FREEDOM FROM, FREEDOM FOR

Never think in terms of being free from; always think in terms of being free for. And the difference is vast, tremendously vast. Don't think in terms of from – think for. Be for God, be free for truth, but don't think that you want to be free from the crowd, free from the church, free from this and that. You may be able to go far away one day, but you will never be free, never. It is going to be some sort of suppression.
Why are you so afraid of the crowd?... If the pull is there, then your fear simply shows your pull, your attraction. Whenever you go you will remain dominated by the crowd.
What I am saying is just look at the facts of it – that there is no need to think in terms of the crowd. Just think in terms of your being. It can be dropped right now. You cannot be free if you struggle. You can drop it because there is no point in struggling. The crowd is not the problem – you are the problem. The crowd is not pulling you – you are being pulled, not by somebody else but by your own unconscious conditioning.
Always remember not to throw the responsibility somewhere on somebody else, because then you will never be free of it. Deep down it is your responsibility. Why should one be so much against the crowd? Poor crowd! Why should you be so much against it? Why do you carry such a wound? The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate. So the question is of your cooperation. You can drop the cooperation just now, just like that. If you put any effort into it, then you will be in trouble. So do it instantly. It is just on the spur of the moment, of spontaneous understanding, if you can see the point that if you fight, you will be fighting a losing battle. In the very fighting you are emphasizing the crowd.
That's what happened to millions of people. Somebody wants to escape from women – in India they have done that for centuries. Then they become more and more engrossed in it. They want to get rid of sex and their whole mind then becomes sexual; they think only for sex and nothing else. They fast, and they will not go to sleep; they will do this and that pranayama and yoga and a thousand and one things – all nonsense. The more they fight with sex the more they are enforcing it, the more they are concentrating on it. It becomes so significant, out of all proportion.
That is what has happened to Christian Monasteries. They became so repressed, just afraid. The same can happen to you if you become afraid to much of the crowd. The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate, so it is a question of your alertness. Don't cooperate!
This is my observation: that whatsoever happens to you, you are responsible. Nobody else is doing it to you. You wanted if to be done, so it has been done. Somebody exploits you because you wanted to be exploited. Somebody has put you into a prison because you wanted to be imprisoned. There must have been a certain search for it. Maybe you used to call it security. Your name may have been different, but you were hankering to be imprisoned because in a prison one is safe and there is no insecurity.
But don't fight with the prison walls. Look inside. Find that hankering for security and how the crowd can manipulate you. You must be asking for something from the crowd – recognition, honor, respect, respectability. If you ask them, you have to repay them. Then the crowd says, “Okay, we give you respect, and you give us your freedom.” It is a simple bargain. But the crowd has never done anything to you – it is basically you. So get out of your own way!

(Osho)