Question & Answer_

Question #1 (continued)

With the upward thrust, man comes into existence - and that is up to you. Conscious evolution is now going to be the only evolution. That is why religion will become more and more significant every day. Every day, every moment, religion will become more and more significant, because now scientists feel that there seems to be no movement. Of course, horizontally there is no movement. You cannot progress further; everything has stopped. So science goes on just adding to your senses.

Your eyes have stopped, so now you can use instruments to see. Your brain has stopped, so now you can use computers. Your legs have stopped, so now you can use cars. Whatsoever science is giving is just additional instruments for a growth that has stopped.

Man is not growing; only new instruments are growing. And, of course, every instrument increases your power, but you do not grow through it. Rather, the contrary is the case. Cars have added much in speed, but they have destroyed your legs. This is unfortunate, but this is going to happen: if computers replace man's mind - and they will replace it because man's mind is not so efficient as a computer can be - they will do much, but ultimately they will destroy man's mind because whatsoever is not used is destroyed, i.e., Use it or Lose it.

So science now feels that whatsoever is being done is just giving a false notion of evolution. If we go back to the past, then the highest speed was horse-speed - 25 miles per hour. Now we have come to 25,000 miles per hour in speed. Speed has evolved from 25 miles per hour to 25,000 miles per hour. Not man, but speed has evolved - not man! Man remains the same. Rather, on the contrary, man has regressed because a man riding a horse is a stronger man than a man flying in an aeroplane. Speed has progressed, evolved, but man has regressed.

A certain group of scientists thinks that man is a regression, not an evolvement. It may be so because in life you can never be static. If you are not evolving, you will regress. There is no static moment in life; you cannot remain at one point. You cannot say, "I am not growing, so I will remain whatsoever I am; I will maintain the status quo." You cannot maintain it! Either you go further or you fall down - back. A certain group of scientists thinks that man is regressing day by day, that there is an "infantilization". Man is behaving more like a child than like an adult - man everywhere on the earth.

If we look, many things become clear and obvious. One thing: in the past, it was always the old man, the evolved man, who was most predominant in society, but our society is the only society in the world's history where children have become predominant. They dominate everything - every trend, every fashion, everything. They are the models. Whatsoever they do becomes religion, whatsoever they do becomes politics, whatsoever they do sets a trend all over the world.

If we go back, a thirty-year-old person was behaving in a mature way. Now that is not the case. Even a thirty-year-old person is behaving in infantile ways, juvenile way - with the same tantrums, the same childish attitudes. What are these childish attitudes? A child thinks that he is the center of the world and that his every wish is to be fulfilled immediately. It is fulfilled. When he is hungry, milk is given. When he weeps, everyone pays attention. The whole family is centered around him.

Children become dictators. They know how to dictate the whole family. A very small child dictates the whole family. The father persuades him, the mother bribes him. Even when guests come into the home, he will dictate everything! A child thinks that he is the center of the world. He is to be supported, helped by everyone, without any cost. He is not to give love: he is only to demand. Of course, we cannot expect from a child that he should love. He demands and demands everything, and if the demand is not fulfilled he gets violent, angry. Then he is against the whole world; he will smash things.

Now this has happened with everyone. This was always so with children, but now this is with everyone. Our so-called revolutions are nothing else but childish efforts. Our so-called rebellions are nothing else but everyone thinking himself to be at the center. His every desire should be fulfilled immediately; and if it is not fulfilled, then he is going to destroy the whole world.

Students revolt in universities all over the world. They just show immature, juvenile minds. What does it mean, students throwing stones at university windows, setting fire to buildings, destroying? What does it mean? They have no sense of maturity at all. And if you begin to think about it, it is not only students and children, boys and girls: if you look at our modern man - even at a father or a mother - you will see that they are behaving childishly. If you look at our politicians, they are just behaving childishly with no maturity at all.

What has happened? Really, man's growth has stopped: evolutionary growth has stopped. And now we have just a substitute for this growth - scientific accumulation. Man has stopped; things grow. Your house goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and you remain the same.

Your wealth grows, and because of this growth you feel that you are growing. Your knowledge grows, your information grows, and because of this you think that you are growing.

Of course, obviously, a Buddha knows less than you, but that doesn't mean that you are more grown-up. A Jesus knows less than you. He knows less than any Catholic priest because he was never trained, never educated. He was just a carpenter's son - uneducated, with no information of the world; but still, you are not more evolved than him. A Mohammed is just illiterate, a Kabir is just a nobody - but they are more evolved. But then that evolution is something else: an evolution of consciousness, not just of things.

