Is man a disease? In this regard, the very first thing I would say to you is: man, in himself, is not a disease—but the way man has become, that certainly is diseased. In itself, everything in this world is healthy; yet whatever is healthy carries the possibility of falling ill. To be alive means both roads are open. Only the dead are beyond the fear of illness; the very meaning of being alive is the possibility of sickness. And man has become ill.
The entire history of man is the history of his illnesses; and his whole civilization is an effort to cover up those illnesses. Man somehow drags on, but mere dragging is not life. And because we somehow manage to travel from birth to death, it is not enough to conclude that we have lived.
I have heard: a man died—and only then did he realize that he had been alive. For many, it is only in the moment of dying that they see life slipping through their fingers. There has been no direct experience of life. As man is—neurotic, unhealthy, tense—there can be no taste of life in him. Louis B. Bisch wrote a book with a very lovely title: Be Glad That You Are Neurotic. The joke is profound. He is saying: be glad—because to be neurotic is to be in the majority. Most people are mentally ill. And Bisch feels that as man advances, mental illness is increasing; soon the time may come when those who are not mentally ill will not be counted as normal.
So those who are neurotic should be glad—they are in league with the future. The future of man seems to belong to the mad and the ill. Perhaps soon we will not need asylums for the insane; rather, we will have to make arrangements to protect those few who manage not to go mad, and house them separately. What we ordinarily call a healthy man means only this: that he is as mentally ill as everyone else—no more than the common quota. The difference between the clinically insane and the so-called normal is not of quality but of degree. It is only a difference of temperature. At ninety-nine degrees water is hot, but it has not become steam; at one hundred, it becomes steam. Yet between ninety-nine-degree water and hundred-degree water there is no qualitative difference—just one more degree, and water turns to vapor.
So the difference between our so-called healthy people and the mentally ill is merely a degree of heat. One more degree—and anyone can go mad.
William James was a great psychologist. All his life he studied the human mind. Some twenty years before his death, he visited a mental asylum. Coming back, he fell into a strange sadness and anxiety. Friends pressed him: why this depression? William James said, “I am disturbed because, after seeing the mad in the asylum and looking at myself, I find no fundamental difference. There is some slight difference—but I am no longer certain that it cannot disappear any day.”
His friends protested, “You are not mad; why fall into such fantasies?” William said, “Those people I saw were not mad until yesterday; today they are. I am not mad today—but tomorrow I could be. The kind of person I am is exactly the kind those people were until yesterday. What goes on inside them goes on inside me too. The only difference seems to be that what is churning within me has started spilling out in them.”
If you close your eyes and look within for just ten minutes, the question will no longer seem strange: is man a disease? Sit silently and you will see—whatever motives you would condemn as mad in another are present and moving within you. If you shut your door and, with honesty—though honesty with oneself is rare—write down on a piece of paper whatever crosses your mind, you would not wish to show that paper even to your closest friend. You will be shocked: if all this is churning within, then what really is the difference between me and the mad?
Psychologists say it is hard to find a person who has not considered suicide at least a few times in life; hard to find one who has never, even for a moment, imagined murdering another. Hard to find anyone who has not, at some point, enacted within the mind all that we call madness, crime, sin. It is another matter that he could not muster the courage to bring it out—but that does not make any fundamental difference.
Camus begins his famous work by saying that the greatest question in a man’s life is suicide. And he thinks that suicide is a thought that visits all intelligent people. Between those we call mentally ill and us there is no basic difference—though we feel afraid even to think this, because to face it is frightening indeed: that there is no difference between us and the mad.
In the Second World War, more people died in automobile accidents on the roads than in the war. Psychologists now say that sixty to eighty percent of road deaths are unnecessary—caused by the drivers’ inner madness.
Hitler and all the fascists together could not kill as many people as ordinary people kill by pressing their inner lunacy onto the accelerator. You must have noticed: when you are in anger the foot presses the accelerator harder, the bicycle pedals begin to churn harder. Your inner disease finds channels to come out. If sixty to eighty percent of road deaths are victims of our madness, then perhaps we are being unjust to those whom we have locked in asylums.
Look closely at this contemporary man: there is no joy, no delight, no dance, no song. Life is an arid desert; no flowers seem to bloom. Only dreams of flowers move within. It is always in the future that flowers seem to blossom. We endure today’s sadness for the sake of tomorrow’s flowers; we tolerate today’s misery for future comfort. But that future never seems to arrive, never appears. For where flowers do not bloom in the present, they can never bloom; yes, the hope of tomorrow helps us bear the tears of today. You will say: but we smile today as well. Yes, people smile everywhere. But the deeper you look, the more astonishing it is—smiles are pasted on, false. Nietzsche laughed continually, and when someone asked him, “Are you so happy? What treasure of joy have you found?” he replied, “Do not ask me that. As I know myself, this laughter is not from happiness. I laugh because if I do not, nothing will remain but to weep. I keep laughing to cover my tears, lest I start crying.”
Ask yourself too: is your laughter a device to hide your tears? And when, walking down the road, you say “I’m fine,” and on its heels comes a smile—does that smile reveal you or conceal you?
I was reading a psychologist who gave a strange definition of a madman: “I call him mad who, if he is sad, says ‘I am sad’; if he is disturbed, admits ‘I am disturbed’; and if he needs to cry, he cries.”
I was startled. If this is the definition of madness—that a man who is unhappy says so, who needs to cry cries—then what is the so-called healthy man but a deception? It seems the “healthy man” we praise is a fraud. Have you seen scarecrows standing in fields? Farmers hang a pot and a shirt on sticks to scare the birds. It works for others, not for oneself. Perhaps you too have seen such a false man standing in the field—he exists for others, not for himself. And if we look closely, few among us have begun to live for ourselves. We live for others: we smile for others, we laugh for others, we appear happy for others, we even seem to weep for others; slowly an entire life lived for show is over. Such a life can only be an acting—not life. And if a seventy-year-long performance becomes neurotic, mad, diseased—there is no surprise.
We are even frightened of living our own life and of knowing ourselves. Our religion, our society, our morality, our etiquette—these are arrangements for frightened people, to reduce fear. Like a man who walks alone through a dark lane and begins to whistle—though whistling changes nothing; the darkness does not lessen, fear does not decrease. But whistling seems to boost one’s confidence. Alone, one fools oneself. On the road of life, we are whistling in a thousand ways to delude ourselves.
This self-deception I call disease. As long as we live in such self-delusion, man cannot be healthy. And the total result of this self-deception is simply this: none of our problems end; every solution we devise breeds ten new problems. Where a whole society lives in deception, if a web of deceits spreads and each becomes so caught that escape is hard, and even the effort to escape weaves fresh webs, then a vicious circle swallows an entire life. Whether one lived or not becomes the same.
Who is responsible for this derangement? We alone. And we ourselves have sown its causes. From childhood we plant seeds in each child’s mind that will drive him mad. The way our old generations left us mad, so we make the next generation mad. If anything great is inherited from the past, it is this age-old insanity. Countless lies we have called truth; countless truths we have defined as lies. Where there are no doors we show doors; where there are walls we teach doors. We have built life’s foundation on such grand falsehoods from childhood that one day the very vision of truth ceases. If from the beginning darkness is taught as light, and the seeing of light is made fearful, it is no surprise the eyes close.
