Of the new idol and of the flies of the marketplace

THE CROWD OF people, although their numbers are many, is far weaker than a single authentic individual. The crowd have believed themselves to be just sheep, not human beings.

The individual declares his dignity and his pride, and he does not want to be just a mechanical part of humanity. He wants to contribute to the world some beauty, some joy, some ecstasy. He is not a beggar; and the only way not to be a beggar is to share your love, your overflowing compassion, your intelligence, your wisdom, your enlightenment.

But the crowd, as is always the case, tries to be strong against these individuals in cunning ways.

The weak man is always cunning - the cunningness is his defense. And the greatest cunningness that the crowd has propagated is the creation of the state. Then the state protects the mob, the retarded, the dead, the weak, the futile.

Anybody who has any insight into human affairs will be against the state, because the state is a symbol of man's slavery.

Although the state goes on saying, "I am the servant of the people," the reality is just the opposite.

These servants become the masters because they have power, they have the whole bureaucracy, they have weapons. And all this power is being used against those few individuals who are rebellious - rebellious against the untrue, rebellious against the dead tradition, rebellious against all kinds of superstitions.

The day I entered America, the first question that was asked of me was, "Are you an anarchist? If you are an anarchist, you cannot enter America."

I said, "I am something more."

The immigration officer looked puzzled, because according to the instructions of the government, there is no way to prevent a person who is something more than an anarchist.

I said, "Anarchism is out of date."

But from that very first day my conflict with the American government started. Such a great power is afraid of a man who is an anarchist. And what hypocrisy that they go on saying that everybody has freedom of thought, freedom of expression....

Anarchism is also an ideology. Anarchism simply says that the state is not needed, that it is one of the greatest calamities, created by the weak against strong individuals; but the whole progress has happened through those strong individuals.

There is certainly a need for a kind of functional organization, but it should not be more than functional; it should not give status and power to the people who are in the government.

Just the other day I saw a picture of a great scholar, who is thought to be one of the best as far as the Hindu VEDAS and the UPANISHADS are concerned, Pandit Ravi Shankar. And he is bowing down to president Zail Singh and receiving a reward. For Zail Singh, Sanskrit is Greek and Latin.

Even Hindi he does not know. English he has heard, but he does not understand. He knows only Punjabi - and has no guts.

While he was president thousands of Sikhs were killed, the sanctity of their holy temple was destroyed, but he did not raise his voice. In fact he was made the president only because he is without courage, without intelligence.

I felt sorry for Pandit Ravi Shankar. He should not have accepted that reward; and bowing down to a man who knows nothing he has also exposed himself - that his knowledge is only verbal. He may be clever as far as language and grammar are concerned, but he knows nothing as far as the meaning of the VEDAS and the UPANISHADS is concerned.

The UPANISHADS were created by very dignified people. They never went to the emperors, the emperors had to go to their hermitages in the forest if they wanted to see them, to meet them. The emperors had to make the appointment.

But the state has become a power, and you can put any idiot in any great post and he becomes respectable, he becomes powerful. As far as he himself is concerned, he is nobody. The moment his post is gone, people forget all about him. Do you hear anything about Nixon? There was a day when he was the most powerful man in the world, and today the same man has become anonymous.

The man himself has no integrity, but the state gives him power. Rather than making him the servant of the people, it makes these people the masters of the land.

Zarathustra is absolutely against the state. That does not mean that there should not be any functional organization. By functional organization I mean just like the railways; they have their president but nobody knows who he is; and there is no need to know. Or the post office; there is a postmaster general, but nobody knows who the guy is, and there is no need.

The prime ministers and the presidents should be in the same category. They should be paid, because they are serving the country, but they should not become as if they are conquerors, as if they possess the country and they are the owners of the country.

Zarathustra says, THERE ARE STILL PEOPLES AND HERDS SOMEWHERE, BUT NOT WITH US, MY BROTHERS: HERE THERE ARE STATES....

