Danger

 

 

I was in a car and there was an accident, and one of the most beautiful accidents possible. Three persons were with me, but they missed the whole thing completely. It could have been a revolution in their lives, but they missed. The car went down into a river bed, into a dry river bed, from a bridge. The car was totally upside down, and the three persons with me began crying; they began weeping.

 

One woman was there and she was crying. She was just beside me and she was crying, "I am dead! I am dead!"

 

I told her, "If you were dead, then no one would be here to say this."

 

But she was trembling, and she said, "I am dead! What will happen to my children?" Even after we carried her out of the car she was trembling and saying the same thing: "What will happen to my children? I am dead!" It took at least half an hour for her to calm down.

 

She missed the point. It was such a beautiful thing: suddenly she could have stopped everything. And one couldn't do anything. The car was falling from the bridge, so her activity was not needed at all. One couldn't do anything. But still the mind can create activity. She started thinking about her children, and then she began crying, "I am dead!" A subtle moment was missed.

 

In dangerous situations the mind stops automatically. Why? Because mind is a mechanism and it can work with only routine things -- that which it has been trained to do.

 

You cannot train your mind for accidents, otherwise they would not be called accidents. If you are ready, if you have passed through rehearsals, then they are not accidents. `Accident' means that the mind is not ready to do anything. The thing is so sudden, it leaps from the unknown -- mind cannot do anything. It is not ready, it is not trained for it. It is bound to stop unless you start something else, unless you start something for which you are trained.

 

This woman who was crying about her children was not at all attentive to what was happening. She was not even aware that she was alive. The present moment was not in her focus of consciousness. She had moved away from the situation to her children, to death and to other things. She had escaped. As far as her attention was concerned, she had escaped from the situation completely.

 

But as far as the situation was concerned, nothing could be done; one could only be aware. Whatsoever was happening was happening. One could only be aware. As far as the present moment is concerned, in an accident what can you do? It is already beyond you, and the mind is not prepared for it. The mind cannot function, so the mind stops.

 

That is why dangers have a secret appeal, an intrinsic appeal: they are meditative moments. If you race a car and it goes beyond ninety miles per hour, and then beyond one hundred and then beyond one hundred and ten and beyond one hundred and twenty, then a situation comes in which anything can happen and you will not be able to do anything. Now really, the car is beyond control, going beyond control. Suddenly the mind cannot function; it is not ready for it. That is the thrill of speed -- because a silence creeps in, you are thrown to the center.