If people say, “You are hypnotized,” you start arguing, “We are not!” No, you should say, “It is possible; you may be right, we may be hypnotized. But what do you think: being in misery and not hypnotized, or being in bliss and being hypnotized – what alternative will you choose? And what is wrong in being hypnotized? Have you ever been hypnotized? Do you know what it is? Have you ever experienced anything of it – or just heard the word?”
There are millions of people who have just heard words, and they go on throwing those words around: hypnotism, mesmerism, brainwashing – and they don’t understand a thing they are saying.
So rather than arguing, you can say, “If you know about brainwashing, I am ready: brainwash me, so I can see what brainwashing is. If you know what hypnotism is, hypnotize me, so I can experience what hypnotism is.”
Make one thing certainly clear to them: “You don’t know – you are simply throwing words about.”
I was a student of a professor, and there was always conflict with him for the simple reason that he went on throwing words about and he did not know what they meant. I would insist, “You explain that word. And I will not be satisfied only by an intellectual explanation. I am ready – brainwash me, hypnotize me, I am ready.” But he was just throwing words about.
He reported to the vice-chancellor of that university that I was a continual trouble because I would contest each word, that he had to prove…. The vice-chancellor asked me to come to see him. The professor was present there – I immediately understood what the problem was.
The vice-chancellor said to me, “Why do you create trouble?”
I said, “I don’t create trouble. You just wait and see.” I asked that professor – he was a Bengali man, Professor Bhattacharya – I asked, “Have you read the book written by Ouspensky, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus?”
He said, “Yes! It is such a famous book. I loved it when I read it.”
And I told the vice-chancellor, “Phone the library and inquire if there is any such book – because I have simply made up the name of the book. There is a book Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, but it is not written by P.D. Ouspensky, it is written by Ludwig Wittgenstein – and this man has never seen the book. This is my whole problem in the class.
“Do you think I am creating trouble or is this man the trouble? Can’t he be honest and say, ‘I have never heard of such a book’? But he cannot accept his ignorance – about anything.”
The vice-chancellor phoned to the librarian; the librarian said, “P.D. Ouspensky has never written such a book. There is a book of this name, but the author is Ludwig Wittgenstein.”
The vice-chancellor said to the professor, “You have to understand that if you don’t know, you should not pretend to know. And this boy has made his point absolutely clear.”