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The Last Testament, Vol 4

Interviews with the World Press

Talks given from 21/10/85 to 11/12/85

English Discourse series

30 Chapters

Year published:

The discourses listed as being titled "The Last Testament, Vol 1" are titled that way on the tape.

The book "The Last Testament, Vol 1" contains a different numbering scheme, as it contains interviews selected from the whole Ranch period. Volumes 2, 3 and 4 (as numbered on the tapes) will probably never be published as such.

All other series in the database have been numbered and titled as in the books they appear in, 1/08/07

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Query:-

this will not be so for the Last Testament series, they will take their numbering from the original numbers given them.

Many of the interviews from the World Tour have not been listed as being part of any Last Testament Volume and they have been arbitrarily assigned to Vol.'s 4, 5 and 6 in groups of thirty.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #1

Chapter title: The Last Before The First

21 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510215

ShortTitle: LAST401

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 88 mins

[NOTE: The first interview is a tape transcript which has not been edited or published. It is for reference only. The second interview is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 31.]

SWAMI PREM PRASAD, MA YOGA PRATIMA, RAJNEESHPURAM, OREGON

INTERVIEW WITH SWAMI PREM PRASAD

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF

RELIGION? AND COULD YOU SPEAK TO THE SCIENTISTS WHO ARE MEETING TO DISCUSS

CONFLICT AND UNITY IN THE CHURCHES AT THE UPCOMING CONFERENCE IN GEORGIA?

A: It is one of the most ridiculous questions that I have come across! (laughter) It is more absurd than somebody asking about a poetic study about mathematics, or a medical study about paintings! This is more absurd for the simple reason because scientific approach is basically objective. It needs some object to study, something outside, something there, so it can be dissected, so that it can be analyzed, put into test-tubes.

And religious experience is not an objective phenomenon at all. Religious experience is subjective. The scientist can study everything as an object but he cannot study himself as an object. It is just not in the nature of things to reduce your subjectivity into an object.

And the whole religious experience is purely subjective experience. You go more and more inwards. A point comes when there is nothing left, nothing which you can say (is) an object, but pure consciousness, pure subjectivity.

This experience of pure subjectivity is religious experience. There is no way for science to study it. It can study about it. But to study it, and to study about it, are totally different things. You can study about swimming without knowing swimming. But to know swimming is a totally different thing. You can study about love, without ever being in love. There are hundreds of books on love. You can become a great scholar on love. But that will not make you a lover!

So the first thing I would like, emphatically clear, is that science has no business as far as religious experience is concerned. Yes, if scientists want to experience religion, that is possible. But that is not through study; that is through meditation.

And then, again brings to another difficulty: in science this is one of the basic rules that you should not be identified with the object of your study. You should remain indifferent, aloof. If you become identified, then your study will not be objective.

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because in meditation, he has to become one with his being. All separation has to be dropped. And everything that separates thoughts, feelings, emotions; they all have to be dropped. So only an organic unity of consciousness remains.

The scientist cannot stand outside it and watch it. He will be inside it. He will be experiencing it. But he cannot stand outside it and watch it, the way he is accustomed to do in his labs: standing outside things, watching. That is not possible.

Just as science has its own fundamentals, religious experience has its own fundamentals.

The first fundamental is: it can never be an objective thing. You can experience it but you cannot study it. You can be it but you cannot be a watcher. Being it will transform you. It will bring new qualities to you.

But that will not be study. That will be transformation. That will be mutation.

So these people who are thinking to study religions have to understand first thing that religious experience is not within the world of objective study. You are it! How can you put yourself on the table?

And at the same time standing by the side of the table dissecting yourself? And if it is possible in some way, then the person you have put on the table is not you. The person who is dissecting, standing by the table, is you.

So let me say it in another words: Consciousness is irreducible to an object. Whatever you do, it always remains the subject.

I am reminded of a Japanese toy children play. In Japan they call it Daruma doll. Daruma is Japanese name for Bodhidharma. The doll has a special quality. You can throw it any way, but it will always fall down sitting in a lotus posture. That you cannot change. You can topple it; you can hit it; you can throw it.

But whenever it will come to settle, it will settle in the lotus posture. Because its bottom is made heavy, and the whole body is light. So there is no way; in any other way it cannot settle. It has to settle in the lotus posture. The posture in which Bodhidharma used to sit.

This Daruma doll signifies the quality of consciousness: Whatever you do it always settles as a subject; never as an object. And to study, it has to be an object.

The very nature of consciousness debars any study. It is available for experience, but not available for experiment.

This is the most fundamental thing you have to emphasize before the Conference.

Second thing: They can study religions. About that, there is not problem. They can study Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism. Because these are all corpses. The living religious experience is not there. That mystical quality perhaps may have been in the beginning. And because of that mystical quality, people gathered around a master; organized a religion and destroyed the whole thing.

Truth cannot be organized. That is the sure and certain way to murder it! And all these religions are murdered corpses. They don't have any soul. You can study them. But remember: studying them, don't start thinking that you are studying religious experience. Religious experience always exists within the individual. It cannot be organized.

Just as it cannot be objectified; in the same way, it cannot be organized. The difficulty is: you cannot bring it to language. The experience happens in absolute silence. How to bring that silence into words.

Whatever you do, it escapes your small words. It is too big; it is too vast! Even the sky is not the limit for it.

For thousands of years we have been trying to bring religious experience into words. But it goes on defying.

All these religions are organized around words: the Holy Bible, the Koran, the Gita. And words are absolutely impotent.

You can study these religions. There is no problem about it. They are objective. And being objective is a solid proof that they are no more religious experience.

There is only one book which can be said to have STILL "having the religious experience". It is a Sufi book called the Book of Books. It is all empty; not a single word written in it. It has been handed over from one master to another disciple, who had arrived and become a master. From master to master, for generations the book has been passed on. It contains the truth. But it has no words: empty pages.

Those empty pages say something, and say very loudly that all words are lies. That only if you can empty yourself from all words, thoughts, perhaps you may have the taste of religious experience.

You can study these religions, their rituals, their prayers, their architecture, their different codes of conduct, manners. But these have nothing to do with religious experience. In fact these religions are the greatest hindrances for individuals to achieve the experience. Studying these religions in the name of religious experience is not only befooling yourself, it is befooling the whole world.

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of human life. Corpses...! You loved your wife, you loved your mother, you loved your father, but one day your father dies. You have to take him to the crematorium. That does not mean that you did not love him.

Burning his body in the crematorium is not a proof that you never loved him. What do you want? To go on carrying his dead body whole of your life as a proof that you loved your father? But how many bodies you will carry? Your mother will die; your wife may die; your child may die; your friend may die. Soon your house will be full of corpses. And living among those corpses, do you think you will remain alive? You yourself will become a corpse.

These religions have been the most poisonous thing that has happened to humanity. Yes, once in a while a man like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu experienced. And the fragrance of his experience, without saying a single word, started drawing people towards him as if some invisible magnetic force was working.

People loved to be near Gautam Buddha for no other motive: just to be in his presence; just to hear whatever he says. His each word has a poetry, has a song in it. But remember it does not express his experience. His experience has changed even his gestures. They have a grace now.

You will be surprised to see the statues in India of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, and twenty-three Jaina masters. None of them has beards or moustache. Strange! It is not possible that they were not having moustache and beard. Once in a while there is somebody who does not grow, is missing in some hormones.

But so many people, and particularly the enlightened one, missing in some hormones! And all without exception.

The truth is something else. They all had moustaches. They all had beard. But after their enlightenment, their whole being became so graceful and so feminine. To give expression to that gracefulness, the sculptor has found a symbol. That is just symbolic. He has removed the moustache and the beard. They are all young. They all became old. Buddha died when he was eighty-two but all the statues show him nearabout, at the most, thirty-five.

And the same is the case with Mahavira. He has died at eighty. But the statues are all young, again it is symbolic. The body became old but the spirit remained young. Now how to express it in marble? The youthfulness became almost their very being. The body became sick, the body became old, the body died.

But what they had experienced is still alive, is still young, is still part of existence.

But around these people, and it was natural, the way the Buddha walked, the way he talked, the language he used, the food he ate, the clothes he wore, everything became to the lovers something to be followed. As if by following it, you can become a buddha!

That's how traditions are created, religions are created. Then for thousands of years people are doing the same. Still the Buddhist monks learn the language Pali that Buddha used. Now it is a dead language.

Nobody uses it. But Buddhist scriptures are in Pali, and Buddhist scholars like it to read it in the original. It has some flavor of Buddha himself. But no language can carry the flavor. Because he used only a certain kind of clothes, the Buddhist monk has been using the same clothes. He used to have a beggar's bowl. Every Buddhist monk has a beggar's bowl.

You are just imitating the outward signs and thinking that, if you can perfectly imitate all outward signs and symbols, perhaps the inward experience will automatically happen. This is not so. It has no relationship.

You can eat the same food. That does not mean you will become a Buddha.

You can study religions. They are all dead. Science can study corpses. That's what science does. In every medical college you can find corpses being studied. Science cannot study anything living, for the simple reason: the moment you dissect it, it dies. I suspect, and perhaps one day my suspicion will be found to be true, that when you study the blood of a man, you take the blood out and you study it. That is dead blood. You are not really studying the blood that is alive in the man.

It is like you cut my finger and you study it. Do you think the finger that you have cut and studying is my finger? It is dead!

So all the studies of blood, all the studies about human body are not really about the real living organism. You take something out of it. The moment you take it out of it, you have taken out of its living context. It is something dead. And this is about small parts.

And science has not been able yet to find anything that it can pin-point as life, for the simple reason: If you dissect a man you have killed him already.

It is like you are studying dance. But to study the dance, you have to stop the dancer because his dance disturbs your study: "You keep still and let me study the dance". But while he is still there is no dance. You can have either the dancer, or you can have the dance. You can't have both together to study.

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should be taken to the crematorium. You will not find, by studying them, what religion is.

The basic approaches are diametrically opposite. Science goes outwards. Religion goes inwards. The whole effort of science is to demystify existence. That's the whole purpose of science.

Science divides existence into two categories: the known and the unknown. What was unknown yesterday, is known today. What is unknown today, may be known tomorrow or day after tomorrow. But some day the unknown is bound to be reduced to the known. The whole project is that these two categories of unknown and known disappear and there is only one category: the known. I call it demystification, destroying the mystery from existence. Everything becomes known.

Religion is not an effort to demystify. It is an effort to rejoice in the mystery, to deepen the mystery, to become one with the mystery, to be so utterly drowned in the mystery, that only the mystery remains and the explorer has evaporated.

These are totally opposite goals. Science tries to demystify. This is an effort to conquer nature. Man, the knower, remains in the end, and the whole existence becomes just his known territory -- conquered!

In religion, as you enter deeper, you start melting. At the final point, you are no more: only the mystery is.

Do you see the totally different states? In one the man becomes the conqueror. Nature with all its mystery is destroyed. It has become a known thing. In religion, man disappears, and only the mystery remains.

Science can never study religion. The scientist can become religious, but the way is not the way of study. The way is of the meditation.

So make it clear to the Conference that it is absolutely absurd to study religions. For thousands of years scholars have been doing that. It is just meaningless -- wastage of time.

And then there is another ideal of the Conference: How to bring religions, creeds, cults, closer to each other so they can drop their conflicts. They cannot drop their conflicts. Because their conflicts are the only reason for their existence. If they drop their conflicts, their very reason to exist disappears. You are asking too much!

And what is the point of bringing two corpses together? It will stink more. They all have to be destroyed! -- so that religious experience can become available to individuals, free of organized religions.

Now, I don't see how you can manage to bring conflicting religions, sects, together. I will give you few examples, and you can understand it is impossible. For example, Jesus Christ drinks wine. Hence in Christianity, alcohol is not sin. Do you think you can convince a Jaina, a Buddhist, a Hindu, that alcohol is not sin? -- that you can convince that Jesus Christ is enlightened?

Christianity worships Jesus Christ because he was crucified. He suffered crucifixion on behalf of the whole humanity. He took over the suffering of all humanity on himself. But that doesn't correspond to reality because humanity remains miserable -- in fact, more miserable than ever. Suffering goes on growing.

So did Jesus Christ cheat the poor people? It seems to be simply a fraud. But this is one of the biggest points of Christian theologians against Buddhists, Jainism, Hinduism, because none of their masters suffered for humanity.

Jesus died for humanity. But if you ask the Hindu, the Jaina, the Buddhist, they will laugh at the whole thing. Their idea is totally different. A crucifixion simply proves this man must have committed, in his past lives, tremendously evil acts. Otherwise crucifixion cannot happen.

In Mahavira's life it is said that even a thorn on the path, seeing that Mahavira is coming, will move from the way! Because Mahavira has completely finished with all evil acts of his past lives. Now nothing can harm him. And Mahavira on the cross -- that is sheer stupid. To the Jaina, it is impossible.

To the Buddhist, it is impossible. Even a rock was rolled to kill him.... He was meditating under a tree; and a rock, a big rock, from the hill-top was rolled. They have measured every step, because he was using that place for meditation every day, morning. And it was no one but his own cousin-brother who was jealous of Buddha's glory and fame and following. He managed this rock. The rock was rolled. The rock came just close, two or three feet away, and then changed its way. How the rock can kill a man who has no bad karmas left?

How can you manage these people come close? To them Jesus is a criminal. In his past life he has committed crimes for which he is suffering. And their masters are finished with every sin and every evil act.

Now there is no question for their being crucified. It is impossible.

Many efforts have been made before to bring these religions together. Their differences keep them alive.

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of years: quarreling, fighting, arguing. This is all their religion.

In the first place it is impossible to bring them together. Because each of them thinks he is right. And everybody else, at the most, he can tolerate. At the most, co-existence can be accepted. But deep down, he knows they are wrong.

Secondly, my emphasis is: Why bother to bring these corpses together? Let them fight with each other.

Perhaps that is the only way of their getting finished: fighting with each other. Why make them more stronger, bringing together? Protestants and Catholics, let them fight! Let them have good fight! Let them kill each other! The population will be less. Retarded people will be less!

And if we can be finished with all these religions, man can start thinking anew, searching for himself.

The people who are really interested in the growth of human religiousness are interested in making religiousness a science unto itself.

Mind my words: It will not be a science like chemistry, physics, biology. It will be a science unto itself.

Because its dimension is different. It will be the science of the interior subjectivity, interiority. The scientist discovers about everything except himself. This will be the science which discovers the scientist. But nobody else can do it because it is an interior science. Only the scientist can go in. Everybody has to go in.

He cannot have a companion there. The inner privacy is absolute. Nobody can enter. Except you! And you are already there -- just not aware.

So the scientist can help by becoming meditators, by becoming explorers of the interior of their own being. They can also help by condemning the organized religions: that these are all frauds; that there is no way to organize truth. And let the intelligentsia of the world get rid of all these primitive organizations which are holding you by the neck and crushing you.

The world needs religious people, but it does not need religions. It needs a very liquid, fluid, consciousness.

Now scientists have discovered that there is a biosphere around the earth. Because of this biosphere, life is possible. If man becomes conscious, religious, we will grow a new layer to the biosphere: a sphere of consciousness, and which will be the glory of the earth. No planet in the whole universe has reached to that point -- which is within our reach. But religions have to die.

So tell the Conference my message: Death to all religions! -- so that we can save religiousness. My work is very strange: fighting against religions; fighting for religiousness.

INTERVIEW WITH MA YOGA PRATIMA

RAJNEESHPURAM

OREGON

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, WHY HAVE YOU CALLED THIS SERIES OF TALKS TO THE WORLD

MEDIA THE LAST TESTAMENT?

ANSWER: The word testament is immensely significant. It is my testimony. I am speaking on my own authority. It is my experience.

There have been two other testaments. The Old Testament is mostly rubbish, but here and there there are a few sentences which indicate that whoever said them must have known. For example, The Song of Solomon is one of the best songs that has ever been written in any language. It contains tremendous beauty.

It is a symbology. But you will be surprised that both Jews and Christians are ashamed of the song. They don't want to discuss The Song of Solomon. They would have liked it to be edited out, but now it is too late.

And that is the only thing in the whole testament which is still living. Something in it is still vibrant. It is the testimony of Solomon, who has known love and its highest peak, truth and its deepest meaning, and has sung it as a song in a very allegorical way. So only a few, only those who have experienced those heights and those depths, can understand it. Others will think there is nothing in it.

Then there is the New Testament. Jesus was not satisfied with the Old Testament. It was good but not good enough, and Jesus has really much improved on it. His testimony is very small, just four gospels. They are four versions of the same story, too -- four disciples writing about Jesus, his statements, his works -- so it is a very small statement. But it is significant... a quantum leap from the Old Testament.

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never forgets, either. Jesus says God is love. It is great change, a great evolution, and certainly his words should be called the New Testament.

But two thousand years have passed. On the words of Jesus much dust has gathered. Moreover, he himself was not an enlightened man. He was a man of great intelligence -- uneducated, illiterate, but of sharp intelligence. But that does not make much difference to me.

You can be very intelligent. You can make good statements, beautiful sounding words. And his words are pure honey in many places -- sweet, nourishing, simple, but great -- but still they are of the mind. They are not of the heart.

The Song of Solomon is of the heart. That's why it is allegorical, dreamlike. It is not conceptual. It gives no argument, no explanation. It simply unfolds a tremendously beautiful panorama. Jesus is more inclined towards the head. His words are not of the same beauty as Solomon's, but they are more logical. They are more rational. It is not surprising that Christianity has become the world's greatest religion. The words of Jesus are the reason. They have a tremendous appeal even though they may not be right. And on most occasions they are not right.

This is my testimony, and I am speaking from my being -- neither from the heart nor from the head. And because it is my testimony, I would like it to be called THE LAST TESTAMENT.

But remember, the last existed even before the first, because being is first, then comes the heart, then comes the head; without being, they are nothing. So although I am speaking thousands of years after the first testament, what I am saying is existentially far deeper, far greater. It transcends both the New Testament and the Old Testament.

I could have called it the Third Testament, but I am calling it THE LAST TESTAMENT for the simple reason that a fourth is not possible. There is nothing beyond being. So I am saying the last word. And it is time that the last word should be said.

The Old Testament God is jealous. That shows the mind of the people who were writing about him. Man always creates God in his own image. Jesus said God is love. Again, he is changing jealousy into love. On the surface it looks a great change, but if you look just a little deeper, jealousy and love are together. They are not that far away. In fact, with love comes jealousy. And you cannot be jealous without being in love.

I am saying that there is no God. I am simply removing the whole question. God with jealousy, God as love, but God remains. Both remain dependent on a father figure. I am declaring the maturity of man, that there is no need of any father figure. There is no God; and with him go heaven and hell, with him go all kinds of esoteric nonsense.

Once God is not there, reality, existence, feels so clean and so pure. And you suddenly feel so free that all bondages have disappeared. You need not be a theist, you need not be even an atheist. You are simply free from the very idea. It was just a projection of a helpless child. Man has come of age.

And whatever I am saying, there is no way to improve upon it. I have removed God, now what are you going to improve upon? Jesus improved. He changed jealousy into love. I have removed God himself. Now there is no question of any improvement.

Hence, I call it THE LAST TESTAMENT. I am going to cover slowly everything that is essential for the explosion of religious consciousness. I am going to destroy everything that is non-essential and a hindrance to religious consciousness.

I am taking the greatest risk anyone has ever taken. I am creating as many enemies as anyone has ever created, for the simple reason that I know what I am saying is not a quotation from a scripture. I am saying it on my own authority. It is my own truth, and truth knows no defeat.

The final victory is always going to be of the truth.

Okay?

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #2

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Chapter title: None

22 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510225

ShortTitle: LAST402

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 117 mins

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH SWAMI DEVA NITAM, SCIENCE 85 MONTHLY, ITALIAN EDITION OF THE AMERICAN

MAGAZINE

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, THE FIRST QUESTION IS VERY GENERAL. WE KNOW THAT SCIENCE

KNOWS ONLY ABOUT OBJECTIVE REALITY AND DOESN'T HAVE ANY UNDERSTANDING OF

DEEPER PHENOMENON, LIKE LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS. THIS LACK OF UNDERSTANDING IS

THOUGHT TO BE ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS FOR ALL THE ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS AND FOR

THE CONTINUOUS INCREASE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. IN YOUR VISION, CAN SCIENCE BE IN

THE SERVICE IN LIFE AND MAN'S EVOLUTION? WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE TO SCIENTISTS TO

SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

Answer: Every university, every science institute, should make it absolutely necessary that anybody who graduates as a scientist has also to graduate as a meditator. And meditation will be the priority. If you cannot pass as a meditator, you cannot be allowed a science degrees from the university. That's the only way

-- to make every scientist a meditator so that he becomes aware in himself of deeper things -- life, love, consciousness -- and ultimately the eternity of one's being.

The problem with meditation is that everyone has to go into it individually. You cannot teach it like any other subject. Any other subject can be taught to a class, there is no need that it be taught only to the individual. And every other subject can be examined collectively; people can answer the same questions.

Neither meditation can be taught as any other subject because it is not objective, nor can it be examined through examinations. It's learning will be different, it's examination will be different, because the whole dimension is different. The method can be told collectively, but each individual has to practice the method individually. And he is not only the practitioner, but also the examiner. As he goes deeper, only he knows that his thoughts are becoming less, that his mind is left far behind, that his feelings are evaporating, that he has come to a space which he has never known before where his mind has become non-existent. His ego has simply disappeared like a shadow.

@A090 He is, but he cannot say "I am" He can only feel the isness of his being, but he cannot assert it as "I" because he can see that he is connected with the whole existence; and only the whole existence can use the word "I." But the whole existence is absolutely silent. There is no need for it to use the word, because there is no other existence to talk with. And each individual is only an individual superficially, just as each wave on the ocean is individual but deep down it is just ocean.

But there can be certain criteria for which the person can be examined from outside, too. For example, this person will lose all possibility of anger. So you have to put him in situations where ordinarily anger would be the reaction, but he will not be angry. On the contrary, he be feel very compassionate and understanding. He will become very sensitive about everything; his listening, his seeing, his touch, his taste, his capacity to smell -- all his senses will start functioning at their highest peak.

You can easily understand whether his sensitivity has deepened or not. His love will become unconditional. It will not be any longer a love-hate relationship, it will be just love. And conditions can be arranged where his beloved falls in love with somebody else. You have to watch his reaction. If he is a meditator, he will feel immensely happy that the person he loves is happy. It doesn't matter with whom, with 1/08/07

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him or with somebody else; what matters is, the person he loves is happy.

His total perspective about things will be different than the ordinary man is, so you cannot have examinations like you have in other subjects. You will have to create situations and watch: if he still reacts in the old ways, then meditation has not happened. @A160 If he behaves from some new dimensions, something which seems almost impossible.... Your beloved being happy and having pleasure with somebody else and you are rejoicing because she will be so happy -- it is against man's animal nature. It is possible only when man has touched something of the superman.

And the same about many things. You will find the man in sickness, in health, the same. In sickness he will not be miserable. The body may be sick, the body may be in pain, but you can see the man is not affected by it. In pain or in pleasure he remains the same. In poverty or in richness he remains the same. His inner tranquility is not disturbed by anything. He may become famous, he may become notorious -- it doesn't matter. What others say about him no longer matters at all; what matters is his own experience of himself.

For the ordinary man what others say matters too much, because he has nothing of his own. Whatever he thinks he is, is just a collection of opinions of other people. Somebody has said, "You are beautiful,"

somebody has said, "You are intelligent," and he has been collecting all these. And hence he's always afraid: he should not behave in such a way that he loses his reputation, respectability. He is always afraid of public opinion, what people will say, because all that he knows about himself is what people have said about him.

If they take it back, they leave him naked. Then he does not know who he is: ugly, beautiful, intelligent, unintelligent. He has no idea, even vaguely, of his own being; he depends on others.

But the man of meditation has no need of others' opinions. He knows himself, so it does not matter what others say. Even if the whole world says something which goes against his own experience, he will simply laugh. At the most, that can be the only response. But he is not going to take any step to change people's opinion. Who are they? They don't know themselves and they are trying to label him. He will reject labeling. He will simply say, "Whatever I am, I am, and this is the way I am going to be."

So in different situations... it will take a little longer time than an ordinary examination takes, but it is worth it. He should be put into every possible situation, and watched. A few qualities will start evolving very clearly out of him. His mental age will suddenly become equal to his bodily age -- which is measurable.

Ordinarily, the mental age remains near thirteen, although the person may be seventy. That's why... just scratch a person a little bit and he starts behaving like a child, throws a tantrum. You cannot believe that an educated man, a professor in the university, would behave like that. A woman so educated, who has a doctorate in philosophy, starts throwing things in the kitchen. The mental age is not equal to the physical age.

The meditator immediately takes the jump. If he is thirty, his mental age also is thirty, and that always remains balanced. Till the last breath, his mind goes on growing up.

Things which can be very visible will be that he is no longer ambitious. He is creative, he wants to create: but he is no longer a competitor, he does not want to compete. @A294 The very idea of competition goes against meditation. His creating is for its own joy -- it has an intrinsic value. He may paint, he may compose music, he may write poetry, but it is not to compete with somebody else's. It is not to get a Nobel prize; Every moment he is creating, he is getting his Nobel prize. In the very act of creation he is rewarded, nothing more is needed.

He will not be ambitious. He will lose all interest in politics. He will lose all interest in anything that is in the service of death, destructive. You cannot force a meditator to make atom bombs, nuclear weapons -

impossible.

It is possible today, because inside there is nobody to say no. It is possible today because the ambition is there, the great job is there, publicity is there, the Nobel prize is there -- respectability is there and these are your considerations.

If you want to change so that science is not destructive to ecology, so that it is not destructive to humanity... on the contrary, it can enrich ecology. It can make humanity take tremendous quantum leaps of growth but for that the scientist has to be transformed first.

And the only way is that no university should allow any scientist to go out of the university without proving that he has attained the state of meditation. It may take one year, two years, it doesn't matter. He can have his scientific degrees, but they will have to wait. Unless he proves himself a meditator, those degrees will not be given to him.

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That's the only way that the future generation of scientists can be a totally different kind, a different category, a discontinuity with the past scientists.

These scientists are in a strange position they are blind as far as their own consciousness is concerned.

And they are intelligent enough to create, but they are blind: they don't know what they are creating, whether it is going to serve humanity or to destroy it. For their small rewards and salaries and awards... they don't think that what they are doing is going to create Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Q: IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO HELP THIS PROCESS? IS THERE SOMETHING

SANNYASINS CAN DO TO HELP THIS PROCESS OF TRANSMISSION OF MEDITATION TO THE

UNIVERSITY?

A: Sannyasins can be made available to every university. Sannyasins -- just one sannyasin is enough for one university to teach meditation, because the method can be given collectively, for all the classes of scientists, from students to the professors. And one sannyasin is enough to create situations. Whenever any meditator in the university says that he has experienced it and he is now ready to go through any fire test, then situations can be created. This much we can do, so they need not be worried about who will introduce meditations: our people are in every country, almost of every language, and we can make them available.

Q: ONE OF THE BASIC PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE IS LANGUAGE. SCIENCE IS GROWING

BECAUSE WE HAVE A CLEAR DEFINITION OF WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. ONE OF THE

BASIC PROBLEMS FOR A SCIENTIST, WHEN THEY ARE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE

INNER JOURNEY MEANS, IS TO DEFINE CLEARLY, FOR EXAMPLE, WHAT CONSCIOUSNESS

MEANS. MOST OF THE SCIENTISTS DON'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONSCIOUSNESS, AWARENESS AND THE CONSCIOUS MIND. THEY ARE USING THIS TERM IN THE SAME WAY. SO I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU IF IT'S POSSIBLE TO HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THOSE

TERMS.

A: Yes, there is no difficulty. Words can be defined clearly. The difficulty is not because of the words, the basic difficulty is coming from somewhere else.

That is, the scientist, deep down, does not believe that there is anything inner. He may say so, he may not say so, but his whole training, his whole education, makes him trust only objects which he can dissect, which he can observe, which he can analyze, which he can compose, create, uncreate, find out their basic constituents. His whole mind is object-oriented, and subjectivity is not an object.

So if he wants subjectivity to be put before him on the table, that is not possible; that is not the nature of subjectivity. So the scientist goes on finding everything in the world except himself.

A great barrier exists, and the barrier is that there is nothing inner. When you cut a stone into pieces, what do you find? -- more stone. You go on cutting smaller pieces, smaller pieces; you get to molecules, you get to atoms, you get to electrons, but still you have not come to anything inner. They are all objects.

He would also like life to be found in the same way, and because he cannot find life in the same way, he starts denying it. And consciousness is even more difficult a problem; because he cannot touch it, dissect it, find out its constituents, he simply rejects it. It does not exist.

So this is his prejudice. Because of this prejudice, he gets confused. And this prejudice can disappear very simply, if he hypothetically accepts -- I'm not saying he has to believe it, just hypothetically he accepts that if there are things outside, then it is something very scientific to accept that there must be things which are inner, because in existence, everything is polarized by its opposite. The outer can exist only if there is an inner. The unconscious can exist only if there is consciousness. This is the simple dialectics of life -- and he knows it, in existence everywhere he will find the same dialectics. Everything is opposed by its opposite.

And they both are in some strange way complementary to each other -- opposing, and still complementary to each other.

Denying the inner is a very unscientific attitude. So first one has hypothetically to accept that the inner exists. Secondly, one has to understand that the methodology that works for the outer cannot work for the inner. Simply because the inner is the opposite dimension, the same methods will not be applicable. You 1/08/07

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will have to find new methodology for the inner. And that's what I call meditation: this is the new methodology for the inner.

Q: THIS IS WHAT YOU MEAN BY RELIGION BECOMING SCIENTIFIC?

A: Yes. If a new methodology is used, there is no problem. We are not telling him to accept anything.

He can deny other religions without any difficulty, because they all want you first to accept belief, to have faith. He cannot dispose me. Nobody can, for the simple fact that I am not asking you to believe in me. I am simply saying, hypothetically give a chance to a new method.

And logically I can explain to you that a new method is needed, because you are going into a new dimension; your old methods won't work. And if you find yourself that there is a vast universe inside you, far more valuable than all the stars together... because just the feeling of love has more value than the whole universe. What value has the universe?

Just a little bit of absolute silence and you attain to new heights of consciousness; even Everest is left far behind. Just a little experience of your own being, and you have touched the very heart of existence. And you know now life is eternal; death is only a change of form.

But this life is not available to your crude instruments. It is too subtle, your instruments are too crude. It needs subtle instruments, and that's what meditations are. And once the experience is there, the clarity comes: what is mind, what is no-mind, what is consciousness and what is super-consciousness. As you go deeper, finally you come to the cosmic consciousness, in which you are no longer in the old way. The dewdrop has lost its boundaries, it has become one with the ocean: it is an oceanic feeling, that you are one with the whole.

So these words can be made very clear only through experience, not through dictionaries -- the people who are writing dictionaries have never meditated.

(Tape side B)

It is time that science moves inwards. It will do two things: it will make science complete; otherwise it is half, and half-truths are more dangerous than lies. And science is still a half-truth. That's its destructiveness, that's why it has disturbed the whole ecology. It is going to destroy the whole planet. And whatever it is doing, with all good intentions, turns out to be wrong. It does not help, it injures. So one thing -- if it moves inwards, it becomes complete. Then the truth has both an inner heartbeat and an outer body.

This is one side. On the other side, if science becomes whole, religions have to die. They don't have any function, because science can do far better than these old religions have been doing.

So to me it is a double-edged sword; on the one hand it will destroy the materialistic scientist, on the other hand it will destroy the so-called organized religions. And they both need to be in their graves as soon as possible. Then science is enough.

And then science need not be Christian -- it is not. If physics can be just physics, not Christian, not Hindu, not Jewish, then what is the point? When science discovers consciousness and becomes the inner science of man, it will be simply the science of the inner. No question of Christianity, no question of Hinduism. All those dodos can jump in any lake. And they will not die until science accepts the responsibility of going in. Because that field is left uncovered. Then it can be exploited by all kinds of conmen. That's what your so-called religious saints are: conmen, exploiting people for centuries. But once science enters... It has happened in other places. There was astrology -- the moment science entered, it started disappearing; a new science, astronomy, came into being. Astrology faded by itself, lost its ground.

As chemistry developed, alchemists disappeared, there was no need for them.

This is a very critical moment for both, science and the old organized religions. If science wants to save humanity and this earth, it has to make the scientist also a saint. Now the division cannot be tolerated. That split is driving the whole humanity schizophrenic.

Q: I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU ONE QUESTION, A VERY DELICATE QUESTION. IN THE PAST

THERE HAVE BEEN SCHOOLS AND MASTERS WHO HAVE USED A VERY SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

TO RELIGION OR MEDITATION -- LIKE PATANJALI, PYTHAGORAS, GURDJIEFF. IS THERE

ANYTHING IN THEIR TEACHING WE CAN USE OR DO WE HAVE TO CREATE A TOTALLY NEW

KIND OF SCIENTIFIC WAY?

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A: We have to create a totally new scientific way. Whoever has been teaching a scientific attitude must be creating a fiction, because science as it is now is so addicted to the object that its whole approach and attitude is objective.

You cannot use that objective attitude for the inner journey of man.

Yes, you can use it about Patanjali, because ninety-nine percent of Patanjali is just physical exercise.

Only one percent is concerned with the inner, and nobody takes note of it. People get lost in the jungle of the ninety-nine percent, so Patanjali has become reduced to yogasanas, the yoga postures. They can be studied very scientifically -- they are objects, they are physical exercise -- there is no problem about it.

But meditation cannot be studied in an objective way. We can explain what steps one has to take and then leave it to the person. We can help the person, if he gets stuck at some stage, to remove the hindrance, but we cannot in any way describe to him the final experience. We can only talk about the way, not about the goal. The goal can only be experienced, not explained, even though those who have experienced it can also indicate the way. The goal is so vast, the experience is so infinite, that words just cannot contain it, cannot convey it. All methods have been used to convey it -- painting, sculpture, dance, drama, poetry -- but nothing succeeds. The moment you say something about it, you know you have distorted it; it is not the same thing.

It is exactly like when you love someone. Now the feeling of that love is one thing, and when you say to the person, "I love you," you know these words "I love you" do not express what you feel. The feeling is so big, so alive, and the words are so dead and so small, that in fact people start saying to each other "I love you" when they stop loving. Only husbands and wives say to each other, "I love you."

Lovers hesitate. They may rather hold each other's hand and sit silently; perhaps something transpires hand to hand. You may give a roseflower rather than saying "I love you". That roseflower can say more, much more.

But the experience of one's being is millions of times bigger than love. No roseflower can help.

So all that can be done is to point the way. And it is not difficult. And I have enough sannyasins now.

More universities can send their people here to learn methods, and they can go back to the university and just teach -- at least the people who are going to be the scientists. If everybody learns, it will be tremendously beautiful, because the man who is going to be a poet, if he knows meditation too, his poetry will have a different flavor.

But the scientist has to learn it, it cannot be optional, because in his hands are now life and death. And if he is not aware of his own life, how can he be in the service of the life that is all around? If he is aware of his own life, then he is aware of the life of plants, of the life of the mountains, of the life of animals, of other human beings. Then he cannot do anything against life.

Now in such an advanced technological age we can produce artificial meat; there is no need to kill animals. Or we can give the taste of meat to any vegetable, the flavor. If people are so idiot that they cannot live without eating meat, then artificial meat can be available, vegetarian meat can be available. Meat can be grown in the fields.

We can grow so much food if science turns towards enriching the earth... which has been exploited for millions of years and has become very poor. They can enrich it now, there is no need for poverty. But they are all interested in nuclear weapons. The same nuclear energy can be diverted into creating a more comfortable, more luxurious life for everybody on the earth.

But that will happen only when the person understands his own life, its value; his own consciousness, its enormous infinity. And it is the earth, in the whole solar system, which has come to such a point of evolution where life has turned into consciousness. A few people have gone beyond consciousness into superconsciousness, and a small number has gone even to the cosmic consciousness. That's what I call enlightenment.

Destroying this earth is not only destroying this planet, it is destroying millions of years of effort of the whole solar system. And nobody knows, it is just assumed, that perhaps there are fifty thousand planets in other solar systems which may have some kind of life. But no scientist has said that anywhere in this vast universe.... The vastness is simply inconceivable.

There are a few stars whose rays have not reached the earth. The earth is four billion years old -- in four billion years their rays have not reached the earth. It is possible that the earth may die and those stars will never come to know about it. By the time their rays reach it, it will have happened; it lived, it evolved, it 1/08/07

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destroyed itself.

In such a vast universe, no scientist even suspects that there is, anywhere, consciousness. Now, to destroy this consciousness is simply the uttermost stupidity that man can do. Anything -- communism, democracy, capitalism -- all that garbage means nothing when the question of saving human consciousness arises. All those questions have no meaning. But the scientist has to be made aware of it; particularly the new generation can be made aware. And slowly approaches can be made to the old generation too, because the old generation also is feeling uneasy.

Just a few days ago, twenty nuclear physicists of America -- who are the founders of nuclear plants in America, who are the only twenty experts in America -- wrote a petition to the Supreme Court: "Now it is time that this piling up of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons should be stopped. We founded these plants and now we are shaking, because what we have done can destroy all life on the whole earth, any moment."

The question is arising in their mind too. But rather than writing a petition to the Supreme Court, it would be more dignified for those twenty nuclear physicists to stop working. It is better to be beggars on the street and declare clearly to the American government: "We can only create nuclear energy in the service of life --

we refuse to serve death."

Just writing a petition won't help. Nothing else happened -- the petition has been filed, and they go on creating more nuclear weapons. Because they have good salaries, good houses, everything the best, it is difficult for them. But they can be made conscious. They can be approached, because they are becoming aware.

The same is the situation in the Soviet Union. Sakharov, who was the best physicist in the whole world... he was the president of the Soviet Academy of Science. Because he showed a few signs of independence, because he refused the Soviet Government -- the Soviet government wanted him to refuse the Nobel prize and he did not -- the best mind in the whole world is now just rotting in Siberia. And nobody is caring, the whole world is silent. And he is rotting for you. He was removed from the directorship, his car was taken away, his salary was dropped, his house was taken away and then finally he was thrown into Siberia -- just to live there and wait for death. And in Siberia he is not the only scientist; three other Nobel prize-winners are in the same situation. When the Nobel prize was given to them the government was unwilling and wanted them to refuse, and they did not refuse; they are also there.

So there is a possibility that the new generation can certainly be changed. The old generation can also be made aware that at least they should refuse to work in the service of death. And they should say to their government, "We are ready to work, we will change your nuclear energy towards creativity, rather than destruction."

The intelligentsia has to create the atmosphere. Universities have to wake up. Every university has to fight, and every intelligent person who is around the world doing any kind of creative work has to join hands and create such an atmosphere around the earth that the politicians start feeling ashamed of what they are doing, that they start feeling guilty. And it is not difficult. When it is a question of life and death, it can be done. Then everything is easy. And I have enough sannyasins around the world, whom I can make available to every university, to every college. And we can train people, more people; they can send their people and we can train them. And there is no need to teach all kinds of meditations, just one method I can choose which can be the simplest, easiest, and applicable to all. And just that one method can be spread all over the world.

Q: WHICH ONE COULD BE?

A: It is what I call witnessing the breath. It is a very simple method. Just in your silent moments when you are sitting, or traveling in a train or in a plane, close your eyes and watch your breath. Going in, you go with it; coming out, you come outward.

As you go in, come out, you will become aware of two points. As you go in, there is a small, fragment of a moment when the breath stops before it starts moving outward. And the same happens outside: before it has moved outward, for a split second the breathing stops, before it again moves in. These two points are very significant, because as you become more and more aware, these points will become more and more clear, longer. One breath goes in and then there is a pause, breathing stops. And in that pause there is so much beauty, so much bliss. And the same happens outside; again the breathing stops. And these gaps go on becoming bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger.

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There comes a time, which has been calculated for almost ten thousand years, and has been found to be exactly the same by all meditators who have used the method... the pause is of forty-eight minutes. You have arrived home. Then all that meditation can give to you will be available to you.

Now this is the simplest method that I have found. I have tried all the methods that have been tried down the ages by all the traditions and I have made my own methods. But this seems to be the simplest -- and done without anybody knowing about it. Somebody can be sitting by your side and he will not know what you are doing. It need not be done at a particular time, you can do it any time. You can do it as many times in the day as is possible -- sometimes just for two minutes; sometimes for longer periods, sometimes just for one or two minutes. Sometimes you are not feeling sleepy and you are just lying on the bed; don't bother about sleep, just do the method. It will do both jobs; it will give you a deep meditative silence, and just by doing it... you will only know in the morning when you wake up that somewhere sleep came in.

But the strange thing is, if you meditate and fall into sleep, you will wake up meditating. That means in a subtle way, in your deep unconscious, the method continued; your whole night became a meditation. Now that is the longest period you can get. And your sleep will be of a different quality -- more silent, more relaxed, more rejuvenating.

And for six and eight hours, subliminally the witnessing continues. In the morning when you become aware that you are awake, you will be surprised: you are witnessing your breath.

This is the simplest method which can be spread to all kinds of people, to all ages of people. The smallest child who can understand this much language can do it. And the oldest man, who is just on his deathbed, can do it, because it does not need any physical exercise, does not need any physical posture. And if the man who is on the deathbed can go on doing it and die doing it, he will have his best experience of life, in death. And he will wake up in the new womb witnessing his breath. That continuity even goes on when your consciousness leaves one body and moves into another womb. Its riches are innumerable.

(Tape side C)

But every scientist compulsorily must be meditative, and then it is only a question of twenty years. till the new generation takes over and we can create the science of the inner. Then science has two dimensions: the science of the outer and the science of the inner. And all these hocus-pocus religions will disappear of their own accord; there is no need even to do anything about them.

Q: BHAGWAN, ONE OF THE BASIC PROBLEM OF THE PSYCHOLOGIST IS THAT THEY ARE

USING A MODEL OF MIND WITH YOURSELF AS A SUBJECTIVITY IN THE CENTER. AND THEN

BELOW THAT THERE IS AN UNCONSCIOUS MIND, AND A COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS MIND.

THE MODEL YOU ARE USING SEEMS TO HAVE TWO POLARITIES. ONE IS THE SELF, THE

CONSCIOUS MIND, OUR IDENTIFICATION WITH OUR PERSONALITY. AND THEN THERE IS A LAYER OF MIND, A KIND OF CONSCIOUSNESS WHICH IS THE STATE BELOW THAT, WHERE

THERE IS NO-MIND. AND IT SEEMS THAT IN ORDINARY HUMAN PEOPLE THESE TWO POINTS

ARE TOGETHER, THERE IS AN IDENTIFICATION. AND IN THE ENLIGHTENED ONE THERE IS A CLEAR OBSERVATION OF THIS SEPARATION BETWEEN SELF OR PERSONALITY, AND

CONSCIOUSNESS. IS THIS SO?

A: It was Sigmund Freud in the West who for the first time used the words "unconscious mind". He had no idea that in the East we have five thousand-year-old scriptures using the idea of the unconscious mind.

So he thought he had discovered something. Then Jung found that if you go deeper than the unconscious, you find a collective unconscious mind. That too in the East we have been aware of for centuries.

One thing more we have been aware of which the West has still to find out: if you go below the collective unconscious mind, you will find the cosmic unconscious mind. And that is very logical.

Conscious mind is personal, unconscious mind is impersonal. The collective unconscious mind is all that has preceded you: the whole history of mind is contained in it. But this cannot be the foundation. Below it there is a cosmic unconscious mind, which is the mind of the whole existence.

These are the steps if you go below, downwards. So -- collective unconscious mind, unconscious mind, cosmic unconscious mind -- these three are the steps below the conscious mind. Exactly three are above the conscious mind, which nobody has in the West yet even thought about.

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mind. It is above the conscious mind. You can call it "conscious no-mind" -- no-mind because there are no thoughts, just absolute silence. Many meditators stop here, thinking that they have arrived. So there are a few religions in the East which have stopped at the no-mind, just as Sigmund Freud stopped at the unconscious mind and never bothered to go deeper into it. But there have been seekers who tried to reach higher.

As you go higher than the conscious no-mind, you find superconsciousness, or the superconscious mind.

This superconsciousness is exactly the equivalent of the lower collective unconscious mind.

In this state of superconscious mind you experience that you are not separate; you are part of a consciousness sphere which is above the bio-sphere that surrounds the earth, you partake with the whole sphere. This makes you aware of the oneness of consciousness.

A few religions have stopped at the superconsciousness, just as Jung stopped at the collective unconsciousness. Above it is the cosmic conscious mind that makes you feel one, not only with consciousness but with the whole existence as such. This is the point where one can feel what Patanjali calls samadhi.

The word samadhi means all problems are solved, all questions are dissolved. You have come to a space which knows no questions, no problems, which is eternally blissful. This is the place which can be called godliness, because you are one with the whole existence.

Western psychotherapy has gone only on the lower steps of the ladder. And the reason why they have gone on the lower steps of the ladder is because Western psychology started studying sick, mentally deranged people. They were on the lower steps, so naturally they started finding out more and more about those lower steps. Eastern psychology has simply mentioned that these steps are there to be avoided, but they have not been studied. No thesis is available in the East which goes into details about these steps, they have simply been mentioned.

But in the East the higher steps have been very deeply studied, because they were studying the meditators, not the sick people. Because the objective study was different, the whole approach became different. They were studying the meditators so they became aware of the no-mind, of superconsciousness, of cosmic consciousness.

They were moving towards healthier states of consciousness, and they were finding ways how to move.

Western psychology unfortunately started with sick people. It has arrived at least up the collective unconscious; someday somebody will find the cosmic unconscious too. Their whole work is how to pull the sick person back to the normal consciousness, which they think is of great importance. In the East that is the place which has to be left, and in the West that is the place which has to be arrived at.

Q: IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO HAVE US GO IN BOTH THE DIRECTIONS: SOMEHOW TO CLEAN OUR UNCONSCIOUS, DEEP DOWN...

A: Certainly, I have to do both. And my work is more complex than anybody else's has ever been --

cleaning, through therapies, the unconscious layers, and raising the consciousness through meditation.

I want my sannyasins to become aware of all these seven states. One they are in, three are below, three are above. Of these seven states, three have to be avoided and three have to be nourished. And one has to go on moving towards the seventh.

So I'm working both ways. Therapies are trying to clean the lower storeys of our being and meditations are trying to open up the closed storeys of our upper being. And this can be done together.

If a man remains only normally conscious, it is not something great to brag about. If he falls down, which is very easy, because there are not very clear-cut divisions. In the night you move into the unconscious., you dream. Sometimes you move into the collective unconscious; you become a lion. That is a memory of some past life where you have been in that form. You can even become a rock, which is very rare. If you can become a rock in your dream -- I have not come across a man -- that means he has touched the cosmic unconscious. The rock is in the cosmic unconscious state.

So the divisions are not very clear-cut; consciousness is fluid. Even in the daytime if you are sitting and you start doodling, that is not conscious; that is something the unconscious has taken over. Or you start day-dreaming; something unconscious has taken over the conscious.

Once in a while something from the above also opens its door, even in normal people. You may be just sitting on the sea beach looking at the sunset and suddenly you feel that you have become more sensitive.

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Suddenly you feel the beauty of the sunset as you have never felt it before. You feel yourself more conscious. Every sound, the waves crashing on the shore... everything is crystal clear as it has never been before. Something of the no-mind has descended into your normal consciousness, has slipped down.

Q: THIS IS WHAT MASLOW CALLED THE "PEAK EXPERIENCE," A MOMENT OF...

A: Yes, Yes, exactly what he calls "peak experiences." It can happen while you are making love and you feel an orgasmic experience. It is just the no-mind slipping down, taking possession of your normal mind.

But it is not in your hands, so any moment it comes and goes. Sometimes for no reason-you are sitting silently and suddenly you feel transported. A strange beauty surrounds you, a great joy, for no reason. But this is only the second stage above the normal. It is nothing compared to superconsciousness, and the superconsciousness is nothing to be compared with cosmic consciousness. And the psychology will be full and complete when it covers all the seven storeys of man.

I have called my new man, Zorba the Buddha. Zorba consists only of the four: the normal mind and the three lower minds. Buddha consists of the three higher minds. All old religions have tried to create a rift, saying that the lower minds have to be denied and only higher minds have to be accepted; that they are truly spiritual and the lower are animal. But to me the whole has to be understood, witnessed, merged into one unity. Then only is man whole. I call that whole man, Zorba the Buddha. And that is my vision for the future man.

Okay?

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #3

Chapter title: None

23 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510235

ShortTitle: LAST403

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 111 mins

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH SWAMI ANAND VIDEHA, PRIVATE NATIONAL NETWORK, CHANNEL 5, ITALY

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU COME IN TELEVISION IN ITALY. LAST

MONTH YOU OVERWIN THE POPE, AS FAR AS ARTICLES IN NEWSPAPER ARE CONCERNED.

YOU SAID YOU ARE NOT A PROPHET, YOU ARE NOT A LEADER, YOU ARE NOT A MASTER AND

THEN I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN BE CONSIDERED A PHILOSOPHER, AND THE QUESTION IS: WHO ARE YOU?

ANSWER: The very idea of categorizing people is basically wrong. I am just myself. Why should I fit into some category? I am a category unto myself.

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I am just an ordinary human being. I consider your saviors, your prophets, your messengers of God crackpots. These people are hallucinating. They are not in their right senses. What to say about their being enlightened? They are not even normal human beings. They are sick.

And the popes are representatives of these sick people. They must be dead. Only dead can represent the sick.

And all religions are dead and their leaders are dead. And they have not helped humanity to become healthier, wholesome, profounder, more beautiful, more creative. On the contrary, they have made humanity hateful -- Christians hating the Jews, Jews hating the Mohammedans, Mohammedans hating the Hindus, Hindus hating the Buddhists. It seems the whole work of all these religions is nothing but hate: spread hate as much as possible and divide humanity into small fighting fragments.

I am just an ordinary man who is not sick.

Q: YOU CALL THIS ENLIGHTENMENT?

A: To be perfectly healthy in your being, to be whole, is enlightenment. And that does not make you superior to others. It makes you unique, that's why you can't fit into any category.

Every enlightened person is unique.

And whatever I have experienced has made my life a benediction, has made thousands other people's life a blessing, a joy. And I have not divided humanity and I have not created any hatred. I have not created any fight, cruelty, war, violence.

I don't represent any religion. I have a religious experience. I am my own authority. The Bible is not my authority, neither the Koran nor the Gita. Those who depend on those authorities simply show that they themselves are just without any experience. Even your popes are unenlightened people. Their authority rests in Jesus Christ. He himself is unenlightened. His authority rests in God, who does not exist.

These people have been exploiting humanity and it is time that it should be stopped. And Italy has to take first steps. It is the responsibility of Italians to clean the earth of Christianity. They have spread it. It is Roman crime and they have to accept the responsibility.

And they are still protecting Vatican and all its stupidities. In a world overpopulated, the pope goes on saying to people that birth control is against God, that abortion is against God, that the pill is the invention of the devil. The Italians should shut up this Polack. Either he keeps quiet or he goes back to Poland.

Q: IT'S QUITE DIFFICULT, SINCE THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT NOW IS CHRISTIAN, ALL OF

THEM.

A: It doesn't matter. In Italy everything is possible, it is such a mess. No government is government.

Italians can do anything.

And Italians only pretend that they are Christians. They are not. In fact, the whole Roman tradition, the roots of Roman culture, are not religious at all. It was very physical culture, very athletic culture, very down to earth.

Christianity simply confused the Roman tradition, because it is just the opposite: anti-body, anti-matter, anti-joy. Romans were different people. They had no religion. They had no hypocrisy about morality. They were plain and simple, natural beings. They enjoyed life, they loved life and they lived to its intensity.

And that background is still present in every Italian. It needs just a little provocation. Christianity is very superficial and foreign. It does not belong to Roman culture at all. In fact, it has destroyed the uniqueness of Roman civilization, Roman thinking, Roman approach to the life.

In a single word it can be said that Roman approach was pagan, and to the Christians the word pagan is heretic.

It is still time. Italy can recover itself from this nightmare. And this whole mess that you see in Italy is because of this mixture of two things which are not mixable. So there is a very deep split and every Italian feels confused. If he can get rid of Christianity, can get rid of Vatican, it will find back its health.

And to be a pagan is perfectly good. That means to be a Zorba. And in accordance with the pagan, if spirituality grows -- not against it but in tune with it -- then we can create Zorba the Buddha.

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Italy can become the first country in the world to create Zorba the Buddha. Because Zorba is already there in the unconscious of the whole land. Just Christianity has to be removed and there will be a sudden flowering of healthy people, saner outlook. And Italy will not be in such a state as it is.

Q: DO YOU THINK IT CAN HAPPEN LIKE THIS?

A: Yes, it can happen like this. Just people have to be made aware of the fact that basically their culture is pagan, and Christianity is against it. So you are living a dual personality. Your base is totally opposed to your mind, your theology, so neither you can live according to your nature nor you can live according to your religion.

You need a new religious consciousness which can go hand in hand with Roman paganism. Just the idea has to be spread. It can catch fire. It can become a wildfire very soon, because basically every Italian is suffering under it.

So I say: Just like that.

Q: WHAT'S YOUR POSITION AS AN ENLIGHTENED BEING IN THE WORLD, BESIDES ITALY.

WHAT'S YOUR POSITION? WHAT IS YOUR ROLE?

A: I don't have any role because it is not a drama. And I don't have any position because it is not an organization. I have a presence, and my presence works. It brings people to me. And once a person has come to me, he cannot forget me, he cannot forgive me.

He has to come to some settlement with me. Otherwise he will suffer his whole life. Because I am raising basic questions concerning you, concerning everybody who comes to me. I am making him aware of his own conflict. Unaware, he can manage to drag on towards the graveyard, but once he becomes aware --

and that's my function, to make him aware that he has a natural potentiality which is not being allowed to grow by some stupid thoughts that have been imposed upon him.

He cannot follow those thoughts, because they are against his nature. And those thoughts will not allow him to follow his nature. They will create feelings of sin, guilt. So he will remain in a fix.

I simply make people aware where they have got entangled and how to get rid of this entanglement. It is within their hands. And once they understand it is within their hands, then it becomes very difficult for them not to drop them. Sooner or later they are going to drop it. Sooner or later they are going to live their natural potential, which is the gift of existence.

And I am not trying to give them any ideal. That's why I am not a savior, a prophet, a messenger, a messiah. At the most I am a mirror so that you can see yourself with all your conflict, all your nightmares, divisions. You can see what is causing the whole trouble, from where comes this schizophrenia. And then things are simple.

One thing is absolute: you can never drop your nature. At the most you can repress it.

Second, you can never follow borrowed ideas. At the most you can only hope that tomorrow some miracle is going to happen and you will be able to do it.

What you are able to do you are not doing, and what you are not able to do, you are hoping for it. This is simple human situation around the world.

Now, drop that which is not naturally to you and accept the natural with totality, with gratitude. And let it blossom. And see how much joy and how much benediction it brings to you -- not only to you, it brings blessings to the whole existence.

When even a single individual becomes enlightened, the level of consciousness of the whole universe rises a little.

That's why I say if only two hundred people are able to become enlightened, the consciousness level will be that high that the third world war will become impossible, that we will be able to go through a total transformation of humanity.

Q: YOU PUT YOURSELF AGAINST ALL THE GARBAGE OF THE PAST, AND MANY PEOPLE

HAVE DONE IT IN THE PAST AS WELL. WHAT DO YOU THINK, IS NEW HUMANITY THAT IS READY

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FOR A RADICAL CHANGE, AS YOU SAY IS NEEDED?

A: Many things are which make this time the most feasible for a mutation. One is that all the old religions have failed so totally that even the ordinary man who does not think too much is aware of the fact that religions have failed. That hope has disappeared, which was keeping people under a kind of drugged state.

(Tape side B)

Second, the politicians have failed -- of all types: the Democrats, the Republicans, the liberals, the socialists, the communists, the fascists. All in toto have failed. They promise but they cannot deliver the goods.

And we have believed too long. Now nobody is willing even to believe. It simply gives frustration.

Thirdly, the most important thing is the nuclear war hanging over the horizon. That makes the issue of transforming human consciousness absolutely urgent. Either you change or you die. And when there is such a choice...

In ordinary conditions nobody wants to change. Even those who are miserable, suffering, poor, even they don't want to change for the simple reason that they have become accustomed of their lifestyle. They are afraid that they will have to learn from ABC again a new lifestyle. Nobody wants to do that.

But when the question comes, change versus death, then it is a totally different matter. It is not between one kind of society, economic structure, another kind of society, another economic structure, this politics or that politics. It is not such a small affair. The question is: if you want to survive you have to change. If you don't want to survive, then it is perfectly good. Let the nuclear war happen and let the whole life be finished.

But nobody in the whole world is ready for the whole life to be finished.

That's why I say this is the most opportune time. If we insist and make it clear to people's sleepy consciousness that the choice is between changing your consciousness or being destroyed completely, I don't think people will choose to be destroyed. Nobody wants to be destroyed, neither in America nor in Soviet Union nor in China -- nowhere.

Life is so valuable that people go on living in all kinds of conditions which seem to be almost intolerable, but they go on living because life is such a treasure. Just to be able to breathe, just to be able to see, is such a priceless gift, you cannot purchase it.

Politicians go on consoling people that some way will be found: "We are negotiating." They have been negotiating for thousands of years, and all their negotiations have ended into wars.

But this war is no ordinary war. It is total war in which the victor and the defeated both are going to be finished. And not only that it will destroy humanity, it will destroy trees, birds, animals -- anything that is living on the earth. It will destroy every possibility for life to continue in any form.

This darkness of death has to be made very clear to the people. Then they can be ready for any change.

And the change is not difficult. To drop Christianity or to drop Hinduism, I don't see where is the problem.

You have dropped Christianity. It does not even make a sound. Thousands of my sannyasins have dropped all kinds of things: somebody was a communist, somebody was a socialist, somebody was a Buddhist, somebody was a Mohammedan, somebody was a Jew, somebody was a Hindu, somebody was a Jaina. All kinds of people. And they were thinking it is going to be very difficult. But when they dropped it, they were surprised. It does not even make any noise.

It is only a question of making people aware of the alternatives. Dropping their conditions is very easy.

And when we are ready to give every argument against their conditions and they don't have any support to protect their conditions... That's my work.

I go on hitting from different angles, giving you arguments against the conditionings of humanity. And all those conditionings are without any foundation.

Whenever I see a man of belief, I always remember of a temple in India.

In central India near Indore* there is a temple which has no foundations. A huge structure, and you can feel... You can put wires from one side of the wall near the ground and the wire goes to the other side, inside the temple. And you can go around the whole temple with the wire. There is no foundation anywhere, not even small pillars somewhere holding the temple.

They have a story about the temple. The story is sheer nonsense. The story is that the temple was so beautiful that it does not belong to the earth. It was in paradise, and angels were fighting over it. Everybody wanted it to be in their neighborhood. Angels are also, after all, like human beings. Whether they live in 1/08/07

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paradise or in Paris makes no difference. The same stupid guys...

So they were fighting and dragging the temple here and there, and it fell from the sky. That's why it has no foundations. It is lying there.

The story is nonsense but the man who built it must have been a master artist. To create such a huge structure without foundations, one needs a genius. And that is one of its own kind. There is no other structure in the whole world without foundations.

But whenever I see people full of belief systems, theologies, I remember that temple and I think perhaps the architect was also thinking of these people when he was making this temple, that not only this temple is without foundations, all temples are without foundations. The temple that you are carrying within your mind is also without foundations.

My feeling is that that temple was made by someone of tremendous insight to give you an idea that even in the outside world you can create something without foundations.

So in the mind it is very easy.

I am giving you every argument. I am inviting you questions only in order so that you can put your conditions and I can demolish them.

Q: THERE IS NOTHING TO DEMOLISH. WHEN YOU DECLARE, "THE RELIGION RAJNEESHISM

IS DEAD," THEN YOU SAY THAT NOW THERE IS THIS RELIGIO, MANY PEOPLE IN ITALY SAY,

"WELL, IT'S THE SAME." SO THE QUESTION I HAVE, IT'S REALLY DEAD, OR WHAT IS NOW?

A: It is dead. It has never been there. When I was speaking it was not there. I have always been against organized religion. I have been always in favor of religiousness. And my whole life I have been making the distinction clearly that to be religious is one thing and to be a member of a organized religion is totally different.

It does not mean that you are religious. Do you think all the Christians are religious people? All the Buddhists are religious people? Then all the people of the earth are religious, because somebody belongs to some religion, somebody belongs to some other religion.

If just being a member of an organized religion makes you religious, then the whole earth is religious.

But you don't see the fragrance, the love, the compassion, the intelligence, the gratitude towards existence anywhere.

So to be a member of an organized religion is really to keep yourself deceived, a cheap way to deceive yourself.

To be religious is arduous. It means going through a revolution, changing so much garbage that you have been carrying, thinking it is all pure gold.

So while I was speaking, there was no Rajneeshism. When I was not speaking, this small gang took advantage. That's how most of the religions have been created.

When Buddha was alive there was no Buddhism. There were people who were living with Buddha --

thousands meditating, growing. But there was no Buddhism. The day he died, the first thing the disciples started thinking is how to organize the religion.

It was good that I was not dead, I was only silent. Otherwise the religion was going to be just like other religions. Sheela has become already the high priestess. And that's how things start. Then she will choose the successor, and it goes on.

But because I was only silent, absent from the commune for three and a half years, they managed to create an organized religion. They managed to write a book taking my quotations, collecting them, making it a holy book. Sheela even went to the assembly.

When the assembly starts its session, the priests of all the religions go to pray to God to help the assembly. Sheela went there to do the prayer.

As I became aware that more and more they are making things centralized... I was not reading, I was not listening to radio, I was not seeing the TV. I was completely in isolation. Just for one hour I used to come to see the faces of my people.

But few people were capable to approach to me: my personal physician, my dentist, my caretaker. And slowly I came to know that they are demolishing all small centers and making big communes in Europe.

They demolished hundreds of small centers and forced people to move to six big communes so that they can be controlled centrally.

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They completely destroyed the English commune, which was a flourishing commune. Four hundred sannyasins were in the commune and almost two thousand sannyasins used to come for festivals. And it was a beautiful place. And they were looking for a bigger place because more than four hundred they could not manage.

But these people simply shifted all people from English commune to European communes and sold the property, closed small centers and told that they have to go to European communes, collected all the children from everywhere -- and they were trying to put them in Holland in a separate commune for children so they can be controlled.

The whole idea was to centralize everything, particularly finances.

And they have made their center in Germany in Cologne, so from there they will control the whole Europe.

These people were doing exactly the same as all the religions have done. They have destroyed the individuals, they have destroyed their freedom, they have destroyed their joy of doing something on their own.

(Tape side C)

And finally when I heard that they have started killing people, that was too much.

I was not going to speak again, but I had to speak because that was the only way to finish with those people. Because I knew the moment I start speaking they will escape.

And I had not to say a single word to those people. They simply escaped, because now they knew everything will be known to me. And they were not even courageous enough to face me.

They have committed almost every possible crime.

But that's how all the religions have done. And it is done in such a way that the doer thinks he is doing something good.

When Mohammedans force somebody on the point of the sword that, "Either become a Mohammedan or be ready to die," the person who is doing it does not think he is doing any harm, any crime, anything against the person. On the contrary, he thinks he is helping the person, because unless he makes it that his life is at risk he will not become a Mohammedan. And without becoming a Mohammedan, you cannot be saved. He is really saving your life for eternity.

This life is a small thing. He is trying to save your life for eternity in paradise. So his intention is good.

And for himself also he is doing a good act, because he is saving people who are going to fall into darkness of hell, so he is earning virtue. He is also going to paradise. So this is just pure profit on both the sides --

hundred percent profit to you, hundred percent profit to me.... A good deal.

All the religions managed to commit crimes in the name of God, in the name of the savior. And these people here were doing everything in my name.

The people who did were not criminals. They loved me. They thought they are doing something for me.

Sheela's whole strategy was to go on enforcing in people's mind that whatever she is demanding is "your surrender to Bhagwan, your commitment to Bhagwan, your love to Bhagwan. And whatever you are doing is for His sake."

And the people who did I understand perfectly well. They had never meant to do any crime.

For example, the person who poisoned Vivek, Devaraj -- they were told by Sheela that, "These people are trying to kill Bhagwan." And she convinced them that unless these people are removed, then the enemy is not outside, the enemy is in Bhagwan's own house.

And because she was my representative, whatever she said people believed. So if these people are trying to harm me, then these people have to be removed.

Sheela has always been asking me that she can find a better doctor than Devaraj, so why not change the doctor?

I said, "It is not a question of doctor. In the first place, I don't think you can find a better doctor here in the commune. Secondly, even if you can find, I will not change, because he knows my body for ten years.

And my body functions in different ways, reacts in different ways, than an ordinary body does."

So in the beginning he was himself very much puzzled. He will give some medicine and it will bring such bad result that he was surprised that this has never happened. He has studied about this medicine.

Never any indication in any book that this can cause any trouble. This is very innocent. But slowly he became aware that books don't matter. He has to listen to on* my body. And then he started taking notes: what medicines affect me in what way. And slowly slowly he got the grip.

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body."

But I asked her, "Why you want Devaraj to be changed? What is the trouble?"

Now I can understand what was the trouble. The trouble was that if I started speaking, her image of holy priestess, high priestess, will disappear. So I have to kept either sick or, if needed, then I have to be killed.

When I refused to change the doctor, they started thinking of killing him. Then naturally I will have to change. When I refused to change the doctor, she started asking me that she needs a special lock from the outside to my bedroom. In any emergency she can enter.

But I said, "In what emergency? In my bedroom I am sleeping alone. What emergency can happen there? And if any emergency happens, how you can reach there? The best way will be to phone. And the guards are on top of my roof. They can phone. Twenty people live in the house. Within seconds they can reach in my room. You will take ten minutes to reach. The guards will inform you, then you will get up and come here in the middle of the night. This is absurd."

But she insisted, so I said, "You can have it if this is such a urgent thing. You can keep a key." But Vivek was not willing, and she was right. She said, "This is dangerous. You sleep alone. Anybody -- Sheela, Puja or anybody -- can come, can just give an injection to You."

And they have tried on one doctor. In tea they gave some poison that made the tongue paralyzed for twenty-four hours. The doctor could not speak.

They wanted that I should not speak, because if I speak then I am going to burn their holy book and their holy nonsense, and I am going to destroy this organization in my name.

While I am alive, I cannot allow any such thing. In fact, I am trying to do everything so that even when I am dead nothing can be done against my basic approach, that my teaching remains individual, that my teaching remains mystical, that it never becomes a ritual, a church, an organization.

Seeing all these things I started to speak, and then more and more information started coming to me.

And before I had solid proofs they escaped.

The moment they left, by the evening I had solid proofs in my hands. Even my room was bugged.

Q: WHAT HAS GROWN AROUND YOU HAS BEEN PRESENTED BY NEWSPAPER AS A CULT, AS A SECT, AND I WONDER IF YOU CAN NOW EXPLAIN WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF

SANNYASINS IN THIS MOVEMENT.

A: It is simply a movement, neither a cult nor a sect nor a religion but a movement for meditation, an effort to create a science of the inner. It is a science of consciousness. Just as the science is there for objective world, this movement is preparing a science for the subjective world.

The scientist will study everything, and we are going to study the scientist. Otherwise he will be left alone. He will be able to know everything except himself, and that will be real shame, that Albert Einstein knows so much about electrons and neutrons and protons that only twelve persons in the whole world can understand it, but he knows nothing about himself.

This is a very ugly state.

So my work is a movement not to create a religion but to create religiousness. I take religiousness as a quality, not as a membership of an organization but an inner experience of one's being.

And it is going to happen. It is happening. Now nobody can call my movement a cult, sect or religion.

My movement is purely a scientific approach towards the inner world. And it is individual.

The question arises, then why so many sannyasins are together? To be together does not mean that you lose your individuality. You can be together in many ways. You can be together as friends, because you are working in the same dimension. You can be together because your search makes you understand each other better than anybody else. But you are not part of any organization.

Hence I have called it a mystery school where you learn meditation.

And if you feel that your meditation grows in this togetherness, be here. If you feel you can manage it alone in a better way, then that is perfectly good. You can do it anywhere else.

So there is no binding, there is no expectation, there is no imposition. Only I am available here. If you ask for help, if you ask for some problems that you are facing which I have faced... dark nights that will come on the way which I have passed... I can encourage you.

That's the real function of a friend, to help you, to encourage you to be yourself.

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the same inquiry. And with the same experience ripening on different levels, different stages to different people.

But it is not an organization and you don't become a Rajneeshee like a Christian or a Catholic. You remain simply yourself, just the way I remain simply myself.

So this place is to give you freedom and help you to experience the summum bonum of life, the ultimate peak of blissfulness. Okay Videha?

Q: SINCE THIS PROGRAM WILL BE FOR SURE SEEN BY THE POPE, IF YOU WANT TO TELL

HIM SOMETHING THIS IS YOUR CHANCE.

A: For the poor?

Q: FOR THE POPE. IN VATICAN.

A: Hmmm. If he has any guts, then he should come here and see what religiousness means, feel the love of the people, experience with them their meditation. And if he can come with open mind, he may be immensely enriched because as a pope he is meeting the cardinals and the bishops and all kinds of clergymen. None of them has any meditative experience.

(Tape side D)

He is going around the world talking to Catholics without knowing anything of religiousness himself, talking to the poor. But whatever he is saying will make them more poor. So the best way will be for him to come here and be here for few days just like a human being, not like a pope.

Because here we don't recognize anybody as a pope, shankaracharya, imam. We recognize the ordinary human being as the highest possibility of growth. All these positions are political. They have nothing to do with religion.

So tell him that he will find a mystery school here. Even Jesus himself had to be initiated into a mystery school. He lived in a mystery school called Essenes for almost seventeen years, from thirteenth up to thirtieth. And whatever he says he has gathered from the Essenes.

So tell him that here is a school far more developed than the Essenes. That was a bullock cart school. So it will be truly following in the steps of Jesus Christ, coming to Rajneeshpuram. @D048

Q: WHEN PEOPLE SPEAK ABOUT YOU, THERE IS THIS RICHNESS COMING OUT ABOUT THE

ROLLS ROYCE AND WHATSOEVER IS CONNECTED WITH IT. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO

PROVE WITH THIS, SO MANY CARS AND SO MANY RICHNESS AROUND YOU?

A: Why people are concerned? Then certainly they need. Then more Rolls Royces will be here. Until they stop asking me, the Rolls Royces are going to be here more and more. Now it has to be seen. It is a challenge. The day nobody asks me about Rolls Royces, they will not be coming.

People's interest in Rolls Royces shows their mind. They are not interested what is happening here. They don't ask about meditation. They don't ask about sannyas. They don't ask about people's life, love, the laughter that happens in this desert. They only ask about Rolls Royce.

That means I have touched some painful nerve. And I will go on pressing it till they stop asking.

I am not a worshiper of poverty. That's what those Rolls Royces prove. I respect wealth. Nobody before me has the guts to say it. The pope cannot say that he respects wealth, although he is the wealthiest man on the earth.

I am not a hypocrite. I am the poorest man on the earth. I don't have a single cent with me. But I want to prove to these people that what attracts their mind.

If there were no Rolls Royces here, perhaps there was nothing for the whole world to be asked about me, about you, about meditation, about initiation into sannyas, about love, about anything.

It is for those idiots that I am keeping all those Rolls Royces, because they cannot move their eyes away from those Rolls Royces. And meanwhile I will go on pouring other things in their minds.

Without those Rolls Royces they would not have asked a single question.

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Those Rolls Royces are doing their work. Every idiot around the world is interested in them. And I want them to be somehow interested -- in anything in Rajneeshpuram. Then we will manage about other things.

So tell those people -- anybody asks, tell that, "These Rolls Royces are for you idiots. Otherwise you are not interested in anything. Once you stop asking about Rolls Royces, then I will have to think for something else: whether to have rockets which are going to the moon. Something else I will have to think about."

Q: WHAT SHEELA HAS BEEN FOR YOU AND WHY SHE HAS BEHAVED LIKE THAT?

A: Anybody would have behaved like that. Just ordinary unconscious mind finding an opportunity --

millions of dollars, thousands of people ready to do anything, so much power, so much money -- and she was just a hotel waitress when she came to me. She had never dreamt of having two hundred fifty million dollars, having one hundred twenty-six square miles land, having one million sannyasins around the earth ready to follow her. It is not Sheela. Anybody would have fallen in the trap.

But the problem was that I could not give the position that Sheela had to a meditator. A meditator is basically introvert. Sheela knows nothing of meditation. She has never meditated. Neither she has any possibility in this life. This was her qualification: she is extrovert.

She is very materialist, and to create a commune you cannot put a spiritualist as the president because real houses has to be created, real roads have to be created. A meditator, a spiritualist, is of no use.

So I had to find a person who has no introvert inclinations and no desire to grow spiritually, but has great ambition to do something, has a great inferiority complex to prove herself. And all those qualifications Sheela fulfilled. I was aware that that kind of person can take advantage of the situation. But I was here and I knew that I will give her as long rope as possible. Otherwise it is within my hands.

It was not a question that she can be so powerful that she won't listen to me.

So when I saw that she is going now beyond limits and has started doing things... Otherwise I would have tolerated her, because she was doing good work. She did much good. She managed to make this desert into an oasis, managed houses for five thousand people, and has to fight with politicians and all kinds of third-rate people. Now for that you need a third-rate person. You cannot put a first-rate person to fight with third-rate people. Otherwise third-rate people will be victorious.

Ninety-nine percent she did good, and the commune should always be obliged to her. Just she forgot that I am not dead, I am only silent. And the moment I see that things are going beyond the need, I can put a stop to it immediately, instantly.

And that's what I did.

She has not been able to harm much. She tried. She committed all the crimes. But, for example, she bugged hundreds of houses. It is a big crime. For one bugging you get five years of jail. She bugged so many houses that even one thousand years of jail will not be enough. So it is a big crime, but what harm?

As far as we are concerned, what harm she could do by bugging? We were not planning any conspiracy against her. Nobody was even bothering about. So what was the point? All that she was collecting -- records and tapes, taping all the phones -- but it was all meaningless. It is crime but it has not done any harm to us.

She has tried to kill two persons. She failed, so no harm has happened. In the eyes of law she has committed grave crimes.

She may have stolen money that was coming from European communes here, and she prevented it in Switzerland and kept in a bank account in her own name. It is very difficult how much it was. According to one source it was twenty million dollars. According to another source it is forty-three million dollars. But the second source is still two year old, so in these two years she must have accumulated even more.

So somewhere near fifty to sixty thousand... fifty to sixty million dollars she has... This is a big crime --

in the eyes of law, not according to me. Because to me money means nothing.

We will gather sixty million again, that is not a problem. And we are perfectly comfortably running. She has not stolen from here. It was coming here, we would have made few more roads, few more buildings which were necessary. But because she has stolen the money you are not missing those buildings. You don't even know what those buildings were going to be. So we have not missed anything.

And to me money is just meaningless. We can create money, there is no problem about it.

So whatever she did, we will try to undo it. And whatever we cannot try to undo it is not much to be bothered about. I have not even talked even for a single moment... When you ask I answer, otherwise I have not even bothered what she has done.

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We have given the whole case to the law. Now @D345 they should take their own course if they want.

If they don't want, who cares? In this small life we have much more important things to do. And that is now such a old story... forget about it. Okay?

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #4

Chapter title: None

24 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510245

ShortTitle: LAST404

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 117 mins

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH MARIANNE HEUWAGEN, SUDDEUTSCH ZEITUNG, GERMANY

Q: YOU RECENTLY SAID IN YOUR FIRST INTERVIEW AFTER THE BREAK OF YOUR SILENCE, IN THE GERMAN MAGAZINE DER SPIEGEL, THAT THIS IS THE ONLY RELIGION. AND NOW IT IS

NO RELIGION. IF IT IS NO RELIGION, HOW DO YOU CALL WHAT YOU PRACTICE AND ALL THESE

PEOPLE BELIEVE IN?

B: I call it religiousness. When religiousness dies, it becomes a religion. Religion is a corpse.

Religiousness is alive, singing, dancing, flowering.

In existence nouns don't exist. It is the language that gives us a wrong impression. For example, the tree or the river. These are nouns. They don't exist in reality, because the tree is continuously growing. There is no full stop. It is treeing. River is rivering. It is a continuous flow.

Existence knows no nouns.

And religiousness is the experience of the highest peak of consciousness. Existence has not gone beyond it. It is existence' highest reach.

So when I came out of silence I had said, "This is the first -- and the last -- religion." First in the sense because nobody, neither Jesus nor Buddha nor Krishna, created any religion while they were alive. When they were dead, others created the religion.

It is a strange phenomenon which has been repeated again and again down the ages. When the person who knew is dead, then the persons who do not know organize it. They become the popes, they become the shankaracharyas, they become the caliphs, imams. But they are carrying only a dead body.

So I call it the first religion in the sense that I am alive and something is happening around me. But I also call it the last religion. People have not noted the second part, that soon I am going to dissolve it. That too has never been done.

Of course, it was impossible. Jesus was not alive when Christianity was born. He could not dissolve it.

He neither created it nor he could dissolve it.

I allowed it to happen just to dissolve it and make it clear that the only authentic religiousness is always unorganized. The moment you organize it, something dies.

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It is the same: a bird on the wing has a beauty. The whole sky, the sun, the wind, and the bird and its freedom, they are all together there.

You can catch the bird. You can put it in a golden cage. In one sense it is the same bird, in another sense it is not the same bird because where is the freedom? Where is that sky? Where is that wind? Where is that life which was on two wings, available to the whole universe? All that has disappeared.

Truth cannot be organized. It can be experienced, it can be made available to those who are receptive, open. But it cannot be explained. It is something contagious. You can get infected by it, but there is no intellectual way to communicate it.

So now I call it simply religiousness. And it has a beauty, because now it need not be Christian, need not be Hindu, need not be Rajneeshee. It need not have any label. All labels are dangerous to freedom. It is better to leave it unlabeled.

Q: WHY DID YOU ENTER YOUR LONG STRETCH OF SILENCE AND WHY DID YOU BREAK OUT

OF IT AT THIS POINT IN TIME?

B: I have never lived with any plan in my life. It has been something spontaneous, moment to moment.

As I feel, I do it. I felt to be silent, I went into silence. I may have remained my whole life silent. There is no way to say why I started speaking again. The same spontaneity. Three and a half years silence and suddenly one day I felt that much has remained to say. I have not yet said that for which I am here. So better say it now, because who knows about tomorrow?

But it is all spontaneous. There is no reason of going into silence or coming out of silence. But those three and half years created a beautiful gap.

I was speaking for thirty years continuously. I think I deserve at least three years silence after thirty years continuously speaking.

And those thirty years I was speaking in a very strange situation, because humanity is divided. Every person is born in some religion. I had to say something. I had discovered something within myself but I could not see that it fits with any traditional, conventional, religion.

But everybody is already part of a conventional religion. Who is going to listen to me?

Hence, as a device, I started speaking on Gautam Buddha. I was speaking my own experience. The name of Gautam Buddha and his words was just an excuse. But Buddhists started listening. Even great Buddhist scholars came to me and said, "We have never thought that these simple statements of Gautam Buddha contain so much."

And I was laughing within, because they don't contain anything. I have used them and made them to mean whatsoever I wanted to mean them.

I have found the way how to catch people. I was speaking on Krishna, I was speaking on Mahavira, I was speaking on Jesus. I spoke almost on all the religions for thirty years, and slowly slowly people who became more and more intimate to me begin to see the device, that I am saying something which is not there in those old scriptures. I had to use those old scriptures, because without that screen it is very difficult to find people to listen.

And soon these people became available to me. Then I started having my own individual camps where I was speaking directly, with nobody in between. And that's when I started initiating people into sannyas.

Sannyas was simply that they are now ready to listen me without any device. They are willing to open their heart. That much trust has grown in them.

These three and half years silence has given me another opportunity that is just a byproduct. The silence was not meant for it.

There were many people who were just hanging around me because of their intellects were convinced.

My arguments were important to them although I was insisting that truth cannot be found by arguments. But they became addicted with my words, with my explanations. These three and half years, by and by they left, seeing that now I am not going to speak and silence they could not understand.

Only those remained for whom it did not matter at all whether I speak or I am silent. Just my presence, and something transpires between my being and their being. It is a wordless communion.

Now I am speaking exactly the purest truth possible, as pure as it can be put into words, because now the people who are around me can even understand my silence. So there is no question of misunderstanding my words. That is impossible.

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So a totally new phase.

And I have experienced so much that to die without conveying it in some way or other will be a shame.

Q: IS YOUR CONVEYING WHAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED ALSO THE REASON WHY YOU ARE

SO AVAILABLE TO THE MEDIA NOWADAYS?

B: Yes, because there are millions of people around the world who may not ever come in contact with me. But through the media many of them may get some glimpse. Few of them may even come.

And my message is not limited to any particular group of people. It is for all human beings as such.

So I wanted to reach to all the nooks and corners of the world. And I am a contemporary man, so no need for me to go everywhere when media can take the message. That is far more easier.

Q: DURING YOUR LONG PERIOD OF SILENCE, YOUR FORMER PERSONAL SECRETARY, SHEELA, HAS OBVIOUSLY EXERCISED SOME ABUSE OF POWER, AS YOU YOURSELF HAVE

STATED. AND SHE WENT TO GERMANY, AS YOU KNOW, AND IS CAUSING BIG WAVES IN THE

MEDIA OVER THERE. HAS HER DEPARTURE AND HER ACCUSATION HURT YOU, SINCE YOU

HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH HER SO CLOSELY FOR SO MANY YEARS?

B: No, nothing hurts me. And just a poor Sheela, how can she hurt me? And her going has made the commune cleaner, more hygienic. The whole credit goes to her that she left with her whole gang. And what harm? She has only harmed herself and the people who are with her. They have missed a life's opportunity.

And they have not gained anything. Now their whole life they will live with a guilt, with a shadow of crime. And as far as the commune is concerned, there is not even a ripple. Everybody is happy that those people have left, because they were creating almost a fascist regime.

They were torturing people, and because I was in isolation and silence she had all my powers. Those powers were given for legal reasons, but she misused them, took advantage, which is very understandable.

Just an ordinary human being, she has been a waitress in a hotel. Now suddenly she had two hundred fifty million dollars in her hands she would have never even dreamt of and one million sannyasins around the world ready to do anything in my name. Suddenly she has almost an empire. And her only fear was that if I start speaking, then all the glory and the celebrity she had attained will disappear within a day.

So she was trying in every possible way that I should not speak.

Lust for power is such a thing, and once you have it, then to let go of is very difficult.

She started doing things which were against my very thinking. She started harassing those sannyasins who had lived with me long before she joined, and who were far more intelligent, far more educated. She is not educated.

The vice-chancellor of the university, the chancellor of the university, many psychologists, therapists, doctors, left the commune because she was harassing them, insulting them, and they had not come here for her. But she was afraid, because those were the people who were far more competent.

If once I come to know about all the things she is doing, I will change her immediately. So she removed all competent people from the commune. She tried to kill those who were very intimate to me, and particularly those who had the opportunity to approach me in my silence: my personal physician, my dental surgeon, my caretaker. These three people were dangerous for her. They may inform me of things that are going on. She was so much afraid that she tried to kill all the three persons.

She poisoned my personal physician four times, and she had every arrangement: if nothing succeeds she could have killed me. For that she had made every arrangement.

Just the lust for power. And the day I started speaking, the whole commune was dancing on the streets, because they had not expected that I will speak again. They were ecstatic. But Sheela and her group of twenty people were utterly sad.

And since that day she had not faced me. For any excuse -- she was going to Australia, the commune needs her there, or to Singapore or to Japan or to England or to Holland or to Germany. She will come for a day or two, but will not come to see me. She will simply send the message that, "I have cold." And I am allergic, so that excuse is enough. "So when my cold is okay I will come." But before the cold is okay, she 1/08/07

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is gone again.

And that's what she did the last time. She informed me she has cold. Three, four days she will rest, and as her cold gets better she will come to see me. And next day she escaped.

Naturally, she did not want to inform me that she is going forever. She has left her resignation, all the papers, in the office.

But if I had known that she is leaving forever, then I would have told the police to look into her luggage, everything has to be checked: how much money she is carrying. Because twenty persons she is taking with her, she will need money to travel to Europe, to live there.

And she had told me that she has opened a bank account in Switzerland -- for me, in case I have to leave America someday. Then it will be enough to create a commune in Switzerland.

I asked her, "But at least I should know the bank, the account number, how much money you have got in it." She said, "I will tell You everything when the time arrives."

The bank account is in her name, and if it was sufficient to create a commune it cannot be less than fifty million. It can be more but not less. Because this commune we had to put two hundred million dollars, just for five thousand people houses, roads, everything to create the land.

So she would have to answer if she had told me when she is leaving. And she must have carried weapons, poisons, bombs, because in her room the literature has been found how to make bombs, literature on poisons, how to kill people, how to give certain poisons in small doses on a long period so that the person slowly slowly becomes sick and dies almost as if a natural death, so nobody can suspect that he has been poisoned.

If you suddenly poison somebody and he dies, then it will be found. So she was giving the poison in tea, in coffee, in injections. The person may be thinking of some other injection is being given, and he is being given some poison. And it will take six months for him to die.

So she must have carried much. And nobody checked her, because she was continuously coming and going, so there was no question of checking. Otherwise she had no right even to use the commune airplane.

She should have herself declared that she is leaving, so her luggage should be checked. But to avoid it she kept me in dark that four days she will be waiting and then she will see me. And there was no question of going at all.

And the time she left she had chosen rightly. In the afternoon between two and four I go for a drive in the mountains. I saw her plane and I could not believe, because that was not the time for our regular plane to go. Back home, I found that Sheela and twenty others have left.

My physician was continuously saying that he is being poisoned, that these are the effects of a certain poison, and this is the only poison which is undetectable.

(Tape side B)

But nobody will listen to him. Even doctors will not listen. They think that he is just getting into a paranoia. They checked his blood. There was no poison, there was no sickness -- nothing. But in her room the book was found on poisons, and the same poison is underlined which my doctor was continuously saying that, "That is the only poison which cannot be detected." And that is the only poison which is underlined in the book with the description that it cannot be detected. And it will kill the person surely, slowly slowly.

So she did everything just to remain in power. And as I started speaking she had to escape.

In Germany she is simply lying. There she can lie. If she has guts she should come here, because we have invited FBI, state police, county police. They have been here, our guests, and we have provided all the evidences, all the testimonies, eyewitnesses, so if she has guts she should come here and produce counter-evidences. Just lying and making allegations does not mean anything. It has to be decided in the court, and it has to be decided on solid grounds.

One of her gang returned back from Seattle. The sannyasin must have some heart. She felt that it is better to be imprisoned and come out after few years clean rather than carry this load whole of your life, hiding here and there. So she came back. Her coming back has been of immense help. Her testimony has lasted almost two weeks, and she had given everything that the circle has done. Because she was part of the innermost circle and she has been witnesses in many crimes: the arson, the burning of the Planning Office of Wasco County, she was a witness. She drove two persons of the group who burned the office, and she drove them back.

She knows how they drugged three thousand people whom they had brought as Share-A-Home program from the streets, from all over America. The desire was to take over the county, so to keep them drugged so 1/08/07

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they cannot go away, and by the time the voting day comes they will be so drugged that whatever you say they will do.

For three thousand people she had to bring gallons of drugs from outside America, because if you purchase in America then you will have to answer for what purpose you had purchased them and what use has been made of them.

But this sannyasin is an eyewitness. One person was overdosed and died. She says* they simply threw his body out of the campus. The police found the body but they could not figure out who the man is, from where he comes. He was a street person, a hobo, so there was no case, no inquiry, no investigation.

So almost every crime -- murder, attempts to murder, arson, beating people and then giving them drugs thinking that they are informers, to keep them drugged and go on asking... Almost she created a small fascist state.

Now the doctor himself... herself who managed to do all these things where people were beaten, drugged for three days, and just in their drugged asleep state they were thrown in Portland, so when they woke up they could not figure out what has happened, and they forgot all... They were drugged with some chemical that washes your memory that they have been beaten or why they have come here. They were simply in a state of daze.

The doctor herself has confessed.

So rather than lying there, and lying anything... She is talking that five hundred sannyasins have left.

Twenty persons have left with her and thirty persons more have left who must have been connected some way or other in some small crime and must have been afraid that they will be caught.

The chief gangsters have left and the people who had done small things, they followed. Only fifty persons including her group have left, but one hundred fifty people have come back: those who had left because of her. And five hundred people are coming back.

So rather than telling lies -- she is telling that the commune is finished, there is no food in the commune, there is no money in the commune, everything is finished.... She should just come and see that everything is far better than it has ever been. People are happier because they are freer. They can say no if that's what they feel, without being punished.

And people are immensely happy for small things. For example, if they wanted to go for a vacation... for four years she was forcing them not to go. Now, it is just natural. If they want to go to see their parents for one week, this is nothing. They should be allowed. So now people are allowed to go for one week or three week or as long as they want, because this is not a concentration camp.

Here you are on your own accord. If you want to have one month's vacation, you can have it. There is no problem in it.

And if there is no food, then how these people are surviving? And people have never been so happy: a very deep feeling of lightness. A great burden has disappeared. And everybody is feeling responsible for the first time. And whatever she has done in three and half years, I have to undo it. Now there is no religion.

She has created a book, Rajneeshism, to be the holy scripture of the religion. She created the word Rajneeshee. I had to tell my people that, "There is nobody who is a Rajneeshee. You are yourself and you need not be anything else in the world."

And we had to burn all those books because I don't want any holy book and I hate the word ism.

So we are in a far better condition.

And she will repent.

And there is no question of hurt.

Q: THE AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ARE USING THESE ACCUSATIONS AND

THE WHOLE INCIDENT TO SNOOP AROUND HERE ANY WAY THEY CAN. YOU ARE AWARE THAT

THEY BUILT THIS BIG TASK FORCE OF PEOPLE AND THEY ARE JUST TOO HAPPY TO WALK IN

HERE AND, AS THEY WOULD CALL IT, CHECK THE PLACE OUT. ARE YOU.... THIS HAPPENS IN

THE MIDDLE OF A CONTROVERSY ABOUT YOUR COMMUNE HERE THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON

EVER SINCE IT STARTED. ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT THESE GRAND JURY INVESTIGATIONS

AND THE POLICE ACTIVITIES HERE ARE GOING TO HURT THE COMMUNE AND THE

SANNYASINS, AND THEY ARE GOING TO TRY AND LOOK FOR AN EXCUSE TO DO SOME HARM TO

YOUR COMMUNE HERE?

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B: They cannot do. The politicians may have it in their mind but, as you know, politicians don't have much of a mind in the first place.

They certainly have it in mind that this is a good opportunity to destroy the commune, but it is not possible. We will fight to the very end, and this fight for the commune may take bigger proportions.

If they start in any way harassing the commune rather than catching hold of the criminals, which they are delaying.... Now we have produced every evidence, testimonies, eyewitnesses, but they are not doing anything to the criminals.

If they have any mind, it is better they should change it. If my commune is harassed in any way, then this small thing will take really big proportions. Then I am going to fight up to the Supreme Court, and I am going to expose the whole American hypocrisy, that these people are talking of democracy, of freedom, of freedom of speech, of respect for individuality, respect for private property....

But this is not their land. If they have any respect for their own constitution, then the Supreme Court should tell the government to "resign and give it to red Indians. This land belongs to them, and you are all foreigners here.

"And then you apply for green cards the way we apply, and if the red Indians want you to be here you can be here. Otherwise get lost.

"Either do this or drop from your constitution all that nonsense about freedom, respect for individuals, for individual property."

This is such an absurdity, that the real Americans are just living in reservations and the foreigners have become real Americans. And who are they to decide about my permanent residence here or my commune's residence here? On what authority?

On what authority they had entered in this country? Had their grandfathers visas and green cards? They invaded the country. They have been violent with the innocent people of the country. And they are still talking about democracy and freedom, and this is the only country which is under slavery.

And foreigners have become the masters, and the real masters are nobodies.

I am going to fight it and make it a worldwide problem. You talk about communism, that it is dictatorial, and what you are? What is your relationship with the red Indians? Who is the master to whom this land belongs?

It is better they should change their mind, because I enjoy fighting and I don't like small things. If I want to fight, then I fight on real big grounds. And then it is going to be a worldwide problem.

I have my sannyasins all over the world. Then each American embassy will be surrounded by my sannyasins meditating. We will not do any harm to anybody, that is not our way of thinking. But we will make our point all over the world, that Americans have to decide it that the land goes to the red Indians.

Otherwise they should stop talking about democracy, about freedom.

Then it is an imperialist country, so why unnecessarily have beautiful masks? Why not show your ugly face?

So if the politicians of Oregon want to get into troubled waters, I am ready. We have nothing to lose, but they may lose America.

And if they can issue green cards, who are all foreigners, why we cannot issue? What is the difference?

Just because you came a little earlier and we came a little late. Okay, we will make our green card a little less green.... (laughter, and Bhagwan's words are unintelligible) But we are going to issue green cards, we are going to issue passports, because other foreigners are doing the same thing. Either you stop all this nonsense....

America is not in a good position as far as its own constitution is concerned. Its constitution is one of the best in the whole world. I have tremendous respect for it. But its politicians are worst in the world, and I simply hate them from my guts.

And I will fight for the constitution against the Americans. I will not allow them to prostitute their own constitution. This constitution is one of the hopes for humanity.

But they should learn to behave.

So I know that there is the idea in their mind, but it is better... sooner they drop it, better it will be. If they want to pursue it, we are not worried. We have not done any harm. We have not done any crime. We have not done any wrong. Now we have to see how an innocent commune can be destroyed.

Q: YOU SEEM TO CARE A LOT ABOUT RAJNEESHPURAM AND YOUR SANNYASIN. I MEAN, 1/08/07

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HOW MUCH DO YOU CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE HERE THAT SURROUND YOU? AND YOU SEEM

TO BE WILLING TO, IN A WAY, DEFEND THEM, WHATEVER IT TAKES.

B: I love them. The question of care does not arise. I love them as myself, and I will fight for hem just the way I will fight for myself. They are here for me.

It is not a question of care. It is something far more deeper. My sannyasins are my extensions. This commune is an organic whole. We are not only living together, we are growing together. We are creating our future together, and we will not allow anybody to disturb it.

And we have the means to stop.* We are not violent people so we will not do any violence to anybody, but innocence has its own power. Silence has its own power. Love has its own power.

And you can see it.

They have nuclear weapons and they are afraid of us, who are just living in an isolated desert. They are worried about our three dozen semi-automatic guns, which are as old as Adam and Eve. We don't know whether they will work or not because we have never used them.

And the biggest nuclear power in the world is afraid of three dozen guns. It is simply hilarious. We enjoy it.

Q: WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? I MEAN, WHY ARE THEY AFRAID OF YOU?

B: That's what I am asking you.

Q: SHALL I TELL THEM THEY OUGHT NOT TO BE AFRAID?

B: Hm.

Q: I WAS WONDERING EARLIER, HOW MANY OF YOUR SANNYASINS DO YOU PERSONALLY

KNOW? I MEAN, THERE ARE OVER A THOUSAND PEOPLE HERE. DO YOU KNOW MOST OF THEM

PERSONALLY, I MEAN?

B: I know them individually, not personally. And I make a distinction between knowing someone personally and knowing someone individually.

Ordinarily we know people only personally: their name, their qualifications, their job and things like that, which are all superficial. You can change the name but the individual remains the same. You can change the job but the individual remains the same. You can change the address, you can change his wife, but the individual remains the same.

I am not interested in people's personalities. I know them individually. That means I know them in their very essence. When I pass by the side of a sannyasin, I don't know the name but I know at what stage of meditation the individual is or whether he has at all progressed in meditation or not.

I know whether the individual has come to taste something of the higher qualities of love or is still thinking that sexuality is all there is. I know just by looking in the eyes of anybody whether the person has any inner approach to himself or he lives just outside himself. That inner approach is his individuality, and that outside life is his personality. I am not concerned with the personality at all.

The person may be a man or a woman -- does not matter. What matters is his essential being, how close he has come to his essential being. Closer he comes to it, a certain aura arises around his body, a certain fragrance.

You can immediately recognize that here is someone who is very close to the center, and when somebody reaches the center, then it is as if a house was dark and suddenly you have switched the light on.

Even from the outside you can see through the windows the house is on light.

Ordinary people are just without light. Even from their windows you can see only darkness. And when a person reaches to his center of individuality, suddenly he is aflame. And you can see -- from his eyes, from 1/08/07

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his gestures, from his words, the way he walks. His words start becoming more poetic. His walk becomes more of a dance. His gestures have a grace that was never there before.

I am knowing my people only in that inner context, and it is almost impossible to know them personally.

One million people around the earth -- how can I know their names? But I can know them. And the moment I look into their eyes, they also know that they have been found where they are.

Q: YOU RECENTLY MADE A REMARK, AND I THINK IT WAS AGAIN IN YOUR FIRST DER

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW, THAT WERE... YOU SAID THAT YOU ADMIRED ADOLF HITLER. AND THIS IS

A TWO-PART QUESTION. I FIRST OF ALL WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHETHER THAT IS TRUE, AND, SECOND, WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS HERE IN THIS COUNTRY, KNOWING

THAT THIS IS VERY UNPOPULAR, AND DON'T YOU THINK THAT SAYING SOMETHING LIKE THAT

MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR YOU, OR MORE DIFFICULT FOR YOU, AND YOUR SANNYASINS HERE

IN THIS COUNTRY?

B: Whenever I make any statement, I do not consider the consequences for me or for my commune. It is only politicians who think of consequences, who always say what you want to hear. I say what I want to say.

That statement is not complete, and this is the third-rate yellow journalism that wants to create sensation even where it is not.

I had said that Mahatma Gandhi was a hypocrite. He was a very violent man talking about non-violence.

But looking at his life one can see that his non-violence is only a political strategy. He himself is very violent.

To his wife he was violent, to his children he was violent, to his disciples he was violent, and in very ugly ways. To himself also he was violent. So he was a kind of sado-masochist.

In this reference I was saying that I have a certain respect for Adolf Hitler. He is at least straightforward.

He is not a hypocrite. He is what he is.

Mahatma Gandhi is a hypocrite.

Now, this is the whole context.

(Tape side C)

Hitler is violent, is fascist, thinks that the German race is the chosen race to rule over the world. But whatever he says, he says it. He believes in it. He is a crackpot but very sincere.

In this context I had said that I have a certain respect for Adolf Hitler because he is not a hypocrite, and I don't have that respect for Mahatma Gandhi because he pretends to be a saint. In reality he is just a politician. And he is using his saintliness for his politics.

He became the leader, the father-figure of India, because Hindus are in majority and he behaved like a Hindu saint. But if you study his life....

For example, he used to sing every morning and evening that Hindus and Mohammedans are one. That was a political thing, because that was the greatest problem in India.

Hindus never wanted India to be divided for the simple reason because if it remains undivided Hindus will always rule the Mohammedans. And it was clear that if Mohammedans want to be their own land, their own country, they want to be deciding their own fate, then they need a separate land. And they were the second majority after Hindus. And their demand was absolutely right. Hindus would have destroyed them.

So Gandhi's songs of the unity of Hinduism and Mohammedanism, his discourses that both are the same, that there is no difference, are proved all bogus, because his own son, eldest son, Haridas, who was a rebel from his very birth -- and I love that man, he was far superior in every way than his father....

He wanted to go to school and Gandhi will not allow because he thought that all education poisons people. So no education for children. He will teach them enough so they can read religious scriptures. But Haridas was insistent that he wants to learn everything the way other boys are learning. Gandhi threatened him that, "If you go to school, then never enter in my house again."

Do you think this is the attitude of a non-violent man? And that too against a small child, and whose demand is not in any way for any crime. He is not saying that he wants to go to a prostitute. He is simply asking to go to school to study just like everybody else. And his argument is perfect. He said, "You have been educated and you are not poisoned, so why you are so worried? I am your son. If you can be educated, if you can attain to the degree of bar at law, then why I cannot? Why you are so suspicious?"

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But Gandhi said, "I have given you the ultimatum. Either you live in this house with me, then no school, or you go to school, then this house is no more for you."

And I love that boy. He left the house -- with grace. He touched his father's feet, asked for his blessings, which Mahatma Gandhi could not give.

I cannot see non-violence and love. In these small acts you can find the real person, not in speeches, public performances.

The boy left. He lived with one of his uncles, studied, many times wanted just to come and see his mother but was refused. He graduated, and just to see how much Gandhi means that Hinduism and Mohammedanism are all one he became a Mohammedan. He was really a colorful man.

He became Mohammedan, he changed his name -- meaning still the same. Haridas means servant of God. So he asked the Mohammedan priest to give him a name which means Haridas in Arabic. Abdullah means exactly the same. Abd* means God, Abdullah means servant of God. So he became Abdullah Gandhi.

When Gandhi heard about it, he was so much shocked. He was so angry. His wife said, "But why you should be so angry? Every morning, every evening, you say both are the same. That's why he must be trying, that, "If both are same.... Hinduism I have lived for all these years, now let us see what is Mohammedanism."

And Gandhi was angry that, "This is not a matter to laugh. He is disinherited from my property. He is no more my son, and I don't want him to see again." And in India when somebody dies and his funeral pyre is lit with fire, the eldest son puts the fire. So Gandhi made it his will that "Haridas is not my son and I emphasize the fact that after my death he should not put the fire into my funeral."

What anger! What violence!

I have known this man, Haridas Gandhi. He was really a lovely man. And he said, "I simply became a Mohammedan just to see how my father reacts. And he exactly reacted the way I thought, so all that unity of religions, Hindu and Mohammedan, Christian and Buddhism, is all nonsense. It is all politics. That's what I wanted to prove and I have proved it."

The place where I lived just eighty miles away from there, just a coincidence that Haridas.... It was a junction station. He was coming from one train and Gandhi was passing into another train, so he came close to the compartment of Gandhi just to see his father, and the mother will be there. Gandhi, seeing him coming towards the compartment, closed all the windows and told his wife that, "If you open the window and talk with him, then my connections with you are finished. Then you can go with him."

Kasturbhai, Gandhi's wife, was crying, weeping, but could not open the window. Haridas was knocking on the window. Gandhi was standing there. And this man is thought to be the greatest non-violent saint of the contemporary world. I don't agree.

And this is just one instance. I have gone through his life in very detail and I have found thousands of instances where his real personality surfaces. His public performance is a different thing.

So it was in this context I was telling that even Adolf Hitler has my respect. At least he is straightforward. He is doing everything wrong. I do not agree with what he is doing, but he is not a hypocrite.

And I don't see there is any problem in my statement. It is very clear. But what those people did, they simply took off the whole context and put only Adolf Hitler, that I respect Adolf Hitler.

This is something ugly that journalism has to drop. Otherwise journalism will not be ever an art. It will remain third rate. It will feed the mob psychology but it will not raise human consciousness.

And I think the media has a responsibility. It is such a great instrument to raise human consciousness that all kinds of yellow journalism should be condemned from every corner.

Q: YOU HAVE MANY SANNYASINS IN GERMANY. WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR FOLLOWING IS

SO BIG PARTICULARLY IN GERMANY?

B: Hitler has made the way. The whole credit goes to Adolf Hitler because with him the German youth is finished with politicians -- completely finished. In Adolf Hitler they have seen the ultimate politician.

And there is a vacuum.

They are finished also with religious leaders, for the simple reason that anybody who has eyes can see.

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archbishop in England also blesses Winston Churchill and prays to the same Christian God for the victory of England. And pope, of course, prays and asks for the victory of Benito Mussolini.

The German youth has seen the original faces of these bishops, archbishops, popes. They are finished with political leadership, they are finished with religious exploitation. But that leaves a tremendous gap.

I am not a religious leader and I am not a political leader, either. Hence with me they find a deep harmony. And I can fill their gap without exploiting them like Adolf Hitler did, without cheating them, conning them, as their priests have been doing. I can help them to grow individually into more freedom, into more individuality, into more authenticity.

Hence the German youth is interested in me. Those who are not yet interested, simply means they have not yet heard about me. Otherwise none of the German youth is going to get away from me.

Just I am a little bit engaged here in America, otherwise I would be in Germany. Once I am finished here, my next place is going to be Germany.

I would like to have a good fight with German politicians.

Q: WITH DECLARING THE DEATH OF RAJNEESHISM AS A RELIGION, ARE YOU GOING TO

HAVE ANY CHANGES IN THE CONTENT OF YOUR TEACHINGS, OR ARE YOU CHANGING ANY OF

YOUR TEACHING?

B: No, because before I went into silence there was no Rajneeshism. It was created by Sheela and her fascist gang. As I came out of silence, I have simply destroyed that which was not part of my teachings. So it makes no difference. It simply purifies my teachings, makes them more clean and more clear. Okay?

Q: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #5

Chapter title: None

25 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510255

ShortTitle: LAST405

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 122 mins

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW BY MA PREM SUNSHINE

Q: BHAGWAN, IS THERE ANY HOPE THAT YOUR COMMUNE CAN SUCCEED?

A: There are difficulties but there are not impossibilities. The commune can succeed, but it is one of the greatest challenge man has ever faced. Against all religions, against all societies, against all nations, and just 1/08/07

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few intelligent people have to make it a success.

But the situation is such that even though the forces against are very big, the situation is not in their favor. Our forces are very small but the situation is in our favor. And in reality everything is determined by situations, not by superficial forces.

For example, all the old religions, although they have the majority population of the world behind them, but no one really is authentically with them. The Christian calls himself the Christian, goes to the church, reads the Bible, but has no inner conviction. Deep down there is simply doubt, because his doubt has never been removed. His doubt has only been repressed.

And the more you repress the doubt the deeper it goes into your being and more powerful it becomes. Its depth is its power.

So all the religions have so many millions of people with them, but not a single authentic individual who can say that, "This is not my faith but my experience."

I have asked the question to very significant people. There was one very well read, well respected, world-famous Christian theologian, Stanley Jones. He was continuously touring around the world. He used to come to India too. And once in a world religions conference we met.

He spoke very beautifully, a well prepared speech. As he sat down by my side I asked him, "Why did you prepare the speech?"

He felt a little uneasy, because we were not even introduced. And he asked, "How you came to know that I have prepared it?"

I said, "It was clear. It was exactly the way it is taught in the Christian theological colleges. The beginning should be sensational so it attracts everybody's attention, and then whatever you want to convey, convey it very clearly because people are ready to listen. You have created the excitement. And always end at a peak. And always end it abruptly, as if something more was there and it has not been said. This is how they teach in the theological college, and this is how your speech was. I can say with absolute guarantee it was prepared, each single word, each gesture. When your sounds should be louder and when it should become just a whisper, all that was according to the science of oratory. And it was well prepared, without any flaw, but it was only a speech. It is not your conviction.

"Because the conviction needs no preparation. The conviction is spontaneous. The conviction finds itself, its gestures, its voice. The conviction knows where to begin, where to end, without any training. It is innocent, innocent of training. It was your belief.

"Now I am going to speak. Listen to me. And this is not my belief, this is my experience. And don't escape. After I have finished I have to meet you again."

He was a little puzzled. He was a old man and he had never come across such a person. It was a kind of intrusion. I spoke. I came back to him and I asked him, "Can you say this was prepared?"

He said, "No. It has all the beauty of unprepared rawness, the uncut, unpolished diamond. And you are right. I have been thinking all along while you were speaking that although I have cut my stone, polished it, prepared it, but it was not a diamond. The polishing was perfect, the cutting was perfect, the presentation was perfect, but what I was presenting was not a diamond. I can see the difference. I was speaking out of my faith. I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Holy Bible, but certainly I have not experienced anything."

I said, "At least you are a sincere man. Religious people are not supposed to be."

We became friends. Many times he became my guest. Whenever he passed my town he always stayed with me. His Christian followers were at a loss that why he stays with me.

I always drove him to the church but I always remained in the car waiting for him. His followers asked me that, "He stays with you, he loves you, respects you. You don't show even this much respect. You can come in the church. Anyway you are sitting outside in the car. You can listen him."

I said, "That will be disrespectful to him. He knows why I am not coming in. Unless he says something out of his own experience, I will not come in. The day I come in will be his day of graduation."

He died without a certificate.

The same has happened with Hindu saints, Jaina saints, Buddhist saints. Even the saints of these religions have no experience. It is all borrowed. Hence it is just a burden. They are carrying it out of sheer habit, respectability, sociality.

So although millions of people are behind these religions, my few sannyasins are far more stronger.

They have tasted something, lived with someone who has arrived, have been in love with someone who can take them to the utmost peak of existence.

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So their numbers may be small, but numbers don't count. I count the hearts.

You must have noticed it, that manual workers are called hands: how many hands are working?

Intellectual workers are called heads: head of the department, head clerk, headmaster. But heart is nowhere mentioned.

I count hearts, because the real strength is neither in the hands nor in the head. The real strength is in the heart, in your love. And love can do miracles.

There are difficulties but for my sannyasins those difficulties are challenges. We will not accept them as difficulties but as new explorations, new struggles, new challenges, new doors to be opened, new heights to be reached. The same stone on the road can be thought as blocking the way, can be understood as a stepping-stone.

And we are going to make every stone a stepping-stone.

And, as I said, the situation is in our favor because all religions are bogus. They don't have the support of existence with them. They are dead.

All political ideologies have failed, utterly failed. No political revolution has been successful. And the politicians of the world has brought humanity to the verge of a global suicide. Politics has contributed to humanity the possibility to commit total suicide. That is their contribution of thousands of years.

Religions have contributed AIDS. That is their only contribution. They created all kinds of perversions.

It was in the monasteries that homosexuality was born. So all the religions are responsible for AIDS and it is going to destroy almost two-third of humanity.

If somehow the third world war can be postponed, AIDS seems to be more difficult than nuclear weapons. There seems to be no way in the hands of the old society to prevent it unless they accept the way of the life we propose, the way of the commune, that families disappear, that villages become communes, that big cities become few communes. Very big cities can become many communes.

But family remains no more the unit of society. Commune becomes the basic unit. That's the only possible way to avoid AIDS killing millions of people.

So the situation is in our favor. Just we have to be alert that they have power, but existence has left them alone. It is no more with them. Nature is no more with them. They have disturbed the ecology of nature, and nature is no more supportive of them.

(Tape side B)

The very earth they have been standing has disappeared. They are simply hanging in the air.

We are on the solid ground, so we have to make them aware of their impotency, of their futility, that they have no future, that they have lived their past and it is time to start moving towards the graveyard.

I am reminded of an old Jew who was dying. A very rich man. His four sons were sitting around him thinking that, "Now he is going to die. How we are going to arrange the funeral procession?"

The eldest says, "Of course we will manage as many Rolls Royces as possible."

The second said, "Are you a fool? In his whole life he never sat in a Rolls Royce, so what is the point for a dead man? And what difference does it make to him that how many Rolls Royces are following his funeral procession? It will be unnecessarily too much wastage of money. I cannot support the idea. I think only one car will be enough. It need not be Rolls Royce. Any car... the cheapest possible, because a dead man is dead. Why waste money?"

The third man said, "But what is the need of a car? Just like old days, we can have a horse-driven buggy

-- cheap, aesthetic, traditional."

The fourth said, "You are all talking of unnecessary wastage. My idea is, what we are for? Four persons are enough to carry the stretcher. And we are young, and that will be some respect to the old man."

Listening to all this, the old man started getting up. The children asked, "Dad, what are you doing?"

He said, "I am looking for my shoes."

He said, "Where are you going?"

He said, "To the graveyard. Why unnecessarily bother you? While I am alive I can reach myself. And you are right that there is no need to waste. When a man is dead he is dead. And I have never been a burden on anybody, and I don't want to be a burden on you four. And it won't look good either, a rich man being carried by his four sons. This looks more manly, that I walk to my own grave. You just keep the grave ready and I am coming."

We have to tell these people that, "We are making your grave ready, you just find out your shoes and walk down. Nobody is going to waste any energy in carrying you there to the graveyard.

"You have no future. You have lived too long. You have been a corpse hanging on the human chest.

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You have not allowed people to live. You were dead and you could not tolerate anybody to be happy, to be singing, to be dancing. Because you could not do these things so you made everybody serious, you made seriousness something of a spiritual value. In fact, it is simply a disease.

"Just as there is well-being of the body, there is a well-being of the whole being. In that well-being there is joy, there is laughter. Seriousness is part of a sick soul.

"So you have done enough harm. It is time you just leave humanity alone."

And the same has to be told to the politicians, that these nuclear weapons have not come from out of nowhere. They are the ultimate outcome of thousands of years of violent politics, of ambitious politicians, of nation against nation, race against race. Now it is time that this whole race has to be stopped. Otherwise this beautiful planet, which is in the whole solar system the only planet which has life, consciousness.

Not only that, but few people on this planet have reached to the highest peak of being. This earth has become really sacred. We will not allow this earth to be destroyed.

Temples and churches and synagogues are not sacred, but this earth is because it gave birth to a Socrates, to a Gautam Buddha, to a Lao Tzu, to a Bodhidharma. This earth has done something which is unique.

It is suspected that in the whole universe, where are at least two million solar systems. In those two million solar systems, fifty thousand planets may have some kind of life. This is just a scientific guess. But no scientist has dared that anywhere in the whole universe life has reached to such a evolved state as to produce a Gautam Buddha.

Now to allow these idiotic politicians to destroy this earth is to destroy existence whole effort of millions of years. And it is not only that this earth is being destroyed. The whole universe is losing something which was attained with great difficulty, and perhaps it may take millions of years for another planet to come to such a position, such a state.

So our work is to raise consciousness around the world that, "Religions are dead and we are ready to give you a living religiousness so you will not feel empty, you will not miss your dead religion that you have been carrying."

And we have to tell the politicians that it is time you start thinking of dropping old ways of dividing the world into nations, because that's what creates war. Those boundaries have to be withdrawn. The earth has to be declared one.

And we have to make our communes so rejoicingly creative that they become models, that soon others start seeing that in every way -- economically, educationally, artistically, the commune is far richer than their old kind of society.

We have to make it so apparently clear that even blinds can see it and the deaf can hear it.

And the situation is ripe. There is no other alternative anywhere. Certainly the old forces will try to destroy us. That is natural. Always the old leaves the place very reluctantly for the new and for the stranger.

But howsoever reluctantly he is, he will have to leave. That is the law of nature.

The old has to die for the new to come into existence.

We are proposing the new and they are clinging with the old. Hence I say there is every possibility of our communes being successful, not only successful but in a certain way the refuge for the whole new humanity.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE DESCRIBED SILENCE AND ALONENESS AS THE GREATEST BLISS

POSSIBLE IN LIFE. YET YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR SANNYASINS, LIVE IN COMMUNES AROUND YOU.

HOW CAN THEY BEST EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS OF SILENCE, ALONENESS AND COMMUNAL

LIVING?

A: It is a very simple thing. People go on talking ninety-nine percent unnecessarily. One percent perhaps may be necessary but that can be written. Just keep a notebook with yourself and watch your mind that, why you want to say something? Is it necessary? Is it going to serve any purpose? Or it is just the fear of silence that makes you talk? The fear of being alone that makes you talk? Because that is the only communication you feel with somebody.

If two persons are sitting silently, they may be sitting very close but they are as far away as they can be.

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is none of their business.

While I was traveling, it was every day trouble, because I was always traveling in a air-conditioned coupe so only two persons were there, I and somebody else.

And I was continuously talking, and I wanted at least in the train I am left alone. But the other person was boiling.

So I will enter the compartment and I will just put my finger on my mouth and say to the person, "Just wait." And then I will tell him my name, my father's name, my father's father's name, how many brothers I have, what education, what profession, where I am coming from, where I am going to. I will say it without his asking.

He will look at me aghast, afraid that, "What is the matter? I have not asked, not even your name, and you are telling your father's name, father's father's name, great-grandfather's name, how many children your father has, how many brothers he has, how many sisters he has, who is married, who is not married. But I don't... Why you are telling all these things to me?"

