The search for a new society is perhaps humanity’s oldest search. It is ancient — and it has not succeeded till now. Ten thousand years of history are the history of a very unsuccessful story. Many attempts were made to bring a new society into being, but after every attempt, the old society re-established itself in a new guise. The new society does not get born. Revolutions happened. Once the word ‘revolution’ evoked great hope; now even that word has become disheartening. For no revolution has succeeded — whether in France, in Russia, or in China. There was bloodshed. The full pain of childbirth was endured to give birth to a new society — and yet, no new society was born. The old society stood up again in a new form.
All revolutions have failed. Therefore it is necessary to ask: what is the mistake that prevents a new society from being born?
There are many reasons. Let me begin with a small story.
I have heard that in a great country, the foremost religious head — the chief over all the churches — set out to visit every church of the land. Once in ten or twenty-five years he would undertake such a tour. And there was a rule: whenever he entered a church, the bells must be rung in his welcome.
He entered the church of a village, but the bells did not ring. So he asked the village priest, who was accompanying him, “Why are the bells not ringing to welcome me?” The priest said, “There are a hundred reasons. But the first reason is: this church has no bells.”
The great prelate said, “The first reason is enough. No need to mention the remaining ninety-nine.”
There are also a hundred reasons why a new society has not yet been born. But I too would point only to the first; the remaining ninety-nine are unnecessary. And the first reason is: there is no such thing as society. It is a false word — and words create illusion. The individual is real; society has no truth. Society is a myth, a story, a figment. Reality belongs to the person; ‘society’ is a convenient fiction. Yet we want to give birth to a new society.
A new society cannot be born, because society has no existence. Only the individual exists. The attempt to create a new society becomes futile because, in trying to create a new society, we neglect creating a new individual. If a new individual is born, a new society can be born.
But the word ‘society’ is used so much that we never even suspect that there may be no such entity. There is no society, no nation, no ‘humanity’ as such. All these words are false, abstract. What is real is the human being, the person.
So many of us are gathered here; one could say a society has gathered. Suppose I station two people at the door and tell them, “When society comes out, catch it.” They will let individuals pass one by one, because no individual is society. And when all have left the hall, if I ask them, “Did society come out? Did you catch it?” they will answer, “Persons exited; society did not. Society must be behind.” And behind, the hall stands empty.
The individual is reality — and we always want revolution in society; hence the confusion. Words deceive, and ‘society’ is a great deceiver.
There once was a bhikshu named Nagasena. The emperor of that time, King Milinda, invited him to court. When the invitation reached him, Nagasena said to the ministers who brought it, “Beg the emperor’s pardon. I shall come — but know that there is no such one as the monk Nagasena.”
They were astonished. They reported to the king, “We delivered your invitation. Nagasena said, ‘I shall come — but there is no such one as the monk Nagasena!’”
The king said, “These sannyasis and fakirs speak strangely, in riddles. If the monk Nagasena is not, then who will come?”
The royal chariot was sent. Nagasena came seated upon it. At the door he alighted. The king welcomed him: “I welcome the monk Nagasena.” Nagasena said, “I accept your welcome — but there is no such one as the monk Nagasena.” The king said, “Do not puzzle me with riddles. If you are not, how have you come?” The bhikshu said, “This chariot is standing here. Is this a chariot?” The king said, “It is.” The bhikshu said, “And it came?” The king said, “It came.” “But,” said the bhikshu, “there is no chariot.”
He had the horses unyoked and asked, “Are the horses the chariot?” “How could horses be the chariot!” said the king. The horses were led away. He had the wheels removed, “Are the wheels the chariot?” “How could wheels be the chariot!” Piece by piece the chariot was dismantled, and the king kept denying, “This is not the chariot, that is not the chariot.” Gradually, the whole chariot was gone; nothing remained. The bhikshu laughed and asked, “Where is the chariot? Whatever there was, I asked you about it — and that was not the chariot. Now the chariot should be left behind.” The king said, “The chariot is a combination.”
Society too is a combination. And what we call the ego of the person — the ‘I’ — is also a combination. It has no truth. But continual usage of the word breeds illusion. And no word in the world has created as much delusion as ‘society’ has.
So first I would say: there is no such thing as society — no old society, no new society. Yes, there are old persons; and new persons can be. There is the old mind of the person — and the birth of a new mind can happen.
But revolutionaries are in a great hurry. And understand well: in haste, anything may happen — except revolution. Yet the revolutionary is always in a hurry. He says, “If we sit to change people one by one, when will change come? Forget the person; we will change society. Society can be changed quickly. If we change individuals, when will it ever be done?”
So the revolutionary labors at changing society — and society is not! Of all deceived people on this earth, none has been more deceived than the revolutionary. No one is as deluded as the socialist. For there is no such reality as society.
What we call society is only an aggregate of individuals. If the person is old, so will society be old. Change the laws, change the governments, change the patterns of organization; paint the house a new color, put fresh plaster on the walls — if the person remains old, society will remain old.
And the person is old. There is no new person in Russia, none in China, none in America; nowhere is there a new human being. The Russian individual is as old as the American. Therefore the quarrel between Russia and America is childish; it is not fundamental. Their people are alike; there is no real difference.
Recently I was with a friend whose house had a Russian guest while I too was a guest there. Before leaving, the Russian said to the host, “I wish to carry a gold bangle back for my wife. But I cannot take it as such — there will be questioning: Where did this come from? How did it come? So kindly take the money from me, and give me a letter stating that you gifted it to me.” My friend asked, “Who would question such a simple bangle?” He said, “You do not know — in Russia there will be much inquiry. But I want to take something for my wife. If this bangle is on her hand, and no other woman in Moscow has such a bangle, my wife will be happy and so will I.”
What difference is there between this man and a man from America? He too will be happy seeing a bangle on his wife’s wrist. In America also someone will be happy to see his wife wear a bangle. In India too. And why is he happy? Because a gold bangle on the wife’s hand proclaims the husband’s importance. The husband may go about in poor clothes — that will do; but he decorates his wife and sends her out. She is his showcase. In Russia too — “let my wife wear a bangle that no other wife wears” — the same value is attached. Gold has the same value there as anywhere. So does the wife’s value. So does my ego. And the same thieving mind is there — ready to deceive his own government. Not only in India — everywhere in the world.
Man is the same. If in Russia today anger is the same in people, anxiety the same, hatred the same, greed the same, fear the same — as elsewhere — then man is the same. We change frameworks; man does not change. Therefore society cannot change, because society is the sum of individuals.
But this is not seen. The revolutionary is in a hurry. Hence revolutions have failed. Revolution — such a great work — demands immense patience. But those who are patient are not revolutionaries. They are saints, fakirs, sannyasis; their patience is endless. They say, “It will happen — someday; when Paramatma wills, then it will happen.” They do not make revolutions; their patience is too long. And those who make revolutions have no patience. Therefore revolution has not happened in the world. Those who could have made revolution, did not; those who cannot make it, did. Hence every revolution brings new miseries. The old troubles remain, and the new revolution adds new ones.
The first thing to understand is this: without changing the human being, society cannot change, because society is nowhere apart from individuals. All wars are not fought on battlefields — they are fought in the minds of men. And all societies are not born in the skies and capitals — they are born in the small hearts of small people. All systems, all development, all revolutions come not from the current of history, but out of the individual mind. There is no ‘fate’ that determines — neither the old kind of fate, as Indian seers believed, some destiny that decides; nor the new kind of fate of the communists — the historical process. No, there is no fate determining. The determining factor is the individual mind. And no revolution has touched the mind of the person. Therefore, however much we change economic arrangements, however many statutes we rewrite, however much we tinker with structures — society will be the same. No fundamental difference will come.
After 1960, in Russia, the demand for private property arose again. After forty years of harsh suppression, the demand did not die. Since 1960 it has only intensified. Four or five years ago they were compelled to allow people the right to own private cars. This is only the beginning. Soon houses will have to be privately owned, then gardens. For fifty years, under the butt of the gun, after killing a million people, still man’s desire for personal property does not leave him. And it is not only the big capitalists. In Russia, even those who owned ten chickens tried to save their chickens from becoming collective property.
The person — it is necessary to take him into account. Regarding this person, I want to say two or three things: Why does he not become new? If his foundations are old, he cannot be new. If we discern the foundations, then renewal is possible. The human being we have manufactured till now — it is essential to understand his deep foundations.
The first foundation is fear. All of humanity, till this day, has raised the person upon a house of fear. No difference whether it be Mao or Manu, Mohammed or Marx — the foundation of fear has remained intact. If Stalin brings revolution in Russia, he brings it by frightening people. If Mao brings revolution in China, he brings it by frightening people. If the religious heads of the world tried to bring revolution, they tried to bring it by frightening people. Some threatened hell; some threatened Siberia; some threatened death here and now; some, the concentration camp; some threatened after death. But till today, all managers of man have tried to change him by fear. In this there has been no difference. Even the greatest revolutionary is not a revolutionary in this matter. And the great wonder is that even those we call profoundly nonviolent are not so.
Even a manager like Gandhi sought to change people by frightening them. Yes, the apparatus of fear differs — but fear does not. If I place a knife at your chest and say, “Do as I say,” it is fear. If I place a knife at my own chest and say, “Do as I say, or I will stab myself,” it is also fear. There is no difference.
In my understanding, in the first kind of fear I still show you a little respect; in the second, no respect at all. From the first, you can even be saved. If I hold a knife at your chest, if you are a brave person you may say, “All right, stab — but I will remain as I am.” But in the second case, when I hold a knife to my own chest and say, “Will you accept my word or not? Otherwise I will stab myself,” then if you are brave you will submit merely to save a man from needless death. A man can take decisions regarding his own death; but in deciding another’s death, there is difficulty.
