This century’s end is going to see either the total destruction of humanity, and with it the total destruction of life on this earth, or a new man being born. And the new man will not hate life, as in the past it has been done. The new man will love life, will not be negative in any way, but will be affirmative. The new man will not desire life after death, but will live moment to moment in sheer joy, will think of this life as a gift and not as a punishment. He will not be antagonistic to the body, will respect the body as the temple of the soul. The new man will love and will not be afraid of love, will move in all kinds of relationships and yet be able to remain himself.

To be in relationship and become dependent is the sign of weakness. And to escape to the Himalayas or to some Catholic monastery because of the fear of becoming dependent is again the sign of weakness; it is cowardly.

To live in relationship and yet remain independent, that is what courage is. The new man will be courageous. In the past, only two kinds of cowards have existed on the earth, the worldly kind and the otherworldly kind – but both are cowards. The really brave man will live in the world and yet be not of it. Either this is going to happen, or a total destruction. Now there is no third alternative. Man cannot survive as he is. Either he has to change himself, transmute himself, or he has to die and vacate the earth.

This is what is felt, this is why you are in such a hurry. That’s why I am in such a hurry. My sannyasins can be the new man, my sannyasins can herald the new age. Hence my sannyasins are going to be opposed by all past-oriented people: by Hindus, by Christians, by Mohammedans, by Jainas, by Buddhists – by almost everybody. They are going to be opposed; that is natural because we are trying to bring a new future in. And to bring that new future we will have to destroy the past, because unless the past ceases to exist, the future cannot come into existence.

The past has to die. We have to drop our clinging to the past. What does it mean when you say that “I am a Hindu”? It means you cling to a certain past tradition. What do you mean when you say that “I am a Mohammedan”? You cling to something past.

But when you say, “I am a sannyasin, a neo-sannyasin,” you don’t cling to any past. Your eyes are focused on the future. Your roots are in the present and your branches are moving towards the future. Then the past is irrelevant. I want you to remember it again and again that the past has to be made irrelevant. You have to cut yourself off from the past.

You say, “What is this urge to do something?” Yes, something has to be done. You have to give birth to yourself, and you have to prepare the way for the new man.

“What is this urge to do something, to create, to free your message, your word, unto the world?” Yes, it has to be shouted from the housetops, it has to be hammered – because people are deaf, people are blind, they will not hear what is being said to them.

Just the other day, Neeraj sent me a beautiful parable from Pierre Delattre’s Tales of a Dalai Lama. In this beautiful book comes this parable: