Science of the Rishis: A Daily Rhythm

Part II: The Solitary Path: Why Exposing Lies Requires Absolute Silence

And anybody who tries to expose all these fictions and lies… he will be silent, because only a silent person can do that, only a person whose silence cannot be disturbed even by death. Then suddenly, all around him there is trouble of all kinds — lies, allegations — and every effort is made to prove that the majority of the world cannot be wrong.

It is a strange thing that truth is not democratic. What is true is not to be decided by votes; otherwise, we could never come to any truth ever. People would vote for what is comfortable — and lies are very comfortable because you don’t have to do anything about them, you just have to believe…. Truth needs great effort, discovery, risk, and to walk alone on a path which nobody has traveled before.

Just today, Anando was giving me some information. One piece was very significant: all schizophrenic people, neurotic people, psychotic people, or any other kind of mentally disturbed people, always want to be in the crowd — they don’t want to be alone. This was discovered by psychoanalysts who have been working with these mental cases for years — that these people have a great fear of being alone and that they are very comfortable in the crowd.

The reverse is also true — if you feel comfortable in the crowd, that means unconsciously you have a tendency to fall mentally sick if you go out of the crowd, if you are left alone.

In jails, the greatest punishment is the isolation cell. When a person is put into a dark isolation cell, just a piece of bread is slipped underneath the door; that is the only communication between himself and humanity. Nobody speaks to him, nobody comes to see him. And within three weeks he starts losing his sanity, he starts seeing things he has never seen — hallucinations, all kinds of illusions… the crowd was a protection.

Those psychoanalysts have not said what the basic reasons behind it are. The crowd is a protection because it supplies you with a common hallucination in which everyone itbelieves. So you need not be worried about it, you need not think that this is something sick: “It is healthy to be a Christian, to be a Mohammedan, to be a Hindu, to go to the temple and to bow down before a stone statue and pray to a god who lives in heaven. Everybody is doing it, it must be true; so many people cannot be wrong….” It is a common hallucination.

Now, by putting a person into an isolation cell you have taken him out of the crowd, out of the comfort and the coziness of the crowd. He has never been on his own. Now, for the first time, in darkness, with nobody to talk to, with nobody to say anything to… his mind goes berserk. And now, to keep himself engaged, he has to do something, his mind has to do something.

One Russian scientist was kept in an isolation cell for years, but he kept himself sane by just counting figures. From one he would go counting up to millions and millions, and then he would count backwards, and then again… he was a great mathematician. And he was a chess player, so when he would get tired with figures, he would start playing chess with an imaginary partner. Just by playing chess and thinking of ways to win, he kept himself sane.

But the ordinary man within three weeks breaks down and starts having hallucinations. These are private hallucinations. That is the difficulty: they don’t have the sanction of the crowd. And that is why the jail authorities have thought keeping people in isolation the greatest punishment you can suffer. It is really the most terrible torture.

The crowd is living — it may be miserable, it may be suffering, but so is everybody else. If somebody wakes up and sees that everybody is asleep and having nightmares — unnecessarily suffering, creating illusions which have no counterpart in reality — that man will be looked upon as an enemy. He is the greatest friend, but he is bound to be looked upon as an enemy.

This is the whole history of man: all the friends have been looked upon as enemies, and all the enemies have been looked upon as friends.

Theory: Isolation and the Mind: What Solitary Confinement Reveals About Human Sanity

Mindful Workplace (Sattva): Abhaya in Innovation (Cultivating Courage to Walk Alone) – Abhaya (Fearlessness). Seeking truth requires risk, discovery, and walking unpaved paths.

• Workplace Practice: Reward Principled Dissent and Bold Experiments. Sanction controlled failure in innovation. When an individual takes a calculated risk or identifies an inconvenient operational reality, praise their transparency publicly – even if the project fails – so the organisation doesn’t degenerate into a comfortably blind herd.