Osho:
Most people, rightly or wrongly, equate democracy with the freedom to choose their
politicians. Yet you seem to envisage a country which is both democratic and
pollution-free, because you see politicians as pollution. Can you say more about this?
Just the very existence of nations, countries dividing humanity into stupid parts, is
the whole game of the politician. And this I call pollution. It is poison to humanity.
That's why you don't see really authentically alive people in the world.
You are asking, "People generally understand democracy to mean the freedom to
choose politicians." Do you see the idiotic understanding of the people? It is
choosing between poisons. The bottles contain the same poison -- on one is written
"Democratic," on another is written "Republican."
Politicians have been befooling you. They have managed the whole strategy in such a way
that you never become aware what is happening. You choose one kind of poison for five
years; for those five years you have to suffer that poison. After five years you are fed
up with this kind of poison. You change to another bottle -- Republican, Liberal,
Democratic, Communist, Socialist. They are all available in all shapes and sizes,
whatsoever suits you. But you will fall in the same ditch. Maybe there are minor
differences between poisons, but poison is poison.
| I do not see democracy as the freedom to choose between the
politicians. To me, democracy means there are no longer any politicians around. You
individually choose somebody you feel is the right person; there are no political parties.
In a real democracy, political parties cannot exist; there is no reason why they should
exist. People are intelligent enough to choose on their own. |
I do not see democracy as the freedom to choose between the politicians. To me,
democracy means there are no longer any politicians around. You individually choose
somebody you feel is the right person; there are no political parties. In a real
democracy, political parties cannot exist; there is no reason why they should exist.
People are intelligent enough to choose on their own. The politician need not go and
convince the people, "I am the right person and the other is wrong." And the
other is also doing the same, and the poor people in their utter confusion somehow choose
somebody.
I have never voted in my life, for the simple reason that all those politicians and
political parties are basically the same. They want to exploit you, oppress you. And it is
a good strategy that after four or five years when you get fed up with one party, you can
choose another. People's memory is not very strong. So for four years it is the Republican
party sucking you, doing everything that is wrong, deceiving you and the whole world.
After four years, it is the Democratic party doing the same thing behind a different
label. And when for four years the Democratic party is ruling, you get fed up with them,
and you forget completely that those Republicans had done the same before. Four years is
enough time for people to forget. And you go on moving between two parties. There may be
more parties in other countries, but basically two parties are in a deep conspiracy
against the people: "Four years we exploit them, then we will give you four years to
exploit them. And again we will come back."
In a real democracy what is the need of political parties? The real need is to make
people more alert, more intelligent, so they can choose individually, not impressed by
propaganda. And what small things impress you! Why was Nixon defeated by Kennedy? You will
be surprised and shocked, because it will prove to you how idiotic you are: It was the
television that made the whole difference. On television, the supporters, the advisors of
Nixon, had insisted that he wear dark clothes "so your figure comes out clearly,
strongly, because millions of people will never see you in person; they will only see you
on the television." Nixon did not listen to them. He came in a gray suit, and that
decided his defeat. Kennedy came in a dark, black suit. When they were together you saw
that Nixon looked gray, weak, while Kennedy looked clear, strong.
| Television has changed almost the whole political phenomenon.
Before television, you were coming in contact with the real person. Now when you come in
contact with a person, experts have decided his hairstyle, make-up, the color of his
clothes. They have taught him how to walk, how to stand, how to look exactly into the eyes
of the people; what to say, how to say it, when to make a gesture with his hand; when to
almost shout, and when to almost whisper. Now it is in the hands of the experts to program
him. |
Television has changed almost the whole political phenomenon. Before television, you
were coming in contact with the real person. Now when you come in contact with a person,
experts have decided his hairstyle, make-up, the color of his clothes. They have taught
him how to walk, how to stand, how to look exactly into the eyes of the people; what to
say, how to say it, when to make a gesture with his hand; when to almost shout, and when
to almost whisper. Now it is in the hands of the experts to program him.
