Osho,
On December 25th, you spoke to us on the Declaration of Human Rights. You exposed it as a
political device to maintain man in his current state of physical and psychological
slavery, and to ensure that he remains ignorant of his true potential for godliness. Would
you, tonight, make your own declaration of human rights for the new man?
The Declaration of Human Rights basically means that mankind still lives in many kinds
of slaveries. Otherwise, there would be no need for the Declaration. The very need
indicates that man has been deceived for thousands of years. And he has been deceived in
such a cunning way that unless you rise above humanity, you cannot see in what invisible
chains humanity is living, in what bondage, in what invisible prisons everybody is
confined.
My declaration of human rights consists of ten fundamental things.
Man has a right to dignity, to health; a right to grow, so that he can blossom into his
ultimate flowering. This ultimate flowering is his right. He is born with the seeds, but
the society does not provide him the soil, the right caring, the loving atmosphere.
On the contrary, society provides a very poisonous atmosphere, full of anger, hatred,
destructions, violence, war. The right to life means there should be no wars anymore. It
also means that nobody should be forced into armies, forced to go to war; it is
everybody's right to refuse. But this is not the case.
Thousands of people are in prisons -- particularly young people, sensitive and
intelligent -- because they refused to go to war. Their denial has become a crime -- and
they were simply saying that they don't want to kill human beings.
Human beings are not things you can destroy without a second thought.
They are the climax of universal evolution. To destroy them for any cause -- for
religion, for politics, for socialism, for fascism...it does not matter what the cause is;
man is above all causes, and man cannot be sacrificed on any altar.
It is so strange that the UN declares the fundamental rights of human beings and yet
says nothing about those thousands of young people who are wasting their lives in prisons
for the simple reason that they refused to destroy life. But it has deep roots which have
to be understood.
The right to life is possible only in a certain, different atmosphere which is not
present on the earth at the moment. Animals are killed, birds are killed, sea animals are
killed, just for game. You don't have any reverence for life. And life is the same whether
it is in human beings or in other forms. Unless man becomes aware of his violence towards
animals, birds, he cannot be really alert about his own right to life. If you are not
caring about others' lives, what right have you got to demand the same right for yourself?
People go hunting, killing animals unnecessarily.
I was a guest in Maharaja Jamnagar's palace. He showed me hundreds of lions, deer --
their heads. The whole palace was full, and he was showing them, "These are the
animals I have killed myself."
I asked him, "You look a nice a person. What was the reason? What have these
animals done against you?"
He said, "It is not a question of reason or a question of them doing anything
against me. It is just a game."
I said, "Just look from the other side: If a lion killed you, would that be a
game? Your wife, your children, your brothers -- will any one of them have the guts to say
that it was a beautiful game? It will be a disaster. If you kill, then it is a game; if
they kill, then it is a calamity. These double standards show your dishonesty,
insincerity."
He said, "I have never thought about it."
But the whole of humanity is non-vegetarian; they are all eating other life forms.
There is no reverence for life as such.
Unless we create an atmosphere of reverence for life, man cannot realize the goal of
getting his fundamental right of life.
Secondly, because the UN also declares life to be a fundamental right for man, it is
being misused. The Pope, Mother Teresa, and their tribe are using it for teaching people
against birth control, against abortion, against the pill. Man's mind is so cunning. It
was a question of human rights -- they are taking advantage of it. They are saying you
cannot use birth control methods because they go against life; the unborn child also has
the same right as you have. So some line has to be drawn, because at what point...?
To me, the pill does not destroy human rights; in fact it prepares
the ground for it.
If the earth is too overcrowded, millions of people will die of starvation; there will
be wars. And the way the crowd is exploding it can lead humanity into a very inhuman
situation.
In Bengal, there was a great famine in which mothers ate their own children. People
sold their own children just for one rupee, two rupees. And do you think the persons who
were purchasing them were purchasing human beings? No, they were purchasing food.
The pope and Mother Teresa will be responsible for all this.
