Osho Quotes on Rebels and Rebellion

Osho Quotes on Rebels and Rebellion

1. Whenever anything in the commune goes against the rebellious spirit, destroy it, rebel against! And you are not going against the commune: You are saving the commune, the commune of the rebels. You are saving the rebellious spirit.
2. To be a rebel needs guts.
3. My commune consists only of rebels.
4. The new rebel is an individual, absolutely free from the chains of the crowd — even if those chains are of gold. He is as free as a bird on the wing. He will not accept any cage, howsoever precious. Truth is his religion, freedom is his path. And to be himself, utterly himself, is his goal.
5. A man who has any courage, a man who has any guts, is bound to be a rebel.
6. The establishment is the enemy of religion. But it happens in the natural course of things because man is stupid. The establishment is bound to happen again and again. And again and again somebody has to assert and rebel.
7. Rebellion does not mean that you have to go against something which is intelligent, intelligible. You rebel against any stupidity. Any idiocy that happens in the commune, you rebel against it. That is your responsibility, to be on guard that no stupidity, no superstition, starts getting its roots within you. Be alert.
8. To have the spirit of rebellion, all that you need is guts; and you have them. You have simply forgotten about them. Every individual is born with tremendous courage. Nature is not partial in that it gives courage to Alexander the Great and does not give you courage; it is not so. As far as nature is concerned it is absolutely communist. Communists are not communists, but existence is absolutely communist. It has no categories: it does not make courageous people and cowardly people. No, it simply creates courageous people. Cowardliness is created by those who want to remain in power forever. They create the cowards, because only the cowards will not rebel.
9. Jesus is a rebel, just as Buddha is or Lao Tzu is. When the church starts establishing itself it starts destroying the rebelliousness of Jesus, Buddha, because rebellion cannot go with an establishment. It starts imposing its own ideas — once Jesus is gone it is very easy to impose your own ideas. It starts selecting what to keep in the Bible and what not to keep. Many things have been dropped, many things have not been included in it. For example, the Gospel of Thomas has not been included in the New Testament. It was just discovered a few years ago — and it is the MOST important gospel. The four gospels that have been included are nothing compared to it, but it is very rebellious.
10. To follow the path of Buddha one has to be a rebel. Rebellion is its essential taste; it is only for the rebellious spirit. But only rebellious people have spirits, only they have souls. Others are hollow, empty.
11. You can be a rebel even in a society which wants you to be part of the establishment. Don’t compromise. Even life itself is a lesser value than your individuality and your rebelliousness. Your rebelliousness is your very spirit.
12. Be a rebel. All the religions destroy the potential of rebellion in man. Obviously — because to teach rebellion means to teach these people to rebel against tradition, against convention, against society, against religion; and these are their vested interests. Rebellion has to be absolutely slaughtered. But the moment the spirit of rebellion dies in a man, man lives only a posthumous existence — because the spirit of rebellion is your real spirit.
13. The spirit is born only when you rebel, when you rebel against all that is wrong, when you rebel against all that goes contrary to truth, when you rebel against all that makes you a slave. And that rebellion is religion.
14. The so-called good people who say never to be angry, naturally become anti-revolutionaries because without anger there is no revolution. The so-called good people who say never to be angry, always become part of any kind of society… howsoever ugly, oppressive, exploitative. They become part of it because they can’t be angry, they can’t rebel. And rebellion has something beautiful in it; it is the very spirit of man. So if somebody teaches ‘Don’t be angry’, he will make you impotent. And there will be situations where you will feel that anger is absolutely needed; it is a protest. It is to say that you exist as an individual, this is your right.
15. Rebellion! Rebellion is the religion of a rebellious spirit — to rebel against all exploitation, to rebel against all discrimination, to rebel against oppression, to rebel against all kinds of spiritual slavery, to rebel against all kinds of superstitions. There is so much to rebel against. And that is only half of the rebellion, because the other half is to rebel for — to rebel against superstition is only half — to rebel for the truth, to rebel for freedom, to rebel for love, to rebel for a new humanity, to rebel for a new man, a new society, a new kind of consciousness. Rebellion has two parts. The negative part is against all that is ugly but has been worshipped for centuries, and the positive part is for all that is beautiful but has been ignored for centuries — not only ignored, but crucified, poisoned, murdered. Whenever any individual has tried the authentic religion of rebelliousness, his reward has been crucifixion. Hence I want so many rebellious people in the world that it will be difficult to find people to crucify them.
