Sacrifice

 If parents are sacrificing for their children, then sooner or later, when the parents are old, they will demand sacrifice from the children. They will say, “We sacrificed so much for you, now you sacrifice for us.”

The country demands sacrifice from the people who live in it, the church demands sacrifice, everybody demands sacrifice. Just look around you: they all are standing around you, asking for sacrifice. And they teach you that to sacrifice is moral.

To sacrifice is immoral! Whether you sacrifice for the country or for the religion or for the children, it is immoral. It is immoral because it does not allow you to live your life. You become sad, you become frustrated, and then in return, you start coercing others to sacrifice for you. Then the whole life of the whole world becomes simply crippled and paralyzed…

I teach you a kind of self-love. You are not created to sacrifice yourself for somebody else, you are not created to serve others. You have been taught this because those others want you to serve them, to sacrifice. And because they want you to serve them, they have to serve you; because they want you to sacrifice yourself for them, they have to sacrifice themselves for you. So we are at each other’s throats continuously, demanding sacrifice.

The whole idea has to be dropped. You are created to live and celebrate, just as others are being created to live and celebrate.