Youth is not age but aliveness, a mind eager to learn, unafraid to doubt, courageous enough to stand alone. This International Youth Day, let's ask not how old we are, but how awake. True revolution begins within, through meditation, discernment, and the audacity to question everything, even tradition itself.

My beloved Atman!

I have heard that it happened once, in some ancient time, in some unknown country, that a prince suddenly went mad. The king was desperate -- the prince was the only son, the only heir to the kingdom. All the magicians were called, miracle makers, medical men were summoned, every effort was made, but in vain. Nobody could help the young prince, he remained mad.

Addressing this first gathering of the Yuvak Kranti Dal, Yukrand, I am immensely delighted. The first thing to understand about the Yuvak Kranti Dal is what I call a youth. In the vision of this Youth Revolution, youth has nothing to do with age or years. Youth means: a mind always eager to learn—a mind that has not fallen into the illusion that whatever was worth knowing has already been known—a mind that has not become old, that remains ready to be transformed and to change. An old mind means a mind that has lost its elasticity, that can no longer receive the new, welcome the new. Old mind means: a mind gone stale. Age has nothing to do with it. The body grows old; the mind has no age. The mind has a vision, a way of perceiving.

In this country, youth stopped being born thousands of years ago. Here childhood comes, old age comes; youth never arrives. The link in between has been lost. That is why the nation has become so ancient, so worn-out, so decrepit, so old. Where there are youths, there is no reason for such senility to descend. There is no nation on earth older than we are. Our very soul has grown old and antiquated. The root cause behind all our suffering and pain is simply this: we lack a young consciousness, a young mind.

The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to give birth to a young consciousness in this country. Young consciousness! A young consciousness means: that which has not hardened, not become rigid, not turned to stone, that can still change, still be transformed, still learn—it has not concluded that everything is already learned.

Swami Ramtirtha was barely thirty when he left India. He traveled to Japan for the first time. On the deck of the ship he sailed upon, there was a German old man—perhaps ninety—his hands and feet trembled, he had difficulty walking, his eyesight had weakened—he was learning the Chinese language.

Chinese is among the most difficult languages spoken on earth. As a rule, learning it requires much labor. If someone works well for ten, fifteen, twenty years, he can become proficient. For that which demands twenty years of effort, a ninety-year-old begins with the A B C—mad, isn’t he? When will he learn? When will there be any time left after learning, when will he use it? What hope does he have of surviving another twenty years? And even if he does survive and becomes proficient, when will he make use of it? That which takes fifteen–twenty years to learn would also require ten, twenty-five, fifty years in hand to use. When will he use it? Ramtirtha grew restless watching him from morning till evening—restless, restless—until it became unbearable. On the third day he asked, “Forgive me, you seem to have crossed ninety; you are learning this language—when will you learn it? After learning, when will you be alive to use it?”

The old man lifted his eyes and said, “How old are you?” Ramtirtha said, “Around thirty.” The old man laughed and said, “Now I understand why India has become so weak, so defeated.” He said, “So long as I am alive and not yet dead, I must keep learning something; otherwise life is wasted. Death, after all, is certain—fixed from the very day I was born. If I kept my attention on death, perhaps I would learn nothing—because one day one must die, because one day one must die. But so long as I am alive, I want to be fully alive. And only one who, while living, uses every moment, every instant to learn something new, can remain fully alive.”

Life means: a fresh taste of the new, day after day. One who has stopped experiencing the new is already dead; his death happened long ago. His present existence is posthumous; after dying he somehow continues. The old man said, “I shall learn as long as I live, and I have only one prayer to Paramatma: that when I die, at the very moment of death let me die while learning, so that even death does not feel like death to me. Let that too appear as life.”

Life is the process of learning. The attainment of knowing is life. But the misfortune of this country is that we stopped learning long ago. We are neither eager nor ardent to learn anything new. The thirst of our life has cooled; the flame of our consciousness has cooled. A delusion has arisen that we have learned all, attained all, known all. The infinite remains to be known. However vast man’s knowledge becomes, it is naught before the expanse that always remains to be known. Knowledge is little; ignorance is immense. To shatter that ignorance one must keep learning, keep learning, keep on learning.

