OSHO
OSHO International Foundation Presents
Osho: Waking Up the World
Excerpts from an interview with Roberta Green
Santa Ana Register, Orange County,CA
I never thought I'd get the chance to come here.
Takes care of my questions!
They said it was safe to tell you that I'm a little nervous!
One of the things that I've read that you've said, and I've heard you say it on videotapes,
is that
you tell a few jokes to wake the world up.
When did the world go to sleep, and is it waking up?
It has always been asleep,
only a few individuals in the whole history of man
have
been
awakened.
Their names can be counted on ten fingers,
not more than that.
And it was natural:
Man has evolved out of the animals.
Animals are in a deep sleep,
they don't know that they are.
That is the meaning of sleep --
one is,
but one is not aware that one is.
No animal is aware
of himself.
And I agree with Charles Darwin,
on different grounds....
His grounds are
ordinary,
mundane;
can be criticized,
have been criticized.
In fact he is no more
an accepted
scientist about the evolution of humanity.
The majority of scientists have deserted him.
But I am
in his support
on a totally different ground.
My ground is:
Looking at man's sleep
this is the only possibility,
that he has grown up
out of the animals --
monkeys,
chimpanzees,
whatsoever,
whosoever
was there in the beginning.
Man's sleep proves it.
And only rarely, once in a while -- a Gautam Buddha,
a Bodhidharma,
a Socrates --
once in a while there has been a man who has the guts
to come out of sleep.
It needs tremendous courage to come out of sleep,
because we have so much invested in sleep.
It is just like a man, who is dreaming
that he is living in a golden palace --
with a great kingdom,
with all the luxuries --
and you try to wake him up.
He is just a beggar on the street.
Only beggars dream of being emperors.
Emperors never dream of being emperors,
that will be
simply
illogical.
The beggar has so much investment
in his sleep and dream,
that he will resist
in every possible way, not to be awakened.
He will get irritated,
he will oppose you:
"Who are you to interfere in my life?
Can't you even tolerate a man
who is having a sweet dream?"
And even if you force him to awaken
he is going to fall asleep again,
because on waking he is only a beggar,
asleep he becomes an emperor.
The investment in psychological sleep
is tremendous.
That's why all those people --
Gautam Buddha,
Bodhidharma,
Chuang Tzu,
Plotinus,
Heraclitus --
they all failed.
They did their best.
They struggled against the sleep of man,
but
still, man is asleep
and whatever he is doing proves
that he is asleep.
These two World Wars prove
that he is asleep.
The coming Third World War
can be prevented only if we can awaken enough people,
so those
people become infectious
and go on awakening other people
in a chain.
And it has to be done so fast,
because there is not much time.
Otherwise the sleepy people
are going to destroy this earth,
this life.
Politicians are asleep.
No awakened person can become a politician
for the simple reason that he cannot lie,
he cannot give you promises that he knows
can never be fulfilled.
No awakened person will be
a politician,
because he has no desire
for his ego to be fulfilled.
There is no ego anymore.
Ego exists as a substitute self in sleep.
The moment you are awakened
ego has no function,
it is useless.
You are there, now you don't need it.
And the man who knows himself
has no inferiority complex.
Unless you are suffering from some inferiority complex
you will not be involved
in any kind of leadership --
political,
religious,
social.
You don't have the base.
The inferiority complex
is the cause of everybody becoming ambitious,
because if they don't become somebody in the world,
then in their own eyes
they have failed.
They want to prove themselves,
prove that, "We are here!"
that, "We have been here!"
They want to be recorded, their names in history --
although they know
that even the greatest names in history,
by and by,
go on slipping
from prominence;
become footnotes,
move into the appendix
and out of the door.
Naturally, how many people
can we go on carrying?
But they want to make their name.
That too proves
to be something animal.
All animals in the world
have an instinct,
scientists call it
the territorial imperative.
The dog, pissing on the
tree.
is simply making his signature.
He is saying, "This tree belongs to me."
He won't allow another dog to come near.
Other dogs will smell his urine
and will know
that this tree is not free,
not available, somebody possesses it.
There are animals who will go on --
particularly the lion --
urinating on a vast territory,
just so that everybody is aware.
Man also
works in the same way.
All these nations
are nothing but
people pissing and making
a boundary:
"This is America,
this is the Soviet Union,
this is India!
You can smell
it is a different country;
don't enter without a visa,
without a passport."
Otherwise there is no need for any nations on the earth.
What is the need?
Can't we all live as one humanity?
For more information, visit: www.osho.com
Source: 'The Last Testament, Volume 1 # 14' Copyright: OSHO International Foundation, Switzerland.OSHO® is a registered TM.