Dharam Sadhana Ke Sutra #1

There are two points. First, I did not say that transmigration is wrong; I said that believing in transmigration is wrong. And believing, in every form, is wrong. Religion has nothing to do with believing; religion has to do with knowing. One who believes does not know—that is precisely why he has to believe. And one who knows has no need to believe. If he knows, there is no need to believe.

Religion’s fundamental connection is with knowing, not with belief.

So the one who knows transmigration—who experiences it, whose perception is such, whose own experience is that there is transmigration—this person’s life will gain in many ways. But the one who merely believes that transmigration exists will suffer many harms. The greatest harm is this: when we accept something without knowing it, the search to know it comes to a halt. We seek only that which we have not already believed. Therefore science becomes a search, and belief closes the door to inquiry.

For me, religion too is the supreme science. Therefore I will not say that any basis of religion is faith. No basis of religion is faith. The whole basis of religion is knowledge.

Therefore, when I have said, “Do not believe in transmigration, do not believe in reincarnation,” it does not mean I am saying that transmigration does not exist. It also does not mean I am saying that reincarnation does not exist. I am saying only this: once you believe, the search stops. Try to know. And knowing happens only when right doubt is present. If you assume the opposite, even then doubt disappears. If I assume that there is no reincarnation, the search stops. If I assume that there is reincarnation, the search stops. Search is in suspension. I know neither that it is, nor that it is not. So I set out to find what is, so that I may know it.
I take a religious person to be the deepest of inquirers; there is no search deeper than that. But those whom we ordinarily call religious, I do not call religious: all their inquiry has stopped. They are superstitious.
Superstition is not religion. Blind belief is not religion.

First of all—who is a mahajan? To decide that is very difficult. And whenever you decide that “this one is a mahajan,” that decision is yours; and you have placed yourself above the mahajan, not below. If you say Rama is a mahajan, that is your decision. Another person says, “Not Rama, Buddha is the mahajan”—that is his decision. Whenever you take a decision, you are the ultimate decider; no mahajan decides for you, because even the decision about who is a mahajan is taken by you.

So I say: a person always follows his own discernment; he does not follow any mahajan—he cannot. For even to decide about a mahajan you have to use your own discernment. There are a thousand mahajans in the world—how will you decide who is the mahajan? Whenever you decide, the ultimate decisive factor is you. So when you are the ultimate decisive factor, I say: always follow yourself. If you think you are following some mahajan, you are still following yourself. If you say, “I will follow Nanak,” even then you are following your own decision, not Nanak. Man has no way to follow anyone other than himself. It is an impossibility.

Do you understand me?

What I am saying is that every decision will be your decision, and there is nothing written by God on anyone’s forehead that he is a mahajan. For Jesus appears as a mahajan to Christians, and to the Jews he appeared fit to be crucified. Krishna appears as God to the Hindus, and to the Jains he seems fit to be consigned to hell.

Who is a mahajan? The decision about a mahajan is also your decision. Which scripture is true? That too is your decision. When all decisions are yours, then I say: ultimately you yourself are the mahajan. Ultimately the mahajan is your own soul; follow its voice. Whatever decision it gives—if it says, “Go after Nanak,” then go after Nanak.

But my emphasis is this: you are always going behind yourself. Do not fall into the illusion that you can go behind someone else. There is simply no way; it is impossible. Every person goes behind himself—whether into a ditch or into liberation, into hell or into heaven. I am saying it is psychologically impossible for someone to follow another. How will he? Even if you agree with me, you are agreeing with your own understanding, not with me. If you disagree with me, that too you are doing from your own side.

The consciousness of the individual is the final deciding element—the ultimate decisive factor. Therefore, there is nothing above it. If a man says, “I believe in God,” that too is his decision. Tomorrow he may say, “I do not believe.” God does not interfere. Even if we believe in God, in fact we are believing in ourselves. There is no other way.

Therefore I do not say, “Go behind the mahajans.” You cannot. I only say: go behind your own discernment. There is no other path.