But in India the very process of learning, the very notion of being young, has been lost. Here we harden very quickly, grow rigid, lose our flexibility. The capacity to change, receptivity, the power to receive—we lose it all. Talk to even a young person here and he speaks as if he has fixed all his conclusions. His knowing has come to a halt. There is no inquiry in his eyes, no curiosity in his being, no search. It feels as if he has attained, has known, all is fine—nothing more remains to be done. Thus the life-force grows old; thus the personality becomes decrepit; and for thousands of years this country’s personality has been decrepit.

The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to shatter this decrepit personality. Our aspiration is to give birth to India’s young consciousness. The second mark of a young consciousness is—courage. India has lost courage too; learning is lost, curiosity is lost, courage is lost. We are frightened to step into the dark; afraid to walk unknown paths; afraid to enter the sea; afraid to climb the mountains—and these are small things. One who is afraid of such unknowns—how will he enter the unknown realms of consciousness, the Unknown? There he will be frightened and turn back; he will remain sitting where he is. The journeys into life’s unknown heights and depths—we have abandoned them as well. We memorized a few aphorisms and sit silently, repeating them.

Our personality is not an audacious, adventurous quest—neither in the outer world... Mountaineers from abroad came to climb the Himalayas, hundreds came, year after year their expeditions came. They died, they broke, they fell from the mountains, they got lost—yet the flow of expeditions did not diminish; they kept coming. Everest had to be climbed—an unknown summit remained where human feet had not reached. But we—we thought they were mad: what need to go to Everest? What purpose does it serve? Why risk your life? We laughed—these are crazies, fools—why risk life? We, whose Everest it is, never felt a burning urge to climb it. It is not merely a matter of Everest or of descending into the Indian Ocean’s depths; it reveals our personality: we are not ardent toward the unknown, to draw back its veil, to set ourselves to know. And there is so much unknown in life. There is an unknown realm of matter; science seeks it—we developed no science.

In three thousand years of long history we developed no science. Why? There can be only one answer: we do not hear the call of the unknown. The unknown that surrounds us from all sides calls us, but we do not hear. We have gone deaf. We live within the circle of the known and finish there. Why do we not hear the call of the unknown? Why does its summons not stir our life-breath? Only because we lack courage. To go into the unknown, courage is needed. To live within the known, no courage is required.

That is why India never went beyond India. Indian youths never ventured outside India to undertake expeditions. They made no long journeys; they conducted no search of the earth. They did not go to the far North Pole, nor to the South Pole. Nor today are they filled with the longing to go to the moon and stars. There is no courage. Where courage is lacking, we want to remain where familiar people are; we walk the same roads we have walked many times. For on unknown paths there may be thorns, there may be pits, there may be wandering; on unknown paths there may be mistakes; on unknown paths we may get lost. This entire fear has gripped us so much that we walk only the known—like the bullock circling the oil-press. There is a familiar line—and we keep beating the same line.

Can the soul of this nation ever rise like this? Can the life-force awaken while so afraid? Can we stand in the race of the world, frightened as we are? Where consciousnesses are setting out on far journeys, where the call of the unknown is heard daily, where steps are taken daily toward the unknown, where every mystery of life is being entered with all effort—before those youth-nations of the world, can our old, ancient country stand? Can we live alongside them? No, we cannot. And then our leaders say our youth only imitates. If he does not imitate, what else will he do? Since he cannot set out on his own search, he has nothing left but to imitate those who do search. Our entire personality is an imitation—of the West.

We imitate the West. And we will—for there is no other way to stand alongside them. We have no search of our own, no original unveiling, no exploration, no research of our own; no paths of our own. We will have to imitate them. And remember: once we begin to imitate in the outer world, our inner soul begins to die. Why? Because the soul can never be an imitation. The soul cannot be a carbon copy. The soul has its own personality—unique. When we begin to imitate from the outside, then within our life-force shrivels, withers, because that life-force had its own genius, its own door, its own path. Those who imitate outwardly die within—but we have been imitating always.

You will say we started imitating the West just recently. Earlier? Earlier we imitated the past; now we imitate the West—that is the only difference; there is no other! Before, we imitated what had gone by. What had happened, had passed, the history behind us—we imitated that, because we knew nothing of the contemporary world. So before us there was only one world—the one gone by—and we were here; we imitated the past: Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira—we imitated. We lived by imitating the past. Now the contemporary world has opened before us. History seems hazy; the world spread all around us appears clearer. We imitate it. But for thousands of years we have been imitating—either those who are past, or the contemporaneous world standing around us. We have lost the courage to develop our own soul.

