the society is neurotic
The child is not allowed to taste freedom. If the child asks the mother, "Mom, can I go outside? The sun is beautiful and the air is very crisp and I would like to run around the block," immediately -- obsessively, compulsively -- the mother says, "No!" The child has not asked much. He just wanted to go out into the morning sun, into the brisk air, he wanted to enjoy the sunlight and the air and the company of the trees -- he has not asked for anything! -- but compulsively, out of some deep compulsion, the mother says no. It is very difficult to hear a mother saying yes, very difficult to hear a father saying yes. Even if they say yes, they say so very reluctantly. Even if they say yes, they make the child feel that he is guilty, that he is forcing them, that he is doing something wrong.
Whenever the child feels happy, doing whatsoever, somebody or other is bound to come and stop him -- "Don't do this!" By and by the child understands, "Whatsoever I
feel happy in is wrong." And of course he never feels happy doing whatsoever others tell him to do, because it is not a spontaneous urge in him. So he comes to know that to be miserable is right, to be happy is wrong. That becomes the deep association.
If he wants to open the clock and see inside, the whole family jumps on him -- "Stop! You will destroy the clock. This is not good." He was just looking into the clock; it was a scientific curiosity. He wanted to see what makes it tick. It was perfectly okay. And the clock is not so valuable as his curiosity, as his inquiring mind. The clock is worthless -- even if it is destroyed nothing is destroyed -- but once the inquiring mind is destroyed much is destroyed; then he will never inquire for truth.
Or it is a beautiful night and the sky is full of stars and the child wants to sit outside, but it is time to go to sleep. He is not feeling sleepy at all; he is wide awake, very, very much awake. The child is puzzled. In the morning when he feels sleepy, everybody is after him -- "Get up!" When he was enjoying, when it was so beautiful to be in the bed, when he wanted to take another turn and have a little more sleep and dream a little more, then everybody was against him"Get up! It is time to get up." Now he is wide awake and he wants to enjoy the stars. It is very poetic, this moment, very romantic. He feels thrilled. How can he go to sleep in such a thrill? He is so excited, he wants to sing and dance, and they are forcing him to go to sleep -- "It is nine o'clock. It is time to go to sleep."
Now, he was happy being awake but he is forced to go to sleep. When he is playing he is forced to come to the dining table. He is not hungry. When he is hungry, the mother says, "This is not the time." This way we go on destroying all possibility of being ecstatic, all possibility of being happy, joyful, delighted. Whatsoever the child feels spontaneously happy with seems to be wrong, and whatsoever he does not feel at all seems to be right.
In the school a bird suddenly starts singing outside the classroom, and the child is all attention towards the bird, of course -- not towards the mathematics teacher who is standing at the board with his ugly chalk. But the teacher is more powerful, politically more powerful than the bird. Certainly, the bird has no power, but it has beauty. The bird attracts the child without hammering on his head, "Be attentive! Concentrate towards me!" No, simply, spontaneously, naturally, the consciousness of the child starts flowing out of the window. It goes to the bird. His heart is there, but he has to look at the blackboard. There is nothing to look at, but he has to pretend.
Happiness is wrong. Wherever there is happiness the child starts becoming afraid something is going to be wrong.
If the child is playing with his own body, it is wrong. If the child is playing with his own sexual organs, it is wrong. And that is one of the most ecstatic moments in the life of a child. He enjoys his body; it is thrilling. But all thrill has to be cut, all joy has to be destroyed. It is neurotic, but the society is neurotic.
The same was done to the parents by their parents; the same they are doing to their children. This way one generation goes on destroying another. This way we transfer our neurosis from one generation to another. The whole earth has become a madhouse. Nobody seems to know what ecstasy is. It is lost. Barriers upon barriers have been created.