“Miserable People are dangerous for the simple reason they don’t care whether the Earth survives or not.
“They are so miserable that deep down they may think it would be better if everything were finished. Who cares, if you are living in misery? Only happy people, ecstatic people, dancing people would like this planet to survive forever….
“The people who have gathered around me are learning how to be more happy, how to be more meditative, how to laugh more, live more, love more, and spread love, laughter around the world. This is the only protection against nuclear weapons.
If the whole globe can learn to love and laugh and enjoy and dance, then Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev will look surprised: What has happened? The whole world seems to have gone mad!
“People who are happy, contented, are not the people to be forced to kill other people who have not done any harm to them. It is not strange that all the armies down the ages have been kept sexually repressed – because sexually repressed people are bound to be destructive. Their very repression forces them to destroy something.
“Have you ever watched in your own being – when you are happy, joyful, you want to create something. When you are miserable, suffering, you want to destroy something. It is a revenge. All the armies are kept in a state of repressed sexuality so the moment they get to kill, that becomes their joy. At least their repressed energies are expressed, of course in a very ugly way, an inhuman way. But some expression is there.
“Have you watched? – painters, poets, sculptors, dancers are never sexually repressed people. In fact, they are oversexual; they love so much. They love so many people. Perhaps one person is not enough to exhaust their love. They have been condemned by the priests down the ages: These poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, these are not good people. And these are the only people who have made this humanity something beautiful, who have contributed to the world some flowers of joy, some flowers of music, some beautiful dances. What have the priests done to the world? They have burned women, calling them witches. They have killed people who belong to other faiths. They have not been creative people. They have not enhanced the earth and they have not enhanced life.
“We need, with these three fundamental changes, a great respect for creative people of any dimension. And we should learn how to transform our energies so that they are not repressed, so that they are expressed in your love, in your laughter, in your joy. This earth is more than a paradise – you don’t have to go anywhere. Paradise is not something that has to be achieved, it is something that has to be created. It depends on us.
This crisis gives a chance for courageous people to disconnect themselves from the past and start living in a new way – not modified, not continuous with the past, not better than the past, but absolutely new.
“Find ways to relate in a new way. Forget marriages, start thinking how to enquire into life. Forget all your beliefs, start to meditate in search of finding exactly who you are, because by finding yourself you will have found the very essence of existence. It is immortal and eternal, and those who have found it, their bliss and their benediction is inexpressible.
“We need more happy people around the earth to prevent the third world war. You will be amazed, surprised by my answer. You may not be able immediately to find what connection there can be between nuclear weapons and people’s laughter – there is. These nuclear weapons and these destructive war machines cannot work by themselves. They are being worked by human beings, behind them are human hands.
“A hand that knows the beauty of a rose flower cannot drop a bomb on Hiroshima. A hand that knows the beauty of love is not the hand to keep a gun loaded with death. Just a little contemplation and you will understand what I am saying.
“I am saying: spread laughter, spread love, spread life affirmative values, grow more flowers around the earth. Everything that is beautiful, appreciate it – and everything that is inhuman, condemn it. Take this whole earth away from the hands of the politicians and the priests and you will have saved the world, and you will have changed the world into a totally new phenomenon, with a new human consciousness.”
To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk:
Osho, Hari Om Tat Sat: The Divine Sound – That Is the Truth, Talk #5 – The Earth Is More than Paradise