People are living as if they are closed from everywhere. Their existence is a kind of shut-upness. Their existence is windowless: the sun never penetrates into their beings, nor the wind, nor the rain.
They simply live closed into themselves. They are afraid of coming into the open, because if they come into the open people may change their ideas about them. When they want to cry they laugh, because what will people think? Crying is sissy! They will condemn. They keep a very strong face, the face of steel, and behind this is a child who wants to cry, who wants to play around, who wants to run in the garden after the butterflies, who wants to collect wildflowers. But that they never allow, they remain stiff. They go on repressing the child, and that child is far more valuable than what you are pretending to be because the child is real, authentic. And the people who live in this kind of shut-upness cannot grow, because growth means being in constant communion with existence, being nude with existence, hiding nothing, keeping no secret, remaining available and vulnerable, remaining open to all kinds of risks and dangers. Only then does growth happen.
-Rajneesh
By 
By 
