Osho,
It feels strange when the establishment, worldwide, which is ever busy with all its
efforts and resources to make sure in every possible way that man cannot remain man, asks
us to celebrate "human rights day." Goodness, what is all this that's going on?
Would you care to explain?
One of the most fundamental things to be always remembered is that
we are living in a hypocrite society.
Once, a great philosopher was asked: "What do you think of civilization?"
The philosopher said, "It is a good idea, but somebody has to change the idea into
a reality. Civilization has not happened yet. It is a dream of the future."
But the people who are in power -- politically, religiously, socially -- are in power
because civilization has not happened. A civilized world, a mature man, needs no nations
-- all those boundaries are false -- needs no religions, because all those theologies are
simple fictions.
The people who have been for thousands of years in power -- the priests, the
politicians, the super-rich, they have all the powers to prevent human evolution. But the
best way to prevent it is to convince man, "You are already civilized," to
convince man, "You are already a human being. You need not go through a
transformation, it is unnecessary."
And man's weakness is that knowing perfectly well there exists no such thing as
civilization, there exists no such thing as human sensitivity, still he starts believing
in all the lies that the politicians have been speaking, the priests have been preaching,
the educationists have been teaching -- because it seems simpler to just believe, you
don't have to do anything for it.
To recognize the fact that you are not yet a man creates fear. The very ground
underneath your feet disappears.
Truth makes you utterly naked -- naked of all lies, naked of all
hypocrisies.
That's why nobody wants truth; everybody believes that he has got it.
Do you see the psychological strategy? If you don't want to give something to someone,
convince him, hypnotize him, repeat again and again, "You have got it." And when
thousands of people around you -- your parents, your teachers, your priests, your leaders
-- are all believing it, it seems almost impossible for new arrivals in the world, small
children, not to be convinced of this thousands-of-years-old idea. Millions of people have
lived and died believing that civilization has happened.
So the first thing I want you to understand is that we are still barbarous. Only
barbarians can do things that we have been doing for thousands of years -- not human
beings. In three thousand years, five thousand wars... and you call man civilized?
In the twentieth century -- exactly in the middle of the twentieth century -- you can
produce Adolf Hitler, you can produce Joseph Stalin, you can produce Benito Mussolini, you
can produce Mao Tse-tung, and still you believe man is civilized?
Adolf Hitler alone killed six million human beings, and killed with great
sophistication. Science and technology have been used. Millions of Jews have been simply
burned in gas chambers -- within seconds thousands of people are nothing but smoke going
out of the chimneys. He killed so many people that it was impossible to give each person
the conventional grave.
Man has never been so poor -- even beggars have graves, but he had killed so many
people that to make graves for all of them...the whole of Germany would have became a
graveyard. So he had deep ditches prepared, and people were simply thrown into the ditches
and covered with mud. Before throwing their bodies in the ditches he destroyed even those
dead peoples' dignity. Their clothes were taken away; their heads, their beards, their
mustaches were shaved so you could not recognize the face of the person. Their heads were
cut off; so you would find somewhere the head and somewhere the hand and somewhere the leg
and somewhere the remaining parts of the body. And thousands of people -- it was
impossible to figure out who you were looking for.
Why did he do that? So that nobody could be recognized. Even if somebody was found
dead, he could not be recognized; he did not even have his whole body. And you say that
man is civilized?
And this is not the end of the story. Seeing the second world war, one would have
thought that just a little intelligence is needed and the second world war should be the
last world war -- seeing what man himself has been doing to man.
But no, we are preparing for the third world war -- and the last.
Albert Einstein was asked, "Can you say something about what is going to happen in
the third world war?"
And Einstein said, "Excuse me, I cannot say anything about the third world war,
but I can say something about the fourth."
The questioner could not believe it. He said, "You cannot say anything about the
third -- and it is so complicated -- yet you are ready to say something about the forth,
which will be even more complicated!"
Albert Einstein said, "You don't understand. I can say something definitively,
categorically, about the fourth. And that is that the fourth is never going to happen,
because the third will destroy all life -- not only human beings, roses too. All that is
living will disappear from the earth."
And you say that humanity has become civilized?
No, you have been deceived and this declaration of human rights by the United Nations
is nothing but the same hypocrisy.
George Gurdjieff used to tell a small story -- but it is about
humanity.
The story is that there was a magician. He lived deep in the mountains and the forests,
and he had thousands of sheep. But the problem was that the sheep were afraid of the
magician because every day the sheep were seeing that one of them was being killed for his
breakfast, another was being killed for his lunch. So they used to run away from the
magician's place, and it was a difficult job to find them in the vast forest. Being a
magician, he used magic. He hypnotized all the sheep and told different sheep...to some,
"You are a man, you need not be afraid. It is only the sheep who are going to be
killed and eaten, not you. You are a man just like I am."
Some other sheep were told, "You are a lion -- only sheep are afraid. They escape,
they are cowards. You are a lion; you would prefer to die than to run away. You don't
belong to these sheep. So when they are killed it is not your problem. They are meant to
be killed, but you are the most loved of my friends in this forest."
In this way he told every sheep different stories, and from the second day, the sheep
stopped running away from the house. They still saw other sheep being killed, butchered,
but it was not their concern. Somebody was a lion, somebody was a tiger, somebody was a
man, somebody was.... Nobody was a sheep except the one who was being killed.
This way, without keeping servants, he managed thousands of sheep. They would go into
the forest for their food, for their water, and they would come back home, believing
always one thing: "It is some sheep who is going to be killed, not you. You don't
belong to this mob. You are a lion -- respected, honored, a friend of the great
magician." The problems of the magician were solved.
I am telling you this story because it is literally true about you. You are being told
things, and you accept them without even looking all around to see whether those things
coincide with the reality or not.
