The Soviet Union Cannot Stop Because America Will Go Ahead

And whatever politicians don’t want, of course, they cannot create because they don’t have any means. Politicians are preventing them from being creative.

Just look at the stupidity of going to the moon, how much money is wasted. For what? The first man who stood there must have felt silly, because there is nothing – no water, no trees, no life. It is a dead planet. But a political race between the Soviet Union and America…. Both were wasting their energy, their scientists, their money to reach to the moon – nobody bothering to ask, “What are you going to do there? What is the point?”

You want this earth to
become a dead planet?

We already know from here that there is no life and no possibility of life. Even if we want to make a colony there of human beings, it is an impossible job. Everybody will have to carry large equipment around their bodies to supply oxygen, to supply this, to supply that, because on the moon these things are not available. How much water do you have to carry every day with yourself? And everything has to be sent from the earth. What is the point?

You cannot grow anything there. You cannot even come out of your space suit. Even if you want to hug your wife, two space suits will be touching each other! Human touch is impossible. You cannot take your hand out of the spacesuit, because the hand also needs oxygen, it breathes. Your whole body breathes.

But they did that nonsense, and now they are doing another nonsense: piling up nuclear weapons.

Just the other day I saw the petition of fifty American scientists – the topmost – who are involved in making nuclear weapons. They have made a petition to the president: “Please stop.” They are the founders of nuclear energy, and they are begging, “Please stop, because we have already seven hundred times more energy than is needed to destroy humanity. What is the point now?”

But the politician is in a political race with the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union cannot stop because America will go ahead. They are now completely balanced, and both are trying to be a little ahead of the other. But even if you are a little ahead, a nuclear war will be destructive of all – Americans, Russians, all the trees, all the birds, all the animals.

You want this earth to become a dead planet?

This earth is unique. In the whole solar system, this is the only place which is alive!

Not only alive, but this is the only place where man has reached to consciousness.

Not only that, a few men have reached to the ultimate peak of consciousness – which I call enlightenment.

And I would like
my sannyasins
to wake people up,
wherever you are.

If religions are removed and politicians can be persuaded… and if the scientists rather than being slaves of the politicians, make a world academy of sciences… I offer them our commune. We have enough land – one hundred and twenty-six square miles. They can have a world academy of scientists here. And if all the scientists of the world, the intelligent people of the world – artists, painters, poets, singers, dancers, actors – if they all support it, there is no need for any government support.

Science can make this earth perhaps the best place in the whole universe.

It is calculated by scientists that at least on fifty thousand planets some kind of life exists. They are far away, there is no possibility right now to reach to other solar systems.

In the night when you see the stars, they are not stars, they are suns. But they are so far away that they look to be small stars, twinkling stars. Your sun is a very mediocre person. It is very big in comparison to the earth – sixty thousand times bigger. But in comparison to other solar systems, other suns – and up to now they have discovered at least two million solar systems – this sun, our sun, the only begotten sun, is just mediocre. They are millions of times bigger than this sun, and they have their planets.

But no scientist has been able to work out whether consciousness exists anywhere in the whole universe. Life certainly – perhaps there are trees, perhaps some kind of animals, but there is no indication that consciousness exists. And certainly there is no indication that people like Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Bodhidharma exist – people who have attained to their self, who have realized their truth. Without consciousness this is not possible.

I am giving you
a tremendous
challenge.

This earth is the richest in the whole universe, and the universe is not small, it is infinite. There is no boundary to it. Life has only come to such a beautiful space here, where there is consciousness. And consciousness has discovered methods to reach to the peak, to the Everest of consciousness.

And these fools – popes and politicians and shankaracharyas and the Ayatollah khomeiniacs – these people are bent upon destroying the only place in the whole universe which has something of immense value.

This conspiracy between the politicians and the priests has to be stopped.

And I would like my sannyasins to wake people up, wherever you are.

Make people aware what religions have done and are doing, and what the politicians have done in the past and are still preparing to do.

Things have come to such a point that it is possible to awaken the whole humanity. And if people stop going to the churches, stop going to the synagogues, stop calling themselves Americans, Russians, Indians, burn their passports, visas, green cards – all over the world…. If they declare that the whole earth is one, and that the whole earth is going to provide the scientists with means to work for creating better life, more life, better consciousness, more consciousness, we can fill the whole world with such enlightened people that even flowers will not be so fragrant.

Man is capable of doing it, somebody just has to shake people, throw cold water in their eyes and tell them, “It is time to wake up, you have slept enough!”

And that is the work of my sannyasins.

I am giving you a tremendous challenge. Wherever you go, wherever you are, make every effort that the earth is one and that science should be given absolute freedom from politics.

No scientist is interested in destruction. A scientist is as much a creator as the poet, as the musician, as the dancer. […]

Science can create the paradise, but the priests will be of no value anymore. The politician will not be able to exploit.

The world has to be one, and it has to be governed by creative people, not by politicians. We have such beautiful musicians, such beautiful dancers, such beautiful scientists, who have contributed to making life more joyous. They should be the people to govern. They should be the people to manage the world.

Politics is the only profession in the world where no qualification is needed. Even if you want to become a clerk, they ask for qualifications. But if you want to become the president of America, no qualification is needed. You have to be just cunning enough – that is the only qualification – more cunning than other politicians, more stubborn than other politicians, more capable of cheating people than other politicians, more capable of promising things which you cannot manage.

Politicians should be part of history, a nightmare that we have suffered too long. And it has to be done fast, because we don’t have much time – not more than fourteen or fifteen years. By the end of this century it is going to be decided this way or that. Either the earth will be freed from the priests and the politicians, or there will be no earth, no life.

It is up to you, up to everybody else who is living on the earth, to decide.

And I don’t think anybody is going to decide for a global suicide.

Osho, From Death to Deathlessness, Ch 19, Q 1 (excerpt)