I said, "I am just finishing the whole thing quickly. Otherwise, twenty-four hours we are going to be here in this compartment together. By and by you are going to ask all these things. If anything is left, you tell me, I want to finish it quickly because after that no more talking. Have you any questions?"

And he will automatically say, "I don't have any questions. In the first... I have not asked the first question either!"

I said, "Knowing man, I just answered in case. If it does not relate to you, forget about it. Forgive me.

But here we finish."

And then it was worth seeing, the scene. I will be sitting and the man was tossing and turning, opening his suitcase, taking the book out, putting the book back, putting the light on, off, calling the servant for a glass of water, going to the bathroom again and again. And I was simply watching, just looking him doing all these things. And finally he will get too much angry because I am watching him, and he is doing stupid things. He knows that he is being stupid and I am simply watching and enjoying.

He will say that, "You have made one condition: not to speak. I will not speak, but you have to also follow one condition. Don't go on watching me, because that makes me crazy."

I said, "Okay, that's not a difficulty. I will keep my eyes closed. But once in a while can I open or not?

Because once in a while I am in need to go to the bathroom. Have I to go with closed eyes?"

So I will keep my eyes closed, and once in a while I will open. And that was enough to trigger his anger and... And before he called the conductor I would go out and tell the conductor that, "Soon that passenger will call you to change his room. Remember, no room is vacant. All are full. Because I don't want to go again through the same process. Somehow I have trained him."

And all the conductors knew me because I was constantly on the train. They said, "We know how you train people. In twenty-four hours they must be losing at least four, five pounds weight. And by the time they get out of the train, they must be thinking they are getting out of imprisonment or something. You destroy their whole journey and you don't do anything, that we know."

(Tape side C)

And it was bound to happen soon that he will call the conductor, that, "I want to change." The conductor will say that, "That is impossible. All the seats are booked."

And I will tell the person that, "If that seat is uncomfortable to you, you can come on my seat. I can come on your seat. What is the need of the conductor? We can change seats just in this cabin."

He said, "You please keep quiet. I don't want to talk with you myself. You are the whole cause of my trouble."

I said, "I have not done anything."

He said, "That is the most troublesome part of it, that you have not done anything and you have created such a craziness in me. I have never felt so crazy."

I said, "The only thing is that you want to talk. You do one thing that will help immensely, and I am not joking. When you go to the bathroom, have a good talk."

He said, "You please don't give me any suggestions of that kind. You want the whole compartment people knowing that I am mad, talking to myself in the bathroom."

I said, "No, I was just giving you a clue, because when it becomes too much to me I do it myself."

And next time when he went into the bathroom he was doing it, and when he came back he was smiling at me and he said, "You are right. It works. It feels light. Although I was afraid in the beginning, I started very slowly, whispering, but then I went on, almost started shouting and forgot completely about the people.

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And when I came out there were at least ten people gathered. They were all listening what I was saying. I have never delivered a speech before ten people. But I am feeling so light. Let them think I am mad. They don't know me, I don't know them. Who cares?"

I said, "That's why I was saying to you that, 'You listen to my ideas. They will always help you.' So you just do one thing whenever you feel like talking. Watch whether it is of any use or just something like an inner itching, a irritation. Then it is better to write it down and keep it with yourself. Just writing it will help.

It will be released. Soon you will see that all unnecessary things that you feel like talking have disappeared."

Perhaps there are few things which are necessary to talk, and you can write on a paper and give to the person. He can answer on the same paper. And you can work with hundreds of people without a single word uttered.

And this will give you many things: a great understanding why you want to talk. It is not something useful, it is simply an insane urge to unburden you. But you are burdening the other person whom you are saying things, because he is listening and soon he will be saying the same things to somebody else.

I used to live in one place and my neighbor was a very old-fashioned theist, and was very respected by the people, almost like a saint. And I used to argue with him. My aunt used to live with me, and she will say that, "Why you harass that old man?"

I said, "You don't know. Whatever I say, he is bound to say to others."

She said, "What? You are saying things against his whole ideology!"

I said, "That does not matter. But once you put something into somebody's ear, it does not get out from the other ear. It gets out from the tongue. There is no other way. People have a wrong notion that you get from one ear, it gets out from the other ear. Impossible. There is no passage."

And one day my aunt told me that, "You were right because this morning I heard him. He was telling his neighbor exactly the same thing yesterday he was arguing against with you. He was giving your argument, and with great joy, because the neighbor could not answer him."

I said, "Now you understand. Whatever I say to him, the whole day he is doing nothing else than talking to people. Soon he will become my 'His Master's Voice' gramophone record.' Whether he thinks he is against me or for does not matter. Once I put things into his computer, they are going to come out some way or other."

So when you say to something, somebody, you are unburdening yourself but you are burdening the other person, which is not good.

And as your silence will grow, you will be surprised. Just as you can burden people with your words, you can hold their hand in silence and you can unburden them with your silence. It works the same way, and that is therapeutic.

Then just the presence of somebody, if he is really silent, will be unburdening to you. Just feeling his silence, his presence, and you will feel so much burden, so many tensions, anxieties, have simply dropped.

Thirdly, if one becomes attuned with silence, accustomed of remaining silent, then whatever he says has a profound meaning because it is something condensed. It is out of silence. And whenever a word comes out of silence it has tremendous weight, authority, conviction. It has a life, it is not a dead word.

And that can be felt very easily. Then you are speaking from your very being. The mind is being used only as a mechanism, but the message is coming from deeper down.

And it will reach to the other person exactly to the same depth as it has come from you. All that is needed on the other person's side is openness, receptivity.

So in a commune particularly, where everybody is making all his effort to be open, to be receptive, it is good to be silent. It is beneficial to be silent. It is a blessing to the whole commune to be silent.

That does not mean that you cannot speak. I am not saying that, "Repress, don't speak." I am saying,

"Allow silence to grow, slowly. And whenever there is need to speak something, speak. But let it come out of your silence. And then see the difference. Then it comes like an arrow which goes directly to the other person's very heart."

Silence makes one really a poet. Each word spoken out of silence is poetry, is music.

Q: BHAGWAN, UNDER THE U.S. IMMIGRATION LAWS, YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED A RELIGIOUS

TEACHER. YET YOU CALL YOURSELF A FRIEND WHO IS THERE TO HELP US IN OUR INDIVIDUAL

GROWTH AND MEDITATION. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

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A: The difference is much. The leader has to be followed. He requires faith. He wants you to believe in him. He asks for surrender. He destroys your individuality. He creates an army of slaves. They don't have any say, they have just to follow.

Just following the leader is enough. They will be saved. The price to be saved is to become a slave, to lose your individuality, to become just a shadow.

The guide is totally different. The guide needs no belief on your part, no faith on your part, no following on your part. The guide simply explains his experience and leaves it up to you, whatever you want to make of it. You are not to accept it blindly. If it appeals to your heart, if without believing in it there arises a trust in you... The difference with the leader: you believe in his system of thought. With the guide you trust and love the person, not the ideology or the system of thought.

With the leader it is a business phenomenon. He promises you some goods which will be delivered after death if you fulfill certain conditions now. With the guide there is no business. It is just a love affair. You love the presence of the person, you feel that he has reached somewhere where you also would like to reach.

And the guide makes it clear to you that, "You cannot follow my footsteps, because then you will never reach where I have reached. Because each individual is unique and has to find his own path. So I can give you a feel of certainty that such a space exists. I can explain you the way I have followed.

I can give you the encouragement which will be needed on the path many times. There will be dark nights of the soul and you would like to come back rather than go ahead, because it seems it is growing darker and darker. But the guide can say to you that, "My experience is, when the night is darkest the morning is closest."

So the guide is a friend in this sense, that he will help you to find your path. On your path, whenever there are difficulties he may be able to help you to understand them, to bypass them or overstep them.

Whenever you will fall into a discouraged, depressed state, his presence, his love, will drag you out of your depression. His presence will make you feel that the goal is not far away.

So the work of the guide is very intimate. That's why I call it the friend, to make it more intimate.

Leader is a political word. And because religious leaders also were hidden political leaders, nobody has ever objected to it. Otherwise, there is no question to lead anyone. It is humiliating human beings.

Jesus says to his disciples, "I am your shepherd. You are my sheep." And not a single one raises the question that, "This is insulting. At least, leave us human beings. Don't destroy us so much." But that's what all leaders are bound to do, to make themselves big, high. They have to reduce you as low as possible. If you are not the sheep, then Jesus Christ is not the shepherd. It is absolutely essential that you should be reduced to be sheep so that he can be the shepherd.

This is a simple psychological exploitation.

A guide is not above you, is not holier than you. A guide is just like you. The only difference is he has reached the peak. You are in the valley. He has come back to the valley to take you, but he knows the path that he has followed cannot be your path. Otherwise your uniqueness will be lost.

He can give you the certainty that the peak exists and that your love and his authority, his experience, will make it possible for you to search for your own way.

And as far as the inner journey is concerned, the guide can always be available in any crisis, in any trouble. You may be lost, you may forget the way. You may start moving away from the peak. The guide can watch that whether you are growing rightly or not. There are indications which show whether the person is going right or not.

And if you love the person, you will listen. You will try to correct your way.

So it is a very intimate relationship between guide, or the friend... The word leader is ugly.

But in that INS application form they have only one category for religion; that is, 'religious leader'. So there was no other way. Now I will have to fight in the court, that your form and your categories need to be updated. If I don't fit in your categories, then the categories have to be changed. Every law exists for man.

No man exists for law.

So I have to say it. It is going to be a beautiful fight because I don't know any one of them is able even to define what religion is. Or any one of them has ever experienced anything they can call religious. So on what grounds they have made those categories? They should seek help from some guide. I am available!

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE CALLED THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 'THE ONLY

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CONSTITUTION IN THE WORLD WHICH HAS SOME DEMOCRATIC FRAGRANCE ABOUT IT'. CAN

YOU SPEAK MORE ABOUT THIS AND WHY YOU SEE THAT IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO FIGHT FOR

THIS CONSTITUTION?

A: It is certainly the most significant constitution in the world. The Soviet Constitution is non-democratic. It declares the dictatorship of the proletariat. But in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a small group of Communists have been ruling the country for sixty years continuously.

The other Constitution is British Constitution which was basically imperialistic. The empire has disappeared but the Constitution remains the same. Still the queen is the head of the country. The country is her private property. The countries that belonged to British Empire have all made their constitutions after their independence according the British Constitution, because that was the only constitution they were acquainted with.

There are countries like India which have tried to take everything good from all the constitutions of the world, included in their Constitution. But they completely forgot that a poor country cannot afford many high values.

For example, a poor country cannot accept democracy in its totality. It will have to follow in some way or other, something dictatorial. For example, birth control: population goes on increasing, the country will be by this end, one fifth of the whole world. Out of five persons, one will be Indian. One billion will be the population of India. They have not been able even to feed perfectly four hundred million people. How they are going to feed one thousand million people? And a country in which six hundred thousand people will be starving and dying will not be worth living. Those who will be living will be living amongst corpses. So they have accepted democratic values without seeing that their countries need is different.

American Constitution declares freedom of speech. That includes freedom of thinking, freedom of writing, freedom of expression, in any form. Although it is in the Constitution, but even American politicians have not been able to keep pace with the Constitution. If freedom of expression is there, then you cannot prohibit or ban any book on any grounds. You cannot say that ' This novel has obscene pictures, obscene scenes, hence it cannot be published'. This is against your Constitution, because there is no clarification, that freedom of expression will not be allowed to obscenity.

Freedom of expression includes everything. And there should be no fear of obscenity. But the Christian churches, the Christian politicians, they go on dragging the Constitution down into the mud. Respect for the individual, which is not shown in reality, respect for private property, which is just in words. Half of the land of Oregon is Federal Government's property. The other half also they want.

And they are against this commune for many reasons. One reason is: now how they can have this land.

They may have the whole of Oregon; they cannot have these one hundred twenty six square miles at any cost. They were trying to negotiate, but they were offering too small a price. When we purchased it, we offered the double price. They were offering three million; we offered six million. And the owner understood that he can never get six million from the Federal Government.

They are angry on that point: that we took away the land which was almost settling in their hands.

Because for fifty years it was just negotiations, negotiations; the owner was fed up. And they were thinking sooner or later he will have to sell it, because what he will do? And nobody else was there to purchase it.

What you can do with a desert?

And they were interested because they want the whole Oregon to become a nuclear shelter. So these hills, deserts, will be the right places. They will not be attacked by nuclear weapons. Oregon will be the last to be attacked, because what it has got?

In fact, just in these four years, the world has become aware of Oregon because of us. Otherwise, who has heard about Oregon? And even today, except us, there is no news in Oregon. We have to create news, and still they don't feel any gratitude!

The Constitution has all that is needed for what I call 'meritocracy'. But Americans are not following their own Constitution. They are in every way going against it.

In the first place, if they are sincere, then the government should belong to the Red Indians because it is their land. That will be respect for private property.

In fact, the people you call Americans are not Americans. They are all foreigners. Somebody is Italian; somebody is Spanish; somebody is English; somebody is French. But nobody is American.

And look how words can create deceptions. The Americans are called Red Indians. They are the 1/08/07

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Americans. But nobody even calls them Americans. Just the word creates a great fallacy. It seems America belongs to Americans -- naturally. But America belongs to Red Indians who are really the Americans. And the people who are pretending to be Americans are none of them Americans. They are invaders, occupying some poor people's land and talking about democracy and freedom.

I have to bring it before the Supreme Court. Fight with me is not going to be easy. I have to ask the Supreme Court that "If you really have any dignity, any humanity, and any respect for your Constitution, then the first thing is: give the government to those whose land you are occupying. And you have some guts, you are all foreigners and for four years you have not been able to decide for me: whether I can stay in American permanently or not. In the first place, who are you to decide it? Who decided it for you? Have you received green cards from Red Indians? Have you received your passport from Red Indians? You invade a country. Violently you destroy the country's poor people. Their beautiful land you, in every way, pollute it, corrupt its ecology. And still in the whole world you go on calling yourself 'the most democratic country'.

Give the government to the Red Indians. And tell all so-called Americans, who are not Americans, that: either you can go back to your country, or you can apply for green card."

They may not have faced any case about green card, the way they are going to face my case.

And we are not invaders. We have purchased the property. And we have not forcibly purchased it. We have paid more than the Federal Government was paying for it. We have paid double. "And the way you have paid, shows that how it must have been done. The whole New York area was purchased in ninety dollars. Do you call it business? Or just cheating poor people? Just ninety dollars for the whole New York?"

American Constitution is beautiful because the people who wrote it had some ideals in their mind. But they were still politicians. So although they had ideals, they made a beautiful Constitution, but they never realised the fact that their Constitution goes against their very government.

And I am going to bring it before the whole world. They have been condemning Soviet Union for dictatorship, but at least those are Soviet people; that is their land. If they chose to be a dictatorship, it is their business. "This is not your land, and you have forced the real Americans into reservation camps, which are nothing but American translation for German concentration camps."

The reality is very ugly. And I would like to make it known to the whole world. It seems as if people have forgotten. They have started thinking that this land is theirs. And if they can do what I am saying, they will really prove democratic, lovers of freedom, really fair and just. And if it is possible then the third world war becomes automatically impossible, because Red Indians cannot manage nuclear weapons, nor they will be interested in it.

Soon I will have to face the Supreme Court and I will ask. If they want, I will face the Senate, or whosoever they want, I am ready to face it. And I know they don't have any argument against me. They have committed such a grave crime against red Indians that they will have to do something. Otherwise, drop your hypocrisy and show your ugly face as it is -- as we are seeing in these four years continuously.

Now we are seeing... We have given all evidences, eyewitnesses, testimonies, but they are not taking any step against the criminals. On the contrary, they will go on postponing so it becomes faded away in the people's mind.

And other things which are not so important they are bringing immediately, before the criminal cases start they will start immigration cases, they will start marriage cases. Their whole effort will be to buy time so they can somehow find a way to give immunity to the real criminals and destroy the whole commune.

Then innocent people can be dumped with all the crimes.

But whatever criminal idea they may have in their mind, I know politicians don't have much of a mind in the first place and we will be able to fight it without any difficulty, and mostly because the constitution is in our favor on each single point.

So it is going to be a strange confrontation. We are strangers, we don't belong to any country, and we will be defending the constitution of America against the American politicians who are prostituting it.

This will make history. Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

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Chapter #6

Chapter title: None

26 October 1985 pm in Sanai Grove

Archive code: 8510265

ShortTitle: LAST406

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

Length: 105 mins

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH MA MAHA, ADDICTS MAGAZINE, AUSTRALIA.

QUESTION: BELOVED BHAGWAN, WHY DO PEOPLE STILL TAKE DRUGS, AND ALSO

SANNYASINS, WHEN THERE'S YOU AND YOUR COMMUNE ON THIS PLANET?

Answer: The drugs are as old as humanity itself, and they certainly fulfill something of immense value. I am against drugs, but my being against drugs is for the same reason as for thousands of years people have been addicted to the drugs.

It may look very strange. The drugs are capable to give you a hallucinatory experience beyond the mundane world. That is the experience that is being searched through meditation.

Meditation brings you to the real experience, and drug gives you just a hallucination, a dream-like experience but very similar. To meditate is difficult. The drug is cheap. But the attraction for drugs is spiritual.

Man is not satisfied with his mundane existence. He wants to know something more. He wants to be something more. Just the ordinary life seems so flat, so meaningless, that if this is all then suicide seems to be the only way out of it. It gives no ecstasy, no joy. On the contrary, it goes on piling you up with more and more misery, anxiety, disease, old age and, finally, death.

From the cradle to the grave, the ordinary life is just a drag. People go on living it because they are cowards. Otherwise they will commit suicide. They don't have the courage enough to commit suicide. But this is not something one can rejoice in.

You can drag on but you cannot call it living. There is no dance in it, no color in it. It is just a vast desert spreading as far as you can see, with no oasis anywhere.

I am reminded of one of the dreams of Leo Tolstoy. It is a rare dream. It is also unique that it went on repeating continuously almost his whole life. As long as he could remember, the dream was happening. And the dream is very strange.

In his dream he sees a vast desert and two gumboots without anybody in them, just the two gumboots without any feet inside them, are walking. They go on walking and they go on walking, and there is no end to this walk. The desert is endless. And he always woke up perspiring, his heart beating louder, gripped*

with great fear.

Without going to any psychoanalyst, he knew the meaning. He himself was a genius. He knew that this is his life, this is not a dream. It is not even symbolic. It is exactly his life. Where he is going? Wherever he goes he will end into the grave. Who is going he does not know. The gumboots are empty.

He is unaware of anybody inside. He is unacquainted of the person who is wearing the gumboots. He is invisible. All that is visible is the gumboots and the desert, and the tedious journey, pointless, meaningless.

This is the reason that drugs have attracted man since the very beginning. And they have at least given him a temporary relief. Only few people tried meditation. And my own understanding is, these people also tried meditation because drugs at a point become useless. You become immune.

In the beginning they give you tremendous experiences, but soon they become almost part of your body chemistry. Then if you don't take them you are in trouble. Your whole chemistry wants them. If you take 1/08/07

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them, you gain nothing. You go on increasing the doses.

In India where the experiments with drugs must have been the oldest, because the oldest scripture in the world is Rigveda*, the religious source book of the Hindus, it talks about a certain drug, Somras*. Because of this Somras*, Aldous Huxley has called the ultimate drug one day, when LSD is refined and there is no side effect, it will be called Soma. The name is from Rigveda*.

Rigveda* according to Hindus is ninety thousand years old, and nobody has been able to prove that they are wrong because their arguments for its old age are almost irrefutable. They are not logical, otherwise it would have been easy. They are astronomical.

In Rigveda* there is a description of a certain combination of stars that had happened according to modern astronomers also ninety thousand years before. Now there is no way for the people who were writing Rigveda* to describe it in absolute detail unless they have seen it.

Now this is such an evidence that you cannot do anything about it. The astronomers say for ninety thousand years that combination has not been again in the sky. So certainly whoever was writing it was fully aware of the combination of stars at that time.

For ninety thousand years Hindus have accepted drugs almost as part of their religious ceremonies. It was only under British regime that drugs created trouble, but because they were part of a religious ritual, which is the ancientmost religion in the world, even the British government was afraid to interfere with it. It continued. Even in my childhood all drugs were available in the market. There was no question of any illegality. And every school of Hindu religion was using drugs, but they were using it in a very scientific way.

They will give the drug in a certain quantity, create a certain experience in the man, and then when he will come out of it will tell him that, "This was only an illusion. It was simply because of the drug, because of the chemistry, your mind experienced.

"Would you like to experience it in its reality? If the illusion is so beautiful, you can think how much more the reality would be. And the experience created by the drug lost for few hours, and again you are back to the same old rotten world. But if the experience is real, it is yours forever. You never lose it. It is not something that has happened to you, it is something that was already in you; you have discovered it."

So I don't see that it was wrong to use drugs in this way. In fact, this should be the approach around the world for the modern man.

And now we have more advanced drugs, synthetically made, and we are capable to purify them more.

We can make drugs which have no bad effects at all. We can make drugs which are not addictive. And we can have in every hospital, in every university, a certain department which teaches people how to move from drug to meditation.

Just to talk about meditation remains simply verbal. There is no way through the words to give you any experience. But drugs are immensely useful. The words can explain to you what meditation is, the drug can give you an hallucinatory experience of it. And then you can be initiated into a method. And now you will not be moving in darkness. Now you know that something... if an ordinary drug can do so much, then there must be some way to find an authentic transformation, to experience it without any dependence on anything.

So the drug simply opens up a door and helps you to understand that man's life and his experience need not be confined to the ordinary mundane world -- he can fly high towards the stars -- that he is capable of knowing things which are not ordinarily available.

Under proper guidance -- medical, meditational -- drugs can be of immense help.

I said I am against drugs because if they become addictive then they will be the most destructive for your journey towards the self. Then you become enchanted into hallucinations. And because it is cheap --

no effort has to be done, just you have to go on taking bigger and bigger doses....

In India it came to a point.... Still today there are monasteries where they keep poisonous snakes because the people had become so addicted to all kinds of drugs that no drug has any effect on them. They can take any dose and they will remain normal. The only thing that gives them a little experience is a bite on their tongue by a cobra. That will be death to anybody, but to them it is a beautiful drug experience.

Sometimes it has happened that these people become addicted even to cobra bites. Their whole bloodstream becomes poisonous. And it is on record, and once it happened in front of me, that a cobra was brought to bite. The cobra did it perfectly well on the tongue, and died.

The man had become so poisonous... because the cobra is not poisonous in his whole body. He has simply a small gland which has poison, and that gland is just in his mouth. So whenever the cobra bites someone, he immediately turns upside down, because the gland in his mouth has the opening up. He will 1/08/07

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bite; that is not dangerous. That is simply making your blood available. And then he will turn over to pour the poison on your blood.

The bite is not really poisonous. The poison comes from the gland which hangs above his tongue in the mouth. It has to hang that way, otherwise the poison cannot remain in it. So he turns upside down. The poison starts flowing out of the gland into the wounds that he has made by his bite. But before he could do that, biting the man was enough to get poisoned himself.

For thousands of years people have been using drugs. Moralists, religious people, governments have been trying prohibition absolutely unsuccessfully. And I don't see that they can ever succeed.

The only way to succeed is what I am suggesting. Rather than prohibiting drugs, let the scientists find out better drugs which give deeper and more psychedelic, more colorful, more ecstatic experiences and without any side effects, and without any addiction. And these should be available in the universities, in the colleges, in the hospitals -- wherever some kind of guidance is possible, that the person is not prohibited, is allowed total freedom to use anything that he wants. And we use his experience to help him grow towards some authentic process so that he can start experiencing something far greater than any drug can give.

And only then he can compare that the first one was just a dream, and this is a reality, and the first one was just cheating myself through chemistry, 'And the first one was not helping me in my spiritual growth. It was in fact preventing the growth, keeping me addicted and retarded'. The second one goes on growing, and now he starts gathering courage to explore more.

He was never aware that these experiences are possible, that these experiences are not just fiction.

So drug can be used in a very beneficial way, to make the person realize that this is hallucination, and the hallucination is so satisfying, would not you like to try the real? We have the real drug also.

I call it meditation. And it takes you to the uttermost blissful experience possible. Then only drugs become useless for you.

If we want humanity to get free of drugs, then meditation is the way. But before we can get free of them, they are very important and can be used to introduce people to meditation.

So this paranoia about drugs is not helpful to humanity. You can make drugs illegal, it makes no change.

In fact, they become more attractive, more exciting. Particular to the youth they become a challenge.

I am amazed sometimes that, is man going ever to learn even the ABC of human psychology? The same stupidity goes on which God did with Adam and Eve: prohibition. Don't eat the fruit of this tree. But that becomes an invitation. That becomes a challenge. @A570

And thousands of years have passed, but the authority figures are still in the same mood: don't use the drug, otherwise imprisonment for five years, seven years. And nobody bothers that drugs are being made available in jails. Just you have to pay a little higher price. And the people who come out of the jail are not cured. They go back again because ... the reason is the drug gives them something which your society is not giving.

They are ready to destroy their health, their body, their whole life becomes a mess, but still that drug gives them something which your society does not give.

So rather than preventing them, create a society which gives something which is better.

I have been fighting in India with one of the most idiotic prime ministers India had, Morarji Desai. He is absolutely fanatic, is not ready to listen to any reasonable argument. Alcohol has to be prohibited. He prohibited the alcohol.

That does not make any change. People start making alcohol but that proves dangerous. Thousands of people died because the alcohol they drank was poisonous, was not made rightly. The people who were making it had no idea what they are making.

And this has been happening around the world. Once in a while some idiot comes in and tries to prohibit, but nobody asks why people drink alcohol.

(Tape side B)

Your life gives them nothing. You suck them of their blood and in return what they get? No joy, just anxieties upon anxieties. Safe alcohol makes them relax for few hours, sing a song or have a little dance --

or a fight in the pub.

But for few hours they are transported from your world. The very attraction proves that your society is wrong, not that alcohol is wrong.

Your society should help people to dance, to sing, to rejoice, to love. The alcohol will disappear. The other drugs are far better than alcohol.

There are many drugs which have less bad after-effects, particularly synthetic drugs taken in a right 1/08/07

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atmosphere, in a right mood. For example, LSD. It simply enhances your mood, it does not do anything to you. If you are in a despair the LSD experience will become a nightmare. But if you are feeling a well-being, that is the time to take LSD. Then it can give you a really positive ecstatic experience, although it will be hallucinatory.

But if you don't know the real, it looks almost the real. Even a man like Aldous Huxley, one of the most intelligent men of this generation, thought that through LSD he has achieved the same experience as Gautam Buddha, Kabir, Ramakrishna.

If you don't know the real, naturally you cannot call it hallucinatory. It is so real.

Huxley had no experience of meditation. He has really no right to say such a thing. You can say such a thing only when you have experienced both, that it is the same experience as Kabir.

Kabir never used any drug. His experience was purely of meditation. On what grounds Huxley can say it is the same experience? He does not know the experience of Kabir. I can understand that he has been through a tremendously beautiful experience, but that experience disappears as the effect of the LSD goes out of the system.

But Kabir's experience remains twenty-four hours, day in, day out, his whole life. Once it happens, it is always there.

This is a simple criterion. But he was so much fascinated by the experience, and he corrupted almost a whole generation. They thought that if a man like Huxley says that LSD can give you samadhi, then what is the need of going into so much trouble for meditation with no guarantee whether you will be able to succeed or not?

I am against drugs because they can become addictive and they can prevent your spiritual growth. You can start thinking that you have achieved what you were seeking, and your hands are empty. You are just dreaming.

But, on the other hand, I am a very scientific mind. On the other hand, I would like drugs to be used, not to be prohibited -- but used under proper guidance as a stepping-stone towards meditation.

And governments should pay more attention for improving the drugs rather than preventing people. If improved drugs are available, then other drugs will already be out of the market. There is no need to prohibit anything in the world. Just produce something better -- something better, cheaper, legal. Then who is going to bother about marijuana, hashish, heroin -- for what? There is no reason.

Something better is available with the medical store, without prescription. Even in the hospital you can book a place for yourself, that doctors can look after you while you are in the drug experience. Meditators can help you to understand what has happened to you. And this is possible very easily through meditation.

One thing more, that if something even hallucinatory happens to a person, meditation becomes easier.

Something in him becomes certain. Something in him is now perfectly guaranteed that meditation is not just fiction.

And the hallucinatory experience also opens some doors.

The guidance can be of very much importance. For example, when somebody is under LSD and is having an ecstatic joy, that is the moment to teach him the method of meditation, because he is very sensitive, very clean and clear as he is not ordinarily. He is dull and cloudy. Now the whole sky is a clarity.

You can teach him meditation more easily in this moment than you can teach him when he is in an ordinary state.

He seems to listen but he only hears. It does not go deep. His sleep is thick.

But in certain moments under LSD he is very close to awakening. Under a right guide he can be introduced to the technique of meditation. He can be given what is called post-hypnotic suggestions for which he is absolutely vulnerable. He can be told that, "This meditation, you will be able to do it when you are out of LSD experience." You can go on repeating it that, "You are going to succeed in it." It is a simple method and there is no problem in not succeeding in it.

Just one or two sessions with a guide will be enough. The man can be moved towards meditation. And once he moves towards meditation, drugs have no importance at all.

All the efforts of scientists and the government should be to understand that if a certain thing has been so attractive for the whole history of man, and no government has ever been successful to prohibit it, then there must be certain need that it fulfills. And unless that need is fulfilled in some other way, drugs are going to remain in the world. And they are destructive. @B204

And the more governments are against them, more destructive they are, because nobody can make any refinements on them, nobody can make any experiments on them, nobody is even allowed to say what I am 1/08/07

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saying.

But I can say it because I am against drugs. But that does not mean they cannot be used. They can be used as a means, they are not the end.

And if we can hope a future free of drugs, if man becomes naturally meditative.... And that is possible. If a child finds his father is meditating, his mother is meditating, everybody is meditating, he will start being curious about it. He also wants to meditate.

And that is the age when meditation is very simple because he is not yet corrupted by the society. Yet he is innocent.

And if everybody around him is doing something and enjoying in doing it, he cannot remain behind. He will sit with them with closed eyes. First they may laugh at him, that it is not possible for children. But they do not understand. It is more possible for children than for the so-called grownups.

Just the atmosphere of meditation in schools, in colleges, in universities -- wherever the person goes he finds that atmosphere which nourishes his own meditativeness.

I would love to see that no drugs are needed in the world. But not through prohibition, but through creating something better, something real. Drugs will be defeated without any difficulty, but these idiotic governments go on giving importance to drugs and they go on destroying the youth around the world.

The most precious time of life is wasted in hallucinations, and by the time they realize what they have done to themselves, perhaps it is too late. They cannot come back to a normal state. Their body has become accustomed to have certain chemicals in it. Then even unwillingly they have to go on injecting themselves with all kinds of poisons.

Or if somebody has not been on hard drugs, returns back, then he finds life very much dull, more dull than you find it because he has seen something beautiful. It always remains a comparison.

He has made love under the impact of drug and he had felt at the very top of the world. And now he makes love and finds that it is nothing but a kind of sneeze. It feels good; you sneeze and it feels good, but it is not something that you live for. Nobody can say that, "I am living here for sneezing."

Q: I HAVE A VERY SPECIFIC QUESTION FOR ONE OF MY FRIENDS, AND HE WANTED TO

KNOW OUR MEDITATION CAN BE USED IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CRAVING PHENOMENON, WHEN YOU REALLY NEED IT, WHEN YOU DO ANYTHING IN ORDER TO GET THE DRUGS.

A: It will be difficult on anybody's own efforts. If he really wants to get out of drugs, then he should not be in a hurry. He should join a group where people are meditating.

He should take the drug and meditate under the impact of the drug. He cannot just drop the drug and start meditating. Drugs get so deep in your body chemistry that now it is no more in your hand. So one has to be very skillful.

Take the drug, be initiated into some kind of meditation, and under the impact of the drug, meditate.

Slowly slowly cut the dose of the drug and grow the time for meditation.

It will take a little while to move from drugs to meditation, but it is possible. That's why I am saying we need guidance centers where nobody is condemning you because you have been taking drug. Perhaps you have done the right thing rather than becoming just a robot, so nobody should condemn.

What* should help, the drug can be used as a stepping-stone. So you take the drug and we will teach you meditation. And give him post-hypnotic suggestions that, "Every day your meditation will be growing deeper and your need for the drug will be growing lesser."

It may take a three-week time at least for the changeover to take place, but it is not possible to do just when you are hankering for drug. That is the most difficult moment to do meditation. That is the worst time

-- you will not be able to meditate because your whole body will be crying for the drug, your whole mind will be gravitating towards the drug. How can you meditate?

And in this situation never tell anybody to meditate, because that may put him off.

The change has to be very slow, very smooth, and the drug has to be used for the change. And he has been taking so long, so three weeks more. But while he is in drug, he can do anything. He can meditate, he can accept any post-hypnotic suggestion.

The post-hypnotic suggestion is the most important thing for changeover. It is really one of the greatest techniques, which has not been used generally to change man about anything: drugs, habits, crime, morality, intelligence -- anything. The post-hypnotic suggestion is such a great technique, but hypnotism has been 1/08/07

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condemned so much that people have become afraid even of the word hypnotism. They think it is something evil.

This is such a stupid idea. Hypnotism is nothing evil. Hypnotism comes from a root HYPNOS , which means deliberate sleep. It has nothing to do with evil. It is just a created sleep, not ordinary sleep, and because it is a deliberate sleep it goes deeper. And because it is deliberate sleep, there remains a certain communication between the person who has been hypnotizing and the person who has been hypnotized.

For example, if I hypnotize you -- which is just a three-minute process -- you will not listen anybody else, but you will listen my voice. So the whole world disappears for you. The only communication is with me. Your whole mind is concentrated, and that is a very beautiful thing because whatever I say, your whole mind is listening in total concentration, which it never can do ordinarily. Thousand other thoughts are moving in.

And post-hypnotic suggestion means when you are in such a state, which can be easily judged whether you are in hypnos or not. For example, your face will immediately lose a certain quality that comes with waking, and it will start looking sleepy. It is very clear cut.

Your eyelids can be opened and your eyes would have turned upward. Only white will be seen. That is the deepest sleep, when your eyelids show only the white if opened. @B490

You may have observed around the world the tradition that whenever somebody dies, people immediately close his eyelids, for the simple reason that nobody looks at their eyes because that will be a frightening experience: just whites. Eyes have disappeared. They have gone up.

They start going up six months before you die. That's why in the East it is known that if a person is going to die within six months, he will stop seeing his own nosetip.

And I have experienced this with many people who were going to die. I asked them, can they see their nosetip? They tried hard; they could not see it. They said, "What is the matter? We can't see it."

I said, "Nothing is the matter. Everything is perfectly good. Things are happening as they should happen."

The eyes start moving upwards slowly. At the time of death they completely turn up.

The same happens in the deep sleep, and hypnosis is the deepest sleep you can get into. You can just look; open the eyelid and see the white. Now the person is completely only open to you.

And, secondly, he is not in a state of argument. He is not in a state of reasoning. He will simply listen whatever you say and will do it.

Post-hypnotic suggestion means you say that, "Tomorrow at twelve o'clock you are going to do something. Don't forget it. Exactly twelve o'clock." And you will be surprised, and he himself will be surprised....

I was working on one young man. He was the brother of one of my friends. My friend was a professor in the university where I was professor. Just by chance I found his brother, who was very suggestible.

Only thirty-three percent people are greatly suggestible. They are great hypnotic mediums. They can do miracles.

I hypnotized him many times. One day I gave him a post-hypnotic suggestion that, "Tomorrow I am going to remain in your house. Your brother has invited me." It was a Sunday. "And I am going to eat here and sleep here, so it is a good time. Exactly at nine o'clock in the morning you will take your pillow, make a cross on it, and start kissing the cross madly."

I repeated it three times.

At nine o'clock, just before fifteen minutes, the boy became uneasy, because he started feeling a great urge to kiss the pillow and that looked absolutely stupid. And why the cross? He must be thinking that,

"Why the cross?" They were not Christians, they were Hindu Brahmins. "Why the cross? And why should I kiss the cross? And the pillow?"

And exactly five minutes before, I went into his room and I took the pillow out into the garden and sat with the pillow on my lap in the garden. Exactly at nine he came running, snatched the pillow, made a cross on it, started kissing it.

I said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "That's what I have been thinking the whole morning, but it seems I have to do it. If I don't do it, the idea will drive me crazy. Please, don't ask me why, because that's what I have been asking. I don't know why. I have never done this."

His brother was sitting there, he said, "He has never done such a thing. He has gone crazy, or what?

Why you made this cross?" He said, "I don't know." "And why you are kissing the pillow?" I said to his 1/08/07

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brother, "Is there something wrong in your family?"

He said, "No, because I never have done any such thing. Never he has done anything. But I suspect your hand. Because why you are keeping his pillow? I can understand he has gone crazy. But why you are keeping his pillow?"

(Tape side C)

I said, "That's right, because I was waiting for nine o'clock." And I told him and his brother that, "You don't know, because now you are in your conscious mind. But yesterday when you were hypnotized you were in your unconscious mind, and I have put the idea in your unconscious mind.

"And conscious mind is very small: one-tenth of the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is nine times bigger. Nine times more powerful. And it knows no reason, no why. I have put the idea in your head, don't be worried. That's why I was keeping the pillow here, because you may have done it in your room and nobody would have seen it. I wanted your brother to see it. I wanted to see myself whether it works or not."

The professor said to his brother, "I have been telling you that, `Don't get too much in contact with this man.' Now, he can put some strange ideas in your mind. If he had said, Àt nine o'clock hit your brother,'

you would have hit me and there was no way to resist. And if you had hit me then I would have hit you, and that will be unnecessary fight and for no reason at all. And this man will be sitting here laughing at the whole scene. It is good that he tried the pillow."

I have tried on many people post-hypnotic suggestion. It can help both the ways: reduce the drug, increase your meditation. And just three weeks continuously and the man will be out of drugs, and without any struggle -- as smoothly as a snake leaves its old skin and simply slips out.

But still hypnosis is not an accepted science. I would like it to be accepted by every university of the world, that every person knows....

And then one can auto-hypnotize. It is not necessary that somebody else should hypnotize you. The post-hypnotic suggestion can be given to you that if you try, this is the method: look at the light for three minutes. And only thing, that you are getting hypnotized.

And you will be hypnotized.

You can hypnotize yourself for a particular period of time. And hypnotizing yourself, you can get in ten minutes as much sleep as you cannot get in ten hours time. Because it is so relaxing, and it goes to the very deepest core.

Hypnosis should become part of all medical schools, medical colleges, universities, psychology departments, psychotherapies, all kinds of therapeutic methods, because it can help in every possible way.

And the same thing that you cannot do by the conscious mind in years....

For example, the habit of smoking. You may not be able to drop it in years time. In fact, it becomes more strengthened. You try to drop it one day, then you fail. Finally by the evening you have to smoke. You don't know the point, that that failure is recorded in you. Tomorrow you will be weaker. The cigarette has won one battle. You have lost one battle.

Tomorrow you will smoke earlier than the first day. The third day you are even more weaker, and after trying few days you drop it. Then again after few months you try... and drop it. But you don't know that it is better not to try, because each time you try and you fail, you are degrading in your own eyes. You are coming to know that you are a very weak person.

So not only in relationship with cigarettes, it is a generalized feeling within you that you are a very weak person. You cannot even drop a cigarette, then what else you can do? So your inferiority becomes stronger, and your struggle in life.... You know from the very beginning you are a loser. You cannot win.

Never try anything in which you think you can be a failure. First make every surety that you are going to win, because it is a question of your whole personality.

And that's what hypnosis can do. Just it can make you so strong, because it is coming from the unconscious now. The cigarette has not reached to the unconscious. It is just a conscious habit.

And if dropping comes from the unconscious, the conscious cannot win.

I have been working in many dimensions on man. And this is my experience, that before trying anything, make it absolutely certain that the victory is yours. Otherwise it is better not to try.

The cigarette is not going to do that much harm, but being defeated by it.... The cigarette will do the harm that it was going to do, and the defeat unnecessarily will destroy your integrity.

And through hypnosis we can change any habit, but one should go very skillfully. It is an art. One should not be in a hurry.

So if you are working with people who are addicted with drugs, the first thing is: take the burden of 1/08/07

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condemnation from them. Let them feel that "It is something as ancient as man and it fulfills something immensely necessary, so you are not doing anything perverted, that you are not immoral, that you are simply more intelligent than others.

"Those who go on dragging on without ever thinking what meaning their life has, what joy, what beauty, what love, these things don't matter to them. You are far more intelligent, far more sensitive." So create self-respect in them.

And then slowly via the bridge of hypnosis transfer them from the drug to the meditation. And they will prove greater meditators than ordinary meditators, because their very addiction to drug shows they were searching for meditation -- but they found something hallucinatory in the way.

But they are really religious seekers. If we can make them feel that, "You are seekers and not the condemned and the cursed, but really the salt -- very salt -- of the earth" we can manage to bring all drug people towards meditation very easily.

And they will prove far greater than others. Okay?

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #7

Chapter title: None

19 November 1985 am in

Archive code: 8511190

ShortTitle: LAST407

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by India Today

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE, COMING BACK TO INDIA AFTER FOUR YEARS?

It has been a trip to hell. Coming back feels like being back home, the place and the people where I belong.

HAS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA BEEN SOURED BY THE

HARDSHIP THAT YOU HAVE HAD TO GO THROUGH FOR THE PAST MONTH?

No. The people are beautiful, the land is beautiful, but the politicians are ugly.

ARE POLITICIANS UGLY ALL OVER THE WORLD?

They are ugly all over the world, but perhaps nowhere can beat America.

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IN THE FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OF YOUR ABSENCE FROM INDIA, LOTS OF THINGS HAVE

CHANGED IN THIS COUNTRY. WHAT ARE YOUR COMMENTS ON THE CHANGES THAT HAVE

TAKEN PLACE DURING YOUR ABSENCE?

They are for the good. The change should just be a little faster, because the population goes on growing; so whatever changes you may make are destroyed by your population growth. Unless we stop the growth of population, nothing can help us. That should be our main target.

IN ORDER TO DO THAT, WHAT METHODS DO YOU TEACH?

In my commune we had five thousand people. In four years not a single child was born.

All methods of birth control should be used, and the pill, to me, is the greatest revolution that has happened in the whole history of man. It is such a simple method.

THE PILL HAS OFTEN BEEN FOUND TO BE CANCER-PRODUCING.

No. This is just the idea spread by popes, priests, Mother Teresa. These are the criminals who are teaching people to go on producing children, without any conception of what will happen by the end of this century. Already in Ethiopia, one thousand people are dying per day. By the end of this century, India will have a population of one billion. Fifty percent of India will be dying, starving. It will be a nightmare to see, and we will be absolutely helpless to do anything.

ARE YOU CALLING FOR LEGISLATIVE CHANGES?

Certainly, because a country which is poor, which has been in slavery for two thousand years, has to take some very drastic steps to get out of all this mess.

I don't see that the pill has any bad effects. But cancer is better than population growth. Cancer can be cured, but population growth cannot be cured -- that is the incurable disease. But there are other methods.

ONE OF THE METHODS WAS FORCIBLE STERILIZATION, WHICH WAS TRIED IN INDIA IN 1975, AND THAT GAVE RISE TO A POLITICAL UPHEAVAL.

Any kind of method that goes against people's traditions and conventions is going to create some upheaval, but we have to be prepared for it. And that method was tried without making people understand the whole situation.

I don't think India is unintelligent. People may be poor, but they have very intelligent minds. If we approach them through schools, through colleges, through universities, spread the idea, give them the whole picture: "If we don't do this then the whole country will be starving and dying." A basic background of information has to be given. The attempt that was made before was made without any education, and people had no understanding of what was being done.

And now they have found a pill for man also, so there is no need for that kind of experiment again.

Swallowing a pill is not much of a problem.

NOW THAT YOU'RE BACK IN INDIA, DO YOU THINK IT'S IN THE AREA OF POPULATION

CONTROL THAT YOU'RE GOING TO APPLY MOST OF YOUR TIME AND ENERGY?

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No. My time and energy is applied to the people who are working for spiritual growth.

But I am not one-dimensional; I look around at the whole situation. These are my suggestions. I am not going to do anything about it. Those people who are in power, if they understand it, they may do it. That is not my work. My concern is with people who want to grow spiritually.

That became the problem in America with me. People don't have any sense of spiritual growth. All they know is material accumulation -- more money, more comfort, more luxury. I am not against these things, but they should not be at the cost of man's spiritual growth.

When they saw my commune, it became a thorn in their hearts -- because we were materially self-sufficient, comfortable, healthy. You could not find another place so full of joy, dance, song. People were working, producing everything for themselves, and still they were meditating, working for their inner growth.

DO YOU SAY THAT THE PARADISE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, YOUR COMMUNE IN AMERICA, WAS SHATTERED, NOT FOR INTERNAL REASONS, BUT FOR EXTERNAL REASONS?

No, not for internal reasons. The reason was that the politicians became aware that we were creating a model city. This left the politicians without any power; they felt put down, that they could not do anything to improve on what we were doing.

People think America is very rich -- but it is rich in an unhealthy way. Thirty million people are dying of overeating -- this is not richness; this is sheer stupidity. Thirty million people -- exactly the same number --

are just beggars on the street: stealing, murdering, committing suicide, drinking themselves to death, having no food, no clothes, no shelter.

We managed that in our commune there was not a single person who was a beggar; everybody was treated equally. There was no hierarchy, there was nobody superior. The professor in the university and the cleaner of the toilets had the same respect from the community, because both were absolutely needed. And it was not rare that people were changing back and forth: if the professor was tired of professing, he became a plumber or a cleaner. Doctors were farming.

I HOPE FARMERS WERE NOT PRESCRIBING DRUGS!

There were a few doctors who had been farming and we put them back in the medical center. Farmers were not allowed to prescribe drugs -- that is a different matter -- but a doctor can farm, a doctor can become a plumber. A plumber cannot become a doctor unless he gets the education. But the whole commune was fully educated; not a single person there was uneducated.

To the American politicians this became a danger because we were creating, in the real sense, a far more authentic communism than the Soviet Union has been able to produce. The Soviet Union has only distributed poverty, it has not made people rich. It has taken their freedom; it has taken their freedom of expression, it has made the whole country a concentration camp.

We were not imposing any "ism" on our people. My effort was totally from the other side. I want people to be so affluent and so rich that poverty disappears on its own accord.

And I don't believe that people should be literally equal -- psychologically that is nonsense. A Picasso is a Picasso, a Rabindranath is a Rabindranath. You cannot make people equal in that way. But society should give equal opportunity to everybody to be unequal. We managed equal opportunity for everybody to be unequal in these four and a half years, and it was going so beautifully. That became difficult for the politicians to tolerate, and the only way to destroy it was to somehow torture me.

IF YOU CREATED SUCH AN IDEAL SITUATION IN YOUR COMMUNE, HOW COULD PEOPLE

LEAVE? HOW COULD PEOPLE BE DISLOYAL TO YOU OR TO THE COMMUNE?

Only a few were disloyal. I was silent, in isolation, for three and a half years and I had given all the powers to the president of the commune and the people who were running and taking care of the commune.

1/08/07

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This can give any human mind an opportunity, it is nothing special. Everybody has a will-to-power. I was completely inactive, I was not even meeting sannyasins. So in these three and a half years they tried to harass people who were more intelligent than themselves and might sometime become competitors. So the people who left, left because they were harassed by this small group of twenty people who were holding power, and who had not the intelligence or the competence to do so.

They harassed the vice chancellor and the chancellor of the university, psychologists, professors, doctors -- people who had achieved more growth. They did not tell them to leave, but in an indirect way they harassed them. Some left. They never left me, they never left the commune, but they left this group.

Once I was out of silence I wanted everything to be done by the best person. The moment I started speaking again, and reports started coming to me that these twenty people had been doing things which were not according to my ideas, those twenty people simply escaped. And all the people who had gone came back immediately. So it was a simple human weakness -- when you have power you want more power, and you don't want anybody to be a competitor in any situation.

But this was not a big problem. Once I was speaking I thought, those twenty people have left, that does not matter. I have one million sannyasins around the world; what do twenty people mean among one million sannyasins? And those who had left previously immediately returned, so this was not a problem at all. I immediately put the right people in their places, and the commune was running perfectly well. There was no problem; the real problem came from the politicians outside.

WHEN YOU TALK OF POLITICIANS, WHO ARE THE POLITICIANS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT?

In Oregon the Attorney General and the Governor were the ones who most wanted me to move from America, or at least from Oregon. We invited them many times to come and see the commune. We had one hundred and twenty six square miles of land, which had lain dead for fifty years -- it was a desert. Nobody was prepared to buy it. We purchased it. We changed it into an oasis. It was such a beautiful place that we asked them just to come and see, to be our guests. They had not even the guts to come to see, because they knew that what was happening was something that they could not deny.

They did not want it to happen there because the whole of Oregon was becoming interested, curious.

"What kind of people are these? And if they can live in a desert in such comfort, can make the desert produce sufficient food, vegetables, fruits, milk products, then why can't the rest of Oregon, which has better land, do it?" These questions were becoming more and more important. "How can these people live in a desert in such a comfortable way?"

We had houses for five thousand people, all centrally air-conditioned. Every year we were having a festival with almost twenty thousand people coming from around the world. The politicians were just feeling foolish because Oregon has nothing that twenty thousand people from around the world would want to come and see.

So the trouble was that we were doing things better than they could, and then we became a target for every politician -- Republican or Democrat. If he was against us then he could get votes very easily, but anybody who was in favor of us was going to be defeated because he would only get our votes -- only five thousand. And we belonged to no party.

POLITICIANS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST YOUR COMMUNES.

They might be, but in India they never tried to harass us and that's what I respect. When the chief minister came to the Poona commune, he left his shoes outside. We said that there was no need, but he said,

"No, I cannot enter a place which is devoted to spiritual growth with my shoes on." He may be against us, but he has this much respect.

In Indira Gandhi's emergency period, even Vinoba's ashram was raided and Vinoba is a spiritual leader of the Congress party; but my ashram was not raided.

And criticism I can take very well because I can answer anything that they want to criticize. Criticism is human. We have been arguing about everything for five thousand years, discussing everything, but that was not ugly; it was a sharpening of the intelligence. And everybody was ready to find the truth. Criticism was 1/08/07

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not for criticism's sake.

I did not leave Poona for that -- and Poona is still there, the commune is still there, and we are expanding the commune.

I left because of my own health: my back was getting worse and worse. In the commune itself we had good bodyworkers; they tried to help me, but every effort made it worse. We had good doctors in Poona: they looked -- traction and everything was tried -- but whatever they did made it worse. Then we called an expert, the best in the world, from England. For two days he worked, and then he said, "I have never come across such a case -- because this is not a sudden slip of a disc; it has been going on for almost your whole life slowly, slowly, so you were never aware of it, and now it has come out. Its natural place is closed, so we cannot push it back, and the place that it has taken has become its natural place. So you have to live with it, you just have to be careful. If you are careful it won't trouble you; but you have to be careful every moment." He designed a certain chair for me, which has been immensely helpful. But the back problem is there.

I have also been suffering from allergies; any perfume, any dust, woolen clothes, and immediately I will get something like a cold -- tears in my eyes, coughing, sneezing. And if this continues for two or three days then I get an asthma attack. Twenty years ago a doctor found that it is not a disease, it is something that you are born with -- and there is no medication for allergies. I should live in a place which is not humid, a place which is dry and cool, and avoid all these things; avoid these people who use perfume.

We tried to find a place in India, and found one in Kutch. Coincidentally, the Maharaja of Kutch had the same problems I had, so he had found a place and made a beautiful palace there. Now he is dead, nobody lives in the palace.

At that time Morarji Desai was in power, and he has been against me because I am against Gandhism, and he thinks he is the most Gandhian person in the country. We have been arguing and fighting for many years. When he was chief minister of Gujarat he tried to ban me from entering Gujarat. The assembly rejected him because this was absolutely absurd; I had not committed any crime. If I speak against Gandhism, you can speak for it, and I am ready to have an open debate on each and every point. But this is not the way -- to prevent a person from coming.

Then he became prime minister of India. Then almost two, three times a day he was phoning the chief minister of Maharashtra, that somehow my commune had to be destroyed. He phoned the maharaja's son, the prince from Kutch, Gujarat, to say that the property should not be sold to me. But the property was lying dead, and the prince needed money, so he was willing -- even against Desai's wishes -- to sell it to me.

Then he found a way: the air force decided that it was too close to Pakistan. Since thousands of foreigners would be there with me, it would be dangerous for the country. So the air force prevented it ; then there was no way.

We tried in the Himalayas. The same argument -- this time, that China was too close.

In a desperate effort we looked around the world to find something like Kutch. Oregon was exactly like Kutch; otherwise, Oregon had no special reason to be chosen. So we went there, and it was not any problem.

And as far as I am concerned, I don't have any property, I don't own anything. I don't have any position in the commune or in the sannyas movement. So it is impossible for there to be any problem for me.

Everything that you see I am wearing is made by my sannyasins -- everything, even my watch. And these people are known to me: they can take them anytime they want.

IN YOUR THIRTY YEARS OF CONSTANT TOURING AND TALKING TO PEOPLE, WHAT IS IT YOU

HAVE ACHIEVED? WHAT IS YOUR LEGACY?

I am leaving behind millions of people who are meditative.

IN THEIR TERMS, WHAT DID THEY ACHIEVE?

That is the greatest achievement possible. If their meditation grows they will know who they are -- and that is the greatest ecstasy you can have. I have given them a sense of individuality, integrity. I have not 1/08/07

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made them slaves to any god, to any religion. I have not made them slaves to any holy book, to any priesthood. I have made them completely independent, a religious consciousness on their own.

ARE THEY SO INDEPENDENT THAT THEY DON'T EVEN NEED YOU?

Certainly. Those who have gone ahead, they don't need me. Those who are just beginners, they certainly need me. Those who have gone ahead don't need me, but they have tremendous gratitude towards me -- that is a totally different thing.

I am not their need, but they feel a gratefulness because I have helped them to become what they are.

And I have not taken anything in return, it has not been a business deal. I am not their god, so that they have to worship me; I am just a friend, and they are my fellow travelers. And if they have found something that makes them immortal....

YOU ARE NOW SAYING THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT TO PLAY GOD, BUT WHEN YOU TOOK THE

NAME BHAGWAN, WHAT WAS THE UNDERLYING IDEA?

It simply means the blessed one; it does not mean God.

And I am the blessed one, even though in those twelve days they tortured me in all those jails in America. Even the jailers were surprised. They said, "Anybody else would have gone mad, but you simply sit silently, and whenever we ask how you are you say, 'Just great.'" I told them, "Even if you can destroy my body -- and you are making every effort -- you cannot destroy me. Nothing can destroy me. I know it.

And when I say I am absolutely fine, that does not mean that my body is fine, that simply means I am fine.

So don't misinterpret it to the newspapers. You have tortured my body in every possible way, but you cannot torture me. I am just a witness. I am seeing you and I am seeing the torture. I am seeing my body being tortured, but I am just a seer -- far away, a watcher on the hill. I am seeing what goes on in the valley."

And that is my whole teaching to my people: that you have to become a witness , because that is your authentic reality. Everything will be taken away; someday you will die and everything will be taken away, and only your witness will remain with you. But if you don't find it before your death, you will die unconsciously.

So that is my heritage: that I have made people free from organized religions which have been exploiting humanity for centuries and giving them nothing except consolation, talking about paradise after death. Making them afraid of hell, making them greedy for paradise and keeping them in slavery... Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, all the religions have been doing the same. I talk about paradise here now.

So my people are religious but they don't belong to any religion. And I don't have any religion, any organization that they can become members of. They have to search and find their own selves; that will be their own religion. Each individual has to find his own shrine within himself.

And I can say with absolute certainty that thousands have come to that point. They don't need me, but they love me and their gratitude is natural.

AT THE COMMUNE IN AMERICA YOU DEMONSTRATED THAT PARADISE IS POSSIBLE HERE

AND NOW. DO YOU THINK IT'S POSSIBLE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT IT'S POSSIBLE HERE, EVEN IN

INDIA, EVEN IN A POOR COUNTRY?

It is possible. There is no problem.

WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM WITH INDIRA GANDHI?

Indira was very much interested in me, but she was a politician. She planned to come to Poona at least four or five times, but every time she canceled and told me, "My colleagues don't want me to go to Poona 1/08/07

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because they say that it will damage my image -- because both Hindus and Mohammedans will be against it and I will lose votes."

INDIRA GANDHI WAS THE PRIME MINISTER OF THIS COUNTRY FOR SIXTEEN YEARS. DOES

THIS IN ANY WAY INDICATE A CHANGE IN THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIA?

No. Because Indira became the prime minister not as a woman but as a politician. It was not the victory of women. And she did not do anything for women; women remained the same. Physically she was a woman, but she was playing the same game as all male chauvinists have been doing; just one person makes no difference. And she also became prime minister because of Jawaharlal Nehru. So it is just a family dynasty that is going on.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #8

Chapter title: None

19 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511195

ShortTitle: LAST408

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by India Today.

ARE YOUR FOLLOWERS BEING ENCOURAGED TO SPREAD THE CONCEPT OF AWARENESS

THROUGH MEDITATION? AND AFTER GETTING WHAT NUMBER OF ENLIGHTENED PERSONS

AROUND, WILL YOU SAY, "THUS FAR AND NO FURTHER?"

I do not believe in converting anybody, but my people who are in deep meditation automatically attract many people asking about their silence, their peace, their togetherness. So people come to my people.

I have no interest in numbers. I am not a politician. And there is no limit to it, no time when I will say it is enough.

OF LATE, YOU HAVE RELAXED THE DRESS CODE FOR SANNYASINS; NO MORE DRESS

RESTRICTIONS -- ORANGE, RED, SAFFRON OR LAVENDER. WHY?

Because the function of the color red and its shades is finished. They don't have any more spirituality in them than any other colors. I had chosen them just to make the world aware of a new movement of religiousness. Now the world is aware. The movement is fast spreading. Now is the time that I should take 1/08/07

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away everything that is unnecessary. It was useful at one time, it is no longer useful. It is, on the contrary, a hindrance, because there are people who cannot wear orange, red, cannot wear the mala -- for so many reasons, their family, their job, their society. And I would like the movement for consciousness and meditation to spread as wide as possible; that's why I am opening all the doors.

I SEE YOU DON'T WEAR RED, BUT WHY DID YOUR FOLLOWERS WEAR RED? WHAT IS SO

SPECIAL ABOUT THE COLOR?

There is nothing special about the color. That's why I don't wear red. The color was chosen just to make a point, to create a demarcation between the sannyasins and the non-sannyasins. That work is done, now it is no longer needed.

YOU ARE STILL REGARDED AS THE GURU OF FREE SEX IN MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD. IS

THAT A MISNOMER?

It is simply a misnomer; I have never been a guru of sex. On the contrary, I am the only person in the whole world who has been trying to transform people's sexual energy into spiritual energy. I am against repression because repression of sexual energy means there is no chance of spiritual growth.

The people who have been with me have become less and less sexual, and have become more and more spiritual. Those who have been with me longer have lost all interest in sex.

If you want to call me something, I am the guru who is absolutely anti-sex. But you know third-rate journalism which thrives on sensationalism -- they created the misnomer.

YOU HAVE TALKED A LOT ABOUT SEXUAL REPRESSION AND SEXUAL HYPOCRISY IN INDIA, BUT AREN'T THERE SIGNS THAT INDIAN SOCIETY IS OPENING UP?

I am no longer interested in it. I have got my own people around the world, and I don't divide the world into Indian and Chinese and Japanese because I have my people from all countries, all races. Now I have a world of my own, and my whole concentration is on how to help them. I am not interested in those who do not belong to my vision of life.

IN INDIA WE HAVE CREATED A TINY BUT POWERFUL RICH CLASS IN THE LAST FORTY

YEARS. THEY ARE NOT THE MAHARAJAS OF THE PAST BUT ARE IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY.

DON'T YOU THINK THAT THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED VERY LITTLE TO THE PROGRESS OF INDIA?

They have not contributed much because India is an ocean of poverty. A small group of people who have created wealth is just a drop in that ocean. Unless you create a wider phenomenon of wealth-creation and you make people aware of how wealth can be created, it is not going to affect India. And whatsoever this small group will do will be destroyed by the increasing population.

By the end of this century this country will have one billion people, and it is impossible -- the way it is going -- that you will be able to cope with it.

IN THE LIGHT OF YOUR RECENT EXPERIENCE, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF RONALD REAGAN

AS A LEADER?

I do not think much of political leaders. They are all the same -- exploiting humanity, forcing humanity into bloodshed, wars. No political leader is really interested in the growth of humanity into a beautiful paradise. I don't think anything special about Ronald Reagan.

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THE COMMUNIST COUNTRIES TODAY ACCOUNT FOR NEARLY HALF OF HUMANITY. IS IT

THE FAULT OF THEIR LEADERS THAT COMMUNISM HAS GONE UNDER? OR DO YOU THINK

THAT MARX'S BASIC PHILOSOPHY IS MISCONCEIVED?

The countries which have become communist have become communist as a reaction against centuries of poverty. They don't know anything about communism. Communists have exploited them, giving them the promise that the future will be classless and everybody will have whatever he needs. And the poor have nothing to lose.

So the poor countries have tried. There is no harm in trying; perhaps it will work. It has not worked.

And the reason it has not worked is in the very philosophy of Marx.

The idea of Marx was that communism would happen in capitalist countries -- highly developed, technological, rich countries. He was thinking it would happen in America, not in Russia, because his idea was that in a capitalist country the masses become divided into two classes: on the one hand the poor, the proletariat, and on the other hand, the rich, the bourgeois. And the gap goes on becoming bigger and bigger.

The capitalists are the few holding almost the whole country's wealth and the whole country is poor.

Naturally it cannot be tolerated. The poor are bound to destroy the rich. That was the idea of Marx: the poor will take over the power and distribute the wealth of the rich to everybody.

But it didn't happen in America. That shows that Marx's whole idea was basically false. It happened in Russia, and not because of capitalism, because Russia was not capitalist at all: no technology, nothing. It was a feudal country; the czar was the king. There was no capitalist class, but only the royal family and their relatives, who were holding all the riches. It happened in Russia in a situation which had nothing to do with Marx. Russia and Germany were at war, and the czar could not provide enough clothes, armaments, food for his armies. Those armies were the real revolutionaries who turned upon the czar, and Lenin and Trotsky took advantage of the opportunity. Now the czar's own army was against the czar. This was a good moment to provoke the poor: "This is the time. Finish the czar because he has no protection." They killed nineteen of the royal family, even a six-month-old child.

It had nothing to do with Marx's conception of communism. It was a revolt by the armies and the poor supported the armies. Lenin took advantage of it, became the leader, promised that everything would be settled, killed the czar and took over the country. Neither the soldiers nor the country benefited. The whole country became a concentration camp.

In my opinion, Marxism is not an authentic philosophy for communism. My idea of communism is totally opposite. My feeling is that if riches can be produced -- and they can be produced, we have the technology.... If seventy-five percent of our energy and money is not wasted in wars, there will be such an affluence all over the world -- everybody will have their needs fulfilled. And who wants to fight? To me, that will be communism: the whole society becoming wealthy, keeping its freedom, its freedom of expression, and its democracy.

In Russia they have lost everything and gained nothing.

I am a communist, but totally against Marxist communism. I would like the whole world to become a classless society, so rich and wealthy that there is no beggar, nobody dies of hunger, no unemployment. And this is the time we can manage it. If we are not managing it, it is because of the political divisions of the world and political leaders' egos, power trips -- because no war means no politics. If there is nobody poor, then there is no Mother Teresa, no Pope the Polack.

All the religious leaders want poverty in the world, and all the politicians want continuous war and poverty. Nobody is interested in making this world a paradise. All the religions in the past have been telling people, "We will take you to paradise."

I say to my people, "I want paradise to come to you."

GANDHI IS DEAD AND GONE SINCE 1948 AND HAS LEFT NO LEGACY BEHIND EXCEPT THE

SURNAME. WHY ARE YOU STILL ATTACKING HIM?

For five years I have not attacked him because in America Gandhi has no influence, but in India I will 1/08/07

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continue to attack him because he is one of the persons who is keeping the country poor. His teachings are against science, against progress, against technology, against wealth. And these are attitudes I want to destroy.

The people in India are still worshipping him as a great saint, and he was nothing but a cunning politician. I want to expose him, because his exposure is necessary to change people's minds: a spinning wheel is not going to give wealth to you.

Gandhi was against the telegraph, telephones, railways, cars, airplanes. He was consistently preaching to go backwards, absolutely unaware that if you go backwards with this much population -- which was not there in the past -- you will starve the whole country.

Gandhi is still influential in India, and the party which has been ruling the country since independence believes in the philosophy of Gandhism.

So it has to be hammered, criticized.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI AND HIS VIEWS ON TRANSCENDENTAL

MEDITATION?

Transcendental meditation is neither transcendental nor meditation. But still what he is doing is good.

What he is teaching in the name of meditation is only an ancient method of chanting. If you chant any word or any mantra continuously inside the mind, other thoughts stop because they don't have any space. And this continuous chanting is a certain device of auto-hypnosis; it is not meditation. It does not lead you to any spiritual enlightenment, but it certainly gives you a good feeling of wellbeing and health. You will feel refreshed -- just as you feel refreshed after a good shower; but a shower is not a transcendental meditation.

So there is nothing wrong with what he is doing. It cannot harm anybody. He is harmless, but he is misdirected. He is giving a toy which is not the real thing. If people enjoy toys -- and many people enjoy toys -- I have nothing against them. If they are happy, that's perfectly good.

But one thing I want to make clear: it is not meditation. It is just a mental trick which can also be done by auto-hypnosis, looking just at one thing continuously without blinking your eyes, you will fall into a sleep and that sleep will be deeper than your ordinary sleep. Certainly it will give you a feeling of rejuvenation, of well-being.

So it is something that should be part of gymnasium programs. It has nothing religious in it, nothing spiritual in it, but it is a good exercise. People who are doing physical exercise in gymnasiums should learn transcendental meditation; after their exercise for fifteen or twenty minutes they can relax, and it will help their bodies, but not their beings.

WILL IT HELP IF MODERN-DAY BUSINESS MAGNATES OF OUR TIMES TAKE LESSONS IN

MEDITATION?

It will certainly help, just as it helps any human being. It has nothing to do with their being the richest people in the country. It will help them because they are human beings. So I don't give them any special credit for it. Every human being can be helped by meditation.

WHEN YOU ARE NO MORE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED AS -- MYSTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADER, PHILOSOPHER, OR WHAT?

Just a nobody. I would like it to be as if I had never been.

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The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #9

Chapter title: None

20 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511205

ShortTitle: LAST409

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by DHARMA YUG.

PLEASE DISCUSS THE STATE OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AS YOU SEE IT.

The most important thing about India is that it has no philosophy in the same way that other countries have philosophies.

The word `philosophy' means love of knowledge. In India we have never praised love of knowledge; we have praised love of experience. Knowledge can be borrowed, experience cannot be borrowed. That is why we have called our way darshan, not philosophy. Darshan exists only in India, nowhere else.

To call darshan Indian philosophy is basically wrong. Philosophy is a mind thing -- you think about it.

Darshan is a realization, a thing of your innermost being; you realize it. Philosophy needs logic; darshan needs silence -- no thoughts, everything in absolute nothingness. Only then you will come to know yourself.

So I don't call darshan Indian philosophy.

I have invented in English a word for darshan: `philosia', which means love of seeing. I call it Indian philosia.

WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT VEDIC CULTURE, VEDAS, UPANISHADS, GITA AND MANSOOR?

VEDAS have only two percent philosia; ninety-eight percent is just rubbish. But that two percent is so valuable... It would be a great work to take out that ninety-eight percent, because that is what has been criticized by the Christians, Mohammedans and others. The two percent is the real thing, but it is lost in the ninety-eight percent.

The reason is that the Vedas are something like the Encyclopedia Britannica. Everything that was available in those days was collected in the Vedas -- they are called samitas, collections. In those collections ordinary things were collected -- geniuses were collected, mediocrities were collected.

So it is my feeling that the two percent of rare gems should be separated out, and the ninety-eight percent should be dropped. Then there would be no one who could criticize the Vedas, there is no possibility.

UPANISHADS are just rare. There is nothing comparable to them in the whole human history.

The word Ùpanishad' means sitting by the feet of the master, just listening to one who has realized. It is not an ordinary teaching; the master is not teaching something he has collected as information. On the 1/08/07

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contrary, he is pouring his own being into the disciple. It is a totally different kind of teaching which has not existed anywhere else. It demands that the disciple should be absolutely open, available. While the master is speaking, the disciple should be absolutely silent, not even a small thought moving in his mind. Only then the master can pour his experience into him.

And that's the difference between a student and a disciple: a student gathers knowledge, a disciple tastes experience. A teacher gives information which may not be his own, but the master gives only that which is authentically his own. He is his own authority.

So the Upanishads are just the most spiritual documents in the whole history of man.

About GITA, it is different. I do not agree with Krishna for the simple reason that he is trying to persuade Arjuna to fight -- he is for violence. I would rather be in tune with Arjuna than with Krishna.

Arjuna was making every argument not to fight: "What is the point of fighting when all of our people will be dead? Even if I am sitting on a golden throne there will be tears in my eyes. What is the meaning of all this? Let them fight, I will go to the Himalayas. But violence does not seem to me to be the answer."

Krishna continually forces, and none of Arjuna's argument is really answered. And Krishna ultimately uses a strategy which is cunning: he says that whatever God wants, you have to do, that is your duty.

If I was in Arjuna's place, I would have stepped out of the chariot and said to Krishna, "This is what God wants me to do: I am going to the Himalayas."

So I am not in agreement with Krishna. And I am puzzled that even a man like Mahatma Gandhi, who his whole life was teaching, preaching nonviolence, was also calling Gita his mother. And they can't see the contradiction.

I am not in sympathy with Gita at all.

MANU SMRATI is one of the curses that has fallen on India, and that curse is still torturing us. Five thousand years have passed but Manu is still harassing us.

He divided the Hindu society into four divisions; this is ugly. He degraded woman; he degraded one-fourth of the community into sub-humanity, slavery, and that continues.

So I am not in favor of Manu Smrati. All I want is that all Manu Smratis should be burned, and we should be free from Manu -- his ghost has tortured us too much. There is no way to support him. The whole world laughs at us because of Manu Smrati, and we go on clinging to him.

BUDDHISM AND JAINISM ARE QUITE CONTRARY TO YOUR OWN DARSHAN. THEN WHY DO

YOU QUOTE LORD BUDDHA AND MAHAVIRA SO FAVORABLY?

There are reasons. I don't use the words Mahavira and Buddha as personal names. Mahavira's own personal name was Vardhamana. 'Mahavira' was given to him by people seeing his struggle for truth.

`Buddha' is also not a personal name, it means the awakened one. The man's name was Siddhartha.

So anyone who is awakened is a Buddha, is a Mahavira. I have used those names absolutely impersonally. I have nothing to do with their philosophies.

WILL YOU SYNCHRONIZE SPIRITUALITY AND SEX?

In fact there is no question of synchronizing. They are already synchronized. The question should be asked of people who separate them -- why do they separate them?

To me it is a natural phenomenon. We are born of sex, we give birth to children; and giving birth to children does not go against any religiousness. Making love to a woman silently, meditatively, respectfully, is an act of worship; there is no need to degrade it, there is no need to condemn it. Love should be our highest expression of spirituality.

So far as your question is concerned, I do not have to synchronize them. They are already synchronized everywhere in nature. Existence itself has synchronized them.

It is the priests and the religious people who have been trying to separate them and create a rift in man.

They are creating a schizophrenic humanity -- they condemn sex, but you cannot do anything about it. Your body goes on creating sexual energy -- it is beyond your thinking. You may take a vow of celibacy; that does not matter, because your body does not know you are celibate. The body follows nature, not your 1/08/07

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ideas.

GANDHI COULD NOT KEEP THE VOW.

Yes. Even after seventy years he was not able to do it.

So it is synchronized already. All that we have to destroy is the idea of making them separate, and accept them both -- recreating bridges which have been broken by thousands of years of priests. To me, man as a whole -- whatever he is -- is perfectly right. If something is wrong, that simply means that we have not been able to put things right in the same unity.

It is like an orchestra. You can put the orchestra in the hands of people who don't know any music --

then only a maddening noise will be produced. Just teach the people how to play, and dozens of instruments will become one.

Man is an orchestra. Nature has placed all the musical instruments in him. But we have failed to create harmony in the orchestra -- that is why we create suicide and murder and crime and all kinds of mental diseases. The reason is that the orchestra is not in place and man is not trained for it. On the contrary, he is trained against his own orchestra; he is trained to throw away a few instruments, thinking them ugly, evil, profane, and then he becomes just a half. And the half is never fulfilled; it is always hankering for more.

The desire for more arises because we have not been able to create our music to its fulfillment. A man who is fulfilled will not be a politician, will not run after riches, will not be mad after fame. It does not matter to him. He is so fulfilled, so blessed that he can bless the whole world.

So my whole effort is to make man a musical harmony.

YOU EARN AN UNPRECEDENTED RESPONSE FOR YOUR FRANK AND STRAIGHTFORWARD

DARSHAN, WHERE THERE IS NO PLACE FOR HYPOCRISY. I THINK YOU LEFT INDIA BECAUSE OF

ORTHODOX THINKING -- HYPOCRISY FORCED YOU TO LEAVE INDIA. BUT IN AMERICA TOO, YOU BECAME THE VICTIM OF THE SAME HYPOCRISY AND DOUBLE STANDARD.

That's true. In fact, I found Indian hypocrisy is obvious. It is too old and is almost lying on its deathbed.

It is going to die; it is not going to survive. I have been a victim of Indian hypocrisy.

I was thinking that America is new, only three hundred years old; it may not have such traditional, conventional bigotry. But I was surprised when I went there that there are far more hypocrites than in India.

Their hypocrisy has a different color. One, it is basically a fascist regime pretending to be democratic.

Secondly, it is basically a Christian country pretending to be secular. I am against fascism. I am against any organized religion.

I want people to become religious, but what is the need to get organized? A religion is something individual, purely individual. So again I became the victim.

American hypocrisy is new, and certainly stronger. Indian hypocrisy is old and dying, and is not so strong. American hypocrisy is supported by nuclear weapons, by all kinds of new technology. American hypocrisy has learned from all the hypocrisies of the world so it is thicker than any other hypocrisy -- and able to wear a false mask and pretend to the world that it is a democracy. It is not a democracy at all.

IN INDIA THERE IS A FEELING THAT THE DEFECTORS -- THE FORMER DISCIPLES OF YOURS

-- WERE IN A CONSPIRACY TO CREATE THIS PROBLEM IN AMERICA FOR YOU. IS IT TRUE?

It is possible that the defectors were conspiring with the American politicians, because those who escaped were criminals and America did not prevent them; it allowed them to do so.

America can do anything -- it can threaten people, it can bribe people. It has come to my notice that it has been trying to threaten my sannyasins: "You have to say this; otherwise you will be finished." They have been bribing people, saying, "We can give you a residence visa, we can give you citizenship if you will speak against Rajneesh."

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their crimes would fall on Rajneesh.

INDIAN CULTURE IS A VERY TOLERANT CULTURE. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DIFFERENCE

WHEN YOU WERE LIVING IN AMERICA FOR FIVE YEARS?

I have seen the difference : India is very generous and liberal as far as thinking is concerned, but as far as social behavior is concerned it is very rigid. America is very generous as far as social living is concerned, but absolutely adamant, stubborn, as far as thinking is concerned.

About thinking: I have come across the most educated people in America and they talk like Indian villagers; they cannot see their stupidity.

While I was in jail, the jailer became interested in me. He came to see me. He was a well-educated, experienced old man. And he said, "I have come to give you a Bible. This is the word of God."

I asked him, "How did you come to know that this is the word of God?"

He said, "God himself says it in the Bible."

I said, "I can write a book and say that this is the word of God, my god. Will that be enough proof for you? And Hindus say Vedas are the word of God, Mohammedans say that Koran is the word of God, Jews say that the Torah is the word of God. Then what is the difference? -- which is the right word of God and which is the right God?" But he could not conceive what I was saying.

I said, "This shows that intellectually you are far behind the East, where we have worshipped a man like Buddha who does not believe in God, but we have called him `Bhagwan'."

I reminded him of H.G. Wells, who wrote about Buddha: "He is the most godless man yet the most godly." And that is a possibility -- a man can be godly without god, there is no problem.

I told him, "I am in front of you and there is no God and there is no word of God. There are only people who have realized the ultimate truth of existence, and even they consistently say that whatever they say is not exactly the same as they have experienced. Translating from that high level of experience to the language of man, much is lost. So to say these ordinary words and say they are the words of God -- and that too from an intelligent, educated person from the most powerful country -- looks very stupid."

But they are generous about social living. You can wear any clothes, you can move into any job, you can be educated, you can read any books. About social structure they are more generous than us, but about thinking they are very primitive.

In India we have always been generous about thinking. For thousands of years we have been arguing, and in a friendly way. There has been no conflict, there has been no enmity, because both parties were not really fighting each other -- both were searchers for truth. Both were ready if the other wins to become a disciple of the other, without any humiliation.

But about social living, we have been very orthodox. A sudra cannot read the Vedas, a sudra cannot sit with the brahmins, cannot even listen to the Vedas. He has to live in a separate part of town, or outside the town. He cannot change his job. The family of a shoemaker has been making shoes for generations; he cannot change, he cannot become a doctor.

So we are very adamant, and the whole credit goes to Manu Smrati. If India can drop Manu Smrati, we will be the most generous and most open-hearted people in the whole world. Manu Smrati is blocking our hearts.

THOUGH YOU REMAIN QUITE CONTROVERSIAL IN INDIA, THE INHUMAN AND SHABBY

TREATMENT GIVEN YOU BY THE AMERICANS HAS GENERATED A SENSE OF SYMPATHY. WHAT

ARE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THIS?

It was bound to be. The human mind works in certain ways.

When I moved out of India, just because of my move many people became interested in me. When I was here I was taken for granted. When I was far away, more books, more tapes were sold; more people became interested.

And when I was tortured inhumanely, then certainly more sympathy came up. They could see two things: one, that they had forced me to leave India. If they had been a little more generous towards me, this 1/08/07

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would never have happened. So that feeling of guilt was also part of their sympathy. Secondly, they saw what had happened to me, and I became symbolic of the Indian philosia; their sympathy towards me was sympathy towards the Indian way of thinking. That the Indian way of thinking was treated in this way was a pain in their hearts.

ANY MESSAGE FOR INDIANS IN INDIA AND ABROAD?

Only one message: that wherever you are, don't forget India's spiritual heritage. That is your real treasure. If you lose it , you lose all.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #10

Chapter title: None

21 November 1985 am in

Archive code: 8511210

ShortTitle: LAST410

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

Interview by Hindustan Times

WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS IN MANALI?

My basic philosophy is just to live moment to moment. I do not believe in any future planning. So what will happen tomorrow I do not know.

SO YOU ARE NOT CERTAIN WHETHER YOU WILL STAY HERE FOR PERMANENTLY?

Mmm?

SO YOU ARE NOT CERTAIN WHETHER YOU WILL STAY HERE PERMANENTLY?

This moment I am certain. Next moment... I am a living being, not dead, so next moment will bring its own certainties. So I am neither burdened by the past nor by the future.

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WILL YOU SET UP A COMMUNE IN HIMACHAL PRADESH?

No.

WHY?

I am finished with communes.

(INAUDIBLE)

Everywhere

WHAT ABOUT THE EXISTING ONES?

They can exist, they are independent; they were never dependent on me. And I have never been a part of any commune. So if Himachal people want a commune, they can have; they can have my advice, but I am not going to establish it.

IF HIMACHAL GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO GIVE YOU LAND --

I am not asking any government to give me any land. I have never asked anybody to give me anything.

YOU WILL NOT ASK IN THE FUTURE ALSO?

No. If they offer then I may consider.

IS THERE ANY IMPROVEMENT IN YOUR RELATIONS WITH MA SHEELA?

There has been no relationship ever. I have one million sannyasins around the world. The relationship is one-sided; they are related to me, I am not related to them.

BUT YOU DON'T BELIEVE IF "A" IS RELATED TO YOU, TO B IN THE SAME PROPORTION B

WILL BE RELATED TO A?

Not necessarily. As far as I am concerned, I am absolutely unrelated.

HOW?

Just I am just myself. I don't need any relationship. People who are unfulfilled in their life need relationships to fulfill them. I am complete.

COMPLETE HOW?

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Because I don't need anything from anybody. My contentment is my inner fulfillment.

WHAT EXACTLY LED TO THE FEUD BETWEEN YOU AND MA SHEELA?

There was no feud.

(INAUDIBLE)

She wanted to leave. She left. She had not even seen me.

FOR HOW MANY MONTHS?

For almost three, four months. She just sent me a note that "I want to leave." I said, "That's perfectly okay. There is no need even to send me a note." Every sannyasin is absolutely free to be here or not to be here.

HOW DO YOU PLAN TO RECOVER THE MONEY WITH WHICH SHE ALLEGEDLY RAN AWAY?

I don't care about money at all.

YOU REPORTEDLY SAID THAT SHE WAS A BITCH BUT YOU LOVED BITCHES. AND WHAT IS

EXACTLY MEANT? IT IS PUBLISHED IN THE PAPER HERE.

There must have been some misreporting. I had said that she is a bitch. And there are people who love bitches, but I am not the one.

WILL YOU CALL YOUR DISCIPLES AT ALL AGAIN TO INDIA?

No. They have their commune there, and the commune will continue.

I was just a guest there, not even a member of the commune.

WHETHER YOUR IMAGE SUFFERED AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES DUE TO YOUR ARREST IN

USA?

I don't care about my image at all. Only people with inferiority complex care about their images.

As far as my arrest is concerned, my people have fallen in love again with me with more respect, with more gratitude. The image of America has certainly fallen.

HOW?

Because to torture an innocent man, who has not done any crime, and to behave in a fascist way....

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BEHAVE IN A FASCIST WAY?

Certainly. America has risked much in arresting me because its real face has come into the eyes of the world. It is not a democracy. It does not respect individuals. It is absolutely fascist, covering itself with a mask of democracy. Arresting me, it has created world-wide exposure of its hypocrisy.

(a136) They had made the case titled "government of U.S. versus Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh." It is hilarious. And they could not prove anything against me.

BUT YOU ADMITTED YOUR GUILT. WHY?

Just they could not prove anything against me. In the first court, where the case trial was arranged, in North Carolina, all they asked was that I should be not bailed out here. Six persons who were with me were bailed out. Only I have to be bailed in Oregon -- because they knew they have nothing against me. But between North Carolina and Oregon they can torture me as much as they want -- without any trial, without any arrest warrant. And they had promised that I will be directly sent to Oregon, but it took twelve days for them to take me to Oregon.

They went on changing from one jail to another, and doing as much harm as they thought they could do.

And all the charges they brought against me were absolutely false. I would have fought them and won them, but that would have taken years. And my people around the world were in such suffering, hundreds were fasting the whole time I was in jail; and they all wanted me just to get out of America.

In my whole life I have spoken only one lie, that I told to the court that "I am guilty." I was not. And the lie was told just because of my people, out of compassion, because if they -- if I go on fighting then they will keep me in the jail and my people will suffer. It was not for myself --

-- FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR PEOPLE?

-- for the sake of my people.

WILL THERE BE AFFECTS ALL ON YOUR MOVEMENTS DUE TO UNFORTUNATE INCIDENTS AT

OREGON?

No, not at all. The movement is fast-growing because of it. Truth never suffers in any situation.

WILL YOU SHIFT TO POONA IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

No. The commune is functioning perfectly well. It is growing. There is no need for me to go there.

BUT YOU HAVE EXPRESSED YOUR DESIRE TO SETTLE DOWN IN HIMALAYAS.

I have told you that I am a man who lives spontaneously. I love Himalayas, but I love many other places in the world too. If I feel comfortable here I will remain here.

OTHERWISE....

Otherwise the whole world is there.

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YOU DON'T HAVE SPECIFIC COUNTRIES IN YOUR MIND?

No.

DID YOU, AS ALLEGED ACCUSE INDIA WHEN YOU LEFT TO USA FROM THIS COUNTRY?

I have never been.

YOU DIDN'T SPEAK ANYTHING AGAINST INDIA WHEN YOU LEFT INDIA?

No, I have been speaking against the orthodoxy of India, the traditionalism of India, the caste system of India, the poverty of India. My whole life I have been speaking against these, because I love India and I want all these things to be immediately destroyed. It is my motherland and I would like it to be one of the best in the world -- materially, spiritually, in every sense.

BUT YOU HAVE BEEN SPEAKING AGAINST ALL THESE THINGS, WHICH INCLUDES POVERTY

ALSO?

Yes.

THERE WAS SOME REPORT THAT YOU HATE POVERTY -- I MEAN (INAUDIBLE) POOR

PEOPLE.

I hate poverty; not poor people.

THIS WAS AGAIN MISREPORTED.

In fact, I hate poverty because I love poor people. I don't want them to be poor.

WHAT ABOUT THE CASES WHICH HAVE BEEN PENDING AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU LEFT THIS

COUNTRY?

There has been no case against me because I have never been part of any organization, I had never been on any posts. There has been no case against me. There cannot be. I don't earn anything. You cannot put income tax on me. I don't move out of my house. What case can be against me. If freedom of speech is a crime, then I am the greatest criminal in the world.

THERE IS APPREHENSION. HAVE YOU INTERVIEWED SOME OF THE PEOPLE IN HIMACHAL. I MEAN, THEY ARE NOT VERY CLEAR ABOUT YOUR WHOLE PHILOSOPHY AND EVERYTHING. DO

YOU PROPOGATE SOMETHING FOR THEM THAT... SOMETHING PSYCHOLOGICAL FEAR WHICH

HAVE BEEN CREATED INTO THE MINDS OF SOME PEOPLE THAT YOUR ARRIVAL HERE HAS

CAUSED SOME RESENTMENT.

No, I don't want to get involved into it because I may leave this place tomorrow. If the people of 1/08/07

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Himachal Pradesh want me to be here, then I can consider; otherwise, I don't want to be an uninvited guest anywhere. And this is not going to be a commune; it will be only my personal residence. So they need not be afraid.

THIS IS VERY CLEAR BECAUSE OF THIS POINT OF VIEW. THANK YOU. THIS WAS A NICE

INTERVIEW.

Good. Come again whenever you want to come.

I CAME LATE FROM SIMLA. I DROVE THROUGH ALL THE NIGHT BECAUSE I WANTED MANY

CLARIFICATIONS. YOU ARE NOT REMOTELY CONCERNED WITH ALL THESE THINGS?

Not at all.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #11

Chapter title: None

21 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511215

ShortTitle: LAST411

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

INTERVIEW by SUNDAY TIMES (Magazine Avivar?)

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

One cannot be certain even of the next moment. Life is such a flux, just like a river flowing each moment to an unknown destination. So I don't know whether I have come to India forever or only for a few days.

And I love this freedom, that I am not bound to be anywhere tomorrow. Yesterday is dead; tomorrow is so full of life you cannot plan for it. And I love this unplanned opening of the future. It is a tremendous excitement, what tomorrow's sunrise will bring. I have never planned anything in my life. I have lived unplanned, and I am going to die unplanned.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING IN INDIA?

1/08/07

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Query:-

As far as my feeling is concerned, I am always feeling good. It may be heaven or hell, but my feeling will not change. That is the only point which is unmoving and unchanging.

It is said of Archimedes that if he could find the still point of this whole moving universe he could change the world. But he could not find the still point because he never looked in the direction where the still point is. The still point is within ourselves. There is a place, a space, where all is exactly the same always. Once you reach it, then you are only a witness. Things are happening around you, but they don't happen to you. You may be killed, but still you will be a witness. So as far as I am concerned, I am just great anywhere.

In America, the jailers were very much puzzled. On their part they were doing everything to torture me and harass me and, knowing my troubles -- that I suffer from allergies -- it was very easy to put me with somebody who is continuously smoking, and I am allergic to smoke; it was very easy to put me with someone who is using perfume, and I am allergic to perfume. But I remained silent with closed eyes those twelve days.

Every jailer asked me, "How are you feeling?"

And I said, "Great!"

They said, "This is strange. We have never come across a man like you. We are doing our best so that you should not feel great, but you go on feeling great. What is great in this dark, dismal, dirty cell full of cockroaches?"

I said, "They are dead. I am here. They don't touch me, they cannot touch me."

And this is my whole life's work, to help people to experience this innermost point of their being, the center of the cyclone, upon which everything moves, but which itself remains exactly the same, eternity to eternity.

As far as India is concerned, there are good signs. A new group of people have come into the Indian government. If they are people of integrity, and they can remain non-political and still in politics, then India has a future.

ARE THEY STILL NON-POLITICAL?

It is very difficult. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and they are human beings with all the frailties and weaknesses of everyone. People don't know what they will do when they come to power; they themselves come to know only when they have power. It is a little early to say, because the bureaucracy is the old one, which has to be changed as soon as possible; otherwise it will change your non-political people who have come into politics. And the non-political people who have come to join politics have to be made aware of the fact; otherwise, unconsciously they will turn political. If you live with a madman and you talk with a madman, it is very difficult to save your own sanity.

It happened in Egypt: one of the pharaohs, who was a great chess player, became mad. Nobody could cure him. But one wise old man suggested that if somebody played chess with him perhaps he might be cured. The greatest chess player was brought; they played chess, and after one year the pharaoh was sane but the chess player became mad!

When you are with certain kinds of people you have to learn their language, you have to learn their behavior, their strategies.

So I am making that point emphatically, that a good number of people have come into the political cage who are not basically political.

WHAT ABOUT RAJIV GANDHI?

Even Rajiv is a non-politician. And the situation was ripe, because for forty years India has seen what the politicians have done. They have made the country worse and worse. So India is ready to accept the non-political people on their merit.

Now that is the question: those non-political people who want to enter into power should be made fully alert that they should not change; they should remain non-political. Their approach towards problems should remain human, not political. They should promise only that which they can deliver. The politician 1/08/07

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Query:-

makes great promises just to gather votes, and once he is in power he forgets all his promises. The new people have to be made alert: don't promise anything that you cannot deliver. Always promise something you can deliver -- in fact, you can deliver more than you promised.

The signs are good. Rajiv is absolutely non-political. He never wanted to come into politics; it is just circumstances that have brought him into politics. That is a good sign that the inner being is not hankering for power, if the country supports him and helps him, and he has not to depend on politicians, he has a great future.

Rajiv is not the old Indian politician who was brought up under Mahatma Gandhi. That is something very valuable. I wanted India to be completely rid of Gandhism for the simple reason that he was the man who was propagating things which will never allow India to progress. Rajiv is good because he has no impact of Mahatma Gandhi on him.

Secondly, Rajiv is a contemporary man. The people who had come to power before him were really fighters for freedom. They had no idea what they were going to do when they became victorious. The fight for freedom was too much, they were so much involved in it. When suddenly the power came into their hands they were at a loss what to do, so they fell back upon the British system that was already there.

We have changed the high level politicians, but the system of bureaucracy is still British. Just as non-politicians have come to politics, non-bureaucrats have to be brought to bureaucracy. And it is not difficult, it is just a question of decision. And a decision is very important, because if you don't decide now, every day it will become more difficult because the population goes on growing, problems go on growing.

But there is still time.

My suggestion is: change the bureaucracy, make our politicians absolutely non-political. If somebody is an education minister then he should come from the educational world. If somebody is a health minister he should have the best medical expertise. If somebody is the minister for agriculture then he should know the latest technologies which are being used all over the world for agriculture.

What I am saying is that we should try for meritocracy rather than for democracy. Merit should be valued, nothing else. And my feeling is that after forty years' experience, it is possible; people are ready to do anything if their faith can be restored. This opportunity should not be lost.

So as far as India is concerned, I see some rays of hope, but they have to be made a reality. And the press, the media, can play a significant role in teaching the country, in teaching the politicians, in teaching the bureaucracy. The Indian press and media are not doing that. They have not even considered that they are the greatest educational system today. No university is as great as the media, because it reaches to millions of people who will never go to the university.

The media, in other words, is a university reaching to people's homes rather than bringing people to the university. And it has a great responsibility in such moments of change.

It should not live on sensationalism. It should not exploit people's ugly desires. They read about rape, they read about murder, they read about crime, and it is a wellknown psychological fact: while people are reading these things they somehow enjoy it. They also want to murder someone but they cannot. Reading about the murders, they become identified with the murderer.

IF SOMEONE KILLS SOMEONE, THEN SHOULD IT BE REPORTED IN THE MEDIA OR NOT?

My feeling is: if we want to change the human mind -- and it is an absolute necessity -- all that is evil should be ignored, because once you report it, it is magnified a millionfold. A small evil -- somebody kills someone -- reaches to millions of people; and every day they read that somebody is being killed, somebody is raped. Slowly, slowly, it becomes clear to them that rape and murder and suicide are normal. And this idea of their being normal is dangerous. They can rape. If everybody is raping, if everybody is murdering, then what is the point in going on unnecessarily being a saint and torturing yourself?

My feeling is that all evil should be completely ignored because it helps in no way. If somebody has murdered someone, he should be punished by the court; that is their business. But what business is it of the people to know about it -- all the gory details of it?

THEN THE PROBLEM WITH THIS IS: WHEN MRS. GANDHI IS ASSASSINATED AND WE DON'T

REPORT IT, THEN HOW WILL THE PEOPLE RELY ON ME?

1/08/07

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Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

Your reporting of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination -- do you know how many Sikhs have been killed just for one woman? If you had not reported that, thousands of Sikhs would not have been killed. You are responsible for it. And Mrs. Gandhi was going to die sooner or later, so what is the big mess about it? The legal authorities are there -- let them take their measures. It is not your business.

It would have kept India more healthy, more sensible, because Mrs. Gandhi's assassination that you reported changed the whole political character of the country. It killed thousands of Sikhs, it killed freedom of thought. I have nothing to do with Khalistan, but I have much to do with freedom of thought.

I feel that evil should not be reported because it becomes magnified. It should be completely ignored.

Legal authorities are there to take it in their hands. The function of the media is to teach people that life does not consist only of evil -- there are good things also. The roses are still flowering, rivers are still singing and dancing. People not only rape; people still love. Millions of people love and you don't report it.

A single person rapes and you report it. Rape becomes more important than millions of people loving.

My feeling is that evil should be given to the legal authorities -- that is their domain -- and the media should become a university, spreading the good news, making people feel that the world is not wrong, that to do wrong is not normal, to do good is normal. And if everybody is doing good, it acquires an impetus. By reading good things every day you start feeling that you have to do something -- you are also a human being, and you should not lag far behind the whole humanity which is being so progressive and going forward. Right now the situation is such that it seems as though the whole humanity is criminal.

The media has to change its attitude completely. For example, there is no need to give so much importance to politicians; they should be given the fourth page, not the first page. The first page should be given to creative people. There are painters, there are poets, there are sculptors, there are musicians, there are dancers -- there are so many beautiful creative people, and you don't care about them, you ignore them.

POLITICIANS ARE NOT CREATIVE?

They are just functional, not creative. A creative person never goes into politics. You cannot make Picasso a politician. You cannot make Ravi Shankar a politician, because what will politics give him? His sitar gives him so much bliss; what can politics give him? No creative person goes into politics. Only people who are uncreative, suffering from an inferiority complex, having no other talents or genius, no qualifications for any other job in the world, become politicians. And you make them the main news -- their pictures are there every day. Whatsoever nonsense their secretaries have been writing is published as their speeches -- they cannot even write their own speeches.

No, politics should not be given so much importance. By giving it importance you are making people run towards politics. What I mean to say is that politics should be put where it belongs -- on the last page.

The first page should belong to the creative people -- and there are so many beautiful things.... Of course the journalist will need to have a new sensitivity to find out the good, the beauty, the truth of life.

Let people feed on the best things. These are the people who tomorrow will be choosing your politicians, and if they are acquainted with the good, the best, the creative, they cannot choose the rotten people they have been choosing all along. They will ask for talent, they will ask about what you have created, what you have done, what your qualifications are, what your expertise is. They are not just going to satisfy your will to power. Your will to power simply proves you are an inferior human being.

WHAT SHOULD THE INDIAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM YOU? WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS?

I don't have any future plans, and nobody should expect anything from me, because I never expect anything from anybody. I just enjoy doing things absolutely spontaneously. That's why I'm never frustrated.

Frustration comes only when you plan and the plan fails. I don't plan. I simply enjoy doing something --

whether it fails or succeeds has no concern for me. I did my best and I enjoyed doing it; that is my reward --

not success or failure. Of course while I am here something is bound to happen -- I don't know what.

1/08/07

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WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO REMOVE POVERTY FROM INDIA?

It is very easy. The easiest thing in India is to remove poverty -- which the politicians and the leaders are making the biggest problem.

The first thing is that India should not think in terms of becoming a big nuclear power. Already we are wasting seventy-five percent of the national income on war machinery.

AND WHEN PAKISTAN ATTACKS?

I understand you. That is what Pakistanis say -- I have been talking to them too. They say, "We stop and India attacks." Somebody has to take the initiative, and I think India is the best country to take the initiative.

Seventy-five percent of our resources go in the service of killing, in war; naturally the country will remain poor. Without Pakistan attacking you, you will die through your own poverty.

My feeling is that India should make a historical decision -- that we cease all war efforts and we put our whole energy into destroying poverty. We will fight poverty, not human beings -- even if it means that other countries can attack us. But it does not necessarily mean that. Switzerland has not seen a single war in one hundred and fifty years, and Switzerland has not any great military power. What has happened? If it can happen to Switzerland, a country that has no great power to prevent invasion, it simply means the good will of the Swiss people, their loving nature, has helped them.

So rather than depending on weapons, why not depend on human qualities? Create a country which has no poverty, no beggars, no uneducated people -- a country which is joyous, loving, dancing. And I have every certainty that nobody can attack you, even the people you think can attack -- Pakistan. The population of Pakistan will attack the government of Pakistan: if it can happen in India, why is it not happening there?

We just have to make our position absolutely clear to the world.

Right now, even if you have weapons, nuclear weapons, there is no guarantee that Pakistan will not attack; there is no guarantee that China will not attack. If it could be a guarantee then I could have considered it. But the war machinery has come to such a point that any war is going to be a total war. It will destroy our whole humanity. That is a very significant point. That means now there is not going to be a great war because nobody wants to die, nobody wants to destroy humanity -- neither America nor the Soviet Union nor anybody else.

My own suggestion is that India should make its ties with the Soviet Union as deep as possible and declare itself really a nonviolent country -- taking the risk of the whole country being destroyed. But I don't think destruction can happen because the whole world would be on your side. Just guts are needed, and the poverty will simply disappear without any trouble.

You are putting your whole energy into war, and people are poor. And you go on asking: what can we do about poverty? So one thing, the most important, is that India should become actually -- not just verbally

-- a nonviolent country. Its armies should move to agriculture and factories. It should drop its weapons and declare to the world, "We are absolutely without weapons; we want our people to live joyously, even if it means the death of the country. But we will die dancing, we will not die fighting and killing human beings."

That declaration, in reality, will have a sympathetic echo all over the world. And if one country can do that, other countries will follow, because every country is in the same trouble -- they have to keep creating more weapons than the enemy, and those weapons are consuming everything and leaving the poor poor.

Secondly, India should be educated in population control. The effort was made but in a wrong way.

People were educated for it forcibly, and whenever you do anything forcibly -- even if it is good -- the result is going to be bad. People should be taught, and now better methods of birth control are available. There is no need to create dozens of children. And people should be approached in such a way that they don't feel that their independence, their freedom, is being hampered, but on the contrary that their freedom is hampered by two dozen children! They destroy their whole life. Not only that, they are destroying their two dozen children's lives also: they will be beggars on the streets.

We have to make our people understand that to have a small family gives you more freedom, more comfort, more education, and a better future for your children. They will not end up in Mother Teresa's orphanages and become Catholics. Of course Mother Teresa will not like the idea of birth control. Now 1/08/07

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Query:-

Pope the Polack is coming to India. He should be rejected everywhere, because Catholics are not interested in humanity; their whole interest is in how to create more children. Naturally they will be poor, naturally they will be on the streets -- and then they can be turned into Catholics.

I have looked around the whole country: it is strange that not a single rich man has ever been converted to Christianity. If Christianity is such a great religion, then why doesn't a rich Hindu ever convert?

Christianity is a thirdrate religion in comparison to any other religion. The people who get converted are those whose concern is not religion, but whose concern is bread and clothes.

And I am surprised that these people are welcomed by the country -- that awards are given to these people who are increasing the poverty of the country and side by side increasing the Catholic population. It has been their deepest desire for two thousand years to make the whole world Christian -- and now this is a great opportunity. The poor are bound to fall into their trap. They don't want poverty to be removed, and the best way is to tell people that using birth control methods is against God.

One of the bishops was talking to me, and he said, "It is against God."

I said, "Your God is omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient; he can see past, present, future; he is omnipresent, everywhere present. Cannot he remove a small pill, or change the quality of the pill? If he can make man out of mud, cannot he change the pill into mud? Such a great god, and the pill defeats him? You are talking nonsense. If God wants children to be there, then no birth control methods can succeed; and if they succeed, that proves there is no God."

But we are supporting these people. Now preparations are being made to receive the Pope. These kinds of people should be expelled from India. They are not friends of this country, they are enemies of this country. Anybody who teaches people that birth control is irreligious is against our future. Birth control should be accepted as an intelligent method -- and intelligence is God-given.

Just these two things -- birth control and no more pouring of money and energy into war -- and poverty will disappear. And you will make history. India has not been making history for two thousand years. For two thousand years you have been slaves. Although you had weapons and you had armies, still you have been slaves.

I ask you, what is the fear? Take the risk, and declare to the world that the land of Buddha and Mahavira and the Upanishads is still capable of risking its own life for the sake of the whole humanity. It will be the greatest thing that has ever happened, perhaps that ever will happen. And we have nothing to lose. We have already been slaves for two thousand years; what difference do a few years more make?

YOU SAID THAT YOU LOVE INDIA.

I have never said I preferred India; it is still not worth living in. I have just come here to stay for a few days before I can get a place somewhere in the world; somewhere where I can be absolutely free -- because here also I see freedom is impossible. For simple things, freedom is impossible.

Just the other day I was talking to a journalist, and I told him that India has never been one country. It was only under Mohammedan rule that they forced the country to be one; then, too, it was not completely one. It was only under British troops that India became one -- the whole credit of India's becoming one goes to British slavery. And Churchill was right when he said that the moment Britain leaves India, India will fall apart into small pieces. His prophecy is coming true.: Pakistan has separated, Bangladesh has separated, Nagaland is asking for freedom; soon others will be following.

The journalist suggested to me, "You should not say such a thing because you can be immediately imprisoned." If this is the situation, do you think India is worth living in? I don't think so.

It is absolutely against my conscience not to say the truth. Any country where truth is not valued is not worth living in. It is my country, I would love to live here, but I would love to live here only in my own way. And I am ready to argue with anybody. But imprisoning me is not an argument; it is simply your defeat. You cannot argue, you don't have anything in your support. In forty years you have not been able to manage one national language; how can you manage one nation?

If simple things cannot be said I would rather die than live -- but I cannot tolerate such kinds of stupid attitudes.

So I had said India is not worth living in. I still say it is not worth living in. And the burden is on them --

the government, the politicians. If they want it to be worth living in and they want me to say so, then they have to behave; otherwise, the whole world is there, and it will be far better to suffer somewhere else. At 1/08/07

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Query:-

least I will not feel that my own mother country cannot give me freedom of speech.

WHY ARE YOU CONSTANTLY MISUNDERSTOOD BY INDIAN SOCIETY? YOU HAVE SPOKEN A LOT ABOUT THE GITA, RAMA, THE KORAN, LAO TZU, BUDDHA, BUT THE INDIAN PEOPLE THINK

THAT YOU TALK ALL THE TIME ABOUT SEX.

I am reminded of a psychologist who once, talking to a patient, drew a line on the table and asked him,

"What does this remind you of?"

The patient said, "Sex, of course."

Even the psychologist was shocked. He made a triangle and asked, "Now?"

The man said, "It reminds me more of sex."

The psychologist made a circle.

The man said, "What are you doing? You will drive me crazy. It is perfect sex!"

With the Indian society, the same is the problem. It has repressed sex for thousands of years, and whenever you repress something it is always there.

I have almost four hundred books published in my name, only one book is about sex. Three hundred and ninety-nine books, which have nothing to do with sex, which are only lines and triangles and circles --

nobody bothers about. Just one book is about sex, and even that one is not advocating sex -- that is the strangest thing. The book is really anti-sex. The whole philosophy of the book is how to transform sex energy into spiritual energy. It is against repression. If you repress sex then you cannot transform the energy into spiritual energy -- because it is the only energy you have got. You are born of sex, every cell of your body is part of sex. To repress sex means to destroy your possibility of ever becoming a spiritual being.

So the book says, don't repress sex; sex is natural, it is part of your whole being. It should be given its due, and you should not feel guilty about it; rather you should try to meditate on your sexual energy. That's what Tantra is. The whole philosophy of Tantra is that while you are making love, simultaneously you meditate, so that meditation and sex become one. The moment they become one, sex, instead of going downwards into procreation, starts moving upwards, taking you to new discoveries of your own being, to the final stage of becoming enlightened.

It is strange that people think my books are about sex, that I am advocating sex. You can ask my sannyasins -- the more they have meditated, the less sexual they have become. Those who have been with me for long have almost lost all interest in sex -- because it is simply a wastage of energy. The same energy can give them such ecstatic experiences; why should they waste it?

But the problem is that with the priests of all religions -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist -- their whole investment is in sexual repression. If they condemn sex, saying that it is something evil, they have condemned you; now the burden is on you to destroy sex -- which you cannot. It is not in your hands to destroy it; it is your physiology, your biology. So when you cannot destroy it you start feeling guilty. This is a guilt-producing process, and once a man feels guilty he is bound to be in the hands of the priests. Because you don't know where God is -- nobody has ever known -- so to whom to go for forgiveness that you are a sinner? And these cunning priests, popes, shankaracharyas, imams, they are the mediators. They say they have direct communication with God: you just listen to them, follow them, and you will be forgiven.

So all the religions are using sex repression as a strategy to keep the priesthood's hold on people. That's why they were angry at me -- because I was destroying their very roots. And they spread the whole idea; otherwise I am the most anti-sex man in the whole world.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #12

1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

Chapter title: None

22 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511225

ShortTitle: LAST412

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by freelance reporter, Venkatram

DO YOU AND YOUR SANNYASINS PROPOSE TO SET UP A MODEL CITY IN THE FOOTHILLS OF

THE HIMALAYAS?

No. If the government of Himachal Pradesh wants, then I can persuade my sannyasins to build a model city.

They did it in America, and the result was that they created great antagonism in the politicians, for the simple reason that what they could not do with all their power, we managed to do, without any power. And everybody was so happy, so comfortable.

They could not tolerate that paradise, and that paradise was such a contrast to their hell that the only way to save their faces was to destroy it. And that's what they have been doing for four and a half years --

continuously harassing, trying illegal methods, illegal lawsuits, just making it impossible for us to make it even more beautiful. Our whole energy was involved with them.

Still, in spite of it, we made something which has never happened in history.

BUT ISN'T IT TRUE THAT THE KIND OF PEOPLE YOU ATTRACT ARE RATHER CLASSY PEOPLE, DIFFERENT FROM THE AVERAGE HUMAN BEING? I SPOKE WITH A LOT OF THEM, AND GOT

THE IMPRESSION THAT THEY'RE ABOVE AVERAGE, SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONALS.

They are. Almost all of them are, because my way of thinking can be understood only by the very intelligent, by the people who are already fed up with old kinds of traditions, orthodoxies, conventions --

who are completely fed up with the whole history of man. Those people were interested in me.

But those people were talented geniuses in their own fields. They dropped everything to create this paradise. You might have found a surgeon doing the work of a plumber -- a surgeon who was the best heart surgeon in America. You might have found a professor making the roads. This was the first authentic communist commune in the whole world. Soviet Russia or other communist countries are under a dictatorial rule, forced. If the force is removed, the society will again become capitalist.

My whole effort was that no force should be used. Rather we should make everything so affluent that there was no need for anybody to be poor. There was not a single beggar, there was not a single thief. No crime was committed, no rape, no murder, no suicide; and particularly in America where rape and murder and suicide are happening every moment....

But since I've seen that creating something so beautiful creates so much antagonism, I am not going to create it again on my own unless the government invites me.

Certainly, if the government invites me and they don't create hindrances.... On the contrary, they should help, because we would be creating a city which could become a model for the whole of India. And if we can manage, everybody can manage -- just the know-how has to be spread.

So it would be a great contribution on the part of the Himachal government to the whole country, and 1/08/07

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the country needs it. But I will do it only on their invitation and with their support.

YOU ARE INDIGNANT ABOUT MANY INDIAN THINGS, JUST AS SO MANY OTHER EDUCATED

INDIANS ARE, BUT THEY DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO SPEAK LIKE YOU DO. IF YOU HAD THE

POWER TO CHANGE THINGS IN THIS COUNTRY, WHAT ARE THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS

YOU WOULD DO?

It is very simple. The first thing I would like to do is divert all the energies from war efforts, nuclear weapons, atomic plants -- a poor country cannot afford that idiotic luxury.

I want this country to become absolutely nonviolent. It would be perhaps the greatest historical event in humanity's history.

ARE WE NOT NONVIOLENT ALREADY?

No, we are not because we have armies, we are trying to have nuclear weapons, we are making atomic plants. All this energy should go to serve the people.

IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WORLD IS IT POSSIBLE OR ADVISABLE FOR ONE-FIFTH OF

THE HUMAN RACE TO STAY DEFENCELESS? WE HAVE ALREADY HAD FIGHTS WITH THE

CHINESE AND PAKISTANIS AND OTHERS.

Are you, with your defences, not defenceless? You had all your armies, and China attacked. What could you do? You had your armies, and China is still holding your land. What have you done? I am saying one thing: even with your armies you are defenceless.

BUT IT WILL BECOME WORSE IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN ARMY.

No, it will not be worse; it will be better, because with your armies you are creating a vicious circle.

With your armies, Pakistan thinks you are going to attack. With Pakistan having armies you think they are going to attack. This is a vicious circle which has to be broken somewhere. Who has to break it? I think a land of buddhas can break it, and make a point.

For example, for one hundred and fifty years Switzerland has had no war. They don't have any army.

They just have goodwill for everybody; loving people. Rather than an army, their goodwill and their lovingness has protected them for one hundred and fifty years.

And right now the position is, even if you have the biggest army in the world you cannot compete with America or Russia or China. So in fact even having the biggest army is pointless.

You can have nuclear weapons -- which Soviet Russia and America have already -- nuclear weapons which can destroy humanity seven hundred times. To come to their level, it will take three hundred years for you, and in three hundred years there will be not be a single Indian alive. They will simply die of poverty.

And you will be making nuclear weapons to protect whom?

And secondly, in these three hundred years America and Russia are not going to wait for you to come to their level. In three hundred years they will be three thousand years ahead of you. So this is absolutely foolish.

Right now is the point not to miss. Drop all war ideology, drop the defence department -- we wouldn't be the only country with no defence department. Use your whole army for production, for cultivation. And there are trained people in factories -- put them all into production. Make it clear to the world, "We are willing to die, but we don't want to kill anybody." And my feeling is that if we can do it, the whole world's sympathy will be with us -- more than with your armies. It is a risk, but even with armies the risk is there.

So it makes no difference.

This way you can have goodwill from all over the world, and you may start a chain -- so that other 1/08/07

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countries that are small and cannot compete may start thinking of dropping the whole lot because it is taking too much energy and too many men and unnecessarily wasting resources.

And another thing: in this dropping all arms and armies, dissolving them, opening yourself, becoming vulnerable, whatever happens you will not kill. It will be better to be killed and destroyed, but you will not kill. This declaration will make a great impact on the whole world. And my feeling is that most nations will be in deep sympathy with you. Nobody can touch you.

Secondly, India has to be taught that children are no more needed. For at least twenty years we have to be very disciplined about it, otherwise we will be committing suicide.

Rather than enforcing it, we have to educate people, and I don't think that India is so unintelligent.

People may not be educated, but they are intelligent and they can understand simple things -- that by the end of the century the population will be one billion. So the control of population is the second thing. And it is very easy; methods are available which are simple.

And the third thing: we have to make people aware that whatever past they are carrying in their mind, it is no more applicable to the present. There is a discrepancy.

That's what Mahatma Gandhi took advantage of. He praised India's past and befooled the whole country.

According to him, all progress stopped with the spinning wheel. We cannot stop with the spinning wheel.

We have to become more technological, more scientific; otherwise, the earth cannot support us.

HOW DO YOU DO THAT IN A COUNTRY WHERE SIXTY PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE ARE

UNEDUCATED?

No problem, there is no problem. I have been touring the country for thirty years. Our people may be illiterate -- but it was an extraordinary experience for me to find that even the best educated American is inferior to the average uneducated Indian, at least as far as philosophy and religious understanding is concerned.

So we can make them understand philosophically that what came as a heritage to them was good for that time. Now the times have changed. If you want to save the culture, the country, then you have to sacrifice.

And it is not much of a sacrifice either. Just taking the pill is not much of a sacrifice.

And technology should be spread all over the country on a wider basis. It should not be in the hands of the chosen few; otherwise they will become rich, but the poor will get poorer.

BUT HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Very easily, because the way I was doing things in my commune was that nobody was paid. We gave them sufficient for their food, for their clothing, shelter.... And everybody was working.

BUT ISN'T IT A BAD COMPARISON? WHERE INDIA IS STUCK WITH THE DOWNTRODDEN, YOU

CAN COMMUNICATE WITH THE WELL-EDUCATED. THEY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING

ABOUT, WHEREAS HERE THERE IS IGNORANCE, ILLITERACY, POVERTY, HUNGER. ISN'T IT MORE

DIFFICULT?

I can do it... because I have been doing it, and I have never found that people do not understand. The people who were against me were the priests, the imams, the bishops, not the ordinary common people; but with the common people I had immediate communication. The antagonism against me was created by the priest; the priest is afraid because whatever I am telling the people is dangerous for his own business. His whole business is cut off.

It happened in Patna.... There was a world Hindu conference -- it must have been around 1970 or '69.

Almost one hundred thousand people were present, and the Shankaracharya of Puri was presiding. The secretary of the conference was very much interested in me so without the president knowing, he invited me. And the moment the shankaracharya saw me on the stage he immediately freaked out, and said,"We two cannot sit on the same stage!"

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BY THEN YOU'D ALREADY BECOME NOTORIOUS IN THE COUNTRY?

I was notorious, because with that shankaracharya I have been in conflict many times. He could not throw me out because I took the mike in my hand and I asked the people, "I have been invited here by the secretary of the conference. The shankaracharya does not want me to speak. Certainly he is the president; if he does not want me to speak, I will leave. But before I leave I would like to ask all of you: raise both your hands if you want me to speak." There were two hundred thousand hands raised.

And then I said to the shankaracharya, "You are no more president -- you can leave if you want, you can sit down if you want. I have no problem with you. But I have a communication with the people -- and you think you are the leader of these people?"

He remained. And he had to listen to me. He was turning and tossing and perspiring.

DID YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIM OR HIS GODS?

No, nothing nasty, just simple things which our people can understand very easily -- only they have not been approached. These religious leaders are the people who are approaching them.

For example, the shankaracharya, in his presidential address, said, "You should not use water out of which electricity has been taken because that water is impotent." Now these idiots are spreading ignorance, and the poor people don't understand about electricity. And when the shankaracharya, a man of such great knowledge.... And he does not know anything about electricity either, nor about water -- saying that water becomes impotent, that you should not use it because your crops will not grow, that you should not drink it because it will make you impotent. Now these are the things these people are saying.

