My beloved Atman! The twentieth century is the century of the birth of the new man. I would like to say a little to you regarding this. Before we can understand anything about the new man, it is necessary to understand the old man. The old man had certain traits. The first trait of the old man was that he was not living by thought, he was living by belief. To live by belief is to live blindly. Granted, being blind has its own conveniences. Granted too, belief has its own satisfactions and consolations. Granted even, belief has its own peace and its own comfort. But if, after inquiry, peace can be found and satisfaction can be found—if after inquiry consolation and joy can arise—then the bliss of understanding cannot be matched by the comfort of belief. Someone once asked Socrates one morning, “Would you prefer to be a dissatisfied Socrates rather than a satisfied pig, or a satisfied pig rather than a dissatisfied Socrates?” Socrates said, “Rather than being a satisfied pig, I would choose to be a dissatisfied Socrates.” Because where in a pig’s life there is no dissatisfaction, there satisfaction will also be dead. Where there is no living dissatisfaction, there is no possibility of living satisfaction. And where there is no living restlessness, peace can only be that of a graveyard. Socrates’ choice is the first message of the twentieth century—given twenty-five centuries ago. The twentieth century did not arrive in a single day. It took thousands of years to come. It has arrived by and by. And still, it has not arrived upon the whole earth. My reference to the twentieth century is not in terms of the calendar. Even today, upon this earth there are people living in many different centuries. And here we sit, so many of us; there is no reason to assume we all belong to a single century. We are not all contemporaries—our contemporariness is only a deception of the calendar. Among us someone may belong to the twentieth century, someone to the first, and someone could even belong to the twenty-first. Socrates was the first man of the twentieth century who declared that he could accept even a well-considered dissatisfaction, but a satisfied blindness of belief is meaningless. In fact, the whole evolution of life is the evolution of understanding. And whoever clings to belief abandons the current of growth. The old man, because he lived centered in belief, became stagnant, stuck. Like a river that has turned into a pond. The pond is very trusting; the river very untrusting and meditative. In truth, the pond has given up all search. It has consented to remain where it is. It has accepted what is as fate. The river’s search continues. It strives to attain what is not, it longs to arrive where it is not. It bears the keen pain to bring the unattained into attainment. Hence the river is dissatisfied, the river is in discontent, and the river is searching each day for the new. Certainly there are difficulties upon unfamiliar paths. The river cannot have the pond’s comfort. But there is also the joy of attaining unknown oceans. That joy can never be the pond’s. The pond will neither go anywhere nor gain anything; it will live where it is—or better to say, it will live less and die more. At the pond there is no life, because life is with movement. At the pond there is a gradual death—just drying up and rotting. The river is movement, the river is life. The old man was like a pond, enclosed in the puddle of belief. The new man is river-like—restless, inquiring, reasoning, eager for the search of the new. The river and the pond—this is the first image I wish to offer. The old man was like a pond; the new man is like a river. But the difficulty is this: the old man who was pond-like, that old water which had been in the pond, having entered the river has come into great pain—because it had always lived inside closed boundaries—without flowing. And this is the moment of transition, when the pond is becoming a river, when the pond is being transformed into a river; when beliefs are being transformed into doubts—this is a time of great pain, a time of labor pains. The twentieth century is a time of birth pangs, in which we are breaking all the old boundaries and setting out in search of new paths. So the first point: belief was the fundamental mark of the old man—and belief is not a mark of the new man. And between belief and thought there is a distance greater than that between earth and sky. The very meaning of belief is: no inquiry. In truth, in belief there is no possibility for the sprouting of thought. And if someone who believes tries to think even a little, then to that degree he becomes a nonbeliever. Thought means that doubt is present. Where there is doubt, there is inquiry. If there is no doubt, what is there to inquire into? In fact, if a person is perfectly believing, then within him the mind will dissolve and depart—or rather, within him a mind will never be born. The mind is born out of inquiry. The old man... therefore a second point I would like to say to you: since the old man lived by belief, he had little to do with thought, with mind, with intelligence. He had more to do with feeling—emotion, sentiment. Naturally, feeling has its own flavor, its own sweetness; but the feeling that is born after insight belongs to another plane. The feeling that exists before understanding belongs to a different plane. If you have ever climbed a mountain, you will know that very often you arrive at the same place again. The location is the same, but the altitude has changed. Climbing a mountain, one ascends in spirals. After an hour you find yourself again at the very place where you were an hour earlier after walking four miles—but now you are on a different level. The place is the same, the view is the same, but the plane has changed. The feeling that exists before thought is at the animal’s plane; it is not at the human plane. Animals also live in feeling without thought. But when feeling arises after understanding, then for the first time feeling begins at the human plane. He whose heart is full because he cannot think—his feeling has no worth. He who can think, and yet has been able to grow feeling—his feeling is human, is of man. But both feelings have their places on different levels. The old man lived close to feeling. It was a nearness to the animal. If the old man was not dishonest, do not think he was therefore honest. The old man was not dishonest because dishonesty was not yet possible. We can call only that man honest who could be dishonest. If he cannot be, his honesty has little meaning. The old man’s honesty had no meaning because in it the possibility of dishonesty did not exist. If a tribesman is honest, do not give it much value. He is incapable of being dishonest. Dishonesty requires intelligence. Hence, as intelligence increases in the world, dishonesty will naturally increase. But dishonesty is not the end of intelligence. In fact, dishonesty is the first occasion for honesty to appear at a truly human level. And as intelligence grows more complete, half intelligence becomes dishonesty. And as intelligence flowers further, we again attain an honesty—an honesty as an attainment. This is not the honesty of a tribesman or a villager, who was incapable of being dishonest. It is the honesty of a new man who can be dishonest and yet is not. Remember, all human growth happens in the presence of opposite possibilities. If the villager was simple and innocent, I am not ready to value that simplicity even a penny. His innocence was his destiny, compulsion. He could only be that. He had no way to step outside his innocence. Even if he wanted, he could not. His innocence was a helplessness. He cannot be glorified for it. Yes, he can be praised perhaps, but not crowned with glory. Therefore those who even today in the twentieth century talk of the village, talk of naïveté, are talking nonsense. Those who say, “Let us return—back to nature,” are speaking without understanding. They do not know that the villager’s innocence is not that which brings dignity to man. It is the same innocence in which all animals live, birds live, plants live. The twentieth century has opened doors of attainment where being honest will be our choice. And remember, the moment we choose, at that very moment we become human for the first time. Choice is man’s primal role. The animal is as it is—not by choice, but by being. The plant is as it is—not by choice. No rose decides to choose a red flower. If it comes red, it comes red; if it comes white, it comes white. Nor does a rose choose that its flower be beautiful. Beautiful—good; ugly—good. Nor does a tree choose how its leaves will be. Man is the first choice. And the man of the twentieth century will live everything by choosing. In truth, so long as there is belief there can be no choosing. With inquiry, choice begins. Choice is the first foundation of the dignity of man. If what you are is not your choice, then you live close to the animal. If it is your choice, then you rise beyond the animal. And remember, in contrast to the animal’s honesty, I will even choose a chosen dishonesty. There is a reason. Rather than a natural, effortless innocence, I will prefer a chosen cleverness and cunning. There is a reason. Because with choice, man begins. And the man who can choose dishonesty, today or tomorrow he can also choose honesty. The man who can choose cleverness, today or tomorrow he can also choose innocence. But when chosen innocence arrives in man, its plane is different. It is the mountain path—you arrive again where the tribesman was, but between him and us a great distance of height has arisen. The plane is different, though the place is the same. Understand it this way: a small child’s innocence is of no great value. The child’s guilelessness is cheap because it is natural. But if an old man becomes as innocent as a small child, he becomes a saint. But we will not be ready to call the small child a saint. A small child is not a saint; for one who has not yet become capable of being a devil—how can he be a saint? So the child’s innocence is fine, in its place. But when old eyes become childlike, it is an attainment. It is a choice. This old man has passed through the whole journey of being a devil and yet is a saint; every opportunity to be a devil was there—either not chosen, or chosen and then dropped. Every saint’s past passes through the road of devilry. But the child has no past. The child’s entire possibility is still that he may become a devil. And we will wish that he comes to that point where the moment of choice arrives. Because the very moment of decision is the moment when man is born. In the moment of decision, humanness crystallizes for the first time. And the bigger the choice, the bigger the birth of humanity. Hence