THE STATE IS THE COLDEST OF ALL COLD MONSTERS, because it is a vast bureaucratic mechanism. You go into any office of the government and you will see on every table, big piles of files. Dust has gathered on them. And an ordinary clerk will behave with you as if you are nobody, just because the file in which you are concerned... perhaps your business has been stopped, perhaps your house has been occupied, perhaps somebody has taken over your land. But the file will go on moving as slowly....

I was reading that Albert Einstein found that light travels fastest. I enquired of my scientific colleagues in the university, "Can you tell me, has anybody discovered, what travels the slowest?"

They said, "We never even thought about it."

I said, "I have discovered it. It is the files in the government offices. Light travels the fastest, and the files must be darkness, they travel the slowest. It takes years from one table to another table. And to reach from Poona to New Delhi - if they reach in your lifetime, it is too quick."

One of my friends - he was an old man, but I had many old men as my friends - he was ninety years old, and he had a court case that had been going on for seventy years. When he was twenty the case started.

All the magistrates that tried his case died. All the advocates that were fighting for him or against him, died. The British government that started the case disappeared! But the case continues.

The strangest thing is that the case was started by the British government because he had written a history of India not agreeing with the British historians, because the British historians were writing lies and hiding truths. They were making exaggerated statements about the treatment that was given to them by the Indians and they were omitting completely what treatment they had been giving to the Indians - how many people they had killed. In fact they were the invaders, and if a few Indians resisted it was perfectly human. They were the criminals.

He had written a history pointing out the facts, and the British government was angry. They had started a case against him, against the publisher, against the printer, against the editor - the case was against four persons. Three of them died. The case was started in the Supreme Court when it used to be in Calcutta. It moved to New Delhi, the capital changed, and so many Supreme Court judges died, retired. He was telling me "I am the only survivor."

I said, "When is the case going to finish? Now that India is free, you should be respected, honored, that when the country was under slavery you had the courage to state the facts and face the government and the court."

But even under a government which is no longer of foreigners, the case continues.

He said, "The case has become so complicated that even the Indian government, although now they are not against it, cannot withdraw the case - there is no way to solve it."

This is how bureaucracy works. Now he is dead, and the file has been closed. And he was right that "The file will not be closed unless I am dead."

Seventy years for an ordinary case against a book! The state pretends to be the servant of the people, but that is simply hypocrisy. It becomes the master of the people, the owner of the people, AND THE CROWD IS WILLING.

Only a few individuals who have some dignity will fight the state, will propagate the idea that there should be no state at all. In this century Nietzsche, Prince Kropotkin and Leo Tolstoy, three persons, were absolutely for a world without states.

And states are so much afraid, that I was told by the immigration officer that "If you are an anarchist, you cannot enter America."

I said, "Why should a great power be afraid of a single man, even if he is an anarchist? Anarchists are not terrorists, they are pure thinkers. But the fear is that what they say is true; the liars may have nuclear weapons in their hands - still they are liars - and deep down they are impotent."

And twenty-five centuries earlier Zarathustra is saying, THE STATE IS THE COLDEST OF ALL COLD MONSTERS. COLDLY IT LIES... Every government lies, and every government is caught sooner or later lying. And still nobody makes it a point that governments should not be believed, because again and again they are caught lying.

The presidents and the prime ministers and the ministers all take oath before they enter their office, the oath that they will stand for truth, and only for truth. But it is almost impossible to find any politician who is not lying. Of course they lie with such a face that it seems perhaps they are saying the truth. But lies cannot remain forever hidden. Sooner or later they are discovered. They don't have long life.

COLDLY IT LIES, TOO; AND THIS LIE CREEPS FROM ITS MOUTH: 'I, THE STATE, AM THE PEOPLE.' The state is not the people. The state is only a servant of the people, and should behave like the servant of the people.

But the smallest government servant behaves as if he has all the powers of the world. This has to be taken away from these people. This power makes many people hungry, greedy, they are ready to do anything to gain power. They are ready to sell their souls just to be in power.

IT IS A LIE! - that the state is the people. IT WAS CREATORS WHO CREATED PEOPLES AND HUNG A FAITH AND A LOVE OVER THEM: THUS THEY SERVED LIFE. The real lovers of people are the creators; creators in different dimensions - painters, and poets, and singers and dancers and sculptors.

