Osho,
All the historical rebellions have a huge ‘no’ at their source. Your rebellion of the soul is centered in the mystery of ‘yes.’ Will you please speak to us on the alchemy of yes?

“There are a few very fundamental things to be understood.

“First, there has never been a rebellion in the past, only revolutions. And the distinction between a revolution and a rebellion is so vast that unless you understand the difference you will not be able to figure the way out of the puzzle of your question. Once you understand the difference…

“Revolution is a crowd, a mob phenomenon. Revolution is a struggle for power.

“One class of people who are in power are thrown out by the other class of people who have been oppressed, exploited to such a point that now even death does not matter. They don’t have anything. Revolution is a struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

“I am reminded of the last statement in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. It is tremendously beautiful, and with a little change I can use it for my own purposes.

“First, his exact statement: he says, ‘Proletariat…’ his word for have-nots ‘Proletariat of the world unite’ – and don’t be afraid because – ‘you have nothing to lose except your chains.’

“Moments come in history when a small group of cunning, clever, people start exploiting the whole society.

“All the money goes on gathering on one side and all the poverty and starvation on the other. Naturally this state cannot be continued forever. Sooner or later those who have nothing are going to overthrow those who have all.

“Revolution is a class action; it is a class struggle.

“It is basically political; it has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with spirituality.

“And it is also violent because those who have power are not going to lose their vested interest easily. It is going to be a bloody, violent struggle in which thousands, sometimes millions of people will die.

“Thirty million people were killed just in the Russian Revolution. The czar’s whole family, he was the king of Russia before the revolution, was killed so brutally by the revolutionaries that it is inconceivable. Even a six-month-old girl was killed. Now, she was absolutely innocent, she had done no harm to anybody; but just because she belonged to the royal family… The whole royal family had to be destroyed completely. Seventeen people were killed, and not just killed but cut into pieces. It is bound to happen in a revolution. Centuries of anger ultimately turn into blind violence.

“And the last thing to remember: revolution changes nothing.

“It is a wheel: one class comes into power, others become powerless, but sooner or later the powerless are going to become the majority because the powerful don’t want to share their power; they want to have it in as few hands as possible….

“Revolution is something blind and mechanical, part of evolution, and when the powerful become the smaller group, the majority throws them away and another power group starts doing the same.

“That’s why I say revolution has never changed anything, or in other words, all the revolutions of history have failed. They promised much, but nothing came out of it. Even after seventy years, people are still not getting enough nourishment in Russia. Yes, there are no longer the old czars and counts and countesses and princesses and princes, but in a vast ocean of poverty, even if you remove those who have power and riches, it is not going to make the society rich.

“It is just trying to make the ocean sweet by dropping teaspoonfuls of sugar in it.

“All that has happened is a very strange phenomenon that nobody takes any notice of. Only poverty has been distributed equally. Now in Russia everybody is equally poor – but what kind of revolution is this? The hope was that everybody would be equally rich. But you cannot become rich just by hoping.

“Richness needs a totally different ideology, of which mankind is absolutely unaware.

“For centuries it has praised poverty and condemned richness, comfort, luxury.

“Even if the poor revolt and come into power, they don’t have any idea what to do with this power – how to generate energy to create more richness, comfort and luxury for people – because deep down in their minds there is a guilty feeling about richness, about luxury, about comfort.

“So they are in a tremendous anguish, although they have come to power and this is the moment they could change the whole structure of the society, its whole productive idea. They could bring more technology, they could drop stupid kinds of wastage.

“Every country is wasting almost ten percent of its income on the army.

“Even the poorest country, even this country, is doing the same idiotic thing. Fifty percent of the people in this country are on the boundary of becoming an Ethiopia any day – a bigger Ethiopia. In Ethiopia one thousand people were dying per day. The day India starts becoming another Ethiopia – and it is not far away – then one thousand will not do; it will be many thousands of people dying every day.

“And by the end of this century the population of India will be the biggest in the whole world. It has never been so; it has always been China who was leading, ahead. By the end of the century – and there are not many years left, just within twelve years we will be reaching the end – India will have one billion people. And five hundred million people are bound to die because there is not enough food for so many people.

