Let me share a few small things I see about the relationship between the teacher and society. Perhaps what I say will not tally with how you have been thinking. It may also be that I am opposed to the sort of things the educationists say. I am neither an educationist nor a sociologist. So in a small way I am fortunate—I can speak a few fundamental things about education and society. For those who are bound by scripture, thinking comes to an end. From those who are educationists, the possibility that some truth about education will be revealed has now almost ended. For five thousand years they have been thinking, and yet the state of education, its structure, and the mold of human beings produced by that education are so wrong, so unhealthy and delusive that it is natural to feel despair about the educationists. The sociologists too—those who think about society—are themselves very sick and unwholesome. Otherwise humankind, its life and its thought, could have been utterly different. I am neither of the two, so I might say a few things that arise from looking directly at the problems.
For those to whom scripture becomes important, solutions become important—and the problems themselves lose importance. Since I don’t know any educationist’s curriculum, I would like to talk to you directly about the problems.
The first thing, and the basis for all I will say further, is this: the relationship between the teacher and society has, up to now, proved extremely dangerous. What has that relationship been? The teacher is the slave; society is the master. And what work does society take from the teacher? It takes this work: all its old jealousies, old hatreds, old ideas—all those corpses of thousands of years lying on the human mind—the teacher must insert them into the minds of new children. The dead, those who are dying, have left their testaments—right or wrong—and the teacher must push them into the minds of the new. Society has kept taking this work from the teacher, and the teacher has kept doing it—astonishing! Which means a great stigma rests upon the teacher.
A very great stigma: every century’s diseases—the teacher infects the coming century with them. Society wants this. It wants it so that its social structure, and the vested interests and superstitions joined to it, do not die. None of them want to end. Hence society shows a tendency to honor the teacher. Without flattering the teacher, without paying him respect, it is impossible to extract this work from him. So it is said: the teacher is the guru, worthy of reverence, his word should be obeyed, he deserves honor. Why? Because for a society that wants to bequeath all its mental fixations into its children, there is no other route. Just as a Hindu father wants to die only after making his son a Hindu, a Muslim father wants to die only after making his son a Muslim. The Hindu father also wants to pass on his quarrel with the Muslim to his child. Who will do this? Who will infect? The teacher will. Whatever blind beliefs the old generation carries, it wants to thrust them onto the new generation—its scriptures, its gurus, everything. Who will do it?... This work it takes from the teacher. And with what result?
The result is that material prosperity goes on increasing in the world, but mental strength does not develop. It cannot develop so long as we do not free children from the burden and thought of the past. On the tender brain of a little child lies the weight of five to ten thousand years of samskaras. Under that load his life-force is crushed. Under that load the flame of his consciousness, his own individuality, his private uniqueness—it becomes impossible for it to rise.
So material prosperity increases, because materially we take what our parents leave and carry it forward. But mental prosperity does not increase, because mentally we are unwilling to go beyond our parents. If your father built a house, the son does not hesitate to add a second story; he is thrilled. The father too will be happy that his son made it two stories, three stories. But the testament left by Mahavira, Buddha, Rama and Krishna—their followers are in great difficulty if someone thinks beyond the Gita, if someone turns that one-storied hut of the Gita into a two-storied house. No. On the plane of the mind, one must live inside exactly the house the father left; nothing larger can be built. And for thousands of years effort continues that no child should go ahead of the father.
There are many devices and arrangements for this. Hence material abundance grows—and mental poverty keeps increasing. And when the mind is small but material prosperity is great, dangers arise. Just as we go beyond our parents in the material world, it is necessary that children also leave their parents behind in mental and spiritual growth. This is not an insult to the parents—this is their true honor. Exactly the true father, the true love of a father, is that he desires his child to surpass him in every way... surpass him in every way!
But if on any plane the father’s desire is that the child should not go beyond him, that desire is dangerous—and the teacher has, up to now, been an accomplice. He has cooperated. We take it as an insult if we think beyond Krishna or beyond Mahavira or beyond Mohammed—that it insults Mohammed, insults Mahavira. What a mad idea! Because of this, all education is turned toward the past, while education should be turned toward the future. Any creative, evolutionary process longs for the future, not the past.
Our entire education is eager for the past. All our theories, our beliefs, our ideals are taken from the past. The past means what is dead, what has gone. Ideas that have been gone for thousands of years we want to impose on the child’s mind. Not only impose—we call only that child “ideal” who proves himself according to those ideas. Who has kept doing this? This work has been taken from the teacher, and thus society’s contractors have exploited the teacher, the priests have exploited the teacher, the state has exploited the teacher—and the teacher has been given the illusion that he is a disseminator of knowledge.
He is not a disseminator of knowledge. As he stands today, he is a conserver of established knowledge—the already produced—and a barrier to what could be. He does not allow one to rise beyond the circle of the past. The result is that for thousands of years, all kinds of stupidities, all kinds of ignorance keep continuing. They are not allowed to die; they are not given a chance to die. The politician knows this too, so he also exploits the teacher. And the most astonishing thing: the teacher has no awareness that he is being exploited in the name of service—that he serves society and is exploited for it. In how many ways is he exploited?
Just the other day I went to speak at a vast teachers’ gathering. It was Teachers’ Day. I told them: if a president becomes a teacher—then that is honor for the teacher. But if a teacher becomes a president, where is the honor of the teacher in that? If a president becomes a teacher and declares, “This is meaningless; I choose to be a teacher; to be a teacher is bliss,” then we can understand that the teacher has been honored. But if a teacher becomes president, that is not the honor of the teacher; that is the honor of the politician. And when a teacher is honored by becoming president, then if the remaining teachers desire to become headmasters, school inspectors, ministers of education—what is wrong in that?
Honor lies where there is position, and position lies where the state is. But the whole structure of our thinking has placed everything behind—and above all, the state, politics. The politician, knowingly or unknowingly, keeps inserting his thought-positions and beliefs into children through the teacher. The religious have done the same—in the name of religious education... every religion tries to inject its beliefs into the child, whether true or untrue—and at an age when the child has no capacity to think. There is no crime more destructive than this, nor can there be. To plant in an innocent, unknowing child’s mind that what is in the Quran is the truth, or what is in the Gita is the truth, or that if there is God he is Mohammed, or he is Mahavira, or he is Krishna... to insert all these ideas into an innocent child—there can be no crime more deadly. Yet the politician also tries the same.
In India during the freedom struggle, politicians said: teachers and students should both participate in politics, because the nation’s freedom is at stake. Then the same politicians came into power; once in office they said: teachers and students should stay away from politics. Communists and socialists say: no—there is no need to keep away; you must participate. Should teachers and students be in politics? If tomorrow the communists come to power, they will say: now you need not participate at all in this politics! Why? Whatever suits the politician at the moment becomes the truth, and teachers and students are made to believe that that is the truth.
In my vision, a person can be a true teacher only when there is a blazing fire of rebellion within him. A teacher without the fire of rebellion will only be an agent of some vested interest—of society, of religion, or of politics. A teacher should carry a living fire of rebellion, of inquiry, of thought. But do we carry the fire of thinking within—and if not, you too are merely shopkeepers.
