There is something to understand clearly: I am against imperialism. I am against exploiting man, other human beings. I am against torturing people just so that you can have power.
All those who are living and thriving on traditional values are really afraid — of a man who has no power except that he can show people that their misery is caused by their own wrong ideas, and that those wrong ideas are being emphasized by their government, by their church.
There is a conspiracy.
I can give an open challenge to any country: Let me speak to your young people, and you speak to the same young people, and let it be decided by those young people who are going to own the future. These governments know perfectly well they cannot defend anything that they believe.
These efforts to prevent me are good signs; they are good news. It means they have accepted their defeat; otherwise, what was the fear? — they could have allowed me to talk to people. And they have their archbishops and popes and priests who could have demolished my arguments; that would have been a cultured way, a human way.
I am alone — they have millions of priests. But they don't have a single argument for anything that they think is the basis of their society.
Yes, it is not conducive to their rotten society. It may ring the death bell. But they cannot prevent me. It is not me who is going to destroy the rottenness; it is the time itself which is not in favor of them. If not me, then somebody else will have to do it.
It is impossible to protect those societies, those governments, those churches. They have lost all roots. And they are aware of it, that just a push and they will fall down. They cannot even resist — even that much power is not left. You can make a corpse stand, but if you push it, it cannot retaliate; it is bound to fall down.
All these countries are corpses.
And they don't want their youth to come in contact with anybody who can show them that the old is dead and you have to find a new way of life.
This is not a question of one country; it is a question of the whole human past.
Just a deep attachment, a deep conditioning…
The future is dark, but nobody wants to see it — the past is dead, and if you go on clinging to the past the future is going to become darker and darker.
I will be avoided by every country.
I will be persecuted by every power, for the simple reason that I want them to see the reality. They are keeping their eyes closed.
In logic it is called the "ostrich argument." The ostrich has a tendency: whenever he comes against an enemy and knows that death is certain, he simply puts his head into the sand. He lives in the desert, eyes closed, head in the sand. He is perfectly happy because he cannot see any enemy anywhere.
But this does not eliminate the enemy; in fact it makes the enemy more powerful. Now this ostrich is not going to do anything to escape, to fight, to negotiate, to do something. Now there is no question: he is simply available as food. And ostriches are eaten by their predators without any fight, because the ostrich is living with the idea that, "I don't see any enemy here."
This "ostrich argument" is widespread today around the world. Nobody wants to see the reality — that you are sinking, that all your values are false, that all your civilization is hypocrisy, that all your smiles are just exercises of lips, and there is no heart in it; that you have forgotten to live, to love, to laugh, that you don't know what life means at all.
And you go on clinging because there is nothing else, there is no alternative — and I am being prevented because I can give you the alternative.
I can show you that this is not the only way a society can exist, this is not the only way that a marriage can exist, this is not the only way that children can be brought up, this is not the only way that governments should function. There are alternative ways.
But even to hear of the alternative, they are afraid. The message should not reach to the young — because the young are bound to be affected by the news that there is an alternative, that you need not remain in this misery, continuously fighting, killing human beings unnecessarily.
I have no pride in the past. I am a dangerous person because I do not consider that for thousands of years man has lived intelligently; otherwise why so much misery, why so much anxiety, why so much anguish? The fruit shows the quality of the tree. And the fruit that we have shows that the whole human past went somewhere wrong, and just out of ego went on pushing in a wrong direction.
I am ready and willing to change my ideas if somebody can show me that they are wrong, that they will not lead to the good of the people. But nobody is ready to do that; they simply accept it. No argument is needed, no discussion is needed.
One thing is certain, whether you agree with me or not: I cannot be prevented from presenting my views, my perspective, to the people. You cannot now take me just as an individual. I have become representative of a worldwide intelligence of creative, talented people.
OSHO