“One has to be light to oneself, and you cannot possibly depend on anyone. You cannot have light from another. It cannot be lit by whoever it is — God, or saviours, or Buddhas — it cannot be handed down to you. One has to be totally, completely, a light to oneself. This doesn’t mean selfishly.”

– Do you mean then that none of us needs any of these teachings handed down to us, that we can all discover these things for ourselves?

It is certain that every man is the story of mankind. Obviously. And if one knows how to read oneself, the story of oneself, which is very complex, which needs a great deal of attention… A mind that doesn’t distort facts, what is actually seen, that such an attentive sensitive awareness (that’s easy to cultivate, easy to have), then one can read about oneself, without any illusion.

– You say you will never be put under any pressure, and indeed I can see and understand that. One only has to look at you, or read you, or listen to you to know that. But how about the rest of us? How do we get out from under this burden?

If we all say ‘we won’t be under pressure’…

– We all ARE under pressure.

No. We won’t be.

– How can we refuse it? I mean, how can we live in the real world, the job is waiting for us, we are going to be late, we’ve got an appointment….

That brings up whether society can be changed. […] The communists tried it, the socialists are trying it, various systems are trying to change society. Now, what is society? It is an abstraction of our personal relationships. If our personal relationship changes — radically — society changes. But we are not willing to change. We admit wars, we accept all this… terrible state of existence.

– How do we stop it?

No, revolt against it! Not in the sense of become a communist, all that kind of stuff. Psychologically revolt against it.”