The Yuvak Kranti Dal wishes to revive courage—both in the outer life and in the inner world. Courage enough that prisons can break, walls can fall—and the stream of courage can begin to flow from within—that is our concern. But all our accepted notions are antagonistic to courage. If you want to be courageous, you will have to doubt; and if you do not want to be courageous, then faith is always convenient. If you want courage, you need doubt; if you do not want courage, then faith, belief, shraddha, trust will do.

Our whole country is one that believes. We accept; we do not think about what is told us; we do not reflect—because thinking and reflecting entail risk. It may be that we have to go against accepted beliefs. It may be that accepted beliefs have to be broken; it may be that what is approved, what is ours, proves wrong. We are not prepared to bear this—hence we will not open our eyes in that direction. The ostrich, when its enemy appears, buries its head in the sand. The eyes close. In the sand the ostrich cannot see the enemy; it is pleased; it assumes that what is not seen is not there.

The ostrich can be forgiven; man cannot. But India has been using the ostrich’s logic even today. It says, what is not seen is not. Thus it dons the blindness of belief and stops looking at life.

Life contains naked truths; seeing them may hurt—but they are. However painful they may be, we must open our eyes and see. For only by opening our eyes can we succeed in transforming them, changing them, transfiguring them. By closing our eyes we can become blind—but the facts will not change. We are living by covering up all the facts. Because we have adopted a non-courageous notion of belief. The courageous journey of doubt is not ours. For this same reason our capacity to be alone has diminished.

And remember, the essential mark of youth is the courage to be alone—the courage to stand alone. That is an indispensable sign of being young. We can stand with the crowd. We can go where all go. We do not go where one must go alone. To a new place man always has to go alone. One person must gather the courage to walk alone. For the crowd will first wait to see what the road is like. The solitary person must gather courage. We do not know when we lost the courage to be alone—we simply cannot be alone. We always need the crowd to stand—only then can we stand. Then we are no longer young. Then the young mind cannot be born in us.

The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants that the courage to be alone be born in each young person. The day a youth dares to stand alone, for the first time his soul begins to manifest, his intelligence begins to flower. When he says, “Even if the whole world says otherwise, until my own discerning does not agree, I will stand alone. I will swim against the current of the whole world. The river flows east—I do not feel it, my reason does not say so, my discriminating intelligence does not say go east! I will swim west—even if I am broken in the current; no matter—I will only go with the current when my discerning is with me.” The day someone attempts to swim against the current of life in accordance with his own discerning, for the first time a challenge enters his life—that challenge!—that struggle!—in passing through which his soul is refined, becomes clear. Passing through fire, his being first becomes pure gold—kundan; but we have lost this. We have lost the courage to be alone.

I have heard: a priest went to a school to teach some children. He was explaining to them about courage, moral courage. A child asked him to explain with a small story so they might understand. The priest said: “Suppose thirty of you go to the hills. All day you roam; you return weary at night; the night is cold, your limbs ache, the bed invites you—fine beds, warm blankets—you feel like sleeping. Twenty-nine boys quickly slip into their beds on that cold night. But one boy sits in a corner, kneeling, and offers his last prayer of the night.” The priest said, “I call that child courageous—moral courage, the courage to be alone.”

A month later he came again and said, “Last time I spoke of moral courage and told a story. Can any of you also tell a story of moral courage?” One child stood and said, “I have thought much, and I remembered that there can be an even greater event of moral courage.” The priest said, “Gladly—tell it.” The child said, “Suppose thirty priests like you go to the mountains. All day tired, hungry, thirsty; the night is cold; you return at midnight. Twenty-nine priests sit with folded hands to pray—and one priest goes to bed and sleeps. That, I think, is a greater courage than the first!”

Because it may be the first child thought: I am religious and these are all irreligious, atheists—sleep then; you will rot in hell. He could think so. Often the religious and those who pray think in this language—how to have others rot in hell. The more they pray and fast, the more their anger toward the world grows. They say, “We will throw each one into hell.” On the road, if they see someone in bright, beautiful clothes, inwardly they think, “You will rot in hell.” If they see someone smile a little, they think, “You will rot, rot in hell.” They must take revenge on someone for their own gloomy face, their own mournful and weeping soul.