Nixon was not ready for it, and I think any man who has any sense of integrity will not
agree to all this nonsense. He is not an actor. But Kennedy followed the advice of the
advisors. He came on the television very strong, very clear, standing the way a strong
person stands, speaking the way a strong person speaks. He was chosen. It has nothing to
do with politics -- just two poison bottles, but one has a beautiful container, more
modern. The other is an old container, out-of-date. Nixon looked lousy on the television.
That decided his fate, and also made him learn that television has changed the whole
situation. The next time he came like an actor, played his role well, and was chosen --
and he proved to you that he was a poison!
It is very strange, nobody assassinated Nixon. Kennedy was assassinated. Then his
brother, another Kennedy, was assassinated because he was also fighting to become the
president of the country. And then the third brother, the last brother, was being
threatened: if he tries to become the president, he will be gone the same way the two
others have gone. You call this country democratic?
Yes, in the constitution it may be written that everybody has the right to run for any
office, but the third Kennedy was being threatened, and he knew that the people who were
threatening him meant business. His mother was very old -- ninety years old; he had to
listen to her. She had suffered her whole life. She had lost two of her sons and she did
not want to lose the last one; otherwise the whole family tree would be destroyed. She had
taken a promise from the third Kennedy that while she was living he would not run for
president.
Is this politics or Mafia? Is this democracy? It is not. The only difference between a
communist country like China, and America, is superficial. In China, one party rules
forever. In America, they give you a chance to choose which political party you want to be
exploited by. But what is the difference? -- you are going to be exploited. The exploiters
go on changing, but the exploitation remains the same. What does it matter? One party
exploits you forever, or two parties make a pact and in rotation they exploit you? But
your exploitation is the same.
My concept of democracy is people deciding on their own, without any political
propaganda from anybody. Choose the candidates you like. In fact, the candidate
approaching the people and asking, "Please choose me," is ugly, disgusting. If
he is of any worth, people should reach him and ask him, "Please take this
responsibility for us. We want you to be in the parliament." Then a different quality
of people will be coming into the assemblies and the parliament, people who will not have
any political leadership of the party, its program. They will be free individuals acting
out of their intelligence. They can choose the president, the prime minister -- anybody.
And they will be deciding on every issue according to themselves. People have given them
immense respect by sending them to the government; they cannot be exploiters.
| A real democracy will choose the wise people. They are all around.
But remember, a man of wisdom is not going to beg you for a vote. He is not going to kiss
your children and shake hands with you. He is not going to act on the television screen so
that he appears to be the way you would like your president to be. The wise man is not
interested -- in fact, he will not be inclined to be dragged into this mess. You will have
to persuade him. The whole scene changes -- not the politician persuading you, but you
persuading someone to represent you. |
A real democracy will choose the wise people. They are all around. But remember, a man
of wisdom is not going to beg you for a vote. He is not going to kiss your children and
shake hands with you. He is not going to act on the television screen so that he appears
to be the way you would like your president to be. The wise man is not interested -- in
fact, he will not be inclined to be dragged into this mess. You will have to persuade him.
The whole scene changes -- not the politician persuading you, but you persuading someone
to represent you. More fresh blood will be coming into the government.
And secondly, democracy can exist only if the countries are dissolved. With so many
countries preparing to fight with each other continuously, of course you choose the most
cunning politician you can, because he will be safer. You want him to be smarter, more
cunning than the Soviet premier. The same is the situation in every country. The wise
people remain out of politics. It is so dirty, stinkingly dirty. And it will remain dirty
till nations dissolve and we have one world where there is no question of any war, no
question of preparing for war.
You can divide history in two parts: one, when people are really fighting, killing,
burning people -- innocent people who have not done anything wrong to you. In fact, you
don't know whom you are killing. Or the second part of history, when you are preparing for
the next war. Of course, a little time is needed between two wars, and if the wars are
going to be world wars, then at least ten or fifteen years' gap is needed. Now we are on
the verge of a third world war
Albert Einstein was asked once, "Can you say something about the third world
war?" He said, "No, but I can say something about the fourth world war."