I have heard: a taxi driver, perhaps new to the job, was driving in such a way that a passenger said, “At least be careful at the turns.” The driver said, “Don’t worry—use the trick I use.” The passenger asked, “What trick?” He said, “When a turn comes, I close my eyes. No trouble will be seen, no fear will arise. Use the same method. Whenever you get scared—close your eyes.”
It makes us laugh, but the whole of humanity is using the same trick. Wherever life is dangerous, we close our eyes—that is our arrangement. Every child is trained in such a way that he has eyes—yet becomes blind. The eyes remain perfunctory; the blindness grows deep. Then madness becomes almost natural. Let me speak a few essential formulas that have turned man into a disease.
First: at some unfortunate moment, the influence of pessimists overwhelmed man. Somehow joy became sin. We arrange it so that a child cannot enjoy without guilt—and when he does feel pleasure, guilt arises.
In Israel a small experiment with children is being done—the kibbutz. One conclusion of that experiment is worth pondering: until we can free children from their parents, the world cannot be filled with happiness. Strange! If the world cannot be made happy without separating children from parents, we must reexamine the transaction between parents and children. I too feel there is much truth here. As age declines, sadness deepens; so far, children have been raised by the old. It is no surprise that the old impose their sadness upon the young. New buds fall into the hands of withering flowers. The sunset leaves letters for the sunrise. Those sinking leave messages for those arriving—and the messages are laden with fear. Our scriptures were written by the old; our education was designed by the old; the entire web of thought was spun by those going down, and imposed upon those coming up. Children will want to dance, but the old can no longer dance; their eyes will turn the dance into sin. Children will want to rejoice, but to the old, rejoicing looks foolish. Children will want to be glad, but gladness becomes painful to the old. If those who hold society’s reins—who set the road—take away the children’s joy, or insert in their hearts the feeling that joy is a crime, there is no surprise.
Thus every generation sows seeds of sadness in the next; with birth it leaves the seed of death; it poisons happiness and declares happiness a sin.
The consequences are perilous. If I become incapable of savoring joy, only suffering remains; yet the mind does not consent to suffer—man is not made for suffering. Toward pain we have a deep resistance; toward pleasure, we are made to feel guilty. This inner tension becomes insoluble.
And once a person begins to believe—even mistakenly—that joy is sin, he cannot tolerate others’ joy either. Hence, the saints and moralists have condemned anyone with a taste for happiness to hell. Those with even a small desire for joy are branded sinners. Religions made a strange proclamation: the man willing to endure suffering is religious; the one eager to inflict suffering on himself is great. The one who creates misery around himself is a great renunciate, worthy of reverence.
If we worship sorrow in this way, what else can the earth become but deranged? Our worship of suffering has become long—eternal. We have raised no god on this earth except the god of sorrow. Therefore we cannot imagine saints laughing, smiling, rejoicing. We cannot conceive of saints who dance, who hold blooming flowers in their hands. We have become accustomed to seeing cemeteries around saints.
Naturally, those most neurotic thrive in such a sorrow-obsessed world. We have worshiped the sick, and condemned the healthy. Any man who enjoys eating is denounced; we have made principles such as aswad—non-taste. If you read Gandhi’s eleven vows, they are enough to make any man either mad or a hypocrite.
Eat without taste—do not relish. This alone is enough to drive anyone mad—or into hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is a worse madness than madness. Better to go mad, at least the madman is honest; he does not deceive.
How strange: the mouth and the tongue were made so that you could taste. Cut off a man’s tongue and you cut off a part of his soul. The experiences that come through taste will be denied him; his richness diminishes.
Imagine cutting the tongue, the eyes, the ears—because every sense has its own taste. The eyes want to relish color and form—beauty, whether of a flower, a face, a painting. The ears want to relish song, music. These are all tastes: the eyes’ taste, the ears’ taste; the hands too want to relish. Life as a whole longs to taste. If you sever taste from every side, what remains to distinguish man from an amoeba? The difference between man and animal lies in the refinement of sensory sensitivity. The more sensitive the senses, the deeper and richer the soul.
It is not that Buddha’s eyes see less; they see more. It is not that his eyes have stopped seeing beauty; rather, they see so deeply that beauty is perceived even within the ugly. That is a different phenomenon. Surdas gouged out his eyes lest they lead him astray—but what kind of soul is so weak that it fears going astray from merely seeing? Will the soul become strong by destroying the eyes? He who can be led astray with sight—will he be saved without sight? If the sighted stray, what will happen to the blind?
No one is saved by blinding himself. Such acts only confess a weak soul. Nor can one be freed of music by deafening the ears. One thing is certain: by closing these doors the soul becomes impoverished and mean.
It is possible to taste so totally that gratitude to Paramatma arises from the very tasting. I call him religious who can relish so fully that gratitude and thankfulness arise to Paramatma. I call him religious who, while seeing beauty with the eyes, also sees that which the eyes cannot see. I call him religious who enjoys pleasure so deeply that pleasure ceases to be material and becomes spiritual. When seeing a flower, not only the flower appears; those who know how to see begin to perceive the soul behind it.
But until now, the entire arrangement has been of pessimists. They have invaded man’s mind; from childhood we sow seeds of sorrow in every child. Perhaps the jealousy of the old is at work—and naturally so. None are more jealous than the old. Jealousy arises when power wanes. The old are being robbed by life; everything is slipping from their hands. They are full of envy; to see children laughing and dancing is painful. Going down, they poison the joy of the young. Yet it helps neither the old nor the young. It should be the other way: the coming children should fill the old with joy. But it has been the reverse: the departing have filled the arriving with sorrow.
I was reading a little book. An American woman of seventy went to live with a four-year-old child. She resolved not to keep the child with her, but to live with the child. This is not a small resolution.
She decided: the child will not live by my ways; I will live by his. It was difficult. The child would wake at two in the night, tug her hand, and pull her outside because the stars were shining. She had resolved to live with the child, so she rose at two, went out into the dark, looked at the stars, listened to crickets, played with sea foam, ran, caught butterflies, climbed trees, walked into the ocean, swam in the river—for two years. She wrote her memoirs: “I was reborn. My whole state changed. Now I can say I am not old. When death comes, I will watch it with the same curiosity and joy with which I watched butterflies, flowers, and stars with the child.”
In two years her face changed, her gait changed—because she had to run with a four-year-old, dance with him, shout with him. The child grew—but a newness was born in the old woman.
My own understanding is: if we want humanity to be happy, we must reverse the order. Not children with the old—but the old with the children. The old should drop the idea of teaching everything to the young. There is so much to learn from children—things only children can teach. So much that is innocent, fresh, alive, still unadulterated. One can say: in children’s eyes there is still a glimpse of Paramatma; in their play, a quiver of the divine. Even in their chaos there is a glimpse of that vast cosmic chaos.
But before we learn, we spoil them. Before they can give, we correct them. Before we can receive, we destroy their capacity.
I hold this as a basic root of man’s perversion: education has flowed from the old to the young; it should also flow from the young to the old. If only our saints could learn from children; if only our teachers could learn from children. For one thing is certain: children are fresh from the source from which we came long ago. Their memory of the original source is fresher than ours—they are nearer to Paramatma. As if you had returned from a foreign land thirty years ago—your memories faded—and someone returns today, brimming with fresh memories. You would want to learn from him. But the misfortune is: we only want to teach children.
