Why am I afraid of society?

Why think about society at all? Who can stop you? Who can stop you, unless you are prepared to be stopped? And why are we prepared to be stopped? Because we have entered into a surreptitious kind of contract with the society.

You are not afraid of the society.

You are afraid of letting go of your privileges, your emoluments that you get from the society.

Your self-worth comes from the society, so you are afraid of the society.

That — “What happens if the society takes away my self-worth?”

The society has given you your name, it gives you a certain respect, it gives you all your identities. You are afraid that the society can take all of them away. You have entered into a business contract with society. That is the reason why you are afraid. You are taking so much from them, you don’t want this to stop. You want to keep taking from them.

Students across campuses often come to me and say, “This is what we want to do. I want to do this, I want to do that, but my family does not allow me. Under pressure of these people I have given up, and now I want to do this. I really think that I love that field, but I am not really being allowed.”

And there are people in their final years of graduation, they come up and say, “Well, we are students of Electronics Engineering, but we are being pressurized to take jobs in Software and IT sector. And we do not want to do that.” And I ask them, “Why do you feel the pressure? It is alright if another person wants to exert the pressure, but why do you feel the pressure?”

And let me tell you why they feel the pressure. They feel that pressure, because all the time they are benefiting a lot from that they are taking from others. I have been a student of IIT and IIM, and a very significant number there, studies on education loans. Very significant number. Not that their parents are beggars and cannot afford their education, but they prefer to take education loans. But I have come across to any private engineering college, where not more than a quarter are studying on education loans.

How many over here are studying on education loans? (A few in the audience raise their hands). Again, not more than a quarter. See. The statistic holds good. It is…