The Successful Criminals in Politics and Religion

[AtulaSiriwardane]

The Successful Criminals in Politics and Religion

Question:​

Osho,
How come you speak about political leaders and religious leaders in the same tone -- is there no difference between them?


Fundamentally there is no difference at all. Superficially of course there are differences.
The basic desire to be a leader arises in people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. It does not matter whether they move into the political world or into the religious world; the will-to-power is an absolute indication that the man feels himself inferior to others and he wants to prove to the world that it is not so.
It is not only a question of proving to the world; through the world he wants to prove it to himself too, that he is not inferior to anybody. The only way mind can manage it is to make everybody inferior to you.
Mind is not your intelligence.
It may sound strange but this is a truth, that mind is not your intelligence. Mind can be intellectual, which is a very poor substitute for intelligence. Intellectuality is mechanical. You can become a great scholar, a great professor, a great philosopher -- just playing with words which are all borrowed, arranging and rearranging thoughts, none of which are your own.
The intellect is absolutely bankrupt.
It has nothing of its own, all is borrowed.
And that's the difference between intelligence and intellect.
Intelligence has an eyesight of its own, a capacity to see into things, into problems.

Intelligence is your born quality.​

It cannot be learned, it cannot be nurtured. Everybody is born with intelligence, but the society is in favor of intellect, because the intellectual person is not a real individual, he is phony. He has nothing of his own; he is a beggar, and beggars are not supposed to be emperors, are not supposed to be masters. They are destined to remain slaves.
So your so-called greatest scholars are continuously proving their slavery to the establishment. None of them is a rebel. They are hankering for the prizes and awards the establishment can bestow upon them: respectability, honor. They are all desiring to be Nobel laureates, but to get the Nobel prize you have to sell your soul. You have to accept a thousand and one things that no intelligent person can accept.
You have to support the status quo, the people who are in power, who have the money. You are just a puppet to them. Yes, it is a very mutual conspiracy: they give you the Nobel prize, they give you honorary doctorates, they make you world famous; in return you support their exploitation, their oppression, and whatever nonsense they are doing. You have to become a protecting wall.
And of course the world is going to listen to you because you are a Nobel prize winner, honored by Oxford, by Cambridge, by Harvard. The ordinary people, the common masses are bound to listen to you.
If you are supporting the society then naturally there is nothing wrong with the society; there is no need to change it. The problems are not created by the society but by the "anti-social" elements. And who are the anti-social elements? All the rebels are anti-social elements. It is these people who provoke the masses, steal their souls, make them aware that they also are human beings, not cattle. These are anti-social elements; they have to be destroyed...

OshO
From Darkness To Light,
Chapter 5 ​

 

[AtulaSiriwardane]

In times of war, people look happier.

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 worldly as one can be and as other-worldly 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.
FROM THE BOOK: WON'T YOU JOIN THE DANCE?