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Book Name: When the Shoe FitsPrevious     Next
 

goes on existing, but man is a problem. Why is this so? And every man is a problem. If only a few were problems we could call them ill, abnormal, but just the contrary is the case -- only a few are not problems. Rarely is there a man like Buddha, Jesus, or Chuang Tzu -- one who is at home, whose life is an ecstasy and not a suffering and an anxiety. Otherwise everybody lives in suffering and in hell.

Somewhere man has gone wrong -- not any particular man, but human society as such has gone wrong. And this has gone to the roots. Whenever a child is born, the society starts changing the child to the abnormal pattern -- the unnatural pattern through which everybody else is suffering. Psychologists have been trying hard to probe the mystery of where a child goes wrong and they have stumbled upon the age of four. Somewhere near that age the child becomes part of society; somewhere around that age he is no longer natural. Before the age of four he is still part of the great world of trees, flowers, birds and animals; before the age of four he is still wild. After that he is domesticated. Then the society takes over. Then he lives according to rules, morality, right and wrong. Then he is not total. Then everything is divided. Now before he moves he has to decide deliberately how to move, what to do, and what not to do. The 'ought' has entered and that 'ought' is the disease. Discrimination has come in. Now the child is no longer part of the Divine -- he has fallen from that grace.

This is the meaning of the biblical story of Adam's fall. Before he ate from the Tree of Knowledge he was natural, he lived in the garden of Eden. That garden of Eden is here. These trees are still living in it; animals are still part of it; the sun and moon and stars are still moving in it; here and now is the garden of Eden -- but you are out of it. Why was Adam turned out? He ate the fruit of knowledge. And at the age of four every Adam and every Eve are turned out again. It is not something that happened in the past it happens every time a child is born -- again the Adam comes into being, again the Eve comes into being. Up to the age of four there is no knowledge. By the age

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