The first thing....
My first objection to the UN's Declaration of Human
Rights is that rights exist only when there are duties.
Duties are roots, rights are the flowers: you cannot have rights without duties. And to
celebrate a day in the year for human rights...but they don't celebrate a day for human
duties, which comes first.
Why are they not talking about human duties? Because they don't want to give you your
human rights.Without duties, rights can only be talked about, but you won't have them in
your hands. And about duties, these politicians who have made this declaration have no
notion at all. I will give you a few examples.
They say that every human being is equal.
And of course it satisfies the ego of every human being -- nobody objects. It is one of
the most dangerous lies to tell human beings.
I say to you, equality is a myth.
There are not even two human beings who are equal -- in any way, in any dimension. I
don't mean that they are unequal, I mean that they are unique, incomparable, so the
question of equality or inequality does not arise. Are you equal to these pillars in the
hall? The pillars may be beautiful, but you are not equal to them. But does that mean you
are inferior to the pillars? It simply means you are not a pillar -- pillars are pillars,
you are you.
Every human being is a category unto himself.
And unless we recognize the uniqueness of each individual, there are not going to be
any human rights, and there is not going to be a civilized world -- human, loving,
rejoicing.
In the declaration they emphasized the fact again and again that you
should love all human beings; you are all brothers. But have you ever seen brothers being
in love? Have you ever seen brothers being friends? The way brothers fight, nobody fights.
And just saying, "You are brothers," does not make it a reality. These people
who declared these human rights -- what authority have they got? Who are they?
Politicians...and they are the cause of all the wars, they are the cause of all kinds of
violence happening all over the world.
These are the people who have kept almost half of humanity -- womankind -- in a state
of slavery. But looking at the declaration I had really a great time...because it does not
talk about sisters, only brothers.
Sisters don't count -- yet they are half of humanity. They are not
even mentioned.
These politicians are articulate, clever, cunning...mostly coming from the legal
profession. They are saying there should be no discrimination between man and woman,
between black and white. Between races, religions, political ideologies, there should be
no discrimination. And who is making the discrimination? These are the same people who are
making the declaration.
They have enslaved the woman for centuries, and they are not yet willing to give her
freedom -- which, according to their declaration, is a basic human right.
The blacks are being treated as animals. Just at the end of the
last century, the blacks were still be sold, auctioned in marketplaces like a commodity.
And even today, they are not respected as the white people are respected.
And these are the white people -- all these politicians are white. These white people
have been driving the whole of humanity, for three hundred years, into slavery. They all
had their empires. England had the biggest empire; it was said that the sun never set in
the British Empire. Somewhere or other in the British Empire the sun was shining and it
was day -- all around the earth. But other white people were not far behind: the French,
the Portuguese, the Spanish -- they all had vast empires, exploiting the whole earth. They
have been the parasites: and it is hilarious that all these parasites are now declaring
human rights.
This is a deception. It is not meant; what they are saying they don't mean. It is just
to give you an idea that you are equal to everybody, you are a brother to everybody, that
you have all the human rights.
But I know -- all these human rights are just hypocrisies.
I know by my own experience.
There is one human right enumerated in this declaration: Nobody
can be arrested without a warrant. I was arrested exactly like that in America -- without
warrant, without any arrest warrant or search warrant. Not even verbally did they inform
me what crime I had committed. And when I asked them, "What crime have I committed? I
must know at least," the answer was loaded guns -- twelve loaded guns surrounding my
jet airplane.
When guns are answers, then you can be certain civilization is far
away.
They did not have any arrest warrant. The simple thing for the court would have
been...but they not only arrested me, they were clever, they had deliberately arrested me
at such a time that I would have to be in jail for at least two days. On Monday the court
would open -- only then could I be bailed out. They themselves were certain that I would
be bailed out because there was no reason to hold me; they didn't have any proof, any
evidence against me. They had chosen a certain situation in which for two days the court
was closed -- so at least they would have the satisfaction of torturing me for two days.
On the third day...I was not amazed when the court refused to give me bail.
The magistrate, a woman, did not even allow my attorney's to question the fact that I
had been arrested without any arrest warrant. In a democratic country which claims to be
the greatest democratic country in the world, the court would not allow them even to
discuss it, because to discuss it would be an exposure. There was no question of giving me
bail. In the first place I had been arrested without any warrant, and even after three
days they didn't have the warrant -- the question of bail does not arise. The bail was not
given.
In the second court, in a higher federal court, again the question, "What about my
arrest?" which is the basic question, was not discussed.
Everything else is secondary. First, you arrest somebody without even telling him why
he is being arrested....
And in these human rights, these same politicians sitting in America, say that nobody
can be arrested without an arrest warrant; this is a fundamental human right. If I was not
arrested, I might not have known.
They say nobody should interfere in anybody's philosophy,
religion, political ideology -- that is every individual's birthright. But my commune in
America has been destroyed for the simple reason that Christianity -- my being not a white
man, my commune being universal.... There were black people, there were people from all
over the world. It was the only place where there was no discrimination of any kind. They
destroyed a commune which was fulfilling human rights in every detail.
On the surface man has become civilized, but deep in the darker parts
of his unconsciousness he is still barbarous.
In the introduction to this declaration it says, We are determined to eliminate all
forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief. And this is not
true in any country. Religions are fighting continuously, and if the government consists
of fanatic, religious people, the minority is crushed and destroyed in every possible way.
The desire is good, but the people who are desiring it are all wrong.
In the convention at which the UN declared these fundamental rights, the Soviet Union
was absent; eight other communist countries were absent. America was present. Unanimously
the declaration was adopted -- all in favor and nobody against. I am mentioning it because
it was basically an American initiative to make this declaration. And America is the first
to be going against every human right.