The pill simply does not allow the child to be formed in the mother's womb, so the
question of human rights does not arise. And now, recently, science has found a pill for
men too. It is not necessary that the woman should take the pill, the man can take it. The
child is not formed in any way; hence, this fundamental right is inapplicable in that
case. But these religious people -- the shankaracharyas in India, Ayatollah
Khomeini in Iran...and all over the world, all religions are against birth control
methods. And they are the only methods which can prevent man from falling into a barbarous
state.
I am absolutely in favor of birth control methods. A child should be recognized as a
human being when he is born -- and then too, I have some reservations....
If a child is born blind, if a child is born crippled, if a child is born deaf, dumb,
and we cannot do anything.... Just because life should not be destroyed, this child will
have to suffer -- because of your stupid idea -- for seventy years, eighty years. Why
create unnecessary suffering? If the parents are willing, the child should be put to
eternal sleep. And there is no problem in it. Only the body goes back into its basic
elements; the soul will fly into another womb. Nothing is destroyed.
If you really love the child, you will not want him to live a seventy-year-long life in
misery, suffering, sickness, old age. So even if a child is born, if he is not medically
capable of enjoying life fully with all the senses, healthy, then it is better that he
goes to eternal sleep and is born somewhere else with a better body.
The right to life is a complex thing. Nobody is entitled to kill anyone, either, in the
name of religion. Millions of people have been killed in the name of religions, in the
service of God.
No one should be killed in the name of politics.
Again, the same has happened. Joseph Stalin alone killed one million people, his own
people, while he was in power. Adolf Hitler killed six million people. And thousands of
wars have happened.
It seems that on this earth we are doing only one thing: reproducing children because
soldiers are needed, reproducing children because wars are needed. Even to increase the
population, Mohammed said that every Mohammedan can marry four women or even more. He
himself married nine women. And the reason is war, destruction of life. It is not out of
love for nine women that he has married them, it is simple arithmetic. If a man marries
nine women, he can produce nine children in one year. If nine women marry one man, this is
okay but vice-versa, nine men marrying one woman may not be able even to produce one
child. They will mess up the whole thing. Most probably they will kill the woman!
It seems man is nothing but a necessary instrument for more destruction, more wars.
The population has to be reduced if man wants to be, to have his dignity, honor, his
right to live -- not just to drag, but to dance. When I say life is a fundamental right, I
mean a life of songs and dances, a life of joy and blessings.
Love should be accepted as one of the most fundamental human rights, and all societies
have destroyed it. They have destroyed it by creating marriage. Marriage is a false
substitute for love.
In the past, small children were married. They had no idea what love is, what marriage
is. And why were small children married? For a simple reason: before they become young
adults, before love arises in their hearts, the doors have to be closed. Because once love
takes possession of their hearts then it will become very difficult....
No child marriage is human. A man or a woman should be allowed to choose their partners
and to change their partners whenever they feel. The government has no business in it, the
society has nothing to do with it. It is two individuals' personal affair. The privacy of
it is sacred.
If two people want to live together, they don't need any permission from any priest or
any government. They need the permission of their hearts. And the day they feel that the
time has come to part, again they don't need anybody's permission. They can part as
friends, with beautiful memories of their loving days.
Love should be the only way for men and women to live together. No
other ritual is needed.
The only problem in the past was what would happen to the children;
that was the argument for marriage. There are other alternatives, far better. Children
should be accepted not as their parents' property -- they belong to the whole humanity.
From the very beginning it should be made clear to them, "The whole humanity is going
to protect you, is your shelter. We may be together -- we will look after you. We may not
be together; still we look after you. You are our blood, our bones, our souls."
In fact, this possession by the parents of the children is one of the most dangerous
things that humanity goes on carrying. This is the root of the idea of possessiveness. You
should not possess your children. You can love them, you can bless them, but you cannot
possess. They belong to the whole humanity. They come from beyond; you have been just a
passage. Don't think more than that about yourself. Whatever you can do, do.
Every commune, every village should take care of the children. Once the commune starts
taking care of the children, marriage becomes absolutely obsolete. And marriage is
destroying your basic right to love.
If man's love is free, there will not be blacks and whites, and there
will not be these ugly discriminations, because love knows no boundaries.