So my third effort will be that all these people are removed completely from contact with the public. Our people are not ignorant, they are simply innocent. And their innocence is being exploited by these people.

So my third thing is that all these religious leaders should be behind the bars.

The fourth thing is about our education system: it only creates clerks. That was the basic purpose of the British government, and we don't need only clerks -- we need clerks, but not only clerks. So our whole education system should be such that each person who comes out of school, college or university, also comes with some skills and craft, something that he can do so that he does not need employment. He can become a creator on his own. So our education system should create creators.

Fifth: We should be very alert about our politicians. Forty years have gone just in wastage. The politicians were promising everything and delivering nothing. Now we should ask the politicians, "Are you capable of doing anything, of delivering the goods? If you are not going to deliver the goods, then you will have to resign immediately."

Now the people should be more assertive. Up to now they have been just docile, saying, "Whatsoever you say is right." Our people have to be assertive. There should be no education minister who is not at least capable of being a university vice-chancellor. There should be no health minister who is not able to be the best physician in the country. Merit should be given more importance than just speeches, promises.... And even those speeches are not written by the politicians themselves; some clerk, some secretary is writing them, and they are simply repeating them.

Our politicians have proved very poor. So this has to be one of the most important things -- to make the people assertive about their rights, and make the politicians know that they are really servants of the people

-- it is not just a verbal thing.

HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THAT? ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THE LEAD IN HELPING

PEOPLE BECOME AWARE OF THEIR RIGHTS?

I can do that because I am not a politician, and only non-politicians can do that. And I have thousands of my sannyasins in the country who can do that, who are not politicians, who do not desire any power, who can do that.

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People have to be made very aware that anybody who makes promises should be asked, "How are you going to fulfill this promise, and in how many years -- one year, two years? And if it is not fulfilled, then give us in writing your resignation now. We will keep the resignation date. We can take you out after two years."

But the population of the country should not be dominated. Otherwise, look at what has happened: the British went -- they had made the country a slave -- the Indians came in their place. The country remained in the same slave mentality, and these people started doing the same -- just the white color of the people changed to black, but the whole system continued to work the same way.

So I want people to be assertive, and if in the cabinet people are not chosen according to merit then the whole country should be in an uproar. It should not be left so that any idiot becomes a health minister.

These are the five things I would like.

YOU HAVE SAID THAT, SINCE BUDDHA, INDIA HAS NOT PRODUCED A SINGLE MAN

COMPARABLE TO HIM. WHY IS THIS? WOULD YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF COMPARABLE TO THE

BUDDHA?

The first thing: India has not been able to create a man like Buddha because India, after Buddha, went on declining, went on becoming poor.

My understanding is that religion is the ultimate luxury. You have to feed your body first; if your body is hungry, it is impossible to become a buddha. You have to train your mind first, bring it to its highest peak of intelligence. If that is not possible, you cannot become buddha.

These are the steps. The body has to be completely satisfied. The mind has to be sharpened, alert, aware, able to enjoy Mozart, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Picasso, Rabindranath. Only then is there a possibility of a new flight, because all these things give you a little joy but very momentary.

Reading Gitanjali the second time gives nothing. The first time it is a great experience, but the second time it is nothing. So once you become frustrated with all the great art and music, poetry, literature, then only the question arises, "Is there something else or not? Is there some meaning, or is this all?" And that question comes and erases everything. At that point a person starts searching for his inner being, his soul.

And realizing one's own inner being is what I mean by buddhahood.

Buddha could not happen in these twenty-five centuries for the simple reason that the basic necessities were not fulfilled.

I can say without any pride that I have fulfilled everything. I do not compare myself with Buddha because two peaks of the Himalayas, even if they may be of the same height, are still incomparable. They have their beauties, they have their own glory, they have their own world. So I am not comparing myself with Buddha.

I don't want to compare anybody with anybody else. I believe in the uniqueness of the individual. And the more you become inward, the more unique you become. When you reach to your innermost being you are the most unique being in the world; nobody can be compared with you. But that noncomparability is the essential part of being a buddha.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL IN LIFE -- YOUR ULTIMATE AMBITION?

It is fulfilled.

YOUR DISCIPLES APPEAR SO DEVOTED TO YOU. WHAT IS THE SECRET OF THIS

TREMENDOUS LOYALTY? WHY DO YOU THINK THESE BRIGHT PEOPLE CAME TO YOU AND

MOSTLY STAY ON?

There is no secret in it. It is simply that I love unconditionally.

I don't enslave them. On the contrary, I make them absolutely free -- free from traditions, free from religions, free from nations, free from me. I give them their individuality, integrity, self-respect; and 1/08/07

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because I give them all that, which really belongs to them but they have forgotten it or have been forced to forget it...

YOU MAKE THEM AWARE?

I make them aware.

And that awareness, and my love for them.... I love unconditionally. I don't put any condition, such as,

"You have to be like this, only then will I love you." I love you as you are. This creates a tremendous love from their side towards me. It is not loyalty, it is not devotion; it is pure human love. I hate those words --

devotion and loyalty; they are ugly. Somehow they put the other person down, they are humiliating. And I respect everyone just the way I respect myself.

You cannot do anything else than love me. I take away all those things which have been imposed on you, and I give you all those things which really have always been within you -- I don't give them to you.

You had them already, covered by garbage. I remove the garbage. And I don't ask anything in return. My joy is to clean you. My joy is just like a gardener -- when the roses come to blossom, something in his heart also blossoms.

Whenever one of my friends comes to realize himself, it feels as if I have realized myself again.

WHAT IS THIS RELIGION THAT WAS FOUNDED IN YOUR NAME BY MA ANAND SHEELA? DO

YOU DISASSOCIATE YOURSELF COMPLETELY FROM IT? AND HOW COULD SHE DO THIS

WITHOUT YOUR AUTHORITY?

For three and a half years I was in isolation and in silence, and she was the only one communicating with me. My whole commune -- five thousand people -- had to depend on her word. And she did what the ordinary human mind and its frailties tend to do -- she found it a great opportunity to be powerful. In my name she could say anything, and there was no check. Whatever she did not want to say, she need not say; whatever she wanted to inform me of, she did; whatever she did not want to inform me of, she did not. She made a small clique, and that clique imposed the whole idea of religion.

I have always been against religion, particularly organized religion. I love religiousness, but I don't love religions. Religiousness is a quality, like fragrance. It has no boundaries -- it is not Hindu, it is not Mohammedan. Two religious persons will be almost the same -- silent, peaceful, loving, with a great gratitude towards existence.

My whole literature is against religions, against any kind of priesthood. And what she did was just the opposite of it. She negated the whole thing in those three and a half years. She betrayed completely. And she had to betray, because all priests have been betraying. And because I was silent, and not available, I was not aware what was happening.

THESE YEARS OF SILENCE -- WHY DID YOU DO THAT?

I just live moment to moment. One moment I felt that for thirty years I had been speaking; it would be good to be silent for a few days. So for three and a half years I was silent. One day I realized that it was time to speak again, and I started speaking.

I just go with the moment -- with no planning, with no idea, with no reasoning. I am very irrational.

SINCE YOU HAVE GIVEN UP READING FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS WHAT REFRESHES THE

INTELLECTUAL INPUT INTO YOUR BRAIN?

Nothing. I don't need anything. I have my vision, and I have my intelligence, and I don't need any reading or any information.

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my response. For information I need reading, but for response I don't need any reading.

DO YOU EVER FEEL, "OH MY GOD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS THE LATEST.....?

Never. I feel completely at ease, far more at ease than people who depend on information -- because they are always worried whether it is right or wrong. Whatever I say is always right because it is coming directly from me. I don't depend on any book, I don't depend on any encyclopedia. I depend only on my intelligence.

THERE ARE REPORTS THAT THE POONA ASHRAM OWES THE GOVERNMENT SOMETHING

LIKE 1.5 CRORES OF RUPEES IN UNPAID TAXES. IS THIS TRUE? ARE YOUR TAX HASSLES OVER, OR HAS THERE BEEN SOME KIND OF UNDERSTANDING WITH THE GOVERNMENT?

Two things. One: those taxes have nothing to do with me because I have never been a part of any commune. And I don't have any post in the commune so any income tax or anything has nothing to do with me.

I have always been a guest in every commune. I am not even a member. So there is no question of me being arrested.

Secondly, those 1.5 crore -- that is the creation of Morarji Desai. Morarji Desai has been against me for as long as I remember, for the simple reason that I am against Gandhism and he thinks he is the successor of Gandhi. He wants to be Mahatma Morarji Desai.

I have been continuously criticizing Gandhi and Morarji Desai, and challenging him to a public discussion: "Why don't you come out in the open? I can come to Delhi and be in an open public meeting. If you feel that your philosophy is right, then why are you afraid? You know yourself that you are talking nonsense. You think drinking urine is the only medicine, and that is all that the country needs. So you have to prove it."

When he became prime minister he immediately took away the tax-exempt status of the ashram in Poona. That created the trouble. Once the tax-exempt status was taken away, then income tax started arising.

The Poona commune has been fighting for tax-exempt status, but as time goes on the income tax goes on growing.

It is a legal matter, and it will be solved -- it has nothing to do with me.

IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE THE WORLD TO REMEMBER

YOU MOST FOR? WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR OBITUARY TO BE?

Just a simple man, an innocent man, who was always misunderstood.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #13

Chapter title: None

23 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511235

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ShortTitle: LAST413

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by HINDI WEEKLY

IN AMERICA, RATHER THAN FIGHTING THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST YOU, YOU ACCEPTED

BEING GUILTY. DOES THIS INDICATE THAT ALL THOSE ALLEGATIONS WERE TRUE?

No, none of them were true. For the first time in my whole life I have spoken a lie, for a certain reason: because all my sannyasins were in immense despair all around the world. Many were on fasts, and those who were not on fasts were also in great mental torture. They all wanted me to be out of America. They were afraid for my life, that if I continued to fight the case I would be kept in the jail until the trial was completed.

I was sure to win on each count, because all those charges were fictitious. But looking at my people --

and for three, four years their despair might have continued -- I felt it was better to accept guilt and release my people from their despair.

It was out of compassion that I accepted that I was guilty, but I am not guilty at all.

WHY DID YOU CHOSE MA PREM HASYA AS YOUR PERSONAL SECRETARY TO REPLACE MA ANAND SHEELA?

I had chosen Ma Anand Sheela for her pragmatic, practical approach, because the commune needed somebody who was down-to-earth. She had no desire for any spiritual development, but she was really capable of doing things. And she was going to be replaced sooner or later, that she knew.

I had made it clear to her, "Unless you grow some spiritual strength inside... I cannot remain only with the foundation of the temple. The foundation needs stones -- uncut, unpolished, ugly -- because they are going to be underground; nobody is going to see them, but they are needed. I chose you because of your very materialistic attitude, but I cannot remain with this foundation only. Sooner or later either you develop into meditation, you show some inclination for spirituality, or I will have to change you."

I was looking for the right person to replace her, and she became aware of that before I made the change. She thought it would be better to escape with as much money as possible while she still had all the power. So she stole enough money, put it into Swiss bank accounts, purchased land in Nepal, opened a bank account in Nepal, and I don't know... whatever else she did.

Hasya is just the opposite of Sheela. She has no materialistic approach, just pure love. Her only desire is to grow in the inner world as deeply as possible. She is a creative woman. She made, with her husband, one of the most famous films, THE GODFATHER. She has insight, she has understanding, she has love.

Whether Sheela had a heart or not, Hasya was going to be my secretary.

I HEAR THAT THE LOCAL PEOPLE IN MANALI ARE NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR ARRIVAL HERE.

WHY IS THIS SO?

It will be the same everywhere. People will not be happy with my arrival for the simple reason that I am against all kind of superstitions which they think are of immense value. I am against all kinds of dead traditions which they think are their life. Those traditions, those superstitions, are making them poor, but they cannot see it.

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So wherever I go -- it does not matter where -- people will be apprehensive. That is natural. But once I am here, just within a few days -- you will see -- their fear will be gone, because I am not a dangerous person in any way. All I can do is speak, and that does not even kill mosquitoes! Nobody need be afraid of me. And if their ideas are better, I am open to discuss them; if they are right, I am open to accept them.

Fear arises only when you know deep down that your idea is somehow not right. So to me it is a good sign that people are afraid. It means that they are already shaken in their foundation just by my arrival. I have not done anything. So tell them that I take it as a great compliment to me.

IS IT TRUE THAT THERE ARE MANY UNDERGROUND SANNYASINS IN COMMUNIST

COUNTRIES LIKE RUSSIA AND CHINA?

It is true. There are many underground sannyasins in all the communist countries. Most of them are in Russia.

And I would like you to inform the Russian government that my people are not against communism; my people are for a far better communism than the Russians have been able to give to their country. They should not persecute my people. They are persecuting them, thinking that they are FBI agents. Now my case is enough to prove that they are not FBI agents.

Stop persecuting -- you are persecuting your own people for the wrong reasons. Allow them freedom.

They are not going to harm your community; they are going to enrich it.

And to my people I would like to say that, whatever happens, go on working -- because you are working for the benefit of the whole humanity. Every sacrifice is a joy.

WHAT IMPRESSION HAVE YOU MADE ON INDIA AND OTHER NATIONS WITH YOUR OWN

EFFORTS TO TEACH SPIRITUAL GROWTH?

I have had a worldwide effect, a great impact. Perhaps I am the only person who has not been refuted intellectually from every corner of the world.

I was amazed because whatever I am saying is controversial, and I love to support unpopular causes, but still the intelligentsia of the world has not been able to refute me. That is an absolute sign that they are not courageous enough to say yes to me; but they are not cowardly enough to say no to me either. They are just in between, sitting on the fence.

Whatever I have said, I have not said from some old authority -- The Bible, Koran or Gita. I am saying it simply on my own authority, from my own experience. It is very easy to discuss, to disagree on the interpretations of Gita or the Vedas; but it is very difficult to encounter a person who is speaking on his own authority, on his own experience -- unless you also have the same quality of experience and depth. So I remain unrefuted.

This episode in America has made it more clear. Thousands of telegrams came every day, thousands of phone calls every day, thousands of letters, thousands of flowers -- from all over the world. Even the jailers were amazed. One of the jailers told me, "Perhaps in my whole life" -- and he is just about to retire -- "I have never come across such a prisoner. We don't have enough space for all the flowers that keep on coming. And we are tired just answering the phone calls from all over the world. But I have to apologize to you. On the first day you came, somebody phoned from Germany and said, Ìn your whole life you may not have a more significant person in your jail.' And I said to him, `No, it is not true, because I have even had senators in my jail.' But after these three days, I want to apologize to you -- it was true. Those cabinet ministers were nothing. The whole world's eyes are focused on this jail, and I can certainly say that we will never have another person like you here again."

So it has created a tremendous impact: that an innocent man, just because he has a different way of thinking and is not gullible about your traditions and your superstitions, can be forced into a certain category and be made to suffer. What kind of world have we created?

This episode has raised the sale of my books, it has raised the sale of my tapes. It has made my name reach almost every house around the world, and even people who were never sympathetic to me have become sympathetic. Thousands of letters arrived saying, "We were never sympathetic to you, but what has 1/08/07

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happened has made it clear that you are right: we are living in a very hypocritical society which says one thing and does exactly the opposite."

So it has been good for my movement. Twelve days' torture was not much; the result has been tremendously beneficial. My sannyasins are stronger, more powerful, more together, and the movement will spread faster now. Even in America, sannyasins are disgusted with their own government. They were never aware that such a thing could happen. So it was a good eye-opener.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FOREIGNERS IN YOUR MOVEMENT? IS IT BECAUSE OF THEIR

BOREDOM WITH MATERIALISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS?

There are many reasons. One is certainly their boredom. While the East is struggling for bread and butter, starving, the West has seen all that the world can give, and still the frustration remains. Now something more is needed. Just a good house, good food, good clothes, a good job, is not enough.

But this becomes clear only when you have all these things, which may be necessary for living, but still they are not enough. Something more, of a higher value, is needed.

Secondly, they are more educated, more intelligent. They have seen all the intellectual gymnastics from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell, and they have not got anything from them, because neither Aristotle nor Bertrand Russell is a meditator; they are just thinkers, and the people want something beyond the mind.

They are fed up with the mind, and beyond the mind there is only the secret that the East has -- and that is meditation.

So certainly they are interested. And if the East were a little more alert, this is the moment for a far greater victory than the West had over the East. The West enslaved your souls, the West enslaved your bodies -- it was ugly. We can make their souls free, giving them the whole sky of freedom of consciousness

-- and this is a chance that should not be lost. But the East is not aware of this at all. Rather, when they see Westerners coming to me, they feel antagonistic towards them. They should be more compassionate because for the first time the Westerner has felt that the East has something which the West lacks. They should feel proud of it, and they should welcome them with open hearts.

This is the moment when we can prove that the East has known heights which the West has not even dreamed about. It can become a glorious moment of victory for the East, which could erase all the slavery of the past two thousand years. To me, it is immensely significant.

But the Eastern mind is still under the impact of the rule by the Western empire. Officially they have become free, but deep down they still feel themselves to be inferior. I want them to drop that inferiority. For the first time the West is feeling inferior to the East; it would be idiotic to lose this moment. And it will help both the East and the West, because meditation has nothing to do with divisions such as East and West.

Meditation will bring immense communion to the whole earth.

WHY ARE YOUNG WOMEN SANNYASINS CALLED `MA'? ACCORDING TO THE INDIAN

TRADITIONAL BELIEF SYSTEM, ONE CANNOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH A MA. WHY THIS

CONTRADICTION?

A few things.

Why do you call God 'the father'? He has no wife, he has no children. How does he become the father?

There are people who call God 'the mother'. She has no husband, no children. Why do you call God the mother? The Christian priest who is a bachelor, celibate, is called father. Why is he called father?

You may not have thought about these things because they have been going on for centuries and we have accepted them. The reality is that `father' is simply an honor, the greatest that you can give.

To me, `mother' is even more an honor -- because the father's function in creating the child is minimal.

The whole of creation is from the mother. The mother should be respected more than anything -- she creates life. The woman's highest quality is her capacity to create life; hence I have called my sannyasins `ma' --

just to give them the feeling that motherhood is the greatest honor. They need not be inferior to men. In fact, they are superior in that matter.

And as far as you said -- that in Indian tradition sex with the mother is not acceptable -- you are not 1/08/07

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right.

In the Vedas there are instances where a newly married couple comes to a great seer to be blessed, and the blessing is really rare -- nowhere in the whole world is there any such blessing. The blessing the seer gives is that your wife will become the mother of ten children, and finally you, the husband, will be her eleventh child. He is saying that a mother is a mother; she will have ten children, and if things go right and smoothly you will be her eleventh child.

Now, the giving of such a blessing supports me, not you; and such a blessing also supports that sex is nothing profane or ugly. It is simply a process of life flowing on, just as the river is flowing on. Bodies become old, life moves into new bodies, the old bodies are left behind. But life continues forever and forever, from eternity to eternity, and woman is the passage.

It is possible to do without men -- just an injection may be enough -- but it is very difficult to do without women. Without women we can create test-tube babies, but they will not be human. They will be just robots, because the woman does not give the child only blood and flesh and bones; she also gives intelligence, she also gives emotions, she also gives love -- simply all that the child is going to have is imparted by the woman. A test-tube cannot give that; it may keep him alive like a vegetable, but it cannot give him emotions, it cannot give him intelligence.

Before I started giving sannyas I had to think about it, because in the ancient scriptures the man has been given sannyas, the woman has always been denied. So the man has the namèswami', but the woman has no name.

Mahavira denied the woman, Buddha denied her, Hindus denied her. I am the first man who has initiated women into sannyas. I had to find a name. To me, `swami' is perfectly good; it simply means becoming master of oneself. But it is dangerous also, because it gives some kind of power. It does not make you humble, it makes you more egoistic -- you are a swami.

I could have called the woman `swami' but I did not like the connotation of power, and I liked more that the woman should be given something which is natural to her, intrinsic to her. She is basically a mother.

You will be surprised to know that man's sexual energy is created every day; he does not get it all wholesale when he is born.

Women's eggs are a different story. Every girl brings wholesale all the eggs that she will ever have in her life with herself; so whether she becomes a mother or not she is always potentially a mother because she has everything. It is not going to be added to her, it is part of her nature.

And I love the word `ma'. There are many implications in it. When you respect a woman by calling her ma, your very sex relationship will have a different meaning. Making love to a prostitute has a different connotation, making love to your beloved again different, making love to your wife again different. But making love to a woman you respect as a mother makes your love sacred. It is no more something obscene; it is something which has a power and holiness of its own.

It happened in Ramakrishna's life... his whole life he called his wifèma'. He had gone to see the girl before marriage, and when the girl came before him to give him some food, he touched her feet. His mother had given him three rupees to keep, and he put those three rupees also at her feet. Everybody was shocked.

"What is he doing? He is mad! She is going to be his wife and he's putting rupees at her feet as if she is a goddess, and touching her feet." Even the girl was in shock; the family of the girl was in shock.

When Ramakrishna was asked about it he said, "But she was so beautiful, I would have liked her to be my mother. She was so pure... I liked to touch her feet. And this is going to be my relationship to her my whole life." And that's how it remained.

So it is no problem.

WHY DON'T YOU SPEAK IN HINDI?

Because I have not spoken in Hindi for five years, I will have to find words again. That's why I am continuing to speak in English. Once I start speaking in Hindi it will take two or three months to get me on the right track.

When I started using English, for two or three months I was thinking in Hindi and speaking in English.

It was a double trouble. Now, if I speak Hindi I will be thinking in English and speaking in Hindi -- and that will be a trouble.

I am continuing with English right now, because I don't know whether I am going to be here or not. My 1/08/07

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people are looking for places all over the world where I can be absolutely independent, without any government, without any power to prevent me or dictate to me -- what I have to say and what I have not to say. I am here just temporarily.

If I decide to be here permanently, then I am going to speak in Hindi. But for this temporary period, I will not change; I will continue speaking in English.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #14

Chapter title: None

24 November 1985 am in

Archive code: 8511240

ShortTitle: LAST414

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

[Transcriber's note: This was not a complete tape. Side A and B do not match up, and the end of the side B ends abruptly.]

INTERVIEW BY HINDUSTAN SAMACHAR & VIR PRATAP

Q: YOU ARE ABUNDANTLY (INAUDIBLE) AND HAVE ALSO (INAUDIBLE) THAT YOU DON'T

PROPOSE TO (INAUDIBLE) REMAIN IN INDIA OR LIVE IN IT. THERE IS (INAUDIBLE) THAT YOU

NO LONGER INTEND TO PROPAGATE YOUR PHILOSOPHY OR YOU HAVE SOME OTHER PLAN TO

CONTINUE YOUR SPIRITUAL ENDEAVOR.

A: I have always been interested in the individual, never in the society.

To me, society does not exist; it is only a name.

One who exists it the individual.

I will continue to communicate with the individuals without creating any organization. It will be a heart-to-heart talk.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING LAND IN HIMACHAL, (INAUDIBLE), IN KULU MANALI. WHAT PROGRESS HAS SO FAR BEEN MADE IN THIS REGARD?

DON'T YOU FEEL THAT YOUR WHOLE PAST IS STANDING IN YOUR WAY, AND THE GOVERNMENT

AS WELL AS THE PEOPLE OF THIS STATE HAVE NOT WELCOMED YOUR ARRIVAL IN THE

VALLEY. WHICH ALTERNATIVE PLACE DO YOU HAVE IN MIND TO SETTLE IN CASE YOUR

EFFORT TO GET LAND IN HIMACHAL PRADESH FAILS TO MATERIALIZE?

A: I am not trying to find any place here.

My people are looking for a place all over the world, so there is not a question of Himachal Pradesh or 1/08/07

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India. To me, the whole earth is one.

And I am not any more interested in Himachal government or Indian government, and I don't care whether they invite me or not.

Q: DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE STATES AS A NIGHTMARE, OR HAVE THEY

SHAKEN YOU DEEPLY? HAS IT NOT IMPAIRED YOUR IMAGE AND CREDIBILITY AS A SPIRITUAL

LEADER?

A: No.

If Jesus being crucified does not lose his credibility, how can I lose my credibility just being for twelve days in jail? It has increased it.

And it has not been a nightmare to me. It has not shaken me.

It has been a great experience. I have come to know the real face of the so-called democratic governments -- they are not democratic, only the mask is democratic. Inside they are all fascist.

Q: WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MISSION OF LIFE, AND LIVING THE LIFE GUIDED BY YOUR OWN

PHILOSOPHY INSPIRED FOR SO MANY YEARS, OR HAVE YOU SUCCEEDED IN YOUR MISSION?

ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH WHATEVER YOU CONSIDERED TO BE YOUR ADJUDANCE(*)?

A: Absolutely satisfied.

Q: YOUR THEORY OF FREE SEX HAS NOT BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE INDIAN PEOPLE. HAVING

RETURNED TO INDIA, WOULD YOU STILL THINK THAT YOUR THEORIES ARE RELEVANT TO

INDIAN VALUES AND CULTURE? IF NOT, WOULD YOU PROPOSE TO HAVE A FRESH LOOK INTO

THE BASIC THEME OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY?

A: In the first place I have never taught free sex.

What I have been teaching is the sacredness of sex. I have been teaching that the sex should not be degraded from the status of love to the status of law. The moment you have to love to your woman because she is your wife -- not that you love her, it is prostitution, legalized prostitution.

I have been against prostitution, whether it has been legalized or illegalized.

I believe in love. If two persons love each other they can live as long as they love. The moment love is gone, they should gratefully separate.

I have never taught anything concerning free sex. This is the idiotic Indian yellow journalism that has made my whole philosophy confined to two words. I have written four hundred books. Only one book is concerned about sex, three hundred ninety-nine books nobody bothers; only one book that is concerned about sex, and that too is not for sex, that too is how to transform sex energy into spiritual energy. It is really anti-sex.

I will continue the same. It does not matter whether Indian people, or any people, or the whole world believes in it or not. They don't have any argument against me. Their belief is not an argument. They have to prove what they say. I have proved what I am saying, and I will continue to say it.

What they have been doing all along is misinforming people and condemning that misinformation. They have never represented me fairly; otherwise, I don't think India is so unintelligent.

A country which has produced the philosophy of tantra, a country which has made temples like Khajuraho, Konarak, cannot be so stupid that it will not understand what I am saying. Khajuraho is my proof. All the literature of tantra is my proof.

And this is the only country where something like tantra has existed.

Nowhere in the world any effort has been made to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy.

And that's what I was doing, but the journalists are not interested in reality; they are interested in sensationalism.

I have been misinformed.

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But that is not my philosophy.

Q: THE NEXT QUESTION: YOU PREACH PROSPERITY, AND AS SUCH POOR PEOPLE SHOULD

HAVE DRIVE TO YOU(*), BUT IS IT NOT STRANGE THAT MOSTLY THE RICH PEOPLE ARE

ATTRACTED BY YOUR TEACHINGS? DO YOU PROPOSE TO LAUNCH ANY PROGRAM TO HELP

THE POOR AND THE DOWNTRODDEN WHILE YOU ENRICH (INAUDIBLE)?

A: First, the idea that because I preach the philosophy of prosperity poor people should be attracted more is psychologically wrong.

Poor people are attracted to more -- to people who preach that poverty is something spiritual, that to be poor is just because of your past lives' bad karmas.

Jesus says, "Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven." Jesus attracts poor people. It is not a wonder that the whole poverty in the world has become the feeding ground for Christian missionaries and churches.

Not a single rich man -- Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Jaina -- has ever been converted to Christianity, only the beggars, orphans, aboriginals.

Christianity attracts the poor because Christianity gives them hope and consolation in the future life, about which nobody knows nothing. There exists no witness.

The poor people need some hope.

I am against poverty, and I don't say that it is spiritual -- I say that it is criminal, it is the source of all crimes.

How do you think poor people will be attracted to me? I'm telling that poverty is the source of all crimes, and I am saying that the poor people are responsible for their poverty -- not their past life. They are poor because they are clinging to concepts and ideas which keep them poor.

For example, they think their poverty is simplicity. It is not.

They think that to be poor is to be humble. It is not.

They think to be poor and to be contented is spiritual. It is not.

It is their own concepts which are keeping them poor, and I am against all those concepts.

Naturally they cannot be attracted towards me. I want to destroy poverty completely from the world; hence, all Christian missionaries are against me, all Hindu priests are against me, all Mohammedan, all Jaina, all Buddhist monks are against me -- because that is their whole business. Only the poor is interested in them, only the poor gets converted to Catholicism, to Mohammedanism, to this and to that.

I am saying that the poverty can be destroyed -- we have the technology now, but we are using the technology for war. We are using our energy to destroy in the service of death rather than in the service of life. A simple turn. If we decide that no more wars and poverty disappears -- because all that energy that is involved in the war efforts can be made creative. It can be simply transformed into the prosperity.

I am against poverty, and I would like that there is nobody who is poor.

And I don't think that it is spiritual, and I don't give any consolation -- because those consolations are keeping them poor. It was because of these consolations that Karl Marx declared that all religions are opium for the people -- because they go on giving them consolation. "In the future life.... It is just a question of few years and you will be in the kingdom of God where rich people cannot enter." This consolation, this hope, keeps them poor.

I want to destroy this consolation, this hope. That's why poor also are against me. You destroy anybody's hope and he will be against you, because he was somehow clinging to the hope -- whether it is true or not, that is not the point. Somehow it was helping him to drag on. And I am destroying all their hope, all their consolations; and that is absolutely necessary.

Unless those hopes are destroyed, the poor person cannot be turned toward technology, science, modern means of production -- it is impossible.

Q: WHAT STEPS YOU ARE TAKING TO DESTROY THE HOPES OF THE POOR?

A: I have created communes all over the world where no poverty exists, nobody is unemployed, nobody 1/08/07

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is poor, no money is used inside the commune, everybody gets whatsoever he needs. Hospitals are there, schools are there; they have their own buses, their own cars, their own airplanes.

This was the reason that America became antagonistic to me -- because we had made five thousand peoples commune so beautiful and so rich that the politicians became immediately aware that this is going to become a problem sooner or later. People are coming far away to see and visit, and they go and spread the news that this is a strange thing, there is no dictatorship, there is no democracy, there is no government at all; but people are living so joyously and so happily and no poverty.

Even in America there are thirty million beggars on the streets. People think that it is a rich country, and thirty million people are without clothes, without food, without shelter. And exactly thirty million people in America are dying of overfeeding, and they cannot stop eating more because they have so much -- so they go on eating. And this seems to be stupid, the exact number -- thirty million people dying because of starvation, thirty million people are dying because of too much eating.

In my commune there was nobody who was starved, and there was nobody who was over-eating. We were self-sufficient. We turned the desert into an oasis. We made our own lakes, we made our own ponds.

We produced enough for our people -- vegetables, fruit, milk products. We were absolutely independent.

We made our own houses -- beautiful houses in the hills, and the whole city -- perhaps the only city in the world -- was centrally air- conditioned.

This became the trouble for them.

And I have such communes all over the world -- six in Germany. Now German government is boiling up and they are becoming afraid.

Even I have never been in Germany. They have put cases against me so that I cannot enter Germany.

We have a beautiful commune in Zurich in Switzerland, but they won't allow me in.

England has a beautiful commune.

Japan has a commune.

Australia has a commune.

Commune is my answer. We want to create models -- because I have been talking. The best way is to produce existentially that this is the way people can live. And if one town can live in this way, why not other towns can live in this way?

We had one kitchen for five thousand people. And it was a joy to eat with five thousand people, and it was very economical.

Nobody wanted -- we had five hundred cars. Nobody wanted private car because we had one hundred buses continuously moving, every five minute you can get a bus, so who bothers for a private car. Then parking is the problem, then taking care is the problem; just ride the bus and get out wherever you want.

And every five minute from any point you can get the bus.

So that's my answer.

My commune are materializing what I have been saying, and now the question is whether politicians will let them survive or destroy -- as they have tried to destroy the commune in America.

It was the most successful commune, because I was there. It was unbelievable for people that such a thing is possible. It was something far superior than communism, because communism has a drawback of dictatorship -- which was not there. Everything was absolute freedom. Anybody can join. Anybody any moment wants to go away can go away.

So it will be decided by the people.

America has become aware torturing me for twelve days they have lost much. I have not lost anything.

Even Americans became aware that why I am being tortured.

Even their jailers, their marshals, who were torturing me, they said that, "This is absolutely inhuman, and the reason is that you have created a place which makes them feel inferior and they want to destroy the place so there is no comparison exists."

I am not interested here to create a commune because if the government is unwilling, if the people are unwilling, then I don't want to be impose myself upon unwilling people. I can start a commune here only if the government and the people invite me and support me -- because it is for their sake I am doing it. I don't need it. They need it. And they should give me a chance to show them that this can be done. You can also do it on a vaster scale.

It will be sheer stupidity on their part not to invite me, to miss this chance.

I was not going to come here. It is just for a holiday.

Because I had to leave America. Somewhere I had to go for few days; meanwhile my people search 1/08/07

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around the world, someplace where I am invited -- and soon, within a week or two, they will find a place and I will move. There is no question of my being here.

Q: YOU DON'T INTEND TO STAY HERE IN INDIA FOR ONE AND TWO YEARS?

A: No. Unless the government invites me and promises me in writing that all support will be given to me, I don't intend.

Q: YOUR PEOPLE WILL NOT SET UP ANY COMMUNE IN HIMACHAL PRADESH?

A: Poona has the commune, and the government is torturing them, continuous finding anything -- small thing and making it a big. So rather than working for the commune, they are standing in the courts being arrested, being released.

This -- I don't feel like the government really wants the country to progress.

If some people are ready to experiment, the government should be generous enough. Don't go beyond the law, just according to the law at least support them. If you cannot support, at least don't create hindrances.

But the problem is the same, whether it is America or India. The mind of the politician is the same. He wants to prove that only he can do. And for thousands of years he has been a failure, he has not delivered any goods that he has been promising, and he does not want to give chance to somebody who is not a politician.

I am not a politician. My people are not politicians. We don't want to fight elections and votes and all that. We simply want to make a model that people can come and see, we can make that model a kind of university where people can come and learn three or six-month courses how to develop their own village on the same lines. I can send my people to their villages to help them to set up things the way I have set up them. Within twenty years we can change the whole face of the country.

But those politicians won't like it. That means power goes from their hands.

Q: DO YOU THINK POLITICIANS ARE AT FAULT. THEY ARE NOT INTERESTED IN REMOVING

POVERTY?

A: No. Politicians only talk about, but they are not really interested in destroying poverty -- because they live on it, just as the religious organizations live on it.

You cannot purchase a rich man's vote. You can purchase a poor man's vote, it is so easy; just two rupees may do.

If the whole country is rich and educated then it is impossible for idiots to become chief ministers and cabinet ministers. A person who is not himself medically educated becomes health minister, a person who has no knowledge of education cannot be accepted even as a primary school teacher becomes the education minister -- this is possible only if the poverty remains, uneducated people remain.

Politicians are the worst people as far as man is concerned because they suffer psychologically from inferiority complex. They want to prove that they are something big, Alexander the Great.

A person who does not suffer from inferiority does not want to prove that he is big or great. He is simple and humble, and he is what he is; there is no question of proving.

In a world well-educated, psychologically well-balanced

(Tape side 2 -- see note at top of transcript, doesn't appear to match up with side #1), politics is going to disappear -- because who would like to become a politician? For what?

So these politicians talk about removing poverty because that helps them to get votes. And even if they take measures -- for example, now they are taking few measures, bringing new technology, but that will create only a super-rich class, it will not remove poverty; and this class will help them in an election with 1/08/07

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money, because they have helped with technology with this class. And the poor will remain poor; it will become even more poorer.

My effort is totally non-political. That is the difficulty. They cannot allow any non-political person to show them that things that you say can really be done.

In my commune there was no political party. There is no need. Every person is intelligent and thinks on his own. Why he should tow the line of a political ideology in which there may be many things on which he does not agree, but because he belongs to the party he has to say "yes" -- against his own conscience.

I don't believe that political parties are needed. They destroy people's intelligence. They destroy their thinking capacity.

In my commune there were no political party. There was no question of politics. People are concerned with their food, with their clothes, with their life, with their love, with their children, with a good house, with a silent peaceful life with some spiritual growth, some serenity within. Where politics comes in? I don't think anybody who is interested in politics really.

Q: BUT IN DEMOCRACY YOU NEED POLITICAL PARTY. YOU CANNOT DO WITHOUT

POLITICAL PARTY.

A: Then do away with democracy if you cannot do without political parties.

My own idea is far superior than democracy. Democracy may look good in comparison with dictatorship.

But I have the idea of meritocracy -- which is higher than democracy, because democracy is bound to be on the same level as the mass. It is a mobocracy. Calling it "democracy" is not right. And the mobs' standard of thinking is not much higher. The politician has to follow] the mob. On the surface it looks that the leader is ahead and the masses are following him. Actuality is the leader is behind, he is always looking where the masses are going and he jumps ahead to keep himself ahead -- to show to the masses that, "I am your leader."

I believe in meritocracy. Then there is no need for a party.

For example, if there is an election you choose directly the health minister. Let all the physicians of the land contest, let the best physician be chosen and let each individual choose. There is no question of any politics.

You need an education minister. Let all the vice-chancellors contest, and have the best education minister in the world.

Why bother about all this nonsense?

There is no need for provincial governments. There is no need for all these parliaments and all these assemblies. Choose the best people, and you can transform the country very quickly.

So my idea is totally different. My idea is: Give the right in the right hands. And that can be given by individuals. There is no need for any party. Because party can always give power to wrong hands. In fact, it would like to give it to wrong hands because the party wants to control its leaders too; it needs weak leaders.

When Jawaharlal died, nobody had ever thought that Lalbahadur Shastri will be the prime minister of India, but he was the weakest person in the party -- and that was his qualification that he was chosen.

When he died, then again Indira was chosen -- at that time she was not the Indira when she was assassinated; she was just looking after Jawaharlal, she was not a politician. She was a simple woman. The politicians thought that that will be better.

On both the occasion, Morarji was the contestant. On both the occasions congress denied Morarji because they knew that he is a stubborn man, adamant, and once he is in power he will not care about anybody.

Political parties function in such a way that the weakest person comes to the top, and those persons cannot change the fate of a country like India. Such a vast country needs geniuses.

So my proposal is for a meritocracy. And what is wrong in it? We have so many great physicians, great educationists, great agriculturists -- who have proved their merit. Now let them come up and let them fight

-- if they want to fight, and let the country choose; and each individual chooses on his own, no political affiliation. And you will have the best government in the world. And these people know culture, and these people know education, and these people know how to be gentle and civilized. The politicians that you 1/08/07

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choose -- I was surprised. I was a student, and Dwarika Prasad Mishra who was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.... Because Nehru was angry with him, he was thrown out. But something has to be given to him; otherwise, he may create trouble, he is a powerful person. So he was made vice-chancellor of the Sagar University. I was surprised that Dwarika Prashad Mishra won the election against a vice-chancellor who was a world-known historian, who has been a head of the department of history in Oxford university. He could not get more than ten votes out of three hundred, and Dwarika Prasad -- who has nothing to do with education -- got two hundred and ninety votes.

And afterwards I saw Dwarika Prasad mixing with all the gundas of the Sagar -- all his friends were gundas, not professors. I could not believe my eyes that this man, what he can do for the university? Not a single professor goes to him. He has no friendship with professors. They are far below him, but gundas are his friends -- because they are the people who will manage votes for him, who has been managing votes for him always.

It was a strange situation, that gundas will come into the vice-chancellor's office and sit there and smoke and talk rubbish, vulgar language, obscene.

I told to Dwarika Prasad Mishra that, "This is sacrilege. You should resign or you should resign these people."

They will chew the pan and spit the pan in the vice-chancellor's room. And it was so ugly, and they will use vulgar language and they will put their hands on the vice-chancellor's shoulder and they will come out of the room great friends.

Politics, if it remains divided into parties, is bound to satisfy the lowest denominator of the society, and when you satisfy the lowest denominator how can you raise the society to the highest level of living?

So I am not for democracy.

I am for meritocracy, and meritocracy can exist without political parties.

Q: BUT DON'T YOU THINK THIS SEPARATIST TENDENCY WILL DISINTEGRATE THE COUNTRY

AND FOREIGN POWERS WILL....

A: There are so many small countries all over the world, so why you should be afraid?

And out of fear if you do anything, it is not going to be good.

Only do something out of love.

And you cannot keep people imprisoned forever.

The same was the argument of the British government -- that why not the whole British empire should remain united? It is a bigger force -- against any enemy.

(The tape ended abruptly)

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #15

Chapter title: None

24 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511245

ShortTitle: LAST415

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

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[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

INTERVIEW BY THE SIMLA TIMES

WOULD YOU KINDLY EXPLAIN YOUR IDEOLOGY?

I have no ideology. That is one of the problems for people. If I had an ideology, a fixed catechism like the Christians' ten commandments, then it would have been easier for people to understand or argue or oppose or support. I don't have an ideology. I have only a way of life.

Ideologies are strategies to make people slaves. Ideologies want organizations -- Hindu ideology, Mohammedan ideology, communist ideology. They all want more and more people to become members of their ideology. They all stop people from thinking, because they say, "We give you a ready-made ideology.

You need not think." They impose. They say, "God exists because Mohammed says so."

I was surprised to know that even professors and chancellors in America also have the same third-class mind. When I asked them, "How do you know about God?" they said, "Because the Bible says it." Now this is poverty of intelligence, it is dogma. And what guarantee is there that the Bible is right? And if the Bible is right then why not Vedas? Because Vedas also say they are words of God. Then why not the Koran? Why especially the Bible?

Ideologies create organizations, churches, and exploit people's intelligence.

I don't have any ideology. On the contrary, I have a certain way of living in which you can live without becoming a member of any cult, creed or religion. You can live on your own. When you live on your own your intelligence grows. Because it is independent it has to face problems and challenges, and all those challenges and problems sharpen your intelligence. It gives you integrity; it gives you strength. And whatever you say, you say out of your own experience -- you don't quote from the Bible, or Gita, or Vedas.

That is nonsense. A man should be able to say something out of his own experience; only that is true.

Unless experienced, it is not truth; it is hearsay.

So my whole effort is to prepare individuals, not groups; and each individual has to be a seeker, not a believer. Each individual has to come to his own understanding about life, existence and the ultimate values.

Those values may be different to you, they may be different to him, they may be different to somebody else

-- it doesn't matter, but they will have a beauty; just like roses are different from marigolds, marigolds are different from the lotus, but they all have their beauty. If the whole world was full of roses it would be boring.

I want all colors and all fragrances in the world, and each individual brings a fragrance with him which these organizations and ideologies stop -- they make you Christian.

Just this morning somebody was asking me, "Are you a Hindu?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Born a Hindu?"

I said, "No."

He was at a loss because he could not think what more to ask.

In fact, nobody is a born Hindu and nobody is born Mohammedan. Everybody is born a human being.

These are the ideologies imposed on the poor child by the parents, teachers, society. My effort is to deprogram you. I call it sannyas -- not renouncing the world, but renouncing all that has been imposed upon you so that you can discover your innocent self as you had come from nature -- just born. It has a beauty, and a tremendous strength. And when any word comes out of it, it has an authority which no quotation can have.

So I don't have any ideology. I am against all ideologies so how can I have an ideology?

WHAT IS YOUR WAY OF PREACHING?

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Just talking to people heart to heart the way I am talking to you.

WHAT IS YOUR WAY OF MEDITATION?

My way of meditation is very simple. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation. Out of all of those I have chosen the most simple -- the most easily done. I call it witnessing.

The moment you witness something you become separate from it, you are the witness, the thing becomes an object -- the witnessed.

If you are walking on the road, and you are also witnessing that you are walking -- not going along just like a robot, mechanical, everyday habit, the road is known, the legs know it, you can even walk with closed eyes. But walking with absolute alertness every step, every fall of a leaf, every ray of the sun, every bird flying in front of you, fully alert... slowly, slowly, you become aware that you are not the body that is walking, you are something inside which is witnessing.

Once you have witnessed your body, you have got the knack of the method. Then you start witnessing your thoughts -- sitting silently, just watching the rush of thoughts, not interfering, not saying, "This is good. This is bad." Not justifying, not appreciating, no judgment... non-judgmental witnessing, just like the mirror. Anybody passes by, the mirror reflects it; that's all, it makes no comment.

Strangely enough, when you stop making comments on the thoughts, they begin to stop; your comments keep them alive. Once you are simply a mirrorlike witness, thoughts disappear, and you become aware of a deeper layer, of emotions, moods, which are very subtle. You are not even aware many times that you are sad. You are often not aware of what your emotional state is -- it is very deep, there is a thick layer of thoughts. When thoughts have stopped, then you become aware of a very subtle breeze -- and there is a great joy to see it pass. The method remains the same -- you remain a witness without judgment.

First body, second mind, third heart. And the fourth happens on its own.

I call my way the fourth way because after the third you cannot do anything. Once your emotions and moods disappear, suddenly there is a quantum leap -- the witness has nothing to witness anymore. It comes home. It witnesses itself. It becomes both the seer and the seen, the object and the subject, and for the first time you have unity. This experience of absolute organic unity of your consciousness has been called by different names -- moksha, nirvana, liberation, enlightenment, illumination. Whatever word you choose makes no difference. But this is the ultimate peak, this is the ultimate goal of human life.

So my method is very simple. You need not even sit to do it. You can do it anywhere -- walking on the street, sitting in the bus, sitting in the plane, eating, even sleeping. When you are going to sleep you don't fall asleep suddenly, it takes a few minutes; just watch how the sleep comes in. Slowly, slowly, you will see sleep coming in, and as your witnessing becomes deeper there comes a moment when you can see that the whole night you are asleep yet still alert.

I have tried almost all one hundred and twelve methods. That list is exhaustive, there is no possibility of adding a single method more. You can make a method of combinations, but those one hundred and twelve are exhaustive.

Out of them all I have chosen witnessing, because most of them are based on this in different ways.

For example, if while making love you also witness, it becomes tantra. Tantra has taken one method, used it for love, and changed the whole sexual energy into a spiritual phenomenon. That's what I have been talking about, and I have been misunderstood by almost everybody. They think I am teaching free sex. I am teaching meditative sex, and they think I am teaching free sex. I was simply teaching that if you can make sex an object of meditation you can become free of it -- because with meditation the energy starts moving higher and higher.

My sannyasins who have been with me are puzzled that they have lost all interest in sex. And the people who have been condemning me -- that is their own imagination, their own creation, the whole idea of free sex. But it is sensational, particularly in a country which is very repressive about sex.

To me, sex is as natural as everything else. If we can make sleeping a meditation, if we can make eating a meditation, why leave sex out? And sex is so powerful that it should not be left out; otherwise, that will create disturbance. It should be absorbed into your total meditative process. It should become an organic unity.

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PERHAPS THE TANTRIKAS UNDERSTOOD THIS 1000 YEARS AGO.

They did; they had something substantial. The Tantrikas were not part of a religion but of a very rebellious group of religious people, who created Khajuraho and thousands of other temples around. All other religions are talking almost rubbish about God, about heaven and hell.

Tantrikas were the first scientific religious people who took possession of their energy -- which was already available. They managed to transform it in the same way that later somebody transformed the electricity from the clouds to become a light in your house. Nobody would have conceived before that the electricity flashing in the clouds could run your fans and your air-conditioners and your railways.

Tantrikas had the first insight that man's sexual energy can be transformed easily. The only barrier is repression. If you repress it, then you cannot transform it. Don't repress sexual energy, don't condemn it, but create a friendship with it, that's what I have been saying. Don't think of it as a sin; it is not -- you are born of it. The whole life is sex. If you call sex sin, then the whole life becomes sin, then the whole existence becomes sin -- and this is not a religious approach to the world. We should make the whole world divine --

not sin.

But nobody reports what I have been saying; they just go on misinforming people. This is a misfortune

-- that journalism still is not literature.

THEN WHAT IS GOD?

To me, there is no God; but there is something which is greater than God and that is godliness.

When you reach to your ultimate consciousness, you feel something which can be explained only by the word "godliness", and it is not only within you; the moment you feel it within you it is all over the world, the whole world is full of divineness.

I insist continuously, "Don't call it God," because God makes it personal. Let it remain a quality, a fragrance. Don't confine it, limit it. Otherwise, first you will ask what God is, then you will start asking how many noses your God has, what is the height of your God, what is the color of your God, how many wives does your God have? There are so many questions that are really stupid.

Accepting a personal God creates unnecessary problems which are insolvable. Any hypothesis which creates problems rather than solving them is useless.

I call it godliness. Then you cannot ask whether God has a beard or a mustache, whether God is a woman or a man.

THERE IS AN OLD SAYING WHICH SAYS: "THE UNKNOWN FEARS OF MAN CREATED GOD."

That's true. Unknown fears of man have created God, but knowing oneself you experience godliness.

And it is not out of fear, it is out of knowing. So I don't have any God to preach, to worship, to make an idol from, to make a temple for. But I have something better, which cannot be condemned, which even an atheist cannot condemn -- because it is no longer a question of belief, it is a question of experiencing.

Atheists have been coming to me, and they ask me about God. I say, "Forget about God. You don't believe? That's perfectly good. You just meditate." And meditation does not need any prerequisite belief in God or anything -- it is a scientific method. But if in the end of meditation you realize something which you had never dreamt of, then don't blame me. You will come to know something greater than God. You will not see God so that you can photograph him. You will not meet God and shake hands with him. But you will feel an oceanic energy all around you, all over the world, in which you disappear like a dewdrop; and that experience is so tremendously blissful that there is nothing that can surpass it.

DO YOU CLAIM TO BE GOD OR A PROPHET?

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No. How can I claim to be a God? There is no God. But I certainly claim to have experienced godliness.

I am not a prophet, because a prophet is a poor fellow -- he needs a God. I am nobody's servant.

WILL YOUR CULT CONTINUE AFTER YOU? IF SO, IN WHAT SHAPE?

No. I never think of the future, and I never think of the past. I live in the moment.

And why should I worry about the future? Whatever I can do now I will do. If it has some truth in it, it will survive. If it has no truth in it, it will die. But why should I be worried about it? The moment I die to the world, the world dies to me. We are both finished.

IF YOU BELIEVE IN FREE SEX, WILL IT HELP FAMILY PLANNING?

Only my idea about sex can help family planning. There is no God so you cannot say like the pope or Mother Teresa that God is giving birth to children so you cannot prevent it, otherwise you are preventing God's work. This is simple politics. They want more and more poor people, orphans dying on the street, so that they can be converted into Catholics.

And the strangest thing is that even the intelligentsia of this country does not recognize it; otherwise, Mother Teresa would be kicked out of this country.

They are preparing for the pope's arrival. They should simply cancel his tour, not allow him to be here, because he is against us. He will be preaching here against birth control, against abortion, because it is in their favor. Only the poor, the downtrodden, can become Catholics. It is their hope -- twenty centuries old --

that one day they will convert the whole world to Christianity. The only way is if the whole world becomes poor, then it is bound to become Christian -- there is no other way.

I have no God so I cannot say that children come from God.

You are creating them, and if you are intelligent you should look around and see what kind of world you are going to give to the child that you love.

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH DIFFERENCES AMONGST YOUR DISCIPLES?

There's no problem. We have groups -- therapy groups, encounter groups -- where people sit together, put forward their arguments, and many people join in the argument. The whole effort is to find the truth. It is not a question of who is right, the question is what is right; and soon the differences disappear and they come to a conclusion which is unanimous.

About everything we can come to a unanimous answer. It just needs a little patience.

In these five years I have not found any single problem that cannot be unanimously dissolved.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #16

Chapter title: None

25 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511255

ShortTitle: LAST416

Audio:

Yes

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Query:-

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by ATV and Calcutta Telegraph

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PARTICULAR PART OF THE COUNTRY TO RETURN TO?

The very word `Himalayas' makes my heart beat faster. To me it is not just something physical, it carries the whole heritage of spirituality for centuries.

From the days of Upanishads till today, Himalaya has produced more enlightened people than any other piece of land in the whole world.

IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT YOU ARE THE GURU OF RICH. WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT?

I have never said that I am the guru of the rich. News media go on creating their own ideas.

It is certainly true that the rich come to me -- educated, cultured people have come to me, for the simple reason that what I am saying can be understood only by them. The uneducated, conventional, orthodox, cannot understand my approach.

And I am nobody's guru; I am a simple man -- at the most I can say I am a friend who has known some space inside himself which gives eternal joy and the feeling of immortality. In other words, which gives you the taste of godliness.

So those who are interested in tasting godliness have come to me, but those who want bread have not come.

The poor have not come for the simple reason that poverty prevents them from becoming religious.

They have gone to Gandhi and Mother Teresa because these are the people who go on giving them hope.

Gandhi calls them "children of God." That is so absurd. If the poor are the children of God, then poverty should not be destroyed -- then you are destroying children of God. So poverty should be increased so that there are more of God's children on the earth, so that the whole world is full of God's children.

And if the rich are not the children of God then they should be destroyed and everything that creates richness should be prevented because it is taking you away from God. This is the simple, logical conclusion.

But Gandhi was a politician, not a religious man.

This country consists of poor people. You have to give them hope to get their vote, and the best and cheapest hope is that, after life, paradise is yours.

Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." Naturally the poor are interested in Jesus because he is giving such great hope. Poverty is the only qualification.

To me poverty is a curse, not a blessing.

So it is not that I am the guru of the rich; I am nobody's guru. I am simply a man who has an insight, and I am available to help anybody who feels in tune with me.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #17

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Query:-

Chapter title: None

26 November 1985 am in

Archive code: 8511260

ShortTitle: LAST417

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

INTERVIEW BY SURYA MAGAZINE

AFTER FOUR YEARS IN AMERICA, WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS?

It is a beautiful country, beautiful people; but dominated by very dirty politicians.

It is not a democracy; it is a hypocrisy.

They arrested me without any arrest warrant. They arrested me without showing any cause. They arrested me at the points of twelve guns around me -- a man who has no gun, who has nothing in his hands.

And for twelve days they tortured me as much as they could.

They knew my physical problems. They knew that I am allergic to many things which bring on asthma attacks. They put me in situations where it was bound to happen. They put me in a cell where twelve persons were continuously smoking; that smoke was enough to cause an asthma attack. In the FBI jail, they put me with a person who was living alone for months, because he had a high risk confirmed herpes, and they had not given that cell to anyone else, even though it was meant for two people. They put me with that man. I had no idea, but one inmate sent me a note from his cell saying "Osho, they are trying to harass you, harm you, and you will not even know what they are doing. This man in your cell has a serious case of herpes. They have not given that cell to anybody else, but you they have put in his cell."

When I showed that note to the jailer, he immediately changed my cell. But I said, "Why did you put me in that cell in the first place? You knew that for six months that man was living alone."

He said, "I cannot say anything. I am not allowed to say anything."

This way they harassed me.

So indirectly they tried in every way to harm me.

They forced me to sign under a false name. They would not allow me to write my own name. They told me -- the U.S. marshal himself told me -- "You have to write David Washington as your name. And we will call yoùDavid Washington' and you have to reply to it."

I asked him, "You are the law enforcement authority. What kind of law is this? On your coat is written

"Department of Justice" but what kind of justice is this? David Washington is not my name, and I am not going to write it. If you want to write it, you can fill in the form; I will sign it, but remember, how long can you keep me in the jail? Once I am out then you will be in trouble."

He wrote in his own handwriting, and I signed my own name in Hindi so he could not figure out what it was. Now that is on record -- his handwriting. My signature is on record.

They wanted nobody to know that I was in this jail, so they could torture me, harass me, or do anything whatsoever they wanted.

But the news media helped me immensely. They were following me continuously for twelve days with their helicopters, with their cameras -- hundreds of cameras, newspaper people, journalists, magazine writers. Every jail was surrounded by journalists.

When all this was happening, one girl -- a prisoner who was going to be released -- heard this, and she immediately went out and released to the press that, "Osho has been forced to write under this false name, so on the board you will not find his name. If you phone, you will not find his name. Even his attorneys 1/08/07

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cannot phone him because he is not there."

I asked the marshal, "Can I contact my attorneys?"

He said, "No. Your attorneys can contact you."

I said, "But my attorneys don't know that I am David Washington. Do you think I am mad? Have you informed my attorneys that I have changed my name to David Washington? And for what reason are you forcing me to sign under a false name -- just to avoid the attorneys, to avoid the press? But remember tomorrow morning" -- because I had seen the girl and she made the sign to me not to worry -- "tomorrow morning on every television station, in every newspaper, David Washington is going to be there." And the next morning it was all over America that I had been forced to sign under a false name.

This is fascism. This is not respect for the individual.

They immediately changed my jail -- early in the morning so nobody would know. But the press was there the whole night because they knew they would move me. At five o'clock in the morning they took me out, but they could not deceive the press. The press was there, and they took photographs of me coming out of the jail. They followed the police cars to the other jail. They could not manage to avoid the press, and that was my only protection.

I learned one thing: that in every country television, radio, newspapers should not be owned by the government. They are protectors of individual freedom, individual expression. If the government owns them, then there is no question of protection.

After twelve days, when they brought the charges against me, all were false. Not a single charge was true.

For example, they said that I had come to America on false grounds. Now, that is absolutely nonsense because all the diseases that I had when I entered America are still with me. In fact they are incurable. All that is needed is a controlled environment so they don't have the chance to express themselves. My back is still bad, I just have to be aware and alert and walk slowly. My diabetes is there. My allergies are there.

So I told my attorneys, "There is no question of bringing any other proof; just bring perfumed clothes to my nose and I will have an asthma attack in the court, and that will prove whether I came on false grounds or on right grounds."

They said that I had been arranging marriages just for residential purposes. That is an absolute lie; my whole philosophy is against marriage. And for three and a half years I was in silence. Nobody could see me except my secretary. So the question of arranging marriages, when nobody could see me... and I don't know even the names of the five thousand sannyasins who were living there. So everything that they had brought was absolutely false.

But my people, five thousand people in the commune and one million people around the world, were all asking me, "Don't fight. You will win, but it will take years. They will go on postponing, and in those four or five years they will destroy you -- they may even kill you. Seeing that there is no way of being victorious, they can kill you very easily -- and we will be suffering all those five years continuously."

Those twelve days I was not suffering as much as my people were suffering. Many people were fasting

-- they would not eat until I was out of jail.

Out of compassion I accepted that, "Yes, I am guilty." In my whole life I have spoken only one lie.

I was not guilty, and I said that I was guilty; but I don't feel any prick of conscience about it because compassion is far more valuable, love is far more valuable than a small lie -- which I can prove now out of court was a lie. And I will prove point by point that everything they have brought against me is absolutely bogus.

The court released me. My people had arranged that as the court released me they should immediately take me to the airport, because anything could happen any moment -- and they were right.

When I went to the jail to get my clothes back, the whole ground floor was empty. It had never been empty, always there were people working and officers moving around. Only one man was there to give me my clothes. He filled out the form and told me to wait while he went to find his boss for a signature.

And later on a bomb was found in the room.

Now in the room of a jail a bomb cannot be planted by any ordinary citizen. It was preplanned. The whole ground floor was empty. Even the boss was not in his chair. Only one person was there, who told me that he was going to get a signature. But they missed, because it was not certain at what time the court would finish the case, and the bomb must have been a time bomb.

So my people were right, that the moment the court released me I should be flown out of the country immediately.

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Seeing all this I can say only one thing: that the people are beautiful, very loving -- even the criminals in the jails. I was in five jails in twelve days, just to be tortured. Even the criminals are beautiful, but not the politicians and not the bureaucracy.

America is in the grip of a very monstrous regime, and naturally they became afraid of a small commune that could become a model and people could become attracted to it. They were not so much afraid of Soviet Russia -- it is so far away. We were amidst them.

And their fear is natural.

If they were really democratic they would have helped us, they would have allowed us to spread the same kind of strategy that we were using all over the land; but that was not to be the case.

And now I can say with absolute certainty, that if there is going to be a third world war it is not going to be between America and Soviet Russia, it is going to be between America and the whole world.

YOU TALK ABOUT POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS SUPPRESSION IN AMERICA. IS THERE ANY

OTHER KIND OF SUPPRESSION?

There are many things which are not known outside America.

In India sexual suppression has destroyed much of its creativeness. America has gone to the other extreme -- oversexuality, sensuality, has destroyed its creativeness. All the films, television, are nothing but sex, murder and rape. Every child is fed on sex, murder and rape.

It has been reported by the University of California that whenever there is a big boxing match on television, for the next seven days the crime rate rises by thirteen percent, then it cools down and comes back to normal. And still they don't stop boxing. The same is the case with football games in America. After football games crimes increase.

America is living in a very criminal state of mind, and the politicians want people to remain involved in these things so they can go on doing what they want. People are more interested in boxing, more interested in football. They are not interested in the higher values of life, and so the government is left alone to do whatsoever it wants.

But it is an ugly state of affairs -- rich, and yet ugly.

HOW DO YOU COMPARE THE SITUATION IN AMERICA WITH THAT IN INDIA?

It is there on the other extreme. Because people are poor, exploitation is easy; you can purchase the votes very easily.

The politicians talk of destroying poverty, but they don't mean it. If they destroy poverty and people are educated, then exploitation will be difficult.

And sexual repression is a very complicated phenomenon. Man has only energy -- whatever name you give to it. You can call it sex, you can call it kundalini, you can call it anything you like. Names don't matter. But if this energy is repressed, that means man is divided in two -- your own left hand is fighting with your own right hand.

So you are in a situation where you cannot do anything. You cannot be creative, you cannot manage great music, poetry, literature. You cannot even manage food, clothes, shelter, because you are locked inside yourself, fighting with yourself. Nothing is left that you can put into some kind of creativity.

And this is the greatest calamity that can happen to a man, and that has happened in India for centuries.

That's why we have been slaves for two thousand years; otherwise, such a vast country becoming slaves to very small groups seems inconceivable. But the reason was that everybody was chained with his own struggle, no energy was available to fight with the enemy. The invaders who came to India had an easier success than they could have imagined.

But two thousand years of slavery has not given us any insight. Poverty and starvation have not given us any insight; and there are people who would not like India to see the reality of how we have been destroyed.

The priests of all the religions want you to remain in the same position. The politician wants you to be in the same position because if you are no longer in the same position or your energy becomes one, there is danger of revolution.

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Such poverty is bound to turn into revolution, so the politicians and the priests are in a conspiracy. The priests want you to remain in this struggle with yourself so you feel weak, you feel guilty -- because howsoever hard you try, you cannot get rid of sex. That is not the way to get rid of sex. You become more and more sexual, and that creates guilt in you that, "I am such a weak human being." That takes you to the priest because he is the person to help you, he is the mediator between you and God. God you don't know. It is the priest's invention, and he is the sole representative. So he exploits you -- he gives you mantras, he gives you books, holy books; he gives you rituals, he tells you to fast, to eat this and not to eat that, and soon you will overcome your sin. And God is compassion, he forgives; don't be worried.

The grip of the priest -- whether Hindu, or Mohammedan or Christian -- depends on repression of sex, and the grip of the politician also depends on the repression of sex.

That's why for thirty years I have been fighting against repression of sex, and the only reward I have got is all kinds of condemnation from all corners -- because I have attacked all the vested interests.

It is a unique situation. Nobody perhaps in the whole history has been condemned so unanimously -- the Christian priests, the Hindu priests, the Mohammedan priests, the Buddhist priests, the Jaina priests, the Communists, the Socialists, the Congressites, the Republicans, the Liberals, the Democrats. You cannot find a single political party or a single religion that has not condemned me.

It is very strange. They differ in everything. On only one point are they in agreement; that is, against me.

I am their agreement. And the reason is clear, because I am cutting the very roots of their power.

A single man against the whole world.

But I am perfectly happy. Although they are great powers, they have not been able to refute a single argument that I have produced; and even with their antagonism, condemnation, intelligent people have come to me. I have one million sannyasins around the world, and at least five million sympathizers around the world.

A single man may perhaps revolutionize the whole existence. The power of truth is immense.

DON'T YOU THINK THERE'S A FEAR OF OVERINDULGENCE IF THERE IS NO REPRESSION?

This is the fear that is being created by the vested interests, that if you don't repress you will overindulge.

My feeling is that overindulgence is better than repression. At least you will be one, and you will not feel guilty. And I don't think that a person who is intelligent enough to drop repression will not be intelligent enough to see that he is moving to the other extreme. Exactly in the middle is the healthy individual.

So it may be that for a time, when a person is released from repression, he may overindulge, but that will be only for a short period. Soon he will settle in the middle, because he will see that he is again falling into another ditch. So I don't feel any fear.

You can see my people. I have got one million people to prove this. They have dropped repression but they have not gone to overindulgence. On the other hand, by dropping repression their energy is freed; they have become immensely creative, and they have become meditative.

Sannyasins who have been with me for ten, twelve, fifteen years have almost lost all interest in sex.

They are no more interested in it because the same energy can give them so much joy, that sex seems to be just a wastage. And the second day is a hangover -- dull, dissipated, weak, while the same energy can reach to higher peaks of meditation and can give you spaces that you have never known, heights that you have never flown, light, clarity that has never been your experience. Then the choice is yours -- to have the clarity, light, health, a cleanliness, a well-being; or to have sex, which to a meditative man looks almost animalistic, looks stupid, makes no sense.

So my own experience is just the opposite. That idea of overindulgence is created by the vested interests.

You have clothes. Do you use too many coats? Do you overindulge because you are free to have many coats? You have freedom to sleep. Does that mean you sleep twenty-four hours? You have freedom to eat.

Does that mean that you continuously eat?

Just look at other areas where you have freedom. Have you gone to overindulgence? You are free to have a shower. That does not mean the whole day you are sitting under a shower, overindulging. Then you would need some psychiatric treatment. Then it is not a question of repression or overindulgence, it is a 1/08/07

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question of something mentally wrong.

Anything accepted naturally -- and sex is a natural phenomenon.... In the beginning I can understand overindulgence. For example, Jainas every year fast for ten days. In those ten days they think only of eating and nothing else. And I don't condemn them; it is natural. They are hungry. They continuously plan for the eleventh day -- what they are going to eat, what is their most delicious dish. And for two, three days after those ten days they eat too much -- which is natural. It is just like a pendulum; if you take it to one end and let go from there you can't hope that it will stop in the middle. The momentum will take it to the other extreme, but the momentum will become less and less and less and less and within time it will stop.

The momentum was given by repression. If anybody overindulges the responsibility goes to those people who have been teaching repression.

So I don't see any fear of overindulgence.

NOW THAT YOU HAVE RETURNED TO INDIA, ARE YOU GOING TO LEAD A MORE SECLUDED

LIFE?

I live moment to moment. Today I am here, tomorrow I may not be here.

And I have been leading a secluded life always, even though thousands of people have been around me.

I have been alone, and most of my time I have been in my room isolated in silence. For one hour I may talk to my people and that is all; for twenty-three hours I can overindulge in silence.

HAS THERE BEEN ANY CHANGE IN YOUR IDEAS IN RECENT YEARS?

No. It has been growing. I don't believe that anything in existence comes to a full stop, everything goes on growing. The moment something comes to a full stop that means it is dead.

So if by change you mean that I have dropped some ideas, that is not right. If you mean that my ideas have been growing, that is true. But they are the same ideas.

This big tree is from the same seed. It will go on growing, it will bring new leaves, it will bring new fruits. You could not have seen those leaves, those fruits, those flowers, in the seed.

So I have been evolving rather than changing, because change gives a wrong idea -- as if I have abandoned something and moved to some other standpoint. No.

I am a continuous flow -- broadening, becoming bigger, flowering, covering more and more sky, spreading my wings as far as I can; so there is evolution, and it will continue until my last breath.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SANNYAS?

It is a very simple phenomenon.

The ancient meaning of sannyas is renouncing the world. I am against it.

But I have still used the word sannyas because I can see another meaning far more significant than the old one. I mean renouncing all the conditions that the world has given to you -- your religion, your caste, your Brahminism, your Jainism, your Christianity, your god, your holy book.

To me, sannyas means a commitment that "I am going to clean myself completely of all those things which have been imposed upon me, and I will start living on my own -- fresh, young, pure, unpolluted." So sannyas is an initiation into your innocence.

And I don't think any intelligent person can deny it -- that we have been polluted. No child is born a Mohammedan or a Hindu. We pollute the child; we give him ideas, concepts.

In America many people asked me, "Is it really true that your commune is vegetarian?" They have never thought about it. From their very childhood they were eating meat. Once in a while some crank may turn out to be vegetarian, otherwise, the whole society is non-vegetarian. They could not believe that five thousand non-vegetarians have turned to vegetarianism. I explained to them that it is ugly to kill animals, living beings, for your food while other food is available. If you do that then what is the difference between you and cannibals? In fact, cannibals say that the most delicious meat comes from man. So if deliciousness is the 1/08/07

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decisive factor, then why not kill each other, why not kill your own child, why not kill your wife? And that's what you are doing when you kill a deer -- you are killing a husband, a child, a wife, a father, a mother.

And they understood it. They said, "We never thought about it in this way, but it is true."

Sannyas, to me, simply means cleaning you off, making you a plain tabula rasa; nothing is written on it.

So you are free now, according to your own intelligence, to write your own philosophy, to write your own religion, to write your own life.

Krishna writes your life, or Buddha writes your life. What right have they got? They can write their life, they are perfectly free. But five thousand years before, Manu writes everything -- what you have to do and what you have not to do. To accept such things is stupid, not intelligent.

Sannyas is an intelligent step of getting out of all the garbage that has accumulated around you, just jumping out of it clean, fresh, young, and starting anew so that when you die you can die with the satisfaction that you lived the way you wanted to live, that you did not live a borrowed life, that you were not an actor in a film, that you lived an authentic life.

ARE THERE ANY CONDITIONS FOR BEING A SANNYASIN?

No, no conditions.

WHY HAS YOUR TRUTH BEEN MISUNDERSTOOD?

That is the fate of people like me.

Socrates has always been misunderstood, Buddha has always been misunderstood, Sarmad has always been misunderstood. And I would rather be part of their company than the people who have been understood.

The people who have been understood are third rate. They are understood because they are saying the same things that you already believe in. They are not higher than you, they are not bringing something from beyond. You can understand them because they are actually of the same mental age as you are, in the same way retarded as you are.

You never ask, if you play a flute by the side of a buffalo, why the buffalo does not understand the flute.

The flute is beyond the buffalo. But bring some grass and she will immediately be interested. That the buffalo understands.

So I don't want to belong with those people who are understood -- like Mahatma Gandhi, who is always understood, Mother Teresa, who is always understood.

I would like to belong with people like Socrates, Buddha, Sarmad, Mansoor -- who were never understood.

Even today, after thousands of years, very little of them is understood. They are still ahead of us.

Perhaps it will take two thousand years more for humanity to grow to understand Socrates.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL NONVIOLENCE AND TURNING THE OTHER

CHEEK?

There is much difference. Turning the other cheek is just a conditioning.

I am reminded of a Christian saint who was always talking about turning the other cheek. One man got very fed up and he hit the saint on one of his cheeks. The saint, of course -- according to his ideology --

turned his other cheek. The man hit him on the other cheek also.

At that moment the saint jumped on the man and started hitting him as hard as he could. The man said,

"What are you doing? You are a nonviolent Christian saint."

He said, "The question finished when you hit me on the other cheek. Jesus has said, `Turn the other cheek' but there is no third cheek to turn. Now I am free, and I will show you what it means."

Buddha, in one of his sermons, said, "Forgive at least seven times." It is too much. Somebody harasses you seven times, cheats you, deceives you, and you go on forgiving him. But one monk stood up and said, 1/08/07

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Query:-

"What about the eighth? Okay, seven times we will manage; but what about the eighth?"

These people don't understand the idea of nonviolence. They are simply following a certain concept, but every concept has a limitation. Buddha changed it. He said, "I will say seventy-seven times."

The monk stood up and said, "You can change it, but what about the seventy-eighth time? My argument remains the same. You can make it seven hundred and seventy-seven times, but what about plus one?"

Turning the other cheek is not a nonviolent act. On the contrary, it is very disrespectful of the other person. You are reducing him into a non-human being. He has hit you on your cheek, and you are giving him your other cheek; you are becoming superior and you are putting him into a position of inferiority. This is not nonviolence; this is pure egoism.

Nonviolence simply means that killing, destroying, is ugly. That does not mean that allowing somebody else to do such a thing is not ugly. If somebody hits you on the cheek, you should hit him more strongly on his cheek -- for two reasons. One, that you are nonviolent and you don't allow any kind of violence to anybody, including yourself. Secondly, you have to hit him harder because you respect the other person; if he gives you one rupee's worth, you give him two rupee's worth. You don't make him inferior, you make him superior. I will not say, "Turn the other cheek."

I will say, "Hit on his cheek as hard as you can so he learns a lesson; otherwise, he will start hitting other people's cheeks. And you will be responsible for all that violence."

So nonviolence does not mean that you have just to be there, beaten. Then you are allowing violence.

This kind of nonviolence has deprived this whole country.

For example, Jainas will not go into war. No Jaina will enter into armies because they are nonviolent people. But if they are nonviolent people, why do they accept the protection of the police? Why do they put locks on their doors? If they are nonviolent people why do they go on giving taxes to the government which go to maintain the army, navy and other kinds of war machinery? They live in this country, protected by the army; somebody else is fighting for them, somebody else is dying for them, so they can remain nonviolent.

Mahavira and Buddha both in some way or other are responsible for twenty centuries of slavery in India.

And Gandhi again repeated like a parrot the same stupid nonsense.

Nonviolence simply means you should be so powerful that nobody can be violent towards you. It should not be out of weakness; it should be out of power. Of course you will not hurt anybody out of your power --

you will protect, you will not kill. But you won't allow anybody else to kill you either.

So my idea of nonviolence is different from Mahavir, Buddha, Gandhi.

My idea is nonviolence should be out of an abundance of power. Don't use that power to kill, to destroy; but use that power to create, to protect. And if anybody tries to harm you or anybody else, do everything to prevent that harm.

Violence has to be completely removed from the world, but it can happen only if nonviolent people are powerful; otherwise, how can you manage? If violent people are powerful and nonviolent people are powerless, then the violent people will overrule the nonviolent. That has been our experience of two thousand years.

I don't support weakness. I support power; but power with compassion, love and creativity.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN EQUALITY?

No. I do not believe in equality for the simple reason that it is psychologically impossible. Socrates is Socrates, and you cannot create four billion Socrates' to make the whole world equal.

Every human being is unique. No two human beings can be equal, and they should not be, otherwise the world will become a boredom. Just roses and roses all over the world -- the same color, the same size. No.

The world needs all kinds of flowers, all colors; that gives it richness.

So I believe in the uniqueness of the individual, I don't believe in the equality of the individuals.

But I do believe in equal opportunity for everybody. That is a totally different thing -- equal opportunity for the rose to grow, equal opportunity for the lotus to grow, equal opportunity for the marigold to grow.

To put it as a principle: Equal opportunity for everybody to be unequal, unique.

So I don't believe in the equality of the individual, but I certainly believe in giving equal opportunity to everybody. Somebody wants to become a painter, and somebody else a doctor, and somebody else a sculptor -- they should be given equal opportunities. But they should not be forced to be equal -- that will be murdering the whole richness of humanity.

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Query:-

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #18

Chapter title: None

26 November 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8511265

ShortTitle: LAST418

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not yet been published, as of August 1992.]

INTERVIEW BY THE TELEGRAPH (CALCUTTA)

CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRUTH?

The most basic truth is: Do not believe in anything unless you experience it. Secondary to it, and supporting it, is that your growth should depend not on belief or on faith, but on doubt, reasoning, and meditation.

All the religions of the world have said just the opposite. They say, "Believe, and you are delivered."

The very word belief means you do not know.

You do not believe in the wind, you do not believe in the sound of running water; you know. There is no question of belief. But in God you have to believe; in heaven, in hell, you have to believe.

This was the most difficult thing for religious people to understand in me. I was saying to them, "Just as the wind goes through the trees singing its song, godliness can go through you singing its own song. And you are capable of it. Then why decide on a third-rate belief when you can experience the whole shower of godliness and be renewed by it. When your whole vision can be changed and you can see that you are immortal, part of godliness itself, then why go to a temple and worship before a man-made statue?"

To me, truth is an individual experience; belief is a social lie.

Truth comes very simply and very silently. All that you need is to prepare yourself to receive it. It comes to you almost every moment, but your doors are closed, your mind is full of thoughts, your heart is full of emotions.

So all that is needed -- what I call meditation -- is to empty the mind, empty the heart, and wait in absolute patience. It surely comes. It has come to me. And this is the only way it has come to anyone ever.

Nobody has ever said when he was open, available, patient, thoughtless, silent that meditation did not come.

In the whole history of literature there is not a single statement which can disprove what I am saying.

The process of meditation is very simple. You just learn to watch things. Sit silently by the river and just listen to the sound, forgetting everything else, and suddenly you feel a transfiguration -- you are no more the same tense personality; a great relaxation has happened to you.

DOES EVERYONE HAVE THE POTENTIAL?

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Query:-

Everyone has the potential.

THE POOR ALSO?

The poor also. The poor man may not try, he may not get the opportunity -- that's another thing. But every human being, just as he is capable of life, so he is capable of godliness.

The poor man is also capable of life, but his life is very limited, his life is just about getting bread. He will never think of the music of Mozart; that too is part of life. He will never think of the beauties of the Himalayas, that too is part of life. He will never think of the paintings of Van Gogh, that without seeing them he has missed something in his life. But he has the potential; just the opportunities are not there.

BUT MEDITATIVENESS IS AVAILABLE TO EVERYBODY?

Not to everyone. Just ask a beggar who is hungry. When he sees the full moon in the night he sees bread, not the full moon. On the surface it seems the full moon is available to everybody, but it is not; a full stomach is needed, then only the full moon is available. If you are starving for three days, you cannot see the full moon; you will see bread floating in the sky.

Watching, start from the outside world, which is easier. That's why I said listen to the sound of the river or the music of the wind passing through the trees. Then come closer. Watch your own body -- the way you walk. Remain a watcher. Don't go on walking like a robot, as we all do.

Once you become aware of your own body and its movements, you will be surprised that you are not your body. This is something of a basic principle, that if you can watch something then you are not it. You are the watcher, not the watched. You are the observer, not the observed. How can you be both?

So when you can watch your body eating, walking, going to bed, doing anything -- as if in the room there are two persons, your watcher deep inside looking at what your body is doing -- slowly, slowly, a tremendously meaningful experience arises, that you are not the body. This is the beginning of true religion.

Then the next step is to watch your thoughts. The process remains the same, it only becomes different because of the object that you are watching. Thoughts are more subtle than the body, but if you are capable of watching the body, you can watch the thoughts. Just close your eyes and see your thoughts floating on the screen of the mind. Don't become involved. Remain aloof, no judgment -- no thought is good, no thought is bad, because if you say, "This thought is good," you have already jumped into the stream of thoughts. You remain silent just like a mirror. A procession of people are passing, the mirror reflects them without any judgment -- who is beautiful, who is not, who is man, who is woman, who is a thief and who is a stranger. It has nothing to do with them, it simply reflects.

The day you succeed, and it is not difficult, it is very simple, because thousands of my people have succeeded.... The moment you succeed in becoming an absolute watcher with no attachment with the thoughts, the thoughts disappear. It is your identification with the thoughts that gives them life. When you are completely cut off, they fall like leaves falling from the trees and they leave a pure, vacant, silent mind.

This is a great achievement.

And just a little more you have to do in the third step. Watch your emotions, moods, feelings -- which are below the level of thinking, below the level of ordinary awareness. People are sad and they don't know they are sad unless the sadness is too much. In fact, people remain sad their whole lives. They become so accustomed to it that they don't feel that there is any problem unless they see somebody laughing and enjoying and happy, then they start feeling, "Is this man mad, or is there something missing in me?" But when your thoughts are not there, you can see very easily your feelings, your moods. Now watch them. And they are very delicate, just a slight watching and they disappear.

The ultimate fourth step is not to be taken by you; hence I call my way the way of the fourth.

In ancient India it was called turiya. Turiya means the fourth. It is not a name, it is a number.

Up to the third you are capable. Up to the third you arrange your house for the guest to come. Now you are ready, and whenever you are ready the guest always comes; in fact, he comes even when you are not ready. He has been coming, but you were not aware of it. Now you will see the guest coming.

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Query:-

When the feelings and emotions disappear, there is a quantum leap. Your own awareness, watchfulness, now has nothing there to watch. It turns upon itself, and becomes a circle. It is as if in a room a candle is burning and there is nothing in the room; the light of the candle only shows the candle. When watchfulness only shows itself, you have arrived home. This I call meditation, and this is the highest peak in human consciousness. Many things become revealed, many secrets become open, many mysteries are no longer mysteries. You know that you are not going to die, you know that there is no God, but there is a quality which is far superior to God -- that is godliness.

God is a person, godliness is a quality. God is bound to be limited. Howsoever big you make God, it is bound to be limited -- it is a person. It will have two eyes or one thousand eyes, two hands or one thousand hands -- it does not make any difference. But there will be limitation.

Godliness is like love -- no hands, no eyes, but only a tremendous overwhelming feeling of peace, bliss, eternity. And it is not only in you. The moment you feel it in yourself you suddenly become aware of it in everybody else. But people are blind, they are not looking at it. The flame is everywhere, but people are looking somewhere else.

The difference between a meditator and a non-meditator is not much. The non-meditator never looks in, he always looks out; hence all the people who worship God in the temples, in the mosques, in the churches, are non-meditators. They are still looking outside. Their God is outside; it is a thing.

A meditator looks in, and inside he finds not a thing but life itself, its very source, and that transforms his whole approach to everything. Now he's no more a Hindu, no more a Mohammedan, no more a Christian. He's simply a human being, and just to be a simple human being has such grandeur, such innocence, that it is indescribable.

Everywhere I have a commune, it is a commune of meditators; and meditation is the greatest revolution possible. All other ashrams are just hocus-pocus. Either they are Hindu or they are Mohammedan or they are Christian. Now the politicians cannot create trouble for a Hindu ashram; otherwise they will lose the votes of the Hindus. They cannot create trouble for the Christian ashram for the same reason.

I am in a totally different situation. They can create any trouble for me and they will not be losing any votes. My people don't vote because what is the point of voting for one idiot against another idiot?

I have never voted in my life.

YOU ARE ONE OF THE MOST WELL-KNOWN RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN THE WORLD. DO YOU

CONSIDER YOURSELF A SUCCESSFUL SHOWMAN?

I am not a showman. It has been said, because to people I may look a showman -- I am worth seeing!

I am very wellknown just because of the opposition I have around the world. People are not so dumb or idiotic. They can see one point very clearly, that I am the only man against whom all the religions are agreed. Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, Christians, Jews -- they don't agree on anything, but they agree on one thing, and that is me. All the politicians -- communists, socialists, democrats, republicans -- they don't agree on anything but they all agree on me; that this man should be destroyed, his words should not reach to the people.

Now the whole world can see that this is strange. A single man against the whole world, and the world is afraid and the man is not afraid. There must be something wrong with the world, wrong with the politicians and the religious heads.

I have challenged the pope, I have challenged Mother Teresa, I have challenged shankaracharyas that, "I am ready to have a discussion with you, before the masses." Nobody accepts the challenge because they know they cannot refute what I am saying, and what they are saying I can refute in a thousand ways. They are afraid because what they are saying is not their own experience, it is borrowed from some book, it is a quotation. I am not afraid because what I am saying is my own experience. I am not quoting any book.

So naturally the whole world by and by has become aware of the fact that a single man -- who has no armies, no nuclear weapons.... Now there are six hundred million Catholics. Why should the pope be afraid of me? And if he is really the representative of God, and I am an ordinary simple man, how can I defeat him in any discussion? I am ready to come to the Vatican, amongst his own people; but still he is not ready --

knowing perfectly well his own hollowness. There is nothing: no content, no experienced truth.

The world is not blind. People can see it; hence, I am known around the world. People can love me.

People can hate me. But people cannot be indifferent to me.

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Query:-

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE WORLD-WIDE PUBLICITY ABOUT YOU?

It is bound to be, because if there is any man in the world who deserves publicity I am the man --

because I am against everything the society stands upon.

My ideas should be placed in front of the whole world to decide -- because if you go on living the way you have been living, you are going to die very soon. If you don't listen to me, there is no way to avoid the third world war.

PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD ARE TALKING AGAINST NUCLEAR WAR. DO YOU THINK

YOU ARE ALONE IN THIS CRUSADE?

The peace movement and the pacifists are just meaningless. In the first world war there were peace movements, pacifists, and they could not do anything. In the second world war they were there, and they could not do anything.

Now again they are there, and I know they cannot do anything. If you see a pacifist protest you can see they are all violent people -- their shouting, their screaming, their throwing stones. If they had nuclear weapons they would use nuclear weapons to prevent war. These are not peaceful people. These are just frustrated people, frustrated politicians, who could not get to the power. Now at least they can throw stones at the politicians who have been successful. But these are not peaceful people, and they are not pacifists at all, because they don't know what peace means.

What I am saying is not a question of protest against the powerful. My effort is to create peaceful people. If the whole world loves peace, enjoys peace, if all violence disappears from the world, the politicians will be at a loss what to do, with whom to fight and for what. Even their own people will not be participants in any destruction.

Pacifists cannot do anything. They have proved it in two wars already. Yes, they enjoy shouting -- it is good exercise, shouting and enjoying in the open air.

I used to know a man in Jabalpur. I was surprised to see that he was always in all the protest marches --

whether it was communist, or socialist, or the Congress, whether it was some Hindu group or some Jaina group, or even if it was a student's protest -- and he was not a student, he was a businessman. But he was always there with a flag, and he would shout louder than anybody else.

One day I caught hold of him, took him to the side of the road, and I asked him, "Which party do you belong to?"

He said, "Who cares about the party? Open air, shouting, it gives me so much joy that I don't care where they are going, what they are doing. It comes to nothing at all. But to me, it gives me good exercise -- the whole day sitting in the shop, you know...."

These people cannot create peace in the world.

DO YOU THINK YOU AND YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE RIGHT

ANSWER?

I am not saying that we are the only people who have the right answer. On the contrary, the right answer has got us and we are the only people it has got.

Now, what can we do?

BUT IS THIS NOT A DICTATORIAL ATTITUDE?

No, that's why I denied that only we have the right answer. That's why I denied it. But what can we do?

The right answer has got us. It may get other people, but that I have not seen so far. Perhaps it is perfectly satisfied with us.

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Query:-

EVERY DICTATOR OR GROUP HAS THE FEELING THAT THEY ARE RIGHT OR THE RIGHT

ANSWER HAS GOT THEM. ISN'T THAT A DANGER?

No, that is not at all a question. No. Because we are not organized, we don't have any religion, we don't have any organized party, a committee that dictates. Each individual remains individual, and we accept him as he is. We do not ask him to be different in any way. We do not dictate anything.

This is something which is difficult for people to understand; that just out of love people can be together without being dictated to.

You just meet my people. I have not dictated anything to any person, I have not ordered him to be this way or that way, that he has to drop this or drop that. My own understanding is that if he is meditating, growing silently, spiritually, all that is wrong will drop by itself.

YOU HAVE GUIDED YOUR PEOPLE ON MANY SUBJECTS. DO YOU GIVE THEM AN IDEA OF

WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG?

No. I don't give any idea of right and wrong, because what is right today may be wrong tomorrow; and what is wrong today may be right tomorrow. So the people who have given these ideas are enemies of humanity.

For example, Mohammed married nine wives, which was right in his time -- because in the Arab countries people were continuously fighting and killing each other, so the proportion of men to women had fallen to such a degree that there were too many unmarried women and very few men. And I think Mohammed was perfectly right to allow Mohammedans to marry at least four women; otherwise, those three remaining women would have created prostitution, immorality.

He was right, but now he is absolutely wrong. But Mohammedans won't listen. They will listen to the Koran which was right at the time but now it is out of date; now women and men are almost equally proportioned. To marry four women is dangerous because three men will be left without wives, and they will do something -- they will rape, they will steal women from others, they will elope with women, they will have illegal relations with women, or they may turn homosexual or have all kinds of perversions. And the whole responsibility will go to these idiots who cannot see that right and wrong are not fixed things, they change. As time changes so right and wrong changes too.

So I don't give any idea to my people of what is right and what is wrong. Rather, I give them an insight, an understanding, which will make them capable to decide in any moment what is right and what is wrong.

That will be their decision.

It's as if some blind man comes and asks me, "Does light exist?" It's an intellectual thing. I can say yes, but I cannot convince him. How can I convince him? He cannot touch the light. He knows things by touching -- he cannot smell the light, he cannot taste the light, he cannot hear the light. Those are the only four ways that he can have some contact with light. I will not give him an intellectual argument about light.

I would rather try to take him to an eye surgeon so that his eyes are again available for him to see. Then he can see what is light and what is darkness without my giving him any fixed answer.

This is my situation with my people. I give them the insight, the touchstone, the consciousness, so they can find in any situation what is right. And right and wrong are not qualities of things; in every new situation and context they change. But consciousness can always see where the way is.

So I am not giving any discipline, any creed, any principles. No. This is a totally different phenomenon.

That's why there is so much opposition and so much fear about me -- because I don't fit into any category.

All the religious leaders have given lists -- what is right, what is wrong, ten commandments. I don't give a single commandment. Even the word commandment I think is ugly.

Jesus tells his people what to do and what not to do. I don't think that is right. Jesus pretends to be the savior of the people and he could not even save himself. And he is not sensitive enough. He says, "I am the shepherd and you are my sheep." Now this is humiliation. To call another human being a sheep and propound yourself as the shepherd to me is ugly, disgusting.

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Query:-

BUT YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT YOU ARE NOT A GURU BUT A FRIEND.

I am not a guru. I am not a prophet. I am not a savior.

BUT YOUR FOLLOWERS OR YOUR FRIENDS, THEY'RE ALWAYS LOOKING AFTER YOU AND

WORSHIPPING YOU FROM WHAT WE HAVE SEEN. YOU'RE IMPARTING SOMETHING AND

THEY'RE TAKING SOMETHING ELSE. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

That you have to ask them, because that is not my problem.

SO YOU DON'T FEEL THAT YOU ARE WORSHIPPED?

No. I simply feel loved. To others it may seem different because they are accustomed to devotion, worship. To me it simply seems to be love. They love me. I love them.

DO YOU THINK YOU WERE AS MUCH A RAJNEESHEE AS THE RAJNEESHEES IN THE

COMMUNE?

No. I am just a friend, and they are my fellow travelers. The only thing that exists between us is friendship. There is nobody who is my follower.

I have never followed anyone. I have never had any guru. How can I do that injustice to my own people?

BUT REMEMBER, THEY'RE WEARING A LOCKET WITH YOUR FACE IN IT. YOU'RE NOT

WEARING YOUR OWN OR SOMEBODY ELSE'S.

Because I don't need it. My face is right here.

EXACTLY. THEN WHY DO YOU MAKE PEOPLE WEAR IT?

They love me. I have freed them; they need not wear it. They need not wear orange clothes, they need not wear the mala, the locket.

IT'S CLEAR THAT YOU ARE THEIR SOURCE OF INSPIRATION EVEN IF YOU DON'T CALL

YOURSELF THEIR GURU OR THEIR LEADER.

I am simply telling them whatever I have experienced. It is up to them to take it or not to take it. I do not say, "You have to believe it, otherwise you will go to hell; if you don't believe it you will fall into eternal darkness. If you follow me and believe me then you will be inheriting all the pleasures of paradise." I don't give any fear; I don't give any greed.

HOW DOES WEARING THE MALA HELP THESE PEOPLE TOWARD ENLIGHTENMENT?

They love me. Have you loved anybody?

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Query:-

I DON'T SUPPOSE IN THAT FASHION.

No, that's the problem. Some day you will love, and then, even a small thing given by your friend will become immensely valuable. It may be just a one rupee small gift, but you will not be ready to sell it at any price. Nobody is able to see the point, why a lover clings to such a small thing?

BUT WHY SHOULD ONE MILLION PEOPLE JUST LOVE ONE PERSON WITHOUT THAT BEING

RECIPROCATED SPECIFICALLY? I'M SURE YOUR DEVOTEES LOVE EACH OTHER TOO, BUT THEY

DON'T WEAR EACH OTHER'S LOCKETS. SO YOU ARE DIFFERENT.

I am not different from them except that I am awake and they are asleep.

But what is the difference between an asleep person and an awake person? Just shake him and he will be awake. So I don't make much fuss about it. You can close your eyes, and I can keep my eyes open -- that is the only difference. But you can open your eyes at any moment. Or I can throw ice cold water on your eyes and you will open them -- and the difference disappears. So the difference is not something that matters, and my insistence that it does not matter is for a particular reason. And that is that all the people in the past have been making it clear that they are different, and that difference made religions, cults and created thousands of wars. Except for bloodshed, that difference has not brought anything.

There is certainly a difference, but the difference is only between a bud and a flower; and in fact the bud is in a better condition because the flower will soon be withered away. The bud is coming to bloom. The flower is going to disappear.

They are the sunrise, and I am the sunset -- they are in a better position.

CAN YOU SAY WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE NEW MAN?

I have been speaking all the time about the new man. The new man will be without any religion, without any nation, without any race, without any distinction between woman and man, without any distinction of any kind. The new man will be completely free from his animal inheritance.

Charles Darwin may not be right in detail, but essentially he is right. Man has evolved out of the animals, and those animals are still living in your consciousness. Those animals erupt in murder, in rape, in wars.

The new man will be able through meditation, to get rid of the old animal inheritance which he is carrying in the unconscious. The only way to do it is to become full of light -- and that's what meditation does. As you become more and more a witness, every corner of your being becomes full of light; and that light kills all that is ugly in you, it disinfects you.

The new man will really be man. We are half man and half animal. I am the new man, and my people are growing towards the new man. You are invited too!

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #19

Chapter title: None

27 November 1985 am in

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Query:-

Archive code: 8511270

ShortTitle: LAST419

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW BY DER SPIEGEL

QUESTION: YOURS HAS BEEN THE CLASSICAL RETURN OF THE NATIVE. NOW THAT YOU ARE

BACK IN INDIA, DO YOU THINK THIS TIME YOU WILL BE ABLE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF

ENVIRONMENT IN INDIA?

A: It is not the classical return of the native, because I don't belong to any nation.

The whole earth is my home.

So I don't consider any part of the world as foreign to me.

And right now I have not decided where to settle. My people are looking for places around the world; in two weeks time perhaps it will be decided where I will be.

Q: SO YOU'RE NOT SURE IF YOU WOULD SETTLE IN INDIA.

A: No.

Q: WELL, YOU ARE IN THE LAND OF THE MANU AND THE HIMALAYAS. DO YOU FEEL ANY

REGRET AT THE INCIDENTS OF THE PAST FEW MONTHS, YOUR IGNOMINY IN U.S. JAILS?

A: It was not ignominy.

If it was ignominy, then what was Jesus Christ when he was crucified; that was thousandfold ignominy.

Then what it was when Socrates was poisoned. It was not ignominy; it was simply a reward to be rebellious, to be intelligent, to belong to the world of Socrates and Buddha.

I don't consider it as an ignominy.

Q: DO YOU FEEL UNHAPPY, OR YOU TAKE IT IN THE STRIDE AS OTHERS HAVE DONE, AS

BUDDHA HAS DONE, AS SOCRATES HAS DONE?

A: Yes, I take it in the stride.

And it has been a great experience. I have learned much out of it.

They may have been doing their worst, but I have turned their worst into my best experience -- and that is one of my teachings, how to turn the worst into the best.

It has shown me the two face of America, which I would have never seen outside the jail.

Outside the jail there is a mask of democracy.

The same people inside the jail immediately change their mask, and start behaving like any fascist.

I have also seen in the jails the beauty and the humanity of the people who are confined there -- the criminals. They are far more human, far more superior than the people who are the jailers, the administrators, the bureaucracy.

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Query:-

So it has been a good experience.

The American idea of democracy has disappeared from my mind; it is simply a hypocrisy.

Q: DO YOU MEAN TO SAY THAT THE AMERICAN BUREAUCRACY AND ADMINISTRATORS BY

AND LARGE THEY ARE FASCIST?

A: Yes.

Q: WELL, HAS YOUR MOVEMENT BROKEN UP?

A: No. It has become stronger.

Q: HAVE YOUR SUPPORTERS DESERTED YOU?

A: No. Those who have deserted me have come back.

Q: HOW HAS YOUR MOVEMENT BECOME STRONGER?

A: It always becomes. It is a simple psychology. It has become stronger because the people who have left fell again in love with me, the people who were only sympathizers became sannyasins, the people who were just interested in my ideas but had no idea to be part of my movement are now approaching me to be part of the movement.

America has helped immensely my movement, and I have opened my doors of the movement -- now there will be no need for the red clothes, no need for the mala; so that a wider section of humanity can participate in this immense event.

Q: IT SEEMS TO BE TO ME A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS. ON THE ONE HAND YOU CALL THE

AMERICANS OR THE ADMINISTRATION OF A BUREAUCRACY FASCISTS.

A: Yes.

Q: ON THE OTHER, YOU SAY AMERICA HAS HELPED YOUR MOVEMENT?

A: There is no contradiction.

They are fascist, but their fascism has helped me because their fascism has opened many peoples' eyes about them, about me.

Without any warrant they arrested me. Without showing any cause, they arrested me. They had no valid reason to keep me in the jail without trial.

For twelve days they kept me in jail, changing from one jail to another -- without any trial, avoiding trial.

Q: BUT THEY HAVE A DEMOCRATIC JUDICIARY. THEY HAVE A DEMOCRATIC JUDICIARY.

A: They had, but they were trying to avoid to reach the place and taking me from one jail to another, then another. Five jails they changed just to take as much time -- because they knew perfectly well that before the judiciary they cannot prove any crime against me. They had none.

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And that's what happened. The moment they produced me, they had nothing to prove.

So it was a strategy to just harass me even before trial, to punish me -- for no crime.

They asked me to sign under the name "David Washington" and I said, "This is absolutely illegal; that is not my name. And you are U.S. marshall. On your coat is written `Department of Justice.' What kind of justice is this -- that you are forcing me to sign under a name which is not my name."

He said, "Either you sign it, or you will be sitting in this office the whole night on the cold, hard steel bench; and you know your trouble of the back. Either you sign it, or you sit here. Whenever you sign, we will give you a bed to sleep."

So I told him, "You write the name -- because I cannot write the name."

Just to make a document that... the U.S. marshall has in his own writing, written the whole form. And I have signed my own name, I have not signed `David Washington.'

This was their strategy, so that on the board my name does not appear, so nobody knows where I am.

I asked them, "Can I contact my attorneys?"

He said, "No; but your attorneys can contact you."

I said, "You seem to be a very intelligent man. How my attorneys can contact if they don't know that my name is David Washington? And naturally your receptionist will say to them that nobody like me is in the jail. I cannot contact the attorneys. The attorneys don't know my name even.

You just try to tell me how it can be possible."

And he said, "I don't want to talk and argue with you. And it is better for you that you don't argue about anything; otherwise, things will be worse for you."

I said, "I don't care for any worse things, because all that you can do is torture my body but you cannot torture me.

Q: SO YOU THINK THIS DIABOLICAL STRATEGY A MIXTURE OF FORCE AND THREAT?

A: Certainly. A man who has nothing in his hands is being arrested by twelve guns surrounding him.

And I asked them that, "What is the point of these twelve guns? Even one gun would have been enough.

I don't have any weapon. Do you want to show me your power? This shows your impotence, that even a single person without any weapons you have to arrest with twelve loaded guns. And what is your fear of me and my commune? You are the greatest nuclear power in the world. You are afraid of a man who has not done anything wrong. On the contrary, who has contributed to America something beautiful.

We transformed a desert into an oasis. We made it self-sufficient for five thousand people. We made it green. We made dams and lakes. We changed the whole face of it.

For fifty years nobody was ready to buy it -- and it was not a small land, it was one hundred twenty-six square miles.

We made the roads, we made the houses, we made everything by our own hands -- just by sannyasins.

Nobody from outside.

And it was one of the most beautiful town, centrally air-conditioned with all he comforts, with all the modern facilities, and people were so happy -- that those that came could not believe that people can be so happy working the whole day and still dancing in the night, singing in the night, playing their guitars.

If this is a crime, then certainly you can arrest me; but what crime is this? If I have made five thousand people houses, roads, buses, airplanes, cars -- everything available, and they are living happily and joyously, and in a very contemporary way.

In four years time not a single baby is born because they understand the world is too much populated.

In four years time not a single crime has been committed -- no rape, no murder, no suicide, not a single man has gone mad. And these are the American ways of life -- rape, murder, suicide, madness.

In five thousand people not a single man is a beggar.

America has thirty million street people. They don't have any roof, they don't have floors, they don't have bread for tomorrow; and they are the source of all crime obviously.

In a city where no crime has existed for four years -- the city judge is there sitting doing nothing, the city police is there, they have not been able to catch a single person in four years. If you call this crime, then I don't think what you are doing.

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Q: IT SEEMS A LITTLE STRANGE THAT FOR TWELVE DAYS YOU WERE TORTURED IN THE U.S.

JAILS AND SUBJECTED TO ALL KINDS OF PHYSICAL INDIGNITIES THAT I READ IN THE

NEWSPAPERS. AND THEN YOUR (INAUDIBLE) FOLLOWING IN THE UNITED STATES WERE

PASSIVE WITNESS TO THIS. THEY COULD HAVE APPEALED TO PRESIDENT REAGAN AND ASKED

HIM BEAR SOME PRESSURE TO PREVENT THIS. HOW IS IT THAT THEY COULDN'T PREVENT A SITUATION LIKE THIS?

A: My people are non-violent.

They were protesting in their own ways.

Many sannyasins were fasting unto death. They were meditating continuously around the jails, wherever I was. Around the world sannyasins were sending thousands of telegrams, telephones, to the president, to me, that this is absolutely ugly; and this degraded America's image.

But my people are not violent. They will not do anything which has something to do with violent protest. And I love that they never threw a single stone at the White House; I love that rather than that, they went on fasting, they sat there meditating but they never did anything.

Silently they made available themselves. They asked the government that, "If you don't release Bhagwan, then we are already voluntarily to be arrested. We would like to be with him in jails rather than to be outside without him."

And this is what I want, that this should happen; and this should.

Q: YOU HAVE SAID THAT THEY WANTED TO KILL YOU. THERE WAS A BOMB INCIDENT IN

THE JAIL, YOU KNOW.

A: Yes.

Q: NOW, IN THE JAIL THEY REALLY WANTED TO KILL YOU?

A: It seems.

Q: BUT WAS THERE SOME OTHER INCIDENTS ALSO TO ESTABLISH THE FACT THAT THEY

WANTED TO KILL YOU?

A: Yes. There are other incidents also -- looking backwards after this bomb.

They knew my back is a problem. They were driving me in such a rash way to hurt my back as much as possible -- sudden stop, then sudden rash. I told them that, "You know that my back is bad, and your cars are not so good and you're hurting me. My hands are chained, my waist is chained" -- and they were chaining my waist exactly where it hurt on my back. So the chain was there and the back seat is there. "And you suddenly stop -- my legs are chained, I cannot do anything. I cannot even move. And your chains are hurting my back." But they won't listen.

They put me in a jail with a prisoner who had lived alone in the cell -- which was meant for two persons

-- for six months. He had high risk confirmed herpes, incurable, and very easily infectious. They put me with that man. I had no idea. Just another inmate wrote a note to me that, "Bhagwan, they are putting you there knowingly because for six months they have not put anybody else in the cell because that man is dying of herpes and he is a serious risk. To be in that small cell with him, to use the same sink, to use the same toilet, it is risky, it is dangerous."

I showed the note to the jailer and I said, "You must remember that you cannot keep me here always.

Soon I will be out, and soon the whole world will know what you have been doing with me. And your doctor has been here to check me, and he is also part in the conspiracy -- because he knows the man has herpes. You know the man has herpes. The whole jail knows the man has herpes."

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"Bhagwan, they have put you in danger.

I am dying, and they want you also to die."

Q: SO IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT I GET OUT IS (INAUDIBLE) INDIRECT MEANS.

A: Indirect means. Direct means will expose them. Indirect means, and this plan was their last resort.

They were waiting, if the court decides me not to bail out then everything is okay. If the court decides me to bail out, then this bomb will finish me.

And the bomb was in such a place where only authorities can put it. Nobody can enter there. There are three gates; you cannot enter.

And when I went there to take my clothes, the whole ground floor was absolutely empty -- which it had never been. I asked the man that, "What is the matter? There seems to be nobody today. Is it a holiday or something?"

He said, "No, nothing; that it is shift (inaudible) More people will be coming."

I said, "Shift always happens when the new people come in and then the old people leave. Why the old people have left before?"

He said, "I don't know."

When I went in, there was only one man -- who gave me my clothes and said that, "I am going out to take the signature of my boss."

I had never been for twelve days left alone, although I was chained completely -- hands, legs, my waist, and my hands were also chained with my waist chain so I could not even move my hands. Still, two of the man were always by my side. This was the first time I was without chains left alone. The man locked the door from the outside.

And in the same room the bomb was found, just they missed the right timing because they could not figure out what time the court will be finished.

But it didn't blow up because...

(The remainder of Tape side A is inaudible.)

(Tape side B)

(inaudible)... they could not prove it. In Carolina court they could not prove it.

So six people who were with me were released immediately, but they insisted that I should not be released. This is strange, because if the allegation is not proved then why I should not be released. They insisted that I should be released only by Oregon court. Then why these six people are being released?

But the magistrate was a woman, and she was waiting for a increment.

She was waiting to become a judge. So they could pressurize her. They made it clear to her that, "If you release this man then your..."

Q: TREMENDOUS ELEMENT OF CORRUPTION.

A: Tremendous element of corruption.

And this was told me by the jailer, by the sheriff, by my doctor in the jail, my nurses -- they all said the same thing, that this is what has happened; "That woman was not capable enough. She was pressurized. And this is harassment -- relieving your six people, and just keeping you makes no sense." Either keep all the seven if you want to decide it on Oregon...(inaudible)

... Or just leave all the seven and have the trial in Oregon, no problem.

But they wanted me to keep alone so they can harass me into jails, from one place to another place.

One of the airplane pilots told me -- Airplane pilot, that is U.S. marshall's airplane -- that, "We understand how you are being harassed. Our routes are being changed so that we never reach Oregon. So we have to drop you somewhere from where our route is changed -- suddenly; otherwise, we have reached the first day evening in Oregon. These twelve days you would not have suffered, but they have been 1/08/07

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continuously doing it. They will not say us. Exactly at an airport they will inform that, "You have to go south. You have to go here, you have to go there. And we know that why they are doing this. This has never been done. This is for the first time that the route which was determined has been changed."

So they were just trying to harass me in every possible way.

They will put me in a cell between two television sets, and these two television sets will start six in the morning up to twelve in the night with full speed. So there was no possibility of sleeping in the day.

Q: YOU COULD NOT ASK THEM TO SWITCH THEM OFF?

A: No. Nothing you can ask them that they will do.

And this is an American jail --

Q: THIS AMOUNTS TO THIRD DEGREE?

A: Yes. It is third degree method.

And when at twelve the televisions will stop, then they have managed the inmates to talk loudly from cell to cell. So that I could not sleep for twelve days a single moment.

Q: DO YOU MEAN FOR TWELVE DAYS YOU DID NOT GET ANY SLEEP?

A: Not at all.

Anybody would have gone mad if it was not I.

I was simply lying down with my eyes closed, relaxed, not bothering whether the sleep comes or not, not bothering about what is happening -- just watching whatever happens.

But their strategies were such.... They will put into a cell where twelve persons are chain smokers. And I am so much allergic to the smoke -- and they knew my whole medical background, because I had already given them in my application that these are my troubles; that tears will be flowing twelve days continuously from my eyes, eyes were red, no sleep, tears were flowing of eyes. My throat was choked, I was coughing; and I was wondering that any moment my asthma attacks can start again and then it becomes a troublesome thing.

And no sleep, no rest; my back is hurting. They will not give me a pillow, they will not give me a blanket, they will not give me a bedsheet -- which was given to all inmates. They will give me just a dirty bed mattress, and they will say, "This is all that we can give to you."

Q: BUT THEY MUST HAVE GIVEN YOU A CLASSIFICATION -- C CLASS, B CLASS, A CLASS.

A: They never gave me anything. They did not even allow my name into their registers. What....

Q: THE JAIL MEMO(*) (INAUDIBLE) ENTITLES FOR DAILY MEDICAL CHECKUP. WERE YOU

GIVEN A DAILY MEDICAL?

A: No. Just once. And that too is very tricky. I told to the doctor that, "My problems are my allergies, my asthma, my diabetes, my back. So you please check these things -- because what you are checking are not my problems."

They checked my temperature. I said, "I don't have any temperature."

So normal.

They will take my blood pressure; normal.

And they will declare to the press that I am absolutely normal.

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They will check only things which were normal, and they will avoid things which were my problems.

Q: IN INTERVIEWS TO GERMAN PUBLICATIONS, MA ANAND SHEELA HAS COME OUT WITH

STARTLING STATEMENTS ABOUT YOU. SHE SAID THAT YOU TAKE SIXTY MILLIGRAMS OF

VALIUM DAILY TO KEEP CALM, AND THAT YOU TAKE NITROUS OXIDE, CALLED "LAUGHING

GAS", TO LOOK(*) HAPPY. IS IT TRUE?

A: You can ask my personal physician. He is one of the best physicians of England, member of the Royal Society of Physicians.

Q: VERY NICE MAN TOO VERY HELPFUL.

A: There was no way for her to know what medicines have been given to me. Only on one time when I went from India to America she was with me, and at that time I remember Devaraj has given me medicines just because my pain was too much and I could not sleep -- and the journey was long, to keep me completely asleep the whole journey.

That is the only time she must have known what medicine has been given to me.

Q: SO THESE ARE FALSE?

A: These are absolute lies.

Q: SHEELA ALSO ALLEGES THAT HER BREAK WITH YOU CAME BECAUSE OF YOUR MANY

DEMANDS; ONE OF THEM BEING TWO AND A HALF MILLION DOLLAR DIAMOND WATCH.

A: She is going nuts.

I don't possess anything. Even my dress I don't possess; it belongs to the commune.

And I use watches only made by my own people. This watch from Piaget will be quarter million dollars, but this is not Piaget -- anybody can be deceived, and these are not real diamonds, they are just stones. And my own people have made it. It has no value at all as far as money is concerned, but it is invaluable as far as their love is concerned.

I use only my own people's things -- from my shoes up to my cap everything is made by my own people.

All she is talking is absolute nonsense.

You can see it is not a Piaget watch.

Q: YES, BUT ITS VALUE IS PRICELESS AS MADE BY YOUR FOLLOWERS?

A: It is made by my followers, and I will not sell it any price -- and still it does not belong to me anyway. I cannot sell it. Still it belongs to the commune.

This misunderstanding she has been spreading, that I have ninety Rolls Royces --

Q: NINETY-THREE SHE SAID.

A: Ninety-three. They all belong to the commune. I have never gone even to the garage to see those ninety-three Rolls Royces.

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donated. I cannot accept because I don't possess anything, and I don't want to possess anything.

I am as naked as I was born, and I will die as naked as I am now.

So I told people that, "If people are donating Rolls Royces for me, then make a trust and it becomes a asset to the commune. If they are donating watches to me, make a trust and it becomes a asset to the commune. But I will be using only my people's things that they have made."

Q: WHAT DID MA SHEELA WRITE TO YOU IN HER PARTING LETTER OF SEPTEMBER

FOURTEENTH -- SHE WROTE A LETTER TO YOU ON SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH, WHICH SHE

CALLS AS A "PARTING LETTER." WHAT DID SHE WRITE TO YOU IN THAT LETTER?

A: There was nothing in the letter.

All that she wrote was, she had come back from Australia and she wrote that she does not feel anymore the same excitement coming here as she feels in Europe, in Germany, in Singapore, in Japan, in Australia.

That was the whole note.

The person who has brought it to me, I told the person, "Tell Sheela that I have been watching it even without your note; that since I have started speaking, the whole commune has been in a tremendous joy.

After three and a-half years silence they can again talk to me, ask questions; and I am again available to me.

But I have watched that you have been sad."

She never wanted me to speak. She was insisting again and again that it will go against my health.

I said, "What I will do with my health? Even I cannot say what has remained to be said, then what is the reason of being alive and being healthy? So it will be better if I live five years less but I complete my way of life and its philosophy."

So against her will I started speaking.

The reason why she did not want me to speak was that for three and a-half years, when I was in isolation and silence, she has all the power; and she was representing me -- to the press, to the television, to the radio, to the whole world.

Once I started speaking, she is nobody.

And in three and a-half years she has accumulated a great ego, that she is somebody, a celebrity.

So when the note was brought to me, I told to the person that, "It would have been better if she had come herself. This is cowardly. She is just two minutes drive from my place. She could have come, or she would have asked me to come -- there is no problem. But sending a note, just tell her that, "The reason why she does not feel excited here is that here she is nobody; that great image she has made of herself has fallen.

She feels good in Europe because she is still my representative -- in my name she is still somebody big. But remember I can come to Europe also, and your joy will disappear.

So that joy is not your joy. It is dependent on me, and anything that is dependent is not worth of anything." And I told her that, "You have been in power for three and half years. Now enjoy being powerless. And it has more beauties and more joys, but give it a chance."

But she was not willing to listen.

Next day she left with her small group that was supporting her, and now she is spreading all kind of lies.

Q: WHAT WAS THE NATURE OF HER RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU?

A: She was just a secretary to me.

There was no other kind of relationship.

And I had chosen her my secretary for the simple reason that she has been in America long time, she was married in America, so she was a permanent residence. Secondly, she was Indian so she will be able to communicate with the Indians who were coming to the commune; and she will be able to communicate with the Americans and the American government and the authorities. That was simply the reason -- that she was able to do both; otherwise, Indians who are coming will feel completely abandoned, nobody will be looked after.

And if I choose some Indian then that Indian will not know the laws and the ways and the American lives.

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And she had known both. She was born in Indian, brought up in India, and then for years she was in America -- married there, educated there. So she was perfect.

And she had a certain quality.

She was not in any way spiritual.

Q: SHE WAS NOT AT ALL SPIRITUAL?

A: No, not at all. She was not interested in meditation, she was not interested in any high values -- but that was a qualification in the beginning.

I knew that I have to change her sooner or later. She was absolutely materialistic.

But for the foundation you need only stones -- ugly, uncut, unpolished. And she was like that.

So I -- I was waiting, that one day, even if she had not left, I would have asked her to resign for a better person -- because the foundation is laid, now we have to make the temple and you are not capable of it.

Q: WHY DO YOU WANT TO DISCOURAGE KISSING?

A: It was simply for five years I have not been reading anything -- no book, no newspaper, no radio, no television. I have stopped getting any information from the world. But I have told my people that if you feel something is very significant for the humanity-at-large, you inform me.

So my medical staff informed me that this disease AIDS is spreading fast, and there is a possibility that it may destroy most of the humanity before nuclear weapons are used.

They brought all the research that has been done on AIDS.

In that research I found that sexual intercourse is not the only thing that the disease can be contacted.

Even kissing -- the saliva is a carrier.

Even tears are a carrier. So you may be absolutely innocent -- somebody is crying, just a baby, and you wipe the tears and you may not be aware and those tears can get mixed with your food and somehow get into you; then you can be infected.

So I told my people that if tears and saliva, things like that, are infectious -- and the disease has, up to now, no cure; and the scientists say there seems to be no possibility either in future that there will be a cure, it is incurable. Then it is better to avoid it.

And kissing is not something natural, because Eskimos don't kiss -- they rub their noses. In fact, when for the first time they saw Christian missionaries kissing, they could not believe it -- that how unhygienic, unhealthy. If you think about it, then it looks unhygienic, and unhealthy, and stupid; then noses look far more cleaner.

