It’s nearly thirty years since Francis Fukuyama published his landmark essay “The End of History,” and yet here we still are. History has not ended, and liberal democracy has yet to prove itself the “final form of human government.”
Here’s an OSHO Times article from that time in which Osho makes a clear statement on Fukuyama’s prediction – a statement, which is, if anything, even more relevant today. Particularly as increasing numbers of people are now proposing fascism as the solution to our problems.
Western Democracy Is a Poor Shadow
The claim by an American political theorist that the recent decline in world communism means the “end of history” is utterly absurd, according to Osho.
Osho was responding to a debate provoked by American political author Francis Fukuyama, a deputy director of policy and planning in the US State Department.
In a widely-publicized article entitled “The End of History?” Fukuyama stated that fascism is finished and Marxism is on its deathbed. “What we may be witnessing is the end of ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
Not so, according to Osho. “What Fukuyama is saying is absolutely baseless, history moves in waves – there will again be something like fascism arising in the world.“
He explains. “Man cannot find any meaning in life, so he becomes a victim of a utopian life in the future. By taking away his future you are turning him into a robot.”
According to Osho, Fukuyama’s “end of history” is not only wrong but a tremendous threat to humanity’s spiritual evolution. “What Fukuyama is saying is more dangerous to humanity than anything by Stalin or Mussolini or Hitler!” Osho observes.
He goes on to say that liberal democracy is only a poor shadow of what is possible for human society, and that the key to creating a utopia is an individual revolution of each individual’s consciousness.
“Human society is not harmonious because each individual is divided inside, and his divisions are projected onto society,” Osho explains.
“Utopia is possible. It is only a question of understanding the value of meditation. Then it is easily possible for millions of people to become undivided within themselves. And they will be the first group of humanity to become harmonious.” 1
Wow: “A tremendous threat to humanity’s spiritual evolution… more dangerous that anything by Stalin or Mussolini or Hitler!” So, how has this unfolded? As that post-cold war hubris evaporated, it has left humanity now lurching here and there for “solutions” to the train wreck of problems piling up. Stephen Hawking declared that we have only 100 years to get the hell out of here! That Planet Earth was doomed. He listed all the usual suspects that Osho has been alerting us about since forever: nuclear war, global warming, genetically-engineered viruses and artificial intelligence (AI), and he recently added asteroid strikes, epidemics and population growth.
This an eerie reminder of Osho’s specific warning about this:
“There seems to be only one possibility – that man should migrate from this planet to another planet. Within a hundred years it will be impossible to live on this earth. It is almost turning into a corpse. This earth has been so much raped by science, so much wounded, crippled, paralyzed, because of that approach: conquer nature! And man became absolutely absorbed and occupied with only one thing: how to conquer nature? – and forgot everything else.” 2
And talking about other planets, Osho also notes:
“Anybody looking from another planet will think this earth is just insane. We are continuously either preparing for war or fighting. We do only two things, either fight or prepare. There is no time for anything else: no time to love, no time to sing, no time to dance, no time to meditate – no time for any of the higher values of life.” 3
It seems there is something wrong with this species: on the one hand apparently so smart, and on other completely insane. Osho again:
“There is one great thinker of our age, Arthur Koestler, who thinks exactly that – that something in the growth of man’s mind has gone wrong: either the nuts and bolts are too tight or too loose. All our energies devoted to destruction…what can be more insane? All these energies can make this earth a paradise, but they are making it only a battlefield.” 4
Osho clarifies precisely what is the basis of those faulty nuts and bolts:
“There have been attempts all over the world to make a harmonious human society, but all have failed for the simple reason that nobody has bothered why it is not naturally harmonious.
“It is not harmonious because each individual inside is divided, and his divisions are projected onto the society. And unless we dissolve the individual’s inner divisions, there is no possibility of really realizing a utopia and creating a harmonious society in the world.” 5
And how to dissolve those inner divisions? Osho is clear. It is meditation or bust. But are any of us listening?