You can fall in love with a black man, you can fall in love with a white man. Love
knows no religious scriptures. It knows only the heartbeat, and it knows it with absolute
certainty. Once love is free, it will prepare the ground for other fundamental rights.
In fact, if you ask the scientists, people falling in love should be as different as
possible. Then they will give birth to better children, more intelligent, stronger. We
know it now; we are trying it all over the world as far as animals are concerned.
Crossbreeding has given us better cows, better horses, better dogs. But man is strange.
You know the secret, but you are not bettering yourself.
All the royal families are suffering. They create the greatest number of idiots,
because they go on marrying amongst themselves. Royal blood cannot mix with a commoner's
blood -- even in the twentieth century we think in terms of royal blood. Blood is simply
blood. But if just a dozen families go on marrying amongst themselves continually, they
create many kinds of diseases.
Retardedness is one. Just have a look again at the picture of the Prince of Wales and
you will see what I mean by a retarded person. They are fed up, but they cannot go out of
their small circle. I have never come across any person belonging to a royal family who
has intelligence, and in India I have been acquainted with almost all the royal families.
It is not only that their minds remain retarded, their bodies lose many things.
You must have heard the name of Rasputin.
Before the Russian revolution he had become the most important man in Russia, for the
simple reason that the child of the Czar had a disease -- if he wounded himself
accidentally then the bleeding could not be prevented. No medicine could prevent it, there
was no way; the blood would go on flowing out. And that is one of the symptoms of marrying
close relatives.
Rasputin was a great hypnotist. He was not a saint and he was not a sinner, he was
simply a great hypnotist. He managed with hypnosis to prevent the blood from flowing out
of the child. What no physician was able to do...and the child was going to be the
successor to the greatest empire of those days. Rasputin certainly became very important.
Without him the child's life was in danger.
But still those royal families, although they have lost their kingdoms, their empires,
continue to marry amongst themselves. It creates a very weak personality.
Have you ever seen somebody from these royal families being declared as the beauty
queen of the world? Do you think Queen Elizabeth of England can even be declared a beauty?
All over England there is a rumor. I don't know whether it is true or not; hence I don't
take any responsibility for it. The rumor is that Prince Philip, the husband of Queen
Elizabeth, is a homosexual. I feel sorry for poor Philip. In fact anybody marrying
Elizabeth would have been homosexual, so he should not feel worried about it. It is just
natural.
And just two weeks or three weeks ago, one of the bodyguards of Prince Charles died of
the disease AIDS. Now you cannot get AIDS from the sky. One does not know who the holy
ghost is, but he must be in the royal family. And soon many more will die, because it is a
chain disease.
There should be no boundaries -- that a Hindu should marry only a Hindu, or a Brahmin
should only marry a Brahmin. In fact, the rule should be that the Indian should never
marry an Indian. The whole world is there; find your spouse far away, beyond the seven
seas, and then you will have children who are more beautiful, more healthy, long living,
far more intelligent, geniuses. Man has to learn crossbreeding, but that is possible only
if marriage disappears and love is given absolute respect. Right now it is condemned.
The third most fundamental right...because these are the three
most important things in life: life, love, and death.
Everybody should be given the fundamental right that after a certain age, when he has
lived enough and does not want to go on dragging unnecessarily.... Because tomorrow will
be again just a repetition; he has lost all curiosity about tomorrow. He has every right
to leave the body. It is his fundamental right.
It is his life. If he does not want to continue, nobody should prevent him. In fact,
every hospital should have a special ward where people who want to die can enter one month
before, can relax, enjoy all the things that they have been thinking about their whole
life but could not manage -- the music, the literature...if they wanted to paint or
sculpt....
And the doctors should take care to teach them how to relax. Up to now, death has been
almost ugly. Man has been a victim, but it is our fault. Death can be made a celebration;
you just have to learn how to welcome it, relaxed, peaceful. And in one month's time,
people, friends, can come to see them and meet together. Every hospital should have
special facilities -- more facilities for those who are going to die than for those who
are going to live. Let them live for one month at least like emperors, so they can leave
life with no grudge, with no complaint but only with deep gratitude, thankfulness.