Just now, America has given two hundred million dollars to the terrorists in Nicaragua,
a small country which has become communist, just like Cuba. To destroy the country,
America has flooded it with terrorists. Now millions of dollars are being poured in
continuously, to support the terrorists with weapons and with everything. And in this
declaration it says that every country is sovereign, and no other country should interfere
in any other country's life, religion. That is their business -- how they want to live,
what they want to believe or not to believe. It is nobody else's business at all. If in
some small country people have accepted communism as their lifestyle and their social
structure, who is America? And what right have they?
Nicaragua appealed to the world court; and the world court is full of American judges.
Still the world court said to America, "Your act is against the human rights
declaration, it is criminal." Ronald Reagan simply cancelled it. He said, "We
don't care about the world court or their decisions." Now these are the people who
have made the declaration. They have created the world court to decide in situations where
some conflict arises. And these same people are not ready to listen.
Do you see the politics behind it? The World Court, the declaration -- all are facades
to hide things. If some small country was doing it, then the world court would be right,
and America would have taken action in favor of the world court to destroy that country
because it was doing a criminal act. Now, because America itself is doing the criminal
act, it simply can say, "We don't care about the world court."
And what can the world court do? It has no armies, it has no power. It has all the
power that has been given to the politicians; but if those politicians themselves go
against the law that they have made, what can the court do?
And the UN is silent. Its Court has been insulted. If the people in the UN have any
dignity they will dissolve the UN and dissolve the world court -- because what is the
point? Today America is doing it, tomorrow the other countries will. And the Soviet Union
is far better, and is right, because it never participated in this declaration. It is not
part of this declaration; no communist government participated in it. So at least they
have shown from the very beginning that these things are all bogus: "Who are you
trying to cheat?"
All the rights are, in a way, not very rational. For example, in
this long declaration, the right to leave the body when one has lived enough and is now
weak, sick, old, a burden, and of no use.... One is suffering unnecessarily and waiting
for death. Why wait? Why put this man unnecessarily in torture?
The society is responsible for thousands of people who are in torture
-- in hospitals or in nursing homes.
They don't have any possibility of coming back to life healthy, creative, of any use.
But they can go on vegetating; and medicine is developed enough -- you can keep them in
the hospitals for years. Artificial breathing...perhaps the man is already dead, but
because of the artificial breathing you are deceived.
In this long list, one of the most important human rights is not included; and that
right is the right to leave the world, to give the ticket back, to say, "I want to go
back home. Who are you to prevent me or anybody?"
But that right, which is very significant today because in the advanced countries, the
average life has gone to such lengths that more and more people will be in a situation
where their sons and daughters are already old -- eighty, ninety.... The fourth or fifth
or six generation has already arrived, and that fifth or sixth generation cannot have any
connection with a man one hundred and twenty years old, just vegetating in a hospital.
Those new arrivals have no relationship, they don't have any respect.
Now, months pass and those old people are hanging around in the hospitals waiting,
hoping that somebody may come -- a friend, a child, an old acquaintance -- to meet them.
Nobody comes. People avoid them. They are boring, naturally. It is almost as if you are
reading a fifty-year old newspaper. They don't have anything new; everything is fifty,
sixty years old. If you go to them they will talk only about those golden days when they
used to be young, and life was an adventure. You cannot connect with them, and you feel
simply bored. Everything has changed in fifty years, and those people are not even aware
of what has changed.
But no government in the world accepts euthanasia, the right to die.
In this long declaration it is not included. Politicians are very, very cunning. They
don't want to be controversial, so they say only things which you like or everybody is
going to like. They are not concerned with the actual situation, and the changes it needs.
Their whole effort is in how to make you happy just by giving you bogus words.
Nowhere in the world are any of the basic rights being applied.
I will go through a few important rights.
Whereas disregard and contempt for human
rights has resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind....
It has two implications in it. One is that the people who made this declaration have
accepted that humanity is civilized. That's why once in a while if there is any barbarous
act, those human beings in the world -- the whole of mankind -- suffers in conscience,
feels the pain, the anguish. Both are lies, because I don't see humanity having any
conscience.
When Mohammedans kill Hindus, no Mohammedan thinks that he has done wrong -- the
question of conscience does not arise. In fact, according to his religion he has done some
virtuous act. He was trying to convert the Hindus to Mohammedanism, because if you are not
a Mohammedan you cannot enter paradise.
He was trying to help you in every possible way, to smuggle you, rightly or wrongly,
into paradise. From the front door or from the back door, it doesn't matter. But you are
resistant, you don't want to go to paradise, you are determined to go to hell -- that's
why he prevents you, he beheads you: It is better to be killed by the hands of a religious
Mohammedan. The Koran says, "The man who is killed by a Mohammedan will enter
paradise, just as the Mohammedans who have killed him will enter paradise." So they
are really trying to save people from going to hell -- why should they feel any pain in
their conscience?
No Hindu feels it, no Christian feels it. Christians have killed more people than
anybody else, and particularly they have burned living people. Others have been killing
and then burning; Christianity has a shortcut. Why make it in two parts? When the book can
be published in one book, why make two volumes? First kill the man and then burn him? Burn
him directly! Thousands of people have been burned alive.
I don't see anywhere that anybody is outraged.
If people are outraged things will change -- because who is doing them? We are doing
them.
This sentence in the beginning of the declaration is such a lie. First it says,
"Barbarous acts...."
In fact, in these fifty years we have done more barbarous acts than
in the whole history of man.
