ORDINARILY YOU FOLLOW THE CROWD

Ordinarily, you follow the crowd. It is convenient, it is comfortable; it is like a sedative. With the crowd you need not worry; the responsibility is with the crowd. You can leave all the questions to the experts. And you can depend on a long tradition, the wisdom of the ages. When so many people are there doing one thing, it is easier to imitate them than to do your own thing, because once you start doing your own thing, doubts arise: maybe... are you right or wrong? With a great crowd doing something, you become part of it. The question never arises whether you are right or wrong. "So many people can't be wrong," the mind goes on saying, "they must be right. And for so many centuries they have been doing the same thing; there must be some truth in it." If doubt arises in you, then doubt is your fault. For centuries and centuries a crowd has been doing a certain thing. One can follow easily, imitate. But once you imitate others, you will never be able to know who you are. Then self-knowledge becomes impossible.

In the Malayan language, they have a word, lattah. It is very beautiful. The word means: people imitate others because they are frightened; out of fear people imitate others. Have you watched? If you are sitting in a theater and suddenly the theater is on fire and people start running, you will follow the crowd -- wherever the crowd is going. It happens when a ship is sinking, the greatest problem becomes this: that the whole crowd runs towards one direction, they all gather together on one corner, which helps the ship to sink sooner.

Whenever you are in fear, you lose individuality. Then there is no time to think and meditate, then there is no time to decide on your own; time is short and a decision is needed. In times of fear people imitate others. But ordinarily, also, you live in lattah, you live in a constant frightened state. And the crowd does not like you to become different, because that creates suspicion in others' minds also. [….]

Out of fear you go on following others. Out of fear you cannot becomean individual. So if you are really in search of the bull, then drop fear, because the search is such that you will be moving in danger, you will be taking risks. And the society and the crowd is not going to feel good. And the society will create all sorts of troubles for you, so that you can come back and become normal again. [….]

Man is the only escapist animal. If there is fear, then rather than encountering it he goes in another direction -- prays to God, asks for help. Feeling poverty, inside poverty, rather than encountering it he goes on accumulating wealth, so that he can forget that he is poor inside. Seeing that he does not know himself, rather than encountering this ignorance he goes on collecting knowledge, becomes knowledgeable, like a parrot, and goes on repeating borrowed things.

These are all escapes. If you really want to encounter yourself, you will have to learn how not to escape. Anger is there; don't escape from it. Whenever you feel angry, you start doing something to become occupied. Of course, if your energy moves in another direction, anger is repressed. It cannot get any energy from you; it falls back into the unconscious. But it will take revenge; sooner or later it will find an opportunity again and will come up out of all proportion to the situation.

If sex arises in you, you start doing something else, you start chanting a mantra. But these are all escapes. And remember: religion is not an escape. The religions that you know are all escapes; but the religion I am talking about is not an escape -- it is an encounter. Life has to be encountered. Whatsoever comes before you, you have to look into it deeply, because that same depth is going to become your self-knowledge.

Behind anger are the footprints of the bull. Behind sex are the footprints of the bull. If you escape from sex, anger, greed, this and that, you will be escaping from the footprints of the bull -- and then it will be impossible to find who you are. The Search, #4

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 984