Between these three comes the fourth: the search for truth.
Nobody should be conditioned from childhood about any religion, any philosophy, any
theology, because you are destroying his freedom of search. Help him to be strong enough.
Help him to be strong enough to doubt, to be skeptical about all that is believed all
around him. Help him never to believe, but to insist on knowing. And whatever it takes,
however long it takes, to go for the pilgrimage alone, on his own, because there is no
other way to find the truth.
All others -- who think they are Christians, or they are Jews, or they are Hindus, or
they are Mohammedans -- these are all believers. They don't know.
Belief is pure poison.
Knowing is coming to a flowering.
The search for truth...you should not teach anybody what truth is because it cannot be
taught. You should help the person to inquire. Inquiry is difficult; belief is cheap. But
truth is not cheap; truth is the most valuable thing in the world. You cannot get it from
others, you will have to find it yourself.
And the miracle is, the moment you decide that, "I will not fall victim to any
belief," you have already traveled half the way towards truth. If your determination
is total, you need not go to truth, truth will come to you. You just have to be silent
enough to receive it. You have to become a host so that truth can become a guest in your
heart.
Right now the whole world is living in beliefs. That's why there is no shine in the
eyes, no grace in people's gestures, no strength, no authority in their words. Belief is
bogus; it is making castles of sand. A little breeze and your great castle will be
destroyed.
Truth is eternal, and to find it means you also become part of eternity.
Fifth: to find the truth, all education systems from the kindergarten to the
universities will create a certain atmosphere for meditation.
Meditation does not belong to any religion, and meditation is not a belief. It is a
pure science of the inner.
Learning to be silent, learning to be watchful, learning to be a witness; learning that
you are not the mind, but something beyond -- the consciousness -- will prepare you to
receive truth.
And it is truth that has been called by many people "God", by others, "nirvana."
By others, other names have been given to it, but it is a nameless silence, serenity,
peace. The peace is so deep that you disappear; and the moment you disappear you have
entered the temple of God.
But strange it is, that people are wasting almost one-third of their lives in schools,
colleges, and universities, not knowing anything about silence, not knowing anything about
relaxation, not knowing anything about themselves. They know about the whole world -- it
is very weird that they have forgotten only themselves. But it seems there is some
reason....
In India there is an ancient story.
Ten blind men pass through a stream. The current is very forceful, so they hold hands.
Reaching the other side, somebody suggests, "We should count ourselves. The current
was so forceful and we cannot see -- somebody may have gone with the wind, gone with the
river."
So they count. Strangely enough the counting always stops at nine. Everybody tries, but
it is always nine. One man sitting on the bank of the river starts laughing -- it is
hilarious! And those ten blind people are sitting there crying, tears in their eyes
because they have lost one of their friends.
The man comes to them and he says, "What is the matter?"
They explain the situation. He says, "You all stand up in a line. I will hit the
first person -- he has to say 'one.' I will hit the second person -- he has to say 'two,'
because I will hit twice. I will hit the third person three times; he has to say
'three.'"
Strangely enough, he finds the tenth man who was lost. They all thank him, they touch
his feet; they say, "You are a god to us. We were thinking we had lost one of our
friends. But please, can you tell us...we were also counting; all of us tried, and the
tenth was not there. How has he appeared suddenly?"
The man says, "That is an ancient mystery which you will not understand. You just
go on your way."
What is the ancient mystery in it? One tends to forget oneself. In fact, one lives his
whole life without remembering himself. He sees everybody, he knows everybody; he just
forgets himself.
Meditation is the only method in which you will start counting from yourself,
"one."
And because it is not part of any religion, there is no problem -- it should be all
over the world, in every school, in every college, in every university. Anybody who comes
home from the university should come with a deep, meditative being, with an aura of
meditation around him. Otherwise, what he is bringing is all rubbish, crap. Geography he
knows: he knows where Timbuktu is, he knows where Constantinople is, and he does not know
where he is himself.
