THE REBEL

The rebel is a spiritual phenomenon. His approach is absolutely individual. His vision is
that if we want to change the society, we have to change the individual. Society in itself does
not exist; it is only a word, like `crowd’, but if you go to find it, you will not find it anywhere.
Wherever you will encounter someone, you will encounter an individual. Society is only a
collective name, just a name, not a reality — with no substance. The individual has a soul, has
a possibility of evolution, of change, of transformation. Hence the difference is tremendous.
The rebel is the very essence of religion. He brings into the world a change of
consciousness — and if the consciousness changes, then the structure of the society is bound
to follow it. But vice versa is not right — and it has been proved by all the revolutions,
because they have all failed.
No revolution has yet succeeded in changing man; but it seems man is not aware of the
fact. He still goes on thinking in terms of revolution, of changing society, of changing the
government, of changing the bureaucracy, of changing laws, political systems. Feudalism,
capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism — they are all in their own way revolutionary.
They all have failed, and failed utterly, because man has remained the same.
A Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Jesus — these people are rebels. Their trust is in the
individual. They have not succeeded either, but their failure is totally different than the
failure of the revolutionary. Revolutionaries have tried their methodology in many countries,
in many ways, and have failed. But a Gautam Buddha has not succeeded because he has not
been tried. A Jesus has not succeeded because Jews crucified him and Christians buried him.
He has not been tried — he has not been given a chance. The rebel is still an unexperimented
dimension.

OSHO – The book of understanding