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Part VII : Education in the New Commune
Osho talks about children in the new commune:
Children are immensely intelligent, they just need a chance! They
need opportunities to grow, the right climate. Every child is
born with the potential of enlightenment, with the potential of
becoming awakened, but we destroy it.
This has been the greatest calamity in the whole history of
man. No other slavery has been as bad as the slavery of the child
and no other slavery has taken as much juice out of humanity as
the slavery of the child, and this is also going to be the most
difficult task for humanity: to get nd of it.
Unless we arrange the whole society in a totally different way,
unless a radical change happens and the family disappears and
gives place to a commune, it will not be possible. The parental
institution has become so deep-rooted in its structure that unless
the whole pattern is destroyed and replaced by a totally new phenomenon
which I call the commune….
A commune is where many people live together collectively, not
in single-family units. For example, this commune…. Now,
nearabout three thousand sannyasins are living here, fifteen hundred
sannyasins are working in the commune. There are many children;
these children are being loved by everybody. They are not just
focused on their parents, they are enjoying immense freedom. They
go and they visit other sannyasins, they remain with other sannyasins
for days together. They have many uncles, many aunts….
In a commune a child will not be obsessed with his parents.
He will have more freedom, more liquidity. He will be more open
to many people, many varieties. He will learn more. He will become
multi-dimensional, he will become multi-lingual. And the most
important thing will be that he will not be conditioned by anybody,
because when there are so many people with so many different backgrounds
he will be able to learn this: that 'My mother's or my father's
religion is not the only religion,' that 'My mother's country
is not the only country,' that 'My mother's language is not the
only language,' that 'There are many languages and they are all
beautiful, and there are many religions and they are all beautiful,
and there are many countries and they are an beautiful.' He will
have a more universal approach towards things. He will remain
liquid, flowing, he will not become fixated….
And if we can make children liquid, flowing, the countries can
disappear sooner or later. The family is the basic unit of the
nation, of the state, of the church, hence the church, the state
and the nation, will all defend the family. They are not concerned
about the misery of humanity.
I am against the nation, against the church, against the state,
hence I am in favour of the commune not in favour of the family.
Once this old pattern of family disappears into a more multi-dimensional
set-up, humanity can have a new birth. A new man is needed and
the new man will bring the very paradise that in the past we were
hoping for in some other life. Paradise can be herenow, but we
have to bring about a new child.
My sannyasins at least have to understand it very clearly. If
you can be helpful in bringing the child to his uniqueness you
win be helping humanity immensely. You will become the harbingers
of a new dawn, of a new sunrise. zzzzz14
In September 1977 a sannyasin, who is setting up a new school
for sannyasin children in the ashram, asks about education in
the new commune
It will be a totally different thing! It will be a totally different
thing….
It can't apply here. A few things to remember, and then you
can work them out…. The first and the most basic is that
we are not to enforce any pattern on the children. We have just
to help them to be themselves. So there is no ideal that has to
be enforced on them. You just have to be a caring atmosphere around
them, so whatsoever they want to do you can help them to do better.
Just help them to do it better. And they are not in any game,
ambition-game.
We are not trying to make them very very powerful, famous, rich,
this and that, in their life, no. Our whole effort here is to
help them to be alive, authentic, loving, flowing, and life takes
care. A trust in life—that's what has to be created around
them, so they can trust in life. Not that they have to struggle
but can relax. And as for education, just help them to be more
creative. Painting is good—they should try painting—or
creating something else, but let it be creative; let them do things
on their own. And don't bring in your criteria.
For example, when a child paints, don't bring in adultish criteria;
don't say that this is not Picasso. If the child has enjoyed it
and when he was painting he got absorbed in it, that's enough.
The painting is great! Not because of any objective criterion—the
painting may be just nonsense; it may be just colours splashed,
may be messy…. It has to be because a child is a child;
he has a different vision of things….
Help the child to be completely lost, and whenever a child is
painting on his own, he will be lost. If you force him to paint
then he will be distracted. So whatsoever the children want to
do, let them do; just help them. Mm? you can help in many technical
ways. You can tell them—if a child wants to paint—how
to mix colours, how to fix the canvas, how to use the brush; that
you can help with. Be a help there; rather than being a guide,
be a help.
Just as a gardener helps the tree…. You cannot pull the
tree fast; you cannot do anything in that way, nothing can be
done positively. You plant the seed, you water, you give the manure,
and you wait! The tree happens on its own. When the tree is happening
you protect it so somebody does not hurt it or harm it. That is
the function of a teacher: the teacher has to be a gardener. Not
that you have to create the child; the child is coming on its
own—god is the creator….