In ten thousand years we have not been able to do so many barbarous activities as we
have done just within fifty years. We are becoming more and more barbarous -- of course
with a style and method.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- what do you think? Are these barbarous acts, or an effort to
send the beautiful people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima directly to paradise together? Whole
cities, more than two hundred thousand people, entered within five minutes. I don't think
there was ever such a crowd at the gates of paradise. And it was America that was
responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is now absolutely confirmed by the people who understand military science that
dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was absolutely useless. Japan was
already surrendering -- Germany had surrendered and now there was no question that Japan
could go on fighting; not for more than one week, or maybe not even that long.
Seeing that Germany was finished, Japan could not fight alone. It is a small country of
very courageous people, brave people but a very small country. It was fighting with the
support of Germany, and when the main support disappeared.... Japan was going to
surrender.
And this was the fear of President Truman of America: Japan may surrender tomorrow;
then he will miss the chance to drop the atom bombs. And they had put so much money and
energy and genius into creating atom bombs, they wanted to try them.
Man is not important, but money.... Their bombs had to be tried.
And you say that because of barbarous acts, the civilized people feel a prick of
conscience. Was President Truman a civilized man or not? Even his own military experts had
told him that it was absolutely meaningless, unnecessarily destroying human life. But he
went ahead.
The next morning hundreds of journalists had gathered at the White House to see
President Truman, because world's greatest catastrophe created by man had happened. Their
first question was, "Mr. President, did you have a good sleep in the night?"
Because he had gone to bed only after he had received the message: "Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are in smoke, they are no longer on the map of the earth." Then he went to
bed; otherwise he waited for the news to reach him.
He said, "Yes, I slept more peacefully than ever, because our experiment has
succeeded. Now we are the greatest power in the world."
And you are talking about conscience?
As far as I am concerned, civilization is still a dream, a hope, a utopia. And if we
don't get into the tricks of the magician, and start believing that we are civilized
people, the hope can become a reality, the dream can become a concrete experience.
And conscience arises only after meditation, never before it.
You are not born with a conscience. You can watch small children: if they see an ant
they will kill it. Do you think the small child has some conscience? Do you think the
small child is a criminal, a murderer? No, nothing like that. It is just out of curiosity,
he's just exploring his world. He has entered into a new world, and he is exploring it.
But there is no question of conscience. He does not feel that when he has been beating a
dog for no reason, the dog also feels pain. Children don't have any conscience; they have
only seeds.
All these politicians are trying to convince humanity: "You have a
conscience." You don't have. You will have to grow it, you will have to work
upon yourself. You will have to learn how to be silent, and how to listen to the still,
small voice within.
I don't think any of the politicians who made this declaration have had any experience
of what conscience is, of what consciousness is. It comes only after a long, long
pilgrimage inwards. You are not given everything by birth. You are given by birth only the
necessary things for survival; everything else is given only as a seed. If you are
intentionally interested in evolving your consciousness to its highest peak, then it is up
to you.
Nature provides only for survival -- not life, not joy, not silence, not ecstasy, not
love. Nature can manage itself with only lust -- what is the need for love? Why create
complications? Love you will have to find, consciousness you will have to grow. You will
have to become a gardener of your own being -- your being is your garden.
Your being is the Garden of Eden talked about in the Bible. That Garden of Eden is not
somewhere else on some other star -- it is within you. You have been thrown out of it, and
you have been running all around but never going in. The moment you go in, you are back in
the Garden of Eden.
But now, nobody has taken care for thousands of years. You have never been back inside.
Everything has gone to seed; now nothing blossoms, no foliage, no greenery. But you can
bring it back to life because everything is potentially there.
These people don't understand what conscience is.
They have learned only words.
I have heard...
A psychologist was appearing for an oral examination for his doctorate. There were three
examiners. The first question they asked was: "What are the most important qualities
of the human mother's milk?"
The psychologist was a little puzzled: "What has psychology to do with mother's milk?
I have not come here to be an expert in milk products or anything. But what to do, I have
to answer...."
So he said, "First, it has all the nutrients for the child's growth -- it is perfect
food. Second, it comes from within the mother's body, so it is warm, easily digestible;
and because it comes from within, it cannot be carrying any infection, any disease which
may be around. The child is protected."
They said, "Right! Now, the third?"
There was a moment of silence because he could not figure it out -- what is the third? The
first two also he had made up. The third was coming up again and again in his mind, but he
was repressing it. When he could not find anything else he had to say it. He said,
"The third is that it comes in nice containers!"
Now, these idiots are going to be psychologists! And that was the first thing
that had come to his mind -- "nice containers."
Looking at the declaration, my first feeling was that these people are articulate, they
can play with words. They can use beautiful words which influence you and deceive you, and
hide the reality.
Article one: "All human beings are
born free."
This is absolutely nonsense.
If all human beings are born free, leave a child in freedom: he will die within
twenty-four hours. Man's child is the most helpless child in the whole world -- what
freedom can he have? He cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot fly....
In fact, one scientist had the idea -- and I feel some sympathy with his idea -- that
human child is born earlier than he should be. He needs at least nine months more in the
mother's womb because he is not complete, he's still growing. You see animals, kids --
they are born and they start walking around and searching for food. They are more
independent and they are more complete. For the human child it is impossible to survive
without the support of the mother and the father and the family or other human beings.
What freedom can he have?
This is what I say is the most cunning part of the politician's mind: He is giving you
the idea that you don't need freedom. "Don't ask for freedom. You are born free; all
human beings are born free."
All human beings are born utterly helpless and dependent. It may take years for them to
be free. Then too, millions of people never become free. This declaration is saying that
they are born free. I am saying millions of people die -- even then they are not free. And
you know it from your life: you are not free.
The husband is there, the wife is not free. The wife is there, the husband is not free.
