The Rebellious Spirit of Man…
The rebel by his very nature cannot belong to any existent categories; he is a new category. He introduces a new man into the world. He is a herald of a new dawn, a new beginning. No category of the past can contain him; all the categories that have existed up to now have proved either failures, or insufficient to change the whole of humanity.
The rebel is the seed for the transformation of all.
There have been great people in the world, but even the greatest of them are very small in comparison to the authentic rebel I am talking about, because they all, in some way or other, compromise with the establishment. And that’s where the rebel differs from them all.
They were wise, they were creative artists, they were musicians, dancers, all kinds of people, the past has produced many luminous figures; but something is missing in them. One basic thing missing is: they all lived in a compromise with the vested interests. None of them was total in his rebelliousness. Yes, partial rebels have existed, but a partial rebel is not enough. Man needs total rebels to change the destiny of mankind from going into a graveyard, to turn its direction towards the Garden of Eden.
The rebel will have to create a category for himself by his own living, by his own responses. He will become absolutely discontinuous with the past through his own creativity, his love and his own non-compromising approach. The rebel will not have any past, any history. He will have only the present and a vast future which is open, not dominated by the dead past, because there is no past for the rebel.
The rebel means absolute freedom, absolute love, absolute creativity. He is a totally new kind of man who has been dreamed of by a few people in the past, by a few poets, by a few philosophers, by a few mystics. But it has remained a dream, so much so, that people started calling these poets and mystics “utopians.”
The word `utopia’ means, in its roots, “that which never comes.” You can dream about it, but your dream is an exercise in utter futility; it is utopian, it is not going to come, ever. It is a hopeless hope. It is an opium to keep people dreaming and hallucinating, so that they can tolerate the suffering and misery in the present.
The rebel is not a dream, the rebel is a reality. He is not a utopia, he is an actual realization of man’s potential; he is a promise fulfilled, a dream realized. Naturally he cannot belong to any existent category. He will have to create his own category.
It will be created by the very fact that many, many intelligent people, youthful, alive, are ready to take the challenge of an unknown future. Slowly slowly, a category will form by itself.
There are barriers for the rebel-to-come. The most important barrier is that he has to go against the crowd, and the crowd has all the power. The rebel is very vulnerable, as vulnerable as a roseflower. You can destroy it very easily; you can crucify a rebel without any difficulty.
But I am now feeling a tremendous certainty that the rebel is going to be born, perhaps he is already born. It will just take people a little time to recognize him; he is so new, he does not fit in any category. Hence, some time gap is needed to create a category and to recognize him.
Why am I so certain? I am so certain because man has come to a crisis which he has never encountered before. He has to choose either for a new man or for committing global suicide, and I don’t think that people are going to choose global suicide. That is my guarantee, that is my hope that the new man is bound to arise.
The days of the old man are over. He has lived too long, almost posthumously. He should have been dead long ago, but he has been dragging his corpse. Now his time is finished. He himself has created the situation in which only the new man, the rebellious man, rebelling against all religions, governments, establishments and vested interests, can survive. He will rebel against all that has been keeping man blind, holding him a prisoner, forcing him to live in dark tunnels, never allowing him to know the beauties of life.
The old man has created such a situation, which was bound to happen; it was coming by and by…. Each war was becoming more and more dangerous.
Albert Einstein was asked, “Do you have something to say about the third world war?”
He said, “I am sorry. I cannot say anything about the third world war, but if you want to know about the fourth, I can say something.”
The man who had asked the question simply could not believe it. If he could not say anything about the third, what could he say about the fourth?
He asked him, unbelievingly, “Okay, what can you say about the fourth?”
And Albert Einstein said, “The fourth will never happen, that much can be said about the fourth! About the third, nothing can be said.”
All your great warriors, all your historical figures, all your so-called great men have brought death so close that now man has to choose. There is no other alternative than a new man. The old man has erased himself out of existence.
The rebel will have a new morality, not according to any commandments, but according to his consciousness. He will have a new religiousness; he will not belong to any religion, because that is absolutely stupid. Religiousness is a private and personal phenomenon. It is just like love, it cannot be organized. The moment you organize truth or love, you kill them. Organization functions almost like poison.
William Blake:1808
The new man will not be a Christian or a Hindu, a Mohammedan or a Buddhist. He will simply be religious. Religiousness will be taken not as a belief, but as a way of life. A graceful, beautiful, responsible way, a way full of consciousness and full of love, full of sharing and friendliness; and a way of creating one world without any boundaries.
No armies are needed, no weapons are needed, no nations are needed, no religions are needed. All that is needed is a little meditativeness, a little silence, a little love, a little more humanity… just a little more, and existence will become fragrant with something so totally unique and new that you will have to find a new category for it.
All those who are lovers of life are going to create the right atmosphere to welcome the rebellious spirit of man, because there is no other alternative.
My certainty about the rebel as the savior of man and this planet is absolute, categorically absolute. The rebel just has to be unafraid of public opinion, unafraid of the crowd, unafraid of masks, attitudes…
The masses are in the grip of the religious leaders, of the political leaders. And these people don’t want any change to happen because every change means a danger to the status quo, a danger to the establishment. Any change is going to bring other changes, and they will have to adjust to those changes. Who knows, are those adjustments going to be favorable to them, or unfavorable? Life for those leaders of the establishment is so comfortable and so luxurious it is better that everything remains the same.
But now the situation is totally different. The establishment itself has brought the situation of an ultimate change, either life or death. And the choice is such that I don’t think anybody is going to choose death.
If people choose life, they will have to choose life values. Then the old renunciation of religions will become out-of-date; saintliness will have to find new dimensions. Then poets and painters, singers and dancers will be the saints. Then meditators, the enlightened people, the more conscious and awakened people will be the sages.
We are coming close to a tremendous transformation, and we are going to see it in our own lives, something so rare and unique which has never happened before, and will never happen again.
You should feel fortunate, blessed, to see the great transformation of all the old values, of all the old ideals; to see the birth of new values, new ideals, new categories of honor and respectability.
The rebellious spirit is basically the experience of one’s own individuality, absolutely free from any kind of psychological slavery…
Osho: The Rebel
GateLessGate Magazine 