So, the child said, it may be that first child was enjoying the idea: no matter, today I am alone—but I will watch you twenty-nine rot in the fires of hell. Then that is not so great a courage. But the second is greater: when twenty-nine priests are arranging to go to heaven, and one poor fellow is preparing to go to hell—then he has no consolation. He cannot be comforted by thinking, “I will send them to hell.” There is no consolation; the temptation is great—twenty-nine! He also knows what these twenty-nine will say tomorrow morning in the world. He may not be able to sleep that night. Religious people can be very dangerous. Perhaps, at midnight, the neighbor priest will wake others to say, “Do not worry any longer about that one—he is corrupted; he has not prayed tonight.” Be it the first courage or the second—courage always means the courage to be alone.

Are you a youth? If you are, then you must gather the courage to stand alone in life. And remember: to stand alone means to awaken your discerning—your vivek. One who cannot awaken his discerning cannot stand alone. Therefore, the third thing the Yuvak Kranti Dal longs for in this country is to awaken vivek, bodh, understanding—understanding—in each individual. For only then can one be alone even if the world is not with him, because he has his discerning with him. His eyes see clearly that what he is doing is right. His reason, his very life-breath, say to him that what he is doing is right—even if the whole world is contrary.

On the day Jesus was nailed to the cross, he must have been a young man. In age too he was young—only thirty-three—but even if he had been seventy, it would have made no difference. Jesus was a young man. The whole world was against him. A hundred thousand had gathered to crucify him. Had he wished, he could have sought pardon; he would have been forgiven. He could have said, “I made a mistake; I became mad.” He would have been released; he could have settled in a village, worked as a carpenter, married, had children, and died in comfort. But no—he gathered the courage to stand alone—even on the cross.

Yet standing alone, he is not sending anyone to hell, not arranging anyone’s rotting. There is no anger toward anyone in his heart. He stands alone because of his discerning, not because of anger. Hanging on the cross he offered his last prayer: “O Paramatma, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But he knows what he is doing. He sees what he is doing; he knows that what he is doing is right. Because, having thought, reflected, experienced with his whole being—with the counsel of his entire intelligence—he has done this; he knows!

And the day my discerning is with me, the day your discerning is with you, the whole world becomes worth two pennies; you can stand alone. The power of vivek is so great that the power of the whole world becomes feeble. Therefore the third thing the Yuvak Kranti Dal seeks is: how to develop discerning—how to develop intelligence.

The growth of knowledge is one thing; the growth of wisdom is quite another. To have knowledge is one thing; to have wisdom is altogether different. Knowledge the schools, colleges, universities can give—but who will give wisdom? Information—yes; the colleges and universities hand out information to the young—and by handing it out they make them old already in their youth. Because the more they fall into the illusion that they know, the less their curiosity to know remains. When a youth leaves the temple of the university, he does not feel that he is setting out on a new journey of knowing. He feels: now the work of knowing is finished; a certificate has been received; the matter is closed; now I need not know.

A true university will be the one which appears not as the temple of knowledge but as only the steps to it. The university leaves you where the steps end and the temple of true knowing begins. But that knowing is not knowledge. Its name is wisdom; its name is understanding; its name is intelligence.

The Yuvak Kranti Dal—fourth point—wants to experiment in creating intelligence, wisdom. And also because, in the whole world—in India certainly, for now our work is here—it seems wisdom is simply not arising in the youth. Whatever he is doing is without intelligence. All his undertaking is unintelligent; his revolt is unintelligent; his rebellion is unintelligent. I am not against rebellion. It would be difficult to find one who loves rebellion more than I. I do not oppose revolt; I call revolt a religious act. I consider rebellion the right of man. But when rebellion is without intelligence, it benefits none—only harms. When revolt is meaningless, when it is not an act arising from discerning, it harms the rebel most; it destroys him.

The youth of India is moving toward a path of revolt where there is no intelligence at all. The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to awaken intelligence. There are methods to awaken intelligence. There are ways. Just as knowledge arises—by gathering information; just as knowledge accumulates—through study, contemplation, reflection—so wisdom arises through dhyan—meditation. The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to launch a movement of meditation across India. Every youth should have the capacity for meditation. Each should know a method of meditation. He should be able, whenever he wishes, to enter into his deepest life, to open the inner doors and enter the inner temple. The day a person comes close to his own soul, to that extent he becomes wise. Wisdom is related to how near one is to one’s own Atman; to that extent there is wisdom. He who is far from his own soul is that much less wise. Wisdom comes through meditation.

As knowledge comes through study, reflection, instruction—so wisdom comes through meditation. The youth of this country must be taken into the process of meditation—a great Movement for Meditation. Into every corner of the land, even to each child, the news and the process of meditation must be carried. This the Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to do.

