Naye Samaj Ki Khoj #8

In this regard, two or three things must be understood. First, a person who thinks his needs are being met stops the process of growth—his own and others’. One who believes that what he has is sufficient stops moving forward. It may be that he himself does not suffer much from this, but the society of which he is a part certainly does. And he himself will also be harmed.

Ordinarily we have been taught to arrest our needs at some point and to assume they are fulfilled. We have gone on defining the religious person as one who reduces his needs and becomes content. The truth is quite the opposite. In my view, the religious person is of a different kind altogether. I call religious the person whose needs begin to touch the sky beyond the earth. I call religious the one whose needs rise above the body and become the needs of the soul. I call religious the one who does not consider the needs of matter sufficient, who makes even God his need.

I do not call religious the one who has halted somewhere, declaring his needs complete; I call religious the one who cannot agree to say his needs are fulfilled until he attains God himself. I do not call the religious person a satisfied person; I call him divinely discontent—Divine Discontentment. There is so much discontent within him that even if the whole earth were given to him, it could not satisfy him. Only if he meets the Divine will he be satisfied.

No, the religious person is not one who is satisfied with little. Even if he were given everything in the world, he would still not be satisfied. Only the supreme meaning of existence, the ultimate mystery of life, the Lord himself—only then can he be satisfied.

So I will not say: fulfill a few of your needs and stop there. But this does not mean you should remain unhappy. In truth, to be discontent does not mean to be miserable. We should understand clearly what discontent means. Whatever you have, enjoy it with total joy; and for what you do not have, keep working. For what you have, give thanks to God; and for what you do not have, keep up your effort.

Ordinarily we think the discontented person is utterly unhappy with what he has. No! Properly, rightly—right discontent—the rightly discontented person is one who enjoys with gratitude what has come to him, and yet remains engaged in striving for what has not yet come.

Yes, there will be a slight difference between religious and irreligious discontent. As Krishna has said: strive, make effort, do your work, but do not hanker after the fruits. The religious person will labor to attain what is not yet; but if it does not come—if he cannot attain what he toiled for—he will not go mad, will not become deranged. He will aspire for what is not yet, but he will always understand that the fruit lies in God’s hands.

Between the irreligious and the religious, the difference is not between contentment and discontent; it is the difference between two forms of discontent. The irreligious person, when discontented, does not enjoy what he has and longs for joy in what he does not have. Then, when that too is obtained, he still does not enjoy it and again longs for what is not. If he does not obtain it, he is unhappy; and even if he does obtain it, he is never truly happy. This is irreligious discontent.

Religious discontent is this: what he has, he enjoys fully as the Lord’s grace; and what he does not have, he seeks to attain as the Lord’s power moving through him. If he attains it, he rejoices and gives thanks to God; and if he does not, he understands there is a shortcoming in his effort and continues it. He will not conclude that God’s grace is absent; he will see that in his total effort, in his total strength, something is lacking. He will increase his effort; he will increase his labor.

To be discontent does not mean to be unhappy. In fact, a person can be completely happy and yet be discontent. To be happy means: to enjoy what is. To be discontent means: to labor joyfully to bring into being what is not yet. When most people in a society work in this way, the society becomes prosperous and rich. But when more people think, “What is, is fine; let us stop here,” the entire society gradually becomes impoverished. All growth in life comes from attaining what is not yet.

Therefore I would say: there is no place to conclude, “Now everything is complete; what more is there for me to do!” That is a way of dying; it is to die while still alive. As long as there is breath, not a single breath should go to waste. And even if someone truly feels, “All my needs are fulfilled,” then such a person should devote himself to fulfilling the needs of others. If someone is convinced, “All my needs are complete; why should I labor?” he should look around and see: my work on this earth may be finished, but others’ needs are not fulfilled—let me labor for them.

One cannot escape labor. If your needs are fulfilled, look around—many people’s are not; engage yourself in working for them. No one has the right to sit idle. Even a sannyasin has no right to sit idle. If that much of our energy goes to waste, the country cannot become prosperous. If the country is to be enriched, everyone must engage in work. And we engage in work only when there is some need to be fulfilled—our own or another’s—but the race to fulfill needs must continue.

This race should be serene; this race should be joyful—that much I will say. It should not be the race of a madman, of the deranged. It should not be a race that robs you of sleep. It should not be such a race that a person loses all awareness and just keeps running, without even knowing where he is running. This race should be very joyful, very peaceful, very healthy.

It can be so; but we have not thought in this way. The religious person kept preaching contentment and the irreligious kept running; slowly, discontent came to be seen as the trait of the irreligious and contentment the trait of the religious—which is not right. The religious person too should be discontent. And the truth is that all truly good religious people are discontent; only the planes of their discontent change. They do not wish to build a big house on this earth; but in liberation they certainly wish to build something. They do not want to earn the wealth of this world; but they certainly want to earn the wealth of the soul. They are no longer overly eager for human love; but their eagerness to attain the love of God has greatly increased. Now they will not stand before any human being with folded hands as beggars, nor go door to door begging; but before the Lord’s temple their hands are folded twenty-four hours, and their beggar stands there before the Lord with a prayer twenty-four hours. This is only the transformation of needs, not their end. It is the elevation of needs to a higher plane.

But those whose lower needs have not yet been fulfilled and who remain stuck at that level may never set out in search of life’s greater needs.