Gandhi fasted against Ambedkar — that is holding a knife to one’s own chest: “We shall die if you do not accept our word.” Ambedkar bent and conceded; the fast was broken. Then Ambedkar said, “My heart has not changed. I agreed only because I did not wish to be responsible for Gandhi’s death. What I said was right; what Gandhi said was wrong. And I still say that what he said was wrong. But he staked his life for the wrong thing — and it seemed to me proper to step back even from my right thing, rather than be the cause of Gandhi’s death.”
In this matter, it is astonishing: Gandhi appears violent, and Ambedkar nonviolent.
But thinkers the world over, till now, have thought in the direction of frightening man. Mahavira speaks of hell. Buddha, Manu, Mohammed — all speak of hell. They think, “If man is to be made good, he must be frightened.” But they do not see that fear itself is such a great evil that, even if through it you make someone ‘good,’ how will he be good? For what can be worse than a frightened human being?
We have designed hells — we have arranged great flames there; cauldrons are heated; people are to be thrown into the boiling pots; endless suffering is planned — for one purpose: that in this way we will change man.
Man has not changed. All the hells have gone to waste — man has not changed. We offered the temptation of heaven — which is also a form of fear, its reverse. We said, “If you do good, you will get heaven.” That too is fear reversed — for if you do not do good, you will miss heaven. It is still fear. Temptation is the reverse of fear — positions, prestige, respect, honor — all that.
Even a courageous man like Ram, when he returned after rescuing Sita from Ravana, said words to Sita that do not befit Ram’s mouth. Ram becomes small, because he tells Sita, “Do not think I fought this war for you; I fought for the honor of my clan.” Ram appears deeply frightened of reputation. And then when a washerman gossips, he throws Sita into the forest — the pregnant Sita! Ram appears greatly fearful that his dignity, his honor, his prestige may be dented. He demands a fire-ordeal of Sita. That too is fear, not love. Even after the fire-ordeal, nothing is truly resolved — Sita is still abandoned. And what need was there to say, “I did not fight for you — I fought for the family’s honor! The honor of my lineage was at stake!” He appears very frightened.
This fear is the very foundation upon which the whole of humanity has been constructed. Each individual has been placed upon fear. The father frightens the son; the teacher frightens the student. Sometimes the tables turn — and then we are troubled. While the son is weak, the father frightens; when the father grows old and weak, the son begins to frighten. Teachers frightened students — now students frighten teachers; teachers are disturbed. The police frightened the public — when the public frightens the police, we say chaos has come. But the foundation is fear! If the leader frightens the people, and the people now surround the leaders and frighten them, what is the difference? Sometimes the river carries the boat; sometimes the boat is carrying the river — but it is the same story.
How long do we intend to keep human beings standing upon fear? Our governments, our systems, are arrangements of fear. The policeman at the crossroads is a fear; the court that sits is a fear; law is a fear; the military is a fear; the neighbor nation is a fear; other nations are fears; even the God seated in heaven appears no more than a supreme constable — he too is a fear. His hells and heavens — all fear’s arrangements. We have frightened man so much that it defies measure. And we have exploited in every way to frighten him.
Recently a young man came to me. He had stayed three months in the ashram of a very famous sannyasi. When he came to me, he was trembling — not in the body, but in the mind. In that ashram they especially teach: human birth is very rare. If you miss this once, you will wander in the eighty-four lakh wombs — you will become worms and insects; after births upon births, perhaps you will again gain the human station. Therefore not even a single day is to be missed. Do religion! Otherwise, if you miss, you will wander for aeons! So the youth told me, “Is it true that human birth is most rare, and if I miss this one chance I will wander through millions of wombs? If this is true, quickly show me the way, lest I miss and wander for millions of births! I am very scared — very frightened.”
The religious heads have always terrified. Fear of death, fear of sin, fear of rebirth — surrounding man with fears on all sides. Remember: the more encircled a person is by fear, the more his life-sources dry up. The more frightened he becomes, the more the juices of life cease to flow within. The more frightened he becomes, the more his capacity to rejoice is diminished. And it makes no difference what kind of fear it is. Whether you fear a policeman or fear God — it makes no difference; the issue is fear.
Sadhus and sannyasis teach, “Do not fear anyone — but fear God.” They give great value to the term ‘God-fearing,’ to bhiruta toward God. But fear is always the same. Every kind of fear contracts the inner capacity of life to expand. When life contracts within, it is as if a tree has no leaves, no flowers, its sap has dried. Life that could have expanded and rejoiced and danced becomes closed in itself — frustrated, sorrow-laden, sick and diseased. Fear has made man ill.
I have heard: A woman brought her little son to a fakir. The boy was very mischievous, very unruly; none of the mother’s threats worked. She thought to take him to a fakir, for fakirs have invented very deep fears. They have invented such fears that even the bravest can be shaken. Courageous men tremble before religious fear. She brought the boy. “He does not listen,” she said. “He disobeys. Kindly frighten him a little so that he becomes right.”
The fakir was a very unusual man. He suddenly screamed loudly, rose onto his seat, spread both arms, and rolled his eyes so wide that the boy ran away in terror and the woman fainted from fright. And when the woman fainted, the fakir also ran away — out of fear!
After a while the boy returned to look after his mother. The fakir peeked in through the door, then came and sat again when she revived. The mother said, “You overdid it! I only asked you to scare him a little!” The fakir said, “There is no measure for fear. Once fear is invoked, one never knows where to stop. Not only you — when fear is spread, it does not frighten one and spare another. It frightens all. It was not about you — I myself was frightened.”
Society has lived for ten thousand years in an atmosphere of fear. Those whom we intended to frighten have been frightened; those who wanted to frighten have been frightened; those who were doing the frightening have been frightened. The whole society has become fear-ridden. Not only thieves are afraid while magistrates are not — no. When fear manifests, it spares none. It has made the whole of life tremble; all roots have been shaken.
And remember: where fear is, certain things cannot grow. Where fear is, joy does not arise — they contradict each other. If there is fear, joy will never be born. Where fear is, love does not grow — they are opponents. Where fear is, the person shrinks; he does not expand. The law of life is expansion; shrinking is the law of death. Therefore where fear is, suicidal impulses arise; life-affirming desires, which accept life, enlarge life, nurture life, they die. Where fear is, the seeds of life shrivel; the seeds of death begin to spread.
So know this: because we raised man upon fear, we have made the whole of humanity suicidal. Every person, deep within, is eager to die — not eager to live. Yes, for dying we have invented beautiful names — humanity is very skillful at giving fair names. We have given fear itself many good names, because good names make it easy to go on.
For example, we call someone a good man — very good. He too thinks himself good. But it may be that there is nothing in his goodness but the name, and deep within sits fear. Ninety-eight out of a hundred so-called good people are merely frightened people. Therefore the good man is ordinarily impotent — except one in a million — while the bad man is always courageous.
There are reasons. The bad man did not accept fear; hence he could be courageous. Courageous, he is capable of breaking all the old morality that was standing upon fear. We made a man ‘good’ by making him afraid. Because he became ‘good’ out of fear, he may have avoided evil — but he could not become truly good. For goodness is a creative direction. Merely refraining from evil is one thing; becoming good is quite another.
So the ones we call good are simply those who do not even dare to be bad. Remember: one who cannot muster the courage even to be bad will never find the courage to be good. For if he cannot climb down, how will he climb up? Goodness is a great ascent; being bad is a descent. If he cannot dare even to descend, how will he dare to ascend?
Hence, when a bad man becomes good, he becomes truly good. But one who cannot even be bad cannot become good either — he remains stuck in the middle. He has no courage, no daring, no guts — only fear. Therefore the good man does not do ill, but he dies envying those who do. So you will find the good forever condemning the bad — always sitting and maligning: who is doing wrong, who is dishonest, society is degenerating, morality is failing, everything is going to ruin. He goes on reviling.
The reason is: he too had wanted to be bad, but did not dare; those who dared, he envies and is tormented. He will say, “I am a good man, honest — but I cannot build a big house, while the bad men are building mansions.” He wants his big house too; he wants wealth and position — and yet he does not wish to take the risk of being bad. He wants both — without the courage. He is filled with envy.
Remember: where fear is, envy is inevitable. And where fear is, violence is. A frightened person can never be nonviolent. Yes, he may strain his water, or avoid eating at night — but that too out of fear, not out of ahimsa. The fear of hell: “Lest I rot there!” So he spends the night without water — out of fear. He has no relation with the germs in the water; his relation is with himself — that he might not fall into hell. He does good deeds too, but out of fear — to gain heaven, to avoid hell, to escape suffering, to get happiness. But remember: a frightened person, deep down, can never become good. And one who cannot become good cannot be the foundation of a good society.
So I want to say one fundamental thing: if the new society is to be born, then beneath the person we must remove the entire apparatus of fear. It is necessary to make the individual abhay — fear-free.
This does not mean that when a bus comes honking you should stand in front and not move. One who stands before a honking bus is not fearless, only mad. It does not mean that if your house has caught fire you should not run out. One who does not run from a burning house is deranged. One who runs is not frightened — he is simply intelligent. If a snake crosses your path, a wise man steps aside — not out of fear, but out of love for life; he is not ready to lose it unnecessarily.
There are natural fears in life — they are intelligent. And there are unnatural fears imposed upon life — they are unintelligent. Heaven, hell, rebirth, sin, merit — the entire net of fear we have woven around these is utterly false.
Socrates was dying. His friends were weeping. Socrates asked, “Why do you weep?” They said, “We weep because you will die. We are trembling with fear.” Socrates said, “Fools! After death, only two possibilities exist. Either, as the atheists say, I shall simply die — and if I simply die, then there is no need for sorrow; for if I simply die, there will be no one left to bear sorrow. Or the second possibility, as the theists say: only the body dies, I do not die. Then also there is no need for fear — for I shall remain; nothing essential will be lost.” Socrates said, “Whether the atheists are right or the theists — Socrates is at ease. Only two possibilities exist.”
Socrates is not afraid, because in both possibilities there is no cause for fear.
