Human History Has Been a Tragedy! Why?

OSHO International
13 min readMar 29, 2022
Human History Has Been a Tragedy! Why?

Osho,
Human history has been a tragedy — Why is that?

“Human history has been a tragedy. And the reason for it being a tragedy is not very complex. You do not have to go very far to find it out; it is in everybody.

“The whole past of man has created a split in man; there is a constant civil war in every human being. If you do not feel at ease, the reason is not personal. Your disease is social. The strategy that has been used is to divide you into two enemy camps: the zorba and the buddha, the materialist and the spiritualist.

“You are not divided in reality. In reality you are a harmonious whole. But in your mind the conditioning is that you are not one whole, one piece; you have to fight against your body. If you want to be a spiritual being, the body has to be conquered, defeated, destroyed, tortured in every possible way. This has been the accepted ideology all over the world. In different cultures, different religions, the formulations may be different, but the basic rule is the same: divide man, create a conflict in him so one part starts feeling higher, becomes holy, starts condemning the other part as the sinner.

“And the trouble is that you are one, there is no way to divide you. Every division is going to create misery in you, every division will mean that half of your being is fighting with the other half. And if you are fighting within yourself, how can you be at ease?

“The whole of humanity up to now has lived in a schizophrenic way. Everyone has been cut into pieces, fragments. Your religions, your philosophies, your ideologies have not been healing processes; they have been root causes of inner conflict and war. You have been wounding yourself. Your right hand wounds the left hand, your left hand wounds the right hand; both your hands become wounded.

“The West finally chose to go with the zorba. There was no other way to remain sane — one part had to be completely destroyed, ignored, forgotten.

“The West denied the inner reality of man, his consciousness — there is no soul, man is only body, and eat, drink and be merry is the only religion. This was simply a way to find some peace of mind, to get out of the conflict, to come to a decision and a conclusion, because…

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