The Last Testament, Vol. I, Chapter 27 (War Is Meaningless):
After Osho on Homosexuality.
The people who have been consoling the poor are the enemies of the poor. Poverty can be destroyed immediately. All that is needed is that nations should disappear – only then can wars disappear.
And seventy-five percent of every nation’s income is going into war efforts. America is even pouring eighty percent of its income into nuclear weapons. Now, if the whole world stops this nonsense, what is the need to be poor? We have so much energy, so much money, so much scientific intelligence.
But it is strange. In England, in Europe, in America too, they are destroying food – and Ethiopia is dying. And soon India will be in the same position. If you see Rajiv Gandhi, tell him that he will be responsible for India’s poverty and people dying there, because he is exporting wheat outside India, and his own people are on the verge of death – half the country. But he wants a nuclear plant. Tell him that this is not a child’s game, and he doesn’t understand anything about humanity. He had better go and become a pilot again, that is his place! He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t need to be the prime minister of a country which is suffering from poverty – and he is looking to create a nuclear plant! For what?
Even if India puts every penny into creating nuclear weapons, it will take three hundred years for them to be equal in power to America or the Soviet Union. And do you think that for three hundred years, America and the Soviet Union will be staying where they are? It is stupid, absolutely stupid, for a country like India to think of nuclear weapons, atomic energy.
But they go on saying to the poor – in India all the Indian religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism – all go on saying, “It is your past life’s bad actions, that’s why you are poor.” That’s the reason – because of these religions – that for five thousand years at least, India has never revolted, has suffered all kinds of poverty, slavery, and accepted it. The religious leaders were telling them, “If you rebel or if you do anything against it, you will have to suffer in the future life.”
Let me tell you one thing: you will be surprised. One of the great Jaina teachers in India is Acharya Tulsi. There is a Jaina sect, Terapanth, and he is the head of that community. Their basic philosophy is that if somebody is dying of thirst, and you have water, don’t give it to him – because he is suffering from his past life’s karmas, and giving him water means interfering into the punishment. He will be punished again soon, he cannot get rid of it – and by interfering, you have committed a crime: now you will suffer also.
If somebody is drowning, simply go on walking. Let him drown – it is his past life’s actions, and you should not interfere in any way. For example, if you pull that man out of the water and tomorrow he murders somebody, you are also responsible for that murder. You see, the logic is great! If you had not saved that man, the murder would not have happened. So in the next life you will also suffer, because you saved that man and took part in the murder.
If you teach people for thousands of years that it is your bad actions in past lives which create poverty, you are stopping them from revolting, you are stopping them from doing something to change their situation. You are telling them, “Just accept the situation in which you are.” And that’s how the East has accepted, and remained poor.
And still you want that I should not speak against these people – Buddha, Mahavira? I have to speak. To me these are far bigger criminals than Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, because those people have done very little harm. Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews, but how many poor people has Mahavira killed? And living in poverty is far more dangerous, is far more of a suffering, than dying in a beautifully, scientifically-managed gas chamber in Germany. Within seconds you are smoke – holy smoke! – rather than suffering for millions of years.