silence shared in words
presents
Why are we afraid
and sometimes even resent taking responsibility for ourselves
It is because
from your very childhood
you have been taught
not to be responsible,
you have been taught to depend.
You have been taught
to be responsible to your father, to your mother, to your family, to your motherland,
to all kinds of nonsense
But you have not been told that you have to be responsible for yourself,
that there is nobody
who is going to take your responsibility
No, on the contrary,
your parents were taking your responsibility
your family was taking your responsibility
the priest was taking your responsibility for your spiritual growth
You were
just
to follow all these people and do whatsoever they said.
When you are grown up
and you are no more a child,
a child, fear arises
because you have to take responsibility and you have not been trained
to take responsibility for yourself.
You start going
to confess your sin to the priest.
What kind of stupidity are you doing?
First,
to think that you have committed sin;
second,
feeling guilty that you committed it;
third, now you have to go to the priest to confess it,
so that he can pray to God to forgive you.
A simple thing has become so complex,
so
long and circuitous
Unnecesarily
Whatever you have done, you wanted to do – that’s why you have done it
And who is there to decide what is sin and what is not sin?
There is no criterion anywhere,
no weighing scale where you can go and weigh
how much sin you have committed – one kilo, two kilos, three kilos
How long a sin have you committed?
One yard, two yards, three yards?
And what was the sin,
and who is this priest you are going to confess
And it is his strategy,
because if you go on confessing to the priest you are certainly afraid of the priest
because he knows all the ins and outs about you
. The priest knows every gossip
going on in the town;
he knows how many husbands are flirting with other people’s wives,
he knows who is doing what:
they themselves go on confessing it
This is the priest’s strategy to keep control of his congregation
you cannot leave the congregation because the priest can expose you.
.and also you are afraid
that if you leave the congregation the priest may not ask God for you to be forgiven,
and you have committed so many sins…
Now it is too late,
you have to remain in the same herd, in the same crowd, for your whole life.
I teach you
not to be responsible to anybody; the father, the mother, the country,
the religion, the party line
don’t be responsible to anybody, you are not.
Just be responsible to yourself
do whatsoever you feel like doing.
If it is wrong,
the punishment will follow immediately
If it is right, the reward will follow immediately, instantly
and this way you will start finding what is wrong, what is right, on your own.
You will grow a new sensitivity
Indians call it the third eye.
You will start seeing with a new vision, a new eye
Instantly you will know
what is wrong, because times you have done it and always suffered in consequence
You will know what is right, because whenever you did it,
existence showered great blessings on you.
Cause and effect are together,
they are not separated by years and lives
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