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are simply suicidal. You must have been a little suicidal in your risks.
People enjoy that too, because it gives a thrill, an excitement. If people are suicidal and they are driving a car, they will tend to go beyond sixty, seventy miles per hour, because there is a thrill. Just facing death, they feel very sharp, young, and that they are giving a good fight against death. But this is foolish. Out of a group experience, meditation, awareness, this type of person will stop many risks.
So it is good -- you will be more balanced now. There is no need to be a coward, and there is no need to be a brave man. Both are the same type of diseases -- in different directions, contrary directions; but both are the same. One needs to be simply aware; neither a coward nor brave. Whatsoever the situation demands, do it. Do you understand me? A cowardly man works from his cowardice -- never responds to the real situation. A brave man works from his bravery, never responding to the real situation.
My teaching is that you need not be either. There is no need to have fixed ideas about anything, about yourself. Let the situation decide -- you simply be aware, and let awareness respond. There are many times when you will feel very brave because it is needed, and times when you will say it is foolish to be brave.
The world will be very very silent and peaceful if people drop these concepts of bravery and cowardice, and all sorts of nonsense which they have been taught by the politicians and the priests, because they want sacrifice. They want you to sacrifice yourself somewhere -- Vietnam, Israel, Pakistan -- so they tell you to become brave, to be a man. But why? Why should they want you to go and unnecessarily knock your head against a wall?
One has to live one's life. There is no need to sacrifice it for anything, unless your inner consciousness gives you an opportunity -- where you think your whole being is at stake, and you choose it. But you choose consciously -- not by somebody else's teaching, preaching, conditioning.
Good... cool down! By and by do all the groups, and you will come out of it very very tranquil, balanced, calm, cool, collected.
[Anupassana,
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