ON ESTABLISHING OSHO COMMUNES AND MDITATION CENTRES

Every commune should go bankrupt,
because that will help people to move on their own
and not depend on the commune.

(Socrates Poisoned Again)

11-01-1986

BELOVED OSHO,

I HAVE BEEN CRYING VERY MUCH. I THOUGHT I WAS CRYING ABOUT YOU – I THINK NOT. ALL THE TIME I FELT SAD AND SO EMBARRASSED FOR YOU, AND I NEVER WANT IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN!

I SEE A LOT OF PEOPLE... I KNOW THAT LOTS OF PEOPLE LOVE YOU SO MUCH. THEY CANNOT TAKE THE STORIES OF SHEELA, THE COMMUNE, BUT WHENEVER THEY READ YOUR WORDS OR THEY READ A BOOK OR THEY HEAR A THING, THEY FEEL YOU. AND I JUST WONDER: HOW WILL IT BE POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE STILL TO HAVE YOU AVAILABLE? THERE ARE NO BIG CENTERS ANYMORE. HOW WILL IT BE POSSIBLE? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE?

Now it will be easier. Now I will be more available to individuals, and they will be able to be in direct contact with me more easily. And the communes will come together again, but on a higher level, on a higher plane. The centers will come to function again. It is good for the time being just to have a discontinuity, so everything that comes has not even a shadow of the past over it.

I don't want very organized communes, for the simple reason that whenever you become very organized you start losing something for which you had started to organize in the first place. Other things become more important. For example, in Poona there was a totally different quality. People were coming from all over the world. They had small centers. There was no centralized domination over the centers; all the centers were free to do whatsoever they wanted to do. To me it was far more beautiful.

People were working six, nine months; then for three months they were with me. And then those three months were just of pure joy because there was no need to work, there was no need to be concerned with all kinds of unnecessary problems. They were enjoying meditations. If they wanted, they were doing therapy groups. If they simply wanted to be there to listen to me, they were there. Those three months or six months, or whatsoever they could manage, were sheer joy.

In America the whole fabric changed. People had no time even to meditate. Out of sheer necessity they had to built the houses, they had to make the roads, they had to make the reservoir; otherwise how could they live? For five thousand people they had to make all the living facilities. Sooner or later that kind of commune was going to break down, for the simple reason that people were engaged twelve to fourteen hours per day. They had never thought about it; they had come to the commune with the idea of Poona – that it would be a relaxation, it would be a meditation, it would be a growth facility, and their whole time would be for their spiritual growth. They could play music, they could be creative on their own.

But what they found there was that out of sheer necessity they were building houses, they were making roads, they were making reservoirs; they were fighting hundreds of cases against the government, against the neighbors. Their whole energy... as if they had forgotten for what they had come. There was no time to meditate, no time to dance, no time to sing your songs or play on your flute. They were just hoping that soon, when the commune was complete, they would be able...

But I knew that this was impossible. First, the commune would never be complete in the sense that new people were joining; you had to make new houses, new roads, new facilities, more food, more clothes, more medical facilities, more schools for children. The commune was growing, people were coming, so you would continuously work for this growth.

Secondly, how long can you exist on donations? So even if you come to a point where you see all the facilities of our commune are complete – which is not possible! But just hypothetically, if you come to a point where your facilities are complete – for five thousand, for ten thousand people, you have enough – then the question will arise that you have to be productive. And productive not in the sense of creative, but productive in the sense of being commercial; otherwise how are you going to survive?

These five thousand people had given everything that they had to create the facilities. But you cannot just live in a house and move on the road. You need food, you need milk, you need medicine, you need clothes: you will have to produce things. And you are caught in a wheel.

So rather than being meditative, rather than just enjoying, being on a holiday, now you are creating factories, working in the factories, producing things... then trying to sell them, finding a market, marketing them... I knew that this could not be possible. And if it becomes possible, you will turn out to be just another village. You will lose the basic thing for which you had come; you may completely forget about it.

