This is our unconscious desire: not to die. But we have never looked at the implications of it. What will happen if you cannot die, if you cannot commit suicide; if death cannot come by itself and there is no way for you to get out of this vicious circle of life? You will be utterly helpless and your anguish will be almost intolerable. You will repent tears of blood and there will be no solace for you.

Oscar Wilde had a great insight. And this man was turned out of England, expelled because of his strange ideas. His contemporaries thought that he was a little bit crazy. Do you think a crazy man can have such a great clarity, such a great consciousness? But this is the fate of all those who are born ahead of their time. The gap between their understanding and that of their contemporaries is so vast that they are always misfits. Oscar Wilde is one of the most famous misfit geniuses of the world.

But always remember: whenever you can find any book, any poetry of a man who was condemned by his contemporaries, look into the poetry, into the book, into the statement; because that statement must be carrying something of tremendous value which the contemporaries could not understand. The great man has to wait centuries to be understood. The people who can understand them come when they are long dead. They live a life disrespected, dishonored in their own lands by their own people. And they give tremendous treasures, but there is no appreciation in their contemporaries. These rebels are the very salt of the earth. It is because of these rebels that humanity has a little hope, that consciousness has grown a little bit higher.

Just take away these few rebels from the history of man, and mankind disappears and there are only barbarous, inhuman, ugly creatures left behind. But the people who have given you all the wisdom that you have, all the consciousness that you have, all the sensibility that you have…you have paid them with crucifixions.

Oscar Wilde lived his life being deported from this place to another, from that place to another, without any honor. Still, not a single word of complaint, no grudge against anybody, but a simple acceptance that “I have come before my time. It is not their fault, it is just my fault. I should have waited a little longer.”

But perhaps even today he would have been before his time; still his time has not come. I have looked into his words and I can say it authoritatively: still he will have to wait for his people. The people who are living around the earth, even today, misbehave with him as the people of his own day did.

But I would like my people to understand these rebels, because these are authentic human beings. These are the crystallized souls, integrated consciousnesses.

Not your bogus saints, but great poets, great mystics, great painters, great creators in any dimension…they have a vision which goes to infinity; they have a depth like the Pacific and they have the heights of the Himalayan peaks. If you can make friends with these rebels, something of their flavor may enter into your own being too. It may become a seed in you, and in the right time may bring great flowers and great fragrance.