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Alternative to Growth is Death
The more we grow up, the more we become responsible, the more we have
to be responsible for. For ourselves first, and for so many other things
later – for our children, for society, for our cars, for our houses.
So you see, either we grow – and the fact of growth means accepting
more and more responsibility; accepting more and more restraints on
how we can behave, how we can act. So the fact of growth means the fact
of change. It means the fact of having to face new things every morning.
Why every morning? Every moment of our existence. Things are eternally
changing. You sit on the beach, and there is a new wave every second.
And you know that old famous story, the story of stupid King Canute,
who had a lot of sycophants. And they said, “You are the greatest emperor
on earth.” He said, “Oh, is it so? I want to prove it.” They said, “Majesty,
tell the ocean to stop the waves.” He said, “Stop.” There are certain
things not even the greatest ever human being can stop. You cannot stop
the oceans moving. You cannot stop the stars on their course. You cannot
stop the sun from rising and setting. You cannot change the laws of
growth. And then, if you think, as some people do, that we have a choice
of not growing, remember, the only alternative is death.
That which does not grow, dies. Whether it’s a plant, whether it’s
a microbe, whether it’s a human being, whether it’s a culture, whether
it’s a nation, even the whole world, you see. Because in Nature, there
can be no static position. And you say, “Well, we are happy as we are,
please leave us as we are.” Nature will not tolerate static conditions.
What you need when you want to climb the spiritual mountain is a great
deal of courage that you must reach the top, even if you are going to
die in the process. Those who are not willing to die in the process
will hardly ever make it. But it is a strange thing that one who is
willing to die rarely dies, and one who wants to avoid death is risking
death every second. So we must be prepared.
Today it is dark, tomorrow is going to be light again, dawn again,
a new glorious day again, when my whole outlook on life is going to
be changed all over again. And I would feel the biggest fool if next
morning I didn’t exist to feel these things.
That is one reason why suicide is a crime. Not a social crime or a
legal crime, but a moral crime. Because when you terminate your life
by an act of annihilation aimed at yourself, you are violating the first
principle of nature, that everything changes, almost continuously. And,
by virtue of having put a stop to your existence, you have put a stop
to the possibility of change. It is anti-evolutionary. Therefore no
man, no woman, and no child has a right over its own life, much less
over the life of another person. Therefore, moral law says, “Thou shalt
not kill.” If you have no right over your own existence, your own life,
because Nature in its infinite mercy opens infinite possibilities every
moment of your existence, how can you put a stop to those potentialities
developing in me? And if I cannot do that to myself, how dare I do it
to another?
When things cease to change, a stage sets in, which can be justifiably
called death. Looked at, in this way, death can be said to be
a cessation of the process of change. That is, death
is the cessation of growth.
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