Osho quotes on terrorism

BELOVED OSHO,
A LITTLE WHILE AGO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT REFUSED YOUR ADMISSION TO ENGLAND, EVEN FOR AN OVERNIGHT STAY, ON THE BASIS THAT YOUR EXCLUSION FROM THE COUNTRY WAS "CONDUCIVE TO THE PUBLIC GOOD."
JUST A FEW WEEKS LATER, THE HEAD OF THAT SAME GOVERNMENT AUTHORIZED THE USE OF MILITARY BASES BY AMERICAN BOMBERS FOR THE RECENT ATTACK ON LIBYA. THE PRIME MINISTER JUSTIFIED THE DECISION TO ASSIST AMERICA'S BOMBING OF MIDDLE EASTERN CITIES SAYING THAT IT WAS HER DUTY TO "PREVENT THE EVILS OF TERRORISM." THE NOTIONS OF GOOD AND EVIL EXPRESSED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT ARE SIMPLY MIND-BOGGLING.
PLEASE COMMENT.
One has to understand that everything is relative, not ultimate; hence what appears to be good to one person may look evil to another. And there is no contradiction: both may be right.
What is good depends on your preconceived ideas; so does evil.
The British government thinks my entry even for an overnight stay in England, is not conducive to the public good. The same government is ready to allow American bombers, missiles, to use their bases, to destroy a small country like Libya, and to the government this seems to be conducive to public good.
There is no inconsistency. In their eyes their society, their culture, their religion, their country has to be saved at any cost, because they think they stand for good -- although the British government has tortured humanity more than any other government in the world. For three hundred years it has been the greatest terrorist possible; it killed millions of people around the world, to create the greatest empire of history. This government is absolutely in tune with the American imperialistic ideology.
Out of necessity it has been compelled to give freedom to the countries of its empire, but not willingly and joyously. Those countries had to fight for almost one century, without any arms. They were butchered, without any consideration of human values.
I am reminded... In India there happened an incident which can be considered one of the most inhuman in history. In Amritsar, the holy place of the Sikhs, they have a beautiful public garden, a vast area that can contain at least one million people for any gathering, meeting, discourse. And it has been used for that purpose. It has a very high wall so that no traffic noise comes in and it has only one door, so small that only one person can come out or go in; two persons together cannot pass through the door.
They were having a silent meeting of almost one million people -- children, women, old men. The prayer was, "The British government should change its heart and should leave our country." Now, it is not terrorism; they were simply praying for a change of heart. But Colonel Dyer, who was in charge of the area, went there with his troops, fixed machine guns on the people, and started firing -- because it is revolution against the empire, this prayer that the government should change its heart!
There was only one door, and from that door they were shooting bullets at random, with no discrimination -- children, women, old men. And nobody could escape from there because of the high wall. Dyer killed the whole crowd; not a single human being came alive out of that door. Now, it was their country; the British had been terrorists, had been ruling their country, exploiting their country.
India has been rich, known for thousands of years as "a golden bird" -- that's how Pythagoras describes it, that's how Alexander the Great describes it. So many invaders... but still India seemed to be inexhaustibly rich. People would come, invade the country, take away their treasures, take over their beautiful women...
This had been going on for thousands of years; the Britishers were the last. For three hundred years they squeezed every richness, the last drop of it, from Indian soil. And people were not even allowed to pray for a change of heart -- this became an act against the empire. And there was no need for any magistrate, for any judge; there was no need for any trial. Just... a colonel simply kills all those people!
The British government has been one of the ugliest phenomena that we know of. It created the biggest empire -- it was said that in the British empire the sun never set. And it was true, because the empire was all around the earth. The sun may have set in one part, but it was rising in another part; there was not any gap. The sun was always rising somewhere in the British empire.