The questioner was simply surprised. He said, "If you cannot say anything about the
third, what can you say about the fourth?"
He said, "The fourth is not going to happen."
The third world war is going to finish all living beings: men, birds, animals, trees --
anything that is alive it is going to be destroyed completely. And your politicians are
preparing for it.
The world needs to be free from politicians, only then can it be free from pollution.
What is the need for nations? Why can't we have the right to move freely around the
earth? This is our earth! Now I have been here [in the USA] for four years, and I am still
a tourist. It seems I am going to die as a tourist. The government agencies who are
responsible for deciding are in a difficulty. If they say no to me, I am going to fight in
the courts up to the Supreme Court. That will give me enough time -- almost twenty years.
So they are afraid to say no. Yes, of course, they cannot say. So they are in a dilemma,
just waiting for some miracle to happen. But I am not a miracle man!
But who are these men to decide? They are also foreigners, America is not their
country. Perhaps they came four generations ago and I came a little later, just four years
ago. But they are invaders -- I am not an invader. I have come to the country as a friend.
Man should have a birthright of free movement around the earth, and one day a
birthright to move around the stars. We have to dissolve all the boundaries and all the
nonsense that exists because of these boundaries. Anybody who divides man, for any excuse,
is unforgivable. Black and white.... And what about me? -- neither black nor white.
In India, we have a beautiful joke.... When God created man -- of course he was an
amateur, he had never created before -- so when he put the man made of mud into the oven,
he pulled Him out a little too soon. These are the white men, uncooked. And it is natural
-- because he saw that this is an uncooked man, next time he waited a little longer, went
to the other extreme, and when he pulled the man out, he found the man black. He said,
"This is going to be a difficult job." So he decided on a time exactly in the
middle. That's why there are people like me neither uncooked nor cooked too much.
But what difference does color make? What difference does sex make? Why should woman be
treated differently than man?
In China, for centuries it was thought that the woman has no soul. Great thinkers!
Great discoverers! They have not bothered about themselves, whether they have any soul or
not, but they decided unanimously that the woman has none. She is a thing to be possessed.
Therefore, for centuries in China if a husband killed the wife it was not murder, it was
not something against the law. You could not drag the man to the court as a murderer,
because the idea was that the woman was a thing. If you destroy your chair it is your
business, if you want to put your house on fire, it is your house. The wife belongs to
you, you can do anything to the wife. And they did everything to the woman. From her very
childhood the Chinese girl was given iron shoes, so that her feet remained very small.
That was their idea of beauty. In fact, they crippled the woman. Of course, her body want
on growing, but her feet remained small. They thought they looked very dainty -- they were
simply out of proportion. The feet should grow in proportion to the body, because they
have to take the whole load of the body. It was difficult for the Chinese woman to dance
or to walk properly. All kinds of ugly things around the world...just because one is man,
another is woman.
And what is the difference between a Christian and a Jew and a Hindu and a Mohammedan?
Just their conditionings are different; otherwise, they are exactly the same people. But
they have been labeled by their conditioning as Jews, as Christians, as Mohammedans. You
are not a thing. You should refuse to be labeled.
Man has to rebel against all these stupidities, because stupidities have divided the
world. And divided, naturally everybody is afraid of everybody else. Your neighbor starts
doing gymnastics; you get paranoid. Why is this man trying to become stronger? -- you join
a gymnastics course immediately. Seeing you -- that you are going for a gymnastics
program, you have joined the gym -- the neighbor becomes afraid. He starts making better
efforts, because it is going to be a tough fight.
And this is happening around the world....
If you look clearly, the way I see.... Because I am nobody; I don't belong to any
nation, I don't belong to any religion, I don't belong to any political party. I am simply
an individual, the way existence created me. I have kept myself absolutely uninfluenced by
any idiotic ideology -- religious, political, social, financial. And the miracle is that
because I am not burdened with all these glasses on my eyes, and curtains before me -- I
can see clearly.
