My whole effort is for you to remember that you have to become a lotus flower, not a coward. You have to live in the world and yet live in such a way that you remain untouched. If everybody starts renouncing the world, where will you go? If everybody goes to the Himalayas, then buses will be reaching there – tea shops, restaurants will be needed. The whole marketplace will be there. And for all these people you will need a movie-house too, and television sets and transistors. Every sannyasin having his own transistor in his ear, deep in the Himalayas. It will be simply stupid. The whole idea is wrong. Where can you escape if everybody goes there?

You can see it happening in the West. On every weekend, on every beach, there is not a single inch of space. All kinds of ugly bodies filling the whole beautiful beach and they are doing the same things they were doing at home: they are lying down and reading the same newspaper, looking at the same Playboy, listening to the same radio. And they have been driving for eight hours, bumper to bumper – tortured, irritated, annoyed.

It is very difficult for a driver not to be angry. If you can drive – particularly in America – without any anger, you are a saint. Just a few days ago I heard that people have started carrying guns in their cars, because the traffic is too much, and horns don’t help. Just a few weeks ago six persons were shot dead just because there is a limit to patience. You go on honking the horn and the person ahead does not listen, and he is not responsible, because there is somebody ahead of him who is not listening.

Thousands of cars and the speed has gone back to the primitive age. Now a bullock cart in India goes faster than the best car goes in America. You can walk and you will reach earlier to your destination than if you were driving.

People became so angry that six people were shot with no enmity – they were strangers. And there was fear that this will spread. Last week, the news came to me that millions of people have purchased guns, just in these last few weeks. It has been the all-time biggest sale of guns.

And the government has relaxed, has become very lenient. It was first taking much care whom to license. Now it is not much of a problem at all. Anybody can get a gun if he has the money. And millions of people have purchased guns. They are carrying their guns perfectly visible to the other drivers – listen to the honk, otherwise….

Great traffic, and where are you going? To the sea beach – for what? To be alone? For once at least, to be alone, on the weekend to lie down on the sea beach and to rest and relax…with the gun. And eight or twelve hours driving and then one hour’s rest in that ugly crowd – then back home, twelve hours driving.

In the whole world more accidents happen on the weekends than on any working day. More people are murdered on the weekends than on any other day. More people commit suicide on the weekends than any other day. Working days are more peaceful. But what is the problem, that everybody is renouncing the world and going to the beach…?

It is good that people have not become renouncers. They have listened to all kinds of teaching. A few crazy people went to the monasteries, a few crazy people went to the Himalayas, but only a very small minority. Most of the people simply felt a little guilty, and to cover that guilt they worship those people who have renounced the world.