These are the real people who have power, because they participate in creation, and they shower people with their creativity and with their love. They create in people a desire, a longing, also to be creators. They create trust in people.

The real history should count only their names. But the real history has never been written. History counts the names of those who have not created anything, but only destroyed; the killers and the murderers.

IT IS DESTROYERS WHO SET SNARES FOR MANY AND CALL IT THE STATE: THEY HANG A SWORD AND A HUNDRED DESIRES OVER THEM.

WHERE A PEOPLE STILL EXISTS, THERE THE PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE STATE AND HATE IT AS THE EVIL EYE, AND SIN AGAINST CUSTOM AND LAW...

A FREE LIFE STILL REMAINS FOR GREAT SOULS. TRULY, HE WHO POSSESSES LITTLE IS SO MUCH THE LESS POSSESSED. PRAISED BE A MODERATE POVERTY!

This is significant to understand. The more you possess, the more you are possessed, because you become a slave of your own possessions. Use things, but don't possess them. There is no need to possess them.

I had a very beautiful garden in Jabalpur. I myself had worked in that garden. My neighbor was a principal of a college, and he was very jealous of my roses. I told him, "Your jealousy is sheer foolishness, because you can enjoy my roses as much as I can enjoy them. They are not my possessions. I can enjoy the moon, you can enjoy the moon. The moon is not possessed by me or by you."

But there are people who cannot enjoy anything unless they possess it. And there is a fundamental law: You can possess dead things, but the moment you start possessing living beings - your wife, your husband, your children - you start killing them. You start poisoning them, because to possess a child is to destroy his freedom, to possess a wife is to destroy her freedom.

Freedom is the very soul of humanity.

Zarathustra does not praise poverty. He is very particular about his words, he says, PRAISED BE A MODERATE POVERTY. What is moderate poverty? All the religions are for poverty. The poor are the blessed. They are hungry and starving, and you are saying that they should inherit the Kingdom of God.

Zarathustra says, PRAISED BE A MODERATE POVERTY! Not a poverty that destroys you, not a poverty that keeps you starved, hungry. And if everyone is willing to be happy with the moderate things necessary for life, there will be no poverty and there will be no richness. They exist together.

Many of my sannyasins when they come for the first time to India are surprised, seeing that on the one hand there are so many rich people.... Perhaps the richest man in the world was the Nizam of Hyderabad. He had so many diamonds that almost seven warehouses were full of diamonds. He had so many that there was no way to count them, they were weighed on scales, not counted. Once a year they were spread on his vast palace terraces, many terraces. I have been to the palace, I have seen the terraces. They were all spread on the terraces just to have some sunlight, once a year.

The man who is the caretaker of the palace now, told me that when the diamonds were spread on the terraces all the terraces were full and the diamonds were almost two feet thick on the terraces.

Nobody has ever calculated how rich he was.

So on the one hand you will find very rich people, and on the other hand you will find beggars, who have nothing.

"A moderate poverty" is a beautiful concept. Nobody should be so rich that money lies unnecessarily in his basement; he cannot use it.

And nobody should be so poor that he has to die because of his poverty. A moderate poverty will bring, without enforcement, a certain equality as far as money is concerned.

Zarathustra, perhaps, is the first man in history who is talking about communism and about anarchism. There should not be classes of the rich and the poor, and there is no need for a government so powerful that it can destroy any individual.

ONLY THERE, WHERE THE STATE CEASES, DOES THE MAN WHO IS NOT SUPERFLUOUS BEGIN: DOES THE SONG OF THE NECESSARY MAN, THE UNIQUE AND IRREPLACEABLE MELODY, BEGIN....

Only where the state ceases, comes into existence the necessary man, the unique, with all his song and melody. The state goes on killing uniqueness.

Powerful people cannot tolerate somebody who has no power and yet is respected by millions of people. They understand only the language of power, they don't understand the language of love, they don't understand the language of creativity. They don't understand that a song is more powerful than any nuclear weapon, that a poet is more powerful than any president, because the poet creates and the president can only destroy.