I am not on the side of those who want to turn man back—whether Rousseau, Tolstoy, Ruskin, Thoreau, Emerson, or Gandhi. All those who want man to return to the past, who think the old days should come back, are talking about the greatest danger to human life. No, no old day is needed in the same manner. A new man is needed. The attempt to bring back the old day is regression—it pushes man backward. The villager seems innocent, yes—but bring the villager into the city and you will find he has become cunning. Bring him into the city and he becomes more cunning than the city-dweller. Because the new convert goes to the mosque more often. Cunningness is his first opportunity; his consciousness will work quickly in cunning. Hence when the rural man becomes cunning, he surpasses the urban. For the city man cunningness has become settled; the environment is familiar. The villager is not cunning because his circumstances and consciousness are not those of choice. No—we must not take man back; we must take him forward. The opportunity given by the twentieth century is very definitive, decisive, conclusive. For the first time we have the chance to choose. Therefore, the second thing I want to tell you is that the special characteristic of the twenty-first—of the twentieth-century man—is choice. Now, whatever we are, we shall be by choice. We can no longer merely be by nature. Nature has brought us to a place where now our choosing will work. In my understanding, the twentieth century is, for the first time, truly giving birth to man. Certainly there are dangers. With choice, danger begins. But the greater the danger, the more the thrill of life grows. The fewer the dangers, the more life’s thrill fades. If there is no danger at all, then there is no difference between a living man and the dead. The tomb is the safest place; no danger reaches there. Neither does disease come, nor can death come into a grave. There is not even a way to die there—you are safe. I have heard that an emperor built a palace—so secure that there was every kind of protection. He kept no windows or doors—only one door—so that no thief, no disease, no enemy could enter. There was one door, and at that door a thousand guards stood watch. A neighboring king, hearing of this palace, came to see it. Seeing it he said, “Truly I have not seen such a secure place. No danger at all. I too will build such a palace.” When the neighboring king was taking leave at the gate and mounting his chariot, he repeatedly thanked and praised him, saying, “Certainly there should be such a secure palace where there is no danger.” A beggar sitting by the roadside started laughing loudly. The owner-king asked, “Why are you laughing? What’s the matter?” The beggar said, “I laugh because I saw your house being built, saw it completed, and I have seen people praise it. But I see one mistake in it.” The king asked, “What mistake?” The beggar said, “There is one door in it—that too is a danger. Close that also and stay inside; you will be beyond danger entirely.” Even one door is some danger. Many doors—many dangers. One door—some danger. But you are not beyond danger. And even if the enemy cannot enter, death will still slip in through that one door. The king said, “Fool! If I close even this door and stay inside, death will not need to enter—I will die.” The beggar said, “You are almost already dead—because the number of doors of danger equals the degree of life. As the doors of danger are reduced, life reduces. If all doors of danger are closed, life ends.” For the first time the twentieth century has accepted danger. Until now man did not accept dangers; he lived in safeties. He had arranged every safety—mental, spiritual, all kinds. Life was like a very clean map in which there were no dangers. The paths were beaten, neatly laid out—ready-made. In the twentieth century, for the first time man has taken the risk of uncertainty. Today heaven is not certain. Today even doing virtue is not without risk. Earlier, doing virtue was completely outside danger. Earlier, after virtue its result was certain—heaven would be attained; no doubt. After sin, hell—clear and fixed. Life was very neat. Like a chessboard, the squares were demarcated. The paths were preassigned. For everything life had an answer. The twentieth century dropped all the answers. Now in life there is no ready-made answer. The man of the twentieth century, for the first time, has opened all the doors of danger. He threw away the chessboard. He said, “Is this life—to move around in fixed patterns?” This is not life. This is like rails laid down and the carriages running upon them. This is a goods train’s life. Iron rails are fixed, and man runs upon them. The old man ran on fixed rails. All the tracks were predetermined. He never got down. All answers were fixed, and life had answers for everything. There was no doubt. Everything was tidy. If you were born five hundred or a thousand years ago—or even today if you have the misfortune to go to a saint with a thousand-year-old mind—you will receive fixed answers. Ask, and the maps of heaven and hell are hung in the temples. Some temples have taken them down out of fear; some old temples still display them. Those who did not even know the map of this earth had already determined maps of heaven and hell. Those who did not know that the earth is round had made precise accounts of the roads to heaven. Those who did not know at what temperature fire burns had stoked furnaces in hell. Those who knew nothing lived under the illusion that they knew everything. In truth, the ignorant mind can save its ignorance only in one way—by filling itself with the idea that it knows everything. Before the twentieth century, man was utterly ignorant regarding life’s mysteries—yet filled with the notion of omniscience. That notion of “knowing all” was a defense against ignorance, because ignorance is dangerous. When nothing is known, life becomes shaky, decisions difficult. Today it is no longer clear that after building a dharmashala (a charitable rest-house) God will be waiting at the door of heaven to welcome you. Nothing is certain. It is not even certain whether building a dharmashala leads to heaven or to hell. It is not even certain that heaven and hell exist. Nor is it certain whether building that rest-house is merit or sin. For the first time man has gathered the courage to accept his ignorance. This is a great courage—such courage man had never mustered. The twentieth century is the century of courage—and the man of the twentieth century is a man of courage. Naturally, with courage, dangers come—from all sides. When no answer in life remains fixed, it is hard to run life like a machine. When no answer remains clear, one has to find one’s own. Then mistakes begin. And when the fixed framework of life disappears, each person begins making his own framework. Thus the structure of society begins to break down. Before the twentieth century, the so-called personality was not a personality at all. The man before the twentieth century was merely an extension of society. For the first time in the twentieth century the individual has been born—and society has come close to death. Society is nearing death, and the individual has been born. If we return to the village of the past, we will see that the individual could not be born. The village that we so praise—our poets speak of it, though they all live in cities; no one goes to the village—and the mahatmas who praise the village stay in capitals—not in villages. But the village we keep praising—we do not know that in that village the individual never existed; he could not be. The village had only society, and society was so heavy and strong that it was impossible to move an inch. If a man in a village displayed even a little individuality, his hookah and water would be stopped. No one would invite him into their home, the temple would be closed to him, he would not get water at the village well. The whole village would laugh at him together, oppose him together. The whole village would keep an eye on each person—what he ate, what he drank, where he went, where he sat. All the eyes of the village would be fixed on an individual. He could not move even a little. For the first time, the twentieth century has given the individual individuality—has given privacy. Before this, there was no privacy. If in a small village you went out with an unfamiliar woman, you would know—there is no privacy. The whole village would catch you—who is the woman? To walk with a woman on the road you needed the village’s sanction. You needed the village’s license to walk with a woman. If even a man’s love is not decided by the person but by society, there is no possibility for individuality to be born. No one has the right to ask anyone, “With whom are you?”—this is the height of rudeness, of incivility, of lack of culture. But the old world accepted this. In truth, the old world gave no chance to the individual. Hence there was no individual in the old world, nor any revolution—because with the arrival of the individual, revolution begins. Without the individual there is no revolution. In a country of villages, revolution is very difficult—because the village lives on fixed ruts. If someone shifts an inch from the rut, the whole village becomes his enemy. Hence a country like India—which for thousands of years has been a country of villages—is anti-revolutionary; no revolution could occur. In such a country where everyone watches everyone, where all others perform the work of the police over each individual—personality could not be born. In such a country, the birth of individuality is very difficult, almost impossible. The twentieth century for the first time loosened the structure of society and sharpened the soul of the individual. But this makes us very uneasy. Because when structures loosen, anarchy appears. When structures loosen, indiscipline comes. When structures loosen, discipline breaks. In truth, the time of the old discipline is gone. In the future the discipline of old days cannot be. And so long as we insist on the old discipline, the new discipline that could arise will not arise. The old discipline was imposed by society; the new discipline will arise from the individual. It will be an inner discipline, coming from within. Once the individual is born, society cannot impose discipline. Once the individual is born, we must discover a new discipline in which the decisive authority is the person himself. In fact, we will have to change the whole definition of discipline. Now discipline will be self-discipline. It can no longer be social discipline. The whole old discipline was given by someone else; the new will not be accepted if given by anyone. The individual has been born, and you want to impose