Death is not a cause for fear. But we have invented causes of fear on our own. In order to change, better, and reform the person, we have contrived many things. But had we openly called them ‘fear,’ perhaps people would not have accepted them; therefore we have given them beautiful names. Naming things nicely is humanity’s most dangerous self-deception. We relabel everything.
A father says to his son, “I love you, hence I want you to study — to become an engineer, a doctor, to reach a high position. I love you.” But if the father were to look within carefully, he would find he has never loved his son. He loves his ego: my son should be a doctor, my son an engineer, in this place, in that. The father’s unfulfilled ego wants to rest its rifle on the son’s shoulder and fire.
But he does not say this. And so the deception goes on. The son wonders: what kind of love is this? The father wonders: why does this love yield no joy? Because he has given the wrong name. The thing is one thing; the label another.
We have relabeled the whole arrangement of man. Our condition is like a grocer’s shop where all the jars have been misnamed — where what is labeled ‘cashew’ does not contain cashews, and what is labeled ‘raisins’ does not contain raisins. However many jars you open, what is written is never what is inside. Everything is mixed up. We have given good names to wrong things. We live by labels; therefore we never suspect what we are naming.
A friend used to walk with me each morning. If we passed a Hanuman shrine, a temple, any deity, a peepal tree — whatever came — he would bow to it. He considered himself religious. I told him, “It seems you have written the wrong label on your jar. What has a religious person to do with bowing to a peepal tree? And you don’t even bow to every peepal. On one tree someone has tied a thread — that one you bow to.” He said, “No, in this peepal a deity must be residing.” I said, “Even if a deity resides — what has that to do with bowing? The deity never bows to you. ‘Wherever a deity resides, one should bow’ — why? ‘Lest the deity be offended.’”
This man is frightened. I kept explaining to him daily. He understood — but fear is much deeper than understanding. Understanding does nothing; fear is unconscious. He came to have double fear — even gained a new fear of me. When I knocked at his door, he would tell his wife, “Say I am unwell.” For if he walked with me, bowing to Hanuman became difficult. I told his wife, “This is worse; I did not explain for this. Tell him to come. Otherwise he goes later anyway.” She said, “Yes, he goes — but is afraid to go with you. Once you leave, he goes.” I said, “Now one deity has become two — fear has doubled. There is no need to fear me. Go and bow.”
He said, “One day I went with you and thought, ‘He is right.’ So I did not bow to Hanuman. The whole day I was uneasy. In the evening I had to go back and bow, lest he be offended.”
The poor man considers himself religious — and among the fearful, he will be thought religious. But is he religious? Or has he labeled his fear as religion?
A man kneels in a temple, hands folded. He thinks he is praying. But what has prayer to do with kneeling? Kneeling has to do with fear — not with prayer. What has folding hands to do with prayer? What has groveling and pleading to do with prayer? Repeating, “You are pure, I am fallen; you are great, I am petty” — what has this to do with prayer? It has to do with fear. But he calls his fear ‘prayer.’ Ninety-nine percent of our prayers are fears, our pujas are fears, our reverence is fear. Our whole life is filled with fear — but we have pasted other names on it. And once we rename things, great difficulty arises.
For ten thousand years we have done this — misguiding man, confusing him. The greatest obstacle to self-knowledge is that nothing inside us bears its true name; everything bears the wrong label.
We have never loved — but we say we love. We have never prayed — but we say we pray. In the name of love we have been jealous; we have never loved. But we say, “This is not jealousy; it is my love.” We have nourished our ego in the name of love — and say, “This is love, not ego.” We have fostered something else in the name of dharma — and labeled it ‘religion.’ Hence it has become very difficult to reach within, to change. So every time revolution happens, man remains the same — because inside there is no address for anything.
I heard a story I liked — it seems so true. A sannyasi came to a village to speak. A few women, a few old men, a few children came. The old came because they had no work. The women came because they have permission to go nowhere except to a sannyasi. The children came with the women. He spoke there.
A small child told his mother, “I want to pee!” People laughed. Afterwards the sannyasi called the woman and said, “Explain to your child not to speak like that. Give it another name — when he needs to pee, he should not say ‘pee’; he should say something else. Make a code language; the two of you will understand, no one else will. For example?” “Tell him that when he needs to go, he should say, ‘Mother, I want to sing a song.’”
In two or four days, the child was taught — and thus all children are taught; the labels on our jars are changed in childhood, and we never know — even to old age — how the labels got changed.
A year passed; the sannyasi became a guest at that woman’s house. She had to go to a wedding; she left the child sleeping near him. At midnight the boy said, “Swami-ji, I want to sing a song.” The swami, tired from the day, was dozing. He said, “You are mad! Who sings at midnight? Sleep!” After a while the boy said, “No, Swami-ji, it’s very difficult — I must sing a song.” The swami said, “What a crazy boy! Will you let me sleep or not? Is this the time to sing? Sleep; sing in the morning.” The boy said, “In the morning I will sing again — but now I must sing.” The swami scolded; the boy fell silent for a while. Finally he said, “Swami-ji, it is very hard to hold.” The swami said, “What a strange trouble this woman has left with me at midnight! If you will not listen — then sing slowly into my ear!”
This has happened with all humanity: we have given things different names. Slowly, man has become unable to recognize himself. He says one thing about something, another about something else — and nothing is clear.
If we are to recognize the foundation of fear, we must call fear by its name. If a son fears his father, he should say to him, “I have no love or reverence for you; I am only afraid. These feet that I am touching are not out of shraddha or respect — only out of fear.” If a father fears his son, he should say, “This chocolate I bought is not for love — only out of fear. These rupees I give you to go see the circus — not out of love, only out of fear.” If a husband fears his wife, he should say, “I only fear — I have not recognized love.” If a wife fears her husband, she should say, “Between us there is nothing but fear.”
We should make things clear — absolutely clear as they are — and catch hold of facts. Then we can change the person. For the great fun is this: if it becomes clear to me that all my relationships are of fear — that I have never loved, never befriended anyone, never prayed, never entered the temple of the Divine, never tasted reverence, never found any compassion within — that I am only frightened, only frightened — if I see this, then a strange outcome follows. That outcome is: I will have to jump out of this state; living in it becomes impossible.
If I know my house is on fire, I will not go to ask anyone whether I should come out. If the house is on fire, I will not open a book to find the way out. I will not say, “Wait — let us rest a while; we will go tomorrow.” If I see the fire, the next act does not have to be done — it happens: I find myself outside. There are reasons for this.
But if someone has named the flames ‘the blooming of palash flowers,’ then trouble begins! He sits in the burning house rhapsodizing, “How beautiful are the palash blossoms!” If someone says, “Come out,” he says, “Not now — the flowers are so lovely!” We have deceived ourselves exactly thus. Inside, where there are flames, we feel flowers; where there is fear, we think it love; where there is hatred, jealousy, competition — we call it development, progress. Where there is nothing, we imagine there is something.
This is the condition that does not allow man to become new. And in maintaining this condition, two kinds of people have the biggest hand. First, those who have a vested interest in keeping man afraid. All power-holders benefit from fear. For the day man becomes fearless, power will vanish from the world. Power is the counter-part of fear. Authority, ownership, leadership, gurudom — every kind of power — exists only as long as man is afraid on the other side. If fearless human beings are born in the world, all powers will bid farewell.
Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography: if one wants to be a great leader, one must keep one’s nation that much afraid. The more frightened the country, the greater the leader becomes.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was not an extraordinary man. He was a good man, an ordinary man. But the nation was afraid — and so Lal Bahadur became a great leader. Had the country been in a normal state, a man like Lal Bahadur would have vanished unnoticed. A good man — but quite ordinary. The country was very frightened, panicked — war, enemies, insecurity — and within such fear Lal Bahadur became a great leader. All the great leaders we praise are born in fear-laden situations. Krishna has promised: when there is great degeneration, when dharma declines, then I will come. I do not know how far this promise can be relied upon. But one thing is sure: if there is no great decline, no great fear and sorrow, great men have no chance to arise.
All leadership, all authority, one man’s dominance over another, arises out of fear. Therefore, no vested interest wants man to become fearless — neither the guru wants the disciple to be fearless, nor does the state want the people fearless, nor the father wants the son fearless, nor the husband the wife. No one wants anyone to be fearless. Power stays — life is lost. Dominion remains — love disappears.
If the father wants the son not to become fearless, neither father nor son will remain — only a dead mechanism will remain at home in which father and son are cogs. If the husband wants the wife not to become fearless…
Therefore husbands never allowed women to be economically capable. If women become capable economically, they will not remain as afraid as they always were. Men kept women confined to the home, for if they go out, relate to the world, their fear will lessen. Because as knowledge grows, fear decreases. Hence Shudras were not allowed education — for if they are educated, knowledge will grow, fear will decrease. Therefore the poor everywhere have been bound on all sides — arrangements made to ensure they do not become fearless. For if they become fearless, the machinery of power will start breaking.
But remember: if fear remains, the slave remains, the master remains — human beings do not. And the great irony is: when a slave is a slave, his humanity dies; and the master’s humanity dies as well. If only the slave’s humanity died, it might still be tolerable — but the master’s humanity also dies. If dominating killed only the son’s personhood, it might still be bearable — but in crushing the son, the father’s personhood dies too. Whether one crushes or is crushed — in both states one is afraid. To dominate is only fear’s strategy of self-protection.
Machiavelli, in praise of aggression, said: the best defense is attack. If a father is frightening his son, it is because he is himself afraid — hence he frightens. It is his arrangement. Before the son can frighten tomorrow, he frightens today. If a husband frightens the wife, he fears the wife. If a teacher frightens the student, he fears the student. The entire system we have made stands upon fear. Fear has destroyed man’s soul.
If a new society is to be born, a new human being must be born. The new human being can only be fearless. Remove all heavens and hells! Remove the entire apparatus of fear! And make the person fearless — by whatsoever means he can be made fearless.
But we are afraid, because our fear is of thousands of years. We say: if the person becomes fearless there will be anarchy — as if there is no anarchy now! We fear: if the person becomes fearless, he will become licentious — as if there is no licentiousness now! We fear: if this happens, then that will happen. And all that we fear has already happened. There is no longer any reason to fear it.
