"Man was never as sad and as miserable as he is today. Seeing us, even the birds may wonder, “What has happened to man?” Even the birds flying in the sky may feel pity and compassion for us. There must certainly be talk among the plants and the trees about man going berserk and becoming perverted. In the whole universe, from the biggest stars and moons, to the smallest pebble on a riverbank on earth, there seems to be a flowing current of bliss. Only in the heart of man has a desert grown. No sooner does a stream appear than it dries up. Man alone is an insane species. Man alone is mad. And it is not that just a few are mad – no, we are all mad.
"We have created our madness in two forms: one in which we can still manage some kind of adjustment to life, and another, where any adjustment to life becomes impossible.
"There are two kinds of mad people: one who somehow molds himself to fit into the madness of the society – he becomes passable. And the other, who is unable to mold himself into the madness of the society – for those people, separate madhouses have to be built.
"The earth has become divided into two kinds of madhouse. One is the small type, confined within walls. The other, the bigger one, is outside the confines of those walls. It has spread all over the earth.
"When we look within each person, we will understand what a difficult and worrisome life we live. It is not that we do not smile – from morning to evening we smile many times, but our smiles are quite often nothing more than an effort to hide our tears. And it is not that we do not sing songs, but our every song is a way to suppress the echoes of our crying. It is not that we do not appear outwardly happy, but all our happiness is on the surface; sitting there, deep down, is a very sad soul.
"Each and every person, if he looks within, will become filled with compassion for himself. And until we are filled with compassion for ourselves, we cannot be filled with compassion for our neighbors." Osho