Decades after the rebellions of the 1960s a new generation is again challe
nging and rebelling against outdated structures and values, focusing on political and economic systems and their failings. But this generation has the opportunity and responsibility to move the development of human freedom to the next level. Living on Your Own Terms: What Is Real Rebellion? will support this new generation in expanding its understanding of freedom and pushing toward new systems for humanity.
[bluebox]The rebel simply says goodbye to the past. It is a constant process; hence, to be rebel means to be constinously in rebellion–because each moment is going to become past; every day is going to become past. It is not that the past is already in the graveyard; you are moving through it every moment. Hence, the rebel has to learn a new art: the art of dying to each moment that has passed, so that he can be live freely in the new moment that has come.[/bluebox]
The difference between rebellion and revolution
- Revolution is an organized effort to change the society forcibly, violently. Revolution is fighting with the past.
- Rebellion is individual, nonviolent, peaceful. It is out of love. Rebellion is not against something, but for something. Rebellion is meditating for the future.
What is the difference between reaction and action as far as the rebellious person is concerned?
The rebel creates; he gives birth to himself. He becomes a new man, he heralds a new age. He opens himself to all possibilities, he allows himself unknown dimensions. Not against anybody – it is simply a growth, just like a rosebush is growing. Do you think it is growing against the rocks? Do you think it is growing against anybody? It is growing, not as a reaction; it is growing because growth is its nature. It is growing to blossom, to bring its potential to actuality. It is a process of actualization.
Action means the process of actualization. Reaction is simply hate, anger, jealousy, violence, destructiveness. Those are not the qualities to be valued. So, in my vision, the revolutionary has no value, only the rebel.
Socrates is not a revolutionary, he is a rebel. Gautam Buddha is not a revolutionary, he is a rebel. Heraclitus is not a revolutionary, he is a rebel. And these are the greatest heights humanity has reached.
Uncertainty is the nature of life
The really conscious person changes with life.
You suffer from uncertainty–and uncertainty is the nature of life. Certainty is part of death. Be certain and you will be dead. Remain flowing, remain uncertain, remain available to the changing circusmtances, and you will remain more and more alive.
To be totally alive means to live in the moment with no past interfering at all–then you respond to the moment and the response come from your consciousness, not from your conscience.