I have seen husbands and wives walking on the road -- the husband is not even free to look
here and there! He looks straight ahead, like a Buddhist monk, just four feet ahead. And
his wife is looking out of the corner of her eye -- where is he. What kind of freedom is
this? The moment the husband reaches home, the first question is: "Where have you
been?" and you are a free man, "Why are you late?"
When I was in school, I was usually late.
Life outside was so beautiful, and around my school there were so many mango trees. And
when the mango season comes, just to pass by the side of mango trees -- such fragrance,
such sweetness in the air. The mango is certainly the king of all the fruits. There were
other fruit trees too, and I was mostly in those trees rather than in class.
On the first day when I reached middle school, I was half an hour late. The teacher
said, "This won't do. At least with me, this will not do. If you have to study my
subject, you have to be here before I come into the class -- five minutes earlier. Why are
you late?"
I said, "Listen -- just because of this question I am not going to get
married!"
He said, "What? The question of marriage?"
I said, "I will explain to you: I have been hearing it everywhere in my
neighborhood; every wife is asking, 'Where have you been? Why are you late?', and I have
decided that these questions I am not going to answer. So I am sacrificing my whole life
-- I'm not going to get married -- because of this question, and you think I will answer
it for you? I would rather change the subject. Good-bye!"
He said to the class, "This is a strange boy. Irrelevant things he brings in --
marriage? What has marriage to do with my subject, geography?"
But he became interested in me. After school he caught hold of me and he said,
"Now, we can sit. I want to understand what is the matter. Why?"
I said, "Nobody has the right to ask me why I am late, where I have been. It is my
life: If I want to spoil it, it is my right. You are only a servant, to teach geography.
You are not there to ask such questions to create dependence in me. I hate such questions.
I can leave the school; I can completely forget about being educated, there is no need.
Because if Jesus, without being educated, can experience himself; if Kabir, without being
educated, can know the ultimate.... I am not interested in any business, in any service,
in any employment. So if you want me in your class, you will have to be a little more
human -- not continuously interfering in my freedom."
This first article says: "All human beings are born free."
These are the strategies of hypnotizing and conditioning humanity. They have given you
the idea that you are born free -- now there is no need to fight for freedom, there is no
need to create an inner revolution which makes you really free -- free from everything,
free from the body...because the body is a bondage.
The East is far more truthful. It says you are born in bondage, not that you are born
free. Your body is a prison and your mind and your brain are prisons. Your consciousness
is confined in a very small space, and your consciousness is capable of spreading all over
the universe. Because you don't know the potential, you think this is all you are.
These people, according to me, are criminals -- greater criminals than those who go to
the gallows -- because they are deceiving the whole of humanity. But the deception is very
clever: "You are born free." Naturally, freedom is not a question, not something
to be created, to be deserved, to be earned, to be worthy of; you are already free!
George Gurdjieff is the only man in the whole of history who has said
such a tremendously significant thing: "You don't have any soul."
Now, throughout the whole world, all the religions believe that you have a soul, that
you come with a soul. George Gurdjieff's voice is alone in the whole of history, saying
that not all mankind has a soul; the place of the soul is empty. There is a possibility --
you can work, you can create the soul -- but you are not born with it.
I know, and Gurdjieff knows that you are born with a soul -- but the idea that we are
born with a soul has not been helpful. It has made man more asleep: We are born with a
soul, God is within you, the kingdom of God is within you, so what do you have to do?
Things that are not within you, work hard to get them -- money, power, respectability --
because nobody says, "Every child is born with money, every child is born with
political power, every child is born with respectability." Nobody will say that.
These things have to be earned.
Freedom, consciousness, God, whatever you call it, has to be discovered. It is hidden,
dormant; it has to be made dynamic, has to be made fully mature. It should be brought to
flower and fruition. But to tell people, "You are born free -- and equal in dignity
and rights".... People can go on lying so smoothly, with such beautiful words --
destroying those words.
Nobody is equal.
This is a psychological truth.
Neither in your body nor in your mind nor in your talents...nor among your geniuses --
nobody is equal. A Sigmund Freud is a Sigmund Freud; a Bertrand Russell is a Bertrand
Russell; a D.H. Lawrence is a D.H. Lawrence. There is not even one other D.H. Lawrence,
and never will be.
Each individual is unique.
This idea of equality is so ugly, but it has become almost the
religion of the contemporary man -- "equality."
I say to you, it is the most destructive idea that has penetrated into the human mind.
You have to be reminded about your uniqueness.
All human beings are endowed with reason
and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
These are all assumptions without any validity. All human beings are not born with
reason, are not endowed with reason.
For example, there are people, very few.... I have just named Bertrand Russell -- he
can be said to be endowed with reason. A J. Krishnamurti...but ordinary people are living
with all kinds of superstitions. Unless you have dropped all your superstitions, you
cannot be said to be a rational person. What does reason mean? For the Hindus, the cow is
the mother. This is "reason."
I was talking to a shankaracharya -- the equivalent of the pope to the Hindus --
and I asked him, "Are you sure that the cow is your mother?"
He said, "What do you mean?"
"Now," I said, "just entering your temple, I met your mother. So I was
puzzled: who is your mother, this woman or the cow? Or perhaps one is your
step-mother?"
He said, "What are you talking about? The woman is my biological mother, but the
cow is my spiritual mother."
I said, "My God! What about the bull? You must have some relationship with the
bull or not? Your spiritual father? And who are you? Just a bull; or perhaps castrated,
not even a bull."
You live with superstitions, and you talk about reason.
All Christians believe -- and the whole group of politicians who have drawn up this
declaration, ninety percent of them are Christians -- they all believe that Jesus is born
of a virgin mother. And they are rational beings....
It happened:...
One college girl got pregnant. She tried to hide it, but there are a few things you cannot
hide. Truth is one, pregnancy is another! It is just impossible; it goes on becoming
bigger and bigger.
