"They will become retarded, stupid, idiotic, may become schizophrenic, split into two persons – or perhaps a crowd.

"In times of crisis, the danger is for those who have enjoyed the times when the society was settled, when there was no problem, everything was at ease, they were honored, respected. These were the people who had enjoyed the obedience of the mind, and these are going to be the sufferers. It is a simple arithmetic. They will go psychotic, they will go neurotic – and these words don't make much difference.

"I have heard a definition. One psychoanalyst was asked, 'What is the difference between psychosis and neurosis?'

"The psychoanalyst said, 'The psychotic person believes that two and two are five. And the neurotic person knows that two and two are four, but is not at ease with the fact that two and two are four.' So the difference is very fine. Both are in trouble.

"But times of crisis are of tremendous significance for those daring souls who have never bothered about society's respectability, its honors; who have never bothered about what others think about them, but have done only that which they felt right to do; who have in a certain way always been rebellious, individualistic. For these people the times of crisis are just golden, because the society is disintegrating. Now it cannot condemn anybody – it is itself condemned, cursed. It cannot say to others that they are wrong. It is itself proving wrong; its whole wisdom is proving just foolish, superstitious.

"The daring individual can use this opportunity to go beyond mind, because now the society cannot prevent him, cannot hinder him. Now he is free.

"It is almost like a situation in a jail when the doors are open, the guards have disappeared and the jailer is nowhere to be found. The people who have some sense, some intelligence, will use it for freedom. But those who have become so enslaved that they cannot think of freedom – imprisonment has become their home – they will simply panic, 'What is going to happen today? No guards? No jailer? The doors are open! Who will take care of us? Who will provide food for us?'

"There will be people whose slavery has penetrated to their very soul; these people will go berserk."