These imperialists have a deep sympathy, friendship, with America. Naturally, it is for the public good to allow American troops, to allow America a base to destroy a small country.
And why destroy Libya? Because the man who is leading Libya now is one of the most outspoken politicians in the whole world. Just a few days ago, Kaddafi said that Ronald Reagan is "Adolf Hitler Number Two." And I, commenting on it, say that Kaddafi is wrong. And he will agree with me when he understands the reason why I am saying he is wrong: Adolf Hitler himself is now Number Two. Ronald Reagan is Adolf Hitler Number One, because what power did Adolf Hitler have? Reagan has a million times more power. Adolf Hitler could not have destroyed the world; Reagan can do that.
To allow Reagan a base in England seems, to the British government, to be for the public good. Both are imperialists, both are agreed on exploiting people, both are agreed that nothing like communism should happen in the world, both are agreed that Christianity should be imposed on people who are not Christian: naturally Ronald Reagan is a friend, although he is going to do something inhuman which may trigger the third world war.
And I understand Kaddafi. He is not a man to sit back. And he is not sitting back. He has a small country but he is not just a politician, he is a warrior. He would rather the country die than to allow the country to be enslaved. And I praise him for being a pioneer. He has responded well. Now he is bombing American bases all over Europe. He has bombed in Spain; in other countries he is going to bomb -- in Greece... wherever in Europe American bases exist, he is going to bomb them. And he will have the sympathy of all the downtrodden countries. He will rise as a world leader.
Ronald Reagan may have the power, but he will not have any sympathy.
This imperialist government of Britain feels afraid of me. Just my overnight stay at the airport -- I was not asking to enter their country -- and against their own laws they refused me. They said it was not good for their public; my overnight stay would have destroyed their morality, their religion, all their cherished values!
There is something to understand clearly: I am against imperialism. I am against exploiting man, other human beings. I am against torturing people just so that you can have power. Perhaps they were afraid that overnight my sannyasins from all over England may gather... just one night may be enough to give them a fresh insight, a new life to go against all traditional values.
And it is a conspiracy. Not only Britain is responsible for it. All those who are living and thriving on traditional values are really afraid -- of a man who has no power except that he can show people that their misery is caused by their own wrong ideas, and that those wrong ideas are being emphasized by their government, by their church.
There is a conspiracy.
All the European governments are agreeing on the point that I cannot land at their airports. They do not understand that this is defeatism, that they have already accepted defeat. They are showing that they have no arguments to save their religion, their morality, their politics, it is all rotten.
And they are afraid that their youth will be on my side, not on their side. I can give an open challenge to any country: Let me speak to your young people, and you speak to the same young people, and let it be decided by those young people who are going to own the future. These governments know perfectly well they cannot defend anything that they believe.
These efforts to prevent me are good signs; they are good news. It means they have accepted their defeat; otherwise, what was the fear? -- they could have allowed me to talk to people. And they have their archbishops and popes and priests who could have demolished my arguments; that would have been a cultured way, a human way.
I am alone -- they have millions of priests. But they don't have a single argument for anything that they think is the basis of their society.
Yes, it is not conducive to their rotten society. It may ring the death bell. But they cannot prevent me. It is not me who is going to destroy the rottenness; it is the time itself which is not in favor of them. If not me, then somebody else will have to do it.
It is impossible to protect those societies, those governments, those churches. They have lost all roots. And they are aware of it, that just a push and they will fall down. They cannot even resist -- even that much power is not left. You can make a corpse stand, but if you push it, it cannot retaliate; it is bound to fall down.
All these countries are corpses.

