An old Indian businessman living in Texas was visiting India. He was coming back after 40 years. He had gone there to do some business and could not come back for a long time. While he was here, he was astounded by the prosperity as well as the violence rampant in India. At every incident, he would keep murmuring, “What has happened to India? This country was never so violent.”
I am sure he is not the only one who is tormented by this question. Really, why people have become so violent? On one hand, there is growing affluence and on the other, so much unrest, intolerance? What has gone wrong?
The wrong that has been done to people is that their creative energies are not allowed to evolve. Whenever creative energies are prevented they become destructive.
Osho pinpoints the root cause: Violence is not the real problem. The real problem is how to help people to be creative. A creative person cannot be violent because his energies are moving in the direction of Godliness. We call God the creator. Whenever you are creating something you participate in the creator’s being. You cannot be violent or destructive.
When you look at it with a different gestalt you feel it is so true. Osho asks us to take a look at history: We have always respected the warrior, the soldier. In fact, the warrior is something which should be condemned, not respected, for he is destructive. We need meditators, not soldiers. We need lovers, not fighters. But love is condemned and violence is praised. We call Alexander, the Great. Isn’t it strange a meditator is never called great? What is great in the kings and emperors and their history? Why do you go on praising them? They should be completely forgotten.
It is so because the politician lives on violence, the nations live on violence. If the violence disappears, there will be no separate countries. There will be only one humanity. Why these boundaries? Because without these boundaries, the politician disappears, and he does not want to disappear, obviously. He has a great vested interest in the boundaries and the boundaries have to be defended. And the only way to defend is to kill, and whosoever is the bigger killer is the winner.
The same is true on a smaller scale in people’s lives. People are taught to be violent because unless you are violent you are not going to succeed in life. A gentle person cannot succeed; he is bound to fail because he cannot be competitive. He cannot push and pull people, he cannot step over people’s heads. In every way, children are taught to be violent. While creativity needs a soft, loving and friendly environment; it needs trust and an unambitious mind and a heart full of love. The seeds of violence are sowed early in childhood so if the kids grow into vicious and violent human beings, who is responsible?
