Shiksha Main Kranti #15

First of all, the “meaning of life” and the “purpose of life”—there is no such thing. Life is its own meaning. There is no goal beyond life and no destination separate from it. To live life in its totality is the goal of life.

Ordinarily, a bullock cart has no purpose in itself. The cart’s purpose is to take someone somewhere. If nobody needs to go anywhere, the cart is useless; it has no meaning of its own. It is a means, not an end. And even if a person travels by cart, the journey itself has no meaning by itself—it is a means toward something else: to meet someone, to earn money, to marry. So the “going” too has meaning only in reference to something further.

If we examine all the activities of life, we will find each activity is meaningful only in reference to something else; in itself it is meaningless. So you may ask about the purpose of any particular act, but you cannot ask it of life itself, because there is nothing outside life and separate from it. The purpose of life is life itself. Those who want to make life a means toward some other end—some say liberation, some say God—are not understanding. For then the same question arises all over again: What is the purpose of God? What is the purpose of liberation? Having attained liberation—what then? And there they stand, tired, with no answer to give.

Rather than getting lost in fantasies outside life, it is wiser to look into the life in our hands. Life is in our hands; its infinity may not be. Life is in our hands; but how to live it so that total joy becomes available—that, for most, is not in hand.

In my vision, life itself is God. Life itself is moksha, liberation. One who learns the art of living, who descends into life’s depths and touches its heights, never asks again, “What is the goal of life?” Life is enough unto itself. Life is sufficient.

We ask precisely because our life is incomplete and not sufficient. Hence the question, “What is life for?” Understand this. A man in suffering constantly asks, “What is the purpose of this suffering? Why am I in pain?” But let that same man enter bliss, and he will never ask, “What is the purpose of this bliss? Why am I happy?” In bliss, the very idea of purpose is forgotten—because bliss is purpose unto itself.

If a person does not find love in life, he keeps asking, “What is the point of a loveless life?” But let him be flooded with love—drowned in it—and in that moment he does not ask the purpose of love. Love is its own purpose. Bliss is its own purpose. Life is its own purpose. And bliss and love are small happenings; life is the total. Outside the total, nothing remains. Life means the whole. There is nothing outside it for which it could be a means. It is an end in itself. If this is understood, your very orientation changes. You will not ask, “Where should I go? Where is liberation? Where is God?” You will ask, “How can I live this life to its fullness? How can I dive to its ultimate depths? How can life reveal itself wholly before me?” The day life reveals itself totally, the question of life’s purpose simply disappears.

A man breathes. If he breathes in joy, each breath is meaningful in itself. He does not ask, “Why should I breathe?” The question arises only when breathing becomes painful and burdensome. In truth, whenever suffering rules your life, the talk of purpose arises; when bliss rules, it does not.

To my eyes, this is a question for a suffering mind: “What is life’s purpose?” In bliss it falls away. It is not that Buddha, Mahavira, or Christ found an answer to it; there is no answer. The question itself dissolves, withers away. Standing in total bliss, being blissful is everything; beyond it no question remains. Even a tiny moment of bliss becomes eternity. Outside it, nothing is. Beyond it, thought does not go, imagination does not go, the question does not go. There, you simply are.

Life is its own goal, its own joy, its own meaning, its own purpose. Whoever makes life a means to something else will fall into misery. Some make life a means to money. Money can be a means for life, but life cannot be a means for money. The man who thinks that by accumulating money he has fulfilled life’s meaning is mad. Wise is the one who uses money as a companion, a support in descending into life’s depths.

Life is a means neither for wealth nor for religion. There are people who make life a means for religion—worship, ritual, renunciation, austerity, sannyas—and they pour their whole life into these. They commit the same mistake the money-chaser commits. Prayer, worship, sannyas—all of these are for life. There is nothing above life—there cannot be. There is nothing for which you should be ready to lose life. Such a thing cannot be, for it would be meaningless if you are not. But errors abound. Some lose life for money, some for religion, some for other things. In my vision, whoever loses life for anything is in error. He will gain nothing and will go astray. Everything is for life.