The world can be a paradise any moment it decides! It will just have to drop a little
crap: Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, American, Russian, Chinese. Politicians will not help
you to do it, they will hinder you from doing it. Priests will not help you to do it, they
will hinder you from doing it. All their greatness -- the president of America, the
premier of the Soviet Union, the infallible pope in the Vatican...what will happen to
these people? If you drop all your conditionings, and if you remove all the lines from the
map, you burn all your identity cards, your passports, your visas, and you start moving
around the world absolutely freely -- it is our world -- what will happen to these idiots
who are sitting on your head? They will create every difficulty.
But the time has come to face the fact; otherwise, you are on the very verge of a total
global war which will destroy everybody. Before that happens, get free of all poisons --
nations, politicians, priests, religions -- and the world will be pollution-free. It is
not the ordinary pollution that exists in L.A.; that is nothing. That too exists because
of vested interests. A car can be created which does not pollute the air, but what will
happen to all the manufacturers of hundreds of cars around the world? Their factories will
go bankrupt. Right now they are billionaires; they will be beggars immediately.
You may not know that many inventions which are going to help humanity are prevented;
their copyright is purchased by somebody whose vested interest will be interfered with.
And the poor scientist, if he gets enough money, how can he refuse? There are hundreds of
inventions which have been prevented. Money has been paid, and humanity goes on suffering.
Man has to declare his freedom. It is not a question of a nation being free, it is a
question of every individual on the earth being free from all the jargon that the past has
left within you.
The cars pollute the air but the politicians and the priests pollute your very soul.
The air can be cleaned, the cars can be changed. If man is capable of reaching to the
moon.... I don't see why the scientists who can reach to the moon cannot make a fountain
pen which does not leak! It seems simply absurd. Man has come to a maturity, and now
decisions have to be made by free individuals -- not Americans, not Russians, not Indians.
We can make this earth pollution-free, outwardly and inwardly.
That's my message to my sannyasins: First, be free, and then let others taste your
freedom and the joy it brings with it. It is not a difficult job at all. People are
waiting for some savior to come and deliver them from all this misery. The savior is not
going to come, but half of their waiting is right: they are waiting to be transformed. If
they go on waiting for the savior they are waiting for Godot, who has never come, who will
never come. They have to drop this idea that tomorrow somebody is going to come and
deliver them from their suffering, misery. No, it is not going to happen.
You have to become the savior of yourself.
I teach selfishness, because to me to be selfish is not wrong, it is natural. Everybody
should be selfish, self-centered, not waiting for anybody's help. Declare your freedom
individually. And that's my movement. You are here, not as a society, not as a community,
you are here as an individual. There is nothing higher than an individual and his freedom.
Just be a little courageous. And to suffer for freedom is not suffering, it is a joy.
To suffer for individuality is not painful; it is a pleasure, because you are moving
towards a blissful state. Just a little courageousness -- I don't ask you for great
courage. Just a little courage, and the world can be free of politics and pollution. The
world can be free of fights, murder, massacre, burning people alive.... If you look at
history, it is so ugly
In my university, one day I went into the history department. I was looking around and
getting introduced to all the subjects, so I could choose. And that was my last day too,
because immediately I was fighting with my professor. I told him, "If this is history
that you are teaching, then don't poison people's minds. It is better they forget all
about the past. Don't go on pouring rubbish into their heads, because then there will be
no space for the present and no space for the future." There is no need of history.
All history is bunk!
It can happen in a single moment of understanding. That is the only miracle I know. All
other miracles are inventions of gullible people, of stupid followers, of cunning
scholars. But one miracle is part of nature. If you see something clearly, then don't wait
for the next moment. Do it right now, drop all nonsense. And you will see the birth of a
new man in you.
Osho: From The False to the Truth Chapter 23