BENGALURU: There are various forms of chemical injections to make man peaceful. They are doing it now: in the totalitarian states they send them to hospitals, psychotherapeutic hospitals where they are drugged, kept peaceful. And also belief has also drugged us tremendously, to be peaceful. We all believe, if you are Christians, in some form of saviour. And that belief has kept us somewhat tamed.
There have been attempts of every kind, throughout the world, to help man to live peacefully. They have said: meditate, follow, obey, conform, don’t hurt, love another - the whole religious instructions throughout the world. And yet, in spite of all that, and perhaps because of all that, man has not lived at peace with himself or created a society that’s peaceful. Why? We are asking, you are also asking the question not only me.
Are we different, each one of us, from the world outside of us? Are you, as British, or French or American, Russian or whatever nationality, group to which one belongs, or Indian, are we the rest of humanity or separate individuals, struggling, separate souls, each one seeking his own fulfilment, his own happiness, his own salvation, identifying himself with something noble, illusory, imaginary, and so on? Are we living in isolation on this earth, each one of us isolated, separated from the rest of mankind? And this separation, this so-called ‘individualism’ may be one of the causes why human beings do not live at peace, either in their relationships, or with his neighbour who might be next door, or a thousand miles away.
Please, you and the speaker are putting these questions. The speaker is not putting the question for you to answer. This is a question which all of us has to face. Either we face it intelligently, rationally, sanely, or escape into some form of illusory peace.
Peace can only exist if we have complete security, both outwardly and inwardly, psychologically and environmentally. We all want security. And apparently we don’t have security. We have sought it in religions, in beliefs, in ideologies, in some form of authority; followed them, and yet we remain separate. We are asking, is that one of the basic causes why human beings, thinking they are separate, isolated entities, each one seeking his own particular form of security, must inevitably come into conflict with others who are also seeking their own particular form of security?
Are we separate from the rest of humanity? You understand my question? Are you separate? Are you an individual so that you as an individual are seeking your own happiness, your own pleasures, solitary in your illusions, in your particular form of imaginative hope? Because if that is the cause of it, it is either the cause is rational, real, actual and then we have to deal with that, or it is really illusory. Each one of us has been brought up to think that we are individuals, separate. Is that a fact? Is our consciousness - which contains our behaviour, our reactions, our pleasures, fears, anxieties, sorrow and all the experiences, knowledge, all that is our consciousness, what you are, what each one of us is - is that consciousness different from the rest of humanity?