Shiksha Main Kranti #20

Life is certainly full of oppositions, full of contradictions. Opposition is also essential to life. Just as a builder places opposing bricks over a doorway to create an arch: the pressure of opposing bricks from two sides becomes the doorway. The entire order of life depends on oppositions and their counter-pressures.

If there were no opposition, life itself would be impossible. Contradictory poles—their tension and pressure—are what create life. So opposition is not anti-life. The whole play and lila of life is between oppositions. The entire arrangement of life arises out of dark and light together, sun and shade together, birth and death together, woman and man together, negative and positive together. Therefore it can never be that opposition will end. If opposition ends, life ends. Oppositions will remain.

Then what is to be done? Let there be oppositions—and between oppositions, let there be a harmony, a congruence. That is, let the oppositions be such that together they give momentum to life, not block it. Oppositions can be of the sort that halt life and create obstacles; they can also be of the sort that give life motion and allow the journey. Oppositions cannot be eliminated. To talk of eliminating them is itself wrong. Yes, oppositions can be such that they become friends, collaborators, companions of life—or such that life is destroyed. So the question is: what kind of opposition shall we choose?

I am not opposed to opposition; I only deny those oppositions by which life is destroyed. The true music of life arises by discovering, amidst opposition, a cadence, a rhythm. When a musician plays the sitar, many notes are born. If there is harmony among those notes, music arises. Ten madmen could also gather in a room and produce many sounds, but no music will emerge from that. Sounds will be produced plentifully, but they will create dissonance, not music—discordant, not harmonious. Such is life’s situation. Notes can arise in life that are opposing yet musical. And it can also happen that the notes are merely opposing, with no inter-relationship among them.

The society we have today is such a society: a kind of cacophony. Not because there are oppositions, but because we have not sought the music within them. Seeing this tumult, many are tempted to think we should end all opposition. But the day opposition ends, that day life ends; life cannot even be made to stand.

The movement of life is forever between oppositions. Even when you walk along a road, you have no idea that it is by virtue of two opposing forces that you are able to walk. You move forward, while the earth’s gravity is constantly stopping your motion. The ground is saying: stop, stay, be still—and you are walking. A coordination is established between the two, therefore you can walk.

If the earth had no gravity, you could not walk at all. Or if in you there were no desire to move, you would not walk either. The earth’s gravity and your wish to walk—and a harmony between them—give you motion. If there were no gravity, you would float away; walking would not arise. If you had no wish to walk, you would sit down. Between these two opposites we walk, we live. In every moment of living, the opposition of death stands near. The very savor of life exists because there is death. If it were certain that there were no death, the juice of life would vanish at once. The thrill and ecstasy of life arises from standing, moment to moment, alongside death.

If someday man contrived to deny death and made such arrangements that no one died, from that very day no one would truly live either—because life’s meaning would be lost. Likewise, when a painter creates, he uses many colors, and often to make white stand out, he paints a black background. Against black, white emerges and shows itself—whiter than it even is—by virtue of the black. By discovering a music between black and white, a painting comes into being.

So in a deep understanding of life, opposition must be accepted. We are not to deny it. But this does not mean opposition should become anarchic, with no relationship between the opposites. Two people are talking. They are opposed, yet their conversation can be musical if, even in opposition, each is eager to understand the other. Then their talk is a dialogue; through it both will come closer to truth. They are opposed, entirely opposed. Perhaps the only thing they agree on is that they will disagree—this is their sole agreement. Yet if there is a feeling to understand the other, that will create music. Their opposition will become friendly, and through it they will approach truth.

Two people can also be opposed in such a way that neither is willing to listen. Each only speaks his own piece and hears nothing of the other; there is no connection with the other at all. Then the place becomes a madhouse. They speak, but there is no link to the other. In that case they near not truth, but madness. The question is: what kind of opposition, what kind of contradiction? Therefore I hold that we should also educate ourselves in what sort of opposition we should live with.

A man shoots an arrow. He wants to send the arrow forward, yet he draws the bow backward. This is a complete paradox. If you want the arrow to go forward, why pull the bow back? But by drawing the bow back, he creates the opposition that will send the arrow forward. Whoever wishes to take a long jump has to step back two paces. Someone might say: have you gone mad—if you want a long jump, why step back? You’ll be two steps short. But stepping back creates the opposition that brings momentum; and the further one can step back to give momentum, the longer the leap. So the one who goes back is not always the loser; he can be the winner—if he has stepped back to leap further. We must teach each person how to live between oppositions. What do we teach now? We say: choose one of the two and live!

