Osho,
Why is humanity so willing to walk the path towards global suicide?

“The reason is clear. People have become clear that their life has no meaning, that except misery, nothing happens; except anxiety, anguish, life has nothing to offer.

“Individuals have always committed suicide. And you will be surprised: the people who have committed suicide have always been a little more intelligent than the normal people. Psychologists commit suicide twice as much as any other profession. Painters, poets, philosophers either go mad or commit suicide. Idiots have never been known to commit suicide, nor do they go mad….

Individuals have committed suicide because only individuals have come to a certain stage of intelligence, of understanding whether life has any meaning or not.

“Now, for the first time, millions of people around the earth have reached to that maturity where they feel life is meaningless. That’s why humanity is moving towards a global suicide. There seems to be no reason to continue – for what? You have lived your life, and you have found nothing. Now your children will live, and they will find nothing: generation after generation, only emptiness in your hands ­– no fulfillment, no contentment.

“But to me, this gives man a tremendous opportunity. Only very highly intelligent people have committed suicide or have become mad, because they could not live with this insane world. They could not adapt themselves to all kinds of insanities that are going around. They felt themselves fallen apart – that was their madness. But only the same kind of people have also become enlightened.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: This Beautiful Earth

So, there is a connection between times of crisis and becoming enlightened?

“Much enlightenment has always happened in great periods of crisis. When the society is established, it is almost impossible to rebel, to go beyond, not to follow the rules. Then enlightenment becomes very, very difficult because it is freedom, it is anarchy. In fact it is moving away from the society and becoming individual. The society doesn’t like individuals. It likes robots who just look like individuals but are not. The society doesn’t like authentic beings. It likes masks, pretenders, hypocrites, but not real people because a real person is always trouble.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: When Conditioning Drops You Are Free

Does this mean that times of crisis can be valuable?

“Times of crisis are both dangerous and immensely important. They are dangerous for those who have no courage to explore new dimensions of life. They are bound to disintegrate into different kinds of madness, because their minds were made by the society. Now the society is disintegrating, the mind cannot remain; its roots are in the society. It is constantly nourished by the society. Now that nourishment is disappearing.

“Because the society is disintegrating, a great suspicion, a doubt that was never there before, is bound to arise in the individuals.

If they were just obedient people who have never gone beyond any limit that society has decided, who have always been respected, honorable citizens – in other words, just mediocre – they will immediately go mad….

“But times of crisis are of tremendous significance for those daring souls who have never bothered about society’s respectability, its honors; who have never bothered about what others think about them but have done only that which they felt right to do; who have in a certain way always been rebellious, individualistic. For those people the times of crisis are just golden, because the society is disintegrating. Now it cannot condemn anybody – it is itself condemned, cursed. It cannot say to others that they are wrong. It is itself proving wrong; its whole wisdom is proving just foolish, superstitious.

“The daring individual can use this opportunity to go beyond mind, because now the society cannot prevent him, cannot hinder him. Now he is free.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Times of Crisis Are Just Golden

How can we make sure to use this time to explore these new dimensions of life?

“When everything is established and there is no crisis, things are dead. When nothing is changing and the grip of the old perfect, it is almost impossible to change yourself. When everything is in chaos, nothing is static, nothing is secure – nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment – in such a chaotic moment you are free, you can change. You can attain the innermost core of your being….

When the society is in a turmoil and everything is in crisis, chaos pervades, this is the moment when you can escape from the prison – if you want to.

“It is so easy because nobody is guarding you, nobody is after you. You are left alone. Things are in such a state that everybody is bothering about his own business; nobody is looking at you. This is the moment. Don’t miss that moment….

“A real person is always a free person. You cannot force things on him; you cannot make a prisoner out of him; you cannot enslave him. He would rather lose his life than lose his freedom. Freedom is more valuable to him than life itself. Freedom is the highest value for him. That’s why in India we have called the highest value moksha, nirvana. Those words mean freedom, total freedom, absolute freedom.

“Use whenever the society is in turmoil – when everybody is attending to his own business, has to attend – to escape. In that moment the doors of the prison are open, many cracks are in the walls, the guards are not on duty; one can escape easily.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: When Conditioning Drops You Are Free

When you say, “Much enlightenment has always happened in great periods of crisis,” does it mean there were crises like this before?