To be a teacher is something greater. What does it mean to be a teacher? You will teach children—everywhere in the world we teach children, we tell them: love! But have you noticed—your entire system of education is not based on love, it is based on competition. In the books you preach love, and your whole arrangement, your entire apparatus, is competitive.
Where there is competition, how can there be love? Competition is the shape of jealousy, the form of envy. The entire arrangement teaches jealousy. A child comes first—we tell the others: look, you were left behind; he is ahead. What are you teaching? You are teaching them to be jealous, to compete, to push this one behind and get ahead. What are you teaching? You are teaching ego—that the one ahead is big, the one behind is small. But the books say: be humble; the books say: love. And your whole arrangement teaches hatred, jealousy: go ahead, push others back. Your whole arrangement rewards them—those who come first get gold medals, certificates, garlands, photographs in the papers; and those who stand behind are humiliated.
When you humiliate the one at the back, do you not wound his ego—so that he may rush ahead? And when you honor the one ahead, do you not inflame his ego—coax it, enlarge it? And when children are raised on ego, jealousy, competition—how will they be capable of love? Love always means allowing the one you love to go ahead. Love always means standing back.
Let me tell a small story to make it clear.
Three Sufi fakirs were to be executed. The religious have, almost always, stood against the saints. So religious people were executing those fakirs. The three sat in a row. The executioner would call each name and kill him. He shouted, “Who is Noori? Step forward.” But the man named Noori did not rise; another youth stood up and said, “I am ready—kill me.” The executioner said, “But that is not your name. Why such haste to die?” The youth said: “I have loved—and I have learned that if there is dying to be done, step forward; if there is living to be done, step back. If my friend must die, I should die before him. And if there is life to be lived, let my friend live; I will live afterwards.”
This is what love says. What does competition say? Competition says: for dying, stand back—and for living, stand ahead. And what does our education teach? Does it teach love or competition? When the whole world teaches competition, and fills children’s minds with the poison of competition and ambition, can the world be good? When each child strains to get ahead of every other child, to push them all back—after twenty years of such education, what will he do in life? The same as he has learned.
Everyone is pulling everyone else back. From the peon below to the president above—each one is tugging the other: fall behind! And when one, by pulling and pushing, reaches from peon to president, we say: what a matter of glory! Yet nothing is more petty, more violent, than getting ahead by pushing someone behind. But this violence we teach—and call it education. If a world based on such education has wars, what is surprising? If a world based on this education fights daily, kills daily—what is surprising? If in such a world palaces rise beside the huts, and people living in palaces remain happy while near the huts people die—what is surprising? If there are the starving—and there are others who have so much they know not what to do with it—this is the gift of our education. This is its outcome. This world is being produced by this education—and the teacher is responsible; the teacher’s unawareness is responsible. He has become a weapon for exploitation—a weapon for a thousand vested interests—in the name of “educating children.”
If this is “education,” then may God grant that all education be closed; even then man might be better off. The primitive man is better than the educated man. He has more love, less competition; more heart, less head—and he is better for that. But we call this “education”! And nearly everything we preach—what we tell them to do—our entire apparatus teaches the opposite.
What do you say? You teach generosity, sympathy. But how can a competitive mind be generous? How can it be compassionate? If a competitive mind were compassionate, how would competition continue? The competitive mind must be hard, violent, ungenerous—it has to be. And our arrangement is such that we won’t even notice; it won’t occur to us that this is a violent man, the one pushing the whole crowd aside to go ahead. What is this? It is violence. And we are training him, preparing him.
Factories of this education keep expanding; we call them schools, we call them colleges—this is sheer falsehood. These are factories in which a sick human being is manufactured—and he is dragging the whole world into a pit. Violence grows, competition grows; one’s hand around another’s throat, everyone’s hand around everyone’s throat. You may say: whose throat do I hold? But look a little carefully—each person’s hand is on every other person’s throat, and a thousand hands are on each throat; each person’s hand is in the other’s pocket, and a thousand hands are in each pocket—and this keeps increasing. Where will it lead, where will it break, how long can this go on? From where do atom and hydrogen bombs arise? From competition. Whether competition between two people or two nations—it makes no difference. Whether Russia or America—it makes no difference.
Competition—one must be ahead. If you make an atom bomb, we will make a hydrogen bomb; if you make a hydrogen bomb, we will make something more—a super-hydrogen bomb. But we cannot remain behind. We have never been taught to be behind—we must be ahead. If you kill ten, we will kill twenty; if you wipe out one country, we will wipe out two. We are even ready to wipe out all—because we cannot be behind. This is what is—and who creates it? From where does it all come? From education.
But we are blind; we do not see what the matter is. What do we teach children? We tell them: do not be greedy, do not be afraid. But what do we do? We teach greed all the time; we teach fear all the time. In olden times there was the fear of hell and the temptation of the rewards of heaven. For thousands of years this was taught. Man’s whole being was made limp. Nothing was left except fear and greed—fear lest I land in hell, greed to somehow reach heaven. What do we do? Wherever there is punishment and reward, there is fear and there is greed. And what are our methods of teaching? Either fear or greed: either beat them and teach, or lure them—“We will give this and that—gold medals, honor, jobs, a place in society, a high post; we will make you a nawab.”
When I was a student they would say: study and you’ll become a nawab; we will make you a tahsildar. You will become president. These are temptations that we ignite in the minds of small children. Have we ever taught them: live in such a way that you are peaceful, that you are blissful? No. We have taught: live in such a way that you reach the highest chair, that your salary is the largest, your clothes the finest, your house the tallest. We have taught this. We have always taught: pull your greed farther and farther, because greed is success. And what place is there for the unsuccessful?
In this entire education there is no place for failure; there is no space for the one who fails. Only the fever for success is produced. Then naturally, the one who wants success will do whatever can be done—because success hides everything in the end. How does one become president from peon? Once he has become president, no one asks by what tricks, by what mischief, by what dishonesty, by what lies he did it. No one will ask. Once success comes, all sins are veiled and finished. Success is the sole formula. Then why should I not lie to be successful, why not be dishonest to be successful? If speaking the truth makes me fail—what am I to do?
We have made success the center; when lies and dishonesty increase we are troubled: what is happening? As long as success—success!—remains the single standard, lies, dishonesty, theft will remain in the world. They cannot be removed. If theft brings success, what should one do? If dishonesty brings success, what should one do? Should I avoid dishonesty or should I abandon success? As long as success is the single value, the single measure, as long as “the man who is successful is great,” then all other matters become secondary. We cry and shout that dishonesty is increasing. It will increase; it must. This is the fruit of what you have taught, the fruit of five thousand years of teaching.
We must understand the value of success: success is not a value. The successful man is not worthy of special respect. Man should be not successful but fruitful—not successful, fruitful! If a man succeeds in an evil act, it is better that a man fail in a good act. Honor should belong to the work, not the success. But success has become the value—and the whole arrangement revolves around it. Are we teaching any truth at all?