Finally her mother discovered it. She said, "What is the matter?" And the girl
had to confess. The mother took her to the doctor.
The doctor examined her and said, "Even without examining her...she is pregnant --
and eight months. Now abortion is not possible."
The mother started shouting and screaming at the girl: "You have blackened our name,
destroyed our respectability in the society."
But the girl said, "Mom, I have not even touched the hand of a man. How can I be
pregnant? This is impossible!"
Hearing this, the doctor got out of his chair, went to the nearby window and looked at the
sky.
The mother said, "Why you are looking there?"
He said, "I am looking for the three wise men from the East."
She said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "And I am also looking for the star because it happened once -- when Jesus
was born. The star came, leading three wise men. It seems it has happened again -- a
virgin birth!"
But ask these Christians, "Where is your rationality?"
Jesus is born out of virgin mother. He is crucified and he is resurrected too, he makes
dead people come back to life -- and these are the fundamentals on which the faith of a
Christian depends. You just take a few things out -- it is very strange -- and you will
find Christianity to be the most irreligious religion, the poorest as far as religiousness
is concerned.
The virgin birth -- cancel it, if you have reason. Resurrection -- cancel it, if you
have reason. Walking on water -- cancel it. Raising the dead back to life -- cancel it.
Changing water into alcohol -- not only cancel it, but find the guy and give him to the
police, because it is a crime, it is not a miracle. But if all these things are cancelled,
what remains in Christianity? That is the poverty of Christianity.
In Buddhism, you cannot cancel anything because nothing is based on superstition.
Buddha himself has cancelled anything that smells of superstition -- it is just pure
rationality.
But to say that man is endowed with reason by birth.... It doesn't seem so. Looking at
the world, it doesn't seem that it is a rational world.
We have not been living according to reason, we have been living according to all kinds
of irrational things. But these are sweet words to believe: that you are endowed
with reason. The more idiotic you are, the more you will believe it, and sooner.
...and conscience, and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Conscience arises only after deep meditation -- never before it. It is a flowering of
meditation. Only very few people in the whole world, in the whole of history, have been
conscious, have had conscience. Both the words mean the same, but because of religious
people, in all the languages except French they have created different meanings for the
two words. Only in French is 'conscience' and 'consciousness' one word, it means the same
thing.
Religions around the world have tried to take conscience separately from consciousness
for a certain reason: consciousness comes only after meditation. How long can you deceive
people?
It is just like when you bring light into the room, and darkness disappears. The moment
you are in a meditative state, you have consciousness, awareness.
They created another word, "conscience." And conscience is what the priests,
the church, the religion, teach you about what is good, what is bad, what is virtuous,
what is sin -- all these teachings make your conscience. It is a very clever trick to
separate conscience from consciousness.
There can be no conscience without consciousness.
But they have created a false, artificial conscience.
For example, I was born in a very ancient religion.
Perhaps the ancientmost. It is a small religion as far as numbers are concerned, but
they have their superstitions.
Up to the age of eighteen I had not seen a tomato in my house. Do you think tomatoes
are dangerous people? But because the color of the tomato is the color of meat, that was
enough to debar it. Up to the age of eighteen I had never eaten in the night, because it
is prohibited by that religion -- you can eat only between sunrise and sunset. Eating in
the night you may eat some insect, some ant: some violence may happen. So it is better to
eat in light, in full light.
When I was eighteen my friends were going to see a beautiful castle very close by, a
few miles away. I went with them. I had no idea, I had not even thought about it, but
going up the hill to the castle...and it was so beautiful, so old, and there were so many
things to see, that nobody was ready to prepare food.
I asked, "Do something -- soon the sun will be setting and I am feeling very
hungry, you are feeling hungry. The whole day long we have been moving on the
mountain...it has been tiring, but it has been an experience."
They said, "As long as the sun is there, we don't want to miss. There are a few
more things to see."
I was the only one who was not accustomed to eating in the night. They were all eating
at night so there was no question. By nine or ten o'clock in the night, they had prepared
such delicious food -- and particularly after the whole day's hunger, starvation, and
moving on the mountain, I was in a dilemma -- what to do? Then I told them: "There is
a great difficulty. I have never eaten in the night, and the religion in which
unfortunately I have been born, thinks that if you eat in the night, you will go to hell.
I don't want to go to hell just for one night's food, but I cannot sleep either. Moreover,
the smell of your food is too much!"
They persuaded me, saying, "We will not tell your parents or anybody. Nobody will
ever know that you have eaten in the night."
I said, "That is not the point -- I will know. The question is not my parents or
anybody. You can tell the whole world, that's not the problem. The problem is that I
cannot conceive of myself eating at night, after eighteen years of continuous
conditioning." But they persuaded me -- and I had to be persuaded. I ate, but I could
not sleep; I had to vomit the whole night. Now, nobody else vomited. Twenty persons were
with me; they all slept -- they were tired, they had eaten good food. They slept well. I
had to remain awake the whole night, vomiting. Unless I was completely clean of the food,
I could not sleep. It was just in the morning nearabout five that I went to sleep. That
gave me the idea: perhaps eating in the night is dangerous. Just one time and the whole
night became hell! And those who have been eating in the night for their whole
lives...perhaps the idea that they go to hell is right. But the whole world is eating in
the night. If it is true, then everybody will be going to hell. And these twenty friends
are sleeping so beautifully -- nobody has vomited so nothing was wrong with the food, and
nothing is wrong with these people. Something is wrong in my conditioning; I have been
brought up with a wrong idea. But once you accept something, this creates a false
conscience that goes on telling you, "Don't do this, do this."
This is not consciousness. Consciousness simply knows what to do, what not to do. There
is no question of choice.