If this enters your understanding, then the plant’s life is also blissful, the stone’s life too. To me, it is not that only human life matters. Wherever life is, in countless forms, everywhere, it is its own end and goal. When a plant overflows with flowers and dances in the wind, it is in no less delight than a Buddha. And when a bird sings at dawn in joy, it is not behind a Christ.

So it is not a question of which form of life. All forms of life carry their own goal and their own concealed joy. It may be that in some forms life is unconscious—they may not even know their own delight, may have no consciousness of it. This may be so. But there is no difference in life’s joy. The difference can be between conscious and unconscious. Between the bliss of a Buddha and the bliss of a flower there is no difference. The difference is that the Buddha is totally aware of it; the flower may not be. But even this cannot be said with certainty. Consciousness can have many forms. Since we only know one form of consciousness—the human—we do not perceive it in the flower, and so we go on saying it is unconscious. Perhaps it has passed through another process of awareness and is also aware, but this cannot be declared today. It appears that what has evolved is consciousness. All evolution is the evolution of consciousness—not of bliss. And with consciousness, danger begins.

The great danger with consciousness is that it can go astray, because then the creature starts deciding, “What should I do? What should I not do?” A plant does not decide; it lives what happens. A bird does not decide; it enjoys whatever life gives. Hence no plant worries, no bird worries.

Man worries. Because man decides what to do, what not to do. Life has given man the opportunity to choose. In this opening, the possibility of going astray is complete. The flower never strays; it always attains bliss. In that sense perhaps its bliss is mechanical, because it has no chance to wander. Even in that bliss a kind of dependence appears. These are the differences.

When man attains bliss it is a free experience; he himself has reached there. Nature did not push him; it is not instinctive or unconscious—consciousness has descended. But in the same terrain lies the risk, for man can also go astray. Humanity is wandering precisely here, so only a few ever come to life’s full bliss; most get lost. Most mistake the means for the end and forget the end.

But those who see will say this: in whatever form life is—matter, plant, bird—however torpid or unconscious it may appear to us, everywhere life is its own goal and end; everywhere it is striving for completion.

In the language of religion, we can call life Paramatma—God; and God is attempting to experience himself everywhere. The name does not matter. Call it moksha, nirvana—because when life is fully realized, it is free: all fetters fall, all limits drop, all sorrow disappears, all anxieties vanish. Even the sense of self falls away; only a quivering of bliss remains. You may call that state moksha or nirvana, but it is better to call it life. The word “God” has become so soiled—overused, misused, exploited. So many shops have been erected in that name; so many unhappy associations have gathered around it in the human mind. For some years it would be appropriate not to use that word at all.

The same has happened with “moksha.” Those who chased it placed it above life, and then moksha became a synonym for death. So the word now obstructs. So does “nirvana.” The words humanity has used have collected such associations that their freshness is gone. Better to use “life.” Say: life is God. Life is liberation. Life is everything.

With this understanding, the old form of religion—the life-negative—dissolves. So far, religion has negated life, because it erected goals higher than life—purely imaginary and false—and to reach them, life had to be sacrificed. Religion taught a long discipline of shrinking life. In one way or another, it has been suicidal: contract, renounce, abandon; escape life; flee—and then you will find the goal.

It is a great and astonishing claim that to attain life’s purpose one must abandon life! It is so inverted, so foolish. If the purpose is life, it must be lived fully. How will the meaning of life be fulfilled by leaving it? By leaving, you may fulfill the meaning of death; not of life. Yet this fallacy has persisted because, in seeking life’s meaning, people posited a goal above life: “That must be attained; to attain it, leave life and go toward it.”

I say there is no goal above life. Go into life—deeper and deeper—descend to its innermost core; become one with it so that nowhere in your being is life an enemy. Let there be no rejection, no denial, no refusal of life anywhere in your heart. Such total acceptability—that is what I call theism, in my sense.

