A deep imbalance.

WHY HAVE HUMAN BEINGS GONE THROUGH THIS STRUGGLE SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING? WERE THERE NOT ALREADY HIGHLY DEVELOPED CIVILIZATIONS LIVING ON THIS EARTH? AND YET THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS GOT LOST AND MAN HAD TO START ALL OVER AGAIN. RIGHT NOW IT SEEMS TO BE A PARTICULARLY DARK PERIOD. IS THERE SUCH A COSMIC LAW THAT SAYS, ”ONLY OUT OF THE MUD THE LOTUS CAN GROW”? AND WILL THIS EARTH EVER BECOME A GARDEN OF FLOWERS? IN DEEP GRATITUDE AND LOVE.

Osho was asked this question 34 years ago on 2nd March 1987. I am amazed with his answer which is so relevant and important in today’s testing times of COVID pandemic, wars and terrorism.
You may have to bear with the length of this blog. Thank you.

“The question that you have asked has tremendous implications in it. First, there have been many civilizations before our civilization which have reached to even higher peaks, but they destroyed themselves because all those civilizations, including ours, have been growing in a deep imbalance. They developed great technologies, but they forgot that even the greatest technological progress is not going to make man more blissful, more peaceful, more loving, more compassionate.

Man’s consciousness has not grown with the same pace as his scientific progress, and that has been the cause of all the old civilizations destroying themselves. There was no outer cause, no outer enemy – the enemy was within man. He created monsters as far as machines are concerned, but he himself remained very retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very dangerous to give so much power to unconscious people.

The same is happening today. Politicians are the lowest kind as far as consciousness is concerned. They are clever, they are cunning, they are mean, too; and they make every effort for a single goal – how to be more powerful. Their only desire is for more power – not for more peace, not for more being, not for more truth, not for more love.

And what do you need more power for? – to dominate others, to destroy others. All the power accumulates in the hands of unconscious people. So on the one hand, politicians in all the civilizations that have developed and died – it would be better to say have committed suicide – had all the power in their hands. And on the other hand the genius of human intelligence was searching for more and more technological, scientific ways, and all that they discovered finally had to go into the hands of the politicians.

It was Albert Einstein who wrote a letter to President Roosevelt. He had escaped from Germany. In Germany he was researching atomic theory for Adolf Hitler, but reluctantly, because he was a Jew, and Adolf Hitler was killing Jews in such vast numbers that it seemed unbelievable. A single man killed six million Jews inside Germany. During the second world war Adolf Hitler was responsible for killing maybe fifty million people.

Seeing the situation – of course Albert Einstein was not going to be killed, he was too valuable – he escaped from Germany. He did not want to make the atom bomb for Adolf Hitler. It was a simple human reaction – so many of his people, his friends, had been killed. He wrote a letter to President Roosevelt of America: ”I can come to America and I can create the atom bomb. I have the whole secret with me. And whosoever has the atom bomb is going to be the victor in the second world war.” Immediately Roosevelt invited him and created all the facilities to make the atom bomb.

By the time the atom bomb was ready, Roosevelt was no longer president; Truman had come in his place. Germany was defeated, and it was only a question of seven days at the most – that’s what all military experts of the world agree before Japan was going to surrender. There was no way… because all the power had been coming from Germany. Japan was only an associate. And even American generals advised Truman, ”Now there is no need to use atom bombs. With ordinary bombs, within seven days, Japan will have to surrender.” But Truman would not listen.

Again Albert Einstein wrote a letter, saying that now there was no need. But now who cares about Albert Einstein? The bombs are in the hands of the president. And Truman, for no reason at all, bombed two cities of Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Big cities… each city had more than one hundred thousand people, and within five minutes all those people had evaporated. Such destruction had never been heard of. And it was a destruction which was not needed.

Truman was in a hurry. He was afraid that if Japan surrendered, then there would be no opportunity to use atomic bombs, which had been created with so much money. And he would not be able to show the whole world that America was the greatest power, that he was the man who holds the key to the greatest power. Those bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not meant just to defeat Japan. Their basic purpose was totally different – an ego fulfillment for President Truman: ”I am the greatest, the most powerful man in the whole world, and my nation has come to the top.” This has been happening again and again.