In this atmosphere of joy help them to learn two things—language
and mathematics. History is meaningless bunk!
Just two small things—a little mathematics will be needed
in their life. And about that too: we are not to make them great
mathematicians, just a little mathematics so they can figure out
things. And language is needed so they can communicate. They can
read poetry, they can enjoy the great works.
And there is going to be no examination. There is going to be
no gradation of who is first and who is second. Everybody is just
the same. We make the space available for them to learn—they
all have learned according to their capacities but who are we
to judge? So no gradation, no examination. And when children are
a little grown up let them learn practical things—carpentry,
pottery, weaving—and they will enjoy all those things. When
they are still more grown up let them learn something about electricity,
cars, mechanisms, technology, but practical things.
That's why the other day I said the university that is going to
be will be Rajneesh International Anti-University. We will make
everything anti: no examinations, and the vice chancellor and
the chancellor will not have any degrees. Only sweepers and cleaners
will have degrees!
And you have to work it out soon because when we move, then at
least one hundred children will be immediately available….
Start working so it takes some shape before we move. Because there
you have to start a full-fledged school. But it is going to be
a totally different kind of school, because I am all for de-schooling
society.
Man can be saved only if society is de-schooled or if totally
different kind of schools which cannot be called schools are evolved;
then only humanity can be saved.
So no ambition should be there, no comparison ever. Never compare
a child with another and say, 'Look, the other has done a better
painting'. That is ugly, violent, destructive. You are destroying
both the children. The one you say has done a better painting
starts getting the idea of the ego, superiority, and the one who
has been condemned starts feeling inferior. And these are the
illnesses—the superior and the inferior—so never compare!
It will be difficult for you and other teachers because comparison
is so much in us. Never compare. Each child has to be respected
on his own. Each child has to be respected as unique—no
comparison, no marks, no gradations. Because we are not going
to create clerks or ugly things like that. We are going to create
men and women.
Yes, they will need a few things in life so they are practically
helped. Those things we should give them—and then they have
to choose their own. In the new place we will make everything
available—painting, music, dance—so wherever they
want to join in, they can; whatsoever they want to do, they can
do. They can have their own combinations. There will be no syllabus—there
will be only opportunity….
Let children enjoy—there is no hurry; there is no need to
have a programme of enforcement. Just let things happen; let it
be a growing nursery. And be very careful, because out of this
school will come a bigger school, then a college and a university,
and everything will follow. This will be the seed.
And whatsoever I have said about education and about things you
just go through so you have some idea about what has to be done.
But it is going to happen.
And we have beautiful children around here—you just start,
mm? Good. justdo16
By the end of 1977 Rajneesh International University offers BA,
MA or PhD courses under twelve departments, including special
programmes in counsellor training and meditation.
A sannyasin doctor of Allopathic and Ayurvedic medicine asks if
he should become part of the university being set up here.
I need so many people because so much has to be done. I need so
many hands. The work is so enormous that it is impossible for
me to do it on my own. The whole of humanity is in such a great
need and the need has to be fulfilled. Otherwise humanity is just
on the verge of committing suicide. Its sources of joy have run
out. It is desperately struggling to survive. Meaning is no more
there, any kind of significance has disappeared. People are only
living because they are afraid to die, otherwise there is no reason
to live. It seems utterly absurd to live because unless there
is something beyond, life cannot have any meaning. The day God
disappeared from the human mind, man started dying. Our roots
have been in God, in the beyond. By God I mean the beyond, I don't
mean a person.
Man always lives in the hope of transcending, always lives in
the hope of surpassing himself. The darkest hour comes when there
is nowhere to go beyond, when there is no beyond. Then there is
nothing to live for. You cannot just live—you have to live
for something. Life needs a kind of significance, meaning. Religion
is nothing but creating meaning in human life. Otherwise life
becomes sad, dull, boring. Life becomes anguish, anxiety…without
any kind of fulfilment.
Great things have to be done. I will need all kinds of people
of all talents, of all possible talents, because this is not one-dimensional
work; it is multi-dimensional work. Sannyas is just a device to
find people who can take the message to the masses, to the people
who are in need. People are spiritually starved. They can survive
physical starvation but they cannot survive spiritual starvation.
It is difficult to survive physical starvation but not impossible.