The poet does not claim domination over anybody; he simply shares his heart, his melody, his songs.

He is really an emperor. He may be nobody as far as the power elites are concerned, but he reaches to the very heart of humanity. The presidents will be forgotten, the prime ministers will be forgotten, but the song of a poet, the music of a musician, will go on echoing down the corridors of time. It belongs to eternity.

I am reminded about one of the emperors of India, Akbar. In his life - AKBAR NAMAH is his autobiography - he was very interested in all kinds of creative people. In his court he had the greatest poets of the country, the wisest people of the country, the great singers, the great musicians, the great dancers. His court must have been one of the richest courts that any emperor ever had.

His court musician was Tansen, and it was thought that Tansen had never been surpassed. His music was magic, had a hypnotic power, and Akbar could not be satisfied even listening to him every day.

Late in the night, one day when he was leaving the palace, Akbar said to Tansen, "Tansen, I have never told you, but the idea has arisen in me many times... I cannot conceive anybody to be a better musician than you; it is just inconceivable. But forgive me... the idea arises in me, that if your teacher is alive, I would like to see him who has taught you music, with whom you went through this discipline. Who knows, your teacher may be a greater musician - although I cannot conceive in what way he can be greater than you."

Tansen said, "My teacher is alive and you may not be able to conceive of it, but I am just dust under his feet. I cannot even think of comparing myself with him. The distance is so great."

Akbar became very excited, he said, "Call him to the court, we will welcome him, we will reward him, there will be a celebration!"

Tansen said, "That is a difficult thing because he is a sannyasin and he lives just very close to the palace by the side of the Yamuna river in a small hut. His name is Haridas, and he never sings, never plays, unless it happens spontaneously; not on demand. So it is very difficult.

"If you really are interested, then we will have to sit by the side of his hut early in the morning, three o'clock, because that is the time when he wakes up, takes a bath in the river; and then - he has a small statue of the goddess of wisdom - before the statue he plays. There is no other audience at that time. "And you will have to hide behind the hut, in the trees, because if he becomes aware that somebody is listening he may not sing, he may not play on his instruments. He is a crazy man!"

But who has ever heard that great creators can be other that crazy? They have a certain madness, they are not sane people in the eyes of the world.

Akbar was so excited that he said, "Tonight we will go. You don't go home. Sleep here, and at three o'clock we will be by the side of the hut."

An emperor, a great emperor - he ruled over the whole of India - went to listen to music as a thief!

And when he heard it, Tansen could not believe it, tears were flowing from Akbar's eyes, just of joy and ecstasy.

When they returned Akbar said to Tansen, "If your music is magic, Haridas' music is a miracle. But why is there so much difference? Up to now I used to think it is inconceivable that anybody can be a greater musician than you. Now I am thinking you stand nowhere. That poor sannyasin, your master, has something that is very elusive - but it stopped my thinking. I forgot all about time. I forgot that I am a great emperor.

"Those few moments have been the greatest momemts in my life. What is the reason that you cannot reach to those heights?"

The answer has to be remembered. Tansen said, "It is very simple. I sing, I play on instruments, to get something from you. I am a beggar. There is greed in me. Music I am selling; I sing because I want to get something. He is singing because he has got something. He is an emperor. His song is coming out of his fullness of heart, not out of hungry greed.

"His music is born out of his abundant love; for no other reason, for sheer joy, just the way fragrance comes from flowers. It is not for sale, that is what makes the difference.

"I am a great technician. I have learned his whole technique, there is no flaw in my technique. But my heart is empty. I have not known that ecstasy, I have not experienced that being, I have not been touched by the divine.

"He is absolutely mad. He is drunk with the divine, and the music is not through any effort, but something spontaneously coming out of him. That's why we cannot demand it."

FLEE, MY FRIEND, INTO YOUR SOLITUDE: I SEE YOU STUNG BY POISONOUS FLIES. Jealousy and competition and a desire to be powerful and a desire to have some name, some fame, a desire to dominate; these are the poisons.

