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-- the Japanese are very ritualistic -- rituals exist. Everything in Zen monasteries is still continued the same way, as if the inner spirit is still there, but the inner shrine is vacant and empty. The master of the house has moved. The God is there no more -- just empty ritual. And they are extrovert people, they will continue the ritual. Every morning they will get up at five -- there will be a gong -- they will move to the tea-room, and they will take their tea; they will move to their meditation hall, and they will sit with closed eyes. Everything will be followed exactly as if the spirit is there, but it has disappeared. There are monasteries, there are thousands of monks, but the tree has flowered and seeds cannot be created there.
Hence I am talking so much about Zen here -- because again only India can create the seed. The whole world exists in a deep unity, in a harmony -- in India the seed can again be given birth. But how many things have changed around the world. China is no longer a possibility, because it has itself become an extrovert country. It has become communistic: now matter is more important than the spirit. And now it is closed for new waves of consciousness.
To me, if any country can in the future become again the soil, it is England.
You will be surprised, because you may think it is America. No. Now the most balanced country in the world is England, just as in the ancient days it was China. The seed has to be taken to England and planted there; it will not flower there, but it will become a big tree. English consciousness -- conservative, always following the middle way, the liberal mind, never moving to the extremes, just remaining in the middle -- will be helpful. That is why I am allowing more and more English people to settle around me. It is not only for visa reasons! Because once the seed is ready, I would like them to take it to England. And from England it can go to America, and it will have flowering there, because America is the most extrovert country right now.
I tell you that Zen is a rare phenomenon, because only if all these situations are fulfilled can such a thing happen.
Now, try to understand
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