To survive spiritual starvation is impossible. Then there is no
reason to exist at all. Suicide becomes more significant….
And this university is not going to be an ordinary educational
institution. This university is going to be education in life,
education in God, education in meaning, in meditation, in prayer,
in love. It is not going to teach arithmetic and geography and
history. It is going to teach life as such and how it should be
lived. It is going to become a great experiment in living, in
new ways of living.
Become a part of it! letgo08
We have created hierarchy in society. The lowest are those poor
people who are chopping wood or cleaning the roads. Why are they
the lowest?—because they are doing the most essential things.
The professors can be discarded, the society can exist without
them; but the society cannot exist without the street cleaners,
the toilet cleaners, the woodchoppers—the society cannot
exist without them. They are far more essential, far more fundamental,
but they are the lowest.
The whole idea is wrong. There is no hierarchy. The professor
is doing his work, and the woodcutter is doing his work, and both
are needed. Neither is there a hierarchy between men and other
animals, nor is there a hierarchy between men and men. I am against
the whole idea of hierarchy.
And that's my vision of a new commune.
In the new commune there is going to be nobody higher and nobody
lower. In this ashram, there is nobody higher, nobody lower. There
are toilet cleaners and there are professors, therapists, and
they are all the same—they are all doing some useful work,
some essential work. The vice-chancellor here, in this commune,
is on the same ground as the woodchopper. The great therapist
has no more prestige, power, than the toilet cleaner. Hence, there
is no problem. A Ph.D. can choose toilet cleaning—one Ph.D.
is doing that; another Ph.D. is just cleaning the streets of the
ashram.
If there is no hierarchy, there is no problem; otherwise, the
Ph.D. will think, "How can I do this work, this menial job?
I am not a hand, I am a head." In this commune there are
no heads, no hands—people, whole people, respected, loved,
for whatsoever they are doing, or whatsoever they can do, or whatsoever
they like doing.
This whole existence is a commune. God is the center and we are
all its circumference. dh0306
At this time, Osho emphasizes creativity in the new commune
A sannyasin wonders if she should return to Germany; she is in
the middle of a sculpture and pottery course.
That is worth studying—I will not disrupt it, mm? Go and
continue your studies. Whenever you can come, just come and then
go back, but finish your studies because I will need a few potters
and sculptors. In the new place we will be doing many things and
sculpture will be one of the most important things. So get into
it as deeply as possible. Just don't go so-so, go whole-heartedly
into it so we can create something out of it. Your skill will
be very very useful to the new commune. We will have guilds there;
guilds of potters and guilds of carpenters and sculptors and artists,
so there will be different dimensions to creativity. sunsun28
A sannyasin had sent Osho some photos of his stone sculptures;
stone arrangements.
I looked at your stone sculpture—beautiful! In the new commune
you will have to do a few things. When the new commune is ready
you have to plan a small place for your statues. Just make as
many Buddhas as possible! sacyes18
To a weaver, Osho says:I liked your idea of making a workshop
for rugs. That is one of the old Sufi things we should do; it's
very good. Start talking to sannyasins so that you can create
a group and then start….
The work also has to be play. It has to be done joyously, not
for any result but for its sheer joy. That's why I called it the
Sufi work.
Sufis have been weaving, spinning, carving; rug-making particularly
has been one of the most cherished Sufi works, but it was a play,
it was a game. They were in fact not making rugs; it was just
a meditation. The rug was just a by-product; the idea was just
to be meditative, to be playful, to be silent, to be utterly there.
It was a kind of absorption, a creative absorption. And I respect
Sufis very much for that, because in India the monks have been
very uncreative; I am altogether against that. They have been
sitting in their caves, very very inactive; they became almost
oppressive in this country. They exploited it, they never contributed
anything to the country. Their whole contribution was this, that
they were meditating so the country had to look after them.
Sufis are right, on the right track: meditate but contribute
something to the society too. And if it can be done playfully,
then it is not business; then it is meditation. And that's what
I would like my commune to become slowly, slowly. We have to do
many things. This commune has to be utterly creative, but the
creation has not to become work—that is the whole point.
It has to be playful, sincere but not serious, devoted; one has
to be committed to it, involved, but not for the result's sake.
It is art for art's sake: the joy is intrinsic.
Start talking so that you have a few people in your mind and
when we are ready you can immediately start working. bite18
My sannyasins are from the most educated classes of the world.
We have all kinds of people—artists, painters, professors,
scientists, psychologists, therapists, doctors, engineers—all
well educated. unio104
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