The first thing in life is to know who you are, where you are. Then everything in your
life starts settling, moving in the right direction.
The sixth: Freedom in all dimensions.
We are not even as free as birds and animals. No bird goes to the passport office. Any
moment he can fly into Pakistan; no entry visa. Strange, that only man remains confined in
nations, in boundaries. Because the nation is big, you tend to forget that you are
imprisoned. You cannot get out of it, you cannot get into it. It is a big prison, and the
whole earth is full of big prisons.
Freedom in all dimensions means that man, wherever he is born, is part of one humanity.
Nations should dissolve, religions should dissolve, because they are all creating
bondages -- and sometimes very hilarious bondages.
I was in a city, Devas. For twenty years the Jaina temple there has not opened. There
are three locks on the temple: one lock from the digambaras, one of the sects of
Jainism, one from another sect, svetambaras, and the third from the police. For
twenty years poor Mahavira has been inside -- no food, no bath, no light. One wonders
whether he is really alive or dead, because he does not make any noise...at least he could
knock and shout, "Open the doors and let me out!"
When I saw it, I asked, "What is the matter?" I was just passing by and I saw
three locks -- big locks, bigger than you may have ever seen -- and I came to know the
story.
In Devas, there is only one Jaina temple, and this was the temple. Jainas are few; they
don't have enough money to make two temples, so they have made one temple and divided the
time. Up to twelve o'clock in the morning, Digambaras will worship, and after
twelve, Svetambaras will worship...but there was a fight every day.
The differences between Svetambaras and Digambaras are not very big -- so
childish and so stupid. Digambaras worship Mahavira with closed eyes and Svetambaras
worship Mahavira with open eyes. This is the only basic difference.
Now a marble statue...either you can make the eyes closed or you can make the eyes
open, unless you fix some mechanism, to switch on so he opens his eyes, and switch off....
But that much technology does not exist in India; otherwise it would not be difficult. You
can find it in toys -- a beautiful girl, you lie her down and she closes her eyes. You put
her back and she opens her eyes. Something could have been arranged.
And they had something arranged -- primitive, but they had arranged it. And it is being
following all over India: When Svetambaras worship a statue which has closed eyes,
they put false eyes on top; they just glue them on. That is simple, non-technical; not
much technology is needed.
But every day the problem was there: at the time of twelve, exactly twelve, Svetambaras
would be waiting. One minute more...and the Digambaras are worshipping -- and they
are worshipping knowingly a little longer -- and the Svetambaras will come and
start putting their eyes on the statue and the fight will start.
It happened so many times that finally the police locked the temple and said to them,
"Go to the court and get a decision." The case goes on -- how can the court
decide whether Mahavira used to meditate with closed eyes or with open eyes? The reality
is, he used to meditate with half open eyes.
No child should be given any idea by the parents what life is all
about -- no theology, no philosophy, no politics.
He should be made as intelligent and sharp as possible, so when he comes of age he can
go in search. And it is a lifelong search. People today get their religion when they are
born. In fact, if you can get your religion when you die, you have found it early. It is
such a precious treasure, but it is possible only out of freedom -- and freedom in all
dimensions, not only in religion.
There should be no nations, no national boundaries. There should be no religions. Man
should be taken as man. Why confine him with so many adjectives? Right now he is not free
in any way.
I was arrested in America.
In one jail in Oklahoma, the U.S. Marshal told me that I had to write my name as David
Washington. I said, "This is the first time that somebody has told me my name. Do you
read thoughts?"
He became a little puzzled. He said, "Is it really your name?"
I said, "Of course."
He said, "Then change it. Some other name will do."
But I said, "You know my name. David Washington is not my name. And why should I
write David Washington? And you call this country a democracy! And not even the freedom to
write one's own name. What other freedoms do you have? And on your coat there is written
in big letters 'Department of Justice, U.S. Marshal.'" I said, "At least take
this coat off. David Washington is not my name and I am not going to write it." I
said, "This is for the first time in my life that I am seeing how democracy works,
how freedom works. I am not even free to write my name. What is the purpose?"
