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to act as though the individual were not a member of society -- to become a monk, to move into solitude. You are part of the society, you are born in society, you live in society. The social consciousness is like the ocean to you -- you are the fish in this ocean. You cannot live without it! And those who try to live without it almost always become perverted. Yes, once in a while it is good to rest for a few days in a mountain retreat -- just for a rest, but you have to come back to the world. Yes, it is good for a few hours to meditate, but then you have to go back into the world. Don't become a monk. Don't start thinking of yourself as separate, because self-knowledge cannot be attained in separation. It is attained in union.
And the closest union possible is with other people. How can you commune with trees if you cannot even commune with people? How can you commune with rocks if you cannot even commune with your beloved. It is absurd! The whole idea is absurd. A man is saying, "I am leaving my wife and my children because they are a bondage to me and I am going to the mountains to have a communion with the mountains." He is talking rubbish. To commune with the mountains will not be possible for him -- because the mountains speak a totally different language. They are far behind human consciousness. To relate with them you will have to become a mountain -- only then can you relate.
If you cannot relate with human beings, who are as evolved as you are, who belong to the same language world, who belong to the same level of life, you cannot relate with anybody else anywhere. Don't be fool yourself.
Greeks were very very particular about it, about these two extremes. One who lived outside the society was called a private being. They have a very beautiful word for that -- they used to call him IDIOT. Out of this word has come 'idiot'. IDIOT was the name of such a being -- if you go REALLY outside of the society you will become an idiot. This is my observation.
I have seen many people living for years in the mountains -- they become idiots. They HAVE to become idiots because there is no challenge, no human challenge to provoke them; no human
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