The great irony is: those very measures we take, out of fear that certain things might happen, become the causes that bring them about. What we imagined to be medicine is not medicine — it is the root of the disease.
Who is licentious? One who has been made dependent. One who has never been made dependent can never be licentious. Licentiousness is the reaction to dependency. A free person is never licentious; only the dependent becomes licentious. When we make someone dependent, we create in him the tendency to break free through license. When we press a person down, we are inviting him to press us down in return when he becomes powerful. If I do not press, I do not create in the other the tendency to escape pressure or to retaliate.
But we are either pressed or pressing, and both think the same way. Our understanding is: if we do not press, everything will break. The irony is: we have pressed for so long — and nothing remains intact. For three thousand years there have been laws — yet thieves increase daily. Punishments increase — thieves increase. Murderers are punished — murderers multiply. We have not been able to decrease one crime — only added new crimes. The net of law becomes larger and larger.
A vicious circle: our argument’s wicked cycle says, “Because law is insufficient, thieves are increasing; increase the law.” Law increases — thieves increase. Then we say, “Still law is insufficient; increase it more, so thieves will reduce.” Thieves increase; we keep increasing law. We never suspect that what we are doing will not stop crime, because we have not changed the person. How many prisons have we built! Slowly, we will turn the whole world into a prison — even then nothing will change. Why? Because mentally we are wrong. Repression breeds resistance.
A few years ago, in Delhi, there was a conference of sannyasis. Generally sannyasis hesitate to invite me. But the subject was such that they thought I would agree: a conference against obscene posters — that obscene posters should not be made. They thought: here at least I will support them. They were troubled. Because my understanding is: no one becomes obscene because of obscene posters. Rather, because the mind is obscene, there is a need to put up obscene posters. The poster is a dead thing.
I told those sannyasis: “You are spiritualists — you value a dead poster more than the living soul? You say people are corrupted by the nude picture on the wall — then you are materialists. How can a naked picture on a wall corrupt souls?” I said, “The spiritualist should say: the nude poster is a report that people are already corrupted; they need such a picture. And if the poster is removed, danger will increase, not decrease — because their urge to see nudity will become frustrated. Perhaps it will become difficult for women to walk in the streets. If obscene posters are banned, the likelihood of women being stripped on the streets will increase. That urge to see the nude will be repressed and will seek vengeance. A little satisfaction is being given by the poster. The poster is a protection for women’s clothing — it allows women to walk clothed because men are being partially satisfied there.”
“So you should demand that the posters be made so beautiful that no woman could be that beautiful! That there would be no need to strip any woman on the street! Let the naked poster satisfy the urge so much that the thought of stripping a living woman drops. But you say, ‘Ban the posters.’ Banning posters will be dangerous.”
Recently, a girl returned from London. She told me she went to see a hippie play. On stage, dancing, the hippie boys and girls became nude. She panicked — something untoward may happen! It was her first time. But the hall was silent. No one whistled, no one threw money. Here in India, even in films, money is thrown and whistles blow. She was astonished: why no whistling, why no money? Amazed, she looked around — and saw that as the dancers, in ecstasy, threw off all their clothes and danced naked, many boys and girls in the audience took off their clothes and sat naked too. Even so, the men sitting beside the naked women did not show any special interest. A girl sat naked on the adjacent seat, but the man next to her did not even turn to look — he watched his play.
She was astonished. At home she asked, “How amazing! A girl next to you becomes naked, and the man beside her does not even look!” The family said, “What is the use? Nudity is her hobby. He came to see the play; he watches the play. What has he to do with that girl?”
This will seem difficult to us, because our minds are repressed. My understanding is: whatever we repress becomes explosive. There is license because there is dependency. Orders are broken because there is over-insistence on obedience. Disrespect arises because reverence is demanded. Ask for faith — and unfaith will arise.
We will have to remove all this. We must make the person fearless and break the entire psychological web of fear. If a person becomes fearless, what happens? Fear is death-oriented; fearlessness is life-oriented. As soon as one becomes fearless, he wants to live. As soon as one is frightened, he wants to die — or to kill. The fearless wants to live himself and let others live.
Understand: only one who is himself tormented by dying wants to kill. One who is eager to live wishes to give life to others too.
So many wars, so much violence — deep down, the streams of life in the person have dried up. Where fear ends and fearlessness dawns, fountains of love burst forth of themselves. As when a stone lies upon a spring — remove the stone, and the spring gushes. Love need not be brought from somewhere. Only remove fear — and the stream of love begins to spread in life.
But our mad arrangement is: we frighten people to love. We say: if there is fear, there will be love. We place the stone and say: now the spring will flow. We make the stone larger — the spring dies.
Where fear is, love is not possible. Where fear is lifted, love flows of itself. There is no need to make a person nonviolent. Remove fear, and he becomes loving on his own. And one who becomes filled with love, someday becomes available to prayer as well.
The old world brought very few to the Divine. They talked much about reaching God — more than anyone will ever talk. But remember: go to a hospital — there, health is the great topic…
When love flows, it flows toward persons. But love is so vast that no person can wholly receive it. If once the stream of love begins, no single person can contain it. If I begin loving one person and my love keeps flowing, very soon I will find that the person is flooded — and love has moved on.
The Amazon river — if you stand where it begins, you could never imagine the Amazon could emerge from there. It is the largest river in the world by waters. Where it begins, drops fall one by one. Between two drops there are twenty seconds. A drop falls — then twenty seconds — then another. But those drops, drop by drop, become the expanse of the Amazon. When the Amazon falls into the ocean, even the ocean must think for a moment: is the river falling into the sea, or is the sea itself falling! Such a great river.
Love will begin drop by drop — with one person at a time.
But it does not begin at all. And those in whose lives there is no love go to offer prayer. Those without the source wish to build a delta by the ocean. It does not happen. Love begins drop by drop; with one person, then spreads. But love is infinite; it is so much that no person can bear it. The person will drown — love will move on. The day love expands to the all, that day it becomes prayer. Those standing in temples on their knees are not praying. Prayer is available only to those whose love has become boundless.
On the last day of Buddha’s life, he accepted alms in the house of a poor blacksmith named Chanda. Chanda had long wanted to invite him, but feared — in his house there was not even a vegetable to serve.
Buddha went to his home. In that part of Bihar, even today after twenty-five hundred years, not much has changed — they eat mushrooms. In the rains, the white umbrellas that sprout on wood — those mushrooms — are dried and stored for the year. Chanda had nothing else to serve, so he cooked dried mushrooms. Buddha ate. They were bitter like poison. Buddha thought: if I say they are bitter, the poor man will be in great distress — he has no other vegetable. So Buddha ate. Lest Chanda think I do not like his food if I refuse more, Buddha took more vegetable and less bread. Chanda asked, “Does the Lord like the vegetable?” Buddha said, “Very much, Chanda.” So he brought even more. Buddha ate all.
It caused food poisoning — he died from it. When he returned, poison had spread in the body. The physicians said, “There was poison in the vegetable — why did you not stop?” Buddha said, “Death was going to come anyway. But had I stopped love for the sake of life, the loss would have been greater. I let love be, let love happen — I accepted death. The loss is not great — I was going to die today or tomorrow. But I cannot save life at the cost of love.”
As his breath faltered, he said, “Listen, bhikshus!” For news had spread among the monks: Chanda is a murderer — he has taken Buddha’s life. What kind of man is he! Buddha’s last words were unique: “Listen, monks! In thousands and millions of years, a person like Buddha is born — one who attains supreme knowledge. If he lives a hundred years, only once in those hundred years does someone gain the fortune to feed him the first meal — that is the mother. And the one who feeds him the final meal — is she less than a mother? Chanda the blacksmith is most fortunate. In millions of years, such fortune will come again — to feed the last meal to one who has attained Buddhahood. Go — welcome Chanda, honor him! Beat the drum in the village and declare: Chanda is supremely blessed!”
The monks were bewildered. Ananda came close: “What are you saying? Shall we honor the wicked man whose food caused your death?”
Buddha said, “Foolish Ananda! What was to happen has happened. If I do not say this and die, people may kill Chanda. What is his fault? To be poor is no fault. To eat mushrooms is no fault. To invite Buddha is no fault. If there is fault, it is mine. Go — announce in the village: Chanda is supremely blessed, so that no one troubles him after my death, no one attacks him, no one kills him, no one abuses him, no one calls him bad.”
This is a prayerful man — concerned for Chanda in his dying moment, lest anyone harm him.
Jesus, dying on the cross, says, “Father, forgive them — they know not what they do.”
When Mansur was being cut and hanged, and when they were about to cut his tongue, he said, “Wait a moment — let me pray.” His feet were cut, his hands were cut. He lifted his face to the sky and said, “Forgive them.”
Someone asked, “What are you saying?” Mansur said, “I say this so you can see there is no prayer except love — and no God except prayer. My dying — let that not be what you remember; but if my love remains in your memory, perhaps one day you too will become available to love.”
Prayer means love so vast that it crosses all boundaries. The day it reaches the limitless, love becomes prayer. The day it drowns all — the doer and the done-to — what remains is Paramatma.
Love has three stages.
Love — the lover is, and the beloved is.
Prayer — the lover remains, but the beloved has spread; no longer one — the many.
And Paramatma — the lover too is gone, the beloved too is gone; only love remains.
But a person standing upon fear cannot be religious. And without a religious person being born, no new society can be born.
So the final thing: until now man has been irreligious; society has been irreligious. If a new society is to be born, if we are to search for it, a religious person must be born. And the religious person is born not upon fear, but upon fearlessness. For fear is lovelessness; fearlessness is love. Fear is hatred, violence, envy. Fearlessness is prayer, is Paramatma.
Therefore, the question before me is not: how shall we find a new society? The question is: how shall we find the new human being?
