The Confidence of Innocence

 WE HAVE BEEN discussing the question of revolt within the prison: how all reformers, idealists, and others who are incessantly active in producing certain results are always revolting within the walls of their own conditioning, within the walls of their own social structure, within the cultural pattern of civilization which is an expression of the collective will of the many. I think it would now be worthwhile if we could see what confidence is and how it comes about.

            Through initiative there comes about confidence, but initiative within the pattern only brings self-confidence, which is entirely differently from confidence without the self. Do you know what it means to have confidence? If you do something with your own hands, if you plant a tree and see it grow, if you paint a picture, or write a poem, or, when you are older, build a bridge or run some administrative job extremely well, it gives you confidence that you are able to do something. But, you see, confidence as we know it now is always within the prison, the prison which society—whether communist, Hindu, or Christian—has built around us. Initiative within the prison does create a certain confidence, because you feel you can do things: you can design a motor, be a very good doctor, an excellent scientist, and so on. But this feeling of confidence which comes with the capacity to succeed within the social structure, or to reform, to give more light, to decorate the interior of the prison is really self –confidence: you know you can do something, and you feel important in doing it. Whereas, when through investigating, through understanding, you break away from the social structure of which you are apart, there comes an entirely different kind of confidence which is without the sense of self-importance; and if we can understand the difference between these two—between self—confidence and confidence without the self—I think it will have great significance in our life.

            When you play a game very well, like badminton, cricket, or football, you have a certain sense of confidence, have you not? It gives you the feeling that you are pretty good at it. If you are quick at solving mathematical problems, that also breeds a sense of self-assurance. When confidence is born of action within the social structure, there always goes with it a strange arrogance, does there not? The confidence of a man who can do things, who is capable achieving result, is always colored by this arrogance of the self, the feeling, ‘It is I who do it.’ So, in the very act of achieving a result, of bringing about a social reform within the prison, there is the arrogance of the self, the feeling that I have done it, that my ideal is important, that my group has succeeded. This sense of the ‘me’ and the ‘mine’ always goes with the confidence that expresses itself within the social prison.

            Have you not noticed how arrogant idealists are? The political leaders who bring about certain results, who achieve great reforms — have you not, noticed that they are full of themselves, puffed up with their ideals and their achievements? In their own estimation they are very important. Read a few of the political speeches, watch some of these people who call themselves reformers,  and you will see that in the very process of reformation they are cultivating their own ego: their reforms, however extensive, are still within the prison; therefore they are destructive and ultimately bring more misery and conflict to man.

            Now, if you can see through this whole social structure, the cultural pattern og the collective will which we call civilization—if you can understand all that and break away from it, break through the prison walls of your particular society, whether Hindu, Communist, or Christian, then you will find that there comes a confidence which is not tainted with the sense of arrogance. It is the confidence of innocence. It like the confidence of a child who is so completely innocent he will try anything. It is this innocent confidence that will bring about a new civilization, but this innocent confidence cannot come into being as long as you remain within the social pattern.

            Please do listen to this carefully. The speaker is not in the least important, but it is very important for you to understand the truth of what being said. After all, that is education, is it not? The function of education is not to make you fit into the social pattern; on the contrary, it is to help you to understand completely, deeply, fully and thereby break away from the social pattern, so that you are an individual without that arrogance of the self, but you have confidence because you are really innocent.

            It is not a great tragedy that almost all of us are only concerned either with how to fit into society or how to reform it? Have you noticed that most of the questions you have asked reflect his attitude? You are saying, in effect, ‘How can I fit into society? What will my father and mother say, and what will happen to me if I don’t?’ Such an attitude destroys whatever confidence, whatever initiative you have. And you leave school and college like so many automations, highly efficient perhaps, but without creative flame. That is why it is so important to understand the society, the environment in which one lives and, in that very process of understanding, break away from it.

 

            You see, this is a problem allover the world. Man is seeking a new response, a new approach to life, because the old ways are decaying, whether in Europe, in Russia, or here. Life is a continual challenge, and merrily to try to bring about a better economic order is not a total response to that challenge, which is always new; and when cultures, peoples, civilizations are incapable of responding totally to the challenge of the new, they are destroyed.

            Unless you are properly educated, unless you have this extraordinarily confidence of the innocence, you are inevitably going to be absorbed by the collective and lost in mediocrity. You will put some letters after your name, you will be married, have children, and that will be the end of you.

            You see, most of us are frightened. Your parents are frightened, your educator are frightened, the Governments and religions are frightened of your becoming a total individual, because they all want you to remain safely within the prison of environmental and cultural influences. But it is only the individuals who break through the social pattern by understanding it, and who are therefore not bound by the conditioning of the own minds—it is only such people who can bring about a new civilization, not people who merrily conform, or who resists one particular pattern because they are shaped by another. The search for God or truth does not lie within the prison, but rather in understanding the prison and breaking through its walls—and this very movement towards freedom creates a new culture, a different world.