Are we willing to go into the question of knowing oneself? Because oneself is the world. Human beings, right throughout the world—whatever their color, their religion, their nationality, their beliefs—suffer psychologically, inwardly. They go through great anxieties, great loneliness, have an extraordinary sense of despair, depression, a sense of meaninglessness of living the way we do. Throughout the world, people are psychologically similar. That's a reality, that’s truth, that’s an actuality. So you are the world psychologically and the world is you; and when you understand yourself, you are understanding the whole human structure and nature. It is not mere selfish investigation, because when you understand yourself, a different dimension comes into being.
What will make us change? More shocks? More catastrophes? Different governments? Different images? Different ideals? You have had varieties of these, and yet you have not changed. The more sophisticated our education, the more civilized we become—civilized in the sense of being more removed from nature—the more inhuman we become. So what shall one do? As none of the things outside of me are going to help, including all the gods, then it becomes obvious that I alone have to understand myself. I have to see myself and change myself radically, Then goodness comes out of that. Then one can create a good society.
-This Light in Oneself