The Education Commission was sitting recently. Its chairman said to me: we tell our children to speak the truth; we explain everything—and yet sometimes they tell lies. I asked him: would you be happy if your son became a street sweeper, if he swept the roads, or perhaps a peon in a school? Would you be content? Or is your heart set on his becoming, like you, the chairman of an Education Commission, an ambassador abroad—climbing rung by rung—finally sitting in the sky, in the end becoming a god? What do you want? Are you ready that your son should sweep the streets—and you feel no discomfort? He said: no, I would feel pain. I said: then you do not want your son to be truthful or honest.
So long as the peon is humiliated and the president is honored, there cannot be honesty in the world. How will the peon remain at his post, and life is not so long that he can keep clinging to truth. When untruth brings success, who will be mad enough to renounce it? And not only do you esteem success—your God and heaven esteem it too. When a peon dies, the possibility is that he will go to hell. Presidents never go to hell—they go straight to heaven. There too the same coin operates; there too only the successful!—then what will happen?
The centrality of success must end. If you love children and want to do something for humankind, remove success from the center and create the center of fruition. If there is any love in your heart for humanity, if you truly want a new world, a new culture, a new man to be born, then this entire old stupidity must be dropped, burned, destroyed, and we must consider: how can rebellion arise from within? All this is wrong—so the wrong man is produced.
The teacher, fundamentally, should be the greatest rebel in this world. Then he will lead generations forward. But the teacher is the most hidebound, the most traditionalist—the same old junk he keeps repeating. Revolution does not happen in the teacher. Have you ever heard of a teacher being revolutionary? The teacher is the most orthodox—and hence the most dangerous. Society does not benefit from him; it is harmed. The teacher should be a rebel. What rebellion? Set houses on fire? Overturn trains? Burn buses? No—I am not saying that. Don’t misunderstand. I am saying: we must be rebellious toward our values, our so-called values—we must inquire into them. What is this matter?
When you tell a child: you are a donkey, you are stupid, you are brainless—look at that other one, how far ahead he is—then reflect: how right is this, and how true? Can two human beings ever be alike? Is it possible that the one you call a donkey becomes like the one in front? Has it ever happened? Each person is as he is, himself; there is no question of comparison with another. He has no comparison with anyone else.
A small pebble is a small pebble; a large pebble is a large pebble. A small plant is small; a large plant is large. A flower of grass is a flower of grass; a rose is a rose. As far as nature is concerned, she is not angry with the flower of grass, nor specially pleased with the rose. She gives life to the grass flower as joyously as to the rose. Remove man from the picture—then among a grass flower and a rose, who is small, who is great? Is anyone small or great? A blade of grass and a giant deodar tree—is this one great and that one low? If that were so, God would have long since eliminated the blades of grass; only the deodars would remain. No—but man’s values are wrong.
Remember, here I intend to tell you something deeper: as long as we compare one person with another in this world, we will remain on a wrong path. The wrong path is this: we create in each person the desire to become like someone else—while no person has ever become like another, nor can he.
How many days since Rama died, since Christ died? Why can another Christ not be? Thousands of Christians strain day and night to become Christ-like. Thousands of Hindus strive to become Rama-like; thousands of Jains strive to become Buddha, Mahavira—why does not even one happen? Should this not open your eyes? I am not speaking of the Ramas of the Ramleela, those who act Rama in the play. Don’t think I speak of them; many can become “Rama” there. Some wrap themselves in a robe like the Buddha and become “Buddha”; some dress like Mahavira or even go naked and become “Mahavira.” I am not talking of them—those are stage Ramas. Leave them aside. But is another Rama born?
Even in life you can see—is there anywhere exactly a second person like another? It is hard to find even a second pebble exactly like one pebble on the whole earth—this world is such that everything is unique, everything non-repetitive. And until we honor the unique potential of each, competition will remain, rivalry will remain; there will be slaughter, violence. Until then, people will resort to every dishonesty to get ahead, to become like the other. And what happens when everyone wants to be like someone else? The result would be—imagine a garden in which all the flowers go mad, or great idealistic leaders arrive there—or great teachers—and tell them: see, let the jasmine become like the champa; let the champa become like the juhi, because see how beautiful the juhi is. If all the flowers fall into such delusion—though they cannot, because no flower is as mad as man...
They do not have man’s deadness that they would be trapped by preachers, moralists, sannyasins, saints, idealists. But even imagine some man arrives and convinces them—and the jasmine tries to become a champa—what will happen to the garden? No flowers will bloom there anymore. The plants will wither and die. Why? Because however much the jasmine tries, it cannot become a champa; it is not in its swabhava, not in its nature, not in its very being. The jasmine cannot be a champa. And what will happen? In trying to become a champa it will not even be able to be jasmine; it will be deprived of what it could have been.
This misfortune has befallen man. The greatest calamity is that each person is trying to be someone else. And who teaches this? Who conspires? For thousands of years, education has done this. It says: become like Rama, become like Buddha. And if those old images pale a little, then: become like Gandhi, like Vinoba. Become like someone—only never commit the mistake of becoming yourself. Be like somebody—because you are worthless; God made a mistake in creating you. If God were wise, as all the religious people claim, then he would have created ten or fifteen “types”—Ram, Gandhi, Buddha. Or if he were very wise, he would have produced one type only. Then what?
If, suppose, three billion Ramas alone existed in the world—how long could the world go on? In fifteen minutes there would be collective suicide. Total, universal suicide. The whole world would kill itself—such boredom would arise from seeing only Ramas everywhere. Everything would die at once. Have you ever thought? If only roses bloomed in the world, and every plant produced only roses, what would happen? They would not even be worth looking at. You would not even raise your eyes toward them. No, it is not meaningless that each person has his own individuality. It is a glorious fact that you are not like anyone else. This comparison—that someone is higher and you are lower—is stupidity. No one is higher or lower. Each person is himself, in his place. All valuation of higher and lower is wrong. But we have kept teaching it.
By rebellion I mean: a vigilant inquiry into all such notions—looking at each thing we teach a child. Am I not giving poison? Poison can be given with great love; with great love teachers and parents have kept giving poison. This must break.
Religious revolutions have happened. People of one religion became those of another. Sometimes through persuasion, sometimes with the sword on the chest—but nothing changed. A Hindu becomes a Muslim and remains the same sort of man; a Muslim becomes a Christian and remains the same sort of man. Religious revolutions have made no difference.
Political revolutions have happened. One ruler fell; another sat in his place. Someone ruling from a distance was replaced by someone ruling from nearby. The skin color was white before; now the black skin sits—but the inner ruler is the same.
Economic revolutions have happened. The workers sat, the capitalists were removed. But by sitting there the worker became the capitalist. Capitalism went; in its place came managers—just as wicked, just as dangerous. No difference. Classes remained. Earlier the class was those who had wealth and those who did not. Now the class is those to whom wealth is distributed—and those who distribute it. Those who have power in the state—and those who are powerless. A new class arose, but the class remained.
In these five or six thousand years all experiments for human welfare have failed. One experiment has not been tried yet: revolution in education. This experiment is to be done by the teacher. And I feel this could be the greatest revolution. Revolution in education could be the greatest. No political, economic or religious revolution has as much value as revolution in education. But who will make this revolution in education? Only those rebellious ones who think, who inquire—what are we doing! And be quite sure: whatever you are doing is certainly wrong, because its result is wrong. This human being who is being produced, this society being formed, these wars, this violence, this suffering, this poverty—where is it coming from? Certainly there are fundamental errors in what we teach. So reflect—wake up. But perhaps you are busy with quite other accounts.