So the commune was going to break down. But it was a necessary step. Always remember that before you succeed in something you have to pass through many failures; success never comes directly. Each failure brings you closer to it because each failure gives you clarity, insight.

People wanted to live with me their whole lives. I knew that this is an impossible demand, but I don't want to hurt anybody. As far as I can manage I never say no, even if I see that this is not going to work. But my saying no will not be right. Let them try and find it out.

So now we are in a better position because all the communes in Europe are going to break down for the same reasons. Economically they will be in difficulties; legally they will be in difficulties. Soon, when there are difficulties, people start being annoyed, irritated, angry; they start fighting with each other...

It is good there are small centers where people come to meditate, to read. At the weekend they can stay there, be together – small groups which can manage themselves. There is no need for any production, there is no need to build houses; there is no other need.

And anybody who wants to come to me can always come and And these people have to work in the world. That's why I have given the freedom to wear all colors – no need to wear the mala if there is any problem – so that you can mix with society, work, and there is no trouble for you. And if you are working for a year, you can certainly save for three months, two months, to be with me.

And I will find a place – I am looking for it – a beautiful place, idyllic, just pure beauty, so that you can enjoy those two months to your heart's content. Then you can go back into the world, and you can radiate the joy and the beauty and the experience. You can contaminate other people...

But the place I am going to find is not going to be a commune where you have to stay for your whole life – just a skeleton crew to take care of visitors, guests who will be coming to stay and then going away. This way it will be easier – the unnecessary legal problems, unnecessary financial troubles can be avoided.

The people who have been working as therapists can continue to work, but on an individual basis. You have friends in small centers who know you – they can arrange a group for you. Rather than having an institution, you become a moving institution where people can arrange a group for seven days. You can be with those people for seven days or whatever; you can be available to them, you can become available to them. You can be my wandering messengers.

be here for the time that they can manage. Neither am I responsible, nor will the place where I will be living be responsible. You are responsible: for however long you can manage, you can be there. And then, you go back to the world.
This will bring more people in direct contact with me, because it was happening that people found it difficult even to make arrangements to come to the festivals. They wanted to, but they had given all their money to the commune.

In Germany, in Switzerland, or in Holland, they had given their money to the commune – now they had no money. They wanted to come to the festival in America to be with me, but they didn't have money. And the commune had its own problems. It had four hundred people; everybody wanted to go, but they could not arrange for four hundred people. Whatsoever money they had given had gone into construction and houses and instruments and everything – and they didn't have money. They were all at a loss.

So there are people who used to come to Poona every year and were not able to come to me in America in four years. Every year they were trying to come – but how to come? And the communes where they started living necessarily needed money, so they had given all the money to the commune. And then the commune was not able to send those people. It could send ten people, twenty people at the most per year. That meant if a four-hundred-people commune was there, it would take somebody ten years, twenty years to reach me. And he was capable of coming every year when he was alone, not living in a commune. So that was absurd.

But we had to pass through that phase, and we have passed through it without any damage, because unless I am damaged, nothing is damaged! So don't be worried about it. Just tell those people to decentralize. Big communes won't function – decentralize! The small centers, the old way, was far better; people enjoyed it because somebody's house became a center, and the person loved it, that his house was being used for my work. It becomes something integrated, that people come there to meditate – it is not something impersonal.

The commune becomes impersonal. And the commune is continuously looking for people who can put in more money. That is nothing to condemn the commune for, because the commune's problem is that it is going downhill all the time. People are there, their necessities are there, and prices are rising and you don't know... a person has given everything, now he has cancer. You have to take care of the person, you have to take care of his surgery; a person has AIDS, now what to do with that person? You cannot say, "Simply leave the commune" – that seems ugly. But you cannot allow him to live there either, because that seems to be dangerous for four or five hundred people. You have to decide something. That man may have given everything; he has nothing, nowhere to go. And it is ugly that when he is in a difficulty... and not an ordinary difficulty; when he is facing death you are not supporting him, so you feel guilty. But you are in a dilemma: if you keep him in the commune, then too you will feel guilty because you are risking five hundred people's lives. So you have to choose the lesser evil, but whatever you choose, you will feel guilty. If you leave that man out, you will feel guilty; if you keep him in you will feel guilty. Something has to be done.