He said, "That, I don't know. From high above I have been ordered: 'David
Washington should be his name and he should be called David Washington in jail.'"
I said, "Then you fill out the form" -- and it was in the middle of the
night, twelve o'clock. I said, "You fill out the form -- I will not fill it out, I
refuse -- and then I will sign it."
He was in a hurry to go home, so he filled out the form. I signed my name. He looked at
it and he said, "But it doesn't look like David Washington."
I said, "How can it? I don't look like David Washington."
He said, "You are a strange man. You deceived me."
I said, "You are deceiving yourself. You know perfectly well what my name is. And
tomorrow the whole world will know that the so-called democracies -- free countries,
talking too much of freedom -- are not even able to allow people to write their own
names." And I said, "You don't know the reason why your higher authorities have
asked this?"
He said, "I don't know."
I said, "This is strange, because I know. It is a simple, logical inference that
even if you kill me in the jail nobody will be able to find out where I disappeared.
Because in your forms, on your register, I never entered your jail, so the question of my
being killed in your jail does not arise."
He was shocked. I said, "This is a simple thing. Otherwise, there is no need to
change my name; you don't have any authority."
But in this world there is no freedom in any dimension.
I was going to college. My parents wanted me to go to science college or to medical
college. I said, "Am I going or are you going?"
They said, "Of course you are going; why should we be going?"
"Then," I said, "leave it to me."
They said, "We can leave it to you, but then remember: we will not support you
financially."
I said, "That's understood." I left my home without a single rupee. I
traveled in the train to the university without a ticket. I had to go to the ticket
checker and tell him, "This is the situation. Can you allow me to travel without a
ticket?"
He said, "This is the first time in my life that somebody has come to ask me!
People escape, people deceive me, cheat me. Certainly I will take you, and at the
university station I will be at the gate so nobody bothers you."
I went directly to the vice-chancellor and told him the whole story. And I told him,
"I want to study philosophy, but it seems there is no freedom even to choose what I
want to study. So you have to give me all the scholarships possible, because I will not be
getting any financial help. Otherwise I will study philosophy, fasting...even if I
die."
He said, "No! Don't do that, because then the blame will be on me. I will give you
all the scholarships."
From the very childhood we go on crippling, cutting freedoms; we try to make a child
according to our desires.
I was talking to a Christian missionary and he said, "God made man in his own
image."
I said, "That is the foundation of all slavery. Why should God make man in his own
image? Who is he? And to give his own image to man means he has destroyed man from the
very beginning." And that is what every father is doing.
Man's basic right is to be himself.
And in an authentic human society, everybody should be allowed to be himself -- even if
he chooses just to be a flute player, and he will not become the richest man in the world
but will be a beggar on the streets.
Still I say freedom is so valuable.... You may not be the president of the country, you
may be just a beggar playing the flute in the streets. But you are yourself, and there is
such deep contentment, fulfillment, that unless you know it you have missed the train.
I don't see any reason at all why there should be so many nations. Why should there be
so many lines on the map? And they are only on the map, remember. They are not on the
earth; neither are they in the sky. And the map is man-made.
Existence has not created this earth in fragments.
I am reminded of one of my teachers. He was a very loving human being, and he had his
own methods of teaching. He was a kind of rebel.
One day he came with a few pieces of cardboard, placed them on the table, and said to
us all, "Look, this is the map of the world, but I have cut it into pieces and I have
mixed them. Now anybody who is confident that he can put them in their right places and
make the world map should come up."
One tried, failed; another tried, failed. I went on watching him and watching the
people who were failing and why they were failing.
Watching five persons fail, I was the sixth. I went and I turned over all his cardboard
pieces. He said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "You wait, I am working it out. Five people have failed but I have found
the secret."
On the other side of the map was a picture of a man. I arranged the man, which was
easier. On one side the man was arranged and on the other side the whole map of the world
was arranged. That was the key that I had been looking for, waiting to see if I could get
some clue. And when the others were arranging the pieces, I saw that there was something
on the other side.
The teacher said, "You are a rascal! I was hoping you would come first, but when
you didn't come I understood that you were waiting to find out the key. And you have found
the right key."
