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to be closed than to be hurt and rejected.
So people choose that -- a life that is without love. They have chosen out of calculation. The calculation is this: that if you don't move towards anybody, nobody can reject you -- so you will never be hurt. Right -- you will never be hurt, but you can never be happy either. This is what is happening in the world. Everybody has become an island, and all bridges have been dropped. It is very easy to feel love in a group because everybody is open, but you will not find the world outside so open.
So remember, a group is just a situation to see how people really are. This is the real face of all people. If they are given a chance they will be open, loving, sharing. So whenever you come across somebody who is not open, try to open him; help him to open. Don't be afraid that you will be rejected. At the most you can be rejected... accept that too. It is worth risk-taking. Knock at the door. The other may just be hiding behind it, waiting for somebody to knock. He may be defensive; he may try not to open himself. Push the door... help him come out. The real face of every person is just this that you are feeling in the group.
In the group you feel that people are naked, nude. They are without clothes... without armour... without defenses. They are as they would have been if they were not destroyed in their childhood. They are as they would like to be, but the world does not allow them. In the group they are putting aside their masks and you are seeing their real faces. That is the reality about everybody.
Every human being is hankering for love... seeking... searching -- but afraid, so waiting. Never be deceived by people's masks. That's the training of the group. These are the same people who are in the marketplace... the same people all around. They are the same people but they gathered courage... they tried to come close. They tried to be nude and vulnerable, and when one becomes vulnerable, others also gather courage. It is a cumulative phenomenon, mm? That's why it is easy in a group. It becomes easy... it becomes infectious. When you see that everybody is open and nobody is worried, nobody is hiding,
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