Second: whatever we do teach children, we teach without knowing.
Jesus went to a village. People gathered and asked many questions. One question: who will enter your Father’s kingdom? Jesus lifted a child above the crowd and said: “Those who will be like this little child.” He did not say: those who are little children; rather, those who will be like this little child. A child’s joy cannot be as vast as the joy of an old man who becomes a child again—because a child’s joy lacks depth of experience; it lacks the expansion of understanding, the richness of life. The child’s delight will be shallow. But if an old man becomes a child again, his joy is immeasurable.
Let me explain with a small story.
I have heard: a very rich man, who had obtained all that the world can offer but not happiness, set out in search of bliss. He reached a village and asked at its outskirts, “Is there anyone here who can give me a clue to happiness? I will throw this sack of diamonds—worth millions—at his feet.” The villagers said, “There is one—when nothing else works, he sometimes does. Ask for Mulla Nasruddin.”
The rich man went. Nasruddin was sitting under a tree at sunset. The rich man said, “I have everything—except happiness. I have come ready to pour millions of jewels at the feet of one who can give me a glimpse.” Nasruddin looked and said, “Come down from your horse; I will give you the glimpse.”
No one had dared say such a thing. People had preached, advised—but always, “We cannot give you the glimpse; you must see it.” Nasruddin said, “Dismount; place your bag before me. I will give you the glimpse.” The rich man barely set down the bag when Nasruddin grabbed it and ran.
For a moment the man was stunned—then he screamed, “Thief! I am ruined! All my life’s earnings gone!” He ran through the village after Nasruddin. The alleys were Nasruddin’s; the rich man was a stranger. After the chase, the sun set. Nasruddin circled back to the spot where the horse stood, tossed the bag beside it, and hid behind the tree.
Panting, weeping, the rich man reached the tree, seized the bag, clutched it to his chest, and cried, “O God, thank you!” Nasruddin asked from behind the tree, “Did the glimpse happen?” The man shouted, “Is this the way to give a glimpse?” Nasruddin said, “There was no other way. Had you ever thanked God before? It was necessary that what you have be lost, so you could know you had it; and that it be returned, so you could be grateful.”
The child has wealth; the old has lost it. If an old man becomes a child again, gratitude to Paramatma fills him—the treasure is returned; the glimpse appears. But before any old one can reclaim the treasure, we all conspire to strip children of theirs.
No one has been treated as unjustly as children. Not that you alone do it—it was done to you too; and to those who did it to you, it was done in turn. For thousands of years a strange circle continues: the old teach the young and do not learn from them; while from children we must learn life’s throb and joy. A life, a society, designed solely by the old will be sad and ill. Those nearing death cannot compose formulas for living. Flowers fallen at dusk cannot write the songs of flowers about to bloom.
This has happened. Two outcomes follow: man grows madder; and children refuse to learn from the old. Hence the global rebellion of youth. Do not dismiss it as mere foolishness; after thousands of years, a precious moment has come: children are refusing to learn from the old. I see it as auspicious. Better we quickly grasp what this rebellion is indicating. Whether hippies, beatniks, Naxalites—whatever the names—the one thing intensifying across the world in the last decade is this: children are refusing to learn from the old.
I call this a great revolutionary moment. Good or bad fruit can come of it. If we fail to see its meaning—misfortune will follow; if we see and use this moment, humanity can move beyond the past’s sorrow.
Another point: in everything we carry a philosophy of condemnation. There is hardly a scripture that says: Paramatma has sent you to this earth to bestow the fruit of your virtue. All scriptures insist: we have come to suffer the fruits of sin. The earth is a prison, a penitentiary. Naturally, you do not decorate a jail cell—though you may have to stay in it ten years, you will not paint a picture on the wall. In prison, no one settles; everyone is preparing to leave.
I have heard: a man entered a jail cell. The earlier inmate asked, “How long is your sentence?” “Seventy years,” he said. “Then sit back,” said the other. “I have only fifty; my release will come sooner. Let me sit near the door.”
Even with fifty years, prison does not become home. This earth has not become home—because religions have declared it a place to suffer the penalty of sins. This is the black waters, the Andaman-Nicobar—where criminals are sent to be punished.
What madness is this? What mad minds conceived such ideas? If you look on life as a prison, life will become sad; you will never be able to taste its juice and joy. Where there is no joy, man will be deranged—what else?
We have not yet accepted life. We have not felt ah!—that Paramatma has given me the opportunity to be on this earth, to see flowers in spring, to dance under the autumn full moon, to love those around me.
No, this is not a gift from Paramatma but a penalty. I say: those who gave the world such a philosophy must have been, in some way, neurotic, diseased, mad—whatever their big names. A curious thing: madmen, whatever they do, do it with great system. If they build a philosophy, it is systematic; if they knit a scripture, it is logically tight.
We have justified our sorrows; we have accepted them; we have found reasons why we are miserable. First reason: we are suffering our sins from infinite births. What vision could be more dangerous?
I tell you: we are not suffering any sins. We are ripples of Paramatma’s joy. The waves arising in the ocean are not the fruits of some sin. The flowers blooming on trees are not the fruits of some sin. How then is man’s birth the fruit of sin?
We too are waves of joy, the play of this life-energy—leela. This vast energy—call it the elan vital of Bergson, or call it Paramatma—is creative. As all else blossoms in innumerable forms, so does man. But flowers accept themselves, stars accept themselves, birds accept themselves. Man alone does not accept himself. This is his basic disease. He constantly says, “I must be something else, not what I am.” The poor wants to be rich—and curiously, the rich wants to be poor.
Mahavira is born in a rich house; Buddha is born in a palace. Until they beg on the street, they are not satisfied. If one is born rich, he wants to be poor; if born poor, he wants to be rich. The naked wants royal garments; the royal wants to be naked. If given a palace, one invents a philosophy of renunciation; if given a hut, he labors to build a palace.
Man is not content with what he is. This is the gross; the subtle is deeper: inwardly too, he is not content. Something else is needed—always something else. It is not that receiving it makes a difference; the moment it is attained, something else is wanted. We cannot accept ourselves; we go on rejecting.
Birds rejoice; they sing at dawn. We wake tired. Dawn is not a song for us—it is the beginning of a race. Flowers bloom in the morning; we cannot. The day arrives like a burden of anxieties.
Life becomes tension—a race, run and run. Many of us do not even have the leisure to ask where we run and why. If someone asks, we reply, “Don’t waste time in useless talk—within that time I can run a little more.”
We are all running—mad with becoming something else. Yet joy is always with being; never with becoming. He who must become is headed toward sorrow. He who can be with what is—only he can be joyful. If, under the autumn full moon, I wish to rejoice, the moon cannot give me joy. Joy comes only if the one standing beneath the moon—the one I am—is accepted by me. The moon is joyful because it has no urge to become—it is what it is. We, under the same moon, remain miserable—because we must become something else. Until we become that, we cannot see the moon.