a framework that predates the individual. It cannot remain. Hence, if children appear rebellious to you, it is not the children’s fault. You have given children individuality, and you are giving them a discipline that belongs to society. These two things cannot go together. When the person has been born, when inquiry has been born, then the person must determine his own discipline. Naturally, in old eyes, chaos begins to appear. But this chaos is a mistake of the old way of seeing—it is not chaos; it is the chaotic moment of the birth of individuals, when the old social order will go and a new will arrive. And it is so surprising—if a young man or woman goes on the road wearing clothes of their own choice, what anarchy has happened? Will you decide even the right to dress—how one must dress? If you decide even clothing, then about the soul—what will you allow a person to decide of his own? No—but old eyes begin to feel pain. For even clothing used to be decided by society. There was no status for the person there. What you wore—society decided. What you ate—society decided. How you stood and sat—society decided. No—none of this can continue now. The new man is near birth. The announcements have already arrived; the labor is near. He will rebel—and the rebellion will be hard if there is resistance. If there is acceptance, it will be easy. But I am often amazed—what is the difficulty in accepting? If people dress in their own way, what is the unease? You are wearing as you like—no one is uneasy. They wear as they like—why are you uneasy? The father is uneasy that his son wears different clothes. The father is uneasy that he wears a cap; the son does not. The father is uneasy that he wears loose garments; the son wears tight. But what is the unease? Why must a son wear the father’s clothes? The mother is upset by how her daughter dresses. There is no meaning in this. We are mistakenly taking all this as anarchy and indiscipline—needlessly. In the old order, the parents used to arrange their children’s marriage. Because the old order wanted to minimize opportunities for the individual to choose. If choice happens, the individual is born. Hence child marriage was accepted all over the world. Child marriage means: we will not allow love. Before love can arise in your life, we will marry you off. Child marriage means: more valuable than love is sex. Before love can be born, we will arrange for you the convenience of sex. The old man lived within the circle of sexuality—though he says the new man is sexual. That is wrong. The old man says the new people are very sexual. This is false. The old man was wholly sexual. In truth, the new man has, for the first time, raised the voice of love above sex, hence the discomfort. And love is one of man’s unique qualities; sex is not. Sex exists in animals, birds, plants, everywhere. The old man arranged sex; he gave no opportunity for love. In truth, the old man gave a wife just as one gets a mother, a sister, a brother, a father—given factors. I cannot change my mother; she is not my choice. I cannot change my father; not my choice. I cannot change my sister. Only one choice exists in life—the wife. Even that the old man took away—because from there the individual would be born. Choice should not be allowed. Mother cannot be chosen—no fear. Father cannot be chosen—no fear. Only wife or husband could be chosen—society will choose that too, parents will choose; even that choice will be taken away. And in the life of the one whose love is not a choice, the possibility for the birth of the soul becomes very dim. The possibility of individuality becomes faint. Certainly, the old society was free of the dangers of love. There is no danger in marriage; it is an institution. No danger; it is an arrangement. No danger; it is arranged by experienced elders. Love is always dangerous—because it is an experiment performed by the inexperienced, the unknowing. Marriage has no danger; love has danger. But marriage is safe precisely because it has no provision for love. Love is dangerous precisely because, if it grows rightly, marriage can be dismissed; marriage can end. There is no danger in marriage—it is a dead institution. Love is dangerous because it is living, a living feeling. There was no danger; the world’s morality moved smoothly. The twentieth century has brought an earthquake to that morality for the first time. The world was well regulated. Wives stayed at home; prostitutes stood on the streets. We had arranged both. We arranged for wife and for husband—a permanent arrangement. Once done, there was no way to change it. No possibility of a second choice. A fixed relationship. But there was danger and fear—one fear only: that those two strangers, whom some priests have matched by looking at horoscopes (with nothing to do with their love, with their hearts), those two—matched by horoscope, and whose parents arranged by considering wealth, position, prestige, lineage, tradition—considering everything except love—may live in tension. Their attachment may never grow. Therefore, beside marriage, a substitute institution had to be created: the prostitute. So long as marriage prevails, prostitutes cannot disappear—because marriage and prostitution are two sides of the same institution. If the housewife is to be kept lifelong, and the house-husband lifelong, then occasional professional outlets are necessary. The prostitute is not dangerous—because the relationship is of money. It has no connection with love. And the wife would prefer that her husband go to a prostitute rather than to another woman—because with another woman love could arise; with a prostitute, there is no reason for love. It is a trade. Hence wives saw their husbands getting prostitutes to dance before them and felt no trouble—there was no danger in it. The relationship with the prostitute is monetary—sexual. Love is the danger for the wife; sexuality is no danger. The old man thought himself free of lust and very moral. I do not see it so. Because the possibility of being moral begins only with the possibility of being immoral. Hence, even the possibilities of morality had been cut. The man of the twentieth century can, for the first time, be moral—because there is choice. He has the opportunity to be immoral, or to be moral. This web we had woven of belief and reverence—without choice, without individuality, empty of thought—has broken everywhere. We are busy trying to mend it. We waste our time stitching that old net. Whereas it is necessary to understand that the old net can neither be mended nor restored. There is no possibility of its return. The more time we waste in repairing it, the longer the birth pangs prolong. If it can be clear that it is gone—already gone—then it needs to be buried, and immediately our contemplation must be given a new direction: what can we do for the choices of the new man? What concepts of moral and immoral should we present before him? Certainly the old concepts will not work. The old morality stood upon fear. All morality stood upon fear—we were frightening man. We told him, if you do evil, you will have to live among fires, in hell, among worms and insects. And those who imagined these hells must have been dangerous people. Their imaginations show their pathology. What imaginations! That people are boiled in cauldrons—burning, yet not burnt—how convenient! Great sadists, eager to inflict pain. They boil a man—he suffers all the agony—but does not burn up—if he burned once, how would they go on tormenting him? The torment must be continuous, endless. In hell there are worms—thousands burrowing into the body here, coming out there—piercing everywhere, moving within. The man will not die; he will live. It is necessary to keep him alive—otherwise how could the ordeal be endured? In hell there will be thirst; there will be water—but you will not be able to drink. As you drink, you will faint. As soon as you regain consciousness, thirst returns; as you approach water, again you faint. Strange people! More violent and more cruel than them cannot be found—and these were saints. What sort of minds designed arrangements for those who would not obey them? For each land, they had to devise a different hell—because notions of suffering differ. In India, if we created hell, we had to light fires. But in Tibet, if you light fires, many will agree to go there—because Tibet suffers from cold. So in Tibetan hell they had to heap ice—endless ice. There fire cannot burn—Tibetan hell! See the joke—even hell had to be divided according to nationalities. The Tibetan hell is different—because he can be frightened only by cold. The Indian can be frightened by heat. This is fear! And in heaven we had to arrange temptations—the other face of fear. Temptation, at depth, is fear: if you obey, you gain; if you do not, you lose. So we arranged in heaven all that religious teachers condemn here as bad. Here they say it is wrong to look at another’s woman—in truth, they say it is wrong to look at woman herself; and there, there are apsaras—heavenly courtesans. And the amusing thing is—on earth a woman grows old; but the apsaras of heaven, their age never passes sixteen—it stops there. And all this the saints arranged to tempt people: if you do good deeds, this is what you will get as fruit. In paradise, streams of wine flow—here do not drink even a cupped handful; there, fountains. In Arabia, since a perverted sexuality prevailed—homosexuality at the time of Muhammad—the men had sexual relations with men. Hence Islam had to arrange in heaven not only apsaras but ghilman as well—beautiful boys. What madness! Provisions for homosexuals were made there—those who need healing here are promised in heaven. All this fear and temptation was the foundation of old morality. Those foundations have vanished. We do not see that they have gone. Now no one is eager for heaven, and no one is afraid of hell. But we go on repeating old morality. The foundations have fallen; the ground under the house has slipped, and we stand holding up the roof. The roof becomes heavy. No, we will have to give birth to a new morality, which cannot be fear-based. Man has gone beyond fear. The man of the twentieth century has become fearless. And rightly so—whenever a man becomes adult, he goes beyond fear. It is easy to scare children: do not go into the kitchen—ghosts are there. But when that child becomes adult, you tell him ghosts exist—he says, we will deal with them. Ghosts have no impact now. Humanity has become adult; for the first time it has matured. Childhood is no more. The old fears no longer work. Yet we keep repeating the old fears. And when they do not work and man becomes immoral, we cry, “Man has become immoral.” The truth is our morality has become irrelevant. Our moral system has