Now look at our own country. Here, most people are stuck where they are and think, “Everything is fine.” But from this feeling that “everything is fine,” no spiritual inquiry has arisen in them, nor have they set out in search of God.

My view is the reverse. My understanding is that one should not stop with the needs of this world; one must certainly move toward needs that are higher than this world. And the day a person’s longing turns upward, his lower longings fall away. That is a very different matter. It cannot be called dead contentment; it is a very alive discontent.

First, it is essential to understand that socialism takes away everyone’s freedom. And where freedom is taken away, equality can never be. Perhaps the meaning of socialism is not at all clear to our eyes, ears, and hearts. We are too enchanted by the word “socialism.” That in socialism everyone gets equal opportunity—nothing could be more false.

In Russia, not everyone has equal opportunity. For fifty years a small gang of fifty men has been ruling. Stalin changes, Khrushchev changes, but the same fifty–sixty men at the top keep operating. In Russia, apart from the Communist Party, no other party exists. And where there is only one party, freedom cannot remain. In Russia elections have no meaning; voting has no meaning.

Stalin used to get ninety-nine percent of the vote. But no one asks who stood against him. No one stood against him; ballots were dropped into a single box. It’s quite a joke: if there is only one candidate, why is there any need to vote? It is an attempt to deceive the whole world. Ninety-nine percent of the vote is assured. The wonder is not that he got ninety-nine percent—the wonder is, who is that one percent who didn’t vote for him! He likely would not survive; it would be very hard for him to remain alive.

I have heard a story about Khrushchev. When he came to power, he revealed many things about Stalin. In a special session of the Communist Party he recounted how many people Stalin had killed and how many atrocities he had committed. Then a man stood up at the back and said, “Comrade Khrushchev, when Stalin was killing those hundreds of thousands, you too were a member of Stalin’s committee—why didn’t you oppose him then?” Khrushchev fell silent for a second; by then the man had already sat down. Khrushchev said, “All right, my friend, stand up again! At least tell us your name!” But the man did not get up again. Khrushchev insisted, “Please stand up and tell us your name!” But the man neither stood up, nor told his name, nor asked another question. Then Khrushchev said, “For the very reason you are not standing up and telling your name, for that very reason I too, though I was on Stalin’s committee, kept quiet. If you tell your name, tomorrow you will find you are no longer alive. I too kept quiet to keep myself alive.”

Freedom has been murdered so brutally in those countries we call socialist—Stalin alone killed roughly ten million people. Where freedom has been slaughtered in this manner, how can there be equality? Yes, at most, everyone can be equally enslaved. That much is possible—an equal opportunity to be enslaved. In Russia everyone is equally a slave; beyond that there is no equality. And those who hold power in Russia have become a separate class; those without power remain the common masses below.

In India, or in any capitalist country, a poor man can become rich. It is not that difficult, because a rich man sometimes becomes poor as well. But in Russia, moving from the general populace into the class of officials is most difficult. Even getting membership in the Communist Party is very hard. Russia has split into two halves: the common people and the ruling class. That ruling class has become fixed and secure. The people below have no equal opportunity. Yet the notion propagated worldwide is that socialism will give equal opportunity.

I want to tell you: capitalism has provided the greatest scope for opportunity. And this must be understood in several ways.

If I go to Russia and want to speak against Russia, I cannot. In Russia there is freedom to speak in favor of Russia; there is no equal opportunity to speak in opposition. Not a single newspaper can be published against the Russian government; not a single book; not an article; not a poem. So what opportunity does the person have who wants to write a poem against the government? Yes, they will say there is equal opportunity to write poems in praise of the government—whoever wants to can write. But what does such “equal opportunity” mean?

Leave aside poetry—in Russia even a scientist cannot pursue a discovery that runs contrary to state policy. It is astonishing! A scientist does not compose poetry; he seeks the laws of life. Yet in Russia the government decides which laws of life may be sought and which may not. Anything that might go against communism cannot be explored. If a Russian psychologist wants to say that each person is different, not the same, he cannot say it, lest it be contrary to socialism. In Russia a person has no right to earn property, nor to accumulate property.

Remember, in this world some people have a talent for making money; not everyone does. Not everyone is a poet, not everyone is a musician, not everyone is a scientist, and not everyone is capable of earning wealth like a Birla, a Tata, a Rockefeller, or a Ford. Some people are born with the capacity to make money; some are born with the capacity to write songs.

In socialism, a person who is born with the capacity to make money will have no chance. Then what does equal opportunity mean?

A story comes to mind. It is said about Jews that they have an inborn capacity to make money. I have heard that a Jew was traveling in a boat. A great storm arose and a very big fish, a huge fish, began to attack the little boat. The only way to escape the fish was to throw something into its mouth. So whatever food there was, they threw into the fish’s mouth. After a while the fish digested it and attacked again.

In the end it came to the point that there was no way out except to throw people into its mouth, otherwise it would overturn the entire boat. A Jew too was on board; everyone picked him up and threw him into the fish’s mouth. But the fish kept attacking, and one by one the others were also thrown in. When gradually more people reached inside, they were amazed to see the Jew sitting in the fish’s belly on a chair that had been thrown in earlier. And an earlier bag of oranges had also been tossed in; he had that bag of oranges with him and was selling oranges, one each, to the passengers who had arrived in the fish’s belly, for one anna apiece.