“You are not putting your total energy into meditation, into awareness. It is one of the things that you are doing, amongst many, and it is not even the first priority of your life. I want it to become your first priority. The only way is that I should emphasize deeply into your consciousness that the world is going to end soon.
“If you are not awakened before its end, you will be lost in a long journey, because evolution will start from the very beginning on some other planet.
“On this planet it took four billion years for man to arrive. Life began in the ocean as a fish. On another planet, if this planet is destroyed, life will continue, but it will have to begin from the very beginning – and only after four billion years you may be a human being again. It is a great risk to take.
“Nothing has changed in the world; everything is going exactly in the direction of death – a little faster of course – and the moment of total annihilation is coming very close. It all depends on what your priorities are. If being awakened has become your priority, and you are ready to sacrifice everything for it, then there is hope.6
And if we don’t listen, Osho is clear that the outcome is inevitable:
“If this planet dies, perhaps on another planet…. There are fifty thousand planets which can sustain life; perhaps civilization has to begin from ABC on some other planet. But who will be the pioneers? These dark masses, utterly unconscious, cannot be. Only a few chosen ones who have strived hard to make themselves deserving of light, of eternal life, of some experience of godliness – perhaps they will be the ones who will be starting a new civilization somewhere in the universe, on some new planet.
“I have never said this before but, going around the world, I have felt such a wound in my heart that the people who need to be saved are the people who are creating every kind of barrier in order not to be saved.
“Even to approach them has become impossible. Seeing the whole world, I started feeling that there is now only one possibility, and that is to create a Noah’s Ark in the consciousness of those few who have come close to me. It will not be a physical thing, but a Noah’s Ark of consciousness which can move a small group of conscious people to another planet. That seems to be the only possibility to save the great heritage of humanity.
“You cannot depend any longer on the politicians and on the priests, and on the masses who seem to be willing, deeply desiring, to die.
“Death seems to be the greatest desire in the world today, and because I have been talking about life and love and laughter, I have been condemned from every corner. I can understand the reason: spreading the message of life, love, and laughter amongst people who, deep down, are getting ready to commit a global suicide. This is very contradictory to them.
“Perhaps we will have to meet on some other planet – this planet seems to be spent. It is not new: planets are born, planets die; stars are born, stars die – so it is not something strange. The preparations are going so well that it seems almost impossible for life to survive here on this earth. The whole blame goes on those vested interests which have kept humanity unconscious, and don’t want man to become intelligent and conscious, alert and aware.
“Anyway, it seems too late.
“The police were investigating the death of Markowitz, the dress manufacturer who had jumped from the window of his office. The detective decided to query Marlene, his lovely young secretary.
“’Can you offer any explanation?’ he asked the girl.
“’Well, after working for Mr. Markowitz one month,’ she began, ‘I got a forty-dollar-a-week raise. At the end of the second month, he gave me a beautiful black necklace. At the end of the third month, he gave me a new Thunderbird, and a stunning Persian lamb coat. Then he asked me if I would be willing to make love to him, and how much I would charge him. I told him that because he had been so nice to me, I would charge him only ten dollars, even though I was getting twenty from the other guys in the office. And that is when he jumped out of the window.’” 7
To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk:
1 Osho, Light on the Path, Talk #30 – Utopia Is Possible
2 Osho, The Perfect Master, Vol. 1, Talk #10 – What Exactly Is Man?
3 Osho, Socrates Poisoned Again after 25 Centuries, Talk #9 – Truth Is a Search, Not a Faith
4 Osho, The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Talk #19 – Radiance
5 Osho, Light on the Path, Talk #30 – Utopia Is Possible
6 Osho, The Hidden Splendor, Talk #14 – No Time Left for Any Device
7 Osho, The Hidden Splendor, Talk #11 – Guilt: A Cancer of the Soul