The New Man

The new man will not be like me in the sense that he will not be my carbon copy. But in a way, in a very different way, he will be like me. I am independent; he will be independent. I am my own self; he will be his own self. I have never accepted anything just as a belief unless I have experienced it. Then there is no question of belief—I know it. So either I know something or I don't know, there is nothing in between….

I have doubted everything. I have never accepted anything because it is written in the holy scriptures, because the great founders of religions have said it, because great saints verify it. I have insisted my whole life that nothing else can prove it to me except my own experience. And when it comes as your own experience, it brings tremendous rejoicing, great blessings, flowering. Your being finds its home. The wandering is finished, you have arrived.

Now my wandering and your wandering will be different. The point where I started and the point where you will start will be different. I will arrive to my own innermost core; you will arrive to your innermost core. The ultimate experience of blossoming will be the same, but the path will be totally different. Everybody has to search and seek in his own way….

Yes, I am the new man and I am preparing the way for you to become the new man. That's why I go on insisting that you keep yourself intelligent, meditative, silent. Keep yourself alert, aware. Change every stone on the path into a stepping-stone. Don't think, "Now the stone is blocking the way." No stone blocks the way. You just have to know that every stone can be turned into a stepping-stone….

The new man will have communes, but the agreement will be freedom. You can look into my eyes and you can see my silence, my depth. You can feel my presence, my joy, my song. But you are not to repeat anything. I am simply indicating to you that what has happened to me can happen to you. There will be differences, there will be uniquenesses. I may be just a marigold flower and you may be a lotus—so don't imitate me. You may be a rose and I am just a marigold, a very poor flower who has nothing. But whoever named it marigold must have had great insight; it is the poorest flower, but there is great merriness, great joy in it—and it is pure gold, twenty-four carat….

I am the new man. You have to be the new man. I am not ordering you, I am simply saying so loudly so you can hear. And we have to create more opportunities for the new man for more people around the world.