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worth much.
A really strong person is one who never has to show it -- there is no need, he is. And I don't think that you are a weak person; you are a strong person. You must be carrying a wrong notion about yourself.
My suggestion is to try to surrender for a few days. Do whatso-ever is said and see how you feel. That will be an experience. You may have a new vision of your old being and you will see, 'How foolish I was! Unnecessarily afraid!' But still, if you think that it will be difficult for you, get out of it, mm? Good.
[Another participant says: I'm too clever for my own good. And then, afraid to be soft.]
Both are very dangerous qualities. Cleverness is always a barrier. And it is not intelligence -- it is a false substitute. An intelligent person is innocent. You can cheat an intelligent person very easily, but you cannot cheat a clever person because the clever person himself is a cheat. So never think that cleverness is of any value; it is based on fear. The logic behind cleverness is: if you don't cheat others, others will cheat you. So remain clever and always protect yourself, and before somebody attacks you, attack them, because attack is the best defence. This is the logic of cleverness: always pretend that you know, even when you don't.
I had a teacher in my university days. He was a professor of indian philosophy. I became aware that he was not very intelligent but just trying to be clever, so I started playing a game. I would say that I was reading XYZ's such and such a book -- what did he think about it? He would say, 'It is beautiful!' And the book exists not -- neither the author nor the title!
One day I was talking to him and the head of the department was present. He became a little suspicious and he called me later on. He asked, 'What is the matter? I have never heard of these authors you are talking about and that fellow seems to be a very great scholar. He knows everybody and every author and every book.'
I told him, 'They exist not, but he is such a great man that he cannot say that he has never heard of them -- no, that is impossible. He cannot say that he doesn't know about this book.
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