become unrelated. Now this new man—the man of the twentieth century—needs a new morality. That morality needs new foundations. It will stand upon understanding, not upon fear. It will stand upon the realization that being moral is blissful for you; being moral is healthy. Being moral is in your own interest. Not for some future fear. Not for some heaven after death. But the relish of being moral here and now. And the immoral man is cutting off his own feet with his own hands. Not that he will go to hell in the future—the immoral man is creating hell for himself today. In truth, this distance between misconduct, action and fruit, and hell—this will no longer work. If it becomes part of man’s understanding that misconduct itself is hell, and virtue itself is heaven, then we will be able to lay the foundation for the future morality; otherwise we will not. But I feel these foundations can be laid. Today scientists across the world are saying that in the moment of anger you at once enter hell—there is no need to die to go there. In anger, poison spreads through your whole body. To tell someone that if you are angry you will rot in hell is now meaningless. Anger can be tested in the laboratory—go and see: when you are angry how much of your lifespan is reduced by the spread of poison; how much intelligence declines; how much health is weakened; how the possibility of disease intensifies. And when you are angry, you are committing suicide—fragmentary, in pieces, so it goes unnoticed. When a man is in intense rage, the poison released into his blood—hundred times that amount is enough to murder another man. This must become part of our knowledge. The future morality will be part of understanding. We must make love part of understanding. Recently, at Oxford University, in a laboratory, some very strange experiments have been done—I want to tell you, for they will affect future morality. They have surprised many. A Christian monk went into that laboratory and said: “The seeds upon which I pour water after prayer sprout sooner than those upon which I pour water without prayer.” A laboratory and scientists cannot be ready to accept that prayed-over water will make seeds sprout faster! The experiment was done. A hundred trials were made, and every time the monk was proven right. Seeds from one single packet—half were put in one pot, half in another. The same soil, the same water, the same sunlight—everything the same—only one small difference: over one bucket of the same water the monk stood and prayed; over the other he did not. That’s all. And in all hundred trials he proved right. The seeds watered after prayer sprouted sooner—all of them sprouted; flowers came earlier; fruits came earlier. Their fragrance was different; their freshness different; the splendor of those plants was different. And in the seeds not prayed over there was a difference—some did not sprout; those that did, sprouted slowly; and beside the others these plants seemed to lack some essential element which the others had received. That essential element being prayer is difficult for a scientist to conceive. But the experiments established that prayer can be that essential element. Now, in this world no one will pray out of fear of God—nor should one. Because a prayer done out of fear is no prayer; where fear is within, love cannot be. Where there is fear, love cannot ever happen. Tulsidas has said: “Without fear there is no love.” He spoke utterly wrongly. He said love is not without fear. That was the old mind. I tell you: where there is fear, love never happens. Only where fear is not, love is. The old man prayed out of fear—hands folded, knees bent. The new man cannot be frightened—rightly so; it is growth. Now, if he prays, it will be out of understanding. The new morality will be knowledge-centered, not fear-centered. One more event occurred with that monk in that laboratory. They took a photograph of one seed upon which he had prayed—to see if any difference occurred within the seed, because if the sprout, the leaves, the flowers changed, something must have changed in the seed—how else? So a photo of the seed not prayed over, and of the seed prayed over, was taken. And a miracle occurred—an event of wonder, in a place like Oxford University. The monk wore a cross of Christ around his neck; the seed upon which he had prayed showed within it the sign of the cross. If we can turn man toward prayer—and without prayer man is incomplete; without prayer his life cannot have radiance—the twentieth century will make prayer, love, hate, anger, misconduct, virtue, all knowledge-centered. They will be oriented in understanding, not in fear. In ignorance there was no way other than fear; in knowledge, fear has no place. But we go on repeating the old talk. We keep repeating old gurus, old scriptures—before children who belong to the twentieth century. Between them yawns a gap of thousands of years. No connection remains. Now these scriptures, these texts, these gurus—are meaningless to them. There is no inner connection, no commerce between them. And if you keep repeating them, and if these children become distorted—if this man of the twentieth century inclines toward immorality, toward anarchy, toward licentiousness—whose responsibility will it be? Ours—who went on repeating what had become irrelevant. The new man needs a new knowledge of life. The new man needs new images of Paramatma. The new man needs new measures of morality. The new man needs an entirely new arrangement of living. He is broken from the old. As cartwheels of a bullock cart do not fit on a train, in the same way the wheels of old morality will not fit the new man. If we remember this, there is no difficulty—the man of the twentieth century can become a great step, a great stair, a great attainment. And if we do not understand this, still we cannot go back—the birth pangs will prolong. And in these pangs there is a danger—that the old generation will keep pulling man backward, and the new will, in mere reaction, become distorted and perverted, running anywhere to escape the old and going insane. This danger stands before us. Today, whether hippies, beatles, beatniks, yippies—by a thousand names in Europe and America—or our Naxalites—these children are living in a dense pain. Their pain is that the old arrangement has become irrelevant and there is no new arrangement. If the new can be created—and if the old generations could give support—much will be easy. The new will create—but it may take time, long time—so long that things may become so sick and distorted that correcting them becomes harder and harder. One last point, and I will complete my talk. The old man lived by accepting suffering. He had an acceptability toward misery. He consented to whatever was—death, disease, poverty. The new man is no longer ready to accept suffering—because science has given the facilities of comfort which the old man did not have. Therefore if we go to teach the new man a philosophy of suffering, it is meaningless. The old man was helpless—there was suffering and no way out. Death was certain and there was no means to postpone it. Hence palmistry, astrology, and all such things could flourish. One could find out one would live seventy years—finished. Seventy-one was no question. Now this is finished. It has no meaning. Now man can live as long as he wants—we have ways. And it will not be difficult that, if we wish, we could keep someone alive indefinitely, after fifty years. A man in America recently died, leaving ten million dollars in a will to preserve his body—because science has nearly reached the place where in twenty-five or so years the dead can be revived. For his corpse a very large sum is spent daily so that it remains as it was at the last moment of death. He lies dead in the hope that in thirty or forty years, when science reaches the point of revivifying, he can be brought back. That time is approaching. Therefore death can no longer be taken as a line. Astrology cannot be meaningful in that sense. Disease is not inevitable now—it is our ignorance. Ugliness is not fate—only our ignorance. In the future—twenty or thirty years hence—there will be no reason for anyone to be ugly. Thus the man of the future will not build life upon suffering; hence he cannot be ascetic. He will build upon joy; hence he will be a celebrant. Remember, asceticism was our helplessness—therefore we arranged renunciation here, and pleasure in heaven. When the man of the future can create heaven here, he cannot be a renunciant. We must understand—only that religion has a future which can simply accept the juice of life, the enjoyment of life; which does not give life the direction of suffering; which does not say the world is misery; which does not say life is sin; which does not say that liberation from birth and death is our only goal. No—now that religion can be born which can declare that life is the gift of Paramatma; that life is a blessing from Paramatma; that those who are worthy, who are successful, who drink life to the full, there is a possibility for them of attaining infinite life. Such a religion can become the religion of future generations. These few things I have said. It is not necessary to accept my words. It is dangerous to accept them. One should avoid believing. Think over my words. Perhaps all my words are wrong. If you think and find them wrong, still you will benefit—because by knowing something as wrong, one moves toward the right. And if something appears right, then it will no longer be mine—it will be your own. What we come to know as true through inquiry is never borrowed—it becomes one’s own. And only those truths work which are one’s own; borrowed truths become a burden. So let me not become your burden—this is my last prayer. Old gurus have become a great burden. There is no need to carry anyone upon your head any longer. You have listened to me with such love and peace—I am deeply obliged. And in the end, I bow down to the Paramatma who dwells within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
The twentieth century is the century of the birth of the new man. I would like to say a little to you regarding this. Before we can understand anything about the new man, it is necessary to understand the old man. The old man had certain traits. The first trait of the old man was that he was not living by thought, he was living by belief. To live by belief is to live blindly. Granted, being blind has its own conveniences. Granted too, belief has its own satisfactions and consolations. Granted even, belief has its own peace and its own comfort. But if, after inquiry, peace can be found and satisfaction can be found—if after inquiry consolation and joy can arise—then the bliss of understanding cannot be matched by the comfort of belief.
