Joy is a language that we have completely forgotten. We have been forced to forget it, compelled to. Actually, sometimes I feel the society is against joy, the entire civilization is against it. The society invests tremendously in misery, it depends on misery, it feeds on misery, it survives on misery. It feels like the society is not for human beings but it is using human beings as a means for itself. The society has become more important than humanity. The culture, the civilization have become more important. They were meant to be for the humans, but now they are not, the process has reversed, now humans exist for them.
Every child is born joyful, joy is natural. It is something which everyone brings into this world, everybody comes with it. It is a part of being alive, life is joy! Every child has it, but then society steps in, starts destroying the possibility of joy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child. The society has gone mad and it can not allow joyful people to be here. They are dangerous for the society, dangerous because one cannot control a joyful man, it is impossible. Only a miserable can be controlled. A joyful man is bound to be free! Joy is freedom! He cannot be reduced to being a slave. He cannot be destroyed easily, his joy cannot be destroyed, he can not be persuaded to live in a prison, to live by rules. He would like to dance under the stars, walk with the wind, and talk with the sun. He will need a huge space, just for himself and his joy. He will live his own life and he will do his own thing and this is something very difficult for society to accept. If there is a herd of joyful people, the society will fall apart, rules will disappear, the structure will crumble down to dust, finished.
Another idea which haunts me is that a joyful person will be a rebel, someone who is not looking for a new society for himself, because all societies have proved to be same. A rebel is someone who wants to live as an individual and does not want any social structure in the world because once a societal structure becomes powerful, it does not want anybody to be joyful because joy is against the very basic of the society.
Have you ever thought about the fact that no other species on the planet requires government! Why am I just discussing about the planet, the entire universe goes on without any government. Why does man need government? Something must have gone wrong! Why is man so neurotic that he can not live without rulers? I think humans can live without rulers and rules as well. We just haven’t been given any opportunity to do so. All rulers are same, all governments are similar, we just choose a different prison each time.
Why isn’t the child allowed to taste freedom from his very childhood? What is the harm in setting a child free? Why a child should concede himself, why should he compromise? Why should he live in a dark cell? If a child is allowed total freedom, he will know joy, he will not allow anyone to reduce him to being a slave, he will not become part of the society, he will remain an individual, he will remain free and he will create pulsations of freedom around him, his very joyful being will become a door to freedom.
Have you ever seen a child who is not being told that whatever he is doing, is wrong?
Whenever the child feels joyful, doing whatsoever, somebody or other is bound to come and stop him – “Don’t do this!” By and by the child understands, “Whatsoever I feel joyful in, is wrong.” And of course he never feels joyful doing whatsoever others tell him to do, because it is not a spontaneous urge in him. So he comes to know that to be miserable is right, to be joyful is wrong. That becomes the deep association. Being joyful becomes wrong for him. Wherever there is joy, the child starts becoming afraid that something is going to be wrong.
Society needs rules, sadness because they need to wage wars on the name of nations, on the name of religions, on the name of this and that, and it is all nonsense. A joyful person doesn’t need to fight, he doesn’t need to go to war, he doesn’t envy of any religion whatsoever. Only miserable people can be enlisted for war, only deeply miserable people can be ready to kill and be killed. They are so miserable that death seems a better option than living.
I have heard Adolf Hitler was talking to the Russian President at one of the President’s visit to Germany during the second world war. They were standing on the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper, and to impress the president, Hitler ordered one German soldier to jump off and the soldier simply jumped without even hesitating, and of course died. The President could not believe it; it was unbelievable. He was very much shocked. This wastage? For no reason at all. And to impress him more, Hitler ordered another soldier, “Jump!” and the other jumped, and to impress him even more, he ordered a third soldier.
By this time, the President had come to his senses. He rushed and stopped the soldier and said, “What are you doing, destroying your life for no reason at all?” The soldier replied, “Who wants to live, sir, in this country and under this madman? Who wants to live with this Adolf Hitler? It is better to die! It is freedom!”, and he jumped too.
When people are miserable, death seems to be freedom. When people are miserable, they are so full of rage, anger, that they want to kill even if the risk is that they may be killed. The politician exists because we are miserable. War continues somewhere or other, war just continues.
Man is not joyful because man lives in ambition, not in reality. Ambition is a trick to distract our mind. Watch it in life, the mother cannot love the child as much as the child wants the mother to love him because the mother is hung up in her head. Her life has not been one of fulfillment. Her love life has been a disaster. She has not been able to flower. She has lived in ambition, in dreams. She has tried to control her man and has been failing all her life. She has been jealous.
Joy has nothing to do with all this. Joy is not of the head, it is not of the thought, it is of feeling and we have been deprived of feeling. Head is just a part, heart is our whole being. Become more of heart, forget right and wrong. Joy is not an achievement. It is our nature. Animals are happy without any money. Animals have no political power. They are not prime ministers or presidents but they are happy. The trees are joyful otherwise they would have stopped blooming. Trees bloom, spring comes, they dance and sing at the tune of the wind. They don’t go anywhere for worship, God comes to them. In the wind, in the rain, in the sun, God comes to them.