“But still the politicians, those who are in power, are not concerned at all about what happens to humanity. Their concern is whether their power remains in their hands or not.

“They can sacrifice half of the country to death, but they will go on making efforts to have atomic weapons, nuclear missiles.

“It is a very insane kind of society that we have created in thousands of years. Its insanity has now become a high peak. There is no going back.

“It seems we are all sitting on a volcano that can explode any moment.

“Revolutions in the past have happened all around the world but no revolution has succeeded in doing what it promised. It promised equality without understanding the psychology of human individuality: that each human individual is so unique that to force equality is not going to make people happy, but utterly miserable.”I also love the idea of equality but in a totally different way.

“My idea of equality is equal opportunity to all to be unequal; equal opportunity to all to be unique and themselves.

“Certainly, they will be different from each other – and a society which does not have variety and differences is a very poor society. Variety brings beauty, richness, color.

“But it has not yet dawned on the millions around the world that revolution has not helped, and they still go on thinking in terms of revolution. They have not understood anything from the history of man.

“It is said that history repeats itself.

“I say it is not history that repeats itself. It seems to repeat itself because man is absolutely unconscious.

“He goes on doing the same thing again and again without learning anything, without becoming mature, alert and aware.

“When all the revolutions have failed some new door should be opened.

“There is no point in changing the powerful into the powerless and the powerless into the powerful again and again.

“This is a circle that goes on moving.

“I don’t preach revolution. I am utterly against revolution. I say unto you that my word for the future, and for those who are intelligent enough in the present, is rebellion. What is the difference?

“Rebellion is individual action; it has nothing to do with the crowd. Rebellion has nothing to do with politics, power, violence.

“Rebellion has something to do with changing your consciousness, your silence, your being. It is a spiritual metamorphosis.

“And each individual passing through a rebellion is not fighting with anybody else, but is only fighting with his own darkness. Swords are not needed, bombs are not needed.

“What is needed is more alertness, more meditativeness, more love, more prayerfulness, more gratitude.

“Surrounded by all these qualities you are born anew.

“This new man, this rebellion that can become the womb for the new man, I teach. We have tried collective efforts and they have failed. Now let us try individual efforts.

“And if one man becomes aflame with consciousness, joy and blissfulness, he will become contagious to many more.

“Rebellion is a very silent phenomenon that will go on spreading without making any noise and without even leaving any footprints behind. It will move from heart to heart in deep silences. And the day it has reached millions of people without any bloodshed…just the understanding of those millions of people will change our old primitive animalistic ways. It will change our greed. And the day greed is gone there is no question of accumulating money….

“Unless there is a rebelliousness spreading from individual to individual; unless we can create an atmosphere of enlightenment around the world where greed will fall down on its own accord, where anger will not be possible, where violence will become impossible, where love will be just the way you live, where life should be respected, where the body should be loved, appreciated, where comfort should not be condemned – it is natural to ask for comfort….

“The whole of nature wants comfort, the whole of nature wants all the luxury that is possible.

“But our religions have been teaching us against luxury, against comfort, against riches.

“A man of enlightenment looks with clarity. It is unnatural to demand from people, ‘You should be content with your poverty, you should be content with your sicknesses, you should be content with all kinds of exploitation, you should be content and you should not try to rise higher, to reach to the sun and the rain and the wind.’ This is absolutely unnatural conditioning, that we are all carrying. Only a rebellion in your being can bring you to this clarity.

“You say that in history all the rebellions were based on ‘no.’ Those were not rebellions. Change the word. All the revolutions were based on ‘no.’ They were negative, they were against something, they were destructive, they were revengeful and violent.

“Certainly, my rebellion is based on ‘yes’ – yes to existence, yes to nature, yes to yourself.

“Whatever the religions may be saying and whatever the ancient traditions may be saying, they are all saying no to yourself, no to nature, no to existence. They are all life-negative.

“My rebellion is life-affirmative. I want you to dance and sing and love and live as intensely as possible and as totally as possible. In this total affirmation of life, in this absolute yes to nature, we can bring a totally new earth and a totally new humanity into being.

