Osho on Mother Earth - I am absolutely in favor with environmentalists

Question - How important do you think the use of the land is in general, in terms of the development of human spirituality or society? Is it an important value?

Osho - It has tremendous importance. It is our mother, the earth. We may not see, but we also have roots in the earth. We are walking trees. The earth supplies everything to us. I am against a God who is far away in the heaven, but I am not against the mother earth. We should make it enriched, we should not disturb the balance of nature, which we have been doing for centuries. I am absolutely in favor of nature, its balance. We should not do anything that goes against it, because finally that goes against us.

We are part of this earth. So land should be used respectfully, lovingly. Hence in my commune work is called worship. We have dropped the word work. We use the word worship. Working with the earth -- farming, gardening -- you are doing real religious work, enriching the earth, helping the earth to regain its lost resources. I am absolutely in favor with environmentalists, those who want to save the environment, against the rape that man has done with his own mother.

The earth has been raped badly everywhere, and something has to be done urgently because the earth is dying. And your religious leaders never talk about the real problems of life. Mahatma Gandhi in India was against any scientific developments that can help the land to regain its youth again. No, he was in favor of the traditional methods. I cannot think that an intelligent person will talk sheer nonsense, but all these people are really not religious, they are political. They are saying what the masses want to listen.

Osho on Mother Earth

The masses want to listen that their tradition is right, that their past is golden. It is not so. Neither the past was golden nor their traditional are right. Not their ideas about land, manure, production, creativity -- nothing is right. And this whole humanity is a proof that all your conventions and all your traditions have failed. And man is suffering because of your stupidity, that you go on clinging with those ideas.

You will be surprised to know Gandhi was against things, simple things like telephone, railway train, motorcar. After the spinning wheel, anything that has been invented, he was against it. Spinning wheel must have been invented some twenty thousand or thirty thousand years before. In fact, everything valuable has happened afterwards. Before the spinning wheel only one thing is conceivable, that is bullock cart. Those two things are the greatest inventions for Mahatma Gandhi.

And it was perfectly okay when the whole population of the world in Buddha's time, just twenty-five centuries back, was only two hundred million people -- the whole earth. Now just in India without Pakistan, without Bangladesh, is eight hundred thousand million. These people cannot live just on spinning wheel. The spinning wheel you have to spin eight hours just to provide enough clothes for yourself. What about your wife? What about your children? What about your old mother? What about your sick father? And can man live by clothes alone?

Jesus says man cannot live by bread alone. Can he live without bread? The other part is not bothered about at all. I accept the idea that man should have better values, higher values, not just eating, drinking. It is good: man cannot live by bread alone. But don't forget that without bread man cannot live at all.

Man can live without everything, but not without bread. He can live without music, without spirituality, without poetry, without painting, but he cannot live without bread. And if eight hours he is just spinning clothes for himself, when he is going to earn bread? When he is going to earn enough money for the old father, his medicine? When he is going to earn money to make a shelter to live in? He cannot live under the spinning wheel. But Gandhi had a tremendous appeal, because he supported....

He was against birth control. He was against abortion. Strangely, all the religion who differ in their ideologies, in their philosophies, are in a subtle unconscious conspiracy as far as humanity, its growth, its future, is concerned. Ayatollah Khomeini, Mahatma Gandhi, pope, Falwell -- they may differ in their theology -- they differ! But they don't differ about fundamental things which can make human life rich, which can make human life comfortable, which can make humanity rich, affluent.

We have the resources now. Science has discovered so much; but, we are forcing the scientists in the service of death rather in the service of life. The same energy, and it is not a small part -- almost seventy-five percent income of all the nations -- goes into creating more weapons, armies and other necessary things for war. People are living only on twenty-five percent of their productivity.

There is no need for war. There is no need for any nuclear weapons. You already have more -- seven hundred times more -- than are needed to destroy this earth. Now this is sheer madness. You go on piling up. For what? These people have to be stopped, and these religious people have to be brought to their senses.

Source - Osho Book "The Last Testament, Vol2"

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