Man’s consciousness has not grown for centuries. Only once in a while a man blossoms, but in millions of people the blossoming of one man is not a rule, it is the exception. And because he is alone, the crowd cannot tolerate him. He becomes a kind of humiliation; his very presence becomes insulting, because he opens your eyes, makes you aware of your potential and your future. And it hurts your ego that you have done nothing to grow, to be more conscious, to be more loving, to be more ecstatic, to be more creative, to be more silent – to make a beautiful world around you.

You have not contributed to the world, your existence has not been a blessing here but a curse. You introduce your anger, your violence, your jealousy, your competitiveness, your lust for power. You make the world a war field; you are bloodthirsty and you make others bloodthirsty. You deprive humanity of its humanness. You help man to fall below humanity, even sometimes below animals.

Hence a Gautam Buddha or a Kabir or a Chuang Tzu hurts you because he has blossomed, and you are just standing there. Springs come and go, nothing blossoms in you; no birds come and make their nest on you, and sing their songs around you. It is better to crucify a Jesus and poison a Socrates – just to remove them – so that you need not feel in any way spiritually inferior.

The world has known only very few rebels.

But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels – a rebellious spirit – then our days on the earth are numbered. Then this century may become our graveyard. We are coming very close to that point.

We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness. We have to destroy the old man and his ugliness, his rotten ideologies, his stupid discriminations, idiotic superstitions, and create a new man, with fresh eyes, with new values; a discontinuity with the past – that’s the meaning of rebelliousness.

These three words will help you to understand…

Reform means a modification. The old remains, you give it a new form, a new shape – a kind of renovation of an old building. Its original structure remains; you whitewash it, you clean it, you make a few windows, a few new doors.

Revolution goes deeper than reform. The old remains, but more changes are introduced – even in its basic structure – not only changing its color and opening a few windows and doors, but perhaps making new stories, taking it higher into the sky. But the old is not destroyed, it remains hidden behind the new; in fact, it remains the very foundation of the new. Revolution is a continuity with the old.

Rebellion is a discontinuity. It is not reform, it is not revolution; it is simply disconnecting yourself from all that is old. The old religions, the old political ideologies, the old man – all that is old, you disconnect yourself from it. You start life afresh, from scratch. And unless we prepare humanity to begin life again – a resurrection, a death of the old and a birth of the new…