A householder says: how can I be at peace in family life? Everything here is reversed, adverse from every angle.

In the development of thought and consciousness too, opposition is most important. In countries where the air of intellectual opposition has blown, reason and thought have gained speed. In countries where faith, belief, acceptance—non-opposition—have prevailed, the mind has developed less, because the challenge has been eliminated. As in our own country: the mind has not developed as it could have, because our entire arrangement has been that no one should oppose, no one be atheist, no one deny—everyone should be a “yes”-sayer; one shouldn’t even talk of “no.” When everyone says “yes,” the tension does not arise by which “no” strengthens the “yes.” The “yes” gradually becomes feeble, merely formal. In the end the “yes” has no meaning, for it had meaning only so long as one could say “no.” Then “yes” becomes meaningless, only a matter of etiquette.

Ultimately—from body to mind to soul—we must learn to use all oppositions and see how high we can raise life by bringing both poles together, uniting thesis and antithesis, debate and counter-argument, into synthesis. That should be the very basis of education in every direction. And then the synthesis—the dialogue—should itself become a new thesis, so that its antithesis may arise. Thus, at every moment, let there be opposition and union; each union beginning a new opposition. Man is dialectical; human development is dialectical—growth arises between two contraries.

So I would say: not that there be no contradictions—there must be contradictions, but let them be healthy, magnificent, meaningful! And even so, let there be a coordination between them, a union in the depth—let the inner union not break.

For the society to come, we envision rules of this kind. It is a very delicate, very subtle matter—because a simple, crude rule is easy to grasp: let society command children to obey and to revere elders—very simple. For elders the dispute ends; opposition is broken. I hold that this will destroy not only the children but also the elders—because in the opposition of children the elders will have to remain childlike to the end, remain ready to learn, remain young. They will have to keep searching—if children oppose. And only if children oppose will energy arise within them; from that opposition their power will be born, and that power will carry their life forward.

So my view is: let children obey only as far as their own insight finds it right—and where it does not, let them disobey just as much; let them be as capable of breaking a command as they are of following one. That is, the child should be wholly free—free to obey and free to disobey. Let the freedom of his intelligence be preserved. Both oppositions should be present in him: that he may comply if he wishes, and refuse if he wishes. If the balance between yes and no is rightly maintained, the child will grow—and so will society.

In the same way I regard all rules: we should not destroy the opposing rule; it deserves equal respect. The theist deserves as much respect as the atheist—and the atheist as much as the theist. Then theism gains vigor, and atheism too becomes alive. These two are contraries; neither is complete. When, by coordinating the two, a third quality is born in a person, he is neither theist nor atheist—he becomes religious. He is the synthesis. These two opposing bricks meet and make an arch in him; he becomes religious.

But in one who has no atheism at all, his theism will be impotent—devoid of strength, because the counter-part is missing. It is like a doorway with only one kind of brick; it will collapse, it cannot stand. The door stands only by the pressure of opposition.

You also asked about a world society and whether it, too, should have rules and arrangement. In truth, an international government can arise only when the big national governments dissolve. Big national governments are the greatest obstacle in the path of an international one. A single world government is possible only when the large national governments are dissolved and their place taken by small, local units. Local units will be so small they cannot survive by opposing an international government. If large nations—China, Russia, America, India—remain, an international government is highly unlikely. Big nations are the chief hindrance to an international feeling. Small nations—like Switzerland—are very conducive to it: so small they cannot stand against an international governance, and so small they cannot even directly stand against another nation.

So it is in their interest that nations be dissolved and an international sensibility arise. Small units and an international government are not opposing ideas. Let there be small councils everywhere in the world, and let their coordination merge into a great international government. These will be local units. In my view, municipal corporations and such small units should be entirely autonomous. Their coordination should be direct with the international government. There is no need for national units in between. Then we will grant a personality to cities, to small districts, to villages—each will have its own identity. And with this myriad of identities, an international music will be born.

