Osho: To Give Birth To A Child Now Is Almost A Crime

When experts talk about the environmental crisis the issue that is a major threat to it is rarely mentioned. As if everybody is embarrassed to touch the subject namely the absurd growth of population. The human population is far higher than any other primate at any time in history.

"This is a topic that has gone to and fro in the last few decades, and appears to be moving back up the political agenda now," Nobel laureate Sir John Sulston told BBC News.

"So it seems a good moment for the Royal Society of UK to launch a study that looks objectively at the scientific basis for changes in population, for the different regional and cultural factors that may affect that, and at the effects that population changes will have on our future in term of sustainable development."

The society acknowledges it is delving into a hugely controversial area, but it has to be dealt with firmly. The birth of children is considered one of the basic human rights so everybody, for different reasons, was afraid to deal with it but now it is no more a personal decision to produce children, the survival of the planet depends on it.

Osho has always been a fiery crusader of the birth control. Here is an excerpt from one of his books:

"No religion wants to use methods of birth control for the simple reason that that reduces their numbers. Catholics are against it, Mohammedans are against it, Hindus are against it. Everybody is against birth control for the simple reason that it will reduce their numbers -- and numbers are power. The more people follow your church, the more powerful you are. This is part of politics, power politics. They are not concerned about the future of humanity, they are not concerned with the misery of people, they are not concerned with poverty.

"To give birth to a child now is almost a crime, because the world is already overpopulated. Half of humanity is starving, and by the end of this century the starvation is going to be so acute, so intolerable, that the earth is going to become a mad planet. Either suicide or murder will be the only possible ways for people to exist, and both are wrong.

"And the Catholic pope and the Hindu shankaracharya and the Hindu priests, these will be the responsible persons, because they are all against birth control. They talk beautifully, they rationalize beautifully, that they are against birth control because birth control is against nature. If birth control is against nature then the pope of the Vatican should be against medicine, because that too is against nature. If a person is dying of cancer, let him die, don't give him medicine. On that point the pope is absolutely silent.

"If birth is natural, then death is natural. If you have disturbed the balance by preventing people from dying, then you have to accept the other part of it also. Allow people to die naturally; then let them give birth to as many children as they can. Then there will be no imbalance; nature balances itself."

The Dhammapada : The Way of the Buddha Vol 6