Man has lived under the calamity of war too long

Man has lived under the calamity of war too long. We have to destroy all gods of war; instead we have to create a temple of love. We should kill all gods of war, because only through their death — the god of war dead, all gods of war dead — will the god of love be born.

War exists. Not because there are warring groups outside in the world; fundamentally war exists because man is in conflict. The root of war is within; on the outside you only see the branches and the foliage of it. After each ten years, humanity needs a great world war. In ten years time, man accumulates so much rage, madness, insanity, inside him that it has to erupt.

Unless we transform the very script of man, unless we give him a totally new program of living and being, we can go on talking about peace but we will go on preparing for war. That’s what we have been doing for thousands of years: talking of peace and creating war. The absurdity is that even in the name of peace we have been fighting: the greatest wars have been fought in the name of peace. This has been a sheerly destructive past. With the same energy, man could have created paradise on earth; and all that we have done is to create a hell instead. But it is not a question of changing the political ideologies of the world, it is not a question of teaching people to be brotherly, because these things have been done and they have all failed.

Something more basic is wrong. Man is split, and the same people who talk about peace are the cause of the split. They have divided man into good and bad, the lower and the higher, the earthly and the divine, the material and the spiritual. They have created a rift inside the human soul, and there is a constant war inside. Everybody is fighting with themselves, and when it becomes too much they start fighting with somebody else.

That’s why in times of war, people look happier. Their faces shine with enthusiasm, their step has a dance to it. They are thrilled, because at least for a few days they will not need to fight with themselves; they have found a scapegoat outside. It may be the Fascist, it may be the Communist, it may be the Mohammedan, it may be the Christian — it doesn’t matter, but somebody is there outside.

It is an escape from the inner fight; in a very sick way it is relaxing. But one cannot go on warring continuously; sooner or later man has to turn inwards again. The politician creates war without, and the priest creates war within. This is the longest and the greatest conspiracy against humanity.

My vision of a sannyasin is that of an integrated soul. The body is respected, not denied; it is loved, praised, one feels grateful for it. Matter is not condemned, it is enjoyed; it is part of our spiritual growth. There is no duality: it is a dialectics of growth. This is how we move on two feet, the bird flies on two wings. Matter and spirit, body and soul, lower and higher, are two wings.

What I am trying to bring here is something utterly new, something that has never existed before on the earth: a man who is at ease with both the worlds, this and that; a man who is as wordly as one can be and as other-wordly as one can be; a man who is a great synthesis; a man who is not schizophrenic, a man who is whole and holy. That’s what my sannyas is all about.”

Osho, Won’t You Join The Dance, Ch 4

Quote published in The Book: An Introduction to the Teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
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