I do not call a man theistic who believes in God. I do not call a man theistic who is seeking moksha. I call theistic the one who has totally accepted life in all its forms. In whose mind there is no rejection of life; however life comes, he is willing to live it: darkness—willing; light—willing; sorrow—willing; joy—willing; flowers—willing; thorns—willing. As life is, he is ready to live it fully. In my meaning, such a person is theistic. Life has received from him perfect reverence; outside life he reveres nothing. If such a person goes on exploring life, one day he arrives where he becomes one with all life. In that total life are the moon and stars, plants and animals and birds. In that total life there is humanity, and forms our eyes cannot even see. Then only the whole remains—like a wave that has known its oneness with the entire ocean. Then the wave’s fear of disappearing vanishes. The wave will disappear—that is certain. There is no way to remain as a wave; nor is there any need.

The wave that knows, “I am one with the ocean,” has no concern with its own vanishing. In one sense it never vanishes: it vanishes as a wave; it remains as ocean. And to be as ocean is so immense that to vanish as a wave is pure joy.

Those who have put goals above life are seized by fear: “What if I disappear, if I die?” All old religions circle around death, asking, “What will happen after death?”—because they have not accepted life. If they accepted life in its totality, they would know: I will die, but life will not. I am a wave that comes and goes; that from which the wave arises neither comes nor goes—it remains. The person will vanish, the ego will vanish; life will not.

But those who have made goals other than life say, “I must be saved! Will my soul survive or not? Will I survive?”—this name, this particular person. “If I survive, fine; otherwise all is meaningless.” Not knowing that by trying to save himself he is losing the whole of life, whereas only with life does his being have any meaning.

Even if a wave does not know its oneness with the ocean, it is nonetheless one. It has leaped upon the ocean’s breast, risen toward moon and sun, and forgotten from where it came. It looks to the sky and forgets the depths. Perhaps then it fears it may vanish, and tries to save itself.

There is only one way for a wave to “save” itself: become frozen—turn into ice—and then it may persist; but even then it is dead, because a wave’s being is in its movement, its restlessness, its dance. Frozen into ice, it is no longer a wave, and no longer ocean either. The great catastrophe is that it dies as a wave and fails to remain as ocean.

All those who try to save the ego become frozen—whether by money, by fame, by religion, or by God. Those who strive to save “my life—I must survive”—are like the wave turned to ice. Saved, yet dead in being saved. If only it had remained a wave and known, “I am one with the ocean,” then there would be no way to be lost. I will disappear, but that from which I am does not. When I was not, that was; when I am not, that will be. Life will always be. We will come and go, arise and fall, be born and pass away—and life will be. Life is infinite, eternal, deathless.

But we worry about ourselves. This worry has created fear of uniting with life. For whoever wants union with life must dissolve—must know, “I am not.” Only then can oneness be known. This too must be noted: we do not know life’s fullness because we want to save ourselves as separate.

Jesus has a marvelous saying: those who try to save themselves will lose themselves; those who lose themselves will be saved. In losing they are saved—because then they become one with that from which they arise and into which they return. Life is that ocean—from which we come, into which we leap, and to which we go back. The leap is joyous; the coming is joyous; the return is equally joyous. For one who understands this vision of life, death is not sorrowful. It is like going to sleep after a day’s work: the labor was joyous, the waking was joyous, and sleep is no less joyous. The light of day was delightful; the darkness of night is wondrous. A whole life is one day; then the night—death—then dissolution; then the wave may rise again. Waves have risen, and will go on rising. But those who have placed a goal beyond life…

Life is. Life was. Life will be. We are no more than drops and waves. If this comes into our understanding, we will stop trying to enclose life from all sides. The doors will remain open, because whatever has come will go. Whatever has been received will be lost. Whatever has happened will disperse.

Absolutely. Life and death are not two things. Life is its coming; death is its going—of that which we call life. They are not two. One is arrival, the other is departure—of the same. When life arrives it takes form, shape, it becomes visible, expressed, manifest; then we accept it. But we forget: where was it before it became manifest? It was in death. A wave rises—but before it rose, where was it?

Life and death are like the in-breath and the out-breath. The same breath goes in, the same breath goes out. So it is with life: we come with birth; with death we return. You can call the whole span of living a single process of breathing. In the language of the Puranas, it is Brahma’s breath. They say the entire creation is a single breath of Brahma; and dissolution is that breath returning. This is very apt.