If meditation becomes available to the individual, he becomes tranquil; and the more tranquil a person is, the more he becomes an element in creating a beautiful society. The more tranquil he is, the more truth, the more courage, the more the capacity to be alone, the greater the longing to move toward the unknown, and the stronger the character to take risks. The more tranquil a person is, the less fearful he becomes. The more tranquil, the healthier. The more tranquil, the greater his power to endure life and to face life.

Our youth stands before life bankrupt—like a pauper. He has nothing—some certificates, a few stacks of paper. Tying that bundle, he stands before life—with nothing within. This is most pitiable, most tragic. And in this state frustration arises, melancholy arises, tension arises, anger arises. And in that anger he sets about breaking society, destroying things.

Today the children of the whole nation are full of anger. In anger they break chairs, smash furniture, burn buses. The nation’s leaders say: do not break chairs, do not burn buses, do not demolish buildings, do not break windows. But the leaders know well that they themselves became leaders by breaking chairs, burning buses, smashing glass. They know for sure that their leadership stands upon just such vandalism. The children know too that the trick to becoming a leader is: break chairs, break houses, set fires.

So those old leaders who did this yesterday—today they will advise others not to. It is unconvincing. And those leaders do not even know that chairs are being broken only symbolically. What concern can children have with chairs? Who is interested in breaking a chair! Who has a quarrel with a bus? Which lunatic delights in smashing glass? No—this is not the point. It is utterly irrelevant. The youth is disturbed within—agitated and tormented. And when a tormented person breaks anything, he gets a little relief, a little relaxation. Break anything and there is some release.

A patient was brought to a psychologist. He was a clerk in an office. There his boss would sometimes abuse him, insult him. He could do nothing against the boss. But anger arose within. He would go home and pounce upon his wife. Or in anger he would break his own things. Then he would feel—what madness is this! His anger grew still more. Then he felt that, come what may, one day he would take off his shoe and serve the boss. His hand began to reach for the shoe; he was frightened—this was dangerous. If he struck with the shoe, he would be in trouble. He began leaving his shoe at home—because the danger could come any day. But what connection has the shoe! The shoe was only a symbol. Then it took other forms: he began to reach for sticks from the table; he felt like throwing the inkpot. Then he became alarmed, and told his friends at home, “I am in great difficulty. If I find anything, I want to hit the boss.”

They took him to a psychologist. The psychologist said, “Do nothing. Make a picture of your boss at home. Every morning, religiously, give it five shoe-beatings. Allow no omission—just as a priest does worship, just as a rosary-man turns his beads, religiously. Give it exactly five shoe-beatings, then go to the office. When you return from the office, first thing—five more shoe-beatings—then do anything else.”

The man laughed. “What will that do?” But even hearing it, a look came over his face—of relaxation, a little peace. The psychologist said, “It will do. Don’t worry. Start tomorrow.” He rose early and gave five beatings. He was in haste. In the night he woke many times—let morning come quickly! Morning came; he gave five beatings. He was astonished—his mind felt light. He even felt pity for the boss, now lying shoe-beaten before him.

He went to the office. That day his behavior was different. For fifteen days he beat the picture daily—and in the office he became another man. The boss asked, “What has happened to you? You have changed completely. You are so calm; you work so skillfully.” He said, “Sir, please don’t ask by what trick—it could cost me my job.”

What happened to this man? Within him there was a fierce urge to break, to smash, to degrade someone. That urge could take any form—breaking tables, smashing glass. Wives know well—when husbands quarrel, the poor utensils get broken. Mothers know well—when husbands quarrel, the children get beaten. Anger starts flowing out here and there.

The youth has much anger, and no peace. Hence all this upheaval. It will grow; it will deepen. Today they break buildings; tomorrow they will burn buildings. Today they burn buses; tomorrow they will burn people. Within fifty years, people will be burned—if the anger of the youth proceeds in this way and no path is found to lead it toward peace.

I have heard: in Holland I had a friend. He wrote to me from there: here a strange thing has occurred. There is a new movement of youths and students; it is called the Saturday Night Movement. On Saturday nights boys and girls take to the streets, raise a commotion, throw stones without any cause. There is no cause—that is the Saturday Night Movement. It has no relation to truth. They dance in the streets, hurl abuses, drink alcohol, take mescaline, LSD, marijuana—and then gather at street corners to consult: what shall we do tonight so that the police will send us to jail? They stand on the corners thinking: tonight, what shall we do so that the police will send us to jail? There is no cause, no quarrel, no fees to be reduced, nothing—only that so much anger has accumulated that it needs a release. It must come out somehow.

