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| | | Book Name: Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings | Previous Next | |
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and more helpless, more and more frightened, more and more eccentric. Of course, their neurosis is such that it is respected.
Freud is right when he says that religion is a collective neurosis. I agree with him. The so-called religious ARE neurotic. If a single person behaves in that way, you will think he is mad; but if a big crowd behaves in that same way, you think it is religious.
Just the other night I was talking about a follower of Mahatma Gandhi; his name was Professor Bhansali. He took a vow of silence. Now, the real silence never arises out of vows. The very phenomenon of the vow indicates that the silence is imposed, false, pseudo, violent; otherwise, there is NO need to take a vow. If you have understood the beauty of silence, you will be simply silent! Why take a vow? Why decide for tomorrow? Why say that "From now onwards I will remain silent and I will not speak a single word"? Against whom are you taking the vow?
If you have known the beauty of silence, if you have experienced the joy of it, if you have melted in it, if you have flowed into it -- what is the point? You never take a vow that "I will love my whole life -- I take the vow." You don't take the vow that "I will eat my whole life." You don't take the vow that "I will go on breathing till I die." This will look foolish! You enjoy love -- there is no need to take the vow. People take vows for celibacy, not for love -- why? Because celibacy is unnatural, imposed. When celibacy is also natural, spontaneous, no vow is taken.
Now this man, Professor Bhansali -- I knew the man -- took a vow of silence, went to the Himalayas. For two years, three years, he remained in silence. It was a hard struggle; it was a continuous fight with himself -- it was repression, great repression. He must have become split: the one who is trying to impose the vow and the one, the natural one, who wants to have a little chit-chat with people, or to talk, or to relate, communicate.
One night he was sleeping and somebody in the darkness walked over him. He was fast asleep. In sleep you cannot remember your vow. He shouted, "Who are you? Are you blind or something? Can't you see I am
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