselves, indirectly through all kinds of destructive lifestyles is many times greater. Alcohol alone kills twice this many. Nicotine more than 10 times as many.
Wealth has become the greatest social value. And in the richest society, 25% of the citizens suffer some kind of diagnosable psychological disease every year! 

On a collective level, the ultimate in self-destructive lifestyles is our trashing out the atmosphere. 

As a a result we are changing the climate so recklessly that we are putting billions of members of our own and other species in real jeopardy. 
It reflects a particularly human attitude: if it moves, dominate it, control it, kill it, eat it… do whatever you want. Covid and the other zoonotic pandemics in the pipeline are the result. 
Our doom and gloom list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the potentially catastrophic results of Artificial Intelligence or the downloadable, do-it-yourself engineering kits which can be used to create chemical or biological weapons of mass murder.
At the same time, the incredible creativity and intelligence of this species is unique among any on Earth – and maybe anywhere else.

How can such a creative species be also so self- destructive? 

Are we simply nuts?
Is there a more pertinent question for our species as we barrel our way toward extinction? 
So, where are the answers? Where are the sages of our time to unravel this staggering dilemma. After over four billion years of evolution of life on this planet, is the peak product going to wipe itself out? And simply because it cannot make the connection between the choices it has been making during the last few thousand years and the consequences of those choices today.
If we reduce the history of planet Earth to one year, then our ancestors would have come down from the trees around lunchtime on New Year’s Eve. And by midnight Homo sapiens is on the point of destroying everything! After all this time, is that really an inevitable outcome? 

When looking for answers to those questions, why does only Osho’s name stand out?

Over the course of some 9000 hours of public talks, transcribed into over 500 books, Osho has put the human mind under the microscope as never before, and analyzed it down to the smallest wrinkle. Mind as psychology, mind as emotion, mind as mind/body; mind as moralist, mind as belief; mind as religion, mind as history, mind as politics and social evolution; mind as a programmed computer – all examined, studied, and integrated. 

Then graciously left behind in the essential quest for transcendence of that same mind.

Osho’s insights are very simply an unparalleled contribution to our understanding of ourselves and our place in existence.
The key starting point is allowing ourselves to see things as they are. The alternative is clearly described by John Ralston Saul in The Unconscious Civilization: “If we are unable to identify reality and therefore unable to act upon what we see, then we are not simply childish but have reduced ourselves to figures of fun — ridiculous victims of our unconscious.”
Once we allow ourselves to see our situation as it is, through the Osho lens — as he puts it, “What is, is and what ain’t, ain’t” — everything falls into place. 

So, how does Osho approach this?

First, Osho looks at the situation as it really exists, without any pre-conceived preferences, beliefs, or prejudices from any social conditioning process. That means he has discovered how to use the mind as valuable tool. Unlike the rest of us where the mind is a compulsive, programmed verbalization machine that basically runs our lives on autopilot.
In short, Osho has found the “off” button of the mind. He can use its amazing cognitive abilities whenever he wishes. Otherwise it remains resting – available, fully refreshed, whenever it is required.
He simply allows the facts to speak for themselves. He has the freedom to see reality as it is now, without any interference from the mind with its only reference points in the past and the future.
By contrast everyone else can only see the world “with their minds” rather than “without their minds.” This means that they are inevitably influenced by their own conditioning, their acquired beliefs and values – essentially their own prejudices.
This “no-mind” approach, as it has been called historically, allows Osho to identify exactly how we got here, and what is needed to change direction and move onto a more creative and less destructive path.

So, what is Osho’s proposal for humanity today?

Osho will suggest we simply investigate our current situation like he does. Perhaps that would mean beginning our investigation by exploring the nature of this “no-mind” quality. If that is the essential doorway to being able to see straight – and if seeing what is, is the key to our survival – this would definitely be a central component of any intelligent attempt to avoid the looming self-destruction. 
Meanwhile, the other obvious question Osho will suggest we find an answer to is whether all this violence is just who we are. Is it “human nature” to want to destroy ourselves and everything around us? Are we born like this? Is it in our genes? 
Or is this some acquired habit we pick up from the world around us? 

The survival of our species depends on this single question. 

Osho will know that unless we understand this issue, we will continue to sleepwalk our way into oblivion.
The question is simple: are there elements in our environment, like childhood influences for example, that have any impact on our tendency to violence? If so, then an intelligent species will want to know exactly what those elements are and whether they can be changed to reduce that violence. Not complicated. 
On the other hand, if our research discovers that the environment has no impact on our violent behavior, then we can all shrug our shoulders and accept the inevitable outcome. 
Either way, you would expect this issue – including the results of the vast amount of money that would be poured into researching this question that is central to our survival – to be on the front page of everything. 
But it’s not!
In fact you have to dig around quite a lot to find anyone much interested in the topic. 
Then you find a few telltale comments in places like the Scientific American. “The work is sensitive because it tackles a controversial question: Are humans biologically designed for violence, or are violence and war cultural phenomena?”