There are a few small truths in it; in their allegations there are a few truths. But there is more falsehood than truth. And a lie in which a little truth is mixed becomes more dangerous than a complete lie. A half-truth is even more dangerous than a total untruth, because a half-truth creates the illusion of truth.

You mentioned three words: atheist...
Let me explain my view and you will get the idea. In my view, atheism is the first stage of theism. No one can be a theist without first being an atheist. It simply cannot be. Because if a man has never said no, his yes has no meaning. If one has never said no, his yes means nothing. If someone, without thinking, without inquiring, without understanding, merely gives approval, his approval will be impotent. But one who has searched, asked, raised questions, doubted, denied—and after all denials and all inquiry says “It is”—his “is” has meaning.

So I do not consider the atheist the enemy of the theist—that is my trouble. I see atheism as the first stage of theism. It is not necessary that every atheist becomes a theist; one can stop at the first stage, and then one falls into error. But if the atheist goes on deepening his atheism, goes on inquiring and asking, then if not today, tomorrow he will reach theism. There is no other way: atheism is the beginning of religion and theism its end.

So someone may call me an atheist. But I think it would be very difficult to find a person more theistic than I am—because in my theism I also include atheism. And the theist who says the atheist is our enemy is not a complete theist, because he leaves a part of existence outside himself. If God is anywhere at all, then God accepts the atheist as much as the theist. Otherwise where would there be room for the atheist to exist? Where would he remain? How would he live? How would he be?

So, contrary to the common belief that atheist and theist are enemies, I do not see it that way. I see that man begins with atheism—questioning, inquiry, doubt. And he attains to theism—when all questions drop, all doubts fall, all curiosities subside—then from his heart arises the feeling of yes: God is. Therefore someone may call me an atheist, because I say one must learn atheism if one is to become a theist; otherwise you will be a bogus theist, with nothing inside.

Second, you said they call me a follower of the left-hand path.
There is a little truth in this too. The truth is that I accept life in its totality—the total life. I deny nothing in it. I say: whatever God has given, whoever denies it is an enemy. Whatever has been given can be misused or rightly used, but whatever has been given has significance. In this life, whatever is—everything has meaning.

There is anger, there is desire, there is lust; I hold that they too have a significance in life—otherwise they would not be. There is sex in life; it has meaning. And the energy that is sex—if freed from lust—becomes brahmacharya (celibacy). In brahmacharya and in lust the same power is at work, not two different powers. If man’s sexual desire keeps flowing toward the other, it becomes sex; and if that very energy begins to flow toward oneself, it becomes brahmacharya. If it flows toward matter, it becomes sex; if it flows toward the divine, it becomes brahmacharya.

They may call me left-hand because one of the cornerstones of the left-hand path is this: even poison, if used rightly, can become nectar. The left-hand path says nothing in life is inherently bad. Everything can be oriented toward the good. If one works skillfully, even thorns can become flowers; and if unskillfully, even flowers can turn into thorns. Life is skillfulness. Therefore the left-hand path says: we deny nothing; we orient everything toward God. That which we have called the worst of the worst—we transform that too toward the good.

On this point I agree with the left-hand path. And I hold that on this matter the left-hand path is right. Those things we think are opposites—for example, forgiveness: the left-hand path says forgiveness is the transformation of anger. The person who cannot be angry cannot forgive. In truth, anger, transformed, becomes forgiveness. Therefore the left-hand path will say: we have no quarrel with anger. We do not say, “Drop anger.” We say, “Transform anger.”

This is also my statement. I too say: in life nothing is to be discarded; everything is to be changed. In life nothing is to be negated or cut off; everything is to be transformed and raised higher. The very mud, raised high, becomes the lotus. Whatever is bad in life can become auspicious.

So someone may call me left-hand. But I have nothing to do with the left-hand path. I have nothing to do with any path. For me, life as a whole is accepted. I take total acceptability to be religion. I consider negation, denial, refusal to be unintelligence.