This is only a joke, but even in a fish’s belly a Jew will find some way to sell something. He has an inborn knack.

Those with an innate capacity to make money will have no opportunity in a socialist society. Those with a capacity for rebellion will have no opportunity. Those with a capacity for independent thought will have no chance to think. A socialist society is, in many ways, a believing society. The state demands all kinds of belief and allegiance; it does not want to allow contrary thinking.

To this day there is not a single issue in the world on which unanimity can be achieved. Therefore, in a country where unanimity is made compulsory, the human mind suffers fatal damage. There is not a single matter on which all people can be made to agree. In such a situation, the compulsion that everyone must agree with the government is very dangerous.

Therefore I do not accept that there is equal opportunity. Yes, one thing is certain: the individual does not have the freedom to be unequal; there is the compulsion to be the same. Everyone must be alike. And where there is the compulsion to be alike, the soul is greatly suppressed.

A capitalist society, among the developed societies so far, is the most free, and each person has, in one sense, equal opportunity. Whoever wants to do whatever he wants—if he has the capacity, the strength, the courage, the intelligence—he can do it; there is no one to stop him.

Yes, there is only one thing that stands in the way: others are competitors too. Naturally, if there are five hundred million people in a country and I set out to make money, I am not alone; five hundred million are also trying to make money. There will be a struggle among the talents of those five hundred million. There will be a struggle among their capacities. Then whoever is victorious will be. It is not certain that I will be victorious. A capitalist society is a society of competition; there each person has the chance to compete.

But it is certainly true that all are not situated equally. Someone is the son of a rich man, someone the son of a poor man. Therefore the poor man’s son can say that he does not have as much opportunity as the rich man’s son. This is natural.

In fact, to be a rich man’s son means only that his father made efforts to create wealth, and to be a poor man’s son means only that his father did not strive for wealth. There is no one to blame. We can only be entitled to our own fathers, not to someone else’s father.

And if the poor feel that their son will not have equal opportunity, the poor should have fewer children so that they do not fall into trouble. But the poor keep producing more sons. If the poor man’s son suffers, he should complain to his own father: “When you did not have the means to provide for me, why did you bring me into the world?” But the poor will not complain to their own father; they say, “Why do others’ sons have more opportunity?”

Their fathers worked harder. Or their fathers did not have ten sons; they had two. If one father has two sons, the property available to them is more; and if another has twelve, it gets divided twelve ways, and the property is less. The poor man has been adept at producing more and more children. It is quite surprising that the rich man has fewer children; often a rich man has to adopt. And the poor man keeps lining up children.

A poor father who begets ten sons bequeaths tenfold poverty to his sons. The truth is, a man is not worthy to be a father if he cannot provide for his children; merely producing children does not make one a worthy father. Before bringing a child into the world, arrangements should be made all around: what facilities will I be able to give my child? That father is cruel who puts his children on the ground without the means. No one else is at fault in this. Naturally, the son of the man who has toiled will have a little more facility—and he should. The son of the man who has not toiled will not have as much facility—and he should not.

A capitalist society is straightforwardly a society of competition. The more one struggles in that competition, the more one labors in it, the farther one will advance.

But this does not mean I am saying that all capitalists earn money justly. No, I am not saying that. There are wrongdoer capitalists too. But because there are bad capitalists, capitalism itself does not become bad. If there are bad Hindus, all Hindus do not become bad. And if there are dark-skinned thieves, that does not make all dark-skinned people thieves. And if someone in Ludhiana gets tuberculosis, we should not kill all the people of Ludhiana for that reason; nor should everyone be treated.

In capitalism too there are capitalists who earn money unjustly. This is not an indictment of capitalism; these are bad capitalists. Arrangements can certainly be made to restrain bad capitalists; there is no need to murder capitalism. No system becomes bad because of bad people. When we speak of systems, between socialism and capitalism I find capitalism the superior and more evolved system. As for bad capitalists, measures can be taken to stop them.

I support capitalism. I do not support fraud, dishonesty, or bribery. But I want to tell you this: bribery, fraud, and dishonesty are the offspring of a poor society. The capitalist has very little hand in this; the poor society has a much greater hand.

We are so many people sitting here. If there were food enough for fifty and five thousand people were present, you can be sure it would be very hard for theft and disturbance not to begin. Where there is food for fifty and five thousand stand ready to eat, there cannot be much waiting; people will try by dishonesty, trickery—every means—to get the food. If you want these five thousand to be honest, there must be food enough for five thousand. Otherwise honesty is very difficult; it cannot reasonably be expected.

If there were a water shortage in Ludhiana, people would start stealing water at night. Right now nobody is stealing water. Until yesterday no one was stealing water; today there is a shortage, and people begin to steal it. What does this mean? Are people thieves, or is there a lack of water?

A human being wants to live. When living honestly is no longer easy, he is forced into dishonesty. The widespread dishonesty we see around us has its fundamental cause less in human depravity and more in the excess of our poverty.

In Europe and America, if newspapers are left on the street with a box beside them, people put in money and take a paper. This does not mean they have become very honest; it simply means that no one needs to steal something worth a penny. Do not fall into the illusion that they are more honest than we are. They are people just like us. But who would steal a penny paper? No one is reduced to a state where a penny paper is worth stealing. So a person drops a penny, takes the paper, and goes.

