VBT – Meditation 96.5
The End Of Mind Pressures
There are many studies going on. They have tried putting many animals in one cage with all their needs fulfilled – better than they can fulfil them themselves in a forest. But they go mad because they don’t have space. When someone is always around they are tense, afraid, ready to fight. This constant readiness to fight gives such tensions; that their heart failures or they go mad. Animals even commit suicide because the pressure becomes so much. And many abnormalities develop which are never found in the wild state. Monkeys in the wild are totally different. When caged in a zoo they start behaving abnormally. In the beginning it was thought that it was the bondage that was creating the problem. Now it is known that it is not the bondage. If you give them the proper space that they need in a cage they are happy. Then there is no problem. But they have an intrinsic feeling of space. When someone enters that space, pressure comes to their minds. Their minds start to be tense, strained; they cannot sleep right, they cannot feed right, they cannot love right.
Because of these studies, scientists now say that the whole of humanity is going crazy and mad because of too much over-population. The pressure is so great. You are never left alone: in the train, in the bus, in the office, everywhere, crowds and crowds. Man also has a need for space, to be left alone. But there is no place, you are never alone. When you come to your home, your wife is there, the children are there, and the relatives keep on coming. And they still think that the guest is God! You are already crazy because the pressure is too much all around you. You cannot say to anyone, “Leave me alone.” If you say to your wife, “Leave me alone,” she will get angry, “What do you mean?” She has been waiting for you the whole day. Mind needs space to be relaxed.
This sutra is really beautiful and very scientific. THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES.
When you move alone on a solitary hilltop you have space all around you, endless space. The pressure of the crowd, the pressure of others around you, leaves you. You will sleep more deeply.
You will have a different quality of awakening in the morning. You will feel free. An inner pressure circle is not there. You will feel unimprisoned, unfettered.
This is good. But we have become so addicted to crowds that only for a few days – three or four days – will you feel good, then the desire will arise to go again to the crowd. Every holiday you go on, you want to come back after three days. Because of the pattern, the habit, you feel useless.
Alone, you feel useless, alone you cannot do anything, and even if you do something, no one will know about it, no one will see you doing it, no one will appreciate it. You cannot do anything alone because all your life you have been doing something for others. You feel useless.
So remember, if you ever try this solitary madness, drop the idea of utility. Be useless. Only then can you be alone. Because really, utility has been forced on your mind by society. Society says, “Be of some utility. Don’t be useless.” Society wants you to be an economic unit, a thing, efficient, utilitarian. Society doesn’t want you to be just a flower. No, even if you are a flower then you must be worth being sold. Society needs you to be in the market, you must have some utility. Only then are you of use, otherwise not. Society goes on preaching that use is the goal of life, the purpose of life. This is nonsense.
I am not saying be useless. I am saying that this use is not the goal. You have to live in society, to be useful to it, but to remain capable of being useless at any moment. That capacity must be retained otherwise you become a thing and not a person. When you move into solitariness, into aloneness, this will become a problem. You will feel; yourself useless.
I have been working with many people. Sometimes I suggest that they go for three weeks or three months into total loneliness, silence. And I tell them that after seven days they will want to come back and their mind will find all the reasons for not being there so that they can come back. I tell them not to listen to those arguments and to make it a point that for the time they have decided upon they will not leave. They say to me that they are going of their own will, so why should they leave? I tell them that they don’t know themselves. This will not be there for more than three to seven days; afterwards they will long to return, because society has become alcoholic, it is an intoxicant. In sober moments you can think about being alone, but when you are alone, within three days you will think, “What am I doing?” Remember, use is for society. Society uses you and you use society. This is a reciprocal relationship.
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