Don't sow wrong seeds

Question 1:

Man finds himself utterly empty, meaningless, accidental. The awareness of all these things hurts him. He wants to improve things simply to feel some meaning in life, some joy in life. Ordinarily he is just a wound, and from birth onwards the wound goes on growing bigger and bigger, and the pain goes on increasing.

If he looks ahead there is nothing but death and darkness. If he looks behind - before birth - nothing is known.

He lives between two unknown realities - birth and death. And the small span of his life is just a continuous pain. To avoid this pain, to change this situation, to heal the wound, he has done many things.

He invented a God so that he can say he is not accidental, he is a creation of a perfect God. And when a perfect God creates, he creates perfect beings. It is simple logic: to make himself feel perfect, significant, needed by the universe, he swallows the greatest lie - the concept of God. It is a desperate effort, but you cannot befool yourself. You may postpone your misery a little bit but again it is there.

To satisfy God and make him a reality, man has created all kinds of rituals, priesthoods. Of course he cannot create God but he can create temples, synagogues, mosques, churches. He cannot create God but he can create prophets, messiahs, saviors - representatives of God. He can create holy books written by God. Man writes them, but even the most intelligent people do not want to disturb the illusion; it is such a consolation that there is a God who cares about you. And God is perfect in every way so his creation cannot be imperfect.

All that you have to do is to go on praying to God so he remains happy with you and allows you all the possible treasures of existence. For centuries man has lived in that dream, but nothing has happened and everything has been done...

You will be surprised. We have sacrificed human beings to an empty concept of God! We have sacrificed the most beautiful women - because God would be very happy to have a beautiful woman.

We have made every effort, but the sky remains silent, no answer ever comes, no response. Slowly, slowly the intelligentsia started looking somewhere else - "Perhaps that is not the right direction..."

That's where people like Thomas Moore come in.

It is a sheer waste of time to look towards an abstract God no one has seen. It is better to improve the society, make the society perfect so that the people who are members of the society have the chance to flower to their perfection. That is another illusion, far closer to reality, but it doesn't matter whether the illusion is farther away or closer, an illusion is an illusion.

You cannot create a perfect society for the simple reason... just take a few examples: there are poor people, there are rich people. Naturally, in a perfect society nobody should be poor, nobody should be rich, there should not be any division of classes. It will be a classless society. But it is impossible because it is against the very psychology of man. No two men are equal, and you are thinking of making the whole human society equal; it cannot happen. And it is not only a question of being rich and poor, the question is multidimensional.

One of the characters in an existentialist novel says, "I cannot be satisfied with one woman. I want all the women of the earth."

Now how are you going to satisfy these people? And he is saying something which is hidden in every man and in every woman. How can you manage?

There are people who will not be satisfied unless they have great power over millions of people in their hands. These politicians cannot be satisfied without power. They are addicted to power, but if they have power then millions are reduced to slavery.

One Adolf Hitler - and millions of people are in danger. But you cannot prevent Adolf Hitlers from being born, and as long as they exist, wars will continue. As long as they exist there will be religions.

The question is not at all concerned with America, it is a question of forgiveness - and I am going to be persecuted from one land to another land. If you cannot forgive the people who will be persecuting me, then your whole emptiness will become just wounds and wounds and wounds.

So it is not a question of being kind to America. All the religions have told you, "Forgive the enemy."

Jesus on the cross asked God, "Father forgive these people, because they know not what they are doing."

I am not saying that. My concern is not those people, because I know perfectly well that they know exactly what they are doing. But forgiveness has something to do with your inner health. I am concerned with you!

If you cannot forgive you will carry a wound.

Forgive.

Remove the wound.

Be healed.

Don't sow wrong seeds.

Man can become a beautiful phenomenon. I cannot say that he can become perfect for the simple reason perfection smells of death. Whenever something is perfect there is no way to grow more. You have come to a full stop; now there is no future. Except death, nothing can happen to perfection. So I am not a perfectionist. I believe in open growth.

You will come closer and closer to perfection, but you will never be perfect.

Perfection is not the way of existence.

Growth is the way.

So perfection is always like the horizon. It looks maybe just a few miles away; you can reach it within hours, but by the time you have reached there, it has moved ahead. The distance between you and the horizon always remains the same.

Perfection is a horizon; it is a beautiful idea. It helps you to go on growing; it helps you to go on trying to touch the stars....

(THE REMAINDER OF THIS DISCOURSE WAS LOST DUE TO A FAULT IN THE RECORDING SYSTEM.)