Outer and Inner: In search of where the twain
shall meet
There have been many civilizations before
ours that have reached high peaks, but destroyed themselves
because they grew in a deep imbalance. They developed
great technologies, but they forgot that even the
greatest technological progress is not going
to make people more blissful, more peaceful, more loving,
more compassionate.
Our consciousness has not grown at the same pace
as our scientific progress, and that has been the
cause of many civilizations destroying themselves.
We have created monsters as far as machines are
concerned, and at the same time we have remained
retarded, unconscious, almost asleep. And it is very
dangerous to give so much power to unconscious
people.
That’s what is happening now. Politicians
are of the lowest kind as far as consciousness is concerned.
They are clever, they are cunning. They are mean,
too, and they make every effort for a single goal, which
is to be more powerful. Their only desire is
for more power -- not for more peace, not for more being, not
for more truth, not for more love.
What do you need more power for? -- to dominate
others, to destroy others. All the power accumulates in
the hands of unconscious people. So on the one
hand, politicians in all the civilizations that have
developed and died -- it would be better to say
committed suicide -- had all the power in their hands. On
the other hand, the genius of human intelligence
was searching for more and more technology, scientific
improvements, and all they discovered finally
had to go into the hands of the politicians.
The destruction of our earth will not come from
some other planet -- we are preparing our own graves. We
may be aware, we may not be aware, but we are
all gravediggers and we are digging our own graves. Right
now there are only a few nations in possession
of nuclear weapons. Soon many more nations will also be
nuclear powers. It is going to be beyond control,
with so many nations having so much destructiveness
that a single nation could destroy the whole
earth. A single crazy person, a single politician, just to show
his power, can destroy the whole of civilization
and you will have to begin from ABC. And the destruction is
not only of humanity. With humanity will die
all the companions of humanity -- the animals, the trees, the
birds, the flowers. Everything could disappear,
everything that is alive.
The reason is an imbalance in our evolution.
We go on developing scientific technology without bothering
at all that our consciousness should also evolve
in the same proportion. In fact, our consciousness should
be a little ahead of our technological progress.
If our consciousness were in the state of enlightenment....
In the hands of a Gautam Buddha nuclear power
would no longer be dangerous. In the hands of
a Gautam Buddha nuclear power would be turned towards
some creative force -- because force is always
neutral; either you can destroy with it or you can find ways
to create something. But right now our powers
are great and our humanity is very small. It is as if we have
put bombs in the hands of children to play with.
Human beings have gone through this struggle
since the very beginning. It is the imbalance between the
inner and the outer.
The outer is easier, and the outer is objective.
For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, creates
electricity and the whole of humanity uses it;
there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again.
Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon.
A Gautam Buddha may become enlightened but that does
not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened.
Each individual has to find the truth by himself or
herself. So whatever happens on the outside goes
on accumulating, piling up; all the scientific progress
goes on piling up because each scientist is standing
on the shoulders of other scientists. But the
evolution of consciousness does not follow the
same law. Each individual has to discover it by himself; he
cannot stand on the shoulders of somebody else.
Anything objective can be shared, can be taught
in the schools, colleges, universities. But the same is not
true about subjectivity. I may know everything
about the inner world; still I cannot hand that over to you. It
is one of the fundamental laws of existence that
the inner truth has to be discovered by each individual
through his or her own efforts. It cannot be
purchased in the marketplace nor can it be stolen. Nobody can
give it to you as a gift. It is not a commodity,
it is not material; it is an immaterial experience.
One can give evidence for this immaterial experience
by one’s individuality, by one’s presence,
compassion, love, silence. But these are only
indications that something has happened inside a person.
That person can encourage you, can tell you that
you are not going inside in vain: “You will find treasures,
as I have found.” Each master is nothing
but an argument, evidence, an eyewitness. But the experience
remains individual.
Science becomes social, technology becomes social;
the subjective realm remains individual. That is the
basic problem, how to create a balance.