So do not worry about the other — the search for the new human being can begin only with oneself. The ones I call revolutionaries are not those eager to change others — for such people may only be trying to avoid changing themselves. I call that one a revolutionary who is eager to change himself. When someone changes himself and his lamp is lit, the unlit lamps nearby begin to strive to light themselves.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace — I am deeply obliged. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
All revolutions have failed. Therefore it is necessary to ask: what is the mistake that prevents a new society from being born?
There are many reasons. Let me begin with a small story.
I have heard that in a great country, the foremost religious head — the chief over all the churches — set out to visit every church of the land. Once in ten or twenty-five years he would undertake such a tour. And there was a rule: whenever he entered a church, the bells must be rung in his welcome.
He entered the church of a village, but the bells did not ring. So he asked the village priest, who was accompanying him, “Why are the bells not ringing to welcome me?” The priest said, “There are a hundred reasons. But the first reason is: this church has no bells.”
The great prelate said, “The first reason is enough. No need to mention the remaining ninety-nine.”
There are also a hundred reasons why a new society has not yet been born. But I too would point only to the first; the remaining ninety-nine are unnecessary. And the first reason is: there is no such thing as society. It is a false word — and words create illusion. The individual is real; society has no truth. Society is a myth, a story, a figment. Reality belongs to the person; ‘society’ is a convenient fiction. Yet we want to give birth to a new society.
A new society cannot be born, because society has no existence. Only the individual exists. The attempt to create a new society becomes futile because, in trying to create a new society, we neglect creating a new individual. If a new individual is born, a new society can be born.
But the word ‘society’ is used so much that we never even suspect that there may be no such entity. There is no society, no nation, no ‘humanity’ as such. All these words are false, abstract. What is real is the human being, the person.
So many of us are gathered here; one could say a society has gathered. Suppose I station two people at the door and tell them, “When society comes out, catch it.” They will let individuals pass one by one, because no individual is society. And when all have left the hall, if I ask them, “Did society come out? Did you catch it?” they will answer, “Persons exited; society did not. Society must be behind.” And behind, the hall stands empty.
The individual is reality — and we always want revolution in society; hence the confusion. Words deceive, and ‘society’ is a great deceiver.
There once was a bhikshu named Nagasena. The emperor of that time, King Milinda, invited him to court. When the invitation reached him, Nagasena said to the ministers who brought it, “Beg the emperor’s pardon. I shall come — but know that there is no such one as the monk Nagasena.”
They were astonished. They reported to the king, “We delivered your invitation. Nagasena said, ‘I shall come — but there is no such one as the monk Nagasena!’”
The king said, “These sannyasis and fakirs speak strangely, in riddles. If the monk Nagasena is not, then who will come?”
The royal chariot was sent. Nagasena came seated upon it. At the door he alighted. The king welcomed him: “I welcome the monk Nagasena.” Nagasena said, “I accept your welcome — but there is no such one as the monk Nagasena.” The king said, “Do not puzzle me with riddles. If you are not, how have you come?” The bhikshu said, “This chariot is standing here. Is this a chariot?” The king said, “It is.” The bhikshu said, “And it came?” The king said, “It came.” “But,” said the bhikshu, “there is no chariot.”
He had the horses unyoked and asked, “Are the horses the chariot?” “How could horses be the chariot!” said the king. The horses were led away. He had the wheels removed, “Are the wheels the chariot?” “How could wheels be the chariot!” Piece by piece the chariot was dismantled, and the king kept denying, “This is not the chariot, that is not the chariot.” Gradually, the whole chariot was gone; nothing remained. The bhikshu laughed and asked, “Where is the chariot? Whatever there was, I asked you about it — and that was not the chariot. Now the chariot should be left behind.” The king said, “The chariot is a combination.”
Society too is a combination. And what we call the ego of the person — the ‘I’ — is also a combination. It has no truth. But continual usage of the word breeds illusion. And no word in the world has created as much delusion as ‘society’ has.
So first I would say: there is no such thing as society — no old society, no new society. Yes, there are old persons; and new persons can be. There is the old mind of the person — and the birth of a new mind can happen.
But revolutionaries are in a great hurry. And understand well: in haste, anything may happen — except revolution. Yet the revolutionary is always in a hurry. He says, “If we sit to change people one by one, when will change come? Forget the person; we will change society. Society can be changed quickly. If we change individuals, when will it ever be done?”
So the revolutionary labors at changing society — and society is not! Of all deceived people on this earth, none has been more deceived than the revolutionary. No one is as deluded as the socialist. For there is no such reality as society.
What we call society is only an aggregate of individuals. If the person is old, so will society be old. Change the laws, change the governments, change the patterns of organization; paint the house a new color, put fresh plaster on the walls — if the person remains old, society will remain old.
And the person is old. There is no new person in Russia, none in China, none in America; nowhere is there a new human being. The Russian individual is as old as the American. Therefore the quarrel between Russia and America is childish; it is not fundamental. Their people are alike; there is no real difference.
Recently I was with a friend whose house had a Russian guest while I too was a guest there. Before leaving, the Russian said to the host, “I wish to carry a gold bangle back for my wife. But I cannot take it as such — there will be questioning: Where did this come from? How did it come? So kindly take the money from me, and give me a letter stating that you gifted it to me.” My friend asked, “Who would question such a simple bangle?” He said, “You do not know — in Russia there will be much inquiry. But I want to take something for my wife. If this bangle is on her hand, and no other woman in Moscow has such a bangle, my wife will be happy and so will I.”
What difference is there between this man and a man from America? He too will be happy seeing a bangle on his wife’s wrist. In America also someone will be happy to see his wife wear a bangle. In India too. And why is he happy? Because a gold bangle on the wife’s hand proclaims the husband’s importance. The husband may go about in poor clothes — that will do; but he decorates his wife and sends her out. She is his showcase. In Russia too — “let my wife wear a bangle that no other wife wears” — the same value is attached. Gold has the same value there as anywhere. So does the wife’s value. So does my ego. And the same thieving mind is there — ready to deceive his own government. Not only in India — everywhere in the world.
Man is the same. If in Russia today anger is the same in people, anxiety the same, hatred the same, greed the same, fear the same — as elsewhere — then man is the same. We change frameworks; man does not change. Therefore society cannot change, because society is the sum of individuals.
But this is not seen. The revolutionary is in a hurry. Hence revolutions have failed. Revolution — such a great work — demands immense patience. But those who are patient are not revolutionaries. They are saints, fakirs, sannyasis; their patience is endless. They say, “It will happen — someday; when Paramatma wills, then it will happen.” They do not make revolutions; their patience is too long. And those who make revolutions have no patience. Therefore revolution has not happened in the world. Those who could have made revolution, did not; those who cannot make it, did. Hence every revolution brings new miseries. The old troubles remain, and the new revolution adds new ones.
The first thing to understand is this: without changing the human being, society cannot change, because society is nowhere apart from individuals. All wars are not fought on battlefields — they are fought in the minds of men. And all societies are not born in the skies and capitals — they are born in the small hearts of small people. All systems, all development, all revolutions come not from the current of history, but out of the individual mind. There is no ‘fate’ that determines — neither the old kind of fate, as Indian seers believed, some destiny that decides; nor the new kind of fate of the communists — the historical process. No, there is no fate determining. The determining factor is the individual mind. And no revolution has touched the mind of the person. Therefore, however much we change economic arrangements, however many statutes we rewrite, however much we tinker with structures — society will be the same. No fundamental difference will come.
After 1960, in Russia, the demand for private property arose again. After forty years of harsh suppression, the demand did not die. Since 1960 it has only intensified. Four or five years ago they were compelled to allow people the right to own private cars. This is only the beginning. Soon houses will have to be privately owned, then gardens. For fifty years, under the butt of the gun, after killing a million people, still man’s desire for personal property does not leave him. And it is not only the big capitalists. In Russia, even those who owned ten chickens tried to save their chickens from becoming collective property.
The person — it is necessary to take him into account. Regarding this person, I want to say two or three things: Why does he not become new? If his foundations are old, he cannot be new. If we discern the foundations, then renewal is possible. The human being we have manufactured till now — it is essential to understand his deep foundations.
The first foundation is fear. All of humanity, till this day, has raised the person upon a house of fear. No difference whether it be Mao or Manu, Mohammed or Marx — the foundation of fear has remained intact. If Stalin brings revolution in Russia, he brings it by frightening people. If Mao brings revolution in China, he brings it by frightening people. If the religious heads of the world tried to bring revolution, they tried to bring it by frightening people. Some threatened hell; some threatened Siberia; some threatened death here and now; some, the concentration camp; some threatened after death. But till today, all managers of man have tried to change him by fear. In this there has been no difference. Even the greatest revolutionary is not a revolutionary in this matter. And the great wonder is that even those we call profoundly nonviolent are not so.
Even a manager like Gandhi sought to change people by frightening them. Yes, the apparatus of fear differs — but fear does not. If I place a knife at your chest and say, “Do as I say,” it is fear. If I place a knife at my own chest and say, “Do as I say, or I will stab myself,” it is also fear. There is no difference.
In my understanding, in the first kind of fear I still show you a little respect; in the second, no respect at all. From the first, you can even be saved. If I hold a knife at your chest, if you are a brave person you may say, “All right, stab — but I will remain as I am.” But in the second case, when I hold a knife to my own chest and say, “Will you accept my word or not? Otherwise I will stab myself,” then if you are brave you will submit merely to save a man from needless death. A man can take decisions regarding his own death; but in deciding another’s death, there is difficulty.
Gandhi fasted against Ambedkar — that is holding a knife to one’s own chest: “We shall die if you do not accept our word.” Ambedkar bent and conceded; the fast was broken. Then Ambedkar said, “My heart has not changed. I agreed only because I did not wish to be responsible for Gandhi’s death. What I said was right; what Gandhi said was wrong. And I still say that what he said was wrong. But he staked his life for the wrong thing — and it seemed to me proper to step back even from my right thing, rather than be the cause of Gandhi’s death.”