Large nations are antagonistic to this; they obstruct. They too call for international government, but what they mean is to dominate—to become the international government themselves. The call for internationalism is very old, and it has come in two kinds: Alexander and Genghis Khan too wanted an international government—one world under their rule. But that could not be; the very feeling was wrong. In that way, an international government can never be formed. It will arise on the basis that the units are small—so small as to be negligible in terms of power—and thus able to unite and come together.

Therefore the nation must go. In the future, there can be no place for nation-states. There will be small towns, small districts, small clusters that wish to associate. Those small clusters will organize themselves; they can manage within their small bounds. They will have no great power. Their administrative thread will be a small police to arrange internal matters, a small court. But all their relations will be direct with the international government. Only then can wars end.

In short, at the small scale panchayat-style self-rule, and at the large scale international governance—these two things must be established. The nation in the middle must be removed entirely. The nation in the middle is the obstacle. It does not allow the panchayat beneath to be free—because a fully autonomous panchayat threatens it. So it keeps the panchayat under such control that its own grip remains. It talks of local self-government in name only; there is neither “government” nor “self” in it. These are mere devices to placate people; they grant no real right to govern—because there is a right to govern only when there is a right to separate; otherwise there is no right at all.

What can self-government mean? It can only mean that if I wish, I may secede. But that you cannot. Thus the nation opposes both the local councils below and the international government above—because the stronger the international authority, the weaker and more useless the national one becomes. So it fights on both fronts: it will not let the small units be free, nor the vast international scale come together. The nation and nationalism will have to be bid farewell.

In the education of the coming child, there should be no inculcation of nationalism. The feeling should be for humanity, for the world. Then the small units will be administrative. What will “government” mean? In a small unit it will mean administration—arranging one’s own affairs.

As to your second question—what arrangements, what rules?—there is much to reflect on. First, the reason we have had to make so many arrangements up to now is not human nature, nor the real problems of life. The reason is the coercion imposed upon ordinary human nature, and a social mechanism that inevitably produces disease. For example: the thief. To stop theft we have had to put in place so many arrangements—how many laws, courts, police, prisons to restrain the thief. It begins to seem as if theft were intrinsic to man.

That is utterly untrue. Theft is tied to private property. As long as there is private property in the world, theft will not end.

So if you wish to end theft, you need not fight thieves; you need to bid farewell to private property. Property should be communal. When property is communal, ninety-nine percent of theft will disappear; ninety-nine thieves out of a hundred will be gone. Where there is a rich man on one side and a poor man on the other, there will be theft. The day economic abundance is equal in society—society is the owner and individuals are not—the economic cause for theft disappears. Ninety-nine percent of thieves will thus depart; and with them, ninety-nine percent of rules, laws, courts, judges concerned with theft will also depart.

In fact, the thief, the judge, and the police are joined together; they are parts of the same thing, not separate. The judge sits puffed up, but he is merely the other side of the thief. As long as the thief exists, the judge sits in state. The day the thief goes, he goes too. It is thus in the judge’s interest that the thief continue—and in the lawyer’s as well. Without thieves there would be no lawyers, no judges, no police, no laws; all would be gone. Ninety-nine percent of thieves will go in this way. One percent are pathological—whose theft has no economic cause but a psychological one.

And it is striking that where the cause is kleptomania, a mental disorder, punishing is sheer stupidity—nothing could be more foolish. It is like punishing a man for having tuberculosis. For the thief who remains, no court is needed; treatment is needed—hospitals and psychotherapy.

I cite this example to show that a vast portion of our regulation exists to manage theft, which arises from private property. Private property should be bid farewell. We should raise our children opposed to private ownership—so that they will not regard any property as “mine.” Property belongs to all. When property belongs to all, the thief is gone.

No, I do not speak of renouncing wealth, because even in renunciation that personal sense of “mine” remains. We can renounce only what we take to be ours. A man may have millions; still he says, “They are mine.” Tomorrow he says, “I renounce them,” and he becomes a renouncer of millions—but his proprietorship is still in place. In truth, renunciation is itself a form of ownership. I can leave only that which I call mine. Therefore, we should not prepare the coming children to renounce. Children have been trained to renounce for a long time; all the religions of the world teach, “Renounce.” But no property was ever eliminated by that renunciation, because it still affirmed the ownership of property.