If in Ludhiana we were to put out a box at five in the morning and stack newspapers, the very first person would take the newspapers and the box as well. The second person would be spared the trouble of putting in any money. The reason is not that the people of Ludhiana are thieves; the reason is simply that even a penny is so hard to come by that a person becomes a thief for it.

In truth, if life becomes very difficult, we cannot prevent dishonesty—and life has become very difficult. And who is responsible for this difficulty? Are the capitalists responsible? It cannot be said so simply.

Not long ago the partition of India and Pakistan took place. We perhaps thought our numbers had decreased. We were mistaken. In twenty years we have produced as many children as the people who were carved off into Pakistan. Now we are back to fifty-two crores—more than before. When Pakistan was separated, the combined population of India and Pakistan was a certain number; today India alone has surpassed that. Now we could say to the whole world: carve off as many Pakistans as you like, you will not be able to reduce us.

The nation’s capacity has diminished; the provisions of food and clothing have diminished, while people keep increasing. For now it is still manageable; there isn’t that much theft and dishonesty yet. If for the next ten years we keep producing children like this, you won’t even have the chance to complain—because only theft and dishonesty will remain. If, in twenty years, murders for a single coin do not begin to happen in this country, consider it a surprise—they will. As numbers swell and life becomes harder, every person struggles desperately to live. And when life itself is at stake, one no longer cares about honesty and the like. Honesty and such are luxuries—the talk of the well-provided, not of those burdened by hardship.

In truth, if a nation wants to be honest, good, and decent, prosperity is the first condition. If we cannot achieve prosperity, then perhaps one person in a hundred thousand may prove honest. But life cannot run on the basis of a lone exception. It may be that ten or twenty-five people in the whole country become skilled at standing on their heads—that is fine—but all people cannot live upside down. People will walk on their feet. The general rule of life says our conditions are so bad that we should not be surprised there is so much dishonesty; we should be surprised that there isn’t more. So many things have fallen into a wretched state. To change this condition, it is necessary to engage in the effort of creating wealth.

No, capitalism is not responsible for this. We are responsible—every one of us. That includes the capitalist, and it includes the poor.

Today India has the greatest number of cows and buffaloes on earth—and the least milk. Sweden or Norway, with far fewer cows and buffaloes, have milk in such abundance that it’s beyond measure. An ordinary cow gives at least forty seers of milk. Our cow, if she gives half a seer, does so by God’s grace, not because of us.

But we are people who worship “Mother Cow.” We worship her without the slightest concern for how much she produces or what the result of our worship is. And we run agitations that cow slaughter must be banned—without caring that the cows who are alive are living in conditions worse than death.

Nowhere else in the world is water mixed into milk—except in India.

A friend of mine, a professor at Patna University, went to Sweden. On the very first morning at his hotel he asked the man who brought the milk, “This is pure milk, isn’t it?” The waiter said, “Pure milk—we’re hearing that for the first time. What is this ‘pure milk’ thing? We have heard of three or four kinds: pasteurized milk, powdered milk… but what is pure milk? I’ll call the manager; maybe I’m not following your language.”

The manager came, flustered, with a list—five or six kinds of milk were written there, but pure milk wasn’t among them. He said, “We’ve never heard of ‘pure milk.’ What is it?” My friend got nervous. “Such a simple thing and you can’t understand? I’m asking for milk in which no water has been mixed.” The manager said, “How strange! Why would we mix water? Are we insane? Why would anyone mix water into milk? Is there actually a place where they do that?” The poor professor was in a fix. He said, “Forgive me—I was thinking of my own country. I assumed perhaps you mix water in milk here too.”

When he met me he said, “I was really embarrassed.” I told him, “You were embarrassed—but your information is outdated. Twenty-five years ago in India people mixed water into milk; now milk is being mixed into water. No one mixes water into milk anymore—except a few fools. Otherwise, milk is mixed into water. The era of mixing water into milk is long gone.”

The whole world is astonished: why would you mix water into milk? But we can’t even imagine milk without water. What is the reason? The reason is our five hundred and twenty million mouths—and almost no milk. In fact, thanks to those who mix water, at least a little semblance of milk reaches everyone; otherwise you wouldn’t get even that. So don’t be angry with the water-mixer—thank him: “Because of your kindness, at least we can have the feeling that we’re drinking milk; otherwise we’d be drinking only water.”

No, within the social setup as it stands, these adulterations and corruptions, in one sense, keep life going. When life becomes too difficult, such devices have to be used.

We’ve heard that when there was no milk at home for Ashwatthama, his mother mixed flour with water and deceived him. The mother must have suffered, but is it a small thing that the child could at least believe he’d had milk and stop crying? The entire country is now in almost that condition. That wife of Dronacharya is our ideal mother. We too create a little make-believe for our children: “You’re getting milk.” Even illusion is better than nothing.

But do you think that if mixing water into milk were stopped, anything would be solved? What would be solved? Only this: the illusion would break, and some people would get no milk at all.

We never touch the real issue: there is too little milk and too many people. What are we doing to increase the milk supply? It can be increased, but we don’t muster the courage. If we insist on keeping this many cows and buffaloes, there cannot be more milk, because we cannot feed this many animals. In Norway or Sweden, where there’s plenty of milk, they have preserved only carefully selected breeds and said goodbye to the rest.