Someone once asked Socrates one morning, “Would you prefer to be a dissatisfied Socrates rather than a satisfied pig, or a satisfied pig rather than a dissatisfied Socrates?” Socrates said, “Rather than being a satisfied pig, I would choose to be a dissatisfied Socrates.” Because where in a pig’s life there is no dissatisfaction, there satisfaction will also be dead. Where there is no living dissatisfaction, there is no possibility of living satisfaction. And where there is no living restlessness, peace can only be that of a graveyard.
Socrates’ choice is the first message of the twentieth century—given twenty-five centuries ago. The twentieth century did not arrive in a single day. It took thousands of years to come. It has arrived by and by. And still, it has not arrived upon the whole earth. My reference to the twentieth century is not in terms of the calendar. Even today, upon this earth there are people living in many different centuries.
And here we sit, so many of us; there is no reason to assume we all belong to a single century. We are not all contemporaries—our contemporariness is only a deception of the calendar. Among us someone may belong to the twentieth century, someone to the first, and someone could even belong to the twenty-first.
Socrates was the first man of the twentieth century who declared that he could accept even a well-considered dissatisfaction, but a satisfied blindness of belief is meaningless. In fact, the whole evolution of life is the evolution of understanding. And whoever clings to belief abandons the current of growth. The old man, because he lived centered in belief, became stagnant, stuck.
Like a river that has turned into a pond. The pond is very trusting; the river very untrusting and meditative. In truth, the pond has given up all search. It has consented to remain where it is. It has accepted what is as fate. The river’s search continues. It strives to attain what is not, it longs to arrive where it is not. It bears the keen pain to bring the unattained into attainment. Hence the river is dissatisfied, the river is in discontent, and the river is searching each day for the new.
Certainly there are difficulties upon unfamiliar paths. The river cannot have the pond’s comfort. But there is also the joy of attaining unknown oceans. That joy can never be the pond’s. The pond will neither go anywhere nor gain anything; it will live where it is—or better to say, it will live less and die more. At the pond there is no life, because life is with movement. At the pond there is a gradual death—just drying up and rotting. The river is movement, the river is life.
The old man was like a pond, enclosed in the puddle of belief. The new man is river-like—restless, inquiring, reasoning, eager for the search of the new. The river and the pond—this is the first image I wish to offer. The old man was like a pond; the new man is like a river. But the difficulty is this: the old man who was pond-like, that old water which had been in the pond, having entered the river has come into great pain—because it had always lived inside closed boundaries—without flowing.
And this is the moment of transition, when the pond is becoming a river, when the pond is being transformed into a river; when beliefs are being transformed into doubts—this is a time of great pain, a time of labor pains. The twentieth century is a time of birth pangs, in which we are breaking all the old boundaries and setting out in search of new paths.
So the first point: belief was the fundamental mark of the old man—and belief is not a mark of the new man. And between belief and thought there is a distance greater than that between earth and sky. The very meaning of belief is: no inquiry.
In truth, in belief there is no possibility for the sprouting of thought. And if someone who believes tries to think even a little, then to that degree he becomes a nonbeliever. Thought means that doubt is present. Where there is doubt, there is inquiry. If there is no doubt, what is there to inquire into? In fact, if a person is perfectly believing, then within him the mind will dissolve and depart—or rather, within him a mind will never be born. The mind is born out of inquiry.
The old man... therefore a second point I would like to say to you: since the old man lived by belief, he had little to do with thought, with mind, with intelligence. He had more to do with feeling—emotion, sentiment. Naturally, feeling has its own flavor, its own sweetness; but the feeling that is born after insight belongs to another plane. The feeling that exists before understanding belongs to a different plane.
If you have ever climbed a mountain, you will know that very often you arrive at the same place again. The location is the same, but the altitude has changed. Climbing a mountain, one ascends in spirals. After an hour you find yourself again at the very place where you were an hour earlier after walking four miles—but now you are on a different level. The place is the same, the view is the same, but the plane has changed.
The feeling that exists before thought is at the animal’s plane; it is not at the human plane. Animals also live in feeling without thought. But when feeling arises after understanding, then for the first time feeling begins at the human plane. He whose heart is full because he cannot think—his feeling has no worth. He who can think, and yet has been able to grow feeling—his feeling is human, is of man. But both feelings have their places on different levels.
The old man lived close to feeling. It was a nearness to the animal. If the old man was not dishonest, do not think he was therefore honest. The old man was not dishonest because dishonesty was not yet possible. We can call only that man honest who could be dishonest. If he cannot be, his honesty has little meaning. The old man’s honesty had no meaning because in it the possibility of dishonesty did not exist.
If a tribesman is honest, do not give it much value. He is incapable of being dishonest. Dishonesty requires intelligence. Hence, as intelligence increases in the world, dishonesty will naturally increase. But dishonesty is not the end of intelligence. In fact, dishonesty is the first occasion for honesty to appear at a truly human level. And as intelligence grows more complete, half intelligence becomes dishonesty. And as intelligence flowers further, we again attain an honesty—an honesty as an attainment.
This is not the honesty of a tribesman or a villager, who was incapable of being dishonest. It is the honesty of a new man who can be dishonest and yet is not. Remember, all human growth happens in the presence of opposite possibilities. If the villager was simple and innocent, I am not ready to value that simplicity even a penny. His innocence was his destiny, compulsion. He could only be that. He had no way to step outside his innocence. Even if he wanted, he could not. His innocence was a helplessness. He cannot be glorified for it. Yes, he can be praised perhaps, but not crowned with glory.
Therefore those who even today in the twentieth century talk of the village, talk of naïveté, are talking nonsense. Those who say, “Let us return—back to nature,” are speaking without understanding. They do not know that the villager’s innocence is not that which brings dignity to man. It is the same innocence in which all animals live, birds live, plants live. The twentieth century has opened doors of attainment where being honest will be our choice.
And remember, the moment we choose, at that very moment we become human for the first time. Choice is man’s primal role. The animal is as it is—not by choice, but by being. The plant is as it is—not by choice. No rose decides to choose a red flower. If it comes red, it comes red; if it comes white, it comes white. Nor does a rose choose that its flower be beautiful. Beautiful—good; ugly—good. Nor does a tree choose how its leaves will be. Man is the first choice. And the man of the twentieth century will live everything by choosing.
In truth, so long as there is belief there can be no choosing. With inquiry, choice begins. Choice is the first foundation of the dignity of man. If what you are is not your choice, then you live close to the animal. If it is your choice, then you rise beyond the animal. And remember, in contrast to the animal’s honesty, I will even choose a chosen dishonesty. There is a reason. Rather than a natural, effortless innocence, I will prefer a chosen cleverness and cunning. There is a reason.
Because with choice, man begins. And the man who can choose dishonesty, today or tomorrow he can also choose honesty. The man who can choose cleverness, today or tomorrow he can also choose innocence. But when chosen innocence arrives in man, its plane is different. It is the mountain path—you arrive again where the tribesman was, but between him and us a great distance of height has arisen. The plane is different, though the place is the same.
Understand it this way: a small child’s innocence is of no great value. The child’s guilelessness is cheap because it is natural. But if an old man becomes as innocent as a small child, he becomes a saint. But we will not be ready to call the small child a saint. A small child is not a saint; for one who has not yet become capable of being a devil—how can he be a saint? So the child’s innocence is fine, in its place. But when old eyes become childlike, it is an attainment. It is a choice. This old man has passed through the whole journey of being a devil and yet is a saint; every opportunity to be a devil was there—either not chosen, or chosen and then dropped.
Every saint’s past passes through the road of devilry. But the child has no past. The child’s entire possibility is still that he may become a devil. And we will wish that he comes to that point where the moment of choice arrives. Because the very moment of decision is the moment when man is born. In the moment of decision, humanness crystallizes for the first time. And the bigger the choice, the bigger the birth of humanity.
