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| | | Book Name: Sufis - The People of the Path, Vol 2 | Previous Next | |
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situation. A civilised society creates a great possibility. You can get obsessed, you can get stuck, you can become frozen -- that is your choice. Otherwise, the more complex the society is, the closer you are to becoming enlightened. You can use that opportunity.
Buddha was born in a very complex Hindu society. That was the peak of Indian civilisation, the golden age. The society was very complex, very sophisticated. Buddha was born into it. And all the twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS of the Jainas, Buddha, and all the AVATARAS of the Hindus -- Krishna, Ram and others -- they all came from the very sophisticated layer of the society. They were all aristocrats. They didn't come from the low strata. They were all kings or sons of kings. Why? Because at that peak the insanity drives you really the whole distance away from God. And then the turning becomes possible.
I am not saying that the turning is going to happen inevitably -- I am not saying that. It will depend on you. If you become aware of the insanity that you are living in, you will start turning. If you don't become aware of the insanity and you remain asleep in it, you may continue to remain insane.
It is not an accident that the East is no longer much interested in religion. The East is so poor now and society has fallen so low; it is no longer sophisticated, it is no longer aristocratic. Its problems are very physical, down-to-earth. It cannot think of spiritual problems.
It is no accident that the West is becoming more and more interested in religion. The Americans particularly are becoming very deeply involved with religion -- because now America is at the peak of civilisation, of sophistication, of luxury, of affluence. Exactly the same thing happened two thousand and five hun-dred years ago in India, when India was the golden bird -- just as America is today. America is modern India.
The sun is going to rise in the West. The East is deserted. The East is a potential field for communism, not for religion. Eastern countries are by and by turning communist. Communism can only be the religion of the East -- it is the lowest kind of religion.
So the American mind, particularly
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