821

Man's evolution passes through three stages: the reform, the revolution and the rebellion.

The reform is the most superficial: it only touches the surface, it never goes more than skin-deep. It changes nothing but the dressing of man; it changes man's formalities. It gives man etiquette, manners– a kind of civilisation– without changing anything essential in his being. It paints man, it polishes man, and yet deep down man remains the same.

It is a delusion. It is fiction. It gives respectability, and makes everybody a hypocrite. It gives good manners, but they are against the inner core. The inner core has not even been understood. But for the society it creates smoothness. Reform functions like a lubricant. It keeps the status quo going, it helps things remain the same– which will look paradoxical, because the reformist claims that he is changing society, but in fact all that he does is paint the old society in new colours. And the old society can exist more easily in new colours than it could have ever done with the old ones. The old were getting rotten.

Reform is a kind of renovation. The house is falling; the supports are falling, the foundations are shaking, and you go on giving new props to it. And you can keep the house from falling a little longer. Reform is in the service of the status quo: it serves the past, not the future.

The second thing is revolution; it goes a little deeper. Reform only changes ideas, it does not even change policies. Revolution goes and touches the structure, but only the outer not the inner. Man has two structures, man lives on two planes. One is the physical, another is the spiritual. The revolution only goes to the physical structure– to the economic, to the political– they all belong to the physical. It goes deeper than reform, it destroys many old things, it creates many new things; but the being, the innermost being of man still remains unchanged. It creates morality, it creates character.

Reform creates manner, etiquette, civilisation: the formal behaviour of the man is changed. Revolution changes man's outer structure– really changes: it brings a new structure. But the inner blueprint remains the same, the inner consciousness is not touched. It creates a split.

The first, the reform, creates hypocrisy. The second, the revolution, creates schizophrenia, it makes man unbridgeable. Man starts falling into two beings, the bridge is broken. That's why revolutionaries go on denying the soul. Marx and Engels and Lenin and Stalin and Mao– they go on denying the soul. They have to deny it, they can't accept it, because if they accept it, then their whole revolution seems to be very superficial, then their revolution is not total.

The reformist does not deny the soul, remember; he accepts it because it makes no problem for him– he never goes up to that point. That point is not a problem. Gandhi accepts the soul, Manu accepts the soul– they are reformists. They never say no to anything, they are people who go on saying yes; they are polite people. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary they will not deny anything, they will accept. But revolutionaries deny the soul. They have to deny, otherwise their revolution looks partial.

The third thing is rebellion. Rebellion is from the very essential core: it changes consciousness– it is radical; it transmutes– it is alchemical. It gives you a new being, not only a new body, not only new dresses, but a new being. A new man is born. And in the history of consciousness there have been three types of thinkers: the reformer, the revolutionary and the rebel.

Manu, Moses, Gandhi– these are reformers, the most superficial.
John the Baptist, Marx, Freud– these are the revolutionaries.
And Jesus, Buddha, Krishnamurti– these are the rebels.

To understand rebellion is to understand the heart of religion. Religion is rebellion. Religion is utter change. Religion is discontinuity with the past, the beginning of the new, the dropping of the old– the total. Nothing has to be continued, because if something continues it will keep the old alive.

Reform paints. Revolution destroys the old outer structure but the inner structure remains the same. In Soviet Russia or in China the inner man is the same, there is no difference, not a bit. The same mind– the same greedy, ambitious, egoistic mind; the same mind that is found in America or in capitalist countries– no difference in that mind. But the outer structure of the society has been changed. And the outer structure of laws, state, economics, politics– that has been changed.

Once the police force, the governmental power is taken away, man will fall back to his old pattern again. The Russian society can be managed only by force, it cannot become democratic, because to allow people to be independent will be allowing them to bring their inner being again into their lives. That is there. They have been prevented, they have been obstructed; they cannot live it. They have to live by what the government says, they cannot live according to their being. So communism is basically dictatorial. It will remain dictatorial, because the fear is that if man is given freedom, then because his consciousness is there– the greed is there, the ambition is there, and all that has always been is there– it will start working again. People will become rich, poor, powerful, powerless. People will start exploiting each other, people will start fighting for their ambitions. Those who are powerful in Russia, they are still doing the same. Krushehev used to brag about his cars, because he had many. Nobody else can have them in Russia, but everybody wants to have. It is just enforcement, not real revolution. Real revolution is spontaneous. That revolution is called rebellion.