We must help the coming generations to grow the understanding that property belongs to no one—neither for renunciation nor for possession. If there is property, it is everyone’s. To say it is everyone’s means it is no one’s. Property is for use, not for ownership. And we can use it together. It is our common share, to be used through our cooperation and togetherness. The road, for example, is everyone’s; it is no one’s possession. I do not say, “I have renounced ownership of the road.” I know the road was never mine. The river is everyone’s; I do not say, “I have renounced the river’s water.” If someone were to say, “Let whoever wants enjoy it; I have become a renouncer of the river,” we would call him mad. The river is everyone’s, the road is everyone’s, the air is everyone’s, the sun is everyone’s—and likewise, the rest is everyone’s.

So, for the sake of social order, the first task is to cultivate the understanding that no one owns property. In renunciation, ownership is still present; the renouncer does not step outside ownership. He leaves it, yet the very act of leaving is still an affair of ownership. Even after leaving it, people say of him, “He is the renouncer of millions!”—so ownership continues. Renunciation did not end ownership. Therefore, not renunciation, but the growth of understanding. In understanding, neither indulgence remains nor renunciation remains. What is not mine raises no question of being given up. And bound up with this idea of property is theft.

The fundamental causes of disorder in the world have not yet been acknowledged or accepted. The roots remain intact, and we keep fighting on the surface, against symptoms. Our struggle should begin at the root—at the very foundation. For example, human beings are not, by nature, so full of jealousy, ambition, and hatred. There is a measure of these, but very little. It is our systems, our way of thinking, that have magnified them.

There are many causes. Education itself is a product of social organization. So far, education has been arranged to strengthen society’s framework, not to break it. Even in school we teach children that stealing is a sin, but we do not teach that exploitation is a sin; and as long as exploitation continues, theft will continue.

We teach that if a poor person snatches a rich man’s property it is a sin—stealing is a sin. Yet no rich person goes to steal in a poor man’s house; it is the poor who steal from the rich. We teach children that stealing is a sin, but we do not teach that exploitation is a sin, because exploitation is theft turned upside down. There it is the rich who enter the poor man’s house. In my view, exploitation is the rich man’s method of stealing from the poor, and theft is the poor man’s method of exploiting.

So in education we are denying the poor man’s tactic and approving the rich man’s tactic! Education as it exists has arisen from the existing social structure, and it has accepted all the interests of that structure. Then we tailor education to suit that structure. We teach children ambition. We train them to surge ahead: get this, get that—a bigger house, a higher post, more wealth; we instill in them a race for the world of possessions. The one who wins is “successful,” the one who loses is “a failure.” This education has not been formulated with a view to human peace, joy, and health. It has been designed with a view to how the existing social framework can be kept running.

Imagine a village where everyone is insane, and there is a school. The insane will teach their children all the pathways to becoming insane so the children can be included in their parents’ society. So the mad teachers and the mad society will make every arrangement to ensure that, before intelligence and understanding can arise, the children are already made mad. That education is not centered on the children; it is centered on preserving the social structure.

Thus, all education so far is a by-product of the social structure. And life is deeply interconnected: society makes education, then education begins to make society; again society makes education, and again education makes society. Today we educate a child; tomorrow he becomes a teacher. In the kind of education I am talking about, for the first time the individual will be our center, not society. We do not want to keep society at the center at all. What is necessary for the individual’s happiness, peace, joy, health—the individual’s supremely harmonious fulfillment—that will be our focus.

Even if keeping this focus breaks society—then let it break. This society, in any case, is bound to break. The old education was based on preserving society’s structure even if the individual is shattered. Hence it was devoted to breaking individuals. It broke everyone; if by some lapse an individual escaped, that was another matter—but then society branded him a rebel, a revolutionary, an enemy. That system saved society and killed the individual. And the irony is: what is the point of saving society if individuals are destroyed? After all, society is only the dead framework of their sum. The individual is the living force. We did the reverse: as if in a train with passengers seated, we considered the train primary—let all the passengers die, but the train must be saved. And we forgot for whom we are saving the train!

I hold that we should regard society as the machine and the individual as the life. To save the individual—even if society collapses—no worry! It won’t be that society vanishes; this society will pass, and a new society will take its place. When the individual becomes the center of education, the thousand kinds of pathology and mental illness that arise will diminish greatly. The social diseases we see—theft, murders, suicides—will also diminish greatly. What happens now is not visible to us. For example, across the world women commit many suicides. The cause is not women’s nature; the cause is the slavery imposed upon women. Slavery reaches a point where death seems better than life.