It is like this: a seed breaks open, a sprout appears, leaves come, flowers bloom—one breath. Then petals fall, leaves drop, the tree dries—the breath has returned. A child is born, grows, youth comes—breath in its full vigor and meaning. Then one grows old—the breath begins to return. Then one dies—the breath has gone back. Breath will rise and subside endless times, going and coming again and again.

One who understands this truth—that life and death are two wheels of the same cart, two supports of the same being; one brings, the other takes—such a one no longer fears death. In the total acceptance of life, the acceptance of death is included. In total acceptance there is no rejection left at all. Nothing remains to be rejected; whatever is, is accepted.

And when someone accepts life in its wholeness in this way, he attains bliss. Then there is no cause left for sorrow—because sorrow too is accepted, as simply as pleasure is accepted. Such a person no longer denies. He receives the rose with as much joy as he receives the thorn. He now knows that thorn and flower are joined in a deeper life. From the same source the thorn grows and the flower grows. In the design of thorn and flower the same life is at work—the same tree, the same plant, the same life. It was our mistake to separate thorn from flower—that was our view from the surface; we had not entered within.

From where youth arrives, from there old age will also arrive; from where birth comes, from there death will come too. From where pleasures come, pains will also come. And when pleasure–pain, life–death, darkness–light, thorn–flower are accepted together, with equal heart, the state that arises is called bliss.

Bliss is not pleasure. Bliss is not a synonym for pleasure. Bliss does not mean pleasure, not even contentment. Bliss means the place where contentment and discontentment have become equal; where pleasure and pain have the same value; where duality and conflict are no more. Bliss means we have embraced everything because we have seen that everything is a part of the One.

How will you reject? How will you throw half away? How could it be that we discard darkness and preserve light? Light will remain only together with darkness. How could we keep birth and discard death? Birth will remain only together with death. One who sees that all dualities are embraced in a single nonduality—that all are parts of the One—he begins to laugh. He says, “The matter is finished. Nothing to save, nothing to throw away. What is, is.”

Buddhists gave this a beautiful name: tathata—the philosophy of suchness: things are such. Not even the feeling remains that they should be such; even that question disappears. Things are such—birth happens, death happens; friends meet and part; love comes and goes—things are such. When a person can say, “Things are such: the flower blooms, and thorns are there too,” when he sees “things are such,” he drops even the wish that “they should be so,” because “should be” is born in the one who rejects, who says, “not this, but that.” Then he is imposing himself upon the world, upon life—trying to be bigger than life by insisting, “Let it be thus.”

Such a person will be miserable, in pain, because what he wants is impossible. All dualities are linked; you cannot save the half. One who sees this attains bliss—because now there is no sorrow left, no pleasure left. Whatever comes is accepted; whatever does not come is also accepted. If a friend arrives—there is joy. If a friend departs—there is joy.

Joy here means: in both situations he does not choose. He has become choiceless. There is no preference, no alternative; all is okay, all is okay. Even yes and no have become equal.

As one slowly comes to this total acceptance, trust arises. A theist accepts even atheism—that things are such that someone may say, “God is not.” A supreme theist will not even quarrel with an atheist, because he will say, “Fine—this too can be, that a person may say God is not. Where there are those who say God is, there is a need for those who say God is not—otherwise the ‘is’ becomes meaningless. It can stand only together with the ‘is not.’ That too is a duality.” Then he says to the theist, “You are right,” and to the atheist, “You are right.” There is no quarrel. He stands in the space where all oppositions are absorbed.

And where all opposites return into the One—one who stands at such a point has attained life.

Does this mean—thoughtlessness?
Yes. Now no question remains. Here there is no place for thought, because thought extends only so long as there is choice: this should be, that should not be; this to include, that to exclude; this to make, that to break. Such a person—when it rains, he rejoices; when the sun comes out, he rejoices; when winter comes, he rejoices.

Someone once went to a fakir and asked, “What is your practice?” The fakir said, “I have no practice. Practices are for those who reject something and want to attain something. Here all is accepted. What need of practice? Practice is where there is something to get. Here, whatever comes is fine; whatever does not come is also fine. That is all—if you want to call that practice.”