We say we will save Mother Cow. Fine—save her; but if Mother Cow is saved in such numbers, adulteration will go on. It is impossible to arrange fodder and water for so many cows. And if somehow you do, then fine—extract half a seer, a quarter seer from each; you won’t get more. If we want to work on a few good breeds that can give forty or fifty seers, we will have to bid some cows farewell. However painful it feels, we will have to bear that pain. However harsh it seems, we must understand that harshness. It is a necessity. Otherwise, we must place our faith in milk mixed with water.

And for now you’re at least getting milk mixed with water; in ten years even that may not be available. We can’t provide food for human beings—where will we find fodder for so many cows? But our mahatmas insist that cows must be saved—even if people die.

Well, let people die and save the cows—but if people die, how will cows survive? That is doubtful. If people survive, cows can survive; cows cannot survive without people. But we are unscientific about life. We discuss life in terms of blind belief. Our entire way of thinking is blind. We are neither clear nor straightforward about things; hence our great difficulties. And if anyone speaks clearly, he appears irreligious.

People keep asking me: Should cow slaughter be banned or not? They imagine that if I say, “No, it should not be banned,” they can scream that I am irreligious, take out processions, wave black flags. If I want to avoid black flags, I should say, “Absolutely, cow slaughter should be banned.” Then I am safe—but this country will die. In this country, it has become difficult even to speak simple truth. You cannot save so many cows. However sad it feels, we will have to let many go. We must put more effort into a few cows so they produce more milk; otherwise it won’t be possible.

We cannot save so many people either.

But our mahatmas keep telling us that children are given by God, so do not practice birth control. From Gandhi to the Shankaracharya of Puri, all the saints tell us: do not practice birth control—practice celibacy if you want to stop children.

How many can practice celibacy? Even among our rishis and munis, how many truly achieved celibacy? Will five hundred and twenty million people practice celibacy? And by the time they do, the population will have grown so large that there will be no need to practice it at all.

But the mahatmas say, practice celibacy. They say artificial means are against God; children cannot be stopped—God is sending them.

Ask these very mahatmas: if preventing births is opposing God, then saving the dying is also opposing God—so don’t save them either. When famine strikes, why do you cry, “Save them, there is famine”? When someone is sick, why build hospitals? Are you warring with God? Let people die! If God wants them dead, they will die. Can your saving save them?

No—the mahatma appears at the moment of death and says, “Serve!” And at the moment of birth he says, “Beat the drums!” because God has sent a child. These double standards won’t do.

The birth rate has risen, the death rate is falling. People used to die of epidemics—we have stopped the epidemics. They used to die of plague—plague is checked. Of cholera—cholera is checked. If they die because of mosquitoes, kill the mosquitoes. If they die because of diseases, bring new medicines. The West developed arrangements to check death; we adopted them too. So we have narrowed the gates of death, while the gates of birth remain wide open—and now we are in trouble.

The West employed both means together: they reduced the birth rate and reduced the death rate, so they are not in trouble. We are. The birth rate remains the same, fewer children die because medicines and treatments are more available; people live longer, average life expectancy has risen. All of that—but the land is the same. God sends children but does not send land along with them. If he sent a little plot with each child, it would help—but he doesn’t. And our mahatmas, for all their prayers, cannot get land to descend. So this country will rot. To stop the stench, the ugliness, the filth, the dishonesty and theft—there is only one way: reduce births and increase production.

But we know only one kind of production—children. We know no other production. The person who cannot produce anything else can at least produce children. He feels pleased that he has produced something—that he has done his share.

But now this won’t do. Every day we produce so many children that tomorrow we will not be able to provide for them. Then more and more water will be added to the milk; soon milk will disappear altogether. Tie a bandage over the children’s eyes and give them water. And how long will even water suffice? What will you mix into water when water itself runs short?

Sensible people around the world are saying that within ten years India will face a great famine. In 1978 India will enter a great famine; between one hundred and two hundred million people may die in it. The whole world is discussing this; in India there is no discussion. India is busy with foolishness: should this district be in Punjab or in Haryana, should this village be in Gujarat or Maharashtra, should this factory be in Ludhiana or Amritsar? We remain occupied with such rustic debates. The whole world is worried that in eight years India will face a great famine. If one to two hundred million people were to die suddenly, would the rest who survive remain truly alive? What would be our condition? But we have no concern.

I was talking to a big leader in Delhi. I said, “Do you know Western experts are saying that in 1978 India will be in trouble?” He said, “1978 is far away. Right now we are concerned about the elections in 1972. We’ll see when 1978 comes.”

For them, 1978 is far away. For such leaders, history ends beyond 1972; nothing exists beyond who wins the next election. The mahatma is absorbed in God. And this vast populace standing here—no one is concerned for it.

We must grasp the roots of this vast populace’s suffering. If within ten years India does not shut down its massive factory for producing babies, you cannot escape corruption; corruption will keep growing. No capitalist is doing this—we all are doing it together.

Essentially, two or three things should be understood. One great difficulty is that we always live looking backward; therefore we have no sense for what lies ahead. For example, up to now we have obtained food from the land, so we want to keep obtaining food only from the land. We don’t bother to consider that there are other kinds of food that need not come from the soil.