Consciousness is a choiceless state -- you simply know what is right.
You are not born with conscience. It has been created by the religions, and they have
exploited man through creating conscience. It is time that we should drop the word
'conscience' because it has become associated with a long past and has wrong connotations.
You should use the word 'consciousness.' But consciousness is the fragrance of your
becoming absolutely silent; it does not come with your birth. Yes, if you can attain
consciousness, you will have a new birth; you will be reborn. That's what Jesus meant when
he said to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again, you will not understand me."
He does not mean in your next life. He means that you will have to transform your being,
rise in your consciousness: "Only then will you be able to understand me."
If you have consciousness and silence and meditativeness, there is no need to say that
the whole of humanity is one. It is -- it is your experience. And it will not be only a
brotherhood, it will be a brotherhood and a sisterhood! But it will be just a byproduct;
there is no need to declare it as a fundamental right.
Article two: "Everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration without distinction
of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
All these are bullshit. The first question I was asked as I entered America was that I
had to declare under oath that I am not an anarchist. If I am an anarchist, I cannot enter
America. Anarchism is a political ideology. I cannot conceive that these people go on
declaring these things. Who is going to ask them: "When are you going to practice
them?" Everywhere there is discrimination -- in different ways in different
countries, but discrimination is there. Mankind needs a great uproar against these
so-called humanitarians. They think they are doing a great service.
For example, in India, for the same amount of work the woman will be paid less. And in
this declaration it is said that for the same amount of labor, the same rewards should be
paid -- whether it is man or woman, white or black does not matter. But it is not true. In
America, I was in six jails, and in all the jails there was not a single white man. In six
federal jails -- which were huge, six hundred people, seven hundred people in one
jail...but all black people. And you say discrimination is not there. It seems strange --
in a white country all the criminals are black. And that was not all.
I inquired of a few black inmates -- because they all loved me; they had been watching
me on television every day for five years, and they had become involved in controversies
themselves. They were reading my books, and they were happy that I had come at least for
one day to their jail -- they would remember this day for their whole lives. I asked them,
"What is your crime?" They said, "All these people you see have not
committed any crime. They have been arrested the way you have been arrested -- without any
arrest warrant. And we have been told again and again: 'You will be taken to the court
next week, tomorrow,' but that tomorrow never comes." One man told me that he had
been there for nine months without being taken to court.
Now this declaration says nobody should be arrested without an arrest warrant, nobody
should be kept in jail unless he is proved a criminal. Innocence needs no proof; you have
to prove a person criminal, only then can you keep him in jail. Otherwise you cannot keep
him in jail. But people have been there for nine months, eight months, six months in jail
-- and all young people. So I started figuring out the reason: it is not that they have
done anything wrong. The reason is that they are young and revolutionaries. They want
rights for the blacks, equal rights for blacks. That is their crime. But they cannot be
taken to court because the court will release them, so they go on keeping them in jail.
But this is absolutely criminal on the part of the government of the U.S.
I have seen only six jails and nearabout three or four thousand young
black people.
Perhaps thousands of people are in other jails. They told me, "Because there is
too much pressure from all over the world, that's why they are taking you to court.
Otherwise, if the world had remained silent, if the news media had not spread all over the
world that the whole government is doing everything criminal against an innocent
person.... The pressure is too much and the eyes of the whole news media are focused on
you. They are, under compulsion, reluctantly, taking you to court." Still, they took
twelve days. That too is against human rights.
From the place where I was arrested, the court where I had to be present was only five
hours' flight. My own jet was there. We offered them our jet; we said, "You can have
your pilots; you can have your people, and you can take me to the court. What is the need
to keep me here in your jail?" They would only take me in their own airplane. The
whole strategy was: "Today the airplane has not come...something is wrong with the
airplane." They had only one airplane, it seems. "The pilot is sick...."
They took twelve days to make a five hours journey. But looking at other inmates I
thought, "It is very quick, only twelve days...."
Every government goes on doing everything illegal and everything against human rights.
And these people are the representatives of governments and without any shame they can
make this declaration -- perhaps without even feeling what they are doing. They are lying
utterly -- white lies!
Article three: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty
and security of person."
But death is not included -- and it is important. Because birth is not in your hands --
you are born without your consent -- now only death is there. And you have the choice:
either to die without your consent or to die with a dignity of a human being, with your
own consent -- not to give death a chance, but to move, yourself, when you have lived. But
they are worried about putting death into it because then all the religions and all the
political parties will be creating havoc for them. Everything has to be consolatory:
"life" -- but what kind of life?
Just in the last year, six months ago, in Europe the common market had accumulated
mountains of butter and other foodstuffs. People were dying in Ethiopia -- one thousand
people per day -- and they had a surplus but they would not give it to Ethiopia. That
surplus had to be drowned in the ocean. Just in drowning it, two billion dollars were
wasted -- that was not the value of the food, it was just the labor of shifting and
drowning it in the ocean. And they are doing it every six months, because every six months
the surplus is there and you need more warehouses. And what will you do with it? Fresh
crops are coming. But you will not give it to Ethiopia.
In India, fifty percent of the people are living below the medical standard of
nourishment and twenty-five percent of the people are almost starving. Fifty percent of
people in the villages are eating only one time a day -- and when I say eating, don't
think of the Taj Mahal Hotel. It means just bread, salt, a little sauce from mangos or
from other fruits -- that's all. This is not food.
Unless the world is one, we will not be able to give everybody enough nourishment. And
what does it mean to say that you have the right to life? Because people are there; and
people are dying, people have died. America is doing the same, Stalin's Russia was doing
the same. It is not something happening only in Europe. Every three months America drowns
its surplus -- and that is worth billions of dollars. In the days of Stalin, Russia was
using wheat instead of coal in their railway trains because wheat is cheaper, it is
surplus and coal is difficult and costly to obtain in Russia. People are dying -- that is
not important. People are starving -- that is not important.