“The past was ‘no.’ The future has to be ‘yes.’

“We have lived enough with the no, we have suffered enough and there has been nothing but misery. I want people to be as joyful as birds singing in the morning, as colorful as flowers, as free as the bird on the wing with no bondages, with no conditioning, with no past – just an open future, an open sky and you can fly to the stars.

“Because I am saying yes to life, all the no-sayers all over the world are against me – because my yes-saying goes against all the religions and against all the ideologies that have been forced upon man.

“My yes is my rebellion. The day you will also be able to say yes it will be your rebellion.

“We can have rebellious people functioning together, but each will be an independent individual, not belonging to a political party or to a religious organization. Just out of freedom and out of love and out of the same beautiful ‘yes’ we will meet. Our meeting will not be a contract, our meeting will not be in any way a surrender; our meeting will make every individual more individual. Supported by everybody else, our meeting will not take away freedom, will not enslave you; our freedom will give you more freedom, more support, so that you can be stronger in your freedom.

“Long has been the slavery, and long has been our burden. We have become weak because of the thousands of years of darkness that have been poured on us.

“The people who love to say yes, who understand the meaning of rebellion, will not be alone. They will be individuals, but the people who are on the same path – fellow-travelers, friends – will be supporting each other in their meditativeness, in their joy, in their dance, in their music. They will become a spiritual orchestra, where so many people are playing instruments but creating one music. So many people can be together and yet they may be creating the same consciousness, the same light, the same joy, the same fragrance.

“It is a long way: ‘no’ seems to be a shortcut. That’s why it has not been tried up to now. Whenever I have discussed it with people, they have said, ‘Perhaps you are right, but when will it be possible that the whole earth will say yes?’

“I say, ‘Anyway we have been on this earth for millions of years and you have been saying no – and what is your achievement? It is time. Give a chance to ‘yes’ too.’

“And my feeling is that ‘no’ is a quality of death. ‘Yes’ is the very center of life. ‘No’ had to fail.

“Death cannot succeed, cannot be victorious over life. If we give a chance to yes-based rebelliousness, it is bound to become a wildfire because deep down everybody wants it to happen. I have not found a single person in my life who does not want to live a natural, relaxed, peaceful, silent life. But that life is possible only if everybody else is also living the same kind of life.

“I can understand the fear of people that individual rebellion may take a long time, but there is no problem in it. In fact, each individual who passes through this rebellious fire becomes a bliss and an ecstasy for himself at least, and there is every possibility that he will sow the seeds around him. But he has not failed: he has conquered, he has reached the very peak of his potential, he has blossomed, there is nothing more that he can think of. The whole existence is his.

“So as far as that individual is concerned the rebellion is complete and he will be able to sow seeds all around. And there is no hurry; eternity is available.

“Slowly, slowly more and more people will become more and more conscious, more alert. Enlightenment will become a common phenomenon….

“So time is not at all a consideration for me.

“My rebellion is absolutely individual and it will spread from individual to individual. Sometime this whole planet is bound to become enlightened. Idiots may try to wait and see what happens to others, but they also finally have to join the caravan.

“The very idea of enlightenment is so new, although it is nothing that has not been known before. There have been enlightened people, but they never brought enlightenment as a rebellion. That is what is new about it. They became enlightened, they became contented, they became fulfilled – and a great fallacy happened. I have to point it out, although I feel not to show any mistakes of the enlightened ones. I feel sad about it, but my responsibility is not for the dead.

“My responsibility is for those who are alive and for those who will be coming.

“So I have to make it clear: Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Adinatha, Lao Tzu, Kabir; all these people who became enlightened attained tremendous beauty, to great joy, to utter ecstasy – what I have been calling satyam shivam sundaram, the truth, the godliness of the truth and the beauty of that godliness – but because they had become enlightened they started teaching people to be contented: ‘Remain peaceful, remain silent.’

“This is the fallacy.

“They attained contentment after a long search. It was a conclusion, not a beginning. It was the very end product of their enlightenment, but they started telling people that you can be contented right now: ‘Be fulfilled, be silent.’