Osho - Beyond Psychology #10

 

BELOVED OSHO,
I'VE HEARD THAT IN EUROPE THE THREAT OF TERRORISM IS STRIKING FEAR IN EVERYONE. AIRPLANES ARE DELAYED BY EXTRAORDINARY SECURITY MEASURES, MANY OF THE SEATS ARE EMPTY, AND SOME AIRPORTS ARE CLOSING. PEOPLE ARE EVEN THINKING TWICE ABOUT GOING OUT IN THE EVENING. AND ALL THIS IS MORE PREVALENT SINCE THE RECENT BOMBING OF LIBYA. IS THE RISE OF TERRORISM OVER THE LAST DECADE IN SOME WAY SYMBOLIC OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TO SOCIETY IN GENERAL?
Everything is deeply related with everything else that happens.
The event of terrorism is certainly related with what is happening in the society. The society is falling apart. Its old order, discipline, morality, religion, everything has been found to be wrongly based. It has lost its power over people's conscience.
Terrorism simply symbolizes that to destroy human beings does not matter, that there is nothing in human beings which is indestructible, that it is all matter -- and you cannot kill matter, you can only change its form. Once man is taken to be only a combination of matter, and no place is given for a spiritual being inside him, then to kill becomes just play.
The nations are irrelevant because of nuclear weapons. If the whole world can be destroyed together within minutes the alternative can only be that the whole world should be together. Now it cannot remain divided; its division is dangerous, because division can become war any moment. The division cannot be tolerated. Only one war is enough to destroy everything, and there is not much time left for man to understand that we should create a world where the very possibility of war does not exist.
Terrorism has many undercurrents. One is that because of nuclear weapons, the nations are pouring their energy into that field, thinking that the old weapons are out of date. They are out of date, but individuals can start using them. And you cannot use nuclear weapons against individuals -- that would be simply stupid. One individual terrorist throws a bomb -- it does not justify that a nuclear missile should be sent.
What I want to emphasize is that the nuclear weapon has given individual people a certain freedom to use old weapons, a freedom which was not possible in the old days because the governments were also using the same weapons.
Now the governments are concentrated on destroying the old weapons, throwing them in the ocean, selling them to countries which are poor and cannot afford nuclear weapons. And all those terrorists are coming from these poor countries, with the same weapons that have been sold to their countries. And they have a strange protection: you cannot use nuclear weapons against them, you cannot throw atom bombs at them.
They can throw bombs at you and you are suddenly impotent. You have a vast amount of atomic bombs, nuclear bombs in your hands -- but sometimes where a needle is useful, a sword may not be of any use. You may have the sword; that does not mean that you are necessarily in a superior position to the man who has a needle, because there are purposes in which only the needle will work -- the sword will not be of any use.
Those small weapons from the old times were piling up, and the big powers had to dispose of them -- either drown them in the ocean.... That meant so much money, so much manpower, so much energy had gone to waste; economically it was disastrous. But just to go on piling them up was also economically impossible. How many weapons can you gather? There is a limit. And when you get a new way of killing people more efficiently, then the old simply has to be got rid of.
It was thought that it would be better to sell them to poor countries. Poor countries cannot create nuclear weapons -- it costs too much. And these weapons were coming cheap -- as help; they accepted it, but these weapons cannot be used in a war. In a war these weapons are already useless. But nobody has seen the possibility that these weapons can be used individually, and a new phenomenon -- terrorism -- can come out of it.
Now, a terrorist has a strange power, even over the greatest powers. He can throw bombs at the White House without any fear, because what you have is too big and you cannot throw it at him. And these are the weapons sold by you! But the phenomenon was not conceived of, because human psychology is not understood.
My understanding is that the way he has lived, man needs every ten to twelve years -- a war. He accumulates so much anger, so much rage, so much violence, that nothing short of a war will give him release. So, war after war, there is a gap of only ten to fifteen years. That gap is a kind of relaxation. But again you start accumulating, because the same psychology is working -- the same jealousy, the same violence.
And man is basically a hunter; he is not by nature vegetarian. First he became a hunter, and for thousands of years he was just a meat-eater, and cannibalism was prevalent everywhere. To eat human beings caught from the opposing tribe you were fighting with was perfectly ethical. All that is carried in the unconscious of humanity.
Religions have imposed things on man very superficially; his unconscious is not in agreement. Every man is living in a disagreement with himself. So whenever he can find a chance -- for a beautiful cause; freedom, democracy, socialism -- any beautiful word can become an umbrella to hide his ugly unconscious, which simply wants to destroy and enjoys destruction.
Now the world war has become almost impossible; otherwise there would have been no terrorism. Enough time has passed since the second world war; the third world war should have happened nearabout 1960. It has not happened. This has been the routine for the whole of history, and man is programmed for it.
It has been observed by psychologists that in wartime people are more happy than in peacetime. In wartime their life has a thrill; in peacetime they look bored. In wartime, early in the morning they are searching for the newspaper, listening to the radio. Things may be happening far away, but they are excited. Something in them feels an affinity.
A war that should have happened somewhere between 1955 and 1960 has not happened, and man is burdened with the desire to kill, with the desire to destroy. It is just that he wants good names for it.
Terrorism is going to become bigger and bigger, because the third world war is almost impossible. And the stupid politicians have no other alternative. Terrorism simply means that what was being done on a social scale now has to be done individually. It will grow. It can only be prevented if we change the very base of human understanding -- which is a Himalayan task; more so because these same people whom you want to change will fight you; they won't allow you to change them easily.
In fact they love bloodshed; they don't have the courage to say so.

