The last testament, Chapter #14
Chapter title: Awareness Is My Successor
3 September 1985 pm in Jesus Grove
Length: 	107 mins
[NOTE: This discourse is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 6.]
MA YOGA PRATIMA
RAJNEESHPURAM,
OREGON

QUESTION: BELOVED BHAGWAN, CAN ONE BE A DROPOUT AND STILL BE RESPONSIBLE? IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DROPPING OUT AND ESCAPISM?

ANSWER: There is tremendous difference between the two. Escaping is an act of cowardliness, because you could not face the situation. You could not find guts enough to encounter whatever was the situation. You escaped. You showed your back out of fear. The escapist will never be able to forgive himself. How can he forget that he has been cowardly?
The dropout is a totally different phenomenon. He is not dropping out of a particular structure, society, religion, out of fear. In fact he was preventing himself from dropping out, out of fear. His dropout is his declaration of freedom, individuality. His dropout signifies that he is no more part of a crowd, that now he is going to seek and search on his own; that he is no more a follower of Christ or Krishna, that he does not believe in any god or in any hell or heaven