Nor do we have any other way. If someone says, “We will completely cut off a man’s sex,” he is speaking wrongly—unscientifically, unpsychologically. Neither psychology will agree with him, nor science, nor biology. Sex cannot be cut off; it can only be transformed. Nothing in this world can be destroyed—this is a fundamental principle of science. It is also a fundamental principle of religion. In this world things can only be changed, not destroyed. We may have great power, yet we cannot annihilate even a tiny grain of sand. Yes, at most we can transform it into something else. Nothing is destroyed; everything only changes.

So with regard to whatever is within man, we can take two approaches. One is the puritan’s approach—the rigid moralist. He says: cut this and this off; this and this are wrong. He says: cut off sex, cut off anger, separate out evil.

I consider him unscientific. Transform evil—do not cut it; it cannot be cut, it cannot be erased. Transform sex; turn anger into forgiveness. This can happen. Only this can happen! Therefore I agree this far. And I think anyone who reflects even a little will agree. Whoever has even a little scientific intelligence will say: no energy in life is destroyed; there are only transformations.

With electricity we can run a fan. With electricity we can run a radio. With electricity we can kill a man. With electricity we can save a dying man. Electricity is neither good nor bad. It is neutral. Everything depends on how we use it.

Whatever powers man has, everything depends on how we use them. There can be an anger that is religious. And there can be a peace that becomes irreligious. What I am saying is: there can be moments in life when the sword is religious. And there can be moments when nonviolence becomes irreligious.

So I will not say: cut off violence. I will say: dedicate violence to the divine. What I will say is: let whatever we have be God-oriented, that’s all. Then in every situation the difference will be clear. Therefore I am not in favor of rigid laws. And those who hold to hard-and-fast laws harm life, because they lose all sense of circumstances.

Once this country decided that we regard nonviolence as supreme, then even if slavery comes we will go on carrying nonviolence on our shoulders.

No, no, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is exactly what will bring order. Disorder spreads because of rigid rules. Suppose we decide never to step out of this house, and tomorrow there’s a fire—then disorder will spread. But if we have decided that in case of fire we can go out, no disorder will spread. It is stiff, dead disciplines that always produce disorder. When needs change and the rules don’t; when the situation changes and the rule doesn’t—then disorder arises. Disorder is the name of disharmony between rule and situation. But if our rule is elastic and changes with the situation, disorder never spreads.

The anarchy in the world is because of those who are crazy about order. They make order so rigid that life changes every day while their order doesn’t; then life breaks their order. If order is elastic, flexible, disorder will never spread.

As I understand it: take a father teaching his son. The son is small; not strong, weak; the father will discipline him. But the son grows day by day. If the father continues the same behavior—what he used with a two-year-old he continues with a twenty-five-year-old—then disorder will spread. Because the son is no longer two; he is twenty-five, but a rule meant for a two-year-old is being applied. Now there will be turmoil. The rule should change; the son is twenty-five. And a time will also come when the father grows weak and the son strong. The rule must go on changing at every moment to fit that.

Life is change, life is a flux; everything in it is changing. Therefore our rules should be so elastic that they never harm life on any day; they should keep changing with life—then disorder never spreads.

When we had settled on nonviolence, we were an independent country. Then we could talk of nonviolence. We were a prosperous country; we could speak of nonviolence. Then we were attacked, and still we went on talking of nonviolence—then trouble began. Disorder spread, because we no longer had the courage for violence. We said violence can never be right. But we failed to see that if our violence is never right, the other’s violence goes on becoming right. If I have not raised the sword at the right time, the other certainly will. And I keep bowing before violence even while invoking the name of nonviolence.

Life is a flow. Everything changes daily. And we must be prepared to change along with its daily change. Therefore I am not in favor of any rigid law or strict policy.

This does not mean I am in favor of immorality. My view is that rigid morality itself gives birth to immorality. What is needed is a fluid policy, a liquid morality, always ready to change with life. When everything changes, morality too must have the courage to change.

Now a third point still remains.

I understand. You are asking a straight question—yet in life no question is straight. That’s the difficulty. And if I give a straight answer, it will be wrong; there’s no way around it.

As you ask: they say I grant a license for open adultery. Neither do I, nor does the left-hand path. It’s quite amusing. I do not give it, and the left-hand path doesn’t give it either. That’s not the issue at all. Those who cannot understand—my view is that adultery arises because of those who impose such rigid morality that, except for adultery, no outlet remains.