We miss life in becoming: we cannot sing, cannot dance, cannot give thanks; we cannot love, cannot receive love; we are not happy, cannot give happiness—because there is no time. Tomorrow—we will do it tomorrow. This run toward tomorrow becomes, in religion, moksha—also tomorrow; becomes heaven—also tomorrow; for the wealthy, tomorrow is becoming a billionaire; for the sannyasin, tomorrow is when he will meet Paramatma and then be happy. For all, it is tomorrow. Today belongs to no one.
Jesus passes a village at dawn; lilies are in bloom, the sun has risen. He says to his disciples, “Do you see these lilies? Even King Solomon in all his glory was not so beautiful.” The disciples are puzzled. Lilies? These ordinary flowers—every village has them. Why speak so? Where Solomon—and where these simple lilies!
Jesus says, “Look closely. Solomon was never so happy—because he could not be in today; he was always in tomorrow.”
Whoever lives in tomorrow will be in anxiety. “Tomorrow” is another name for anxiety. Whoever can live in today can bloom. All flowering is today. Tomorrow is only worry. And it is not that tomorrow ever arrives. When you reach tomorrow, it has become today; the habit of tomorrow has formed—then you begin worrying about the next tomorrow. You lose tomorrow too. Day after day you go on losing—because time always comes as today, never as tomorrow. But we all live with a tomorrow-mind. Beyond tension, restlessness, and sorrow, we have no destiny.
Such a man is a disease. Such a man is not truly man; he is what man could be—but missed. Somewhere the track split; we took another road that is not our destiny. Therefore whatever we become, unease dogs us.
Somewhere I read a line: “It is not granted to man to become human.” Astonishing. If man cannot become human, what can he become? But man wants to become everything—except human. To be human is here and now. It can only be now. If only we could accept what we are, life would open the gates of bliss immediately; the temple doors would swing open, bells would begin to call from all sides. But we are not content with what we are; we say, “I must become something else.” We run and run—and the temple that could have called us within, we circle around it and fall dead. Life becomes nothing but a long tale of discontent.
Such a man is a disease. But your being such is your choice; not being so is also your decision. If we wish, we can transcend this. Forgetting tomorrow does not mean there will be no tomorrow; it does not mean that if you must catch a train tomorrow, you will not buy the ticket today; it does not mean if you must travel tomorrow, you will not think about it today. I am not saying that.
No—there is no tomorrow for living. Living is today. Plans can be for tomorrow; but life happens today. Work may be tomorrow; but the thrill of life is now. The heart must beat now; breath must be taken now; love must be now; delight must be now; the song must be now. The marketplace of engagements will stretch into tomorrow too—but your being, your existence, the depth of your being—let it be rooted in this moment. To that extent the possibility of derangement ends; to that extent you are fulfilled, satisfied, overflowing with joy.
It does not mean you will become stagnant. No. Today’s current will carry you into tomorrow; the Ganga flows—there is no worry for the morrow; the sun rises—its concern is not today. Life today flowers into tomorrow. Tomorrow has always happened—and will. The only question is: does my mind get caught in tomorrow? If so, I miss today. And missing today becomes my disease, my madness. We are all entangled in tomorrow; therefore we are anxious. Even when we reach the temple, it is for tomorrow. Even prayer is for tomorrow. Even meditation is for tomorrow.
No—neither meditation nor prayer nor temple nor Paramatma is for tomorrow. If Paramatma is, he is now; we can connect in this very instant. If even for a single moment one accepts oneself, one stands at the door of Paramatma—and infinite possibilities of health appear.
This word “health” is wondrous. Let me end with two words about it. The English “health” is poor; it is a medical word—derived from “healing”—the wound should close. Our Sanskritic “swasthya”—healthy—is sublime, spiritual. Swasth means: to be in oneself. One who is in oneself—one who is with oneself, whose roots have gone into oneself. Yes, whose flowers will bloom in the sky—but whose roots are within.
Self-rooted—standing on one’s own ground—that is what we call healthy, whether of body, mind, or soul. When the body is in itself, it is healthy; when you have a headache, it means the body is not in itself. When your legs are paralyzed, the body has lost its being in itself. When the mind is filled with worry, it is not in itself—it has missed. When the soul is also not in itself, when it wants to be something else, then the soul too misses. We keep missing, and do not become rooted in ourselves.
If we return to ourselves, we become healthy. And when man is in himself, there is no flower on earth so beautiful as man; no star so shining; no waterfall that sings so; no moonlit night as exquisite as man; no ocean wave as joyous. For all else is asleep, unconscious; man can awaken. His joy is a conscious joy; his song is a wakeful song. But because his heights are the greatest, his fall can be the deepest. Those who walk on level ground need not fear; those who climb Everest must accept the abyss. Man has fallen into chasms precisely because he can rise to the summits of consciousness. His potential is his pain.
Man can rise so high as to become Paramatma—that is why he can fall so low as to be less than stones and birds. Stones and birds seem more joyful than him. These are man’s two possibilities. What we choose depends on us. So far, most of humanity has chosen sorrow, disease, anxiety, madness; and ordinarily we choose the same. Slowly the whole earth seems to be turning into a madhouse. Almost it has. Soon it may be impossible to decide who is not mad. Politicians, gurus, litterateurs, artists—everywhere there is a rush of derangement. Look at Picasso’s paintings—it seems man has gone mad. Read Ezra Pound—it seems man has gone mad. Watch politicians—Mao or Nixon—it seems man has gone mad. Everywhere—the same.
Is there no possibility of man becoming healthy?
I say: there is. It begins with you; it begins with each one. Perhaps we cannot fall into the madness of trying to cure the whole earth, but we can be wise enough to heal ourselves. And if even one man among us becomes truly healthy, he becomes a lit lamp, an inspiration to the unlit lamps around.
I have said these few things in the hope that you will reflect. There is no need to believe me—for who knows, I may myself be a madman speaking to you. Do not believe—think.
Even to have heard me is uncertain. Few are present here; some have already gone to where they must go after this; some are still where they came from. Perhaps someone among you has arrived here—then he has heard. I request only this: do not believe—ponder. A great moment of thinking has come before man. Each step must be taken thoughtfully—for the danger is great, the abyss is near; a slight slip and the whole of humanity could vanish. But whether humanity survives or not is not your responsibility. One responsibility is yours: before you end, taste the depth of life; before you end, reach life’s height; before you end, experience life’s full dance, its full flavor, its innocence, its simplicity. Otherwise our coming is futile; our going is futile; our being is futile. It can be meaningful. Think a little; step out a little from the world of the mad; call back your feet from their mad march; look where they are heading.
A small story—and I will conclude.
I have heard: a man was looking for the office of a university. By chance, right opposite the university stood a madhouse. As is the case today, almost every university may need a madhouse opposite. The man, by mistake, went not to the university’s porter but to the asylum’s porter. The doors of both buildings looked alike. He asked, “I am looking for the university office—but these two gates are identical. Which is the university? And why are the doors the same? Why no difference?”
The porter said, “There isn’t much difference—hence the same doors. There’s just this: whoever comes into the asylum cannot leave until he is cured. In the university it is the reverse—no one is allowed to leave until he is spoiled.” He added, “I have worked here long—that is the only difference I have seen.”
Our steps are moving toward the madhouses. Let them not. For your own sake, for all, for the future, be as alert as you can.
