Introduction
This small book, The Greatest Challenge: The Golden Future, is unashamedly addressed to the intelligent people of this threatened planet. It is a response to the report of the United Nations from the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, which identifies the major issues threatening the future of this planet.
This book presents another facet of the Osho vision, a proposal for a viable humanity; a diagnosis of the psychological and social sicknesses that divide human beings, within and without, into warring factions. It outlines the critical steps required if there is to be any future – let alone the golden future that lies within our grasp.
That our very survival is now an open question is doubted by no one – yet nothing changes. That we are sacrificing the very existence of the most beautiful flowering of this universe in childishly immature conflicts is widely understood – yet nothing changes. That action is needed now is accepted by global experts everywhere – yet nothing changes.
The clock ticks quietly away....
Throughout the world there are intelligent people everywhere, scientists, artists, poets, students, business people, doctors, lawyers; young people, old people; the famous, the unknown. Yes, these people all over the world must stare out of their windows at the birds in the trees going about their business so intelligently, so naturally – and wonder....
Literally, What on earth is going wrong?
Mothers gaze at their children and wonder wistfully what the future holds for those little ones. And in the background, newscast after newscast, in every language of the globe, says it again and again and again: War... famine... AIDS... chemical weapons... holes in the ozone layer... nuclear destruction... global warming... over-population... loss of tropical forests... loss of species... desertification... drugs... violence....
The tragic fact is that if those intelligent people don't stop this process, just who do they think will? The people in power today? The ones who currently benefit from today's insane world? – people who, consciously or unconsciously, cling to the very values that have brought us into this mess in the first place?
It is now or never. It is time for the intelligentsia everywhere to raise its voice against this stupidity.
In this book, Osho describes the formation of a World Academy for Creative Science, Arts, and Consciousness, as a practical step in just that direction.
This is almost certainly the most radical document you have ever read – these are radical times, and they call for radical solutions. It is not a question of whether you agree with Osho or not, it is a question of having the guts to ensure that at least his contribution is on the agenda. If the ideas are obviously wrong, then it will be easy to point out how and why, and we can all learn in the process. If the ideas are right, however, then the intelligentsia of the world will need to find the courage to say so. Time is running out, everything we love is at stake; claiming there are no solutions is not an acceptable answer while so many options remain un-examined.
This planet is the inheritance of every one of us. Either we all benefit or we all lose – it is one earth and one humanity. In that search for survival we must not leave a stone unturned. We must examine every option openly, honestly, without prejudice, without superstition, without bias – in fact, simply, scientifically.
Osho's vision is one option you will find nowhere else.
If it should turn out that we do lose this planet without having thoroughly investigated every avenue before us, Homo sapiens will have been the misnomer of the universe.
Editors, 1997.