Food can be obtained from the sea; even seawater can be transformed directly into food. It is possible to derive food directly from the air. It is possible to derive food directly from the sun’s rays. It is not necessary that the stomach must be stuffed with many pounds of food. Now there can be synthetic foods; even a small pill can do the work of a full meal.

We should work in all these directions. Hundreds of thousands of our children are studying science; hundreds of thousands are graduating in science. All of them together should be concerned with finding new means of food. It is not necessary to remain dependent on old means. If we depend on the old means alone, we will not be able to survive now. But out of old habit we go on thinking in the old way; we simply don’t think in any new way.

It is no longer necessary that cloth be made only from cotton. The age has passed when cloth was made only from cotton. There is no longer any fixed need to make cloth from cotton. Cloth can be made from rubber, from plastic; it can be synthetic. Why remain dependent on cotton cloth alone? Now we can make cloth that is not grown on land but produced in factories. But such ideas do not occur to our minds.

And the houses we are building—we continue to build them in the old way. There is no longer any need to make such heavy, massive houses. There is no need to lay so many bricks. Houses can be made cheaply. Japan builds houses too—very inexpensive houses—and makes them far more beautiful than we do. But we do not open our eyes to the world. We go on putting up the same old houses: even if they take up more space, provide fewer conveniences, and cost more money, we go on building the old-fashioned house.

The greatest trouble of our country is that our old habits don’t leave us, and we don’t adopt new measures. Let us devise new food, new clothing, new housing. And once we set out to seek, this is such a large country, our children are so intelligent—they will discover everything. There is no obstacle, no difficulty. But old habits keep working.

For example, we do everything in the old way. If we build houses, still we turn the front of the house toward the road; everyone keeps the front of the house toward the road. This is entirely wrong. If eight or ten houses are built facing each other, a small garden can be created between them where their children can play and run. And if the fronts of all the houses face each other, then they don’t each need separate gardens; on a small piece of land there can be one lovely garden. All those people can also grow a few vegetables there. Their children can play there. The likelihood of being run over by cars on the road is also reduced.

But our old habit insists the house must face the road. Is there some contract that the house-front must face the road? There is no need at all. But the old habit says it must be so. Under the sway of old habit we keep doing the same thing; we don’t think in a new way about anything.

If a neighborhood were to establish a common kitchen, things would still work—and more cheaply. If cooking happens in twenty-five homes, the cost is multiplied twenty-five times. If twenty-five homes are built facing each other and a kitchen is made in the middle, then the work of those twenty-five is done at less cost. Twenty-five women would not have to cook; five women could cook, and twenty women could do other work—thereby increasing production.

But we don’t think—I am only giving examples—we don’t think about how to do things anew! We go on doing what is old.

Now land has become scarce; it is no longer right to keep building on cultivable land. Houses can be built on rivers, houses can be built on the sea. But we won’t think in that direction. Houses can also be built underground. We won’t think in that direction either. If the land is filled with houses, where will you produce? If roads spread everywhere over the land, if trains spread everywhere over the land, if factories and settlements spread everywhere over the land, then where will you produce?

We will have to move off the arable land. We will have to shift to places that are non-productive. All this can be done. But there is a lack of reflection on this, and our country does not reflect on it. The very youths from whom such reflection could be expected are engaged in breaking and smashing. Somewhere they will burn a bus and think a revolution will happen by burning a bus. Somewhere they will break the glass of an office and think a revolution will happen by breaking glass. We could place hope in this country’s youths, because they are being well educated and much is rightly spent on their education. But the boys are returning a very peculiar favor: they are busy breaking the country. And they are being incited from all sides to get on with destroying the country.

If India’s young, educated people resolve to do so, they can change the destiny of this country. Thousands of new things can be discovered; food can be increased; better houses can be built; better clothes can be produced; with less expense, more people’s lives can be expanded. But our children have no time. Where do they have time! They will shout slogans on the streets, strike, do gherao—they will remain busy in this. Leaders too find pleasure in making the boys do such stupidities. And the country will die; the country will be destroyed.

Whatever work the rest of the world has accomplished in the last fifty years has been done by the youths of those countries. In Israel their young people have produced; they even produced by breaking stones. Japan, a country destroyed in the last world war, they have again made into a paradise on earth. Those who went to see Japan twenty years ago and have just returned from seeing it now say, “We thought after the second world war Japan would never be able to grow again. It had been leveled to the ground; houses turned to dust and ashes; it burned; everything was destroyed. Now new settlements have arisen there, new houses have been built.”

After all, how do people across the world manage to expand life, and why do we keep shrinking? Did we come from God with some special arrangement? There is only one lack: we do not think of changing life; we do not search for new techniques in life; we depend on the old techniques. And because we depend on them—when the old techniques become too small and our numbers grow—then trouble arises. That trouble has arisen.

For example, there is a shortage of milk. We can make machines that, by feeding grass, directly produce milk. If vegetable ghee can be made, why can’t vegetable milk be made? If we can make ghee from vegetation, why not milk from vegetation? After all, no great mystery happens in a cow’s stomach. What happens in a cow’s stomach can happen in a machine as well. The cow grazes on grass and gives milk; we can put grass into a machine and draw milk out.

But when the young people of this country work in this direction, it will become possible. Then a cow must be protected, fed, treated when sick. If a machine can give milk directly from grass, we are spared all this trouble, and all children can get milk.