Until we change the basic grounds of humanity, terrorism is going to become more and more a normal, everyday affair. It will happen in the airplanes, it will happen in the buses. It will start happening in the cars. It will start happening to strangers. Somebody will suddenly come and shoot you -- not that you have done anything to him, but just, the hunter is back.
The hunter was satisfied in the war. Now the war has stopped and perhaps there is no possibility for it.
The hunter is back; now we cannot fight collectively. Each individual has to do something to release his own steam.
Things are interconnected. The first thing that has to be changed is that man should be made more rejoicing -- which all the religions have killed. The real criminals are not caught. These are the victims, the terrorists and other criminals.
It is all the religions who are the real criminals, because they have destroyed all possibilities of rejoicing. They have destroyed the possibility of enjoying small things of life; they have condemned everything that nature provides you to make you happy, to make you feel excited, feel pleasant.
They have taken everything away; and if they have not been able to take a few things away because they are so ingrained in your biology -- like sex -- they have at least been able to poison them.

You live in fear, not in joy. If we can clean the basement of the human mind's unconscious... and that's what my work is. It can be cleaned away.
The terrorism is not in the bombs, in your hands; the terrorism is in your unconscious.
Otherwise, this state of affairs is going to grow more bitter. And it seems all kinds of blind people have bombs in their hands and are throwing them at random.
The third world war would have released people for ten or, fifteen years. But the third world war cannot happen because if it happens it won't relieve people, it will only destroy people.
So individual violence will increase -- it is increasing. And all your governments and all your religions will go on perpetuating the old strategies without understanding the new situation.
The new situation is that every human being needs to go through therapies, needs to understand his unconscious intentions, needs to go through meditations so that he can calm down, become cool -- and look towards the world with a new perspective, of silence.

Osho - Beyond Psychology #18

 

 Anywhere when you find double standards you are facing a hypocrite.
Yesterday I talked about a few statements made by the prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Something more has come to me through another press cutting. He said, "Man's instinct for violence was reflected in acts of terrorism, the concept of power blocs, the arms race, and the practice of apartheid. We have exchanged the primitive club for nuclear missiles; we have not changed in our thinking."
The instinct of violence, he says, "was reflected in acts of terrorism." And what is reflected in your armies? And why does a poor country like India go on wasting seventy-five percent of its total income on growing armies? And only twenty-five percent remains for nine hundred million people. Which instinct is showing there?
And India has been asking America for almost five years continuously: "Give us more uranium, because we also want to make nuclear weapons." And Rajiv Gandhi himself has gone to America for the same purpose. But strange... people say something and do something else. India is already an atomic power -- for what? Fifty percent of Indians are undernourished. In the coming two or three years they will be dying of starvation. Will you give them your atomic weapons to eat, your atomic bombs?
And this was my message, sent to him, that there is no point at all in creating atom bombs and nuclear weapons, because whatever you do you cannot become a world power comparable to America or the Soviet Union. They are too far ahead. It will take three hundred years for India to become a great world power, but do you think those great world powers will wait for you? In three hundred years they will have again gone at least six hundred years ahead of you.
Now small nations should simply forget all about atomic weapons, nuclear missiles. And for what are you keeping a big army, and feeding and preparing those people to kill or to be killed? And remember: your basic need is food for the country, clothes for people. I have known people who have eaten grass, roots of trees. I have known people... they are so hungry that they sleep with a brick tied on their stomachs so they don't feel the hunger. And this country wants to create nuclear weapons.
But when I had sent the message, he was really annoyed. Now is the time -- he should offer an apology.
He is saying that man's violence is reflected in terrorism -- but who creates terrorism? Our experience is that the Indian government is forcing us to be terrorists. My whole philosophy is based on love and nonviolence, but it is not the nonviolence of a coward. If the police commissioner is not removed from this place to a faraway Nagaland with all those police officers who entered into my room, forcibly, violently... who is responsible for creating terrorism?
And if Rajiv Gandhi goes on doing such stupid acts... because this police commissioner cannot do anything; they all know me, and unless they have an indication from New Delhi they will not put their necks out and get into unnecessary trouble. And if this police commissioner comes to the ashram with firearms and asks us not to have any firearms -- we don't have -- do you want us just to be oppressed, humiliated? killed? butchered?
I love my people. And I am not a man with whom you can behave in this way. We are silently doing our meditations; there is no question of any police officers being here. But if you force it, I have many terrorists whom I have transformed into peaceful meditators. If I am forced, I will not hesitate at all. Then this country will see another struggle for freedom, because the old struggle for freedom has failed. In the name of freedom we have not got anything. We are in a far worse condition than we have ever been before.
Terrorism doesn't drop suddenly from the sky. What can individuals do when governments having all the power start destroying their individuality, their freedom, their freedom of expression. They are forcing silent, simple people who have no business with violence, who are not politicians... but if forced too much... there is a limit.
In the name of freedom one family has been ruling for forty years. And Rajiv says, "the concept of power blocs..." And your ambassadors are preventing my people from coming here to meditate and just listen to me. You are discriminating. You are talking of power blocs and still you go on saying why foreigners should be allowed here. What is the idea of "foreigners"? It is creating discrimination and power blocs.
In America they did everything to destroy my commune, which we had created with tremendous labor. People worked twelve hours, fourteen hours a day to create an oasis in the desert. The desert was for sale for almost half a century, and there was not a single buyer... because who would buy that desert?
And as the commune became more and more successful, America became more and more threatened. President Ronald Reagan is a fundamentalist Christian, which is another name for a fanatic Christian. So all the fanatic Christians and Ronald Reagan together destroyed the commune. Who creates terrorism?