Leaders will keep shouting—nothing will happen. For the leaders themselves are disturbed and tormented. Who can be more restless on earth than politicians? They say, “Maintain peace, maintain peace,” but within them so much turbulence is raging that their call to peace is meaningless. They do not even know what is happening within human consciousness. Man’s consciousness has acquired knowledge—but not wisdom. Man’s consciousness has gathered information—but consciousness has not become knowing. Man has learned ambition—ambition. The sole fruit of all education is that man has been made ambitious—but he has no peace at all.

Therefore, through meditation, the Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to start a movement of peace. The individual needs peace, and society needs revolution. These two are the basic foundations of the Yuvak Kranti Dal—individual peace and social revolution. Let the individual be so peaceful that no pain, no sorrow, no anger remains within. And society—society is wrong, society is diseased, society is ugly, society is deformed. Our society is built upon the foolishness of thousands of years. Set fire to all that foolishness, to all those foundations upon which we stand.

Even today in India there are Shudras—in the twentieth century! The great Manu, three thousand years ago, created the Shudras—and they still stand. Hundreds of millions still do not have the condition of life befitting human beings. This must be broken. For thousands of years women have been kept like slaves. Today in name they appear free, yet they are not. Even today, in the most cultured city, it is impossible for a girl to go out alone at night. Is this freedom? Is this freedom? Let an old woman go out and even little boys will abuse, throw stones, shove her—is this freedom? Is this any condition for woman?

We must rethink: in these three thousand years, the approach we have had toward life—must have been wrong. Otherwise such ill-will between men and women could not be. Man and woman seem like two different species—not one. They seem like two separate peoples. They somehow live together, but they are not together.

Such a long wall has been raised between man and woman. The higher that wall is raised, the more difficult it becomes. For the greater the barrier, the more intense the attraction becomes. The more distance we have tried to create between man and woman, the more sexual, the more obsessed with sex, they have become. All those distances must be broken. Men and women must be brought near so that it becomes impossible for anyone to shove a woman. That is possible only so long as men and women are not near. They must play together from childhood, study together.

Even today, go into a university class—the girls sit separate, the boys separate. What absurdity! At the university level girls sit apart in one corner and boys in another, and the teacher’s entire work is to be a guard—to keep watch that boys and girls do not come close. We have made the professor a policeman; let him be a human being. He has come for another work—not for this foolishness. But there is only one fear: that man and woman may not come close. What is this fear?

Our notions regarding sex are foolish—unscientific. Men and women need to be brought close, nearer. When we cannot bring them close, they then attempt closeness in perverted ways. Poor things, from a distance they throw a pebble to touch; if you will not allow touch by hand, then by a pebble—a flying kiss! Strange! Can there be a flying kiss? But there is—and will be. We have diminished the possibilities of closeness; hence so much perversion, so much sexuality, so much lust.

It must be erased. Society needs revolution—a sexual revolution. A revolutionary approach and transformation regarding sex is needed—only then can we be healthy. Otherwise, on the surface we will go on talking of brahmacharya, and someone will hide some obscene book inside the Gita. Both things will go on together. If father is about to arrive, the Gita will be seen; once he leaves, who knows what comes out from within. Obscene pictures—nude pictures will appear on the streets. What do nude pictures on the streets prove? They prove that the desire of men and women to see each other’s nakedness is not fulfilled. From childhood there is curiosity—what is a woman’s body like; what is a man’s body like? That curiosity is never fulfilled.

In tribal societies there is no such curiosity. Why are we so curious? Because we have hidden the body so much, surrounded it with such curiosity, that the desire to see it persists. From that desire films are made, nude pictures are made, obscene novels are written. We then impose bans—this should not be. Then the obscene novel goes underground; it is sold under the counter. It is available at every shop; one must pay more; the cover says one thing, the inside contains another. Nude pictures sell—and man grows more sick.

No—little children should be naked. As long as possible—five years, six years—let them play naked at home. Let them know that there is nothing in bodies. There is nothing in the body for which one should be troubled a whole life. If small children, five to seven years old, can be mindful, and remain naked at times, play naked, bathe naked—their curiosity will end forever.

