We can break through out of the prison walls if we understand how the prison is made and what it consists, OSHO explains
History says slavery has been destroyed; that is all bunk! It has not been destroyed, it has only moved from the gross to the subtle. Yes, you don’t have chains on your hands and on your feet because the chains have become more subtle — they have gone into your mind, they have become more inner. On the outside you are enjoying freedom, democracy, equality, brotherhood — just empty impotent words — deep down there is no brotherhood, there cannot be.
How is there any possibility of brotherhood if there are Christians, Hindus, MohammedansIJ How can there be any possibility of brotherhood if there are nations — India, Germany, EnglandIJ It is impossible. Man is constantly at war, each moment you are living in conflict. And how can there be equality when you have been taught from the very beginning to be ambitiousIJ
Ambition means that you have to be higher than the other. Ambition means that you have to prove your superiority that you have to prove everybody else is inferior to you, that you have to succeed.
If success remains the god, if ambition remains your education, how can there be equalityIJ To talk about equality is utter nonsense. It does not exist even in communist countries; it cannot exist anywhere unless ambition disappears.
In Russia or in China there are still classes. Their names have changed, the labels are different.
Now there is no class of the poor and the rich — a new class has arisen, of the rulers and the ruled. It is the same old game, it makes no difference at all. We go on playing the same game. All that we do in the name of revolution is to change the labels.
The real question is not how to find truth — because you cannot find truth unless you are free. Truth arrives in freedom. Jesus Christ said, “Truth liberates.” That is true. That is only half the story — that truth will make you free. The other side which has not been told to you is also as important: truth happens only in freedom.
Start with freedom: that’s my message to you. Come out of the prison that has been imposed upon you . That is the only ray of hope, that it cannot exist without your cooperation. It feels safe and comfortable, it feels warmer, and you have decorated it well from the inside.
Down the ages that’s what man has been doing: decorating his prison cell. You have really made it beautiful inside; it almost looks as if it is a temple. You have painted your chains beautifully. You have covered your chains with gold and silver; they look like ornaments. Hence you go on cooperating. And freedom is the basic requirement if you want to know God, if you want to know at all what this life is and what the benediction of this life is and what the beauty of this existence is.
You may have completely forgotten that you have wings. This is the situation where man exists. Because the prison seems comfortable and you have lived in it so long, you have become accustomed to it. You will have to come into the open, under the sun and the moon and the sky. You will have to come into the wind. You may have lived so long in the cage that you may be afraid to open your wings again. If you want to know it at all you will have to come out of your prison. You will have to risk.
Excerpts from Osho’s discourses