It is better to decentralize the communes. There is no need... just individual homes, individual sannyasins who have small farms or some holiday place in the hills can easily manage weekends or a full week. And now all my therapists are free, so they will be moving all around the world.Wherever they are, use them. Because the place I am going to find is going to be totally different.

There will not be therapy groups: there will be meditation groups, there will be music groups, there will be sculpture groups, there will be poetry groups. How long are we going to do just therapy?

02-02-1986

I don't want to dictate to you in detail the whole program of your life. But I want to be close to you in case you fall, in case you need warmth, in case just a gesture of love will keep you moving on the way.

I will not take your freedom from you, because I want you to be ultimately free. But that does not mean that I have to be cold towards you. So I will be coming. And I don't see that there is any great problem – just a little chaos. And out of this chaos something good will happen. I could have remained silent and there would have been no chaos, but then I was seeing that you were being exploited; that you were working twelve hours, fourteen hours a day; that your whole life had become devoted to restaurants, discos....

There was no time for meditation. There was no inspiration for meditation. In fact, there was positively a condemnation of anybody who wanted time for meditation, time for friends or lovers... wanted to play his guitar. He was thought to be sabotaging the system. He was thrown out. So all creativity was being destroyed.

The commune had become just a money-creating mechanism, and the sannyasins were being used just as slaves. It was difficult for me. I had tried it – to make those people understand that this was not the reason why the communes were brought about. I had tried to explain what my idea of the commune was, and said that this was not what was happening: "You may be earning money, you may be having houses, you may be making roads – but that is not going to lead people to enlightenment. Those roads don't go to enlightenment!

"People's whole energy is being involved in it, and you have almost created a system which is cheating them. You are telling them, 'Work is worship, so you don't need any other meditation. Thework is your meditation.'" And the people thought this must be my direction. It was not. When I failed completely to convince those people to change.... They could not change because they had no interest in meditation. They had an interest in having a big empire in the world, having big money, having great power. They did not want me to speak again. That was the breaking point – why Sheela left; otherwise there was no reason for her to leave. She did not want me to speak again because she understood clearly that if I spoke again it would be a disturbance to the system she was creating. She could stop others but she could not stop me. And when I am speaking to my people,who is going to listen to her and her group?

So, because their whole system that they had created in four, five years, has been destroyed, you are feeling in chaos. But you are not stuck anywhere. You were stuck in that mechanism that was created; and if I had remained silent, you would have remained stuck – working your whole life... reaching nowhere.

So before I help you to stand on your own, as individuals.... Whether you are in the commune or outside the commune, the individuality has not to be lost. Freedom is one of the basic values. Meditation has to be our innermost life. Then whether you are living together in a small group or a big group does not matter. But these things should be preserved.

Remembering these things, you can live in a commune, or if you feel that the bigger group destroys these things.... It is difficult, because the bigger group has its own problems. Finance is one of the problems, because many sannyasins who join the commune have not contributed any money to the commune. Then the commune has to work more because they have to be fed, and they have to be clothed, and they have to be housed. And if you start... the bigger the commune, the more the problems will be – which are unnecessary. You will be in conflict with society. The politicians will become afraid of you, that you are so numerous that you can be dangerous to them. Then other religions may start feeling afraid of you, and they may start creating trouble, with cases in the courts – baseless, but they will waste time, they will waste money. And they will finally get you involved in such situations that you don't have any time to play your guitar, sing a song, or just sit silently for a few hours. And that was your main idea in being part of the commune!

