Society goes to war because people are tense

You ask: How can [living meditatively] solve life problems or prevent wars? I am not worried about life problems and I am not worried about wars. In fact, I am not concerned with society at all. My whole concern is the individual. My whole concern is you. My whole concern is the personal, not the social.

Yes, if more and more people start falling into a meditative state, the society will change, automatically. But that is none of my business, I am not worried about that. If it happens, it happens. If more and more people start living in this meditative state, enjoying this meditative state of non-striving, non-ambition, non-desiring; if many, many people live in this kind of rest, they will create a vibe around themselves. And the society will naturally cool down.

Society goes to war because people are tense, because people are continuously warring within themselves, because people are angry, because people are in a rage, because people are very, very complaining – they are not happy, they want to destroy. When you are happy you want to create; when you are unhappy you want to destroy. When you are in a kind of rage you become murderers or you become suicidal; when you are in a kind of gratitude you write a song or you paint a picture – you do something creative. Creativity comes out of happiness; destruction comes out of unhappiness.

People are miserable. Millions and millions of people are miserable – their misery collects like clouds. Have you sometimes seen smoke arising from every roof in an Indian village? That smoke goes on gathering, becomes a cloud, hangs over the village. Everybody has contributed to it. That’s what a war is. Rage, violence, ambition, aggression is rising from everybody’s roof, from everybody’s head, like smoke. Then it collects together, it becomes a great cloud – that’s what war is. Then one day you are all surrounded in darkness, in murder, in killing each other, in rape.

After every ten years a great war is needed, because in ten years we accumulate so much anger that only war can release it. We accumulate so much pus that after each ten years the world has to become mad, neurotic, so we can release our pus and poison.

But I am not directly concerned because that is not the direct thing. Nothing can be done about it directly. That’s what politicians go on doing: talking about peace, releasing peace doves. All nonsense! And they go on creating bombs. They talk about peace and they prepare for war. They even say that ridiculous thing: that they are preparing for war so that there can be peace in the world.

I am not concerned directly with the society. I am concerned with the individual because only the transformation of the individual can ultimately bring another kind of society into the world. It cannot be brought directly. Those who try to bring it directly are the politicians. I am not a politician at all.

The new society can come one day, if the new consciousness has come. But it will be a by-product of a new consciousness, not vice versa.

Marx says, ‘First the society has to change, then the new consciousness will be born.’ I say, ‘First the new consciousness has to come, then the society will change.’ Consciousness is more valuable. A meditative consciousness has to be released into the world. And you cannot do anything other than become meditative. If you yourself move into that space more and more, you will be creating a kind of energy around you which will help others to become more meditative.

When you sit by the side of a meditative person, something in you starts changing immediately.

When you sit by the side of a person who is really angry, something in you starts getting disturbed. His anger hits you, provokes your anger. When you sit around a closed person you become closed. His closedness tends to create closedness in you. We are affected by each other because we live in one ocean. It is natural to be affected by each other. When you see somebody laughing, suddenly a smile comes to your face. You may have been in misery, but for a moment you forget. The laughter was so beautiful, so catching, so infectious that you forgot your misery for a moment; you got in tune with the person. The laughter of that person turned you on. You smiled. You will fall back into the trap – that’s another thing – but ripples around you affect you.

So my approach is not towards society. To me society does not exist, because society has no soul. Only the individual exists. The individual has the soul. My approach is towards the individual, my appeal is to the individual. I provoke the individual, I call forth the individual. And if many, many individuals are in the kind of space I call meditation, then by and by there will be no more wars. It is not that we will have to arrange peace protests and we will have to arrange peace marches – all that is nonsense. Have you ever watched people protesting against war? They look so angry. They are ready to fight with anybody. Every protest of that kind ends in a fight with the police. They start throwing stones, they start burning buses. Every peace march ends in war. And you see the people shouting – how angry they are!

This is another way to throw off your anger, that’s all. They are against war. The angry person needs to be against something – anything will do – but he wants to be against something so that he can show his anger and not feel guilty.

I am not in favour of all these things. They are still political. They are part of the same rut; they don’t change a thing. They only create an illusion that change is going to come, and it has not come. For five thousand years man has been trying to change society, and society does not change. All that can be done can be done with the individual. Only the individual has the capacity to change because only the individual has the capacity to turn back upon himself.

If many more individuals change, it will be a different kind of society. There will be no war.

Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2, Ch 12, Q 2 (excerpt)