The world is divided because man is divided; man is divided because
the world is divided.
Start from anywhere; just let the whole of humanity be one, and the nations will
disappear, the lines will disappear. It is our world -- one humanity, one earth, and we
can make it a paradise. Right now there is no need to describe hell. You can just look all
around; it is here.
I have heard a story.... A man died. He was a thief, a murderer, a rapist -- you name
it and he had done it. And when the angels started taking him away, he said,
"Certainly you will be taking me to hell."
They said, "No."
He said, "What?"
They said, "Hell you have been in; now we are taking you to heaven. The old hell
is empty because you have created a better hell, so all the sinners are sent here."
And the story seems to be significant. Looking around the earth, man is in such misery and
suffering that there seems to be no need for another hell.
But we can change the whole situation. This earth can become a paradise. And then there
will be no need for any paradise; paradise will be empty.
Eighth: uniqueness of every individual.
A very beautiful word has been misused so utterly that it is difficult to imagine, and
that word is equality.
A few thinkers say human beings are equal. To counter them, the UN declares that
equality is man's birthright. But nobody bothers to see that man is not equal and has
never been equal. It is absolutely un-psychological.
Every man is unique. The moment you are all equal you are a crowd, your individuality
has been taken away. You are no longer yourself but just a cog in the wheel.
I teach not equality, not inequality -- I teach uniqueness. Every individual is unique
and needs to be respected in his uniqueness. Because every individual is unique, the
birthright should be: equal opportunity for their growth of uniqueness.
It is such a simple and obvious fact. Two thousand years have passed and you have not
been able to produce another Jesus. Twenty-five centuries have passed and you have not
been able to produce another Gautam Buddha. And still you go on saying man is equal?
Man is unique, and everybody should be respected as a world in himself. He is neither
inferior to anybody nor is he superior to anybody; he is alone.
In this aloneness there is beauty. You are no longer a mob, a crowd; you are yourself.
Ninth: a world government.
I am absolutely against governments. I am for one government for the whole world. That
means no war will be possible; that means there will be no need to keep millions of people
in armies unnecessarily. They can be productive, they can be helpful, and if they are
merged into humanity, all poverty will disappear.
Right now seventy percent of the national income of every country goes to the army and
the rest of the country lives on thirty percent. If armies disappear, seventy percent of
the income of every country will be available. There is no need to be poor, there is no
need to have any beggars.
These beggars, these Ethiopias -- they are our creations.
On the one hand, we are creating great armies and on the other hand, we are killing
human beings through starvation. And these armies are doing nothing. They are simply
professional killers, professional criminals, trained criminals. We are giving them
training in how to kill.
And we talk about humanity, we talk about civilization, and still seventy percent of
our income goes into killing.
One world government means a tremendous change, a revolution. The whole earth will be
benefited by it.
Secondly, if there is one world government it becomes only functional. Right now
government is not functional, it has real power. The president of a country or the prime
minister of a country...in a functional government things will be different. Now you have
the postmaster general; he is a functional person, he has no power. He has work, he has no
function, but he has no power. There is no need. The man who heads your railways, what
power does he have? The man who is the president of your airlines, what power does he
have? It is functional.
If there is only one government, it will automatically become functional. Right now it
cannot be, because the fear of other governments keeps you afraid, "Make your leaders
strong, give all support to the leaders." But if there is no war there is no need of
anybody having power -- war is the cause of power. And unless war disappears from the
world, power cannot disappear; they are together.
A functional world government -- like the post office, the railways, the airlines --
will be efficient but without power. It will be a beautiful world where you don't know who
the president is, who the prime minister is -- they are your servants. Right now they have
become your masters, and to keep their power they have to keep you always completely
afraid. Pakistan is getting ready to fight with India, so you have to give all power to
the Indian leaders. China is going to attack....
Adolf Hitler has written in his autobiography that if you want to remain in power, keep
people always afraid. And he is absolutely right. Sometimes mad people are also right.
Democracy has failed.
