We have not yet come to the point where governments can be dissolved. Prince Kropotkin was against the government, the law. He wished to dissolve them. I am also an anarchist, but in a totally opposite way. I want to raise our consciousness to the point where government becomes futile, courts remain empty, and nobody is murdered raped, tortured or harassed. Do you see the difference?
Prince Kropotkin’s emphasis is: dissolve governments. My emphasis is: raise our consciousness to the point where governments become, of their own accord, useless; to the point that courts start closing, that police start disappearing because there is no work, judges are told, “Find some other job.” I am an anarchist from a very different dimension.
First let people be ready — and governments will disappear on their own account. I am not in favour of destroying governments; they are fulfilling a certain need. Man is so barbarous, so ugly, that if he is not prevented by force, society will be in chaos. Prince Kropotkin is not an anarchist; he is in favour of chaos.
I want human society to become a harmonious whole, a vast commune all around the world: People meditating, without guilt, with great serenity, silence; people rejoicing, dancing, singing; people who have no desire to compete with anybody; who have dropped the very idea that they are special and have to prove it by becoming the president of America; people who are no longer suffering from any inferiority complex, so nobody wants to be superior, nobody brags about his greatness.
Governments will evaporate like dewdrops in the early morning sun. But till that moment comes, governments are needed. It’s simple, if you are sick, medicines are needed. Prince Kropotkin wants to destroy medicines. I want you to be healthy so you don’t need medicines. Automatically you will throw them — what will you do with all those medicines?
I am not against medicines; I am against sickness which makes medicines necessary. I would like a healthier humanity – and therefore there will be no need for medicines.
es, I am an anarchist, my anarchism is totally different. The words remain the same, they just acquire new meanings. I want one world, one language, one religiousness, one humanity, and when humanity is really grown-up in consciousness, one government.
Government is not something to brag about. It is an insult. Its existence says to you that you are still barbarous, civilisation has not happened; otherwise what is the need of a government to rule you?
If all crimes disappear, if all fears that others can exploit you, murder you, disappear, what will you do with this whole bureaucracy of government? You cannot continue it, because it is a burden on the economy, a big burden, and it goes on becoming bigger and bigger. Hierarchies have a tendency to become bigger and bigger, for the simple reason that everybody wants not to work, everybody hates work. So everybody needs more assistance; the work is growing.
I am a category in myself, because my approach is totally different. I am not against government; I am against the need for government. I am not against courts; I am against the need for the courts.
Someday, some time, I see the possibility that we will be able to live without any control — religious or political — because we will be a discipline unto ourselves.
Abridged: OSHO, From Misery to Enlightenment,
Courtesy Osho International Foundation
