Everybody is full of hate for himself. And do you think if you hate yourself you can find someone who is going to love you? Even you are not ready to love yourself; it is impossible for anybody else to love you. You have accepted the idea that unless you follow certain rules, religious dogmas, political ideologies, you are not of any worth.
When you were born, you were not born as a Christian, as a Catholic; you were not born as a communist. Every child comes into the world as a tabula rasa, completely clean. Nothing is written on him – the Bible, Koran, Gita, Das Kapital – no, nothing is written on him. He brings no holy book with himself. He comes in utter innocence. But his innocence becomes his greatest trouble, because all around him are wolves – hiding in politicians, in priests, in parents, in teachers. They all jump upon your innocence. They start writing things on you which later on you will believe is your heritage.
They have destroyed your heritage. Now it is possible for them to enslave you, to make you do anything they want. If they want you to murder innocent people….
They are doing that right now in South Africa. Fifteen percent of the population, white people, are destroying eighty-five percent, black people. The country belongs to the black people; all its gold mines, diamond mines, belong to the black people. These fifteen percent white people are just invaders, thieves. But do you know? – those eighty-five percent of the people have no voting rights. The land is theirs, the gold mines are theirs, but they are the poorest on the earth. They only work as slaves and servants. It is not only South Africa, it is all over the earth.
There are religious mafias, there are political mafias, and they go on exploiting you. They may be enemies to each other, but on one point they all agree: that a man should not be allowed to love himself. That cuts his roots from his own being, and then he is helpless, rootless, just a driftwood, so whatever you want to make of him you can.
The people of this country were killing innocent, poor people in Vietnam. What business was it of theirs? And it was not one-sided. You were sending your own, who have not tasted anything of life, to kill and to be killed in the name of democracy, in the name of America. But why should one sacrifice oneself in any name? Mohammedans and Christians have been fighting, killing each other, in the name of God. Both are fighting and killing in the same name – God. A strange world we have created!
But the strategy is very simple: destroy the person’s natural love for himself. Then he is so unworthy in his own eyes, he is ready to do anything for a gold medal, just to feel a little worth – that he is also somebody. Do you see on your generals many colored stripes? What kind of stupidity is this? Those stripes go on growing as the general goes on killing himself, destroying himself.