Q: SO YOU WOULD SUGGEST YOUR PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNE, SHOULD RUB THEIR

NOSES?

A: Yes. I have suggested it, that it is better to rub the noses -- unless somebody has a cold, because that can create the trouble. Any liquid coming out of the body can be a carrier.

And the oldest Indian book on sexology, five thousand year old, the sutras of Vatsayana, has many other methods. It says if you rub each other's ear lobes they are more erotic than lips. So I said, "They are absolutely hygienic and they never have any cold. They don't bring any liquid of the body." So be just intelligent.

I have nothing against kissing.

It was simply to protect the people from unnecessarily getting into a disease which has no cure.

And my commune perhaps was the only one in the whole world that took all the measures against the disease.

Q: I SEE. YOU MEAN PRE-EMPTIVE STEPS.

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A: Yes. Five thousand peoples went through tests because I made it absolutely clear that anybody who is found with AIDS will be respected the same as he was respected before, he will not be a condemned person.

He is just a victim, unknowingly something has happened. What can you do.

We found two persons having AIDS. We made beautiful houses for them at the most scenic place in our land, and we made everything that they wanted -- because their life span was not more than two years, six years most probably -- at the most two years. So I asked them that if they want anything, that they wanted to do in their life, they wanted to have in their life, they just ask, the commune will provide. "And you are perfectly respected. You can come to the meetings, but please don't touch anybody physically." They were coming to the meetings, and they were happy that they are not condemned.

I told all the homosexuals in the commune that, "You declare." Whoever is a homosexual should declare, and they declared -- because they all felt for the commune. And I told them that, "Now you should start moving in heterosexual sexuality; homosexuality is ugly, unnatural, it is a by-product of your so-called religions."

They forced celibacy on people, and they forced monks to live separately, nuns to live separately, and that was the cause of homosexuality. And out of homosexuality this is the ultimate outcome.

So I call AIDS a religious disease, and I tell that the popes, the shankaracharyas, the Ayatollah Khomeini, these are the people who are the criminals. They should be punished, and celibacy should be a crime; only then we can get rid of homosexuality.

In other cities in the world the things were totally different. First, nobody was ready to go through the test -- because who knows, he may have AIDS. Then even his own wife, his own children, his own parents, his own family will close the doors. Even his own friends will turn into enemies. He will be thrown out of the job. So nobody was ready to go through the text. No hospital was ready to admit any patient of AIDS

because doctors were afraid, nurses were afraid, other patients were afraid. No government was ready to declare that how many AIDS patients you have -- because that means condemnation of that nation. So it is a very dangerous phenomenon. And nobody wants to bring it into light, and any disease that goes on underground in darkness is bound to spread like a wildfire -- and you will never know. You may be just kissing a friend, without thinking of sex at all; you may be just wiping the tear of a small child -- because just now they have found three children born with AIDS. So now it is....

That was the reason I told that kissing should not be intelligent.

Q: YOU HAVE OVER THREE HUNDRED BOOKS TO YOUR NAME, AND ONLY ONE ON SEX. AND

WHY IS IT THAT IT IS ONLY THIS ONE THAT YOU ARE ASKED ABOUT?

A: The reason is that humanity has lived under sexual repression.

Repress anything and your mind becomes focused on it. For example, if it said to you that, "Don't eat apples" then your mind will start fantasizing about apples. This is the whole beginning of the Biblical story.

God is responsible because he told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. Now, in that vast garden of Eden I don't think Adam and Eve would have been able, even up to now, to find those two trees; but God pointed them and that creates curiosity, a certain infatuation. Those two trees became the most important trees in the whole garden. And why God is prohibiting them?

Sex has been prohibited by all religions in some way or other.

Q: DISCOURAGED.

A: Discouraged, condemned, called a sin; and celibacy has been raised to saintliness, spirituality.

It has created a very schizophrenic state in humanity.

You cannot destroy your sexuality. You are born out of it. Your every cell is sexual, and your biology does not understand your principles and theologies and your religions. You may go on talking about celibacy, but your body goes on creating male sperms. What you are going to do with them?

So either it will take some repressive form -- it will become homosexuality, it will be lesbianism, it can become even sodomy -- you may make love to animals, which looks so ugly.

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But the whole responsibility goes to religions.

And if you don't do anything of this, that even a man like Mahatma Gandhi was having nocturnal emissions at the age of seventy. But somehow those sperms have to get out because new sperms are being created. And you have only a small space, they have to vacate it for the new ones to come.

So when I spoke on sex and I told that there is nothing sin in it, it is a normal, natural thing -- like anything -- eating, sleeping, walking. It is just part of you, and the most important part because it reproduces, it is creative. If anything in you is most important, it is your sexuality.

So rather than condemning it, there are ways to transform it.

My book on sex is not in support of sex. It is against repression, and it is in support of bringing meditation and sexual energy together.

Q: IS IT POSSIBLE?

A: It is possible.

That is what has happened in India; only in India, a school for thousands of years has been here called

`tantra'. That is the whole effort, and I think tantra is something that has to be brought to the whole world again, to every individual -- because it teaches you that while making love you can also meditate, and if meditation and love-making mix into each other your sexuality starts changing its quality, it starts moving upwards. Then it is no more interested in women or men; now it is finding far more juicier spaces, more more luminous spaces. It can reach to the ultimate point of illumination, what we call enlightenment.

The book is about enlightenment. The name of the book is "From Sex to Superconsciousness" but nobody bothers about superconsciousness.

The interest of the people simply shows their mind.

And you will be surprised that Christian priests, Hindu monks, Jaina monks, Buddhist monks, nuns --

they have all been reading the book. Nobody is interested in the other books; they are all reading. That book has been sold the most, has been translated in almost all the languages; and the purchasers are the religious people.

One thing more in concern with it, that it was condemned by the religious leaders, and strangely it was also condemned by the people who create pornographic literature. And this is something to be understood --

because if I am right, then there will be no pornography. If I am right then there will be no monks and no nuns, and with them the pornography also disappears. Pornography exists only because of repression.

It is such a simple truth to see -- that "Playboy" is against me.

Q: PLAYBOY WOULD RUN OUT OF BUSINESS.

A: They will run out of business.

So that means the pornography and the so-called religious leaders are in a subtle, unconscious conspiracy against whole humanity.

Q: WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

A: I have never lived with plans. I live moment to moment. I never think of the past, and I never think of the future -- because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. Only this moment exists. The next moment I keep open. So whatever happens is good.

I have no regret, no complaint. Whatever has happened has not disappointed me because I was not planning for something else. I had never planned; that has kept me absolutely unburdened, free and light --

just like a white cloud, with no destination, with no goal, just floating wherever the wind takes it.

So wherever the life takes me, I am absolutely available; but I don't have any plan.

Q: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

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A: Thank you. Come again whenever you feel like.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #20

Chapter title: None

28 November 1985 am in

Archive code: 8511280

ShortTitle: LAST420

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not yet been published, as of August 1992.

Interview by Punjab Keshari

BHAGWAN, WE ARE FROM PUNJAB KESHARI, A HINDI NEWSPAPER FROM GALLANTER(*) ON DIRECTIONS FROM OUR PAPER, WE HAVE COME HERE TO REQUEST YOU TO ENLIGHTEN

US ON SOME QUESTIONS, WITH YOUR KIND PERMISSION TO WRITE IN PAPERS.

YOU HAD COME TO AMERICA FOR TREATMENT. HAVE YOU COMPLETELY RECOVERED?

WHAT ABOUT YOUR BACKACHE?

It is worse. I had almost recovered by the controlled environment, but the American government did in twelve days destroyed four years' work. My diseases are not something which can be completely cured. In a controlled atmosphere, they will not show. For example, if I am sitting in a certain position, then my back will not hurt; so certain chairs have been made which I use only. Then there is no back pain. But in any other chair, the back pain is there. And the doctors have said that I have to live with it. It is not something that they can do about.

Twelve days in the jails, they tried in every possible way to make my back worse. They gave me only hard steel benches to sit. I asked them a pillow which was denied. I told them, "You know my situation about the back; and you are giving me a steel bench to sit; and not for few minutes, for the whole night. I am asking for a pillow or a blanket so I can lie down." No blanket, no pillow. The man never returned back. For twelve days continuously they were trying to hurt me as much indirectly as possible. In the courts they will put me in chains; hands in chains, legs in chains. My back also, particularly at the point where it hurts, and then they will chain my hand also with the back chain. And then they will drive the car in such a way that as much they can hurt me: sudden stops, sudden rush, sudden turns.

My another medical problem was allergies. That too is incurable. It is inheritance. For certain things I am allergic -- wool, perfume, any kind of smell, dust, smoke, particularly tobacco smoke. In the jails they managed everything. They will put me in the dirtiest cell, where there was nothing but dust; even to walk into it was to raise dust. They will give me the dirtiest blankets, and I told them "I don't want these blankets because they are woollen and I cannot use them." They said that they don't have any cotton blankets, which 1/08/07

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is a lie; because later on when it went to the press that they are not giving me cotton blankets, immediately they appeared. The pillows appeared. Just one day before they were non-existent.

They will put me with twelve other cell mates around me. Perhaps particularly chosen because all were chain smokers. That was a rare combination that all twelve people with whom I am put are all chain smokers. From the morning to the middle of the night they are smoking. So my eyes was continuously with tears, because that smoke I cannot tolerate. My throat was choking, my breathing was difficult, and I was afraid that any moment it may trigger my asthma attacks.

They put me in a cell, and in twelve days' time, which was absolutely unnecessary because I had committed no crime, they have not even served any arrest warrant to me. They did not show any cause why I am being arrested. Just on twelve points of loaded guns they arrested me, a man who has nothing except a robe and open hands; and they will not answer. They knew that they have no case against me. So what they did, they had arrested six other peoples with me on the same plane. We were going to visit a sannyasin's house in the mountains, just for two-three weeks, just to rest there. (a108) In the court they released the six persons because there was no case. And if the six persons are released, why I am not released?

For me the government attorney, U.S. attorney, insisted that my question of bail will be decided in Oregon. That seems absurd, if six persons with me have been arrested here and their bail can be arranged here, then why particularly me?

But the reason was, that they wanted as long time to reach to Oregon. It is only six hours' time. But they managed the plane that takes their prisoners from one place to another; even the pilot told me that he had never come across such a thing, "Suddenly as we come near Oregon we receive orders, move to other direction. They are simply harassing you." So I have to be left into some other prison; in twelve days they change five prisons.

In one prison they put me with a high-risk confirmed herpes case. The cell was meant for two persons, but it has been allotted to the person for six months. Nobody else was sharing it. They gave me that cell.

Even the man himself felt that this is absolutely ugly. He is dying of herpes and everything can be infectious. He did not know much English; he was from Cuba; but still he wrote a small note that,

"Bhagwan, they are trying to harass you. I am suffering from herpes. I will try my best to clean everything, but what can I do?"

Then another inmate informed me that you immediately should call the jailer, that this is absolutely inhuman. The man is in such a situation that the doctor has not allowed anybody else, and the doctor allows me; the doctor was present when I was put in that cell. It took almost twenty hours for them to change my cell. And I told the doctor that, "Doctor, you are part of the crime. At least you should be out of the politicians and their dirty tactics. You knew perfectly well this man is dying with herpes; everybody knows in the jail; you were present when I was put into it."

He said, "What we can do, we are small people."

In every jail they will put me between two television sets on both the sides of the cell, which will run full-speed loudly, six in the morning till twelve in the night. And then they must have managed that when the televisions will become silent, then the inmates will start talking, cell to cell. They didn't allow me to sleep for a single moment for twelve days.

They did everything that they could indirectly, because they knew all my diseases; and to the press they will, because the press was continuously after them -- the press and the news media helped me immensely, otherwise they would have kept me for two three months without trial, without arrest warrant, without any show cause.

But because the press was surrounding every jail, wherever they were keeping me, hundreds of television stations, newspapers, radios, and they were so much afraid of the media that they could not do anything directly, because they knew that if they do anything, even if they touch my body, it will be soon around the world and the whole world is watching.

In one jail what they did; they told me, the U.S. Marshall himself told me to sign under the name David Washington. I said, "That is not my name, and you are asking me to do something illegal. You are supposed to be the Department of Justice, law-imposing authority. Just please tell me under what law this comes?

And I can see the point, and you know it, that on the board will be David Washington, so nobody knows that I am here in the jail. So whatever you want to do with me, even if you want to kill me you can kill me; and nobody will ever discover what happened to me, because I was never in the jail. So told him, "I cannot write, that is not my name. If you want to write, you can fill the form. I will sign." And this was knowingly I did to make him fill the form in his handwriting, so it becomes a document, a proof, and I signed in Hindi in 1/08/07

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my name, so he looked at it and he could not figure it out, what it is. So the signature is mine, the name is David Washington which has nothing to do with the signature. And I told him that, "Don't try to be too cunning and too clever. By the morning you will see that David Washington and my name are on the television all over the world; because there was a girl sitting in the corner who just waved me. She had traveled with me on the plane and she told me that she was going to be released tomorrow morning. She immediately informed the press media, which was all around the jail as she was released, so tomorrow morning immediately it was all over the press, radio, television, that they are trying this strategy. So that even if they kill me, nobody can find where I disappeared.

As they saw that it is already on the television and already in the newspapers they immediately changed me to another jail; because now it was risky to keep me in that jail. For twelve days continuously, which was absolutely meaningless just to bring me to Oregon, where just in a day I was released because there was no point against me. I have not done anything.

But they punished a man without proving his guilt. That is absolutely against the democracy. Innocence needs no proof; but guilt needs proof, and without proving somebody guilty you cannot punish him.

I lost eight pounds of weight in twelve days, because the food was rotten; I could not eat it. I could not sleep. They won't allow me even to have a little walk in the corridor. No, it is not possible.

So I had gone with the health problems, but my health problems were such that they needed no medical treatment. They simply needed a certain climate, which should not humid, which should be cool and dry, and that's why I was asking for Kutch. But Indian government won't listen. They were worried that if I have Kutch, then so many foreigners will be coming there and Pakistan is so close -- I had even offered them that nobody will be coming, just for few days, and the palace is empty, nobody lives there; and the palace coincidentally was made for the Maharaja, who had the same problems as I have; so they have chosen that place particularly for him. It is non-humid, it is cool, it is dry. And nobody is living there, just give it to me.

Nobody will be coming there.

But, bureaucracy is bureaucracy. It has no heart; it is just a mechanism. And the people who have heart and are working in it, slowly slowly become robots.

It was this situation that I had to go America, because Oregon has the same climate as Kutch. Otherwise Oregon has no interest for me; it is a desert. But it helped me. For four years I was free of back pain, I was free of all allergies, I was free of asthma attacks. But, that does not mean they were cured. That simply means the controlled atmosphere. But once I am out of the controlled atmosphere, immediately the trouble is there.

But these twelve days have been of immense help. First, I could see that a country like America, which pretends to be the biggest democracy in the world, is not democratic. It is simply a hypocrisy.

Secondly I could see that American bureaucracy and government is not only deceiving the whole world; it is also deceiving its own people. The people are beautiful. They are just as loving as anywhere else, perhaps more. But they are not aware what is happening behind walls.

Thirdly, I became aware that in five jails, which were the biggest jails in America, not a single white prisoner. It seems all the crimes are committed by the blacks; that no white commits any crime. It made me clear that those jails are not for criminals, but for those people who they want to repress. And I came across people in the jails who said, "We have been six months here, nine months here, waiting for the trial."

Pre-trial arrest is absolutely inhuman. You should bring the person to the court first, and if the court sentences him that's perfectly okay. But you are already punishing him. You have punished nine months a person, without even telling him what he has done. And all the jails were full of black people; totally, not a single exception.

Fourthly I saw that the inmates in the jail who are thought to be criminals are far more human, far more loving, than the people who are pretending to be democrats, humanitarian, and are trying save the whole world. (a340) I would ask for a toothpaste, or for a brush, or for a comb, or for a soap, and it will take two days that a brush will appear. But there is no toothpaste. Then the toothpaste will appear.

But when I asked the jail authorities, the inmates heard and they started bringing things. They say,

"Bhagwan this is absolutely fresh, we have not used it, and those people are really ugly with you because when we ask they immediately give us, and when you ask it takes two days for them to bring a toothbrush."

So I got everything from the inmates; the soap, the toothbrush, the comb, or anything that I needed; not from the authorities.

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which he has picked while he has gone for the lunch, and I saw the other world that perhaps exists in every country, the world of the criminals. They are our brothers and our sisters, and we have put them in such a situation that they are almost another world, they are not part of this world, nobody knows about them, what is happening to them. If they can try to torture me, who was in the eyes of the whole world; thousands of telegrams every day, thousands of telephones every day, and the whole jail was surrounded by the press people; if they can torture me, or try to torture me, what they will be doing with these poor people, who nobody knows, who nobody will ever inquire whether they are alive or dead?

So my health they have put backwards, but I am recovering. It is not -- because these diseases are not something that can kill somebody, just you can harass, torture. Once the atmosphere is changed, the symptoms disappear.

So there is no problem. But it has been a good experience to me, and it made me clear that if there is going to be a third world war, it is not going to be between Soviet Union and America, it is going to be between the whole world and America. Because Soviet Union at least is straight forward. It does not pretend to be a democracy. It declares itself to be the dictatorship of the proletariat. America declares itself to be the democracy, and hidden behind this mask is just a fascist regime.

They tried to kill me. When they could not manage -- the first judge in Carolina they managed, she was a woman, she was just a magistrate, and she was hoping to be promoted to be a judge; so they pressurized her, that if you release this man then your chances for judges are gone. Because it is absurd to release my six people who were with me, and just to keep me. And without proving anything; even the U.S. Attorney said that "We have not been able to prove anything." Still she will not bail me out. Even the jailer, the sheriff, they told me that she is just pressurized because she knows if she bails you out, her chances for being a judge are gone.

In Oregon I was before a federal judge, and he immediately could see that there is no case. He bailed me out. But as I went to the jail to take my clothes and things from there, I was surprised to see that the whole ground floor was empty, which was always full of officers and people, and clerks, and the whole department of the jail. I asked the person who was taking me in, "What is the matter? Is there some holiday today or something?"

He said, "No, nothing, it is just changing the shift."

But I said, "I am not a fool. Changing a shift I have seen before, twelve days I have been in the jail.

Unless the person comes, the old person cannot go. This gap in a jail, that everybody goes because the shift is changing, and the new persons have not come yet seems to be absolutely absurd.

He said, "I don't know. You just sit here, and I will find my boss to sign the papers, and you take your clothes." This was for the first time in twelve days they left me alone. Otherwise, even though I was completely chained, hands, feet, waist, two men with guns were always with me. This was the first time I was not chained, and I was left alone in the room, and the man went locking the room. I had no idea what is happening. After few minutes he came, he gave my clothes, and I was released.

As I reached my hotel, the news came that a bomb has been found in the place where I was sitting. Now in a jail, who can put a bomb? Ordinarily nobody can even enter -- three electrical gates you have to pass first -- except the authorities themselves; and now it is clear why the whole ground floor was empty, and why the man left me alone and went out. Later on I discovered that no signature of the boss was needed.

Only my signature was needed, because I am receiving my things back. That was the whole thing; what the boss has to do with it?

So they were not able to find out what time the court will release me, and the bomb must be a time bomb. So they just guessed, and their guess missed. Now these type of people are simply fascist. There is no other word for these people. (a550)

And seeing this situation -- and it was not one day, four and a half years continuously they had been harassing us in every possible way, and the reason for harassment was that we have succeeded in changing the desert into an oasis which was lying for fifty years dead. Nobody was ready to purchase it. And it was not a small land. It was eighty four thousand acres, We purchased it, we changed it, we made roads, and we never took any support from anybody outside. Our own sannyasins did everything.

We made reservoirs, we made lakes, we were turning it into green. The desert was changed completely into a new, beautiful city. We made houses for five thousand people, winterized tents for twenty thousand people, because every festival there were coming twenty thousand people, and we had to invent a special tent, which can be air-conditioned, which can be heated even in winter when there is snow there is no problem. The tent will do. So when there was annual festival, it was a fairy land. All the hills and the whole 1/08/07

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land was full of people.

In the commune we had no government. It was the first experiment in the whole history of man where five thousand people were living without any government. Also it was the first experiment that we were not using any money inside the commune. I have not seen a dollar bill. Everybody who needed anything was supplied by the commune, so everybody according to his need; we managed absolute self-sufficiency about food, vegetables, fruits, milk products. I even managed to supplement something which all vegetarian in the world will have sooner or later to accept. The vegetarian food lacks few proteins and those are the proteins that make your intelligence grow. It is not a coincidence that not a single Jaina who had been vegetarians for thousands of years has not received a single Nobel prize, has not contributed any discovery, any invention.

For that you need some intelligence, but those proteins are missing. The three people who got Nobel prize in India, all three are non-vegetarians; Korana(*), Raman, Rabindranath, all are non-vegetarians. That means not a single vegetarians in the whole world has received any award for his intellect. I asked my medical people, because we had our own hospital, our own school, our own university, and we figured out that a non-fertilized egg is vegetarian, because it has no life, and it has all the proteins that are missing in a vegetarian diet. So this was the first vegetarian community which was using eggs, non-fertilized, and making vegetarian food complete. Now there is no need to be in any way eat meat and kill living people, living animals.

Seeing the commune, the American politicians became afraid. It was far higher a communism than what exists in Soviet Union. We had five hundred cars for the sannyasins to use; anybody can use. But nobody wanted to use cars because we had one hundred air-conditioned buses running continuously; after each five minutes you can get a bus, so why bother having a private car and parking and this and that, and petrol. Just get into bus, which are continuously running. So we had to sell three hundred cars because nobody was using them.

Thousands of my friends around the world have presented to me ninety-three Rolls Royces, because the seat of a particular model of Rolls Royce was good for my back. But I need only one, there is no need for ninety-three. And I don't even possess that one; that too is to be possessed by the commune. So I have told that make a trust in the commune, and anybody who wants to use, let him use. What I am going to do with ninety-three Rolls Royces. I had hundreds of watches presented to me from different parts of the world. I had all given to the commune. Use whenever you want to use, whenever you are going for some public contact, use something beautiful -- take a beautiful car. I myself am using only the watches that have been made by my own sannyasins. This watch is made by my own sannyasins. It costs nothing, because these are simple stones, not diamonds. Just the craftsman is such that one can be deceived that they are diamonds.

The same watch is quarter million dollars from Piaget; and this watch has no value. But I cannot sell it any value, because it has been made with love. And love cannot be sold.

But newspapers have some strange idea of distorting things. I don't own a single Rolls Royce, yet the whole world thinks I own ninety-three Rolls Royces. I have not brought a single one, because they don't belong to me, they belong to the commune. They think I have hundreds of watches, diamond and ruby and emerald; but I have left all to the commune because they belong to the commune. And whatever use they want to do, they can use.

Seeing this whole situation, that the five thousand people can live in such a beautiful loving way, helping each other in every possible way, working twelve, fourteen hours a day and still having energy enough to dance in the night, sing, play their guitars, and in the morning they will begin with meditation, and in the night they will end with dancing. People started coming, news media started coming every day.

The story was spreading, that a desert can be transformed, not a single person is unemployed, not a single person is a beggar. America has thirteen million beggars, which don't have any houses, no food, no clothes.

They sleep on the streets, and they die on the streets.

The quality of our food was far superior than any American home, because we had only one kitchen for five thousand people, and it was a joy to see five thousand people eating together, laughing together.

To me, this should be the real spirit of communism, not forced, but an evolution out of peaceful, loving people, who can see that things don't matter; neither money matters. What matters is love, what matters is a communion.

This became a problem for them. They wanted to destroy it, because if this commune remains; then the people had started asking them, if these people without any power can do this, then why you cannot do with all the power in the world? So we became a great problem for them. This commune has to be erased, otherwise it will create comparison.

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Two hundred street people had come to the commune, and we accepted them. They were all black. And they were so happy to have a home for the first time in their life, and to be respected as human beings. They had everything that everybody else had, so no question of comparison, that somebody is higher and somebody is lower. There was no bureaucracy.

If any government was really democratic, it should have supported the commune, helped the commune, allowed people to visit the commune and see how it functions so that you can also make small communes in your towns and function in the same way. But the government is not really democratic, and I would like to say to Soviet Union that you are unnecessarily forcing people to be equal. This can be done without force.

And if you can do it without force you will gain tremendous respect from all over the world. (b196) MY NEXT QUESTION IS: DO YOU SUSPECT ANY GOVERNMENT HAND BEHIND MA ANAND

SHEELA'S FALLING APART FROM YOU?

There is a possibility that American government may have done this, because I was in silence for three and a half years, and in isolation. Sheela and her group was taking care of the commune. It is possible that the government may have bribed them to leave the commune, so it falls apart, because they were the people who were taking care of everything. They left, but the commune continued. Their leaving did not make any difference, because people were intelligent enough. Fortunately only intelligent people are interested in me.

So everything was perfectly okay. Looking backwards, it seems that there is a possibility, because Sheela stopped purchasing even food, or other necessary things which are needed to store for the winter -- clothes and other things -- she stopped before she left. The day she left there was no food at all. It seems pre-planned to create a havoc, a chaos. Clothes are not there, food is not there. She left the commune in great debt; perhaps twenty million dollars. And her secretary says that she has a bank account in Switzerland of twenty million dollars.

So there is a possibility that they somehow managed that if the management, and the whole management, twenty people, with Sheela escaped, without giving any reason why they are going, without even seeing me for the last time to say goodbye. The government may have hoped that this way the commune may fall apart. But it didn't happen. People managed it, and managed it far more beautifully.

That was even more troublesome to them; they had failed in that attempt. Then their only way was somehow to arrest me. But, I had not committed anything that they can arrest me. I was not on any post, I was not even a member of the commune. I had no powers. I was just a guest living outside the commune. So what they could say that goes against me. And they did not try. For two years they had been trying. Rumors were coming that they want to arrest me. I said, that's perfectly okay. Just few days before they arrested my I told my people that that's perfectly okay. If they want to arrest me, let them arrest me. With my both hands chained, the world should know what America really is.

But they did not come to the commune. They were afraid that to arrest me will mean to kill five thousand sannyasins. Without that they will not be able to arrest me. And this will be a great damage to the image of America. So they were waiting that if I am sometimes outside the commune, that will be the right opportunity. And that's what happened; when I went to visit my friends in North Carolina, immediately on the airport they arrested me. (b280)

YOU HAVE DECLARED ABANDONING OF RAJNEESHISM. WILL YOU NOT IMPART TEACHINGS

OR GIVE BLESSINGS IN FUTURE, MAYBE NEWCOMERS OR THE OLD ONES?

No, I have abandoned Rajneeshism as a religion, because that was not my idea. That was created whilst I was in silence and not speaking. It was the idea of Sheela and her group. The book "Rajneeshism" was not written by me. They wanted to create a religion, because only religion could give Sheela a status of a high priestess. And they wanted me never to speak again. And there is a possibility they may have even killed me, because they tried to kill my personal physician, they tried to poison my caretaker. And these were efforts that they wanted their physician to be replaced, who can inject me any time. They wanted their caretaker to take care of me. And she was persistently against that I should start speaking.

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which are not said yet, and I want to complete my whole way of life, give it the last touch, so that it is a complete philosophy. Even if it goes against my health it doesn't matter, because what I will do with the health? If I can live two years more without speaking that does not make any sense. I would rather prefer to live two years less, but I would like to complete my philosophy. And when I saw that this book has been published as a catechism, like the Christians, I was not happy.

I said, "This is absolutely nonsense. My whole life I have been against organized religions. In my four hundred books I have been speaking against organized religions. To me religion is an individual affair. It is so sacred that it cannot be organized. You cannot organize love. How can you organize religion, which is a higher quality of love towards existence. It is an individual search. You can go inwards yourself, alone. You cannot take anybody there. And this is the greatest gift nature has given to you. It is your absolute privacy, your privilege. Nobody can trespass it. Organized religions are all bogus, they are borrowed. They don't have any reality in their hands, any truth in their hands. This has been my whole teaching, and you created a religion in my name?"

So I burned the book, and declared that there is no religion; there are only religious people. The people who are around me are not joined as an organized body. They are around me as individual seekers. They feel a love for me. They are my friends, not my followers. So I will continue to teach; but the teaching will not be between somebody who is a prophet, saviour, God's only begotten son. All that nonsense will not be there. I am just as human as you are. Perhaps just a little bit difference; that I have known myself. And that is your potential. You can know yourself too.

So I will be teaching, but only to my friends, not to my followers. Followers are blind. And it is ugly to make somebody a follower. It is insulting to the person. I respect people. And a person who is in search of truth needs all the respect in the world.

So I will be teaching, I will be blessing. My whole presence is a blessing to those who love me. Just being close to me is a blessing. So the abandonment of Rajneeshism as an organized religion brings a great freedom to my people. And it also brings a great joy to me, because I don't now any more belong to the same kind of people -- Mohammed, Moses, Jesus. They were all pretenders. Jesus was saying that he can save the whole world; and he could not save himself. Mohammed was saying that he was the last paigambara of God. Now there will be no other paigambaras; I have brought you the latest and the last message. And looking at the KORAN it looks stupid in comparison to UPANISHADS, which are thousands of years old. And this is the last message, that a man can have four wives, that animals are made to be eaten.

And declaring oneself a paigambara or a prophet is simply eccentric; the man is not sane. He is a crackpot.

I don't want to belong to that category. I just want to be a simple human being like everybody else.

Yes, I have found something which you can also find, because it is within you. Just you have not looked for it. That difference is not much of a difference. Any moment you can decide, and look into.

Every man is by birth capable of becoming enlightened. If he does not become, he is responsible. So my teaching will continue. Now it will have more freedom; and now I can relate more closely, because I am not standing on a hilltop, and you are in a dark valley. I am no more special. And to me, to be just ordinary is the greatest extraordinary thing in life.

YOU HAVE LAUNCHED BITTER CRITICISM ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. IS IT IN

RETALIATION TO THEIR BEHAVIOUR WITH YOU, OR AN ATTEMPT TO APPEAL OTHER SOCIALIST

AND COMMUNIST COUNTRIES?

Both. It has to be both.

HOW IS IT THAT AT POONA ASHRAM (*) AND RAJNEESHPURAM IN AMERICA THE LOCAL

PEOPLE COULD NOT TOLERATE YOUR SETTING UP OF COMMUNES? DO YOU WANT TO SET UP

ONE IN MADHYA PRADESH, OR ELSEWHERE IN FUTURE? WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS?

No. I don't want to set up any commune anywhere.

YOU MIGHT HAVE GONE THROUGH, OR YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT THE

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REPORTING CARRIED BY PUNJAB KESARI ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SECT. HOW DO YOU FEEL

ABOUT FREEDOM OF PRESS IN COMPARISON IN AMERICA.

America has more freedom of press in India has.

IT IS SAID THAT AT PRESENT YOU ARE FACING FINANCIAL STRINGENCIES. IS IT FOR THIS

REASON THAT THAT FLEET OF ROLLS ROYCE CARS IS BEING DISPOSED OF AT

RAJNEESHPURAM. DO YOU PLAN ABANDONING OF POONA ASHRAM ALSO?

No. I have never had any money. For thirty years I have been without money, so I cannot have any financial trouble. My friends take care of me, and there are millions around the world. And what is happening in Rajneeshpuram, they are selling everything because everything belongs to them. Those Rolls Royces do not belong to me. And Poona Ashram has not be closed; there is no reason. And as far as I am concerned, I am the poorest and the richest man in the world; poorest because I don't have anything, richest because I have as many lovers and friends as nobody can claim. So if I want Rolls Royces, one hundred Rolls Royces will be standing here tomorrow.

There is no problem about it.

WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOUR TEACHINGS ABOUT SEX? HOW DOES IT RELATE TO THE

CULTURAL HERITAGE IN INDIA?

My teachings about sex are really based on the cultural heritage of India. No other country has been able to find a philosophy like Tantra, and Tantra is one of the greatest contribution of this country to the world.

And my teachings are part of Tantra. It is up to date Tantra.

WHY IS SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS MEDITATION CONSIDERED THREATENING?

It is considered threatening because if there are twenty people sad, frustrated, and you are smiling and joyful, you will be considered threatening. Those twenty people will kill you. They will see you, you have gone mad. Why are you smiling?

Meditation creates a problem because it gives you such serenity, such silence, such joy; and all around is frustration, all around is misery. The miserable person becomes absolutely against you, because the question is either you are right or he is right, and he means the majority; and you are alone.

And if things are decided by a majority, then of course he is right. Gautam Buddha is not right.

HAVE YOU ANY PLANS TO VISIT RUSSIA, CHINA, OR ANY OTHER FOREIGN COUNTRIES IN

THE NEAR FUTURE?

No.

IS IT CORRECT THAT YOU AND YOUR DISCIPLES SUCCEEDED IN GIVING A DODGE TO

CUSTOM PEOPLE AT DELHI AIRPORT?

Absolutely wrong. Because my disciples passed through all the regular, normal way. Only I was taken out, because I had nothing to declare.

HAD YOU COME TO KULU VALLEY EARLIER ALSO FOR MEDITATION? IF SO, DO YOU

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REMEMBER SOME LOCAL PERSON WHO MAY HAVE ACCOMPANIED YOU AT THAT TIME? HAVE

YOU ANY PLANS TO MAKE TO MEET THE STATE CHIEF MINISTER?

I have been here some twenty five years before, but I don't remember any local person. And as far as the chief minister, Bir(*) Addra(*) is concerned, I have heard about him. He is an intelligent man, and courageous too. If he is really intelligent and courageous, he should come to meet me. I never go to meet anybody. And I am a guest, he is a host. He should remember that. (b631) WHY MA ANAND SHEELA BETRAYED COMMUNE? IS IT A FACT THAT MR VINOD KANNA IS

ALSO THINKING OF RETURNING TO FILM INDUSTRY? CAN HE DO IT WHILE REMAINING

PRESIDENT OF RAJNEESH FRIENDS INTERNATIONAL, INDIAN SECTION?

Certainly, because there is no bondage on anybody. If he feels like going back to films he will be now a better actor than he ever was. And I would not deprive the film industry of a genius. He can go with all my blessings.

And as far as Sheela is concerned, nobody can betray me, because I have no expectations from anybody.

You come on your own, and whenever you want to go on your own. What is the question of betrayal?

Because I don't require any faith, I don't require any loyalty.

Betrayal is possible only when loyalty is required, and you go against it. But I don't ask for any loyalty, no faith in me. It is your joy to come and join in my caravan. It is your joy to depart. There is no betrayal.

Okay.

(INAUDIBLE) WE ARE GRATEFUL TO YOUR HOLINESS FOR THE ENLIGHTENMENT WE HAVE

GOT FROM YOU IN RESPONSE TO OUR QUESTIONS.

Good. Come again whenever you need.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #21

Chapter title: None

1 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512010

ShortTitle: LAST421

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

[Transcriber's note: There is some text missing during a tape change. Elisabeth Bumiller supplied, from her notes, the missing text. This is given at the end of this transcript.]

INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH BUMILLER, WASHINGTON POST

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Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

A: I have lived moment to moment, I have never thought of tomorrow. My life is absolutely unplanned

-- and that's my philosophy, too, that life should not be planned.

Planning means bondage, and a spontaneous life is the life of freedom. So what happens next moment, I don't know.

Q; ARE YOU GOING TO BUY LAND HERE?

A: I don't know!

Q: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY LAND HERE, IN THE HIMALAYAS?

A: I have never bought anything in my whole life! But I have enough people who love me, who go on buying things for me.

Q: WHY DID YOU SELECT THE ALLEY OF THE GODS?

A: I have not selected it, it has selected me.

Q: IN WHAT SENSE HAS IT SELECTED YOU?

A: Because the whole world is there, and this valley has called me towards itself.

Q: HOW DO YOU LOOK BACK ON YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES?

A: Ordinarily I never look back because nature does not want man to look back -- that's why he has not given you eyes on the back.

Q: WELL, AFTER THIS PERIOD OF RECUPERATION, DO YOU THINK YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT

THE UNITED STATES WILL CHANGE?

A: First thing: I love the people of America.

They are more sincere and less serious; they are more playful and they are the youngest people in the world. The whole world is old, and with old age many things come -- frustration, irritation, grumpiness....

And with old age, future simply dies -- because there is only death, nothing else. America is young, can have a great future, has the energy to create it.

So as far as the nation and the people are concerned, I am in love with them. I certainly hated the politicians and the bureaucracy, because it pretends to be democratic -- it is not. It can only be described as

"hypocratic." So my experience of America is a lovely experience with the people, with the nation.

And I managed with my own people to create an utopia. The word "utopia"is very significant: it means

`that which cannot be done.' But we almost did it! Those four and a half years of creating a small commune of five thousand people are of tremendous importance. It was for the first time in the history that five thousand people living together were absolutely myself-sufficient; nobody was poor, nobody was rich, 1/08/07

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nobody was unemployed.Because we were not using money inside the commune in any way.

There have been philosophers who have thought of a society where money will not be used, but there have never been a society which has really not used it. And it is so significant -- the moment you stop using money, the distance between the rich and the poor immediately disappears. There is no need of bringing a dictatorship of the proletariat, no need of forcing people to depart from their things.

There is no need to force people to be equal. As the money disappears, people are not equal but they all have equal opportunity to be unequal.

Q: HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES CHANGED YOU, IF IT

DID?

A: It changed because it created a great jealousy amongst the politicians.

What we had managed to do in four years, they have not been able to manage in three hundred years.

We purchased the land which was a desert -- for fifty years nobody was buying it -- and we changed it in four years in an oasis, all green, with lakes and dams, waterfalls, five thousand people's houses, all centrally air conditioned with all the modern facilities. In those four years, nobody felt in the commune that he needs anything more. Everything was available. They all have five hundred cars, anybody can use; five aeroplanes anybody can use, whatever is the need....

Q: HOW DID THE EXPERIENCE CHANGE YOU, YOURSELF?

A: These experiences cannot change me.

Q: THE UNITED STATES HAD NO EFFECT ON YOU?

A: No. As far as I am concerned...

(THERE IS SOME TEXT MISSING HERE. ELISABETH BUMILLER SUPPLIED, FROM HER NOTES, THE

MISSING TEXT. THIS IS GIVEN AT THE END OF THIS TRANSCRIPT.) Q: HAVE YOU LOVED MORE INTENSELY ANYONE ELSE?

A: Certainly.

Q: IS THERE ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN CLOSEST TO?

A: No.

Q: EVERYONE HAS BEEN EQUAL?

A: Everyone is unique, not equal.

Q: BUT THERE ISN'T ONE SPECIAL PERSON THAT YOU HAVE LOVED, MORE THAN ANYONE

ELSE?

A: Everybody is so unique that the idea of loving someone more and someone less is ridiculous.

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Q: WELL, HAVE THERE BEEN UM, TOP FIVE? HAVE THERE BEEN SPECIAL FEW?

A: No. Nobody is special.

Q: COULD YOU PLEASE JUST COMMENT ON ALL THE ALLEGATIONS OF ORGIES, AND

SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN YOUR COMMUNE, AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES.

A: In Oregon there was none, so anything about Oregon is absolutely false as far as orgies and violence is concerned.

Q: WHAT ABOUT POONA?

A: In Poona there were few groups, and I was deciding people, which group they should go and in what sequence. These groups were therapies; so first silent therapies were given, meditative therapies were given.

Those who could not succeed in them, then more active therapies were given to them. If even that was not enough, then therapies were given to them in which they can beat the pillows, shout, scream... but not to touch anybody. Mostly this was enough.

Rarely there was a person who still needed something more, was yet not cleansed. Then for these there were therapies where they were allowed to have physical pushing. But there was a therapist to take care that nothing harms anybody. And these people were to fill the form that they are accepting certain therapy on their own -- if they don't want, they need not. It was their individual choice. And these therapies helped these people immensely. And all these therapies whatever they were doing, they had constantly to remember witnessing -- that was part which has not been known to the world -- that even if they are hitting somebody they are just like a puppet, inside there was a watcher. And after hitting they will hug each other and they will cry and weep and great compassion will come out.

In sexual therapies, I asked the men, the women that "What is your experience? What you have gained out of it?" And it was again surprising. That one woman told me that she had always dreamt that she is being raped. And she woke up in the middle of the night afraid, trembling, perspiring. And it was a constantly recurring dream. But after this therapy the dream has disappeared and the sleep has become silent and quiet.

Q: WAS SHE RAPED?

A: Not raped, but in a sexual therapy she was a participant. It was all playful, nobody was being raped.

Nobody was forced against his or her will. And if anybody wanted to get out of it at any moment, he was free to get out of it.

Q: DID YOU EVER PARTICIPATE?

A: No, because I was not leading the groups, my therapists were leading the groups.

Q: WHY DID YOU STOP THESE KINDS OF GROUPS IN OREGON?

A: For the simple reason because the people who had come to Oregon were all my old sannyasins, who had passed through all these therapies and all these groups. And Oregon was a new phase. They have dropped their destructiveness in the therapies; now they have to be creative, they have to make houses, they 1/08/07

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have to make lakes, they have to make gardens. They have to make roads, airports -- and there was so much to do that in the morning they will start with meditation, one hour meditation, and then the whole day there was work. And in the night they will sing and dance and play their guitars....

It looks almost a dream has come true. And this was the reason that politicians became afraid, that if --

and people started coming to see, "What is happening? Why these people are so happy? They work so hard and yet they have energy enough in the night to dance and sing -- what has happened to them?" And they have started asking the politicians. We had invited the politicians to come -- the president, the governor, the attorney general, to come -- and be our guests and just see what is happening. And what is happening can happen everywhere, because these are the same human beings as everywhere are. Nobody turned up.

Q: ON ANOTHER SUBJECT; CAN YOU EXPLAIN BRIEFLY THE CONNECTION BETWEEN

MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALITY, AS YOU SEE IT?

A: In fact I do not divide them. The moment you divide them it becomes impossible to join them. For example, your body and soul are already functioning in absolute synchronicity; there is no division. The existence and life are absolutely one. So to me, matter is the outside of spirit and spirit is the innermost core of matter -- I do not divide them. It is all one.

Q: WELL, I GUESS WHAT I WANT YOU TO TALK ABOUT IS, UM, IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF

AFFLUENCE, AND WHY DO THE PRESS SAY THAT YOU DISLIKE THE POOR.

A: If a doctor dislikes the disease, nobody condemns him. Do you think a doctor should praise and worship a disease? I hate poverty, but not the poor man -- I want the poor man not to be poor. But I am bound to be misunderstood because there are people like Jesus who say, "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." I cannot say that. This is a very cunning solace to the poor, to remain poor and to wait after death for the reward.

I am against poverty in all its dimensions. Existence believes in affluence -- so many birds; what is the necessity? So many flowers; what is the necessity? So many stars; what is the necessity? So many trees; what is the necessity? Existence goes on growing, expanding. It is a clearcut indication that whoever truly lives will expand in all dimensions. He will have the highest quality of consciousness and the highest quality of consciousness depends on the best quality of food, on the best quality of clothes, on the best quality of housing. I do not take these things separate. They are all together. I am against poverty, Mahatma Gandhi is not. He says poor are the children of God. If that is true then we should increase poverty more, because children of God should not be decreased, they should be increased. And if blessed are the poor, then the rich should also be forced to be poor; otherwise they won't enter into the kingdom of God.

Q: WELL, WHAT IS YOUR PRINCIPAL OBJECTION TO MOTHER TERESA?

A: Simply the same that is against all religions. These people -- the pope, or Teresa, or Mahatma Gandhi

-- they are all against birth control, against the pill, against abortion. And this is their strategy of creating more poverty. And all religions need poor people, because only poor people can be converted. Now, Mother Teresa on the surface seems to be serving the orphans but basically it is transforming, converting the orphans into Catholic religion.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO WORLD POVERTY?

A: My solution is very simple. These are not solutions at all. These people are creating poverty, in the name of God. I was talking to a cardinal who told me that it is against God to use birth control methods. I said to him that, "Your definition of God is that He is omnipotent, all-powerful. If He can make the whole existence out of nothing, can't He make the small pill disappear?"

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Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO ABOUT ALL THESE POOR PEOPLE, FIVE HUNDRED MILLION

POOR PEOPLE?

A: It is very simple, my idea is very simple.

One thing is population for twenty to thirty years completely be stopped from growing. People who are above seventy-five and are feeling absolutely useless, don't want to live, they should not be forced to live.

Every hospital should produce facilities for these people to die peacefully, silently, happily. All kinds of birth control methods should be used -- I have heard now they have a pill for men also, so there is no problem that just the woman has to use the pill; man can also use it.

Secondly, the poverty is there because most of the nations' wealth -- every nation's wealth -- goes to the war. Nuclear weapons, atomic weapons -- they are the cause of poverty. So my second thing is that all nations should stop war manufacturing machines. If they really want the poverty to disappear, then every scientific effort should be for creativity, productivity, not for destruction and death. And it is so simple: seventy-five percent of the income of the nations is going into war. And you want people to be rich! Even the richest country like America has thirty million street people, beggars. If America cannot afford to provide for thirty million people food and shelter and clothes, what about a country like India?

And still, Ronald Reagan is going on piling up nuclear weapons -- in fact, almost against the whole world. He has put many billions of dollars in a project to protect America by certain latest developments that can divert any nuclear weapon that is coming towards America. So now America is surrounded by a network which you will not see, nobody will see -- but any nuclear weapon coming towards America will be immediately thrown back. Now, it may fall anywhere.

Now, this is something against the whole world. Now America is treating itself aloof and alone against the whole world. It is not fighting against Soviet Union, it is fighting against the whole world.

Q: ON ANOTHER SUBJECT, ON SHEELA... WHAT WENT WRONG? WHERE IT BEGAN TO GO

WRONG WITH SHEELA AND YOU, AND WHAT WAS THE BASIS OF IT?

A: No, nothing went wrong. It is just human.

For three and a half years I was silent and in isolation. I gave her all power, and power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. For three and a half years she had all the power; she was the only person to see me, I was not meeting sannyasins. I was not talking to anybody else.

When I decided to speak again she was against it. Her excuse was that it will... my health is now good and again if I start speaking, my health will be ruined.

I said to her, that "Even if I live five years longer, without speaking it will be meaningless. Whether I die today or after twenty years it does not matter. What matters is that my philosophy is incomplete and I want to complete it before I leave the body. So I would rather like to die five years before, but I am going to speak from tomorrow morning."

The whole commune was happy, they were dancing in the streets. Because they were thinking that I was never going to speak again. Only Sheela and her small gang of people that has become powerful in these three and a half years, they were sad.

First, the reason of their sadness was that for three and half years she was my representative to the television, to the radio, to the newspapers; and she has become a celebrity. And it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to descend from celebrity and to become just an ordinary sannyasin like everybody else. That was one of the most wounding thing to her.

She started going to Europe, on any excuse, that "Communes need me there..." or Australia, or India or Nepal -- wherever we have communes she will find some excuse, that "they need me there." As I started speaking she was almost absent in America.

And finally when she came, she wrote me a note that "I don't feel anymore excitement here as I feel in Europe, as I feel in Australia." I said, "It is understandable -- but you had not come to me to feel excitement, you had come to me to feel ecstasy. You have forgotten completely that excitement is not the thing."

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Query:-

Q: ON AMERICAN TELEVISION, YOU SAID THAT THE REASON... ONE OF THE REASONS THAT

THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH SHEELA WAS BECAUSE SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO HAVE SEX

WITH YOU, BUT YOU...

A: That was just a joke...

Q: NONE OF THAT WAS TRUE?

A: No.

Q: ARE YOU SORRY YOU SAID THAT?

A: No, I'm never sorry about anything.

Q: YOU ALSO COMPARED HER TO ADOLF HITLER AND CALLED HER A BITCH AND

EVERYTHING.... DO YOU STILL FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT HER?

A: She proved.... She proved a bitch.

Q: WHY DIDN'T YOU SEE THIS EARLIER?

A: Because I was not seeing anything.

Q: RIGHT. SHE ALSO ALLEGED THAT THERE WAS A LOT OF DRUG USE ON THE RANCH AND

THAT YOU WERE ON DRUGS.

A: That's absolutely nonsense. Now she is trying to say as many lies she can say. But if she had guts she should not have escaped, and faced me. I had called her to come to me and say it. She did not come to me, she escaped without facing me.

Q: DO YOU THINK SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH YOU? OR WAS SHE A MAN-HATER AS YOU SAID

ON THE TELEVISION?

A: I think she is a man-hater. She was raped when she was fourteen, and raped by a man who was his father's friend, of the age of her father. And she got pregnant -- and at that time in India abortion was illegal, so abortion was to be done in a very secret way, illegal way. And that whole thing remained in her mind.

She tried hard to get out of it, but the image of man became difficult to her. And she was almost encircled by homosexuals, never by men, but homosexuals.

Q: MALE HOMOSEXUALS...

A: Male homosexuals, because they were not a threat to her in any way.

And when I started speaking, then many more informations came to me, which she has been doing, illegally. And the day she left, hundreds of informations came to me -- because people were afraid of her, 1/08/07

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she was throwing people, she tried to kill people. She tried to kill Devaraj, my personal physician. She tried to kill Vivek, my caretaker.

Q: THERE WAS AN ARTICLE IN A MAGAZINE CALLED THIS WEEK, AN INDIAN MAGAZINE

WHICH SAID SHE HAD VIDEOTAPED PEOPLE AT THE RANCH IN LOVEMAKING AND THE OTHER

THING WAS THAT SHE HAD BEEN SPREADING AIDS TRYING TO SPREAD AIDS.

A: Yes, that is true, because she was trying to cultivate the virus. That's why a called her a bitch, because slowly slowly she started getting into very fascist actions.

For example, she tried to poison a whole city reservoir, she burned the planning office of Wasco County. She tried to poison the attorney of Jefferson County, she tried to poison on of the judges of Wasco County. She tried to kill even sannyasins -- whoever was in her way. "Finish the person" was her attitude.

And when I became aware of all these things, there was no other way for her to escape silently; otherwise I will give her to the police. I would have given her to the police. And immediately I called the police -- state police, federal police, FBI -- and told them to explore the whole commune, what else she has done.

She has bugged the whole hotel, one forty-five rooms. She has bugged my own room, she has bugged Hasya's whole house. She has bugged many people's house -- whomsoever she was afraid that they may be competitor in some way, or more intelligent than her, can run the commune in a better way -- she has bugged all those houses. She was taping all the phones.

For four weeks all the police -- state, federal and FBI -- they were our guests and we allowed them to find out everything. In her own house, she has made underneath her room another room and a tunnel which opened near the airport; you can keep the aeroplane there. Even if the police is surrounding your house, you can get out.

When I said her a bitch, I really meant it. It was not a joke. She has stolen money from the commune, nearabout fifty million dollars...

Q: SHE TOOK FIFTY MILLION WITH HER TO GERMANY?

A: Those fifty million are somewhere in Switzerland, in her name. And she went and married a Swiss sannyasin -- that too, a homosexual. She was married to an American. Without divorcing him, she married a Swiss sannyasin just to get the Swiss passport and Swiss citizenship to legalize her all money that she has managed to put in Swiss banks.

She went to Nepal with a false man to get the divorce, the false man pretending to be her American husband. Just we came to know from our sannyasins from Nepal that what Sheela is doing. So we sent her real husband there to prevent the whole process!

Q: WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COLOR RED?

A: No significance.

Q: WHY DO THEY ALL WEAR IT?

A: It was choosen for a particular purpose: I wanted to make to the world known that these people have dropped all conditions of the past; religions, nations. They are no more part of any crowd, they are individuals. It was just to indicate that.

Q: DO YOU FEEL BADLY ABOUT YOUR DISCIPLES OUT AT THE RANCH IN OREGON, THAT

THEY'RE ALL LEAVING NOW?

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A: No, there is no question of feeling bad, because I never feel bad about anything. If they feel good leaving, that's perfectly right. And what they will do without me? -- they were there for me, not for the ranch.

Q: WELL, DO YOU FEEL BAD THAT YOU HAVE ABANDONED THEM?

A: No, I have not abandoned anybody. They have told me to leave the country as soon as possible, because they were worried that I may be tortured more -- and torturing me, they could torture thousands of my people.

Q: DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR RELIGION, YOUR PHILOSOPHY IS GOING TO DIE OUT NOW

BECAUSE THE RANCH HAS CLOSED DOWN?

A: No, nothing. It is going to become stronger. In every challenge things become stronger. Now my people feel more closer to me. And the people who were just sympathizers are no more sympathizers, they want to become sannyasins. And they can see that I have been mistreated because I was not a Christian, and because I was in a position to put the whole American government to shame.

Q: DO YOU FEEL THAT JESUS WAS ENLIGHTENED?

A: No.

Q: WHY NOT?

A: For the simple reason that he was talking nonsense. No enlightened person can talk such nonsense, that "I am the only begotten son of God." Can you say that?

Q: NO... YOU HAVE SAID BEFORE THAT YOU WERE A GOD AND NOW YOU SAY YOU'RE NOT A GOD...

A: No, I have never said. I have never said that I am a god. Just I was asking can you say, "I am the only begotten daughter of God"? No, even if a normal person cannot say that, and if a person says that, seems to be crackpot!

And he was saying to people that "Those who have faith in me will be saved, and those who don't have faith in me will fall into eternal hell." Even a man like Bertrand Russell had to write a book, Why I Am Not a Christian . And one of the things that he said in it is, that the idea of eternal hell is so irrational... because Christianity believes only in one life. In one life how many sins you can commit to deserve eternal hell? If you go on committing sins day and night, every moment, seventy years, then too eternal hell will not be justified.

And he says, "Those who believe in me..." He does not give people understanding, he gives them only blind belief -- "You have just to believe in me and you will be saved."

Every enlightened person in the world has tried to make you aware of the reality, of the truth. He is not your savior, he can at the best be your friend. And to call himself "the shepherd" and to call you all "the sheep" is simply ugly. I cannot call myself the shepherd and you a sheep; this seems to be inhuman. I am just a human being, as you are. Just I have known something which you also are getting within you, but you have not looked for it. As far as our richness is concerned it is exactly the same -- I know about it, you don't know about it. You can know it any moment. I can show you the method how to know it.

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Query:-

Q: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE NOW? HOW MUCH MONEY IS LEFT?

A: No. I never had any money.

Q: YES, BUT THERE WAS MONEY... YOUR ORGANIZATION DID...

A: Neither it is my organization, because I am not a member of any organization.

Q: SO YOU KNOW THAT SHEELA TOOK FIFTY MILLION, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH

IS LEFT AFTER WHAT SHE TOOK.

A: No, the ranch is two hundred fifty million worth, but who is going to purchase it in that desert?

Nobody is going to purchase it, it is worth nothing. But five years of creating and five years of rejoicing in creation, I don't feel that there has been any loss. Who cares about money? Two hundred fifty million or three hundred million -- we enjoyed those five years immensely.

And I enjoyed those twelve days also in the jail of America, you should not forget that. I really enjoyed it! I enjoyed it so much that the first sheriff in whose county jail I was, was with tears when I left. He said,

"Never such a man has been in our jail!"

Q: DID YOU TRY TO CONVERT ANYBODY OR TALK TO ANYBODY ABOUT..."

A: No, no. I talked to the sheriff, I talked to the nurses, to the doctors. I talked to the deputy sheriff. And they were so much interested in me that they allowed a press conference in the jail! And I talked to all the tv channels and newspapers and magazines... the nurses, the doctor, the sheriff, the deputy sheriff, they were all had tears.

And I said, "Why you are feeling so sad?" They said, "We will never see you again." I said, "That's not difficult -- with this dirty government in the power, I can enter any moment in America and they will catch me and I will enter in Carolina so I will end up in your jail, you don't be worried about it. That is very simple to manage."

But that was the only jail, in Carolina, which was human. After that I had in four other jails -- which much have been pressurized by the politicians; that sheriff was a man not to be pressurized. He told me, that

"There is great pressure, and I am afraid they may remove you from this jail. Particularly the press conference in the jail... they have all freaked out."

And that's what happened. They went on lying to me, that "We are taking you to the airport for Oregon."

And they will take me to another jail. And they tried their best to harass me, of course indirectly -- because directly they could not do anything because the whole world media was watching. Every jail was surrounded by cameras and newspaper people and they knew that if anything happens to me they will be condemned, the whole America will be condemned. And thousands of telegrams to every jail, the whole day thousands of phones and thousands of flowers -- the jailers started asking me, "What we should do with these flowers? We don't have space!" And I said, "Go on sending them to the schools, small childrens, from me. To all the institutions you send them, from me."

In the second jail the forced me to write my name as "David Washington."

Q: WHY DID THEY DO THAT?

A: That's what I asked the U.S. Marshall, that "What are you intending to do? You want me to force under a... to sign under a false name so that you can tell to the press people and to the world that I am not 1/08/07

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here and then you can even kill me, and no trace will be found, because I have never been to your jail."

I told him that "You are the law enforcing authority; under what law it comes that a man should be forced to sign under some other name which is not his name? And I don't think you are retarded, you are perfectly intelligent, educated. On your coat is written `Department of Justice.' At least take this coat off before you ask me to sign under a false name. And I will not write with my own handwriting, you write."

He could not follow my strategy. I made him write "David Washington" and every information; I said, "I will only sign it." I signed in Hindi so he could not understand what I am writing. And I told him that

"Tomorrow morning you will see on the tv and on all newspapers that I have been forced illegally to sign under David Washington."

Because one girl was being released... I just made her a sign and she understood. She went out and released to the press. Tomorrow morning it was all over the world that I have been forced, so if anybody wants me -- phone David Washington, inquire about David Washington, send flowers to David Washington.

Twelve days simply they came, forced me to move from one jail to another. It was absolutely unnecessary, because the place from Carolina to Oregon was not more than eight hours flight, or six hours flight. For six hours flight it took twelve days -- even the pilot of the aeroplane told me that "We feel sad; it has never happened before. It is happening before because of you. They suddenly change the route so that you have to stay in a jail, when again the plane comes."

I said, "How long they can do it? They are just foolish, it does not matter." They are trying everything, because I am allergic -- they are putting me with people who are continuously smoking, my eyes are full of tears. They are putting me by two television sets; from six they start them up to twelve o' night... and when the televisions stop then the inmates they must have been putting, they start talking loudly from cell to cell.

They did not allow me for twelve days to sleep.

But I enjoyed it in a way, that although they did everything I was not affected at all. It was really a great experience -- I am obliged to them -- that my clarity, my light, my integrity remained the same. My weight went down, my body was in trouble, my back was hurting, my throat was choking with the smoke, but I was a witness only. So I think no enlightened person has ever before been in such a beautiful experience in then United States of America.

And what you were asking.... I am absolutely innocent. I have not committed any crime. But the problem was that the Oregon government and the politicians who were behind the whole scene were ready for my bail only if I accept that I am guilty. Then the case can be dropped, then the fine can be put immediately.

And my people and my attorneys' concern was that "If you say that you are not guilty -- and we know you are not guilty, and that's what you want to say, that you are not guilty and you want to fight -- but the fight will become a harassment to all your people -- because they will keep you in jail. You will win finally, but it may take four years, five years; they will postpone, they will do everything to prolong it. You will win, but they would have punished you already."

And looking at my people -- who were fasting for twelve days, not eating -- and seeing all the letters and telegrams from all over the world, I felt that for compassion's sake, if I speak one lie in my life I don't think it is going to be a problem. So I accepted, I said "Okay, I am guilty."

They were not thinking that I will say that, knowing me. So really they are in a shock because now I am out of their reach. And the judge has made it even more clear -- the judge was really a nice and fair man --

he has made it even more difficult for them. Five years I cannot enter America -- that is for my safety; I could see in his eyes that it is for my safety. So now even if the government wants, I cannot enter America.

So I accepted to be guilty just for the compassion of all my people; otherwise they will be for five years unnecessarily tortured. And just for a single thing....

Q: SO YOU ACCEPTED THE IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS AND THE...

A: They had a list, all kinds of violations. I had not even listened because when I am going to say I am guilty what does it matter how many things you read?

Q: SO YOU PLED GUILTY TO ALL OF THEM...

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A: I simply said, "You go on reading it. When you have finished, I can give my statement." And I said,

"I am guilty." I don't remember what... eighteen or twenty things they had on me, none of which is true.

But the situation was such that if I had to fight, I could. But my people would have suffered.

NOTES FROM ELIZABETH MILLER ON MISSING SECTION, BEGINNING WITH QUESTION: HOW

DID THE EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES CHANGE YOU, YOURSELF?

A: It created a great jealousy among the politicians. What we had managed to do in four years they had not been able to manage in three hundred years. As far as I am concerned, I am beyond being changed. I was only a witness of all this.

Q: DESCRIBING THE EXPERIENCE OF MARCH 21, 1953

A: It is the most difficult thing to describe. I had been meditating for years. My whole interest had been to know myself. I tried all the methods that are available in the scriptures; and when all the efforts and all the methods were finished -- there are one hundred twelve methods of meditation -- a moment came that I dropped all methods, all efforts, just out of sheer exhaustion. And that was the night that it happened because I was for the first time totally relaxed. I had nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. I was for the first time in the moment, unmotivated, and it had happened out of nowhere. I became full of light inside; a great silence and a tremendous dignity and a light that has remained with me since then, every moment of my life.

That light has given me a clarity; now I do not live by any rules.

Wherever it leads....

Q: I ASKED WHERE HE WAS WHEN IT HAPPENED. He said he was under a tree in a garden at night, leaning his back against a tree to rest. The tree was a mulshree tree.

Q: HOW IS YOUR EXPERIENCE SIMILAR TO BUDDHA'S EXPERIENCE?

A: It is exactly the same. His experience cannot be different because you disappear and the universe takes you over. The experience of Buddha may be different, his language may be different. My experience may be different, it has to be different. Twenty-five centuries have not gone in vain. But the experience is the same.

Q: "HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE CLOSE TO ENLIGHTENMENT AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES?"

A: Two hundred people are very close to enlightenment, all over the world.

"WHEN WILL THAT HAPPEN?"

A: It can happen any moment.

"ARE THERE ANY DISCIPLES HERE WHO ARE VERY CLOSE, IN THIS GROUP?"

A: Two are close, but it can happen anywhere.

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Q: I ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN HOW HIS SEXUAL PHILOSOPHY WAS SIMILAR TO TANTRIC

PHILOSOPHY...

A: All the religions have exploited humanity by teaching the repression of sex. The strategy is simple: religions condemn sex as sin, and you cannot drop it; you try and you fail. But the more you fail, the more guilt arises in you, and to make a man guilty is the basic strategy of the priesthood, because the guilty person is bound to come to the priest. Just as the patient goes to the doctor, the guilty goes to the priest.

And the most simple process of creating guilt is to put you against some energy which is your own. Sex is the only energy you have; you are born of sex, your every cell is made of sexual energy.

Tantra is the only philosophy which has been very humanistic; it did not create guilt, on the contrary, it created a deep acceptance of your sexual energy. Because only through your acceptance is there a possibility of transformation, and tantra succeeded in transforming my people's lives.

Q: BUT IN TANTRIC PHILOSOPHY THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN ORGASM... IF YOU HAVE ORGASM

YOU HAVE FAILED IN THE GOAL OF ULTIMATE UNION AND SPIRITUALITY.

A: Tantra has two traditions: the right tradition and the left tradition. And unfortunately, I am always a leftist. The right tradition is against orgasm; that means it has compromised with the traditions of the religions.

Again the guilt has been created....

The leftist tradition is not even mentioned, but it has lived. But it has produced eighty-four siddhas. It is not against orgasm. On the contrary, it is being in an orgasm, but being a witness to it: "Don't be lost in it, rise above it, it is happening in your body. It is still something."

My approach is similar to the leftist school of tantra, which is a rejected, unpopular philosophy. Again, unfortunately I am always standing for unpopular causes.

Q: YOU HAVE SAID THAT YOU HAVE LOVED MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE...

A: I have loved much and have been loved much.

Q: HAS THERE BEEN ANYONE THAT YOU HAVE LOVED MORE INTENSELY?

A: Everybody is so unique...

(Rest exists on first part of transcript.)

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #22

Chapter title: None

1 December 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8512015

ShortTitle: LAST422

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Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH ANAND BAZAR PATHIKA, CALCUTTA

Q: HOW ARE YOU PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY AFTER YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE USA?

A: It is a very complicated question. It looks very simple....

Man can be divided in three layers: physical, psychological, spiritual -- and there is one more, which has never been named by the mystics down the ages; in India it is called the turiya. In English, we can call it

"the fourth." And I call my way also the way of the fourth.

I am the fourth, you are also the fourth. One may know it, one may not know it; but the fourth is our reality, it is our consciousness. It is the highest evolution in existence. Once you know the fourth, the other three are separate from you.

I can see I am tortured, but I don't feel I am tortured. I can see I am hungry but I don't feel I am hungry; the body is hungry and I am aware of it. So these twelve days have been immense significance to me. I really feel thankful to the fascist government in America for giving me this opportunity.

They harassed, they tortured; in every direct and indirect way they tried to hurt me, but they were very much puzzled -- one of the jailers asked me, "What is your secret? Because you are being put in conditions which are against your body; you are put with people who won't allow you to sleep the whole night. You are put by the side of two television sets -- from six morning up to twelve in the night full speed they will go on

-- and after the televisions have stopped then the inmates will start talking cell to cell. Now twelve cells are there; the first cell man is talking to the twelfth cell man -- of course they have to shout, loudly.

For twelve days they did not allow me to sleep for a single moment. But I looked as relaxed -- that's why he had asked, that what is the secret?

I said, "The secret is simple: I simply go on watching what is happening. I am not thinking in terms that you are doing it to me -- I am apart. You are doing to somebody and I am a witness, why should I be worried? You can kill me, but you cannot disturb me.

"You can poison me, but I will drink it the same way as I drink a glass of juice; it will not create any chaos in me, any fear in me. Because I have come to know that my reality is immortal, there is no way to destroy it. There is no secret, and if you want to learn the secret then come to my commune and learn meditation."

Physically, I lost weight -- in twelve days, eight pounds. Because the food I inquired always they said it is not available. Which was not true, because other inmates told me, "It is available; not only available, we will make you available."

I asked for fruits, fruits are not available. And within fifteen minutes other inmates will bring apples and other fruits, and they will say, "They are all available to us, why they are not available to you?"

Vegetarian food is not available. I said, "I don't ask anything special, just vegetable salad, curd, or milk, bread or yogurt..."

"Difficult. We cannot manage for one person. We have to look for four hundred people."

So I said, "Then whatever you can manage and then I will see whatever I can eat from it." So twelve days I was almost fasting, just drinking water sometimes....

The inmates made me available juice -- that was a miracle, that the jailer says he cannot make, and inmates bring me bottles of juice! And this gave me also a beautiful experience of the people who are called criminals; they are far more human than the people who are in the bureaucracies of the world.

I will ask for a toothpaste and two days it will take. And if toothpaste will come then toothbrush will not be there. I will ask for a soap and it will come by the time when I am leaving for another jail. But the 1/08/07

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inmates heard it and they will bring from their own; they will say, "This is absolutely fresh, we have not used; you can see it is closed. Bhagwan, if you can accept it, it will be a great joy to us."

In every jail I found the criminals more human, more loving... more capable of spiritual growth than the bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy was absolutely ugly. And with the mask of democracy, it becomes more ugly. If you are straightforward and you say that you are a dictatorship, then I have nothing to say about it. But you pretend to be democratic, and then you use such methods....

For example, they put me in a cell with a person who was suffering from high-risk confirmed herpes.

And for six months they had not put another prisoner with him, the doctor won't allow. And the doctor was present, the jailer was present when I was given the cell.

Now I cannot see who is more human -- the doctor, the jailer, or the person himself? He was from Cuba, so he was unable to speak English much. But he wrote on a piece of paper that, "Bhagwan, they are torturing you. I am confirmed case of herpes and they are hoping that by keeping you here with me you may catch herpes. I will try to keep everything clean, whatever I can do, but it will be good you call these dogs again and tell them."

I called the jailer again and showed him the slip and told him that "The doctor was here; for six months you have not put anybody here. And I am not even a prisoner -- I have not even been trialed; you are simply holding me without any trial. And you put me with this man; what do you think -- I am going to live here forever? Tomorrow I am going to be out and I will see you, that the whole world press will know about it."

Immediately, without saying anything -- and I said to the doctor, that "Doctor, you don't have the heart of a man. This patient is more human than you. It would have been far better that you should have suffered from herpes than he is suffering."

In one of the biggest jails -- in the middle of the night I reached there -- and they asked me to fill the form. But my name will be David Washington.

I said, "Why my name should be David Washington? I have my own name." And this is coming from the U.S. Marshall, and I told the man that "You are the law enforcement authority in the country. On your coat is written

`Law of Jurisprudence; Department of Justice.' What kind of justice is this? You are making me lie."

He said, "Whatever you say, no argument is going to help you. Either you sign it or you sit on this hard bench, and we know about the condition of your back. This hard steel bench for your whole night...

otherwise we can arrange a cell and you can sleep. But you will have to sign."

I said, "I will sign. You fill the form, because I don't know even the spelling of David Washington. You fill the form." He could not understand my idea; his idea was that on the board there will be no mention of me, so even if they kill me, or if something happens to me there will be no way to find out where I disappeared, what happened. Because none of my name entered in the jail at all.

So I made him write "David Washington" and every information and I signed in Hindi my own name.

He looked at the name but he could not figure it out, what it is. And I told the press that "You can go and see: You can ask, "Who is this David Copperfield and what is this sign?" -- because my sign are known all over the world -- "And how it happened? And why you managed to force him?"

One girl who was going to be released was listening to all this, and I told him, "You will not be able to keep me here long." The girl went out.... because every prison wherever they went to put me was followed by the press, by the media. And the news media immensely helped me, and for the first time I understood that no television, no radio should be under government control, it is dangerous.

Because televisions, the radios, the newspapers, they all forced the fascist bureaucracy not to harm me.

In the morning, the first news was on the video, on the radio that I have been forced to sign under a false name. They immediately changed the jail, because then it was dangerous; now David Copperfield is there. If they ask "Where is David Copperfield?" they cannot produce. And all over the news is there that I am there behind David Copperfield. In the early morning, immediately I was taken to another jail. This continued in twelve days for....

Q: YOU WERE KEPT IN TWELVE JAILS...?

A: No, five jails.

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Q: WHAT IS THE MOTIVE BEHIND THAT?

A: The motive was simple: The motive was to harass me to such a point that even my people.... Five thousand sannyasins has made a beautiful commune, a dream come true -- and they were afraid of that commune. The commune was becoming a pain in the neck of the politicians, because so many things had happened in the commune that they could not conceive how it is possible.

Nobody was poor, nobody was rich, and there was no dictatorship, nobody was forcing that you have to distribute your riches.... A simple method I had used, and that was that money should not be used inside the commune. With the outside world we will use the money, but inside the commune money will not be used.

And by a simple strategy, all poverty, all richness disappeared. If money is not used, then whether you have millions or not a single dollar makes no difference. And everything will be provided by the commune, so whatever you need you simply ask.

They saw for the first time that communism can succeed without any dictatorship, and they saw that we converted a desert into an oasis. For five thousand people, fully air-conditioned houses we made. We never took anybody from the outside to work; we worked. We made lakes, we made waterfalls, we were turning it into a beautiful paradise. We were self- sufficient; we started growing our food -- our vegetables, our fruits, our milk products.

And for fifty years the land was lying dead, nobody was purchasing it. So the question was rising all around, that "If these people can change the desert, can live happily, can live comfortably, can work hard...

still can meditate.... We started the day with the meditations, then the work; then five thousand people eating in one restaurant, one kitchen, one family.... You cannot figure out who is rich, who is poor because everybody is having the same kind of things.

We had five hundred cars for sannyasins: anybody can use. Five planes, one hundred buses which were continuously running; each five minutes you can get the bus wherever you are going.... They became afraid and jealous that this commune is going to create trouble for them, that "What you are doing?"

Thirty million people in America are in the streets without shelter, without food, without clothing. Two hundred out of them had come to us, we absorbed them and they turn out to be beautiful human beings.

For four and a half years there was no crime, no murder, no rape, no suicide, nobody going mad. It was such a healthy and....

Q: YOU HAVE GIVEN UP THE IDEA OF SETTING UP ANOTHER COMMUNE ANYWHERE IN THE

WORLD -- WHY?

A: I will tell you....

The only way to destroy the commune was somehow to either destroy me or harass me so much that I leave the country, or deport me so my people become miserable -- and they became miserable. In twelve days, many of them was not eating. This was the idea behind it, to keep me harassing me, so the commune falls apart. Because although I was not a member of the commune nor I was holding any post in the commune, but I was their soul.

And you ask me why I have dropped.... Because the same problems will arise again.

Q: THAT IS WHY YOU ARE NOT RETURNING TO POONA ALSO?

A: No. Poona is continuing, but under the same problems -- if I reach there, the problems will multiply.

Right now they are going, but my reaching there will create their problems immediately.

So I have decided, unless a government invites me, supports me, gives me the land, I am not going to start a commune. I have communes all over the world, so I will remain somewhere guiding my communes around the world. But my being in any commune is going to be dangerous to the commune.

Q: RAMAKRISHNA MISSIONS ARE FLOURISHING EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. THEY ARE

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NOT FACING ANY PROBLEMS. WHY YOUR COMMUNE, YOUR MISSIONS -- WHATEVER MAY BE

THE FORM OF THAT -- IS FACING SO MUCH PROBLEM?

A: It is very simple. Ramakrishna missions are not against any religion, are not against any superstition, are not against any politics. My situation is just the opposite.

I am against all organized religions, because to me, truth cannot be organized and the moment you organize it you kill it. I am against all the superstations which have gathered in thousands of years.

For example, manusmriti in India is five thousand years old, but still has the grip on the Hindu mind.

Ramakrishna mission has not to say a single word against it.

Q: AGAINST MANU...

A: Against Manu.

Q: AGAINST MANU SHAHIDA*...

A: MANU SAMHITA.... And I want MANU SAMHITA to be burned, because that is causing so many troubles for India that no other book can be compared. It has created the caste system, it has created one fourth of India almost in a subhuman condition, reduced them.... But Ramakrishna mission will not speak against Manu.

Q: BUT RAMAKRISHNA MISSION... RAMAKRISHNA AND SWAMI VIVEKANANDA...

A: Just wait a minute. Don't use those two names together, because to me those are totally different names, of different qualities of man. First, Ramakrishna mission: Ramakrishna mission is not created by Ramakrishna; it is Vivekananda's creation. So one thing, it does not come out of an enlightened mind.

Vivekanand is a very clever politician. If he is speaking amongst Christians, he will praise Christ. He has not the guts to criticize on any point.

I cannot do that. If I see that something is wrong, I have to say it. If there is something good, I praise it, but I keep the right to criticize also.

If he is speaking amongst Buddhists, he will not speak anything against Buddha or Buddhist scriptures.

He created Ramakrishna mission as a synthesis of all religions.

Now, for me the very idea of synthesis of all religions is like synthesis of all lies, which will be far bigger a lie. There is no need of so many religions -- all that is needed is a certain quality of religiousness, which is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. When you are truthful you are religious; when you are loving you are religious; you are respectful of life, you are religious.

That does not mean you are Hindu, does not mean you are a Buddhist. I want the whole world to be religious, but not a synthesis of Christianity and Judaism and Mohammedanism and Hinduism -- and what kind of synthesis that will be? If you just conceive the idea, it will be such a hodgepodge.

Mohammed says four wives are allowed: Now how you are going to synthesize with those who think that only one wife is religious, more than that is sin. So the synthesis will be two wives! Neither the Mohammedan will be... agree to it nor the non-Mohammedan is going to agree. Mohammed himself married nine women, naturally -- he is no ordinary man. Ordinary men are marrying four; an extraordinary man, a prophet of God has to marry nine.

How you are going to synthesize? Jainas think unless you are naked and live naked without any possessions you cannot be enlightened. Now, according to Jainas even Gautam Buddha is not enlightened, because he uses clothes. How you are going to synthesize these people?

If you ask Jainas and Buddhas and Hindus that Jesus Christ crucifixion is for the salvation of humanity, that it is the greatest sacrifice God has given, His own son, to save humanity -- all the three will laugh. They will say that "This is stupid! God who is omnipotent can create the whole world, He can change it any 1/08/07

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moment -- without any sacrifice, without any crucifixion, without all this drama."

Secondly, they cannot accept Jesus as enlightened, because he is being crucified. According to Hindus, Jainas and Buddhists -- all the religions born in India -- anybody who is enlightened cannot be crucified.

Existence is not so unkind.

Of course, in India it has never happened. I am not saying they are right; only I am saying how you are going to compromise all these people? It will be a bazaar, and everybody disagreeing on every point.

Mohammedans say God created animals for man to eat -- no question of argument, because it is written in the book of God and the book of God cannot be questioned.

One of the jailers in America, very educated man, came to give me a BIBLE seeing that I am just sitting the whole day with closed eyes, doing nothing -- good chance to convert a man. So he gave me a BIBLE.

He said, "This is the book of God."

I said, "If it is a book of God, then certainly I will keep it with respectfully, but how did you come to know? When God told you?"

He said, "No, God has not told me, it is written in the book."

I said, "You are educated, intelligent... I can write a book and can write it: `These are the words of God.'

Will you believe that book, that it is words of God?"

He said, "No."

"But then why you can believe Jesus' words? What is the difference in my words and Jesus' words to you? And if this is the book of God, then what about KORAN? -- the same claim.... What about VEDAS, the same claim; what about GITA, the same claim.

So Ramakrishna mission is a political movement, trying to be nice to everyone. So everybody is right, everybody is good. And don't bring any controversial things in -- just compare those things which can be compared without any controversy. That's why they are not opposed.

My situation is just the opposite: I don't believe that any of the organized religions is worth saving. They are too old, too rotten, and too dirty. And as time has passed they have become more and more stinking.

A totally new religious consciousness is needed in the world, which will not be under any label --

Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian.

And that's my effort. My people are not Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew... they are just people, human beings. Naturally, every religion is against me because I have taken their Jews, I have taken their Hindus, I have taken their Mohammedans and I am dangerous to every religion.

Strange fact: They don't agree on any point; they agree only on one point, and that is me. They agree on me, that I am wrong -- about anything else they don't agree. And nobody is ready to argue with me. I have been challenging them openly, "Come, face to face. And I am not calling you to my people; I will come to your congregation. And I am ready to argue with you on point by point, how you are false and how you are creating a bogus kind of religiousness" -- which does not help anybody. On the contrary, it creates only wars and bloodshed.

For five thousand years how many wars they have fought, jihad, religious wars.... And they have been killing each other, and doing nothing.

So my position is different from Ramakrishna mission. And my position is also different about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Ramakrishna is an enlightened being, but uneducated, inarticulate -- very simple, a villager. He could not create a religion; he experienced it, but he could not express it.

This is one of the troubles -- there are people who can express things which they have not experienced and there are people who have experienced things but they cannot express. It is not necessarily that you see the sunset and you may be able to paint it the way Picasso paints it. And it is possible Picasso may paint it without seeing it, and you have seen it but you cannot paint it -- those are two different qualities. And that has created a problem.

Ramakrishna knew; Vivekananda had no experience of his own, but he became the leader of the movement. So one blind man who is articulate became the leader of other blind people. Ramakrishna is left completely out. Only his name is there; neither his experience nor his methods of experience.

I have met many Ramakrishna Mission people; they don't understand Ramakrishna at all. All that they know is what Vivekananda has said. Ramakrishna never wrote a single book, never gave sermons -- just sitting, talking in a ordinary way.

Q: WHAT IS (INAUDIBLE*) ON HIM?

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He was a great man. Ramakrishna is a man one can be proud of. But Vivekananda is third-rate. But Vivekananda has become the high priest, and he has created the whole movement -- all the books and all the literature is created by Vivekananda and his followers. It will be right to call it Vivekananda Mission rather than calling it Ramakrishna Mission.

Q: AMONG THE ENLIGHTENED PERSONS IN THE WORLD -- TRUE, (INAUDIBLE) -- YOU FIND

RAMAKRISHNA MOST (**UNINTELLIGIBLE) BEING, OR WHAT?

A: No, there are many. Gautam Buddha is there, Mahavira is there, Lao Tzu in China is there, Chuang Tzu in China is there, Basho in Japan is there, Nagarjuna in India, Vasbandhu* in India....

Enlightenment has happened only in the East, for the simple reason because the whole Eastern concept (Tape side 2: gap from side one to side two)

So science has come to a peak in the West, and religion has come to a peak in the East. So there have been many hundreds. In Tibet there have been many people -- Milarepa, Marpa, Naropa.

In India, thousands.

Q: AT THE SAME TIME YOU WERE SAYING THAT GAUTAM BUDDHA WAS AN ENLIGHTENED

MASTER (INAUDIBLE)

A: Certainly.

Q: LIKE MAHAVIRA HAS, YOU KNOW, THESE THINGS. HOW DO YOU...

A: Yes, I understand.

Gautam Buddha is enlightened. It is an individual experience, and there is no way to organize it. You cannot make Buddhism. Buddhism means people who follow Buddha. Nobody can follow Buddha.

The enlightened person is like a bird flying in the sky leaving no footprints, so you cannot follow.

Amongst the enlightened people, only one thing is possible. You can sit by the enlightened person open, available, silent. It is a certain kind of energy that emanates from the person, ignites you, can make you aflame. He may, if he is articulate, help it by his words. If he is a poet, he may help it by his poetry or by his painting.

But the moment the enlightened man dies, the people who managed to create a religion are the totally different kind. They are the same as Vivekananda -- scholars, pundits, knowledgeable people.

Actually in Buddha's life it happened while he was alive nothing was written. He spoke for forty-two years morning and evening. Many became enlightened while he was alive. When he died, a council was called of all the disciples that, "We should write down what he has been said for the benefit of the coming generations."

The people who were enlightened remained silent. They said, "What we have experienced...

(Gap in tape, as if it has been erased)

... in his presence is inexpressible, it cannot be written. We cannot take part into this affair. Please leave us out."

The only man, Ananda, who has remained forty-two years continuously with Buddha as his caretaker, has listened all his sermons, all his discourses, all his interviews, he was asked but he started crying. He said, "I know what he has said, but I don't know; because I don't have any experience. I can repeat like a parrot what he has said, but you should not depend on my words because I am an ignorant man. In forty-two 1/08/07

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years much I must have forgotten, much I may have added of my own; and I don't know what is right and what is wrong because I don't have my own experience."

And finally Ananda has to be depended on because he was the only one who was ready to write, and now whatsoever Buddhist's scriptures are originated in Ananda, who was crying and saying that, "My experience is nil. I am just like a machine repeating."

So I am against organized religions for the simple reason that it prevents people from searching on their own. It gives them ideas that you believe and you will reach, that this is the philosophy, you live by it and you are on the right path. But what guarantee?

I teach you a method, not a philosophy. I give you a certain scientific approach so that you can reach to your own center. If you reach, good; if you don't reach, you can try some other method.

But I don't give you a faith.

You cannot betray me because I don't ask any loyalty. It is not a question of loyalty and faith. It is a question of deep friendship and love. If I love you I will give you the method that has given me the light; perhaps it may suit you.

Mahavira I will call one of the greatest enlightened persons because he starts his every sentence with

"perhaps." That is very rare. Even his students and disciples asked him that, "Why you always start your sentence with àperhaps'?"

He said, "What has happened to me may not happen to you. I don't want to cheat you or deceive you. If it does not happen to you, you will remember that I had said "perhaps." If it happens, good; if it does not happen, you have not been deceived from the very beginning.

And all the religions believe on believing, and my whole approach is not to believe, not to have faith, but to inquire. Belief has not to be the basis of a true seeker, but doubt has to be the basis of a true seeker.

Just as doubt is the basis of all scientific research, doubt should be the research of all inner journey.

In my vision, science and religion are two wings; but both are based on doubt -- one directing towards the objective world, one directing towards the subjective world. Sooner or later, in a better and more sophisticated world we will not have religions; we will have only religion which will be in-directed doubt, and science out-directed doubt.

Q: THAT IS SAYING SAID YOU ARE AGAINST ALL ISMS.

A: I am all -- totally against all isms.

Q: JUST (INAUDIBLE) IN A SHORT SENTENCE OF WHY YOU CALL ISM AROUND KRISHNA MISSIONS A POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

A: I call them political for the simple reason because they are not religious, one thing; and this is politics.

To me also every day advice comes from people -- well-meaning people, that if I am speaking before Christians I should not speak against Jesus, why annoy people. If I am speaking with Jews, then I should not speak anything against Moses; why annoy people.

And this I call a political strategy.

I should speak what I feel like speaking, not dependent on who is listening and what will be his opinion.

Q: SO WHAT'S THE MOTIVE OF THAT? WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THIS MISSIONS?

A: These missions are simply exploiting, as other religions have been exploiting.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN? WHAT SHOULD BE THE ATTITUDE OF

SOCIETY TOWARDS WOMEN? WHAT IS GOD AND WHAT DOES ATTAINING GOD ACTUALLY

MEAN?

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A: Let us first dispose God. There is no God, so the question of attaining him does not arise. Anybody who attains him, simply proves he is a crackpot.

The woman is a far more important matter than God.

The woman is in every way equal to man. In many ways she is a little superior, and that has become the problem for the poor woman -- her superiority.

For example, man feels inferior -- he cannot give birth to children, the woman can do that. Man's part in it is negligible, just a syringe can do that. Man is not in any way essential for reproduction, and that feeling that woman can create life must have created a deep inferiority in man; and whenever there is inferiority, the effort is bound to be to reduce the other inferior to prove one's self superior. And that's what has been done down the ages, why women have been forced to be inferior in every possible way -- no education, no religious education, no social mobility -- in every way hampered, cut down, caged. It is out of fear of man.

But if you behave out of fear and destroy the freedom of woman, she also is going to react; and naturally she has become bitchy. We have turned all the women bitchy. They are all nagging -- that is their way of torturing you. You have taken their freedom. In revenge, they are making you as frustrated and in despair as possible.

So the whole humanity is living in an unnecessary anguish.

The first thing is the woman has to be completely freed, given all the opportunities that are given to man; and it should be accepted that she has few superiorities. For example, if one hundred ten boys are born, then one hundred girls are born -- because ten boys die before the marriageable age, but those hundred girls stick. The boys have less resistance to disease than the girls. And to keep the balance, nature produces more boys and less girls -- because by the time of marriage they are equal.

Now, there is no harm to accept that that is a fact. There is no question to feel inferior about it.

The woman lives longer than man -- five years longer. If man dies at seventy-five, then woman dies at eighty. Now, this is a simple fact. You cannot do anything about it, and there is no need to feel inferior about it.

The woman has less possibilities of going mad than man. Man go mad in double quantity than women.

Man commit suicide in double quantity than women.

We have to accept things as they are, and figure out what may be the reasons and what can be done about them rather than repressing.

For example, there may be certain hormones which give the woman a longer life. Those hormones can be given to man. There may be few hormones which give women a more resistance to diseases; they can be given to man. There may be few hormones which prevent women to go mad less -- they talk about going mad more, but they don't go; they talk about committing suicide more, but they don't commit.

So those hormones can be given to man. In fact, there is no reason to feel inferior; just man and women are different. And if the differences are such that can be helped then it will be good to help each other.

And there are qualities which man has -- he has a muscular body, more animal strength than the woman.

He has more wider scope of thinking than the woman -- the woman is more interested in the neighborhood, whose wife is flirting with whom, she's more interested than she is interested in a far-away star, what is happening to it-who cares what has happened to it, let it happen! Somebody's wife is escaping. Her scope of thinking is very closed. Man's scope is very wide. They both can be supplemented to each other because both are needed.

It happened that one of the famous scientists, Archimedes, who was also an astronomer, one night, clear night, looking at the stars, was walking on the road and fell into a well. It was a lonely street -- only a small hut. An old woman saved him. Archimedes said to the woman that, "You don't know who I am. I am a great astronomer, a great scientist. Even kings from all over Europe come to learn and understand things with me, but as far as you are concerned you have saved my life, you can come tomorrow and I will look into your life chart and see what is in your future."

The woman laughed. She said, "Forget all about it. You can't see one feet ahead that there is a well.

What you can see in the future?"

But both are complementary. Somebody is needed to see at the stars, even at the risk of falling in the well; but somebody is needed also to look at the well -- otherwise, life will be a chaos.

So my own feeling is that man and women are complementary and they should be not put into categories of inferiority and superiority. They should be complementary beings.

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And certainly man is alone, just as woman is alone. Only together they become an organic whole.

And that's why I have so much respect for love, because love is the chemia(*) which makes man and woman one whole, they lose their individualities, their egos, and for the first time there is no man, no woman, just one energy; and that energy should be respected.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS, BUT WITHOUT UTTERING A WORD OF SEX. BUT WHILE YOU WERE SO MUCH IN A FAMOUS FOR YOUR LIBERTIES ON SEX OR

YOU ARE SO MUCH CRITICIZED BY SEVERAL CORNERS AND OTHER(*) PEOPLE(*). WHAT IS

YOUR OPINION?

A: The simple reason is that people have been for centuries living a repressed sex life. They have been told by all the religious prophets and the messiahs and the saviors that sex is sin.

To my understanding, sex is your only energy, it is life energy. What you do with it depends on you. It can become sin, and it can become also your highest peak of consciousness. It all depends on you how you use the energy.

There was a day when we had no idea how to use electricity. Electricity was available always and was killing people, but now it is your servant. It is doing everything that you want.

Sex is bio-electricity. Just the question is how to use it.

And the first principle is not to condemn it. The moment you condemn anything, you cannot use it.

So I was against repression. I was not teaching sex. I was simply teaching that sex should be accepted as a normal, natural thing in life -- just as sleep, as hunger, as everything else.

And secondly what I was teaching has been completely ignored by the critics. I was teaching that sex can be joined with meditation, and once sex can be joined with meditation its whole quality changes.

Sex without meditation can only reproduce children.

Sex with meditation can give you a new birth, can make you a new man.

Q: TO HAVE SEX WHILE MEDITATING?

A: Yes. Rather say otherwise, meditating while making -- while making love.

Because just a small change makes much difference.

In a monastery two monks were talking -- because they were given time, for one hour or two hour every day evening to meditate and to walk. They were thinking whether smoking will be right because it has not been prohibited, but still they were afraid; so they thought it is better to ask the abbot.

The next day one was very angry, and when he saw the other coming, smoking, he could not believe his eyes. He said, "What happened? I asked the abbot, `Can I smoke while meditating?' He said, `Never!' And he was very angry. And you are smoking. Have you not asked?"

He said, "I also asked, but I asked him, `Can I meditate while smoking?' He said, `That's a great idea.

Why waste time? While you are smoking, if you can meditate too that's a great idea. Do it!'"

So I will not say that while you are meditating make sex, no. I will say while you are making love, meditate. And it is one of the most peaceful, silent, harmonious state -- where meditation is the easiest, when you are coming closer to an orgasmic experience your thoughts stop, you become more an energy, more fluid, throbbing all over, and that is the moment to be alert -- whatever is happening, the throbbing, the orgasm reaching closer and closer, and you know there is a point beyond which you cannot return. Just watch. And this is the most secret and inner watchfulness; and if you can watch that, you can watch anything else in life, because that is the closest and most engrossing experience.

I have written only a small book. The name of the book is "From Sex to Superconsciousness," but nobody has paid any attention to superconsciousness, only sex; and the people who have been reading it are all monks, nuns -- of all religions.

And I have written four hundred books on all kinds of matters, subjects, which are of immense importance to people like monks -- who are searching for truth; but, no. The problem is they are suffering, and their suffering --

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Q: YOU WERE SAYING THAT MERE SEX WILL GO ON PRODUCING MORE AND MORE

CHILDREN ONLY; BUT SEX WHILE MEDITATING, WHAT DO YOU PRODUCE?

A: You will produce yourself anew. You will find that you are not finished as you are. There are higher levels of your intelligence, of your consciousness; and as you start producing those higher levels of your intelligence and your consciousness, you will be surprised -- your interest in sex starts disappearing, because now sex is producing something far greater than life, it is producing consciousness. Life is a lower thing; consciousness is a higher thing. And once you are capable of producing consciousness, then there is no barrier that you cannot make love, but it will look very dull, it won't give you any joy, it will look sheer wastage of energy. You would rather like your energy to create higher and higher pyramids of consciousness in you 'til you reach to the ultimate point, which I call enlightenment.

Q: SO ANYTHING WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS IS SIN -- YOU MAYBE(*) SAY THAT?

A: In fact, the very word "sin" in its origin means "forgetfulness," and that's very beautiful to remember.

Consciousness means remembrance, awareness; and sin means unawareness, forgetfulness.

But I will not use the word "sin" because it has been used and contaminated by all the religions. I will simply call it unconsciousness, forgetfulness -- which are the original meaning of the word.

Q: AND WHAT IS VIRTUE?

A: Consciousness, more awareness.

Q: ABOUT EVERYTHING?

A: About everything. And once you are fully alert, your whole life is a virtue, whatever you do has a flavor of purity, a fragrance of the divine.

Q: WHY THIS IDEA OF YOU HAS NOT HAS NOT, I MEAN IN COMPARISON, APPEALED TO THE

POORER SECTION OF THE WORLD RATHER THAN THE RICHER SECTION; AND WHY YOU WERE

LABELLED AS A GURU OF THE RICH.

A: The reason is simple.

To a hungry man, the music of Mozart will not appeal. Now it is not a fault of Mozart, nor it is a fault of hungry man -- just the hungry man is far away from the heights of the music of Mozart. The hungry man will not understand. Dostoevsky or Turgenev or Chekhov. He will not be able to understand the paintings of van Gogh or Picasso -- for the simple reason that his basic needs are not fulfilled.

A hungry man is not only poor in the sense that he has no food, no clothes; he is also poor that he will miss all that is great in life, all that is achieved through centuries of refinement.

A man who has been hungry for three days, in the full moon night will not be able to see the moon. He will see a bread floating in the sky.

So what can I do about it.

My absolute understanding is that religion is the highest luxury in life because it is the highest consciousness.

The hungry stomach lives at the lowest consciousness.

Q: SO IN THIS IDEA YOU CANNOT BE TOTALLY FOR THE WHOLE WORLD?

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A: I can be, because I can change those hungry people. They are being prevented by your religions and by your politicians to remain hungry -- because they are in some way their investment.

For example, can you find a single Hindu who is rich, educated and has converted himself to Christianity or Catholicism? Why not? Why only the orphans and the beggars and the poor, aboriginals, they become converted? Now it is in the interest of the pope, in the interest of Mother Teresa, in the interest of the whole Christianity, that the poor remain and that the poor go on becoming poorer and poorer. More poor are there more catholics will be there, and that is their whole dream -- to turn the whole world into Christianity.

The politician also is interested in keeping people poor for the simple reason because the poor people can be purchased. Educated, rich people cannot be purchased.

And as far as I am concerned, I see it so simple to change the whole poverty of the world that it is simply amazing, it is so obvious, why it goes on missing people.

One thing, no population growth for thirty years. And simple methods are available, just people have to be made aware that if you go on listening to Mother Teresa and pope and shankaracharya -- who are against birth control -- then by the end of this century India will have one billion population. Half the country will be starving, and we will not have any way what to do.

And still you go on supporting Mother Teresa, go on giving her rewards and awards and Nobel prizes --

without even seeing into the fact that these are the people responsible for poverty.

All religious people who are teaching people against birth control should be imprisoned immediately. It should be a crime, the greatest crime, to teach people against birth control; otherwise the whole country is going to die.

You sentence to death a man who murders a single person, and your pope and your Mother Teresa and your shankaracharyas are going to kill half a billion people by the end of this century in this country only.

Now the pope is coming and your government is preparing for great welcome. If your government has any guts, the pope should be told clearly that he cannot teach against birth control, against abortion. He can teach about spiritual things, that is his business; but he should not teach anything that makes this country more poor. If he teaches, he will be thrown out immediately.

Q: THAT WILL TAKE THIRTY YEARS TO CHANGE THE COMPLEXION OF THAT SOCIETY.

A: No, not thirty years. It will start changing immediately because I have few more things to say.

That is the long-range program so we don't get on whatever we do is undone by the population; so we prepare beforehand for thirty years absolute control. And for the time being, every country is devoting so much money and labor, intelligence, science, technology, to war -- which should be absolutely stopped.

Neither Soviet Union is very rich -- people are poor. The dream of becoming rich for sixty years has remained a dream, it has not come true.

Even in America thirty million people are on the streets, and still they go on pouring all their energy and their technology and their science and their best minds in creating more and more nuclear weapons. For what? Already they have got enough to kill humanity seven hundred times. Now I don't see the point. What is the use of creating more? So if all war efforts can be dropped -- and they will have to be dropped. It is a simple question of intelligence. Then the whole energy can be moved to make the poor come out of their poverty.

We have so much money and power wasting in war efforts that that whole money, if relieved, the poverty can disappear just like a dewdrop in the early morning sun.

And there is no point in war. The war has lost all its meaning. It was meaningful one day when somebody was going to be victorious and somebody was going to be defeated. Now nobody is going to be victorious and nobody is going to be defeated. The whole earth is going to be dead. So the war is no more significant, it has lost its whole meaning. It is only a question of the intelligentsia of the world to force its stupid politicians that, "You come to a conclusion, and stop all efforts of war. And whatever energy...

(Tape side C: gap between sides B and C)

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... and particularly about me because I never read.

For five years I have not read anything -- no book, no newspaper, no magazine. I have not seen any television. I am simply fed up with all this stupid information.

I am not the guru at all of anybody, poor or rich. I am just a friend who is available to help if you need the help. And that, too, is your freedom -- to come with me or not to come with me. When you come, I welcome you; and when you depart, I give you a goodbye with the same love. There is no question of loyalty, no question of betrayal.

Okay?

Come again if your questions are left.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #23

Chapter title: None

2 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512020

ShortTitle: LAST423

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.

INTERVIEW BY DHARMAYUG WEEKLY MAGAZINE

WERE YOU CHANGED BY YOUR EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA?

I am the center of the cyclone, so whatever happens around me makes no difference to me. It may be turmoil or it may be the beautiful sound of running water; I am just a witness to both, and that witnessing remains the same. As far as my innermost being is concerned, in every situation I am just the same. This is my whole teaching: that things may change, but your consciousness should remain absolutely unchanging.

Things are going to change -- that is their nature. One day you succeed, one day you fail; one day you are at the top, another day you are at the bottom. But something in you is always exactly the same, and that something is your reality. I live in my reality, not in all the dreams and nightmares that surround reality.

WHAT IS THE BASIS AND THE MEANING OF THE WORD BHAGWAN?

The basis is this: in India there are three religions. Hinduism uses Bhagwan to mean God. Buddhism and Jainism also use the word Bhagwan, but the meaning is not God because neither Buddhism nor Jainism believe in any god. There is no god in those religions, but Buddha is called Bhagwan Gautam Buddha and Mahavira is called Bhagwan Vardhman Mahavira; they have a different meaning for Bhagwan. Their meaning is the blessed one -- one who has reached to the ultimate peak of consciousness. So there can be as many Bhagwans as there are beings; this is everybody's birthright.

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In Hinduism, the god is a monopolist, he is a fascist. In Jainism and Buddhism, Bhagwan is simply your potential. The problem arose because I was born a Jaina, and to me Bhagwan has never been a god. It has always been to me the highest consciousness achievable by everybody. The misunderstanding is not only about me; it is thousands of years old.

For example, Hindus will not accept Mahavira as Bhagwan because he has not created the world, he is not even a partial incarnation of God. They will call Rama a partial incarnation of God, they will call Krishna a full incarnation of God, but for Jainas and Buddhists he doesn't exist as Bhagwan because Krishna's whole philosophy is violence. The Gita is the only book which teaches the philosophy of violence so clearly. In fact it shows that Mahatma Gandhi was almost retarded. He talks about nonviolence and the philosophy of nonviolence; and he calls the Gita his mother. He never could conceive that the Gita is full of violence.

Krishna's whole teaching to Arjuna is to go to war, to fight: "This is your religion. You are a warrior: to kill and to be killed is your life, and this is what God wants."

I myself would not call Krishna Bhagwan, in my sense of the word. He is a politician, and a very cunning politician. I would not call Rama Bhagwan. To call Rama Bhagwan is to degrade the meaning of the word Bhagwan, because he was the man who poured melted lead into an untouchable's ears because the untouchable had heard some mantras from the Vedas while hiding behind the trees -- and that was a great sin.

If a man who has reached the highest consciousness could behave in such a way, if even for him an untouchable has to be punished in such an ugly fashion... I cannot conceive of Rama as Bhagwan.

So the controversy is thousands of years' old. I am on the side of Gautam Buddha and Mahavira, not on the side of Rama, Krishna and Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi is again a politician, just with a mask of religiousness. It is Mahatma Gandhi and his mask of religiousness, saintliness, that created Pakistan; otherwise, Jinna was a member of Congress and had never thought that Mohammedans should separate from India.

But seeing Gandhi behaving like a Hindu saint, calling the Gita his mother but not the Koran his father, Jinna naturally became afraid that this man was going to create a Hindu monarchy and Mohammedans will not have any say in this country. So I don't make Jinna responsible for Pakistan; Mahatma Gandhi and his so-called nonviolence, which was bogus, are responsible for Pakistan. The Gita and nonviolence cannot go together.

Have you ever heard that in Jaina mythology Krishna is still in hell for teaching that philosophy to Arjuna and creating the greatest war in Indian history? After this war, India could never recover -- it simply broke India's very backbone. In Jaina scriptures, Krishna is suffering in hell; the question of calling him Bhagwan does not arise. Mahatma Gandhi was again playing the same role. The mask of a saint, the talk of nonviolence, and still the preaching of the Gita. Even the Koran is nonviolent in comparison to the Gita.

Even Mohammed is nonviolent compared to Krishna.

So Mahatma Gandhi did two things: one, he created a fear in the Mohammedans that this country was going to be ruled by the Hindu religion; secondly, because he was talking about nonviolence, he repressed the whole country's violence. And as the British moved out and the country was divided, all the violence that Mahatma Gandhi had been repressing for forty years exploded. One million people were killed -- and I again point my finger towards Mahatma Gandhi. He is responsible for all this.

When my people started calling me Bhagwan there was no question of me being a god. God is an absolutely nonsensical concept, it has no meaning; it is not even a hypothesis. There is no God in existence; existence is enough unto itself. Bhagwan to me simply means everybody's ultimate potential. Your Bhagwan may be asleep, my Bhagwan may be awake, but as far as our Bhagwatta is concerned, there is no difference.

WHY DO YOU HAVE MORE NON-INDIAN SANNYASINS THAN INDIAN?

In fact, I do not believe in nations. To me the whole earth is one and the whole humanity is one. The moment you start thinking of Indians and non-Indians, you create unnecessary divisions which ultimately lead to war and violence, hatred, inferiority, superiority and all kinds of ugly attitudes.

It is true that there are more -- in your language -- non-Indians, for the simple reason that there are more non-Indians in the world. What can I do about it? Indians are not so many -- out of six men one is an Indian.

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And I think I have kept the proportion perfectly well; out of every six disciples you will find one Indian.

Even if I live in India, it won't change.

The reason is that whatever I am teaching needs a certain intelligence, a certain education, a certain culture, which unfortunately most of India is missing. So if I say something like what I said about Rama, that will be enough to cut me off from many Indians. They cannot give any counter arguments, they cannot explain to me that it is not perfectly justified. But their unconscious conditioning is such that anything said against Rama simply condemns me in their eyes. I become their enemy -- and there is the difference.

In America, I have been criticizing Jesus as nobody has ever criticized him, not even the Jews. They crucified him, but they never criticized him. And particularly now, nobody dares to criticize Jesus in that Christian country. But still, five thousand Christians were listening to me, trying to understand, trying to see the point. I cannot conceive of five thousand Hindus listening to me criticizing Krishna or Rama. The Indian stopped growing long ago. He stopped with Manu, five thousand years ago. Since then he has not grown --

he is very retarded.

The Western mind has continuously gone on growing. It is capable of understanding an argument, even though it goes against one's ideology. If it is true, if it appeals to one's reason, then the Western mind is ready to drop its ideology and accept the concept. So even if I am in India, more foreigners will be here.

There will be Indians -- there are thousands of Indian sannyasins -- but these are the people who have a certain culture, a certain education and a certain open mind.

For example, it is very difficult to find a Mohammedan among my sannyasins. I have a few Mohammedan sannyasins, but their number is negligible for the simple reason that Mohammedans cannot think of any possibility beyond the Koran. For them history stopped fourteen hundred years ago. Since then they have just been living posthumously, unnecessarily. Now there is nothing to seek and nothing to search for.

My own experience has been very strange. Of my sannyasins, forty percent are Jews. Now I can understand why Jews get more Nobel prizes: they are really intelligent people, and because they had lost their homeland, they dispersed to different countries. Their roots in a particular land became loose and, losing their roots, they became in a certain way very free.

This whole century has been dominated by the Jews. Karl Marx was a Jew -- and now more than half of the world is under his impact. Sigmund Freud was a Jew -- and anybody who thinks himself intellectual is bound to be influenced by Sigmund Freud. Albert Einstein was a Jew: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are his creation. And I have been criticizing Judaism as harshly as possible, but not a single Jew has left sannyas.

Hindus don't have that open mind which is ready to drop anything that appears wrong to the reason. Those who do have it are coming to me.

I have almost one hundred thousand sannyasins in India, and when I have been here a while that number will increase. But the trouble with them is that they all have a certain idea. If I support their idea then they are with me -- but they are not really with me, they are with their idea.

My whole work consists of destroying all your ideologies so that you can be completely fresh and free and move on your own.

I don't give you anything in its place, I simply deprogram you: you can call my religion the religion of deprograming. And then I leave you alone, without giving you a new program. I respect your individuality, I respect your freedom. I don't want to put any kind of cage around you, because I know that the bird in the sky and on the wing is a totally different being than the bird in a beautiful golden cage. The cage may be valuable, but the bird is dead -- its freedom is gone.

Just yesterday somebody brought two birds to present to me. When they brought them to me both were dead -- actually dead. I told that person that he took away their freedom, and at that very moment they died.

Their freedom is their spirit.

My function with my sannyasins is not to create a religion or an organization, but to create individuals who are capable of standing on their own feet, of flying into the sky as far as their longing can take them. So anybody, Hindu or Christian or Jew, it does not matter... only somebody who is open can reach to me.

But mostly the Indian mind is a closed mind. I have never expected anything better from them. In fact, deep in their hearts they must be joyous about whatever has happened to me. If I were killed they would have made it into a celebration.

The American press was absolutely sympathetic; the whole world press was absolutely sympathetic, except the Indian. It is unfortunate to be born in India.

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Query:-

THE PRESS DISTORTS YOUR VIEWS ON SEX. ARE THEY IGNORANT OR JUST EXPLOITING

PEOPLE?

They are exploiting people, because people have been taught for thousands of years that sex is sin, that it is to be repressed. And these people who have been taught for centuries that sex is sin have become split.

Sex is your energy; you don't have any other energy. You are born out of sex energy, you create out of sex energy, you reproduce out of sex energy. All the great creators are more sexual. You cannot point to a single impotent man who has created anything in the whole history of man -- a beautiful poem or a painting or a statue. The impotent man has not even managed to be a saint -- which he should be, because he has no problem with sex. If all these condemners of sex are right, then only impotent people are blessed by God; then impotency should be thought of as something spiritual. But not a single impotent man has been recognized as a saint.

What does it show? It shows that all your energy is the same. Whether you reproduce children or you paint or you compose music or you become a buddha does not matter: it is the same energy in different forms, in different expressions, in different dimensions.

So when I said that sex should not be repressed, that on the contrary it should be accepted as part of our natural being -- only then can we transform it, can we take it to higher levels -- then immediately the whole Indian press became interested. I have written four hundred books and only one book is about sex. Three hundred and ninety-nine books don't exist for the Indian press; only one book exists, and that too, not all of it. The name of the book is FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS. They only heard the first part, sex.

They have not even bothered that the book is not about sex. The book is about the transformation of sex into superconsciousness: that sexual repression has to be dissolved, and that only then transformation is possible.

I am the most anti-sex man in the whole world. But wonder of wonders, look what the Indian press has done: it has made me just the opposite of what I am!

I don't read Indian newspapers or magazines, simply because they are third-rate -- to read them is a sheer waste of time. They are exploiting people, they are creating sensationalism, they are telling lies, they are putting things out of context.

But the same is not the situation with the world press. And the point should be emphasized, that when I was speaking to the American news media I could see that they were not going to distort my words; and they did not. On the contrary, I was no one there -- a foreigner. Even if I was tortured in the jails, why should the American press be bothered about it? But the whole press -- television, radio, newspapers, magazines -- were surrounding all the jails, wherever I was put. And it was because of the news media that the government could not harm me. They were afraid.

The Indian government is not afraid of the Indian press. The Indian press has not come of age; and in fact the Indian press should ask the government that television and radio should not be under its control.

The government is part of the news media, and it should be public. I was protected by the American news media. Even the US marshal told me, "We cannot touch you. You are absolutely saved because the whole world news media is watching. If anything is done to you, America is condemned." But the same cannot be said about the Indian press.

There are beautiful people in Indian journalism. When I see people like you -- and there have been many people like you -- I simply wonder how you manage to fit in with your newspapers. How can you humiliate yourself? There are enough beautiful, intelligent people in the news media, but they are just fitting in with the organization; they are not rebellious enough.

I would like the first change to be that radio and television should not be under government control, because they are the latest news media and the fastest growing. And particularly in countries like India, people cannot read, but they can see and listen. But television and radio are under government control.

Other news media are not available to the majority of the population; the government propaganda is the only media available to them.

The American authorities were surprised: in one jail the sheriff told me that it was surprising that the Indian government was absolutely silent. For twelve days I was tortured and, finally, just two hours before I was going to be released by the court, one young man from the San Francisco consulate reached me. He said he had been sent by the Indian ambassador to inquire if I wanted anything.

I said, "You have come too late. I am going to be released within two hours. Where have you been for twelve days?"

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I was released, and then the ambassador in Washington phoned: "Do you need any help from our side?"

I said, "What help can you give me now? Where have you been for twelve days?" For twelve days all the media were continuously hammering on one point: "Why is he being unnecessarily tortured? -- without any trial, without any arrest warrant, without showing any cause for arrest -- which is absolutely illegal.

And why was a man who was empty handed arrested with twelve guns surrounding him?"

The Indian ambassador sat silently and when I was released he asked, "What help do you need?"

I said, "I don't need any help. If you need any help, you can ask me. I can help you. You should be ashamed and resign. You could not even raise your voice. You should have given a television interview saying that this is absolutely illegal; you should have pressured the American government." But they never did anything. On the contrary, I have heard just now from a very reliable source that the American government has purchased two members of the Indian parliament so that they can oppose me in case parliament tries to help me in any way.

Sometimes it feels that to be called an Indian is ugly. Once in a while I have been thinking of going through plastic surgery so that my skin is no more Indian. I feel really ashamed.

IS THE GOVERNMENT TRYING TO KEEP YOU AWAY FROM THE COMMON MAN?

Yes. The press is keeping the common man away from me; the politicians and the religious leaders want the common man to be kept away from me. Now they are worried -- this state is worried whether they should allow me to be here. The Indian government is worried about where I should be allowed to settle. No province will be ready for me to settle there, for the simple reason that whatever I say goes against the vested interests. I am not a politician; I cannot just go on saying nice things about everybody.

If the worst comes to the worst I will leave this country, but I will not be an uninvited guest in my own homeland. It was at least a solace in America that I was a foreigner and they were mistreating me. It is not a solace in India; it is my country and they are mistreating me.

I think the press can be of immense help; just a little courage is needed. I have not committed any crimes, either here or in America. Here perhaps a criminal can be forgiven, but not a rebellious man. But about that I cannot compromise on any grounds. I will remain rebellious, and I will go on saying and doing things which to my consciousness seem to be right, unless somebody proves them wrong or argues against them. And I am always open for any argument with anybody -- politician or religious leader or anybody.

Whatever I say comes from my own authority. I don't depend on the Gita and I don't depend on the Koran, I depend only on my consciousness. But it seems that to have eyes in the valley of the blind is dangerous.

YOU CONTINUE TO SPREAD YOUR MESSAGE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD REMAINS THE

SAME. PLEASE COMMENT.

With each man becoming enlightened some consciousness in everyone is raised higher. But one buddha cannot transform the whole world; at least two hundred buddhas are needed.

Two hundred buddhas around the world can certainly change the whole climate of the human mind.

Religions will disappear, nations will disappear, wars will disappear; and man will be able to breathe freely for the first time, without any repression, without any condemnation. Man can be accepted as he is. There should be no 'should' or 'should not' imposed upon him. He will be loved and respected in whatsoever way he grows.

But at least two hundred enlightened people are needed, and that is one of my basic works. I have one million sannyasins around the world, and now I have opened the doors for more people who were sympathizers but could not change their clothes, their jobs, their families, because of the society. I have now opened sannyas for everybody. You need not change your clothes unless you want; you need not have a mala unless you want -- but you can meditate. ... Because clothes don't matter -- it was simply a strategy to make sannyas recognized as a fact in the world. It is recognized; now there is no point.

I have opened the doors, and if there are one million sannyasins, I hope there are at least three million people waiting to be sannyasins. They were just afraid of the clothes and of the mala; otherwise, they are 1/08/07

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sympathizers. And in four million people there is a possibility which has never existed before.

Buddha never went out of Bihar; Mahavira never went out of Bihar. In fact the name Bihar came because of Mahavira and Buddha wandering there; it means wandering.

If Buddha could manage at least twenty enlightened people in a small place like Bihar, after twenty-five centuries, with far more sophisticated methods of meditation.... Jesus never came out of Judea. When he died he was only thirty-three; his ministry lasted only three years. Ramakrishna remained confined to Bengal. But I have created a belt around the world. Every nation now has communes, and there is not a single nation where there are not sannyasins -- even in Soviet Russia, even in other communist countries.

There is a possibility -- and it is time -- that two hundred buddhas can be created; otherwise this earth is going to die. Politicians are ready to destroy it, creating more and more nuclear weapons. Religions are not interested in saving the world; they are more interested in converting poor people to Catholicism, to Hinduism, to this-ism, to that-ism. Nobody seems to be concerned about the ultimate death that is just on the horizon. But two hundred enlightened people can certainly change the whole atmosphere.

WHY DOES MAN NEED GOD?

It is out of fear. God is not needed at all. Man has lived in so much fear that he has needed some protection. There was fear of disease, there was fear of death -- mostly it is death that makes man so afraid.

He needs somebody who is beyond death to protect him.

God is not a discovery, it is an invention. Priests found it very convenient to exploit in the name of God.

The Vedas say that they are written by God, and there are such stupid things in the old Vedas that if God has written them, then God is condemned along with the Vedas.

Christians say The Bible is written by God, and if The Bible is written by God -- there are at least five hundred pages of sheer pornography in The Bible -- then God is the greatest pornographer in the whole existence. If you look in the Hindu PURANAS you will find just pornography. Hindus have even made shivalinga a god. It is good that Sigmund Freud never came to know about shivalinga -- that there are people who are worshipping phallic symbols in their temples without any idea what they are worshipping.

There is no God. All the arguments for God are refuted. Those who have really reached to the highest point of consciousness have never accepted the idea of God. Patanjali, the man who single-handedly created the whole science of Yoga, does not believe in God. Buddha, perhaps the greatest man who has ever walked on the earth was, as H.G Wells wrote about him, "the most godless person yet the most godly."

There is not a single argument in favor of God. It is an absolutely useless hypothesis, and it will be good if we drop that hypothesis completely, because with that dropping, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity -- all simply disappear. And their churches and their thousands of cardinals and bishops and popes, who are simply nothing but parasites on humanity, also disappear.

God is the greatest calamity. Yes, people should be godly -- that means they should be truthful, they should be sincere, they should be loving, they should be conscious. That makes them godly, but that does not make them God.

I am destroying God and spreading godliness to every human being. It is better that it is spread far and wide as a quality, as a fragrance, rather than being confined to a statue in a temple and worshiped.