In this matter, it is astonishing: Gandhi appears violent, and Ambedkar nonviolent.
But thinkers the world over, till now, have thought in the direction of frightening man. Mahavira speaks of hell. Buddha, Manu, Mohammed — all speak of hell. They think, “If man is to be made good, he must be frightened.” But they do not see that fear itself is such a great evil that, even if through it you make someone ‘good,’ how will he be good? For what can be worse than a frightened human being?
We have designed hells — we have arranged great flames there; cauldrons are heated; people are to be thrown into the boiling pots; endless suffering is planned — for one purpose: that in this way we will change man.
Man has not changed. All the hells have gone to waste — man has not changed. We offered the temptation of heaven — which is also a form of fear, its reverse. We said, “If you do good, you will get heaven.” That too is fear reversed — for if you do not do good, you will miss heaven. It is still fear. Temptation is the reverse of fear — positions, prestige, respect, honor — all that.
Even a courageous man like Ram, when he returned after rescuing Sita from Ravana, said words to Sita that do not befit Ram’s mouth. Ram becomes small, because he tells Sita, “Do not think I fought this war for you; I fought for the honor of my clan.” Ram appears deeply frightened of reputation. And then when a washerman gossips, he throws Sita into the forest — the pregnant Sita! Ram appears greatly fearful that his dignity, his honor, his prestige may be dented. He demands a fire-ordeal of Sita. That too is fear, not love. Even after the fire-ordeal, nothing is truly resolved — Sita is still abandoned. And what need was there to say, “I did not fight for you — I fought for the family’s honor! The honor of my lineage was at stake!” He appears very frightened.
This fear is the very foundation upon which the whole of humanity has been constructed. Each individual has been placed upon fear. The father frightens the son; the teacher frightens the student. Sometimes the tables turn — and then we are troubled. While the son is weak, the father frightens; when the father grows old and weak, the son begins to frighten. Teachers frightened students — now students frighten teachers; teachers are disturbed. The police frightened the public — when the public frightens the police, we say chaos has come. But the foundation is fear! If the leader frightens the people, and the people now surround the leaders and frighten them, what is the difference? Sometimes the river carries the boat; sometimes the boat is carrying the river — but it is the same story.
How long do we intend to keep human beings standing upon fear? Our governments, our systems, are arrangements of fear. The policeman at the crossroads is a fear; the court that sits is a fear; law is a fear; the military is a fear; the neighbor nation is a fear; other nations are fears; even the God seated in heaven appears no more than a supreme constable — he too is a fear. His hells and heavens — all fear’s arrangements. We have frightened man so much that it defies measure. And we have exploited in every way to frighten him.
Recently a young man came to me. He had stayed three months in the ashram of a very famous sannyasi. When he came to me, he was trembling — not in the body, but in the mind. In that ashram they especially teach: human birth is very rare. If you miss this once, you will wander in the eighty-four lakh wombs — you will become worms and insects; after births upon births, perhaps you will again gain the human station. Therefore not even a single day is to be missed. Do religion! Otherwise, if you miss, you will wander for aeons! So the youth told me, “Is it true that human birth is most rare, and if I miss this one chance I will wander through millions of wombs? If this is true, quickly show me the way, lest I miss and wander for millions of births! I am very scared — very frightened.”
The religious heads have always terrified. Fear of death, fear of sin, fear of rebirth — surrounding man with fears on all sides. Remember: the more encircled a person is by fear, the more his life-sources dry up. The more frightened he becomes, the more the juices of life cease to flow within. The more frightened he becomes, the more his capacity to rejoice is diminished. And it makes no difference what kind of fear it is. Whether you fear a policeman or fear God — it makes no difference; the issue is fear.
Sadhus and sannyasis teach, “Do not fear anyone — but fear God.” They give great value to the term ‘God-fearing,’ to bhiruta toward God. But fear is always the same. Every kind of fear contracts the inner capacity of life to expand. When life contracts within, it is as if a tree has no leaves, no flowers, its sap has dried. Life that could have expanded and rejoiced and danced becomes closed in itself — frustrated, sorrow-laden, sick and diseased. Fear has made man ill.
I have heard: A woman brought her little son to a fakir. The boy was very mischievous, very unruly; none of the mother’s threats worked. She thought to take him to a fakir, for fakirs have invented very deep fears. They have invented such fears that even the bravest can be shaken. Courageous men tremble before religious fear. She brought the boy. “He does not listen,” she said. “He disobeys. Kindly frighten him a little so that he becomes right.”
The fakir was a very unusual man. He suddenly screamed loudly, rose onto his seat, spread both arms, and rolled his eyes so wide that the boy ran away in terror and the woman fainted from fright. And when the woman fainted, the fakir also ran away — out of fear!
After a while the boy returned to look after his mother. The fakir peeked in through the door, then came and sat again when she revived. The mother said, “You overdid it! I only asked you to scare him a little!” The fakir said, “There is no measure for fear. Once fear is invoked, one never knows where to stop. Not only you — when fear is spread, it does not frighten one and spare another. It frightens all. It was not about you — I myself was frightened.”
Society has lived for ten thousand years in an atmosphere of fear. Those whom we intended to frighten have been frightened; those who wanted to frighten have been frightened; those who were doing the frightening have been frightened. The whole society has become fear-ridden. Not only thieves are afraid while magistrates are not — no. When fear manifests, it spares none. It has made the whole of life tremble; all roots have been shaken.
And remember: where fear is, certain things cannot grow. Where fear is, joy does not arise — they contradict each other. If there is fear, joy will never be born. Where fear is, love does not grow — they are opponents. Where fear is, the person shrinks; he does not expand. The law of life is expansion; shrinking is the law of death. Therefore where fear is, suicidal impulses arise; life-affirming desires, which accept life, enlarge life, nurture life, they die. Where fear is, the seeds of life shrivel; the seeds of death begin to spread.
So know this: because we raised man upon fear, we have made the whole of humanity suicidal. Every person, deep within, is eager to die — not eager to live. Yes, for dying we have invented beautiful names — humanity is very skillful at giving fair names. We have given fear itself many good names, because good names make it easy to go on.
For example, we call someone a good man — very good. He too thinks himself good. But it may be that there is nothing in his goodness but the name, and deep within sits fear. Ninety-eight out of a hundred so-called good people are merely frightened people. Therefore the good man is ordinarily impotent — except one in a million — while the bad man is always courageous.
There are reasons. The bad man did not accept fear; hence he could be courageous. Courageous, he is capable of breaking all the old morality that was standing upon fear. We made a man ‘good’ by making him afraid. Because he became ‘good’ out of fear, he may have avoided evil — but he could not become truly good. For goodness is a creative direction. Merely refraining from evil is one thing; becoming good is quite another.
So the ones we call good are simply those who do not even dare to be bad. Remember: one who cannot muster the courage even to be bad will never find the courage to be good. For if he cannot climb down, how will he climb up? Goodness is a great ascent; being bad is a descent. If he cannot dare even to descend, how will he dare to ascend?
Hence, when a bad man becomes good, he becomes truly good. But one who cannot even be bad cannot become good either — he remains stuck in the middle. He has no courage, no daring, no guts — only fear. Therefore the good man does not do ill, but he dies envying those who do. So you will find the good forever condemning the bad — always sitting and maligning: who is doing wrong, who is dishonest, society is degenerating, morality is failing, everything is going to ruin. He goes on reviling.
The reason is: he too had wanted to be bad, but did not dare; those who dared, he envies and is tormented. He will say, “I am a good man, honest — but I cannot build a big house, while the bad men are building mansions.” He wants his big house too; he wants wealth and position — and yet he does not wish to take the risk of being bad. He wants both — without the courage. He is filled with envy.
Remember: where fear is, envy is inevitable. And where fear is, violence is. A frightened person can never be nonviolent. Yes, he may strain his water, or avoid eating at night — but that too out of fear, not out of ahimsa. The fear of hell: “Lest I rot there!” So he spends the night without water — out of fear. He has no relation with the germs in the water; his relation is with himself — that he might not fall into hell. He does good deeds too, but out of fear — to gain heaven, to avoid hell, to escape suffering, to get happiness. But remember: a frightened person, deep down, can never become good. And one who cannot become good cannot be the foundation of a good society.
So I want to say one fundamental thing: if the new society is to be born, then beneath the person we must remove the entire apparatus of fear. It is necessary to make the individual abhay — fear-free.
This does not mean that when a bus comes honking you should stand in front and not move. One who stands before a honking bus is not fearless, only mad. It does not mean that if your house has caught fire you should not run out. One who does not run from a burning house is deranged. One who runs is not frightened — he is simply intelligent. If a snake crosses your path, a wise man steps aside — not out of fear, but out of love for life; he is not ready to lose it unnecessarily.
There are natural fears in life — they are intelligent. And there are unnatural fears imposed upon life — they are unintelligent. Heaven, hell, rebirth, sin, merit — the entire net of fear we have woven around these is utterly false.
Socrates was dying. His friends were weeping. Socrates asked, “Why do you weep?” They said, “We weep because you will die. We are trembling with fear.” Socrates said, “Fools! After death, only two possibilities exist. Either, as the atheists say, I shall simply die — and if I simply die, then there is no need for sorrow; for if I simply die, there will be no one left to bear sorrow. Or the second possibility, as the theists say: only the body dies, I do not die. Then also there is no need for fear — for I shall remain; nothing essential will be lost.” Socrates said, “Whether the atheists are right or the theists — Socrates is at ease. Only two possibilities exist.”
Socrates is not afraid, because in both possibilities there is no cause for fear.
Death is not a cause for fear. But we have invented causes of fear on our own. In order to change, better, and reform the person, we have contrived many things. But had we openly called them ‘fear,’ perhaps people would not have accepted them; therefore we have given them beautiful names. Naming things nicely is humanity’s most dangerous self-deception. We relabel everything.