You’ll be surprised to know that in Russia prostitutes disappeared—disappeared for a single reason: the rigidity around marriage was removed. So prostitution vanished. Today there is only one country on earth where there is no prostitution, because prostitution has lost its meaning. Wherever we impose strict marriage, prostitution will arise; it is a by-product. When we strictly restrain husband and wife from one another, the prostitute will be created.

And it’s very interesting—one might think there would be many divorces in Russia. In fact, Russia has the fewest divorces, five percent; America has forty percent. And prostitution bid farewell because the rigidity of marriage was relaxed. It’s not that marriages are breaking every day—nothing like that.

The laws of life are deeply paradoxical. When we press something down too hard, the opposite reaction is produced.

I am not in favor of adultery. In fact, my understanding is that the so‑called moralists are the ones producing adultery. They have made the whole world adulterous—these are the real adulterers.

And the left-hand path has nothing to do with adultery. The trouble comes because its terminology is not understood. All its words are technical, bound to particular definitions. When the left-hand path says, “Drown yourself completely in wine,” it is not talking about the wine sold in the market. It speaks of a wine in which you can be immersed twenty‑four hours a day.

This is difficult—these are technical terms. It is saying there is a wine in which one can be immersed around the clock. When it says, “Make love,” it is not speaking of the intercourse you are engaged in—that you are doing anyway, there is no need to tell you that. It speaks of another union that happens between the individual and the divine. That is what it is talking about. But these are technical matters.

So first, let me say: neither does the left-hand path tell you to commit adultery, nor is there any question of my telling you to do so. What I am saying is precisely what can give birth to right conduct.

And third, you asked about the communists. Two points. First, it would be hard to find anyone more anti‑communist than I am—because my conviction is that I am an individualist. I hold that the individual is the supreme value; society is not the supreme value. I do not believe the individual exists for society; I believe society exists for the individual. I am anti‑state—an anarchist. I hold that the state should have less and less power. The day a good world is born will be the day the state is the least powerful, with no power in its hands. The more power the state holds, the more the soul of the individual is violated—and it will be.

So there is no way I can be a communist—in this sense. Because the communist trusts the state, not the individual. His belief is that the individual has no value; the value lies in the state and in society.

I am a contrary man. I say that if anything has to be sacrificed, let the state be sacrificed for the individual; the individual can never be sacrificed. There are two reasons. First, the individual has living consciousness, a soul. The state has no soul; it is dead machinery. And a soul can never be sacrificed to machinery. Society has no soul either. It is only a collective name. Society, as such, is nowhere. Wherever you go you will find individuals. You will not find society anywhere, however much you search. Society is a lie, a falsehood, a myth—something that does not exist, though it very much appears to. But wherever you go, the individual is.

So I am an individualist. And I want the individual to have ultimate freedom—of every kind. Communism is firmly against the individual; it stands for confiscating all his freedoms. In this sense I am completely anti-communist.

But in another sense I can be called a communist—the sense in which all spiritual people are communists. In this sense I can be called a communist because I hold that each person has the same soul, the same divinity within; therefore every person should have equal opportunities in life. The less inequality of opportunity there is, the more we create a way to give equal respect to the God hidden within each individual. So, in my view, to the extent that Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Nanak are communists, I too am a communist. For my conviction is that no person has the right to be above another. All individuals are equal. I am opposed to hierarchy—the notion that anyone can be above anyone else. No one is above anyone.

I am not saying that at the moment. Right now I am addressing the second point you are raising; you can ask the earlier one later. For the moment I am saying what I have to say about being a communist.

You ask: then the government cannot function. This calls for some thought—a great deal of thought. There are two or three points to understand.

First, consider this: if we say everyone becomes healthy, someone might object, “Then hospitals won’t be able to run.” They could ask that. But why should hospitals need to run? That need exists only because people are sick.

Government is a necessary evil. Because people are not yet right, there is government. There is no inherent need for it. We have to station a policeman on the road, at the crossroads, because we are thieves—there is no other reason for his standing there. Government is the result of our not being right. To say government should always keep running is as dangerous as saying a doctor’s business should run every day. It is just as dangerous.