When you can be it, why worship it?

Come back again. And try to see that journalism in India comes to the same level as it is in the rest of the world. It should not lag behind. It can be a great protector of freedom, of individuals against the vast machinery of bureaucracy. A single individual cannot do anything.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #24

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Chapter title: None

2 December 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8512025

ShortTitle: LAST424

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH MRS GUPTA, SUN MAGAZINE, YOUNG PEOPLE'S ISSUE

Q: I WOULD LIKE YOU TO COMMENT ON THE DRUG PROBLEM.

A: It is nothing new, it is as ancient as man. There has never been a time when man was not in search of escape. The most ancient book in the world is the RIGVEDA, and it is full of drug use. The name of the drug is soma.

Since those ancient times all the religions have tried to get people not to use drugs. All the governments have been against drugs. Yet drugs have proved more powerful than governments or religions, because nobody has looked into the very psychology of the drug user.

Man is miserable. He lives in anxiety, anguish and frustration. There seems to be no way out except drugs. The only way to prevent the use of drugs will be to make man joyful, happy, blissful.

I am also against drugs, for the simple reason that they help you to forget your misery for a time. They do not prepare you to fight misery and suffering; rather they weaken you.

But the reasons of religions and governments for being against drugs and my reasons for being against drugs are totally different. They want man to remain miserable and frustrated, because the man in suffering is never rebellious; he is tortured in his own being, he is falling apart. He cannot conceive of a better society, of a better culture, of a better man. Because of his misery he becomes an easy victim of the priests because they console him, because they say to him, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who suffer, because they shall inherit the kingdom of God."

The suffering humanity is also in the hands of the politicians, because the suffering humanity needs some hope -- hope of a classless society somewhere in the future, hope of a society where there will be no poverty, no hunger, no misery. In short, they can manage and be patient with their sufferings if they have a utopia just close to the horizon. And you must note down the meaning of the word utopia. It means that which never happens. It is just like the horizon; it is so close that you think you can run and meet the place where earth and sky meet. But you can go on running your whole life and never meet the place, because there is no such place. It is a hallucination.

The politician lives on promise, the priest lives on promise. In the last ten thousand years nobody has delivered the goods. Their reason for being against drugs is that drugs destroy their whole business. If people start taking opium, hashish, LSD, they don't care about communism, and they don't care about what is going to happen tomorrow; they don't care about life after death, they don't care about God, paradise.

They are fulfilled in the moment.

Here my reasons are different. I am also against drugs, not because they cut the roots of the religions and the politicians, but because they destroy your inner growth towards spirituality. They prevent you from reaching the promised land. You remain hanging around the hallucinations, while you are capable of reaching the real. They give you a toy.

But since drugs are not going to disappear, I would like every government, every scientific lab, to purify drugs, to make them healthier without any side effects, which is possible now. We can create a drug like the 1/08/07

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one which Aldous Huxley, in memory of Rig Veda, called soma, which will be without any bad effects, which will not be addictive, which will be a joy, a happiness, a dance, a song.

If we cannot make it possible for everybody to become a Gautam Buddha, we have no right to prevent people from at least having illusory glimpses of the aesthetic state which Gautam Buddha must have had.

Perhaps these small experiences will lead the person to explore more. Sooner or later he is going to be fed up with the drug, because it will go on repeating the same scene again and again. Howsoever beautiful a scene is, repetition makes it a boredom.

So first purify the drug from all bad effects. Second, let people who want to enjoy, enjoy. They will become bored by it. And then their only path will be to seek some method of meditation to find the ultimate bliss.

Your question is basically concerned with the new age people. The generation gap is the world's very latest phenomenon; it never used to exist. In the past, children of six and seven started using their hands, their minds, with their fathers in their traditional professions. By the time they were fourteen they were already craftsmen, workers, they were married, they had responsibilities. By the time they were twenty or twenty-four they had their own children, so there was never a gap between the generations. Each generation overlapped the other generation.

For the first time in the history of humanity the generation gap has happened. It is of tremendous importance. Now, for the first time, up to the age of twenty-five or twenty-six when you come back from the university you have no responsibility, no children, no worries, and you have the whole world before you to dream about -- how to better it, how to make it richer, how to create a race of supermen. These are the years, between fourteen and twenty-four, when one is a dreamer, because his sexuality is maturing, and with sexuality dreams are maturing. One's sexuality is repressed by the schools and colleges, so his whole energy is available to dream. He becomes a communist, he becomes a socialist, he becomes a Fabian, all sorts of things. And this is the time when he starts feeling frustrated, because the way the world works, the bureaucracy, the government, the politicians, the society, the religion, it does not seem that he will be able to create a reality out of his dream.

He comes home from the university full of ideas, and every idea is going to be crushed by the society.

Soon he forgets about the new man and the new age. He cannot even find employment, he cannot feed himself. How can he think of a classless society where there will be no rich and no poor?

It is this moment when he turns towards drugs; they give him a temporary relief; but all drugs as they are right now are addictive, so you have to go on increasing the dose. And they are destructive to the body, to the brain; soon you are absolutely helpless. You cannot live without drugs, and with drugs there is no space in life for you.

But I don't say that the younger people are responsible for it, and to punish them and put them in jail is sheer stupidity. They are not criminals, they are victims.

My idea is that education should be divided into two parts: one intellectual and the other practical. From the very beginning, a child enters school not just to learn the three R's, but also to learn to create something

-- some craftsmanship, some skill. Half of the time should be given to his intellectual pursuits, and half of the time should be given to life's real necessities; that will keep the balance. And by the time he comes out of the university, he will not be a utopian, and he will not be in need of employment by others. He will be able to create things on his own.

And for students who feel any kind of frustration, from the very beginning things should be changed. If they are frustrated perhaps they are not studying the right stuff. Perhaps they want to become a carpenter and you are making them a doctor; they want to become a gardener and you are making them an engineer.

Great psychological understanding will be needed so that each child is sent in the direction where he will learn something. And in every school, every college, every university at least one hour of meditation for everybody must be compulsory, so that whenever one feels frustrated or depressed one has a space within himself that he can move to, and immediately can get rid of all the depression and frustration. He need not turn to drugs. Meditation is the answer.

But rather then doing all these things, the people who are in power go on doing idiotic things --

prohibition, punishment. They know that for ten thousand years we have been prohibiting, and we have not succeeded. If you prohibit alcohol more people become alcoholic, and a dangerous kind of alcohol becomes available. Thousands of people die by poisoning, and who is responsible?

Now they are punishing young people for years in jail without even understanding that if a person has taken a drug or has been addicted to a drug he needs treatment, not punishment. He should be sent to a 1/08/07

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psychiatric home where he can be taken care of, where he can be taught meditation, and slowly, slowly, can be directed from the drugs towards something better.

Instead they are forcing them into jails -- ten years in jail. They don't value human life at all. If you give ten years in jail to a young man of twenty you have wasted his most precious time and without any benefit, because in jail every drug is more easily available than anywhere else. The inmates are all highly skilled drug users, who become teachers for those who are amateurs. After ten years the person will come out perfectly trained. One thing only your jails teach: anything you do is not wrong unless you are caught; just don't be caught. And there are masters who can teach you how not to be caught again.

So this whole thing is absolutely absurd. I am also against drugs, but in a totally different way. I think you have got the point.

Q: I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW YOUR MESSAGE FOR THE YOUNG.

A: My message for the young is to always remain young. Never become old. Your body will become old, but your mind has no necessity to become old. If your mind remains young and fresh, ready to learn, ready to explore new dimensions of life, you are alive. The moment your mind stops exploring, expanding, you are no more alive. You may vegetate, you may drag your body around for twenty, thirty more years. My experience is that people die nearabout thirty but live to nearabout seventy-five. Those forty-five years they are just hanging around like cabbages, and when there are so many vegetables all around you, there's no room for young people to live.

Others want to prescribe everything in your life. You can remain young only if you never accept any conditioning from anybody else. Youngness is something like sharpening your sword; you should inquire into everything on your own. Don't believe in the holy scriptures, because there is nothing holy in them, they are not even first-rate literature.

Your starting point should not be belief, but a healthy doubt. And remember, doubt does not mean disbelief, doubt simply means, "I don't know and I want to inquire. I have not come to a conclusion to say yes or no."

Doubt is youth, belief is old age. The person is tired of inquiry; he has started believing in somebody else. It is better to die as a seeker; at least you will have the contentment that you did everything that was possible, and you will have an originality.

And this is my experience: to wear your original face is the greatest joy in the world, but everybody is wearing a mask. Somebody is Hindu, that is a mask; somebody is a Mohammedan, that is a mask. A young man has to fight against all masks; he has to declare to the universe, "I am going to remain individual, I am going to remain just myself, I am not going to imitate anybody. And I will do everything that is possible to find the truth."

And whenever anybody has made this decision, has had this determination, he has always found.

Existence is very compassionate.

Q: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

A: I am always in love. I will have to explain to you, otherwise you are going to misunderstand me.

There are two kinds of love. One is biological infatuation. You fall into it, and then it is difficult to fall out of it. It is just like any ditch; falling in is easy, but getting out is very difficult unless another ditch helps you. I have never been in biological love. Biological love is a relationship.

There is another kind of love which is not relationship. In short it can be said, I am love. Whoever comes to me, I have only love to offer. I don't have anything else to offer, and I have loved millions of people.

Biological love sooner or later drives you crazy. You can go to any psychiatrist, any psychoanalyst, and you will see the victims of biological love. Suicides, rapes, murders, every crime is committed because of biological love.

Meditation helps love to be freed from biology. Then it is more like a fragrance. You feel it, it is heart to heart. And there is no question of jealousy. Now so many people love me, I love so many people, there is no 1/08/07

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question of jealousy. Because biological love is very tiny, you have only so much of it. If you give it to one person you cannot give it to another. The moment you are just love, you are as infinite as the sky, you can fill the whole universe with your love without spending anything.

So I am always in love. I love my friends, I love my enemies. Even if there is nobody, I am still radiating my love. It is just like breathing to me.

And godliness is every man's birthright. He may claim it, he may not claim it. If all the people of the world claim their godliness, their highest consciousness, then this whole world will become a valley of the gods -- not only Kulu Manali.

And as for your asking me about believing in reincarnation, I don't believe in anything. I am against belief as such, but I know that reincarnation is true. It is not my belief; it is my knowing, but I will not enforce on anybody that you have to believe it just because I know it. I will only inspire you to find it on your own, and unless you have found it, don't believe.

Q: DO YOU THINK THAT A DEMOCRACY IS A DESIRABLE POLITICAL SYSTEM?

A: No. Democracy is better than dictatorship, but in my vision there is something higher than democracy. I call it meritocracy.

In my idea of meritocracy there is no need for any political party. Persons should stand on their own merit. Every individual should choose the person, without any political party programming him, forcing him, bribing him.

Individuals should stand, and individuals should choose, and the choice should be on merit. Just as you choose your bureaucracy -- but that is not an election, it is an appointment. Your political system should be an election of merit, and the press can play a tremendously valuable role in explaining to the masses the merits of different people who are contesting.

I think only a meritocracy is the answer for our problems. Idiots are trying to solve problems which they don't understand at all.

Q: WHAT DID YOU MISS MOST WHEN YOU WERE IN JAIL?

A: I missed nothing. I enjoyed everything in the game. It was such a new and great experience, seeing human beings behaving like animals, seeing their real faces.

In the jails I started to think how Charles Darwin at the end of his life was only concerned with one thing: finding the link between the monkey and man. He missed. If he had been in an American jail he would have found the link. The jailers and the marshalls and their staff are the missing link!

But I enjoyed it to the full, I enjoy everything to the full. Even if I am in hell, I will make a heaven out of it. And that is my basic philosophy. Make the best out of the worst.

Q: SHOULD YOUNG PEOPLE STRIVE FOR WEALTH?

A: Certainly, because for centuries, unnecessarily, wealth has been condemned. Wealth should be respected in the same way as we respect any other creativity. Somebody paints, we respect. Somebody makes a statue, we respect. Somebody composes music, we respect. But somebody creates wealth, and we condemn.

Jesus says, "A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven." Now this is keeping the world poor. Richness should be respected if you are going to destroy poverty. But Mahatma Gandhi says the poor are the children of God. Then who are the rich? Children of the devil? Certainly they are not children of God. And if the poor are the children of God then the necessary corollary is to increase poverty, increase the number of children of God -- the whole world should be full of children of God.

I cannot call a poor man a child of God. I hate poverty, and I want the poor man to get rid of it. And he can get rid of it, but there are people who are supporting him to remain poor.

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The young people should change the whole movement. Richness should be respected and richness should be created -- it can be created. Just as there are Picassos, there are Fords who can create wealth. You will be surprised to know that Ford started as a poor man, and he became superrich by his own efforts. He told his children that they have to start life the same way he started, polishing people's boots. He said, "I don't want you to be just inheritors, I want you to be creators." And his children remained grateful their whole life, because he gave them a challenge to create on their own. With technology available, to create wealth is the simplest thing.

You just have to inspire young people to create. Rather than wasting their energy in frustration and protests and fighting and throwing stones and destroying buses, the same energy can make the country a paradise.

Q: DO YOU LIKE SPORTS?

A: No. It is a waste of time, and it is really a way of throwing away energy which can be used more creatively. It is stupid. Just look at football, or volley ball; it has no intelligence. People are taking the ball from this goal to that goal, and millions of people are going mad and crazy with them. In the future when people will look back on it, they will not believe that these people were sane. It looks absolutely insane.

I have never been interested in sports. My energy has something much more important to do.

Q: WHO ARE YOUR HEROES? DO YOU ADMIRE ANYBODY

A: No. And I don't want anybody to admire anybody. That creates an inferiority complex in you. I respect myself, and I want everybody to respect himself. The moment you admire a hero, you become a carbon copy.

Q: DO YOU FEEL THAT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN GROWING UP

TODAY CAN BE MORE LOVING THAN THEIR PARENTS'?

A: It depends. It can be, but only with a few conditions.

First, marriage should disappear, because marriage is an artificially created thing. It is not natural; it is man-made. And it creates a bondage.

People should live together if they love. And love is just like a breeze: it comes, but you should not close your doors to keep the breeze inside. Then it becomes stale and it starts stinking. The breeze should remain free to move.

Two persons loving should live together, knowing perfectly well that maybe tomorrow they will have to part. That knowledge, that the next moment may be the parting, will make their love more intense and more total. They will never take each other for granted.

When a wife makes love to her husband just because she is his wife, not because of any love, it is prostitution -- of course, long-lease prostitution. I am against prostitution, but marriage has created it.

And people should part the moment they feel the love energy is no more there, with gratefulness, with friendship, with all those beautiful memories that they had lived through while they were together -- without any complaint.

The only problem remains the children. My idea about children is that they should belong to the commune. Father and mother can meet them -- whether they are together or separate does not matter -- but the commune should take care of them.

That's what we were doing for four years, and it worked out beautifully because father and mother felt unburdened and the children became very responsible when they were put on their own. They became more intelligent, and more friendly to other people in the commune. Otherwise every girl becomes fixated on her father, and her whole life she will be miserable, because she cannot find a husband who is exactly like her father. And the same is true about the boy. He becomes fixated on the mother and there is no possibility to find the mother as a wife. So there is always going to be misery because he has not been able to find the 1/08/07

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woman he wanted.

When the commune takes over the children, father and mother recede and a new phenomenon happens

-- so many uncles and aunts are available for the children to mix with. They don't get fixated. Every girl knows so many men that she has only a general idea of what a man should be. If we can destroy that fixation, then we can make millions of people free of mental sickness.

But man has to come to the point where he sees that he has to make drastic changes. Marriage has to be dissolved. With marriage goes divorce, which is an ugly thing. With marriage goes prostitution, which is an ugly thing. And with marriage goes the fixation of the children, which makes them psychologically sick their whole life.

Just look around. I have come in contact with thousands of couples; nobody is happy. I have not found a single couple. From the outside they look very happy and smiling but when I have stayed with them and seen their real faces, no couple is happy. And these unhappy couples are producing children. Those children are learning unhappiness from the very beginning. This is the heritage that we give to our children.

Certainly the new man, the new generation, can change all this and can make life more of a love affair, with freedom, with joy, with friendship, with intelligence.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #25

Chapter title: None

4 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512040

ShortTitle: LAST425

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH DIETER LUDWIG, QUICK MAGAZINE, GERMANY

Q: I HAVE TO CATCH A PLANE NOW, SO IF YOU COULD PLEASE BE AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE.

WHO WAS HUMILIATED BY YOUR TREATMENT IN AMERICA, YOU OR THE AMERICAN

AUTHORITIES. AND WHEN YOU WERE QUOTED AS SAYING, "AMERICANS ARE SUB-HUMAN," TO

WHAT WERE YOU REFERRING?"

A: The humble man can never be humiliated, so there is no question of my being humiliated. It was the American government who humiliated itself.

Q: THERE IS AN IDEA THAT ENLIGHTENMENT PROTECTS A PERSON FROM THE PHYSICAL

WORLD. IS THIS TRUE?

A: It is not true. Existence is impartial, is impartial. It makes no difference between the enlightened and 1/08/07

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the unenlightened. Ramakrishna Paramhansa died of cancer; Maharishi Raman died of cancer; Gautam Buddha died of food poisoning; Mahavira died of diarrhoea; Jesus Christ died on the cross, existence did not come to help him.

Existence is absolutely impartial. And it is good that it is impartial. Otherwise existence will also be divided in classes. There will be a hierarchy, that existence protects few people, does not protect few people; that will be ugly, this is perfectly beautiful that existence remains the same for the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star in the world.

Q: WHY IS THE WORLD SO CONCERNED WITH THE ROLLS ROYCES AND THE WATCHES THAT

YOU USE?

A: Because the world is so poor, because this is what they all want and cannot. They are not concerned about my enlightenment, they are not concerned about my peace, about my silence, about my blissfulness.

Those are not their needs. They need a Rolls Royce, they need a diamond watch, and in their need, they become so confused that they cannot see that I don't have a Rolls Royce. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces belong to the commune. I have not taken one with me. I had never gone even to see those ninety-three Rolls Royces. Just, whenever I needed, the commune gave me for one hour or two hours, the car was brought to me. I never owned them.

And the diamond watches they are so much concerned is simply foolish. They don't know the distinction between diamond and stone. This is a stone watch, not a diamond watch. And this is made by my own people.

(Tape side B)

Q: YOU DON'T HAVE DIAMOND WATCHES?

A: I don't use. So many have been presented to me, or have been given to the commune. I use only watches that my people have made. If this is made with diamonds as Piaget makes it, it is quarter million dollars. It is made with simple stones, just cut in such a beautiful way that they can defeat any diamond. It has no value at all.

I use only my people's things. Everything from my shoe up to my head. Everything is made by my people. Hundreds of watches have been presented to me. They have all been given to the commune. I don't possess them. I have not brought a single one. Just only one watch that I have brought with me is this, which has no value in money.

But people are stupid.

Q: YOU ONCE HAVE HAD CALLED YOUR SANNYASINS IN GERMANY THE MOST INDUSTRIOUS

AND THE MOST FAITHFUL OF YOUR SANNYASINS. DO YOU HAVE ANY KIND OF MESSAGE FOR

YOUR SANNYASINS IN GERMANY, ANY KIND OF DIRECTION?

A: I have certainly called the German sannyasins most industrious, most intelligent, most trustworthy.

People of such qualities don't need directions from outside. They will find their way, they will find their direction. I trust them so much.

This is my message.

Q: DO YOU FEEL ANY KIND OF RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS YOUR SANNYASINS WHO HAVE

LIVED IN YOUR COMMUNE; INVESTED MONEY, SOMETIMES THEIR INHERITANCE, AND THEIR

WORKING POWERS INTO THE PROJECTS OF THE COMMUNE. DO YOU FIND ANY

RESPONSIBILITY FOR GUIDANCE OR OTHERWISE FOR THOSE NOW ARE CONFUSED AND DON'T

QUITE KNOW WHERE THEY STAND (INAUDIBLE)

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A: Responsibility according to me is something individual. I can be responsible only to my acts, my thoughts. I cannot be responsible for your acts or your thoughts.

But the whole history has been dominated with the idea that you are responsible to somebody else. A Christian is responsible to Jesus Christ is responsible to the Christian. That creates a certain kind of bondage, not freedom. Jesus himself helps, by saying that "If you have faith in me, then I will save you. If you don't have faith in me, you will fall into eternal hell." Now he is taking the responsibility of other people, and he cannot save himself on the cross. This is sheer cheating, this is sheer befooling people.

My attitude is totally different. Responsibility has nothing to do with anybody else. It is not a duty. If sannyasins have done anything, it was their responsibility. They had chosen to do it, and they had enjoyed doing it. That was their reward. I have never guaranteed anybody that, "If you do this, then you will enter into paradise." I have never guaranteed anybody that, "If you do this, then the project is going to succeed." I have only said to my people, that "Whatever you do, do if you love to do it, if you enjoy to do it. And your enjoyment is your reward. There is no other reward beyond that. Whether the project fails or succeeds does not matter." So I never feel responsible for anybody, and I don't make anybody else feel responsible for me.

There are people who have given their whole inheritance. I have also given my whole life. Who is responsible? They are not responsible because I have given my whole life to them, and their money is not more valuable than my life. With my life I can find thousands of people like them. With their money they cannot find another me.

But I don't think that they are responsible for it. It was my joy. I loved it each moment of it, and I will continue to give my life to my people, to the very last breath, without making anybody feel guilty that he is responsible.

Same I expect from them. I had never asked anybody to give anything to the commune. If they had given their whole fortune, it was their decision, and they enjoyed the decision. Nobody was forcing, nobody was persuading. They loved it, and they were rewarded. So there is no question of responsibility.

I don't feel responsible for anybody. Neither anybody needs to feel responsible for me. Everybody is responsible for himself. This gives you freedom, and this makes you authentically individual. And my whole purpose is to make you absolutely individual, that each act you can say "It is mine, and whatever result it leads to is also mine."

My own experience is that even if you fail in life, but go on living according to your own clarity, your own insight, your own individuality, not directed by others, even if you fail, you will have a tremendous contentment. And a person who may succeed, but has been goaded by others to do this, to do that, to become this, with all his success will feel himself a non-entity. He has never been able to assert his own individuality, he has never been allowed his potential to grow. He has been carrying other people's projects.

His whole life has been borrowed, it was not his own.

And this is my basic teaching, that your life should be authentically your own. So whatever you do, remember, you are responsible for it. Never dump your responsibility on somebody else. That is an ugly act.

Only this way we can allow people to grow into their real, natural potentiality.

So I am not responsible for anybody. I am only responsible for myself, and I am perfectly happy. And those who have understood me, whatever they have done, will feel absolutely happy for it.

Q: YOU SAID YOU ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER COMMUNE. YOU SAID YOU WILL BE

AVAILABLE FOR ADVICE (INAUDIBLE) ANY KIND OF IDEA WHERE IT IS (INAUDIBLE) A: I have lived moment to moment, day to day. To ask for more is not good. Existence does not allow for more. It gives you one moment at a time, not even two moments together. And it keeps the next moment unpredictable.

So all those who plan for the future, are always frustrated. These are the people who have created the proverb that "Man proposes and God disposes." There is no God to dispose, but you propose. And you will feel that you have been disposed, so there must be somebody who is disposing you. In fact, in your proposition itself is the seed of being disposed.

I don't have any plan for future. I am here right now, available. Wherever I will be, I will be available to my people for advice. As far as communes are concerned, my experience with two communes has been that sooner or later, my commune is going to clash with the government, because I can make people so happy so loving, so rejoicing, and I can create just by their labor and their intelligence and their joy something which 1/08/07

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everybody wants in the whole world. But the governments, the politicians go on promising, but the goods are never delivered.

Q: WHAT WENT WRONG WITH SHEELA AND THE OTHER WHO (INAUDIBLE)?

A: Nothing went wrong; just simple human nature. I was for three and half years silent, in isolation. She had all the powers, and power corrupts. And when you have absolute power, then it corrupts absolutely. It is just man. She behaved just like a human being.

Having three hundred million dollars in her hands, it is very human to steal fifty million dollars and keep them somewhere in Switzerland for future. That's how human being thinks, for future. Now she may live her whole life in imprisonment, and those fifty million dollars will rot in some bank in Switzerland.

That's how you propose and God disposes.

So it was just, the whole power was in her hands, and as I started speaking, I knew this was going to happen, she was, she was continuously telling me not to speak because it will be against my health. I told her that even if I live five years less, there is nothing to lose because whatever I have to achieve I have achieved.

But I have to speak because my philosophy of life is incomplete. I have to complete it.

Q: DO YOU FEEL IT IS COMPLETED?

A: No. I am completing it.

Q: SOME LEVEL YOU STILL FEEL (INAUDIBLE)

A: I am completing it every moment. Every moment I am talking to anybody, to you or to anybody, I am completing it. I am filling the gaps.

Q: DO YOU SEE ANY MAJOR GAPS, ANY PARTICULAR TYPE OF SUBJECT, ANY PARTICULAR

TYPE OF AREA YOU WOULD LIKE TO ILLUMINATE MORE (INAUDIBLE) A: No, nobody will be able to find any gap as it is. But it is not a question of gap, it is a question of making it more circular, more deeper, and my people are now ready to listen on a deeper level, not just the intellectual.

The day I started speaking, the whole commune went dancing on the streets, they were so joyous. But Sheela was sad. And I could understand her sadness because now her power was gone. Now I was available directly. She was a mediator. It is just like, if suddenly God comes, the pope will be the only one who will be the utterly lost, perhaps may commit suicide. What purpose he is doing. She has become a high priestess.

Now she was nobody, st an ordinary sannyasin as everybody else. That hurt her very much. And from that day she started going more to Europe, more to Australia, to other communes, for any small excuse that there is much need. But the only thing was that there she was still the representative. I was absent.

Last time she came she wrote me a letter, not that she had come to say goodbye to me; she had not even that courtesy to say goodbye to me. In the note she had not even written it, she had simply said that "Now I come here t I don't feel excited as I used to feel before. I still feel excited in Europe, in Australia, in Singapore, in Japan."

I told her, that you had come to me, through the messenger who had brought the note, not for excitement; you had come to me for ecstasy. From where this excitement has entered in your mind.

Excitement is a very lower thing. Everybody is after excitement.

A sannyasin is one who is not after excitement, but after ecstasy; something that remains with you forever. So if you are for excitement, certainly you will not find here. And, if you think it is Europe that is giving it to you, you are wrong.

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I can come to Europe, I can come to Japan, and it will disappear from everywhere. And the next day, without saying anything, she disappeared with her clique of people. I don't think there is something special in it. It is just human weakness, and I never condemned human weakness.

Q: THE PRESS IN GENERAL IN GERMANY IS VERY CONCERNED WITH SHEELA BECAUSE SHE

IS IN JAIL THERE AND IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE EXTRADITED TO THE UNITED STATES.

(INAUDIBLE) AUTHORITIES IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE SAID THAT THEY WILL CALL YOU AS A WITNESS. HOW WILL YOU REACT?

A: I will see, because the federal court has told me not to enter America for five years. So for five years I cannot enter America.

Q: IF THEY SEND LEGAL PERSONNEL OVER HERE TO TAKE STATEMENTS, A: Yes, I am available, I am available, there is no problem.

Q: ARE YOU IN ANY KIND OF COMMUNICATION WITH SHEELA HERSELF?

A: No.

Q: NOT DIRECTLY, NOR INDIRECTLY?

A: No.

Q: DID YOU BRING ANYTHING FROM AMERICA?

A: Nothing, just my dress, that's all.

Q: YOU ATTACKED THE POPE ESPECIALLY ON THE SUBJECT OF BIRTH CONTROL. HAVE

YOU EVER BEEN IN ANY KIND OF COMMUNICATION? HAVE YOU EVER TRIED ANY KIND OF

DIRECT CONVERSATION?

A: No; just I have been publicly challenging him for a discussion and I am ready to come to Vatican if he is not ready to come to here. But he seems to have no guts. He is coming to India, and I am trying that he should be given a red reception. My people should give him a good reception, because he is a criminal, and he should be treated as a criminal.

And in this country, wherever he will speak against birth control, I am going to oppose him. This is not going to be easy. I have told the Indian government also that please make it a condition that he should not speak against birth control in a country which is already dying with population. By the end of this century, the country will be the largest populated country in the whole world. It would have passed China for the first time; it will have one billion people, and almost half of the people will be starving. So make it a condition that he does not say anything. He can talk about religious matters, spirituality, there is no need to talk about birth control.

But that's all he is doing all over the world, talking against birth control, against abortion. His only purpose is to have as many poor people in the world as possible, because only poor people can be converted to Catholicism. No rich person can be converted to Catholicism. In the whole of India I have traveled. I have not found a single rich man who has been converted to Christianity. Just the beggars, the orphans, the 1/08/07

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aboriginals; and they are not converting to Christianity, they don't know anything about Christianity; they don't know anything about religion. Their whole thing is that somebody is giving them food, clothes, and that's enough.

I had no personal contact with him; I had few letters from Mother Teresa.

Q: YOU HAVE RECEIVED LETTERS FROM MOTHER TERESA?

A: Letters from Mother Teresa, because I had condemned her. One American went to Mother Teresa's place; he wanted to adopt a child. The clerk said that, "There are seven hundred children; you can choose.

But before you choose, you have to fill this form."

He filled the form, the clerk looked at the form and he said, "You wait here, I will be coming soon." And he came out and he said, "I am sorry, I was wrong, there are no children."

The man could not believe, seven hundred children suddenly disappeared? And the reason was, he was a protestant. In the form he had to fill, so he had filled protestant; and they give children only to Catholics. He wrote a letter in Times of India about this whole incident, and I condemned Mother Teresa in a public speech. She wrote a letter to me that, it is not that we are against any religion, but when a child is brought up in a certain religion, it is better for his psychological growth that he should be given to a family where the same religion is followed.

I wrote to her that all your children come from either Hindus or Mohammedans; if you are really sincere, you should return these children to Hindu homes, to Mohammedan homes. Just because they have been with you for two years or three years, they don't become Catholics. And don't try to be clever and cunning. Just be straight-forward, that all this service of poverty and poor is nothing but a political strategy; the politics of numbers.

She was so angry in the second letter that she said that I don't want to continue correspondence with you; but I will ask God in every of my prayers to forgive you.

I wrote her a third letter that this is absolutely illegal. I don't believe in any God, and particularly who are you to pray for me? This is interfering even into my spiritual life, and what sin I have committed that you should pray for me to be forgiven? You are committing all kinds of sins; just pray for yourself.

And that was the end of correspondence.

But I would love to talk to this pollack pope. I don't think he has much intelligence. Polacks don't have.

But still I would love. You can give the challenge through your paper; I am ready. To discuss on every point

-- spiritual or material, biblical or anything. And I am ready that, if he can defeat me, I will become his disciple, a Catholic. But if I defeat him, he has to become a sannyasin.

Right?

Q: WHAT ABOUT AIDS, IMPLICATIONS OF AIDS FOR HUMANITY, SOCIETY, STRUCTURE OF

SOCIETY AND THE SEXUAL LIFE OF THE PEOPLE?

A: It is going to change many things. First, every country should make celibacy a crime, because it is celibacy that has produced homosexuality, and it is homosexuality that has brought the AIDS. We should go to the roots.

I call AIDS a religious disease; it is no ordinary disease. All the religions have been teaching celibacy, which is unnatural, which is against biology. And when you force celibacy and the monks are put into a different place and nuns are put into a different place and they cannot even meet; then certainly you are creating an opportunity for homosexuality. There is no other way.

Even the pope before this pope was a homosexual. Animals in the wild are never homosexual, but in zoos if there are not females available, they become homosexual. So monasteries are just like zoos, where they turn men and women into homosexuality. And this goes on spreading, because AIDS can spread without sexual contact -- even by kissing, the saliva is a carrier of the virus, so for the future we will have to think that kissing cannot be supported anymore. We will have to learn something from eskimos. They rub their noses. That is more hygienic.

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of sexology, Sutras of Vatsayana, have another alternative. They say rubbing each others ear lobes. That is even more hygienic, because with the nose sometimes you may have cold, t with ear lobes you never have any cold.

Any liquid coming out of the body is dangerous, even tears can carry the virus. And it is such a dangerous situation, that in Texas they made a law and declared homosexuality a crime. The amazing thing was that one million homosexuals protested against it, in Texas. If this is the situation in Texas, what will be the situation in California. Perhaps everybody will have to protest. And to make one million people criminals, st by an act passed by the parliament does not change them from homosexuality. They will go underground, they will simply say they are not homosexuals. And that is more dangerous.

What we had done in our commune has to be done all over the world. In our commune we had five thousand people. They all went through the tests, two persons only were found to have AIDS. We made for those two persons the most beautiful houses on the most scenic spot. I told to the commune that, "Be respectful to those people because they are victims. Don't have any condemnation towards them." That is what is going to happen all over the world; they will be condemned. And if you condemn them, then they will hide. Then they won't go to the test, or they will bribe the doctors.

Respect them, they are victims, and they have to live now not more than two years; perhaps six months at the most. So give them everything that they always wanted to have, always wanted to do. If they wanted to paint, let them paint; if they wanted to write poetry, let them write poetry. Let them feel as respected, dignified human beings. They can come to the meetings, t they should not come into any physical contact with anybody.

And when the society is giving so much respect, naturally they followed. They never came into physical contact to anybody; they came everyday to the meeting. And they were grateful, because even their families will not accept them.

That's what has to be done. That in every society, everybody, every village, every town, every city should go through the test; and we should create an atmosphere that it is not a condemnation. These are simply victims.

Unknowingly they have fallen into a pit, and the real criminals are the popes and the shankaracharyas and other religious leaders. So rather than making homosexuality a crime, make the teaching of celibacy a crime.

And homosexuals can be segregated into separate parts of the city. They can be given work, whatever they like to do, some productive work, so they are not a burden on the society. And they should be respected and loved the same as they were loved before by their parents, by their friends, by their children. The disease should not be taken as if the man has committed a grave crime. Otherwise, it is going to spread. And it can destroy almost two thirds of humanity, very easily. It is more dangerous than nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are still in our hands to use or not to use, but this --

Q: ACTUALLY IN THE HANDS OF THE LEADERS.

A: Yes. But still, the AIDS is not in anybody's hands. And it is moving fast; even children are born with AIDS. So some very drastic method has to be taken, and humanity seems to be almost asleep. Nobody seems to bother. And the reason is, no hospital wants to take the risk of taking AIDS patients; no government wants to declare how many people are suffering from AIDS in the country because that will be a condemnation of the government, that so many homosexuals you have, and so many AIDS people you have.

Even in a single city, L.A., one person is dying every day of AIDS, yet the corporation of L.A. has not come up with the information, how many people are suffering. If one person is dying every day, then thousands must be suffering from it. And thousands more will be potential.

But, everybody wants to keep silent about it, ignore it. It is better to take any enemy face to face rather than to ignore. And scientists are almost unanimous that there seems to be no possibility of finding a cure.

So only prevention is the cure.

Q: IT IS A SPECIAL REQUEST FROM (INAUDIBLE) CANCER (INAUDIBLE) IT CONCERNS

SUICIDE. IF EVERYBODY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIMSELF, IS SUICIDE UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL?

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IS IT JUSTIFIABLE?

AND A PARTICULAR QUESTION FROM THE EDITOR: IS IT JUSTIFIABLE FOR THEM?

A: Suicide is part of human freedom. Nobody can force life on anybody else. If somebody wants to retire from life, it is his decision and it should be respected, and there is nothing wrong in it. And as we are trying to control birth, we are preventing new children to be born; we have already taken steps on one end, you will have to think to balance it on the other end too.

If it helps that new babies are not born, then it will certainly help if old people who feel that they have lived, they have loved and they are fulfilled, and they don't want unnecessarily to drag on, if they want to withdraw from life, then there should be no crime in it. In fact, every hospital should have facilities for people to die silently, peacefully, joyously, with the friends around rather than a person going and hanging himself with a tree, or shooting himself. That is ugly and primitive, and very strange world.

If you are caught committing suicide, then they give you the life sentence. Strange. Then, because you are trying to commit suicide, and you have been caught, now the government will kill you. A good reward for a man who was going to commit suicide.

My feeling is that birth now we are controlling; death should also be controlled. And, as our medicine and scientific technology grows, man will be living longer and longer. Already in Soviet Russia there are people who have passed one hundred fifty. There are people who have come nearabout one hundred eighty.

Now if people start living one hundred fifty or one hundred eighty, you cannot retire them at sixty. And they are working -- at one hundred eighty the person is working in the farm. As death is postponed, old age is also postponed. Then what about the new people who are coming?

It is absolutely necessary that old people should be given the choice, freedom, that if they are willing then they should choose a beautiful death. They can gather all their friends, they can have a celebration before they go into sleep, and the medical science can provide them a deep sleep which turns into death.

I am all for freedom. And death is not an exception.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #26

Chapter title: None

5 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512050

ShortTitle: LAST426

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH M. ARCHANA, NAWBHANATH, INDIA

Q: WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE FOR THE HUMANITY TODAY?

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A: Humanity has lived for thousands of years, and has got/now(*) a wrong notions, misconceptions, superstitions; and they have become its very bone, blood, its very marrow.

It has completely forgotten that a child is born neither Hindu nor Mohammedan; neither Indian, nor American. We condition the child with a thousands of years of knowing and destroy his innocence. And the moment a child loses its innocence, he lives in futility. He cannot be himself, he has completely forgotten who he is, and he has been imposed by ideas which he is not.

This schizophrenia is the basic problem of humanity; and my basic message can be, stop this schizophrenic atmosphere. Let every child grow in his innocence. Don't impose anything, don't try to make out of him; that's the only possibility he may become what is his potential. And only a person is blissful when he becomes himself. There is no other way. All other ways lead to frustration, misery, hell.

According to me there is only one heaven; that is to achieve your reality without interfered by anyone.

And there is only one hell; to lose your reality, interfered by your parents, the society, the religion, the priest, the teachers, the politicians. They all grab the child. And the child is so helpless, he cannot rebel.

Naturally he has to follow whatever is being told to him.

The whole humanity is living in a hell. No joy, no love, no flowering; and the simple reason is, we create a split from the very beginning. We try to repress the real and impose the unreal. My message is, it is time enough to stop it.

Q: HAVE YOU A MESSAGE FOR THE PRESS?

A: Certainly. The press should be absolutely free, and the freedom of press includes television, radio, and all news media. Nothing should be in the control of the government, because government has all the powers, and individuals have no powers. Who is going to fight for them, and who is going to protect them against the government?

The press to me is more important than the politicians. But it is important only if it is free. For example in this country, the press has not fought that the television should not be government owned, that the radio should not be government owned. They should be public enterprises. Then the press can fight for individuals who have no power, but the press can give them great power.

I was myself once an editor, and I resigned from the post because everything has to be pro-government.

Truth is not the criterion. The poor individual is not to be protected. Government is already powerful and press also joins with government. That was one reason I resigned. I said, "I will say what I feel is the truth, whether it goes against government or anybody."

Second thing I found, that they are not interested in any good news. They are interested only in rapes, murders, suicides, divorces, scandal. And I told them that these are dangerous. There may be a million men, and only one man rapes, and he becomes news. What about the remaining?

I told to my owner of the press, that a man has confessed in France that he killed an stranger whom he had never seen. He killed him, he was sitting on the beach, from behind. Even while killing he had not seen him. There was no enmity, but he wanted to be a celebrity, his photos all over the press, and he has achieved his goal. So giving prominence to evil, you are supporting evil. Rather than raising the consciousness of the people, rather than being teachers, you are simply following their lower instincts. You are not serving humanity. You are poisoning humanity. I cannot do that. It does not matter that a man commits suicide. In four billion people around the world, if a man commits suicide, so what? You cannot find anything else worth, newsworthy?

Those four billion people must be doing thousands of things, somebody must be making a beautiful painting. That should be on the first page. Somebody should be carving a statue, that should be on the first page. But your first page is devoted to criminals and politicians, who are really two sides of the same coin.

In my definition, the successful criminal becomes the politician and the unsuccessful politician becomes criminal; so there is not much difference.

Politicians should be thrown to the fourth page, and they should not be given importance. Who is making them great? Adolph Hitler was retarded, he could not pass any examination, he was refused from art academy, architecture academy, wherever he applied he failed in the admission examination. And this man became world's one of the greatest leaders. Who made him? If the press had simply ignored him, there would have been no second world war. More than Adolf Hitler, the press is responsible.

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brought to the people. It is a psychological revolution. If a person reads everyday about evil, slowly slowly he feels evil is the way of life. Slowly slowly he feels that even if he commits it, there is no big deal.

Everybody is doing it.

And the good is ignored. The readers think that good does not happen anywhere because there is no news. They have even created a proverb, that "No news is good news." That should be changed, "Bad news is no news. Only good news is the news."

In California universities they have conducted a one-year survey, that why evil fluctuates; sometimes it reaches a height, sometimes it falls down? And they were surprised that whenever there is a boxing match, evil

rises to thirteen percent than the normal; and it continues at least for one week before it normalizes again. Rapes happen, murders happen, suicides happen. If boxing is creating thirty percent raise in the evil, then boxing should be absolutely stopped. It is the criminal really. And no newspaper should report about boxing. It is ugly, but that ugliness gives people that you can also be ugly. To be ugly is not bad.

News media has to play a great and important role. First, freedom from government; second ignoring the bad, which is very minute compared to the good; and thirdly, creating a forum for each problem to be openly discussed. And the whole news media can be involved in it, in open discussion. That is human; it is not human that holding a sword in your hand and KORAN in your other hand and telling "You can choose."

This is not argument. This does not prove that the KORAN is right. It simply proves that the man does not want to die.

Things have changed. Christians are also coming in one hand bread, in another hand BIBLE. But to satisfy one's hunger is not giving intelligence, is not giving the right to choose what is good and what is wrong. Whether the BIBLE is wrong or right, hunger cannot decide it.

The press has a great responsibility, but man has come of age. These are primitive methods of deciding who is right. We have intelligence, we can argue, we can go to the subtlest argument, and the whole press should be available. And out of that argument, a conclusion which will be more unanimous, not mine or not somebody else's, will come out.

News media is the very soul of the century. Right now it is not so. It only creates sensationalism, it only fulfills people's demands. In economics they have a theory, wherever there is demand there is supply. The news media is doing that. Whatever people demand, if they demand pornography, supply pornography because there is market.

I want to change that rule. I want to reverse it. I want to say "Wherever there is supply, demand is bound to be created." Don't go on fulfilling the demand, because the demand is coming from the lowest strata of the society. Supply from the highest intelligentsia of the society, and create the demand. And I know it happens, even against all economic theories.

When there was no car, nobody was demanding for it. The moment car arrived, supplies arrived before; and now millions of people are owning cars. If that can happen in things, why it cannot happen in thoughts?

So my message to the news media is that you are not behaving responsibly. You are not taking care of humanity. You are simply exploiting people by supplying them whatsoever they want. You should be the inversity(*), in the real sense, for the people.

Q: CAN YOU (INAUDIBLE) FOR YOUR CRITICS?

A: I love criticism; but I don't see there are any critics of mine. They have not read my books, they can't even tell the names of my books, they are not true critics. They are simply living on gossiping, hearsay, and I have not come a single criticism which was really based on my statement. First, they distort the statement and then they criticize it. This is simply criminal. And to distort a statement is very easy. Just leave a word, take a certain part out of context, and then criticize it.

For example my book, "From Sex to Superconsciousness" is against sex. It is for the transformation of sex. And my critics have been criticizing me that I am preaching sex. This is not criticism. These are cowards. Even books have been written against my book, and I wasted my time in looking into them. They have not answered a single question.

Criticism is healthy; but it is healthy only when you first understand what the person is saying, and then criticize. And that has been the traditional Eastern way. If Gautam Buddha criticizes VEDAS, first he quotes VEDAS, exactly as they are. In fact he brings all the implications; perhaps the man who wrote those 1/08/07

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Vedic sutras was not aware. If you read the first part, you will be surprised that how he is going to criticize.

He brings the best out of the VEDAS, raises it to its highest golden peak, and then he starts his criticism.

This is the right way of criticism, and that has been done down the ages in the East; but now it is no more so. I have been criticizing people, but never out of context. And never distorting their statements. My first duty is to explain their statement as beautifully as possible. And then to criticize it. Then it is a work of genius. Otherwise, the so-called critics are just dogs barking, and the elephant goes on without even paying any attention to them.

I have seen thousands of lies told about me, and it is thought to be criticism. It is not criticism. Just out of the blue, they manage my statement -- the public is uneducated -- and then it is very easy, because they have already made loopholes in the statement. Then they can criticize it and pat their own backs, that this is stupid.

In the East we had a great tradition; when Shankara came to Mandan Mishra -- Mandan Mishra was one of the great philosophers of this age, old, of the age of Shankara's father, and Shankara was only thirty -- he came and he asked outside the village the girls who were drawing water from the well, that "Can you show me Mandan Mishra's house?" All the girls laughed.

They said, "There is no need. You simply go in the town. Where you see even parrots reciting VEDAS, that is the house of Mandan Mishra." And he saw there many kinds of birds around the campus where Mandan Mishra lived reciting beautiful songs from the VEDAS, from the UPANISHADS; for the first time in his whole tour of India he was a little shaken. But he went in, touched the feet of Mandan Mishra because he was his father's age, and asked him that "I have come to argue with you. I don't agree with your philosophy."

Mandan said, "That's perfectly good. With all my blessings, you enter in the debate; and I will pray that you are right. You are young, I am almost gone. Defeated or victorious does not matter. What matters, that truth should be in the hands of the youth. If you can prove your truth, nobody will be more happy than me.

This is a culture where discussing, criticizing, but," Mandan said "there is a difficulty, you will have to find a judge, who will decide?"

Shankara said, "I will choose your wife to decide, to be the judge." This is humanity. Now there is every possibility the wife will help Mandan to win. But that was not the climate. She will help the truth to win, to whom it belongs it does not matter. And when she is the judge, Mandan Mishra is no more her husband, he is simply a contestant in an argument.

The argument continued for six months. Both were giants; and finally Bharti, the wife of Mandan Mishra, declared that Shankara has half-win. That was strange. Nobody wins half. Shankara said, "I don't understand."

She said, "You will. I am Mandan's wife. Unless you defeat me too, your victory remains half. So now Mandan will be the judge and I will be the contestant with you. If you can defeat me too, we both will be your disciples."

Shankara was very much confused, what to do. The argument was absolutely right that in India the wife is half of the husband, so you cannot win the husband alone and be victorious, you have to win the wife too.

And he was afraid also, because he had seen the woman for six months, even stopping Mandan that you are going wrong. And the first thing she asked Shankara is that you have talked about spirituality, Brahma, God, those things are finished. I want to ask you about sex.

Shankara was a celibate. He said, "I don't know anything about sex."

Then the wife said, "The victory will remain half. You cannot declare yourself victorious over Mandan unless you declare victorious over Bharti too."

Shankara said, "Give me six months' time, so I can learn about sex and come back."

The time was given to him. This is a cultured way of criticizing, discussing; and the world media should be now raised to such a standard that it becomes the platform for all causes, even for unpopular causes. It is a strange fact that what is an unpopular cause today may turn out to be a popular cause tomorrow. In Marx'

day, communism was an unpopular cause. Today half the world is communist.

The media should give facilities, without any prejudice; and particularly Indian journalism is lacking far behind. In America I felt the power of news media.

(Tape side B begins)

Even the government was afraid. They could have killed me, they could have tortured me as long as they wanted. But the whole media was after them. And the media is free, no government censors, and media has special concessions, no conditions over it; and they managed me, within twelve days out of the jail, 1/08/07

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which was absolutely illegal, without warrant, without showing any cause, why they are arresting me on the points of twelve loaded guns.

But the media made it available to the whole world. And then a simple innocent man, who had no weapons in his hands, became more powerful than the most powerful nation in the world.

They went all those twelve days wherever I was, their helicopters, their cameras, their photographers, were all around the jail. The jailers were afraid. One jailer said to me, "This has never happened. These people, why they are interested in you."

I said, "They are not interested in me, they are interested in your illegalities. And they will expose it to the world, and how long you can keep me in? Once I am out, one word to the press and it will go around the world. You have all the powers, I have no power. But the news media is more powerful than your nuclear weapons. Why you are afraid of these people. If you want to kill me, kill. If you want to harass me, harass.

But you know, the media is there, you cannot do anything."

In those twelve days the media proved stronger than the government. And they had to bring me to the court because of the media, otherwise there was no reason. They won't allow me to phone to my attorneys, they will say to me that the attorney can phone to you but you cannot phone. And the attorney has no way to find out where I am. You have been forcing me to sign under a false name, David Washington. Now the person who receives the call will say that Bhagwan is not here. But, just tomorrow morning it was all over America that if you want to contact Bhagwan on phone, contact David Washington. He has been forced to sign under that name.

Immediately they changed the jail, then they never asked me to sign under a false name. And even while taking me out from one jail to another, there was time at least to cross the steps to the car. That was enough, the media was there, just to ask one thing. "Are you harassed, have they touched your body? Just say a word, and this bureaucracy cannot stand."

But in this country the situation is totally different. The journalists are weak, they are fulfilling the needs of the poor country, giving them entertainment, fulfilling their sensations. And, on the other hand, polishing the boots of the bureaucracy.

It has to be more human and more for the individual, because the state has enough energy, enough power; the individual is powerless. But Indian journalism is still not compassionate. It is far below than the Western world. It has to raise its standards.

Q: CAN WE DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS WHOLE CRITICAL ATTITUDE ABOUT YOU?

A: There is no need to stop all critical attitude. All is needed is, present exactly what I am; and those false attitudes will disappear. Just present on each subject, point by point, where I stand, and the false criticism will itself disappear. It has no guts.

I have been challenging religious leaders, political leaders, for a public open forum debate. None of them has accepted it. He knows that what I am saying can not be contradicted. And what they are saying is trash. So just try to present to the press what actually I stand for.

People don't know what I stand for. They just read the newspapers and the critics. They don't care even to inquire whether this critic is criticizing you on the right points or not. Is this your position that he is criticizing? Not a single newspaper has asked me; for the certain reason because it is also helpful for them.

For their circulation it is good. People want something ugly to be said about somebody, and they are not seekers of truth that they will go and find out in the libraries whether that man has said it or not.

So no need to worry about them, the positive way will be to make people available on all essential points what is my stand. And then let them criticize. Then people can see both the sides.

Q: CAN A POVERTY-STRICKEN COUNTRY LIKE INDIA BE TURNED INTO A PARADISE?

A: It was a paradise. It can again become a paradise. It has done few stupidities which have destroyed its paradise. First, the fall of India begins with Mahabharata, the great Indian war, and the man responsible is Krishna. He persuaded Arjuna to fight it. The whole GITA is philosophy of violence.

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and he praised it. Perhaps he thought GITA is a religious book and he did not look into it. Otherwise he would have praised it even more. Manu, Krishna, Nietzsche and Adolf Hitler all belong to one party.

Arjuna wanted to go to the Himalayas and to meditate. Seeing all the warriors gathered into chakra(*), he could not conceive, even if I win the war, what will be the point, because these are friends, brothers, uncles divided on both sides, they have played together, they have studied together. It was a family quarrel.

Even Arjuna's teacher, Brahmacharya, was on the other side. Krishna was on Arjuna's side, his armies were on the other side, because both were brothers, Priyotana(*) and Arjuna, and both had asked their friends to support them. Now that was the only way to divide.

Seeing the whole scene he said, "It is not worth. Let them do. At least my people I have loved will remain alive. If I win, then all these will be corpses here. Then even sitting on a golden throne, what joy it will give it to me. I will be crowned. Just let me go. It is futile." And Krishna continued to persuade him, argued for war, argued for violence, and his final argument was such that Arjuna's conditioned mind could not reject -- that was it is God's will that you should fight.

If I had been in place of Arjuna, I would have said to him, "Before you know God's will, I know God's will. His will is to go to the Himalayas and meditate. What proof you have that the message from God to me is wrong, and your message from God to you is right?"

But the poor fellow, conditioned with the idea that Krishna is himself an incarnation of God, agreed.

Millions of people died, and the best, and the very backbone of this country forever got fractured. Since then, India has not been able to stand on his own feet. Otherwise it was known as a golden bird in the whole world.

These two thousand years, India has been a slave, without any resistance. Those people like Tulsidas are telling to people that not even a leaf moves without the will of God. So if the invaders have come, that is will of God. If you are going to become a slave, that is will of God. That is a test of your trust in God. These are the criminals to me, who made this whole country a slave land. And although you are independent, but that slave psychology is inside.

It is still working. If you are poor, it is God's will. To fight against it is to fight against God. If you are poor, it is a test of your trust, of your faith. Be contented wherever you are, as you are, this is the whole philosophy of your so-called religions. Naturally, if such a philosophy dominates people, people cannot be rich. Otherwise the poverty of this country can disappear so easily, but the problem is that other things will have to disappear with it -- that it is not God's will that you should be poor, that it is not your past life's evil actions that you are poor.

You are poor only because you are not making your intelligence work. You are poor only because you are not using modern technology. And there were people like Mahatma Gandhi for whom all technology stops at the spinning wheel. Beyond that, all technology is wrong. We will have to put aside all these people, howsoever people have worshipped them, made them saints. But they are the culprits. And this is where I am in a continuous trouble. You ask, "Can this country become a paradise again?"

It can. But you will have to drop these saints, Krishnadas and Mahatma Gandhi and Krishna. These are the barriers who are creating your mind. And it is your mind who is going to work.

Now even the Shankaracharyas are teaching against birth control. Now these people should be behind the bars. Birth control should be a virtue, not a sin. And anybody who is talking about celibacy, Hindu, Jaina or Buddhist or Christian, should be a criminal, because celibacy creates perversions in sexuality. It does not make man healthy, intelligent. He becomes more and more dirty in his mind, and that dirty mind cannot create paradise. That dirty mind can create only a hell. They have created it. There is no need for any proof.

By the end of this century the population of the country will be one billion, that means one hundred crore people. We cannot create a paradise with one hundred crore people. Half of the population will have to die, and somebody will be your brother and somebody will be your sister, and somebody will be your friend, and somebody will be your lover; and you will see them starving and dying all around. Fifty crore people dying, what hell can be more?

And we cannot do anything. It is time still, I started talking about birth control thirty years before. If they had listened to me at that time, they condemned me, that I am teaching immorality. If they had listened to me that time the population was forty crore; now it is eighty crore; if they had listened to me the population would have remained forty crore, or even less. But they are not going to listen even today.

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nationalized. Technicians are available, who can come and teach and be here. The country should be open --

it is closed.

In forty seven and in eighty five, no technological progress has been done for the simple reason to protect Tata's and Vila's(*) and those people. Because who is going to purchase Ambassador. If the whole world is allowed to produce their cars here, labor is here, material is here, only technicians are needed, capital is needed, then who is going to purchase Ambassador? To save Ambassador its monopoly, four hundred percent taxation has to be paid if you bring a car from outside. This is ugly, but the reason is because Vila(*) has been feeding the politicians, giving the money for the politicians for election; and the same is true of other super-rich people.

So you see people in the government, they are not the real government, there are king-makers behind.

They have to be exposed. And the government has to be put right, that you are keeping the country poor.

The whole world is ready to pour money, technicians, technology; but one guarantee is certainly needed

-- that you will not nationalize it. And there is no need to nationalize it. Stop the population growth, open all the doors for the whole world, to open all kinds of industries, all disemployment disappears, and nobody is poor, all labor is used. And this will be only a transitory time. Within twenty-three, thirty years we will be able to make everything on our own.

But for forty years after independence, nothing has been done. The politician is interested only in his power. The rich is interested in only in getting more richer. And between the two, the poor is crushed and goes on becoming poorer and poorer.

So my suggestion is very simple. One, nobody should be allowed in the country, pope or Mother Teresa or their kind, to preach against birth control. They are enemies, they should not be here. If they preach birth control, they should be kicked out. They have their own interest. Create more poor people, more orphans and more catholics.

Now the pope is coming here, if the government is sensible enough, it should make a condition that he should not utter a single word against birth control, or abortion. He can teach his spirituality, if he has any, but this seems to be his only spirituality. All over the world he has been teaching the same thing, that this is a sin against God. And if he is not willing to do that, then tell him that you are not welcome here.

And open the doors for the whole world. There is money, there is technology, but there is not labor. We have labor, cheap labor, the same car that can be produced there in two lakhs we can produce in one lakh.

Just we need the technicians, the money, the plants to produce it. Our labor is so cheap.

In America I came to see that almost everything was ten times costlier than it is here for the simple reason that labor is not available. Even the richest cannot afford servants. And this country is full of people who have labor, but don't have any place where to use it. They are all educated people, who are ready to do anything, but no employment.

So the only way is, India becomes an open investment land, with full government support and a guarantee, not only by this government, but a guarantee for any government to follow, that the money that has come from out cannot be nationalized. And within ten years you will see. Your country is a paradise.

There is nothing great in it.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #27

Chapter title: None

6 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512060

ShortTitle: LAST427

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

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[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH SWISS WEEKLY MAGAZINE

QUESTION: I'M WONDERING, DO YOU FEEL AT HOME HERE IN INDIA?

ANSWER: I am always at home wherever I am. To be at home has nothing to do with places. It has to do something with your inner space. So you can take me anywhere, but you cannot take me out of my home.

Q: YOU ARE LIVING NOW WITHOUT A COMMUNE. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT YOUR

SANNYASINS?

A: I have always lived without commune, even when I was living near the commune, I was an outsider.

I was never a member of any commune, never a part of any commune. It does not make... whether the distance is one mile, or one thousand miles. And I have my communes all over the world. I am surrounded by my communes, so I never feel that I am missing anything.

Q: AND THE SANNYASINS YOU THINK ARE NOT MISSING YOU?

A: They certainly are missing me.

Q: HOW WOULD YOU ACTUALLY DESCRIBE YOURSELF NOW? WHAT ARE YOUR

(INAUDIBLE)?

A: Just the same as I always have been: a friend who is available to anybody who wants to grow spiritually. So whether I am here or anywhere else, people will always be coming to me. They are not my followers, I am not their leader. I am just a fellow traveler.

Q: IS IT MORE A POLITICAL OR PHILOSOPHICAL WAY YOU ARE DOING NOW, YOU ARE

GOING NOW?

A: I am not a political person at all, and that has created many troubles for me. I am simply philosophical, but philosophy is so vast, so comprehensive that it can throw light on political problems too.

And that has been my problem.

I am not a political person, but I can see a political problem and the solution for it. I will not get involved either in the problem or in the solution. But I can make myself heard by those people who are already involved in the problem. I can be of great help to them, to understand it, to find a right direction.

But I am not a political person.

WHAT IS YOUR TASK NOW? HOW DO YOU FEEL YOU COULD GIVE TO THE WORLD NOW?

A: Just the same as I have been doing all my life. I have sharing my love, my understanding, my clarity.

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Wherever I have been, people start feeling something which they cannot describe, but which attracts them towards me; a magnetic pull. And if they are open, available, not closed, then miracles can happen in their life. They have happened in millions of people's lives.

And I am doing the same, and I will go on doing the same wherever I am.

YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THE THIRD WORLD WAR, (INAUDIBLE) HOW DO YOU SUGGEST THE THIRD WORLD WAR COULD BE PREVENTED?

A: In fact, it is already prevented. The very growth of nuclear weapons is the end of the old concept of war. War was meaningful if somebody was going to be victorious, somebody was going to be defeated. That was the meaning of war. But now there is no meaning to it. Nuclear war means destruction of all. There will be nobody victorious and nobody defeated.

What all the religions of the world could not do, and all the great philosophers of the world could not do, nuclear weapons have done it. There is no possibility of a third world war. They will go on talking about it, and they will go on talking about how to prevent it, for the simple reason because people have to be kept in fear. That is the only way to enslave them.

Soviet Union will make its own people afraid of what America is preparing, and America will go on doing the same, creating the same paranoia, that Soviet Union is a danger any moment. This gives power to the politicians, and makes people near slaves. So they will go on talking about the third world war, and they will go on talking about how to prevent it. But I say to you, it is already prevented. There is no reason to be worried about it. People should forget about third world war.

WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO POVERTY?

A: The solution is very simple, but the hindrances in the way are very big.

All the religions of the world are in favor of poverty, because it is only the poor who take their religion seriously; who take their paradise beyond death seriously. Naturally, those who are living already in paradise here will not be bothered by paradise after death.

Secondly, the poor are in such a situation that they can be converted. Christianity has converted millions of poor people, not because they have convinced them of the superiority of their religion, but because they could provide them bread and clothes and shelter.

Pope or Mother Teresa would not like poverty to disappear. That is their very investment; more poor, more Catholics. And other religions also don't want that the poverty should disappear, because poverty can disappear only by two things. One is that the population growth should be curtailed. No religion wants the population growth to be curtailed, because that means their power is curtailed. Their power is the power of numbers. There are six hundred million Catholics. If poverty is destroyed, they will remain stuck there.

In India, Mohammedans according to their religion are allowed to have four wives. Hindus are allowed only one wife. Naturally, Mohammedans can have more children, and this has been a great trouble to the Hindus; because these people are growing. One woman may have four husbands; still she can produce one child a year. But one man having four wives can produce four children. Mohammedans are not willing to drop that idea although it is a simple fact that women and men are almost equal in number in the world. So to marry four women means three men will remain without wives, which is ugly. And those three women are bound to do something, they may rape, they may go to the prostitutes. Some perversion is bound to happen. Those three men cannot just simply sit. Their biology is too powerful.

But Mohammedans are not going to listen. I have talked to them that this is absolutely unnatural and absurd. It is written in the religious book, Mohammed himself married nine women, so there is a model, their prophet had nine women; and then things went on growing. Just forty years before the Nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives. So religions are one thing which are creating poverty, because their whole interest is having more population. It is a politics of number. Then you can have your own government.

Secondly, all these religions are teaching people against birth control. They say to people that it is against God. I have been talking to Christian ministers and missionaries. They don't have any answer. I ask 1/08/07

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them, your God is omnipotent, he is all-powerful; he can create this whole world out of nothing. Is the pill more powerful than your God? If he wants the child, then the pill cannot prevent it. If the pill can prevent the child, then you should start worshipping the pill rather than the God.

Otherwise, the solution for poverty is very simple. One is for twenty years, absolute birth control.

Secondly, teaching to the people that you are not poor because it is a blessing. It is not a blessing; it is a curse. And the BIBLE goes on saying, "Blessed are the poor." If poor are the blessed, then there is no reason to destroy poverty because then you are destroying blessedness. That is absolutely contradictory.

Then it is better to destroy richness, to destroy wealth. Make everybody blessed.

Mahatma Gandhi used to call the poor the children of God. If you give such consolation to the poor, that you are children of God, then you cannot prevent them from being poor, because that means you are preventing children of God. And if God wants them to be poor, who are you to prevent them?

Hindus believe that nothing happens against God's will. So if somebody is poor, it is God's will. And it is a test for his trust in God. He should remain poor and he should remain contented, with no complaint, with no grumbling. Then, after death, he will be rewarded immensely.

Now we have to withdraw all these stupid ideas. We have to make it clear that poverty is a disease. It is not blessedness. And it is not created by God. It is created by our own foolishness. We go on producing children, and we don't grow in new technology with the same rate. Now Mahatma Gandhi says that poor are the children of God. And on the other hand, he thinks all scientific progress stopped with the spinning wheel. Spinning wheel must be ten thousand years old. In these ten thousand years, human intelligence has done nothing.

And if you listen to these people, and follow these people, the world will become more poor, it cannot become rich in any way. So second thing is, a widespread use of technology, and which can become possible very simply if it is understood by the world powers that third world war is not going to happen; then why go on wasting your energy piling nuclear weapons. Already they have so much nuclear weapons that they can destroy humanity seven hundred times. Now, this is idiotic. A man dies only once. Even Jesus Christ was never resurrected.

The simple understanding that we have come to a point where war is impossible; why not use nuclear, atomic and all energies that you are using in the service of death, in the service of life? All that energy released, poverty will disappear like a dewdrop in the early morning sun. Because we have put almost seventy-five percent of our national incomes into war. We are living on twenty-five percent.

So my simple solution is, that the war has become useless, and with the war becoming useless, nations have lost all meaning. And this is the time for the world to declare one. There is no need for war, then what is the need of nations? They can exist as functionary units, but they should not have any defense forces.

They should not accumulate war materials. For whom?

If the whole world gives its war materials, war energies, war technicians, armies, navies, air forces to cultivation, to creation, I don't see that there is any possibility for poverty to remain.

On the one hand, stop population growing. On the other hand, turn energies towards life from the service of death. Certainly it will kill two kinds of people and their egos -- the religious leaders and the political leaders. That's why they both are very much against me; because what I am saying is basically cutting their very roots. There are no nations and there are no presidents and bragging about, and prime ministers and having summits and all nonsense, because there is no need. What is the need of war? Why man should fight man?

If Soviet people want to live communism, they are free to live in communism; if America wants to live a capitalistic style of life, it is perfectly good. More lifestyles are lived around the world, the richer it will be.

But there is no need to fight for it.

Nations have to disappear sooner or later, and then you will be surprised that, in Ethiopia people were dying and in Europe food and fruits and vegetables were being thrown in the ocean, because the market was too much overflooded, and the prices were going down.

Anybody looking from another planet will think us mad; one thousand people dying every day, just close by, and you are throwing food into the ocean to keep the prices high. America pretends to be the world's richest country, but there are thirty million beggars on the street. And when I ask that, how many people are suffering from over-eating, I was surprised by the coincidence. Exactly thirty million people are suffering from over-eating, and thirty million people are dying because they don't have to eat.

It is such a simple phenomenon that these people should not be given that much food, which is killing them, and that food should be transferred to people who are dying. If the world is one, we can very easily 1/08/07

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shift things from one place to another place.

There was a time in Soviet Russia, there was too much wheat crop that they started burning wheat in railway trains instead of coal, because coal was costlier, and wheat was cheaper. And half the world is dying for wheat. They cannot eat coal. But this is possible only if the world exists as one whole. All political lines are just insane. The earth is one. And once we declare the earth is one, poverty has no place.

My solution is very simple, but the religions will obstruct, the politicians will object, and nobody is ready to make the world one; which is already is. Your political lines don't divide the world.

I have been talking to politicians, to religious heads, to pacifists. They don't have any argument against me; but they don't listen. And on the contrary, they want me not to say these things.

Just the other day I received a summons from a Calcutta high court; seven people have signed that, by my one of statements I have hurt their religious feeling. If your religious feelings are so weak, make them strong. Send them to gymnasiums. And in a country of eight hundred million people, if only seven people's feelings are hurt, so what? You should exercise more! And if your feelings are hurt, I am ready to argue with you. If I am wrong, I am always ready to accept it, and one is hurt only when one is wrong.

Truth is never hurt. It is only the lie, because you can see in the light of truth that you have been carrying a lie, that feels hurt.

But my whole life I have been served summons and courts, harassing me unnecessarily that I have hurt their feelings. If I say that a Mohammedan should have only one wife, I have hurt his feelings. If I say that birth control is not against God, I have hurt Christians' feelings.

Solution is easy. But the vested interests are very strong.

Q: THE POPE AND YOU ARE TWO OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RELIGIOUS FIGURES AT THE

(INAUDIBLE) HOW DO YOU FEEL BEING COMPARED TO THE POPE; FOR INSTANCE AS A LEADER, RELIGIOUS PRO-MASTER(*)?

A: I don't like being compared to pope, for the simple reason that whatever he teaches is absolutely wrong. I do not like the comparison because he is infallible, I am fallible. He is a representative of God; I am nobody's representative. I simply speak on my own authority.

His knowledge is borrowed. He can quote the BIBLE but he cannot quote his own heart. I have challenged him many times that it will be a good thing to have a public open discussion; and he seems to be just a coward. He has not answered it. And I can understand why he is not answering, because on what grounds he is going to argue with me?

He has not seen God; he only believes in God. And you believe only when you don't know. When you know, you don't believe.

Q: NOW DO YOU FEEL LIKE HAVING HIM AS GUEST NEXT YEAR IN INDIA, IN YOUR

HOMELAND?

A: Yes, he is coming and I have asked the government that it should be made clear to him that if he makes his stupid kind of teachings here, he will be opposed everywhere. My people will oppose him.

This is going to be a rough journey for him. If he speaks sense there is no problem. But he cannot speak sense, he is a polack.

Q: ABOUT INDIA, USA AND INDIA DO NEED YOU IN A CERTAIN WAY. WHAT'S THE

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO NEEDS?

A: There is a certain difference, which is making both suffer. India has leaned towards spiritualism too much. Its religious leaders have been teaching, "Abandon the world," and "Materialism is sin." The natural result was two thousand years of slavery, and millions of poor people starving.

The America has moved to the other extreme. Materialism has become the religion. To have more and more material things seems to be the goal of life. They have completely forgotten that there is something 1/08/07

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inside them too. They are looking only on the outside. Certainly there are millions of things outside. You can get lost in those things, and you can forget yourself.

America has forgotten herself. It is spiritually poor, and India is materially poor, because it forgot completely that the spirit cannot live without bread, that the body cannot exist without certain support of matter.

My whole philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are not opposed. They are working in synchronicity everywhere. In your body they are working, in the trees they are working, in the whole existence matter and life are working hand in hand together. Why separate them?

And the separation is going to create some kind of poverty. India is poor materially; America is poor spiritually. And I am against all poverty. Man can be rich both, spiritually and materially. I don't see any problem in it. Why can't you sit silently in meditation in a beautiful palace? I don't think that the beautiful palace will disturb you. It is more possible sitting under the tree, the crows may disturb you, the falling leaves may disturb you, the ants may disturb you; but in a beautiful palace, meditation will be more easier. Lying in a jacuzzi, meditation will be more easier. So I am not against materialism, I am not against spiritualism. I want them stand together. Only then man is complete.

But in the past, this has not been so. East has chosen half, the West has chosen half. And a half man is bound to be miserable.

Q: WHY DO YOU THINK THAT GERMANS AND SWISS PEOPLE ARE SO MUCH IMPRESSED

WITH YOU?

A: There are reasons. The German people are interested in me because they have seen the futility of the politicians in the second world war; they have seen where the politicians can lead them.

They have also seen the ugliness of religious leaders, because the head Christian priest in Germany blesses Adolf Hitler for victory. And in England, the Archpriest blesses Churchill for victory. And they both are representative of the same God. Both have direct communication with the same God.

Germany has seen that all these religious people are just pretenders; and the politicians finally lead to war, to destruction. So the new generation is absolutely frustrated with these two types of people.

I am neither a politician, nor a religious leader. I teach a whole life, a total life. An atheist can be with me, a Christian can be with me, a Jew can be with me. I don't make any distinctions. No nations, no religions, no distinctions. And I don't make any conditions that to be with me you have to accept something on belief. I say, you experiment, and if you find it true then it is up to you to believe it or not. But I am not the one to give you a faith. I can give you only a method of inquiry. Truth will be your own experience.

(Tape side B: gap, some text missing)

And Swedish people are interested in me.... Because there are only few countries which have kept a little balance -- Swiss, Swedish -- these two nations have kept a certain balance. They have not leaned too much towards materialism, and neither they have leaned too much towards spiritualism. They have tried to live a healthy and clean and as natural a life as possible. And my whole approach is natural. One has to be natural. One has not to go against nature in any way. Any effort to go against nature is going to create perversion, neurosis.

That is the reason that around the world the people who are remained somehow balanced, or attracted to me, because I am giving them a more balanced view of life. I want the new man to be Zorba the Buddha. He should be like a Zorba as far as body, matter and nature is concerned. And he should be a Buddha as far as spirit, intelligence, and flights of the inner being are concerned. And there is no conflict. Zorba can become a perfect base for Buddha to take over, to take off.

Q: ISN'T IT A SORT OF FASCISM WHEN A GROUP DESCRIBES ITSELF AS A HAVEN FOUND THE

ONLY AND REAL ANSWERS TO ALL QUESTIONS?

A: It is fascist if the group says to you that we have found the real answer. Now you have only to believe it. You need not try to inquire. Then it is fascism.

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But if the group says that we have found the answer and we are ready to show you the method so you can find it, and you can see that this is the answer by your own experience, then the group is not fascist. The group is simply making you aware that there is an answer found by some people. And you are invited.

They are not enforcing the answer on you. If they enforce, it is fascist. If they say, like Jesus says, "You have faith in me and I will save you, you just follow me," that is fascism. My people does not say, "Follow us." They simply say that, "We have found something."

Would you say Albert Einstein, when he says that, "I have found the theory of relativity," is a fascist?

You cannot say, because he is not imposing it on you. He says, "I have found the theory of relativity, you can check it. You can go step by step and find it."

The same is true about my people. We are not telling anybody to become believers; we are telling everybody to be seekers.

Q: ANOTHER QUESTION: WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE TRADITION, ASSOCIATION OF

ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE AT THE HIMALAYAS?

A: Himalaya must be the place where more enlightened people have happened than anywhere else, for the simple reason because the West was not interested in enlightenment. Only the East was interested in enlightenment.

So Himalaya just in the middle of the East; on the one hand is China and Tibet, on the other hand is India, Burma and other small countries, and all these people have been interested in enlightenment -- to find a silent peaceful place. Himalaya was the natural choice. It is nothing special about Himalaya; it was a natural coincidence.

Indians moved to Himalaya to meditate, Burmese moved to Himalaya, Nepalese moved to Himalaya, Bhutanese moved to Himalaya, Tibetans moved to Himalaya, Chinese moved to Himalaya. Just the situation of Himalaya is such; from one corner of Asia it comes to the other corner of Asia, and it cuts on both the sides China and India, the biggest countries in the world. And both the countries are the most ancient countries in the world, too. And both the countries have been concerned about enlightenment for at least ten thousand years. So anybody who wanted a peaceful, silent, a beautiful place to meditate, Himalaya was incomparable. There is no other place. So it was just a natural coincidence.

If, in Europe, they were interested, perhaps Alps may have become their Himalaya. But they were not interested.

Q: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED?

A: I would not like to be remembered at all. Just forgotten and forgiven!

Q: WHAT CAN I TELL YOUR SANNYASINS IN SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY FROM YOU?

A: Just tell them that I love them, and wherever I am my love will be reaching them. Space is not a barrier.

Q: THANK YOU VERY MUCH BHAGWAN.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

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Chapter #28

Chapter title: None

6 December 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8512065

ShortTitle: LAST428

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW BY EPOCA MAGAZINE, ITALY

QUESTION: THE MAGAZINE I'M WORKING NOW WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A SERIES ABOUT THE

STORY OF BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH AND MAINLY THERE IS NOT MUCH QUESTION ABOUT IT

EXCEPT THAT YOU SAY YOUR OWN VERSION OF WHAT HAPPENED IN AMERICA. SINCE THEY

ARE DEDICATING SO MUCH SPACE, LIKE THREE SEQUENCE ON TV SHOW, I WAS WONDERING

IF WE SHOULD GIVE SOME BACKGROUND. WE WOULD LIKE TO START FROM WHEREVER YOU

WOULD LIKE TO START THE STORY. I WOULD PERSONALLY LIKE TO GIVE SOME BACKGROUND

TO START FROM BEFORE AMERICA; JUST LIKE, WHY AMERICA WAS CHOSEN FOR YOUR

EXPERIMENT. BUT...

ANSWER: I am a spiritual gypsy, wandering from one place to another has been my life. It has made me aware that there are no races, no religions, no nations; that this whole earth is ours. The religious parasites are there, who have been dividing humanity. The politician monsters are there, who are cutting the earth into pieces.

Not belonging to anyone -- it was very clear for me to see that to belong is to commit a crime; not to belong is to remain yourself, authentic, natural, with dignity, self-respect. And there is great beauty in individuality. In the crowd it is lost. You become just a cog in the wheel, replaceable. And that is the utter humiliation, the moment you become replaceable.

Individualty is irreplaceable. There is no one who can take your place, and there will never be anyone who can take your place. Existence wants you exactly as you are, and all these people, political leaders, social leaders, religious leaders, are trying just the opposite. They are imposing ideals on you, and trying to mould you into a certain pattern which is not the wish of the nature.

Nature has given you everything; just if you allow nature to grow on its own, without allowing anyone to hinder it. The world will be full of enlightened people.

Enlightenment is something like a seed, which dies in millions of people without ever becoming a sprout. What to say about coming to flowering, and spreading the fragrance.

I had started my journey unknown. But slowly, slowly, people started joining me, the caravan became bigger and bigger. There was no planning in it. I had not conceived about it. I have never lived according to plans. It was spontaneous, and whatever is spontaneous is natural; and whatever is planned is man-made.

And I hate whatever is man-made, and I love whatever grows spontaneously, because there is freedom.

As these people started joining me, it became necessary that they should have a home, a place. I could have remained a wanderer my whole life. I had so many friends, there was no problem for me. I could have been just a guest all my life, but with so many sannyasins it was necessary that they should have a base.

That's how the commune was born.

In India, it grew to big proportions, never in this country there has been a commmune where seven to ten thousand sannyasins were living together, meditating, dancing, rejoicing, going through all kinds of 1/08/07

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modern techniques of cleansing the mind before they can enter into meditation.

This is something to be emphasized. The meditation techniques had been developed, perhaps ten thousand years before; and they were developed for a different kind of human being -- simple, innocent, just like children. They had no belief, they were yet not contaminated by the priest; they accepted nature as it was. For these people the meditative techniques were created.

In ten thousand years, man has gathered so much rubbish in the name of theology, philosophy, religion, politics, science, that between him and the meditation techniques there stands a thick china wall. That is one of the reasons very few people succeed in achieving meditative consciousness, because the basic work does not start with meditation for the modern man. The basic work is to destroy that china wall that surrounds him. Somebody is a Christian. Now the meditation does not want you to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, because those are barriers.

Meditation is pure science. It does not want you to believe in anything. Believing as such is becoming blind, and giving your freedom to somebody, you know not where he is taking you. Perhaps he is also blind and somebody else is taking him. And that's how century upon century, blind people are leading blind people. The first thing to be done is to withdraw all belief. And it is such a relief when you are free of belief.

There is no God, no heaven, no hell, no after-life. In fact, there is no tomorrow because that too is a belief.

There are no grounds to believe, that tomorrow is going to be. It is open. Maybe, maybe not. You don't have any reason to believe.

So if you destroy belief systems slowly slowly you come upon a strange experience, that all that you have is only this moment. All else is just rubbish. Only this pure moment is existential.

And to live moment to moment is the life of meditation. Then life becomes spontaneous without any effort; then nobody can make you miserable, nobody can disappoint you, nobody can make you a failure because in the first place you were not trying to be a success; you were not asking the future to be in a certain way. So whatever happens, the next moment you can rejoice. It is always your victory.

But one of the human problems is that the society has lived for centuries in misery, in anguish. They have never tasted any joy, any love. They have hoped, they have hoped for tomorrow. But the tomorrow never comes. They have hoped after-life. But nobody returns to say what happens after life. And remember, only a person hopes whose present is hopeless. He clings to the future, plans for the future, makes great paradises, and goes on living in the present misery. But they help, that this present misery is only for today.

Tomorrow everything is going to be good.

Humanity has lived in this ugly way. And when my sannyasins and the commune in India started living in a totally new way, dropping the tomorrow, dropping the God, dropping the paradise, dropping all hopes, all consolations, and concentrating the whole energy in the present moment, they found such a source of joy, of love, of dancing, of songs, of creativity.

It made people jealous. People had everything, but they were miserable. We had nothing; but we had something which cannot be purchased. And what they had can be purchased. And anything which is purchased, purchaseable, is worthless. The only things in life mean anything which are not purchaseable.

You cannot purchase love, you cannot purchase joy, you cannot purchase creativity, you cannot purchase silence, you cannot purchase enlightenment.

The people around the commune became so jealous, they started creating all kinds of difficulties. And it was easy; because I was teaching my people against all religions, all politics, all theologies. Naturally, they all joined hands -- against me, against the commune. They tried even to kill me. And there is a strange parallel, that can show you that howsoever India and America may differ, that the basic animality is the same.

They made an attempt on my life, seven thousand sannyasins were present, and the police has got an anonymous call, that something is going to happen. You reach immediately to the ashram. So twenty police officers were present when the knife was thrown at me. I don't think you can have more evidence. Seven thousand eye witnesses, twenty police officers eye witnesses. The knife was there, and the police made the case. We did not make the case; there was no need, when the police is present, it should be a police case.

But still the man was freed by the court. There has been no attempt of murder.

That made it clear that single man who has tried to kill me was not alone; that the whole society, the politics, the religions, were behind him. If they can deny seven thousand eye witnesses, if they can deny twenty police officers, their own top-ranking officers; if they can deny the knife which is a clear evidence and simply leave the man absolutely free, as if nothing has happened.

That was very symbolic to me; symbolic that it is very dangerous to have eyes in the valley of blind 1/08/07

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people. It is dangerous to be joyous where everybody is miserable; it is dangerous to be loving where everybody lives on hate; it is dangerous to dance and sing songs of joy where people have completely forgotten how to dance, how to sing.

I thought perhaps it is poverty which makes people so miserable, and I wanted to try an experiment in America; just to see whether it is poverty or my original analysis is right. And it proved that my original analysis is right.

People cannot tolerate you to be happy. You are dangerous. You are not doing any harm to anybody; still you are dangerous. You are dangerous because you are giving people the idea that their life is being wasted, that they are living on the wrong notions, that their religions are bogus, that their popes are pretenders, and their politicians are just cheats, frauds. They know only how to promise, but they don't know how to deliver the goods.

We made the attempt in America. We had chosen a place totally different from Poona. It was one hundred twenty six square miles land, the nearest city to us was twenty miles. We thought this way neighbors will not be annoyed by us. Our laughter will not reach to them, our dance, our song, will not disturb them. But it seems there is no way.

Our people in four years changed the desert into the oasis. For fifty years it was lying dead, nobody was ready to purchase it at any price. What you will do with a desert? We purchased it, knowingly that it is going to be a great challenge. But to accept challenges has been one of my loves. We accepted the challenge, and jumped into the unknown. Our people worked as hard as people may never have worked anywhere -- twelve hours, fourteen hours, sometimes sixteen hours. We poured as much money as our people could manage -- two hundred million dollars in the desert.

But, nobody was asked to do it. People simply loved that they are creating something out of their own joy. They were ready to sacrifice anything for it. And within four years, something was accomplished that may take hundred years for others to accomplish.

In four years we were a full-fledged city, with five thousand people living there, with all modern facilities, with all beautiful houses, roads, gardens, lawns. The whole city was centrally air-conditioned; perhaps that was the only city in the whole world. And people were starting their life in the morning with meditation, then they were listening to me, then they were going to work, and in the evening they had still energy enough to dance and to sing late into the night. One never knows how much energy you have, unless you allow it expression.

Even after this much work people were asking me, "Can we do something by the side -- painting, poetry, sculpture." People were so much aflame with a creative urge, possessed by creativity. Those four years we made a dream come real. But again the problem arose, as people became aware, as news media started coming, and spreading the news that these people have managed a kind of utopia, the politicians, the priests, became afraid. What you have been doing for thousands of years, if in four years these people can turn the desert -- you have beautiful land, you have all the power and all the money, and all that you create is a miserable, suffering humanity.

This comparison is intolerable. They wanted to destroy it at any cost; and they destroyed it. Without knowing that they are destroying their own future, without knowing that they could have used it as a model, they could have made it a university for other people to come and learn and go and change their own villages, their own town on the same pattern.

We had invited them again and again -- the governor, the president, the attorney-general; but not even a reply -- that you just come and see before you decide to destroy us. We are not asking much; you just be our guest and have a look. Perhaps you may think something is wrong -- we will change it; perhaps you may find that something is beautiful, and you may like it to spread into the whole country.

But nobody came. They were afraid even to see it, because they knew it through informations, through agents, through planted informers, through television that the place is just what people have always wanted and have never been given. And, if this place remains, then we remain criminals. We have exploited people and their hopes, and this place will go on pointing towards us that you are poor, and you are suffering, you are miserable, because of these people. Because in the commune there was nobody poor, nobody rich.

Karl Marx had to write his whole life about communism, Soviet Russia has been for seventy years trying to bring it -- it does not come. The country is still poor; and I managed it by a simple thing. I simply stopped money circulation in the commune. There is no need to destroy the rich; there is no need to bring a dictatorship of the proletariat. We simply stopped money circulation in the commune. And if money circulation is stopped, you may have millions of dollars and I may have none; but if the money is not used, 1/08/07

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who is rich and who is poor?

And everything that you need will be given by the commune; and we had everything -- the hospital, the school, the university. We made the desert yield enough crops for five thousand people -- vegetables, fruits, milk products. And for the first time I tried an experiment. Vegetarians in India will be very much against it.

Vegetarian food lacks few proteins which are absolutely necessary for the growth of intelligence. That's why vegetarians have never produced geniuses. In India, Jainas are the vegetarians, for thousands of years they have not produced anything worthwhile. They had not received a single Nobel prize. The three Nobel prizes that were received in India were received by non-vegetarians; they were not vegetarians. So it keeps the mind retarded.

I added something to it; the non-fertilized egg, which is vegetable because it has no life. And if you add the non-fertilized egg in the vegetarian food it becomes perfect. It gives all the proteins needed for intellectual growth. Now vegetarians will be angry. Just the name egg will be enough for them to be against me, without trying to understand that it is without life, so there is no harm in eating it. You are not killing anybody. And non-vegetarians will also be angry with me, this has been my fate, non-vegetarians will be angry against me because up to now they had a point. Now they don't have a point. Up to now they were saying that without eating meat, intelligence cannot grow. So meat is essential for intelligence. Now that point is cancelled. Meat is not necessary.

This is how I have been in my whole life influencing people and creating enemies. I say the right thing, and they become the enemy.

They wanted the commune in every way to be destroyed. They made dozens of illegal cases against it, in which they were being defeated; because they were so illegal. Finally they made the country, the state of Oregon, declare the city illegal, for the simple reason because only one kind of people are living in it. Only red people are living in it. It is so stupid; if in a city only Christians are living, it remains legal. A city in which only Catholics are living, it remains legal. But in a city where only my people are living, it becomes illegal, because it is a closed city. Only my people are living.

We were fighting the case, and we would have won the case. And they were afraid of it, that if we won the case then there is no way to destroy us. So they went on postponing the dates, and meanwhile they were thinking somehow either to throw me out of America, or to kill me, so that the whole problem is solved. If I am not there, the people who love me will leave, and will go wherever I am.

And that's what they did in the last attempt. Legally, they found it impossible to win. We had four hundred legal sannyasins, we had the biggest legal firm in the world -- four hundred sannyasins were continuously working, fighting the government.

And it is foolish of the government to make a case against me, and they named the case U.S.

Government versus Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a single man who owns nothing. The greatest power of the world -- they are the fighters; but unconsciously, truth came out of it. That's what was in their mind.

Unknowingly they put it on the paper, and exposed themselves, that their whole effort was to destroy me.

They could not arrest me in the commune; they knew that to arrest me in the commune will mean bloodshed. Not that my people were going to kill them, but my five thousand people were not going to let them arrest me unless they all were killed. And that would have been a tremendous blot on America's face.

So they were not coming.

For two years, the rumor was coming they want to arrest me, they want to arrest me. It has become so routine that nobody cared about it. It was certain that they have not guts enought to come into the commune and arrest me.

They got the chance to arrest me, because I was going to visit in Carolina one of my sannyasin's house in the mountains, just for two three weeks and this was a good moment for them. As my plane left there was a journalist present on the airport. He immediately informed and we have the affidavit of the journalist that he was the informer, to his press. But his press informed the government. And they arrested me there; and that shows what cowardliness is. Arresting a man who has nothing but a robe on his body with twelve guns pointed at me, loaded at me. And they will not even answer, that where is the arrest warrant, they will not answer why they are arresting me, what crime I have committed.

I have not committed any crime. I was absolutely free to come to Carolina or anywhere in America, and for three days in the court in Carolina they could not prove a single thing against me. Even the U.S.

Attorney accepted the fact in his final summarizing statement, that we have not been able to prove anything; neither the other party has been able to prove anything.

Now this is hilarious. The other party need not have to prove anything. It has just to disprove you that 1/08/07

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you are inventing crimes which have not been committed. Innocence cannot be proved. Only guilt can be proved or disproved. You have not been able to prove any crime, but still the U.S. Attorney wanted -- six other my sannyasins were with me, he was willing to bail them out -- but he insisted that my bail should be given in Oregon, because I am a dangerous man. I have unaccountable sources of money, and I have thousands of friends who can do anything for me.

These were my crimes, that was I cannot be bailed out; that I have thousands of friends, that they can do anything for me, that I have unaccountable money sources. So it is better that I should be sent back under police custody to Oregon, and in Oregon court we should decide about the bail.

If there has been any fair-minded judge, he could have seen that these are not crimes. That means no rich man can be bailed out. In fact, if this man has so many friends, that proves that this man cannot be a criminal. And, if so many people love him that they can do anything, even if they have to die they can die, then you cannot call this man dangerous. If so many people are loving him that is enough. In fact this man's signature will be enough a guarantee.

But the judge was not a real judge. She was a woman, and only a magistrate. And she was waiting for her promotion to be a judge. The jailer told me that it has been absolutely absurd to keep you, but the reason is that that woman is waiting for her promotion to be a judge. She could not bail you. To bail you meant her promotion was finished. She will remain a magistrate, she will never become a judge.

So I said, "Then it is perfectly good to make her a judge. Twelve days in a jail is not bad. Let her become a judge." These twelve days in the jail have been a beautiful experience, in many ways. One, that I could see double faces of man -- the jailer will be smiling outside with me, just to be photographed by the news media and the television; and inside the same man will become just like an animal.

I could see that the criminals in the jails -- I was in five jails in twelve days -- were all black, not a single white man. That seems to be a conspiracy. It seems as if no white man commits a crime. Only black people commit crime. And the black people told me who was in the jails, and who were immensely loving towards me, that we have not even been through the trial. Nine months have passed and we ask when our trial is going to be; they say, "We don't know." They have already punished us without proving any crime.

That's actually what they wanted to do to me, but because of the news media they could not manage to do it. Every jail where I was was twenty-four hours surrounded by news media. Hundreds of cameras, televisions, radios, newspapers -- twenty-four hours. And whenever they were taking me from one jail into another, just the small space between the jail and the car and they will ask me, they will say, "Bhagwan, just say one thing, are they harming you? Then we will see them. Have they ever touched your body? Then you don't be worried. The whole world is with you." That made them afraid.

Thousands of telegrams in every jail, letters, poems, hundreds of flowers. In one jail where I was three days, so many flowers came that the jailer asked me, "What shall we do. We don't have space." So I told him to send them to all the schools, small children's institutes in the whole city from Bhagwan. One jailer, who was U.S. Marshall asked me to sign under a false name, David Washington. He said, "This will be your name. You have to sign under it. You will be called David Washington, and you have to answer to this name."

I said, "You are supposed to be the law imposing authority. What kind of law you are imposing on me?

On your court is written Department of Justice. You just please keep the court aware at least what kind of justice is this. And you know perfectly well, tomorrow morning it will be all over the world, in every paper and in every television, that I have been forced to sign under a false name by the U.S. marshall himself."

He said, "How it can reach to the news media; you don't threaten me."

I said, "I am not threatening you, but you will see tomorrow morning." Because I had made already arrangements, while I was coming from the airport in the bus, one girl was coming with me; she was going to be released. I told her, that whatsoever happens to me you wait and listen and report it waiting outside the news media. You don't leave before that.

She said, "I will do it; I will do anything for you Bhagwan."

And she waited in a corner, and the Marshall was absolutely unaware that this girl is going to be released. And within an hour she was released, and the next morning there was everywhere the news that the U.S. Marshall has forced. What can be the cause behind forcing? This has never been done. The cause can be only one; that you can kill me and no trace may be found. Because on the register it is David Washington, on the board it is David Washington, on my cell it is David Washington. And you could have released David Washington.

I asked the U.S. Marshall, "Can I contact my attorney?"

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Query:-

He said, "That is not possible, but your attorney can contact you."

I said, "You seem to be absolutely retarded. How my attorney is going to know that I have become David Washington? Then you please help me; you inform my attorney that I have changed my mind and I have changed my name and now I am David Washington. Otherwise, how my attorney will find out? He will phone, and the girl who attends the phone she will say, `There is nobody something like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.'" And she will not know actually that she is doing anything wrong, because she knows nothing. The whole office knows nothing.

But the tomorrow as the news spread, they immediately changed the jail. They had to change jail to jail for the simple reason because the moment the news media became aware that I am in one jail, then they harassed them, asked them questions, how I am, how is my health, where is the doctor, and we want to meet the doctor. And this was a very dangerous situation that they had put me under David Washington's name, and now everybody knows it.

They changed me into another jail, sixteen miles away from the city, so perhaps no news media may reach there. But they were wrong. News media perhaps in the West has become tremendously powerful in helping individuals, in helping their freedom. It is no more just informing people about incidents; it is something more now. It is a protection against the government, it is the protection against your own government.

They went on lying to me on every point. I was surprised that so much lying; they will take me from one jail to another jail and they will say to me that they are taking me to the airport so that I can be taken to Oregon. Even the pilot of the airport started feeling sad and sorry; and he told me that, "This has happened for the first time. They suddenly change our route. Just to drop you in the middle, somewhere in some jail, they avoid Oregon. They change our route. This has never happened in my life." Because they knew perfectly well, as I reach Oregon and before a judge, I will be released. I will be immediately bailed out because they have done absolutely wrong.

Even on the last day, they told me that "We have reached Portland, Oregon," where I was supposed to reach. It was not Portland, it was Seattle. But I had no idea. Then I am sitting there in the aeroplane, nobody comes, all the passengers are gone. I asked the pilot.

He said, "Don't tell anybody, it is not Portland. It is Seattle. They are lying. And they are keeping you here, they are bringing a small plane which they can take directly to the jail to avoid the news media; because on Portland airport the greatest gathering of news media has happened."

So two hours I am sitting, when they bring a smaller plane, and then they tell me that this is Seattle. I said, "I know this is Seattle. But what was the reason to tell me a lie, that this is Portland? You could have told from the very beginning it is Seattle, and a new plane will take you to Portland?"

But the news media in America is really very alert. When the plane did not reach there, they immediately understood that it has been prevented. They managed to find out where it has been prevented; it is in Seattle. They figured it out that now they will be flying me in a small plane to the jail directly. So the whole media moved to the jail.

They had a small airstrip there, and I told them that "You are simply being stupid, what is the point. All those people are here. You have been trying to deceive the media, but you have not been able to deceive them."

Many things I could see which I may have missed without going into jail; that the people who are inmates in the jail are far more human than the bureaucracy who controls the jail. I will ask for a toothpaste, toothbrush, or a soap, a comb. Toothbrush will come, toothpaste will not come; it will take one day. And I asked the jailer, that "What kind of stupidity is this? What I will do with this toothbrush if there is no toothpaste; or toothpaste comes, then there is no toothbrush. It seems to be deliberate. I will ask them that "I am a vegetarian. I need fruits, vegetables, milk -- that's all. I don't want anything else."

"No, fruits are not available; whatever is available, we will give. And as the jailer will go, the inmates will start shouting to me, "Don't be afraid, Bhagwan. We have fruits." And they will bring fruits to me and they said, "They have fruits they supply to us. Just to you they are saying no." They will bring toothbrush, they will bring toothpaste; and they will say "These are absolutely fresh; we have not touched." And I could see that these people are more human; and unnecessarily they are being harrassed.

The same was their idea to harass me, at least for six nine months from one jail to another; but they could not do it. The U.S. Marshall accepted to me that "We could not do it, because the whole world's eyes are fixed on you. And that will be very bad for America."

I said, "It has already been very bad for America. You have exposed your face to me. Now I am going to 1/08/07

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expose your face to the whole world. America is no more a democracy. It is a hypocrisy. At least Soviet Union is straight-forward. It accepts it is a dictatorship of the proletariat. You are far worse. You are a fascist regime, with the whole show of democracy. You can deceive, but not long enough."

And I told the U.S. Marshall that, "Remember, you have not only exposed to me your face, you have created a danger for your whole America. Now I am going to tell all my people who are spread all over the world that if there is going to be a third world war, it is going to be not between Soviet Union and America, but between America and the whole world. In fact you are not Americans, this land belongs to the Red Indians, you are invaders, you have already committed a crime. And you have become Americans, and the Americans you have labelled as Red Indians so nobody thinks that they are the real owners of the land. If it is a real democracy, that Red Indians should rule over the country and they should decide whether they want you to be here or not."

"In the whole world, slavery is disappearing. British Empire has disappeared, America is the only imperialist country now, and they have managed in such a way that nobody thinks of it that it is an imperialist country, that it is not ruled by its own people. And the Red Indians are being put into jungles called reservations, which are exactly what in Germany was known as concentration camps, but on a more subtle and psychological level. There are no barbed wires around them, so you cannot say that they are being forced there. But American government gives every Red Indian certain pension, and no work. So all that they do, they gamble, they drink, and they produce children, because the more children they have the more pensions they will be having.

"And they are no more interested in any liberty, any freedom. Why they should be? Because without work you get money, enough money, more than you can get by employment; and they all have become drunkards. They have nothing else to do. So gamble, fight, murder, rape, and drink. Now this is a more psychological strategy than barbed wires, which you can cross very easily. But this you cannot cross very easily. Now to fight for freedom, who is going to fight for freedom. They are all drunk.

"America has destroyed the natives of America as profoundly as nobody has done ever. And nobody even thinks of it, that the people who you think of as Americans are not Americans. They are Spanish, they are Italians, there are Germans, there are English. All the races of Europe, except the Americans.

"This is the worst thing that can happen to a beautiful land."

They succeeded. I wanted to fight, and I know that all their charges were absolutely false. I could prove it, but my people were afraid that if you fight, then the only thing American government is going to ask that you should not be released on bail. The same reasons, that you are dangerous, that you have infinite sources, that you have so many people that you can manage to escape America. So as long as the trial will go, they will harass you, they will destroy your health, and we will be in misery and torture. So just for our sake, don't fight.

In my whole life I have lied only once, and that was in the court of America, that I said that, "Yes, I am guilty of all these charges." And I am not guilty of any charges.

But I felt my love is more important than truth. And compassion is more important than truth. And my people are more important. I can lie thousand times for them, if it helps them to be happy, if it helps them to be rejoicing.

Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #29

Chapter title: None

7 December 1985 am in

Archive code: 8512070

ShortTitle: LAST429

Audio:

Yes

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Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW BY EPOCA MAGAZINE, ITALY

QUESTION: YOU LEFT INDIA AND WENT TO AMERICA FOR HEALTH REASONS. DID YOU

DECIDE TO STAY IN AMERICA MAINLY FOR HEALTH, OR DID YOU CONSIDER ALSO AMERICA THE BEST PLACE FOR YOUR EXPERIMENT?

ANSWER: Even before my going there, the American sannyasins were trying to find a place for a commune. When I reached there, they thought it will be better that the commune should be in such a place which would be healthful for me as long as I stay there. And it will help them also to consolidate the commune.

But I had not gone there to stay. The problems with my health are such that no cure is possible. All that can be done is, a controlled environment, so I am protected. For example, I have allergies for few things. If they don't come close to me there is no problem, and there is no disease. For example, perfume, dust, any kind of strong smell; now they can be avoided. So for four years in America it was possible to avoid them in the commune. It is difficult to avoid them in any other city. You cannot tell everybody not to use perfume. It was not said to the commune either, but people understood it.

The allergy triggers coughing, sneezing, cold, and finally asthmatic attacks. And then it becomes a longer fit. Then it may take few days to get over it. Then I cannot sleep the whole night, the breathing is difficult. Humidity can cause it. The American sannyasins have chosen a place which was not humid, but still cold, dry.

I have a bad back, and everything that can be done has been done. But whatever is done to make it better, it becomes worse. Finally we called one of the experts, Dr. Syriax from England, who worked for two days. He is a miracle worker. He has treated people -- his hands have a magic touch -- and his whole life; he must have been nearabout eighty when he came to see me.

For two days he worked, and finally he said to me that, "You will have to live with it. All that can be done is that you should sit in a certain posture, in a certain chair, so you will not feel the pain. The pain can be avoided just by maintaining a certain posture and a certain chair, a certain angle to the body; but it cannot be cured. So there was no question of going to America for cure.

We had been asking here for a palace in Kutch. Coincidentally, the Maharaja of Kutch had exactly the same problems, and that palace was made for him, to give him a controlled atmosphere -- dry, non-humid, cool, and far away from society, city; and he lived in that palace as long as he lived. And he lived without any troubles; all troubles disappeared. Since he has died, nobody has used that palace.

But Morarji Desai was prime minister at that time, and we have been fighting on each point, for almost thirty years. On each single point we have differed. And he is not a man of intelligence. If he cannot find an argument, then he tries cunning methods, power politics.

First he tried that I should be prohibited entering Gujarat -- Gujarat is his province and he was chief minister of Gujarat then. But he could not convince the assembly there that for what reason. If he speaks against Gandhism, everybody else is free to criticize him, you are free to refute him; and there seems to be no reason that he should be prohibited from entering the province.

At the time we were looking for this palace in Kutch, he was the prime minister of India, and he again did his non-human strategies -- he just told the airforce to put a block on it; that Pakistan is so close that we cannot give that palace to Bhagwan because he will attract thousands of foreigners there, and it is dangerous. And when the army puts a block on anything, then you cannot do anything about it. I tried Himachel, because that too suits me. This air suits me perfectly well, there are no problems. The same thing was done, that China is too close, Pakistan is too close, and we cannot allow so many foreigners coming 1/08/07

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here, because many may be detectives, many may be planted informers.

When I saw that they will not allow any place to me in India where I can live without unnecessary suffering from allergies, back pain, asthma, it was at that point that I decided that it is better to look somewhere else. America had a good number of sannyasins, and they were already looking for a place to make a commune, so it was very reasonable to tell them to look a place with all these conditions. And they found in Oregon desert exactly the same conditions as exist in Kutch.

But I had not gone to stay there forever. They had given me visa for few months as a tourist. Then I applied more, again for a tourist visa, because I was not thinking to stay there. But side by side, the commune was growing, my health was getting better, and then my people started forcing me that, "If your health is better here, why bother going anywhere else?" And there was no problem, because I fulfilled almost all their categories that are needed for a permanent residence. So I applied for a permanent residence.

There is no question of any fraud, as they proposed before the court, that I had a pre-intention to stay in America and applied for a tourist visa. If I had a pre-intention, I could have applied for direct residency.

There is no problem in it. As a man of religion, as a man who is known all over the world, these are their categories, as a philosopher, I had every possibility. There was no need to ask for a tourist visa.

But I had never thought of staying there. And I applied again for a tourist visa, second time, when the first tourist visa was finished. That time also there was no question of remaining there. Otherwise I would have applied for permanent residence. It was in the middle of the second time that was given to me for tourist visa that I applied for change of intention. Now, nobody can say that it is a crime to change your intention. After two and half years living in good health, I have every right to change my intention. You have every right to reject it, but it is not a crime.

For four years they did not say anything -- either yes or no. In fact, they are the criminals. Why they allowed a man who is dangerous to stay in the country when they could have said simply "No." But the reason is they were afraid, if they say "No," then I can go to the court, and they have no reason to prove why they are saying no. They could not say yes because of the political pressure.

But these four years were good for the commune to become more solid, to have more blossoming. It does not matter that they have been able to destroy it. What matters, that we have been able to create it, in spite of all their power.

And if we can create against a power like America, we can create anywhere. And they will repent for it.

Destroying it, they have destroyed a great opportunity for themselves, a great experiment that has become a success. They could have used it as a model. Their own conscience will never forgive them, and our other communes around the world will prove that you have been idiotic in destroying your own commune which was the best. And still American sannyasins are trying to make another commune, and this time they cannot destroy it, because it will be only American sannyasins. And now they have every knowhow, how to manage, how to create, how to make.

So in every respect, the experiment has been beautiful. I don't think we are losers. We have gained much, much ground.

Q: I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THE PROSPECT(*) WHAT WAS THE

LINE OF THIS EXPERIMENT, THE BASE, THE SCIENTISM OF(*) THIS WENT ON ON THE RANCH, AND ALSO WHY AMERICA, WHICH IS SUCH A BIG AND POWERFUL COUNTRY BECAME AFRAID

OF A SINGLE MAN -- A MAN LIKE YOU.

A: First, even the biggest power is based on fear. Power as such is based on fear. Otherwise, why you should have power. You are afraid and bigger the power, bigger the fear. America is afraid.

Second thing, a single individual has always been the cause of all the revolutions in the world. Great powers have toppled down and disappeared, against the ideas of a single individual. Revolutions are not created by masses. Revolutions are created by single individuals; their insight, their clarity. Masses may follow.

For example the whole idea of communism depends on a single man, Karl Marx. A single man now dominates almost half of the humanity. Buddhism -- a single man influenced the whole of Asia, changed the minds of millions of people for thousands of years. A single man, Adolf Hitler, managed almost to conquer the whole world. So everything that comes into the world comes through individuals. Masses may follow, and there is the fear -- that if the commune becomes known to the whole American people, they are bound 1/08/07

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to follow it.

I have never been in much contact with Americans, except the sannyasins. But in these twelve days when I was in jail, I came in contact with many Americans; jailers, their staff, doctors, nurses, sheriffs, marshalls. And they were all interested that why a single individual is threatening the government that the government is so much worried to throw him out of the country. There must be something. So they were all interested, they all came to see me. And I could see when I explained them that what was the reason, they could see, one jailer said, that was the real communism that they are destroying. What exists in Soviet Union is not real communism.

Your crime is that you created a real communist commune. Now if a jailer can be impressed, and he said, no government can tolerate you, you will be nowhere welcome. You certainly are dangerous, because you can create a situation in which the government looks foolish. They have all the money, all the power, and they cannot do anything. It was strange that in the jails, where hundreds of inmates were there, they all welcomed me, because they have seen me on the television, and they were all showing me two fingers for victory. That was my first experience of coming close to Americans, other than sannyasins. Not a single man, either in the authority, or the inmates of the prison, was against me.

When they understood what I was doing, and what was happening, they said, "We would like to visit sometime." The jailers brought their wives, their children to meet me. The sheriffs brought their families to meet me. One of the sheriffs of North Carolina was an old man, almost cried, tears were in his eyes when I was released from his jail. He said, "We don't want you to be released, because since you have come into the jail, the jail has become a commune, we have started thinking in your way, we have started discussing why the jail cannot become a commune. My deputy sheriff is so much impressed by you that he says, as he retires he is going to the commune. He does not want to live here any more." My nurses, my doctors, they all want to go to the commune. Or they say, "We can change; three hundred fifty people are in the jail. Why we cannot change it into a commune?"

And I told them that, "You have been a sheriff so long, have you ever watched that three hundred fifty people are in the jail. They are given food, they are given clothes, they are given televisions, cigarettes, and they are not given any work. So the whole day they are playing cards, seeing television. They are even taking one hour every day out, if they want to purchase few things, lollipops, ice-cream, or anything that they want, small things, some money is given to them, they can purchase and they can go out and have a look at the outside world. But what work you are giving them? Do you understand the simple psychology that these people, remaining here for three years, will go out, accustomed to no work, accustomed to get everything that they want. Their only idea will be how to get back into the jail."

And he said, "That is true. That is my whole life experience. They don't live outside more than one or two weeks. They immediately commit any crime, and back they are in jail. They don't want to leave."

So all your jails, to transform people from criminals into human beings, but you are doing just the opposite. You are making these people criminals for their whole life; irresponsible. And they are a burden on the country. There must be millions of people in the jails in the whole country. They are a burden on the tax payer.

He said, "But strange that the idea never came to me."

I said, "Ideas don't come to you, you have to search for them, you have to look in the whole situation and find what is happening, and what is the outcome. These people can perfectly become a beautiful commune; they will work, they will produce. And out of their production, they will live, and they will live equally. And there is no need for them to be released. If they don't want to be released, let them be in the commune. It is not a jail. Even if people who are not criminals want to join the commune, let them join. Let it grow."

So I could see why American government was so much afraid of a single individual. The fear was, that if I succeed, then they are failures. And I have already succeeded. So the only way was somehow to destroy it, erase it. But they cannot erase it from the memory of those five thousand people who had lived there; those seeds will live in those five thousand people. They cannot erase it from thousands other people who have come and seen it. Each annual festival there was almost twenty thousand people, so it is not easy to erase it; it is not easy to throw me out of the country.

And there was great sympathy all over America. Even people who had no idea of who I am and what I am doing became aware, by putting me into jail they made whole America aware of the commune, aware why government is destroying it; aware of the fascist attitude of the bureaucracy. And all the way, I was loved and appreciated. Not a single person who was against me -- in the jails, outside the jails; going from 1/08/07

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one jail to another jail, both the sides of the road people were standing, throwing flowers, waving hands, that don't be worried.

Because they will not allow media people. The media people are inventive. What they have done -- they had put their microphones on a long rod, above the car, so when I come out of the gate I am facing their microphones. They will not allow them, but they cannot prevent them taking the microphone above the car.

And they simply wanted to tell me that "We love you, Bhagwan. And whatever is being done to you remember, it is not we who are doing it."

In fact, they have taken a wrong step. They have made America realize that their own government is not in favor of poverty disappearing, of people becoming rejoicing and happy; that their own government is their enemy. And they created great sympathy for me. The sympathy was such that I could have contested for the president, because all the newspapers were full of sympathy, all televisions were full of sympathy, all radios were full of sympathy. The government must have had a shock. They had not realized that this will be the outcome of it.

So I have told my American sannyasins to make another commune, if possible in the same place because we own the place, we will not sell it, everything is ready, you can start a commune there. But start only with the Americans so they cannot do anything. And I have created thousands of people interested who want to join the commune. So it is not the end of the story; it is just the beginning of the story.

The books are being sold more, the tapes are being sold more because more people have become interested; absolutely new people who had no idea of me. The government has done a great service to me and to my ideology. And they will repent for it, that they did something absolutely foolish. But governments are always doing that kind of thing. They consist of fools, and they think that power is all. It is not.

And whenever love and power come to a direct struggle, in small battles the power may seem to be winning, but the final victory is always of love.

Q: ALL WE KNOW IS THE BASIC REPUTATION OF THIS EXPERIMENT SITUATION. BUT WE

WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU WHAT WAS THE BASIS OF THIS EXPERIMENT AND HOW YOU

INTEND TO CHANGE THE QUALITY OF LIFE WITHIN THE SOCIETY.

A: Few things can be pointed at; the very basic. One is, that the family should not be any more the unit of the society. Its time is past. It has done its work. Now it is harmful.

(Tape side B)

Commune is dissolution of family. People are living together, thousands of people are living together, but they don't have any attachment to the family. Even the children are no more the property of the parents.

They belong to the commune. The whole commune is their parent, so every man is their uncle, every woman is their aunt. And this is something tremendously significant. A child having five thousand people loving him, in which there are of every race, every religion, every country, every color, will not have prejudices in his life. He will not be anti-Jewish, because he has loved so many Jews in the commune and they were such beautiful people. He will not be against the blacks, because he has known the blacks, that they are lovely; and the color of the skin makes no difference.

Psychologists have discovered that one of the greatest problems before them is that every child becomes fixated with an idea. The boy becomes fixated with the idea of the mother, because that is the only woman he knows. The girl becomes fixated with the idea of the father, and this is one of the most dangerous things.

Because the boy, in his whole life, will try to find his mother in his wife, which is not possible. And he will be frustrated. And the wife will be frustrated, because she is looking for her father, and her husband is not her father. Their qualities are different, they are unique individuals.

All over the world the couples are in continuous fighting, frustration, nagging, bitching, and the psychologists are at a loss what to do, because this is the only problem that comes every day from morning till evening, every hour they are seeing couples who have the same problem. The problem is, because of the fixation. In the commune the fixation will not happen, because the boy will be coming in contact with thousands of women. He will have a vague idea of womanhood, but not a fixated picture. In that vague idea, any woman can fit, because he will not have a certain fixed idea, in which the woman has to fit. He has only a vague notion.

So this is one of the basic grounds, that family slowly slowly dissolves into a bigger whole of thousands of people. It destroys the possibility of almost ninety percent of mental sicknesses, mental diseases; it is not 1/08/07

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a small thing. It will throw off ninety percent psychotherapists out of their business.

Second thing, marriage has also lived its time. It has not proved a blessing. It has been a bondage, and love cannot live in a bondage. There is a great difference between a bird on the wing in the air, you can catch the same bird and put the bird in a golden cage, but it is not the same bird. Where is the sky? And where is the freedom? You have killed everything that was significant to the bird. It is dead. It has lost all its individuality. Marriage does the same to love.

In a commune, two people love each other, they can live with each other. There is no need for any marriage. Why laws should interfere in people's love? And why society trespass into people's individual lives? They have no right. Two persons love each other, they live with each other. The day they feel that the love has disappeared, because it is one of my basic approaches that everything that is beautiful is impermanent -- the flower opens in the morning; by the evening it is gone. But the stone was there in the morning, it is in the evening, it will remain there for eternity. It is already dead. It cannot die again. The flower was alive. So it is a paradox. More intense a love is, soon it will come to an end. The very intensity --

it is just like burning the candle from both ends. Naturally it will come to end soon than burning the candle by only one end. That will burn double the time.

Intense love will come to an end soon, but it does not matter. Even if it lasts for few days, few weeks, few months, it gives you so much that marriage cannot give you in many lives. The question is not of time; the question is of intensity. And when the love disappears, there is no need, no obligation, no duty to remain together; because now begins the ugly part, of quarrelling, of being nasty to each other, because now one feels the other as a chain, binding him, destroying his freedom. And the same is the feeling on the other side. Both have become jailers to each other.

No, there is no need. The moment you feel love is no more there, the best thing is to depart in gratitude, in friendliness, for all those beautiful memories that you lived, and for all that the other has given to you.

Why spoil it? Why destroy it? Keep it in the heart, because it will make your another love more richer, more experienced. And nobody is losing anything. You both have experienced, grown, into a certain dimension and now you are finding that you cannot go together. The paths separate. Say goodbye.

In a commune it will be a mobile situation. Marriage is a fixed, dead thing. In a commune it will be a mobile situation. There will be no husbands and wives; there will be only friends.

This is the greatest experiment in the whole history of man. To make man free to love, help him to grow in loving, and each love becomes a stepping stone for a higher love. You will fall in love again, but this time you will be more experienced. And you will be grateful to your first lover, because it is because of the first lover that your love now is richer, has more flowers to it, has more fragrance to it. And the same will be the case with the other person. A commune should be a mobile phenomenon.

Twenty-five hundred women, twenty-five hundred men, moving, growing in experience, because each individual can give you some experience that no other individual can give you. People who are tied to marriage never grow up. It is almost as if one is always in the same class. It is absolutely absurd. The marriage is the most ugliest thing that man has invented. And we have to destroy it completely.

Love is enough, law is not needed. And with the marriage gone, you will be surprised how many things disappear. With the marriage gone, there will be no prostitution; it is a by-product of marriage, because you don't love your wife and still you have to live with her. You hate her, and your heart wants some moments at least with someone whom you may not love, but whom you at least do not hate; some moments of playfulness which are impossible with the wife, which are impossible with the husband. You open your mouth and the argument starts, and there is fight. Even great orators in the house remain silent, because to say something means to provoke a quarrel which leads nowhere.

The prostitute will not argue with you. She will try in every way to please you, because you have paid.

And she wants you to make as much happy as possible, so that you become a permanent customer. She does not want your love, you know she does not love you, it is a simple business; you give her money, she gives you physical pleasure. It is marriage who has degraded man to this state, that people are buying pleasure with money.

These ugly marriages lead people to become drunkards, these ugly marriages make people to commit suicide, to murder, and between these husbands and wives are growing your children, who are watching every scene. And they are learning that this is what life is all about. They will repeat the same thing in their own way. So generation to generation ugliness goes on as an inheritance. I am utterly against marriage.

