Your body is not poisoned as much as your mind is. The body is a simple phenomenon, it can be easily cleaned. If you have been eating non-vegetarian foods it can be stopped, it is not such a big deal. And if you stop eating meat, within three months your body will be completely free of all the poisons created by non-vegetarian foods. It is simple. Physiology is not very complicated.

But the problem arises with psychology. A Jaina monk never eats any poisoned food, never eats anything non-vegetarian. But his mind is so polluted and poisoned by Jainism as nobody else’s is.

The real freedom is freedom from ideology. Can’t you simply live without any ideology? Is ideology needed? Why is ideology needed so much? It is needed because it helps you to remain stupid, it is needed because it helps you to remain unintelligent. It is needed because it supplies you ready-made answers and you need not find them on your own.

The real man of intelligence will not cling to any ideology – for what? He will not carry a load of ready-made answers. He knows that he has intelligence enough, so that whatever situation arises he will be able to respond to it. Why carry an unnecessary load from the past? What is the point of carrying it?

And in fact the more you carry from the past, the less you will be able to respond to the present, because the present is not a repetition of the past, it is always new, always, always new. It is never the old; it may sometimes appear like the old, but it is not old, there are basic differences.

Life never repeats itself. It is always fresh, always new, always growing, always exploring, always moving into new adventures. Your old ready-made answers are not going to help you. In fact they will hinder you; they will not allow you to see the new situation. The situation will be new, and the answer will be the old.

That’s why you look so stupid in life. But to remain stupid seems cheaper. To be intelligent needs effort, to be intelligent means you have to grow. And growth is painful. To be intelligent means you have to be continuously alert and aware; you cannot fall asleep, you cannot live like a somnambulist.

And to be intelligent has a few more dangers too. To be intelligent is very difficult because you have to live with the stupid crowds. To live with blind people and have eyes is a dangerous situation; they are bound to destroy your eyes. They cannot tolerate you, you are an offense.

Hence Jesus is crucified, Socrates is poisoned, Al-Hillaj is killed, Sarmad is beheaded. These were the most intelligent people that have ever walked on the earth. And how have we behaved with them? Why did a man of the intelligence of Socrates have to be killed? He became intolerable. His presence became such an offense. To look into his eyes meant to look in the mirror. And we are so ugly that rather than accepting the fact that we are ugly, the easier course is to destroy the mirror and forget all about your ugliness, and start living again in the old dream that you are the most beautiful person in the world.

We destroyed Socrates because he was a mirror. Hence people have decided it is better to remain mediocre, it is better to remain unintelligent.