Tantra

THE TANTRA VISION, VOL. 1

Chapter 4: Love is death, Question 3

 

 

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The third question:
Question 3
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT CIVILIZATION? ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY AGAINST IT?

THERE IS NO CIVILIZATION ANYWHERE -- so how can I be against it? It exists not. It is just a pretension. Yes, man has lost his primitive, primordial innocence, but man has not become civilized -- because that is NO way to become civilized. The only way to become civilized is to base yourself on your innocence, to base yourself on your primitive innocence, to grow from there.
That's why Jesus says: Unless you are reborn, unless you become a child again, you will never know what truth is.
This so-called civilization is fake, it is a pseudo coin. If I am against it, I am not against civilization -- because this is not civilization. I am against it because this is not civilization at all. It is fake.
I have heard:

Someone once asked the former Prince of Wales, "What is your idea of civilization?"
"It is a good idea," replied the Prince, "somebody ought to start it."

I love the answer. Yes, somebody ought to start it -- it has not yet been started. Man is not civilized; man only pretends.
I am against pretensions. I am against hypocrisies. Man only shows that he is civilized. Scratch him a little and you will find an uncivilized man. Scratch him a little and all that is good is just superficial, and all that is bad is very deep-rooted. It is a skin-deep civilization. Everything goes well; you are smiling and everything, and somebody just throws a word at you, an insult, and you are mad, and you are a maniac and you want to kill. Just a moment before, you were smiling; and just a moment afterwards, you are ready to kill, your murderous possibilities have surfaced. What kind of civilization is this?
A man can be civilized only when he has become really meditative. Only meditation can bring real civilization to the world. Only Buddhas are civilized.
And this is the paradox: that Buddhas are not against the primitive -- they use the primitive as the base, they use the childhood innocence as the base. And on that base a great temple is erected. This civilization destroys the innocence of childhood, and then it gives you just false coins. First it destroys your primal innocence. Once primal innocence is destroyed, you have become cunning, clever, calculating; then you are trapped, then this society goes on civilizing you.
First it makes you alienated from your own self. Once you are alienated, then it gives you false coins you have to depend on it. Real civilization will not be against your nature, will not be against your childhood. It will be a growth upon it. It will not have any antagonism towards primitive innocence, it will be a flowering of it. It will go higher and higher, but it will be rooted in the primal innocence.
This civilization is nothing but a maddening affair. Can't you see the whole earth has become a big madhouse? People have lost their souls, people are no more people -- they have lost their self, they have lost their personality. They have lost all! They are just pretenders. They have masks; they have lost their original faces.
I am all for civilization, but this is not civilization. That's why I am against it. I would like a man really civilized, really cultured, but that culture can only grow it cannot be forced from the outside. It can come only from the within. It can spread towards the periphery, but it should rise, it HAS to rise, at the center.
This civilization is doing just the opposite: it forces things from the outside. There is a non-violent preaching all over the world -- Mahavir, Buddha, Jesus, they all teach non-violence. They teach non-violence because they have enjoyed non-violence. But followers? -- they have never enjoyed any moment of nonviolence. They know only violence. But they are followers, so they pretend to be non-violent, they force a non-violence upon themselves, they create a character. That character is just around them. It is an armour. Deep down they are boiling like volcanos ready to erupt. And on the surface they smile the false smile, the plastic smile.
This is not civilization. This is a very ugly phenomenon. Yes, I would like the non-violence to come from within, not to be cultivated from the outside, but helped. That is the root meaning of the word'education'. It is almost like drawing water from a well: education means to draw out; that is the root meaning of the word'education'. But what has education been doing? It never draws anything out -- it forces in. It goes on forcing things in the head of the child; it is not worried about the child at all, it does not think about the child. The child is just used as a mechanism into which more and more information has to be fed. This is not education!
The child's soul has to be brought out. That which is hidden in the child has to be brought out. The child has not to be patterned; his freedom should be left intact, and his consciousness has to be helped to grow. More information is not more education! More awareness is education, more love is education. And education creates civilization.
This civilization is false; its education is false. That's why I am against it. I am against it because it is not really a civilization.

 

Next: Chapter 4: Love is death, Question 4

 

Energy Enhancement                 Enlightened Texts                 Tantra                 The Tantra Vision, Vol. 1

 

Chapter 4

 

 

 

 
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