Hence I am not on the side of those who want to turn man back—whether Rousseau, Tolstoy, Ruskin, Thoreau, Emerson, or Gandhi. All those who want man to return to the past, who think the old days should come back, are talking about the greatest danger to human life. No, no old day is needed in the same manner. A new man is needed.
The attempt to bring back the old day is regression—it pushes man backward. The villager seems innocent, yes—but bring the villager into the city and you will find he has become cunning. Bring him into the city and he becomes more cunning than the city-dweller. Because the new convert goes to the mosque more often. Cunningness is his first opportunity; his consciousness will work quickly in cunning. Hence when the rural man becomes cunning, he surpasses the urban. For the city man cunningness has become settled; the environment is familiar. The villager is not cunning because his circumstances and consciousness are not those of choice.
No—we must not take man back; we must take him forward. The opportunity given by the twentieth century is very definitive, decisive, conclusive. For the first time we have the chance to choose. Therefore, the second thing I want to tell you is that the special characteristic of the twenty-first—of the twentieth-century man—is choice. Now, whatever we are, we shall be by choice. We can no longer merely be by nature. Nature has brought us to a place where now our choosing will work.
In my understanding, the twentieth century is, for the first time, truly giving birth to man. Certainly there are dangers. With choice, danger begins. But the greater the danger, the more the thrill of life grows. The fewer the dangers, the more life’s thrill fades. If there is no danger at all, then there is no difference between a living man and the dead. The tomb is the safest place; no danger reaches there. Neither does disease come, nor can death come into a grave. There is not even a way to die there—you are safe.
I have heard that an emperor built a palace—so secure that there was every kind of protection. He kept no windows or doors—only one door—so that no thief, no disease, no enemy could enter. There was one door, and at that door a thousand guards stood watch. A neighboring king, hearing of this palace, came to see it. Seeing it he said, “Truly I have not seen such a secure place. No danger at all. I too will build such a palace.” When the neighboring king was taking leave at the gate and mounting his chariot, he repeatedly thanked and praised him, saying, “Certainly there should be such a secure palace where there is no danger.” A beggar sitting by the roadside started laughing loudly. The owner-king asked, “Why are you laughing? What’s the matter?”
The beggar said, “I laugh because I saw your house being built, saw it completed, and I have seen people praise it. But I see one mistake in it.” The king asked, “What mistake?” The beggar said, “There is one door in it—that too is a danger. Close that also and stay inside; you will be beyond danger entirely.”
Even one door is some danger. Many doors—many dangers. One door—some danger. But you are not beyond danger. And even if the enemy cannot enter, death will still slip in through that one door. The king said, “Fool! If I close even this door and stay inside, death will not need to enter—I will die.”
The beggar said, “You are almost already dead—because the number of doors of danger equals the degree of life. As the doors of danger are reduced, life reduces. If all doors of danger are closed, life ends.”
For the first time the twentieth century has accepted danger. Until now man did not accept dangers; he lived in safeties. He had arranged every safety—mental, spiritual, all kinds. Life was like a very clean map in which there were no dangers. The paths were beaten, neatly laid out—ready-made. In the twentieth century, for the first time man has taken the risk of uncertainty.
Today heaven is not certain. Today even doing virtue is not without risk. Earlier, doing virtue was completely outside danger. Earlier, after virtue its result was certain—heaven would be attained; no doubt. After sin, hell—clear and fixed. Life was very neat. Like a chessboard, the squares were demarcated. The paths were preassigned. For everything life had an answer.
The twentieth century dropped all the answers. Now in life there is no ready-made answer. The man of the twentieth century, for the first time, has opened all the doors of danger. He threw away the chessboard. He said, “Is this life—to move around in fixed patterns?”
This is not life. This is like rails laid down and the carriages running upon them. This is a goods train’s life. Iron rails are fixed, and man runs upon them. The old man ran on fixed rails. All the tracks were predetermined. He never got down. All answers were fixed, and life had answers for everything. There was no doubt. Everything was tidy.
If you were born five hundred or a thousand years ago—or even today if you have the misfortune to go to a saint with a thousand-year-old mind—you will receive fixed answers. Ask, and the maps of heaven and hell are hung in the temples. Some temples have taken them down out of fear; some old temples still display them. Those who did not even know the map of this earth had already determined maps of heaven and hell. Those who did not know that the earth is round had made precise accounts of the roads to heaven. Those who did not know at what temperature fire burns had stoked furnaces in hell. Those who knew nothing lived under the illusion that they knew everything.
In truth, the ignorant mind can save its ignorance only in one way—by filling itself with the idea that it knows everything. Before the twentieth century, man was utterly ignorant regarding life’s mysteries—yet filled with the notion of omniscience. That notion of “knowing all” was a defense against ignorance, because ignorance is dangerous. When nothing is known, life becomes shaky, decisions difficult.
Today it is no longer clear that after building a dharmashala (a charitable rest-house) God will be waiting at the door of heaven to welcome you. Nothing is certain. It is not even certain whether building a dharmashala leads to heaven or to hell. It is not even certain that heaven and hell exist. Nor is it certain whether building that rest-house is merit or sin.
For the first time man has gathered the courage to accept his ignorance. This is a great courage—such courage man had never mustered. The twentieth century is the century of courage—and the man of the twentieth century is a man of courage. Naturally, with courage, dangers come—from all sides. When no answer in life remains fixed, it is hard to run life like a machine. When no answer remains clear, one has to find one’s own. Then mistakes begin. And when the fixed framework of life disappears, each person begins making his own framework. Thus the structure of society begins to break down.
Before the twentieth century, the so-called personality was not a personality at all. The man before the twentieth century was merely an extension of society. For the first time in the twentieth century the individual has been born—and society has come close to death. Society is nearing death, and the individual has been born.
If we return to the village of the past, we will see that the individual could not be born. The village that we so praise—our poets speak of it, though they all live in cities; no one goes to the village—and the mahatmas who praise the village stay in capitals—not in villages. But the village we keep praising—we do not know that in that village the individual never existed; he could not be. The village had only society, and society was so heavy and strong that it was impossible to move an inch. If a man in a village displayed even a little individuality, his hookah and water would be stopped. No one would invite him into their home, the temple would be closed to him, he would not get water at the village well. The whole village would laugh at him together, oppose him together. The whole village would keep an eye on each person—what he ate, what he drank, where he went, where he sat. All the eyes of the village would be fixed on an individual. He could not move even a little. For the first time, the twentieth century has given the individual individuality—has given privacy. Before this, there was no privacy.
If in a small village you went out with an unfamiliar woman, you would know—there is no privacy. The whole village would catch you—who is the woman? To walk with a woman on the road you needed the village’s sanction. You needed the village’s license to walk with a woman.
If even a man’s love is not decided by the person but by society, there is no possibility for individuality to be born. No one has the right to ask anyone, “With whom are you?”—this is the height of rudeness, of incivility, of lack of culture. But the old world accepted this. In truth, the old world gave no chance to the individual. Hence there was no individual in the old world, nor any revolution—because with the arrival of the individual, revolution begins. Without the individual there is no revolution.
In a country of villages, revolution is very difficult—because the village lives on fixed ruts. If someone shifts an inch from the rut, the whole village becomes his enemy. Hence a country like India—which for thousands of years has been a country of villages—is anti-revolutionary; no revolution could occur. In such a country where everyone watches everyone, where all others perform the work of the police over each individual—personality could not be born. In such a country, the birth of individuality is very difficult, almost impossible.
The twentieth century for the first time loosened the structure of society and sharpened the soul of the individual. But this makes us very uneasy. Because when structures loosen, anarchy appears. When structures loosen, indiscipline comes. When structures loosen, discipline breaks.
In truth, the time of the old discipline is gone. In the future the discipline of old days cannot be. And so long as we insist on the old discipline, the new discipline that could arise will not arise. The old discipline was imposed by society; the new discipline will arise from the individual. It will be an inner discipline, coming from within. Once the individual is born, society cannot impose discipline. Once the individual is born, we must discover a new discipline in which the decisive authority is the person himself.