The man said, “I don’t understand. Still—what do you do? What do you keep doing?” The fakir said, “Nothing at all. When I feel hungry, I eat. When sleep comes, I sleep. When sleep breaks, I get up.” The man said, “But we do that too. What is there to do in it?”

The fakir said, “You do not do it. When you are hungry you do not only eat—you do many other things alongside. I simply eat. When hunger is there, eating happens. In fact, hunger eats. I merely watch hunger eating. And sometimes food is not available; then I watch hunger being restless. I watch—this goes on. Hunger is accepted; food is accepted. Both are together. Where there is hunger, there is food. Hunger will remain; food will remain. What is, is fine—such is the state here.”

Such a person should be understood as one floating in a river. He is not swimming. He does not say, “I must reach that shore.” He has nowhere to reach. He is where he is—so he floats. Wherever the river carries him, he goes. Sometimes the river swells; he sees it swell. Sometimes it shrinks; he sees it shrink. Sometimes it runs swift; he moves swiftly. Sometimes it slows; he moves slowly. He does not do anything—he simply flows.

In that ultimate state of life, there is only flowing—becoming one with life, joining the current of life. There one attains life’s meaning and purpose. That is bliss; that is perfect peace.

But if someone tries to make life a means to attain such bliss, he falls into error. Bliss arises naturally out of living—it is a by-product. You cannot make it the goal. If a person thinks, “I will make bliss my goal; I must attain bliss,” he is mistaken. It is like sowing wheat: along with the wheat, straw also appears. If someone says, “I only want straw,” and starts sowing straw—then neither straw will grow nor wheat. Even the straw he had will rot. With wheat, straw appears; it is a by-product; it does not arise directly. Grow wheat and the straw accompanies it.

Bliss cannot be made the goal of life because life itself cannot be made a goal. When life happens, bliss follows—like straw follows wheat. It is a by-product. You do not have to go searching for it. As life deepens, it comes of itself. It is life’s shadow; it comes with life.

You have come here. If I say, “I do not care for you; I want to bring your shadow,” I can never bring your shadow. There is no way to bring a shadow apart from you. It comes with you, goes with you. If you arrive, your shadow arrives. So I do not worry about your shadow. If you come, it will come. Bliss is the shadow of life. As life deepens, bliss comes along.

But human logic has gone wrong—we have made bliss a goal. Some people spend their whole lives chasing bliss and waste life itself, and bliss will not come to them. Bliss is not something separate that can be attained. It comes to the one who attains the capacity to flow in pleasure and pain, in birth and death, with equal heart. And this capacity arises on its own as we go deeper into life.

Therefore I say: do not escape from life. Enter life. Often it happens that those we call “sinners” go deeper into life, while those we call “virtuous” remain utterly superficial. They are so afraid of life that they never enter it. In my view, enter life—from every side where entry is. If you are eating, do it with such depth and relish that eating becomes a doorway into life. If you are loving, dive in totally. If you are listening to music, disappear. If you are swimming, get lost—even in the smallest happenings.

And remember: life is not some separate thing lying somewhere to be found later. Our day-to-day living is life. Moment to moment, live what you are living with intensity, with totality, with fullness and depth. Even when bathing, do it as if bathing is an act complete in itself, with no other goal. Then in bathing too the glimmer of life will appear. If you are running, run as if that alone is life’s goal. Whatever you do, become so one with it that separation disappears. Living like this, moment to moment, the layers of life peel back, and discovery happens.

One day, when life begins to throb through every vein, every fiber, every particle—flowing in every breath—then we no longer ask, “What is life’s purpose?” Then we know: the destination is found. And we are astonished to see that the goal was always near—that it was what we are—and we never knew it because we were busy seeking some goal.

It can be said like this: those who seek life’s purpose lose the purpose; those who find life, they attain the purpose too.

The past has conditioned us; it has given man many false beliefs. The strange thing is not only that false beliefs are false; in fact, belief as such is false. Because every kind of belief prevents us from seeing the whole—any kind of belief!