Article nine: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
arrest, detention or exile."
I have been subjected, so I am a witness to it, that this declaration is not being used
by any government -- and particularly by America, which was the sponsor for this
declaration. I have been in detention in England -- not even for an arbitrary reason. I
wanted just to stay for six hours at the airport in the first-class lounge because my
pilots had flown their time and they wanted to rest. It is against their laws to fly more
than twelve hours, so we had to stop.
My pilots said, "They may create trouble; they may say that the first-class lounge
is for first-class passengers and you are not a passenger; you have your own plane. Now
what class is it, how can they decide?" So I said my people to purchase two tickets,
two first-class tickets for the morning flight: "We will go with our plane, but
purchase two tickets in case they bring up this point" And they brought up that
point. Then we brought up the tickets! The officer was shocked. He had not thought that we
would have tickets too. I said, "Now what do you think?" He said, "I cannot
do anything. I will have to ask the higher authorities." And who was the higher
authority? It seems it was the prime minister herself.
When the man was gone I looked into his file; he had left it on the table. The
government had given him orders. I have never asked for any entry visa into England. They
should not have bothered. But they decided in Parliament that I should not be allowed in
the country -- in case I should ask to enter. When the man came back I told him, "I
do not want to enter England, even if the whole of England wants me to enter England, I am
the last person to do it. I have no business in England, I just want to sleep in the
lounge. And from the lounge you cannot enter the country. It is closed; you will remain
only at the airport. And the airport is international. It is not England." But he
said, "What can I do? The insistence is from the top: 'If he insists then put him in
detention. That's the only way. He can remain in jail for six hours.'"
I had to remain in jail for six hours -- not even for an arbitrary reason. I had not
committed any crime, I had the tickets, I had the plane, I just wanted to rest. But the
politicians -- because I have been exposing them continuously -- now have become so
frightened that even my sleeping six hours in the lounge at the airport is dangerous for
the religion of England, its morality, its character. I can corrupt the youth just by
staying in the lounge! These people are not lovers of human beings. Nor do they have any
respect for human dignity.
Article eighteen: "Everyone has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to
manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
"Freedom of thought and expression" -- I have never done anything except to
express my thoughts. If that is a human right, then no government has anything against me.
I am not active in any politics; I am not interested in any power. I am simply saying
whatsoever I see more clearly than all these blind politicians. What is the fear? Just now
the pope has called a World Conference of Religions. All the chief priests and leaders of
other religions have been called. My sannyasins from Italy have been writing to me:
"We are insisting to the pope -- and his secretary is very much interested in you and
is willing to extend an invitation, but the pope is against it." In fact for eight
months the Italian government has been thinking about whether to give me a three weeks'
tourist visa or not. And the pope has been the cause of the whole delay. And these people
go on saying, "We love freedom of thought, freedom of expression."
Nobody loves freedom of thought. It has to support him, then it is loved. "Freedom
of expression...." The pope has put my books on the black list so that no Catholic
should read them. They have a black list. In the Middle Ages, whenever a book appeared on
the black list it was burned all over Europe. Now they cannot do that, but this much they
can do: no Catholic should read it. And Catholics are not a small minority -- seven
hundred million people, a world in itself. Now, preventing them simply means you have
accepted defeat; it simply means you don't have any answers to me. But then why all this
nonsense about a declaration of human rights?
Article nineteen: "Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference
and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers."
This is not right. The Indian parliament has urged Indian journalists and news media
people not to give any space to my ideas. The American government has been pressuring the
Indian government so that no news media people from the West should be allowed to take my
interview. The American government has been doing two things: telling all the governments
of Europe, and Australia, that I should not be allowed to reside in their countries, that
I should be sent back from everywhere to India. So all the countries of Europe have passed
resolutions in their parliaments that I cannot be allowed in their country even as a
tourist for three weeks.
The American idea is that I should not be allowed to enter any other country and nobody
who wants to see me or meet me should be allowed to come to India. In this way they feel
they can destroy the sannyas movement. This goes on in reality. And in words, beautiful
and great slogans...but empty.
Article twenty-two: "Everyone has the right to the free
development of his personality."
I don't see that you are allowed to have freedom to develop your personality. In the
first place, the people who wrote this don't know that personality is the false part of
you, and it has not to be developed at all.
Your reality is your individuality, which has to be discovered. But they don't talk
about individuality. They may not have ever thought of it. Because they are only
personalities, they don't yet have their individuality awake, alert. Naturally, they are
writing the word "personality." "Personality" is an ugly word. It
means a mask; the very root of the word is 'mask.' And we don't want people to have masks.
People should be natural, spontaneous, themselves.
Article twenty-five: "All children, whether born in or
out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."
Now, if this is true, it cancels marriage! If a child born from a marriage and a child
born outside of marriage have the same rights, then marriage loses all meaning. What is
the meaning of marriage? But they don't have the courage to say that. And this too is not
true, because nowhere are children born outside marriage respected. They are condemned in
every possible way.
I gave this much time to this rubbish because these are the people who are controlling
the whole world, and these are the people whose heads should be hammered as much as
possible. They have kept humanity in slavery -- this should not be allowed anymore. They
don't have any right of declaration. We have the right to declare. We are the people. As
far as my people are concerned, we declare that we will live freedom, love, humanity. We
will grow into our individuality and we will help anybody who is inviting and welcoming
us. The only basic right is to become God. And unless you have found God within yourself,
everything else is mundane. Finding godliness within you, everything else is found
simultaneously.
Osho: On Basic Human Rights