So what is the problem?
The problem apparently is, society can only be changed
if human beings who have created it change themselves.
That is the real problem, the real core of the problem.
Right?
Society, which is corrupt, which is immoral, which is ugly,
there is injustice, cruelty,
the rich and the poor, you follow, all that.
The society, which human beings have created
- not God, not some outside agency -
but human beings have created it,
created the division, the national division, religious divisions,
economic divisions, and so on and so on,
we, humans, humanity has created it.
Unless humanity - of which we are -
changes fundamentally you cannot bring about
a society which is healthy, sane, rational. Right?
The materialists won't accept this.
They say, change the environment,
then man changes.
That is the totalitarian attitude.
That is their whole historical, experimental approach:
change society, make laws, rules, control,
control thought, don't let them be free,
change that and then man, who is also purely material, will change.
Right?
What we are saying is totally different:
which is, humanity has created society: unless humanity
- each one, human beings - change, society cannot change.
Which is being proved in the totalitarian world.
The more intelligent you are in those states
the more you revolt against all that.
And so you are either sent to concentration camps
or expelled from the country.
So the crisis is that.
Now, how does each one of us
- please listen to this for a few minutes -
how does each one of us approach this crisis?
You understand?
Approach this fact that human beings have created society,
society cannot change by itself
because society is part of human beings,
unless human beings fundamentally change
society cannot change.
That is the real core of our problem.
And how do you come to that? You understand?
Is it a mental, rational conclusion,
an abstraction that you have, after observing, come to?
Or this is a fact. You see the difference?
Is it a concept, an idea, or a fact?
For you. If it is a concept, then see what happens.
Concept is merely a conclusion derived,
cleverly or unintelligently, rationally or irrationally,
a conclusion that society cannot be changed,
human beings cannot be changed, so carry on amicably.
There are those people who are saying this:
human beings are so conditioned,
you cannot change that conditioning but make it a little better.
You know the group, you know the tendency, all that.
So we are asking each other, is it an idea,
because we have been told, or it's a fact for yourself?
You see the difference?
When it is a fact for yourself, not given by another,
then you have to deal with it.
That is, when you have pain you deal with it.
When you have toothache you do something immediately.
But if toothache is an idea
then you say, 'Well, perhaps I'll postpone it'.
No, don't laugh, sir, see the rationality of it.
That brings up another point:
scientists think human beings are rational.
But they are not.
You understand?
The fact is human beings are irrational.
But there is a concept that human beings are rational.
And we live according to that concept that we are.
So we are never rational. I don't know if you follow this.