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Chapter 7: Enter Your Temple

Kabir says that the man who walks on the main highway gets robbed and that the man who takes the back way, the opposite way, reaches his destination. The sage takes the opposite road; his Ganges has begun to flow towards the Gangotri, towards the source. While society wanders about in the outside world, he turns his back on society and begins to travel within. He does not listen to what society says; he listens to what his own conscience says.

The path of the sage is always the opposite one. That is why we crucify a Jesus; it is not done without reason. And that is why we go on ignoring Kabir, why we try to forget him, why we even doubt his very existence. We poison Socrates and we chop off the hands and feet of Mansoor. None of this is done without a reason. There is a reason. These people are very dangerous to society; they advocate ideas and ways that are opposed to society’s established beliefs and traditions.

You have probably heard stories about me, opinions expressed about me. Everywhere they say, “Don’t go there. He talks about things that are against established beliefs.” They are absolutely right. If you are the slightest bit afraid to walk the opposite path, then stop coming to me.

The highway is the path everyone uses, and if this highway could have led people to the ultimate destination then everyone would have already arrived. A highway is very convenient for walking. It is very broad; it has no obstacles on it; it is very clean and well-swept. All your friends and relatives are walking along it as well, so you are not alone there. I will segregate you from them. You feel comfortable in the crowd. There are so many people walking on the highway you don’t even have to walk in an orderly fashion, you are simply pushed along by the jostling of the crowd. Have you ever walked in a crowd? It moves like a tempest. You hardly have to raise your legs; they are practically lifted for you. And if they weren’t, you would be crushed to death. The force, the push of the crowd propels you. You don’t even have a chance to think; the crowd does not even afford you that.

The crowd gives you your education and your ideas, but it does not give you the power to think. It gives you blindness, not vision. When so many people follow a particular path of action, one would think it must be good; otherwise why are so many people following it? A path that has been trodden for centuries is more trusted than a new one. A new thing is hardly trusted at all, and that is why each religion claims it is very ancient, that it has been there forever, that it was the first, that others followed it.

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