Birthday of Russian Revolutionry Anarchist Bakunin

Born on 30 May 1814, Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian philosopher, socialist, and most importantly, a revolutionary anarchist. He was an outspoken and prolific political writer as well. Bakunin’s views and efforts for anarchy made him a prominent figure in the European revolutionary movement, setting him against Karl Marx. He traveled across western Europe to spread his message and had quite the journey of exiles and banishments. Bakunin attended the First International in 1872, starting his public feud of anarchy versus Marxism, which carried on long after his demise.

Bakunin was deadset against hierarchy in all forms – political, social standings, and spirituality. In his opinion, the sin to fight was the hunger for power, and the only true act was individual freedom; to each his own. Bakunin influenced many notable thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin, E.P. Thompson, Neil Postman, and Herbert Marcuse. His courage and views are still appreciated and prevail, especially through his book God and The State.

Osho mentions Bakunin, “I have talked about Bakunin, Bukharin, Camus. All these are rebellious thinkers, but unenlightened. The society has not crucified them either. Society knows that their words are impotent, that they cannot ignite a wildfire in the hearts of humanity. People will read their books as entertainment; more than that is not possible as far as their writings are concerned. Hence, the society has not only tolerated them but respected them, rewarded them with great prizes.

My rebel will be not only a philosopher, he will be an experienced, awakened being. His very presence will threaten all the establishments of the world. His presence will be a challenge to all that enslaves man and destroys his spirit. His presence will become a great fear in all those who are immensely powerful, but know perfectly well that their power depends on the exploitation of men, on keeping man retarded, on destroying man’s intelligence, on not allowing man to have his own individuality, his own original face. Just a few rebellious enlightened people around the world and all the thrones of power will start shaking.”

Osho Says….

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, YESTERDAY EVENING YOU SPOKE ABOUT SETTING UP A COMMUNE EITHER IN A COUNTRY OR IN AN ISLAND. WHAT YOU WOULD PREFER, TO HAVE A COUNTRY OR AN ISLAND, AND WHAT IT WILL THE SET UP BE LIKE?

A:

My way of working is not according to any principle, creed or dogma. I live moment to moment. And this is one of my basic standpoints: that life can be lived only spontaneously. Life cannot be like a railway trains running on the same track, always consistent. Life is bound to be like a mountainous river — changing every moment according to the situation, in response to it.

When I had come, at that moment I had no idea even to create a commune, I simply wanted a small group of people to live with me, so that my work can be continued. And I have communes in every country around the world so my word, my teachings, their questions and my answers can continue to reach to them. But being here for one month the situation has completely changed. I have never thought that the Indian government will be so much under American pressure. They are not allowing even a small group of people to be with me. They want me to live here but they don’t want me to continue my work. And to me my work is my life. Hence I have to change the idea of not having a commune.

The second thing… there are countries which are inviting me to have my commune and they are ready to support but they don’t know me much, neither I know them much. Their reason to invite me is not that they support my way of thinking. Their reason to invite me is because they are anti-American. Now this is not enough for me to create a commune in those countries.

And my feeling in these thirty years continuously has been that wherever I am, whatever political ideology is followed there or whatever religion dominates there, I am going to be in conflict with the political ideology, with the religious ideology. Hence my preference is an independent island. There are islands available which have no political domination in any way, from any country. That will be the ideal place for me, to work without being obstructed on each single step. And from that island I can manage all my communes around the world, because the island will not be under any government, we can also prove a very fundamental thing: that we can live without a government.

Fundamentally I am an anarchist. Lesser the government the better. No government is the best situation. There have been great anarchist thinkers like Bakunin but they were all working through a wrong direction. They were simply thinking that removing the government will solve the problem, that is not true. So I don’t agree on that point, that removing the government will solve the problem. It will increase the problems. My way to reach to an anarchist state is changing the people, their patterns of thinking, their ways of life — making them so happy, blissful, silent that crime becomes an impossibility in their being. Then there is no need for a government. You don’t remove the government, the need for the government disappears. It is like you are sick, you need a doctor. Bakunin and other anarchists are saying, “Remove the doctor and everything will be good.” I cannot agree about that because what will happen to the patient? Even with the doctor, he is sick; without the doctor he will be in a far worse condition.

My approach is: make the sick person healthy so the need for the doctor disappears.