Love has no business to interfere, and once marriage is gone, prostitution is gone, divorce is gone; because what divorce will do. Divorce can exist only as part of marriage. And it is strange that society has 1/08/07

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made divorce as impossible, as difficult as they can. Nobody makes marriages difficult. In fact, that is the point where things should be made difficult. If two persons want to get married, they can go just to the registrar's office and get married. And the idiot registrar does not say to them that first live two years together, and then come. If you are still ready to marry, I will give you the certificate. Otherwise, get lost.

No, immediately he gives you the certificate.

And if you want to divorce, then law makes it so difficult. You have to go through so many torturous moments. Either you have to prove your wife is unfaithful, or your wife has to prove that you are unfaithful; and then too the law will tell you first, separation. Two years remain separate. And after two years you come. In these two years you cannot meet. If you meet, that means the period of separation can be lengthened. That means still there is a possibility of marriage remaining valid. So two years, or three years, of separation. You cannot marry while you are separated to another woman because you are not divorced.

The woman cannot marry because she is not yet divorced. So three years you both are hanging, neither married nor divorced. For what this unnecessary torture? If two persons want to separate, in fact two persons are not needed. Only one person is enough for separation. If the wife wants to separate, even if you don't want to separate it makes no difference. The wife does not want you. You may want, that is your trouble, that is your problem; but the wife does not want you, she does not want any problem any more.

So in a very reasonable society, only one person will be needed to go for divorce, not two persons. And in fact, there is no need for divorce at all. If marriage is not there, there is no question of divorce. You were never married. So in a commune there is no marriage and no divorce.

And you will be surprised that two of the charges against me for which they fined half a crore rupees, one was that I have been arranging marriages of people; I have been speaking against marriage my whole life, and I had to be fined not a small sum, half a crore rupees, because I have been marriaging people. Only these two were their points, that when I came from India I had the intention to stay here.

I was perfectly ready. I argued with my attorneys that you are not giving me chance. These both are stupid arguments. Nobody can see my intention. I can ask the judge, I am standing before you. See my intention. And I can hit the U.S. Attorney. Had you seen it before I hit him? Who can see my intention?

Now how you can prove that I had the intention to stay in America? Unless you can read minds, there is no way to prove about intentions. And the court can act upon actions, not upon intentions. Because there are millions of people with intentions to murder, people with intentions to commit suicide. But you cannot bring them under crime. It is my joy, I can think to commit suicide every day. But that does not make me a criminal. I can commit as many suicides as I want. Unless I commit it, I am not a criminal. How you can prove my intentions?

And the second thing was marriages. I have not seen for three and half years any sannyasins privately. I was in silence and isolation. So how I can manage people's marriages. And in the first place, I am against marriage. You can punish me and I will enjoy the punishment. You can raise it from half a crore to one crore and I will be absolutely willing to pay for it; that I am against marriage, and marriage is the ugliest institution in existence. But you are punishing me for something which I am absolutely against.

So in the commune there will be a mobility. The society is fixed. There is no mobility.

There was a small sannyasin, Siddhartha. I used to ask his mother, "Where is Siddhartha?"

She will say, "It is very difficult to find out, because he has so many friends, uncles, sisters, aunts, it is weeks that I manage to find him, `Siddhartha, how are you?' He says, `Mom, I am perfectly good. How are you? How things are going with the dad?' He sleeps with other people, they give him clothes, other people give him food, and he is not in any need of us. And it is beautiful the way he is growing. He comes once in a while, and we can talk to him not as a child, but as a friend. We had to talk as a friend, because only once in a while he visits. And he brings so many new ideas and so many new things which we were not aware, because he has been visiting so many people. We are not visiting."

Children will grow faster, learn faster, have a wider experience of humanity; and it will be impossible to put them against anybody. Just because you are a Hindu, you have to kill the Mohammedan. That will be impossible.

The third point; we abandoned money in the society, in the commune. Money should not be used in the commune. You use whatever commune can supply, and commune will try to give you as much as you need.

If you want to give money, you give money to the commune. But you cannot purchase anything in the commune for money.

Communism has been trying to destroy the gap between the rich and the poor. Sixty years have passed since Russian revolution. They have destroyed the rich people, but they have not been able to destroy the 1/08/07

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gap, because in place of rich, now the bureaucracy, the government, the communist party. They have taken the power from the rich, reduced the rich into the poor, the poor have not gained anything. The poor are as poor as ever. But they are happy in a way, because everybody is poor. So there is no jealousy, that somebody is more rich to you. The poverty has been distributed equally.

But the power elite, they have all the powers, more powers than rich people ever had. So the distinction is there, even it has become bigger. And by simply removing money from the commune, there was nobody rich, nobody poor. Sometimes, small measurements can create great revolutions. All that is needed is that money should not be used. Then how you can make somebody poor and somebody rich? It is the money.

Once there is no money, all are alike. And the commune supplies to everybody whatever is his need.

And it is cheaper. Five thousand people eating in one restaurant. It is cheaper, economical, happier, joyous, because all your friends are there; and if somebody has the idea he is playing his guitar, somebody is dancing if he wants to dance. And five thousand people enjoying food together. In ordinary society there would have been at least twenty-five hundred kitchens. Now twenty-five hundred kitchens are reduced in one kitchen. Twenty-five hundred women are freed to do something else, something creative, something productive. And all women are not good cooks. In fact, all the literature on the science of cookery, is written by men, not a single book by a women. The best cooks are men.

The woman is caged in cooking, whether she likes it or not. She may like to learn dancing, she may like to create painting, she may like to cultivate the garden. But there is no possibility. Her whole life is the kitchen. And this life you call life? This is imprisonment. And if the woman becomes angry, it is not a wonder.

So we had the best cooks chosen, who had a natural tendency to cook, who wanted to cook, who loved to cook. So our food was delicious, and very few people are needed to cook. Not twenty-five hundred women. Much can be done by machines. Only few people have to look after them. And everything should be done by the best, and others should be released and free to do their best. So the ultimate outcome of a commune is that everything is the best.

And we can create everything. Just a little understanding, a little intelligence, and anything can be done.

In the commune we were creating our own food, our vegetables, our fruits, our milk products; and it was a joy, because the people who wanted to do it, they were doing it. It was not something like enforced labor, enslaved labor. So it was not labor, it was love. And when you can create more, you can sell it to the society; and in exchange you can have things which you are not producing.

And we were on the point to start industries. We had made a special tent, a winterized tent, which had never been in existence. You can use it in winter, in snow, anywhere, in rains. And it has been made in such a way it can be heated. It can be air-conditioned. It can have an attached bathroom. Even the American air force had become interested. They wanted that we should produce in large numbers, so they can buy.

We had one thousand tents ready made, and you will be surprised that the attorney general of Oregon imposed a fine of one million, one point four million dollars, because we have made a permanent structure without the permission of the government. We asked him, that you send your people and see it is not a permanent structure, it is a tent; and tents don't need anybody's permission. And before putting such a great fine, one million point four, that means nearabout one and half crore rupees; but he won't listen.

I told my people, you just take the tent to the court. There is no need of any argument.

(Tape side C)

Just open the bag, put the tent inside the court, it takes ten minutes to fix it, and tell the judge you can come and see. It takes ten minutes to dismantle it, pack it again, and ask the judge, "What do you think? Is it a permanent structure? Can you do this to the White House, in ten minutes making it and unmaking it?"

And the judge simply laughed and he said, "There is no case against you."

But the attorney general seems to be really man of no self-respect. He should have jumped into the ocean and finished himself. Without seeing, and we have been telling him to come and see before you fine us. But he did not feel even ashamed that such a big fine, and the judge simply said, "There is no case. This is a tent."

We were trying, but before we could start creating tents and other things, they destroyed the commune.

Otherwise we had many ideas, we had many scientific minds in the commune who had many ideas which can be materialized and sold to the outside world. And in exchange you can get anything that the commune needs. And slowly slowly the commune can produce everything that it needs. And every commune can be totally self-sufficient, and can have a feeling of freedom, self-respect, and nobody is lower, nobody is higher, nobody is poor, nobody is rich.

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People started their life in the morning with meditation, then they listened to me, then they went to work. Then in the evening they danced, they played their instruments. It was certainly a dream come true.

They destroyed a beautiful dream. But we will make that dream come true in other places. It will happen in Italy, it will happen in Germany, it will happen in Switzerland. We will make it come true in many places. They cannot destroy it. Once it has happened, we know it can happen.

Everywhere the government will behave in the same way. But perhaps they may learn from the American experiment, because the government is condemned by every source, that they have punished an innocent man, and they have punished a commune which has done no harm to anybody.

Good.

The Last Testament, Vol 4

Chapter #30

Chapter title: None

7 December 1985 pm in

Archive code: 8512075

ShortTitle: LAST430

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW BY EPOCA MAGAZINE, ITALY

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) WERE YOU AFRAID OF THE POSSIBILITY (INAUDIBLE) ANSWER: All people around the earth have proved gullible. Otherwise there will not be Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Jainas, communists. All these religions prove only one thing: that people are gullible. And so gullible that they can believe in a God nobody has seen. They can sacrifice their life to a God who does not exist, who has never answered anybody's prayer, who is the greatest lie on the earth.

They are so gullible that they can believe that there are holy books written by God. The VEDAS are holy, Hindus believe. Even very educated, educated in the West, still believe that Vedas are written by God.

And if you look in the Vedas you will be surprised, that if God writes such rubbish things, then either he is not God or rubbish things are real literature.

For example, there are mantras in Rig Veda. A brahmin is praying to God that "I have been following the rules and the regulations of the religion in detail. Now it is time for me to ask for reward, and I ask that this year only on my fields your clouds will rain, and on nobody else' fields." Now in the first place, how God can write this? And to which God he is referring now? This is just stupid human beings. They are asking him prayers that the milk of my cows will be better in more quantity and the milk of my enemies'

cows should simply disappear. Are these religious feelings?

The gullibility is very deep. And the same is the situation of all the religions. They can believe any nonsense if it is written in their holy book. The very idea of a holy book makes me nauseous, because Jews 1/08/07

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say the OLD TESTAMENT is the holy book, because God knows only Hebrew. Hebrew is the holy language. Hindus say Sanskrit is the holy language, and God knows no other language. And the same is true about three hundred religions in the world.

Anybody who has a little sense can see, how can you choose between three hundred books, which one is the true one? They all can be false, but they all cannot be true. And they are contradictory. So obvious contradictions from each other, that it is unbelievable that people don't see it.

The people are gullible around the earth, and the politicians have exploited them. For thousands of years they are giving them hope that soon there is going to be a utopia, a world where there will be nobody poor, nobody hungry, nobody humiliated. Every being will have its own individuality, integrity; and for thousands of years they have been talking about it, and nobody has asked that when it is going to happen?

For thousands of years it has not happened. And we don't see that you are doing anything else. You are simply repeating the old tricks, playing on people's hopes and consolations.

So it is not only a question of American people, and their gullibility. The whole humanity is in the same boat.

Secondly, it is also not only the American government that went against the commune. Any government anywhere in the world is bound to go against the commune, for the simple reasons, and the reasons are the same all over, the fear of somebody doing better than you. The fear of somebody creating an alternative society, in comparison with which their own society looks out of date. If you have guts, then you change your society. If you don't have guts, then it is easier to destroy a small commune. That seems to be the easier path. And no government is ready to change the society, for the simple reason because to change the society, the government will have to change itself; which is almost an impossible task.

The government, its bureaucracy, its fascist attitudes, its exploitation of the people, exploitation of people's fear; it will have to change all that. It will have to see the real needs of the people. They don't need nuclear weapons, nobody is hungry for nuclear weapons. They need houses, they need clothes, they need food, they need work. But all the money of the nation goes into the service of death and war. The politician can see that if all that power, money, intelligence, can be diverted to the real needs of life, this very earth can become a paradise.

But if this very earth becomes a paradise, two things will become absolutely outdated; the politician and the priest. If the earth is already a paradise, then what you can promise people for tomorrow? The earth has to remain a hell, so that you can promise something for tomorrow. If the earth is already a paradise and people are living happily, enjoying moment to moment, who bothers about the priest, and who cares about what happens after death?

One Christian monk was asking me, "What happens after life, when one dies?"

I said, "Have you ever looked what is happening to you while you are alive. If you cannot see what happens to life when you are alive, forget the idea. You will not be able to see what happens to life when you are dead. Learn the art of living; and automatically you will learn the art of dying. Because art of dying is simply the final lesson of art of living. Just as death is the end of life, culmination of life, it is not separate from life, it is just the highest peak of life."

But religions have not been teaching people art of living. Neither they are teaching people art of dying.

They are simply giving people opium. So it is not a question of America, India, Germany, England or China. There may be little bit differences of details but human mind is almost the same. I will be treated everywhere in the same way. To accept me is to accept a total revolution. The easier part is to reject me.

And because people are so gullible, to reject me becomes very easy.

You can confuse people about my ideologies, for example I said that there should be no marriage. And my statement is absolutely clear, that I want people to live out of love together, not out of law. Not because of the fear of society, not because of any respectability. But for the sheer fact that they love each other.

Now they can distort it, they have been distorting it. They call it free sex. I have never used the word myself. But the politicians, the priests the journalists, the whole establishment changes my beautiful concept into a single word, free sex. And I don't know how free sex comes in it. Do they want that sex should be paid? That means they are all in favor of prostitution. That is the only sex that is not free.

And the sex that happens between wife and husband when they are no more in love is not free. The husband, thinking of his respectability. The wife is thinking of the family, of the children. These are the considerations. The sex is not free. And these are all financial considerations. And there is no love. So in fact, in the name of law it is simply prostitution and nothing else. But they can, they have the power, they have approaches to the people, they can say anything and people start believing in it.

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I have been condemned, I have been continuously saying that there is no God and I am not a God. A man who says there is no God, how can he say that he is God? Jesus cannot deny God, because if he denies God, what will happen to the only begotten son of God? The pope cannot deny God, because if God is denied, then what is the position of the pope? He is no more the infallible representative of the God.

I have been denying there is no God, I have been saying I am not a God. But the vested interests go on propagating that I am self-imposed God, self-appointed God. And that makes me laugh, that people listen to these things and they never ask who had appointed Rama to be God. Was he a elected God? Was there some election? Was there a board, a committee who interviewed him and appointed him a God? Who appointed prophet Mohammed that he is the prophet, and the real prophet and the last prophet of God? These categories they should apply to their own Gods. They are all self-appointed. It is Jesus who says, I am the only begotten son of God. It is Mohammed who says, I am his last prophet. It is Krishna who says that I am the full incarnation of God.

These are self-appointed Gods. I am saying, there is no God, and I am saying I am not a god at all. I am just a human being as you are, with a very little difference, that my eyes are open and my eyes are closed, which is not much of a difference. You can open your eyes the moment you decide; it is your decision. If you want to keep them closed, nothing can be done about it.

I have been explaining to them that the word Bhagwan does not mean God, because it has been used for Gautam Buddha, who denies the existence of God. It has been used for Mahavira, and twenty-three other Jaina tirthankaras who all deny God. But Bhagwan has been used for them. It is a historical proof.

Thousands of years are a testimony to it, that people who have denied god have been called Bhagwan. That certainly proved that Bhagwan cannot be synonymous with God. And it is not. It simply means "the blessed one;" it simply means "one who has arrived home." It means one who has achieved godliness, who has experienced this existence not as matter, but as consciousness. But I go on explaining for thirty years, and they go on still calling me self-imposed god. All their gods are self-imposed; only I am not self-imposed because I am not calling myself God at all.

This is the gullibility of the people. And it is same all over the world. And my effort is to destroy it. The gullibility has been supported by faith, by belief; all the religions of the world have been telling you that you simply believe. You have faith. All that you have to do is destroy doubt. This is the way of gullibility.

The moment your doubt dies, your intelligence dies with it.

A believer is always a blind person. A man who has faith is no more a human being. He has lost inquiry, seeking, finding, on his own. And truth is something that can only be discovered by individuals. And it is untransferable. Even if you discover it, you cannot explain what it is. It is beyond knowledge. And you cannot give it to somebody, because it is not a thing. All that you can do is, show the path that you have traveled. Hence, Buddha was very rational when he said that, "What I teach is not a faith; it is a way." I can guarantee that I have found it; but I will not say to you that "You believe me." I guarantee only so that you are inspired to inquire. If one man can find, you can also find it.

And the purpose of the commune is, where many people are on different stages of the path, you can see people behind you, you can see people ahead of you, you can see people far away on the peaks, you know that you are not groping in the dark. The people who is just a feet ahead of you can help you. The person who is just a feet behind you, you can give him a hand.

That's why I call sannyasins are not my followers, but my fellow travellers. It is a communion of friends, who have joined in a search which reveals the ultimate joy, ultimate life, ultimate blissfulness. But the basic thing is that you should not believe, you should not have any faith. It sounds strange, because for thousands of years, doubt has been condemned. And I respect doubt as I respect nothing.

Doubt is not something negative. Doubt is not disbelief. It is not "no". Doubt simply means, I am yet on the way, not in a position to say yes, not in a position to say no. And I will not say yes or no until I have arrived, until it is my own experience.

Doubt is a tremendous courage. One wants to say yes too soon, to finish the journey. One wants to say no too soon, not even to go on the journey. Doubt is the basis of agnosticism, and I am an agnostic.

Agnostic means who says, "I am seeking, I am searching. And unless I experience, I am not going to say yes or no. I am not going to have any belief, or any disbelief. I will remain open. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, to remain open. And truth comes only to open-hearted people. Truth never comes to Hindus, truth never comes to Christians. Truth comes only to those who don't have any conditionings.

Because only then truth can reveal itself in its all purity.

I teach doubt, and that is being exploited by the vested interests, that I am making people irreligious, 1/08/07

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that I am destroying their faith. I am simply trying to make them seekers again, to give them life, energy, inspiration, to encourage them that you are capable to know yourself. Why you should borrow a truth from Krishna or Christ? They never borrowed their truth from anybody.

This is such a simple thing. Buddha never borrowed his truth from anybody. Mahavir never borrowed his truth from anybody. Why you should borrow? Why you become a second class citizen? Why can't you declare your humanity first class? Why you should purchase second class rotten truths, which have moved through thousands of hands?

You should be yourself.

And this is the danger for the establishment. They don't want anybody to be himself. They decide what you should be; so you are always in control. And I want you always to be independent, never in control in anyway. They want you to be obedient and I teach you disobedience. You are intelligent enough; you can see what is right and what is wrong. If something is right, obey. But you are obeying your own intelligence.

And if something is not right, disobey. Because your intelligence is not supporting it.

They confuse people about these things. They say that I am teaching doubt, disobedience, rebellion, revolution; this will destroy the whole society. I am teaching that there should be no marriage. I am teaching that the children should belong to the commune, that will destroy the whole family which has been for centuries the unit of the society. And I am hammering on the unit, because that is the only way to destroy this society. The family is the brick. If we can destroy the family, the society will collapse. And this society needs to collapse, because it has tortured us for thousands of years. It is time for a new human being and a new humanity to arise. And we have lived with it, and we have not found anything. It is time to experiment something new. They don't have any idea for anything new.

Perhaps I am the only person who is talking about the new man, about the new humanity. That's why I am against all those people who are conditioned by the old society, the old religion, old concepts. But one thing is certain, that they may postpone the new man a little more, but they cannot stop it. Because the old humanity is almost dead. It cannot dance, it cannot laugh, it has forgotten how to live. It simply vegetates.

So I know that they can distort my vision, and present to people absolutely wrong notions about me. But this they cannot do long. Soon I will have thousands of intelligent people around the world, speaking for me, and my only hope is, the young generation. And it is getting ready.

(Tape side B)

Sannyas was simply to make a point to the world, that I am not alone. You cannot crush me. If you crush me remember, there are one million sannysins around. You crucified Jesus. He had only twelve disciples, and all idiots. I have one million people with me, and all the best, the most intelligent people.

Crucify me, and you will see that the whole world turns towards me.

But even if they don't crucify me, what I am proposing is so clear, so rational, that they cannot deceive people long enough. They may be able to deceive the old people, but they cannot deceive the intelligent people and the young people.

And because I have made the point, now I have opened sannyas for people, even if they don't want to wear red, or the mala, still they can be sannyasins, because there were so many sympathizers just afraid of the red because of their job, their wife, their husband, their parents. And so many problems. Just for these problems, why wait? Come in the temple, where you will see one million red-robed sannyasins. And that will be enough for you to become red sooner or later. Otherwise you will feel an outsider; and nobody likes to feel outsider. Everybody wants to be an insider; to be in the very innermost circle.

So I have opened the doors, so that people can enter with the idea that now there is no need for mala and no need for red. But they don't know me and my devices. Once they are inside, they will start feeling jealous of people who have the red and who have the mala. And soon they will be asking for the mala and for the red.

If we can create just two hundred enlightened people, which is not a big number, we can change the whole map of humanity. No power can prevent us.

Q: YOU HAVE MENTIONED THIS NUMBER BEFORE, TWO HUNDRED ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE

WHICH WOULD CHANGE THE MAP(*) OF THE WORLD. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SAY MORE

ABOUT THIS (INAUDIBLE). IN OTHER WORDS, YOU THINK THAT TWO HUNDRED ENLIGHTENED

PERSONS WILL CHANGE THE PROPORTION BETWEEN NEGATIVE ENERGY AND POSITIVE

ENERGY IN THE WORLD? OR WHAT?

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A: Man's consciousness has to be understood. We are at a point which can be called conscious. Sigmund Freud discovered below it another layer, which he called unconscious. Carl Gustav Jung a little deeper than unconscious another layer which is collective unconscious. And each was vaster than the other. Our conscious is only one tenth of the unconscious. Our unconscious perhaps may be hundred times smaller than the collective unconscious. Jung stopped there, but in the Eastern psychology we have gone a little further.

We have discovered beyond the collective unconscious the rock bottom, cosmic unconscious.

The collective unconscious contains all kinds of consciousnesses; animals, birds, trees. All that is living.

And all that you have passed somehow in your past lives, your whole evolution. The unconscious carries only your individual unconscious. But the cosmic unconscious carries the unconscious of the whole cosmos, the whole existence. But these are the steps below your conscious mind, going deeper and deeper underground into the roots. And no tree lives just by roots. Exactly the same is the situation above, which western psychology is absolutely unaware.

The Eastern psychology has discovered going above the conscious there is superconscious. Above the superconscious there is collective superconscious and above the collective superconscious is the cosmic superconscious. Cosmic superconscious is what we mean by enlightenment, to achieve it, to reach to it.

As a man moves from conscious to the superconscious, it is not only his consciousness that goes higher; the whole level of humanity goes a little higher -- of course very thin, because it is spread on such a vast scale. Whatever we see in humanity today is not the work of the masses. It is the work of few individuals who have reached higher levels of consciousness.

As a person reaches to collective superconscious, he raises waves around the whole world. And the person who reaches to the cosmic superconscious, you can call it enlightenment, illumination, godliness; this height immediately affects the whole consciousness of humanity. Of course, the humanity is so big that everybody does not become enlightened. But perhaps everybody starts moving towards superconscious, and those who are seeking and searching may start moving towards collective superconscious.

When I say two hundred enlightened people are enough to raise the whole world consciousness as a sudden and radical change -- that their consciousnesses suddenly start going higher, of which they were not aware; things they have not seen, they have not dreamed, clarities that were not available to them; and their stupidities, conditionings, they stop carrying any longer. They drop them immediately. The clarity has come and they can see that they have been carrying unnecessary burden.

This is how it works: two hundred enlightened people will be enough to raise the consciousness of humanity, at least fully to the superconscious level. And that's enough to prevent war, to prevent violence, to prevent all kinds of crimes, to prevent all kinds of prejudices -- not that the whole humanity will become enlightened, but moving from conscious to superconscious is not a small change. It is of tremendous value, it is ten times more powerful than your conscious. If you can see only hundred feet, suddenly you can see thousand feet, suddenly your eyes have become a source of seeing things in their clarity, in their depth.

The experiment has been tried before also, but has never succeeded. The reason was that the world was too big. We are in a good situation. Technology has reduced the world into a very small village. Buddha never left Bihar, a small province in North India. Even if he wanted to, there was no way. Socrates never left Athens. The world has become small because now we have technology, which makes the whole world, as far as space is concerned, very close. You can have your breakfast in London, and your lunch in Paris, and your tea somewhere in Bombay, and your supper in Calcutta. And you can go to sleep in Tokyo and you can wake up in New York. In twenty-four hours you can go round the world.

Because the world has become small, it is possible now to do what was not possible before. Buddha tried, he managed at least one dozen people to become enlightened, but they could affect only the consciousness in a small area of the world. It is as if you burn one candle in the room. You can burn ten candles in the room; the room will be a little more lighted, but the whole world will not be affected by it.

The candles are needed to be around the world, and my sannyasins have to become torches, not just candles.

And if we can create -- and we can create -- in every country now we have sannyasins, even in communist countries, we can manage. Two hundred is just the minimum number; more is possible. And these people, just by their very presence, will raise the whole conscious level of humanity; will give them clarity, vision, insight, and will make them capable of dropping all nonsense that they have been carrying up to now. Then the politicians cannot exploit them, neither the priests can exploit them. All their gullibility will disappear.

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rises and birds start singing and the flowers start opening and spreading their fragrance, whenever there is an enlightened being birds start singing, flowers start opening, and there is great fragrance released.

Q: IT SEEMS THAT WHEREVER YOU GO, YOU SHOW PARTICULAR TALENT TO PROVOKE AND

TO IRRITATE PEOPLE. WHY DO YOU DO THAT?

A: It is absolutely necessary. Life is a dialectic. If you want friends, create enemies, otherwise you can't have friends. If you want people to understand you, irritate few people to misunderstand you. They are part of my work. They may not know it, that they are helping my work. I can be nice to all, but then there will be no work possible. It is not difficult for me to be nice to all. It will give me respectability, but the work will suffer, and I am ready to sacrifice all my respectability to the work.

And you can see it. I have created enemies in the world; I have created friends in the world. Stronger the enemies become, stronger my friends become. You cannot have only friends, otherwise they will be just lousy; they will not be of any use. They will not be ready to do and die.

Just in America when they caught me, I provoked them. They are innocent, they don't know that they played the game that I had proposed; that they have been befooled, that they could not ignore me -- if they had ignored, they would have been in a better position. But I went on hammering on them, and finally they freaked out. And that's what I wanted; their freaking out and my being in jail for twelve days, I gathered the whole sympathy of America. People who had never known me started thinking about me, why the government is so much against a single individual? What he has done? There must be something great that the government is afraid, that the government wants to repress it. The government must have been thinking that they will get sympathy because they are throwing away a commune which is basically a higher quality of communism. But they were wrong.

People out of their way came to tell me that, "We are with you, Bhagwan," that "It may take time, but you will be victorious. And these are simple people, criminals in the jail, who don't know much about me, just they have seen me on the television. And they were so happy, that they said that, "It doesn't feel like jail anymore. It is a blessing to be with you for two days. When you are gone, we will miss you."

I have not come across a single person in those twelve days who was not sympathetic, who could not see the cruelty and the ugliness and inhumanity of their own government. It is simply my strategy. I irritate a few people, which I am bound to irritate because whatever I am going to say is going to be against the vested interests of many people -- they will be irritated. But their irritation creates the movement. And life has a law of balance. It always balances everything.

So if I have enemies, I know soon friends will be coming. And enemies have never done anything. What happened to the enemies of Buddha? What happened to the enemies of Jesus Christ? What happened to the enemies of Socrates -- you cannot even remember their names. Enemy disappears, but the friends and their worth remains an implement of humanity for centuries. So there is no need to be worried about the enemy.

His work is to create the friend. That's all. And more fanatic he is, more staunch friends he will create.

This is the dialectics of consciousness -- that's how the mind functions. The enemies may sometimes think that they are doing harm. When they sentenced Socrates to death by poisoning, the judge said to Socrates that, "I would like to give you few alternatives. If you can leave Athens, we will not kill you, but you will have to make a promise not to come back to Athens. Second, if you insist to live in Athens, then you have to promise that you will not teach anything anymore to people. You will remain silent. Otherwise we are compelled to give you poison."

Socrates said, "As long as I am alive, I will teach my truth. Otherwise, what is the point of living. I have lived my whole life in Athens; I have my friends and my enemies in Athens. Now at this old age, to create again everything from the scratch, seems too much. I cannot leave Athens. And I would like to tell you that Athens will be remembered by my name, not by your name. If I leave Athens, Athens is out of history. I cannot do that. Athens has been so beautiful to me, so I prefer the third. I will take the poison. But remember, Athens will always be associated with my name, with my philosophy.

And all have disappeared. Whenever you think of Athens, there is only Socrates; as if only he had lived there. And his philosophy; as if only he was the philosopher who taught there. So enemies cannot do anything, even if they kill they help. It was possible that if Socrates was not given poison, and the people had ignored him, we may not have remembered him; we may have forgotten him. But his death became a mark that cannot be erased.

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So enemies can do no harm; even while they are thinking they are doing harm, they are serving the purpose. And the death of Socrates meant his friends became strongly consolidated. They carried the school and the teaching in Athens. Plato became the teacher, who was the most loved disciple of Socrates. And the school continued. After Plato, Aristotle became the head, who was the most loved disciple of Plato. And these three men, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, that's the whole population of Athens.

There have been millions of people, they are all washed away. They were just signatures on the sand; but these three people have remained. And they have influenced all the centuries down, even today.

Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Interviews with the World Press

Talks given from 12/12/85 pm to 08/02/86 am

English Discourse series

30 Chapters

Year published:

Many of the interviews from the World Tour have not been listed as being part of any Last Testament Volume and they have been arbitrarily assigned to Vol.'s 4, 5 and 6 in groups of thirty.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #1

Chapter title: None

10 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512100

ShortTitle: LAST501

Audio:

No

Video:

No

[NOTE: This discourse is listed in some places but has not been found. It may not have been recorded!]

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #2

Chapter title: None

10 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

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Archive code: 8512105

ShortTitle: LAST502

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH SUNDAY TIMES, LONDON, UK

Q: CAN I BEGIN BY ASKING YOU ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW? IS THIS THE BEGINNING

OF ANOTHER COMMUNE?

A: It's always difficult for me to say anything about the future. I have lived my whole life moment to moment without any planning, without ever thinking of the morrow. So something must be beginning but I cannot say what it is.

Q: BUT I'VE READ REPORTS BHAGWANJI THAT YOU'RE LOOKING OR DISCIPLES OR YOUR

FOLLOWERS ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING (INAUDIBLE).

A: Yes. My friends are looking because they are not living moment to moment. Nobody listens me.

Q: SEEMS TO ME THAT A GREAT MANY PEOPLE LISTEN TO YOU.

A: No. They hear me but listening is very difficult.

Q: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY THE DIFFERENCE IS?

A: Everybody who has normal ears can hear but listening needs something more than ears. It needs a silent mind behind it.

Listening means you are not interfering in any way, not interpreting, not saying yes, not saying no, neither believing it nor disbelieving it. Simply listening the way mirror reflects. Only out of such listening, understanding arises.

Understanding is not a belief. The person who only hears may start believing in it but believing is not understanding. It is blind.

Q: DOESN'T UNDERSTANDING LEAD TO BELIEF(*)?

A: No. Understanding is yours. You may have listened to me, you may have listened to the sound of the running water, you may have listened to thousands of things, but understanding is yours, belief you simply heard and borrowed it without bothering even to listen what you are believing in.

The world is full of believers but the world is not full of understanding.

Q: WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A MAN WHO HAS BELIEFS?

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A: I don't have any belief and I am against all beliefs. Belief as such is poison.

Q: DID YOU HAVE ANY BELIEF IN AMERICA WHEN YOU WENT THERE?

A: No. I have never had any belief in my whole life. I have lived as an agnostic.

Q: THEN WHAT DREW YOU TO AMERICA?

A: America is new, only three hundred years old. The whole world is very old. A country like India is very ancient. It's conditionings have gone very deep, they have become its blood, bones, its very marrow.

I wanted to see how a new mind, unburdened from the past responds to me. Unfortunately even three hundred years are old enough.

Q: HOW DO YOU MEAN... OLD ENOUGH TO FORM THE SOCIETY WHICH HAS ANTAGONISTIC

IDEAS TO YOU?

A: Yes. It has already prejudices. And it was a great revelation that because its beliefs are new, it is more fanatic about them.

Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK AMERICA BELIEVES IN?

A: First, it believes in a rotten Christianity. At least in the old world there are other religions to create doubt. For example, in India there are so many religions that nobody can safely believe. From everywhere there is criticism.

America can believe in Christianity without any criticism and whenever there is no criticism of your belief you started thinking as if this is the truth.

Criticism is absolutely necessary to keep people alert, not falling into the sleep of blindness, unconscious faith.

Even the very intelligent people in America came across and I was surprised, I could not believe that a well educated man, a professor in the university, tells me that Bible is the word of God. I asked him, "Do you know that Hindus believe Vedas are the words of God, Mohammedans believe that the Koran is the word of God, and all the religions have their own holy book. On what criterion you choose which one is right? Because they are all contradicting each other. And on what grounds you can say that Bible is the word of God?"

And his answer was so stupid. He said, "Because it is written in the Bible. "

I said, "It is like a man who told to his friends that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world."

The friend said, "But how you came to know about it?"

He said, "My wife said it to me herself."

Q: SUCH CERTAINTY? WAS THAT A COMMON EXPERIENCE FOR YOU IN AMERICA?

A: Very common. I have not seen very intelligent people.

Q: DO YOU DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ROTTEN CHRISTIANITY AND LESS ROTTEN

CHRISTIANITY, OR DO YOU THINK ALL CHRISTIANITY IS ROTTEN?

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A: All Christianity is rotten because it is based on very idiotic belief systems. For example, it believes that God created the world four hundred, four thousand four years before Jesus Christ was born.

Now that is sheer nonsense. That means the world is only six thousand years old and we have proofs in the pyramids that they are far older than the world of the Christians.

We have proof in the Rig Veda that it is far older than the world of the Christians. We have proof in the cities like Harrapur and Mohanjodro in Pakistan that they are at least seven thousand years old. And now we know that there are skeletons found which are thousands of year old and Christianity still goes on believing that the world was created four hundred, four thousand four years before Jesus Christ -- they have not changed it.

Q: I THINK VERY FEW CHRISTIANS NOW HOLD THAT BELIEF. I MEAN POSSIBLY

FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS IN OREGON DID BUT I THINK THAT CHRISTIANS (INAUDIBLE) A: No, very few Christians know what Christianity is. That also shows a very unintelligent state. You call yourself Christian and you don't know what is means.

Q: BUT IS THIS, IS THIS THE REASON THAT YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE UNITED STATES? DO

YOU BELIEVE IT WAS SOME KIND OF CHRISTIAN PLOT TO MAKE YOU LEAVE?

A: That was one of the reasons. There was a Christian pressure because people who were coming to me cannot remain Christians, cannot remain Jews, cannot remain Hindus.

I am not telling them to drop anything, I am simply making them aware that anything that you have not discovered on your own cannot be a truth that liberates, it can only be a lie that binds you and makes you a mental slave.

My whole approach is of deprogramming people and I don't have any programme of my own. So I simply deprogramme -- whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan, it doesn't matter. You may be a communist or a fascist. I simply deprogramme you and leave you clean and innocent as you were born.

Q: BUT CAN YOU DEPROGRAMME AN AGNOSTIC OR AN ATHEIST?

A: The atheist can be deprogrammed certainly but the agnostic cannot be deprogrammed because he has no programme.

Q: SO IF AN AGNOSTIC CAME TO YOU, AS BHAGWAN, WOULD THAT BE A WASTE OF HIS

TIME?

A: No. He has come to me from where the real search begins. The unnecessary work of cleansing him is no more needed. We can start searching for truth.

Q: BUT ISN'T THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH A PROGRAMME?

A: No, it is not a programme....

Q: AND IF YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING CALLED TRUTH, THAT'S THE BEGINNING OF A PROGRAMME?

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A: It is not a programme. If you believe in certain things as true then it is a programme. But if you simply seek and search and explore into your own consciousness, you become more aware and more alert to whatever is the case. You discover the truth by becoming more aware. The truth was not part of the programme.

Q: BUT YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING CALLED TRUTH?

A: I do not believe, I know. Belief is for those who do not know.

Q: SO YOU KNOW TRUTH?

A: Certainly.

Q: TO GO BACK TO AMERICA AGAIN, APART FROM THE CHRISTIAN PRESSURE ON YOU, WHAT OTHER PRESSURES DO YOU THINK WERE ON YOU?

A: The political pressure was there because I had created a commune which was really a far more superior form of communism that exists anywhere else in the world because there was no dictatorship, no government at all, yet five thousand people were living, working, meditating.

These five thousand people transformed a desert into an oasis, made it capable of feeding all the people, made the houses for all the people -- beautiful houses with all modern facilities. The whole city was centrally airconditioned, perhaps the only city in the whole world.

Five thousand people were eating into one restaurant, one kitchen for all. There was no use of money in the society and that was my basic idea: to drop poverty, richness, without any dictatorship, without any enforcement.

Everything that you needed was provided by the commune. Money could not be used. You can donate to the commune but you cannot purchase anything by money. Money was just useless.

People started to come to see because this land has been lying dead for almost fifty years. Nobody was ready to purchase it. And it was not a small piece, it was one hundred twenty-six square miles. It was almost a small country.

And they were all thinking that we are going to fail, we cannot make that land to produce anything. And we produced everything. Food, vegetables, fruits, milk products... and our people lived with such comfort and luxury that it became necessarily a target for jealousy of the neighbors. They have been working in their ranches which were better lands, for generations and they could not manage to have such luxury. And the government became aware that we don't have any power, we don't have much money, and yet we have been able to manage a society for four years without any crime, without a single beggar. No rape, no murder, no suicide, nobody going mad.

The politicians certainly became aware that soon this will become a comparison: `What you are doing?'

And we had invited the president, the governor, the attorney-general -- all the people concerned, to come and be our guest and see what we have done. And we are ready to teach the other ranchers in Oregon whatever we have done.

But not a single politician dared to come. On the contrary they started hundreds of legal cases against us, unbased because we won almost in all the cases but it was sheer wastage of energy. Four hundred sannyasins were continuously engaged in legal battles with the government and soon they became aware that legally they cannot defeat us. Then they started being illegal, and arresting me was absolutely illegal.

They had no warrant, they could not show me any reason why they are arresting me and they arrested me with twelve guns surrounding me, a man who has nothing but a robe on his body, and in the court for three days they could not prove anything against me. The U.S. attorney accepted on the last day that "We failed to prove anything, but still we will not give bail to Bhagwan here, we would like him to appear in 1/08/07

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Oregon's court... the bail will be decided there."

Now this was very strange because six of my companions were given bail. To me they will not give bail and they have not proved any crime.

Q: HAS ALL THIS MADE YOU FEEL VERY BITTER (INAUDIBLE)?

A: No. Just it gave me a good experience which I may have missed.

I loved those twelve days in jail. They prolonged it, it was only eight hour journey to reach to Oregon and that's what the court has promised, that they will not give bail to me, they will send me immediately to Oregon and then they started moving me from one jail to another jail trying indirectly to harass me in every possible way. They knew that I have allergies so I was put with inmates who were continuously smoking and that gives me tears in the eyes, coughing, and finally asthma attacks. They will put me just between two television sets and those television sets will start six in the morning and will go on full speed, loudly till the middle of the night so that I cannot even sleep for a single moment.

And after the television sets will stop they must have managed that the cell mates will start talking cell to cell loudly, and this will continue the whole night.

Twelve nights I had no sleep.

Q: WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WERE IN JAIL WITH YOU?

A: They were very beautiful people. Better than the bureaucracy, better than the politicians. And I was really surprised that the criminals are far better than the people who think they are maintaining justice.

They were more human, more loving. They took care of me in every way. Whatever they could bring: soap, toothpaste, or a toothbrush... and they will say that it is absolutely new, we have not touched it, we have not used it. And I will ask the authority's for the same things, I will ask and after twenty-four hours, toothpaste will appear, then there will be no toothbrush. And I will ask them, that "What kind of stupidity is this? What I will do with this toothpaste? Where is the brush?" Then again twenty-four hours I have to wait for the brush to appear.

I will ask for vegetarian food -- it is not available. I will ask for fruits -- they are not available.

And the inmates in the jail will bring fruits for me and they will say, "They are available for us, but for you they are not available. So we can give you our share because we can eat everything else, you cannot eat anything else." And I saw a very human, loving heart in the prisoners.

One thing more I was surprised to know. They took me in five jails in twelve days. I could not come across a single white prisoner, all were black.

Q: HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

A: That simply means that those jails are not really to prevent crime and those black people are rebellious people and they are a threat to the government and they are in jail six month, eight month, nine months, without any trial.

And they all ask me that "Tell to the press that they don't give us any trial. They don't show us what crime we have committed except that we are black, we are not aware of any other crime."

So it seems that all those jails are maintained to prevent the blacks becoming a power.

Q: COULD IT NOT BE THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE POORER THAN THE WHITE PEOPLE? POOR

PEOPLE ARE MORE CRIMINAL THAN RICHER PEOPLE.

A: They are poor but even a poor man cannot be kept in jail for nine months without trial. And to keep a person nine months without trial means you are afraid that he has not committed crime, and by the court he will be released.

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And you are punishing him already without proving the crime.

It is true that poor people are more prone to commit crimes than the rich because the rich have already committed all the crimes and they have been successful.

To commit crime is not criminal, it is to be caught that is criminal. And to catch the rich person is difficult. To catch the poor is always easy.

Q: TALKING OF CRIMINALS OR PEOPLE WHO ARE ACCUSED CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, HOW DO

YOU EXPLAIN THE BEHAVIOR OF ONE OF YOUR FORMER DISCIPLES, SHEELA. WHAT'S YOUR

EXPLANATION ON THAT?

A: It is really human. To commit crime is human. The way the society is managed, the way we create ambition through our education, promotes crime.

We create the desire in people for power, for riches, which they cannot fulfill by direct means. Then there are only two alternatives. Either to remain your whole life suffering with inferiority complex, or to go criminal -- find some shortcut to become rich and be powerful. And that's what happened to Sheela.

And particularly because she was a woman, it is even more obvious. Because women have been kept out of power, out of positions for centuries.

In the commune my effort was that this should not be the case. The women should be given equal opportunity. In fact, more opportunity than men to compensate. And for three and half years I was in silence, in isolation, and she had all the power, so it is very human.

She was from a poor family, she was just a waitress in a hotel when she had come to me. She had never seen so much money -- three hundred million dollars suddenly can make anybody mad.

Q: SO IT WAS JUST TOO BIG A TEMPTATION?

A: Yes, it was too big a temptation and she could not tolerate. She could not manage.

So I am not angry at her at all. I simply feel compassion.

Q: WOULD YOU WELCOME HER BACK IF SHE CAME....?

A: Certainly, if she comes she is welcome. Because I can understand human weakness and human weaknesses should not be punished. They should be understood and they should be helped to be cured.

And she had immense power because five thousand sannyasins were there under her and one million sannyasins around the world were under her because I was in isolation and she was my secretary and she was the only communication between me and the sannyasins.

Seeing so many people under her power she got suddenly an unconscious urge to remain in this power forever.

Now the only problem for her was if I start speaking again that will be the end of her whole power trip.

So she was afraid, she wanted to kill my personal physician for the simple reason so she can plant her own personal physician for me, who can keep me alive but not healthy enough to be active again in the commune

-- a simple logical thing.

She was persuading me that I should not start speaking because it will endanger my health.

I said to her, that "I have always lived spontaneously... the moment I wanted not to speak I stopped speaking. Now I want to speak. Tomorrow morning I will start speaking. I never think of the consequences."

And the day I started speaking the whole commune was dancing out of joy in the streets except Sheela, she was very sad and after that I have not seen her happy, joyous, smiling... in fact she started disappearing from the commune for long trips to other communes in Europe, in Australia, in Japan.

And as she was away people started opening their mouth that what she has been doing in these three and half years.

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thinking to make somebody else my secretary, or something, so she must be aware.

She bugged almost two hundred houses in the commune. She far exceeded Nixon -- that was the comment of the F.B.I. people when they came to find out all the bugging and she had used far more sophisticated instruments. She was taping all the telephones that were going out of the commune, just out of fear that somebody may be speaking against her. And as she became aware that I am becoming aware of all these things she escaped.

(Tape side B)

And I invited all law enforcementing authorities, state police, federal/government police, F.B.I., and for one month we gave them places to live, they were our guests, and we helped them to find out everything that she has done.

And this is where I am surprised: we helped them to find all the crimes that she has done and the people, a small clique of her... who have all escaped. And in the court they started throwing all those crimes on me.

It was really surprising that the politicians can be more criminal minded than anybody else.

Q: BUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO SURROUND YOU OR WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS, AND

YOU YOURSELF, ARE CONCERNED WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. BUT ISN'T IT VERY SAD AND

VERY IRONIC THE REASON THAT YOU'RE SO FAMOUS NOW IN THE WORLD HAS GOT NOTHING

TO DO WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. IT'S GOT TO DO WITH COURT CASES, SECRETARIES

WHO TRIED TO POISON, THE NUMBER OF ROLLS ROYCES YOU HAVE -- HASN'T SOMETHING

GONE TERRIBLY WRONG....

A: No, nothing has gone wrong. It simply shows the mind of the world. The world is not interested in truth, the world is interested in something sensational. Truth is not sensational. The world is not interested in enlightenment, the world is more interested in Rolls Royces.

It simply shows the mind and the psychology of the world, and I don't own a single Rolls Royce.

Q: BUT YOUR COMMUNE IN OREGON CERTAINLY (INAUDIBLE)

A: My commune owned ninety-three Rolls Royces. And I want to know the world that if five thousand people together can manage ninety-three Rolls Royces, five hundred other cars, one hundred airconditioned buses, five airplanes, and they can live in perfect luxury, there is no need for anybody to be poor....

Q: WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN TITILLATION AND

SENSATION, SPECIALLY THE WORLD'S NEWSPAPERS AND WORLD'S TELEVISION STATIONS, ISN'T

IT IN WAY PERVERSE TO HAVE NINETY-THREE ROLLS ROYCES KNOWING THAT THAT WHAT'S

THE WORLD WILL BE INTERESTED IN?

A: No. In fact I wanted the world to know that we have ninety-three Rolls Royces because that is the only way to make any bridge to the world. And then I can talk about truth and enlightenment too, by the side.

Without Rolls Royces there is no communication at all.

I know my business perfectly well.

Q: SO YOU WOULD ARGUE THAT THE ROLLS ROYCES WERE A KIND OF GIMIC WHICH

WOULD INTEREST PEOPLE.

A: Yes. Certainly everything I did and I do is concerned with the people's psychology, in what they are interested. And then I can turn them in what I am interested, but first let me have their hand in my hand.

You just see they are interested in diamond watches but this is not a diamond watch, these are just stones, ordinary stones. But it is enough to befool them.

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It has no value at all, it has been made by my own sannyasins and they have done it, such a beautiful job, that it is almost half a million worth watch if it is made in real diamonds.... But it can defeat real diamonds. And my purpose is served.

Q: BECAUSE THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE A WATCH....

A: Yes, my purpose is served. Once they get interested into anything with me, they are caught in my net.

Q: THIS SEEMS TO BE THE OPPOSITE OF THE TRADITIONAL INDIAN SWAMI....

A: It is, it is.

Q: .... RENOUNCE THIS WATCH.

A: It is because I am absolutely opposite the Indian ancient tradition, I am against it and I want it to be completely dead. It has destroyed the country.

Those people who renounce the world are the people who have kept the country poor because in their renunciation the country could not develop science, technology. It is such a vast country, small countries have been invading it and defeating it.

For two thousand years it has remained a slave to anybody.

Who is responsible for this slavery, this poverty? If you make people's mind against the world you are making their mind against all progress.

Q: SO YOU WOULD HAVE NO TIME FOR PEOPLE LIKE GANDHI, OR....

A: No place.

Q: HOW ABOUT SWAMI VIVEKANAND?

A: No.

Q: RABINDRANATH TAGORE?

A: Rabindranath Tagore is a different person. I love him. And he was never in agreement with Mahatma Gandhi.

Q: SO WHAT WOULD YOU BLAME, HINDUISM, FEUDALISM?

A: All the religions, all the religions in India, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Mohammedism, Christianity... they all have done simply destructive acts against this land and its people and they are still doing it.

Q: BECAUSE THEY TEACH PASSIVITY AND RENUNCIATION, THAT YOU ARE PLACID AND

RENOUNCE THE MATERIAL WORLD?

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A: First they are all against materialism, that creates an schizophrenic mind because you are not just spirit. You are as much matter as you are spirit. To me matter and spirit are not two things. Matter is visible, spirit is, spirit is invisible matter.

We have to drop that dichotomy between matter and spirit. All dualities are dangerous because then either you become a spiritualist against materialism or you become a materialist against spiritualism -- in both the ways you remain half.

So the East remains poor as far as materialism is concerned and the West remains poor as far as spiritualism is concerned. But both are poor. While both could have been rich. Just the division has to be dropped.

So the first thing: renunciation of the world is simply nonsense.

I teach the art of living.

Not of renouncing, but of rejoicing.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF THIS YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

A: No.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF YOUR PROVINCE(*) YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

A: No.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT THIS ASSEMBLY THAT NOW SURROUNDS YOU WITH BARE FEET, SITTING CROSSLEGGED, OWES SOMETHING TO HINDUISM?

A: No, nothing, nothing.

Q: HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF THEY ALL SAT ON CHAIRS?

A: They can. Nobody is preventing.

Q: BUT NONETHELESS, YOU ARE THE GURU AND THEY ARE DISCIPLES.

A: No. I am not the guru and they are not the disciples. I am just a friend and they are my fellow travellers. And it is not expected from my side that they should be grateful to me.

But if being with me they feel love, they feel gratitude, that's a totally different story. It is not expected, it is simply a happening.

Q: HAS ALL THIS SURPRISED YOU, THE FACT THAT YOU'VE BECOME VERY FAMOUS, INTERNATIONAL FAME, AS A BOY FROM MADHYA PRADESH?

A: It just appears to me a misfortune. It was far more beautiful not to be known at all. It had more freedom, more silence.

Q: I THINK IN MANALI SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO YOU SPOKE. WAS THAT ONE OF YOUR FIRST

MEETINGS?

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A: Not my first meetings but the first time I started the movement of sannyas. And it seems we have come round the whole circle.

Q: IS THAT WHAT DREW YOU BACK TO THIS PLACE?

A: Ya, I love this place.

Q: DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS AN INDIAN?

A: No. I never think in terms of any division: of nation, of religion, of caste, of color... no. I belong to this earth and the whole earth belongs to me.

Q: AND YOUR FAMILY, YOUR MOTHER AND (INAUDIBLE). THEY ARE YOUR SANNYASINS

(INAUDIBLE). HAS THAT BEEN CONFUSING; THE FACT THAT YOUR MOTHER IS A DISCIPLE OF

YOURS AS WELL AS YOUR OWN MOTHER?

A: No, not at all. Because to be a mother is nothing special. Every woman is doing it and all the animals are doing it. But to be a mother and yet to have courage enough to listen to one's own son is something special and rare and in that way my family is rare. My father was a disciple, my mother, my all brothers, my uncles -- my whole family.

It needs guts. They have taken a great step.

Q: YOUR MOTHER IS A LADY OF WHAT, SEVENTY-FIVE OR EIGHTY?

A: Must be seventy-five.

Q: AND YOUR FATHER WAS A CLOTH MERCHANT?

A: He was a cloth merchant.

Q: DID HE WISH THAT YOU WENT INTO THE FAMILY BUSINESS?

A: In my childhood certainly and the ...(inaudible). From my very childhood I was a problem to him and to my family because whatever I wanted to do I will only do that; whatever the cost and whatever the consequence. It took few years for them to understand me but finally they realized that it is better to let me go on my way and not to interfere but just to help me whatever I want to become, let me become.

And before my father died he had tears in his eyes and he said, "Please forgive me if I have been rude to you in your childhood and sometimes tried to force you to do things that you never wanted to do. Just forgive me, because I was not aware what you can become and it was out of simple ignorance that I was trying to force things on you and I am sorry for that"... just before he died.

Q: YOU SAID IN AN INTERVIEW LAST WEEK OR THE WEEK BEFORE THAT WHEN YOU DIE

YOU WANTED TO BE FORGOTTEN AS AN (INAUDIBLE). DID YOU REALLY SAY THAT?

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A: That's true.

Q: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

A: That simply means my whole approach to life is that the past should not be a burden on the present.

The past is like dust covering a mirror. It distorts the vision and it becomes heavier and heavier and does not allow you to live in freedom in the present and the same is true about the future.

If you think too much of the future while you are thinking of the future the present is slipping by from your hands which is the only reality.

If this is my approach about others, that the past should be forgotten, I don't want to be a burden for anybody in the future, because then I will be a past. I would like to be forgotten completely as if I had never been here. Just the way a bird flies in the sky and leaves no footprints in the sky, I would like to disappear like those footprints. So that I am no more a burden on anybody.

This is simply part of my philosophy and the very logical conclusion of it.

Q: BUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE GATHERED WITH YOU HERE OBVIOUSLY TEND NOT TO

BELIEVE THAT....

A: That is up to them. That is their freedom.

Q: DO YOU TRY TO DISSUADE THEM FROM THE IDEA THAT YOU WILL SOMEHOW LIVE ON

IN SOME KIND OF PHILOSOPHY OR RELIGION.

A: No. I will try to do what I am doing, that: be here with me while I am here with your totality, don't think of the future and when I am gone, I am gone.

And if you have lived with me you would know how to say goodbye. One has to learn to say goodbye too.

Even if with tears you have to say, but you have to say goodbye.

If Gautam Buddha has taught that there would have been no Buddhism. If Jesus has taught that there would have been no Christianity. These people are responsible for all that has happened in the history --

bloodshed, wars, unnecessary tortures... people were burnt alive.

The best thing will be that we learn from these people, we live from these people and then when they are gone, they are gone. We are again free, we are again alive and the future is there which is always growing.

There will be always people who can be your friends. Why I should prevent you from having fresh friends, why should you carry my corpse on your shoulders?

Q: BUT THEN BHAGWAN WHY BOTHER TO WRITE BOOKS?

A: I have not written a single book.

Q: THEN MANY BOOKS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN YOUR NAME.

A: They are just my talks, my discourses. I have not written anything.

Q: DO YOU BELIEVE IN ANY KIND OF LIFE AFTER DEATH?

A: I don't believe, I know.

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Q: DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING?

A: With me belief word is non-existent. Either I know or I don't know. When I know, I know.

There is life before birth, there is life after death. In existence nothing dies.

In existence everything continues, moves, in new forms but there is no end to anything.

Q: BUT DO YOU THINK THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF YOURSELF CAN EXIST AFTER YOU HAVE

DIED, SOMEWHERE. DO YOU BELIEVE IN TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS OR (INAUDIBLE)?

A: Yes, it can exist because your mind has a certain capacity. If it has a motivation, a certain intensity of desire at the time of death then your consciousness will move in that direction and you will be born into a form that is your desire.

But if you die without any desire, without any motivation, then you are not born anywhere; you are simply dropping like a dewdrop into the ocean, becoming one with the whole.

And that is the goal.

Q: THAT IS YOUR GOAL?

A: Yes.

Q: IS IT DISAPPEARING? TO DISAPPEAR, TO DIE.

A: Yes. And this time I am going to disappear.

Q: BUT NOT FOR SOME TIME YET.

A: No, not for some time now.

Q: WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT END UP? I MEAN, IN THIS WORLD. DO YOU THINK

YOU'LL END UP IN (INAUDIBLE) OR SOME PART OF INDIA? DO YOU THINK YOU'LL FIND

YOURSELF HERE IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS?

A: Difficult to say because I have my people around the world. They have beautiful communes everywhere and they are all inviting me, so anything is possible. But there are idiotic politicians everywhere, you cannot think to what limit they can be stupid.

The German parliament has passed a law. This seems giving me too much importance... that I cannot enter Germany.

I enjoyed it. I had never thought that Germans are so cowards. I am going to inquire whether I can fly over Germany.

Q: BUT INDIA IS NOT A PROBLEM?

A: Right now it is not but it can be any moment. It all depends on me.

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Query:-

Q: IF YOU KEEP QUIET IT WILL BE OKAY?

A: Yes, if I keep quiet. (laughter)

Come again whenever you feel.

Q: THANK YOU.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #3

Chapter title: None

11 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512115

ShortTitle: LAST503

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH CHANDRIYHA

BHAGWAN: Please will you start your questions.

Q: GOOD MORNING. YOU HAVE COME BACK TO INDIA AFTER FOUR YEARS. BHAGWAN DO

YOU FIND ANY CHANGE?

A: There are many changes and changes for good.

The first thing that is the most important is that the politicians are out of the government and non-politicians have come into power.

The politician is always interested in himself and how to get higher and higher, how to reach to the highest point in the bureaucracy. He sacrifices all the interests of the people.

Unfortunately for forty years we have been under political minds. Hence forty years have been just a wastage. We have not used freedom to create, to become rich, to become more cultured, civilized, educated.

But it is good that now a new generation has come into power.

This generation as yet is not polluted and there is a possibility that it will do some good for the country, it will not think only of its own power and its own position. And they are taking small steps in the direction, they are opening the country to technology which was impossible for forty years. Because for forty years the politicians who were in rule were dominated by Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of very primitive ideas.

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wheel everything is evil. Even telephone, telegraph, railway -- Gandhi is not ready to accept them. These forty years the people who ruled the country were trained by Mahatma Gandhi, influenced by him, impressed by him. They did not help the country to bring more technology, that's the only way now with the population growing so fast. We have to grow technology faster than the population, then only we can survive.

We have to open the country to the wealth of the whole world. There is so much wealth lying around in the world, unused. We have labor but no wealth. There are people who have wealth but no labor. Our labor and their wealth together can create this country into a paradise. All that is needed is a guarantee to the whole world that, "Your wealth will not be nationalized, that your wealth will be in safe hands. And whenever you want it back it will be yours." With the collaboration of all the industries from all over the world we can create so much because we have labor and cheapest labor possible.

In America I saw everything is almost ten times costlier than here, and the reason is simply because the labor is costly, even the richest man cannot afford a servant. And here even a middle class man can afford three/four servants without any difficulty.

Open the country to the whole world.

These forty years we were creating barriers for other nations to bring their wealth into our country, for one single reason: to protect the Vila's(*), Tata's, Dalmears(*), because these were the people who were giving support, finances to the politicians in their elections.

So it was a conspiracy. These people were giving financial support to the politicians to remain in power and the politician was preventing all outside capital so that these people can go on creating third rate things.

Now in a world where you can have ten times better, beautiful, more highly technical car, cheaper than Ambassador... if in collaboration with Japan, in collaboration with other countries, you start creating cars which will be cheaper than Ambassador, who is going to buy Ambassador?

In forty years Ambassador has remained the same. There was no reason, only the price has gone higher and higher. So it was a conspiracy between the capitalists of this country and the politician to protect each other. Now that can be broken because the new people are not politicians and they have not come by support of any finances from these Tarta's and Vila's(*), and others. They have come into power on their own merit. They are under no obligation. So they can open the doors.

It does not matter if Ambassador disappears. It should disappear, it simply makes noise and nothing else. They say everything in it makes noise except the horn.

And this is the situation about everything else. The world is producing so refined mechanisms, we can produce the same mechanisms on a far lower price and sell them to the whole world and it will be tremendous earning. And why be afraid that a little bit of it will go to the people who will put their wealth in it -- it should go, it is natural... you put your labor, you get for your labor. They get for their wealth. You both are getting richer....

There is a difference but much more differences will be needed.

There are few things which go on continuing the same, perhaps the people who have come into power are unaware of many currents of ideologies which are against the growth of the nation.

For example, anybody teaching against birth control. He may be a Christian priest, he may be Hindu Shankaracharya, or he may be a Mohammedan Iman. It does not matter who he is, but anybody who is teaching against birth control and telling to people that using birth control methods is against God is committing a crime. He should be prevented with all the means possible.

By the end of this century the population of this country will be one billion, one hundred crore. We will be beggars, almost fifty percent will be dying and starving on the streets. It will be a nightmare and we will be utterly helpless to do anything.

It is better to be aware now. It is already late.

I started talking about birth control thirty years before and I was condemned because all the religions and their heads condemned me, because I am teaching people immorality. But when I started talking, the population of the country was only forty crore.

If they had listened to me today we would have been in a far prosperous state. Today our population is eighty crore. In thirty years we have doubled. Now who is responsible?

All those religious leaders who condemned me are religious, are responsible for it. And they are still doing the same.

Christians want that the people should remain poor because only poor can be converted to Christianity. I have never come across a single person in India who is rich, educated and who has accepted Christianity as 1/08/07

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his religion. Only the beggars, orphans, aboriginals, so poor that it does not matter what religion is, what matters is bread, clothes, shelter.

Christianity wants people to remain poor because that is their politics. Now there are six hundred million Catholics in the world and they hope that if the world continues to be poor soon they will have the whole world in their grips.

If is a very subtle way of spreading an empire without armies, just by keeping people poor, it is enough that in one hand BIBLE, and another a bread, that's enough. There is no need for a sword, there is no need for any argument, there is no need to convince anybody philosophically that we are better than your thinking.

Hindus, Mohammedans, other religions -- it is strange that on one point they all agree... that birth control is something evil. But they don't see the consequences.

Birth control today is the only moral thing. Every religious person should adopt it if he has any sense of humanity and respect for life then birth control is not evil. But not to use birth control methods is evil because you are bringing so many people in the world who will be dying and starving. But all the religions somehow agree, and there must be some reason... there is, there is some vested interest.

Only the poor are easily exploited by the priests. The educated, the rich are not so easily gullible. They may formally belong to this religion or to that religion but it is just formality.

The poor is in absolute need for solace. He is hungry, he needs somebody to give him hope that, "In the next life -- life after death -- you will not be hungry. Not only that, you will not be hungry; the kingdom of God will be yours. That don't think that poverty is bad, you are blessed to be poor. It is a blessing in disguise, it is a test of your trust and if you can remain contented with it, in the next life you will be immensely rewarded."

The poor needs the hope of the next life. The rich has no need of any hope. He has everything that he needs right now, why he should bother about next life?

The poor needs some kind of opium and the priests of all the religions are giving some kind of opium, that gives him some hallucination of paradise and some consolation that rich will not enter into the kingdom of God. So some great consolation that rich will fall into the eternal darkness of hell and the poor will be raised to the golden glory of God.

These psychological reasons are there that the priest wants the poor because they are the only ones who hear him, who are gullible, who believe in him. But he is unaware what harm he is doing. There may not be any need of third world war, just the population itself increasing so fast....

India has never been bigger than China as far as population is concerned. But by the end of this century India will be bigger than China.

Out of five persons in the world, one will be Indian.

China is far more intelligent. It has slowed down its growth, it is not very rich but it is not poor either. It is comfortable. And the reason why China could do it was that communism destroyed all the priests of all the religions who were causing the whole problem.

I don't say that you should destroy your priests, but you should at least stop them talking nonsense.

There are better things to talk.

About population something has to be done very fast, because it is growing fast and unless we are ahead of it, it is going to destroy us and destroy all our other efforts.

Secondly, we are still living with ideas that were developed five thousand years before -- everything has changed but our ideas have not changed. We are still believing in Manu, still believing in the brahmin, in the sudra; still burning the sudra alive. This seems to be a very ugly situation. We have to pull ourselves to be contemporaries even if though we have to say goodbye to Manu; say goodbye to Manu. It won't do any harm to anybody.

Manu has tortured us for five hundred years. It is time that in India there should be no brahmin, no kshatriya, no vaishya, no sudra.

Why we can't be just human beings? We are born human beings. There is no need for somebody to be higher and somebody to be lower and somebody to be so lower that he is untouchable.

We have done crimes against humanity. So we have to drop many old ideas and once we drop it we will find tremendous energy released which is blocked by those old ideas.

We have to start thinking more on our own than just quoting like parrots VEDAS, UPANISHADAS, just like parrots. A parrot can quote the VEDA but it means nothing.

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but quotation marks. They have nothing of their own and it is time that a vast country like India which is almost a subcontinent should have its own thinkers, contemporary, because every problem has changed and your solutions never change -- that is creating the whole difficulty.

Your solutions were created for the bullock cart. You are flying in the airplane and you are still using the techniques of bullock cart. You are bound to create difficulties.

(Tape side B begins, no overlap)

A contemporary India is needed. Almost a rebirth.

And it is not against the past, it is not against your forefathers. Each child has to go ahead than his father. That should be the blessing of the father, that the child should transcend him. Otherwise what is the need of the child? He has done.

If the child goes on doing the same he is useless, he is unnecessary.

Every teacher should think in terms that his student should defeat him, that will be his victory. And each father should think that his son should go ahead of him -- that will be his joy, that will be his pride.

So it is not against the past.

I have been continuously being misunderstood. It is easy to misunderstand me because what I am saying it is a lonely voice in a crowd of millions, but I am not speaking against the past... I am saying that the past can grow in you if you drop it and if you are fresh and young and you start thinking on your own. Then the country lives, grows, blossoms, otherwise it becomes retarded. That's how we have become retarded.

So much has to be done. It should be taken as a challenge, as a joy, because it is an opportunity to do something and it is only in such times when there are great challenges that you have to face that your real potential starts growing, exploding.

The people who fought for freedom had no idea what they are going to do after the freedom is achieved.

My whole family was involved in the freedom struggle and I used to ask my father, my uncles, that "I can understand the struggle for freedom but I do not understand that nobody of you has any idea what you are going to do when you are free. You will be at a loss. Right now you are working with such joy, sacrificing with such joy... once you achieve freedom then you will be in difficulty -- what to do now? Because your whole training is to fight for freedom. You don't know what to do with freedom."

And that's why we wasted these forty years. Because the people who had fought for freedom became the rulers. They had no idea except going to jail. They had no idea what to do now.

It is good now we are finished with that generation and the new generation is there. It should be supported, helped by the whole country. Because these are young people -- if they get the support, the cooperation, they may be able to do miracles.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE SAID TIME AND AGAIN THAT ONE WHO IS SLEEPING, HE WILL

WAKE UP. WE HAVE SEEN THAT THE COUNTRY IS NOW INCREASINGLY RECEPTIVE TO YOUR

MESSAGE -- CAN INDIA BE TRANSFORMED?

A: Certainly it can be transformed. And it is time, perfect time because if it is not transformed it cannot live. People change only under tremendous pressure, otherwise people are lazy, by nature. Who wants to change? Because every change means making new adjustments, learning new things.

One becomes accustomed of old habits, old things, and one knows about the old way of life --

everything. And he is comfortable, convenient.

Change is possible only when there is such a pressure on him that rather than choosing a comfortable, an old style of life, he has to choose something unknown, something new... and that pressure is present.

It is present in many ways. It is present in the population. The growing population is growing death. It is present in the nuclear weapons in the world, the growing nuclear weapons mean there is not much hope if man does not change. They have already so much nuclear weapons that they can kill humanity seven hundred times.

And in the West, in America, in Africa, a new disease AIDS is spreading which has no cure. It is spreading fast, like wildfire. It is out of homosexuality and sexual perversions. You can get it so easily -- it is not that you need a sexual contact, just kissing somebody the saliva is a carrier of it. Just wiping a tear of somebody, the tear is a carrier of it. And even children are born with the disease. A child may be weeping and you may simply try to console the child and wipe his tears, not knowing at all that what you are doing is killing yourself.

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Once the virus gets into you your life is at the most two years and there is no cure, and all the scientists are agreed that there seems to be no possibility in future that we will be able to find any cure. And that disease is spreading so fast.

These three things: population, nuclear weapons and AIDS are attacks -- a three-dimensional attack of death on man.

You cannot conceive of a greater pressure to change.

Just we have to make India conscious of the situation. And I don't think that India is an unintelligent country. It may be burdened with the past but still it has a certain intelligence which can be provoked, which can be sharpened.

It cannot lose it, because it had it when Buddha was here, it had it when Nanak was here, it had it when Kabir was here -- where it can go? It is still there; perhaps just under the dust we have lost the sharpness of it. Just the dust has to be removed.

And India's intelligence can be challenged that this is time to change all our old ways. And my feeling is that certainly it is more receptive to me now, it was good that I left the country for four years.

Sometimes distance creates love.

When I was here... one tends to take granted. I was surprised that people who had never come to see me in India came to see me in America, and poor people who had never thought that they will go ever out of India. And they came, they sold their houses, their lands, just to come to see me. And I was here and they never came.

So it has been good this gap for four years. Now I am back and I can see it is more receptive, more loving and perhaps ready for the revolution I have been always hoping for it.

Q: BHAGWAN, WHY HAVE YOU BEEN MISUNDERSTOOD?

A: It is absolutely natural. If you support people's old mind you are never misunderstood because you are saying exactly what they believe, you are supporting them, they feel very happy with you, you gain respectability, you support their ego.

I have been doing just the opposite. I have been trying to show you that your old mind is out of date, that you need a new mind, that your old ways of thinking and living, social behavior are all rotten and they need to be changed. Naturally, there are only two possibilities: if you are very intelligent, open, clear, straightforward you will agree with me. If you are not that intelligent, not open, not straightforward you will disagree with me.

But to disagree also needs intelligence. You have to argue against me if you want to disagree.

In that way agreement is easier but disagreement means you have to fight against me, argue against me and you don't have that intelligence. So the only way is: you cannot fight against what I am saying but you can distort what I am saying and then you can fight with it, with the distortion which I have never said. First create a misunderstanding then fight with it which is easier. You have already put loopholes in it and you are fighting with a bogus thing. I have never said it.

So the people who don't have enough intelligence and yet want to disagree naturally try to change the statements, make them according to their own ideas so that they can easily fight with them. For example, I have been speaking on sex that how it can be transformed into superconsciousness; and so much has been written about it. But everybody condemns about my statements on sex. Nobody talks about superconsciousness. And sex was not my purpose at all.

I was saying that the sex is a basic energy. Either it can reproduce children or it can create a new consciousness in you.

It is a creative force. If it goes downwards it creates children, if it goes upwards it creates the highest consciousness for which we have been for centuries searching. We have called it buddhahood, enlightenment, awakening, illumination, samadhi, sambodhi... whatever the name, but it is the sexual energy that moves upwards. It is a creative force.

But strange that my basic point was not discussed at all. Those who have criticized me have criticized not me at all. They were criticizing their own imagined idea which has nothing to do with me.

But this is how lower class of intellectuals will do.

First they will make the argument in such a way that it can be uprooted, dissolved. They do both the things: they make the argument and then they destroy it, but it has nothing to do with me.

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One of Hindu leaders, Karpatri Maharaj has written a book against me and he goes on making statements which I have never made. I wrote him a letter that Ì simply want that wherever you make a statement as mine, at least give the source from where you got it; in which of my books, on what page that statement is because I have read your whole book. All your statements are just made up by yourself.'

Now ordinary people will never be able to find. They will not bother to go, and I have four hundred books, that they will look into those books and find whether this statement is true or not. They will simply think that Karpatri Maharaj has done great work. He has demolished every statement and all those statements are his own. He is demolishing himself. It has nothing to do with me, the whole book. And it propounds to be an argument against me. So it is very natural. I don't feel any grudge or any complaint, I understand that whatever I have been doing is bound to be misunderstood, misquoted.

But how long?

It takes just patience -- go on fighting, somebody somewhere who is intelligent and who has a heart to understand will understand.

And I don't need crowds to understand me, I need only few people of guts because it is always few people of courage who bring revolutions in the world; it not the masses.

And I have not been misunderstood by people of intelligence, by people of heart. They have loved me.

I have received more love than perhaps anybody else in the world has ever received.

(Tape ends without Bhagwan saying Okay or Thank you; however, there is an inaudible sentence said by the interviewer at the end.)

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #4

Chapter title: None

12 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512120

ShortTitle: LAST504

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW BY ITALIAN PRESS?

Q: WHAT IS YOUR PRESENT SITUATION WITH REGARDS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF USA?

A: It is a government which pretends to be democratic but it is not. On the contrary democracy is only a mask and behind it is a very fascist government and my attitude is that it should be exposed to the whole world because the whole world has been believing in its democracy.

In the first place, the people who are known as Americans are none of them Americans. The real Americans are called red indians and the unreal people who are all foreigners and who have invaded the land of the poor red indians, destroyed their freedom, almost destroyed the whole race of the red indians....

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These people who call themselves democratic and think that they are protectors of democracy in the world are really imperialistic and the first step that democracy will be to give back the land to the people to whom it belongs.

The foreigners are in power and the native people have lost all power and they have been forced to live in reservations which are almost American name for concentration camps.

In Germany the concentration camps were more primitive. In America the reservations are more sophisticated so from the surface you will not be able to see that they are concentration camps because there are no barbed wires around, people are free, but that is just a facade.

The reality is they have created psychological imprisonment. They are giving the red indians pensions so all the red indians have become lazy -- nobody works, there is no need to work, and they get so much money that they simply gamble, fight, murder, rape and drink... they are all drunkards.

Now this is destroying them psychologically. And they go on reproducing more children because more children mean more money. Each children brings more pensions.

Perhaps this is the first instance in the whole history of man where a people has completely forgotten that they are slaves, that they have lost their country, that they have lost their freedom.

They are almost in a state of sleep -- drinking, gambling, fighting. And these people have no more consciousness or dignity to fight for freedom. This is destroying somebody's soul completely and that's what American government has done.

I myself have been for twelve days in American jails and then I could see it more closely -- the fascist structure. I was arrested without any warrant, without showing me any cause why I am arrested -- that is absolutely undemocratic. I was not allowed to call my attorney.

And they forced me into jail and they will not supply me even a bed or a pillow, just a steel bench... and they know that my back is bad and that's why that arrangement was made. Because all prisoners were getting beds, mattresses, pillows and everything... I was not given anything except that steel bench. The whole night I was sitting, I could not lie down on it. Even sitting, by the morning, my back was so bad I could not even walk.

And I told them that, "This is inhuman behavior. In the first place you don't have any warrant, you don't have any cause to arrest me, you don't allow me my right to call my attorney and you force me to sit on a steel bench the whole night." And this went on for twelve days continuously.

They did everything to harm me indirectly. And finally they forced me, under oath that I will speak only truth and nothing else... they forced me to lie. The government knew that they have nothing against me so if there is a trial they are going to lose the case. All that they can do, they can prolong the case and force the court not to give me bail on the grounds that I have thousands of followers, enough financial resources, that if I am bailed I may leave the country.

I don't care how much money you put for the bail, you may put one million or two million.... That was their argument that any amount of money does not matter to him, so bail should not be allowed. But still they were afraid that even if bail if not allowed they can torture me but finally they will have to be defeated.

So they asked my attorneys for a private meeting before the trial began that some negotiation is possible.

If Bhagwan accepts on two counts `guilty' then we will ask the court to fine him and release him and the case if finished. If he does not accept that he is guilty, then the trial will begin but we will not allow the bail in any case. And we will torture him for as many years as possible. So you can choose: we know you know that we don't have any grounds to win the case.

Now this is justice, democracy or pure use of power? My attorneys thought that there seems to be no other way than to accept guilty knowing that there is no guilt. The charges are false.

When they came to me their eyes were full of tears. They were the best attorneys in America that I had hired but I asked, "Why you are crying?"

They said, "Because there is nothing against you and we cannot protect you and they have made the situation in such a way that you will have to accept that you are guilty."

But I said, "Under the oath I cannot lie."

They said, "You forget the oath because if you don't lie, just think of all your friends around the world...

you will be tortured in the jail and they will be tortured outside."

Just twelve days there were thousands of people who had not eaten, they were fasting, so just think of those people. And out of compassion, lie. And we are with tears because we feel so helpless that it is absolutely illegal advice that we are giving to you. But there is no other way. Seeing the situation that they can not only torture me for years: that was not a big problem, I would have accepted to suffer for truth. The 1/08/07

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problem was that millions of my people would have unnecessarily gone into torture for five years, six years, seven years....

They may have even killed me. They have tried.

In those twelve days they have been putting me with inmates who had infectious diseases. They put me with one inmate who was living alone for six months, nobody was allotted the same cell because he had very serious case, high risk, confirmed Herpes; and he was almost dying because of Herpes.

They allotted me that room. Even the man who was there was shocked. He could not write English well, he was from Cuba, but he tried to inform me that, "I am suffering from high risk Herpes and Bhagwan they have put you knowingly here so that you can get infection. For six months they have kept me alone, nobody has been allotted the room."

And when I left the jail I was surprised to see that the whole ground floor was empty. For three days I have been coming in and out every time it was always full, people were working. "What happened?" I asked.

They said, "It is change of shift."

But I said, "This is not the way of changing shifts. First the people should come in then only the older shift can leave. Giving gap is not the way. I have not seen it happen before. Just today, it seems a little bit strange."

And there is only one man to give me my clothes back, because I am released, and that man too for the first time in twelve days leaves me alone, otherwise I was in chains... chains in the legs, chains around my waist, my hands were chained and they were chained with my waist chain also. So no movement of any kind was possible and still there were two persons with guns with me. That was the first day there was nobody and he, the only person, told me that "I am going to look for my boss because I need his signature to release your things."

Later on I came to know that no signature was needed of anybody. My signature was needed that I have received my things.

And that man closed the doors, went out, came after fifteen minutes, looked a little embarrassed, perspiring. I asked, "What is the matter? It is an airconditioned place -- why you are perspiring? And why you look so nervous?"

And the reason was that they have planted a bomb in the room where I was sitting. Just the problem was that they could not figure out the right time when I will be coming out of the court to the jail, and it was a time bomb. And I had come early because the case finished without any trial... I accepted that I am guilty, and there was no question of any argument so there was no time lost.

The judge knew perfectly well that I am not guilty. The judge knew the settlement because exactly on two points which the government has asked me to accept `guilty,' only on those two points he asked me,

"Are you guilty or not?"

There were eighteen points, specifically on those two points he asked. That means he was perfectly aware that these are the two points under the settlement. And I accepted those two points... still four hundred thousand dollars were fined.

Under oath of speaking only truth the government forces me to lie and then they fine me four hundred thousand dollars, and I have not committed anything.

Now what to say about a government who functions in such ways. And then too they had managed that if by chance I deny that I am guilty they had made another arrangement of the bomb.

These people are criminals. America is being ruled by a criminal government.

It should be exposed to the whole world. Its mask should be taken away. It is not a democracy, it is purely a hypocrisy.

Q: WHY WAS YOUR SECRETARY ARRESTED IN GERMANY?

A: I was for three and half years in silence and isolation. I was not meeting people, my secretary was the only communication between me and my people.

If there was any spiritual need, any spiritual guidance for somebody then she would bring the question to me. Otherwise she was having all the power... and power corrupts.

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for power in women.

They try in their own small way nagging the husband, crying and throwing things, and tantrums... these are simply feminine power tricks.

But my secretary was a woman. When I had chosen her she was an innocent woman as any woman, but you cannot say what is hidden in people's unconscious mind.

When she got the power and the power was big -- three hundred million dollars we were using to create the commune, and she came from a poor family, she was only a waitress in a hotel when she came to me.

She may have never dreamt of three hundred million dollars. Naturally, lust for money arose in her. She stole fifty-five million dollars and opened a bank account in Switzerland in her own name.

Then there was this great power because my people love me and she was my representative so whatsoever she said, they accepted it, they thought it was coming from me. She always managed to say that it is coming from Bhagwan. Whatever she wanted them to do was coming from me. And whatever she was afraid to say to them, even if I had told her, she remained silent. And it was impossible for me to figure out whether she is telling to the people the things I am saying or not. And there was no reason to suspect.

She bugged my own room just out of fear that perhaps somebody, the cleaner, my personal physician, my dentist -- somebody may say to me, inform me... she was afraid because she was doing something wrong. Not only she bugged my own room, she bugged almost two hundred other sannyasin's houses. All the intelligent people in the commune: the chancellor of the university, the vice-chancellor of the university, the professors, the psychologists, the therapists -- all the intelligentsia she bugged everybody's house because she was afraid these were the people who could be competitors to her.

Now bugging is a crime. Just for one house bugging you can go for jail for five years and she bugged two hundred houses. One thousand years' jail just for bugging.

She was taping all the phones going out of the commune or coming in the commune, just out of fear because she has stolen the money, she has made a small gang and then this is how crime leads to more crime. Now she was afraid of her own husband because he knew that she has stolen fifty-five million dollars. She tried to kill him, to poison him in a cup of coffee. She tried to kill my personal physician -- four times she poisoned him. She wanted her own person to be my personal physician. She was asking me continuously, that "We have better doctors."

I said, "It is not a question of better doctor -- he has been looking after me for ten years and I am perfectly happy. And he has taken absolute care about my health and I am perfectly healthy. So there is no need to change."

Then she started thinking of killing the person so she can put her own person as my physician, in case she wants to kill me. Then that man will be able to poison me.

So she has committed many crimes. She has tried to kill one of the judges of the Wasco County because he was voting against some of the proposals that she was making, she wanted to finish him. She tried to kill the attorney of another county -- Jefferson county, because our commune was a big land -- one hundred twenty-six square miles. Half was in Wasco county, half was in Jefferson county. That Jefferson county attorney was creating trouble. Rather than fighting legally she started fighting in a criminal way -- finish the person.

She burnt the planning office of the Wasco county because it has some papers against her, she burnt the whole office completely, with all their records of hundreds of years.

When I started speaking then people started coming to me to inform me that, "Strange things have been happening here." The moment she became aware that I am being informed about things, she escaped with her clique and she was hiding in Black Forest in Germany where she has been arrested.

Because I asked law enforcement authorities, the state police, the federal police, F.B.I.; I invited them to the commune, I gave a press conference -- an open invitation to the government that they should come and look into everything that my people want to inform and testify. And we gave them... they remained for one month our guest and we supplied every testimony for all the crimes that she has committed. And the most insane(*) is that they tried.... I was the person to invite them, I was the person who was their host for one month. We took every care of them, we... otherwise there was no way for them to know of anything that has happened unless we were going to testify. And in the court they started throwing all those crimes on me. I had simply to laugh.

My attorney told them that "This is sheer nonsense because I have been bringing sannyasins on Bhagwan's suggestion to the F.B.I. to report all these crimes and you are throwing all those crimes, dumping on the same person who has invited you and made all those crimes available to you."

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Now they have caught Sheela and two, three other persons, but few more persons are missing. I feel sorry for her because when I had chosen her my secretary she was an innocent person, very capable of doing things but this is the tragedy that we are all carrying an unconscious of which we are not even aware. That what kind of animality, criminality will come up from the unconscious when the opportunity is there.

And this is my whole work, I call it meditation.

That the unconscious should be changed into consciousness so that nothing remains inside you that you don't know. That is the only possibility that you may not fall into darkness and you may not do things which are inhuman, that you will not go in the ways of evil. The only possibility is that your whole mind is simply consciousness -- there is no unconscious part at all.

And this is one of the greatest contribution of the East to the world. Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler and other psychologists in the West, only in this century have been able to find that there is something like unconscious.

In the East for five thousand years we have been aware of the unconscious. Not only that, we have been aware how to transform it into consciousness. The West has accepted now that there is a unconscious but it has not yet been able to find how to transform it into consciousness. The East has the methods but the ego of the Western psychology prevents it to accept the methods which are already available.

Thousands of people have been meditating with me and have come to the same experience of illumination that the darkness disappears, that one becomes full of light. And after that it is impossible to fall.

Q: WHY THE POLITICIAN AFRAID OF YOU?

A: The politician are afraid of me because I am against all politics. To me it seems keeping humanity retarded because the vested interest of the politicians is that humanity should not be very intelligent.

If humanity is really very intelligent who is going to accept a man like Adolf Hitler as a leader of a nation -- who is simply insane. Adolf Hitler needs an insane humanity to support him. Just look at your politicians. They are not the most intelligent people in the society, they are the most cunning, certainly. But cunningness does not mean intelligence.

The politicians are afraid of me because I am teaching intelligence, awareness, consciousness. My whole effort is to make every person so intelligent and clear that no idiots like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini or Mao Tse-tung or Joseph Stalin can deceive people, can cheat people.

It is a basic truth that only people who are suffering from inferiority complex go into politics. It is the inferiority complex that leads them into politics so that they can prove to themselves and to the world that they are not inferior, they have power.

A real superior man never goes to politics. It is below him. It is always the inferior who go to the politics. And these inferior people have all the power of the armies, of atomic energies, of nuclear weapons.

It is a very strange world.

The best of the minds create atomic energy. For example, Albert Einstein creates atomic energy. He was creating it in Germany.

(Tape side B)

If he had not left Germany the atom bombs would have been in the hands of Adolf Hitler. But there is not much difference. The atom bombs were in the hands of Roosevelt or Truman. And Truman used those atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki uselessly, without any purpose. Germany has already failed and Japan could have lasted not more than two weeks. There was no need to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to use atom bombs. But Truman was in a hurry. He wanted to use them to show the power to the whole world.

It is a strange coincidence that his name is Truman. His name should be un-Truman. And when next day in the morning he was asked by the journalists, "Could you sleep?"

He said, "Yes. I slept very well because the project was successful."

And the project was to destroy two beautiful cities, innocent people, children, women, old people, civilians who has nothing to do with war. In both the cities nearabout two hundred thousand people were destroyed by president un-Truman and still he had a good sleep. Can you think this man as human?

Albert Einstein was immensely hurt and before he died he said, that "If there is another life I would like to be a plumber, I don't want to be a physicist again."

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The best of the minds create, and the worst of the minds use -- all the power, all the energy.

I am against this situation. I would like best of the minds to rule and the power should be in the hands of more alert, more conscious, more human, beings.

I am in favor of a new kind of government. I call it meritocracy: that merit should be the criterion. There is no need of political parties. If you need a health minister you have all medical experts, let them stand for the post, let the country choose the best physician, the best surgeon -- there is no need for any politics in it.

You need an education minister, let all the educationists... you have all the chancellors and vice-chancellors in the universities, you have great professors, you have scientists -- let them stand and let people choose the best.

The world will be far better if we are in the hands of intelligent people, creative people who cannot destroy, whose intelligence won't allow them to do all stupid things that politicians go on doing. And the power should always be with the more alert, more aware, more conscious people. Then only we are safe.

Otherwise, power is going to destroy the whole humanity.

Q: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO COME BACK TO INDIA? WHY NOT ANOTHER COUNTRY?

A: India cannot prevent me because I am born here. There is no other reason for my coming to India.

You will be surprised... in Germany the parliament has passed a law that I cannot enter Germany. I have never been to Germany, I have never committed any crime in Germany and they can pass a law that I cannot enter Germany.

I am going to ask them, "Can I fly over Germany or not?" Because I have six communes in Germany, I can at least fly and drop flowers on my communes, perhaps they will not allow even that.

In any other country I would have encountered the same problems. I was four years in America without any visa. They will not give me visa. I asked them, "Then you can simply tell me that you are not going to give me visa." They will not say even that in writing because they knew I will go to the court and they don't have any reason why they are refusing. Because I fulfill all their categories, not only one. They have six categories, only one category I don't fulfill -- that is marriage, which I can do any moment. The remaining five categories I fulfill.

And I asked them, "You tell me, whichever category you want me I can apply for it." And I had applied on five grounds, `no' they could not say because in the court they will be in difficulty. And `yes' the politicians will not allow them to say.

So four years I was there without any visa. I told to the immigration department that you are making me unnecessarily criminal and really you are criminal. You are forcing me to live here without visa. I am ready to go -- you just tell mèno.' I need some kind of reply or not.

I knew the same will happen in any country.

Coming back to India is for a simple reason that they cannot at least make a law against me that I cannot enter into the country.

Otherwise to me all the countries are the same and I don't believe in nations, I believe this whole earth is one.

And that day will be the most fortunate when nations are dissolved and we have one government and one world.

Because unless nations are dissolved we cannot get rid of wars. The only way to get rid of wars is dissolve nations, have only one world so there is no reason for war -- unless you find some other planet where there are similar beings like you ready to fight, which is a very rare and almost improbable possibility.

I have come here because there was nowhere else to go. I would have loved to go to Germany because I have the greatest number of sannyasins in Germany than in any other country. That's why the government is so much afraid. That even before I was told that I cannot enter America for five years, they immediately passed a law that I cannot enter into Germany. They must have been afraid that from America I will enter into Germany.

And in Germany I could have really created great trouble for the politicians.

But their very fear shows their inferiority. Their very fear shows lack of intelligence. Otherwise they should invite me, they can argue with me, I am ready to argue on each point. That will be more human.

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nothing on his body except his robe -- you don't need twelve guns to arrest a man. It simply shows your stupidity and your fear.

In the first place we had created such a beautiful commune in America. We transformed the whole desert which was lying dead for fifty years.

And nobody was ready to purchase it. We purchased it, we changed the desert into an oasis. We made lakes, we make a small river joining the lakes, we made houses for our sannyasins -- five thousand people were living. And we did everything ourselves. We had not taken any support from outside. We made the roads, we made the houses and we were living as comfortably, as luxuriously as possible. Because the desert started yielding more than we needed: enough food, enough vegetables, enough fruits, enough milk product... and we had all kinds of intelligent people.

Coincidentally only intelligent people become interested in me. So we had scientists, we had doctors, we had our own medical hospital, we had a university, we had many professors, we had many psychologists, we had many psychotherapies. We had engineers, we had all kinds of talented people and geniuses.

All five thousand people were graduates -- most of them had masters degrees and a large amount had doctorates. And these people put their whole energy and intelligence in creating a beautiful commune.

They started with meditation in the morning then they listened to me, then they went to work. Then in the evening they danced and sang and it was the most rejoicing and happy place on the earth. And that became their jealousy. That became their fear, that people are coming to see the commune from all over America.

Televisions, news media, radios, newspapers are all coming from all over America to see how we have managed it.

And it was a superior kind of communism because we have stopped any money circulation in the commune. No money was used inside the commune. Whatever you needed you got from the commune's central office. Whatever you needed was given to you so there was no need for money. If you wanted money to donate to the commune, you could donate but you could not purchase anything by money.

So there was no difference between the rich and the poor. Without any dictatorship we dissolved the class differences of poor and the rich. Just by stopping the circulation of money in the commune.... You may have millions of dollars but they were useless.

We had not a single beggar, nobody unemployed and for four years in the commune no rape, no murder, no suicide, no theft. This commune had a judge sitting useless for four years. The commune has a police force, they never used their force for anything because it was never needed. Nobody fought with anybody, their was no riots. And we had people from all nations, from all religions, from all races, and there was no problem. There were blacks, there were Jews, there were Hindus, there were Christians, there were Mohammedans.

The politicians became very much worried that we, without any power have managed a superior kind of society.

Five thousand people eating into one kitchen, into one place. It is stupid that there should be two thousand five hundred kitchens, twenty-five hundred women should be wasting their life in the kitchens.

Just fifteen persons were taking care of the kitchen. And all women are not good cooks. We had chosen the best cooks so the whole commune was happy as far as food was concerned and we managed not only delicious food, we managed that it should be hygienic, that it should be healthy, that it should be very balanced to everybody.

In America there are thirty million people dying on the streets, starving. And there are thirty million people, the exact number, who are dying in hospitals because of overeating. This seems to be stupid.

A person is dying because he is overeating and another person is dying because he has nothing to eat.

They both can live and both can live more healthily, just a little distribution and a little understanding is needed.

The whole system of the commune worried the politicians. Children were taken care by the commune so they were not a burden on the parents. Parents were more freer and in four years' time not a single baby was born because I told to my people that this is not the time for giving birth to people, the world is over-populated. It is a crime to go on adding more people to this already over-populated world.

And if you love your children what kind of world you are going to give them? A world which will be starving soon by the end of this century. Many countries will turn into Ethiopia. India will be turning into Ethiopia. There is going to be perhaps a nuclear war. A very strange disease AIDS is spreading like wildfire.

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In this world, if you love your child, this is not the time to give birth. And they understood. And not a single child was born.

The way the commune functioned created a comparison that if these people can maintain, why America having all the power of the world and all the money of the world cannot manage? That was my crime. And in any country if I am there I am going to create a commune and that is going to result in the same, there will not be much difference.

Q: WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE OF THE COMMUNES THEN?

A: I never think of the future. I think only of the present.

They are happy and they are rejoicing and out of this happiness and rejoicing the future will be born.

Future does not come from nowhere. It comes from the present. This moment gives birth to another moment so I think only of the present and I take care of the present, that is taking care of the future without taking care of the future.

The tomorrow will be better if we have lived today intensely, totally... the tomorrow is going to be born out of today.

So I don't think about future, it will take care itself.

Q: AND YOU WILL BE CONTINUED LIVING HERE? YOU CONTINUE LIVING HERE, THIS

PLACE?

A: Nothing can be said. Right now I am here, tomorrow I don't know.

Q: DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?

A: There is no God, so how can I believe?

Q: WHAT'S YOUR PERSONAL OPINION ABOUT RELIGIONS AND SEX?

A: There is no need of religions. All that is needed is a quality of religiousness and all organized religions destroy this same quality. They make you Christians, they make you Hindus, they make you Mohammedans, they don't make you religious.

My effort is you should not be a Christian, you should not be a Hindu, you should not be a Jew, you should be simply religious.

And to me religion means living life in its totality, accepting existence in all its beauty, with gratitude. It is so beautiful and it has been given to us just as a gift -- we should be grateful, grateful to the trees, to the birds, to the stars, to the flowers, to the oceans.

To me there is no God, existence is enough unto itself.

And a deep feeling of gratitude towards existence is what I mean by religiousness.

And if you live totally then certainly sex is part of it. Sex is part of your life. And something most important. You are born out of it, your every cell vibrates with it, it is your only energy.

And if you love and love intensely, sex is the first thing that gives you a feeling of religiousness.

To me the orgasmic experience is the first experience of religion. You don't get it in the churches, you don't get it in the temples.

You get it when you are in total love, immersed with your lover, forgotten everything, thoughts stop, for a moment time stops and that is the moment when you first experience something beyond mind.

So to me sex is something sacred. It should be respected. And all the religions have been condemning it.

They have created all kinds of perversions because of their condemnation. They have created celibates and nobody can be a celibate, it is impossible. Just it is against nature.

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So the celibate becomes a homosexual. It leads to perversions and finally it has come to AIDS which is an outcome of homosexuality.

I call AIDS a religious disease and I want it emphasized that all the religions are responsible for bringing such a ugly disease which has no cure.

Celibacy should be made a crime. Anything against nature should be a crime.

And to me sex is something which should be more prayerful, more loving, more aesthetic.

To my own sannyasins I say that you should make in your house a small temple where you make love. It should be the most beautiful place in your house, and when you make love there should be music, there should be incense burning, there should be flowers all around. Love should be made not under glaring electric lights but with small candles. Make it more of a dream, out of the real world, the mundane world.

And treat the other person with deep respect. Don't use the other person because that is not respect, that is prostitution, that is not love.

And before you make love dance, sing, let your energy vibrate your whole body. Love should be the climax of your dance otherwise you will never achieve those orgasmic moments I am talking about.

Millions of people live and die, give birth to children, but have never experienced any orgasmic phenomenon.

The reason is because it can happen only at a climax so you have to bring your energy at a climax. Don't make love while you are tired, don't make love just as a sleeping pill so that you can sleep. Don't make love out of duty, that she's your wife and you have to make love. Make love only when you are full of energy and when you would like to dance, when you would like to explode. And make the situation as sacred and as aesthetic as possible.

To me sex is sacred and the first step towards religiousness. I have immense respect for it.

Q: WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT FOR THE HUMAN BEING IN THE WORLD, SCIENCE OR

RELIGION?

A: Both. And both more than the other because science is the search for truth in the objective world and religion is also search for the truth in the subjective world.

In fact, they are two wings of one bird, of one inquiry -- two sides.

Ultimately there is no need to have two names. My own suggestion is `science' is perfectly beautiful name because it means knowing.

So science has two sides, just like every coin has two sides. Knowing into the dimension of matter you can call it objective science, and knowing into the dimension of your interiority, of your inner being, of your consciousness, you can call it subjective science. There is no need for the word religion.

Science is perfectly good. And it is the same search. Just the directions are two. And it will be good that we make one supreme science which is a synthesis, a synchronicity of the outer science and the inner science. And there will be no need then of so many religions and there will be no need then even for somebody to be an atheist. Because theists are gone, then there is no need for atheists -- they are only reactions.

There are believers in God so there are disbelievers in God. When the believers are gone what is the need of disbelievers.

There is no need to believe in anything -- that is the fundamental of science; that is the scientific approach to reality: do not believe, inquire.

The moment you believe, inquiry stops. Keep your mind open -- neither believe nor disbelieve. Just remain alert and search and doubt everything. Unless you come to a point which is indubitable, that's what truth is. You cannot doubt it. It is not a question of believing in it, it is a totally different phenomenon and you cannot doubt it. It is so much a certainty, so overwhelming you that there is no way to doubt it.

And this is knowing and this knowing transforms a man into a Buddha, into an enlightened man. This is the goal of all human growth.

Q: WILL YOU CONTINUE TO BE AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE FOR ADVICE?

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A: Yes. I am available always to anybody who is searching and seeking, who is courageous enough not to believe but to inquire.

Okay.

Q: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #5

Chapter title: None

12 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512125

ShortTitle: LAST505

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW BY THE RAJNEESH TIMES, GERMANY

Q: IN THE GACHCHHAMIS WE ARE STILL SAYING, `SANGHAM SHARANAM GACHCHHAMI.'

DOES THE SANGHA STILL EXIST? WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU USE THE WORD COMMUNE?

A: Yes, it still exists; and exists on a more subtle level. Wherever there are sannyasins meditating, loving (inaudible) with me, celebrating moment to moment whatever life brings, they are creating the energy which makes the commune.

Now the commune is all over the world. It is not destroyed by the American politicians in(*) Rajneeshpuram. They are befooling themselves if they think it is destroyed. It is simply diffused, more in the atmosphere, the biosphere that surrounds the earth. Now there is only one commune.

There is no change as far as your going to the feet of the Awakened One, His commune and His truth is concerned. It remains the same. Of course it becomes more invisible. And the visible can be destroyed very easily. The invisible cannot be destroyed. We have moved from mortal communes to something immortal and eternal.

THE STRUCTURE IN THE COMMUNE HAS CHANGED A LOT SINCE SHEELA LEFT. IT SEEMS

MUCH MORE MATURE NOW. BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THAT SPIRIT OF THE MYSTERY SCHOOL IS

MISSING, WHICH WAS ALIVE IN EACH COMMUNE OF YOUR SANNYASINS. DO WE HAVE TO GO

ON OUR OWN NOW?

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I don't want any structure, because all structures create a certain kind of slavery. And that's what was being done by Sheela and her gang. She was creating structures; structures can function better. Slavery always functions better.

An independent and free mind is always a problem, because he thinks. He may not agree with you. But freedom is more valuable than any functional, practical gains. Everything can be sacrificed to freedom.

Freedom cannot be sacrificied to anything.

So now there will be no more any structures. Each commune should try to live intelligently, rather than following a certain structure unintelligently. Now sannyasins will have to learn to live intelligently, and yet in agreement, in harmony. Intelligence does not mean necessarily conflict. It is only a lower kind of intelligence that always brings conflict. Higher the intelligence, more harmonies. It seeks more the points of meeting, creating a cosmos out of a chaos.

And remember one thing, that a structure gives you a solidity, a stability. You feel as if you have a backbone. But it kills your soul. It makes you robot like. You work more, you produce more. In economic terms it is perfectly good. And that's what Sheela was trying to do.

When there is no fixed structure, when you move day to day with your intelligence, creating momentary temporary structures which can be changed any moment, they don't have any ultimacy about them, it will look like a chaos, because so much change will be going on. But remember, it is always out of chaos that stars are born. We don't want to make our communes assembly lines, mechanical, where machines are produced. We want to produce a new man.

That's where I differed from Sheela. As I started speaking, I found that she has done absolutely the opposite of what I have been teaching for thirty years.

I am for individuality, I am for freedom, I am for the beauty of a chaos.

I am not very favorable to the deadness of an ordered world, obedience of an army. I hate it; because these are the problems that humanity has suffered all along. I would love my sannyasins to be intelligently disobedient. And if they are obedient, they have to be intelligently obedient. Not just because the order is there it has to be followed. Unless the order fits with you, unless the order rings some bells in your heart, unless it becomes something of your own, it is meaningless. It is better to rebel than to follow.

Sheela destroyed small centers while I was in silence and isolation, and she created big communes. Her mind was that of a materialist.

I want my small centers back, because in a small center you can have more freedom, more independence. In a big commune, necessarily, you have to bring some kind of a structure, some kind of obedience, some kind of order, otherwise it becomes too difficult to manage. And basically, I value the individual. So bring back the small centers -- and they were functioning perfectly well, and nobody was ordering them. They were working out of love.

While I was in Poona, thousands of centers around the world were working without any order, without any structure. Each had its own uniqueness its own individuality, and it was upon themselves what to make of it, how to make it. She dissolved all those small, beautiful centers and created big communes simply so that more money can be generated.

My interest is not money. My interest is how more consciousness can be generated. But her whole effort and her whole clique was concentratedly working at one goal: how to create more money. And this was necessary, that small centers should be dissolved, people should move into bigger communes, and there should be strict discipline, strict orders, and everybody should be dependent on the commune for everything. Naturally, more money can be produced. But what we are going to do with the money? Money is not a value. It is useful, but it is not something that has to be worshipped, that you have to make a goal of it.

So my situation now is that if you feel bigger communes are difficult to maintain -- they will be difficult

-- without structures, without somebody dictating everything from higher up and you have simply to follow... now there will be nobody else to do it.

I have never ordered anybody to do anything and I have never dictated anybody -- that is against human dignity. So I would like that if your bigger communes are becoming difficult to run disperse them, let your small communes sprout up again in different places. And we have nothing to do by generating money. We have to generate more consciousness and more living and loving people. For that bigger communes are not needed. You unnecessarily create trouble by collecting too many people in one place. Somehow or other everybody's freedom will be cut.

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pattern. So it is a moment of transition in which you may find it a little difficult because Sheela was running things absolutely against me. Whatever she did was absolutely against me. She tried to create an organized religion -- I have always been against organized religion, she even created a small holy book of Rajneeshism -- I had to burn it because I don't want any holy books.

There are good books and there are bad books but there are no holy books. But she has no understanding of any higher qualities of consciousness. She belonged to a very pragmatic, practical, lower stage of mind.

So she was good at work, she was just like a rough uncut ugly stone that you use in the foundation when you make a building. It has its use but it remains underground.

I had chosen her because in Rajneeshpuram we were just putting the foundation of a commune and I was completely aware that sooner or later I will have to change her because once the basic foundation is complete she is useless, and dangerous. Because she can only become a foundation, she can go on making big walls of those ugly stones and it will become a prison not a temple.

I was going to change her in anyway, but in my whole life this has been my experience that existence has been very compassionate to me. She escaped before I had to change her. She must be thinking that she has been very clever because she has accumulated money in Switzerland -- that's why in Germany she has created these six communes, destroyed all small communes. And Germany has a tendency -- you have to be aware of that -- Adolf Hitler does not happen from nowhere. It comes from your consciousness, it is something in your unconscious that creates that monster.

Why she concentrated on Germany? She could see that Germany can be structured, people can be enslaved, disciplined... they love me. In the name of my love they will be ready to do anything.

And all the money she was siphoning into Switzerland and it is just a guess -- American government thinks twenty million dollars she has in one bank account. Her own secretary who left her two years before because she had cancer and had to go for treatment in California remembers that at the time she left she had forty-three million dollars in two bank accounts. And she left two years before. So there is every possibility that she may be having something nearabout sixty, seventy or eighty million dollars in her own name.

But this is what I was saying. That money is not a value. Now she will rot in a jail her whole life and the money will rot in a bank. And you all worked for that money and for Sheela unnecessarily. It was a sheer wastage. So now make it a point that no more of anything that Sheela may have left in your minds should remain in the communes, in the sannyasins -- it has to be cleaned.

So if big communes can be run without destroying people's freedom, individuality -- good. If you feel it is difficult, make smaller communes, smaller centers and let people live according to their own ideas. That's my whole message to the sannyasins.

Now whatever Sheela has done has to be undone. And it has been in a way a blessing in disguise. It has been a good learning. It should not happen again.

BHAGWAN, I KNOW THE MONEY SOURCE OF THE COMMUNES -- OF COLOGNE AND MANY

OF THE OTHER COMMUNES -- TWO OF THE BIG COMMUNES, AND I KNOW THAT THEY WERE

HARDLY, OR WE WERE HARDLY ABLE TO GATHER THE MONEY FOR GOING TO THE FESTIVALS.

SO JUST FROM THIS FACTUAL SIDE, I KNOW THAT THIS MONEY SHEELA HAS IS NOT COMING

FROM THE BIG COMMUNES. JUST THE FACTUAL INFORMATION, I DON'T KNOW WHICH

INFORMATION YOU GET. BUT KNOWING THE COLOGNE BUSINESS AND THE MONEY FLOW IT

WAS NOT POSSIBLE FOR HER OR FOR ANYBODY TO TAKE OUR MONEY BECAUSE WE WERE

REALLY WORKING HARD TO GET THE MONEY TOGETHER TO GO TO THE FESTIVAL. IT'S LIKE A COMMUNE OF THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE, WE COULD TAKE ABOUT ONE POINT FOUR MILLION

DEUTSCHE MARKS TO BRING EVERYBODY OVER TO THE FESTIVAL.

I can understand it may not be coming from the communes, then it must be coming from rich sannyasins directly of which you were not aware and you cannot be aware that, and she will not make anybody aware.

Money must have been coming because even in my case the government raised again and again the question that twenty million are there in Swiss accounts, in Sheela's name. And Sheela's old secretary says there were forty-three when she left. And it is possible because in the commune in Rajneeshpuram we have invested almost more than two hundred million dollars. So it is possible that from individual sources... and more informations are coming that Sheela was also dealing in heavy drugs. These were just known to few people who were partners in it. That she was also dealing in gold and this dealing was continuing from 1/08/07

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Poona days and now everything that people who have been participants in those dealings are going to be witnesses in the court.

So the money may have come from drugs, from gold, from individual people -- it is difficult for us to figure out. It may not have come from the communes. But the effort was to structure communes in such a way that soon they can become sources of money.

Money was some kind of phobia in her mind but now you have to start fresh from the scratch and don't expect anything that you have become accustomed with Sheela and her group. I will not be giving you directions how to run your communes, how to make more money... I will not be dictating anything because I trust in your intelligence -- you should function out of your intelligence.

It is better to fail, but work through your own intelligence.

Rather than to succeed on somebody else guidance. That success is not of any value. So spread the idea that sannyas is reborn, it was a nightmare that is ended and now we have to function in freedom, with intelligence and if we harmonize through intelligence, good. If we feel there is disagreement then there is no need somebody to suffer and fit with your ideas. He can have his own way.

And all communes need not be on the same pattern. Each commune should find its own way, its own individuality. And that will be more colorful and more richer.

BHAGWAN, THE FACT THAT SHEELA COULD STAND BETWEEN YOU AND US HAS CREATED

LOTS OF MISTRUST AND SKEPTICISM AMONGST SANNYASINS. WHEN NOW WE GET MESSAGES

FROM HASYA OR ARUP FOR EXAMPLE, THE SAME MISTRUST ARISES. HOW CAN WE AVOID

ANYBODY BETWEEN YOU AND US?

You need not be worried now because the mistrust is natural, because Sheela really did a great betrayal.

Not to me because nobody can betray me for the simple reason because I never ask anybody's loyalty or anybody's faith so there is no possibility to betray me. But she betrayed the whole movement of sannyasins, all the communes who trusted her as my representative and she deceived them.

So it is absolutely natural that there will be mistrust but you have to clear it now. That I was silent and in isolation, that's why Sheela could do it. The moment I started speaking and meeting the sannyasins face to face direct Sheela escaped. She knew now that there is no place for her.

So now anybody, for example Hasya, cannot deceive you. I am always available for you to check. And Hasya cannot do anything, because I am available to you. So there is no problem. Hasya is in direct contact with me and I am fully aware that the same thing should not happen so I will remain in contact with the sannyasins. And whenever you feel that something seems to be going against my basic ideology, you can always write a letter and ask me. There is no problem. Even if the letter is against Hasya there is no problem; you can directly write to me. The letter has not to go through Hasya.

So now the management is going to be a little different. Hasya will be the president of the international and she will be my secretary to the international; but I will have also a small campus, I am not going to create another commune around me, just few sannyasins to look after me. And this campus will have a separate secretary, Neelam is going to be the secretary of my household campus. So you can write directly to Neelam which has nothing to do with Hasya and it will reach to me -- even if it is against Hasya she cannot prevent it.

So now two ways are open to you. You can talk to Hasya, you can tell her, that "We suspect this is going against Bhagwan. You check it. Are you sure that it is coming from Bhagwan, otherwise we are going to ask directly." And I am making a direct source available to you and Neelam will be nobody in the organization of the international. She will be simply the secretary of my household campus. She has no power, nothing, just she has to maintain things in the campus... the people who will be living and the guests who will be coming -- taking care of them.

So just make it clear to people that it cannot happen and we will make every possible way. And their mistrust will disappear -- there is no problem. Few days, it is bound to linger on; but when they will see that it is no more there, things are coming clear. And I am directly available, I am available to your newspapers, to your magazines, to every commune, to every individual personally so you can check everything.

No need to mistrust. Checking anything is not mistrust: it is simply making things clear to yourself.

Don't call it mistrust, simply call it Ì don't feel clear about it. That word mistrust is derogatory.' If Hasya says something to you and you don't feel clear about it, for clarity you can inquire, and there will be no 1/08/07

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problem.

AMERICA WAS A BIG EXPERIENCE, BHAGWAN. DID WE MISS? DID AMERICA MISS? WERE

THE POLITICIANS STRONGER THAN US?

(TAPE SIDE B; NO OVERLAP)

... was really a great experiment but we never miss. That is not my style of life. We only win. America missed, and missed badly and will repent, is already repenting.

And the politicians cannot win. Power is absolutely powerless when it faces innocence, when it faces love, when it faces meditation. And that's what has happened. For the first thing, they accepted their defeat in the very fact that they became afraid of a single individual who had no power, no nuclear weapons. They accepted their inferiority of power before a single individual.

It would have been far better and far more democractic to invite me for a discussion. If they thought that I was wrong and what I am doing is wrong, then the democratic way is to discuss. To argue... and I am ready to argue about each point.

We invited them times and again, they never came. We wanted them to come and be our guest and just see the experiment and show us where we are wrong. And if you can make your point logically, we will change it. But if we can make that what we are doing is right then you have to start doing something on the same lines, on a vaster scale.

If we have succeeded with five thousand people to change a desert into an oasis, if we have succeeded five thousand people to make them rejoicing, happy, loving -- why you cannot do it? You have all the power of the world, you have all the money of the world -- we don't have anything. If we can make a society for four years where there has never been a rape, a murder, a theft, any other kind of crime... why can't you make such a society? There is nobody unemployed, not a single beggar. America has thirty million beggars on the streets dying.

We had accept two hundred street people and they mixed and they rejoiced one thing most -- that they had been treated for the first time in their life as human beings. Otherwise they have become accustomed of being treated as dogs. Even they have started accepting the idea that they are not human beings, they are not worthy of any respect. And in these four years they, who had been to jails many times on different crimes, who had been brought up in the world of crime, did not commit a single crime.

We proved a far better communism in the commune because we stopped the circulation of money in the commune -- nobody should use money in the commune. You can donate to the commune but you cannot purchase by money. So you may have million dollars and somebody may not have a single dollar, but you are not rich by having a million dollars because you cannot use those million dollars. And the person who has not a single dollar is as rich as you are because your needs are fulfilled by the commune, his needs are fulfilled by the commune. They became afraid that is where their defeat is: that we are creating, we have succeeded almost in creating a higher quality of communism that exists in Soviet Russia without any dictatorship, without any enforcement, without any government -- just depending on people's love and intelligence. Their fear was that the whole America will ask them: "Why you cannot do it?"

The commune has to be demolished because it is a dangerous model and they could demolish the commune only if I am somehow removed from America. They were in a difficulty how to remove me because I had not committed any crime. I lived in America for four years without any visa because they will not issue the visa. And they will not give me in writing that we are not issuing the visa; they were afraid because I will move the court, that I have every right to remain in America, why they are refusing me, and they have no answer. So they will not give me in writing and they could not say yes because the political pressure was there that "Don't give visa."

So for four years I lived without visa. I was asking for the visa and they will not give, and they will not even say that, "We cannot give," or that "You are not to remain in the country, you have to leave the country."

They could not arrest me. For two years they have been trying to arrest me. Such a big power. The biggest power in the world was afraid of five thousand sannyasins because to arrest me in the commune would mean they will have first to kill five thousand sannyasins, only then they can reach to me.

And this will destroy their whole image in the world forever. So they could not manage to come to the commune. It was just a coincidence that I had gone to visit few sannyasins in North Carolina in their 1/08/07

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mountain homes -- they had beautiful mountain homes and have been inviting me and I loved North Carolina... was really a beautiful part of America. Not only as land, but people also are more loving, more intelligent than anywhere else.

They got this chance, they arrested me on the airport in the middle of the night. You can see their defeat on every step. Twelve guns to arrest a man who has nothing in his hands, who has nothing on his body except a robe... this shows the poverty of power, and the stupidity of those who have the power. And they had no arrest warrant which was illegal. They had not even any cause to show me why they are arresting me

-- what kind of democracy is this? That a person can be arrested without even telling him. Don't give me in writing, but at least tell me why I am arrested. They won't allow my attorney to be called because they have no reason to arrest me. If the attorney was there they will not be able to prove anything legally. They refuse that I cannot call the attorney and we are not going to give you any reason and we don't have any arrest warrant, but you are arrested.

On each step they were defeated. In the court for three days continuously they tried but they could not bring a single point against me. And the U.S. Attorney himself said, concluding his remarks in the court, that "We have not been able to prove anything. Neither the other party has been able to prove anything."

Now this is an stupid remark -- the second part. Because innocence needs no proof. It is for you to prove, you have arrested me! It is for you to prove why I have been arrested. My attorney's have nothing to prove. Otherwise every innocent man can be caught into the court and he has to prove his innocence.

Innocence cannot be proved; guilt can be proved, crime can be proved -- they were defeated on each....

They had to release the six people with me but they forced the magistrate not to release me on bail because I am a dangerous person and I have enormous financial resources and I have thousands of devoted people in the world who can do anything for me.

This shows the poverty and the defeat of a great power. Are you saying that I am more powerful than America? That's what they were saying... that I cannot be bailed because I will leave America, I will not care about the bail and they will not be able to prevent me from leaving.

Now this is a good news for Soviet Union to understand that these people are not to be worried about....

If this cannot prevent me from getting out of America, with all their forces and all their nuclear weapons, these are not the people who are going to win in the third world war.

On each point we went on winning and the final victory was that they started being illegal. Finding no legal way, the law is theirs -- I have not made it, the courts are theirs and the case was U.S. Government versus Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. A single man against a whole country.

But they were worried that they cannot manage legally so they started using illegal means. For example, it takes only eight hours from North Carolina to Oregon. It took me twelve days to reach Oregon. They will take me from one jail to another jail, and they were lying continuously that "You are going to Oregon."

And I will end up in another jail and I will ask, "Where is Oregon? This place is not Oregon. And why you are lying? Just you want to punish me without proving any guilt. Without any trial you want to harrass me as long as possible. Eight hours journey you have prolonged to twelve days." And in all these days they were defeated on every moment and they accepted the jailers, the marshalls that "You are a strange man.

We are giving you every kind of harrassment and you are taking it as if it is an experiment in meditation."

And that's what I was doing.

They knew all my medical history because I had presented it to the I.N.S. -- that I have allergies of smoke, dust, perfume... and they will put me in a cell where twelve people are continuously smoking and my eyes will be red and with tears and my breathing will be difficult, my throat was not even able to speak.

But I remained with closed eyes sitting with those people. I did not complain.

One jailer said me, that "You are the first man who has been being harrassed in every possible way who has not complained."