A belief means a fragment; a belief is like a window through which we look. You can see the sky through a window, but that is not the sky. Can the sky be set into a frame? The sky seen through a frame is fundamentally untrue, because the sky has no frame. Sky means vastness, infinite expanse. What is seen through a window appears within a frame. The very meaning of the sky is space, the infinite—and what is seen through a frame is a limited piece. It is like seeing the sky in a painting; that is not the sky you see standing under the open sky. Life is also infinite, just like the sky. Therefore any belief becomes an obstacle. Any concept turns into a frame.

The past has given man many frames, patterns, molds, beliefs. It has told us how to live—what way of life is right and what is wrong; what is sin and what is virtue; what to do and what not to do; which goals are worthy and which to abandon. In all this telling, man has died. Under the weight of all this instruction, living itself has become impossible. We are acting, not living. It has told us that...

All this telling has been very costly; this schooling has cost us dearly—and man cannot live at all. Even how to love has been prescribed, and then love becomes impossible. Because whatever is deep in life is always spontaneous; it does not happen through instruction. It arises of itself, naturally.

I want each person to realize that frames and molds cannot encompass the sky of life. And this realization can come, because everyone is living in so much suffering, so much trouble and anxiety that it is beyond measure. If the thought arises that outside the house, beyond the walls, there is open air, sunlight and sky; many flowers are blooming; there is much music—then there is no reason to sit inside this house, in this smoke, within these closed walls, in this filth. Even if one has been living in this house for thousands of years, it makes no difference.

Once this one thought comes, this remembering arises—“Perhaps I am in misery because I am enclosed by these walls”—then at once one steps outside. It is not that because we have been cast in a mold for thousands of years it will be difficult to come out. If just once this remembrance, this awareness dawns that all this misery and anxiety are due to this enclosure, then stepping out happens in a single moment. Even the traditions of thousands or millions of years cannot prevent it. It can happen in a split second.

So yes, it is true that man is surrounded by beliefs, confined, bound by old doctrines and scriptures. Everything has been told to him; the old gurus have created much slavery. All that slavery sits on his chest. But it is there because he has accepted it; it exists because he is holding it. And he holds it because he hopes it will bring joy—otherwise he would not hold it. And since joy has not come, breaking this slavery is not very difficult.

It is only a matter of reminding you once that this very grasping is what is troubling you. Come out and see: no belief has become our soul. No belief is our very being, and no window is our life-breath. It is only because we are inside the room that the poor window seems to confine us. If we step outside, the window will not shout, will not call, will not stop us; it will remain where it is. Exactly so, the mold on our mind has not become part of our soul—it cannot. We can step out at any moment. It can happen quite suddenly. It is not that only through great effort can it happen. It can happen in a moment, in an instant—and often when it happens, it happens in a single instant.

Once the thought arises that it is possible, a man turns back and comes out. The difficulty is only this: we keep living in the very delusion that is the cause of our suffering, and we make it the basis of our search for happiness. And that very shoe has a nail that is piercing us, wounding the foot. We keep wearing that shoe because we think, “How will we walk without it?”—and the shoe itself will not let us walk. Its nail is taking our very life. Yet we imagine that without shoes the feet will be unsafe. So we go on wearing the shoe with the nail. It is only a matter of giving this simple reminder.

Therefore my work is not the work of a guru. Nor is it the work of a preacher, because I do not want to give a new belief or a new frame. My work is no more than the work of an awakener: to shout at the door of someone’s house that the sun has risen outside; you are needlessly sitting in darkness—come out and see just once. And no one is binding you. If you are sitting there, you are bound. Which means being bound is our own decision; therefore it can break in a second—no, it doesn’t even need a second.

So now it is necessary to bring this message to every house, to every person: just give them news of the outside of the house. Whenever true teachers have appeared in the world, they have done nothing else. They have only shaken, awakened, called people outside. They did not give doctrines or scriptures, because all scriptures and doctrines work to keep you inside; they again become beliefs. So one should not replace an old belief with a new one.

No—what has to be given is this idea, this remembrance, this awakening: that man has no need of any belief. And the courage has to be given to live, and not to be afraid of life. Wherever life takes you, go fearlessly. Life will give you precious experience everywhere. And where the whole world says, “Don’t go, stop,” if life calls you, go even there—because passing through it you will come out as another person. You will not remain the same as you were. And if something is wrong, it will fall away through your experience; and what does not fall away through experience cannot be dropped by any other means.