A few more distinctions between these three words, then you will be able to understand Jesus' approach.

Reform does not require much from you. It says: Just make your front door beautiful, let the whole house be dirty. You live in dirt, but don't allow your neighbours to see your dirt. Just the front porch should be beautiful, because your neighbours are not interested in your inner being, in your inner house. They pass from the outside and they see only the front door. Do whatsoever you want, but do it from the back door.

So the front door becomes a facade, a window, a show-case for the neighbours to see. You live from the back door really, you don't live from the front door. The front door is just there, artificial; you never enter from it, you never go out from it– that is there just to be seen by others. Watch your front doors– everybody has them. They are called faces, masks, personalities because they are persona: lipstick, and powder and cosmetics– they give you a persona. You are not that. It is a make-up.

Revolution goes a little deeper, but only a little deeper. It changes your drawing-room so you can invite people to sit in your drawing-room. In India it happens very much. In India the drawing-room is beautiful, but don't go beyond that. People's kitchens are so dirty and ugly, their bathrooms are almost impossible. But in India nobody takes any care of the bathroom or the kitchen. The only care that is taken is of the drawing-room; it is there where you meet your guests. This is false; it does not touch your real being, but it keeps your prestige. That's what morality is: it is a beautiful drawing-room. And if you can afford it, you can have a Picasso painting in your drawing-room also. It depends on how much you can afford.

Just the other day I was reading a small story...

Charlie was taking his out-of-town pal, George, for a stroll through the city. They were admiring the scenery when George observed 'Say, will you look at that good-looking girl over there. She's smiling at us. Know her?'
'Yes, Betty– twenty dollars.'
'And who is that brunette with her? Man, she's really stacked!'
'Dolores– forty dollars.'
'Ah, but look what's coming! That's what I call really first class.'
'Gloria– eighty dollars.'
'My God!' cried George. 'Aren't there any nice respectable girls in this town?'
'Of course' Charlie answered. 'But you couldn't afford their rates.'

Morality goes only so far, beyond that it stumbles and disappears. Everybody has his price. The moral man has a price. You watch yourself. If you are walking on the street and you find one thousand rupees, maybe you will not take them, but if you find ten thousand... then you hesitate... to take or not to take? But if you find one hundred thousand rupees, then there is no question, you take them. That shows how deep your morality is– one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand; everybody has a price. One can only afford that much, beyond that, it is too much. The morality is not worth it! Then you would like to choose the immoral. The moral man is not totally moral; only a few layers of him are moral, beyond that the immorality waits. So you can drive any moral man into immorality very easily. The only question is that you have to find his price.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was travelling with a woman in a first-class compartment. They were alone. He introduced himself, and then he said, 'Would you like to sleep with me tonight?'
The woman, who was really angry, said 'What do you think? Are you mad? What do you think of me? I am not a prostitute!'
Mulla said 'I will give you ten thousand rupees.'
The woman started smiling, she came close, she was holding Mulla's hand.
And then Mulla said 'What about ten rupees?'
And the woman said 'What do you think of me!'
Mulla said 'I know who you are. Now we are haggling over the price.'

It is always a question of 'the price'. Ten rupees– and the woman is angry. Ten thousand rupees– and the woman is willing. And don't laugh at her, this is the situation of everybody. Morality does not transform you. It goes deeper than reform, it has a bigger price, but still, at the very core of your being, you remain the same.

Reform is partial revolution. Revolution is outer revolution. Rebellion is inner revolution. And only when the inner has happened, is it dependable; otherwise it is not dependable. Reform will make you a hypocrite, revolution will make you a schizophrenic. Only rebellion can give you your fullness of being, spontaneity, health, wholeness.

Reform will make you respectable. If you are after respect, then reform is enough. It will give you a plastic personality. From the outside you will start looking beautiful. From the inside you will be rotten and stinking, but nobody will be able to smell your stinking being; the plastic will protect you. Inside you will go on getting dirtier and dirtier, but on the outside you will keep a good face.

