The fourth question

Question 4

OSHO,

I AM GOING TO ITALY AND THE SITUATION THERE IS VERY BAD.

PEOPLE ARE KILLING EACH OTHER IN THE STREETS AND A BOMB DESTROYED NINETY PEOPLE IN A STATION ONE WEEK AGO.

NOW, MASTER, U LOVE ITALIANS. WILL YOU PLEASE SAY A FEW WORDS SO THAT THEY BECOME A LITTLE AWARE OF THEIR INSANITY?

Prem Francesco,

THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY is in the same situation. We have worked for thousands of years to make the earth a big madhouse, and we have succeeded, unfortunately. It is not only in Italy, it is everywhere the same: people are killing each other. There is violence everywhere for the simple reason that we have, in subtle ways, not allowed people's energies to be creative, and whenever creative energies are prevented they become destructive.

Violence is not the real problem. The real problem is how to help people to be creative. A creative person cannot be violent because his energies are moving in the direction of God. We call God the creator. Whenever you are creating something you participate in God's being. You cannot be violent, you cannot be destructive; it is impossible.

But for thousands of years we have destroyed every possible door to creativity. Instead of helping people to be creative we train them to be destructive. The warrior, the soldier, we have respected too much. In fact, the warrior is someone who should be condemned not respected -- he is destructive. The soldier should not be respected.

We need sannyasins, not soldiers. We need lovers, not fighters. But love is condemned and violence is praised. What is great in Alexander the Great? -- nothing but violence. He is great because he was the greatest violent person in those days. He killed over almost all the known world of his day -- he killed millions -- and still we go on calling him Alexander the Great. What is great in your kings and emperors and their history? Why do you go on praising them? They should be completely forgotten. Nadir Shah, Genghis Khan, Tamurlaine, why should they be remembered? Why should small children be told all the stupidities that man has done to man? -- because we still want people to fight.

The politician LIVES on violence, the nations LIVE on violence. If the violence disappears there will be no Italy, no India, no Japan. There will be only one humanity. Why these boundaries? But without these boundaries the politician disappears, and he does not want to disappear, obviously. He has a great vested interest in the boundaries and the boundaries have to be defended. And the only way to defend is to kill, and whosoever is the bigger killer is the winner.

And the same is true on a smaller scale in people's lives. People are taught to be violent because unless you are violent you are not going to succeed in life. YOU have to be very violent, only then you can fulfill your ambitions. A gentle person cannot succeed, he is bound to fail, because he cannot be competitive. He cannot push and pull people; he cannot step over people's heads.

All the politicians are criminals for the simple reason that crime pays. YOU only have to be cunning enough not to be caught. The most fundamental rule of this violent life is: all means are good if they fulfill the end. And of course, rather than arguing -- because argumentation is a long thing and it may never come to any conclusion -- it is better to pull the sword; it decides things immediately. It is easier to fight with a person and decide who is right. "Might is right." That rule still remains -- the rule of the jungle.

We call man civilized? He has yet to be civilized. Civilization is only an idea which has not yet been realized. Man is just superficially civilized, not even skin-deep. Just scratch a little and you will find the animal coming out -- a ferocious animal, far more ferocious than any wild animals because wild animals, howsoever wild they are, don't carry bombs -- atom bombs, hydrogen bombs. Compared to man and his violence all animals are left far behind.

And in the past this has been the rule. The Buddhas are exceptions. Of course, they are the only civilized human beings The remaining crowd of people, the mob, is very uncivilized.

It is not, Francesco, only in Italy; it is the same here in this country -- a great spiritual country, a long long heritage of religion, and still people are killing. It makes no difference to people.

Just now all over the country there are riots. And strange: in Moradabad where the riots started, the Mohammedans had gathered to pray. It was their religious festival, Id, and they had gathered to pray. And after the prayer meeting the violence erupted. It means the people who had come to pray had brought weapons with them. Immediately one hundred thirty people were killed. What kind of hypocrisy? What kind of insanity? People who have come to pray are hiding knives, swords, bottles full of acid. They have come ready, prepared. Everything seems to be pre-planned. And they have been there to pray. What kind of prayer can be possible in such a situation?

The word "Islam" means peace -- and Islam has created more violence in the world than any other religion -- and the word means peace.

Christianity says "God is love" and Christianity has killed millions of people, burned people alive. And God is love!

It is a very unconscious state of affairs. People are living unconsciously, not knowing what they are doing, why they are doing, not even pondering over it.

Manetti, the mechanic, woke up one morning with a black eye. "What happened?" he asked his wife.

"While you were sleeping," she explained, "you reached over and felt my arms and said, 'What a smooth finish!' Then you reached over further and said, 'What perfect headlights!' Then you reached down further and said, 'Who left the garage door open?' And that is when I let you have it!"

People are almost asleep. Even when you think they are awake they are not awake.

Rigamonte was visiting a small town in the Italian Alps. After a few lonely nights he began feeling the need for a woman. He asked the local barkeep how to find the ladies of the town.

"We ain't gotta no prostitutes. The church would never allow it. But the thing-a you want-a is kept-a out of sight-a."

"What I gotta do?" asked Rigamonte.

The bartender explained that up in the mountains were caves. "Go up there at dusk-a and shout-a Yoo-hoo!' And if the lady yoo-hoos back-a you work out-a the price. If she's-a busy you no get-a an answer."

That evening Rigamonte yoo-hoos his way from cave to cave, but without luck. He finally decided to go back and get drunk, but at the foot of the mountain he found a fresh cave. "Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" he shouted.

"Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" came back so clearly... he rushed into the cave and was killed by a train.

Francesco, people have to be helped to be a little more aware, a little more alert. They need a little more clarity to see what they are doing. But there is no clarity, and the vested interests don't want any clarity. They want more confusion. The more confusion there is, the politicians have more power. The more confusion there is, the priests have more power. They don't want man to become aware; they want him to live as unconsciously as possible.

Rinaldo returned to Italy to see his relatives. One day he tried to ride his uncle's horse. "Giddy up! Giddy up!" he said to the animal, but it did not move. "Hey," he said to his relatives, "why this thing-a no move-a?"

"You no say giddy-up," said his uncle. "You gotta say 'Mamma mia' to make-a him go and 'Mangiare' to make him-a stop."

"Mamma mia!" he yelled and the horse galloped off into a clearing. Ahead was a steep cliff and Rinaldo noticed it almost too late. He pulled back on the reins and screamed "Mangiare!" The horse came to a screeching halt at the edge of the cliff. Looking down and then up at the sky, Rinaldo whispered, "Mamma mia!"

And this is not so only with the people, this is so with everybody else -- the so-called intellectuals, the intelligentsia, the politicians, the religious. It is applicable to all except a very few people, and those few people cannot be of much help.

That's why my effort is to create a great Buddhafield, to release as much energy as is released in an atomic explosion. Sannyas is an effort to collect all those people who are ready to be aware, to be intelligent. And we have to spread the color all over the world. This is the color of spring.

Man needs a new life, a new birth. And all that has been told and taught up to now has failed. It was bound to fail because it was not meant to create a better humanity; it was meant to keep man as much enslaved as he is.

A Polack was badly injured in an automobile crash and had to have a brain transplant. A team of surgeons put him under anaesthesia, removed his brain, and went into the next room to get the new one. When they returned to the operating room the Polack was gone. The police searched everywhere for him but to no avail -- he had vanished. The doctors contacted Interpol and they checked throughout the world trying to find this poor Pole who had left the hospital without his brain.