Osho - The Messiah, Vol 1 #12

 

Just like Cuba, another small country has become communist. It is their right, whether they are right or wrong. Nobody else has to decide it. If they want to live a wrong kind of life, then too, they have the absolute freedom to live it; only they should not harm anybody else. They should not interfere in the lives of others.
Two hundred million dollars had been given to guerrillas, terrorists, to destroy that small Central American country because it had gone into the hands of the communists. And after two years of continuous struggle, only now has the president accepted that, "Yes, that money has gone to the terrorists."
And the whole world is silent, nobody has criticized it!
Governments are to save people from terrorism, and here governments are supplying money and arms and food to terrorists. And then they go on lying....
I have looked into the scriptures of all the religions, I have looked into the ideological literature of all the political parties and I am amazed: they go on piling up lies upon lies. And the whole of humanity is asleep -- not only does nobody object, but nobody even suspects.

Osho - Sermons in Stones - Chapter #12

 

For almost seven years, the Senate of America has been denying the fact that they have been supplying millions of dollars worth of weapons to the terrorists. Only just this week, they have been forced, simply by the facts, to admit that they had been supplying millions of dollars worth weapons to the terrorists.
The question might not have arisen except that President Ronald Reagan asked that two-hundred million dollars immediately be sent to a country, to the terrorists there, because the country has become communist. So now the society has to be destroyed, order has to be turned into chaos. And it is none of America's business.
If somebody wants to be a communist, if some country chooses to be communist, it does not matter whether you agree with it or not. Your agreement is simply not the question. I may agree, I may not agree but on this point, I am absolutely certain: they should be given the opportunity to be, whatsoever they want to be. I can show my disagreement, I can place all the evidence against them, all the arguments against them -- but terrorism is not an argument, it is a defeat.
And when a great country, the greatest power in the world, starts using such third-rate strategies, then it seems there is no hope for humanity.
The day the German parliament passed an order that I could not enter Germany, they allowed on the same day.... And the reason given to the parliament was " because this man is dangerous." A man who has not even a paper knife is dangerous.... And in the same week, they allowed terrorists from around the whole world to have a world conference in Munich. It seems that just out of fear, they could not say no to the terrorists. And they are not dangerous!

Osho - Sermons in Stones - Chapter #19