America is slipping into darkness

In Afghanistan just the other day, I was informed… it is now a long time that the poor Afghanis are being unnecessarily killed. And the Afghani is one of the most beautiful men on the earth – tall, with a long life, longer than anybody else; beautiful. You cannot find a fat Afghani. They are like beautiful, tall trees – seven feet is almost normal height. Beautiful faces, beautiful bodies… and a simple people, utterly happy although they have nothing.

But because of the greed of America, they are being crushed between American and Soviet forces. They have become a war field. America is supplying weapons to one part, to one party of politicians. And to counter it, there was no other way but for the remaining Afghanis to ask the help of the Soviet Union. Their boundaries meet. America is far away.

But greed has wings, just like the vultures – big wings.

So now the Soviet Union goes on supplying all kinds of out-of-date weapons; America goes on supplying the out-of-date weapons to the other party, and Afghanis are killing each other.

Now the Soviet Union seems to be entering into a new age. With the new prime minister, the Soviet Union is no more the old closed Stalinist society; it is becoming more open. And the release of the academician Sakharov from a life sentence is a historical thing in the Soviet Union. In the sixty years after the revolution, this is for the first time that somebody has come back alive from a life sentence. A life sentence means you will be brought back only when you are dead.

And Sakharov shows the spirit of the new man. Before his release he phoned the prime minister, saying that “I will agree to come back from Siberia only if my individual integrity, my freedom of expression, my freedom of movement – not only in Russia; even if I want to go out of Russia – if all these things are granted, only then I want to come back. Otherwise, what is the point? Death will come anywhere, in Siberia or in Moscow. At least in Siberia there is a deep contentment that I am dying for freedom. In Moscow even that contentment will not be there.”

And the new prime minister accepted his conditions, saying that “Your freedom of expression will not be interfered with. You will be reinstated as the director of the academy for physics. And your movement will totally depend on you – wherever you want to go, you can go.”

Russia certainly is entering a new age, out of darkness, while America is slipping into darkness.

I am punished because of exercising my freedom of expression. I am punished because I criticized Christianity and its superstitions. On the one hand, I am expelled from America. And my commune has been destroyed in such a fascist and ugly way that even Adolf Hitler would have felt ashamed.

The Soviet Union is opening. Hence the Soviet Union wants to withdraw from Afghanistan – but America is not willing. Now it is a problem: if the Soviet Union withdraws completely from Afghanistan, America is going to take over the whole of Afghanistan. This will be, in a way, a betrayal to the Afghanis who have been dependent on the Soviet Union in their fight with America. They are poor people with no armies, no arms… but they are very proud people.

The British government tried many times. A small fraction of Afghanistan touches the boundary of India. And the best of the Afghanis, the Pakhtoons – they are the most beautiful, most simple – the British government tried many times to take over the Pakhtoons, Pakhtoonistan. Because once Pakhtoonistan is taken over, then comes the boundary of Afghanistan and in the second step, Afghanistan can be taken over.

But British imperialists became afraid for a simple reason – the Pakhtoons were ready to die but not to be enslaved. They don’t have any arms, they don’t have any army. They declared, “We will face your arms with our chests. You can destroy every Pakhtoon, from small children to the oldest people, men and women all, but as long as a single Pakhtoon is alive, you cannot say you are victorious. You will be victorious only when the whole of Pakhtoonistan has become a graveyard. So if you want to win a graveyard, we are ready.”

Seeing their determination, knowing their pride, the British imperialists dropped the very idea. That’s why Afghanistan was never bothered by Britain, because those Pakhtoons were in between.

Now the Soviet Union wants to pull out, because it is unnecessary killing, there is no justice in it. They have not harmed anybody. They are not political people, they don’t have any desire to invade. India has been invaded continually for two thousand years by every neighbor except Afghanistan and the Pakhtoons. A really freedom-loving people will not want anybody to be enslaved – although they are poor and there was every temptation to invade India. But the simple desire to remain free creates a by-product – let others also be free.

If you know love, you will know justice.

If you know love and justice you cannot be greedy, because your greed is going to kill someone somewhere.

By killing people, if you can have a bigger bank balance, what is the gain? By killing all those people you have killed your own soul, too.

Osho, The Messiah Vol 1, Ch 19 (excerpt)