A father says to his son, “I love you, hence I want you to study — to become an engineer, a doctor, to reach a high position. I love you.” But if the father were to look within carefully, he would find he has never loved his son. He loves his ego: my son should be a doctor, my son an engineer, in this place, in that. The father’s unfulfilled ego wants to rest its rifle on the son’s shoulder and fire.
But he does not say this. And so the deception goes on. The son wonders: what kind of love is this? The father wonders: why does this love yield no joy? Because he has given the wrong name. The thing is one thing; the label another.
We have relabeled the whole arrangement of man. Our condition is like a grocer’s shop where all the jars have been misnamed — where what is labeled ‘cashew’ does not contain cashews, and what is labeled ‘raisins’ does not contain raisins. However many jars you open, what is written is never what is inside. Everything is mixed up. We have given good names to wrong things. We live by labels; therefore we never suspect what we are naming.
A friend used to walk with me each morning. If we passed a Hanuman shrine, a temple, any deity, a peepal tree — whatever came — he would bow to it. He considered himself religious. I told him, “It seems you have written the wrong label on your jar. What has a religious person to do with bowing to a peepal tree? And you don’t even bow to every peepal. On one tree someone has tied a thread — that one you bow to.” He said, “No, in this peepal a deity must be residing.” I said, “Even if a deity resides — what has that to do with bowing? The deity never bows to you. ‘Wherever a deity resides, one should bow’ — why? ‘Lest the deity be offended.’”
This man is frightened. I kept explaining to him daily. He understood — but fear is much deeper than understanding. Understanding does nothing; fear is unconscious. He came to have double fear — even gained a new fear of me. When I knocked at his door, he would tell his wife, “Say I am unwell.” For if he walked with me, bowing to Hanuman became difficult. I told his wife, “This is worse; I did not explain for this. Tell him to come. Otherwise he goes later anyway.” She said, “Yes, he goes — but is afraid to go with you. Once you leave, he goes.” I said, “Now one deity has become two — fear has doubled. There is no need to fear me. Go and bow.”
He said, “One day I went with you and thought, ‘He is right.’ So I did not bow to Hanuman. The whole day I was uneasy. In the evening I had to go back and bow, lest he be offended.”
The poor man considers himself religious — and among the fearful, he will be thought religious. But is he religious? Or has he labeled his fear as religion?
A man kneels in a temple, hands folded. He thinks he is praying. But what has prayer to do with kneeling? Kneeling has to do with fear — not with prayer. What has folding hands to do with prayer? What has groveling and pleading to do with prayer? Repeating, “You are pure, I am fallen; you are great, I am petty” — what has this to do with prayer? It has to do with fear. But he calls his fear ‘prayer.’ Ninety-nine percent of our prayers are fears, our pujas are fears, our reverence is fear. Our whole life is filled with fear — but we have pasted other names on it. And once we rename things, great difficulty arises.
For ten thousand years we have done this — misguiding man, confusing him. The greatest obstacle to self-knowledge is that nothing inside us bears its true name; everything bears the wrong label.
We have never loved — but we say we love. We have never prayed — but we say we pray. In the name of love we have been jealous; we have never loved. But we say, “This is not jealousy; it is my love.” We have nourished our ego in the name of love — and say, “This is love, not ego.” We have fostered something else in the name of dharma — and labeled it ‘religion.’ Hence it has become very difficult to reach within, to change. So every time revolution happens, man remains the same — because inside there is no address for anything.
I heard a story I liked — it seems so true. A sannyasi came to a village to speak. A few women, a few old men, a few children came. The old came because they had no work. The women came because they have permission to go nowhere except to a sannyasi. The children came with the women. He spoke there.
A small child told his mother, “I want to pee!” People laughed. Afterwards the sannyasi called the woman and said, “Explain to your child not to speak like that. Give it another name — when he needs to pee, he should not say ‘pee’; he should say something else. Make a code language; the two of you will understand, no one else will. For example?” “Tell him that when he needs to go, he should say, ‘Mother, I want to sing a song.’”
In two or four days, the child was taught — and thus all children are taught; the labels on our jars are changed in childhood, and we never know — even to old age — how the labels got changed.
A year passed; the sannyasi became a guest at that woman’s house. She had to go to a wedding; she left the child sleeping near him. At midnight the boy said, “Swami-ji, I want to sing a song.” The swami, tired from the day, was dozing. He said, “You are mad! Who sings at midnight? Sleep!” After a while the boy said, “No, Swami-ji, it’s very difficult — I must sing a song.” The swami said, “What a crazy boy! Will you let me sleep or not? Is this the time to sing? Sleep; sing in the morning.” The boy said, “In the morning I will sing again — but now I must sing.” The swami scolded; the boy fell silent for a while. Finally he said, “Swami-ji, it is very hard to hold.” The swami said, “What a strange trouble this woman has left with me at midnight! If you will not listen — then sing slowly into my ear!”
This has happened with all humanity: we have given things different names. Slowly, man has become unable to recognize himself. He says one thing about something, another about something else — and nothing is clear.
If we are to recognize the foundation of fear, we must call fear by its name. If a son fears his father, he should say to him, “I have no love or reverence for you; I am only afraid. These feet that I am touching are not out of shraddha or respect — only out of fear.” If a father fears his son, he should say, “This chocolate I bought is not for love — only out of fear. These rupees I give you to go see the circus — not out of love, only out of fear.” If a husband fears his wife, he should say, “I only fear — I have not recognized love.” If a wife fears her husband, she should say, “Between us there is nothing but fear.”
We should make things clear — absolutely clear as they are — and catch hold of facts. Then we can change the person. For the great fun is this: if it becomes clear to me that all my relationships are of fear — that I have never loved, never befriended anyone, never prayed, never entered the temple of the Divine, never tasted reverence, never found any compassion within — that I am only frightened, only frightened — if I see this, then a strange outcome follows. That outcome is: I will have to jump out of this state; living in it becomes impossible.
If I know my house is on fire, I will not go to ask anyone whether I should come out. If the house is on fire, I will not open a book to find the way out. I will not say, “Wait — let us rest a while; we will go tomorrow.” If I see the fire, the next act does not have to be done — it happens: I find myself outside. There are reasons for this.
But if someone has named the flames ‘the blooming of palash flowers,’ then trouble begins! He sits in the burning house rhapsodizing, “How beautiful are the palash blossoms!” If someone says, “Come out,” he says, “Not now — the flowers are so lovely!” We have deceived ourselves exactly thus. Inside, where there are flames, we feel flowers; where there is fear, we think it love; where there is hatred, jealousy, competition — we call it development, progress. Where there is nothing, we imagine there is something.
This is the condition that does not allow man to become new. And in maintaining this condition, two kinds of people have the biggest hand. First, those who have a vested interest in keeping man afraid. All power-holders benefit from fear. For the day man becomes fearless, power will vanish from the world. Power is the counter-part of fear. Authority, ownership, leadership, gurudom — every kind of power — exists only as long as man is afraid on the other side. If fearless human beings are born in the world, all powers will bid farewell.
Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography: if one wants to be a great leader, one must keep one’s nation that much afraid. The more frightened the country, the greater the leader becomes.
Lal Bahadur Shastri was not an extraordinary man. He was a good man, an ordinary man. But the nation was afraid — and so Lal Bahadur became a great leader. Had the country been in a normal state, a man like Lal Bahadur would have vanished unnoticed. A good man — but quite ordinary. The country was very frightened, panicked — war, enemies, insecurity — and within such fear Lal Bahadur became a great leader. All the great leaders we praise are born in fear-laden situations. Krishna has promised: when there is great degeneration, when dharma declines, then I will come. I do not know how far this promise can be relied upon. But one thing is sure: if there is no great decline, no great fear and sorrow, great men have no chance to arise.
All leadership, all authority, one man’s dominance over another, arises out of fear. Therefore, no vested interest wants man to become fearless — neither the guru wants the disciple to be fearless, nor does the state want the people fearless, nor the father wants the son fearless, nor the husband the wife. No one wants anyone to be fearless. Power stays — life is lost. Dominion remains — love disappears.
If the father wants the son not to become fearless, neither father nor son will remain — only a dead mechanism will remain at home in which father and son are cogs. If the husband wants the wife not to become fearless…
Therefore husbands never allowed women to be economically capable. If women become capable economically, they will not remain as afraid as they always were. Men kept women confined to the home, for if they go out, relate to the world, their fear will lessen. Because as knowledge grows, fear decreases. Hence Shudras were not allowed education — for if they are educated, knowledge will grow, fear will decrease. Therefore the poor everywhere have been bound on all sides — arrangements made to ensure they do not become fearless. For if they become fearless, the machinery of power will start breaking.
But remember: if fear remains, the slave remains, the master remains — human beings do not. And the great irony is: when a slave is a slave, his humanity dies; and the master’s humanity dies as well. If only the slave’s humanity died, it might still be tolerable — but the master’s humanity also dies. If dominating killed only the son’s personhood, it might still be bearable — but in crushing the son, the father’s personhood dies too. Whether one crushes or is crushed — in both states one is afraid. To dominate is only fear’s strategy of self-protection.
Machiavelli, in praise of aggression, said: the best defense is attack. If a father is frightening his son, it is because he is himself afraid — hence he frightens. It is his arrangement. Before the son can frighten tomorrow, he frightens today. If a husband frightens the wife, he fears the wife. If a teacher frightens the student, he fears the student. The entire system we have made stands upon fear. Fear has destroyed man’s soul.
If a new society is to be born, a new human being must be born. The new human being can only be fearless. Remove all heavens and hells! Remove the entire apparatus of fear! And make the person fearless — by whatsoever means he can be made fearless.
But we are afraid, because our fear is of thousands of years. We say: if the person becomes fearless there will be anarchy — as if there is no anarchy now! We fear: if the person becomes fearless, he will become licentious — as if there is no licentiousness now! We fear: if this happens, then that will happen. And all that we fear has already happened. There is no longer any reason to fear it.
The great irony is: those very measures we take, out of fear that certain things might happen, become the causes that bring them about. What we imagined to be medicine is not medicine — it is the root of the disease.