In India, widows became satis; it was merely giving suicide a religious form, granting it a social sanction—nothing else. We created such a painful condition for widows that dying always seemed better to them. If widows commit suicide—or, if they do not, they become “unchaste”; or, being unchaste, they adopt hypocrisy and carry it on outwardly—then we hold the individual responsible: this woman committed suicide, she was wrong; this woman became adulterous, she is wrong; this woman is a hypocrite, showing one thing on the surface and being another within. Whereas the whole matter is that society is offering her only these options. Society does not offer her a healthy option to rebuild her life, nor does it offer her an honored option to meet her life’s needs.

So I maintain: the individual is not sinful, not criminal, not adulterous, not depraved. Fundamentally, deep down, society is adulterous, society is sinful, society is criminal. And society has such immense power that it can crush the life out of individuals one by one; while for a single individual to have enough power to rebel against and struggle with the vast social framework is very difficult.

If a good social order emerges, if good education arises, then the fear we have for “order” will not remain. In an asylum, if we tell the superintendent, “There should be freedom—no locks on the doors,” he will say, “You have no idea—everything will collapse into disorder; the mad will all run out. Where they will go, what they will do—no one knows.” We would say, “We will first make the mad healthy, then open the doors.” He still insists that an open door is always a danger—he does not know the danger lies in the madness, not in the open door.

We need to bind society with so many rules because we have placed individuals in such a condition that without those rules he would immediately create chaos—and even with all these rules he still creates chaos. Such a strange situation has arisen, yet we do not see it. We are always afraid that if we do something new, the whole order will collapse. Let it be broken—there is no need for such an order. That order exists only because we are not able to bring human beings into the state in which they ought to be. We are not able to provide them complete freedom, facility, peace, and joy in any basic need of life—food, clothing, sex. From all sides we make them sick and harassed. And we have arranged things so completely that within this arrangement a person must either go mad or become a hypocrite—these are the only two alternatives. Having created such a dangerous situation, we have had to weave a vast net of rules.

In the coming world, we should keep the psychologically ordered, integrated human being in view and fulfill his psychological needs. For example, I hold it is simply wrong to insist that a man stay with one wife all his life. If someone wishes to, let him; it should be his joy. A person should be so calm and healthy that if he is blissful with one, he remains with one—but to impose it is dangerous. When a person is perfectly healthy, perhaps he will indeed find joy in being with one.

At the deepest level, yes. Deep down, all disease is a disease of human consciousness and mind. But that does not mean there are no diseases that come from outside. Germs can attack from outside; injuries and wounds can happen from outside. Yet even with such ailments, if inwardly the psyche is ready to receive the disease, it accepts it quickly. There is no inner resistance; rather there is an inner acceptance—“Come, let me fall ill.” Even an external wound, if the inner psyche is preparing to be sick, will heal slowly; and if the inner psyche is healthy, an external wound heals quickly. Very deep down, eighty percent of illness is of the psyche, of the mind.

So if we can make the human mind healthy, the possibilities of healing and dissolving many diseases become very great. Until the mind is healthy, we cannot truly make a person healthy. Only a few diseases will remain—those that come from outside—and fighting them will become easier, not harder. The mental pressure is so immense, the burden so heavy, that it is astonishing we are not even more ill. These pressures are such that they lie outside our conscious recognition.

A psychologist once experimented with some mice. Ordinarily, mice do not go mad. He did one thing: he caged the females separately and the males separately. As soon as pups were born, the male pups were kept apart and the female pups apart. He cut off all possibility of males and females meeting. As they grew up, both the females and the males began going mad. A kind of madness spread that had never been seen in mice before. This is a strange fact.

It means that as long as society brings up boys and girls separately, it is sowing the seeds of madness. They should be raised together—so together that they do not even notice they are two different kinds of persons. Then madness in society will drop immediately, and psyches will be healthier, more developed.

In fact, many of our inner needs we have blocked from all sides. Those blockages will have consequences—serious consequences. But the blocks are so ancient we forget them. It does not even occur to us that raising boys and girls separately is sowing seeds of madness, giving place to a thousand illnesses, breeding a thousand perversions. And then, for those perversions and distortions, we hold the individual responsible: “He alone is to blame.” Correctly understood, if society makes a wholesome arrangement for the individual, only minimal possibilities of disorder remain. Possibilities do remain—life is a complex affair—but removing them will not be difficult; simple therapies, scientific development can take care of them. A person can live perfectly healthy—mind and body. And only when mind and body are healthy can one enter spiritual health; otherwise even entry becomes very difficult.