Revolution will create a split in you. It will make you a saint, but the sinner will be repressed. The sinner has not been absorbed into the saint, the sinner has been cut off. Revolution will make you two persons: it will create two worlds in you. The natural will be repressed and the moral will be on top of it. The upper-dog, the moral, will try to control the lower-dog, the natural. And of course, the natural is very powerful because it is natural, so it will take revenge; it will go on sneaking into your life from the weak points. It will disrupt your morality, it will create guilt, and you will be in constant conflict because nobody can be victorious. Your support, your intellectual support, is for the moral, but your whole being's support is for the natural. The moral is in the conscious and the natural is in the unconscious. The conscious is very small, and the unconscious is nine times more strong, nine times more big than the conscious. But you only know the conscious, so in the conscious the morality will go on singing its song, and in the unconscious, which is nine times more powerful, all kinds of immoralities will go on getting deeper roots in you.

It will make you a saint and a sinner– the sinner will be repressed, and the sinner will wait for his time, for the right time to erupt, for the right time to take revenge. That's why people look so sad, people look so dissipated because their whole energy is going down the drain in the conflict. Continuous tension is there. The saint is very tense, he is always in anguish and always afraid– afraid of his own being that he has denied. And the denied is there. And sooner or later it will throw the moralist, the egoist, the conscious pretender. It will throw– it will throw the pretender. Hence, the saint is always on the verge of a kind of insanity. And you know... if you try to be a saint, you will know that you are always on the verge. A small thing can change your whole balance, you can lose all your sanity. Neurosis breeds, grows, if you are split.

Rebellion is inner revolution. Rebellion starts from the 'in', reform starts from the 'out'. Never start from the outside. Start from the innermost core. Start from your very being. Reform will tell you what to do. Revolution will tell you how to be: more saintly, of a better character, of good qualities. Revolution will make a hard crust around you, an armour which protects you from the outside and from the inside too. A hard, steel armour– that is what is called 'character'.

A real man has no character. Jesus has no character. That was the problem, otherwise the Jews would not have been so against him. He was liquid; he had no character, he had no armour. He was open, vulnerable, defenseless, because he was not a moralist. He was not a saint, he was a sage.

Reform makes you a gentleman. Revolution makes you a saint. Rebellion makes you a sage. He was a sage. Whatsoever he did was not done because of a certain morality, but because of a certain understanding; not because of given-rules from the past, but because of a spontaneous awareness. Rebellion depends on awareness, revolution on character, reform on formalities.

Start by being more aware, then you start from the innermost. Let the light spread from there, so your whole being can be full of light. There is no way to go from the outside. The only way is to come from the inside– just like a seed grows from the inside, sprouts from the inside and becomes a big tree. Let that be your inner work too– like a seed, grow.

Reform is patchwork, a kind of whitewash– a little bit here, a little bit there, but the basic structure is not even touched. Reform can be for revolution or can be against revolution; it depends on you. There are two types of reformists: those who are preparing the ground for revolution or those who are trying to prevent the revolution. Reform gives the feeling that things are getting better, so what is the need of creating a revolution? Why go to that much trouble? Reform gives hope, and people stop. So it depends on you.

A man of right understanding can use reform also, but a man who is not conscious will not be able to use reform as a process for revolution– on the contrary, reform will become a hindrance for revolution. And so is the case with revolution. Revolution can be a door to rebellion, but only with awareness; otherwise it becomes a hindrance. One thinks 'Now the revolution has happened, what is the need to go any deeper? It is already too much.' So reform can either be a hindrance or a help. And so is the case with revolution.

All depends on your awareness, all depends on your understanding– how much you understand life. So let this become one of the most fundamental rules of life and work: that everything ultimately depends on understanding– how you understand. Even something which was going to become a great help can become a hindrance if understanding is missing. And even sometimes that which was going to be poisonous, with understanding can be changed into something medicinal. All medicines are made of poisons: they don't kill, they help people to remain healthy. In the right hands even poison becomes medicine; and in the wrong hands, even medicine may prove to be a poison.

