Just watch yourself. What have you been doing in the world? Just drifting like deadwood, no direction, no dimension, no clarity, no vision. Just following a crowd – not even knowing where you are going, just trusting that the crowd must know: if so many people are going, then we must be right because so many people cannot be wrong.
And the reality is, so many people cannot be right! To be right is a very unique experience; to be right is to be enlightened.
Beware of this unconscious calculation that because the whole world is doing something, it must be right; so many people cannot be wrong. This is the arithmetic we have been living. So we stumble, we grope in the darkness; we follow this man, we follow that man, and we never think, “If we are alive, then there must be a source within us – has to be – otherwise from where does our life come?”
Without knowing this source, even if you are following a buddha you are going to go astray. Because every individual is so unique, you can never follow anybody.
The man who is not enlightened drifts about in the affairs of the world.
Your life, if it is not enlightened, is nothing but a drifting.
A strange incident happened….
I had gone to enroll in a college, and they gave me a form to fill out. One young man of my age was also holding a form in his hand. He looked at my form and he said, “What subjects are you filling in?”
I said, “That is none of your business. You fill in your subjects.”
He said, “I don’t know what subjects to fill in.”
So he looked at my form, and because I had filled in philosophy, psychology and politics, he filled in the same. I said, “This is very strange.”
He said, “No, because I don’t know what to do with my life.”
We graduated from the same college, and then I changed to the university. And it was such a surprise: when I entered the office that same fellow was waiting there with his form! He said, “You have come! I have been wondering what to do; it has been such a joy to fill in the form according to you. Now what are you going to study for your post-graduation?”
I said, “This is very stupid.”
He said, “No, it has been a great relief that at least somebody knows where he is going, and I am following.”
So he looked at my form, and filled in his accordingly: philosophy, religion, psychology. I said, “This is not a right way of living. It is becoming a carbon copy.”
But he said, “I am perfectly at ease. If you are taking these subjects, they must be the best subjects available in the university.”
I said, “I have no objection…”