[A couple, newly returned from the West, are present. The man says that whenever he has to deal with authorities – for example to get a visa – or even see a policeman, he feels tense.]
Osho – I understand. The world is run by fools, and it is very difficult to live in it. The more wise you become, the more difficult it is. The more intelligent you become, the more difficult it is, because then you see the whole nonsense that goes on… for no reason at all. Nations are no more needed, boundaries are no more needed. The earth has become such a small village… and we all belong to this earth, so why distinctions, why divisions and why passports, why visas? But the world is run by fools, and the fools are very powerful. Only fools seek power, so the more foolish a person is, the higher he will rise because the more stubborn he will be.
And their whole game depends on these things: nations, religions, churches, politics, ideologies; their whole game depends on these things. If all these disappear then where will be your prime ministers and your presidents and your police and your magistrates ? They will be just meaningless, irrelevant. They are irrelevant! They are out of date. They should be finished by now but they have the power so they go on persisting. They go on creating wars, conflicts, and they go on destroying humanity.
It is difficult. When you start understanding things it becomes more difficult. When you are also a fool and live in a stupor there is no problem; you think everything is going perfectly well. Nothing is going perfectly well – everything is going wrong and everything has been going wrong down the ages. Man has not yet found a civilised world. Civilisation has not yet happened – it is just a word.
How can a Christian and a Hindu be civilised? And how can a Mohammedan and a Christian be civilised? And how can Indians exist in a civilised world… and german and dutch and english and americans; how can they exist ? These things are so foolish and so childish! So many flags and so much antagonism and ego. That simply means that the world is still not civilised, still not cultured. It is a very very stupid world but there is nothing you can do right now to change it.
When you cross the boundary of a country then you become aware that you have been living in a prison. You only come to know when you cross the boundary. Then you know that the prison is a big prison. But you are a part of a prison; it is not a country. No country is yet free because a single country cannot be free: either the whole world can be free or not. These are just small or big prisons.
Inside the prison you don’t become aware because you are free to move. You can go from Poona to Bombay and from Bombay to Delhi so you feel you are free. But just try to go from Calcutta to Dacca and there will be problems, or from Bombay to Karachi, and the problem. Suddenly you find that there is no respect for you, for your freedom, and petty officials start tyrannising you. They enjoy it – that is their power.
They can destroy you. They can say no to you. They enjoy the trip of being authoritative, authorities, and the whole game is based on stupidity. But right now you cannot do anything. You have to live with these fools and in such a way so that you don’t start fighting with them; they are powerful and they are in the majority.
Sannyas is just the beginning of a civilised humanity. My whole effort here is to create a miniature world in which no distinctions exist. Nobody bothers whether you are a catholic or a protestant, hindu or a mohammedan, indian or a german – nobody bothers. And by and by a point has to be reached when you are not even bothered about whether you are man or woman… because those are also distinctions.
When you see a human being as a human being, when no caste, creed, sex, ideology, country, divide, then for the first time you become a human being. Then you have a vision, a perspective, in which truth can happen – not before it. But we cannot fight, because if we start fighting our whole energy will be lost in that. That’s why I am not a fighter: I know that that is pointless. All that energy that I have got or the time that I have got has to be used creatively to create a few human beings, to create a small human community. Then they will function as seeds.
It is a very slow thing, it will take hundreds of years for the earth to become civilised, but we should start. Even if we can make a few people civilised… And the whole earth will be against you. Wherever I am, people will be against me because deep down I am cutting their roots. Consciously or unconsciously they are feeling it – that something is going on which can take away the very earth beneath their feet.
So no country will be a support to me. No politician will be a support to me, no religious organisation will be a support to me. I have to depend upon rebellious individuals. But the rebellion has to go so silently that we don’t come in direct conflict with any nonsense, because that is destructive to our energy. So don’t be worried about it; it is so. Just make ways so that you don’t get caught in any trap. Just that much alertness is needed.
Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”