You have listened with such love and silence—I am deeply obliged. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma dwelling in all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Is man a disease? In this regard, the very first thing I would say to you is: man, in himself, is not a disease—but the way man has become, that certainly is diseased. In itself, everything in this world is healthy; yet whatever is healthy carries the possibility of falling ill. To be alive means both roads are open. Only the dead are beyond the fear of illness; the very meaning of being alive is the possibility of sickness. And man has become ill.
The entire history of man is the history of his illnesses; and his whole civilization is an effort to cover up those illnesses. Man somehow drags on, but mere dragging is not life. And because we somehow manage to travel from birth to death, it is not enough to conclude that we have lived.
I have heard: a man died—and only then did he realize that he had been alive. For many, it is only in the moment of dying that they see life slipping through their fingers. There has been no direct experience of life. As man is—neurotic, unhealthy, tense—there can be no taste of life in him. Louis B. Bisch wrote a book with a very lovely title: Be Glad That You Are Neurotic. The joke is profound. He is saying: be glad—because to be neurotic is to be in the majority. Most people are mentally ill. And Bisch feels that as man advances, mental illness is increasing; soon the time may come when those who are not mentally ill will not be counted as normal.
So those who are neurotic should be glad—they are in league with the future. The future of man seems to belong to the mad and the ill. Perhaps soon we will not need asylums for the insane; rather, we will have to make arrangements to protect those few who manage not to go mad, and house them separately. What we ordinarily call a healthy man means only this: that he is as mentally ill as everyone else—no more than the common quota. The difference between the clinically insane and the so-called normal is not of quality but of degree. It is only a difference of temperature. At ninety-nine degrees water is hot, but it has not become steam; at one hundred, it becomes steam. Yet between ninety-nine-degree water and hundred-degree water there is no qualitative difference—just one more degree, and water turns to vapor.
So the difference between our so-called healthy people and the mentally ill is merely a degree of heat. One more degree—and anyone can go mad.
William James was a great psychologist. All his life he studied the human mind. Some twenty years before his death, he visited a mental asylum. Coming back, he fell into a strange sadness and anxiety. Friends pressed him: why this depression? William James said, “I am disturbed because, after seeing the mad in the asylum and looking at myself, I find no fundamental difference. There is some slight difference—but I am no longer certain that it cannot disappear any day.”
His friends protested, “You are not mad; why fall into such fantasies?” William said, “Those people I saw were not mad until yesterday; today they are. I am not mad today—but tomorrow I could be. The kind of person I am is exactly the kind those people were until yesterday. What goes on inside them goes on inside me too. The only difference seems to be that what is churning within me has started spilling out in them.”
If you close your eyes and look within for just ten minutes, the question will no longer seem strange: is man a disease? Sit silently and you will see—whatever motives you would condemn as mad in another are present and moving within you. If you shut your door and, with honesty—though honesty with oneself is rare—write down on a piece of paper whatever crosses your mind, you would not wish to show that paper even to your closest friend. You will be shocked: if all this is churning within, then what really is the difference between me and the mad?
Psychologists say it is hard to find a person who has not considered suicide at least a few times in life; hard to find one who has never, even for a moment, imagined murdering another. Hard to find anyone who has not, at some point, enacted within the mind all that we call madness, crime, sin. It is another matter that he could not muster the courage to bring it out—but that does not make any fundamental difference.
Camus begins his famous work by saying that the greatest question in a man’s life is suicide. And he thinks that suicide is a thought that visits all intelligent people. Between those we call mentally ill and us there is no basic difference—though we feel afraid even to think this, because to face it is frightening indeed: that there is no difference between us and the mad.
In the Second World War, more people died in automobile accidents on the roads than in the war. Psychologists now say that sixty to eighty percent of road deaths are unnecessary—caused by the drivers’ inner madness.
Hitler and all the fascists together could not kill as many people as ordinary people kill by pressing their inner lunacy onto the accelerator. You must have noticed: when you are in anger the foot presses the accelerator harder, the bicycle pedals begin to churn harder. Your inner disease finds channels to come out. If sixty to eighty percent of road deaths are victims of our madness, then perhaps we are being unjust to those whom we have locked in asylums.
Look closely at this contemporary man: there is no joy, no delight, no dance, no song. Life is an arid desert; no flowers seem to bloom. Only dreams of flowers move within. It is always in the future that flowers seem to blossom. We endure today’s sadness for the sake of tomorrow’s flowers; we tolerate today’s misery for future comfort. But that future never seems to arrive, never appears. For where flowers do not bloom in the present, they can never bloom; yes, the hope of tomorrow helps us bear the tears of today. You will say: but we smile today as well. Yes, people smile everywhere. But the deeper you look, the more astonishing it is—smiles are pasted on, false. Nietzsche laughed continually, and when someone asked him, “Are you so happy? What treasure of joy have you found?” he replied, “Do not ask me that. As I know myself, this laughter is not from happiness. I laugh because if I do not, nothing will remain but to weep. I keep laughing to cover my tears, lest I start crying.”
Ask yourself too: is your laughter a device to hide your tears? And when, walking down the road, you say “I’m fine,” and on its heels comes a smile—does that smile reveal you or conceal you?
I was reading a psychologist who gave a strange definition of a madman: “I call him mad who, if he is sad, says ‘I am sad’; if he is disturbed, admits ‘I am disturbed’; and if he needs to cry, he cries.”
I was startled. If this is the definition of madness—that a man who is unhappy says so, who needs to cry cries—then what is the so-called healthy man but a deception? It seems the “healthy man” we praise is a fraud. Have you seen scarecrows standing in fields? Farmers hang a pot and a shirt on sticks to scare the birds. It works for others, not for oneself. Perhaps you too have seen such a false man standing in the field—he exists for others, not for himself. And if we look closely, few among us have begun to live for ourselves. We live for others: we smile for others, we laugh for others, we appear happy for others, we even seem to weep for others; slowly an entire life lived for show is over. Such a life can only be an acting—not life. And if a seventy-year-long performance becomes neurotic, mad, diseased—there is no surprise.
We are even frightened of living our own life and of knowing ourselves. Our religion, our society, our morality, our etiquette—these are arrangements for frightened people, to reduce fear. Like a man who walks alone through a dark lane and begins to whistle—though whistling changes nothing; the darkness does not lessen, fear does not decrease. But whistling seems to boost one’s confidence. Alone, one fools oneself. On the road of life, we are whistling in a thousand ways to delude ourselves.
This self-deception I call disease. As long as we live in such self-delusion, man cannot be healthy. And the total result of this self-deception is simply this: none of our problems end; every solution we devise breeds ten new problems. Where a whole society lives in deception, if a web of deceits spreads and each becomes so caught that escape is hard, and even the effort to escape weaves fresh webs, then a vicious circle swallows an entire life. Whether one lived or not becomes the same.
Who is responsible for this derangement? We alone. And we ourselves have sown its causes. From childhood we plant seeds in each child’s mind that will drive him mad. The way our old generations left us mad, so we make the next generation mad. If anything great is inherited from the past, it is this age-old insanity. Countless lies we have called truth; countless truths we have defined as lies. Where there are no doors we show doors; where there are walls we teach doors. We have built life’s foundation on such grand falsehoods from childhood that one day the very vision of truth ceases. If from the beginning darkness is taught as light, and the seeing of light is made fearful, it is no surprise the eyes close.
