While angry, be angry. Don’t give in. While loving, love; while hating, hate. Just be true, in harmony with yourself – that’s what Tao is. And then a miracle happens: when you are in harmony with yourself you start being in harmony with other people and they start respecting you. You are authentic, you are a solid man. You are not hollow, you are substantial, you have a backbone.

How can a wife respect a man who always gives in? Impossible. No wife can respect such a husband. How can you respect a man who has no backbone, is always ready to crawl on the floor, always saying yes? It is impossible. This is not a true man.

Never give in. Don’t give in, live your life, whatsoever it brings…. If sometimes it brings conflict then that is needed. Then storm is also needed. The storm is needed as much as silence. Anger is needed as much as compassion. Life needs all the polarities.

And then the miracle happens. When the other person starts feeling that you are true, then by and by, through that respect, through that love, conflict drops. When you love a person, when you respect a person, when you see the person is true and authentic, there is less and less conflict. Between two false persons there is always conflict. Conflict is a consequence of two false persons being together. When two true person live together, conflict by and by disappears because they start understanding each other and there is never confusion, there is no possibility of any confusion. Everything is clear, transparent. Then conflict by and by disappears. Without risking any of your inner harmony the conflict disappears. And then you and the other are also in harmony.

But the first step is to be in inner harmony with yourself. Only then can you be in harmony with others, otherwise not. If you have not attained an inner harmony how can you attain the outer? The basic thing is missing.

The question is from Anando. He can become a very authentic person, hence the question. He knows where he is missing, his question is not just intellectual. I understand. I have looked into his being deeply. This is his problem. Anando, you have to drop it, you have to be true. And whatsoever the cost is you have to pay it. Life has to be paid for. Each single moment of beauty, of joy, has to be paid for enormously. It is not free, it has to be earned.

“To do one’s thing under constant threat takes the joy out of it.” Certainly, it creates misery. That’s why so many people are miserable in the world. It is very rare to come across a person who is happy because it is very rare to come across a person who has lived authentically, who has lived rebelliously, who has lived his own life and who has not bothered to make any compromise. To compromise is to poison your being. Never compromise. It is better to die than to compromise. Die if need be but die uncompromised – then you are unpolluted, unpoisoned. Then you are a beauty. Then you have dignity.

You will have the same dignity as Jesus had when he was crucified. What was he doing, this man? Why were people so angry about him? He was trying to live his life, that was his crime. That has always been the crime. What was Socrates doing? Why were people so angry about him? He was trying to live his life.