Osho: I am the New Man
Wolfgang Doelz
Frage:
Osho,
you have said that you are the New Man that the world needs,
and that this commune is a preparation for the arrival of the New Man.
Do you see that other people here are going to become, like you, the New Man,
or are you talking about a preparation for future generations?
Osho:
I am never concerned about the future, neither about the past.
My whole concern is the present.
And when I say the *New Man*,
I don't mean a certain model, type, an ideal.
By the New Man I mean a man *without* ideals,
a man with his own individuality,
not imitative, not a carbon copy of somebody else.
So the New Man will not be like me or anybody else.
Everybody will be authentically himself.
One of the most fundamental psychological things has to be understood:
*equality is an illusion.*
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin and other communist thinkers of the world
have created almost a conviction in millions of people's minds
- not only those who are communist but also those who are not communist -
that equality should be the goal.
Only *machines* can be equal; *man* cannot be.
If you want man to be equal,
then you will have to destroy his humanity and make him a robot.
It is very simple:
just as two *faces* are not the same,
in the whole world even two *fingerprints* are not the same -
and you want two *beings* to be the same?
You don't value the being more than the fingerprint even?
A very absurd idea of equality has become widespread.
Why it became so influential can be understood very easily.
Everybody feels *inferior* to somebody,
either intellectually, financially or physically.
In some way everybody carries deep down an *inferiority complex*,
because he is continuously comparing himself with others.
Naturally,
somebody has more intelligence,
somebody has more physical strength,
somebody can run faster than you, somebody can swim better.
It is impossible for anybody not to feel inferior if he starts comparing.
[...]
Even the people who have immense power
in some way or other feel inferior when they start comparing.
That leaves almost the whole of humanity feeling an inferiority complex.
And this is the root cause why *communism* is so influential.
It has nothing to do with economics, nothing to do with capitalism.
It simply fulfills a deep desire in every man that everybody be equal.
He feels gratified even to think that everybody is equal.
Then there will be no wound, no hurt feeling,
there will be no question of comparison.
Nobody has looked at communism from a psychological viewpoint.
People have been studying communism only as an economic theory.
It is not.
Basically it is a psychological consolation to all those
who are feeling inferior in any way.
[...]
The New Man will not be a communist,
because he does not want to be equal to others.
The New Man wants to be *unique* in himself,
and wants everybody else also to be unique.
A society of unique people - everybody unique in his own way -
will be the richest society that has existed in the world.
Somebody is a painter, somebody is a poet,
somebody is a scientist, somebody is a sculptor.
They all have their own uniqueness.
It does not matter what you do,
all that matters is that everything you do has your fingerprint on it,
and you have become a *creator*.
There is no reason to compare.
A painter is a painter and a poet is a poet.
It is stupid that both start comparing.
Then the painter becomes inferior because he is not a poet,
and the poet becomes inferior because he is not a painter.
And we have been living under this inferiority complex for thousands of years.
So everybody is suffering -
"Existence has not been compassionate towards me."
Start looking at the *uniqueness*
and drop the idea of *equality*, which is in every way impossible.
Unless man is produced in a factory on an assembly line,
there is no possibility of equality.
And a man produced on an assembly line will not be a *man*;
he will be just a *machine*.
The New Man will not be like me
in the sense that he will not be my carbon copy.
But in a way, in a very different way,
he will be like me.
I am independent; he will be independent.
I am my own self; he will be his own self.
I have never accepted anything just as a belief unless I have experienced it.
Then there is no question of belief - I *know* it.
So either I know something or I don't know,
there is nothing in between.
The *believer* is in between.
He does not know, yet he pretends to know.
You will find all these hypocrites
assembled in churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, all over the world.
They don't know God and they are praying to him.
They don't know that any prayer has ever been heard,
and still they are praying.
They don't know that any prayer has ever been answered,
but still they are praying.
The New Man will be a *seeker*, not a believer.
He will trust in inquiry, in doubt -
and *doubt* is the only method that can lead you to the truth.
Belief is a barrier, not a bridge.
No believer has ever known the truth.
His belief never allowed him to inquire.
So in a very different sense, he will be like me.
I have doubted everything.
I have never accepted anything because it is written in the holy scriptures,
because the great founders of religions have said it,
because great saints verify it.
I have insisted my whole life
that nothing else can prove it to me except my own experience.
And when it comes as your own experience,
it brings tremendous rejoicing, great blessings, flowering.
Your being finds its home.
The wandering is finished, you have arrived.
