If you abuse your authority, you are political...

Only people who want to abuse their authority become interested in authority. If you have some authority, watch. Even small authorities corrupt people. You may be just a constable standing on the crossroads, but if you have the opportunity, you will abuse it; you will show yourself who you are.

You are just standing at the railway window of a railway station and the booking clerk goes on doing something -- and you can see that he has nothing to do. He goes on turning pages here and there. He wants to delay. We wants to show you that now he has the authority. He says, 'Wait.' He cannot lose this chance to say no to you.

Watch -- in yourself also. Your son comes and says, 'Daddy, can I go out to play?' You say, 'No!' And you know well and the son knows well that you will allow him. Then the son starts shrieking and jumping and screaming and he says, 'I want to go!' Then you say, 'Okay, go.' And you know it; it has happened before the same way. And there was nothing wrong in going outside and playing. Why did you say no?

If you have authority, you want to show it. But then the son also has some authority. He starts jumping, he creates a tantrum, and he knows that he will create trouble and the neighbours will listen and people will think wrong about you, so you say, 'Okay, go.'

In every human encounter you will see it happening -- people are throwing their authority all around; either bullying people or being bullied by others. And if somebody bullies you, you will immediately find some weaker person somewhere to take the revenge.

If your boss bullies you in the office, you will come home and bully your wife. And if she is not a lib movement woman, then she will wait for the child to come home from the school, and she will bully the child. And if the child is old-fashioned, not american, then the child will go to his room and crush his toys, because that is the only thing he can bully. He can show his power on the toy. But this goes on and on. This seems to be the whole game. This is what real politics is.

To get out of the political mind is the meaning of this sutra:
"IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO ABUSE ONE'S AUTHORITY."

So whenever you have some authority.... And everybody has some authority or other. You cannot find a person, you cannot find the last person who has no authority; even he has some authority, even he has a dog he can kick. Everybody has some authority somewhere. So, everybody lives in politics. You may not be a member of any political party; that doesn't mean that you are not political. If you abuse your authority, you are political. If you don't abuse your authority, then you are non-political.

Become more aware not to abuse your authority. It will give you a very new light -- how you function -- and it will make you so calm and centered. It will give you tranquillity and serenity.