Apparently it looks…How can you make these people responsible? – who have left the world, who have never looked back, who have disconnected themselves with the world.

But still I say to you they are responsible. They are responsible by escaping – they escaped their responsibility. It does not make any difference.

The Buddhist monks, the Jaina monks, the Hindu monks are not participating in worldly activities. But you can contribute in a positive way or you can contribute in a negative way.

You can set fire to this house – that is the positive way, the active way. You can stand by the side of the road and not do anything to put the fire out – that is the negative way. But both are responsible.

The negative person does not look so responsible, but his responsibility is absolutely equal – because in life there is a balance.

You may be against war, you may be a pacifist, you may be a chronic Protestant – always with a flag protesting against war, against violence. Naturally you can say, “How can I be held responsible?” But life is a complex phenomenon.

Your protests, your pacifism, your fight against warmongers is still part of war; you are not a man of peace. And you can see it when people protest – their anger, their violence is so obvious that one wonders why these people are protesting against war. They should join some camp in the war – they are full of anger, rage. They have just chosen to have a third camp behind a beautiful name – “peace”. A good mask, but inside is the same anger, the same rage, the same violence, the same destructiveness against anybody who does not agree with them.

They are contributing as much violence to the atmosphere as anybody else.

They may be talking about love, but they are also saying that you have to fight for love.

Hazrat Mohammed had words written on his sword meaning “peace is my message.” He could find only a sword to write on, that “peace is my message”! And he gave birth to a religion he called Islam. Islam means peace, and Islam has done more violence in the world than any other religion has done. In the name of peace, at the point of a sword, Islam has been killing, converting millions of people.

You can choose beautiful words, but you cannot hide the reality.

J. Krishnamurti’s statement that “You are the world” simply emphasizes the fact that every individual, wherever he is, whatever he is, should accept the responsibility of creating this world that exists around us.

If it is insane, you have contributed to that insanity in your own way. If it is sick, you are also a partner in making it sick.

And the emphasis is important – because unless you understand that “I am also responsible for this miserable and insane world,” there is no possibility of change. Who is going to change? Everybody thinks somebody else is responsible.