So in the world I speak of, rules and order will still be needed—but much less. If we can break this entire web that forces a person into disorder and compels him to break rules, then the need for rules and order will be very small.

It is neither pleasant nor worthy that a policeman stands at every crossroads. Nor is it a mark of culture that every village must have a court. It is so insulting that we can hardly imagine it—only we have become used to it. It is that insulting that there should be so many laws, so many lawyers, so many judges. All this is proof that society is inwardly, mentally, very ill—hence the need for so much apparatus. Ideally, such apparatus should not be needed at all.

And if the world becomes better, all this will have to bid farewell. Of course, there will be courts—but they will open rarely, perhaps remain closed for a year or two. Sometimes an occasion may arise to open them, to think through a few matters. There will be police too, but not much need for it—only occasionally.

Sir, one more contradiction I am coming across is about free will and destiny. People say they are suffering because of old karmas, and others go completely opposite to that. It is very confusing whether there is anything like destiny or free will—whether there are past karmas or something else will happen in the future. This contradiction is, I think, a vital one in society today.

Both are true, and there is no real contradiction between them. A contradiction appears—on the surface it is there—but inwardly there is none.

I remember: a man once went to Caliph Ali and asked the same question—“Is man free in his actions, or is he bound? Is it destiny, or is it freedom? Are we doing what we must, or are we doing what we choose?” Ali looked at him for a while and said, “Do one thing: lift one foot and stand on it.” The man lifted his left foot. Ali said, “Now lift your other foot as well.” The man said, “What kind of madness are you talking? How can I lift the other foot now?” Ali said, “Let me point it out. You could lift the first foot—you were completely free. You did not even ask which one to lift; you were free even in that—right or left. But the moment you lifted one foot, you became bound; now you cannot lift the second. This bondage is the fruit of your first freedom.”

Whenever we use freedom, we create bondage—because any use sets limits. You come to me: I am free to abuse you or to welcome you with love. But the moment I abuse, I am bound—one option is closed. If I welcome you, I am bound in another way—another option is closed. The likely outcome of abuse is that you will abuse back; a chain of abuse begins, and then welcoming becomes as difficult as lifting the right foot after you have already lifted the left. If, on the other hand, I welcome you, even if you came prepared to abuse, it becomes difficult for you to do so after being received with love. In my view, deep down there is no contradiction between freedom and bondage; it only appears so.

Man is perfectly free—but freedom is his ground, his backdrop. The moment he steps into action, he begins to be bound. The more he binds himself, the less freedom there remains. Yet freedom is never destroyed or exhausted. By arranging things in the opposite way, he can free himself even from what he has bound himself with. Just as the man who had lifted the left foot can put it down and lift the right—he can still lift the right, but then the left must be kept down. What has been done can be undone; once undone, you again stand with free options.

Man is perfectly free—his soul is free—but his personality is dependent. This is my distinction between soul and personality. The soul is possibility—what you can do; the personality is deed—what you have already done. If we take this very life: a man of thirty has already done much. What he has done has become a bondage. He has made some friends and some enemies. He has done some things and left others undone. He has gone in one direction and not another. Whatever he has done has created a structure for his personality; within it, he is bound. If, as I understand, there are other lives too, then what we have done in those lives has also created structures.

There is a long conditioning of impressions—samskaras—that is our bondage. Yet even after every bondage, our capacity to be free remains. It is not shattered or ended. It is not that today I can do nothing. Today too I can change. Even if I have walked ten miles west, it does not mean I cannot turn back and go east. Of course, to return I must undo those ten miles—take steps back. The effort and time spent on the ten miles will be “wasted,” and then as much effort and time will be needed to erase them. I must return ten miles to the crossroads where the eastward journey begins. That is why ordinarily it seems simpler—the path of least resistance—to keep going as one has been going.

