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Main Index
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given to you. You remain unknown to yourself.
This is the basic anxiety. You are there, but you are unknown to yourself. This lack of knowledge about oneself is the ignorance, and this ignorance cannot be destroyed by any knowledge which others can give to you. They can say to you that you are not this name, you are not this form, you are `soul eternal', but that too, is given by others, that too is not immediate. Unless you come to yourself directly, you will remain in ignorance. And ignorance creates anxiety. You are not only afraid of others, you are afraid of yourself -- because you don't know who you are and what is hidden in you. What is possible, what will erupt out of you the next moment, you don't know. You go on trembling and life becomes a deep anxiety. There are many problems which create anxiety, but those problems are secondary. If you penetrate deeply, then every problem will ultimately reveal that the basic anxiety, the basic anguish, is that you are ignorant of yourself -- of the source from where you come, of the end to where you are moving, of the being whom you are right now.
Hence every religion says to move into solitude, into aloneness, so that you can for a time leave society and all that society has given to you, and face yourself directly.
Mahavir lived for twelve years alone in the forest. He would not speak during those days, because the moment you speak you have moved into society. Language is society. He remained completely silent, he would not speak. The basic bridge had been cut so that he would be alone. When you don't speak you are alone, deeply alone. There is no way to move to the other. For twelve long years he lived alone without speaking. What was he doing? He was trying to find out who he was. It is better to put away all labels, it is better to move away from others so that there is no need for the social image. He was destroying the social image. He was throwing away all the garbage that society had given; he was trying to be totally naked, without any name, without any form. That;s what Mahavir;s nakedness means. It was not just throwing away the clothes. It was deeper. It was the nudity of being totally
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