But both the alternatives are choosing half the man. And the moment you choose half the man, you are going to fall into some kind of misery. The miseries may be different, but misery is absolutely guaranteed. The East is miserable because of its Gautam Buddhas, Mahaviras, Bodhidharmas, Kabirs. It is in misery because of its greatest inner explorers. And the West is in misery because of Galileo, Copernicus, Columbus, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell. These are the great people of the West and the East, and all these great people have chosen man in his half. To choose man in his half has been the root cause of human misery up to now.

I teach you the whole man. The inner is real – as real as the outer. And the outer is as significant as the spiritual. You have to attain to a certain balance, a balance in which neither the inner predominates nor the outer but both are equally complementary to each other. This has not happened up to now. But unless this happens, there is no possibility for any humanity to exist in the world.

The West is dying of its own success. The East has already died of its success. It is a very strange story that people have died because of their victories – choosing the half is dangerous. But choosing the whole needs courage, insight and overwhelming understanding. And a mobility…just as you come out of your home and go back inside the home, your coming out of your being and going into your being should be as simple as that.

Whenever you are needed in the market, you should be in the market with your totality. The market cannot destroy your soul. And anybody who has preached to the world to renounce it, was against humanity. Neither does going inwards, being in a meditative silence, take away anything from the outside world. You don’t have to condemn it, and you don’t have to declare it illusory. It should have been so simple to see, that I am amazed why thousands of years have passed, and still it is not a recognized fact around the whole world.

I am reminded of a great Indian mystic, Adi Shankara. He is one of the proponents of the philosophy that the world is absolutely illusory. One morning he is coming out of the Ganges, after taking his early bath before going into prayer. The sun has not risen yet. It is dark. He is coming up the stone steps in Varanasi and a man touches him. It would not have been much of a trouble, but the man simply said, “Forgive me. I am not supposed even to come close to you. I am a sudra, an untouchable. Even my shadow is evil.”

Shankara was very angry. He said, “I will have to take another bath to purify myself.” But he was not aware who the man was.

The man said, “Before you take another bath, you will have to answer a few questions. One is, if the outside is unreal, do you believe me to be a reality? I am certainly outside you. And if the outside is unreal, then what is the reality of the pure River Ganges of the Hindus? It is also outside. And what do you think about your own skin? Is it inside or outside? Unless you explain it to me, I am going to remain here. You can take as many baths as you want; I will touch you again and again.”