So the person who does not think, does not awaken, does not inquire—he slowly loses freedom altogether because he keeps drifting where he is headed. He thinks turning back is too hard. But however hard it is, it is not impossible. Therefore, however many births we may have had, and however many deeds we may have done, ultimately an inner portion of us is still free. If today we wish, and we gather resolve and strength, and we cultivate understanding, then all we have done can be wiped clean; we can go in the opposite direction, or in a different one.

In my view, freedom and dependence are opposites, but the personality stands upon the harmony of both. There is no question of “this is right and that is wrong”—both are right. Those who cling to only one feel they cannot accept the other. But, as I said, life contains darkness and light, and life is their union. Life contains freedom and dependence, and life is their union. Our effort should be to make sure our dependence does not obstruct our freedom; rather, our dependence should support our freedom. As I said, our opposites should be such that they arch together to form a doorway.

Consider: a man arranges his life so that he makes everyone his enemy. That is a kind of dependence, a barrier. All boundaries close in. Such a man will find it very difficult to be free. He has tied himself with a heavy, costly kind of dependence. If everyone becomes an enemy, he may see no option but to die—suicide seems the only freedom left. But suicide is no freedom; it is the final arrangement after losing all freedom.

Another man makes everyone his friend; that too brings a kind of dependence—enemies bind us, and friends bind us. Yet his dependence will support his freedom. As his circle of friends grows, his space for freedom grows. He becomes more free; this house is not only his, all houses are his; these two hands are not only his, all hands are his. Friendship too is a bondage, but as I said, of the kind that creates an arch—two supports meeting to form a gateway.

Sir, should we follow old, ready-made formulas to overcome these obstacles, or should we cultivate the right understanding to dissolve things—to undo them, as you say?

Yes—what is needed, always, is right understanding. Ready-made formulas do not work. In fact, the person who grabs a ready-made formula is one who wants to avoid understanding. It may happen that after full understanding, the very same “formula” appears—the insight Buddha spoke of dawns for us too. But then it is no longer ready-made; it is ours. It may well be what Buddha said, but now it is not Buddha’s in us; it has become our own understanding.

I hold that truth is the oldest of the old and the newest of the new. Truth is neither old nor new. But when truth belongs to someone else, for us it becomes old. It may be that after traveling, we reach and find the same truth; but then it will be ours. Truth in itself is not old or new. For the discoverer, it is truth; for the borrower, it becomes a ready-made formula.

And the irony is: truth liberates; a ready-made formula binds and enslaves. The more fixed formulas one clutches, the more of a slave one becomes. Why the clutching? Because understanding is a strenuous process—gaining understanding is a dense struggle, a pain, an austerity, a search, a risk—one may succeed, one may not. Grabbing a formula feels more secure, more safe.

“Buddha says… Mahavira says… Rama says…” When they say so, it is right enough—for them. But what need is there for me to do anything? Remember: there is no truth that can be obtained from another. When it comes from another, it makes us slaves, because for us it is dead weight. We do not know it. But when it comes through our own struggle for understanding—when we search—then it is truth.

The moment a truth is seen, life expands, freedom grows. With truth, a vast sky opens; everything becomes clear, leaving no reason to be bound or entangled. A lamp is with you, and you can walk with it.

It is as if Buddha has a lamp while you walk in the dark, merely imagining his lamp. You have no lamp. You will walk in darkness, collide in darkness, fall in darkness. Nor will you seek a lamp, because you think that the lamp Buddha had has come to you since you “accept” him. But that lamp cannot come to you. It was the lamp of Buddha’s consciousness; it goes out with him. Only the news of it remains with us. We must awaken our own consciousness.

Therefore, no one ever becomes free through ready-made formulas. The greatest cause of human bondage so far has been scripture, sect, the pre-cooked sutra. Many think, “But what new thing can there be?” I say: There can be no “new truth.” In essence, truth is neither new nor old. For the man who discovers it, it happens before him; for the man who does not discover it and borrows it, it never happens to him at all.

So truth is forever new and forever old—the oldest of the old and the newest of the new. There is no contradiction. The truth that was ever found is the same truth that will be found by me and by you. But the journey to it must be made anew—by me, by you, by the children to come. Without that journey, it is not found. And when we take it without the journey, our consciousness has not reached the place where it is visible; for us it becomes a chain, a bondage. Such bonds do not develop understanding; they kill it.

