Without intelligence there is no heaven...

Obedience needs no intelligence. All machines are obedient; nobody has ever heard of a disobedient machine. Obedience is simple, too. It takes from you the burden of any responsibility. There is no need to react, you have simply to do what is being said. The responsibility rests with the source from where the order comes. In a certain way you are very free: you cannot be condemned for your act.

Obedience has a simplicity; disobedience needs a little higher order of intelligence. Any idiot can be obedient, in fact only idiots can be obedient. The person of intelligence is bound to ask why? -- "Why am I supposed to do it?" And, "Unless I know the reasons and the consequences of it, I am not going to be involved in it." Then he is becoming responsible.

Responsibility is not a game. It is one of the most authentic ways of living -- dangerous too -- but it does not mean disobedience for disobedience's sake. That will be again idiotic.

But just to go against obedience is not moving your intelligence higher. You remain on the same plane. Obedient or disobedient, but there is no change of intelligence.

To me disobedience is a great revolution.

It does not mean saying an absolute no in every situation. It simply means deciding whether to do it or not, whether it is beneficial to do it or not. It is taking the responsibility on yourself. It is not a question of hating the person or hating to be told, because in that hating you cannot act obediently, disobediently; you act very unconsciously. You cannot act intelligently.

When you are told to do something, you are given an opportunity to respond. Perhaps what is being told is right; then do it, and be grateful to the person who told you at the right moment to do it. Perhaps it is not right -- then make it clear. Bring your reasons, why it is not right; then help the person -- what he is thinking is going in a wrong way. But hate has no place.

If it is right, do it lovingly.

If it is not right, then even more love is needed, because you will have to tell to the person, explain to the person that it is not right. The way of disobedience is not stagnant, just going against every order and feeling anger and hate and revenge towards the person. The way of disobedience is a way of great intelligence.

So it is not ultimately obedience or disobedience. Reduced to the basic fact, it is simply a question of intelligence -- behave intelligently. Sometimes you will have to obey, and sometimes you will have to say, "I am sorry, I cannot do it." But there is no question of hate, there is no question of revenge, anger. If hate, anger or revenge arises, that simply means you know that what is being told is right, but it goes against your ego to obey it; it hurts your ego. That hurt feeling comes up as hate, as anger.

But the question is not your ego; the question is the act that you have to do -- and you have to bring your total intelligence to figure it out. If it is right, then be obedient; if it is wrong, be disobedient. But there is no conflict, there is no hurt feeling.

If you are obeying it, it is easier; you need not explain to anybody. But if you are not obeying it, then you owe an explanation. And perhaps your explanation is not right. Then you have to move back, you have to do it.

A man should live intelligently -- that's all.

Then whatever he does is his responsibility.

We have been brought up to follow the powerful -- the father, the mother, the teacher, the priest, the God. Essentially we have been told that whoever has the power is right: "Might is right." And you have to follow it. It is simple because it needs no intelligence. It is simple because you can never be told that it was your responsibility, that whatever happened was your responsibility.

In all the armies around the world only one thing is taught through years of training, and that is obedience. In Germany, in the second world war, there were good people, but they were heads of concentration camps. They were good fathers, good husbands, good friends. Nobody could have conceived -- watching them in their families, with their friends, in the club -- that these people are burning thousands of Jews every day.

And they were not feeling guilty at all, because it is only an order from above. And that is their whole training, that you have to follow the order. It has become part of their blood and their bones and their marrow. When the order comes, obedience is the only way. This is how man has lived up to now, and that's why I say obedience is one of the greatest crimes, because all other crimes are born out of it. It deprives you of intelligence, it deprives you of decisiveness, it deprives you of responsibility. It destroys you as an individual.

It converts you into a robot.

Hence I am all for disobedience. But disobedience is not just against obedience. Disobedience is above obedience and the so-called disobedience described in the dictionaries. Disobedience is simply the assertion of your intelligence: "I take the responsibility, and I will do everything that feels right to my heart, to my being. And I will not do anything that goes against my intelligence."

Just live intelligently.

If something is told to you, decide whether it is right or wrong, then you can avoid all guilt feelings. Otherwise, if you don't do it, then you feel guilty; if you do it, again you feel guilty. If you do it you feel that you are being obedient, subservient, that you are not being assertive, that you are not being yourself. And if you don't do it, then you start feeling guilty again -- because perhaps it was the right thing to do, and you are not doing it.

There is no need for all this clumsiness. Just be simple. If something is told to you, respond intelligently. And whatsoever your intelligence decides, do it this way or that -- but you are responsible. Then there is no question of guilt.

If you are not going to do it, explain to the person why you are not going to do it. And explain without any anger, because anger simply shows that you are weak, that you don't really have an intelligent answer. Anger is always a sign of weakness. Just plainly and simply explain the whole thing; perhaps the other person may find that you are right and may be thankful to you. Or perhaps the other person may have better reasons than you; then you will be thankful to the other person because he has raised your consciousness.

Use every opportunity in life for raising your intelligence, your consciousness.

Ordinarily what we are doing is using every opportunity to create a hell for ourselves. Only you suffer, and because of your suffering, you make others suffer. And when so many people are living together, and if they all create suffering for each other, it goes on multiplying.

That's how the whole world has become a hell.

It can be instantly changed.

Just the basic thing has to be understood, that without intelligence there is no heaven.