INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

The thinking up to now has been this -- that the individual exists for the society so the individual has to follow just what the society says. He has to fit with the society. That is the definition of the normal human being -- to fit with the society. Even if the society is insane, you have to fit with it; then you are normal. Even if the society is neurotic and you try to be sane, you will be thought neurotic because the society is the majority. They have power so they can make anybody feel guilty.

They have put a deep mechanism inside you which they call a conscience which, if you move slightly away from the norm, the accepted rules of the game, immediately says, 'Wrong! Wrong! You are doing something wrong!' Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing and society demands something contrary. If the society was demanding the same as nature demands, there would have been no conflict. Man would still have remained in the garden of Eden.

The problem arises because society has its own interests which are not necessarily in tune with the individual and his interests. Society has its own investments. The individual has to be sacrificed. This is a very topsy-turvy world. Just the other way round should be the right thing.

The individual does not exist for the society. The society exists for the individual. Because society is just an institution. It has no soul. An individual has the soul, is the conscious centre; it has a centre. God resides in the individual, not in the society. Society is nothing -- just a word.