16. The situation of the rebel is tremendously exciting: each moment he is faced with problems because the society has a fixed mode, a fixed pattern, fixed ideals. And the rebel cannot go with those fixed ideals — he has to follow his own still small voice. If his heart is saying no, there is no way, no power, to force him to say yes. You can kill him, but you cannot destroy his rebellious spirit.
17. Only people who are without guts, who have no spine to their being can follow the priests and the politicians, the demagogues, the people who have vested interests in the establishment. But if you have any intelligence then you will be a rebel.
18. 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.
19. A man who is blissful and prayerful is the greatest rebel in the world. No prison can imprison him, no chains can chain him. You can kill his body but you cannot kill his spirit. He lives according to his own light. He is nonconformist, he is never a part of the crowd, he is never a sheep. He is a man, a real man.
20. Meditation brings many flowers to life, it opens up many dimensions which were closed before. It makes you aware of many aspects of your own being of which you were never aware, not even in your dreams. And the most important aspect is that it releases your rebellious energy, it makes you a rebellious spirit. And only the rebel knows what life is; the orthodox never knows it, the conformist cannot know it. He knows only the trodden path of the crowd, of the mob.
21. Rebellion is a style of life. To me, it is the only religion which is authentic. Because if you live according to your own light you may go astray many times, and you may fall many times; but each fall, each going astray will make you wiser, more intelligent, more understanding, more human. There is no other way of learning than by making mistakes. Just don’t make the same mistake again. There is no God, except your own consciousness.
22. Zen is not for unintelligent people. You have to put aside all the programming that has been done on you. And you are capable of doing it, you just need guts. You have to rebel — if you really want to live, you have to rebel. You have to rebel against all kinds of superstitions, against all kinds of stupidities. You have to rebel against your parents, against your society, against your church. Unless you do that you will not know anything of the ecstasy that this life contains.
23. It is rare to find a person who has the guts to rebel against the traditional, the conventional, the social, because all the forces are in support of the conventional. When you are rebelling against something you are alone, fighting against the whole world. But it is a tremendously beautiful adventure. Going to the moon is nothing compared to it, going to Everest is nothing compared to it. To rebel against all that is dead, unintelligent, is the greatest adventure, the greatest revolution. And it gives you a sharpness of the soul, of intelligence. In fact it creates an integrated individual in you and only in that integration do flowers of bliss blossom, bloom; you start growing. Otherwise people remain almost retarded.
24. My hope is no longer in the promises of the revolutionaries; my hope is in the birth of the rebel. And a rebel’s basic necessity — the essential transformation — is freedom of your individuality from your own past, from your own religion, from your own nation. Meditation will help to make you an individual; and only a commune of individuals who are all spiritually free, who have broken all the bridges that go towards the past, will have eyes that are fixed on faraway stars.
25. A rebel simply lives out of his spontaneity; he has no idea what it should be. He acts out of his understanding; he responds to a situation, and something starts happening.
26. The problem is that the rebels are very few, and the retarded masses are so many that unless every individual is a rebel, an establishment is bound to follow. The rebel is bound to fight against his own revolution, which is turning into a new establishment. Up to now no revolution has been able to succeed because the moment it succeeds it starts becoming another establishment. The people who had power change, but the people who come in their place are more powerful. And it is more difficult to change them, because they know all the strategies that they have used in changing powerful people. So they will not allow any of those strategies.
27. The new rebel is not going to conform to the establishment and its interests. He is absolutely unconcerned about his respectability, reputation, honor, worship; he is not in need of any of these things. The people who are empty inside need all these decorations. The new rebel is an enlightened being — he is fulfilled and deeply contented. He stands aloof and alone, with a clarity about everything. He will speak his truth whether it goes against the society, against the heritage, against the ancient traditions, against scriptures — it does not matter. To the new rebel, truth is the only religion. For truth he is ready to be sacrificed; for truth he is ready to be condemned; for truth he is willing to be crucified.
28. A Master belongs to no tradition. A Master is basically a rebel. A Master is non-compromising. A Master is ready to be crucified rather than to be crowned. He will not compromise on any grounds. The teacher simply functions as an agent of the past, and because he functions for the establishment you can have an established relationship with a teacher. With a rabbi, with a priest, with an imam you can have an established relationship, but never with a Master.