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To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.
Rajneesh
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights the idea that our perceptions of good and bad are subjective, urging us to look inward rather than get caught up in external realities.

Rajneesh suggests that understanding the relative nature of good and bad is a transformative experience that leads to a deeper awareness of oneself. By recognizing that social realities are mere constructs, one can engage with life more playfully and less seriously, enabling a more profound engagement with the roles we play without misplacing their ultimate importance.

Themes

PerceptionRealityPhilosophyTransformationDramaRoles

In practice

Example use cases

Use this quote in a discussion about the nature of reality and perception in a philosophy class.

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