This question of freedom and dependence—of destiny and free consciousness—is precious. It must be understood rightly. For me there is no contradiction at depth. On the harmony of both, the personality should be developed—such dependence as becomes a foundation for freedom, for greater freedom. And finally, a day comes—when consciousness is fully awake—when no action binds.

It is necessary to understand which action binds us and why it binds.

You abuse me, and I abuse you. What I am doing is not action; it is reaction. I am merely reacting. To react means you are making me do something. By abusing me, you have arranged things so that I am compelled to abuse you. You have put me in slavery; you have made me do what you wanted. You abused me and created a circumstance in which I abused you. I did not abuse; the abuse was extracted from me. I became a slave. Reaction is slavery. Reaction is not my action.

You abuse me, and I pause, reflect—and do not abuse in return. I inquire: Why did you abuse? Is there perhaps some truth in what you said? Are you mad? Are you angry? Have you quarreled with someone? If I look into the whole matter, the likelihood of my abusing you becomes very small. Perhaps I will feel compassion. But then that compassion is action, not reaction. I did not act under the impact of the circumstance you created. I understood the circumstance and awakened my consciousness, and saw: this poor fellow is unhappy—his wife has died, his son has run away, he has lost his job—and having left the whole world aside, he has come to abuse me because I am the only one he knows, trusts, considers a friend; if he abuses someone else, his head may be broken. He loves me, so he came to abuse me.

Then I will feel compassion for him, love for him. It may even be that I find his abuse to be right—that what he says about me is true. Then I will feel gratitude—that you did me a favor by telling me what I am. But abuse, in return, will not arise.

So abuse in response to abuse is reaction, not action. And I hold that action liberates; reaction enslaves. The more conscious a person becomes, the more reactions drop from his life and only actions remain. He acts—he does not react. He does not do what you make him do; he does what his consciousness sees as worth doing. Therefore he is no longer bound to anyone. He becomes free.

Karma frees, and counter-karma binds. Action is freedom; reaction is a slavery. The more reaction, the more slavery. And we are only reacting—we never truly act—hence dependence piles up over us. If someone creates a circumstance of love, we “love”; if someone creates a circumstance of enmity, we “hate.” We have never loved, and we have never hated. The irony is: hatred can never be an action; it can only be a reaction. Love can become an action.

As a person becomes more conscious, more aware, filled with wakefulness, only action remains. And action binds no one. Also note: reaction is always a chain; action is atomic. There is no chain in action because it is mine; it does not relate to you. Reaction is always stale; action is spontaneous. “You abused me, so I abuse you”—this is stale, bound to the past. You did something, therefore I do something. Your act is already over; I am tied to a dead event. You abused me ten days ago; today I come to abuse you—I have been bound to ten days past. Reaction is always stale, old, dead; action is always alive, spontaneous, in the present, now.

The striking thing is: reaction binds and is itself bound. Action neither binds nor is bound—it is atomic; it happens and is gone. Thereafter, it has no claim. I meet you and salute you. That salute can be a reaction—because yesterday you saluted me; then it binds. I will wait tomorrow to see whether you salute me; if not, I will feel hurt; if yes, I will feel pleased. Or, I simply see you; whether or not you saluted me yesterday is irrelevant. I am filled with morning joy and I salute you.

That salute is like the one I offered seeing the sunrise, or upon seeing a flower; you happened to pass, and I saluted you too. It has nothing to do with you. It is the overflow of my grace that manifested. I went my way. It was an atomic act—finished. Whether I will do it tomorrow is not necessary. That I must do it tomorrow is not necessary either. Tomorrow will be tomorrow; today is done. Tomorrow morning will bring what it brings.

So action is natural; reaction is very unnatural. Action is free; reaction is bound. Our entire dependence is the long burden of our reactions. We never live simply, spontaneously. Everything is reaction. “This is my mother, therefore I touch her feet.” There the trouble begins. Touching feet can be a joyous act; it need not be tied, stale. “Mother”—but I was born to her thirty or forty years ago; it is a long-past event. Since then everything has changed; the one who was born has gone somewhere. What she gave birth to is no longer anywhere. Tied to that, everything is stale. But in a moment of joy, it may feel delightful to place my hands on someone’s feet; I do so, and that is the end of it. I neither bind it nor am I bound by it. When life becomes that simple, freedom pervades. Dependence has no place. Only such a person is jivan-mukta—a liberated one while living—and such a consciousness is a state of freedom.