Society gives the feeling to every person that he is worthless

• Society gives the feeling to every person that he is worthless. It is a political strategy. Once a person gets the idea that he is worthless, he cannot be rebellious, he cannot be independent, he cannot go outside the fold. He cannot choose a path of his own, he will follow the crowd.

Once the idea sinks deep into your unconscious that you are worthless you cannot trust yourself; you will have to trust the priest, the politician, the teacher, the parents — all kinds of authorities. And you will seek them, you will cling to them because the ground underneath your feet has been taken away. You are afraid to be left alone on your own because then you know you cannot decide, all that you decide is wrong; you cannot act, whatsoever you do is wrong. Then it is better to follow the mob; let them decide, you just be an imitator.
To create imitators and slaves each child’s trust in himself is being destroyed all over the world, in all kinds of societies and cultures, in all countries.
My effort here is to give you again the feeling of worth, a self-trust — and that is possible only through meditation, because meditation can help you get rid of all conditionings. And it is only a matter of conditioning. Others have told you things again and again, they have hypnotised you. That hypnosis has to be destroyed, you have to be dehypnotised.

• That’s what meditation is: a process of dehypnotisation. Once you are dehypnotised you wake up for the first time, then suddenly you know that you are immensely valuable, as everybody else is. Then one feels tremendous respect for oneself also. And it is not ego, because you feel the same respect for others. You are not higher, you are not holier than others; suddenly you have known that everyone is esteemed by nature itself, by the universe itself.