A good world would be one in which the doctor’s trade does not run. Even then, we can pay the doctor a salary—for the very benediction that his practice does not need to run; that is another matter. But to keep people sick so that the doctor’s business runs—that cannot be thought.

Government exists because the individual is not as he should be. The deeper we go into transforming the individual, the more unnecessary government will become. Hence, it is a necessary evil. And the more unnecessary government becomes, the more it will be the proof that man is getting well. Otherwise there will be no other proof. The more man deteriorates, the more strict a government we require.

Take our country: the voice in each person’s mind is that the government should be stricter—because people are in a thoroughly spoiled state. With such people, this government seems weak. With such people! With such people this government appears weak; it cannot manage. If people remain bad, the government will have to be strong—there is no alternative. If people fall ill, we will have to increase hospitals—there is no alternative. But our effort should be that hospitals become fewer and fewer. And our effort should be: the less government, the better. That should be our effort. And a day should come...

You did not understand what I said. I understood what you are saying. I am not saying there should be “government-less.” I am saying there should be less need for government. Then there will be no unrest. That is, the need for government should go on decreasing day by day. It can decrease only if we go on raising the individual day by day. Without that, it cannot decrease. Government becomes less as we go on elevating the individual. If, without lifting the individual, we reduce government, then unrest will indeed arise. And unrest cannot last for long; therefore the government will return—return more dictatorial. Life is always a balance. You cannot break that balance for long. If you weaken the government today, tomorrow you yourselves will be creating a dictator.

That would be a different matter—no longer about what truly concerns you. First, ask your own questions.

First of all, institutions may be against me; Hindus are not against me. And institutions are dead things; they are always in opposition. They will always oppose, because institutions are always oriented to the past. They were formed ten thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago. So whenever something is said that is relevant today, the institution is bound to resist it—because an institution belongs to the past, while anything useful belongs to the present.

But Hindus are not against me. Otherwise who is listening to me? Who is understanding me? Who is loving me?

Who would love me? Who would understand me? Who would listen? If Hindus themselves were against me, then there would be no need to oppose me at all. I would be meaningless; I would have no relevance. If there is a need to oppose me, it only means that someone is willing to listen and to understand. That opposition is not to me. What has it to do with me! I am just one man—if no one listened to me, loved me, or understood me, there would be no need to wave black flags at me. The black flags are being shown to those who are listening to me. What have I to do with it! I have no connection with it.

No, not at all. Because I hold that all creeds end up creating bondage—all creeds. Just as the old creeds have become binding. If I were to commit the same foolishness that other institutions are committing with me, that would be madness. Once, someone created an institution, someone framed a creed. Time passes, but the creed sits there. Then that creed will not budge. It says, “We won’t move.” All its relevance comes to an end. It becomes uprooted. There is no need for it anywhere anymore. Yet it keeps sitting there.

I am not in favor of forming any creed. I stand for the thoughtful human being, not for creeds. I do not say that everyone should belong to one creed; I say that everyone should be thoughtful. Thoughtfulness is a fluidity, and a creed is always a rigidity. A creed is always fixed, and thought is never fixed. I do not say that you should bind yourself to a particular creed. I only say: free your thinking.

So I am not going to give birth to any creed. The old creeds have already given us enough trouble; one more new creed would only increase the disease, it cannot lessen it. I am firmly against it.

They do get made...
And the Ganga is utterly free. Lay down railway tracks and tell the Ganga, “Flow along this track.” Then she would be in bondage. Right now the Ganga is wholly free. And if banks have been chosen, that choice is the Ganga’s, not yours. Your canals are in bondage—they are your choice. So canals do not reach the ocean. How will anyone take canals to the ocean? Why would they? Canals are in bondage. A flood is lawless. The Ganga is free.

Understand these three points. They are three different things. Freedom and license are not the same. And bondage itself gives birth to license. License always arises out of bondage. When bondage becomes too much, license is born—it is the antidote. If freedom is complete, license never arises, because there is no need for it.

