Civilization

CIVILIZATION - There is no civilization anywhere - so how can I be
against it. It exists not. It is just a pretension. Yes, man has lost
his primitive, primordial innocence, but man has not become
civilized - because that is NO way to become civilized. The only way
to become civilized is to base yourself on your innocence, to base
yourself on your primitive innocence, to grow from there. --- That's
why Jesus says: Unless you are reborn, unless you become a child
again, you will never know what truth is. --- This so-called
civilization is a fake, it is a pseudo coin. If I am against it, I am
not against civilization-because this is not civilization. I am
against it because this is not civilization at all. It is fake. ---
I have heard: Someone once asked the former Prince of Wales. "What is
your idea of civilization?" - "It is a good idea," replied the Prince,
"Somebody ought to start it." I love the answer. Yes, somebody ought
to start it - it has not yet been started. Man is not civilized; man
only pretends. --- I am against pretensions. I am against hypocrisies.
Man only shows that he is civilized. Scratch him a little and you will
find an uncivilized man. Scratch him a little and all that is good is
just superficial, and all that is bad is very deep-rooted. It is a
skin-deep civilization. Everything goes well: you are smiling and
everything, and somebody just throws a word at you, an insult, and you
are mad, and you are a maniac and you want to kill. Just a moment
before, you were smiling; and just a moment afterwards, you are ready
to kill, your murderous possibilities have surfaced. What kind of
civilization is this? --- A man can be civilized only when he has
become really meditative. Only meditation can bring real civilization
to the world. Only Buddhas are civilized. --- And this is the paradox:
that Buddhas are not against the primitive - they use the primitive as
the base, they use the childhood innocence as the base. And on that
base a great temple is erected. This civilization destroys the
innocence of childhood, and then it gives you just false coins. First
it destroys your primal innocence. Once primal innocence is destroyed,
you have become cunning, clever, calculating; then you are trapped,
then this society goes on civilizing you. --- First it makes you
alienated from your own self. Once you are alienated, then it gives
you false coins - you have to depend on it. Real civilization will not
be against your nature, will not be against your childhood. It will be
a growth upon it. It will not have any antagonism towards primitive
innocence, it will be a flowering of it. It will go higher and higher,
but it will be rooted in the primal innocence. --- This civilization
is nothing but a maddening affair. Can't you see the whole earth has
become a big madhouse? People have lost their souls, people are no
more people - they have lost their self, they have lost their
personality. They have lost all! They are just pretenders. They have
masks; they have lost their original faces. --- I am all for
civilization, but this is not civilization. That's why I am against
it. I would like a man really civilized, really cultured, but that
culture can only grow - it cannot be forced from the outside. It can
come only from the within. It can spread towards the periphery, but it
should rise, it HAS to rise, at the center. --- This civilization is
doing just the opposite: it forces things from the outside. There is a
non-violent preaching all over the world - Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus,
they all teach non-violence. They teach non-violence because they have
enjoyed non-violence. But followers? - they have never enjoyed any
moment of non-violence. they know only violence. But they are
followers, so they pretend to be non-violent, they force a
non-violence upon themselves, they create a character. That character
is just around them. It is an armor. Deep down they are boiling like
volcanoes ready to erupt. And on the surface they smile the false
smile, the plastic smile. --- This is not civilization. This is a very
ugly phenomenon. Yes, I would like the non-violence to come from
within, not to be cultivated from the outside, but helped. That is the
root meaning of the word "education". It is almost like drawing water
from a well: education means to draw out; that is the root meaning of
the word "education". But what has education been doing? It never
draws anything out - it forces in. It goes on forcing things in the
head of the child; it is not worried about the child at all, it does
not think about the child. The child is just used as a mechanism into
which more and more information has to be fed. This is not
education! --- The child's soul has to be brought out. That which is
hidden in the child has to be brought out. The child has not to be
patterned; his freedom should be left intact, and his consciousness
has to be helped to grow. More information is not education! More
awareness is education, more love is education. And education creates
civilization. --- This civilization is false; its education is false.
That's why I am against it. I am against it because it is not really
a civilization. ---