You can substitute having for being. Being is a different dimension of growth - a vertical one; having is horizontal. Things go on and on, and you have so many things - so much information, so much knowledge, so much wealth, so many degrees, so many honours. But this is accumulation: it is horizontal. There is no upward thrust. You remain the same. And you cannot really remain the same, because if you are not growing you begin to behave childishly: you regress. This is one of the greatest problems humanity is encountering today.

Science can only give you things. It can give you moons and planets, and it can give you the whole universe. Religion can give you only one thing: upward movement, a vertical growth, a conscious methodology to grow into being. It is not important what you have. It is totally irrelevant for your growth. The only significant thing is what you are, and this growth toward being is a responsibility because it is a freedom. Now you are not forced by evolutionary forces to grow: you are in freedom.

Evolution is not goading you. It is goading animals, it is goading trees, it is goading everything except man. Evolution is pushing hard so that everything may grow. But with man the thing is finished. Now you have become conscious, so you can do whatsoever you want to do.

Sartre says man is condemned to be free - "condemned" to be free! The whole nature is at ease because there is no freedom. Freedom is a great burden; that is why we do not like freedom. Howsoever we may talk about it, nobody likes freedom; everyone fears freedom. Freedom is a dangerous thing. In nature there is no freedom; that is why there is so much silence. You can never say to a dog, "You are an imperfect dog." Every dog is perfect. You can say to a man, "You are not a perfect man": it is meaningful. But to say to a dog, "You are not a perfect dog," is absurd. Every dog is perfect because a dog is not free to be. He is goaded by evolution. He is made; he is not self-created.

A rose is a rose. However beautiful, it is not free; it is just a slave. Look at a rose: it is beautiful, but just a slave - goaded. There is no freedom to flower or not to flower. There is no problem, there is no choice: a flower is to flower. The flower cannot say, "I do not like flowering," or "I refuse." It has no say, no freedom. That is why nature is so silent: it is a slave. It cannot err, it cannot go wrong. And if you cannot go wrong, if you are always right,, and if your "right" is not in your hands, then you are just goaded by external forces.

Nature is a deep slavery. With man, for the first time, freedom enters. Man has a freedom to be or not to be. Then there is anguish, fear whether he will be capable, whether he may or may not be, fear over what is going to happen. There is a deep trembling. Every moment is a suspended moment. Nothing is fixed or certain, nothing is predictable with man: everything is unpredictable.

We talk about freedom, but no one likes freedom. So we go on talking about freedom, but creating slavery. We talk about freedom and then create a new slavery. Our every freedom is just a change of slaveries. We go on changing from one slavery to another, from one bondage to another. No one likes freedom because freedom creates fear. Then you have to decide and choose. We ask someone or something else to tell us what to do - the society, the guru, the scriptures, the tradition, the parents. Someone else should tell us what to do; someone should show the path, then we can follow - but we cannot move by ourselves. There is freedom and there is fear.

That is why there are so many religions. They are not because of Jesus and Buddha and Krishna. They are because of a deep-rooted fear of freedom. You cannot be just a man. You have to be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian. Just by being a Christian, you lose your freedom; by being a Hindu you are no more a man - because now you say, "I will follow a tradition. I will not move in the uncharted, in the unknown. I will move on a well-trodden path. I will move behind someone; I will not move alone. I am a Hindu, so I will move in a crowd: I will not move as an individual. If I move as an individual, alone, there is freedom. Then every moment I have to decide, every moment I have to give birth to myself, every moment I am creating my soul. And no one else will be responsible: only I will be responsible ultimately."

Nietzsche has said: "Now God is dead and man is totally free." If God is really dead then man is totally free. And man is not so afraid of God's death: he is much more afraid of his freedom. If there is a God, then everything is okay with you. If there is no God, then you are left totally free - condemned to be free. Now do whatsoever you like and suffer the consequences, and no one else will be responsible.

Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm has written a book called "The Fear of Freedom". You fall in love and you begin to think of marriage. Love is a freedom; marriage is a slavery. But it is difficult to find a person who falls in love and who will not think of marriage - immediately. Because love is a freedom, there is fear. Marriage is a fixed thing; there is no fear. Marriage is an institution - dead; love is an event - alive. It moves; it may change. Marriage never moves, it never changes. Because of this marriage has a certainty, a security.

