"There have been many civilizations before ours that have reached high peaks, but destroyed themselves because they grew in a deep imbalance. They developed great technologies, but they forgot that even the greatest technological progress is not going to make people more blissful, more peaceful, more loving, more compassionate.

"Our consciousness has not grown at the same pace as our scientific progress, and that has been the cause of many civilizations destroying themselves. We have created monsters as far as machines are concerned, and at the same time we have remained retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very dangerous to give so much power to unconscious people.

"That’s what is happening now. Politicians are of the lowest kind as far as consciousness is concerned. They are clever, they are cunning. They are mean, too, and they make every effort for a single goal, which is to be more powerful. Their only desire is for more power – not for more peace, not for more being, not for more truth, not for more love.

"What do you need more power for  – to dominate others, to destroy others? All the power accumulates in the hands of unconscious people. So on the one hand, politicians in all the civilizations that have developed and died – it would be better to say committed suicide – had all the power in their hands. On the other hand, the genius of human intelligence was searching for more and more technology, scientific improvements, and all they discovered finally had to go into the hands of the politicians.

"The destruction of our earth will not come from some other planet – we are preparing our own graves. We may be aware, we may not be aware, but we are all gravediggers and we are digging our own graves. Right now there are only a few nations in possession of nuclear weapons. Soon many more nations will also be nuclear powers. It is going to be beyond control, with so many nations having so much destructiveness that a single nation could destroy the whole earth. A single crazy person, a single politician, just to show his power, can destroy the whole of civilization and you will have to begin from ABC. And the destruction is not only of humanity. With humanity will die all the companions of humanity – the animals, the trees, the birds, the flowers. Everything could disappear, everything that is alive.

“The reason is an imbalance in our evolution. We go on developing scientific technology without bothering at all that our consciousness should also evolve in the same proportion. In fact, our consciousness should be a little ahead of our technological progress.

"If our consciousness were in the state of enlightenment… In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would no longer be dangerous. In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would be turned towards some creative force, because force is always neutral – either you can destroy with it or you can find ways to create something.” Osho