Who is licentious? One who has been made dependent. One who has never been made dependent can never be licentious. Licentiousness is the reaction to dependency. A free person is never licentious; only the dependent becomes licentious. When we make someone dependent, we create in him the tendency to break free through license. When we press a person down, we are inviting him to press us down in return when he becomes powerful. If I do not press, I do not create in the other the tendency to escape pressure or to retaliate.
But we are either pressed or pressing, and both think the same way. Our understanding is: if we do not press, everything will break. The irony is: we have pressed for so long — and nothing remains intact. For three thousand years there have been laws — yet thieves increase daily. Punishments increase — thieves increase. Murderers are punished — murderers multiply. We have not been able to decrease one crime — only added new crimes. The net of law becomes larger and larger.
A vicious circle: our argument’s wicked cycle says, “Because law is insufficient, thieves are increasing; increase the law.” Law increases — thieves increase. Then we say, “Still law is insufficient; increase it more, so thieves will reduce.” Thieves increase; we keep increasing law. We never suspect that what we are doing will not stop crime, because we have not changed the person. How many prisons have we built! Slowly, we will turn the whole world into a prison — even then nothing will change. Why? Because mentally we are wrong. Repression breeds resistance.
A few years ago, in Delhi, there was a conference of sannyasis. Generally sannyasis hesitate to invite me. But the subject was such that they thought I would agree: a conference against obscene posters — that obscene posters should not be made. They thought: here at least I will support them. They were troubled. Because my understanding is: no one becomes obscene because of obscene posters. Rather, because the mind is obscene, there is a need to put up obscene posters. The poster is a dead thing.
I told those sannyasis: “You are spiritualists — you value a dead poster more than the living soul? You say people are corrupted by the nude picture on the wall — then you are materialists. How can a naked picture on a wall corrupt souls?” I said, “The spiritualist should say: the nude poster is a report that people are already corrupted; they need such a picture. And if the poster is removed, danger will increase, not decrease — because their urge to see nudity will become frustrated. Perhaps it will become difficult for women to walk in the streets. If obscene posters are banned, the likelihood of women being stripped on the streets will increase. That urge to see the nude will be repressed and will seek vengeance. A little satisfaction is being given by the poster. The poster is a protection for women’s clothing — it allows women to walk clothed because men are being partially satisfied there.”
“So you should demand that the posters be made so beautiful that no woman could be that beautiful! That there would be no need to strip any woman on the street! Let the naked poster satisfy the urge so much that the thought of stripping a living woman drops. But you say, ‘Ban the posters.’ Banning posters will be dangerous.”
Recently, a girl returned from London. She told me she went to see a hippie play. On stage, dancing, the hippie boys and girls became nude. She panicked — something untoward may happen! It was her first time. But the hall was silent. No one whistled, no one threw money. Here in India, even in films, money is thrown and whistles blow. She was astonished: why no whistling, why no money? Amazed, she looked around — and saw that as the dancers, in ecstasy, threw off all their clothes and danced naked, many boys and girls in the audience took off their clothes and sat naked too. Even so, the men sitting beside the naked women did not show any special interest. A girl sat naked on the adjacent seat, but the man next to her did not even turn to look — he watched his play.
She was astonished. At home she asked, “How amazing! A girl next to you becomes naked, and the man beside her does not even look!” The family said, “What is the use? Nudity is her hobby. He came to see the play; he watches the play. What has he to do with that girl?”
This will seem difficult to us, because our minds are repressed. My understanding is: whatever we repress becomes explosive. There is license because there is dependency. Orders are broken because there is over-insistence on obedience. Disrespect arises because reverence is demanded. Ask for faith — and unfaith will arise.
We will have to remove all this. We must make the person fearless and break the entire psychological web of fear. If a person becomes fearless, what happens? Fear is death-oriented; fearlessness is life-oriented. As soon as one becomes fearless, he wants to live. As soon as one is frightened, he wants to die — or to kill. The fearless wants to live himself and let others live.
Understand: only one who is himself tormented by dying wants to kill. One who is eager to live wishes to give life to others too.
So many wars, so much violence — deep down, the streams of life in the person have dried up. Where fear ends and fearlessness dawns, fountains of love burst forth of themselves. As when a stone lies upon a spring — remove the stone, and the spring gushes. Love need not be brought from somewhere. Only remove fear — and the stream of love begins to spread in life.
But our mad arrangement is: we frighten people to love. We say: if there is fear, there will be love. We place the stone and say: now the spring will flow. We make the stone larger — the spring dies.
Where fear is, love is not possible. Where fear is lifted, love flows of itself. There is no need to make a person nonviolent. Remove fear, and he becomes loving on his own. And one who becomes filled with love, someday becomes available to prayer as well.
The old world brought very few to the Divine. They talked much about reaching God — more than anyone will ever talk. But remember: go to a hospital — there, health is the great topic…
When love flows, it flows toward persons. But love is so vast that no person can wholly receive it. If once the stream of love begins, no single person can contain it. If I begin loving one person and my love keeps flowing, very soon I will find that the person is flooded — and love has moved on.
The Amazon river — if you stand where it begins, you could never imagine the Amazon could emerge from there. It is the largest river in the world by waters. Where it begins, drops fall one by one. Between two drops there are twenty seconds. A drop falls — then twenty seconds — then another. But those drops, drop by drop, become the expanse of the Amazon. When the Amazon falls into the ocean, even the ocean must think for a moment: is the river falling into the sea, or is the sea itself falling! Such a great river.
Love will begin drop by drop — with one person at a time.
But it does not begin at all. And those in whose lives there is no love go to offer prayer. Those without the source wish to build a delta by the ocean. It does not happen. Love begins drop by drop; with one person, then spreads. But love is infinite; it is so much that no person can bear it. The person will drown — love will move on. The day love expands to the all, that day it becomes prayer. Those standing in temples on their knees are not praying. Prayer is available only to those whose love has become boundless.
On the last day of Buddha’s life, he accepted alms in the house of a poor blacksmith named Chanda. Chanda had long wanted to invite him, but feared — in his house there was not even a vegetable to serve.
Buddha went to his home. In that part of Bihar, even today after twenty-five hundred years, not much has changed — they eat mushrooms. In the rains, the white umbrellas that sprout on wood — those mushrooms — are dried and stored for the year. Chanda had nothing else to serve, so he cooked dried mushrooms. Buddha ate. They were bitter like poison. Buddha thought: if I say they are bitter, the poor man will be in great distress — he has no other vegetable. So Buddha ate. Lest Chanda think I do not like his food if I refuse more, Buddha took more vegetable and less bread. Chanda asked, “Does the Lord like the vegetable?” Buddha said, “Very much, Chanda.” So he brought even more. Buddha ate all.
It caused food poisoning — he died from it. When he returned, poison had spread in the body. The physicians said, “There was poison in the vegetable — why did you not stop?” Buddha said, “Death was going to come anyway. But had I stopped love for the sake of life, the loss would have been greater. I let love be, let love happen — I accepted death. The loss is not great — I was going to die today or tomorrow. But I cannot save life at the cost of love.”
As his breath faltered, he said, “Listen, bhikshus!” For news had spread among the monks: Chanda is a murderer — he has taken Buddha’s life. What kind of man is he! Buddha’s last words were unique: “Listen, monks! In thousands and millions of years, a person like Buddha is born — one who attains supreme knowledge. If he lives a hundred years, only once in those hundred years does someone gain the fortune to feed him the first meal — that is the mother. And the one who feeds him the final meal — is she less than a mother? Chanda the blacksmith is most fortunate. In millions of years, such fortune will come again — to feed the last meal to one who has attained Buddhahood. Go — welcome Chanda, honor him! Beat the drum in the village and declare: Chanda is supremely blessed!”
The monks were bewildered. Ananda came close: “What are you saying? Shall we honor the wicked man whose food caused your death?”
Buddha said, “Foolish Ananda! What was to happen has happened. If I do not say this and die, people may kill Chanda. What is his fault? To be poor is no fault. To eat mushrooms is no fault. To invite Buddha is no fault. If there is fault, it is mine. Go — announce in the village: Chanda is supremely blessed, so that no one troubles him after my death, no one attacks him, no one kills him, no one abuses him, no one calls him bad.”
This is a prayerful man — concerned for Chanda in his dying moment, lest anyone harm him.
Jesus, dying on the cross, says, “Father, forgive them — they know not what they do.”
When Mansur was being cut and hanged, and when they were about to cut his tongue, he said, “Wait a moment — let me pray.” His feet were cut, his hands were cut. He lifted his face to the sky and said, “Forgive them.”
Someone asked, “What are you saying?” Mansur said, “I say this so you can see there is no prayer except love — and no God except prayer. My dying — let that not be what you remember; but if my love remains in your memory, perhaps one day you too will become available to love.”
Prayer means love so vast that it crosses all boundaries. The day it reaches the limitless, love becomes prayer. The day it drowns all — the doer and the done-to — what remains is Paramatma.
Love has three stages.
Love — the lover is, and the beloved is.
Prayer — the lover remains, but the beloved has spread; no longer one — the many.
And Paramatma — the lover too is gone, the beloved too is gone; only love remains.
But a person standing upon fear cannot be religious. And without a religious person being born, no new society can be born.
So the final thing: until now man has been irreligious; society has been irreligious. If a new society is to be born, if we are to search for it, a religious person must be born. And the religious person is born not upon fear, but upon fearlessness. For fear is lovelessness; fearlessness is love. Fear is hatred, violence, envy. Fearlessness is prayer, is Paramatma.
Therefore, the question before me is not: how shall we find a new society? The question is: how shall we find the new human being?
So do not worry about the other — the search for the new human being can begin only with oneself. The ones I call revolutionaries are not those eager to change others — for such people may only be trying to avoid changing themselves. I call that one a revolutionary who is eager to change himself. When someone changes himself and his lamp is lit, the unlit lamps nearby begin to strive to light themselves.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace — I am deeply obliged. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.