All this is possible. But it won’t happen from the sky. It won’t happen because of our fate. It will happen through our own effort!

Therefore the last thing I want to say to you is this: this country has been fatalistic for thousands of years; therefore it is poor. For thousands of years we have kept thinking, “Whatever God does!” Even now, if the rains don’t come, our foolish people gather to perform yajnas and havans. They say they will bring rain through yajna and havan.

It has been five thousand years of doing these yajnas and havans! The country’s poverty does not end, nor does the yield of the fields increase; famine stands at the door every year. How long will you continue this madness? But we keep at it, because it is written in our books. The pandit says, “Yes, it will happen; it will rain.” We never conduct an experiment and say, “At least once, make it rain and show us!” Yet again and again we go on doing yajnas and havans, burning up hundreds of thousands of rupees, and keep thinking that when...

Now, whether they did wrong or right—first it is difficult even to find out whether they did them at all. It is also hard to know whether they ever existed or not. And it is equally hard to know whether their yajnas brought any benefit. But we ourselves are doing yajnas every day and seeing—nothing happens! At least make water fall out of a tap’s spout if no water is coming; to make it fall from the clouds is a much farther cry. If a tap has run dry, then perform a yajna-havan and make water pour from its spout! If a well has dried up, do a yajna and bring water into it! Clouds are a rather distant matter.

But it is not that water cannot be made to fall from clouds. It will never fall because of yajna-havan, because the clouds have no idea of your yajnas, nor any concern with you. But in Russia they are making water fall from clouds. Not by yajna-havan—they have devised a scientific technique. We too can make it fall.

In Russia they draw rain from clouds wherever they want it to rain. If clouds are passing over Ludhiana and no rain is falling, they go up by airplane and spray ice on the clouds. When ice falls on the clouds, the cooling increases; the vapor is compelled to become water—vapor turns into water—and over Ludhiana rain falls. For whichever village they want rain, they go above the clouds of that village and spray ice.

Now this is no great difficulty. We too have airplanes, we have ice, we have people who can fly planes. But the airplane pilot is also sitting by the sacrificial fire getting a yajna performed. The owner of the ice factory is also making donations to the yajna. And those boys who go up and drop ice on the clouds, they too are beating drums and playing bands at the yajna. Well then, the rain will surely fall! If it were going to fall, it would have fallen long ago!

In Russia, for a village over which clouds don’t pass, they have even arranged to bring clouds there. Because the laws of air are now known. Why does a cloud come over your village? If it gets very hot in your village… this very morning someone was saying it’s very hot; maybe it will rain! Have you ever thought why, when it gets very hot, rain happens?

When there is great heat in your village, the air over your village expands because of the heat. Because the air expands, hollows—low-pressure pockets—are created in it. And from all sides, wherever there are clouds, because of those hollows they get pulled and come over your village. If, due to heat, the air over your village melts and expands, then your village air becomes rarefied, and in the denser surrounding air where the clouds are, they get pulled toward your hollows. It’s as simple as that.

So in Russia, if they need to bring clouds over a village, they go up and, from an airplane, arrange heat to warm the air. The air warms up, and the nearby clouds rush to gather over the village. It is all just that simple—but first the right idea must enter our minds. When wrong ideas are seated, the right one has a hard time getting in. The coming of the right is not as difficult as the removing of the wrong. Now that we are performing yajnas, how will any other idea occur to us?

There was a man in Europe—Houdini. He was a remarkable man. He could get out by opening any kind of lock. They locked Houdini up in the biggest police prisons, and within fifteen or twenty minutes—whatever the handcuffs—he would open them and come out. He had devised techniques to open all sorts of locks. He carried some arrangement on his person—until today it’s not been discovered—by which he opened locks. Scotland Yard, the London police, worked hard; New York worked; in the great cities of the world extraordinary locks were sought out; but he opened all the locks and came out.

Once he got into trouble. In a small village, a man locked him in his house, and he couldn’t get out and had to ask pardon. The matter was that the lock the man had hung was unlocked; it wasn’t fastened. He couldn’t get out by opening it—because had it been locked, he could have contrived something. The poor fellow kept looking for some trick to open it. It wasn’t locked at all; it was simply latched. No key that could have been imagined by him worked—because on an open lock no key can work; a locked lock will accept a key.

A lifelong master craftsman at opening locks lost to the task of opening an unlocked lock. What went wrong? In truth he was proceeding with the assumption that the lock was locked—that alone created the difficulty. That assumption put him in a bind.

We in this country are caught in a similar confusion. We are proceeding with certain assumptions that are not so. The way we are proceeding is not the way it is. Because of that assumption, we fail to discover what is as it is. Now we assume that by performing yajnas, rain will fall. It is not so. There is no relation at all between yajna and rain falling—none whatsoever. If someone were to say, “We will scrape our shoe on the ground, and rain will fall,” it has just as much relation; that is exactly the relation yajna has, no more. If someone were to say, “We will whistle, and the rain will fall,” it has as much relation as that—no more than that. But if we proceed assuming that it will fall from that, then we are in trouble. Then we can’t search out how the rain might actually fall.

But why did we come to have this faith in yajnas and such? A notion has gotten lodged in our minds, namely that what is to happen will happen, and what is not to happen will not happen.

