09/12/2023
🔴 Question:
YOU SAID THAT IMITATION OF ANY KIND, EVEN IMITATION OF A BUDDHA, IS ALIEN TO PURE CONSCIOUSNESS. BUT WE SEE THAT ALL OUR CULTURAL LIFE IS NOTHING BUT IMITATION. IN THAT CASE, IS CULTURE ITSELF ALIEN TO RELIGION?
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Yes, culture, society, civilization, all are alien to religion. Religion is a revolution, a revolution in your cultural conditioning, a revolution in your social conditioning, a revolution in all the spheres that you have lived and you are living. Every society is against religion. I'm not talking about your temples and mosques and churches that society has created. Those are tricks. Those are things to befool you. Those are substitutes for religion, they are not religion. They are to misguide you. You need religion: they say, 'Yes, come to the temple, to the church, to the gurudwara. Here it is religion. You come and pray and the preacher is there who will teach you religion.'
This is a trick. Society has created false religions: those religions are Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism. But a Buddha, or a Mahavira, or a Jesus, or a Mohammed Azamed, always exist beyond society. And society always fights with them. When they are dead, then the society starts worshipping them, then the society creates temples. And then there is nothing; the reality is gone, the flame has disappeared. Buddha is no longer there in the statue of a Buddha. In the temples you will find the society, the culture, but not religion. But what is religion?
In the first place, religion is a personal thing. It is not a social phenomenon. You alone go into it, you cannot go into it with a group. How can you go into samadhi with somebody else? Not even your nearest, not even your closest will be with you. When you go inwards, everything will be left out: the society, the culture, the civilization, enemies, friends, lovers, beloveds, children, wife, husband — everything will be left, by and by. And a moment comes when you also will be left out. Then only, the flowering; then the transformation. Because you are also a part of the society, a member of society: a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian, an Indian, a Chinese, a Japanese. First, others will be left; then, by and by, nearer ones will be left, closer ones will be left. Finally you will come to yourself, which is also a part of the society, trained by the society, conditioned by the society: your brain, your mind, your ego — given by the society. That too has to be left outside the temple. Then you enter in your absolute aloneness. Nobody is there, not even you.
Religion is personal. And religion is revolutionary. Religion is the only revolution in the world. All other revolutions are false, pseudo, games, not revolutions. In fact, because of those revolutions, the real revolution is always postponed. They are anti-revolutions.
A communist comes and he says, 'How can you change yourself unless the whole society is changed?' And you feel, 'Right. How can I change myself? How can I live a free life in an un-free society?' The logic seems relevant. How can you be happy in an unhappy society? How can you find bliss when everybody is miserable? The communist hits, he appeals.'Yes,' you say, 'unless the whole society is happy, how can I be?' Then the communist says, 'Come, let us first have a revolution in the society.' And then you start on a march, morcha, gherao, all types of nonsense. You have been caught in the trap. Now you are going to change the whole world.
But have you forgotten how long you are going to live? And when the whole world is changed, by that time you will not be here. You will have lost your life. Many stupid people are losing their whole lives marching against this and that, for this and that; trying to transform the whole world and postponing the only transformation which is possible, and that is self-transformation.
And I tell you, you can be free in an un-free society, you can be blissful in a miserable world. There is no hindrance from others; you can be transformed. Nobody is hindering you except you yourself. Nobody is creating any obstacle. Don't bother about the society and the world because the world will continue. And it has continued the same for ever and ever. Many revolutions come and go and the world remains the same.
If I change, I change the whole world in a way. The world will never be the same because one part -- one millionth, but still one part -- has changed, has become totally different, is no more of this world. Another world has penetrated through me. The eternity has penetrated into time. God has come to dwell in a human body; nothing can be the same, everything will change through me.
Remember this, and remember also that religion is not an imitation. You cannot imitate a religious person. If you imitate, it will be a pseudo-religion — false, insincere. How can you imitate me? And if you imitate, how can you be true to yourself ? You will become untrue to yourself. You are not here to be like me. You are here to be just like yourself. You are not here to be like me; you are here to be just like yourself, like you.
Be authentically yourself. You cannot imitate. Religion makes everybody unique. No Master who is really a Master will insist that you imitate him. He will help you to be yourself, he will not help you to be like him.
I'm here to help you to be yourself. When you become a disciple, when I initiate you, I am not initiating you to be imitators. I am just trying to help you to find your own being, your own authentic being — because you are so confused, you have so many faces that you have forgotten which is the original one. You don't know what your real urge is. The society has confused you completely, misguided you. Now you are not certain of who you are. When I initiate you, the only thing that I want to do is to help you come to your own home. Once you are centered in your own being, my work is finished. Then you can start. In fact, a Master has to undo what the society has done. A Master has to undo what the culture has done. He has to make you a clean sheet again.
That's the meaning of a Master giving you a rebirth: again you become a child, your past cleaned, your slate washed. How can you come to the first point where you had entered into this world, forty, fifty years ago? And the society got hold of you, trapped you, led you astray. For fifty years you have wandered and now suddenly you have come to me. I have to do only one thing: to wash clean whatsoever has been done to you, to bring you back to your childhood, to the initial stage from where you started the journey, and to help you to start the journey again.
Words of Beloved Rajnish
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega,
Vol 4, Ch--4 / Fri, 24 April 1975 am in Buddha Hall