So life has to be experienced in all its forms, and all fear has to be dropped. This is the kind of education I want—one that gives no new belief, but only courage to live, strength, allure, challenge, invitation. Not an ideology that says, “Live like this,” but an invitation to live: if you live, live totally; live without worry.

And if you keep only this in your awareness—to live totally—then the futile will drop away on its own, and what is meaningful will go on growing and deepening.

Yes. In fact, man has already reached that point—humanity has already arrived at the threshold from which awakening can happen. Human consciousness has come to a place where the shell of the scriptures has become a burden, where gurus have become like stones laid upon the chest, and where all beliefs have turned into bondage. Human consciousness has reached that place. And today the possibility is very simple: man is so restless to live because he has gathered all the means of living.

The illusion has broken—“If there is no money, how will we live?” Now there is money, and we discover that life is something else entirely, something not given by money alone. We thought, “Without a big house, how will we live?” Now the big house is there. Science has gathered all the instruments we demanded for living, and suddenly a difficulty has arisen: life itself—where is it?

For the first time human consciousness has reached a point where revolution is possible; for the first time the words of a Buddha or a Christ are close to being fulfilled. Buddha and Christ were people born before their time. They shouted at a moment when very few could hear them, because most were compelled to search for life in tiny, immediate needs—who had the leisure to ask what life truly is? “Without bread, what life?”

Today humanity has come to a point where a fundamental revolution, a mutation of mind, is possible—where the whole of human consciousness can change. Therefore there is a great need to call out—to stand on the rooftop of every house and cry aloud. Everywhere man has reached the climax of his distress; if he does not awaken there, he will die. That is why suicides are increasing, madness is increasing, anxiety is increasing. The place where man now stands has become unfit for living; if no call reaches him, no challenge comes, no message arrives, he will rot there, he will perish. He will not wish to live as he is. It has become certain: man, as he is, is no longer willing to go on living that way; he is in agony. So the moment has come when the call can be heard.

And the next fifty years are immensely precious in the history of the human race—of incomparable value. Never before has there been such a valuable time. From this place, the call can be heard. The belief that what we accepted would yield joy—that belief has collapsed. Now it is only necessary to convey the news of what can bring joy.

So the whole structure of education should become a challenge to life—an invitation to live. When a student returns from the university, he should come back carrying an invitation to live—in many forms: in love, in friendship, in relationship, in inquiry, in invention, in reflection, in contemplation, in meditation. He should return with invitations on all sides: to enter everywhere, to search everywhere. He should bring back a feeling of exploration, not fixed conclusions.

As you asked, no ready-made notion works—never has, never can. A prefabricated belief never works, because it comes to you secondhand. You do not pass through challenge, through search, through struggle, through victory and defeat, through suffering and anxiety. It is handed to you free—and its only value would be if you had earned it through all that labor, that pain, that suffering. Only then would it have meaning, only then value. Taken for free, it will not work. Perhaps you will discover the very same insight, but there is no shortcut of taking it ready-made.

Each person must discover the truth of his own life by himself. Education should be such that it only calls each person to discover the truth of life; it should not send him home carrying fixed beliefs—“Take this and you have obtained life.” Till now that is what we have done. We teach everything. We leave no corner unlearned where the person himself must learn. Certainly some things must be taught: whether to keep to the left or the right on the road must be taught. Chemistry, physics, mathematics must be taught, and geography and history too. No one will discover those personally. Teach all that—but do not teach life. Do not hand out a belief about life.

About life, give only the urge to search, the passion to inquire—create an inquiring mind. Teach everything that is trivial—there is no harm in teaching what must always be borrowed from others. But what is of supreme value in life, what each must realize for himself—do not teach that. About that, awaken questions, open discussions, stir the air, create doubt, ignite the search. Do only this much. Let a young man return from the university with a single thought in his mind: “I must discover life; I will not die just like that. Otherwise my living has no meaning.” Let him learn everything else; let life remain unlearned—so that he learns it himself, by his own search.