Osho - The Power of Yes: political revolutions don’t change anything, only an individual spiritual metamorphosis changes your consciousness, your silence, your being

political revolutions dont change anything, only an individual spiritual metamorphosis changes your consciousness, your silence, your being

ISBN: 978-0-88050-718-9

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The Power of Yes , byOsho

From a series of OSHO Talkstitled: Satyam Shivam Sundaram, #26

The Power of Yes is also available as an original audiorecording, spoken by Osho

Published by

OSHO MEDIAINTERNATIONAL

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OSHOINTERNATIONAL

www.osho.com/oshointernational

ISBN: 978-0-88050-718-9

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This morning a question popped up: all the historicalrebellions have a huge no at their source. Your rebellion of the soul iscentered in the mystery of yes. Will you please speak to us on the alchemy ofyes?

There are a few very fundamental things to be understood.

First, there has never been a rebellion in the past, onlyrevolutions. And the distinction between a revolution and a rebellion is sovast that unless you understand the difference you will not be able to figurethe way out of the puzzle of your question. Once you understand the difference

Revolution is a crowd, a mob phenomenon. Revolution is a strugglefor power: one class of people who are in power are thrown out by the otherclass of people who have been oppressed, exploited to such a point that noweven death does not matter. They dont have anything. Revolution is a strugglebetween the haves and the have-nots.

I am reminded of the last statement in The CommunistManifestoby Karl Marx. It is tremendously beautiful, and with a little change I can useit for my own purposes.

First, his exact statement: he says, Proletariat his word forhave-nots Proletariat of the world unite and dont be afraid because youhave nothing to lose except your chains.

Moments come in history when a small group of cunning, clever,people start exploiting the whole society. All the money goes on gathering onone side and all the poverty and starvation on the other. Naturally this statecannot be continued forever. Sooner or later those who have nothing are goingto overthrow those who have all.

Revolution is a class action; it is a class struggle. It isbasically political; it has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do withspirituality. And it is also violent because those who have power are not goingto lose their vested interest easily. It is going to be a bloody, violentstruggle in which thousands, sometimes millions of people will die.

Thirty million people were killed just in the Russian Revolution.The czars whole family, he was the king of Russia before the revolution, waskilled so brutally by the revolutionaries that it is inconceivable. Even asix-month-old girl was killed. Now, she was absolutely innocent, she had doneno harm to anybody; but just because she belonged to the royal family Thewhole royal family had to be destroyed completely. Seventeen people werekilled, and not just killed but cut into pieces. It is bound to happen in arevolution. Centuries of anger ultimately turn into blind violence.

And the last thing to remember: revolution changes nothing. It isa wheel: one class comes into power, others become powerless, but sooner orlater the powerless are going to become the majority because the powerful dontwant to share their power; they want to have it in as few hands as possible.

Now, you cannot conceive it: in this country there are ninehundred million people, but half the capital of the country is just in Mumbai.Nine hundred million people in the whole country, and half the capital of thewhole country is just in a small city. How long can it be tolerated? Naturally,it comes automatically. Revolution is something blind and mechanical, part ofevolution, and when the powerful become the smaller group, the majority throwsthem away and another power group starts doing the same.

Thats why I say revolution has never changed anything, or inother words, all the revolutions of history have failed. They promised much,but nothing came out of it. Even after seventy years, people are still notgetting enough nourishment in Russia. Yes, there are no longer the old czarsand counts and countesses and princesses and princes, but in a vast ocean ofpoverty, even if you remove those who have power and riches, it is not going tomake the society rich. It is just trying to make the ocean sweet by droppingteaspoonfuls of sugar in it.

All that has happened is a very strange phenomenon that nobodytakes any notice of. Only poverty has been distributed equally. Now in Russiaeverybody is equally poor but what kind of revolution is this? The hope wasthat everybody would be equally rich. But you cannot become rich just byhoping.

Richness needs a totally different ideology, of which mankind isabsolutely unaware. For centuries it has praised poverty and condemnedrichness, comfort, luxury. Even if the poor revolt and come into power, theydont have any idea what to do with this power how to generate energy tocreate more richness, comfort and luxury for people because deep down intheir minds there is a guilty feeling about richness, about luxury, aboutcomfort.

So they are in a tremendous anguish, although they have come topower and this is the moment they could change the whole structure of thesociety, its whole productive idea. They could bring more technology, theycould drop stupid kinds of wastage.

Every country is wasting almost ten percent of its income on thearmy. Even the poorest country, even this country, is doing the same idioticthing. Fifty percent of the people in this country are on the boundary ofbecoming an Ethiopia any day a bigger Ethiopia. In Ethiopia one thousandpeople were dying per day. The day India starts becoming another Ethiopia andit is not far away then one thousand will not do; it will be many thousandsof people dying every day.

And by the end of this century the population of India will bethe biggest in the whole world. It has never been so; it has always been Chinawho was leading, ahead. By the end of the century and there are not manyyears left, just within twelve years we will be reaching the end India willhave one billion people. And five hundred million people are bound to diebecause there is not enough food for so many people.

But still the politicians, those who are in power, are notconcerned at all about what happens to humanity. Their concern is whether theirpower remains in their hands or not. They can sacrifice half of the country todeath, but they will go on making efforts to have atomic weapons, nuclearmissiles.

It is a very insane kind of society that we have created inthousands of years. Its insanity has now become a high peak. There is no goingback. It seems we are all sitting on a volcano that can explode any moment.

Revolutions in the past have happened all around the world but norevolution has succeeded in doing what it promised. It promised equalitywithout understanding the psychology of human individuality: that each humanindividual is so unique that to force equality is not going to make peoplehappy, but utterly miserable.

I also love the idea of equality but in a totally different way.My idea of equality is equal opportunity to all to be unequal; equalopportunity to all to be unique and themselves. Certainly, they will bedifferent from each other and a society which does not have variety anddifferences is a very poor society. Variety brings beauty, richness, color.