VBT – Meditation 27.4
Your Choice
Whenever you lie, deceive, or are dishonest, you are forced to do that. That is not your choice, not a real choice. Why do you lie? Because of the consequences, because of society: you will suffer if you say the truth. You lie and you escape suffering.
Really, society has forced you to lie; it was not your choice. If you say the truth, it is your choice, no one is forcing you to say the truth. Everything is forcing you to say a lie, to be dishonest. That is more convenient, safe, secure. Now you are entering danger, insecurity, but this is your choice.
With this choice, for the first time you attain a self.
So animal authenticity is one thing, and man’s authenticity is qualitatively different – it is a conscious choice. So a buddha is one again. He is like an animal, with only one difference: he is simple, pure, innocent like an animal, but unlike an animal because he is conscious. Now everything is a conscious choice. He is alert, aware.
Western youth is becoming more authentic because it is falling toward the animal. It is not a choice. Rather, again, it is the easiest course – to fall down. Western youth is more authentic than Eastern youth in the sense that they are now falling deeper down toward the animal. Eastern youth is false. Their behavior looks like a facade – not real, but phony. But these two are not really the only alternatives.
Eastern youth is false, cultured, cultivated, forced to be something which is not real. Western youth has revolted against this, revolted toward the authenticity of the animal. That is why sex and violence have taken more and more of a grip on the Western youth. In a way they are more authentic, but in a way the greater possibility is lost.
A buddha is in revolt and a hippie is also in revolt, but the revolts are different; the quality differs. A buddha is also revolting against the conditioning, but he is going beyond it – toward a unity which is higher than man and higher than the animal. You can revolt and go down toward the animal. Then you are also going toward a unity, but that is going down, below man.
But in a way, revolt is good – because once revolt comes into the mind, the day is not far off when you will come to understand that this revolt is just going backwards. A revolt is needed which must go forward. So Western youth may come to understand sooner or later that their revolt is good, but the direction is wrong. Then it will become possible in the West for a new humanity to be born.
In this sense, the Eastern phoniness is not worth anything. It is better to be authentic, to be revolting, because a revolting mind will not take much time to see that the direction is wrong. But a phony youth may continue for millennia, may not be even aware that there is a possibility to revolt and to go beyond. But between the two neither is worth choosing; the third alternative is the way.
Man must revolt against conditioning and go beyond. If you fall below then you may have the pleasure of revolting, but the revolt has become destructive – it is not creative. Religion is the deepest revolt, but you may not have thought about it in that way. We take religion as the most orthodox thing – the traditional, the conventional. It is not. Religion is the most revolutionary thing in human consciousness, because it can lead you toward the unity which is higher than animal, higher than man. These techniques are concerned with that revolution.
Tags: Your Choice