“Twenty-five centuries ago, at the time of Buddha, the situation was the same. It always comes in a circle; the circle completes in twenty-five centuries. Just as a circle completes in one year – again the summer comes back, after one year’s circle the summer is back – there is a great circle of twenty-five centuries. Every time after twenty-five centuries the old foundations dissolve; society has to lay new foundations. The whole edifice becomes worthless; it has to be demolished. Then economic, social, political, religious – all systems – are disturbed. The new has to be born; it is a birth pain….

“Every civilization that is born has to die. These critical moments are moments of the death of the past, the old, moments of the birth of the new. You should not bother; you should not start supporting the old structure. It is going to die. If you are supporting it, you may be crushed under it….

You can use this time of crisis and be transformed, use it for your individual growth.

“There is nothing like a critical moment in history. When everything is tense and everything is intense, and everything has come to a moment, to a peak, from where the wheel will turn.

“Use this door, this opportunity, and be transformed. That’s why my emphasis is on individual revolution.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: When Conditioning Drops You Are Free

Is there really nothing that can be done to save the world as we know it today?

“The world you are asking about is already dead. You cannot save it. no savior can save it – and there is no need to save it either. It is rotten. There are only corpses all around. They have forgotten to live, they have forgotten to love, they have forgotten to celebrate. They have forgotten everything that gives meaning to life, makes each moment a souvenir, a memory so golden to be kept alive forever. Their lives are just empty; inside they are hollow, there is nothing substantial in them. They don’t have a soul.

“It is perfectly good that this world dies, this man dies, this society dies.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A New World, a New Man

How do we make the most of this our time in this dying society?

“Before it dies and before we take it to the graveyard, we have to bring out of it a new life, a new man, a new world – exactly in the same way as when a seed dies into the earth it sprouts into a new life, with two beautiful leaves, green, fresh. This is transformation. The seed was closed and almost dead, but it has died into the soil and has given place to a living thing. A beautiful tree will grow with many branches, great foliage, fruits, flowers. And those branches will dance in the sun, in the wind, under the stars, under the moon.

Before it dies, let us use this world as a seed for the new man; let us use this man as a seed for a new humanity.

“That’s my whole work – to prepare you for two things: to die as far as the past is concerned; and to start living in a totally new way, discontinuous with the past, so you can become the new man. It is absolutely urgent. You cannot postpone it.

“The time is running short – because the old world has prepared for its own suicide. The nuclear weapons, a third world war…it has prepared everything for its own suicide. It has not taken any chances: just now on the earth there are so many nuclear weapons that we can kill seven hundred earths of this size, seven hundred human civilizations of this size. We are not taking any chance; the whole society has prepared its grave already.

“Before it commits suicide, we have to save the essential life principle. And that can be done by each individual without being dependent on any organization; that is the old way. Without being dependent on any church – that is again of the past…For the first time the individual has to take all the responsibility for his life in his own hands. No God, no savior, no church is going to help; they are all part of the old structure which is going to die. They are all woven together so closely that you cannot save anything from them; they will all die together.

“But each individual can free himself.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A New World, a New Man

What are the exact steps you suggest that each individual takes?

“Try to find out within yourself whatsoever is old, dead, and drop out of it. Throw it away. Clean yourself completely and be again a child. Be again innocent, with no ideas, no prejudices, no conditionings.

“You have already been born; a new man has come into being, and it has to go from individual to individual. The fire can take almost like a wildfire, and if millions of individuals drop out of all old heritages, there is no need for life to disappear from this beautiful earth.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A New World, a New Man

Do you have a last message for us about this old heritage?

“I want the society to disappear. I want the crowd to have no power anymore. Each individual has a birthright to be free, to choose his life pattern and to move according to his nature, respectfully, with dignity. That is going to be the new way of life, where each individual is respected in his uniqueness, and there are no ready-made ideas that everybody has to fulfill in his life.

“Everybody has to live according to his own heart, has to move according to his own inner being, wherever it leads. That is your destiny. Nobody else is going to decide it; you are the only one to decide for yourself. This decisiveness – freed from all crowds, mobs, organizations – will create a new earth and a new jubilant, celebrant life for each individual. There will be no need for anybody to think of paradise after death; paradise will be herenow.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A New World, a New Man

END

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This article is published in Osho.com under the headline: Times of Crises — A Moment for Rebellious Spirits