Rebellion

Dear friend, are dacoits and vikings rebels? If so, are they born that way or made, turned into rebels? Which half of the definition do they fulfill, the negative side or the positive one?

Bhai Mehta, the dacoits and the Vikings are not rebels at all, they are part of a criminal society. Your so-called kings and emperors are great dacoits; the dacoits operate on a smaller scale, but they belong to the same category. The society depends on exploitation, oppression. A few people do it in an orderly way, a few people do it in a disorderly way, but their basic act is not different. A few people do it legally because they are intelligent and clever enough to use the law in their favor; and a few people who are not so clever and not so intelligent simply do the same thing but without using the law in their favor. They are condemned, but they are not rebels. They are part of this whole criminal situation that has remained prevalent from the very beginning of humanity till today. Hence the question whether…

Beloved master, can a true rebel be a disciple of a master, or must he be simply a friend of the master?

So remember it: there is no question of anybody being your master. These masters have exploited you enough! It is time to stop this exploitation. An authentic human being cannot reduce you to a sheep. If there is any sin, Jesus has committed it, and that was making you sheep, and posing as your savior. And when he was being caught, just a few minutes before, his disciples asked, "What about us?" He said, "I will be coming soon to deliver everybody who has faith in me from all suffering and misery. And I will take you to the house of my father in paradise." Two thousand years have passed, and that guy has not been seen since then. How long can you stretch the word "soon"? And I can say, with categorical certainty, that he is not going to come back again. He could not save himself! -- how…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS THE RELIGION OF A REBELLIOUS SPIRIT? ... His whole life is a pilgrimage, always moving closer and closer and closer to the ultimate reality; that realization that releases one from all bondage, all frustration, all misery, all anguish, and allows one to taste freedom, truth, beauty, love and an outburst of creativity -- creativity in the multidimensions of life. The rebellious man has a golden touch -- whatever he touches becomes gold, it does not matter what. He may play on a bamboo flute and it becomes pure gold, twenty-four carat. He may dance alone under the starry sky, and his dance is more meaningful, more significant than all the paintings in the world, all the statues and all the holy scriptures. His creativity may simply be expressed in his silence. But his silence will not be an ordinary silence -- just an absence of noise.

Why are young people so rebellious nowadays?

There are many factors. One is universal education: for the first time the youth of the world are well-educated. And to the educated mind the old establishment looks absurd and out of date -- rooted in the past, of course, but with no future. Secondly, the scientific progress of the world and the scientific training of the young basically presupposes a training in doubt. Since all the old cultures and civilizations are based on faith, there is a gap. The young are trained for doubt and all religions and cultures require faith, so it becomes impossible. The young are now really in search of a faith which can be scientific, a faith which is so alive that it can allow doubt, a faith that is unafraid of doubt. Life is complex, and everything exists with its polar opposite. A scientist begins with doubt and ends in faith while a religious…