In fact, we will have to change the whole definition of discipline. Now discipline will be self-discipline. It can no longer be social discipline. The whole old discipline was given by someone else; the new will not be accepted if given by anyone. The individual has been born, and you want to impose a framework that predates the individual. It cannot remain. Hence, if children appear rebellious to you, it is not the children’s fault.
You have given children individuality, and you are giving them a discipline that belongs to society. These two things cannot go together. When the person has been born, when inquiry has been born, then the person must determine his own discipline. Naturally, in old eyes, chaos begins to appear. But this chaos is a mistake of the old way of seeing—it is not chaos; it is the chaotic moment of the birth of individuals, when the old social order will go and a new will arrive.
And it is so surprising—if a young man or woman goes on the road wearing clothes of their own choice, what anarchy has happened? Will you decide even the right to dress—how one must dress? If you decide even clothing, then about the soul—what will you allow a person to decide of his own?
No—but old eyes begin to feel pain. For even clothing used to be decided by society. There was no status for the person there. What you wore—society decided. What you ate—society decided. How you stood and sat—society decided.
No—none of this can continue now. The new man is near birth. The announcements have already arrived; the labor is near. He will rebel—and the rebellion will be hard if there is resistance. If there is acceptance, it will be easy.
But I am often amazed—what is the difficulty in accepting? If people dress in their own way, what is the unease? You are wearing as you like—no one is uneasy. They wear as they like—why are you uneasy? The father is uneasy that his son wears different clothes. The father is uneasy that he wears a cap; the son does not. The father is uneasy that he wears loose garments; the son wears tight.
But what is the unease? Why must a son wear the father’s clothes? The mother is upset by how her daughter dresses. There is no meaning in this. We are mistakenly taking all this as anarchy and indiscipline—needlessly.
In the old order, the parents used to arrange their children’s marriage. Because the old order wanted to minimize opportunities for the individual to choose. If choice happens, the individual is born. Hence child marriage was accepted all over the world. Child marriage means: we will not allow love. Before love can arise in your life, we will marry you off. Child marriage means: more valuable than love is sex. Before love can be born, we will arrange for you the convenience of sex.
The old man lived within the circle of sexuality—though he says the new man is sexual. That is wrong. The old man says the new people are very sexual. This is false. The old man was wholly sexual. In truth, the new man has, for the first time, raised the voice of love above sex, hence the discomfort. And love is one of man’s unique qualities; sex is not. Sex exists in animals, birds, plants, everywhere. The old man arranged sex; he gave no opportunity for love.
In truth, the old man gave a wife just as one gets a mother, a sister, a brother, a father—given factors. I cannot change my mother; she is not my choice. I cannot change my father; not my choice. I cannot change my sister. Only one choice exists in life—the wife. Even that the old man took away—because from there the individual would be born. Choice should not be allowed. Mother cannot be chosen—no fear. Father cannot be chosen—no fear. Only wife or husband could be chosen—society will choose that too, parents will choose; even that choice will be taken away.
And in the life of the one whose love is not a choice, the possibility for the birth of the soul becomes very dim. The possibility of individuality becomes faint. Certainly, the old society was free of the dangers of love. There is no danger in marriage; it is an institution. No danger; it is an arrangement. No danger; it is arranged by experienced elders.
Love is always dangerous—because it is an experiment performed by the inexperienced, the unknowing. Marriage has no danger; love has danger. But marriage is safe precisely because it has no provision for love. Love is dangerous precisely because, if it grows rightly, marriage can be dismissed; marriage can end. There is no danger in marriage—it is a dead institution. Love is dangerous because it is living, a living feeling.
There was no danger; the world’s morality moved smoothly. The twentieth century has brought an earthquake to that morality for the first time. The world was well regulated. Wives stayed at home; prostitutes stood on the streets. We had arranged both. We arranged for wife and for husband—a permanent arrangement. Once done, there was no way to change it. No possibility of a second choice. A fixed relationship.
But there was danger and fear—one fear only: that those two strangers, whom some priests have matched by looking at horoscopes (with nothing to do with their love, with their hearts), those two—matched by horoscope, and whose parents arranged by considering wealth, position, prestige, lineage, tradition—considering everything except love—may live in tension. Their attachment may never grow. Therefore, beside marriage, a substitute institution had to be created: the prostitute.
So long as marriage prevails, prostitutes cannot disappear—because marriage and prostitution are two sides of the same institution. If the housewife is to be kept lifelong, and the house-husband lifelong, then occasional professional outlets are necessary.
The prostitute is not dangerous—because the relationship is of money. It has no connection with love. And the wife would prefer that her husband go to a prostitute rather than to another woman—because with another woman love could arise; with a prostitute, there is no reason for love. It is a trade. Hence wives saw their husbands getting prostitutes to dance before them and felt no trouble—there was no danger in it. The relationship with the prostitute is monetary—sexual. Love is the danger for the wife; sexuality is no danger.
The old man thought himself free of lust and very moral. I do not see it so. Because the possibility of being moral begins only with the possibility of being immoral. Hence, even the possibilities of morality had been cut. The man of the twentieth century can, for the first time, be moral—because there is choice. He has the opportunity to be immoral, or to be moral.
This web we had woven of belief and reverence—without choice, without individuality, empty of thought—has broken everywhere. We are busy trying to mend it. We waste our time stitching that old net. Whereas it is necessary to understand that the old net can neither be mended nor restored. There is no possibility of its return. The more time we waste in repairing it, the longer the birth pangs prolong.
If it can be clear that it is gone—already gone—then it needs to be buried, and immediately our contemplation must be given a new direction: what can we do for the choices of the new man? What concepts of moral and immoral should we present before him?
Certainly the old concepts will not work. The old morality stood upon fear. All morality stood upon fear—we were frightening man. We told him, if you do evil, you will have to live among fires, in hell, among worms and insects.
And those who imagined these hells must have been dangerous people. Their imaginations show their pathology. What imaginations! That people are boiled in cauldrons—burning, yet not burnt—how convenient! Great sadists, eager to inflict pain. They boil a man—he suffers all the agony—but does not burn up—if he burned once, how would they go on tormenting him? The torment must be continuous, endless. In hell there are worms—thousands burrowing into the body here, coming out there—piercing everywhere, moving within. The man will not die; he will live. It is necessary to keep him alive—otherwise how could the ordeal be endured? In hell there will be thirst; there will be water—but you will not be able to drink. As you drink, you will faint. As soon as you regain consciousness, thirst returns; as you approach water, again you faint.
Strange people! More violent and more cruel than them cannot be found—and these were saints. What sort of minds designed arrangements for those who would not obey them? For each land, they had to devise a different hell—because notions of suffering differ. In India, if we created hell, we had to light fires. But in Tibet, if you light fires, many will agree to go there—because Tibet suffers from cold. So in Tibetan hell they had to heap ice—endless ice. There fire cannot burn—Tibetan hell!
See the joke—even hell had to be divided according to nationalities. The Tibetan hell is different—because he can be frightened only by cold. The Indian can be frightened by heat. This is fear! And in heaven we had to arrange temptations—the other face of fear.
Temptation, at depth, is fear: if you obey, you gain; if you do not, you lose. So we arranged in heaven all that religious teachers condemn here as bad. Here they say it is wrong to look at another’s woman—in truth, they say it is wrong to look at woman herself; and there, there are apsaras—heavenly courtesans. And the amusing thing is—on earth a woman grows old; but the apsaras of heaven, their age never passes sixteen—it stops there. And all this the saints arranged to tempt people: if you do good deeds, this is what you will get as fruit. In paradise, streams of wine flow—here do not drink even a cupped handful; there, fountains.
In Arabia, since a perverted sexuality prevailed—homosexuality at the time of Muhammad—the men had sexual relations with men. Hence Islam had to arrange in heaven not only apsaras but ghilman as well—beautiful boys. What madness! Provisions for homosexuals were made there—those who need healing here are promised in heaven.
All this fear and temptation was the foundation of old morality. Those foundations have vanished. We do not see that they have gone. Now no one is eager for heaven, and no one is afraid of hell. But we go on repeating old morality. The foundations have fallen; the ground under the house has slipped, and we stand holding up the roof. The roof becomes heavy.