I said, "What is the point of complaining -- I am enjoying everything that you are doing for me. You are taking so much trouble creating situations to harrass me, but you don't know that you cannot harrass me, you can torture my body, you can kill my body but you cannot touch me."

They went to the extent that in one jail the U.S. Marshall himself asked me to sign under the name of David Washington. I asked him that "You are supposed to be the highest law-imposing authority. What kind of law you are imposing on me. That is not my name. You are asking me to do something absolutely illegal.

And on your coat is written Department of Justice -- at least put the coat away, be a little ashamed. And what is the purpose -- do you think me that I cannot understand the purpose. The purpose is simple: you want the whole world to remain ignorant that I am in this jail so that whatever you want to do with me you 1/08/07

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can do. And the world news media will not be even aware. You can even kill me and there will no record even that where I disappeared because on your record there is David Washington. I have never entered in the jail, the question of my getting died or murdered, does not arise."

So I told him, "You write in your own hand writing. I will sign it."

And I made him write in his own hand writing to make it a document that U.S. Marshall himself writes a wrong name, forces me... I sign my own name. And of course I signed in Hindi as I always sign.

He could not figure it out what it is. He said, "What it is?"

I said, "It must be David Washington. As far as I understand." But I said to him, that "These illegal things will not help. These are simply showing that you are desperate and you don't have anything in your favor. And now you are going even to absolute criminality, but in the morning every television station, every newspaper and every radio will know that if you want to talk to me, ask for David Washington."

He said, "But how they will know?"

I said, "You will see tomorrow morning." And tomorrow morning it happened because on the airplane there was one girl who was going to be released that night. I told her that, "You listen silently whatever transpires between me and the jail authorities and then you will be released. The first thing you have to do, just outside, because the news media help me immensely".... It was news media who did not allow them even to touch my body. "They are outside, hundreds of cameras and journalists -- you just go outside and tell them, that `Bhagwan has been forced to sign under a false name.'"

She has listened the whole thing. I just waved her and she said "I will do." And she did. And next morning they had to rush me to another jail immediately because that was such an illegality and such a criminal act that if they were caught in it.... I was inside the jail and there was no record. And where is David Washington? And how I happened inside the jail? And where David Washington has disappeared?

They became so desperate... He was so nervous in the morning when he wake me up. I said, "What is the news." He said, "You were right, you just come out and we will take you to the airport." Again lying.

And they took me to F.B.I. Concentration Camp, far away from the city, thinking that now nobody will know but they were wrong. Because the press was aware that now they will be doing something, so the press remained there the whole night and the press followed on their helicopters and their cars and they could not manage to keep me hidden anywhere.

Twelve days, they made every effort to keep me in a place where nobody should know. And in a stupid way, this man who is U.S. Marshall -- I asked him, that "I would like to call my attorney to tell him that I have changed my name. I will not blame you, just... I have every right to change my name, I have changed my name. I have to inform my attorney that if he calls me, he has to call me David Washington."

"No, you cannot call your attorney. Your attorney can call you."

But I said, "Either you are absolutely retarded or what to make of it. How my attorney is going to know that I have changed to David Washington? He will ask for me and the clerk on the counter will say, that

`Nobody of this name is here.'"

After twelve days continuously trying and being defeated in finding a place where they can hide me from the world finally they brought me to Oregon and there was their greatest defeat. They had nothing against me and they knew that if the trial begins they are going to lose. And they have made a case, the whole nation versus against a individual, and United States of America will lose the case. Perhaps in the history no nation has lost a case against a single individual. They became aware that they have got into a mess. They don't have anything.

So they asked my attorneys for negotiations. My attorneys said, "There is no need for any negotiations.

We are going to fight."

And what they said that, "Yes, we know that our points are weak but we want to make it clear to you that if you want to fight the case and if Bhagwan says Ì am not guilty' then we will not let the court give him any bail. Then as long as the trial continues he will be in the jail and that can mean four years, seven years, ten years -- one never knows. We can manage to postpone it as long as possible. And you can understand what that means."

They made it clear that "We will torture." So the alternative they gave is that "Bhagwan should accept that I am guilty. The judge will fine him and the case will be dismissed."

When my attorneys came to me they had tears in their eyes. They were the best attorneys America has and working with me they started loving me. And they said that "We are feeling so helpless that we have to tell you to accept that you are guilty while you are not guilty. And that too, under the oath in the court, `that I will speak only the truth, nothing but truth' and the government is forcing you to speak a lie that Ì am 1/08/07

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guilty.'"

And they said, "We understand you would like to fight. We would like to fight because there is nothing in their case. We are sure to win but they can torture you, they can even kill you. And you have to think also of your thousands of sannyasins around the world -- they will be suffering all these five, seven years you will be in jail."

So they said, "It is not right at all what we are asking you to do but you accept guilty. Just out of compassion for your own sannyasins. And the government is absolutely defeated because they asked for negotiations. We have not asked for negotiations and they have managed negotiations in such a way that they have not left us any outlet."

The judge was perfectly aware of the settlement because exactly on those two points, they had eighteen points all bogus against me... only on those two points he asked me, "Are you guilty or not?"... which they wanted me to say that Ì am guilty.' So that means the judge was absolutely aware of what settlement is happening between government and my attorneys.

So this whole democracy is fraud. This whole justice and the name of great values, of fairness, is simple hypocrisy. And I accepted that I am guilty and still I was fined four hundred thousand dollars -- almost half a million dollars.

The charges are false, you force me to accept first.... At that time it was not said that I will be fined half a million dollars. It was not part of the negotiations. I was only told that I accept my guilt and the judge will only give me the fine that for five years you cannot enter America. I said, "That is not a fine because I am not going to enter America my whole life."

But this fine was kept secret. Even my attorneys were shocked, but what else to do? They have forced me to accept that I am guilty -- now because I am guilty, the fine of half a million dollars and five years I cannot enter America. I told the judge, that "There is no need to make any limitation. I am not going to enter this wretched land again in my life so you can make it lifelong."

So we are not defeated in any way. We have not lost any case. America got into unnecessarily exposing its own fascism, its own ugly face to the world, and now they are very angry with me because I am talking to the whole world press and now they are not in a position to defend because whatever I am saying is true.

They were not aware that provoking me is dangerous. A single man can destroy their whole integrity, their idea of being the greatest democratic nation. And I will continue to hammer that America is not a democracy, it is a hypocrisy. And it is basically fascist. And at least Soviet Union is straightforward. It is not hypocrite. It says that it is a dictatorship.

America is exactly the same, perhaps worse and pretending to be democratic.

Now my sannyasins have to expose this fraud to the whole world, wherever they are. And I have made it a point that if there is going to be a third world war ever, it will not be between Soviet Union and America --

it will be between the whole world and America.

It is the ugliest monster hiding behind a beautiful facade.

Okay.

Q: THANK YOU BHAGWAN.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #6

Chapter title: None

23 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512235

ShortTitle: LAST506

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Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH BY DELHI RECORDER

Q: COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR ROUTINE OVER HERE?

A: Coming to India, I have not started my work yet, otherwise it was too much for twenty-four hours to contain. Before it starts again, there is in fact no routine. I am sleeping from seven in the evening to eight in the morning, then taking my bath. At nine visitors come just to see me. That is one of the conditions of Span that I cannot hold meetings here, so they just stand on the gate and I go and receive them. And for half an hour I go around just for a walk. Nine-thirty to eleven is given to news media, because from all over the world people are coming, so it is for their interviews. Eleven I take my lunch, and eleven-thirty I go back to sleep. At three I wake up. Three to three-thirty is for photographers, and just a walk around the ground, and then again an interview with the press. Five to six I listen to some classical music. Six I take my supper, and seven I go to sleep again. So it is not much of a routine, mostly I am sleeping.

Q: BUT YOU HAD STOPPED GIVING INTERVIEWS IN THE LAST FIFTEEN DAYS. I BELIEVE WE

ARE VERY LUCKY TO HAVE GOT AN INTERVIEW TODAY.

A: Yes, for fifteen days I had to stop, because everywhere is so much ugliness. All over the world we talk about freedom of thinking and freedom of expression, but nowhere it is allowed. As I landed in Delhi after America, I gave my first press conference. In that press conference I have not said anything about any religion because it was not the context. Still from far away Bengal a summons has come I have hurt their religious feelings, so I have to appear before the court in January. Second summons have come and third we are informed is coming. So my people thought that it will be better before we establish...

In America I had five thousand people's commune.

Four hundred were legal experts. We had the biggest legal firm in the whole world. They were taking care of all the cases which I was creating. Right now we don't have even a single legal person, so they suggested that for ten, fifteen days I should wait. Our legal persons are coming, and then they can take care of all these cases. These are harassment cases and it is very easy to put a case against anybody that you have hurt my religious feeling...

In fact it is such a stupid and silly thing that courts allow it. For example, I have said in one interview that I will not consider Rama of a great spiritual height, because whatever he has done is almost inhuman.

First s son of a Brahmin dies in Ayodhya...

And the Brahmin comes to Rama and says that there must be happening some great sin, otherwise the son of a Brahmin cannot die before his father. So a great search.... thousand mile away it has been found that a sudra -- an untouchable -- has heard few Brahmins reading Vedas, hiding behind trees. That was the great sin, thousand miles away from Ayodhya, that the Brahmin's son has died. The sudra was caught, and Manu Smrati(*) provides only one punishment: that melted lead, absolute fire, should be poured into both his ears. And that's what Rama did. I cannot conceive Rama even human. To talk of him as incarnation of God is simply nonsense. Now I have said this, those who follow Rama, their religious feelings are hurt. My own understanding is that if their religious feelings are hurt, they should be hurt by the act of Rama, not my statement. I have not done anything, I have simply repeated what is written in their scriptures. I have not written them.

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Q: BUT DO YOU THINK THERE IS A CONCERTED MOVEMENT TO HARASS YOU?

A: Certainly.

Q: WELL, WHO WOULD YOU SAY WOULD BE BEHIND THIS MOVEMENT?

A: American government.

Q: THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT -- EVEN HERE IN INDIA?

A: Even here.

Q: APART FROM THIS CASE, IS THERE ANY OTHER CASE IN WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN

SUMMONED?

A: Yes, three other summons have come. And from very reliable sources the information that more summons will be coming to harass me: one from Madras, one from...

Q: I SEE, FROM DIFFERENT PLACE...

A: From different places, so I have to appear.

And meaningless.... they cannot win these cases because I am not saying anything on my own. I am simply making a statement which is in their scripture. If their religious feeling is hurt, they should drop Rama. And if their religious feeling is not hurt even by destroying the ears of a poor man, I don't think their religious they have any religious feelings at all, that they can be hurt by my statement. So I am, I have been fighting these cases my whole life. Not in a single case they have won...

But harassment certainly is there.

Q: BUT WHY SHOULD THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BE SO INTERESTED IN HARASSING

YOU? NOW? HERE IN INDIA?

A: Yes, they are interested in for many reasons. One is they destroyed the commune in America...

Out of great jealousy. The commune has come to such a standard of living that it was higher that the American standard of living, that they think is the best in the world. We have changed a desert into an oasis.

Five thousand people for four and a half years managed to do everything without any support from outside.

We made our roads, we made our houses, we cultivated vegetables, food, fruits. We made lakes, because it was a desert, there was no water. And it was almost a miracle. And news media started coming to Rajneeshpuram -- that how could we manage, we don't have any power, the government is continuously harassing us.

There was one hundred twenty cases by the government in which they were being defeated on each single case, but they were going on finding new....

Destroying the commune in America.... Now they don't want that I can create a similar commune anywhere, for the simple reason because that commune will prove what they have destroyed. Now they have a desert again. Now there is no proof, only in the memories of those five thousand people who had lived there, and in the memories of the news media who had been coming there.

I invited the president, the governor and other officials and politicians just to come and be our guest and see what is happening. They never came.

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Now their whole effort is that this should not happen anywhere, for two reasons. One, that if it happens again then there will be a proof that they have done something immensely ugly. And the whole America feels it.

People have been phoning, and crying on the phone -- non-sannyasins, Americans who don't know us --

and saying that "This is the ugliest thing that American government has done ever, because you have not done any harm, and they have destroyed a whole city which you had made with so much labor."

Our people were working twelve to fourteen hours a day, and we had made such a beautiful place. That may have been the only city which was centrally air-conditioned. We made the desert green, we made birds to come, swans, peacocks. When I had reached there, there was not a single bird. What bird will do? --

because there was no water. We made all kinds of trees grow.

The second thing that they were afraid was is more important which was: we created a better quality of communism than exists anywhere in the world, either in China or in Soviet Russia. And by very simple means. In Russia they have created through a very dictatorial regime, forcing people, and they killed almost one million people after revolution; and then too if freedom is given again, the communism will disappear, because there is something intrinsically wrong in Marxian understanding.

Man is not equal. You cannot make another Albert Einstein and you cannot create another Karl Marx.

People are unique. So the whole idea of equality and inequality is baseless. You cannot compare two unique beings. You don't compare a man with a chair. It is stupid -- they are simply different. People are different, so they should be given equal opportunity to be different, but they should not be forced to be equal -- which is against human nature, against human psychology.

So what they have not been able to accomplish in seventy years in Soviet Russia, we accomplished in four years by a simple thing: we simply stopped using money in the commune. Inside the commune no money can be used. You can donate to the commune, but you cannot purchase anything by money in the commune.

Q: SO HOW DID IT FUNCTION?

A: Whatever you need, the commune will provide, and our needs are not much. And if we go intelligently... for example, for five thousand people we have only one kitchen, one dining hall. Rather than having two thousand, five hundred kitchens and engaging twenty-five hundred women, their whole life into kitchens and wasting their life there and then getting angry and then becoming a pain in the neck, then torturing the children, torturing the husband, and always ready to fight.

We changed the whole system, and the result was tremendous benefit economically: twenty-five hundred kitchens are reduced into one. And all women are not good cooks. In fact all good cooks are men; not a single book on the science of cookery has been written by a woman, they are all written by men. And in all the best hotels, the best cooks are men, not women.

So we had chosen the best cooks. Why give food to people when you can manage better, more scientific, more hygienic food for all? So we had better food, more food. There was not a single beggar, there was nobody unemployed because there was no question of employment. Everybody was working because it was their commune, and they had to make it as beautiful as possible. In four years' time not a single crime, no rape, no murder, no suicide, no theft. There was no need -- when you can get everything that you want, why you should steal somebody's used things? There was no need.

Q: HERE CAN I INTERRUPT YOU?

A: Just a moment. This created an idea all over America that communism is not necessarily connected with the dictatorship of the proletariat; in fact it is not connected with government at all. We had no government; we were just loving each other and we found that what works better, we should do it.

And the question was being raised against the politicians, that if these people can do it by such a simple means -- because there was nobody poor. You may not have a single dollar, and I may have millions of dollars, but I am not rich as far as commune is concerned; we are in the same boat. I cannot use those million dollars, so in no way I am rich than you. We destroyed poverty and richness without even touching 1/08/07

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the rich or raising the cry of war, of class struggle, of violence.

They became immensely afraid of the phenomenon. They have destroyed there -- absolutely illegally, because they had no legal reason. Now they don't want me to establish another commune anywhere.

What they did as I was released by the court -- they had to release me because I have not done anything

-- they immediately did the first thing in Germany because in Germany I have six communes running on the same principles, so they were afraid that I may go to Germany, and may make a big commune, bigger than existed in America, because six communes are already in existence. And West Germany is just under their pressure, under their domination. They immediately passed a law that I cannot enter Germany.

This is such nonsense! I have never entered Germany, I have never committed any crime in Germany.

Just in anticipation, in case I enter Germany they make a law. In fact there was no need to make a law; you could simply have refused a visa. But they may have been afraid: perhaps some ambassador may be influenced with me and may give a visa. It is better to make it clear-cut law that I cannot enter Germany; otherwise I will be immediately arrested.

And what reasons they have given? -- because I am a dangerous man and I have a great number of followers who love me so totally that they can do anything for me and we don't want to take any such risk.

The same was the reason given in America that they don't want to give me a bail. Not that I have committed any crime, that I am a dangerous man. And they can see the connection clearly, that I am a dangerous man, that I have immense financial resources, that I have millions of friends around the world who love me so much that they can do anything; that no bail can prevent me. If you give me bail I will leave America.

So they were not ready to give bail. And the same reasons are shown in German parliament that I should not be allowed to enter Germany. Here I have been informed by very intimate sources to the government that first they don't want any foreigners to be here, so anybody who wants to be here cannot get a visa. The people who had come with me, they gave only a standing ticket for three weeks and they will not extend it into visa. It is against their policy; their policy is to increase as much tourism as possible. And through me they can increase their tourism to thousands.

In America every year at least fifty thousand people were coming from all over the world, so to cut all the foreigners from me who are accustomed to do my work -- printing, editing, filming, making houses, making roads. In these four years we have trained all kinds of skills. So those people particularly who have been in American commune should not be allowed. And that's what they have been doing; they are not allowing them.

Left alone to myself I cannot create a commune. With Indians it is very difficult to create that kind of thing.

Q: SO THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER RAJNEESHPURAM?

A: It will be, I am finding a way, because I am already invited by two governments.

Q: CAN YOU NAME THEM?

A: Not yet, because...

Q: WESTERN GOVERNMENTS?

A: Western governments, two governments who are not pro-American have already invited me, that they are absolutely ready to accept my people and give land on their own, all support. An injustice has been done to me.

Q: BUT ARE THEY EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS, OR OTHER WESTERN GOVERNMENTS?

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A: They are South American governments.

Q: WHAT ABOUT YOUR PLANS FOR THIS PLACE? YOU ARE ALREADY BECOMING QUITE AN

ATTRACTION HERE, AND AS YOU HAD SAID ON TELEVISION ALSO THAT SUPPOSE THE INDIAN

GOVERNMENT WERE TO COOPERATE WITH YOU...

A: Indian government is not cooperating. Himachal people are very cooperative, very loving.

Q: WE BELIEVE YOU HAVE RECEIVED OFFERS OF LAND DONATIONS FROM FAR AND WIDE.

A: Yes, many, not one, many people have come to donate their own land -- people who have never known me before. Punjats and their heads have come to offer, the Bar Association of Mandi has come to invite me to be here and to tell me that if there is any legal problem they will be available to me without any fees or any burden on us. And other corporations in Mandi, in Kulu, in Manali -- they have approached; individuals have approached... many.

But the problem is: the land alone is not enough. What I will do with the land?

Q: BUT HERE THERE'S ANOTHER THING: WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT SO HOSTILE TO YOU... I MEAN, ANY GOVERNMENT ANYWHERE THEY ARE ALWAYS VERY HOSTILE.

A: The same reasons. For example, Indian government would not like just because of me to create any antagonism with America, particularly for the reasons that they have been begging them for nuclear plants to be made here, and only America and Russia have... (lights go out).

The Indian government or any government who is in need of any American support can bargain very easily. And it is a simple thing for them; my commune or me or my idea does not matter to them; what matters is nuclear energy. And America can give them plutonium. So that is a pressure on them.

Indian government has not been helpful anyway. One month I have been waiting; my people have been approaching -- they have not shown any interest of any kind. In fact they have shown it clearly that they are not interested.

While I was in jail in America Indian government did not took any step to ask American government that, "You are holding a person in jail without arrest warrant without even saying him what crime he has committed. That is absolutely illegal! You are punishing a person before you have proved that he is guilty."

And they tortured me for twelve days. And when I was released the Indian ambassador phoned that, "Do you need any help from us?"

I said, "This is absolutely stupid. Where you have been for twelve days? And the whole America is agog with only one news -- all the television channels, all the newspapers, all the radios -- and you have been fast asleep! And when I am released, what help you can give me?"

Q: IS IT TRUE THAT YOU HAD SAID THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER BHAGWAN?

A: No, I have never said that.

Q: IT HAS APPEARED EVERYWHERE.

A: It is absolutely wrong.

Q: YOU AR STILL VERY MUCH THE SAME PERSON YOU WERE?

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A: Yes, I am still the same person.

Q: IT'S NOT THAT YOU DISBANDED YOUR COMMUNE?

A: No. I have...

Q: WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE OR SO WHO WERE LIVING IN

RAJNEESHPURAM? I MEAN, THEY CANNOT BE ACCOMMODATED HERE... OR ARE THEY BEING

ACCOMMODATED IN YOUR COMMUNES ALL OVER THE WORLD?

A: They are being accommodated in other communes, or they are making small groups and arranging themselves and waiting if I can manage somewhere, then they will be immediately coming.

Any statement that said that I have said that I am not Bhagwan is absolutely wrong.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THOSE MANY PEOPLE -- HUNDREDS COME TO YOU HERE FOR DARSHAN

AT THIS RESORT: HAVE YOU GOT ANY PROGRAM FOR THEM? -- BECAUSE THEY ARE COMING

TO YOU WITH A NEED.

A: I know, they are coming, but my conditions of staying here are such that I will not be even talking to any gatherings, any meetings, so I cannot talk to them. But they are happy enough just to see me safe. They can see me, they can cry, they can weep and they can hold my hand -- and they are happy.

This condition will not last. We are searching all over the world, but this time we are being very much clear about any conditions that may arise later on. So first we are trying to find an island which is independent, which belongs to no government; and we have located two islands which are tremendously beautiful, and which are not for sale.

Q: WHICH PART OF THE WORLD?

A: One is in Europe and one is near Canada.

Q: IN THE MEDITERRANEAN?

A: In the Mediterranean.

Q: AND CANADA?

A: Just near Canada.

Q: TOWARDS THE PACIFIC SIDE OR THE ATLANTIC?

A: Yes, east side....

So my first preference is going to be an island which can be under no pressure of any government.

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thousand people; then you should not create that visas cannot be given and people cannot stay long. So we have to manage. But within a month I will have the place. And this time it is going to be far bigger than it was in America. It was five thousand; this time it will be fifty thousand, not less than that, because I never go backwards -- that is not my idea.

Q: AND IT WILL BE ON THE SAME LINES AS THE ONE IN OREGON?

A: It will be on the same lines...

Q: ONLY BIGGER?

A:... only bigger.

Q: AND BETTER, PERHAPS?

A: And better, certainly, because we have all the intelligent people in the world, because my way of thinking is such that only very educated, very intelligent people can be interested in it. So we have engineers, doctors, scientists, Nobel prize winners...

Q: WHICH NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS?

A: One economist from England, I don't know the name because we change the name so we don't know their real name, what their real name is.

Q: WHAT'S HIS NAME NOW; DO YOU RECALL THAT?

A: No -- because I have one million sannyasins around the world!

Q: I SEE. DO YOU PERSONALLY GIVE THEM A NAME?

A: I was giving up to Poona; now it becomes difficult.

Q: IT MUST HAVE BECOME VERY BIG NOW.

A: Now it is too difficult, so many people are giving who are old sannyasins.

Q: SO CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS OPEN UNIVERSITY AND WHAT EDUCATION MEANS TO

YOU?

A: First: education means to me a man with a balanced growth -- of body, mind, heart and soul. So up to now there has never been any education which is total. It is at the most a training of the mind, at the cost of the body, at the cost of the heart, and finally at the cost of the man's innermost being.

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have their proportion.

Physically, much can be done which is neglected. For example, no education system bothers about exercises or about food. For example, vegetarian food. For thousand of years in India the Jainas and the Brahmins and all high caste people have been vegetarians, but they have not produced any geniuses; they have not received a single Nobel prize. The three Indians who received Nobel prize were all non-vegetarians.

The vegetarian food as it has been up to now, lacks something, some proteins which help the intelligence to grow. So if we depend on vegetarian food then those proteins have to be added. If you don't add those proteins then you are killing the person's intelligent growth.

So in my commune what I have done... we were using non-fertilized eggs, because non-fertilized eggs are just vegetable because they don't have any life; and they have all the proteins that are needed by a mind, intellect, intelligence. So now, because I used the eggs, Jainas are against me; just the word "egg" is enough to make them against, they will not think twice what I am saying. And the non-vegetarians are also against because their only argument is finished.

Their only argument for non-vegetarian food was that it is the only food that can help intelligence to grow; vegetarian food will keep you vegetables! So they are angry because I have now found something --

that meat is not necessary, not only necessary but in fact, ugly.

And in total perspective of education, a man who eats meat, fish or anything living will not grow into his heart. His heart will remain insensitive. If just for eating you can kill, then your heart will remain a stone.

Q: BUT AREN'T PLANTS ALSO ALIVE?

A: They are alive... they are alive, and if one is really to be a vegetarian then one should eat the fruits which are ripe and fall from the trees; then you are not killing anybody. And the crops, wheat or rice, which are ripe -- you are not killing anybody. Plants should be respected just as we respect people.

In my garden nobody can pluck a flower for the simple reason because that shows the beauty of the flower but ugliness of you. You are destroying it, you are taking it away from its life's source, and you are showing a certain kind of insensitivity. Then what is the difference between a cannibal.... In fact cannibals say that the most delicious food is human children.

If you are for delicious food, if that is the goal of life then the whole humanity should be cannibalistic.

And they may be right, that small children's meat may be the most delicious thing -- about that all cannibals are agreed, there is no disagreement. But when we can manage without hurting, then in a right kind of education we should help the person to become sensitive also.

Q: THIS IS WHAT YOU PLAN TO HAVE ON YOUR ISLAND?

A: Certainly. We had a university even in America.

Q: IN RAJNEESHPURAM?

A: In Rajneeshpuram; and now we will be having on a wider scale.

Q: BUT HAS THERE BEEN ANY RESPONSE TO YOUR OFFER FOR A UNIVERSITY THAT YOU

HAD MADE ON TELEVISION?

A: No, no response.

Q: BUT HOW WOULD THIS THING BE HELPFUL TO THE GOVERNMENT AND TO THE INDIAN

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NATION IN GENERAL? BY MAKING BETTER PEOPLE?

A: It will not be helpful to the government.

It will be helpful to the people but it will not be helpful to the politicians.

Q: WHY DO YOU SAY THAT?

A: Because these people who are sensitive and intelligent will not choose these idiots as politicians. Not a single politician in the whole history has proved a genius, they have all proved third grade. People like Adolf Hitler were rejected from art institutions, he was rejected from architecture institutions, because he was not capable so the entrance examination he failed. But he became a world hero; he had almost conquered the world. These people will not be helped, if the people are most sensitive and more intelligent, and their growth is balanced.

For example I was talking about their sensitivity. They will be more loving; no government wants people to be more loving.

Q: WHAT ABOUT PANDIT NEHRU?

A: Pandit Nehru was not a politician -- and that's why he failed. He was more a poet. He would have been more fitting with Rabindranath Tagore than with Mahatma Gandhi. He was a sensitive soul and he has an intelligent approach towards history and human evolution. And he was never convinced about Mahatma Gandhi and his primitive ideology of going back to the spinning wheel. But one thing he could see -- that Gandhi can influence the whole nation, and without Gandhi, this nation is impossible to take it into the struggle for freedom.

He followed Gandhi but he was never a Gandhian.

Q: BUT WASN'T THAT BEING A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN? TO TOE THE LINE OF GANDHI AND

KEEP YOUR OWN IDEAS AT THE SAME TIME?

A: It was simply a deceptive thing, I will not call it practical politician.

Q: AND WHAT ABOUT OUR PRESENT PRIME MINISTER, RAJIV GANDHI? HOW DO YOU RATE

HIM?

A: There is not yet time enough to say anything about him. It takes a little time to show the person, his reality; and particularly a person who is a non-politician, when he comes into politics he is very nice to everything, to everybody. Just give him time and let power corrupt him.

Q: YOU MEAN THAT WILL BE THE TEST?

A: That will be the test, that is the only test. If power does not corrupt a person then only he has some authentic being; otherwise power corrupts.

It can corrupt anybody because power is such a thing, that for example, I have received information from the central government highest sources -- they have a file on me, and in the file they say right now the government is watching; they are neither positive nor negative. All will depend how I behave.

What it can mean "how I behave"? I will behave the way I have always behaved.

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Q: YOU WILL NOT CHANGE TO PLEASE THEM?

A: No! I am not going to change to please ANYBODY; I will simply behave the way I feel right.

Q: DON'T YOU THINK ALL THESE EXPERIENCES HAVE BROUGHT ABOUT ANY CHANGE IN

YOUR PERSONAL CHARACTER?

A: No... no, they have made me more stronger and more convinced about my truth.

Q: WHY DO YOU EVOKE SUCH EXTREME REACTIONS IN PEOPLE? -- EITHER THEY ARE

READY TO KILL FOR YOU OR THEY ARE READY TO KILL YOU?

A: Yes, that is true. It always happens if you are saying something without considering the people, just saying because you see it in that way and you feel that it is truth. And I am ready to argue for it; I have been arguing my whole life. Then only two possibilities exist: if you are intelligent you understand the argument.

And if you are not intelligent then you feel irritated because that argument disturbs you, your settled dogma, your creed, your religion. So to me it is a criterion of truth, that it will always divide people in two: either they will be all for you or they will be all against you, but it will not leave a single person who is indifferent.

Q: HAS POWER CORRUPTED YOU?

A: I don't have any power.

Q: BUT YOU HAVE; YOU WIELD TREMENDOUS POWER WITH YOUR FOLLOWERS AT LEAST. IT

HAS BROUGHT NO CHANGE IN YOU?

A: It has not brought any change in me because I don't consider it a power.

Q: IT'S A WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS?

A: Yes. I simply love my people, and my people love me.

Q: EVEN LOVE HAS A LOT OF POWER.

A: Love has a totally different power. It is not the power of the gun. It is not the power of nuclear weapons; it is not the power of harming anybody. It is the power of helping someone.

People love me not because I have any power -- I am not a president of any country or a prime minister or a king or.... I am nobody, I don't possess a single thing. Even my robe and everything -- they belong to my people. They make them for me, I don't possess them. I have not purchased anything for thirty years.

Even my watch you see is made by my own people. And it is not diamonds; these are just poor stones.

Q: SO YOU HAD ALL THESE NEWSPAPERS WRITING ABOUT DIAMOND-STUDDED WATCHES, AND REAL GOLD CADILLACS!

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A: Yes, that's how I check how much intelligence the press people have.

Q: TALKING OF LOVE AND THE WAY YOU TALK ABOUT LOVE OVER HERE, DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL AFFINITY FOR THE SUFI SAINT POETS LIKE VARDISHAH, BABA FREE, OR GURU

NANAK?

A: I have... I have certainly. Anybody who has attained to a state of silence, light, blissfulness and who has been able to shower all these qualities in his own way on other peoples -- I have love for all of them. It does not matter whether they are Mohammedans or Hindus or Christians or Buddhists; to me what matters is whether the man has attained to his innermost core, has he reached to his innermost centre?

Q: BUT THEN DIDN'T GANDHI ALSO ASPIRE TO THE SAME THING?

A: No, Gandhi was a simple politician. Gandhi was a simple political figure. He talked about religion, he lived like a religious man, he tried to create a a synthesis between Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, but the whole idea behind it was that the country remains undivided. And an undivided country means a Hindu India. Gandhi calls GITA his mother, but he never calls KORAN his father. He should have remembered it; otherwise his mother will be a widow.

I mean that Gandhi is talking every day morning, evening, to his disciples about GITA, and anybody can see that GITA is a pure philosophy of violence. And you can see that man, Gandhi, is talking of non-violence. But to keep Hindus under him he is raising GITA to the highest, holiest scripture in the world.

Otherwise anybody can see that GITA and Mahatma Gandhi are contradictory. Gandhi has no argument; he has never given any argument what about Krishna who is continuously trying in the whole GITA for Arjuna to fight, to kill? because this is your religion and this is God's will -- you have to do it.

Q: DO YOU AGREE WITH THE GITA AND ITS PHILOSOPHY?

A: No! If I had been in place of Arjuna I would have told Krishna clearly that, "Who are you to decide God's will? I can hear my own heart and I feel God's will is that I should go to the Himalayas and meditate.

I don't want to fight. Why should I listen to you? Why should I have a mediator between God and me? I can listen to my own heart."

Q: BUT ISN'T KRISHNA SUPPOSED TO BE GOD HIMSELF?

A: But that is himself he is saying -- so anybody can say. This is as stupid as.... One man went into a restaurant and told his friends that, "My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world." And somebody asked, "But how can you say that?" He said, "I can say because my wife herself has said it!" It is so stupid Krishna saying himself that, "I am God" -- it is simply stupid; there is no point in it, anybody can say.

Gandhi was asked by Louis Fisher who has written his biography that "When India becomes independent, what will happen about the armies and all the armaments -- because in your conception they don't have any place."

And Gandhi said, "Yes, they don't have any place. We will throw them into the ocean, and we will send all soldiers to work in the fields."

And when Independence came he forgot all about it; not only that, when Pakistan attacked India, three airplanes who were going to attack Pakistan flew over Birla House to get his blessings, and he came out of the house and blessed the three airplanes who are going to bomb Pakistan. Now what happened?

Q: THIS WAS IN THE TIME WHEN PAKISTAN WAS GOING TO ATTACK KASHMIR, JUST AFTER?

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A: Yes, just after. So this man was asked by Louis Fisher that, "If somebody attacks you, what you will do?" Gandhi said, "We will come out and we will say, 'We are here -- if you want to kill us you can kill us; if you want to live with us, you can live with us.'" It is so easy to talk -- but that time it was useful because it gave a great aura of saintliness but when the reality came in his hands, then all things changed; then he was not the same man.

He was absolutely a cunning politician, and in fact as far as I am concerned -- and I have looked into his life as deeply as anyone can -- his eldest son, Haridas Gandhi, became a Mohammedan. That was such a shock to him that he told his wife that, "I don't want to see the face of Haridas again."

Now, this is strange! If Mohammedans and Hindus and Christians are all the same, then what does it matter that Haridas has become a Mohammedan? If he feels better with Mohammedan approach, Gandhi should bless him! But Gandhi cannot bless his because the Hindu politics -- the Hindu will get angry, annoyed....

He made it a will that Haridas should not be allowed to put fire when he dies into his funeral. Haridas was there, crying, weeping, in the crowd, but he was not allowed to put fire as the eldest son.

And why he had become Mohammedan? -- just to show to the world.... He has written letters to friends that it was just to show to the world that what Gandhi says is all hypocrisy. When he changed his name he told the maulvi that, "Make it exactly of the same meaning as 'Haridas'." So he gave him the name

"Abdullah Gandhi". Abdullah means Haridas: God's servant.

And why he was doing it? -- because Gandhi has tortured him very badly. He wanted to study and Gandhi was against this whole education so he will not send him to school. And he revolted against it and he went to one of his uncles to live with, and passed matriculation and came to get the blessing; but Gandhi closed the door on his face and told him that, "You are dead for me."

This is not the approach of a non-violent, loving man.

Q: COULD YOU NOW EXPLAIN: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY 'SANNYAS'? WHAT IS THE CONCEPT?

A: Is your open university finished? -- because that is your main thing. First, the word 'university' itself comes from 'universal'. it means open; it cannot be closed. For example, no university can call itself Hindu university; that is contradiction in terms. No university can call itself Mohammedan university; it is a contradiction in terms. A university has to be open, available to all.

And my idea of openness is multi-dimensional. For example, right now I have been a teacher in the university. Two years are wasted for a small course that can be finished in two months. The whole six years which make you a master can easily be finished in one year. It is one of the capacity of human mind, that the greatest challenge you give to it, the more powerful and more intense it comes.

Our whole education is lazy. I was surprised because I was expelled from many colleges when I was a student for the simple reason that I told to the professor of philosophy that, "Whatever you are teaching can be finished within six months; there is no need for six years." And he was so annoyed by it he took me to the principal. And I told to the principal that, "I can accept the challenge -- because this man had his master's degree thirty years before and all that he is teaching is all bullshit because it is no more relevant. In thirty years philosophy has gone so far that he does not know even the names of the latest philosophers; he has not read a single book. And he is teaching us something which is already out of date. I can teach within six months, six-years course."

The principal said, "Perhaps you are right -- this is my feeling also, being a principal for many years --

that our education system is really very lazy. It simply goes on and on; and finally, even when you become a master, what kind of mastery you have got?

Q: NO, BUT WHAT SORT OF SYSTEM DOES YOUR UNIVERSITY HAVE?

A: My university will have... first: drop all that is non-essential -- and there is ninety percent non-essential which is being unnecessarily fed up into people's mind. Now, what is the need of Tamerlane, Nardishah, Alexander the Great? In what way they make you more human? In what way they give you the 1/08/07

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pride of being human? They are being taught -- but not Farid, not Nanak, not Buddha. No.

Q: BUT HOW SOON DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ESTABLISH THIS SORT OF A UNIVERSITY?

A: Once my commune is there there is no problem because I have professors, I have all kinds of people.

Q: SO IN ONE MONTH, TWO MONTHS?

A: Just as I get the land -- if I decide for an island immediately it starts working. Things will be...

Q: BUT AN APPROXIMATE TIME-FRAME... HOW SOON?

A: The university will take at least two years to begin with, but the structure will start immediately.

So first I want to cut out all that is ugly, because my understanding is: the more you feed people on ugly things, the more you make them accept the ugly. Slowly slowly they feel that this is how human beings are

-- they kill, they murder, they war. They do all these things and this is natural, this is just how human beings are.

Why, when you can have Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Kabir and beautiful people...? So these people can feel that there is something greater than they are; and that greater has to be achieved, otherwise they would have failed.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE A FREE MAN?

A: I am.

Q: ARE YOU A SANNYASIN?

A: No.

Q: WOULD YOU EXPLAIN THIS WORD? -- IT INTRIGUES ME.

A: "Sannyas" is an old word. It used to mean in the old context "renunciation of the world". I have still used it with a new meaning. My meaning is "rejoicing the world".

Renunciation to me is ugly because renunciation means cutting things from life, inhibiting, repression; leave the wife, leave the children, leave the... leave everything. And these people who have been teaching renunciation of life are the cause of poverty in the world, are the cause of beggars in the world, are the cause of crimes in the world.

In Buddha's time thousands of people became monks. Now, what happened to their wives, what happened to their children? They were dependent on them. Nobody ever bothers that these people did something good? Their wives must have become prostitutes; their children must have become orphans, beggars. And these millions of people who became monks, they became a burden on the society because they became non-productive.

So they did a double crime: they left their duties, and on the other hand they became a heavy burden on the society. Still there are millions of sannyasins in India, and they are a burden; they don't produce anything. This is strange, that in five thousand years of history, no Indian sannyasin has created anything.

He has not helped the world to become more beautiful, more richer, more human. How they can help? --

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they have abandoned it.

They have really taught people that it is not worth... their hopes are for paradise somewhere far away, beyond death. And my sannyas is rejoice the world, be in the world and be totally in the world.

Q: I BELIEVE YOU STARTED ONE OF YOUR FIRST INITIATION CAMPS IN MANALI?

A: Yes.

Q: IS IT A COINCIDENCE YOU ARE BACK HERE OR WHAT DO YOU CALL IT? -- DESTINY?

A: It is a coincidence because I don't believe in any destiny.

Q: HOW DO YOU INTERPRET IT? WAS THIS THE WILL OF GOD THAT YOU SHOULD BE BACK

HERE AGAIN?

A: There is no God.

Q: DOES IT HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANCE, YOUR COMING BACK?

No, nothing... just a coincidence... because I like the place. When seventeen years before I had a camp here and started sannyas here, I had liked the place, so when we were coming and it was a question where....

So I told them find out something in the Himalayas just for a few weeks to rest before you find a permanent place. And they found this "Span" was good. So it was just a coincidence.

Q: NO DIFFICULTIES HERE, NO INHIBITIONS, NO RESTRICTIONS?

A: No restrictions, no inhibitions.

Q: YOU SAID THAT YOU WERE AN ABSOLUTELY FREE PERSON: DON'T YOU FEEL HEMMED

IN NOW BY THE SORT OF CELEBRITY YOU HAVE ACQUIRED?

A: No, nothing... there is no problem, because I have...

Q: NO, BUT THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE AROUND YOU ALL THE TIME.

A: No, that does not matter. Whether I am in the crowd or alone, I am alone.

Q: I THINK THAT WILL DO IT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

A: Good! Come again whenever you like.

Q: AS LONG AS YOU ARE HERE.

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A: Won't be so long!

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #7

Chapter title: None

24 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512240

ShortTitle: LAST507

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words] INTERVIEW WITH DILIP

GANGULLY, AFP NEWS AGENCY, FRANCE

Q: WE BEING A WIRE SERVICE, AN AGENCY JOURNALIST, WE DO A PACKAGE FOR THE NEW

YEAR, CHOOSING SIX OR SEVEN IMPORTANT PERSONALITIES ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR HERE

IN INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA. WE DECIDED YOU WERE THE PERSON WE SHOULD WRITE

ABOUT. SO IT'S NOT A RIGID SORT OF INTERVIEW WE WILL HAVE.

A: That's good.

Q: WE HAVE CERTAIN QUESTIONS... BUT IF YOU WANT TO TELL US SOMETHING....

A: No, you can ask any question.

Q: WHEN YOU CAME HERE, BHAGWAN, THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS IN MINDS OF

YOUR DEVOTEES AROUND THE WORLD ABOUT YOUR NEW HOME. HAVE YOU FOUND IT OR

WHERE IT WILL BE?

A: The home is something one never finds. One is always finding it, and the joy and ecstasy is in the search.

I am reminded of a small poem of Rabindranath Tagore. He is in search of God. He looks all over the world, and finally he finds the home of God. He goes up to the door, is just going to knock on the door. A question arises in his mind: If by chance he is in, then what? Then what I am going to do? My whole life has been a search, I have been a wanderer, and this will be the end; this will be actually committing suicide." So without knocking on the door he escapes from the place as fast as he can. Now he is still searching, knowing perfectly well where it is. Avoiding that place he goes on searching and enjoying the search.

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point has arrived.

Death is a finding.

Life is gypsy.

So I am still searching for the home. And I will go on searching for the home, knowing perfectly well the home is not something that has to be found. It has to be searched -- but not found.

Q: COULD IT BE, BHAGWAN, IN THE NORTH OF INDIA TO FIND A HOME?

A: No, I am searching all over the world. My people are searching everywhere.

Q: YOU SAID YOU ARE SEARCHING ALL OVER THE WORLD. THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF

CONFUSION BECAUSE WHEN YOU CAME BACK YOU SAID YOU ARE GOING TO LIVE IN THE

HIMALAYAS AND NEVER LEAVE YOUR HOMELAND, INDIA, AGAIN. SO I THINK IT IS MORE AS A SIMILE YOU SAID THAT.

A: No. To me the earth is not divided by political lines, and words like " India" are certainly symbolic. It simply means the eternal search for truth.

"Himalaya" is also a symbol, a symbol for peace, serenity, silence.

The physical, the material, is not important. You should listen to the significance, the symbolic meaning in it.

To me, India is not confined by the boundaries. Anybody who has been a seeker of truth is part of India.

He may be Henry Thoreau in America, he may be Martin Buber in Jerusalem, he may be Bertrand Russell in England, he may be a Socrates in Athens -- but these people belong to a certain, symbolic world which is not parallel to the geographical and the political.

For example, most of the Indians are not Indians. The majority of them has no concern for the spiritual.

They are more greedy than I have found people anywhere else. They are more materialistic than the people they condemn as materialistic.

So when I said I will never leave India, that simply means wherever I am, India is there; and wherever I am, Himalaya is there.

Q: BHAGWAN, THIS QUESTION MAY SOUND STUPID...

A: No....

Q:... BUT I WANT TO ASK: ARE YOU THINKING OF NOMINATING A SUCCESSOR FOR YOUR

MOVEMENT?

A: First, I am not a founder of a movement, I am not a head of a movement. How can I think of a successor? To me, spirituality is absolutely individual. The moment you organize it, you kill it. You can see it all around the world in all the religions, just corpses.

There is a very famous story that a man came running to the devil and told him that, "What are you doing sitting here! A certain man on the earth has found the truth. Do something; otherwise your business is finished!"

The devil laughed. He said, "You are a new servant here -- you don't know me. My people have already reached there; they have become his successors his priests, his scholars. They are standing between him and the people. They will not let the truth reach the people without their interpretation -- and their interpretation is my interpretation."

It is a tremendously beautiful anecdote.

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and Jainism has been worshipping those scriptures for twenty-five centuries.

Now this is very strange: a man who is against Brahmanism is represented by Brahmins to the whole world.

The same happened to Buddha. He was also against the Vedas, against the Upanishads, against the whole tradition of Hinduism, but he found all his successors Brahmins. They turned, they changed, they made meanings that was easy for them. They listened from a Hindu mind. Whatever Buddha had said, they managed to support it, exactly what he was opposing.

So I am not a founder. There have been many founders and nothing has been founded.

I am just an individual seeker who has started alone, and then people went on coming; and the caravan became bigger and bigger, but the caravan has no leader, and each individual is responsible whether to be in the caravan or not to be in the caravan. It is his freedom.

So my whole approach is individualistic, and against all kinds of organizations and the successors and the churches and the shankaracharyas and the popes an Ayatollah Khomeiniacs. All these are not seekers of truth, they are exploiters of the masses in the name of truth.

At the most I can call myself a friend.

Nobody is my follower. I love them, they love me; there is no question of putting me on any high pedestal. I am absolutely happy where I am. And the best place is the lowest because from there you cannot fall.

Q: IT IS THE THINKING OF PEOPLE, IS THAT YOUR STAY IN OREGON... WE HAVE SEEN

PHOTOS AND VIDEOS... PEOPLE HAVE SEEN. IT WAS THE HEIGHT OF LIVING IN LUXURY. HERE

IT IS MORE A SPARTAN EXISTENCE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS?

A: To me luxury is something inner. A king may be living in misery, and a beggar may be living in luxury. It is the quality of your being, the flowering of your potential -- the peace, the silence, the blissfulness. I don't see any difference. I can be in a palace or I can be in a small cottage, but I remain myself. Neither the palace affects me nor the cottage. So I am not here living in a Spartan existence; I am living as luxuriously as I have always lived.

And you must know that for thirty years I have not possessed a single thing -- no bank account. I have been in America for five years but I have not seen a single dollar bill, I have not touched money.

People have seen me in Rolls Royces -- they were not mine; they belonged to the commune.

Everything belonged to the commune and they simply made it available for me to be used.

And the moment I left America... I have not brought a single thing from there; they are all with the commune. Even from my shoes up to my cap, they are all made by my friends. They are not mine; they are gifts of love. Even the watch you see is being made by my friends.

Q: IN DELHI YOU CALLED IT "PROLETARIAN STONE."

A: Yes, they are proletarian stones; they are not diamonds. It is the cheapest watch.

It is a question of how you live, not in what you live.

When after twelve days in American jails -- five jails -- I left the jail, the U.S. marshall told me, "This is strange, you look better than you had come before! It seems jail life suits you."

I said, "Everything suits me. It is not a question of things, it is simply an art how to make the best out of the worst. I was not miserable in your jails, I enjoyed the experience, it was so new, and I loved everything.

I may have died without knowing it, so by the courtesy of the American government they have made my experience richer."

I could see that the criminals are far more human than the bureaucrats. I was surprised to know that in all five jails where are four hundred, five hundred prisoners in each jail, there is not a single white man, all are black. It was really a surprise that in America whites don't commit crime! And the blacks who are there, they have been there, somebody for six months, somebody for nine months without trial. They are waiting for trial. They have not committed any crime, nothing is proved against them by the court, so these are not jails -- you are befooling the whole world.

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"You are keeping these black people -- and they are all young; I have not seen a single old black person here, they are all young. And you are afraid of these young people, that they are going to become revolutionaries. So you simply arrest them for no crime. They have been telling me that they have not committed any crime, they have not even dreamt of committing any crime, and suddenly they are being arrested in the middle of the night and nothing is told to them and they are said that the court will decide.

And for nine months they are waiting and their trial number has not come, and perhaps it may come or may not come at all."

So I said, "I am more experienced about you about your politics and about your mask and what you are doing to people who have not done any crime and they are unnecessary being punished. And they are far more human than you."

And these twelve days gave me a tremendously significant experience, that you can throw me now in hell but you cannot disturb my silence."

So I told him a small story. I told him about Edmund Burke, one English philosopher. He had a friend who was the archbishop of England. And the archbishop was asking him again and again that, "Someday you should come to listen to my sermon."

One day finally he went there, listened to the sermon, raised his hand and asked a question to the archbishop. He asked, "My question is: You say that those who have faith will go to heaven; those who do good things will go to heaven; those who do not have faith will go to hell; those who do evil things, sinners they will go to hell. My problem is, a man can do good things without faith.

"Socrates was a good man but has no faith.

"Gautam Buddha was a good man but has no faith in any God.

"What about these people? And a man can have faith and still can commit all kinds of crimes, all evil possible.

"Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Alexander the Great, all were faithful people but they killed millions of people.

"So my question is: If a man has no faith and does good works, what is going to happen to him? Have you any place where he is going to be sent? Of course he cannot go to heaven because he has no faith. He cannot be thrown to hell because he has not committed any evil acts. What about those who have faith but have committed evil acts?"

The archbishop was in a very difficult situation. He said, "Nobody has ever asked such a question, I have not come across in any theological treatise of such a question, so please give me seven days to think."

Seven days he could not sleep because the question was not only Edmund Burke's question, it became his question also; the question was significant. Seventh day, the next Sunday, he reached early because still the question was there and there was no answer. He reached early in the church, prayed to Christ and asked that, "I cannot find the answer; you give me the answer; otherwise your representative will be proved stupid." But he was so tired, for seven days continuously thinking and not sleeping, that he fell asleep there on his knees and he had a dream. And in the dream he saw that he is in a train and he asked other passengers where they are going, and they said they are going to heaven.

He said, "That's good -- that's what I wanted." They reached heaven. He could not believe: it looked dirty, dusty, nobody laughing, nobody smiling; all faces long faces. He could not recognize anybody as Gautam Buddha, as Socrates. He inquired that, "Is Gautam Buddha here, or Socrates?"

They said, "We have never heard of these names."

So he rushed to the station, catched -- caught another train, going to hell. And he was surprised. The hell was really beautiful! Lush green... and people were so friendly, loving.

He inquired a man that, "Do you know about Gautam Buddha or Socrates -- are they here?"

The man said, "They are here, and because of them the hell has become heaven."

And at that point he awoke. And he was a sincere man. He related the whole dream. He said, "Forgive me, but the truth is that there are no geographical places like heaven and hell; it is a question of man's inner being. Everybody carries his hell or heaven within himself."

So I told him that, "Your twelve days, you were trying to give me hell, not knowing that I have my heaven within myself."

There is no way to throw me to hell.

Q: ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY TO THE TENTH THE POPE IS COMING TO INDIA. HOW DO

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YOU LOOK AT HIM, AND WHAT'S YOUR OPINION OF HOW THE POPE STANDS TODAY?

A: First, anybody representing somebody else is a carbon copy. He is not authentic, and he is not original. His authority is not in his own experience but in the books he has read, in the Bible.

So the first thing: a man like pope has a personality, but he has no individuality. He is an actor, pretending to be someone who he is not.

First, religion cannot be transferred; it is not a thing.

So Jesus cannot transfer it to anybody. He cannot make anybody his successor.

For two thousand years all these popes are deceiving the whole world, and they pretend that they are infallible. Obviously if they represent God and they represent the only son of God, Jesus Christ, they are bound to be infallible. But their whole history shows just the opposite.

For example, one pope declared Joan of Arc as evil, and burned her alive. But Joan of Arc was a woman of tremendous courage, sincerity, and the whole nation loved her, so slowly the people became suspicious of the act of the pope. In three hundred years the situation became very worse. People started thinking of Joan of Arc as right and pope as wrong.

Now, the only way was to somehow fix things rightly.

Another pope -- the first pope was infallible who burned the woman as representing devil. The second pope, after three hundred years, pulled the bones of the woman from the grave and declared that she was a saint -- because they were losing so many catholics on that point.

Now, what kind of infallibility is this? Who is infallible? Was the first pope infallible or this pope is infallible who is declaring Joan of Arc that she was a saint and he worshipped her -- bones.

For two thousand yeas the popes have done so much wrong to the world that no other religion can beat them. Hundreds of wars, thousands of people killed in the name of religion, millions of Jews being killed because Jesus was crucified. And the miracle is that Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew; he had never heard the word "Christian," he had never heard the word "Christ" -- because in Hebrew there are no words like "Christ" or "Christian"; he was called "messiah." That is for "Christ." And in India we are right to call Christians messiah. That is closer to the original. "Christ" and "Christian" both are Greek. After three hundred years of Jesus' death when his sayings were translated into Greek he became

"Jesus the Christ."

Now, these popes have been killing Jews not knowing that they are worshipping a Jew in every church.

And they have not been appointed by Jesus.

And as far as Christianity is concerned, to me it is one of the worst religions in the world.

There is a book I would like to show you -- five hundred pages of pornography, in the Bible. And this is the word of God. Five hundred pages of worst pornography that has ever existed anywhere, with all kinds of perversions -- homosexuality, sodomy. And this book is the book of the God; God wrote this book. If God wrote this book, then he is the worst criminal and the best pornographer.

I am going to publish an illustrated version of it, because people reading pornography -- pornography is not for reading, it is for seeing. So I am going to find the best pornographers and make everything in it a beautiful pornographic painting, and publish the whole book.

It is strange that five hundred pages but no Christian reads them. I have given this book to one of my friends who is a bishop, and I told him that, "Can you give a sermon on any of the pages in this book?"

And after one month he told me that, "I cannot give a sermon on this book."

But I said, "This book is simply quoting Bible. You have been cheating the whole world; you have not been making them aware what your Bible contains. You have been choosing only selected passages and talking about."

But this is the worst thing that any religion has done.

Jesus himself to me is not a realized man for the simple reason that he declares that he is the only begotten son of God. That is nonsense. No man of intelligence will declare himself to be the only begotten son of God. And on what grounds? He has no certificate for it. And everybody knows that he is a carpenter's son, but he goes on insisting that, "I am the only...." And he is very jealous; he will not allow even a second son to God -- very monopolist. He is the only begotten son of God.

And very strange. Where is the wife of God whom he is begotten, because in the Christian trinity there is no place for a woman. So it is a very strange thing that God, the holy ghost and Jesus Christ within themselves managed everything without a woman! A man is dispensable as far as the birth of a child is 1/08/07

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concerned. An injection can do that. But a woman is not dispensable. But just to degrade woman, just to make her inferior they could not accept a woman in the trinity; otherwise what is the need of the holy ghost?

A small family would have been perfect -- God, his wife, son. But the problem is, if God has a wife then why only one son? Does he practice birth control?

This pope is going in India to continue to preach to everybody that birth control is sin; and I want him to remember that God practices birth control. He has given only one son to the world -- and in the whole eternity!

The teachings of Jesus does not show the heights of an enlightened man. His behavior shows just the opposite. For example, he says, "Love your enemies just as you love yourself." But he never teaches his disciples to love themselves. The whole Christianity is based in hating yourself. In fact all the religions more or less are based in hating yourself. Hate this, hate that. You are not to be accepted as you are; many things have to be cut from your life.

Sex has to be cut, anger has to be cut. So many things have to be thrown out that I suspect, what will remain? If we listen to all these religions, I don't think that you will remain behind.

And a man is an organic unity. You cannot deprive a man of his sexual energy because it is not something like mechanical that you can take apart, away from the machine. It is his biology. He is born in sex, his every cell in the body is sexual.

Jesus never teaches people to love themselves. He is teaching to love your enemies just as you love yourself -- but in his behavior he proves to be really idiotic.

He is passing from a village and the people are angry and nobody gives them food, and he is very irritated by this; for three days they have been hungry. And they come to a fig tree -- and it is not the season for figs so the tree has no figs. And Jesus curses the tre that, "You are not welcoming me and my friends with fruits."

Now, a man who teaches to love your enemies, curses a fig tree when it is not the season for figs is simply a crackpot! I cannot think of Gautam Buddha doing it; I cannot conceive even an ordinary human being with just a little intelligence cursing a tree.

Q: THIS BOOK, BHAGWAN -- DO YOU PLAN TO PRESENT THE ILLUSTRATED VERSION

BEFORE THE POPE ARRIVES HERE?

A: No, because it will take time. It will take time because five hundred pages means the illustrated will be one thousand pages with all the passages and the illustrations -- and I want it to be really, really Holy Bible.

Q: BHAGWAN, ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR JOHN PAUL II. PEOPLE SAY HE HAS A LITTLE

DIFFERENT IMAGE. SO ABOUT HIM WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING?

A: He is just an idiot. I was thinking that people unnecessarily call polacks idiots, but this pope proves that they are -- because whatever he has been teaching is against humanity.

He is teaching against birth control, against abortion, against the pill because he says children are given by God. So either the God is idiot that he gives children to Ethiopia where one thousand people are dying every day, or he is blind or he is only a computer. And he is going children, pouring on India.

By the end of this century India for the first time will be ahead of China. Up to now we have not been ahead of China; by the end of this century we will be one billion people, and we will be for the firs time ahead of China. Out of five people, one will be an Indian in the whole world.

People are already poor, people are already starving -- one billion people in this country.... I cannot conceive that God gives children to you.

I was talking to a bishop. He had come in the jail to give me a Bible, thinking that that will be a solace to me. Out of compassion he must be thinking that he has to visit and give me a Bible as a present because in jail, what I will be doing? -- read God's word and have faith in Jesus Christ and he will save you.

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omnipotent, all-powerful. He crated the world. What more power you can think? This whole universe he created out of nothing. But he is impotent against a small pill, he cannot destroy the effect of the pill?

Why teach people not to use the pill? The pill is the greatest revolution that has happened in the whole history of man because the pill brings woman equal to man, and the pill makes sex free from all kinds of ugly connotations; it becomes simple fun. It loses all seriousness -- children.

And then bringing up children and the whole nonsense.

And the woman's whole life is wasted in the kitchen and the children; and the husband's whole life is wasted in earning money the whole day. And then the woman is collecting anger the whole day because all her life she cannot do anything else. So she simply becomes a nagging wife.

Every wife is a nagging wife, and every husband is henpecked -- without exception. And the reason is simple, because you have created the situation.

Otherwise, in my commune for four yeas there was not a single child born. And there was nobody forcing. Simple intelligence is needed to be explained to people that if it is God's will he will manage somewhere else to produce.

There are fifty thousand planets, according to the scientists, where life exists; so if here he finds no vacancy he will find somewhere else. And God is omnipotent; there is no need for popes to go on preaching, but their preaching has a different meaning: they need poverty, they need more and more poor people in the world, because it is only the poor and the orphan and the beggars and the aboriginals who become Catholics who can be converted.

In India I have seen not a single rich man, educated, cultured, who has become converted to Catholicism; there is no reason. He has a far better religion and far higher flights of spirituality. Why he should become a Catholic and why he should become a Christian?

They need poor people so they are creating a poor world but they are playing with fire, because these poor people will be dying by the end of this century -- without any nuclear weapons, without even a third world war. These popes and the Mother Teresa and this kind of people are going to create as many poor people in the world that the world cannot support.

In India, my estimate is that fifty percent people will die just out of starvation by the end of this century if we do not prevent now. Thirty years before I started teaching birth control, the pill, abortion, and I was stoned, I was poisoned, attempts on my life were made because I was "creating immortality."

Q: WHERE WAS IT, SIR?

A: In Patna I was stoned, in Poona itself before ten thousand sannyasins and twenty police officers --

because they had got he information that some- thing is going to happen. A knife was thrown at me; and still the court dismissed the case, that, "There has been no case." The knife was there, twenty police offices were there, and it was a police case! Ten thousand witnesses were there -- and still the court dismissed the case.

And the magistrate sent me the message from a friend that, "Just forgive me, I am sorry; I am a small man the pressure is too much. That man has a political standing, and there is great politics involved in it."

Thirty years before when I started talking about these things, India had the population only four hundred million. Today it has eight hundred million. If they had listened to me thirty years before we would not have been eight hundred million now. We could have cut the population. We would have been far comfortable, far more healthier, far more educated in every way. But they did not listen, and they don't listen even now.

Even now they will listen to the pope, and even now the Indian government will go to receive the pope. The president will be present there.

And this is an insult! The president should make it a condition that, "If you are coming here, you can be a guest only if you promise not to talk about birth control, the pill, abortion. Don't you have anything else to talk? This is all your religion? Just leave these things; otherwise you will not be received as a guest in India."

Mother Teresa wants orphans.

It happened that one American couple wanted to adopt one orphan from Mother Teresa's nursing home.

They went there. The receiving clerk said that, "We have seven hundred children. You can choose. But before you go in, you fill the form."

They filled the form. Looking at the form, he was puzzled. He said, "You wait. I will be coming in a minute and then tell you."

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He didn't come. Somebody else came and told that, "Right now there are no orphans so you will have to wait. When we have orphans we will inform you. Your address is here. You have filled the form."

But the man said, "The person before you had said that there are seven hundred; suddenly seven hundred orphans have disappeared? And this is the gate, and I have not sen any orphan going out."

But the problem was he was a protestant -- that created the problem. He was not catholic. And he filled the form as a protestant Christian; that's where the whole problem begin.

He wrote a letter in "The Times of India" explaining the whole thing, that how MOther Teresa is playing the politics of numbers, turning catholics out of orphans. It is not a work of compassion or love; it is sheer politics.

I spoke against Mother Teresa, referred to the letter. She wrote me a letter and she said that there must have been some misunderstanding; in fact, because these orphans are brought up by us by us according to catholic religion, to give them to some other religion will create a mental difficulty, a conflict; that's why the person was refused.

I wrote to her that, "If this is the case, then none of your orphans is a Christian; even they are Hindus or they are Mohammedans. And if you are a sincere woman, then a Mohammedan orphan should be given to a Mohammedan family, and a Hindu orphan should be given to a Hindu family. Just, an orphans -- a six-month or eight-month or twelve-month old orphan... what catholicism you can teach? You are kidding!"

And then she was very angry because I exposed again in a public meeting and I challenged her that I am available anywhere if she wants for a discussion I am available.

She wrote another letter that, "I will not discuss with you because that is not our way, to fight in any way, but I will pray for you to my God to forgive you for your sins."

So I wrote to her that, "There is no God, and please before you start praying for me you have to have my permission; otherwise it is great trespass -- not only on the body, on the spirit. You are trespassing even in my spirituality. You cannot pray for me. And what sin I have committed that you are praying for me? You pray for yourself, for all your sins that you have been committing. And you are going to commit these sins because the world is so idiotic that even in India the universities go on giving doctorates to Mother Teresa, and the government Padamshri(*) and the Nobel prize. We don't see the point, what these people are doing.

And their real purpose is somehow to increase the population of Catholics. Already there are six hundred million in the world.

Q: BHAGWAN, WE WOULD LOVE TO GO FOR HOURS AND HOURS, YOU KNOW....

A: That's true!

Q: CAN YOU ELABORATE YOUR FEELING ABOUT INDIA, INDIAN BUREAUCRACY, INDIAN

FUNNY LAWS THAT YOU CANNOT BUY LAND THERE -- INDIAN MATERIALISM, AS YOU SAY. AND

ALSO ASSOCIATED WITH THAT: HAS YOUR THINKING, WHICH YOU HAD EXPRESSED AFTER

YOUR ARRIVAL IN DELHI ABOUT AMERICA, HAS THAT GONE THROUGH ANY CHANGE IN THESE

LAST FEW WEEKS?

A: No, nothing has changed about America; but about India, certainly. I am feeling that it was not a right step for me to come back to India. At least in my imagination I was thinking that it is my motherland.

Now I will think my motherland has died, because the Indian bureaucracy is creating every hindrance that they can, and it seems they are being dictated by the American government. Because one thing they are doing that no foreigners should be allowed to stay with me.

Now this is strange for a country like India which wants to promote tourism. I can bring thousands of foreigners. But they are not giving visas to foreigner if they say they are going to see me, or if they come in orange clothes -- they are not allowed. And from the highest government sources I have been informed that the government is neither positive towards me nor negative.

But this situation will remain only until I continue to "behave." Now, what do they mean by "behave?"

They want me not to talk, not to say the truth that I feel? I will certainly continue to behave the way I have behaved my whole life. And now because they have made it a point, of course I will behave more 1/08/07

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emphatically.

Q: AND WHEN WAS THIS THING TOLD, BHAGWAN?

A: Just two days before. And it is there on their secret file. So my people I had to send to look lands in other places, and fortunately two countries from South America have invited me with my whole commune, and they want to be my host.

So I have sent people to look what kind of place they can give. But my own personal feeling is not to go to any country but to buy an independent island, because sooner or later the same problems will arise with any government. And we have found three islands which are available, which are independent. And within two, three weeks we will finalize one island.

Q: WHERE ARE THEY, BHAGWAN? IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW?

A: One is in Europe, one is near Canada, and one is in Fiji.

Q: AND THE COUNTRIES, BHAGWAN -- THE TWO SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES?

A: They don't want -- they say that, "Until you accept, please don't tell our names because that will be a insulting thing."

Q: CAN YOU NAME THREE TOP IDIOTS IN THE WORLD?

A: Mm mmm, this is a very difficult question! The first is certainly pope the polack. Second is Morarji Desai. And the third is attorney general of Oregon, Frohnmeyer. Good!

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #8

Chapter title: None

24 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512245

ShortTitle: LAST508

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words] INTERVIEW BY HIMALAYA KALADHAR

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BHAGWAN: You can take notes or tape because they will be totally different so it is not a disturbance for them. And your session for tomorrow is separate, so there is no need to worry.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

ANSWER: Come closer. You can also be close here this side so you will feel easier. Mm. Something said in Hindi.

Q: BHAGWAN, IS YOUR EXPERIENCE SHOWS THAT THE MESSAGE OF SAGES AND

ENLIGHTENED PERSONS IS INVARIABLY MISCONSTRUED OR IGNORED. DOES IT MEAN THAT

MANKIND IS DESTINED TO SUFFER PERPETUALLY ON ACCOUNT OF HIS OWN FOLLIES?

A: I am not a pessimistic. I hope even against hope. And this is something of that kind.

The man of understanding, enlightenment has enormous difficulties. First his experience happens in a thoughtless state of mind. So when he tries to convey it to people, invariably he has to use words.

Out of hundred enlightened people almost ninety-nine have remained silent for the simple reason because the moment you put a wordless experience into words something essential is lost.

The difference is such as if you see a beautiful bird on the wing in the open sky. It is so beautiful, the freedom, the space, the infinity... and then you catch the bird, put it into a golden cage, very precious... in a way it is the same bird, but truly it is not the same bird.

Where is its sky and where are its wings and where is its freedom? All is lost. It's infinity is gone. Now he is almost dead.

The same happens with the enlightened person. He experiences something at the very climax of consciousness where no word, no thought, can ever enter. From those sunlight peaks of the Himalayas he has to bring his experience to the dark valleys where light has never penetrated. So the moment he speaks, something very essential is lost at that very time. The first fall has begun, the first misunderstanding has started. And it starts with the enlightened man himself, it is not to be dumped on the common man.

When that word reaches to the ordinary people who are full of all kinds of conditionings, they cannot understand it in the same way the enlightened person means it. It is not their fault, they are not to be punished for it, they have to be pitied. They have never known anything like that. It is just like if you talk to a small child about a sexual orgasm -- you can talk about it -- but the small child will not understand anything what you are talking, you are simply talking nonsense. And if the small child sees you making love to your wife, he will think you are killing his mother.

More than that he cannot understand. You are having one of the most beautiful experience of your life and your child thinks you are killing your mother. You are fighting... at the most according to his state of mind he can think you are fighting.

The similar is the state when the word of the awakened reaches to the unawakened -- it changes its whole color. Because the unawakened hears it through his own conditionings. And this kind of experience has never happened to him, hence the misunderstanding. But even if misunderstood, it still has some flavor, some beauty, some grandeur that ordinary people become devoted to it, dedicated to it but their devotion and dedication is bound to be exploited. Not by the enlightened man but by a new kind of person, the priest and his whole race, the priesthood. They become mediators. They are scholars, they are men of words, they pretend to interpret the enlightened person to those who cannot understand. And they become the greatest barrier. And up to now this has been the case and I don't think it is going to change. This is going to remain unless we make enlightenment something of a wider experience -- nothing special... that few people reach only to the Gourishankar and everybody else believes that gourishankar exists because Edmund Hillary says so.

Unless we can make it so widespread that no priest can deceive you. And this is one of my basic works: to make meditation as simple that anybody who is interested in being silent, anybody who is interested in being at ease, at home, peaceful. Anybody who wants to sleep a dreamless sleep....

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I am not talking about God because then it becomes a very special thing. I am not talking about paradise, then it becomes a special quest. I am not talking about reincarnation. I am talking about things in which it is difficult to find a man who is not interested -- silence, peace, love, compassion, joy. And I am trying to connect meditation with these things rather than with a god which nobody has seen, with a paradise which is beyond death, with reincarnation which may be just a hypothesis, and with all kinds of jargon all the religions have produced.

I am a very scientific mind. My approach is that whether you are Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian, communist, theist, atheist... it doesn't matter. I don't see that the atheist is not interested in being peaceful, silent. He may not be interested in God but he is bound to be interested in a certain well-being that comes out of his own innermost core.

And meditation is only a way to reach to that innermost core.

And I have found there are one hundred twelve methods of meditation exhaustive... you cannot add anything more to it, the science is complete. But in those one hundred twelve methods of meditation I have found a running thread -- just as in a garland hidden behind the flowers there is a running thread. You see the flowers, you see the garland but you don't see the thread which is really holding the flowers and making the garland.

Those one hundred twelve methods have a running thread of meditation and that is very simple. The simplest man can do that. A child who can understand language can do it. The man who is on his deathbed, even in his last moments can do it and can transform himself.

So the only possible way that I can see is: make meditation simple, make it associated with things which normal human beings aspire for. Don't unnecessarily make it complicated, religious, theological, philosophical -- let it be purely a scientific technique.

It is just like you don't understand how electricity works but you know the switch. You don't know the inner working of the electricity. For that you need to study, you need to go to a university to understand and even people like Albert Einstein are reported to have said that, "I do not know how actually electricity works and I don't know certainly what it is." But we know the actual application of it.

Certainly meditation is far more subtle than electricity. All that human beings need to know is the simple application of it. And I have not come in my life across a single person who is not interested in things I have told to you. He may be afraid of the word meditation but he is not afraid of silence, he is not afraid of peace, he is not afraid of love, he is not afraid of being full of joy, he is not afraid of knowing himself....

Once you connect these human aspirations with the science of meditation there is a hope that the humanity may not be destined to remain always in ignorance and there is a possibility that the enlightened person's statements can be understood. But they can be understood only if you have some kind of experience to connect.

Buddha failed, Mahavira failed -- the reason was simple. They had the experience -- as far as they themselves are concerned, they have succeeded; but they failed to convey the experience to other people because they were not aware that the common man is not interested in finding out the mystery of existence.

He is so burdened with his life, there is no time for him to search for the mystery of life. And what he is going to do even if he finds the mystery of life? You cannot eat it, you cannot make a house out of it.

They were talking from their heights without taking note that people who are in the darker valleys know a different language.

It has been said that ìf you are thirsty, you have to go to the well, the well cannot come to you.' In a certain sense it is true. But as far as spirituality is concerned I want to say it emphatically that `the thirsty cannot go to the well.'

In the first place he is not aware that he is thirsty, he is not aware of what he is thirsty because he has never tasted water. He is not aware that there are wells available where his thirst can be quenched.

So against the ancient proverb, I say to you that `the well has to go to the thirsty.'

There is no other way. And the way for the well to go to the thirsty is to understand the ordinary man's conditioning, his aspirations and somehow join his aspirations with something which can take him out of his darkness.

It is a difficult task; perhaps the most difficult task. But it is a great challenge too. I have been talking to ordinary people my whole life and I know how it is difficult to manage some kind of communication, but I can say with great humility that I have been able to succeed in reaching thousands of hearts.

And if it is possible for me, it is possible for all. Because this is one of my basic dictums that whatever 1/08/07

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possible for one human being is possible for all human beings.

Your so-called old founders of religions have done a very basic mistake that they all claim they are special.

Jesus is born out of a virgin Mary. You are not born out of a virgin mother, and if you were born you would be a bastard, not a Jesus Christ. His followers have created hundreds of stories which are all bogus: that he walked on waters, that he cured people of their diseases by just laying his hands on them -- not only that, he raised a dead man back to life.

All these stories... if true, then just think of a simple thing: if all these stories are true then the contemporaries of Jesus have never noted them. Not a single Jewish book notes, and such miraculous acts!

On the contrary, this is the reward that they crucify Jesus. I cannot think that a man who raises people from death can be crucified in any country, in any century!

The truth is that all these stories are invented. But the followers have to invent these stories to make Jesus as far away from you as possible.

Hindus say their Krishna, Rama and other autaras, are God's incarnations on the earth. You are not God's incarnation, Krishna is. Naturally if Krishna attains to ultimate enlightenment, there is nothing to be surprised, he is already the perfect incarnation of God. You are just a small creature.

The English word for `man' means mud. `Human' comes from humus.

The Arabic word for `man' -- admi -- also means mud.

You are just mud. There is unbridgeable gap between you and your prophets and your founders of religions.

Buddha is born while his mother is standing. No woman has ever given birth to a child standing, but it is not difficult -- perhaps she was a kind of some gymnastic. More puzzling is that Buddha is born also standing. Still more puzzling she(sic) walks seven steps -- this is the first act that he does on the earth. And after seven steps he declares to the whole world that "I am the most enlightened being who has ever been on the earth or who will ever be on the earth."

Now all this nonsense... the child is not even seven minutes old. He is walking, he is talking, he is declaring!

The whole idea and the desire of all the religions has been to separate their founders from the humanity, to create respect, to create worship, to create devotion. But all that respect, worship and devotion is nothing but spiritual slavery.

If all these people have insisted that they are as human beings as you are and whatever they have attained is your potentiality, and there is no bridge between you and them because there is no gap -- the difference is only between the bud and the flower. What difference it is? In fact, the bud is in a better position, the flower by the evening will be gone. The bud has life ahead, the bud has future; the flower has blossomed, it has only passed, it has released its fragrance, now the petals will fall down and the flower will disappear... the bud is still going to remain, its treasure is still to be unburdened.

The difference is the same as in the rising sun and the setting sun. A Buddha is a setting sun -- beautiful, glorious, so many colors... but remember he is a setting sun, he has reached to his ultimate potentiality. You are a rising sun with all the potentiality in front of you, with the whole sky to travel, with all the colors to spread, with all the experience to go through.

If all these religious people have insisted only on one point: that there is no difference basically between them and you, humanity would have been in a totally different state of a tremendous consciousness, awareness, alertness, and of a great self-respect. They denied self-respect, they destroyed humanity, they forced you to be just creatures, humus, mud....

My effort is totally different. That's why I am condemned all over the world by everybody. I take it as a compliment because sooner or later there will be people who will recognize what I am doing. It takes time.

Perhaps I may not be here when I am recognized, but I know that it is going to happen because what I am saying is absolute truth: that there is no difference between Gautam Buddha and you. The only difference is you are asleep and he is awake. What kind of difference is that?

The person who is asleep can be awake any moment. He has the potentiality to be awake, otherwise he cannot be asleep. A dead person is not asleep because he cannot be awake.

Sleep and being awake are two sides of the same coin. That's why I go on insisting that I am not special, that I am not any incarnation of God, that I am not a prophet, that I am not a messiah, that I am simply a human being just like you. The only difference... which is not much of a difference, is: that I have opened my eyes and you are keeping them closed. And I am trying in every way to shake you, to hit you from this 1/08/07

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side, from that side, hoping that perhaps you may open your eyes. And once you open your eyes you will see there has never been any difference. There is every hope of an enlightened humanity, but the work has to be on the lines I am saying, not on the lines Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas, Christians, Jews have been following.

On that way humanity is destined to remain in darkness.

Just look Jesus' whole life. It is not long, he was crucified when he was thirty-three and his life as a teacher was only three years. When he was thirty he started teaching. In three years he is teaching continuously only one thing: that he should be accepted as the only begotten son of God, that a special messenger, that a prophet, that whatever he is saying he is not saying, it is God's word.

Three years continuously his whole effort is to prove that he is special. He seems to be a megalomaniac.

There are far more beautiful things to teach, and this way it is not going to help anybody... it did not help even him! It led him to the crucifixion. But these people were bound to be misunderstood because they created a distance between themselves and humanity -- too much. It seems to be some kind of a spiritual ego.

Destroy that distance. Let your Buddhas and your Mahaviras and your prophets and messiahs mix in the crowd, be part of ordinary humanity. And there is tremendous beauty in being just ordinary. It is so relaxing. Because to be special is a tension, a constant tension that you have to keep up to the standard you are proposing to the world.

For example, Mahavira lived naked. Now this is stupid. Whole year round: it was hot and he was naked, it was cold and he was naked... just to prove that he is special, that neither Krishna nor Ram nor Buddha nor anybody else has reached to the height that he has reached -- they are still dependent on clothes; he has attained absolute independence.

He will not brush his teeth because that is an effort to beautify the body. He will not take a bath because that is you are still materialistic. He was stinking!

In a part of India like Bihar, which is full of dust and he was perspiring and dust, no bath, no mouthwash... but he is proving something. He must have lived in an immense tension. Not only that he was stinking to you, he must have been stinking to himself.

Anybody who tries to be special has to keep certain tensions. Only an ordinary man can relax because there is nothing to fear.

All these people who have founded your religions are not authentically spiritual. It is a new kind of politics, it is a new kind of power -- they have discovered how to rule over masses without being on the throne, without taking any responsibility for them. And small things....

I was passing through a village and people told me that, "You must see a man in our town who attracts thousands of people every day because for twelve years he has been standing."

I said, "But what spiritual quality one can attain by just standing? He should be mad, you should send him to some mental asylum. And what is the need of thousands of people to come and worship him?" But I was passing from the road anyway so I stopped and went to see the man and I had tears in my eyes. That man's legs have become what happens in a certain disease called elephantiasis -- when your legs become too fat and your whole body shrinks.

(Tape side B)

Even if he wanted to sit, he could not. And for twelve years the methodology that he was using...

because it is not easy to stand for twelve years... he was handing on a wooden rod with his hands so that he cannot fall, even if he falls asleep. And around him continuously people were chanting, supporting so that he does not fall. And I looked at the man's face -- no sign of intelligence. I looked at his eyes -- just empty, dead, they could have been of stones. What he has gained? He has gained tremendous power -- thousands of followers pouring their money in his feet every day from the morning till late in the night, the procession continued.

This is a special politics, and this politics has created a gap -- I want to destroy the gap.

I want you to walk hand in hand with Buddha and then there is no reason... because sometimes what cannot be said through words can be said just by holding your hand. Sometimes what cannot be said by any language can be just said sitting silently by your side, or by a hug.

Language is not the only way of expression. For example, I was in the American jail and every jailer fell in love with me. The first jailer fell in love with me so much that he allowed a press conference in the jail which was never done. He risked... he said, "Nothing to be worried. I am going to be retire in a year or two, at the most they can throw me out now. But I am going to make a precedent." A big press conference he 1/08/07

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arranged in the jail.

He brought me there. I told him, that "Now you will have to do one thing more. You will have to remove these handcuffs because with handcuffs I cannot speak because half of my speech is with my gestures. I will not be able to find words."

And he understood, he said, "That is true. When we are listening to you we are also listening to your hands, they are also saying something, they are also indicating something, they are also emphasizing something."

So they are substituting what is missing in language. What cannot be said by hands can be said by eyes.

But keeping this distance is sheer egoistic.

I know it is a difficult task but it is a great challenge too. And for my sannyasins, this is going to be the work. Never for a single moment think yourself special, extraordinary.

The common masses and we, are not separate. They may think we are separate but how can we think we are separate?

They may think to keep a distance but how can we allow the distance, we want to come closer to their heart.

What has happened in the past has to be forgotten. And past is not all, there is eternity available. So everything impossible can be made possible.

Okay.

Q: BHAGWAN, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING TO THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE WHO

HAVE KNOWN YOU ONLY THROUGH NEWSPAPERS AND NEVER CARE TO READ AND

UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ACTUALLY HAVE SAID. WHAT IS YOUR BASIC MESSAGE FOR THEM?

My basic message to all the people is: always remember that if you are really a seeker of truth, then go to the source.

It is not right just to depend on the news media. The news media has its own limitations. First: it cannot give my whole message, it has no space for it. Second: if it tries to give my whole message it will not find audience for it.

The whole news media looks at the audience, follows the audience what you need, what you like... it is a very strange thing but one never thinks about it, that your leaders are followers of their own followers. They always look what the followers like -- that has to be said. Do whatever you want to do but say only that which your followers want to listen. And the same is the case with the newspapers, television, radio. Say what the people are asking for. And people are asking for wrong things.

They are asking for sex, pornography. They are asking for violence. They are asking for all kinds of sensations. They are not interested in the higher values of life for the simple reason because for centuries your religious people have repressed their lower instincts so much that now their lower instincts have immense power and those lower instincts demand some kind of fulfillment.

You have been told to murder is wrong, so naturally you cannot murder. But seeing in a film a murder scene you can see the change in yourself. You may have been sitting relaxedly with your back to the chair --

as the murder scene comes you become more alert, you leave the back of the chair, you come closer to the murder, you don't want to miss a single thing, you are identifying yourself in that scene. This is what your religious people have done to you.

Your films are full of violence, full of sex, full of murder, rape, suicide... these are your demands. And the people who are producing those films or magazines or newspapers are just businessmen. I myself have been once a journalist but I could not go more than few weeks. The owner called me, he said, "You should have born in SATYUG."

I said, "What has happened?"

He said, "You will destroy my paper. You have already reduced my readership to half."

I said, "It does not matter if your paper is finished, that is not the point. But right things should reach to people."

But he said, "They don't want the right thing, and I am not here for charity purposes. I am a businessman and I am in a trouble because we have made a contract for one year. In one year you will make me bankrupt!" Because I changed all politicians to the last page, I reduced their speeches to small articles not covering the whole first page, I removed their pictures, there is no need for their pictures every day to be 1/08/07

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insisted on people's mind. Because there are so many beautiful people and the world knows nothing about them.

I would like a big picture of Ravi Shankar playing on his sitar on the front page. People should know....

I would like some sculptor, some poet... the first page should be for the creators.

And I reduced completely all news about suicide and murder, violence... and I said, that "It helps nobody. It really creates an atmosphere that violence is the way of life, everywhere it is happening, every newspaper is talking about it, everywhere there is rape. So why you are lagging behind, you also have a woman in your mind that you would like to rape. When everybody is doing it, then why not join?"

I told him a story: two men are going to the market and one says, that "There is a riot between Mohammedans and Hindus and the Hindus are destroying the mosque. And as Hindus we should go and help."

The other man said, that "That does not seem to be a right thing. The mosque has done no harm to us and even Mohammedans who go to the mosque simply pray there. That is the only place where they are prayerful and you are destroying it! That is illogical."

Next day the man who was persuading that "We should go and destroy the mosque" was surprised. The first man was destroying it. He asked, "What has happened?"

He said, "When I saw everybody is doing it then it must be right."

When you read every day from every corner: the radio is saying the same thing, the television is saying the same thing, the newspaper is saying the same thing, the films are saying the same thing... you are surrounded by a very subtle mind atmosphere in which you are going to be drowned.

I told my owner, that "I have been publishing because there are good things also happening in the world.

It is not that everybody is raping, it is not that everybody is committing suicide, there are people who are doing some good work, beautifying life, helping people and I am trying to find those people and their work."

Just that day I had published an article on Baba Amtay(*).

Very few people know about the man that he has devoted his whole life to the lepers, he has made a beautiful place for the lepers in Maharashtra. Thousands of lepers and he has proved it wrong that just by remaining in touch with lepers you will be infected. He lives with them, his wife lives with them, his children live with them and they all serve them and he has made all those thousands of lepers again human beings because they are all producing something. If their hands cannot do, then their feet can do something.

If their feet cannot do, their hands can do something. Not a single leper is unproductive. And he has given them dignity. Otherwise they were thrown out of their towns, they were not allowed in the towns, nobody was ready even to talk to them, nobody was ready to give them any work. Now this man should be talked....

There may be many people who may become Baba Amtay(*). There may be many people who may be lepers somewhere suffering, may go to his beautiful place. He calls it Ànandvan'(*) -- the forest of bliss.

And it is a beautiful forest and something worth seeing, that how people which have been for centuries condemned can be raised back to dignity, to self-respect... now they are earning their own food, their own clothes and they are not dependent on anybody.

You will be surprised that Baba Amtay's(*) colony donates to many charitable institutions. And when I used to go to his colony the people were so happy that we can help other people who are helpless just as we were helpless some day.

"So let your circulation drop. I know that Baba Amtay(*) will not increase your circulation... Ravi Shankar will not increase your circulation. But don't be worried, I will not be heavy on you. I can force to remain for one year here to finish your firm, but I will not be heavy on you, I can understand you. So I can withdraw myself. You raise your circulation."

So they have limitations. So the people who are interested... at the most what news media can do is to create curiosity, interest. From there you have to go to the deeper sources: to my books, to my tapes, to my videos. If you think that just the newspaper's information is enough then you will be misguided.

So this is my message to the man around: that from the newspapers and other news media take the hint.... Now almost all over the world every newspaper is talking about me, every radio, every television.

There are few who have the intelligence and courage to represent me rightly, even risking their jobs. There are few who are intelligent enough but don't have courage, they cannot risk their jobs but they can at least be factual. They need not distort.

But the majority will be there which will try to distort everything so it becomes sensational. It will take things out of context to make it sensational.

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But there is no problem just the people have to understand their limitations. And they have to take the hint that if the whole world media is interested in this man... they may be making famous or notorious, they may be condemning me or praising me -- does not matter. What matters is that the whole world news media is interested in this man, it is worth searching a little bit on your own.

You will not be at a loss.

Q: BHAGWAN, NEWSPAPERS ARE MISGUIDING THE LOCAL PEOPLE THAT PRESENCE OF

YOUR SANNYASINS WILL POLLUTE THE VALLEY OF GODS. BHAGWAN, CAN WE, THE PEOPLE OF

MADHYA PRADESH, BE HELPFUL IN YOUR WORK, AND HOW? PLEASE GUIDE US.

A: First, what do you have to call it a valley of gods?

It is one of the poorest part of the country. In fact, people are surprised that why you call it valley of gods. Once it was, once it can again be. And what those people are telling to the masses that my people will pollute it. Ask them "What do they mean?" Because my people are the cleanest people you can find. My people don't use any drugs. My people are vegetarian. My people are meditative, loving, rejoicing, singing, dancing -- they can make it really the valley of gods.

I can accept the challenge because my experience of two communes: one I had made in Poona, ten thousand sannyasins were living there. And the trouble with the people surrounding the commune was jealousy, because they were really living like gods. I don't believe in poverty, I am absolutely against it, it can be destroyed very easily. It is being protected by vested interests: the politicians and the religious leaders.

Ten thousand people were living self-sufficiently, meditating, dancing, loving and rejoicing and that was creating in the local population a tremendous jealousy that "What is happening to these people, why it is not happening to us?"

That was the cause of their being against.

The same happened in America. I was thinking India is a poor country, my commune is rich because richness is a very simple thing: a little understanding and poverty disappears. But perhaps it is just an island and around is the ocean of poverty and naturally it creates jealousy that they are not being able to live a life of joy. It becomes anger, it becomes violence.

I thought perhaps America will not react in the same way, but strange to say, the human mind is the same. It does not make any difference between the Indian or the American. In America in four years we changed a desert into an oasis, we made a dream come true.

Perhaps that is the only time communism has existed in the world -- those four years. Because we stopped the circulation of money in the commune; money cannot be used inside the commune. So you may have millions of dollars and I may not have a single dollar but that does not make you rich, and that does not make me poor. Money cannot be used inside the commune. You can donate to the commune but you cannot purchase anything inside the commune. Whatever you need, commune will supply.

In four years' time there was no crime, no rape, no murder, no suicide, no violence and American politicians became afraid because news media started coming, that what we have done? That desert was lying there for fifty years. Nobody was buying it, what you will do with a desert? And it was not a small piece of land, it was eighty-four thousand acres. We purchased the land, the politicians of Oregon laughed, the neighbors laughed that we are fools, we don't know anything... what we are going to do with this land, nothing can be produced in it.

But we managed to make lakes, collect rainwater, big dams collect rainwater, made houses for five thousand sannyasins; and we did everything by our own hand. We did not take any support from any American. Nobody from outside the commune was asked. We made our roads and we turned the valley in a beautiful oasis.

The people who had known it before and came to see it could not believe. And our people were meditating in the morning then listening to me then going to work, then eating together because we had only one kitchen for five thousand people. And when there were festivals we had one kitchen for twenty thousand people. And it was a joy to eat with twenty thousand people. And somebody is playing a guitar and somebody is dancing. And it was not an ordinary thing: that you are eating and people are dancing around you or somebody is playing. And people are so happy.

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their singing and dancing places.

It became a rumor that perhaps they are hypnotized, otherwise how people can be so happy?...

continuously. You can be forgiven once in a while if you smile, but if you smile the whole day then you cannot be forgiven, something is wrong! To be healthy twenty-four hours is not acceptable.

Sadness is acceptable, long faces are acceptable. People annoyed with existence, complaining, grumpy

-- they are acceptable.

But people dancing are not acceptable. Something has gone wrong with these people. For the simple reason because they are in minority and you are in majority. The miserable majority destroyed the blissful minority.

These experiences help me to make it a point that the local people, wherever I make a commune, should be involved in it. The commune should not be anymore a separate thing, it should be part of the local people. It will be difficult because those local people will bring all their conditionings, they have to be cleansed of their conditionings, but that seems to be the only way. Otherwise sooner or later the distance will be so much that they will be angry, that it is their land and you are so happy and we are not!

I would love local people to be involved. The problem is people who have nothing, even they are not ready to become part of a commune because the commune means a total change of your attitudes. For example, you have a family. Commune is not a family. Otherwise for five thousand people we will have twenty-five hundred kitchens, twenty-five hundred women wasting their life in kitchens. This is sheer wastage of human energy! Just one kitchen with fifteen people managing it was enough; there was no need....

With the local people these are the problems: they will cling to the family.

A commune is a loosening that you lose the grip of the family. The children were taken care of by the commune -- they have their own hostel, and it was a great experience to see because I had made it clear that bigger children should take care of small children. There will be a supervisor but children should be responsible, they should not be just irresponsible, that they have to be taken care of, that's all. They have to take care of smaller children and they will be taken care of by bigger children.

And it worked out... I was not thinking that it will work out with children. They immensely enjoyed it, taking care of small children. Rather than playing with toys and marrying toys, they started diverting their energy and taking care of small children. And because they were taking care of small children, they became responsible, mature, protective, and the fights that are natural, disappeared. They were allowed to go to their parents. The parents were allowed to go there but the responsibility of the children was the commune.

(Tape side C; no overlap)

The responsibility of the children was not the parents. The parents are not going to decide that the child will become an engineer, it will be the psychological department of the commune which will decide what are the potentials of the child and what he should be taught. The child may have a potential of becoming a great dancer and you are sending him to become an engineer. He will remain unhappy his whole life because he could not become what he was naturally meant to become, and what he has become will simply create misery.

Any commune that I am going to start anywhere is now going to take local people in, whoever wants to come in just they have to be a little courageous to drop their clingings, to drop their old habits and ideas. For example, in America two hundred street people joined the commune. People think America is rich but there are thirty million beggars and it is absolute bogus publicity. And these beggars are starving on streets, they don't have any home, they don't have clothes, they don't have food. Two hundred beggars came, we accepted them, we made our conditions clear to them because you have been brought up in crime -- they all have been to jails, they all have committed all kinds of things, they all have been taking drugs, alcohol... it was made clear to them that there will be no need for alcohol, there will be no need for drugs.

We have a better drug, just you have to give us a little time: just if you can control yourself for three weeks the meditation will work and you will not need any drug.

And they remained for four years and they were accustomed, confirmed criminals but they did not commit any crime; on the contrary, they were so happy because for the first time a commune, a community has accepted them as human beings. Otherwise they were simply thought to be dogs. Nobody cared about them that they are human beings. In fact, they used to commit crime just to go to jail because at least there is home, at least they provide you clothes, food, cigarettes, medicine, and no work. So why die starving on the street, just commit a small crime and go to the jail.

When I was in jail I asked people, "How many times you have been here?"

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They said, "Who counts? Because each time we are released, within a week we are back. Because what we will do outside? We don't have a home, nobody to take care of, nobody who is waiting for us. And we are treated like inhuman beings. Here at least our necessities are given to us, a doctor checks us, medicines are given to us, television is available to see, cards are allowed -- you can play, cigarettes are free -- you can smoke as many as you want, clothes are there... what else one needs? And a beautiful community of four or five hundred inmates who are old friends, meeting in one jail, in another jail."

So, but I would like to start a commune this time with a new framework involving local people in it so that other local people can see a link and the commune does not become a separate island.

And I love this place and I would like to make it really a valley of gods but your local people are in absolute support with me. Your Panchayat(*) heads have come to me to invite that I should remain here, the bar association has come that I should remain here, other associations have invited me to remain here. But their invitation does not mean much, if the central government does not want me to be here... then I cannot do anything because the whole thing depends on the central government and they are under American pressure.

I have in America... in America there are international, private security agencies. I have the best international security agency working for me to inform me about all the secrets that is going on in governments against me or for me. Now from America I have received the information that India is finished for you because Indian politicians are under too much pressure by the American politicians. And if you don't believe us you can try to check their confidential file.

And one of the friends who had the approach managed to check the file and they were right. The American government is trying to tell them that I should not be directly attacked because that becomes a difficult matter to arrange... they have seen, they attacked me directly and they have seen how they became a target of world news media and lost immense prestige. "Don't attack me directly," that is their suggestion,

"but don't allow foreigners to be here..." so that I cannot work. Because I have trained my four thousand, five thousand people for every work -- I will need them if I want to create a commune here because they will work without any pay and they will work twelve to fourteen hours; it will be their work of love. And they are geniuses in their work: engineers, doctors, professors, psychologists. We had our own hospital, we had our own university, we had our own psychological therapy department. We had everything that we needed. We had our farmers who know how to use modern technology -- latest. We had our own scientists

-- if anything we want to create, they were ready to create. For example, we needed tents for winter because for winter tents have never existed. They managed to make tents for winter.

The American government, rather than rewarding them, imposed a fine on us and not a small fine -- one and half crore rupees fine that we have made those tents without permission.

Now tents don't need any permission but they managed, manipulated the law and they said, that "They are not tents because they can be used in winter, they are permanent structures."

I asked the government, the attorney-general, to "Come before you declare your fine otherwise you will look a fool. Just come and see, they are tents, they are not permanent structures! Although our scientists have made them in such a way they can be heated, they can be airconditioned, they have a separate bathroom; but they are not permanent structures."

But without listening he imposed the fine. I told my people, "You just go to the court, no argument is needed, you simply take a tent... unfold the bag, put the tent inside the court -- because it takes only ten minutes to fix it. Tell the magistrate to come and have a look. And within ten minutes unfold it, put it back, bag, into the bag. And ask him, `Can a permanent structure be made in ten minutes? And can be packaged back in ten minutes?'"

The magistrate simply laughed. He said, "There is no case, this is a tent."

And I told publicly to the attorney-general of Oregon, that "You should jump into the ocean and commit suicide. Imposing such a big fine without even seeing the thing, only a very stupid person can do that."

So now the American government pressure on Indian government is that Ì should not be attacked directly but I should not be allowed my trained people to live with me, so the whole work can be destroyed.'

So the question is: if your state government, particularly your chief minister as I understand him seems to be a man of courage and intelligence, if he has really guts, then he should not bother about the central government because it is not against the security of the country. It is not a question of central government at all. He should not wait for their green signal. That's what he has said, and the message has come to me, that

"I am waiting for their green signal."

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come.

And I cannot wait too long. My people are looking around the world and we have found beautiful places, in fact two South American countries have invited me to make the commune in their countries. So I have sent my people to see what is the situation there and what will be there conditions because I will not work under any conditions.

And we are trying to locate... there are islands, independent islands. Most probably that seems to be the best thing, not to be bothered with politicians or anybody. But I love this place and I wanted really to make it a valley of gods. It is upon the local people to press your chief minister. I am his guest, he should come here, he is my host. And if South American governments can invite me with my whole commune, and they are ready to give land without any price and every support, then I can expect something better in my own country.

So it is a question of the local people. They should give the green flag for which he is waiting. A green flag procession for the chief minister. Because it is not a security question, it is not a defence question, the central government has nothing to do with it. He has to decide it and if he cannot decide it then he should drop the idea that he has guts and he should remember that type of people don't stay long in politics. He should show his mettle. Why he should be afraid? And his people are with me. But the central government is working in its own way.

I was in jail. It was natural that the Indian governments should have asked the American government that without any arrest warrant they have arrested me. They arrested me at twelve points of loaded guns and I asked them, "Where is the arrest warrant?" They had none. I asked them, "You can simply verbally say to me, `what is my crime.'"

They said, "We don't know."

I said, "If you don't know then let me contact my attorney."

They won't allow that either. And in the middle of the night, on an empty airport there was no other way. They won't allow even a phone call to the attorney which is a legal right of every person and particularly in such a situation when you are not providing any arrest warrant and you are putting me in chains, handcuffs, my legs in chains, my waist in chains, and you have nothing, no reason. And you talk of democracy and freedom and all nonsense.

For three days it was in the court, North Carolina. They could not prove a single point against me. They released the six people who were with me on the plane because they could not prove anything. The U.S.

attorney-general himself said in his concluding remarks that "We have not been able to prove anything.

Neither they have been able to prove anything."

I simply laughed at the point because innocence needs nothing to be proved. "You have arrested me, you have to prove on what guilt, on what crime you have arrested me. My attorneys have not to prove anything, they have simply to disprove you and they have disproved you. And the simple fact is that six people with me are released. But why you are not releasing me? And you are saying that you have not been able to prove anything."

Still they said that "We cannot release you to the magistrate." The reason of not releasing me on bail was, not that I have committed any crime which is unbailable -- I am a dangerous man.

I said, "This is strange, you have not proved. I have never been dangerous to anybody. I have not harmed anybody, I have not killed anybody. I am a vegetarian, what do you mean by dangerous? I am a dangerous man and I have tremendous amount of money available to me so even if you put me on a bail like ten million dollars I will not bother and I can leave the country, and I have thousands of devoted lovers and friends who can do anything for me."

"That's why we cannot allow."

I said to my attorneys, that "This proves the impotency of the greatest power of the world against a single man that they cannot prevent me from leaving the country."

But their reasoning was just on the surface, that's how things, politicians work. The magistrate was a woman and she was going to be promoted as a judge and they threatened her. My own jailer told me, that

"She has been threatened that if you releases me on bail then she should forget about being a federal judge forever."

So that was the reason that I was not released and why they wanted me not to be released because from Carolina to Oregon there is only eight hours flight. It took me twelve days to reach Oregon. They moved me from one jail to another jail to give me as much harassment as they could. And when I was with them for two, three days they became friendly and they understood that something political seems to be behind it.

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And ultimately, in one jail, they forced me, the U.S. marshall himself who is the highest authority of law imposing, he asked me that "My name should be David Washington." And I had to sign under it.

And I will be called David Washington, I will not be called by my name. I asked him, "What kind of law imposition is this? On your coat is written the department of Justice. Just at least remove the coat for the moment. What justice is this? And what is the purpose of this? Do you think me dumb, cannot I see the point that you want me to be in this jail and nobody should know that I am in this jail so you can do anything you want. You can kill me and there will be no record because I never entered in the jail. The question of my being killed in the jail does not arise."

But I told him, "Remember, tomorrow morning all TV. stations, radios, newspapers, will have the news that I have changed my name to David Washington under compulsion by U.S. marshall. There is still time --

you can change your mind, otherwise tomorrow morning...."

He said, "How you will manage that?"

I said, "I have already managed it." Coming from the airport was a woman with me who was going to be released. I told her, that "You be there and just listen to the whole conversation and the whole press media is waiting outside. They will not allow me, they will take me from the back. But when you are released... so whatsoever you hear and whatsoever you think is useful you just tell to the press."

And the woman did good job. She was waiting far away in a corner, sitting for her release and tomorrow morning it was all over the world that they have forced me to sign under a false name. And immediately, early in the morning, they changed me from that jail because it became difficult. The whole media was around the jail. Thousands of cameras, newspaper people asking about David Washington. So they were afraid that either they have to produce David Washington, which they don't have.... And I have signed my own name, signature, in Hindi.

So he looked at it and he said, "What it is? It must be David Washington."

So the news media was asking that "We want to see the form of David Washington because Bhagwan's signature are world known. What signature are there?"

So before anything is inquired they removed me to another jail, immediately.

These politicians, bureaucracy, is not working for humanity. They are just power greedy people.

So if people of Himachal Pradesh want me to be here I am absolutely willing to be here. But alone I cannot do anything for Himachal. They will have to give me permission for at least five thousand people to transform the whole face of Himachal. And in five years time you will see Himachal becoming the topmost tourist attraction in the whole world.

So the question is not me, the question is of your state government and its guts. So tell them that "If you are man enough then I am ready to take the challenge, but then be supportive. If you cannot, then just tell that this is beyond us. So I should not waste my time here, I have other places which I should visit and finalize."

Anything else?

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE MORE CRITICS THAN ANYBODY ELSE IN THIS JOB (INAUDIBLE) MANKIND. WHY IS IT SO?

A: Because I have more truths to say to the world than anybody else has ever said before.

Socrates had critics but his truth was simple and one dimensional. My truth is multi-dimensional and it attacks all the conditionings with which everybody has become so much attached. Although they are the causes of your misery, they are like cancer which needs to be operated. And operation is going to be painful but it is going to save your life.

Buddha, Mahavir, Lao Tzu, Kabir, Nanak -- they all have said some truths, but those truths were not against your whole conditioning. They were simply talking about your spirituality.

If I was also talking only about spirituality there would have been no criticism -- all praise.

But that would not have helped anybody.

I am not talking only of the flowers, which are beautiful. I am also talking of the roots, which are ugly.

And unless you understand the roots you cannot understand the flowers. I am talking about the whole man.

Nobody has talked about the whole man. They never talked about your body, they never talked about your mind, they never talked about your psychology, biology... they simply talked about devotion to God, faith in the VEDAS -- which was not hurting anybody. In fact they were supporting your conditionings.

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I cannot do that because in the VEDAS I see most of it is rubbish, not even literature. I cannot say that it is a word of God. I cannot say that Manu is an enlightened man because it is Manu who has tortured this country for five thousand years and he is still torturing.

I would like Manu Smriti to be burned and utterly destroyed so no trace is left behind. That hurts.

Nobody has talked about your marriage. They all supported it. I am against it because I see what marriage has done to man. It has made him as miserable as possible. It is a artificial institution, it is not natural. It is good if you love a person to live with the person as long as you love. You may love the person your whole life. But it is possible, today you feel tremendous love, tomorrow it may not be the same. Then you are stuck -- what you are going to do tomorrow? You are going to pretend that you still love your wife?

You are going still to make love to your wife whom you don't love -- this is ugly, inhuman.

These people have never talked to real human problems, they have never talked about how many children you should produce, they have never bothered about thousand and one things what kind of education should be given to you. Their whole idea was simply to remain a slave to a certain priesthood --

Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, and never to doubt anything. I emphasize it: that was their basic teaching, never to doubt anything.

And for thousands of years you have not doubted things which are really ugly.

For example, Krishna married sixteen thousand wives. And they were not virgin girls, they were somebody else' wives; they had their children, they had their husbands and he simply took those wives away because he was powerful.

This man destroyed sixteen thousand families and you never doubted. Mohammed had nine wives --

now this is ugly because men and women are of equal number. If a man has nine wives then what about the eight men who will remain without wives? They will become homosexuals, they will become perverted, they will go to the prostitutes. And Mohammed allowed Mohammedans to have four wives. Now this is absolutely absurd. There are not that proportion. Women are not four times more than men.

Just before freedom came to India, Nizam(*) of Hyderabad has five hundred wives, in this century. And nobody doubts.

Naturally they were not criticized because you never doubted. My whole teaching is doubt everything unless you find something which is indubitable, which can be accepted as truth, which cannot be doubted even if you want to doubt there is no way to doubt it.

Naturally I am vulnerable to thousands of criticisms but those criticisms are impotent. Not a single head of any religion... I have challenged everybody, all the Shankaracharyas, the pope, the Imams, Ayatollah Khomeini, for a public exchange of views.

(Tape side D)

And I am not saying that it should be amongst my disciples, I am ready to come to Vatican, amongst the Christians. I want to raise questions because I trust that my questions are so clear that even Christians cannot deny it.

But nobody seems to have guts. They go on criticizing but nobody is ready to confront me. That shows the impotency of their criticism.

And I am available. If I have told to the pope publicly that "If you can convince me, I am ready to become a Catholic. But if I convince you then you have to become a sannyasin. With this condition I am ready to enter into any controversy."

But these people I know that they don't have anything of their own. All borrowed knowledge which can be criticized very easily. So it is true. Nobody has been criticized so much in the whole history of man as I am being criticized -- I take it as a compliment. That means nobody has said so many truths and so penetrating and so shattering to all human ignorance as I have done and I am going to do it my whole life to my last breath.

But there are people of intelligence, there are one million sannyasins around the world and at least five million people who love me and there may be more who are sympathizers but are not courageous enough to declare even that they are sympathizers. So it is not only that I have enemies, nature has a certain way of balancing things. If I have so many enemies I must be having so many friends, whether they are known or not known does not matter.

And if I can divide the whole world into two parts, my enemies and my friends, I will be tremendously happy. My work is done. Because even to change half of the humanity it has never happened.

Okay.

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Query:-

A JOURNALIST IN THE AUDIENCE WHO HAS AN APPOINTMENT TO INTERVIEW BHAGWAN IN

THE MORNING AND EVENING OF THE NEXT DAY, 25TH, SAYS: SO YOU HAVE TWO FRIENDS

HERE.

A: I know, I know... one of them is a sannyasin.

Q: WE ALL WOULD LIKE TO BECOME ONE SIR.

A: Tomorrow morning.

Q: TOMORROW MORNING.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #9

Chapter title: None

25 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512250

ShortTitle: LAST509

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH DILIP GANGULY, A.F.P. NEWS AGENCY, FRANCE

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, YESTERDAY EVENING YOU SPOKE ABOUT SETTING UP A COMMUNE

EITHER IN A COUNTRY OR IN AN ISLAND. WHAT YOU WOULD PREFER, TO HAVE A COUNTRY OR

AN ISLAND, AND WHAT IT WILL THE SET UP BE LIKE?

A: My way of working is not according to any principle, creed or dogma.

I live moment to moment.

And this is one of my basic standpoints: that life can be lived only spontaneously.

Life cannot be like a railway trains running on the same track, always consistent.

Life is bound to be like a mountainous river -- changing every moment according to the situation, in response to it.

When I had come, at that moment I had no idea even to create a commune, I simply wanted a small group of people to live with me, so that my work can be continued. And I have communes in every country around the world so my word, my teachings, their questions and my answers can continue to reach to them.

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But being here for one month the situation has completely changed. I have never thought that the Indian government will be so much under American pressure.

They are not allowing even a small group of people to be with me. They want me to live here but they don't want me to continue my work. And to me my work is my life. Hence I have to change the idea of not having a commune.

The second thing... there are countries which are inviting me to have my commune and they are ready to support but they don't know me much, neither I know them much. Their reason to invite me is not that they support my way of thinking. Their reason to invite me is because they are anti-American. Now this is not enough for me to create a commune in those countries.

And my feeling in these thirty years continuously has been that wherever I am, whatever political ideology is followed there or whatever religion dominates there, I am going to be in conflict with the political ideology, with the religious ideology.

Hence my preference is an independent island.

There are islands available which have no political domination in any way, from any country. That will be the ideal place for me, to work without being obstructed on each single step. And from that island I can manage all my communes around the world, because the island will not be under any government, we can also prove a very fundamental thing: that we can live without a government.

Fundamentally I am an anarchist. Lesser the government the better. No government is the best situation.

There have been great anarchist thinkers like Bakunin but they were all working through a wrong direction.

They were simply thinking that removing the government will solve the problem, that is not true. So I don't agree on that point, that removing the government will solve the problem. It will increase the problems.

My way to reach to an anarchist state is changing the people, their patterns of thinking, their ways of life

-- making them so happy, blissful, silent that crime becomes an impossibility in their being. Then there is no need for a government. You don't remove the government, the need for the government disappears.

It is like you are sick, you need a doctor. Bakunin and other anarchists are saying, "Remover the doctor and everything will be good." I cannot agree about that because what will happen to the patient? Even with the doctor, he is sick; without the doctor he will be in a far worse condition.

My approach is: make the sick person healthy so the need for the doctor disappears.

In ancient China for thousands of years there has been a rule which I support wholeheartedly, that the patient does not pay the doctor when the doctor cures him; the patient pays the doctor when the patient remains healthy and does not fall sick. If the patient falls sick, doctor loses money -- he will have to supply medicines, he will have to take care of the patient, and whatever he was getting from the patient will not be given to him. This is absolutely sane idea. Otherwise the whole world has lived in such a stupid situation that the doctor is taught to make the patient healthy but the doctor lives on the patient being sick. This is a contradiction. The profession is basically contradictory. If nobody is sick, all the doctors will die. They need sick people, they need epidemics so that they can cure people and they can earn money.

This is not only the situation about doctor/patient relationship, this is the situation about so many things in our life.

One of the great philosopher, Lao Tzu, was asked by the emperor of China to become his chief of the justice department. Lao Tzu tried to persuade him that, "It is better you leave me out."

But he insisted, that "You are the wisest man."

Finally Lao Tzu accepted and the first case appeared. A man has stolen a large sum of money from the richest man of the capital. Lao Tzu gave both the people six years of jail: the thief and the rich man. The rich man said, "Are you mad? I have been robbed and now I am being punished! I have not done anything."

Lao Tzu said, "You have accumulated so much money that it is bound to be sooner or later robbed. You have created the situation, you are the source. This thief is just a by-product and I cannot punish the by-product when the source is present before me."

The rich man immediately approached the emperor and he said, "What kind of man you have appointed?

Soon you will be in jail because whatever you have, you have in the same way I have. It is better to dismiss this man, his idea is dangerous, although he is logical. I can understand what he is saying."

Lao Tzu was dismissed.

But this is the situation in the whole world. On the one hand we create solutions and on the other hand those solutions depend, exist, subsist, on the problems.

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agree.

But have a good society and there will be no need of a government. And this can be proved very easily because four years in America we had no government, there was no crime, nobody was punished, there was no fight, no rape, because we were trying to erase the problems from their very foundations.

On an island it will be more easily possible because on any land belonging to a country we have to follow their laws. Most of them are illogical. We have to go through the bureaucracy which takes years, and then too the governments change -- one government may invite me, the other government, tomorrow, may throw me out. It is better now to have an island where we don't have any government and we can create a model anarchist, superb quality communism, without any dictatorship, without destroying the rich, without creating a great concentration camp as Russia is; with full freedom.

I trust in the individual so much and his intelligence that it is possible that it can become an ideal society. And it can become a model for other communes all over the world.

Secondly, it will be easier for my sannyasins to visit because they won't need any visa, they won't need any passport.

I think that the world is crazy! We are living on a small planet where we have made so many political lines and divisions and you cannot cross those divisions and you need passports and you need visas and everywhere it seems we are not aware that the earth is one.

So on the island at least we can drop all bureaucracy, nobody is going to ask you "How long you are going to stay here? From what country you come? To what race you belong? Whether you have any passport or not?" Your being human is enough that you are welcome.

So rather than having the commune on mainland of any country, my preference is for a island.

Because even being in my own country I feel helpless. The people who have been taking care of me: my physician, my caretaker, my washer woman, my cleaners, my typists, they all have been thrown out of the country.

The president of the international sannyas movement had been given six month visa, just with one entry.

She tried hard, she is a woman of immense creative intelligence. Perhaps she has made the best film that has ever been made, "Godfather." Her film has received more awards than any film ever. And these bureaucrats will not give her a second entry. She said, "It is useless, because I am the president of the movement and I will have to come and go to talk to Bhagwan about problems," but they are not willing to give her a second entry.

She is stuck in Nepal. She had sent a message that, "They are not giving me a second entry."

One man, for one month, the secretary of the sannyas movement has been waiting in Delhi to see the prime minister to make our situation clear to him, that "You need not be afraid, we are not going to do anything that can harm your country. Whatever we propose will be beneficial. It cannot be in any way harmful."

But for one month he has not been able to see the prime minister. He has been given at least twelve times appointments and at the exact moment the appointment is cancelled.

Now how to work in such conditions?

I have found a really beautiful island and soon we will be negotiating. Perhaps within two weeks it will be finalized and once it is finalized I will give you the first news. You can release it to the world.

Q: DOES SUCH AN ISLAND EXIST WHERE THERE WILL BE NO CONTROL OF A COUNTRY?

A: Yes. There are few islands.... They are independent islands belonging to persons, individual properties. Not many are left now. Only three are there all around the world. So I had to send a person in deep search to find out. There used to be many but they all have by and by been taken over by governments, but three are still there.

One is really beautiful. And the man is getting old and he wants to sell it. So it is his offer, we are not...

we have been searching and he has been searching, because it is also difficult to find a buyer for an whole island. But we have found each other and negotiations are on the way. Within two weeks we will be settling something.

Q: THIS POINT HAS BEEN POSSIBLY IN THE MIND OF MANY PEOPLE, THAT WHY NOT GO TO

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AN ISLAND. EVEN WHEN YOU WENT TO OREGON, MANY PEOPLE THOUGHT THAT...

A: In Oregon, that was the idea. The only problem was that we were not aware that there are still three islands in the world which are owned by individuals. We inquired all the islands around America are in some way or other under the pressure of some government.

Particularly in the last two years the American government has been trying to put as much pressure on those islands which have been up to now independent, that now for me to go to those islands will be almost impossible because twice America has attacked those islands in these two years. So we don't want any island around America; we want some place where without any security, without any army, we cannot be attacked.

And this island is in such a situation where there is no possibility of any attack.

Q: COULD IT BE ONE ISLAND NEAR FIJI?

A: No. No, because Fiji islands are independent but they are too undeveloped and it will take real trouble to develop them to make houses, roads... water is a problem, electricity is a problem. So there are so many problems, before we can manage them it will take at least three/four years. But this island is fully developed and for three hundred fifty people already accommodation exists. And it has a five mile strip.

And on another side, another five mile strip which is under water -- just four/five feet under water.

So my idea is these five miles over water should be left because they are lush green. They should not be disturbed and the underwater line can be made like houseboats in Kashmir. So they can be attached with the land, which is only five feet underwater, so it can become really a beautiful place without destroying the greenery and the plants we can have the population. And in the middle of both you can have small boats moving.

And the island already has an airport. Morning and evening airplanes pass through the airport. A twelve passenger airport, airplane is possible to land there and that's enough for us. We had in Oregon five airplanes of our own, we had our own airport, we have our own pilots, so we can use the airport.

It has a beautiful hotel for eighty persons, eighty rooms for visitors and three hundred fifty persons can live immediately. So it is fully furnished. And as three hundred fifty people are there, we can start working on the underground, the underwater/ground, making houseboats where we can put thousands of people. It is a five mile long strip.

So we can turn it really a paradise.

So the moment it is settled I will give you the pictures, I will give you the whole news so you be the first one to release it to the world.

Q: IF I WRITE ALL THIS INFORMATION AND CAN'T NAME THE ISLAND, THEY WILL SACK ME.

(INAUDIBLE) SO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT IT. SO, HOW IS THE CLIMATE THERE?

A: It is tropical.

No, you just give the information. Let them wait, just two weeks and it will be finalized.

Q: WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE SET UP OF A COMMUNE, LIKE THE FUTURE COMMUNE

THAT YOU MAY SET UP YOU KNOW. WHAT WILL BE THE STRUCTURE LIKE? WILL BE THE SAME

IN OREGON?

A: It will be the same because it was perfect.

Q: AND YOU WILL BE INCLUDING THE LOCAL POPULATION ALSO?