This is something to be remembered – it has always happened. People had come together with a very beautiful idea, but then they get involved in something else, and there is no time for the basic idea so they go on postponing it. By and by they forget about it. Finally they are simply running discos or restaurants. But that you could have done without becoming a sannyasin. That was not the purpose of being a sannyasin. There are discos and there are restaurants, there are hotels – so what is the point? You had not become a sannyasin to run a hotel.

So I want to see all the sannyasins, meet them, and make them aware what the purpose was for their becoming a sannyasin: that should never be lost sight of. If it can be fulfilled in a commune, the commune is good. If it can be fulfilled only in smaller groups, then smaller groups are good. If it can be fulfilled better when you live individually, alone – so that then you have to work only six hours a day, five days a week, and the remaining time is totally free for you....
And to make it feasible I have allowed that you can now use any color of clothes; you can use the mala or you may not use the mala, as the situation permits.... Because if it comes against your job, if just because of your orange clothes you are thrown out from a school where you had a good job – where almost six months were holidays, and each year you have longer two-month holidays, when you could have always come to me....

And that was happening in Poona. People were coming to me every year, once or twice. And they were earning enough, working less time, earning more, and having more freedom. Once they had done their work – six hours – they were free for the remaining eighteen hours. They were coming once or twice a year to Poona; remaining there for two or three months, and then going back. The same people, when they started communes, became so involved, and financially it became so difficult for them, that for four years many of them had not come to me. They wanted to come but in the commune they didn't have money in their hands, they didn't earn. The money was centralized in the commune – and the commune had its own needs.

The commune does not have a preference for your need to go and be with me for two months – and it cannot afford it either. And you are working twice the amount of time you have ever worked; and you are without any money. You are left with no time of your own; and you have got into so many troubles – financial, legal, social, political – that it is just wasting your life.

So if some commune is going successfully, and the people who are there are absolutely happy and contented, it is good. If some commune is going into bankruptcy and still they are pulling through somehow, they are breaking their own necks unnecessarily.

Then it is better to let it go bankrupt – and you move alone, be separate.

There were hundreds of small centers which have been destroyed by the group who wanted to make as many big communes as possible, because those small centers could not earn much, could not produce much. Now the whole priority has become totally different from my idea. It was beautiful – somebody was running a small center in his own home. He enjoyed it, he loved it that people came to his home to meditate. And people had no worry about making a place where they could meditate. They destroyed all the small centers and moved people into communes. The whole idea lost touch with my basic attitude.

02-10-1985

BELOVED MASTER,
J. KRISHNAMURTI DOES NOT WANT AN ORGANIZATION – STILL HIS SECRETARY, RAJ GOPAL, BETRAYED HIM AND TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS FINANCES AND HIS ARCHIVES. YOU APPROVE OF INSTITUTIONS AND AT TIMES PERMIT ORGANIZATION WHERE NECESSARY. IN SPITE OF DUE CARE, A SIMILAR SITUATION TO KRISHNAMURTI'S WITH RAJ GOPAL HAS HAPPENED WITH YOU AND SHEELA.
DOES THIS MEAN THAT IN THE VERY NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS SUCH A SITUATION CANNOT BE AVOIDED? PLEASE EXPLAIN

A similar situation has not happened. Sheela has done much good, ninety-nine percent good. The whole credit of keeping all the commune together, of creating houses for five thousand people with all the modern facilities, with central air-conditioning – I don't think any city is totally air-conditioned as you are – of giving you the best food possible.... She has done immense good to you, and you should be grateful for it. The credit goes to her. Only one percent she missed, and that seems to be natural to human nature, particularly for people like Sheela.

Sheela had no spiritual aspirations. Seeing that she has no potential, at least in this life.... And this was my impression on the very first day she entered my room in 1970 – that she was utterly materialistic, but very practical, very pragmatic, strong-willed, could be used in the beginning days of the commune... because the people who are spiritually-oriented are stargazers.