Revolution is the change of the structure– bodily, social, outer, economic, political; but man is not disturbed at all. It can be against rebellion or for rebellion. Out of one hundred, ninety-nine cases are against rebellion. That's why communism is so much against religion; it is not accidental. Communism feels religion to be the real enemy. Why? Because religion goes far deeper than communism can ever go. That is the jealousy, that is the problem. If there is no religion, then communism seems to be the ultimate revolution. Then there is no higher. But if religion is there, then communism seems to be just so-so, lukewarm– it is not much to brag about.

Communism wants to kill religion utterly, destroy religion from the earth. They have done that in Russia, they are doing it in China. They are doing it even in Tibet, which was one of the most religious countries, which had one of the most long-lived religions– alive, the purest; the spring was yet not dirty and polluted. Now they are destroying that too. Communism is very much afraid of religion because communism can see the point that religion goes deeper and it changes man from his very inner core. And only when the new man is born, is a new society really born.

We have tried all things. We have created ladies and gentlemen, and they didn't prove to be much. We have changed societies, we have tried utopias– they have all failed. Reform has failed, revolution has failed.

Rebellion has never been tried on a large scale. And whenever it has been tried on a small scale, it has always succeeded. With Buddha it succeeded: thousands of people went through rebellion, became new. With Jesus it succeeded, with Lao Tzu it succeeded, with Krishna it succeeded. Success has always been with rebellion, but very few people... It has never been on a large scale. It has never gripped the soul of humanity. And that is where work is needed now. The greater part of humanity has to be given the vision of awareness, rebellion, only then can man really become human.

Man is only human for the name's sake; he is not yet human, because those humane qualities which make a man human are missing, are lacking. They are not there. Compassion is not there, love is not there, meditation is not there. The prayer, the gratitude is not there, the celebration is not there. In short, God is not there. Man is an empty temple: the God is missing. And God will go on being missing unless your seed dissolves and you start sprouting into God. God is your growth! Remember, God has not to be found somewhere outside– not in the Himalayas, not in Jerusalem, not in a monastery; God has to be evolved in you, God has to be your growth. It is not an object outside that you are going to meet some day. Unless you become it you will never meet it. Only by becoming it, you will meet it. And that is the whole message of Jesus.

Reform brings new ideas, revolution brings a new structure to support those new ideas, and rebellion brings new consciousness, a new man, a new being to support those structures. Start from the very foundation. Let rebellion be the foundation, then make the structure of revolution. And then on top of that, let there be a dome of reform– not otherwise. Otherwise the whole process will be topsy-turvy.

The basic thing is to understand the whole situation: how has man been doing up to now? What has been going wrong? Why is there so much suffering? Why do we always start from the wrong end and can never reach the real core of the problem? Understanding is missing, awareness is missing. You are living in a kind of unconsciousness– Jesus calls it sleep.

Bring yourself to more awareness. It will be difficult because everybody else is fast asleep around you. If you start awakening, you will find difficulties arising for you, because those people who are asleep will not like it. It is a disturbance for them. They are having sweet dreams, and you suddenly become awake. You create a kind of disturbance. Not only that– once you are awake, you start shaking people to awaken them because you feel 'These poor people are missing the real joy of life.' The sun is rising, and the flowers are dancing in the breeze, and the birds are singing, and you start waking and shaking people around you– particularly people you love, you feel for, you care for. You would like them to share this joy, this morning that is all around. And they are deep in sleep, in a slumber, snoring, not aware of what is happening all around. But they are having their dreams. Maybe somebody is earning great money, or somebody is just reaching to the highest post– one promotion more, or somebody is fighting the presidential election. And you wake them?– they will feel angry. Naturally, because they don't know any other reality than their dream. Their dream is their reality, and things were going well, and here you come and disturb everything! Nobody will like you.