Love has no certainty, no security. Love is insecure. Any moment it may disappear into the blue as it has appeared from the blue. Any moment it may disappear! It is very unearthly; it has no roots in the earth. It is unpredictable. So: "Better get into marriage. Then roots are there. Now this marriage cannot evaporate into the blue. It is an institution!" Everywhere - just as in love - everywhere, when we find freedom, we transform it into a slavery. The sooner the better! Then we are at ease. So every love story ends with marriage: "They were married, and after that they lived happily ever after."

No one is happy, but it is good to end the story there because then begins the hell. So every story ends with the most beautiful moment. And what is that moment? Freedom turning into slavery! And that is not only with love: it is with everything. So marriage is an ugly thing; it is bound to be. Every institution is going to be ugly because it is just a dead corpse of something which was alive. But with anything alive, uncertainty is bound to be there.

"Alive" means it can move, it can change, it can be different. I love you; the next moment I may not love. But if I am your husband or I am your wife, you can be certain that the next moment also I will be your husband or your wife. It is an institution. Dead things are very permanent; alive things are momentary, changing, in a flux.

Man is afraid of freedom, and freedom is the only thing which makes you a man. So we are suicidal - destroying our freedom. And with that destruction we are destroying our whole possibility of being. Then having is good because having means accumulating dead things. You can go on accumulating; there is no end to it. And the more you accumulate, the more secure you are. When I say, "Now man has to move consciously," I mean this, that you have to be aware of your freedom and also aware of your fear of freedom.

How to use this freedom? Religion is nothing but an effort toward conscious evolution, an effort how to use this freedom. Your volitional efforts are now significant. Whatsoever you are doing non- voluntarily is just part of the past. Your future depends on your volitional acts. A very simple act done with awareness, with volition, gives you a certain growth - even an ordinary act.

You go on a fast, but not because you have no food. You have food; you can eat it. You have hunger; you can eat. You go on a fast: it is a volitional act - a conscious act. No animal can perform this. An animal will go on a fast sometimes when there is no hunger. An animal will have to fast when there is no food. But only man can fast when there is hunger and food both. This is a volitional act. You use your freedom. The hunger cannot goad you. The hunger cannot push you and the food cannot pull you.

If there is no food, it is not a fast. If there is no hunger, it is naturopathy; it is not a fast. Hunger is there, food is there, and you are on a fast. This fasting is a volitional act, a conscious act. This will give you much awareness. You will feel a subtle freedom: freedom from food, freedom from hunger - really, deep down, freedom from the body, and still more deep down, freedom from nature. And your freedom grows and your consciousness grows. As your consciousness grows, your freedom grows. They are interrelated. Be more free and you will be more conscious; be more conscious and you will be more free: they are interdependent.

But we can deceive ourselves. A son, a daughter, can say, "I will rebel against my father so that I may be more free." Hippies are doing that. But rebellion is not freedom because it is just natural. At a particular age, to rebel against parents is not freedom: it is just natural! A child who is just coming out of the womb of his mother cannot say, "I am leaving the womb." It is natural.

When someone is sexually mature, it is a second birth. Now he must fight his parents, because only if he fights with his parents will he move further away from them. And unless he moves further away from them he cannot create a new family nucleus. So every child will go against his parents: this is natural. And if a child is not going against, it is a growth - because then he is fighting nature.

For example, you get married. Your mother and your wife are coming into conflict, which is natural - natural, I say, because for the mother it is a great shock. You have moved to another woman. Up to now you were wholly and solely your mother's. And it makes no difference that she is your mother: deep down no one is a mother and no one is a wife. Deep down every female is a woman. Suddenly you have moved to another woman, and the woman in your mother will suffer, will become jealous.

Fight and conflict are natural. But if your mother can still love you it is a growth. If your mother can love you more than she ever loved you now that you have moved to a new woman, it is a growth, it is a conscious growth. She is going above natural instincts.

When you are a child you love your parents. That is natural - just a bargain. You are helpless, and they are doing everything for you. You love them and you give them respect. When your parents have become old and they cannot do anything for you, if you still respect and love them, it is a growth. Any time natural instinct is transcended, you grow. You have made a volitional decision, so your being will grow and you will acquire an essence.

The old Indian culture tried in every way to make life such that everything becomes a growth. It is natural for a small child to respect his father, but it is unnatural to respect him when the father has become old, dying, unable to do anything for the child and is just a burden to him. Then it is unnatural! No animal can do that; the natural bond has broken. Only man can do that, and if it is done you grow. It is volitional. You grow with any volitional act, simple or complex.

 

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