When teachers gather in conferences they discuss: students have become undisciplined—how to bring them into discipline? Please—let them become fully undisciplined, because what has been the outcome of your discipline for five thousand years? They were disciplined—so what? And what does it mean to teach discipline? It means: accept what we say as right. We sit above; you sit below. When we pass, fold your hands; if more discipline is desired, touch our feet. Do not doubt what we say. Go where we order. If we say sit, sit. If we say stand, stand. This is discipline? In the name of discipline we kill the man, so that no consciousness remains inside him, no awareness, no vivek, no capacity to think.
What do they do in the military? They drill a man for three or four years—left turn, right turn. How idiotic, to tell a man: turn left, turn right. Keep turning him for three or four years—his intelligence will be destroyed. If you keep turning a man left and right, how long will his intelligence remain? Tell him: sit; tell him: stand; tell him: run—and if he refuses, beat him. In three or four years his intelligence will be worn out, his humanity will die. Then say to him: right turn—he turns like a machine. Then say: shoot—he fires like a machine. Say: kill that man—and he kills. He has become a machine, not a man. Is this discipline? And we want the same in children. Militarization in children too—teach them N.C.C., teach them to kill the world; teach them N.C.C., military training, put guns in their hands, drill them in left-right turn—kill the world. In five thousand years—I do not think we have understood the meaning of things. The more disciplined a man is, the more dead he is.
Am I saying: tell the boys to rebel, to run and jump in the classroom, don’t let them study? I am not saying that. I am saying: love the children. Wish well for their future. From love and goodwill a discipline begins to arise that is not imposed, that arises from the child’s own understanding. Love a child—and see—love brings a discipline within. Not the left-right turn kind of discipline. It arises from his soul, from the note of love; it is not imposed, it wells up from within. Awaken his discernment, awaken his capacity to think—do not make him brainless. Do not say to him that whatever we say is the truth.
Do you know the truth? It is only ego that says: what I say is the truth. It makes no difference that you were born thirty years earlier and he thirty years later—therefore you know truth and he does not. You might be more deeply in ignorance, because he does not yet know anything—and you may know all kinds of stupidities, all manner of nonsense. Yet you are “the knower,” because your age is greater by thirty years, because you hold the stick in your hand—so you want to discipline him. No—no one should discipline anyone; if no one disciplines anyone, the world can become better. Love—that is your right. Live a life of love. Wish him well—ponder what would be in his true interest, and do that. And it is impossible that such love and goodwill do not bring discipline and respect within him.
There will be a difference: right now the more conscious the child, the more undisciplined he appears; the more idiotic and dull, the more disciplined he appears. In what I say—if discipline comes through love—then in the idiot there will be no discipline; in the conscious there will be more discipline. Right now the disciplined one is the dull one, the one without life, without spark. Right now the undisciplined is the one with consciousness and thought. If there is love, he will be disciplined—the one who has thought and consciousness. And the undisciplined will be the dull one.
Is there any value in the discipline of deadness? No. Only the discipline born of consciousness has value—because it means he is in discipline with awareness. And if you demand a wrong discipline, he will refuse. If the youth of Pakistan and India were in discipline through discernment, could it be that the Pakistani government would say: go, kill the Indians—or that the Indian politician would say: go, kill the Pakistanis? They would reply: stop this stupidity. We understand what is sensible; we cannot do this. But right now the dull minds are taught discipline—told: go, kill—and they no longer look, because discipline itself is truth; it must be obeyed.
Politicians and priests have taught well that one must be disciplined. Why? Because a disciplined man has no rebellion, no discernment, no thought. Their entire effort is to turn the whole world into a military camp—no one should create any trouble. They try a thousand ways.
Perhaps you know, perhaps you do not—many methods have been adopted. In Russia now they have discovered “mind-wash,” invented a machine. If a man has rebellion, has thought—they will clean his mind with that machine, erase his thought. Because the rebel is dangerous—he may speak against the government; he may fight; he may inflame people—“this order is wrong.” So cool his brain. Earlier they tried the tactic of discipline—it did not fully work. A few rebels still arise—very few, but still some. Now they have invented a new device: if a child’s mind shows signs of questioning, of doubt—fix the mind itself. Send strong electric current into the brain; weaken it. These are most dangerous developments in the world. More dangerous than the atom or hydrogen bomb is this invention.
But will the teacher cooperate in this? I want to leave you with this question: are you in agreement with this world? With this man as he is today? With this arrangement—these wars, this violence, this dishonesty? If not, then reconsider—there is some fundamental mistake in your education. What you are giving is wrong.
A teacher should be a rebel, with a life-vision of discernment and thought. Then he is beneficial for society—cooperative in the birth of ever-new societies in the future. Without that, he is doing nothing except stuffing old corpses into the minds of new children. He just goes on doing this work.
There must be a revolution, a great revolution—break the very structure of education and create a new one, with different values. Let success not be its value; let ambition not be its value; let ahead and behind not be matters of honor and insult. Let there be no comparison between one person and another. Let there be love—and through love, the effort to help children flower. Then a new world can be born—filled with an altogether different fragrance.
I have said these few things to you in the hope that if anyone is asleep, he may wake a little. But some sleep so deeply that they will only feel: what disturbance is this—he is ruining our sleep. Even so, if you awaken just a little, open your eyes a little, perhaps you will find something useful in what I have said, something right.
I am not saying that what I have said is the truth, or it is final—because this is what the old teacher would say. This is what you say. I say only that I have shared my vision with you; it can be entirely wrong. Perhaps there is not even a grain of truth in it. Therefore do not believe it—consider it. Reflect a little—and if something in it appears right, then it will not be “my word.” It will be your own seeing. For that you need not become my follower—nor feel you have “accepted my view,” because you have known it by your own vivek; it has become yours. I have said these few things so that you may reflect a little. The world, at this moment, needs many jolts so that a little thinking may be born. People have nearly fallen asleep—almost died—and everything just goes on. May it be that a few jolts come from many sides, eyes open, and a little thought happens.
And the greatest responsibility of the teacher is: beware of politicians—presidents, prime ministers. Because it is due to these fools that the world is in such trouble; it is because of the politician that all this uproar exists. Keep away from them. And do not allow politicians to be born in your children. But you are creating ambition. Come first—then what? Then where will he go? One can be number one only in politics; nowhere else is there such a “number one.” And whose photo appears in the paper, whose name is printed? Then he will go there—so he will go there.
Do not create competition in children. Awaken love—awaken a joy toward life, a celebration toward life; not competition, not rivalry. Because one who struggles against others is gradually consumed in the struggle. But one who seeks his own joy—his own joy, not competition with another—his life becomes like a wondrous flower, fragrant and beautiful.
May Paramatma grant that this intelligence arise in you. May Paramatma grant that this rebellion arise in you—this is my prayer.