Nobody likes a man who is alert and aware. That's why Jesus was crucified. He would have been crucified anywhere. Don't blame the Jews. He was such a rebellious man that he himself is responsible for being crucified, not the Jews. He would have been crucified by somebody else. Wherever he was he would have been crucified. That much awareness nobody is ready to accept. That much awareness is disturbing. That much awareness hurts. And the man of awareness stands there and makes you feel guilty, because in comparison to him you are just a dark night. You hate that man, because without him everything was good; there was no comparison. You were thinking you were full of life– now here comes this man. And in his presence you are reduced to being just a dark night and nothing else. In his presence you are a beggar. Here comes the emperor, the son of God. And in his presence you become ugly. The natural logic is that he is making you ugly. When he was not there, you had never thought about your ugliness. Now he will haunt you. Now he will create trouble for you. Now you will have to search for this beauty. You will have to go into many things. 'Now this is unnecessary.' It looks unnecessary. 'Better destroy this man, better destroy this criterion.' Once the criterion is no more there, nobody can prove that you are empty, impotent, a beggar; nobody can prove that you are ugly; nobody can prove that you are missing anything. Destroy Jesus and relapse back into your sleep!

That's what the Jews did. But I would like to tell you again, that's what would have happened anywhere else. Jesus was too much. Yes, I say, even in India Jesus would have been crucified.

A question may arise in you: Buddha was not crucified, Mahavir was not crucified, then why Jesus? Yes, I say still Jesus would have been crucified. Jesus brings a new message. Buddha is silent; his message is only for those who come to him, those who come to seek and search. He does not go to the masses, he is not active. His rebellion is a presence. Jesus goes to the masses, Jesus goes very active! Buddha's rebellion is inactive, passive. Jesus' rebellion is very active, and that is the problem. Mahavir's rebellion was also very passive, so was Lao Tzu's. These are people who are utterly at ease, silent in themselves, happy with themselves. If somebody comes and partakes of their being, good; if nobody comes, they are not going to invite.

Jesus drags you into awareness, he hits you hard. He comes searching for you, whether you are ready or not. He has said to his disciples 'Go and stand on the tops of the houses and shout... because people are deaf. You will have to shout. Give the good message, the good news, that I have come. Shout from the housetops!'

Buddha cannot say that. Lao Tzu... not at all. It was even difficult to find where Lao Tzu was, people had to search for him for months together. And once he would come to know that somebody is searching for him, he would escape, he would remove himself from one village to another. He would create all kinds of problems. He would allow only those who really were seekers, who were ready to sacrifice all.

With Jesus it is just the opposite– he haunts you, he goes searching for you. He says he is like a shepherd who comes home in the night, counts his sheep, finds that one is missing, leaves the ninety-nine there in the dark night, in danger, and goes with a lamp to search for the one which is lost in the jungle, in the dark night– shouting, calling, searching. Yes, Jesus is like that. He is a revolutionary rebel.

Buddha is rebellion, pure rebellion. Silent is his message. Those who understand, they will understand; those who don't understand, they need not worry, they can ignore him. He allows people to ignore him. Jesus does not allow people to ignore him. He shouts. He pokes his fingers into people's eyes. His compassion is great. He is a surgeon. With Buddha you may have a little bit of medicine. Jesus is a surgeon, he operates; and of course the operation hurts. The Jews are not responsible, they should be forgiven. Anybody– Hindus, Chinese, Tibetans– anybody would have killed this man. This man was asking for it. He brings a new breeze into religion: active, action. Rebellion also becomes revolution.

I was reading a parable, a beautiful parable. Meditate over it. A parable of G. William Jones: The Innovator.

It had been a long, long time since such a crime had been committed and, as punishment, the Innovator would receive a sentence which had not been heard of for a long, long time– not since the days of the great-great-greats. It was a sentence at once so terrible and horrifying in its aspect that the High Court and the C.D.'s felt that it justly fit the nauseous and perverse crime of innovation. The punishment was to be expulsion from the Dome!

The citizens lined both sides of the street, their expression a mixture of hatred and awe as their eyes followed the progress of the Innovator, escorted by a cordon of C.D.'s towards the Lox. Gamblers in the crowd were busily making book on how long it would take the Innovator to die once he was outside the Dome, and on whether it would be death from Fallout, Poisongas, or perhaps even from a Wildbeast. There was no doubt that he would soon die (for imbedded deep in the mind of each citizen was the truism that no human life could possibly exist outside the protection of the Dome– that beloved plastic canopy erected by their great-great-great-grandfathers, which stretched over the city from limit to limit, cuddling it in a benevolent, airtight grip). The only question was how long would death take to come and in what form.

