This bit of wisdom is worth consideration IMO - particularly in the case of those who have been deeply programmed by religion to think in the collective. Taken from;
http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Beloved_Osho_Books/Darshan_Diaries/A_Rose_is_a_Rose_is_a_Rose.pdf
But to begin with, feeling less guilty is very very important. The whole of humanity has been made
to feel guilty – centuries of conditioning, of telling people to do this and not to do that... and not
only that, but forcing them by saying that if they do something that is not allowed by the society or
by the church, then they are sinners. If they do something which is appreciated by the society and
the church, then they are saints.So everybody has been fooled into doing things that society wants
them to do, and not to do things that society does not want them to do. Nobody has bothered about
whether this is your thing or not. Nobody has bothered about the individual.
The thinking up to now has been this – that the individual exists for the society so the individual has
to follow just what the society says. He has to fit with the society. That is the definition of the normal
human being – to fit with the society. Even if the society is insane, you have to fit with it; then you are
normal. Even if the society is neurotic and you try to be sane, you will be thought neurotic because
the society is the majority. They have power so they can make anybody feel guilty.
They have put a deep mechanism inside you which they call a conscience which, if you move slightly
away from the norm, the accepted rules of the game, immediately says, ’Wrong! Wrong! You are
doing something wrong!’ Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing and
society demands something contrary. If the society was demanding the same as nature demands,
there would have been no conflict. Man would still have remained in the garden of Eden.
The problem arises because society has its own interests which are not necessarily in tune with the
individual and his interests. Society has its own investments. The individual has to be sacrificed.
This is a very topsy-turvy world. Just the other way round should be the right thing.
The individual does not exist for the society. The society exists for the individual. Because society is
just an institution. It has no soul. An individual has the soul, is the conscious centre; it has a centre.
God resides in the individual, not in the society. Society is nothing – just a word.
You cannot come across society anywhere. Wherever you go, you will come across the individual.
Society is just in the dictionaries and in the legal codes of the courts. It is a term but a very big
blanket term. It covers many things. And for this blanket term the real individual can be sacrificed –
and he has been up to now.
Jeff