You have listened to my words with such silence—thank you. And I bow to the Paramatma seated within each of you. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Let me share a few small things I see about the relationship between the teacher and society. Perhaps what I say will not tally with how you have been thinking. It may also be that I am opposed to the sort of things the educationists say. I am neither an educationist nor a sociologist. So in a small way I am fortunate—I can speak a few fundamental things about education and society. For those who are bound by scripture, thinking comes to an end. From those who are educationists, the possibility that some truth about education will be revealed has now almost ended. For five thousand years they have been thinking, and yet the state of education, its structure, and the mold of human beings produced by that education are so wrong, so unhealthy and delusive that it is natural to feel despair about the educationists. The sociologists too—those who think about society—are themselves very sick and unwholesome. Otherwise humankind, its life and its thought, could have been utterly different. I am neither of the two, so I might say a few things that arise from looking directly at the problems.
For those to whom scripture becomes important, solutions become important—and the problems themselves lose importance. Since I don’t know any educationist’s curriculum, I would like to talk to you directly about the problems.
The first thing, and the basis for all I will say further, is this: the relationship between the teacher and society has, up to now, proved extremely dangerous. What has that relationship been? The teacher is the slave; society is the master. And what work does society take from the teacher? It takes this work: all its old jealousies, old hatreds, old ideas—all those corpses of thousands of years lying on the human mind—the teacher must insert them into the minds of new children. The dead, those who are dying, have left their testaments—right or wrong—and the teacher must push them into the minds of the new. Society has kept taking this work from the teacher, and the teacher has kept doing it—astonishing! Which means a great stigma rests upon the teacher.
A very great stigma: every century’s diseases—the teacher infects the coming century with them. Society wants this. It wants it so that its social structure, and the vested interests and superstitions joined to it, do not die. None of them want to end. Hence society shows a tendency to honor the teacher. Without flattering the teacher, without paying him respect, it is impossible to extract this work from him. So it is said: the teacher is the guru, worthy of reverence, his word should be obeyed, he deserves honor. Why? Because for a society that wants to bequeath all its mental fixations into its children, there is no other route. Just as a Hindu father wants to die only after making his son a Hindu, a Muslim father wants to die only after making his son a Muslim. The Hindu father also wants to pass on his quarrel with the Muslim to his child. Who will do this? Who will infect? The teacher will. Whatever blind beliefs the old generation carries, it wants to thrust them onto the new generation—its scriptures, its gurus, everything. Who will do it?... This work it takes from the teacher. And with what result?
The result is that material prosperity goes on increasing in the world, but mental strength does not develop. It cannot develop so long as we do not free children from the burden and thought of the past. On the tender brain of a little child lies the weight of five to ten thousand years of samskaras. Under that load his life-force is crushed. Under that load the flame of his consciousness, his own individuality, his private uniqueness—it becomes impossible for it to rise.
So material prosperity increases, because materially we take what our parents leave and carry it forward. But mental prosperity does not increase, because mentally we are unwilling to go beyond our parents. If your father built a house, the son does not hesitate to add a second story; he is thrilled. The father too will be happy that his son made it two stories, three stories. But the testament left by Mahavira, Buddha, Rama and Krishna—their followers are in great difficulty if someone thinks beyond the Gita, if someone turns that one-storied hut of the Gita into a two-storied house. No. On the plane of the mind, one must live inside exactly the house the father left; nothing larger can be built. And for thousands of years effort continues that no child should go ahead of the father.
There are many devices and arrangements for this. Hence material abundance grows—and mental poverty keeps increasing. And when the mind is small but material prosperity is great, dangers arise. Just as we go beyond our parents in the material world, it is necessary that children also leave their parents behind in mental and spiritual growth. This is not an insult to the parents—this is their true honor. Exactly the true father, the true love of a father, is that he desires his child to surpass him in every way... surpass him in every way!
But if on any plane the father’s desire is that the child should not go beyond him, that desire is dangerous—and the teacher has, up to now, been an accomplice. He has cooperated. We take it as an insult if we think beyond Krishna or beyond Mahavira or beyond Mohammed—that it insults Mohammed, insults Mahavira. What a mad idea! Because of this, all education is turned toward the past, while education should be turned toward the future. Any creative, evolutionary process longs for the future, not the past.
Our entire education is eager for the past. All our theories, our beliefs, our ideals are taken from the past. The past means what is dead, what has gone. Ideas that have been gone for thousands of years we want to impose on the child’s mind. Not only impose—we call only that child “ideal” who proves himself according to those ideas. Who has kept doing this? This work has been taken from the teacher, and thus society’s contractors have exploited the teacher, the priests have exploited the teacher, the state has exploited the teacher—and the teacher has been given the illusion that he is a disseminator of knowledge.
He is not a disseminator of knowledge. As he stands today, he is a conserver of established knowledge—the already produced—and a barrier to what could be. He does not allow one to rise beyond the circle of the past. The result is that for thousands of years, all kinds of stupidities, all kinds of ignorance keep continuing. They are not allowed to die; they are not given a chance to die. The politician knows this too, so he also exploits the teacher. And the most astonishing thing: the teacher has no awareness that he is being exploited in the name of service—that he serves society and is exploited for it. In how many ways is he exploited?
Just the other day I went to speak at a vast teachers’ gathering. It was Teachers’ Day. I told them: if a president becomes a teacher—then that is honor for the teacher. But if a teacher becomes a president, where is the honor of the teacher in that? If a president becomes a teacher and declares, “This is meaningless; I choose to be a teacher; to be a teacher is bliss,” then we can understand that the teacher has been honored. But if a teacher becomes president, that is not the honor of the teacher; that is the honor of the politician. And when a teacher is honored by becoming president, then if the remaining teachers desire to become headmasters, school inspectors, ministers of education—what is wrong in that?
Honor lies where there is position, and position lies where the state is. But the whole structure of our thinking has placed everything behind—and above all, the state, politics. The politician, knowingly or unknowingly, keeps inserting his thought-positions and beliefs into children through the teacher. The religious have done the same—in the name of religious education... every religion tries to inject its beliefs into the child, whether true or untrue—and at an age when the child has no capacity to think. There is no crime more destructive than this, nor can there be. To plant in an innocent, unknowing child’s mind that what is in the Quran is the truth, or what is in the Gita is the truth, or that if there is God he is Mohammed, or he is Mahavira, or he is Krishna... to insert all these ideas into an innocent child—there can be no crime more deadly. Yet the politician also tries the same.
In India during the freedom struggle, politicians said: teachers and students should both participate in politics, because the nation’s freedom is at stake. Then the same politicians came into power; once in office they said: teachers and students should stay away from politics. Communists and socialists say: no—there is no need to keep away; you must participate. Should teachers and students be in politics? If tomorrow the communists come to power, they will say: now you need not participate at all in this politics! Why? Whatever suits the politician at the moment becomes the truth, and teachers and students are made to believe that that is the truth.
In my vision, a person can be a true teacher only when there is a blazing fire of rebellion within him. A teacher without the fire of rebellion will only be an agent of some vested interest—of society, of religion, or of politics. A teacher should carry a living fire of rebellion, of inquiry, of thought. But do we carry the fire of thinking within—and if not, you too are merely shopkeepers.