Some of the sadists in the crowd had scraped through the thick crust of dirt on the Dome wall near the Lox so that they could see the Outside, and were selling places at these peepholes for a nice sum. The C.D.'s and their prisoner had arrived at the Lox. The crowd retreated now in a minor panic for fear that some poisonous fume might enter the Dome when the Lox was opened. The mechanism was still good, although it had been unused for all these generations.

At the press of a button from the Chief, the thick transparent door of the Lox swung jerkily open. The Innovator, with a last mournful look over his shoulder, was pushed rather roughly into the small compartment. The door was then shut, and the citizens held their collective breath as the Chief touched the next button. The outer door swung open with a great hissing into that unhealthy green Outside.

At his first breath of the Outside's air, the Innovator fell headlong, coughing, doubled up with a giant convulsion. The C.D.'s nodded their heads, pleased, and there was a clamour almost like a cheer that arose from those at the peepholes as they watched him and their wristwatches to determine the exact second of his last gasp. But then the terrible thing happened. The Innovator slowly raised his head from the dust and, with the beginnings of a smile of great joy upon his face, filled his lungs deeply. His eyes grew wide. He sat up, and they could see his chest bulging with gulp after gulp of that alien air.

The people were so startled that they cried aloud when he suddenly jumped from a sitting position straight up, coming down in the first steps of a wild dance. 'It must have hit his brain first' said one spectator, his nose flattened against the Dome wall. The Innovator stopped his dance abruptly as he turned to see the faces peering out at him. He smiled at them– a broad, toothy smile with no malice in it at all. He even opened his arms wide to them, making a beckoning gesture!

At this point, many of those watching him could take no more, and turned away to go back to their homes, shuddering with a nausea of fear. After making many gestures of well-being to those amazed and still uncomprehending faces, the Innovator snapped his fingers and stooped to pick up a stick. With it, he wrote in large letters upon the ground 'Come on out– the air is fine!'

One after another shocked faces left the peepholes, not to return. Again he wrote in the dirt, this time with more urgency 'It is fresh air– not poison.' Still more left. This time, almost frantic to make himself understood, he wrote 'You don't need the Dome anymore. You can live Outside! It is better out here!' With this, every face disappeared from the clear places in the grimy walls, and the Innovator was left alone in the Outside with his brilliant sun, its fresh and moving air, its trees and plants three times the size of those inside the Dome, and its birds and animals.

The newspapers the next morning carried grisly stories of the Innovator's immediate death outside the Lox. The city fathers decided in an emergency session that the interior of the Dome should be painted opaquely to a height of twenty feet all around. And those watchers who could not be scared into abject secrecy were interned in the asylum, where talk of living outside the Dome could be taken for what it was– the raving of a lunatic.

A beautiful parable. And this is the situation of humanity. Down the ages this has been so: man has lived in a man-created dome of beliefs, ideas, dogmas. Your churches, your temples, your scriptures are just plastic domes. They are protecting you from nature; they are not helping you to go to God, they are preventing you from going.

When a man like Jesus comes, he is the Innovator. He starts talking about strange things which exist outside the domes. He talks about fresh air and green trees, and birds and their songs, and the sun and the clouds– a thousand and one things he talks about. And you have lived in a plastic dome; you have never been out of it. You have never been out of a church, out of a temple; you have never been out of the traps of the priests and the politicians. And he comes and starts saying things which are wild– things which appeal, things which have a great appeal, things which are magnetic, things which provoke and challenge!

But those things you have not heard for ages. You become angry. You become angry because this man thinks you are all fools! That's why people go on asking Jesus again and again 'Do you think you are far wiser than our father Abraham? Do you think you are more knowing than our old prophets? Do you think that you have brought truth for the first time?'

People believe they have always had truth, that is in their possession. And there is nothing in their possession. So whenever a man of truth comes, a rebellion comes into the world, innovation comes into the world. And the people crush such a man.

We have to create a world where innovators can be accepted more easily, where innovators are not only accepted but welcomed– because it is these innovators who help you to go higher and higher in consciousness. They are the steps towards God.

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