No, we will have to give birth to a new morality, which cannot be fear-based. Man has gone beyond fear. The man of the twentieth century has become fearless. And rightly so—whenever a man becomes adult, he goes beyond fear. It is easy to scare children: do not go into the kitchen—ghosts are there. But when that child becomes adult, you tell him ghosts exist—he says, we will deal with them. Ghosts have no impact now. Humanity has become adult; for the first time it has matured. Childhood is no more. The old fears no longer work.
Yet we keep repeating the old fears. And when they do not work and man becomes immoral, we cry, “Man has become immoral.” The truth is our morality has become irrelevant. Our moral system has become unrelated.
Now this new man—the man of the twentieth century—needs a new morality. That morality needs new foundations. It will stand upon understanding, not upon fear. It will stand upon the realization that being moral is blissful for you; being moral is healthy. Being moral is in your own interest. Not for some future fear. Not for some heaven after death. But the relish of being moral here and now. And the immoral man is cutting off his own feet with his own hands. Not that he will go to hell in the future—the immoral man is creating hell for himself today.
In truth, this distance between misconduct, action and fruit, and hell—this will no longer work. If it becomes part of man’s understanding that misconduct itself is hell, and virtue itself is heaven, then we will be able to lay the foundation for the future morality; otherwise we will not.
But I feel these foundations can be laid. Today scientists across the world are saying that in the moment of anger you at once enter hell—there is no need to die to go there. In anger, poison spreads through your whole body. To tell someone that if you are angry you will rot in hell is now meaningless. Anger can be tested in the laboratory—go and see: when you are angry how much of your lifespan is reduced by the spread of poison; how much intelligence declines; how much health is weakened; how the possibility of disease intensifies. And when you are angry, you are committing suicide—fragmentary, in pieces, so it goes unnoticed.
When a man is in intense rage, the poison released into his blood—hundred times that amount is enough to murder another man. This must become part of our knowledge. The future morality will be part of understanding. We must make love part of understanding.
Recently, at Oxford University, in a laboratory, some very strange experiments have been done—I want to tell you, for they will affect future morality. They have surprised many. A Christian monk went into that laboratory and said: “The seeds upon which I pour water after prayer sprout sooner than those upon which I pour water without prayer.” A laboratory and scientists cannot be ready to accept that prayed-over water will make seeds sprout faster!
The experiment was done. A hundred trials were made, and every time the monk was proven right. Seeds from one single packet—half were put in one pot, half in another. The same soil, the same water, the same sunlight—everything the same—only one small difference: over one bucket of the same water the monk stood and prayed; over the other he did not. That’s all. And in all hundred trials he proved right. The seeds watered after prayer sprouted sooner—all of them sprouted; flowers came earlier; fruits came earlier. Their fragrance was different; their freshness different; the splendor of those plants was different.
And in the seeds not prayed over there was a difference—some did not sprout; those that did, sprouted slowly; and beside the others these plants seemed to lack some essential element which the others had received. That essential element being prayer is difficult for a scientist to conceive. But the experiments established that prayer can be that essential element.
Now, in this world no one will pray out of fear of God—nor should one. Because a prayer done out of fear is no prayer; where fear is within, love cannot be. Where there is fear, love cannot ever happen.
Tulsidas has said: “Without fear there is no love.” He spoke utterly wrongly. He said love is not without fear. That was the old mind. I tell you: where there is fear, love never happens. Only where fear is not, love is.
The old man prayed out of fear—hands folded, knees bent. The new man cannot be frightened—rightly so; it is growth. Now, if he prays, it will be out of understanding. The new morality will be knowledge-centered, not fear-centered.
One more event occurred with that monk in that laboratory. They took a photograph of one seed upon which he had prayed—to see if any difference occurred within the seed, because if the sprout, the leaves, the flowers changed, something must have changed in the seed—how else? So a photo of the seed not prayed over, and of the seed prayed over, was taken. And a miracle occurred—an event of wonder, in a place like Oxford University. The monk wore a cross of Christ around his neck; the seed upon which he had prayed showed within it the sign of the cross.
If we can turn man toward prayer—and without prayer man is incomplete; without prayer his life cannot have radiance—the twentieth century will make prayer, love, hate, anger, misconduct, virtue, all knowledge-centered. They will be oriented in understanding, not in fear. In ignorance there was no way other than fear; in knowledge, fear has no place.
But we go on repeating the old talk. We keep repeating old gurus, old scriptures—before children who belong to the twentieth century. Between them yawns a gap of thousands of years. No connection remains. Now these scriptures, these texts, these gurus—are meaningless to them. There is no inner connection, no commerce between them. And if you keep repeating them, and if these children become distorted—if this man of the twentieth century inclines toward immorality, toward anarchy, toward licentiousness—whose responsibility will it be? Ours—who went on repeating what had become irrelevant.
The new man needs a new knowledge of life. The new man needs new images of Paramatma. The new man needs new measures of morality. The new man needs an entirely new arrangement of living. He is broken from the old. As cartwheels of a bullock cart do not fit on a train, in the same way the wheels of old morality will not fit the new man. If we remember this, there is no difficulty—the man of the twentieth century can become a great step, a great stair, a great attainment.
And if we do not understand this, still we cannot go back—the birth pangs will prolong. And in these pangs there is a danger—that the old generation will keep pulling man backward, and the new will, in mere reaction, become distorted and perverted, running anywhere to escape the old and going insane. This danger stands before us. Today, whether hippies, beatles, beatniks, yippies—by a thousand names in Europe and America—or our Naxalites—these children are living in a dense pain. Their pain is that the old arrangement has become irrelevant and there is no new arrangement. If the new can be created—and if the old generations could give support—much will be easy. The new will create—but it may take time, long time—so long that things may become so sick and distorted that correcting them becomes harder and harder.
One last point, and I will complete my talk. The old man lived by accepting suffering. He had an acceptability toward misery. He consented to whatever was—death, disease, poverty. The new man is no longer ready to accept suffering—because science has given the facilities of comfort which the old man did not have. Therefore if we go to teach the new man a philosophy of suffering, it is meaningless. The old man was helpless—there was suffering and no way out. Death was certain and there was no means to postpone it. Hence palmistry, astrology, and all such things could flourish. One could find out one would live seventy years—finished. Seventy-one was no question. Now this is finished. It has no meaning. Now man can live as long as he wants—we have ways. And it will not be difficult that, if we wish, we could keep someone alive indefinitely, after fifty years.
A man in America recently died, leaving ten million dollars in a will to preserve his body—because science has nearly reached the place where in twenty-five or so years the dead can be revived. For his corpse a very large sum is spent daily so that it remains as it was at the last moment of death. He lies dead in the hope that in thirty or forty years, when science reaches the point of revivifying, he can be brought back. That time is approaching.
Therefore death can no longer be taken as a line. Astrology cannot be meaningful in that sense. Disease is not inevitable now—it is our ignorance. Ugliness is not fate—only our ignorance. In the future—twenty or thirty years hence—there will be no reason for anyone to be ugly.
Thus the man of the future will not build life upon suffering; hence he cannot be ascetic. He will build upon joy; hence he will be a celebrant. Remember, asceticism was our helplessness—therefore we arranged renunciation here, and pleasure in heaven. When the man of the future can create heaven here, he cannot be a renunciant.
We must understand—only that religion has a future which can simply accept the juice of life, the enjoyment of life; which does not give life the direction of suffering; which does not say the world is misery; which does not say life is sin; which does not say that liberation from birth and death is our only goal.
No—now that religion can be born which can declare that life is the gift of Paramatma; that life is a blessing from Paramatma; that those who are worthy, who are successful, who drink life to the full, there is a possibility for them of attaining infinite life. Such a religion can become the religion of future generations.
These few things I have said. It is not necessary to accept my words. It is dangerous to accept them. One should avoid believing. Think over my words. Perhaps all my words are wrong. If you think and find them wrong, still you will benefit—because by knowing something as wrong, one moves toward the right. And if something appears right, then it will no longer be mine—it will be your own. What we come to know as true through inquiry is never borrowed—it becomes one’s own. And only those truths work which are one’s own; borrowed truths become a burden. So let me not become your burden—this is my last prayer. Old gurus have become a great burden. There is no need to carry anyone upon your head any longer.
You have listened to me with such love and peace—I am deeply obliged. And in the end, I bow down to the Paramatma who dwells within all. Please accept my pranam.