Zarathustra says, FLEE, MY FRIEND, INTO YOUR SOLITUDE: I SEE YOU STUNG BY POISONOUS FLIES. FLEE TO WHERE THE RAW, ROUGH, BREEZE BLOWS!

Flee to the natural, flee to the spontaneous. FLEE INTO SOLITUDE. YOU HAVE LIVED TOO NEAR THE SMALL AND PITIABLE MEN. FLEE FROM THEIR HIDDEN VENGEANCE! TOWARDS YOU THEY ARE NOTHING BUT VENGEANCE.

Every creator, whether he creates paintings or statues or music or dance, creates a revengefulness in the small people, in the crowd. And to remain too near to the small is dangerous. Their smallness, their petty mind, can be contagious. And to be surrounded by their vengeance can be destructive of your creativity, of your greatness.

NO LONGER LIFT YOUR ARM AGAINST THEM! THEY ARE INNUMERABLE AND IT IS NOT YOUR FATE TO BE A FLY-SWAT....

I SEE YOU WEARIED BY POISONOUS FLIES, I SEE YOU BLOODILY TORN IN A HUNDRED PLACES; AND YOUR PRIDE REFUSES EVEN TO BE ANGRY.

I have known the small man. The whole multitude consists of the small man, all over the world. It is good that Zarathustra says, AND YOUR PRIDE REFUSES EVEN TO BE ANGRY. His insight is so psychologically true. Gautam Buddha is also not angry, but nobody has pointed out the fact that he is not angry because of his pride.

What is the meaning of being angry with small people? They are doing what they can do - their vengeance, their revengefulness. They can kill Jesus, they can poison Socrates. And it has been thought that because Gautam Buddha has attained to a state where it does not matter whether he is insulted, humiliated, it is out of his silence and peace that there is no anger.

But perhaps Zarathustra is more right - it is just the pride of the great man. You cannot pull him down to your level and make him angry. He will not fight with you, because you are too many, and he will not even be angry with you because you are pitiable, you are sick and pathological. You need all his compassion, even though you are doing every kind of harm to him.

Zarathustra seems to be more psychologically right, that it is the pride of the creator not to be angry.

THEY WANT BLOOD FROM YOU IN ALL INNOCENCE, THEIR BLOODLESS SOULS THIRST FOR BLOOD - AND THEREFORE THEY STING IN ALL INNOCENCE.

BUT YOU, PROFOUND MAN, YOU SUFFER TOO PROFOUNDLY EVEN FROM SMALL WOUNDS; AND BEFORE YOU HAVE RECOVERED, THE SAME POISON-WORM IS AGAIN CRAWLING OVER YOUR HAND.

YOU ARE TOO PROUD TO KILL THESE SWEET-TOOTHED CREATURES. BUT TAKE CARE THAT IT DOES NOT BECOME YOUR FATE TO BEAR ALL THEIR POISONOUS INJUSTICE!

THEY BUZZ AROUND YOU EVEN WITH THEIR PRAISE: AND THEIR PRAISE IS IMPORTUNITY.

THEY WANT TO BE NEAR YOUR SKIN AND YOUR BLOOD...

AND THEY ARE OFTEN KIND TO YOU. BUT THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PRUDENCE OF THE COWARDLY. YES, THE COWARDLY ARE PRUDENT!...

BECAUSE YOU ARE GENTLE AND JUST-MINDED, YOU SAY: 'THEY ARE NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR THEIR LITTLE EXISTENCE.' BUT THEIR LITTLE SOULS THINK: 'ALL GREAT EXISTENCE IS BLAMEWORTHY.'

Whenever there is a great creator the crowd feels deeply hurt about its inferiority. And because of that inferiority, it is ready to take revenge in the name of morality, in the name of culture, in the name of religion - which are all false excuses, because Socrates was not destroying the culture, was not destroying the morality of the young people, was not destroying religion.

On the contrary people like Socrates are the founders of religiousness, of true culture, of authentic morality. But he has offended the small man. He is too high, and his presence is a continuous reminder that you are inferior.

