Secondly, you have to remember…. You say that you are not angry, but become sad seeing their sadness. There are people who become angry – these are the people who create revolutions, changes in the society, in the state. But all their revolutions have failed, because anything coming out of anger is coming out of ignorance. It is not going to create an authentic change. Change for the better is impossible out of anger.

I want you to remember one thing: sadness is just anger upside down; it is not different. It is repressed anger. If you analyze it then you will see the fact. Sadness can change into anger very easily; anger can change into sadness in the same way. They are not two things…perhaps two sides of the same coin. So whenever you are angry and you cannot express it, the situation is not such. It is too dangerous to express it, too risky to express it.

For example, a child becomes angry at the parents, but he cannot show it because he is so helpless and dependent. Then he becomes sad. His sadness is inverted anger. The same child goes out and gives a good kick to the dog. He wanted to kick his parents, but it was too risky, too dangerous. But the dog he can beat. He repressed the anger, it became sadness. But when he comes out and sees the dog, he starts beating him. The sadness changed into anger.

You have been a revolutionary. In the same circumstances you have felt anger before – anger against the whole society which creates so much misery and so much sadness and so much poverty. You have been angry against the establishment – political, religious. You have been angry about the whole educational system, that it wastes time – almost one third of one’s life – and still does not help anybody. You have been angry.

Then you came to me and I said to you that anything coming out of anger is not going to do any good. Because the source is poisoned, the fruits of it are not going to be anything else. You understood it; you changed your anger, you repressed it. Now you have become sad, but it is the same energy. I have prevented you from being angry; now I prevent you from being sad. I would like you to be cheerful. It looks awkward. People are sad and in misery, and you are cheerful.

I have been condemned around the world for teaching such things. When people are in suffering, you are supposed to be sympathetic, to join them in their misery; you are not supposed to be cheerful.

So when I say be cheerful, be happy, rejoice in the fact that you are not in the position of being miserable and suffering, I have a certain purpose behind it. The purpose is that you have to become an example to those people who have completely forgotten that life can also be a rejoicing. In spite of all the darkness you can still be unburdened of the darkness, you can still dance. Darkness cannot prevent your dance; it has no preventive force. To me this is real service.