We have lived under many kinds of governments -- aristocracy, monarchy, city
democracies -- and now we have seen the whole world getting addicted to the idea of
democracy. But democracy has not solved any problems; it has increased the problems.
It was because of these problems that a man like Karl Marx supported a dictatorship of
the proletariat. I am not a supporter of a dictatorship of the proletariat, but I have
another idea that goes far ahead of democracy.
Democracy means government by the people, of the people, for the people -- but it is
only in words. In India right now there are nine hundred million people. How can nine
hundred million people have power? They have to delegate the power to somebody.
So it is not the people who rule, but the people who are chosen by them. What are your
grounds for choosing? How do you manage to choose? And are you capable of choosing the
right people? Have you been trained, educated for a democratic life? No, nothing has been
done.
The ignorant masses can be exploited very easily by very
insignificant things.
For example, Nixon lost his election against Kennedy and the only reason was that
Kennedy looked better on television than Nixon; this is the analysis of the
psychoanalysts.
Nixon improved. When he discovered this, before the next election, he improved; he
learned how to stand, how to walk, how to talk, how to dress. Even the color of your dress
will make a difference on television. If you go there in white clothes you will look like
a ghost.
Arbitrary reasons...somebody speaks well, is a good orator. But that does not mean that
he will make a good president. Somebody makes good shoes -- do you think that will make
him a good president?
It happened when Abraham Lincoln was chosen president. On the day of his inaugural
address to the Senate, people were feeling very angry and hurt -- because Lincoln's father
was a shoemaker, and a shoemaker's son has defeated the great aristocrats. They were
offended.
One arrogant aristocrat could not tolerate it. Before Lincoln started speaking, he
said, "Wait a minute. Do you recognize me? You used to come with your father to my
house sometimes because your father made shoes for my family. You used to help him."
And the whole Senate laughed. This was an effort to humiliate Lincoln.
But you cannot humiliate people like Abraham Lincoln. He said, "I am very grateful
to you that you reminded me of my dead father at this moment. Because my father was the
best shoemaker in the whole country, and I know that I can never be the best president as
he was the best shoemaker. He is still ahead of me."
What criterion do you use? How do you manage?
That's why my idea is that the days of democracy are over.
A new kind of system is needed, based on merit. We have thousands of universities all
over the world. Why have ordinary, unknowledgeable, ignorant masses choose people who will
be holding tremendous power for five years in their hands? And now the power is so much
that they can destroy the whole world.
Meritocracy means that only people who are educated in a certain area should be able to
vote in that area. For example, only the educationists of the country should choose the
education minister. Then you will have the best education minister possible. For the
finance minister, you should choose somebody who knows finance, somebody who knows the
complexities of economics. But this choice is possible only for people who are trained in
economics, in financial matters -- and there are thousands of people. For every post, the
person who is chosen should be chosen by experts.
The health minister should be chosen by all the doctors, the surgeons, the medical
experts, the scientists who are working in the medical field. Then we will have the cream
of our genius, and we can depend on this cream to make the life of all humanity more
peaceful, more blissful, more rich.
This idea I call a meritocracy. And once you have chosen all the people, then these
people can choose the president and the prime minister. They will be our geniuses; they
can choose the prime minister, the president from the country, or they can choose from the
members of the parliament. And for the parliament we should also make gradations.
For example, people who have at least a post-graduate degree should be able to vote.
Just becoming twenty-one years old does not mean you are able to choose the right person.
At twenty-one years, you don't know anything about life and its complexities. At least a
post-graduate degree should be held by those who choose the members of the parliament or
the senate or whatever you call it. In this way, we can make an educated, refined,
cultured government.
Before the world government happens, each nation should pass through a meritocracy. And
once we have enjoyed the fruits of a meritocracy then these people will be able to
understand that if we can combine the whole world into one government, life can certainly
be a joy, worth living -- not to renounce, but to rejoice.
Up to now, whatever has happened has been accidental. Our history up to now is nothing
but a history of accidents.
We have to stop this. Now we have to decide that the future is not going to be
accidental. It will be created by us; and to create our world can be the greatest creation
possible.
Osho: On Basic Human Rights