As it is, the curiosity of a seventy-year-old does not end. Even at seventy, when he sees a woman, his eyes begin to penetrate beneath her clothing. For instance, I say: we need a revolution regarding sex; we need a revolution regarding wealth. Why is it that such a vast nation keeps growing poorer while a few gather more and more money? It is intolerable that all wealth accumulates on one side, and the whole nation remains naked, destitute, miserable and afflicted. No—this country needs an economic revolution. Equal distribution of wealth is necessary. Wealth should reach everyone—it belongs to all, as the sky belongs to all, as the earth belongs to all—wealth also belongs to all. All create it together; all are entitled to be its owners. Wealth should belong to the nation, to society—not to the individual. Without freeing ourselves from private property, happiness can never dawn in the life of this country.

However much we shout that there be no corruption, no theft, no dishonesty—it will remain. For so long as wealth accumulates on one side—so long as there are exploiters on one side and a large exploited society on the other—how will theft end, how will dishonesty end, how will corruption end? It will not. However much rishis and munis preach—be patient, be content, do not steal—no one will listen. Their shouting will do nothing. Only one thing results from their shouting: they cannot create a true man, but they certainly create a hypocrite.

A hypocrite means: he says, “Where do I steal? I am a follower of small vows. I believe in contentment with the least. I am religious. Where do I steal?” Outwardly he maintains a face—with tilak on the forehead, a tuft on the head; but behind that face there is another man altogether. If you were to see him, you would not recognize him as the same gentleman. The man hidden within is entirely different. In the light he appears one way—religious, performing worship in the temple. In the dark—he is picking pockets, cutting throats. This hypocritical humanity has been produced.

How did it arise? Because where the real questions of life stand, we do not wish to change them—and talk instead about changing false things. We say we will remove corruption, root out theft, eliminate lies. So long as exploitation exists, none of this can be eliminated. When exploitation ends, all this ends with it. With the end of exploitation, theft ceases. As long as private property exists, theft will continue. Neither your courts, nor your judges, nor your police can stop it. Only this will happen: the police will also steal, the courts will steal, the judges will steal, the leaders will steal. Nothing will stop. Only with the end of private property will theft end—because theft is the by-product of private property. It is born of it; it can go only with it; without it, it cannot go.

Thus the country needs an economic revolution. The country needs revolutions on many fronts—familial revolution, educational revolution. I cannot go into all that today—let me say only this: the country needs a total revolution—the very roots must be changed. The Yuvak Kranti Dal wants to bring revolution into society; to carry the news, village to village, countryside to countryside, to each person: think, reflect—where and where life needs to change—bring that change.

The individual needs peace and society needs revolution—this is the thought and plan of the Youth Front. Those youths who relate to it will endeavor to create an atmosphere of ideas—a renaissance, a rebirth. They have no immediate political question, no political goal. Politics has nothing directly to do with them at the moment.

What the country needs now is a mental transformation—a mental change. So the Yuvak Kranti Dal has no political issue. Its issue is to breathe into the soul of the nation the air that prepares it for revolution. With that air, politics too will change of itself; it will be compelled to change. For now, the soul of the country needs, on all fronts, a revolutionary vision—just a vision is enough; for now, a thinking, a thought is enough.

So at present the plan of the Yuvak Kranti Dal is to create a breeze of cultural revolution, a wind of cultural revolution, an atmosphere—a psychic atmosphere. Later, those who are today youths studying in universities and schools—tomorrow they will go into life, they will enter politics, they will be in positions of authority. Then the wind that is created in their consciousness today—when tomorrow power is in their hands—they will be able to transform society from the roots.

This Youth Front will be engaged in this endeavor: that before the youth come into power, their personality be transformed from the roots. Within, they become tranquil, and their minds be filled with a fierce fire to change life—let a keen pain to transform life seize them. Then tomorrow—those who are today youths, young ones, children—tomorrow the country will be in their hands. If we wish, within twenty years we can completely turn this country around—because in twenty years a generation changes. In twenty years the new generation holds power.

If the youth do not ponder this, the country will sink day by day into deeper darkness. There is no other way to save it. No leader can save it; no guru can save it; nor can prayers to Paramatma save it. It can be saved only on one condition: that a young soul—a young mind—be born. Then we can save this country.

I have said these few things. You have listened to me with such love and silence—I am obliged. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatma dwelling within all. Kindly accept my pranam.”

Shiksha main Kranti #6