There is a proverb in India that "Camels don't like to go near mountains"; that's why they have chosen to live in the deserts where they are the mountains. By the side of a mountain, the camel will feel very inferior. To avoid the feeling of inferiority, mountains have to be removed, deserts have to be created. Life is a very complex experience.

The sannyasins' commune in America was in a desert. That desert was for sale for fifty years and nobody purchased it, because what will you do with a desert? We wanted a vast land just to be far away from the crowd of small people; and that desert was perfectly good, because the closest American town was 20 miles away. But why did America become so annoyed with us?

I was not moving around America provoking people against anybody. My people were so much engaged in creating the commune, enjoying their life - it was moderate poverty, there was no hope that we will become super-rich, even to survive was enough. But we managed to make even the desert yield something for us to survive.

We were producing enough for 5,000 people there and thousands of others who were coming every month, and going, and for 20,000 people on every festival. We were absolutely harmless to America.

But the problem is that the very existence of the commune started creating an inferiority complex in the politicians - that they have not been able to do in fifty years what we have managed to do in five years. And we didn't have all the means to do it, but only intelligence and labor. But we put our hearts into it, and even the desert became compassionate. It became green, it became an oasis.

Our success was the problem, if we had failed we would have remained in America. If we had failed, those politicians would have felt very good. They would have said to each other, "We knew it, that in that desert, nobody could succeed."

But our success became our failure - because we succeeded, and our success was going higher and higher and the politicians became so much afraid. Afraid of what? - Afraid of their own inferiority complex.

They destroyed the commune, and recreated the desert. What we had turned into an oasis is now again a desert, and they are happy. Strange logic, but not so strange if you go deep into it. And I have been watching the whole process: The politicians who had become great - just because they were against the commune the whole of Oregon supported them - if they had asked me, I would have advised them that "Our existence is absolutely necessary here for your being in power. The day we are gone, you are gone too."

But that needs tremendous intelligence to understand. The two men, Governor Atiyeh and Attorney General Frohnmeyer, had become everyday news in America just because they were trying in every way to destroy the commune.

They succeeded. They had the power and they had with them all the small people with their vengeance. But because the commune was demolished, neither Governor Atiyeh is anymore governor - he has been defeated - nor Attorney General Frohnmeyer is anymore Attorney General, he has been defeated. They were living on our blood. The small people were supporting them because they were against us. Now they are useless. They must be repenting that which they have done. They have destroyed not the commune - but themselves.

And the vengeance you can see. Just a few days ago a sannyasin went to see what is the situation there, and he reported to me "I could not believe my eyes. They have destroyed the commune.

All the sannyasins have left, they were forced to leave. But our symbol of two birds was left there, because it was fixed into marble."

He could not believe the vengeance of people. They have shot those birds! Now there are bullets in those birds; they could not even tolerate that symbol. They were not living birds, they unnecessarily wasted their bullets. But you can understand the vengeance.

EVEN WHEN YOU ARE GENTLE TOWARDS THEM, THEY STILL FEEL YOU DESPISE THEM; AND THEY RETURN YOUR KINDNESS WITH SECRET UNKINDNESS.

YOUR SILENT PRIDE ALWAYS OFFENDS THEIR TASTE; THEY REJOICE IF YOU ARE EVER MODEST ENOUGH TO BE VAIN....

HAVE YOU NOT NOTICED HOW OFTEN THEY BECAME SILENT WHEN YOU APPROACHED THEM, AND HOW THEIR STRENGTH LEFT THEM LIKE SMOKE FROM A DYING FIRE?

YES, MY FRIEND, YOU ARE A BAD CONSCIENCE TO YOUR NEIGHBOURS: FOR THEY ARE UNWORTHY OF YOU....

The small man is ninety-nine point nine percent, the great man is only once in a while. But all the progress and all the evolution and all that is beautiful in life and in the world is created by those few great men who can be counted on fingers.

The small man has not contributed anything. He is just a burden. And I would like my people not to be small, not to be a burden, but to be creators, contributors, making life a little more beautiful, a little more juicy, a little more loving, a little more musical.

Zarathustra is right when he says, "I can believe only in a God who can dance."

I would like to add, "If you can dance, you become a God unto yourself."

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.