I have heard: a taxi driver, perhaps new to the job, was driving in such a way that a passenger said, “At least be careful at the turns.” The driver said, “Don’t worry—use the trick I use.” The passenger asked, “What trick?” He said, “When a turn comes, I close my eyes. No trouble will be seen, no fear will arise. Use the same method. Whenever you get scared—close your eyes.”
It makes us laugh, but the whole of humanity is using the same trick. Wherever life is dangerous, we close our eyes—that is our arrangement. Every child is trained in such a way that he has eyes—yet becomes blind. The eyes remain perfunctory; the blindness grows deep. Then madness becomes almost natural. Let me speak a few essential formulas that have turned man into a disease.
First: at some unfortunate moment, the influence of pessimists overwhelmed man. Somehow joy became sin. We arrange it so that a child cannot enjoy without guilt—and when he does feel pleasure, guilt arises.
In Israel a small experiment with children is being done—the kibbutz. One conclusion of that experiment is worth pondering: until we can free children from their parents, the world cannot be filled with happiness. Strange! If the world cannot be made happy without separating children from parents, we must reexamine the transaction between parents and children. I too feel there is much truth here. As age declines, sadness deepens; so far, children have been raised by the old. It is no surprise that the old impose their sadness upon the young. New buds fall into the hands of withering flowers. The sunset leaves letters for the sunrise. Those sinking leave messages for those arriving—and the messages are laden with fear. Our scriptures were written by the old; our education was designed by the old; the entire web of thought was spun by those going down, and imposed upon those coming up. Children will want to dance, but the old can no longer dance; their eyes will turn the dance into sin. Children will want to rejoice, but to the old, rejoicing looks foolish. Children will want to be glad, but gladness becomes painful to the old. If those who hold society’s reins—who set the road—take away the children’s joy, or insert in their hearts the feeling that joy is a crime, there is no surprise.
Thus every generation sows seeds of sadness in the next; with birth it leaves the seed of death; it poisons happiness and declares happiness a sin.
The consequences are perilous. If I become incapable of savoring joy, only suffering remains; yet the mind does not consent to suffer—man is not made for suffering. Toward pain we have a deep resistance; toward pleasure, we are made to feel guilty. This inner tension becomes insoluble.
And once a person begins to believe—even mistakenly—that joy is sin, he cannot tolerate others’ joy either. Hence, the saints and moralists have condemned anyone with a taste for happiness to hell. Those with even a small desire for joy are branded sinners. Religions made a strange proclamation: the man willing to endure suffering is religious; the one eager to inflict suffering on himself is great. The one who creates misery around himself is a great renunciate, worthy of reverence.
If we worship sorrow in this way, what else can the earth become but deranged? Our worship of suffering has become long—eternal. We have raised no god on this earth except the god of sorrow. Therefore we cannot imagine saints laughing, smiling, rejoicing. We cannot conceive of saints who dance, who hold blooming flowers in their hands. We have become accustomed to seeing cemeteries around saints.
Naturally, those most neurotic thrive in such a sorrow-obsessed world. We have worshiped the sick, and condemned the healthy. Any man who enjoys eating is denounced; we have made principles such as aswad—non-taste. If you read Gandhi’s eleven vows, they are enough to make any man either mad or a hypocrite.
Eat without taste—do not relish. This alone is enough to drive anyone mad—or into hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is a worse madness than madness. Better to go mad, at least the madman is honest; he does not deceive.
How strange: the mouth and the tongue were made so that you could taste. Cut off a man’s tongue and you cut off a part of his soul. The experiences that come through taste will be denied him; his richness diminishes.
Imagine cutting the tongue, the eyes, the ears—because every sense has its own taste. The eyes want to relish color and form—beauty, whether of a flower, a face, a painting. The ears want to relish song, music. These are all tastes: the eyes’ taste, the ears’ taste; the hands too want to relish. Life as a whole longs to taste. If you sever taste from every side, what remains to distinguish man from an amoeba? The difference between man and animal lies in the refinement of sensory sensitivity. The more sensitive the senses, the deeper and richer the soul.
It is not that Buddha’s eyes see less; they see more. It is not that his eyes have stopped seeing beauty; rather, they see so deeply that beauty is perceived even within the ugly. That is a different phenomenon. Surdas gouged out his eyes lest they lead him astray—but what kind of soul is so weak that it fears going astray from merely seeing? Will the soul become strong by destroying the eyes? He who can be led astray with sight—will he be saved without sight? If the sighted stray, what will happen to the blind?
No one is saved by blinding himself. Such acts only confess a weak soul. Nor can one be freed of music by deafening the ears. One thing is certain: by closing these doors the soul becomes impoverished and mean.
It is possible to taste so totally that gratitude to Paramatma arises from the very tasting. I call him religious who can relish so fully that gratitude and thankfulness arise to Paramatma. I call him religious who, while seeing beauty with the eyes, also sees that which the eyes cannot see. I call him religious who enjoys pleasure so deeply that pleasure ceases to be material and becomes spiritual. When seeing a flower, not only the flower appears; those who know how to see begin to perceive the soul behind it.
But until now, the entire arrangement has been of pessimists. They have invaded man’s mind; from childhood we sow seeds of sorrow in every child. Perhaps the jealousy of the old is at work—and naturally so. None are more jealous than the old. Jealousy arises when power wanes. The old are being robbed by life; everything is slipping from their hands. They are full of envy; to see children laughing and dancing is painful. Going down, they poison the joy of the young. Yet it helps neither the old nor the young. It should be the other way: the coming children should fill the old with joy. But it has been the reverse: the departing have filled the arriving with sorrow.
I was reading a little book. An American woman of seventy went to live with a four-year-old child. She resolved not to keep the child with her, but to live with the child. This is not a small resolution.
She decided: the child will not live by my ways; I will live by his. It was difficult. The child would wake at two in the night, tug her hand, and pull her outside because the stars were shining. She had resolved to live with the child, so she rose at two, went out into the dark, looked at the stars, listened to crickets, played with sea foam, ran, caught butterflies, climbed trees, walked into the ocean, swam in the river—for two years. She wrote her memoirs: “I was reborn. My whole state changed. Now I can say I am not old. When death comes, I will watch it with the same curiosity and joy with which I watched butterflies, flowers, and stars with the child.”
In two years her face changed, her gait changed—because she had to run with a four-year-old, dance with him, shout with him. The child grew—but a newness was born in the old woman.
My own understanding is: if we want humanity to be happy, we must reverse the order. Not children with the old—but the old with the children. The old should drop the idea of teaching everything to the young. There is so much to learn from children—things only children can teach. So much that is innocent, fresh, alive, still unadulterated. One can say: in children’s eyes there is still a glimpse of Paramatma; in their play, a quiver of the divine. Even in their chaos there is a glimpse of that vast cosmic chaos.
But before we learn, we spoil them. Before they can give, we correct them. Before we can receive, we destroy their capacity.
I hold this as a basic root of man’s perversion: education has flowed from the old to the young; it should also flow from the young to the old. If only our saints could learn from children; if only our teachers could learn from children. For one thing is certain: children are fresh from the source from which we came long ago. Their memory of the original source is fresher than ours—they are nearer to Paramatma. As if you had returned from a foreign land thirty years ago—your memories faded—and someone returns today, brimming with fresh memories. You would want to learn from him. But the misfortune is: we only want to teach children.