To be a teacher is something greater. What does it mean to be a teacher? You will teach children—everywhere in the world we teach children, we tell them: love! But have you noticed—your entire system of education is not based on love, it is based on competition. In the books you preach love, and your whole arrangement, your entire apparatus, is competitive.
Where there is competition, how can there be love? Competition is the shape of jealousy, the form of envy. The entire arrangement teaches jealousy. A child comes first—we tell the others: look, you were left behind; he is ahead. What are you teaching? You are teaching them to be jealous, to compete, to push this one behind and get ahead. What are you teaching? You are teaching ego—that the one ahead is big, the one behind is small. But the books say: be humble; the books say: love. And your whole arrangement teaches hatred, jealousy: go ahead, push others back. Your whole arrangement rewards them—those who come first get gold medals, certificates, garlands, photographs in the papers; and those who stand behind are humiliated.
When you humiliate the one at the back, do you not wound his ego—so that he may rush ahead? And when you honor the one ahead, do you not inflame his ego—coax it, enlarge it? And when children are raised on ego, jealousy, competition—how will they be capable of love? Love always means allowing the one you love to go ahead. Love always means standing back.
Let me tell a small story to make it clear.
Three Sufi fakirs were to be executed. The religious have, almost always, stood against the saints. So religious people were executing those fakirs. The three sat in a row. The executioner would call each name and kill him. He shouted, “Who is Noori? Step forward.” But the man named Noori did not rise; another youth stood up and said, “I am ready—kill me.” The executioner said, “But that is not your name. Why such haste to die?” The youth said: “I have loved—and I have learned that if there is dying to be done, step forward; if there is living to be done, step back. If my friend must die, I should die before him. And if there is life to be lived, let my friend live; I will live afterwards.”
This is what love says. What does competition say? Competition says: for dying, stand back—and for living, stand ahead. And what does our education teach? Does it teach love or competition? When the whole world teaches competition, and fills children’s minds with the poison of competition and ambition, can the world be good? When each child strains to get ahead of every other child, to push them all back—after twenty years of such education, what will he do in life? The same as he has learned.
Everyone is pulling everyone else back. From the peon below to the president above—each one is tugging the other: fall behind! And when one, by pulling and pushing, reaches from peon to president, we say: what a matter of glory! Yet nothing is more petty, more violent, than getting ahead by pushing someone behind. But this violence we teach—and call it education. If a world based on such education has wars, what is surprising? If a world based on this education fights daily, kills daily—what is surprising? If in such a world palaces rise beside the huts, and people living in palaces remain happy while near the huts people die—what is surprising? If there are the starving—and there are others who have so much they know not what to do with it—this is the gift of our education. This is its outcome. This world is being produced by this education—and the teacher is responsible; the teacher’s unawareness is responsible. He has become a weapon for exploitation—a weapon for a thousand vested interests—in the name of “educating children.”
If this is “education,” then may God grant that all education be closed; even then man might be better off. The primitive man is better than the educated man. He has more love, less competition; more heart, less head—and he is better for that. But we call this “education”! And nearly everything we preach—what we tell them to do—our entire apparatus teaches the opposite.
What do you say? You teach generosity, sympathy. But how can a competitive mind be generous? How can it be compassionate? If a competitive mind were compassionate, how would competition continue? The competitive mind must be hard, violent, ungenerous—it has to be. And our arrangement is such that we won’t even notice; it won’t occur to us that this is a violent man, the one pushing the whole crowd aside to go ahead. What is this? It is violence. And we are training him, preparing him.
Factories of this education keep expanding; we call them schools, we call them colleges—this is sheer falsehood. These are factories in which a sick human being is manufactured—and he is dragging the whole world into a pit. Violence grows, competition grows; one’s hand around another’s throat, everyone’s hand around everyone’s throat. You may say: whose throat do I hold? But look a little carefully—each person’s hand is on every other person’s throat, and a thousand hands are on each throat; each person’s hand is in the other’s pocket, and a thousand hands are in each pocket—and this keeps increasing. Where will it lead, where will it break, how long can this go on? From where do atom and hydrogen bombs arise? From competition. Whether competition between two people or two nations—it makes no difference. Whether Russia or America—it makes no difference.
Competition—one must be ahead. If you make an atom bomb, we will make a hydrogen bomb; if you make a hydrogen bomb, we will make something more—a super-hydrogen bomb. But we cannot remain behind. We have never been taught to be behind—we must be ahead. If you kill ten, we will kill twenty; if you wipe out one country, we will wipe out two. We are even ready to wipe out all—because we cannot be behind. This is what is—and who creates it? From where does it all come? From education.
But we are blind; we do not see what the matter is. What do we teach children? We tell them: do not be greedy, do not be afraid. But what do we do? We teach greed all the time; we teach fear all the time. In olden times there was the fear of hell and the temptation of the rewards of heaven. For thousands of years this was taught. Man’s whole being was made limp. Nothing was left except fear and greed—fear lest I land in hell, greed to somehow reach heaven. What do we do? Wherever there is punishment and reward, there is fear and there is greed. And what are our methods of teaching? Either fear or greed: either beat them and teach, or lure them—“We will give this and that—gold medals, honor, jobs, a place in society, a high post; we will make you a nawab.”
When I was a student they would say: study and you’ll become a nawab; we will make you a tahsildar. You will become president. These are temptations that we ignite in the minds of small children. Have we ever taught them: live in such a way that you are peaceful, that you are blissful? No. We have taught: live in such a way that you reach the highest chair, that your salary is the largest, your clothes the finest, your house the tallest. We have taught this. We have always taught: pull your greed farther and farther, because greed is success. And what place is there for the unsuccessful?
In this entire education there is no place for failure; there is no space for the one who fails. Only the fever for success is produced. Then naturally, the one who wants success will do whatever can be done—because success hides everything in the end. How does one become president from peon? Once he has become president, no one asks by what tricks, by what mischief, by what dishonesty, by what lies he did it. No one will ask. Once success comes, all sins are veiled and finished. Success is the sole formula. Then why should I not lie to be successful, why not be dishonest to be successful? If speaking the truth makes me fail—what am I to do?
We have made success the center; when lies and dishonesty increase we are troubled: what is happening? As long as success—success!—remains the single standard, lies, dishonesty, theft will remain in the world. They cannot be removed. If theft brings success, what should one do? If dishonesty brings success, what should one do? Should I avoid dishonesty or should I abandon success? As long as success is the single value, the single measure, as long as “the man who is successful is great,” then all other matters become secondary. We cry and shout that dishonesty is increasing. It will increase; it must. This is the fruit of what you have taught, the fruit of five thousand years of teaching.
We must understand the value of success: success is not a value. The successful man is not worthy of special respect. Man should be not successful but fruitful—not successful, fruitful! If a man succeeds in an evil act, it is better that a man fail in a good act. Honor should belong to the work, not the success. But success has become the value—and the whole arrangement revolves around it. Are we teaching any truth at all?