If a person is healthy he never takes medicine; only when he is sick. Man is not free; he is in bondage. That is why license keeps returning again and again. I am strongly against license. And if I am against license, then I will have to be against bondage—because bondage produces license. That is its root cause. I am in favor of freedom, not in favor of the flood. But I am in favor of the Ganga choosing her own banks.

I am not saying she should break the banks and flow. Even when she seems to break through, she still chooses larger banks to flow within. It is only in your mind that she is “breaking banks,” because what you took to be a bank ceases to be one. The Ganga will always flow by choosing her banks. Whoever has to flow must choose banks. But the banks should be self-chosen, not forced. If they are forced, there will be turmoil.

Until now we have been imposing bondage upon man. Therefore, when I speak of freedom, license immediately comes to your mind. For if you speak of freedom inside a prison, the jailer will at once think—this will turn into license. But if you speak of freedom in a town, no one thinks license will happen. The jailer says, “Freedom means license,” because bondage is so heavy that any freedom seems bound to spill into license. All these prisoners will dash out. So he says, “Do not talk of freedom, otherwise there will be license.”

Those who equate freedom with license are sitting on the chest of society like jailers—be they institutions, religions, sects, organizations, anything. They have turned society into a prison. They are forever afraid that a little freedom, and there will be license.

And I hold that these very people together will produce license tomorrow. They are producing it all over the world. All over the world it is happening—whether the hippie in Europe, the Beatle, the Beatnik, or the Naxalite in India—those responsible are the ones who have enslaved the individual on all sides.

It is a great irony that when slavery becomes excessive, man swings to the opposite extreme. Our life moves in extremes. If the clock’s pendulum goes to the left, it then goes to the far right. Leave the pendulum in the middle, and it goes neither left nor right.

Freedom has not yet been accepted. I am in favor of freedom, not of license. And since I am not in favor of license, therefore I am opposed to bondage.

One thing: I am not against the scriptures; I am against holding on to them—clinging. I am not saying, “Don’t read the Gita.” I am saying: don’t grab the Gita blindly. Our minds develop a clinging, a grip. That grip does not make us free; it makes us dependent, makes us prejudiced. The person who reads the Gita without clinging can also read the Quran with the same ease and joy. The one who clings to the Gita cannot read the Quran with the same joy. The one who clings to the Quran will not be able to read the Guru Granth with the same joy. My opposition is to clinging.

I hold that in all the world’s scriptures, those who knew something have said something. Therefore, the person who clings to any one scripture is depriving himself of a vaster range of experience and moving toward ignorance. He needs an opening; his mind should be open on all sides. And it can be open only when there is no grip on any one.

Second, my other point is this: whoever has known truth—whether Krishna or Christ—as soon as truth is spoken, what reaches us are only words; truth itself cannot travel through words. Suppose I loved someone and I tell you, “I loved, and love is immensely blissful.” The experience of love does not reach you—only the word “love” reaches you. And if you have no experience of love, that word cannot give you anything; it remains a mere empty word.

So my second point is: those who imagine that scriptures themselves will deliver truth are putting themselves in danger. From scriptures you can receive the words of those who knew—but not the truth itself. Truth has to be sought by oneself. The day you find it, then these scriptures become witnesses, confirmations—that what you found is what Krishna found too; what you found is there in the Gita, in the Quran, in the Bible. But if someone thinks that by memorizing the Gita truth will be attained—well, a computer can memorize the Gita too. That is only memory; it has nothing to do with knowing.

So when I say that truth will not be obtained from scripture, I am not saying there is no truth in scripture. There is truth in scripture—for the one who spoke it. There is no truth in scripture—for the one who only reads it. For the reader, what is there? Words! Mere words! For which he has no corresponding experience. And the amusing thing is: if he did have the corresponding experience, he wouldn’t bother about the Gita. If he had his own experience, he would say, “Fine—perhaps it is in the Gita, perhaps in the Bible.” The one who has no experience clutches the Gita to his chest. And this clutching the Gita to your chest is dangerous; it becomes an obstacle to reaching Krishna.

