Cultivating Right Attitudes_

 

Just two, three days before it happened a sannyasin attacked Laxmi. You may not have observed that you all are responsible for it, because many of you have been feeling antagonism towards Laxmi. That sannyasin is just a victim, just the weakest link among you. He has expressed your antagonism, that's all, and he was the weakest; he became the victim, and now you will feel that he is responsible. That's not true. You participated. Subtle is the law!

How you participated? Deep down, whenever somebody managing - and Laxmi is managing things around here... There are many situations in which you will feel antagonistic, in which she will have to say 'no' to you, in which you will feel hurt - it cannot be avoided - in which you feel that enough attention is not being paid to you, in which you feel that you are treated as if you are nobody. Your ego feels hurt and you feel antagonism.

If many people feel antagonism towards a person, then the weakest amongst them will become the victim; he will do something. He was the craziest amongst you, that's right. But he alone is not responsible. If you have ever felt antagonism towards Laxmi, that is part and you have earned a karma, and unless you become so subtly aware you cannot become enlightened. Things are very complicated.

Now in the West also, psychoanalysts have found that the whole family is responsible if one person goes mad - whole family! Now they think that the family has to be treated, not one person, because when one person goes mad that only shows that the whole family has inner tensions. This is the weakest of them all, so immediately he shows the whole thing, he becomes the expression of the whole family, and if you treat him it won't help. In the hospital he may be okay: back home he will fall ill again because the whole family has inner tensions and this is the weakest.

Children suffer too much because of parents. They are fighting; they are always creating anxiety and tension around the house. The whole house exists not as a peaceful community, but as an inner war and conflict. The child is vulnerable more; the child starts behaving in eccentric ways - now you have an excuse that you are tense and worried because of the child. And now the father and mother both can be concerned with the child; they will take him to the psychoanalyst and the doctor, and they can forget their own conflict.

And this child becomes a cementing force, if he is ill; then they have to pay more attention to him. And now they have an excuse why they are worried and tense and in anguish - because the child is ill - and they don't know just the reverse is the case... BECAUSE they are worried, tense in conflict. The child is innocent, tender; he can be affected immediately, he has no protection around him yet. And if the child becomes really healthy, the parents will be in more difficulty - because then there is no excuse.

This is a community; you live here as a family. Many tensions are bound to be there, be aware. Be alert about those tensions because your tensions can create a force. They can become accumulative, and suddenly somebody who is weak, vulnerable, simple, may become the shelter of the accumulated force, and then he reacts in a way. Then you all can throw the responsibility on him. But that is not true if you ever have felt any antagonism, you are part of it. And the same is true in the greater world also.

Always find the dynamics of mind. Only then you will be transformed; otherwise not.

Look! Patanjali is making steps - and beautiful and very subtle, but exactly scientific.

When you feel somebody is a virtuous man, joy, the ordinary attitude is that he must be deceiving. How anybody can be more virtuous than you? Hence so much criticism goes on.

Whenever there is somebody who is virtuous, you immediately start criticizing, you start finding faults with him. Somehow or other you have to bring him down. He cannot be virtuous. You cannot believe this. Patanjali says joy, because if you criticize a virtuous man, deep down you are criticizing virtue. If you criticize a virtuous man, you are coming to a point to believe that virtue is impossible in this world. Then you will feel at ease. Then you can move on your evil ways easily because, "Nobody is virtuous; everybody is just like me - even worse than me." That's why so much condemnation goes on - criticism, condemnation.

If somebody says, "That person is a very beautiful person," you immediately find something to criticize. You cannot tolerate - because if somebody is virtuous and you are not, your ego is shattered, and then you start feeling that "I have to change myself," which is an arduous effort. The simple is to condemn; the simple is to criticize; the simple is to say, "No! Prove! What are you saying? First, prove how he is virtuous!" And it is difficult to prove virtue; it is very easy to unprove anything. It is very difficult to prove!

One of the greatest Russian storytellers is Turgenev. He has written a story. The story is that in a small village a man was thought to be stupid, and he was. And the whole town laughed at him. He was just like a fool, and everybody in the town enjoyed his foolishness. But he was tired of his foolishness, so he asked a wise man, "What to do?"

The wise man said, "Nothing! Simply, whenever somebody is praising somebody, you condemn. Somebody is saying that 'That man is a saint,' immediately say, 'No! I know well he is a sinner!' Somebody says, 'This book is very great,' immediately say, 'I have read it and studied it.' Don't bother whether you have read it or not; simply say, 'This is rubbish.' If somebody is saying, 'This painting is one of the greatest works of art,' simply say, 'But what it is? - just a canvas and colors. A child can do it!' Criticize, say 'no', ask for proofs, and after seven days come to me."

Within seven days the town started feeling that this man is a genius: "We never knew about his talents, and he is a genius about everything. You show him a painting and he shows the faults. You show him a great book, and he shows the faults. He is such a great critical mind! An analyst! A genius!"