Before the second world war, nobody was ready to believe that such destructive weapons had ever existed. In the old scriptures of India, the story of the MAHABHARATA, the great Indian war of five thousand years ago, is just mythological. It was inconceivable that such powerful weapons were available five thousand years ago. But since the second world war it is now absolutely clear from the description in the Mahabharata, that they had discovered something close to atomic energy. They destroyed a great civilization, but the destruction came from within their own civilization.

Again we are moving towards the same situation. The destruction is not coming from some other planet, we are preparing our own graves. We may be aware, we may not be aware – we are all grave diggers, and we are all digging our own graves.

Nations having so much destructiveness that a single nation could destroy the whole earth. A single crazy man, a single politician, to show his power, can destroy the whole of civilization; and you have to begin from ABC. And the destruction is not only of humanity. With humanity die all the companions of humanity– the animals, the trees, the birds, the flowers– everything disappears, everything that is alive.

The reason is an imbalance in our evolution. We go on developing scientific technology without bothering at all that our consciousness should also evolve in the same proportion. In fact, our consciousness should be a little ahead of our technological progress.

If our consciousness were in the state of enlightenment…. In the hands of a Gautam Buddha, nuclear weapons are no longer dangerous. In the hands of a Gautam Buddha, nuclear weapons will be turned into some creative force – because force is always neutral; either you can destroy with it or you can find ways to create something. But right now our powers are great, and our humanity is very small. It is as if we have given bombs into the hands of children, to play with.

You are asking, ”Why have human beings gone through this struggle since the very beginning?” It is the imbalance between the inner and the outer. The outer is easier; and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, creates electricity, and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again.

Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautam Buddha may become enlightened, but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth by himself. So whatsoever happens on the outside goes on accumulating, piling up; all scientific progress goes on piling up. Each scientist is standing on the shoulders of other scientists. But the evolution of consciousness does not follow the same law. Each individual has to discover it by himself; he cannot stand upon the shoulders of somebody else.

Anything objective can be shared, can be taught in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities. But the same is not true about subjectivity. I may know everything about the inner world, still I cannot hand that over to you. It is one of the fundamental laws of existence that the inner truth has to be discovered by each individual by his own efforts. It cannot be purchased in the marketplace, nor can it be stolen. Nobody can give it to you as a gift. It is not a commodity, it is not material; it is an immaterial experience.

One can give evidence by his individuality, by his presence, by his compassion, by his love, by his silence. But these are only evidences that something has happened inside him. He can encourage you. He can tell you that you are not going inside in vain – you will find treasures, as I have found. Each master is nothing but an argument, an evidence, an eyewitness. But the experience remains individual. Science becomes social, technology becomes social; meditation remains individual. That is the basic problem: how to create balance.

The scientists have calculated that around the earth there is a two hundred mile thick layer
surrounding the globe, of air. And in the air is a layer of ozone, which is very protective; it protects
life on the earth. All of the sunrays are not good for life. The ozone layer returns a few rays– those are death rays; if they enter the atmosphere they will destroy life. And only those rays are allowed through by the ozone which are not against life, but life enhancing.

But stupidly, we have made holes in this layer by sending rockets to the moon– which is a simple
exercise in stupidity. When the rockets went, they made great holes in the ozone layer, and when
they came back they again made holes. Russia and America both have been competing in creating
those holes, and only just now they have become aware that those holes have taken away some of
the protective layer. Now death rays are entering into the atmosphere.

When this civilization is destroyed, people may think it was a natural calamity. It is not. We have created it.

We can learn much, seeing what is happening, and then we can think introspectively about other civilizations which have disappeared, either through war or through calamities which apparently look natural. But I don’t feel that they were natural. Those civilizations must have done something stupid that caused the calamities.

”Were there not already highly developed civilizations living on this earth?” There were, but they all got into the same mess in which we are entering; they all got into the same darkness in which we are entering. ”And yet their consciousness got lost and man had to start all over again.” Their consciousness was not lost – they had no consciousness. They had just the same superficial consciousness as we have.