Second: whatever we do teach children, we teach without knowing.
Jesus went to a village. People gathered and asked many questions. One question: who will enter your Father’s kingdom? Jesus lifted a child above the crowd and said: “Those who will be like this little child.” He did not say: those who are little children; rather, those who will be like this little child. A child’s joy cannot be as vast as the joy of an old man who becomes a child again—because a child’s joy lacks depth of experience; it lacks the expansion of understanding, the richness of life. The child’s delight will be shallow. But if an old man becomes a child again, his joy is immeasurable.
Let me explain with a small story.
I have heard: a very rich man, who had obtained all that the world can offer but not happiness, set out in search of bliss. He reached a village and asked at its outskirts, “Is there anyone here who can give me a clue to happiness? I will throw this sack of diamonds—worth millions—at his feet.” The villagers said, “There is one—when nothing else works, he sometimes does. Ask for Mulla Nasruddin.”
The rich man went. Nasruddin was sitting under a tree at sunset. The rich man said, “I have everything—except happiness. I have come ready to pour millions of jewels at the feet of one who can give me a glimpse.” Nasruddin looked and said, “Come down from your horse; I will give you the glimpse.”
No one had dared say such a thing. People had preached, advised—but always, “We cannot give you the glimpse; you must see it.” Nasruddin said, “Dismount; place your bag before me. I will give you the glimpse.” The rich man barely set down the bag when Nasruddin grabbed it and ran.
For a moment the man was stunned—then he screamed, “Thief! I am ruined! All my life’s earnings gone!” He ran through the village after Nasruddin. The alleys were Nasruddin’s; the rich man was a stranger. After the chase, the sun set. Nasruddin circled back to the spot where the horse stood, tossed the bag beside it, and hid behind the tree.
Panting, weeping, the rich man reached the tree, seized the bag, clutched it to his chest, and cried, “O God, thank you!” Nasruddin asked from behind the tree, “Did the glimpse happen?” The man shouted, “Is this the way to give a glimpse?” Nasruddin said, “There was no other way. Had you ever thanked God before? It was necessary that what you have be lost, so you could know you had it; and that it be returned, so you could be grateful.”
The child has wealth; the old has lost it. If an old man becomes a child again, gratitude to Paramatma fills him—the treasure is returned; the glimpse appears. But before any old one can reclaim the treasure, we all conspire to strip children of theirs.
No one has been treated as unjustly as children. Not that you alone do it—it was done to you too; and to those who did it to you, it was done in turn. For thousands of years a strange circle continues: the old teach the young and do not learn from them; while from children we must learn life’s throb and joy. A life, a society, designed solely by the old will be sad and ill. Those nearing death cannot compose formulas for living. Flowers fallen at dusk cannot write the songs of flowers about to bloom.
This has happened. Two outcomes follow: man grows madder; and children refuse to learn from the old. Hence the global rebellion of youth. Do not dismiss it as mere foolishness; after thousands of years, a precious moment has come: children are refusing to learn from the old. I see it as auspicious. Better we quickly grasp what this rebellion is indicating. Whether hippies, beatniks, Naxalites—whatever the names—the one thing intensifying across the world in the last decade is this: children are refusing to learn from the old.
I call this a great revolutionary moment. Good or bad fruit can come of it. If we fail to see its meaning—misfortune will follow; if we see and use this moment, humanity can move beyond the past’s sorrow.
Another point: in everything we carry a philosophy of condemnation. There is hardly a scripture that says: Paramatma has sent you to this earth to bestow the fruit of your virtue. All scriptures insist: we have come to suffer the fruits of sin. The earth is a prison, a penitentiary. Naturally, you do not decorate a jail cell—though you may have to stay in it ten years, you will not paint a picture on the wall. In prison, no one settles; everyone is preparing to leave.
I have heard: a man entered a jail cell. The earlier inmate asked, “How long is your sentence?” “Seventy years,” he said. “Then sit back,” said the other. “I have only fifty; my release will come sooner. Let me sit near the door.”
Even with fifty years, prison does not become home. This earth has not become home—because religions have declared it a place to suffer the penalty of sins. This is the black waters, the Andaman-Nicobar—where criminals are sent to be punished.
What madness is this? What mad minds conceived such ideas? If you look on life as a prison, life will become sad; you will never be able to taste its juice and joy. Where there is no joy, man will be deranged—what else?
We have not yet accepted life. We have not felt ah!—that Paramatma has given me the opportunity to be on this earth, to see flowers in spring, to dance under the autumn full moon, to love those around me.
No, this is not a gift from Paramatma but a penalty. I say: those who gave the world such a philosophy must have been, in some way, neurotic, diseased, mad—whatever their big names. A curious thing: madmen, whatever they do, do it with great system. If they build a philosophy, it is systematic; if they knit a scripture, it is logically tight.
We have justified our sorrows; we have accepted them; we have found reasons why we are miserable. First reason: we are suffering our sins from infinite births. What vision could be more dangerous?
I tell you: we are not suffering any sins. We are ripples of Paramatma’s joy. The waves arising in the ocean are not the fruits of some sin. The flowers blooming on trees are not the fruits of some sin. How then is man’s birth the fruit of sin?
We too are waves of joy, the play of this life-energy—leela. This vast energy—call it the elan vital of Bergson, or call it Paramatma—is creative. As all else blossoms in innumerable forms, so does man. But flowers accept themselves, stars accept themselves, birds accept themselves. Man alone does not accept himself. This is his basic disease. He constantly says, “I must be something else, not what I am.” The poor wants to be rich—and curiously, the rich wants to be poor.
Mahavira is born in a rich house; Buddha is born in a palace. Until they beg on the street, they are not satisfied. If one is born rich, he wants to be poor; if born poor, he wants to be rich. The naked wants royal garments; the royal wants to be naked. If given a palace, one invents a philosophy of renunciation; if given a hut, he labors to build a palace.
Man is not content with what he is. This is the gross; the subtle is deeper: inwardly too, he is not content. Something else is needed—always something else. It is not that receiving it makes a difference; the moment it is attained, something else is wanted. We cannot accept ourselves; we go on rejecting.
Birds rejoice; they sing at dawn. We wake tired. Dawn is not a song for us—it is the beginning of a race. Flowers bloom in the morning; we cannot. The day arrives like a burden of anxieties.
Life becomes tension—a race, run and run. Many of us do not even have the leisure to ask where we run and why. If someone asks, we reply, “Don’t waste time in useless talk—within that time I can run a little more.”
We are all running—mad with becoming something else. Yet joy is always with being; never with becoming. He who must become is headed toward sorrow. He who can be with what is—only he can be joyful. If, under the autumn full moon, I wish to rejoice, the moon cannot give me joy. Joy comes only if the one standing beneath the moon—the one I am—is accepted by me. The moon is joyful because it has no urge to become—it is what it is. We, under the same moon, remain miserable—because we must become something else. Until we become that, we cannot see the moon.
