From Bondage to Freedom

CHAPTER 1

To be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world
15 September 1985 am in Rajneeshmandir

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,
PLEASE SPEAK ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEDIOCRITY AND ORDINARINESS.
Mediocrity is the general state of humanity as it is. It is a retardedness of intelligence. Nobody wants
you to be intelligent, because the more intelligent you are, the more it is difficult to exploit you, to
enslave you.
Every vested interest wants you to be mediocre. A mediocre person is just like a tree whose roots
have been continuously cut so it cannot grow. The mediocre person never comes to know fruition,
flowering, fragrance. He lives just like a vegetable. But this is the common state. And to keep the
mediocre, mediocre, a strange thing has to be put in his mind: that he is extraordinary.
George Gurdjieff used to tell a story....
There was a shepherd who was a magician, and he had many sheep. To take care of them, not to
let them wander into the forest and be eaten by wild animals, he managed a strategy. He hypnotized
all the sheep and told them, ”You are not sheep, you are lions.” Since that day, the sheep started
behaving like lions.
The mediocre person will rebel against mediocrity because it is ugly to be mediocre. But the society
in many ways gives him the feeling of being extraordinary. Hence, it is very difficult to find a man
who does not, deep down, believe that he is special – the only begotten son of God.

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