What are you doing to prevent the calamity that is coming closer every day? The death of this earth is not far away – at the most, twenty years, twenty-five years. And that is a very optimistic attitude; for the pessimist it can happen even tomorrow. But even if we give twenty-five years to you, what are you going to do to help human consciousness rise in such a way that we can prevent the global suicide that is going to happen?

It is coming from many directions. Nuclear weapons are one direction which is almost completely ready. Any moment… and it is going to be a push-button war. It is not a problem of sending armies and airplanes.

Just the other day the prime minister of the Soviet Union declared that there are thousands of submarines underneath the ocean, moving around the world. Each submarine is carrying so much nuclear power that it is equal to one thousand second world wars. One submarine… and there are thousands of submarines, Russian and American, underneath the water. The explosion can happen just by accident. There is no need for any war, just by accident….

That is only one direction from which we are about to destroy ourselves. The second is creating the holes – because those experiments continue. Now the moon is not the target, nor has Mars become the target. And there is nobody to protest against all these experiments – because they are not going to help human happiness or human life in any way. Why waste energy? And why create unnecessarily destructive situations? All those gases that are rising in the air and creating acid rain….

From another dimension, the disease AIDS is spreading so fast that there is every possibility it will destroy almost two-thirds of humanity without any war. And if the oceans are filled with all the ice that the Himalayas hold, and that of the south and north poles and the Alps and other mountains, we will be drowned, just as Atlantis was drowned and Lemuria was drowned.

The only possible way to avoid it is to create more meditativeness in the world. But it is such an insane world that sometimes it seems almost unbelievable.

This is the only effort that we are trying to make: to raise the consciousness of a few individuals, and send them to faraway corners of the world to help, wherever they are, in raising the consciousness of humanity.

Lastly, you are asking, ”Right now it seems to be a particularly dark period. It is, and it will become darker and darker unless everybody becomes a light unto themselves and radiates light around them; unless everyone starts sharing their light and their fire with those who are thirsty and hungry for it. The dawn is not going to come automatically. You have to be fully alert to make every possible effort in helping consciousness.

Before the oceans rise forty feet, at least we have to make consciousness rise forty feet. The world needs at least two hundred enlightened people. Those will be the two hundred lighthouses where millions can be satisfied in their thirst for truth. It is a great struggle against darkness, but also a great opportunity and a challenge and an excitement. You have not to become serious about it. You have to do it lovingly, dancingly, with all your songs and with all your joy, because that way only, it is possible to bring the dawn and dispel the darkness.

With our deep meditation and gratitude for existence, it is possible that this earth can remain growing with more consciousness, with more flowers; it can become a paradise.

This is the only planet in the whole of existence which is alive; its death would be a great tragedy.

Good people don’t have guts. Bad people have guts. This is the trouble. So just a few bad people have been ruling the whole of humanity, and millions of good people, seeing destructiveness, seeing violence, seeing criminality, just remain silent. They don’t want to get involved in any trouble. The bad people are in search of trouble; the good people avoid trouble.

We have to learn one thing, and that is, to fight for the truth, fighting for that which is beautiful, fighting for that which is good, fighting for God. I want you to be soldiers of God; otherwise there is no hope for humanity.

Osho: The Razor’s Edge: CHAPTER 11. BRING THE DAWN, DISPEL THE DARKNESS: Q 1 (Excerpts)

फिर से ख़ुदा बनाएगा कोई नया जहाँ
दुनिया को यूँ मिटाएगी इक्कीसवीं सदी ………………………………..बशीर बद्र

phir se ḳhudā banā.egā koī nayā jahāñ
duniyā ko yuuñ miTā.egī ikkīsvīñ sadī ……………………….BASHIR BADR

God will recreate the earth once again
this world will be destroyed completely by the 21st Century.

Please listen to this amazing dialogue of Dilip Kumar from the film “Footpath” (1953) which we can relate so very well with the current miserable situation and state of our humanity. (1136) Dilip Kumar Best Dialoggs to The Earth Film : FOOTPATH 1953 – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYHrCrtaLQQ

Reminded of a thought provoking ghazal of Nida Fazli sung so very soulfully by Jagjit and Chitra Singh – “Duniya jise kahete hain jadoo ka khilona hai…..”

(855) Duniya jise kehte hain – Jagjit & Chitra singh – YouTube