Aha! The plot thickens. Controversial? Wanting to know whether our extinction is hard wired into us or just a series of avoidable bad habits is controversial. Hello!

So, now you know why this is even a dilemma at all. 
The answer to this fundamental question is already well established.  At least some, most, or maybe all our violence is related to our childhood experiences.
As Jack Shonkoff, Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University put it:
“The foundations for the successful society rest on the health and competence of its population. It is just common sense to conclude that what happens early in life sets the foundation for everything that follows. What is exciting about the revolution that we are living through right now in biological science is that we are beginning to understand at the molecular level why that is true.”
If those elks happily accept a donkey – an animal from a different species – to live with their group, every kid on the planet will agree with Jack Shonkoff. They can see the insanity of the way we treat other members of our own species! – it clearly isn’t in the genes.
So, why don’t we do the obvious and study the best way to change our societies to prevent those traumatic childhood experiences from happening in the first place? 

Because the people in our “free societies” with the power to permit or prevent such changes benefit from the way things are, and don’t want any changes. 

They can use that power to write laws in favor of those who resist any change. They can write laws to ensure that the wealth of society ends up in the hands of those who are very happy with all the goodies flowing their way and will not want that to change! 
They can write laws to make it easy for those with that wealth to siphon it back to the people writing the laws so they can stay in power, to write more laws to keep the wealthy, wealthy. 

They can write laws to protect established religions – who can be relied upon to persuade their flocks to resist change at all costs – and will “bless” the lawmakers as required in return. 

They can write laws to make sure that the flow of information to the masses, and their children in school, contains a steady drumbeat of misinformation in favor of things remaining as they are. Including that most pernicious of reactionary beliefs that violence is just “human nature” – so it is pointless to even consider its prevention. Punishment and retribution are the only option.

They can write laws to support the nuclear family and undermine any attempt to create an alternative.

Why? Because guess who are the best hypnotists the system has working for it? Mum and Dad! They were perfectly conditioned in their childhood to defend the status quo, and with the best of intentions do exactly the same to their own children.
If the powerful are confident of their position in the hierarchy, they can allow elections, and perhaps tolerate a few dissident voices, as long as they are rendered ineffective, like Chomsky for example. Such is the control of the situation that even a complete exposé of this whole charade – like, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” – can be tolerated and duly dismissed by the powers that be without a blink. 
Even a book like “A People’s History of the United States” which exposes the essentially predatory nature of US history like a train coming sideways has no impact. It can sell over two million copies, but nothing changes, and it is easily dismissed by the ideological rulers as “polemical,” “a book with a chip on its shoulder” and so on. 
Then the powers that be can claim that this is how a “free society” makes its “choices.” 
As the situations worsen, however, and the position of the elites becomes threatened, then the gloves come off and naked power gradually replaces “persuasion” to achieve the same ends. 

That is exactly what is happening today. 

We are now in a situation where inequality is off the charts and a tsunami of disasters is coming down the road. So, there are increasing doubts about how long it will be before the zillions of people being left out to dry finally explode. When too many of these marginalized people demand to be heard, it is a warning that it is time to act. The peasants are revolting again, and we need to blunt their pitchforks.
A twist of the propaganda dial, and mysteriously, the ones who are already exploited start supporting their exploiters – even with a cultish devotion. 

The pendulum swings from pseudo-freedom to open authoritarian control. 

With Orwellian precision this movement is called populism! That is until control is complete, and a totalitarian solution is installed. Then no one much cares what you call it because the time for discussion and persuasion has passed. Or it is given some meaningless title after the name of the resulting dear leader: Trumpism, Putinism, Francoism, Stalinism…. Fascism is clearer.
Then comes the inevitable resistance to this repression, with the call for mass protests against the dictatorial regime… an insurrection. The revolution…. The elites are beheaded, exiled, imprisoned, murdered, co-opted, absorbed, whatever… and the revolutionists come to power. 
Then, there is a period of adjustment when all the ideals of the revolution have failed.

The heirs of the revolution end up administering another totalitarian solution, and the cycle continues.

Eventually democracy is restored and once again “the people” can now choose who exploits them: Tweedledum or Tweedledee. When that deception fails, fascism is summoned to the rescue again, provoking in due course yet another revolution…. We are caught in an endless loop with only one certainty: the politicians are always at the top of the pile, almost always with God on their side!
END
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article titled “Civilizational Collapse? – When All Else Fails, Read the Goddamned Osho Manual!“

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The post Your Civilization Is Collapsing – And You Still Won’t Listen to Osho! Mmmm? appeared first on OSHOTimes.