Religion, politics, society are exploiting you, and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in a machine.
There is an art of seeing things as they are: without naming, without being caught in a network of words, without thinking interfering with perception.
You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to help him organize it."
I think it is absurd to give such tremendous importance to the distinctions between men and women. When I meet someone I regard that person as a human being. I do not say "This is a man; this is a woman."
If you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because then there is no taking care on your part.
If you realize that the ultimate happiness for all depends not on disorder of the emotions for either sex, but in harmonizing the emotions, all the problems will vanish.
We want the children to conform; we want to control their minds, to shape their conduct, their way of living, so that they will fit into the pattern of society, That is what every parent wants, is it not? And that is exactly what is happening, whether it be in America or in Europe, in Russia or in India. The pattern may vary slightly, but they all want the child to conform.