The Education Commission was sitting recently. Its chairman said to me: we tell our children to speak the truth; we explain everything—and yet sometimes they tell lies. I asked him: would you be happy if your son became a street sweeper, if he swept the roads, or perhaps a peon in a school? Would you be content? Or is your heart set on his becoming, like you, the chairman of an Education Commission, an ambassador abroad—climbing rung by rung—finally sitting in the sky, in the end becoming a god? What do you want? Are you ready that your son should sweep the streets—and you feel no discomfort? He said: no, I would feel pain. I said: then you do not want your son to be truthful or honest.
So long as the peon is humiliated and the president is honored, there cannot be honesty in the world. How will the peon remain at his post, and life is not so long that he can keep clinging to truth. When untruth brings success, who will be mad enough to renounce it? And not only do you esteem success—your God and heaven esteem it too. When a peon dies, the possibility is that he will go to hell. Presidents never go to hell—they go straight to heaven. There too the same coin operates; there too only the successful!—then what will happen?
The centrality of success must end. If you love children and want to do something for humankind, remove success from the center and create the center of fruition. If there is any love in your heart for humanity, if you truly want a new world, a new culture, a new man to be born, then this entire old stupidity must be dropped, burned, destroyed, and we must consider: how can rebellion arise from within? All this is wrong—so the wrong man is produced.
The teacher, fundamentally, should be the greatest rebel in this world. Then he will lead generations forward. But the teacher is the most hidebound, the most traditionalist—the same old junk he keeps repeating. Revolution does not happen in the teacher. Have you ever heard of a teacher being revolutionary? The teacher is the most orthodox—and hence the most dangerous. Society does not benefit from him; it is harmed. The teacher should be a rebel. What rebellion? Set houses on fire? Overturn trains? Burn buses? No—I am not saying that. Don’t misunderstand. I am saying: we must be rebellious toward our values, our so-called values—we must inquire into them. What is this matter?
When you tell a child: you are a donkey, you are stupid, you are brainless—look at that other one, how far ahead he is—then reflect: how right is this, and how true? Can two human beings ever be alike? Is it possible that the one you call a donkey becomes like the one in front? Has it ever happened? Each person is as he is, himself; there is no question of comparison with another. He has no comparison with anyone else.
A small pebble is a small pebble; a large pebble is a large pebble. A small plant is small; a large plant is large. A flower of grass is a flower of grass; a rose is a rose. As far as nature is concerned, she is not angry with the flower of grass, nor specially pleased with the rose. She gives life to the grass flower as joyously as to the rose. Remove man from the picture—then among a grass flower and a rose, who is small, who is great? Is anyone small or great? A blade of grass and a giant deodar tree—is this one great and that one low? If that were so, God would have long since eliminated the blades of grass; only the deodars would remain. No—but man’s values are wrong.
Remember, here I intend to tell you something deeper: as long as we compare one person with another in this world, we will remain on a wrong path. The wrong path is this: we create in each person the desire to become like someone else—while no person has ever become like another, nor can he.
How many days since Rama died, since Christ died? Why can another Christ not be? Thousands of Christians strain day and night to become Christ-like. Thousands of Hindus strive to become Rama-like; thousands of Jains strive to become Buddha, Mahavira—why does not even one happen? Should this not open your eyes? I am not speaking of the Ramas of the Ramleela, those who act Rama in the play. Don’t think I speak of them; many can become “Rama” there. Some wrap themselves in a robe like the Buddha and become “Buddha”; some dress like Mahavira or even go naked and become “Mahavira.” I am not talking of them—those are stage Ramas. Leave them aside. But is another Rama born?
Even in life you can see—is there anywhere exactly a second person like another? It is hard to find even a second pebble exactly like one pebble on the whole earth—this world is such that everything is unique, everything non-repetitive. And until we honor the unique potential of each, competition will remain, rivalry will remain; there will be slaughter, violence. Until then, people will resort to every dishonesty to get ahead, to become like the other. And what happens when everyone wants to be like someone else? The result would be—imagine a garden in which all the flowers go mad, or great idealistic leaders arrive there—or great teachers—and tell them: see, let the jasmine become like the champa; let the champa become like the juhi, because see how beautiful the juhi is. If all the flowers fall into such delusion—though they cannot, because no flower is as mad as man...
They do not have man’s deadness that they would be trapped by preachers, moralists, sannyasins, saints, idealists. But even imagine some man arrives and convinces them—and the jasmine tries to become a champa—what will happen to the garden? No flowers will bloom there anymore. The plants will wither and die. Why? Because however much the jasmine tries, it cannot become a champa; it is not in its swabhava, not in its nature, not in its very being. The jasmine cannot be a champa. And what will happen? In trying to become a champa it will not even be able to be jasmine; it will be deprived of what it could have been.
This misfortune has befallen man. The greatest calamity is that each person is trying to be someone else. And who teaches this? Who conspires? For thousands of years, education has done this. It says: become like Rama, become like Buddha. And if those old images pale a little, then: become like Gandhi, like Vinoba. Become like someone—only never commit the mistake of becoming yourself. Be like somebody—because you are worthless; God made a mistake in creating you. If God were wise, as all the religious people claim, then he would have created ten or fifteen “types”—Ram, Gandhi, Buddha. Or if he were very wise, he would have produced one type only. Then what?
If, suppose, three billion Ramas alone existed in the world—how long could the world go on? In fifteen minutes there would be collective suicide. Total, universal suicide. The whole world would kill itself—such boredom would arise from seeing only Ramas everywhere. Everything would die at once. Have you ever thought? If only roses bloomed in the world, and every plant produced only roses, what would happen? They would not even be worth looking at. You would not even raise your eyes toward them. No, it is not meaningless that each person has his own individuality. It is a glorious fact that you are not like anyone else. This comparison—that someone is higher and you are lower—is stupidity. No one is higher or lower. Each person is himself, in his place. All valuation of higher and lower is wrong. But we have kept teaching it.
By rebellion I mean: a vigilant inquiry into all such notions—looking at each thing we teach a child. Am I not giving poison? Poison can be given with great love; with great love teachers and parents have kept giving poison. This must break.
Religious revolutions have happened. People of one religion became those of another. Sometimes through persuasion, sometimes with the sword on the chest—but nothing changed. A Hindu becomes a Muslim and remains the same sort of man; a Muslim becomes a Christian and remains the same sort of man. Religious revolutions have made no difference.
Political revolutions have happened. One ruler fell; another sat in his place. Someone ruling from a distance was replaced by someone ruling from nearby. The skin color was white before; now the black skin sits—but the inner ruler is the same.
Economic revolutions have happened. The workers sat, the capitalists were removed. But by sitting there the worker became the capitalist. Capitalism went; in its place came managers—just as wicked, just as dangerous. No difference. Classes remained. Earlier the class was those who had wealth and those who did not. Now the class is those to whom wealth is distributed—and those who distribute it. Those who have power in the state—and those who are powerless. A new class arose, but the class remained.
In these five or six thousand years all experiments for human welfare have failed. One experiment has not been tried yet: revolution in education. This experiment is to be done by the teacher. And I feel this could be the greatest revolution. Revolution in education could be the greatest. No political, economic or religious revolution has as much value as revolution in education. But who will make this revolution in education? Only those rebellious ones who think, who inquire—what are we doing! And be quite sure: whatever you are doing is certainly wrong, because its result is wrong. This human being who is being produced, this society being formed, these wars, this violence, this suffering, this poverty—where is it coming from? Certainly there are fundamental errors in what we teach. So reflect—wake up. But perhaps you are busy with quite other accounts.