This is as wrong as wrong can be. In truth, only what we do will happen, and what we do not do will never happen. Not fate—our human endeavor is what is in God’s hands. God writes nothing in our skulls; whatever he writes, he writes into our hands. It is our capacity for labor that picks up the hints of the divine.

But we have set up such an arrangement that whatever is to be, will be. If we are to die of hunger, we shall die; there is no remedy. If we are to live, rain will come. From somewhere or other something will happen—surely something will happen. For thousands of years our country has been proceeding under the belief that whatever is to happen will happen. Because of this we have fallen behind. This belief must be broken and thrown away. And if we delay much longer, we will be broken and thrown away; the belief will remain.

No—nothing at all is “going to happen.” Whatever we do is what happens. What is happening now too is happening as our doing. If this is a mess, we are making it. If this is poverty, we are making it. If this poverty is to be eradicated, then we can do something. People have broken up deserts and produced crops. And our country, which was rich with harvests, is turning into desert. There is no country in the world now where the fear of floods remains—except in the Eastern countries. The whole world has put its rivers’ water to use.

But how can we use it! Over the matter of the Narmada, in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, since the country became independent, the quarrel has been going on. A quarter century has gone by—Madhya Pradesh keeps quarrelling and Gujarat keeps quarrelling: Whose water is the Narmada? Because the Narmada rises in Madhya Pradesh and falls in Gujarat—so whose water is it? This hasn’t been decided in twenty-five years. The water just keeps on falling; it waits for no one. In these twenty-five years, this Narmada’s water worth billions and trillions of rupees has gone to the sea—who is responsible for this?

For this, the politicians sit and fight. They keep disputing in Delhi about whose water it is. And the water flows on, becoming the sea’s. It remains neither Gujarat’s nor Madhya Pradesh’s. That water could be brought to use; we have no concern for that. So every year floods will come, every year villages will drown, every year people will die. But we have no concern to stop these floods. These floods can be stopped. All this water that turns destructive can be turned creative.

But who will do it? God will not come to do it. God has given you the power to do; if you don’t do, you are responsible; there is no need to lodge complaints with God. In truth, no one except the impotent goes to complain to God. The courageous do the work and go to offer to God. They say, We have done so much work; accept it—great is your grace that we were able to do this much. The weak go to God saying: Do this much work for us—what great grace it would be. Until now God has not listened to the weak. God listens only to the powerful. And if we want God to listen to us, then it is absolutely necessary that we furnish proofs of our strength.

In the end, I do not believe that bringing socialism will erase our troubles; I believe our troubles have other causes, and if we remove them, they can be erased. Nor do I believe that with the coming of socialism there will be any support for the creation of wealth. On the contrary, with the arrival of socialism the motivation to create wealth will die. The competitive system of capitalism gives us the inspiration to create wealth, gives us struggle, gives us aspiration. And whoever falls behind, he himself is responsible. Whoever goes ahead is rewarded. Capitalism is risk and reward. Whoever is rewarded gives others the courage to take risks. Whoever loses musters courage again and moves ahead.

In truth, capitalism is an opportunity for each individual to test his own strength.

A friend has said that

It is quite amusing: you want to become parents, but you don’t want to take responsibility. A friend has asked that the parents’ responsibility would be reduced if the state takes the children. You want to enjoy becoming parents, and the government will take the responsibility.

But remember, the day the state takes responsibility for children, that day the right to cut them and even to kill them will also belong to the state; it will no longer be yours. And the day children become state property, you will be parents only in name—without any meaning. It will just be written in some office, and being parents will have no significance at all.

In truth, being parents does not mean merely producing children. Being parents means bringing them up, giving them life. And those parents who want to escape even from the responsibility of giving life to their children—better that they escape from the responsibility of becoming parents rather than from the responsibility of being parents. If they do not become parents, it would be a great kindness. But if you have the idea that the government should rear the children, that is a very wrong idea. Why should the state raise your children?

And if someday the state begins to raise children… it could, someday. If we go on producing children as we are, in the end this will be the outcome! Then huge orphanages will have to be built in every village; there will be no other way. And we can well imagine what will happen to children in those orphanages. We can also understand what “state children” will amount to. Whatever goes into the hands of the government becomes hollow and meaningless. Children too will become meaningless.

No, do not think of dodging responsibilities in this way. Life is the very name of responsibility. And the more courageous a person is, the more ready he shows himself to take responsibility. Life is not the name of running away from responsibility; life is the name of taking responsibility and struggling. Do not be nervous, do not run away; do not be afraid of life’s burdens—wrestle with them; then life can become light.

On this subject a few more questions remain. If you have any other questions, write them down and give them to me; tomorrow evening we can talk.

One announcement regarding the morning, and then I will finish. Friends who are coming for meditation in the morning, please arrive exactly at six. Come bathed and wearing freshly washed clothes. Leave home quietly, and once there do not talk—sit silently. Arrive at six sharp so that the sun is not up and the meditation experiment can be completed between six and seven. Here in the evening I am saying to you: search for something in the world by your own strength; for those who want to seek in God’s realm in the morning—also by their own strength—the morning is for them. Those who wish to inquire into the world, listen to the evening talk; and those who wish to seek the divine, be sure to listen to the morning talk as well.

I am deeply grateful for the love and silence with which you have listened to my words. And in the end I bow to the Lord seated within all; please accept my pranam.