Now *my* wandering and *your* wandering will be different.
The point where I started and the point where you will start will be different.
I will arrive to *my* innermost core;
you will arrive to *your* innermost core.
The ultimate *experience* of blossoming will be the same,
but the *path* will be totally different.
*Everybody has to search and seek in his own way.*
The way to truth is just like the sky.
The bird flies but leaves no footprints.
You cannot follow. There are no footprints.
The inner sky is exactly the same,
and everybody has to find his own way.
It will be better to say
the New Man *makes* his way.
He does not move on a ready-made way.
Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism,
are ready-made ways, superhighways, comfortable - you need not bother -
but they go *nowhere*.
They go round and round the earth.
You can go on moving on them for millions of lives
and you will never reach to your own being,
because that way is not connected to you.
It is not yours.
The real seeker steps out from all these ready-made ways.
He moves into the unknown.
It is great excitement, great ecstasy.
And every step that brings you closer to home
also brings you *peace* that you have not known before,
brings you *love* ans *compassion* that are absolutely unknown to you.
Closer and closer ...
and you start feeling a new music, a new poetry,
a new song arising out of your own heart.
Your very heartbeat becomes music.
These are the signs that home is coming closer.
Your whole being becomes harmonious.
You can feel in yourself a new coolness, freshness, aliveness -
indications that the source of life is not far away.
And when you are just coming, maybe a few more steps,
suddenly your walk is no more a *walk*, it becomes a *dance*.
Nobody has reached into his being in any other way except dancing.
It is not up to you. Your feet start feeling the dance.
The whole milieu around makes you thrive, thrilled.
*Yes, I am the New Man*
*and I am preparing the way for you to become the New Man.*
That's why I go on insisting
that you keep yourself intelligent, meditative, silent.
Keep yourself alert, aware.
Change every stone on the path into a stepping-stone.
Don't think, "Now the stone is blocking the way."
No stone blocks the way.
You just have to know that every stone can be turned into a stepping-stone.
[...]
The New Man will live out of his own love, creativity and joy,
without depending on any father figure.
He will not need a God.
*God is a projection of the sick minds of people who want a permanent father.*
These human fathers are not reliable;
today they are alive, tomorrow they may die.
You cannot trust them.
They need a father who is eternal.
They need a father who is all-powerful.
They need a father who knows everything, past, present, future.
That gives them great consolation.
[...]
The New Man will have *communes*,
but the agreement will be *freedom*.
You can look into my eyes
and you can see my silence, my depth.
You can feel my presence, my joy, my song.
But you are not to *repeat* anything.
I am simply indicating to you
that what has happened to me can happen to you.
There will be differences,
there will be uniqueness.
I may be just a marigold flower
and you may be a lotus - so don't imitate me.
You may be a rose
and I am just a marigold, a very poor flower who has nothing.
But whoever named it marigold must have had great insight;
it is the poorest flower,
but there is great merriness, great joy in it -
and it is pure gold, twenty-four carat.
One never knows what is hidden in you.
Something certainly is hidden - everybody is carrying a being -
you have to search and bring it into light
and let your fragrance take its wings into the air.
*I am the New Man.*
*You have to be the New Man.*
I am not ordering you.
I am simply saying so loudly so you can hear.
And we have to create more opportunities for the New Man
for more people around the world.
The New Man will not be a *politician*.
The New Man will have no desire for power.
The New Man will not create people
like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse-tung.
*The New Man will not create heroes as in the past,*
*because everybody will be a hero.*
With the New Man, history is finished.
You cannot write history with the New Man.
Otherwise it will be such a big job,
because every man will be a unique man
and he has to have as much space as anybody else.
[...]
The New Man will be the end of the world of heroes.
Alexander the Great will not be possible any more.
Even if he comes riding on his horse,
people will be simply entertained.
He will look just like Don Quixote.
Nobody is going to bother about Alexander the Great.
*History* ends with the old man.
*Heroes* end with the old man.
The New Man will write symbolically.
he will write about the New Man and his qualities in a symbolic way -
not about separate persons, which brings comparison,
which makes someone big, high, holy,
someone a sinner, inferior, a nobody.
The old man was living vertically, in a hierarchy.
The New Man will live horizontally, with no hierarchy.
Everybody is doing his best and doing what he wants to do,
and doing it not just as *work* but as *worship*.
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The Last Testament - Interviews with the World Press, Vol. 1, 22.9.1985
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Osho im WWW: http://www.osho.org
http://earth.path.net/osho