In ancient China for thousands of years there has been a rule which I support wholeheartedly, that the patient does not pay the doctor when the doctor cures him; the patient pays the doctor when the patient remains healthy and does not fall sick. If the patient falls sick, doctor loses money — he will have to supply medicines, he will have to take care of the patient, and whatever he was getting from the patient will not be given to him. This is absolutely sane idea. Otherwise the whole world has lived in such a stupid situation that the doctor is taught to make the patient healthy but the doctor lives on the patient being sick. This is a contradiction. The profession is basically contradictory. If nobody is sick, all the doctors will die. They need sick people, they need epidemics so that they can cure people and they can earn money. This is not only the situation about doctor/patient relationship, this is the situation about so many things in our life.

One of the great philosopher, Lao Tzu, was asked by the emperor of China to become his chief of the justice department. Lao Tzu tried to persuade him that, “It is better you leave me out.”

But he insisted, that “You are the wisest man.”

Finally Lao Tzu accepted and the first case appeared. A man has stolen a large sum of money from the richest man of the capital. Lao Tzu gave both the people six years of jail: the thief and the rich man. The rich man said, “Are you mad? I have been robbed and now I am being punished! I have not done anything.”

Lao Tzu said, “You have accumulated so much money that it is bound to be sooner or later robbed. You have created the situation, you are the source. This thief is just a by-product and I cannot punish the by-product when the source is present before me.”

The rich man immediately approached the emperor and he said, “What kind of man you have appointed? Soon you will be in jail because whatever you have, you have in the same way I have. It is better to dismiss this man, his idea is dangerous, although he is logical. I can understand what he is saying.” Lao Tzu was dismissed.

But this is the situation in the whole world. On the one hand we create solutions and on the other hand those solutions depend, exist, subsist, on the problems. So my idea of anarchism is totally different from Bakunin. I want to create a society which does not need a government. Bakunin says, “Destroy the government and you will have a good society.” I don’t agree. But have a good society and there will be no need of a government. And this can be proved very easily because four years in America we had no government, there was no crime, nobody was punished, there was no fight, no rape, because we were trying to erase the problems from their very foundations.

On an island it will be more easily possible because on any land belonging to a country we have to follow their laws. Most of them are illogical. We have to go through the bureaucracy which takes years, and then too the governments change — one government may invite me, the other government, tomorrow, may throw me out.

It is better now to have an island where we don’t have any government and we can create a model anarchist, superb quality communism, without any dictatorship, without destroying the rich, without creating a great concentration camp as Russia is; with full freedom. I trust in the individual so much and his intelligence that it is possible that it can become an ideal society. And it can become a model for other communes all over the world.

Secondly, it will be easier for my sannyasins to visit because they won’t need any visa, they won’t need any passport. I think that the world is crazy! We are living on a small planet where we have made so many political lines and divisions and you cannot cross those divisions and you need passports and you need visas and everywhere it seems we are not aware that the earth is one. So on the island at least we can drop all bureaucracy, nobody is going to ask you “How long you are going to stay here? From what country you come? To what race you belong? Whether you have any passport or not?” Your being human is enough that you are welcome. So rather than having the commune on mainland of any country, my preference is for an island…

I have found a really beautiful island and soon we will be negotiating. Perhaps within two weeks it will be finalized and once it is finalized I will give you the first news. You can release it to the world.

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune. 

Discourse Series: The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #9

Chapter title: None

25 December 1985 am in  Kulu/Manali, India

References:

Osho has spoken on spoken on notable Psychologists and philosophers like Adler, Jung, Sigmund Freud, Assaguoli, Aristotle, Berkeley, Confucius, Descartes, Feuerbach, Hegel, Heidegger, Heraclitus, Huxley, Jaspers, Kant, Kierkegaard, Laing, Marx, Moore, Nietzsche, Plato, Pythagoras, Russell, Sartre, Socrates, Wittgenstein and many others in many of His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Hidden Splendour
2. The New Dawn
3. This, This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen
4. Nirvana: The Last Nightmare
5. Beyond Enlightenment
6. Beyond Psychology
7. Light on The Path
8. The Dhammapada
9. From Bondage to Freedom
10. From Darkness to Light
11. From Ignorance to Innocence
12. The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1
13. From Personality to Individuality
14. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here
15. Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 1
16. From Unconciousness to Consciousness
17. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4