Or kismet – fate…. Nobody is doing you any harm, God is not evil; God has not preordained you to suffer. If this was so, then God would have been a sadist, pathological, far worse than any devil – preordaining innocent people to suffer for no reason at all? Then existence would have been very unjust, unfair, not worth living. And religion would have been a mockery. God has not preordained, predestined you to suffer. But that, too, by and by lost its potential over people’s minds. It was repeated too often. Then the theory of karma was dropped. Then the idea of predestiny was dropped.

Now we have invented new ideas. Karl Marx is against religion but basically he is not different. He says it is historical necessity. Again, in other words, the same idea of fate. Your suffering is predetermined by history – you are suffering because of an economic fate, because of class struggle. And unless classes disappear, suffering cannot disappear. Again you are unburdened – what can you do? When the utopia comes, when communism comes on the earth, then suffering will disappear. Suffering is caused by the rich people, suffering is caused by the capitalist. But the capitalist himself is suffering. In fact, the rich people are suffering more than the poor. Why? – because the rich people have all that one needs not to suffer and yet they see the futility of it, the utter futility of it. Their suffering is tremendous.

The poor person suffers because he is hungry. The rich person suffers, not because he is hungry, but because now he knows that you may have a good house, good food, a good wife, a cozy family, a warm atmosphere, and still inside you are hungry – a spiritual hunger. Life is meaningless, pointless, accidental, empty. A great suffering arises. The poor suffers physiologically; the rich suffers psychologically.

Why are the rich suffering? If it is only a question of richness, then the rich should not suffer. But it is again an alibi, a rationalization, so that you can continue in your old ways and your old patterns. That too proved to be another fallacy; now it too has become a cliché.

Then Sigmund Freud invented something else. He said, “It is because of your unconscious instincts, passions that you have carried from your animalhood – it is because of those wounds in the unconscious that man is suffering.” Now what can you do about the unconscious?

These are just different names for the same trick, the same strategy, “I am not responsible. Something else…. The unconscious, history, economics, God, fate, karma, anything will do – xyz – anything will do. But one thing is certain, that I am not the cause of my suffering.” And that is where your whole misery lies, in that trick.

Understand well: you are the cause of your suffering, nobody else. To recognize this is the first step into being a religious person. You don’t throw your responsibility onto others, you simply recognize the fact that “I am the cause of my suffering.” And with that, of course, you will feel a little sad, you will look a little stupid. If you are the cause, then why do you go on creating suffering for yourself? – because you don’t like to suffer.