When teachers gather in conferences they discuss: students have become undisciplined—how to bring them into discipline? Please—let them become fully undisciplined, because what has been the outcome of your discipline for five thousand years? They were disciplined—so what? And what does it mean to teach discipline? It means: accept what we say as right. We sit above; you sit below. When we pass, fold your hands; if more discipline is desired, touch our feet. Do not doubt what we say. Go where we order. If we say sit, sit. If we say stand, stand. This is discipline? In the name of discipline we kill the man, so that no consciousness remains inside him, no awareness, no vivek, no capacity to think.
What do they do in the military? They drill a man for three or four years—left turn, right turn. How idiotic, to tell a man: turn left, turn right. Keep turning him for three or four years—his intelligence will be destroyed. If you keep turning a man left and right, how long will his intelligence remain? Tell him: sit; tell him: stand; tell him: run—and if he refuses, beat him. In three or four years his intelligence will be worn out, his humanity will die. Then say to him: right turn—he turns like a machine. Then say: shoot—he fires like a machine. Say: kill that man—and he kills. He has become a machine, not a man. Is this discipline? And we want the same in children. Militarization in children too—teach them N.C.C., teach them to kill the world; teach them N.C.C., military training, put guns in their hands, drill them in left-right turn—kill the world. In five thousand years—I do not think we have understood the meaning of things. The more disciplined a man is, the more dead he is.
Am I saying: tell the boys to rebel, to run and jump in the classroom, don’t let them study? I am not saying that. I am saying: love the children. Wish well for their future. From love and goodwill a discipline begins to arise that is not imposed, that arises from the child’s own understanding. Love a child—and see—love brings a discipline within. Not the left-right turn kind of discipline. It arises from his soul, from the note of love; it is not imposed, it wells up from within. Awaken his discernment, awaken his capacity to think—do not make him brainless. Do not say to him that whatever we say is the truth.
Do you know the truth? It is only ego that says: what I say is the truth. It makes no difference that you were born thirty years earlier and he thirty years later—therefore you know truth and he does not. You might be more deeply in ignorance, because he does not yet know anything—and you may know all kinds of stupidities, all manner of nonsense. Yet you are “the knower,” because your age is greater by thirty years, because you hold the stick in your hand—so you want to discipline him. No—no one should discipline anyone; if no one disciplines anyone, the world can become better. Love—that is your right. Live a life of love. Wish him well—ponder what would be in his true interest, and do that. And it is impossible that such love and goodwill do not bring discipline and respect within him.
There will be a difference: right now the more conscious the child, the more undisciplined he appears; the more idiotic and dull, the more disciplined he appears. In what I say—if discipline comes through love—then in the idiot there will be no discipline; in the conscious there will be more discipline. Right now the disciplined one is the dull one, the one without life, without spark. Right now the undisciplined is the one with consciousness and thought. If there is love, he will be disciplined—the one who has thought and consciousness. And the undisciplined will be the dull one.
Is there any value in the discipline of deadness? No. Only the discipline born of consciousness has value—because it means he is in discipline with awareness. And if you demand a wrong discipline, he will refuse. If the youth of Pakistan and India were in discipline through discernment, could it be that the Pakistani government would say: go, kill the Indians—or that the Indian politician would say: go, kill the Pakistanis? They would reply: stop this stupidity. We understand what is sensible; we cannot do this. But right now the dull minds are taught discipline—told: go, kill—and they no longer look, because discipline itself is truth; it must be obeyed.
Politicians and priests have taught well that one must be disciplined. Why? Because a disciplined man has no rebellion, no discernment, no thought. Their entire effort is to turn the whole world into a military camp—no one should create any trouble. They try a thousand ways.
Perhaps you know, perhaps you do not—many methods have been adopted. In Russia now they have discovered “mind-wash,” invented a machine. If a man has rebellion, has thought—they will clean his mind with that machine, erase his thought. Because the rebel is dangerous—he may speak against the government; he may fight; he may inflame people—“this order is wrong.” So cool his brain. Earlier they tried the tactic of discipline—it did not fully work. A few rebels still arise—very few, but still some. Now they have invented a new device: if a child’s mind shows signs of questioning, of doubt—fix the mind itself. Send strong electric current into the brain; weaken it. These are most dangerous developments in the world. More dangerous than the atom or hydrogen bomb is this invention.
But will the teacher cooperate in this? I want to leave you with this question: are you in agreement with this world? With this man as he is today? With this arrangement—these wars, this violence, this dishonesty? If not, then reconsider—there is some fundamental mistake in your education. What you are giving is wrong.
A teacher should be a rebel, with a life-vision of discernment and thought. Then he is beneficial for society—cooperative in the birth of ever-new societies in the future. Without that, he is doing nothing except stuffing old corpses into the minds of new children. He just goes on doing this work.
There must be a revolution, a great revolution—break the very structure of education and create a new one, with different values. Let success not be its value; let ambition not be its value; let ahead and behind not be matters of honor and insult. Let there be no comparison between one person and another. Let there be love—and through love, the effort to help children flower. Then a new world can be born—filled with an altogether different fragrance.
I have said these few things to you in the hope that if anyone is asleep, he may wake a little. But some sleep so deeply that they will only feel: what disturbance is this—he is ruining our sleep. Even so, if you awaken just a little, open your eyes a little, perhaps you will find something useful in what I have said, something right.
I am not saying that what I have said is the truth, or it is final—because this is what the old teacher would say. This is what you say. I say only that I have shared my vision with you; it can be entirely wrong. Perhaps there is not even a grain of truth in it. Therefore do not believe it—consider it. Reflect a little—and if something in it appears right, then it will not be “my word.” It will be your own seeing. For that you need not become my follower—nor feel you have “accepted my view,” because you have known it by your own vivek; it has become yours. I have said these few things so that you may reflect a little. The world, at this moment, needs many jolts so that a little thinking may be born. People have nearly fallen asleep—almost died—and everything just goes on. May it be that a few jolts come from many sides, eyes open, and a little thought happens.
And the greatest responsibility of the teacher is: beware of politicians—presidents, prime ministers. Because it is due to these fools that the world is in such trouble; it is because of the politician that all this uproar exists. Keep away from them. And do not allow politicians to be born in your children. But you are creating ambition. Come first—then what? Then where will he go? One can be number one only in politics; nowhere else is there such a “number one.” And whose photo appears in the paper, whose name is printed? Then he will go there—so he will go there.
Do not create competition in children. Awaken love—awaken a joy toward life, a celebration toward life; not competition, not rivalry. Because one who struggles against others is gradually consumed in the struggle. But one who seeks his own joy—his own joy, not competition with another—his life becomes like a wondrous flower, fragrant and beautiful.
May Paramatma grant that this intelligence arise in you. May Paramatma grant that this rebellion arise in you—this is my prayer.
You have listened to my words with such silence—thank you. And I bow to the Paramatma seated within each of you. Please accept my pranam.