“That’s how they became anti-rebellious – without knowing perhaps that if a poor man remains contented with his poverty it is dangerous, if a slave remains contented with his slavery, that is dangerous.

“So all the enlightened people of the past attained the great height, about which there is no doubt. But there is a fallacy, a mistake that they all committed without exception.

“The fallacy is that they started telling people to start with that which comes in the end. The flower comes only in the end; one has to start with the roots, with the seed.

“And if you start telling people to start with the roses, then the only way is for people to purchase roses of plastic. The only way to be contented without meditation is to be a hypocrite because deep down you are angry, deep down you are furious, deep down you want to freak out, and on the surface you are showing immense peace.

“This peace has been like a cancer to humanity.

“You can see it happening in this country more clearly than anywhere else because this country was fortunate, blessed by more enlightened people than any other country. But unfortunately, because so many enlightened people committed the same fallacy, this country remained continuously enslaved for twenty centuries. And for centuries this country has remained poor, hungry, starving. No science has developed, no technology has developed. Who is responsible for all this?

“Because these people were loved and respected, and they deserve to be loved and respected, when they committed fallacies, naturally nobody could figure it out that they could make mistakes. And this was their greatest mistake: to teach people things that come only in the end. If you try to bring them in the beginning you will simply become a hypocrite, a pretender; you will start having a mask. On the surface you will be one person, inside you will be just the opposite – and a house divided cannot stand for long.

“Man is divided into false personality and authentic individuality.

“Every man on the earth who is not in deep meditation is schizophrenic; there is no need for any other symptoms. It is just the natural, almost natural, condition because for thousands of years you have been told to be hypocrites.

“The alchemy of ‘yes’ can make you one single integrated individual.

“It can bring you back your lost dignity; it can bring you back the capacity to stand alone in absolute blissfulness: not needing anybody, not being dependent on anything. It will take away all your spiritual diseases – greed and jealousy and violence and lust – and it will bring a tremendous showering of all that is great, incalculably great, so great that you cannot say, ‘I have got it,’ you can only say, ‘Existence has given it to me.’ It is always a gift from the beyond: your ecstasy, your blessing, your truth, your benediction – they simply shower on you….

“Nations have to disappear; there is no need of any nations. The whole earth belongs to the whole of humanity.

“There is no need for any passports, there is no need for any visas.

“This earth is ours – and what kind of freedom is there if we cannot even move? Everywhere there are barriers; every nation is a big imprisonment. Just because you cannot see the boundaries you think you are free. Just try to pass through the boundary and immediately you will be faced with a loaded gun: ‘Go back inside the prison! You belong to this prison. You cannot enter into another prison without permission.’ These are your nations!

“Certainly, a rebellion of my vision will take away all this garbage of nations and discriminations between white and black, and give the whole of humanity a natural, relaxed, comfortable life. And this is possible because science has given us everything that we need to make this whole earth, even if the population of the earth is three times more than it is today. Just a little intelligence is needed – which will be released by meditation – and we can have a beautiful earth with beautiful people and a multidimensional freedom: not just a word in the dead constitution books but a living reality.

“One thing finally to be remembered: the days of revolution are past.

“We have tried them enough, many times – and every time the same story is repeated. Now something new is urgently needed. And except this idea that I am giving to you of an individual rebellion based on meditativeness, there is no other alternative proposed anywhere in the world.

“I am not a philosopher. I am absolutely pragmatic and practical. I am not only talking about meditative rebellion, I am preparing people for it. Whether they know it or not doesn’t matter. Whoever comes close to me is going to become a rebellious individual, and wherever he will go he will spread this contagious health. It will make people alert to their dignity, it will make people alert to their potentiality, it will make people alert to what they can become, what they are, and why they are stuck.

“My sannyasins’ function is not to be missionaries, but to be so loving, compassionate; such fragrant individuals…

“It is not a question of converting people from one ideology to another ideology. It is a far deeper transformation – from the whole past to a totally new and unknown future. It is the greatest adventure that one can think of.

“You are fortunate to be part of this great adventure.’”

END

Excerpted and abridged from: Osho, Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram – Truth, Godliness, Beauty, Talk #26 – Contagious Health