We miss life in becoming: we cannot sing, cannot dance, cannot give thanks; we cannot love, cannot receive love; we are not happy, cannot give happiness—because there is no time. Tomorrow—we will do it tomorrow. This run toward tomorrow becomes, in religion, moksha—also tomorrow; becomes heaven—also tomorrow; for the wealthy, tomorrow is becoming a billionaire; for the sannyasin, tomorrow is when he will meet Paramatma and then be happy. For all, it is tomorrow. Today belongs to no one.
Jesus passes a village at dawn; lilies are in bloom, the sun has risen. He says to his disciples, “Do you see these lilies? Even King Solomon in all his glory was not so beautiful.” The disciples are puzzled. Lilies? These ordinary flowers—every village has them. Why speak so? Where Solomon—and where these simple lilies!
Jesus says, “Look closely. Solomon was never so happy—because he could not be in today; he was always in tomorrow.”
Whoever lives in tomorrow will be in anxiety. “Tomorrow” is another name for anxiety. Whoever can live in today can bloom. All flowering is today. Tomorrow is only worry. And it is not that tomorrow ever arrives. When you reach tomorrow, it has become today; the habit of tomorrow has formed—then you begin worrying about the next tomorrow. You lose tomorrow too. Day after day you go on losing—because time always comes as today, never as tomorrow. But we all live with a tomorrow-mind. Beyond tension, restlessness, and sorrow, we have no destiny.
Such a man is a disease. Such a man is not truly man; he is what man could be—but missed. Somewhere the track split; we took another road that is not our destiny. Therefore whatever we become, unease dogs us.
Somewhere I read a line: “It is not granted to man to become human.” Astonishing. If man cannot become human, what can he become? But man wants to become everything—except human. To be human is here and now. It can only be now. If only we could accept what we are, life would open the gates of bliss immediately; the temple doors would swing open, bells would begin to call from all sides. But we are not content with what we are; we say, “I must become something else.” We run and run—and the temple that could have called us within, we circle around it and fall dead. Life becomes nothing but a long tale of discontent.
Such a man is a disease. But your being such is your choice; not being so is also your decision. If we wish, we can transcend this. Forgetting tomorrow does not mean there will be no tomorrow; it does not mean that if you must catch a train tomorrow, you will not buy the ticket today; it does not mean if you must travel tomorrow, you will not think about it today. I am not saying that.
No—there is no tomorrow for living. Living is today. Plans can be for tomorrow; but life happens today. Work may be tomorrow; but the thrill of life is now. The heart must beat now; breath must be taken now; love must be now; delight must be now; the song must be now. The marketplace of engagements will stretch into tomorrow too—but your being, your existence, the depth of your being—let it be rooted in this moment. To that extent the possibility of derangement ends; to that extent you are fulfilled, satisfied, overflowing with joy.
It does not mean you will become stagnant. No. Today’s current will carry you into tomorrow; the Ganga flows—there is no worry for the morrow; the sun rises—its concern is not today. Life today flowers into tomorrow. Tomorrow has always happened—and will. The only question is: does my mind get caught in tomorrow? If so, I miss today. And missing today becomes my disease, my madness. We are all entangled in tomorrow; therefore we are anxious. Even when we reach the temple, it is for tomorrow. Even prayer is for tomorrow. Even meditation is for tomorrow.
No—neither meditation nor prayer nor temple nor Paramatma is for tomorrow. If Paramatma is, he is now; we can connect in this very instant. If even for a single moment one accepts oneself, one stands at the door of Paramatma—and infinite possibilities of health appear.
This word “health” is wondrous. Let me end with two words about it. The English “health” is poor; it is a medical word—derived from “healing”—the wound should close. Our Sanskritic “swasthya”—healthy—is sublime, spiritual. Swasth means: to be in oneself. One who is in oneself—one who is with oneself, whose roots have gone into oneself. Yes, whose flowers will bloom in the sky—but whose roots are within.
Self-rooted—standing on one’s own ground—that is what we call healthy, whether of body, mind, or soul. When the body is in itself, it is healthy; when you have a headache, it means the body is not in itself. When your legs are paralyzed, the body has lost its being in itself. When the mind is filled with worry, it is not in itself—it has missed. When the soul is also not in itself, when it wants to be something else, then the soul too misses. We keep missing, and do not become rooted in ourselves.
If we return to ourselves, we become healthy. And when man is in himself, there is no flower on earth so beautiful as man; no star so shining; no waterfall that sings so; no moonlit night as exquisite as man; no ocean wave as joyous. For all else is asleep, unconscious; man can awaken. His joy is a conscious joy; his song is a wakeful song. But because his heights are the greatest, his fall can be the deepest. Those who walk on level ground need not fear; those who climb Everest must accept the abyss. Man has fallen into chasms precisely because he can rise to the summits of consciousness. His potential is his pain.
Man can rise so high as to become Paramatma—that is why he can fall so low as to be less than stones and birds. Stones and birds seem more joyful than him. These are man’s two possibilities. What we choose depends on us. So far, most of humanity has chosen sorrow, disease, anxiety, madness; and ordinarily we choose the same. Slowly the whole earth seems to be turning into a madhouse. Almost it has. Soon it may be impossible to decide who is not mad. Politicians, gurus, litterateurs, artists—everywhere there is a rush of derangement. Look at Picasso’s paintings—it seems man has gone mad. Read Ezra Pound—it seems man has gone mad. Watch politicians—Mao or Nixon—it seems man has gone mad. Everywhere—the same.
Is there no possibility of man becoming healthy?
I say: there is. It begins with you; it begins with each one. Perhaps we cannot fall into the madness of trying to cure the whole earth, but we can be wise enough to heal ourselves. And if even one man among us becomes truly healthy, he becomes a lit lamp, an inspiration to the unlit lamps around.
I have said these few things in the hope that you will reflect. There is no need to believe me—for who knows, I may myself be a madman speaking to you. Do not believe—think.
Even to have heard me is uncertain. Few are present here; some have already gone to where they must go after this; some are still where they came from. Perhaps someone among you has arrived here—then he has heard. I request only this: do not believe—ponder. A great moment of thinking has come before man. Each step must be taken thoughtfully—for the danger is great, the abyss is near; a slight slip and the whole of humanity could vanish. But whether humanity survives or not is not your responsibility. One responsibility is yours: before you end, taste the depth of life; before you end, reach life’s height; before you end, experience life’s full dance, its full flavor, its innocence, its simplicity. Otherwise our coming is futile; our going is futile; our being is futile. It can be meaningful. Think a little; step out a little from the world of the mad; call back your feet from their mad march; look where they are heading.
A small story—and I will conclude.
I have heard: a man was looking for the office of a university. By chance, right opposite the university stood a madhouse. As is the case today, almost every university may need a madhouse opposite. The man, by mistake, went not to the university’s porter but to the asylum’s porter. The doors of both buildings looked alike. He asked, “I am looking for the university office—but these two gates are identical. Which is the university? And why are the doors the same? Why no difference?”
The porter said, “There isn’t much difference—hence the same doors. There’s just this: whoever comes into the asylum cannot leave until he is cured. In the university it is the reverse—no one is allowed to leave until he is spoiled.” He added, “I have worked here long—that is the only difference I have seen.”
Our steps are moving toward the madhouses. Let them not. For your own sake, for all, for the future, be as alert as you can.
You have listened with such love and silence—I am deeply obliged. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma dwelling in all. Please accept my pranam.