Read the Gita—with a free mind! Understand—with a free mind! All the while knowing that what we are understanding are words; the journey to truth has not yet happened. If you want to reach the ocean, it won’t do to read about the ocean in a book; you will have to reach the ocean itself. Keep this in mind, and that is why I constantly emphasize: be a little cautious with scripture. And I don’t say this only about the Gita; be just as cautious with my books too. Because the question is not whose book it is.

Delusion arises because man wants truth to be handed to him without any search; he doesn’t want to seek. This hurts him. He thinks, “I’ll get it from the Gita; if I keep reading all my life, I will get it.” It offends him when I say: only if you search will you find. Truth is not so cheap that you put on your glasses, burn a little kerosene, read a book—and there it is. I do not mean there is no truth there. For the one who spoke, it was there. For you, it will be there on the day you know. Before that, it cannot be.

First, I am not saying that such a thing will definitely happen someday. But in aspiring toward it, much that is beneficial will happen. I am not saying it is bound to come to pass, nor that a day is destined to arrive when there will be a no-government society. But if the idea of no government is kept alive, a less-government society is born.

Do you understand my meaning? I am not saying you will surely reach Everest. But if there is a longing to reach Everest, then climbing the Satpura and the Vindhyachal becomes possible. When you set the impossible as your goal, what is potential becomes possible; otherwise it does not.

So my point is indeed idealistic; you are right. I am speaking quite utopianly: this is the ultimate notion—that it would be possible only if everyone on the earth became divine—which is not going to happen. But if this is kept in view, we move toward less government, and then still less government.

And in this world there are never absolutes. Even when we call someone sattvic, no one is entirely sattvic. The differences are lesser, relative differences. In the greatest person a small measure of the small person is present, and in the smallest person a small measure of the great person is present. Ravana is present in Rama, and in Rama a part of Ravana is present. For existence on this earth, everything is relative. But that does not mean we should become Ravana; it means the goal should remain to go on becoming Rama. If the goal is to become Rama, we will go on reducing the Ravana. Still, as long as a person exists on this earth, a portion of Ravana will remain within. The moment someone becomes absolute here, he is freed—he attains moksha. Then there is no place for him on this plane.

So I accept your point. I am indeed saying that what I am proposing is an ideal. And all ideals are impossible; not only mine. Second, all ideals are impossible. And third, choosing an impossible ideal is necessary in order to do what is possible. And when you ask whether there has ever been such a society—

There has never been one. But the more cultured a society is, the more it will be a less-government society. Because “cultured” means that what the government would have to do, people do themselves. If a policeman is needed to make people keep to the left on the road, that is an uncultured society. And if it is a cultured society, there will be no policeman there; people will keep to the left. The day everyone starts keeping to the left, we will see no point in tiring a policeman by keeping him standing there. We will say to him, “Let us put you to some other work.” A cultured society simply means this: there will be less need of government there.

One has to discuss their absolute non-entity; only then can the lesser need be discussed. There are reasons for this. There are reasons.

If we are to talk of light here, we have to think of it against darkness. If we say that light is only a form of darkness, then light becomes difficult to understand. Yet that is the truth. In this world there is no absolute difference between darkness and light; the difference is relative.

For understanding and for speaking, we always have to break things into two polarities; otherwise we cannot talk. We call this hand the left, and this one the right. But if you look very closely, such a division becomes difficult. Where does the left begin? Where does the right begin? And wherever we choose to begin, what will that point be—left or right? We will get into trouble.

The whole language of life, all our talking, is in terms of polarities. We have to speak of cold and hot. We have to speak of sorrow and joy. The truth is always the opposite: in every sorrow there is a little joy, and in every joy there is a little sorrow. It is relative; that is the reality of life.

I concede it. I concede it. And I am not saying that it is impractical. I am saying that an idealistic statement has its own practical meaning. And that meaning is: whenever we choose an impossible ideal, the optimum possible becomes achievable. When we tell a person, “Become the Divine,” at most we can make him a superior human being—nothing more. But if we tell him, “Become a superior human being,” we will not be able to make him one. Only when we make the ultimate attempt do we manage to reach a little.