Seventh day he came to the wise man and he said, "Now there is no need to take any advice from you. You are a fool!" The whole town used to believe in that sage, and they all said that "Our genius has said that he is a fool, he must be."

People always believe in the negative easily because to disprove a 'no' is very difficult - how can you prove? How can you prove that Jesus is son of God? How you will prove? Two thousand years, and Christian theology has been proving without proving it. But within seconds it was proved that he was a sinner, a vagabond, and they killed - within seconds! Somebody said that "I have seen this man coming out of a prostitute's house" - finished! Nobody bothers whether this man who is saying that "I have seen," is believable or not - nobody bothers! The negative is always believed easily because it is also helping your ego. The positive is not believed.

You can say 'no' whenever there is virtue. But you are not harming the virtuous man: you are harming you. You are self-destructive. You are, in fact, committing suicide slowly - poisoning yourself. When you say that "This man is not virtuous, that man is not virtuous," what are you, in fact, creating? You are creating a milieu in which you will come to believe that virtue is impossible; and when virtue is impossible, there is no need to attempt. Then you fall down. Then you settle wherever you are. Growth becomes impossible. And you would like to settle, but then you settle in misery because you are miserable.

You all have settled completely. This settlement has to be broken; you have to be unsettled. Wherever you are you have to be uprooted and replanted in a higher plane, and that is possible only if you are joyful towards the virtuous.

Don't even condemn evil.

The temptation is there; you would like to condemn even virtue. And Patanjali says don't condemn evil. Why? He knows the inner dynamics of the mind: because if you too much condemn evil, you pay too much attention to evil, and by and by, you become attuned to it. If you say that "This is wrong, that is wrong," you are paying too much attention to the wrong. You will become addicted with the wrong. If you pay too much attention to anything, you become hypnotized. And whatsoever you are condemning you will commit, because it will become an attraction, a deep-down attraction. Otherwise, why bother? They are sinners, but who are you to bother about them?

Jesus says, "Judge ye not..." That's what Patanjali means - indifference; don't judge this way or that - be indifferent. Don't say 'yes' or 'no'; don't condemn, don't appreciate. Simply leave it to the divine; it is none of your business. A man is a thief: it is his business. It is his and God's. Let them settle themselves; you don't come in. Who is asking you to come in? Jesus says, "Judge ye not..." Patanjali says, "Be indifferent."

What happens to this new learner? A law is working. Emile Coue calls it the Law of the Reverse Effect. Immediately, because he is a learner, he is afraid, so he looks around, where is the fear point - where he can go wrong? The whole road is okay, but this stone, this red stone by the corner, that is the danger: "I may crash with it." Now there is an affinity created. Now his attention is towards the stone; the whole road is forgotten. And he is a learner! His hands tremble, and he is looking at the stone, and by and by he feels that the cycle is moving. Once he feels the cycle...

The cycle has to follow your attention: cycle has no will of its own. It follows you wherever you are going, and you follow your eyes, and eyes follow a subtle hypnosis, an attentiveness. You are looking at the stone, the hands move that way. You become more and more afraid. The more you are afraid, the more caught, because now the stone seems to be an evil force, as if the stone is attracting you. The whole road is forgotten, the cycle is forgotten, the learner is forgotten. Only the stone is there; you are hypnotized. You will go and crash with the stone. Now you have fulfilled your mind; next time you will be more afraid. Now where to break out of it?

When you say that something is wrong, go in the monasteries - the monks condemning sex. Sex has become the milestone. Twenty-four hours they are thinking about it: trying to avoid it is thinking about it. The more you try to avoid it, the more you are hypnotized. That is why in the old scriptures it is said whenever a saint concentrates, beautiful girls from heaven come and try to disturb his mind. Why beautiful girls should be interested? Somebody is sitting under a tree with closed eyes, why beautiful girls will be interested in this man?

Nobody comes from anywhere, but he is so much against sex it becomes a hypnosis. He is so much hypnotized that now dreams become real. He opens the eyes and sees a beautiful naked girl standing there. You need a p0rn0graphic book to see a nude woman. If you go to the monastery you will not need a p0rn0graphic book: you create your p0rn0graphy yourself all around. And then the seer, the man who was concentrating, becomes more afraid: he closes his eyes, clenches his fist. Now inside the woman is standing.

And you cannot find such beautiful women on this earth because they are creations of dream - hypnosis byproducts - and the more he becomes afraid, the more they are there. They will rub with his body, they will touch his head, they will cling and embrace him. He is completely mad, but this happens. This is happening to you also. Degrees may differ, but this is what is happening. Whatsoever you are against, you will be joined with it deep down.

Never be against anything. To be against evil is to fall a victim. Then you are falling in the hands of the evil. Indifference: if you follow indifference, it means it is none of your concern. Somebody is stealing: that is his karma. He will know and he will have to suffer. That is not your business at all: you don't think about it, don't pay any attention to it. There is a prostitute: she is selling her body - that is her business. You don't have condemnation in you, otherwise you will be attracted towards her.