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A: In the island there is no local population.

Q: ABOUT THE FINANCIAL STATUS OF THE MOVEMENT, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT ITS VERY

RICH. BUT ALSO THERE WERE DOUBTS WERE EXPRESSED AFTER WHAT HAPPENED IN

OREGON. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO TELL US ABOUT THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE?

A: It is difficult to tell because when we went to America we had only fifty thousand rupees in the bank.

If anybody had asked about the financial status, fifty thousand rupees is nothing in America. It is just five thousand dollars. You cannot purchase a small house!

So it is difficult for me to tell for the simple reason because my financial status is not in the banks but in the hands of the people who love me. And as we settled for the land we had no money. The land was purchased in six million dollars and we had fifty thousand, five thousand dollars.

Six million dollars we settled, trusting that our people will manage. Even the man who was selling he was surprised, he said, "But how you are going to manage?"

I said, "You don't be worried about that." And we managed to put in Oregon two hundred million dollars. And we were never short of money because all around the world people were sending whatever they could manage and there has been no change. Those two hundred million dollars lost does not make any difference. In fact it has increased the number of my friends, sympathizers, and there will be no difficulty.

I cannot give you the figures but I can guarantee you that there will be no financial difficulty at all.

The people who are interested in me are intelligent, educated, cultured, affluent people. And having one million sannyasins around the world and at least three million almost sannyasins, there is no problem about money.

Money has never been a problem in my life -- I don't have a single rupee. I am for thirty years bankrupt

-- I don't have anything.

Q: BUT SIR, YOUR MORALE BANK IS VERY HIGH.

A: Yes, that is certainly very high. And we will manage, there is no problem.

Q: BHAGWAN, THAT BEAUTIFUL ISLAND, MONEYWISE WILL IT BE HIGHER THAN OREGON?

SIX MILLION DOLLARS?

(Tape side B)

A: No it will not be. Because it is difficult for the person to find a buyer and he is getting old and he wants cash. It is now a burden on him, the maintenance of the island, keeping servants there for these three hundred fifty cottages, a hotel, a resort beach... so it is becoming difficult for him. He wants to get rid of it so it won't be higher than Oregon, it will be far lower.

It is his offer less than half and still he is ready to negotiate that means it can be cut still more. He is simply overburdened, it is unnecessary expense for him. And he is not in a position any more to enjoy the island that he had created in these twenty years, that's how it happens in many people's life. You try to create something you would like to enjoy but by the time you create it you are not able to enjoy it. You earn money and you think one day you will relax and you will not do anything, but by the time the money is there you are unable to relax, you have become so tense earning the money that now that has become your second habit.

It is a known fact that people after retirement die ten years earlier than they would have died if they had continued to work. Because while they were working there was a hope of retirement, a hope of having a small villa somewhere in a beautiful place, resting and doing nothing. But when they get retired, for the first time they find that there is no future for them. And also they find that all their dignity was concerned with their work.

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themselves, twenty-four hours, doing nothing and their whole life they were continuously doing something.

And because of their action they were getting respect, love, money, honor... now all that has disappeared.

Soon they start feeling useless, worthless.

The psychological understanding is that because of this feeling of being worthless, shrinks their life at least to ten years.

So this man has developed that island for twenty years and he has made a beautiful place. But now he is old and he cannot enjoy there, he has to be mostly in a hospital, he wants to get rid of it.

So there is no problem. It will be settled. Even at his offer we can accept it. But he is ready to negotiate.

And it is in a place where all around are my communes. So my sannyasins can come easily, cheaply, without any trouble and harassment of bureaucracy -- visit me, meet me, live there.

So I have dropped the idea of being part of any country. Why unnecessarily get.... I was going to purchase this place. The price went immediately double. Before I had come the price was half crore. As I came in here it became immediately one crore. For seven acres and now even one crore is not enough.

And it was going to be a deal that we will purchase this property only if the person manages at least fifty visas long-term so people can work here.

Now he says he cannot manage that. And stupidity has no limits. You cannot think that now he is thinking that he can get six million for this place, six million dollars... that means six crore. More than six crore.

He will not get even fifty lakhs. Just once I leave this place, who is going to give fifty lakhs -- what it has? Seven acres land and ordinary houses not something palatial. But now his mind is just getting greedy and greedier. So I told my man that "Let him go mad because, and just tell him that that's good idea, we will think about it."

Q: WE THOUGHT HE WAS IN A GOOD BOOK OF THE PRIME MINISTER.

A: With politicians it is very difficult who is in a good book and who is in a bad book. And when you change your name from one book to another it is very difficult. In fact, this whole complex was created by youth congress funds. Nobody's money is put in it. It is blackmail to the country.

But because Karminath(*) was working close with Sanjiv Gandhi; after his death he became almost the owner of it. He has not put a single rupee in it and now he is dreaming of six crore rupees.

I have told my people that, "Make him become more insane. Tell him that you can get ten crore, why you are selling six crore." And we are not going to purchase it anyway so there is no harm. But once we are gone he will be in a great loss.

That's how people's mind work. I used to stay in a very rich man in Calcutta, Sohanlal Dugar. He was a all India fame, rich man and he was always sad. His wife told me that, "He listens to you, he reads to you, you stay with us but he is always sad. And sad for strange reasons that I cannot understand."

Sohanlal said that, "You will never understand. I have lost five crore rupees and you want me to laugh?"

I said, "If that is the situation, then let him be sad."

But the wife said, "You don't understand the full situation. In a deal in which he has not invested a single rupee, he was hoping to get ten crores and he has got only five crores. So he is sulking for those five crores that he has lost."

I said, "This is idiotic," but this is how human mind functions.

Just in his imagination he has ten crores, now he has got only five crores, five crores are missing.

But it is really amazing to watch people's mind how they work and how they make themselves miserable and they go on weaving their misery deeper and deeper and more complex and more complex, to a point from where they cannot get out. And it is all their imagination.

If they can put it on a table, anybody can say that "You are just being stupid. Those five crores were never yours, even these five crores are not yours. You should be enjoying that you have got five crores out of a deal in which you have not put a single rupee. This is a moment to rejoice and give a big party and you are becoming sad."

But this is how people are.

Q: BHAGWAN, ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP YOUR INDIAN PASSPORT?

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A: Yes. I will keep my Indian passport because no other country is going to give me a passport. But on the island I will not need it. But I will keep it in case.

Q: AS AN INDIAN, I PERSONALLY FEEL THAT THERE'S A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF

RESPECT, LOVE FOR YOU BUT AT THE SAME TIME THERE HAS BEEN SOME ELEMENT OF

MISUNDERSTANDING. IF IN INDIA IF YOU CAN ASK YOUR ORGANIZATION TO DO A SORT OF

PUBLICITY (INAUDIBLE) TO EXACTLY KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING.

A: Yes. It has to be done, something has to be done on....

Q: I WISH I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN FOR INDIAN PAPERS, YOU KNOW....

A: It is, it is important but I have been talking to Indian journalists. They are good people, intelligent people but for two thousand years India has been a slave country. It has lost its courage.

So here this understand me perfectly well, they feel love for me but when their article comes it does not show that, it is from the same man and it seems that their job is more important. So whatsoever their owner wants them to write they will write. Or whatsoever the public wants to listen they will write. They will distort, they will misquote, they will take things out of context.

In that way Western journalism has come of age. A... if you are against there is no problem, you write against. But sincerely you are against and sincerely you write against. And if you are for, then sincerely you write for. But this kind of thing that happens in India is very strange. They show one face to me and they show another face in their article.

THAT'S CORRECT, SIR. BUT INDIA TODAY ARTICLE YOU KNOW... IT WAS BALANCED, BUT

SOME WAY CERTAINLY IT WAS AGAINST (INAUDIBLE)

A: Yes. Somehow they will make something sarcastic, something they will leave, something they will add. And it makes immense difference, just a sentence left and the whole meaning changes.

But their whole effort is somehow to be in the market a sensation. The whole Indian journalism is living on sensationalism. It has not yet become a category of literature. And government controls the radio, government controls the television and the Indian journalists are absolutely silent about it. This is absolutely wrong.

In a democratic country at least all news media should be free from government control because news media is a big force for the individual, individual's freedom, and for the protection of the freedom against the government and against the bureaucracy.

And that I felt in America, while I was in jail, every jailer told me, that "We cannot even touch your body because the whole news media is focused on you. If anything happens to you we are condemned."

And the news media made it such that the whole America was concerned. Telephones were coming the whole day. Every jailer was complaining to me that, "You are the most troublesome prisoner who has come to the jail. So many phones and people are shouting at us! Our own people -- Americans, that `you are damaging the whole image of America.' They are crying on the phone.

And thousands of flowers. And every jailer was asking me, "What we have to do with these flowers. We don't have a place to keep them."

I said, "There is no need to keep them. Just send them to all schools, colleges, university, from me. A present."

So when they took me from one jail to another jail, students of all categories were lined up by the sides throwing flowers and giving me the sign of victory.

The news media in America created such a situation that the government felt very awkward and embarrassed and they were not thinking that just catching a single man is going to become such a trouble.

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From all over the world there were news reaching and telegrams reaching and protests and that all was possible because news media has an independence of its own.

In India the government owns the latest media, television, because in India television is more important because the population is uneducated. Eighty percent people cannot read. But hundred percent people can see. Now this is absolutely ugly that government should keep hold on television. Hundred percent people can hear -- radio is in government's hands.

The newspapers are in public hands, but a very small percentage can read. And all these newspapers belong to only few rich houses. They go according to the owner -- whatever his policy, that is their policy.

Indian journalist has not yet come to have his own idea, to have his own eyes, to see things without any prejudices. But the reason is that they have become accustomed of slavery. So anybody can....

I was a professor in the university. The first day I entered the university I saw the girls sitting on one side and the boys sitting on one side and I said, "This is not right. This looks bad. Almost obscene. Why you are not sitting mixed?"

They all were shocked because they were prevented.

I said, "Just get mixed otherwise get out, I am not going to teach. It is better to sit by the side of the girl you feel for rather than sit in a faraway corner and throw pieces of paper, and disturb my speech and disturb my.... I cannot tolerate that."

Yes. It is bound to because they cannot listen me... there the girl, because the girl is waiting for the chit.

The boy is waiting for the chit. And this whole thing is going on and the professor is talking about great things... nobody is interested. I mixed them and I told them, that "Nobody needs to ask me. If he wants to leave the class with his girlfriend, he can go. Whenever he wants to come back, he can come back. Just don't disturb others. Silently...."

The news reached to the vice chancellor. He called me immediately and he asked, "What are you doing?"

I asked him, "You must have been young and you must have been a student. Have you thrown a piece of paper at a girl?"

He said, "You are incurable! I have called you to ask questions to you and you are making me answer."

He said, "To be true perhaps you are right... you can go. Do whatever you want but don't create too much havoc because...."

And once I started it then students in other classes stood up and asked the professors, that "This is happening, then why we should not be allowed to sit with our girlfriends?"

It is only a question of starting something and then everybody wants independence, freedom and everybody wants to be sincere.

Just few journalists are needed.

What happened with ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY of India, Pritish Nandy had come to take my interview in Oregon. He published the interview and he looked very nice and very friendly and very loving but the interview did not show any of those qualities. And then he went to Sheela who was in prison in Germany and managed to take her interview.

The owners of TIMES of India and connected papers are interested in me. When they saw, before publication of Sheela's interview that it is full of lies and full of absurd allegations, they told Pritish Nandy that, "Before you publish it, it will be good that you take another interview of Bhagwan in connection with this interview and publish them together and let people judge."

He wrote a letter to me that "Bhagwan, it will not be good. You should not answer such rubbish, it is below you." That he writes to me, that it is below you, you should not answer such rubbish. Even to answer it is to give importance. But the owners informed me that the reality is that he does not want your answer to be published and we suspect that he has been bribed by American government. And this is from the owner of the TIMES of India, that he has been already bribed by American government.

So these people and ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY or TIMES of India, these are big papers in India and if you can buy the editor of ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY, who gets almost the biggest pay that any journalist may be getting in India, then it is very difficult.

But something has to be done. And there are people but they are immediately thrown out. If they start saying things which go against their owners, their political parties -- either they are affiliated to political parties or they are affiliated to some capitalist group.

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it is just a question of beginning. If one begins, soon there will be others who will come out.

But it is such a slave mentality that just to save some money, or just to save a job you can sell your soul.

Q: BUT THEN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE ALSO. BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE

CERTAINLY VERY SINCERE, VERY WILLING TO WORK, WHAT DO YOU THINK? BECAUSE MY

FRIEND, SINGH VEDA(*) HE STARTED THIS MAGAZINE... AND PUT ON WHOLE LIFE AND THERE

TODAY BANKRUPT....

A: That is true, that is possible, that is possible, and for that not to happen some more journalists should come to help. Rather than just to sympathize.

Q: IT IS THE PROPRIETORS WHO TELL LIES, IT IS NOT THE JOURNALISTS, THOUGH IT IS HIS

DUTY TO CHECK BUT HE IS AFRAID TO CHECK LEST HE LOSES HIS JOB. THEN THE

GOVERNMENT HAS A HAND IN OVER ALL THE NEWSPAPERS. NEWS PRINT QUOTA.

A: I know. These problems are there. Still some way has to be found and these problems will always remain there, in every field.

From my own experience, because in the university they were teaching Kant, Hegel, Hume, Berkeley, Bradley, Bosanquet. All who are out of date. I simply refused to teach. I started teaching Jean Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Bertrand Russell, and I told to the vice chancellor, "At the most you can throw me out of the university. But you will be playing with fire because now I have students and not only my students, because philosophy does not have many students in India." I had only ten students but when I started teaching them modern... which are not in the syllabus, and the vice chancellor was in a difficulty that the examination is going to be according to the syllabus and `you are teaching people who are not in the syllabus.'

I said, "I am teaching people who are contemporaries. You have to bring your syllabus to be contemporary. Otherwise there is going to be trouble. And you should come to my class one day."

There used to be ten students, now there are two hundred. Students from other courses dropped their period and come to my class. And I told them, that "If the syllabus is not changed these two hundred students will burn this building. Something has to be done."

And I told him, that "You either prove me wrong before those two hundred students or you change the syllabus, before it becomes a great trouble. Otherwise this university's building is going to be burnt, with all your libraries and with all your syllabuses and everything.

Something has to be done. And when I did this, other professors were in a very dilemma because their students are going to attend philosophy classes, they are supposed to be in the economic class or political class. I told them, that "You should also bring your political science up to date. You should bring your economics up to date. And these people will be coming to you. Something has to be done, and somebody has to sacrifice himself."

Q: MY REQUEST TO YOU IS TO CHANGE THE TIMES OF INDIA. THEY ARE BECOMING THE

BIGGEST LIARS.

They are. I will do. Because....

Q: I'LL BE GRATEFUL. I WAS SINGLE MAN IN THE WHOLE TIMES OF INDIA WHO DISAGREED

WITH THEM AND RESIGNED (INAUDIBLE). AND I DON'T REGRET.

A: No, there is never need to regret. I will talk to them. Because they come to me. Ashok comes to me and Indu(*) comes to me, and Indu(*) has the whole power in her hands.

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Q: SHE IS THE ONE WHO REALLY NEEDS TO BE AMENDED.

I will see. And I was happy that you have been here.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #10

Chapter title: None

25 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512255

ShortTitle: LAST510

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW BY INDIAN EXPRESS NEWSPAPER

Q: SIR, YOUR TEN PERSONAL AIDES WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAY ON WITH YOU. NOW, HOW DO YOU REACT TO THIS AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU PERSONALLY? WHY DO YOU

THINK THIS WAS DONE?

A: I was expecting that it would be done. I have been born in this beautiful country but I have never been in tune with the vested interests, the people who hold power. My whole life I have criticized them and they have not been able to answer a single criticism.

I knew it perfectly when I came that I think India is my home but the people who are in power they don't agree about it. They would not like me to be in India. They cannot say directly that I should leave India because they have no right to say but they can create situations in which I am compelled to leave. And that's what they are doing.

The people who have taken care of me for almost fifteen years they forced them to leave the country. It seems that their whole effort is that I should not be in contact with my sannyasins around the world. That my work should be destroyed, that is better than shooting me.

Crucifying Jesus has not helped. Poisoning Socrates has not helped. In these twenty-five centuries people have learned perfectly that it is better to find indirect means to sabotage the work.

Now the people who were living with me were taking my care, were my connections with other communes around the world -- they were writing letters to them, answering to them. They were typing my lectures, my speeches, editing, publishing, tapes, videos -- they were doing all kind of work and for fifteen years they have become perfectly professionals.

Now to take them away from me, and in a very ugly and inhuman way, simply shows that they want me to be isolated here. Not to allow any sannyasins to come. They are refusing visas to sannyasins. Sannyasins who are coming not in red clothes, even they have been refused because they were interviewed and if they 1/08/07

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were found somehow that they know me, that they are interested in me or that they will be going to meet me and see me then they have been refused.

There are two things together. One is Indian government itself is afraid, because I am a potential critic and I will not tolerate any bullshit -- whether it comes from the prime minister of India or anybody else. I am not an active politician, but I am concerned with every human interest and everything that affects humanity. And politics is a major thing. And I cannot simply ignore it.

They are also afraid that I have an international image and whatever I say is going to have a worldwide publicity.

There is their fear. Just a small thing I had told, it went around the world and I have heard Rajiv Gandhi was very much hurt. One Indian journalist was visiting me in America and he asked, "Do you have any message to our new prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi?"

I said, "Certainly. Tell Rajiv that you are selling wheat to other countries while your own people are starving, and you are selling wheat so that you can create a nuclear power station. This is ugly, you don't need a nuclear plant. And if this continues that you go on selling people's food for nuclear weapons and India becomes poorer and poorer then you will be responsible for its poverty and all the deaths that will happen out of starvation. And what do you need nuclear weapons for? Even if you put your whole economy at the service of creating nuclear weapons, it will take three hundred years for you to become as great a nuclear power as Soviet Union or America. In three hundred years your country will die. For whom those nuclear weapons you are going to use?

"Secondly, remember in three hundred years America and Soviet Union will not be standing still waiting for you to pick up speed. In three hundred years they will be three thousand years ahead of you. There is no possibility for you to become a big nuclear power. So drop that stupid idea. Better go to the reality that the population does not increase, that is decreases. For the first time we are coming close. By the end of this century, to be the first nation with the biggest population.

"Up to now, China has the privilege. Now we will be having the privilege. By the end of this century we will be one billion people. So rather than wasting your energy into anything else, teach people for birth control, teach people for pills, teach people for abortion. And prevent all those religious leaders: pope, shankaracharya, Acharya Tulsi, Mother Teresa and their whole clan that if they go on insisting and teaching people against birth control they are committing a crime and they should be behind the bars.

"These people also are doing another crime, that they are teaching people to live a celibate life -- which is unnatural.

"Nobody can live a celibate life unless he is impotent. And the most amazing thing is that not a single impotent person in the whole history of man has been creative in any dimension -- science, art, literature...

not a single impotent person has been creative. It seems sexual energy is the only energy behind all creativity. Whether you reproduce children or you paint or you sculpt or you compose music, it does not matter... it is the same creative energy within you that is used. So the people who are teaching celibacy are making country uncreative, unproductive. Not only that, as a side effect, by making thousands of people celibate now there are thousands of sannyasins, Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist, Christians, who have taken the vow of celibacy.

"They are creating all kinds of sexual perversions. Homosexuality was born in monasteries. It is a religious disease. And out of homosexuality now, the ultimate result is a very fatal disease AIDS which is spreading far and wide like wildfire. And it has no cure. And you can get that disease even by kissing a person, or even by wiping a tear of a person because the tears carry the virus, the saliva carries the virus.

You may not have any sexual contact with the person but anything and you are unconsciously a victim and you have not more than two years to live. Celibacy should be made a crime.

"Do something for the country, you are young and you can understand me what I am saying which your grandfather may not have understood."

But he was hurt. When I came here I was informed that he did not like the comment you had made. I said, "I have already known the fact because when I was arrested without any warrant, without showing me any cause why they are arresting me and they kept me harassing for twelve days in different prisons, without proving me guilty, they did not allow bail and Rajiv and his government remained silent. At that very moment I knew that it is my message that Rajiv would be feeling happy that whatever is happening is perfectly right. The day I was released by the court, because they had no case against me, I received the phone of the Indian ambassador in Washington that, "Can we help you? Indian government is very much concerned."

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I said to him, "Don't be stupid. Twelve days I have been in prison, the whole world was concerned, all the news media was full of it, the Indian government has not taken a single step, it has not even asked the American government why I have been arrested, and what you have been doing for twelve days? And now when I am released you are asking `What help you can provide.' In fact I should ask you what help I can provide to you."

So first thing is they are afraid of my presence and my presence becomes more and more powerful... if I have a commune here, if I have all my trained people here then we can not only criticize the government, we can provoke the whole nation against it. And we can make it clear that what you cannot do, we can do.

In four years in the commune in America not a single child was born. And there was no enforcement.

Simple teaching to them that this is the situation of the world: if you have any sensitiveness and any humanity this is not the time to give birth to children. And that was enough, for four years twenty-five hundred couples were living there, not a single child was born.

We can show the country where you are being foolish and where the government is afraid even to say it to you because it depends on you. It depends on your votes. We don't depend on your votes.

In five thousand people's commune we had only one kitchen and it was a joy to see five thousand people eating together. Somebody dancing, somebody playing guitar and it was laughter and it was rejoicing and they were eating the best food possible because we had chosen the best cooks out of five thousand people.

Every woman is not a good cook, and one should not expect. It is a science in itself, an art, a knack. And when fifteen people can take care of five thousand people it is sheer stupidity, uneconomic to make twenty-five hundred kitchens, block twenty-five hundred women into the kitchens, waste their energy, cripple their life. We can show the ways how we changed the desert into an oasis. For fifty years that land in Oregon was lying dead. Nobody was ready to purchase it, because what you will do with a desert? We purchased a desert and within four years we made an oasis out of it. It simply needs intelligence and labor and we never asked anybody from outside.

All that we did, we did with the commune members. So the Indian government is afraid on the one hand that if I have a commune here the whole country is going to become aware that if five or ten thousand people can manage to live so happily, so blissfully, so creatively, then why it cannot happen to the whole country.

The second thing is a constant pressure of American government on Indian government. We go on talking about the policy of neutrality that we are not part of any camp, Russian or American. The whole policy has been a tremendous loss to the country for forty years. It was thought that if you remain neutral then both the camps will be friendly to you, but what turned out to be the result was just the opposite.

Both the camps remained suspicious of you. Nobody has relied on you. You are the most unreliable nation in the world. Still you have to depend on these powers for everything.

If you want to make nuclear weapons you have to ask America and beg for know-how, for technicians, and for the essential ingredients that are needed that are not available in this country. They will not be able to say to America if America dictates something to them.

I am in perfect knowledge that Indian home ministry has received from American senate a letter dictating that they can allow me to live here but no foreigners should be allowed to live around me, and no commune should be allowed to be made.

You think you are independent. You think that you are free but in this world where you have to beg and you already have loaned so much money from the world and every day you need more and more loans, you cannot deny America a small favor which costs you nothing. Even America says, "Kill this man," and we give you one kilo of essential ingredients for the, for your nuclear weapons, I don't think they will hesitate.

That one kilo will be far more important than a human being and particularly me, who has always been a critic and who has always touched their painful nerve. And they have not been able to answer me.

So I was expecting all this to happen so I am not surprised. But I had come to the country to see perhaps a new generation of politicians will behave differently but I was wrong. Serpents are serpents, old generation or new generation makes no difference.

Now you can ask your second question.

Q: IN THE LIGHT OF THIS, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE? DO YOU STILL PLAN

TO STAY ON, OR DO YOU PLAN TO LEAVE? AND PERSONALLY YOU HAVE BEEN AFFECTED

BECAUSE THESE WERE PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN VERY CLOSE TO YOU FOR VERY LONG SO A 1/08/07

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LOT HAS CHANGED. SO WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS NOW? HOW HAS THIS INFLUENCED THE

DECISIONS YOU WILL TAKE IN THE DAYS TO COME?

A: No, nothing changes me. As far as I am concerned personally nothing changes me. They are being just stupid thinking that they have changed ten persons who had come with me but another ten persons have arrived and they don't know that I have thousands of Indian sannyasins also. If they prevent every foreigner to reach here they cannot prevent Indians.

I have prepared Indians also to take care. So I am not personally affected in any way.

Secondly, without even waiting them to become nasty with my people -- and they have been behaving nastily. Here were few sannyasins and the police comes and tells them, "To leave the country immediately."

And they say, that "We have a visa still for two days more. You cannot tell us to leave the country immediately. What about our visa? We are entitled to be here for two days more."

But no, the police officer says, "You have to leave immediately." And he writes on their passports,

`Leave India now.'

And they have the visa. Even if you want them to leave, first at least cancel their visa and then destroy their passports and there is no need to be so inhuman that they have to leave now. This very moment.

Even before they had started all this I knew it was going to be.

This property before I came was available for fifty lakhs. For me it was available for fifty lakhs.

The moment I came to India the price went double, immediately, it became one crore. And the man who owns the property is in a very powerful situation in the Indian government. He does not hold a position but he is almost your second prime minister.

I agreed for one crore. I told to my people that, "It doesn't matter, that is Indian mind is so greedy and so materialistic. In spite of all their nonsense talk of being spiritual."

Now the price has gone six crore. For seven acres of land. Have you ever heard one crore per acre in this part, which is one of the poorest part of the country? And the price will go on increasing. It may become ten crore. And I am playing with the game because I love to enjoy idiots so I am sending messages that "Don't sell it for six crore because they will give ten crore for it."

From the very beginning I had sent people around the world to look for other places. I was not absolutely dependent on India. My whole life's experience is that you cannot be dependent on Indian politicians. They are the worst creed in the whole world.

There are politicians and politicians... they are all third rate. But nobody can beat the Indian politicians.

I have received from two countries, invitations on their own accord that they would like my commune to be in their country. Somebody seems to be somewhere very sensible. With the invitation their idea is that your commune will help the country economically, tourism will increase.

In one years fifty thousand people visited from outside the world to the commune in America. It was simply foolish of them to destroy the commune. Now they have their desert, not a single tourist is going to come to that desert.

If they love desert perhaps they will have their whole America a desert by the end of this century. But these two countries have been very sensible, unbelievable, because I had no contact with those two countries. They are ready to absorb my sannyasins, my commune. They are ready to give me free land and every support that they can. So I am, I have sent my people to look at the places what is possible there but a government is a government... today one government is there, after two years another government is there, and most probably if this government supports me, the next government is going to be against me. A natural attitude of the politicians.

So I am not thinking to go to these countries but their invitation to a foreigner to bring five thousand foreigners in their country seems to be sensible.

We have been looking for other lands. My interest is in an independent island and we have found three islands around the globe which are absolutely independent, under no government, personal properties. And my feeling is that within two weeks I will settle for one of those islands.

Just my people have to look into those islands, all the possibilities of growth, communication, development, so that I am finished with governments and I am in a position to criticize anybody without thinking twice. I really never think twice. In fact, I never think even once, I simply say. Whatever comes to me I say it.

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come to me of the island. It is immensely beautiful. It has already facility for three hundred fifty people to live, a hotel for eighty people, a small sea beach, five miles long, thick forest on one side and on another side five mile land, four/five feet under water. So my idea is... with that idea I am sending people that those five miles with lush green forest we should not touch, they should remain as they have remained since eternity so people can enjoy their very primitiveness.

(Tape side B begins)

We should make those five miles underground, underwater, and make boats like Kashmir, houseboats for five miles in a row attached with the underwater ground and on the other side five miles of beautiful lush greenery. And between both a beautiful patch of water.

And for the present moment there is enough accommodation for three hundred fifty people for the skeleton crew to start working. Eighty persons for visitors. We can make a paradise. Why we should bother with governments and....

It has an airport -- every morning and evening one plane comes. A twelve seater plane can come. We can have our own planes. We had our own planes in Oregon, we had our own airport. In fact, because we had everything of our own became a problem to the American government and they started thinking that as if we are making a state within a state. That was sheer nonsense. We are simply being self dependent, not creating a state within a state. We had our airplanes, we had our buses, we had five hundred cars, we had our roads, we had our food, we were growing our fruits, our vegetables, we had our green houses, we had made lakes of our own and the land was so big, it is almost a small country -- one hundred twenty-six square miles.

We had a forest which we were going to develop and make it bigger. Already the timber people were coming and asking for the forest and they were ready to give one million dollars just for the wood. But we refused because those trees you grow in hundreds of years, and we were going to grow as many trees as possible. This year, before they started destroying us we had planned thousands of trees and we had planned to plant thirty thousand more.

Their fear was that we are becoming a state within a state because we are not taking their support, we are not asking for anything because we had our own computer experts, we had our own electronic engineers, we had our own scientists, we had our own doctors, surgeons, professors, psychologists... we had every type of professional within the commune, why we should bother to go out? And these people certainly looked after the commune with more love, because money was no more the question. In the commune we has dissolved the money completely and this point you have to remember.

Just by stopping that you cannot use money in the commune we destroyed the division between the poor and the rich, there was no need for a dictatorship of the proletariat. In seventy years in Russia they have not been able to bring a classless society. We brought it in four years and without harassing anybody, without taking anybody's money -- just stopping that in the commune money is a dirty word and we will not be using money. If you need anything you can get from the commune. You may have millions of dollars, I may not have a single dollar but in the commune you are not rich and I am not poor because you cannot use your million dollars -- what use are they?

These five thousand people without any idea simply lived for the first time in the history in a classless society. And there was no struggle... in Russia they had to kill one million people after revolution. And still they are afraid if they withdraw their concentration camp methods, Russia will immediately become a capitalist country. Because they have not destroyed the basic root.

My whole approach is that equality is an unnatural idea. You cannot make everybody Albert Einstein.

You cannot make everybody Rabindranath Tagore. The whole idea of equality is basically unpsychological.

Then what we can do?

We can do something else: equal opportunity for all. It will look a contradiction but this is how I put it.

Equal opportunity for all to be unequal and unique.

To me, the idea of equality is dangerous, very dangerous. It means you will have to cut people to the same size, you will have to cut their talents, their intelligence to the same size. And that means you will have to listen to the lowest denominator. The idiot will become your ideal. You cannot make the idiot Albert Einstein, but you can change Albert Einstein into an idiot -- that possibility exists.

So the lowest denominator is going to dominate all Communist societies and my idea is that the highest, which is always unique.... So instead of the idea of equality, I preach the idea of unique individuality. Yes, everybody should get equal opportunity.

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equal opportunity. And both should get the equal respect and both should get the same dignity in the society. But that does not mean that the doctor has to become a carpenter and the carpenter has to become a surgeon. That will destroy.

And that's what has happened in Russia. Before nineteen-seventeen, before the revolution, Russia created the greatest intellectuals in the world. Leo Tolstoy, Feodor Dostoevsky, Chekov, Turgenev, Gorky.

All unparalleled. If you have to chose ten best novels you will have to choose at least five Russian but they will be pre-revolution. After the revolution not a single Leo Tolstoy, not a single Gorky... in seventy years Russia has proved a desert, no genius has come up. For the simple reason because the idea of equality kills anything that is special in you. You have to be common and fitting with the crowd.

So on this point American government became angry with me that I have created without saying anything about communism a communist society. They have not said it clearly but that was their real problem, that was hurting, that it has to be erased, it is very dangerous... it is more dangerous than Soviet Russia. Because you can say against Soviet Russia that it is a dictatorship, you cannot say that against me.

There is no barbed wire around the campus, nobody is prevented, anybody can join. Two years before when they started becoming more and more angry was the time when we accepted two hundred American beggars. The world thinks that beggars is something Eastern. America has thirty million beggars, with no food, with no clothes, with no houses, with no families. And they all turn out to be criminals, it is bound to be.

Two hundred street people, as they are called in America... they don't call them beggars -- street people.

Two hundred people came to us and we accepted them and that was the beginning of a rift between the commune and the American government.

We accepted those two hundred people who have been brought up in crime, who have been many times into jail, who have committed all kinds of crimes, who had no education. We treated them just as we treated everybody else. They were having the same clothes, the same food, the same houses and they were immensely happy.

I talked to these people that, "Don't you think you would like to go back?"

They said, "Where? This is our home, we have found our home. And we have found that we are also human beings, there we were treated as dogs."

It became a problem to the American government that if this idea spreads and these two hundred people for two years did not commit a single crime, so crime was not nature it was just the situation that they were forced to do it. It was the society who was responsible for it.

For two years they forgot their drugs and their alcohol because it was not available and there was no need. They were so happy and the whole commune was so rejoicing, they were meditating, they were working, they were dancing... and the most amazing thing to them was they were all black people, that even white people are dancing with them and nobody even takes the note that they are black, that nobody even thinks that they are different. This was the point from where the government started putting cases against the commune and within two years, as the commune became more and more better, the government became more and more afraid. And now they are telling to the Indian government that "You don't allow Bhagwan to create any commune in India."

So I know that they will not allow me to create any commune in India. Then my being here is useless.

I will create now a commune on an island which can become a model to all the communes around the world and to any intelligent person who wants to visit and see that life can be lived as an art, that it can be a beautiful experience, that it need not be miserable, that it can be a sheer joy, all the way paradise.

But I don't think any government will tolerate it.

Q: WHERE IS THIS ISLAND?

A: Just wait before I decide, because there are three islands. Two are in the Fiji islands group and one is also close to the Fiji. Within two weeks it will be decided.

Q: THE ISLAND YOU ARE DESCRIBING IS THE THIRD....

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A: Is the third.

Q: AND WHICH ARE THE TWO COUNTRIES THAT HAVE INVITED YOU?

A: Those countries have asked me, unless I accept their offer, I should not mention their name because that will be insulting to their nation that they invited and I rejected.

So if I accept then I will tell you the name of the countries. But one thing I can say, both the countries are South American.

So within two/three weeks it will be settled and I would like you some time when I have settled to come and visit and see that what I say....

Q: WOULD YOU SAY IN SO MANY WORDS THAT YOU ARE A LITTLE DISILLUSIONED WITH

INDIA? OR JUST WITH THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT AS WITH ANY GOVERNMENT?

A: No. I am disillusioned with all the governments and as far as Indian government is concerned I am less disillusioned because I was expecting this. I know Indian government for thirty years that it consists of the most stupid people. I simply wonder how British government managed to create a bureaucracy of the most stupid people. In fact, they need it -- that kind of bureaucracy.

Intelligent people cannot be slaves. They need stupid people. Their all examinations and things were really to sort out the stupid people and the people who have a slave's mind.

They could not -- Subash(*) Chandra was an I.C.S. student. In his verbal examination, the final... he has passed all the examinations. The last he had to meet the governor. He went there, just the way Bengalis always carry their umbrella, he was carrying his umbrella under his arm with his hat. He did not remove his hat. The governor was annoyed. He said, "You have not removed your hat."

And Subash(*) took his umbrella, put the umbrella's hook on the governor's neck and told him that, "If you expect respect, then you should show it too. You have not removed your hat, you have not stood up to receive me."

The governor could not believe that a student can do that. Of course he was failed because this type of man is not needed in a bureaucracy which wants just slaves.

Shri Aurobindo was one of the I.C.S. students but failed. And failed in what? In everything he passed.

He failed in horse-riding. Now I don't know what horse-riding has to do with an I.C.S. officer. But just an excuse. They wanted to fail him in any way but they could not manage to fail him in philosophy, in mathematics, in history. This was easier, that he failed in horse-riding and he could not become an I.C.S.

officer. They were choosing most stupid people and those people remained. The British government has gone but they have left their legacy.

And Indian politicians have no idea because for two thousand years they have been slaves so they don't have any idea what to do. They have simply borrowed the British legacy and they are simply carrying it.

And Britain left India at the right moment, it was not because of Indian revolution because the revolution happened in nineteen forty-two and was finished in nine days. This was the poorest revolution that has happened in the whole history which ends in nine days.

And this is a miracle that the revolution happens in nineteen forty-two and the result of the revolution comes in nineteen forty-seven -- five years afterwards. It is disconnected, it has no connection with it.

We have not won the fight for freedom. It is really British understanding that now the country, its population, its economy is going to deteriorate every day more and more and we will be responsible for it. It is the time to leave quickly.

Mountbatten was sent to India with the message that "Do the job as quick as possible." He was given the date nineteen forty-eight but he was an efficient man, he managed it ninety forty-seven. And he finished.

And Britain got out of the mess and the Indian idiots entered with all the burden and no way, no understanding to get out. And a leader like Mahatma Gandhi who is telling to them that "Spinning wheel will do." Or leaders like Morarji Desai that "Just drinking your own urine" will solve all the problems.

So with Indian government I am not disillusioned. I was expecting they cannot do better what they have done, that's perfectly okay. But I am disillusioned with America because I thought it is a new country, just 1/08/07

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three hundred years old, well educated, economically sound, one of the most powerful nation that has ever existed. And I hope that there is a possibility for democracy to exist. That possibility was the reason of my disillusionment -- it is not there, it is in the same boat with other countries, with a mask of democracy. But inside the same fascist attitude.

The government was trying to destroy us. The Christianity was trying to destroy us and they both joined together.

President Ronald Reagan is a fundamentalist Christian. Christianity is one of the worst religions in the world and the fundamentalist Christian is the worst Christian amongst other Christian sects. It is the most fanatic sect.

The Christians were afraid because all the people that have gathered around me were Christians, Jews. I have never told anybody to drop his religion; there is no need. I simply explain to you how your mind can be more silent, more clear and automatically your conditionings go on disappearing. And with those conditionings your religion and your sect and your God and your heaven and hell, they all disappear.

The Christians were afraid that I am changing Christians. They were forcing the government, the government was afraid that I am creating a kind of communism, now they are forcing Indian government...

and Indian government don't have guts. If it has guts it should reply to the senate of America that "We are going to give this man the opportunity that you destroyed and we want to see what wrong he has done. We don't see."

We have never harmed anybody. We were simply doing our own thing. But I don't think Indian government has any guts. And just such a weak government and so many big problems in the country makes one feel sad. These people will not be able to solve anything. We need stronger people, we need people with more clarity of vision, we need people who don't think in terms of spinning wheels. Otherwise, by the end of the century you will see a nightmare... on every street you will find corpses and nobody there even to arrange a funeral for them. Fifty percent of India is going to die by the end of this century if nothing is done and I don't think that anything is possible with these people who are in power. They don't have eyes, they don't have any perspective. And they are not ready to listen to any perspective.

Just somebody becomes a prime minister and he starts thinking that he has all the wisdom of the world.

This is sheer nonsense. But I have the vision, I have the people to materialize it and we will make the last effort to create a society to show to the whole world. That without a government a commune can exist, that without money people can exist and not in poverty but with great inner richness, with joy.

And I have chosen an island for many reasons. One of the most fundamental is that wherever I have tried, for example, I tried in Poona -- ten thousand sannyasins were living there. But they create jealousy in the local people because the local people cannot even laugh. And they see these people, the whole day smiling, laughing, dancing, for no reason at all. Because I don't think singing needs any reason. I don't think dancing needs any reason.

Just as health needs no reason -- you don't go to the doctor in great anxiety that "Doctor for one month I have been having complete health, something must be wrong!"

No, you go to the doctor only when you are sick. Sickness is unnatural, sadness is unnatural, misery is unnatural -- there must be a cause to it, but just rejoicing in life, in the small things of life is a natural thing.

There is no question of finding any cause.

And people were coming there curious to know and they asked me again and again, "Why your people are so happy?"

I said, "This is strange. In fact I should ask why you are all so miserable. People should be happy.

Happiness should be simply a natural phenomenon."

Then they start projecting their own ideas that, "These people are hypnotized, mesmerized, perhaps they are taking some drugs," and all kinds of rumors they will create. And people will believe those rumors because if they don't believe those rumors then how to tolerate their own misery, how to tolerate their own tears.

This gives a consolation that, "These people are on drugs, that's why they are dancing. Otherwise there is no reason to dance. That's why they are singing and they are so joyful -- they are hypnotized. And we are not hypnotized."

And I say that, even if hypnosis can destroy misery from the world what is wrong? It is better than misery. And those people are not hypnotized, those people are not taking any drugs.

But the local people surrounding create a trouble in every small way.

So an island will be better. I hope that the ocean does not create any trouble.

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Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #11

Chapter title: None

26 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512265

ShortTitle: LAST511

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH SWAMI JAY PRAKASH FOR DAINIK NAW PRABHAT, INDIA Q: BHAGWAN, AFTER THE FAILURE OF RAJNEESHPURAM COMMUNE, WHAT DO YOU THINK

OF THE FUTURE OF THE COMMUNES?

A: First, it was not a failure. Do you think murdering Socrates by poison was a failure of Socrates and his philosophy. In fact, that was the ultimate victory of the man. He proved that a single man and his truth is more powerful than the whole society with all its powers, riches, population, armies. They could do only one thing to this man: they could kill him. But by killing the man the truth is not killed. In fact, on the contrary, by killing Socrates they have made his truth immortal. Or do you think the crucifixion of Jesus was a failure of Jesus? If Jesus was not crucified perhaps there would have been no Christianity. It is his crucifixion which brings his glory to the highest peak.

So I do not consider that destroying the commune in America is a failure. It is a success. We have succeeded in doing many things, we have succeeded to prove that the biggest world power is also afraid of a small commune which has no power except love.

It means love is more powerful than power itself. We have succeeded to prove that a small commune of five thousand people can destroy the sleep of the bureaucrats and the politicians, of the greatest power in the world in the whole history of man. What was their fear? Why our small commune became such a heart attack to them?

The reason was that we were successful with our very limited means and they are unsuccessful with their unlimited sources. And to leave us alone was impossible for them because the comparison between us and the American government was arising in the people's mind, that if these people can succeed in transforming a desert into an oasis, if these people don't have a single beggar, nobody unemployed, no crime committed in four years, no murder, no rape, no suicide, nobody has gone mad, then why it cannot happen on a larger scale. When you have all the powers to do? And these people have nothing except their intelligence and their labor.

Fourthly, it proved something of tremendous importance, not only for America but for the whole history of man -- past and future too. We had no government, five thousand people have existed for the first time for four years without any government. It is not a small phenomenon. This was the first anarchist commune.

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Anarchists have been talking about it but nobody has been able to materialize it into reality. And we were not consciously trying to make an anarchist society; it was simply a by-product, we had not thought about it, it was just a later recognition -- that we had no government and yet no crime, not a single baby was born in four years. Without forcing people to use birth control methods, just trusting their intelligence was enough.

So we have proved if you trust the individual, his intelligence, his integrity, and if you respect him you can expect miracles from him.

Secondly, which seems almost an impossibility, communist and anarchists have never been able to agree on any point because anarchist says `no government, the government should be dissolved immediately, the government is the sole cause of all crime, all that is inhuman, all wars, bloodshed, all kinds of dirty politics.'

And the communists say `that we hope sometime in future there will be a time when there will be no government, but for the time being to remove government will not improve things, things will go from bad to worse.' And perhaps they are right. Even with the governments the crime is there and it goes on growing.

The human mind seems not to change at all. With all the control, all the courts, all the punishments, the human mind seems to be very stubborn. If all these controls are removed the society will fall into a barbarious state.

So communists say `somewhere far away in the future' -- which cannot be predicted unless the whole world becomes communist and there is no fear of outside interference, the government cannot be dissolved.

On the contrary, the government has to be made stronger to enforce equality amongst man because man has become accustomed of being unequal for so long that it is not easy for him to drop the habit. And nobody wants to be equal to anybody, everybody wants to be higher and superior. To destroy this tendency of being superior and higher a very strict government is needed. That's why they say democracy cannot bring communism, it is a very loose government. Only a dictatorship of the proletariat.

So that is the first step for communists to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. How anarchists and communists can meet? Their first step is no government, not even democratic government; and communist's first step is a very strong, almost a military rule over the country so that we can destroy all the old habits which are clinging to human mind.

Anarchists, like Bakunin, Tolstoy and communists like Karl Marx and Lenin have been constantly arguing. They think themselves enemies.

I went it into detail because what happened in the commune was a miracle. There was no government and a very higher quality of communism became possible, without any dictatorship. There was no need to enforce anything. All that we had done we have stopped using money inside commune. You can donate to the commune but you cannot use money for any exchange of goods inside the commune. So you maybe having millions of dollars and I may not be having a single dollar but you are not rich in the commune and I am not poor. Your millions of dollars are useless. Their use is if you can use them, if you cannot use them, whether they exist or not makes no difference. So inside the commune, just stopping money to be used and commune taking over the responsibility to fulfill everybody's needs: medical, educational, nutritional, for clothes, for food, for housing, for vehicles, for everything.

I was not aware that this is going to happen and that's why I say life is such a mystery and so unpredictable and so wonderful that I saw communism and anarchism existing simultaneously. No government, nobody is rich, nobody is poor. This is such a great phenomenon that even if it happened only for four years and it was crucified but no crucifixion has every succeeded.

You crucify someone only when you feel your impotence against it. The commune has been crucified in America, now it will spread all over the world. Its crucifixion is not a failure; it is a sure sign of success. We have succeeded to prove that we can change every problem that humanity faces.

All those problems are created by human beings. On the one hand they go on creating them and by the other hand they go on trying to find some solution for them. It is such a stupid way the world has lived that it has not even seen that who is creating the problem. Why not cut the roots?

A woman last night was asking me, a very intelligent woman and rare in the sense that she was Mohammedan. She was asking me, "What to do with your mother-in-laws? It is such a conflict and there seems to be no way out."

I said, "First you create the problem and then you start looking for an answer. In the first place, marriage is unnecessary, with the disappearance of marriage all in-laws will disappear automatically -- cut the root.

Secondly, the moment a man is able to live with a woman he needs to be left alone with the woman -- it is something psychological... he has been in the mother's womb for nine months, she has brought up the boy, educated him, made him capable and up to now she has been the only woman in his life. And remember, 1/08/07

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whether she is a mother or not, first she is a woman and it is intolerable for her that in stranger woman comes in the home who has done nothing for you and suddenly she becomes more important to you than your own mother. And for twenty-five years she has been taking care of you. You have forgotten all. That for nights she was waking and sitting by your side because you were sick, that to make you educated she was working, she was trying somehow to provide all your necessities and never let you feel that you are poor. Suddenly a strange woman comes in the home, and she is no more of any importance.

And the wife cannot be made responsible for it because she has married you not your mother. She owes nothing to your mother. And she had her own dreams how to live. They do not coincide with your mother, the conflict starts and then you try to somehow patch up... from one place it breaks up, at another place. If the man takes the side of the mother which he feels as a duty then his woman is going to make a hell for him for twenty-four hours, for a small thing -- that is too much, he cannot pay for duty that much hell.

If he takes the side of the woman, the mother is simply anger which he has never seen. Now there is a great competition and between two women a poor unexperienced man is being crushed and you want a solution. There is no need -- why create the problem in the first place? The moment a person gets married he is now capable of having his own house, his own job, his own work... it should be seen that he is not to live with the old family. Now he has brought a new person into his life. That new person is not going to fit with the old structure.

And this is so simple. But it is still not fundamental. The fundamental is why marriage should exist at all? Two persons are in love -- they can live together. Love is something, it may be there today, it may not be there tomorrow. What you are going to do when love is not there tomorrow? You will have to pretend.

And the worst sin in the whole life of man is when he pretends love, because love is the highest quality of life and you are pretending it. And if you become accustomed of pretending love, perhaps you may forget how to find the authentic quality of love. The pretension may become your reality and that has become the reality of millions of people around the world. They never experience love, it is always pretension.

Pretending to be loving to the mother because she is mother, pretending to be respectful to the father because he is the father, pretending to be loving to the wife because she is the wife, pretending to be loving to the children because they are your children -- all pretensions. Surrounded by pretensions you cannot have real growth, you cannot realize your potential.

The experience of the commune in America has been of immense importance. Time does not matter --

four years are enough to prove. What can happen for four years can happen for four hundred years. And what can happen for five thousand people can happen for fifty thousand people.

All men are the same. So don't say that the experiment has failed. No... the experiment has succeeded, America has failed to recognize it. America has proved it is not intelligent enough, not sensitive enough to realize a tremendous phenomenon of anarchy and communism meeting together without any conflict.

As far as I am concerned we have succeeded, we have made the mark and it will be repeated in many lands, in many times, with different people. And it is going to spread.

In other ways also it has been immensely successful. For the first time my existence, my philosophy, my people became world famous. For the first time the world has to recognize that there exists a different kind of man of whom governments are afraid, religions are afraid. Sannyas has become now a household word.

It does not matter that one commune is no more there. We have learned much from that commune.

My second commune should be on an independent island so no question of any government interfering and no question of any government giving you visa or time how long you can stay or not. It will be our home and anybody can stay as long as he wants to stay. We are not going to be part of any country, we are going to be on our own. And we are going to make a far better and superior commune than they have destroyed. It will become a model for all other communes around the world.

Now for the first time you have entered with this destruction of the commune into the eyes of the whole world. Up to now you were a small movement, by the side of the way. Now we are in the middle of the road and everybody has to take a position about us, either for us or against us -- both are welcome. We are not going to leave a single person who is indifferent.

Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE FOR YOUR INDIAN SANNYASIS AND LOVERS WHO

ARE WORRIED ABOUT UNCERTAINTY OF YOUR STAYING IN THIS COUNTRY? WHAT THEY CAN

DO OR THEY SHOULD DO?

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A: One thing: that life is always uncertain. The very idea of certainty creates trouble. Not only in this matter but about other matters also.

My message to the sannyasins here and elsewhere is that we should learn to live with uncertainty because certainty does not exist, you cannot do about it anything. It is simply unnatural, non-existential.

You are breathing today, tomorrow you may not be breathing. What certainty is there? I am here today, tomorrow I may not be here.

Uncertainty is the principle that life follows but we are cowardly and we want to make things certain.

We are afraid of the unknown so we cling to anything that seems to be certain. And because of this cowardliness, fear and clinging with anything that appears us to be certain, the whole humanity has got into immense trouble because only phoney things are certain.

The plastic rose is certain: it is there, it will be there tomorrow too. In fact scientists say it will be very difficult to destroy plastic. All that bottles, containers, bags which are made of plastic which we go on throwing to the earth... the earth is finding it difficult because it cannot absorb it. They become a blockage in its recycling. Plastic is more permanent than your God.

The real flower is bound to be uncertain. Now the choice is yours. The real flower will be alive, the real flower will have a joy, the real flower will have a fragrance, the real flower will dance in the wind, in the rain, in the sun... but you have to remember that because it is real by the evening it will be gone. And there is nothing wrong in it. Why things go on remaining always? They should go on moving so new flowers, new things, new phenomena becomes possible.

Just think of one thing. If all your ancestors have not died and it will not be a small number and if Darwin is right then to live in that house with all your ancestors, which will be man and half-man and apes and all kinds of animals up to the fish. It will be a zoo and you will either go mad or you will commit suicide. It is good that they have died, it is good that life goes on changing, creating place for the new to arise.

So my message to my sannyasins is: never be worried about uncertainty. Instead enjoy it, it is excitement, it is -- if you are alert -- can become ecstasy.

My being here, if it is certain, you will start me taking for granted. But if it is uncertain, tomorrow I may be gone. You cannot take me for granted. If you want to see me, today is the day. You cannot postpone it for tomorrow.

If you want to live my philosophy, today is the day.

You cannot deceive yourself that tomorrow I will live it... because tomorrow is not in your hands and it may never come.

Uncertainty is beautiful, certainty is dead.

Only corpses are certain, living people are bound to be uncertain.

This has created a great trouble for my people because they can never be certain what I will say tomorrow, they would like me to stop somewhere and say to them that this is the full stop and now you can quote me like a parrot, without any fear that I may contradict you. But this is not possible.

You will be surprised that how things are. My enemies want that there should be a lock on my tongue, that my lips should be sewn together and they will be very happy with me. I won't be a trouble to them. But in a very subtle way the people who love me they also want the same, without knowing that that's what they are wanting. They want me to say exactly what is my philosophy, like a Christian catechism, so you can believe in it.

I don't allow you to believe in me because you always remain in a suspicion. Tomorrow I may say something which is not consistent with it. But my own approach is that life is never consistent with itself --

that's why it grows.

(Tape side B)

If a tree is consistent it may not grow beyond the roots, it will remain consistent with the roots... it is not consistent, it becomes something else which are not roots, it becomes a trunk.

If it remains consistent with the trunk then it will not have any branches. They are not consistent with the trunk. If it remains consistent with the branches it may not have foliage because what relationship is there between leafs and the branch? It may never grow flowers. What relationship is there between flowers and the leafs. It may not come to fruition because the fruits are as far away from the roots as you can conceive. You cannot say they are consistent.

But deep inside the same juice is flowing which is in the roots, which is in the trunk, which in the leaves, which is in the flowers, which is in the fruit... it is the same juice. But to see that juice you need 1/08/07

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some insight. Otherwise you will see only inconsistencies everywhere.

So let my people know that `learn to love uncertainty, learn to respect inconsistency' because that inconsistency is only in your eyes, because you cannot see deep enough. Deep enough there is a juice which is the same expressing itself in different forms.

And I am not going to leave my friends ever in a certainty, while I am alive at least. To the last breath of mine I will go on being inconsistent and I would like my people also to be the same. Because the consistent people become fanatics. It is the consistent people who have been a curse to humanity.

I want my people to be flexible, not consistent.

Flowing with the life where it goes.

Wherever I am, I am theirs.

And why think only of India because I don't believe in any political boundaries. This whole earth is ours, this whole universe is ours. So wherever I am it does not matter. I am with you, my love is with you, my message will go on pouring on you....

You will not be missing anything whether I am here or far away. Perhaps if I am here you may miss, because this is my experience....

I was in Bombay for four years. A couple lived just upstairs on top of my head and four years they thought of coming to me and always postponed that `we can go anytime.'

The day I left Bombay, you will be surprised, they left Bombay. They came to Poona to take sannyas the same evening. But I asked, that "I recognize you, seeing in the lift, on the steps... you were living in the same place where I was living."

The said, "We were living but we went on postponing that you are here any day. But now you are not there. Although we were not your sannyasins, although we were not even acquainted with you, your presence has become something that we cannot live there any more in the house. We have left, we have come to live here in Poona as your sannyasins."

In Oregon, hundreds of Indians came who had never come to Poona and amongst these hundreds of Indians were people who were so poor that they could have never dreamt of travelling so far to America. It was beyond their conception. They sold their houses, they sold their land, risking their whole life because what they will do when they are back, but they said, "Whatever... but at least -- we are old -- and one time we want to see Bhagwan. We missed in Poona, we missed in Bombay, when it was so easy. Now we cannot miss."

Human mind functions in very bizarre ways.

I am here; that is not necessarily a help to the sannyasins in this country. Just their mind will take it for granted.

I am somewhere else then they cannot take me for granted. And it is good that they don't take me for granted, on any level.

And this way I am teaching them how to live joyously with uncertainty, how to live joyously with an inconsistent existence.

Whatever I am doing or whatever is happening around me is part, essential part, of my teaching.

Q: WHAT ARE THE MAJOR HINDRANCES IN INNER GROWTH OF A MEDITATOR, AND HOW HE

OR SHE CAN OVERCOME THOSE OBSTACLES ON THE WAY?

A: There are not many hindrances but only few. One is a repressed mind because whatever you have repressed, whenever you will sit silent to meditate, that repressed idea, the repressed energy will be the first to overflow you and your mind. If it is sex, meditation will be forgotten and you will be having a pornographic session.

So first thing is: drop repressions -- which is very simple because they are not natural, they have been told to you... that sex is sin. It is not. Is is nature, and if nature is sin then I don't think what can be virtue.

In fact, going against nature is sin.

Just a simple understanding that whatever you are, existence has made you this way.

You have to accept yourself in totality.

This acceptance will remove the hindrance that can come from repression.

Second thing that comes as a hindrance to the meditator is the idea that have been impressed on his mind about god because that's how the moment you use the word meditation immediately a Christian asks, 1/08/07

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"On what?" A Hindu asks, "On what?"

Meditation needs an object. All these religions have been teaching just sheer nonsense. Meditation simply means that there are no objects in the mind and you are simply left alone with your consciousness, a mirror reflecting nothing.

So if you are a Hindu you must be carrying in the unconscious some idea of God, Krishna, Rama, or some other idea. So the moment you close your eyes meditation means to meditate upon something.

Immediately you start meditating on Krishna or Christ and you have missed. Those Krishnas and those Christs are hindrances.

So you have to remember that meditation is not focusing your mind on something, it is emptying your mind of everything -- your Gods included.

And coming to a state where you can say that both my hands are full of nothingness.

That flowering of nothingness is the highest experience of life.

The third thing that can be a hindrance and is a hindrance is to think in terms of meditation as if you have to do meditation in the morning, twenty minutes, half an hour in the afternoon or in the night... just a small fraction of time and the remaining time you have to remain the way you are. That's what all the religions are doing. One hour meditation is enough.

But one hour meditation and twenty-three hours of non-meditation you cannot conceive how you will be able to win in entering into a meditative consciousness. What you gain in one hour is wasted in twenty-three hours. Again you start from the scratch.

Every day you will do it, every life you will do it, and you will remain the same.

So to me, meditation has to be something more like breathing. Not that you sit one hour....

I'm not against sitting -- what I am saying is: that meditation should be something that goes with you the whole day just like a shadow, a peace, a silence, a relaxedness, working you are totally into it. So totally that there is no energy left for mind to spin thoughts. And you will be surprised that your work, whatever it is, digging the ground or carrying the water from the well, or anything, has turned into a meditation.

Slowly slowly each act of your life should turn into a meditative act. Then there is a possibility to attain to enlightenment. Then you can sit also because that too is an act, but you are not specifically identifying sitting with meditation -- that too is a part. Walking you meditate, working you meditate, sometimes sitting silently you meditate, sometimes lying on your bed you meditate... meditation should become your constant companion.

And this meditation that can become constant companion is a very simple thing, I call it witnessing.

Just go on witnessing whatsoever is happening. Walking you witness, sitting you witness, eating you witness yourself eating, and you will be surprised that the more you witness things the better you can do them because you are non-tense, their quality changes.

You will also note that the more meditative you become every gesture of yours becomes soft, non-violent, has a grace in it. And not only you will notice it, others will start noticing it.

Somebody was asking me that, "Now you have allowed even people who want to take sannyas, if they don't want to wear red clothes, mala, it is perfectly okay. But how they will be recognized?"

I said, "Now the recognition will be more subtler. Now they will be recognized by their meditation and if they are really meditating, they cannot deceive anybody."

Even non-meditators in the marketplace who have nothing to do with meditation, who have never heard even the name meditation, will see that something has changed. The way they walk, the way they talk, there is a certain grace and a certain silence surrounding them and a certain peace. People will wait for you because you will become a nourishment.

You must have known in your life there are people who are avoided because to be with them feels as if they are sucking you, as if they are pulling your energy and leaving you empty. And after they have left you feel weak, you feel robbed.

Something just the opposite happens with the meditator. Being with the meditator you will feel nourished. You would like to meet the person. Once in a while just to be with him.

One of my professors, Dr S.K. Saxena, he was the head of the department of Philosophy and I was his student. But he won't allow me to live in the hostels and it was a little embarrassing for me, for the simple reason because he was a drunkard, gambler, a very nice man and has never lived with his family... his family was living in Delhi, because he could not tolerate anybody.

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occasional drunkard, he is a drunkard, he needs every day otherwise he cannot live.

So I told him that, "I can come with the condition that you will not change anything in your life because of me. You will have to continue whatever you do... if you want to drink, you drink, just the way, as if I am not there."

He said, "That is the difficulty. I take you there because when you are there I don't need the drink. You are a nourishment to me. When you are in my house I feel my house has become your home otherwise I am just living in a house. I have never had a home. My wife is there, my children are there, but somehow that atmosphere never happened that becomes immediately possible the moment you enter into my house.

"You are sleeping into another room, I am sleeping into another room but I sleep so deeply when you are in my room, and without drinking. So don't think that I am making any obligation on you to take you from the hostel to my bungalow, which is more comfortable in every possible way... no. You are making an obligation on me. I feel so nourished."

He said to me, that "When you are there I don't eat so much as I eat every day and my doctor goes on telling me: `not to eat too much, you are old, you have diabetes, you are a drunkard. That drinking is killing you, that drinking is making your diabetes worse and you go on eating and you love sweets and you love delicious food.' But when you are there, simply my appetite is not there, I feel full. What the doctor has not been able to do in years, you have not even told me."

In fact, I used to tell him, that "Doctor you should eat something. Only I am eating and you are just sitting there."

He said, "I know, but there is no appetite and I am feeling very good."

Not only you will start feeling changes, others will start feeling changes. All that is to be remembered is a simple word: witnessing.

Q: HOW TO BALANCE THE INNER AND OUTER WORLDS? HOW TO BECOME A CHARVAKA?

A: There is no need to balance, they are balanced.

Just the religions have created the split. They have told you that your body is separate, your soul is separate, that the world is matter, God is spirit.... All these ideas have created a schizophrenic state.

Otherwise you are already functioning together.

Your body, your mind, your soul -- all are functioning together, there is no problem in it. Just those ideas you have to get rid of, they are rubbish.

Existence is one, the body is as much spiritual as the soul is material. The body is the visible soul and the soul is the invisible matter. But it is the same energy. Condensed it becomes matter, and now modern physics has proved it beyond doubt that atoms can become energy, vast energy. In a small atom so much energy. So energy and matter are no more separate in physics.

Now they are not talking of separation. Matter is simply very condensed energy, that's why it looks solid. And energy is... it is just like you see ice, a solid block of ice. It can melt and can become water, it is no more solid, it is the same thing, it can be heated up and it can become vapors. For a moment you will see them and then they become invisible.

All these three states of ice, water and vapor are not three different things; it is one thing, one energy manifesting in different ways.

So it is not a question of how to try because if you are trying that means you have accepted the division already and now you who are the soul and the body who is the CHARVAK, the Zorba, has to be forced. No, just drop the divisions. Live simply -- then eating is spiritual, then having a bath is spiritual, then making love is spiritual, then whatever you do your everything is involved in it: your body, your mind, your soul.

The society will be creating disturbance because they cannot conceive that eating can be spiritual, but that's what charvaka said: Èat, drink and be merry!'

But nobody has understood the poor man. He is one of the most misunderstood men in India. He is saying "make an ordinary thing like eating a spiritual rejoicing."

And the same is true about every action that you are doing. Don't reject anything with condemnation; try to find out something good out of it.

I was in jail in America... the first jail there were six inmates in my cell. They were very happy because they were seeing me on the television every day and they were just waiting... and the nurses told me, that

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heard that you have allergy so they have not used any soap that smells, and they have never been so clean and they have made everything as beautiful as possible in a jail and they are just waiting for you."

And they were really happy people. After one hour when we were introduced to each other and I said, that "I have not slept the whole night so let me sleep."

They said, "You can sleep. We will not create any disturbance." And for one hour they did not even talk to each other. And after I woke up they asked me, that "There is only one problem: we feel very bad to ask you, that in this jail there is nothing to do, either you see television or you sleep, eat, see the television, sleep, this is all that you have to do. No work... so we go on playing cards. And we were worried that would you like and allow us to play cards."

I said, "There is no harm. In fact, I will join. I don't know the rules. You will have to teach me. And I don't know how many days I have to lay here so this is good teaching, you can teach me."

They said, "Really? You mean it? A spiritual person can play cards?"

I said, "Cards have nothing unspiritual in them and you can play so attentively, so meditatively, that playing cards can become a meditation."

They said, "We never thought about it."

I joined them. They were very much troubled that I am joining.

They said, "Just don't do it for our sake."

I said, "Not I, your sake... I am also here. I don't know how many days these people are going to keep me and playing cards will be beautiful and you teach me because they will change me from one jail to another jail, so I will know something."

So they said, "We will teach you all the tricks, the great tricks -- that will be good."

They reported to the sheriff that, "We had thought that spirituality is something in the clouds, that is not true. This man can play cards, can learn tricks and we are so happy that you have chosen us to be with him."

And when I left they were all crying and weeping. And I said, "There is no need to cry and weep. If you want I may come again. Just a slight crime I can commit and they will put me back here, there is no problem in it, don't be worried."

"No," they said, "no, we don't want you to be back here. Your people must be waiting there. We are thinking that just in three days you became so much part of us that we are crying for you, what will be happening to your people who have been living with you for years?"

And this is from criminals. And I came to know that those criminals are far more human than your politicians and your bureaucrats and more truthful and more sincere -- to be with them was a joy.

Your question finished or still there is one? Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #12

Chapter title: In the presence of truth

23 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512270

ShortTitle: LAST512

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

Length: mins

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

Interview by A.F.P. News agency

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Query:-

WHAT REALLY SURPRISES ME, SCARES ME, IS THE EXPRESSION OF DEVOTION, THE

TREMENDOUS FEELING THAT YOU SEE WHEN YOUR DISCIPLES, FRIENDS AS YOU CALL THEM, COME TO SEE YOU. WHAT IS THE REASON BEHIND THAT? AND DO YOU HAVE THE SAME

FEELING WHEN YOU ARE WITH THEM?

I love them, but my love does not include emotions or sentiments. In fact, emotions and sentiments bring the quality of love far lower, they are a sacrilege. But I can understand my people.

For one thing, I never condemn anything. My acceptance of any person is total. I will explain to my people that love should be far higher than emotions and sentiments, but if somebody starts crying, weeping, sobbing, there is no condemnation of it. It is how he is, it is where he is, it is the only way he can express his love. Perhaps some time he will learn to express better. But for the moment if he represses it that will be bad. I am all for expression. If you feel like crying, cry.

The tears that you have been holding become heavy on your being. The laughter that you missed will be a weight on your soul. So whatever happens in the moment, give it total expression. This is the way to transcend all things that can pull you from your purity of love.

For example, devotion is far lower than love, because devotion basically implies self-disrespect. I am against it because at the cost of self-respect you are respecting somebody else. The cost is too much. My whole effort is to teach you to feel dignity as a human being, to feel self-respect as part of this beautiful existence.

Love is a totally different phenomenon. It creates a spiritual equality. It does not mean ungratefulness, it does not mean ingratitude. In fact, the best way to express your gratitude, your gratefulness, is to rise to the level of the guide, of the master, of the friend, whatever name you give to him.

I prefer the namèfriend' because friendship is absolutely unmotivated and unending. There will be a time when the function of the guide will be finished and the master will no longer be needed. There has to be a time when the master is not needed. If the master succeeds, he will not be needed.

But the friend is not dependent on any such conditions because it is not a need. It is simply a love affair, unending, unmotivated, unconditional.

I would like them also to learn to express love at its highest level, but of course it takes time. They are moving; a year ago you may have found a person crying and weeping; this year you may find him laughing and smiling; next year you may find him just expressing everything in pure silence, no gesture, no word.

In fact, the higher a value the less is the possibility to express it by anything; it remains inexpressible. It is understood. It is a kind of transference, not a communication. You feel it, it is there like fragrance.

Nothing is said, nothing is heard, but everything is understood.

That's exactly the meaning of the ancient word `satsanga.' The word is so beautiful; it simply means to be in the presence of the truth.

IN THE EVENT OF THE GOVERNMENT TRYING TO DO ANYTHING WHICH IS EVEN A FRACTION OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE UNITED STATES, THERE COULD BE A REAL

PROJECTION OF FEELING TOWARDS YOU IN THE STREETS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?

There are a few things to be understood. One: I like to fight alone because then I am stronger and I can fight with all my innocence and with all my purity. I do not want masses to be on the streets in favor of me.

My whole approach is individualistic. I am born alone, I will die alone, and between these two alonenesses everything that you do to deceive yourself that you are not alone is dangerous. There is no way to be not alone.

Aloneness has such beauty that the mob, the crowd, can destroy it.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

1/08/07

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Query:-

Chapter #13

Chapter title: None

28 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512270

ShortTitle: LAST513

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

INTERVIEW BY NAW BHARAT

SINCE YOU WERE OBSERVING SILENCE DURING THE PERIOD OF THE OREGON COMMUNE, HOW DID YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNE? AND WAS A COMMUNE OF

THIS TYPE YOUR NECESSITY, OR THE NECESSITY OF YOUR DISCIPLES, OR THE NECESSITY OF

THE SOCIETY AT LARGE?

First, I was not participating at all. This will be a little difficult to understand -- that things are possible without participating in them.

For example, in the morning the sun rises and the birds start singing. The sun is not a participant: it is not in any way doing anything to the birds, it is not provoking them to sing. The flowers open up -- the sun is not a participant. Scientists had to find a new word for this, and that word is synchronicity. It means that the very presence, not the participation, of the sun makes it possible for the birds to sing, for the flowers to blossom.

So I will say I was not participating at all; it was a synchronicity. I was present in my silence -- more so

-- and my presence helped my people to create the commune. I had discussed the commune for many years, I had given the whole vision, but when it was being built I did not take any active part in it. I was just a presence.

So I cannot use the word participation, but I can use the word synchronicity. And that word is in many ways significant, it opens many new doors, many new meanings.

It is possible just to look in somebody's eyes without saying anything -- he has not heard anything, and yet something has transpired. I have not said, he has not heard, but something has happened.

In ancient India we used to call it satsang. The master would simply be present, -- people would sit by his side. Something out of his silence would start changing their hearts, opening their beings. We have known it and we have used it in many ways. Just like satsang, is the word darshan. Somebody goes to see a master.... Now, what is the point of seeing a master?

The West up to now has been almost incapable of understanding what it means, just to go and see Gautam Buddha. Unless he speaks, says something, does something, unless there is some communication, it is pointless just to see him -- you can see his picture, you can see his statue. But now they are realizing their mistake. The picture is dead, the statue is dead. Gautam Buddha is a living presence of tremendous power, of great love, of immense silence, and the East was absolutely right that there is no need for any communication in words.

Just to see this man is a transforming experience, as if you have taken a shower. You cannot see what is radiating from the man; it is not visible to the physical eyes. And you cannot hear the music of the man, because it is not available to the physical ears. But it is there and if you are receptive, open, available, humble enough, nonresistant, then miracles are possible.

One man, a great philosopher, came to Buddha and asked a series of questions. All the questions were significant, and he wanted Buddha to answer them. He had been to many philosophers and he had argued, 1/08/07

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but nobody had been able to satisfy him. Buddha listened to his questions and instead of answering him, asked him, "To how many people have you asked these questions?"

He said, "To hundreds -- to anyone who is known as a master, as a saint, as a sage. I have traveled all over the country and no one has been able to satisfy me. My questions remain exactly the same as they were the day I started the journey."

Buddha said, "Then listen to me. If I answer them you will not be satisfied; I will also be added to those hundreds of people. But if you really want the answers then you will have to do one thing: for two years simply sit silently by my side and just be. After two years I will ask you to repeat your questions."

Before the man could say anything one old disciple, Mahakashyapa, started laughing loudly.

The stranger asked, "Why is he laughing?"

Mahakashyapa said, "I am laughing because the same thing happened with me. I had come with questions and he told me to sit silently for two years. I sat silently for two years by his side -- all my questions disappeared, all my thoughts disappeared. I became completely a new man. After two years he asked me about the questions and I said, 'Forgive me, I don't have any questions. Your silence has silenced them all. I don't have any answer either, but I am immensely fulfilled.' I laughed because if you want to have the answers, this is the time; insist on them now. But if you want satisfaction then wait for two years --

but you won't get any answers. The questions will disappear."

And this was the usual practice of Buddha, to tell people to sit silently. For thousands of years in the East people have been going to masters, to sages, just to see them. That is the meaning of darshan. Any materialist is bound to ask, "What can you gain just by seeing a man?"

You can gain immensely. It depends on two things: whether the man has something that radiates, whether the center of his being is absolutely silent, whether he has achieved himself, whether he has come home. And second, are you a little bit receptive to unknown, invisible radiations?

I was silent for three and a half years in the commune. I was emphatically silent at that time because I never wanted to interfere with what people were doing. I never wanted to actually participate. I had given the vision to them; now I wanted to give them my energy. Vision they had, energy they needed -- and that energy is not something visible, not something measurable.

So I had no participation, but there was a synchronicity. They were joined with me in my silence. I was part of them in my silence. Whatever they were doing, in a very subtle way they were my hands, they were my eyes, and I was all over without ever being physically present anywhere.

The second thing you ask: "Was it your necessity?"

I don't have any need, any necessity. As far as I am concerned, I am fulfilled. If this moment I die, I will die with absolute contentment. Nothing is incomplete. I will not ask even for a single second to complete something.

It was certainly for my disciples, the people who have loved me, who have gone a long way with me.

They needed a place, an energy field rather; five thousand meditators together... it makes a difference.

In science they have a parallel. They say that at a certain point quantitative change becomes qualitative change. For example, up to ninety-nine degrees the water remains water. One degree more, one hundred degrees, and the water changes; it evaporates. The addition was a quantity, but the change is qualitative.

One man can meditate, but if five people meditate together, there is a qualitative strength. And if five thousand people are meditating together, there is an aroma of energy. It is just like a great current which one alone may not be able to cross, but which five thousand people together can cross easily.

It was for my sannyasins, and for those in the greater society who were interested. There are millions of people in the world who are frustrated, who are living in misery, who have everything they need and yet something is missing. Their misery is not of hunger, it is not of poverty; their misery is something spiritual.

So I wanted this commune to become a model -- and we have communes around the world in other countries on the same model, functioning in the same way.

So for anybody who feels some spiritual thirst, there is a possibility for him to come to the commune.

Just the way universities function they exist for everybody; but if you are not interested then they are not for you. If you are interested, if you have a thirst for knowledge, the university is available. These communes were spiritual universities for anybody who was feeling a gap in his life and was becoming aware that material things alone are not going to fill it; that something more, something from the above, something higher is needed. These communes could become for him universities where he could learn meditation, learn how to uncondition his mind, learn how to make his love a purity and come to his own innermost center.

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So it was not my necessity, but it was certainly the necessity of my sannyasins and it was certainly an open door for anybody who was seeking, searching.

MR. RAJIV GANDHI HAS INVITED THE WHOLE NATION TO CONSIDER AND MEDITATE UPON

THE QUESTION OF REFORMS IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. DO YOU HAVE SOME

SUGGESTIONS TO OFFER IN THIS REGARD, OR WILL YOU WAIT FOR A FORMAL INVITATION

FROM THE GOVERNMENT BEFORE YOU ANSWER?

No formal invitation is needed. In fact I have already been speaking on it. The government has been deaf.

It is just stupid of Rajiv Gandhi to ask the people of the country what reforms they think are needed in the educational system. In a country where more than eighty percent of the people are uneducated, and the ones who are educated are educated just to become clerks, the people cannot suggest anything. If Rajiv Gandhi wants really to change the system then he should call a conference of the leading people who have been involved in education.

This education system was started by the British government to create clerks; it was never established to create intelligent people. No government wants intelligent people. Every government wants people to remain retarded, because then it is easier to exploit them, easier to rule them, easier to avoid any revolution, and easier for very ordinary people to become leaders. The British government managed very beautifully.

For twenty-five years, almost one third of his life, a person is processed in such a way that he turns out either to be a station master, a head clerk, or a postmaster. These were the needs of the government.

It is something to be understood: that all the gold medallists in the universities, the people who come first in their subjects disappear in the world -- you never hear of them again. They should make some mark.

In the university they get the gold medals, but in life they become head clerks.

The whole system is wrong. So it is not a question of reforming it, it is a question of revolutionizing it.

A real educational system will take care of the whole man; this education system takes care only of the mind. The whole man means the body, the mind, the heart and the soul. Unless education takes care of all these four in a balanced way, it cannot create an authentic man, a whole man. For example, the university does nothing about the body. Much needs to be done with the body because everything else is based on it. It needs not only exercises, yoga, aikido and other systems of training, but also a systematic, scientific approach about food -- because what you eat, you become.

No vegetarian has been able to achieve a single Nobel prize. It is a clear-cut condemnation of vegetarianism. Why do all the Nobel prizes go to non-vegetarians? -- because vegetarian food does not contain those proteins which create intelligence. And unless we provide those proteins, intelligence cannot grow. The body is a very delicate phenomenon and it needs a very well balanced diet.

In my commune, I have added non-fertilized eggs to the vegetarian food. I am a vegetarian and I would like the whole world to become vegetarian -- but not at the cost of risking your intelligence. Non-fertilized eggs fulfill the need completely; in fact, better than non-vegetarian food. We should make it a point that non-vegetarian food is not allowed in the universities because to kill, to do violence just for food, is so ugly and so inhuman that you cannot expect these people to behave lovingly, sensitively, humanly.

Non-vegetarian food is one of the basic causes of the whole society being almost in a continuous fight. It makes you insensitive, it makes you hard, it makes you a stone. And it creates things in you -- anger, violence -- which can be easily avoided.

Taking care of the body means the body should be given adequate exercise. Students are sitting in the universities the whole day and in the night they have to do their homework and they have to go to the movies. They become just sitting idiots. The body, by nature, is not created just to go on sitting. Students should be walking, running, swimming, climbing trees, climbing mountains. The bodies should be given a chance to achieve their natural potential. But the body is a neglected part; nobody is interested in it. We live in the body, but nobody thinks about what we are eating.

Now scientists have discovered that there are people in the Soviet Union who have passed the age of one hundred and fifty; there are a few who have reached the age of one hundred and eighty and are still working as young people -- old age has not come yet. They have studied what they are eating, what is the reason that they are living so long, and they have found a few things which these people -- who are really poor people --

have in their diet. Yoghurt is one of the essential things. The other thing is something like what in Gujarat 1/08/07

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they call khakhra. These two things seem to be giving them longevity. Now it is such a simple thing to add khakhra and yoghurt to everybody's diet and give him a long life. Certainly when you are wasting twenty-five years in education you should add at least twenty-five years to a person's life. He should live at least one hundred years.

Scientists say that as far as the body is concerned it seems to have the capacity to go on renewing itself for three hundred years. So if people are dying at seventy, something is wrong with us. Nothing is wrong with the body, we are just giving it the wrong food, no exercise or the wrong exercise.

So my first concern is the body. Experts in the body, in diet, should be consulted. Taste cannot be the decisive thing; taste can be added to anything. But the basic thing should be the science of the body.

Secondly, don't ask the people! What can the people do? That's why I call these politicians cunning.

They don't want to do anything about the educational system. Whenever you do not want to do anything, ask the people what reforms they want. What do they know about education, or the educational system, or about the body, or about the mind, or about the heart? What do they know? So nobody will be coming out with any suggestions. And the politician feels perfectly good that he was ready to change, but nobody wants any change. It seems that people are perfectly satisfied. That is not right. The people are not satisfied, but they are not experts.

I would like Rajiv Gandhi to ask the experts. Call a conference first of the people who know about the body, people who have been practicing yoga for years. Learn from their experience. Every university should have some yoga class which is required for everybody.

Ask people in Japan who know about aikido -- a totally different kind of discipline concerned with the body -- or ju jitsu. Ask them, because they have managed to create a body as solid as steel. Ask all over the world, because in every country there is a certain system which has been followed for centuries and has accumulated a wisdom. There is no need to remain confined to one country; wisdom from everywhere should be the base of the revolution in education. Ask people who have been working with diets, who have found what kind of food makes people healthier.

Ask why forty percent of Nobel prizes go to Jews. They are not that big a population in the world; it is absolutely out of proportion. Something is strange! The Jews say -- and now it is being accepted more and more even by Christians -- that it is because of their circumcision: circumcision helps the intelligence.

The Jewish child is circumcised shortly after he is born. Medical science has accepted it as hygienic. It is less probable for a circumcised man to have diseases of the genitalia. But Jews have been saying that when the child is born, to circumcise the child, to cut the thin small skin, hits his intelligence center. This is an ancient tradition with the Jews. There is a possibility, and it should be explored, because their intelligence proves that there is something different in Jews. It is possible -- I have been thinking about it --

because the centers of sex are not in the genitalia, they are in the head. There are seven hundred centers in the head. The sex center is just next to the intelligence center -- so close, almost touching. Naturally, when a small child's skin is cut he gets a shock. Perhaps that shock gives a certain strength to the intelligence center. This should be researched. If it is so, then it is not a question of whether you are a Jew; everybody should be circumcised. No university should accept anybody who is not circumcised.

Just as we have to think about the body and its tremendous impact on the whole personality of man, we also have to think about mind. Why, after twenty-five years wasted in education, are you creating pygmies?

Something is wrong, and my understanding is -- because I have been a teacher in the university -- that the whole teaching is based on belief. Belief is a poison. It does not allow your intelligence to grow. Belief should be simply removed and replaced by doubt, because it is doubt, it is skepticism, that sharpens your intelligence.

I was expelled from many colleges simply because I was not ready to believe anything unless I was convinced intellectually. Just because you are saying it... You may be a great professor, you may be a very respected professor -- all that is granted -- but anything you say you have to support by the best of argumentation. You should not ask that it be accepted on belief.

I was expelled from one college because the professor threatened the principal that he would resign if I was not expelled. He said that for eight months I had not allowed him to teach anything.

The principal called me and asked, "Why are you creating so much disturbance?"

I said, "I have not created any disturbance. I am simply asking that he should give an argument for whatever he says; otherwise he should not say it. He says that his concern is to finish the course. My concern is to sharpen my intelligence; I am not concerned with his course. What am I going to do with his course? And he has not been able to give any argument even for simple things that he says. For example, he 1/08/07

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says that Aristotle was the father of logic in the West. It is an assumed fact, repeated at almost all the universities around the world.

"I asked him, `Do you know that Aristotle wrote that women have fewer teeth than men? And are you aware that Aristotle had two wives? He could have asked either of his wives to just open her mouth and count her teeth. Men and women have the same number of teeth. I cannot accept as a man of logic a man who has two wives and writes that women have fewer teeth than men! I cannot accept him as the father of Western logic. He is simply superstitious -- the woman has to be less in everything.' So in Greece it was an accepted fact that women have fewer teeth. Neither any woman nor any man ever counted. I asked him,

`You have read Aristotle's life and it did not disturb you?'

"He said, Ìt did not. I simply read his statement and the fact that he had two wives.'

"I said, `Did you not bother to count your wife's teeth? A wife is not such a difficult thing to find.' This man is not logical."

I said to the principal, "Tell me, who is creating trouble? He should accept that Aristotle is not logical, he is superstitious. Once it is agreed he can go on further. If he does not accept it, every day I am going to stand there and ask, `What about Aristotle?'"

And now science has proved that the whole Aristotelian logic is wrong. They have developed a new system of logic, the same way as they have created a new system of geometry. For centuries they have been teaching and nobody has bothered to argue, for the simple reason that our whole approach is to believe. The professor knows and we do not know. Why waste time? -- he knows and we accept.

The universities should be more intelligent, professors should give more emphasis to discussion, to doubt, and they should destroy completely any textbook belief system. Those books should be removed; then you would see an explosion of intelligence.

But to doubt seems to be doing something evil, and to have faith seems to be very spiritual and very religious. Just the reverse is the case. To have faith is evil; to doubt is natural. Go on doubting until you come to an indubitable fact.

So universities have to change their whole attitude about doubt and belief. And it is not important that you pass the examination; those five examination questions can be answered by a person who knows nothing else. I am against examinations because they create a totally wrong approach. The student becomes only interested in passing the examination. So rather than reading the book, he looks for a shorter version or a key. The professor has answered questions which are probable examination questions, so the students read just these and nothing else. Their intelligence remains retarded. It is the examination system that creates a wrong attitude.

My idea is that students should be given credit by each professor, every day, just the way they take attendance. And the credit should be given according to the intelligence shown by the student.

Our whole system depends on how much you can memorize, not on intelligence. But memory is not something great; a computer can do it. And soon there will be no need of any memory; you can just have a small computer in your pocket and any answer you need will be immediately available. Why waste time and life and torture people about memory when memory has nothing to do with intelligence?

Right now, our education system is based on memory. I would like it to be based on intelligence. Every professor should give credits every day, not just at the end of the year, because that creates trouble. Students don't take any interest for the whole year; just for one month at the end they are torturing themselves trying to learn everything at once. I would like them to get credits every day, and if somebody is intelligent enough to get enough credit in six months to pass to another class, why make him waste six months more in the same class? The moment he gets the required credits he moves into the next class. So nobody passes, nobody fails; people simply move. Somebody may take more than twelve months before passing into the next class.

Then the university becomes a moving phenomenon. People are moving according to their intelligence, and there are no fixed barriers. This is good because with barriers fixed, a very strange thing happens: the most intelligent student has to keep pace with the idiot. The idiot and the intelligent person each have twelve months in the class; the lowest denominator in the class is determining the pace for everybody. It is not right; it is sheer violence against intelligence. If the idiot wants to stay in the class two or three years, it is up to him. But it is my experience that whatever courses universities are teaching for one year are not worth more than two months. Any intelligent person can pass them in two months. Those other ten months are sheer wastage.

And in those ten months students will do all kinds of harm. They will strike and they will rape and they 1/08/07

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will burn the college and they will beat the teachers, because they have energy and energy needs some expression. You are just keeping those people closed in small cells, in small classes. They don't have anything to do, because they know that if they study just one month or two months, at the end they will pass.

Instead of memory, intelligence. It is very significant that people of very good memory are not the people of very good intelligence. Memory functions mechanically and intelligence functions non-mechanically. People of great intelligence are not necessarily of very good memory. For example, Albert Einstein would -- forget to get out of his bathtub. Six hours he would remain in his bathtub, unless his wife created great trouble and knocked on the door: "It is too much, six hours! What are you doing there?"

He said, "Six hours have passed? I was thinking that it is my usual, normal bath."

He was the greatest mathematician the world has known. But one day he got on a bus and gave some money. The conductor gave him back the change.

He counted the change and said to the conductor, "This is not right. You are cheating me!"

The conductor counted again and said, "It is perfectly right, I am not cheating you. It seems you don't know how to count."

He remembers in his memoirs that, "He was right. When I went home I told my wife, and she said, `He was right, you were wrong. But how did you miss?'"

He said, "Because in my mind I was concerned with faraway stars and I was not there counting."

So it is possible that memory and intelligence are different phenomena. And it has always happened that people of great memory have never been of great intelligence, and people of very great intelligence have not been of great memory.

The mind should be moved from belief to doubt, to skepticism, to intelligence. So examinations should be removed and the students should be mobile, depending on credits the professors give every day. Nobody fails, nobody passes; it is only a question of time: two months sooner or two months later. This will also help to destroy the inferiority complex that you create in people who fail, and the superiority complex in the people who come out on top. Both are dangerous, both are sicknesses. There is no question of anybody being superior or anybody being inferior.

The heart is absolutely neglected just as the body is. No university bothers that a man will be dry, juiceless if his heart is not functioning. They are just concerned with the mind. Students should be taught music, dance, painting, and these things should not be optional. What is necessary for the whole development of man should not be optional. They should be taught poetry -- whether they are students of science or commerce or art does not matter. Poetry is not only for poets. Every scientist should know poetry, because poetry helps your heart to open to experiences which are not available from mathematics.

Music takes you to heights which geography cannot do.

And finally the soul, which also is absolutely forgotten, should be taken care of. For the soul there is a simple thing: every student has to meditate one hour each day. There should be a professor of meditation teaching students how to meditate. And if a student goes to the university six years, in six years, just one hour every day devoted to meditation and he will become a man of immense silence and peace and beauty and love. I call this an absolute necessity.

My final suggestion is that the government should call four conferences, one for each part of the human personality. Experts should suggest what can be done; the masses cannot suggest. If you are sincere in a desire to change, then ask the experts. There are thousands of meditators in the world, there are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation. Let all those people be invited. Find out the most simple method of meditation and let it be introduced in all the universities. And do the same in the other areas. We can really make the university a place of immense spiritual revolution. And a new man can come out of the university.

Right now, a man just comes out seeking employment. This is a condemnation of our whole system.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

1/08/07

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Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

Chapter #14

Chapter title: None

28 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512285

ShortTitle: LAST514

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

INTERVIEW BY THE DAILY (BOMBAY)

THE LAST FEW YEARS I HAVE OFTEN THOUGHT OF TAKING SANNYAS, BUT I AM AFRAID.

WHY?

It is not only your question; there are millions of people who are in the same position.

The fear is very fundamental. To be initiated into sannyas means dropping so many things you have loved, liked, and become identified with. For example, a Mohammedan, a Hindu, a Christian -- the first fear is what will happen to their Christianity, to their Hinduism?

My sannyas simply means that you drop all the conditionings that have been imposed upon you after you were born -- because nobody is born a Hindu, a Christian, a Buddhist. Every child is just a human being, but there are vested interests all around who impinge on the child, trespass his privacy, start conditioning him, continually emphasize systems of belief. By the time he is able to think, those systems of belief have gone so deep that they have almost become his blood, his bones, his marrow. Now he cannot think about Christianity as an objective thing; he thinks as a Christian, as a Hindu, and that is not thinking.

To think as a Christian means you have already accepted a certain prejudice. Your mind is not unprejudiced, not open, not available to the new facts that may arise in the inquiry.

Sannyas makes people afraid. Psychologically it will take away all their toys that they think are very valuable but which are simply rubbish. Unless a truth is known by you, experienced by you, unless you are an eye-witness, it is not a truth. It is only a toy, and it is better to destroy it because it is hindering the way to truth.

So this psychological fear is there, and then there are social fears. You live in society, you work in society, and the people, the crowd, never want anybody to be different from them. The different person means a stranger; he does not belong to them. They will not accept him, they will try in every way to crush him, destroy him.

So when you become a sannyasin in society you are taking a risk, you are declaring, "I am an individual, I am not only a cog in the wheel. I am not just part of the crowd; I am myself." This creates the fear that you are alone in a vast crowd of people, and one starts wondering how so many people can be wrong.

One Catholic leaves the Catholic fold. There are six hundred million Catholics in the world. How can six hundred million Catholics be wrong? And am I right against such a vast majority? We have been told, particularly by people with a very wrong idea of democracy, that wherever the majority is, truth is. The minority, just by being the minority, loses its truth. But in the real existential world truth is always individual, it has nothing to do with majority or minority. Those who have found, have found alone, not as a crowd, not as a company, not as a church.

So these are the fears that go on deep into the unconscious, but the urge to become a sannyasin is far more important than all these fears. One thing is certain: wherever you are, you are not content. Whatever you are, you cannot say that you have achieved the meaning of your life. Whatever you are doing may be giving you a means of living but it is not giving you life itself.

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So there are fears and there is that constant urge to seek and to search. And I hope that the fears will not be the winners, because anybody who lives out of fears, lives not; he is already dead. Fear is part of death, not of life. Risk, adventure, going into the unknown, is what life means.

So try to understand your fears. And remember one thing: don't support them, they are your enemies.

Support the urge that is still alive in you, make it aflame so that it can burn all those fears and you can move into seeking.

Sannyas is nothing but a name for becoming an individual seeker -- declaring that Buddha may have attained the truth, but that is not my truth; Mahavira may have attained the truth, but that is not my truth. If somebody else has eaten the food that does not mean that I am nourished; I am still hungry.

Millions of people have found the truth, but truth is something which remains individual and cannot be given as a thing to somebody else; you have to find it on your own. I think it is one of the most significant gifts of existence that it has not made truth a commodity. Otherwise, there would have been shops in the market where you could purchase truth. You cannot purchase truth at any price. You will have to seek it.

And the sooner the fears are dropped the better, because as you go on growing you are growing closer to death. The fears will become more powerful every day and your life energy will become less strong every day. So the sooner you decide and get out of the imprisonment of fears, the better.

I VISITED THE ASHRAM IN POONA AND OFTEN HEARD THE WORD 'ENERGY'. -- PLEASE

EXPLAIN WHAT ENERGY IS?

There are things which can only be experienced and cannot be explained. For example, electricity is energy, but nobody has seen electricity in its purity, as energy. You have seen it in a lamp, as light; you have seen it moving a machine, a train; you have seen many manifestations of its work, but nobody has yet been able to see what it is that works.

I am reminded of Thomas Alva Edison. He was the first man to make the electric bulb; it took him three years. He was visiting a small village, and, just by coincidence, the village school was having an annual celebration and the school children had made many things to show the public. Having nothing else to do in that village, Edison went. One boy was explaining about electricity. He had made a small electric train running on a track on the table. Edison naturally went to the boy and asked, "How does it work?"

The boy said, "It is electricity. It is energy that is making the train move."

Edison said, "I understand, but what is electricity? What is energy?"

The boy said, "This is too much, I don't know. Perhaps my teacher, who has a master's degree in Physical Science from a well-known university, may have the answer. I will fetch him, sir, you just wait a minute."

He brought the teacher and the teacher said, "We know how it functions, we don't know what it is. I am sorry to disappoint you that we cannot answer a simple question, but perhaps the principal, who is a Doctor of Science from Harvard, perhaps he may. Just wait a minute."

Edison said, "I can wait as long as you want, but I want the answer."

And the principal came and he said, "There is only one man, Thomas Alva Edison, who may perhaps know the answer. We don't know the answer."

Edison said, "That means nobody knows the answer because I am Thomas Alva Edison. And you are right, I only know how it acts, I don't know what it is."

And the same is true about the word 'energy'. You may have heard my sannyasins continuously talking about it, and naturally you must have thought at least 'Thomas Alva Edison' knows the answer. But I don't know! I can only say how it works.

Man's body is an energy phenomenon. Everything is energy: matter exists no more. Friedrich Nietzsche declared in the heyday of materialism that God is dead, but as we penetrated deeper and deeper into the mysteries of matter the whole idea about matter has changed. Now modern physics says there is no thing such as matter. In Friedrich Nietzsche's terms it can be said "matter is dead." Perhaps God may be alive; about that we are still undecided. But matter is certainly dead, because it has been found that the more you divide matter into molecules, atoms, electrons, it turns into energy. And the old division between energy and matter has to be dropped. Matter is energy at such a tremendous speed that you cannot see it as energy, you see it as solid matter.

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see those three wings. It can become just a circle -- they are moving so fast that they are creating an illusion of solidity.

So everything in existence today is energy. The human body has its own bio-energy. You may have experienced, without paying much attention, that sometimes you shake hands with a person and you feel as if you are shaking hands with a dead branch of a tree -- no life, no warmth. And you know others also, to shake hands with them is a joy -- so much love, so much energy radiating from the small handshake.

It has been known experimentally that a child can be given food, comfort, everything after birth that he needs, but he will die within three months unless a woman's bio-energy is made available to him -- he shrinks.

Now it cannot be said what this bio-energy is, but we can see from the results that the child is in constant need of a feminine body. Something transpires between these two bodies which is not visible to our eyes, just like x-rays.

Many experiments have been done, and it has been found that without the mother's physical touch the child cannot survive. And even if he survives his survival will be only minimal. He will never be able to laugh, he will never be able to enjoy, he will never be able to love, he will never be able to dance and sing --

that energy is missing. Something in him is hollow. He is just empty, he has nothing to give.

There are children who are so much full of energy that they are a trouble in the family, they are always doing something or other -- running all over the place for no reason at all, just to throw off a load of energy.

Energy is our basic constituent. Its expressions may be different: it may express as love, it may express as laughter, it may express as silence. When sannyasins talk about energy they are talking about a special implication, implementation, of this energy.

They are all meditating, and meditation certainly gives the energy a new dimension. It immediately starts moving around the person, and if many persons are meditating it becomes an energy field. Those who are open can just enter into the group and, they will be surprised, just as you touch an open wire of electricity and it gives you a shock, in an energy field if you are open you can feel it immediately engulfing you, overpowering you. This makes many people afraid of coming to the communes, coming to the sannyasins -- they think it is something like mesmerism or hypnotism. It is neither hypnotism nor mesmerism, it is simply that so many people have pooled their energy in their silence that when you enter into the group you cannot remain unaffected by it.

That's why I said, "It can be experienced but it cannot be explained." And all these communes that I have been creating around the world are just for that single purpose. Anybody who wants what this energy is can be a guest in a commune for seven days, mix with the commune for seven days, and feel it. You will know what it is, but you will not be able to tell anybody else what it is.

The ultimate always is beyond explanation. But it is not beyond experience.

I HAVE BEEN TALKING TO LOCAL PEOPLE AND GETTING THE FEELING THAT THEY WANT

YOU TO STAY HERE FOR TWO REASONS. FIRST THEY RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE A SPIRITUAL

MASTER, AND SECOND BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT HIMACHAL PRADESH WILL PROSPER IF

YOU ARE HERE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT?

They are absolutely right. Himachal Pradesh can become richer both spiritually and materially, but their politicians may not want it to happen. And those poor people of Himachal Pradesh have approached me.

From Manali the Panchayat leaders, from Mandi the Bar Association, and from other sources representations have been made to the chief minister that every facility should be given to me.

The people of Himachal Pradesh are simple-hearted, very loving, but immensely poor. Their lovingness and their simpleness and their innocence recognize something in me which they call a spiritual master. And they can understand without even knowing the ABC's of economics that if I am here, thousands of tourists will be coming here.

In America in one year there were fifty thousand tourists from all over the world. Here the number will be double because America was too costly for people to visit. If one hundred thousand people come and stay in Himachal Pradesh for two or three months certainly the economy of Himachal Pradesh will have a tremendous upsurge. And if the government is courageous enough to allow me to have a commune here, the people of Himachal Pradesh also can learn that poverty is not something destined by God, that it is our own creation. They can see that the commune can create wealth, can create richness. They can learn from the 1/08/07

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commune and they can apply what they learn to their own lives and their own economic endeavors. Within ten years we can change the whole shape of Himachal Pradesh. It can really become a valley of gods.

But the crucial question is, will the politicians like it to become a valley of gods? I don't think so. They don't want it to happen anywhere, because it is easy to rule over the poor, it is easy to purchase the vote of the poor. It will be more difficult if the people are richer and if the commune can become a university for the poor, teaching crafts. The politician will find that he has fallen by the wayside, somebody else has taken his place.

So I don't think that the government will allow me to have a commune here. And I cannot do anything alone without a commune. I need my people who can do everything and change things.

The local people have approached the chief minister and I have received the information that he has shown his willingness, but just in a political way. He said, "It all depends on central government. Unless I get a green signal from the center I cannot do anything."

The American government is putting pressure on the Indian government that I should not be allowed to make a commune. The American senate has sent a message to the Indian government that they can let me live here, but, "don't allow foreigners to be there and don't allow the people who can create a commune to be there -- otherwise you will be in the same difficulty that we were in.

So my feeling is that Indian politicians don't have the guts to allow me to stay. Otherwise I am ready and I am willing to change this whole valley and its shape. It is really a sad sight when you enter and you see the poor houses, the poor shops, as if you are entering something five thousand years old. It does not show any contemporariness. When you see the poor people they are nice, they are simple, but they are suffering. But the politician wants things to remain exactly as they are; they want to maintain the status quo because that has given them power. If something changes in the country it is bound to be reflected sooner or later in their power.

PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING. WHY DOES IT SEEM TO APPEAL MOST TO

WESTERN PEOPLE AND HOW DO YOU ENVISAGE THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR WORK IN THE

NEXT TWENTY YEARS?

It appeals to the Western people for the simple reason that I am not basing my teaching on faith, on any kind of belief. It is a purely intelligent approach towards reality.

The Eastern mind is accustomed to belief. Faith has been emphasized for centuries; to doubt is a sin and to believe is a virtue. To me the reverse is the case: to doubt is virtue and to believe is sin.

It is appealing to the Western intelligentsia, particularly the young generation which is completely fed up with all kinds of beliefs -- political, religious, social -- because they have seen that those beliefs are nothing but systems of exploitation, methods of creating spiritual slavery in man.

Eastern intelligence is lagging far behind but those who are intelligent in the East are certainly influenced by them. Then there is no difference between the East and the West. The question is, are you intelligent enough to drop believing, are you intelligent enough to search on your own without any prejudice, without being a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian?

I simply don't give them any catechism to cling to, I don't give them any discipline. I don't say to them,

"This has to be done and this has not to be done." My whole approach is different. I simply explain to them how you can be in a peaceful, non-tense, blissful state of mind and out of that state of mind it is impossible to do anything wrong. So you will be decisive in what you want to do. If this basic state of mind is created in you then you will do only the right, then you will behave as a human being is expected to behave.

Certainly people who have already accepted that there is a God have stopped searching. They are no more seekers; their seeking has stopped. They have come to a conclusion, and the conclusion is borrowed.

I don't tell them there is a God or a heaven or hell, I simply tell them that they have a potential to be in a hell or to be in a heaven. These are not geographical places but psychological states. And if you are in heaven you cannot do anything wrong, that is just impossible -- your very peace will become compassion, your very silence will become love, your actions will show your inner being.

So my teaching is basically individual -- the transformation of individual consciousness to more silent, blissful spaces. Then whatever happens to you, through you, from that space is virtue, is religiousness.

Surely these teachings need intelligent people to understand them. I cannot go to villagers and talk about these things; it will be simply wasting their time and my time.

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So whosoever is capable of understanding things of the highest order of consciousness, whether Eastern or Western, is bound to be attracted. Of course, more Western people will be attracted because more Western people are educated, know the taste of freedom, have a certain individuality, have a certain courage....

Everest is Indian, but it had to be conquered by Edmund Hillary. Nine hundred million Indians, only one Everest, but a man had to come from the West to conquer it. And he was not the first Western man; for fifty years continuously Western young people had been coming and many, almost all of them, died in the effort.

But that did not prevent them, they kept on coming, and finally one managed it.

You don't ask why an Indian did not reach the moon first, except in jokes. I have heard that when for the first time the American landed on the moon he was surprised to see a few Indians sitting there, smoking beedies. He asked them, "My God, how did you manage to get here?"

They said, "It is a simple matter. One Indian stands on another Indian, then another Indian, and this way we reached here. The question is, "How did you manage to get here?"

Except in jokes, you never ask why -- why not an Indian?

It is simple. For two thousand years we have been slaves. We have learned the ways of slavery. We have been conditioned to believe, and science starts with doubt; that is a gap which is unbridgeable -- you will have to drop believing and you will have to drop your slave mentality; you will have to come out of your past. Every Indian is carrying his load of past which is tremendous. He is dying under its weight but he thinks it is his treasure. He may be killed by it but he will not drop it.

The west for three hundred years has moved away into a totally new dimension. The day Gallileo declared that the earth is round and not flat as stated in the Holy Bible, was a turning point for the whole Western intelligence. Then Copernicus declared that the sun does not go around the earth but the earth goes around the sun. Whatever your religious scriptures say it does not matter, we will have to change the scriptures according to existence. We are going to listen to reality and not to all your old beliefs. It gave a turn to the whole Western mind.

Not a single Indian has spoken against the -- VEDAS or Rama or Krishna except me. And I am condemned because I have spoken against these people. Whatever I have said is so simple and so logical that there is no way to argue against it. You can throw stones and knives at me but those are not arguments.

In a public meeting in Nagpur, I said that I cannot accept Krishna as a perfect incarnation of God for the simple reason that he is a man who propagates a philosophy of violence. The whole GITA is a philosophy of violence. I am absolutely astounded that Gandhi went on reading Gita every morning, calling Gita his mother, and his philosophy was nonviolence. Gita is the purest philosophy of violence. If Gita has any connection it has connection with Friedrich Nietzsche and Adolf Hitler. Krishna, Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler -- that is the trinity. Not a single Gandhian has answered it and not a single follower of Krishna has answered it.

I said in the same talk that Krishna behaved very inhumanely. He had sixteen thousand wives and these were not virgin girls that he had married, these were married women who had husbands, children, families, and he simply snatched away any woman that he liked, any woman that was beautiful -- he simply forced that woman to his palace without bothering what happened to her family. And this man you call God? Then whom are you going to call devil?

The West has done its homework in these last three hundred years, they are ready for me. The East has not done its homework. It is not my fault; I am trying hard. And from the East the people who have intelligence and who have understanding and courage are joining me.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #15

Chapter title: None

29 December 1985 pm in Kulu/Manali, India

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Archive code: 8512295

ShortTitle: LAST515

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

Interview by UNITED NEWS OF INDIA, TIMES OF INDIA, and ALL INDIA RADIO.

DO YOU THINK THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA IS CREATING A SITUATION WHERE YOU

WOULD BE FORCED TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY? IS THIS PART OF AN INTERNATIONAL

CONSPIRACY AGAINST YOUR ORGANIZATION, AND WHAT STEPS DO YOU PROPOSE TO TAKE TO

MOBILIZE PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST IT?

India is my mother country, and a mother may be bad or good, alive or dead, but she is still the mother.

The Indian government should not force me to leave this country, for the simple reason that wherever I am in the world I am going to be a problem for the Indian government. The safest thing for the Indian government is that I should be here, and I have not seen any indications that they are trying to force me out.

Yes, I have seen that there is an international conspiracy to keep me as far away from my disciples as possible. For that, it's a good idea to keep me in India and refuse visas to all foreign disciples of mine. That's what is being done.

An international conspiracy cannot destroy my organization because there is no such thing in existence.

It is simply a movement. I am against organizations. But the conspiracy is there because my movement of sannyas is for the freedom of the individual, freedom of expression, freedom of movement around the world, because it is one world and we should not be debarred by political lines.

My movement is basically a process of deprogramming. Hence, all the religions are against it because the Christian or the Hindu or the Mohammedan entering my movement just becomes a human being. And as far as mobilizing the masses to fight against such a conspiracy, my movement is not a movement of the masses; it consists only of the intelligentsia. Why should I drag the masses into it? And I don't want it to be in any way violent or political. If anything has to be done against this conspiracy, it is just to expose it, and the exposure will be the end of it. Conspiracies cannot live in the light; they need darkness WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA DO SO THAT THE INDIAN PEOPLE CAN

BENEFIT FROM YOUR TEACHINGS?.

The first thing is that if the government of India really wants the people to be benefited by my teachings, they should make every effort that I should not have to leave the country.

Secondly, in case I have to go out of the country, they should make me available on all the news media to reach the masses in India. Right now it is not very democratic because eighty percent of the people cannot read. Only newspapers are in private hands, so that means that only twenty percent of the country has the benefit of freedom of expression.

The radio is the government's, and one hundred percent of people can hear; the television is the government's, and one hundred percent of people can see. If the government thinks really democratically then television and radio should not be under government control. The news media are such a force to protect the rights of the people that the government should not keep it under its own control. It needs guts, but a government has enough control and enough power already, so why should it be afraid? In fact, it should learn to give freedom to all methods of news in the hands of the people. It will be benefited by how people are thinking, what they are thinking, how many viewpoints there can be about one thing. The 1/08/07

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government will be benefited and the people will be immensely protected.

So I would like them to make the news media available to me as it is available throughout the world.

COULD YOU PLEASE CLARIFY FOR US YOUR CONCEPT OF NEO-SANNYAS, AS COMPARED TO

THE TRADITIONAL CONCEPT OF SANNYAS WHICH IS PREVALENT IN THIS COUNTRY?

The old sannyas means renunciation of life. It is anti-life. It is because of this anti-life attitude that India has remained a slave for two thousand years, has suffered all kinds of indignities, has remained the poorest nation in the world.

I blame all your religions for keeping India in such a miserable state because the moment you start thinking of renouncing life, you stop being creative. That's why, although we were the first in the world to invent mathematics, we could not produce an Albert Einstein. We should have produced an Albert Einstein nearly three thousand years ago, but this anti-life attitude that all is illusory, matter is illusory, the world is illusory, naturally created a climate in the country that was very uncreative.

We were the first in the whole world to discover the science of astronomy, but the "anti" attitude stopped it. What is the point of learning about the stars? -- it is all illusory. We were the first to develop surgery and invent surgical instruments, and yet we could not develop a medical science. Naturally, the body is something you have to be against. So on the one hand it destroyed India's intelligence; on the other hand it created a false kind of contentment in every misery, every suffering, poverty, disease, sickness, old age, death. That's why we have suffered so much but have not been able to go through a real authentic revolution.

So I am absolutely against the old idea of sannyas. My vision of sannyas is just the opposite of the old.

The old is renunciation of life; my sannyas is rejoicing in life, but rejoicing in such a way that you still remain aloof -- dancing, but deep down inside you there is a center, unmoving. In other words, you should be in the world but the world should not be in you.

There is a certain relationship between the ancient tradition of tantra and my philosophy. Tantra is perhaps the only tradition in the whole universe which accepts man in his totality, which does not condemn anything but, on the contrary, tries to transform everything to higher levels of being.

Man is born of sex: his every cell is full of sexual energy. The more sexual a man, the greater the possibility of him being creative. For example, you cannot find in the whole history of man a single impotent man becoming self-realized or becoming a great painter or musician or dancer or scientist or poet.

It is strange that we have ignored the question of why the impotent man has never been creative. Certainly he is missing creative energy. And the whole credit for answering the question goes to tantra. Almost five thousand years ago it recognized sex as the basic energy of man and it discovered almost everything about sexual energy.

If it moves downwards -- that is, if it is moving with instincts and biology -- then it reproduces life. It is not committing a sin, it produces children. Otherwise we would not be here. It is good that our forefathers did not listen to the idiots who were teaching against sex. Otherwise none of us would have had any possibility of being here. But they did not listen to them, so life continues.

Those who have listened to them have become monks, nuns -- they have created all kinds of perversions. Homosexuality was born in monasteries -- Buddhist, Christian, Jaina, Hindu -- because you cannot change something natural just by taking a vow of celibacy. Your biology does not listen to your vow; it does not know that you have become a celibate. It goes on producing sexual energy and that sexual energy needs expression. And all the religions took people away from life, closed them in monasteries, separated man from woman, and naturally created the situation where sooner or later women will become lesbians, men will become homosexuals.

And now the ultimate result has come -- AIDS. I call all the religions responsible for it. And all the governments are responsible for it because they have not created a law against celibacy. Celibacy should be a crime! Anything against nature should be a crime.

Tantra says that energy moving downwards is reproductive of children -- nothing is wrong in it; but the same energy can do much more, it can move upwards too. And there are simple meditations in which the sexual energy starts turning upwards. There is recent research that our sexual center is not in the genitals, it is in the mind. So if the energy starts turning towards the mind it again creates something, it creates a new man out of you, it makes you luminous, it makes you tremendously blissful and, ultimately, it brings you to 1/08/07

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the point where you can experience the meaning of life.

I am simply astounded that five thousand years before there were people in this country of such tremendously revolutionary minds. If I am condemned even now, what must have happened to those people? And tantra is not my only teaching, it is just a drop in the ocean. Tantra was their whole teaching.

But it seems that before Buddha and Mahavira, India had a respect for exploration, for the unknown, for people who bring new facts of life to light. Before Buddha and Mahavira sannyas was exactly what I am making it now, it was life affirmative.

The seers and the rishis of the UPANISHADS were all married people, they had children, they were not celibates and they had not renounced life. They had all the comforts in the GURUKULAS for themselves, for their students.

But Buddha and Mahavira created a tremendous calamity for the country. These two persons I respect in many ways but I cannot forgive them for giving the idea of a sannyas which is anti-life.

And as these two people gave the anti-life idea of sannyas, Hindus followed suit because their sannyasins started looking poor. In comparison to a Buddhist monk or a Jaina monk, the Hindu sannyasins started questionning having a wife and children and a house -- so what is the difference between him and another ordinary household man? Those other people are real saints. So that gave a turn to the Hindu mind also, that the Hindu sannyasin had to become a celibate; and Shankaracharya is responsible for it.

These three names I cannot forgive: Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Shankaracharya. These three people, unknowingly, have proven the greatest enemies of this country. My whole effort is to restore a beautiful idea of sannyas that was alive in the days of Upanishads, in the days of VEDAS. But so much time has passed that whatever I say looks as if it is new. In fact, truth is never new, never old, it is always the same. It has to be discovered again and again -- if you lose track of it, it has to be discovered again.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #16

Chapter title: None

30 December 1985 am in Kulu/Manali, India

Archive code: 8512300

ShortTitle: LAST516

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

INTERVIEW BY AAJ KA ANAND

WITH GAUTAM BUDDHA RELIGION TOOK A QUANTUM LEAP. GOD BECAME MEANINGLESS

AND ONLY MEDITATION WAS IMPORTANT. NOW, TWENTY-FIVE CENTURIES AFTER BUDDHA, AGAIN RELIGION IS TAKING THE QUANTUM LEAP IN YOUR PRESENCE AND BECOMING

RELIGIOUSNESS. PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS PHENOMENON.

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because nowhere in the whole world had it ever been conceived that religion could exist without God.

God has been an essential part -- the center -- of all the religions: Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism. But to make God the center of religion makes man just the periphery. To conceive of God as the creator of the world makes man only a puppet.

That's why in Hebrew, which is the language of Judaism, man is called Adam. 'Adam' means mud. In Arabic man is called 'admi'; it is from Adam, again it means mud. In English, which has become the language of Christianity by and large, the word human comes from 'humus' and humus means mud.

Naturally if God is the creator he has to create from something. He has to make man like a statue, so first he makes man with mud and then breathes life into him. But if this is so man loses all dignity, and if God is the creator of man and everything else, the whole idea is whimsical because what has he been doing for eternity before he created man and the universe?

According to Christianity he created man only four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. So what was he doing all along through eternity? So it seems whimsical. There cannot be any cause, because to have a cause for which God had to create existence means there are powers higher than God, there are causes which can make him create. Or there is a possibility that suddenly desire arose in him. That too is not very philosophically sound, because for eternity he was desireless. And to be desireless is so blissful that it is impossible to conceive that out of an experience of eternal blissfulness a desire arises in him to create the world. Desire is desire, whether you want to make a house or become the prime minister or create the world.

And God cannot be conceived as having desires. So the only thing that remains is that he is whimsical, eccentric. Then there is no need for cause and no need for desire -- just a whim.

But if this whole existence is just out of a whim it loses all meaning, all significance. And tomorrow another whim may arise in him to destroy, to dissolve the whole universe. So we are simply puppets in the hands of a dictatorial god who has all the powers but who has not a sane mind, who is whimsical.

To conceive this five thousand years ago Adinatha must have been a very deep meditator, contemplative, and he must have come to the conclusion that with God there is no meaning in the world. If we want meaning in the world then God has to be disposed of. He must have been a man of tremendous courage. People are still worshipping in the churches, in the synagogues, in the temples; yet that man Adinatha five thousand years before us came to a very clear-cut scientific conclusion that there is nothing higher than man and any evolution that is going to happen is within man and in his consciousness.

This was the first quantum leap -- God was disposed of.

Adinatha is the first master of Jainism. The credit does not go to Buddha because Buddha comes twenty-five centuries later than Adinatha. But another credit goes to Buddha. Adinatha disposed of God but could not manage to put meditation in its place. On the contrary, he created asceticism, austerities, torturing the body, fasting, remaining naked, eating only once a day, not drinking in the night, not eating in the night, eating only certain foods. He had come to a beautiful philosophical conclusion but it seems the conclusion was only philosophical, it was not meditational.

When you depose God you cannot have any ritual, you cannot have worship, you cannot have prayer; something has to be substituted. He substituted austerities, because man became the center of his religion and man has to purify himself. Purity in his conception was that man has to detach himself from the world, has to detach himself from his own body. This distorted the whole thing. He had come to a very significant conclusion, but it remained only a philosophical concept.

Adinatha disposed of God but left a vacuum, and Buddha filled it with meditation. Adinatha made a godless religion, Buddha made a meditative religion.

Meditation is Buddha's contribution. The question is not to torture the body; the question is to become more silent, to become more relaxed, to become more peaceful. It is an inward journey to reach to one's own center of consciousness, and the center of one's own consciousness is the center of the whole existence.

Twenty-five centuries have again passed. Just as Adinatha's revolutionary concept of godless religion got lost in a desert of austerities and self-torture, Buddha's idea of meditation -- something inner, that nobody else can see ; only you know where you are, only you know whether you are progressing or not --

got lost into another desert, and that was organized religion.

Religion says that single individuals cannot be trusted, whether they are meditating or not. They need communities, masters, monasteries where they can live together. Those who are on a higher level of consciousness can watch over others and help them. It became essential that religions should not be left in the hands of individuals, they should be organized and should be in the hands of those who have arrived at a high point of meditation.

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In the beginning it was good; while Buddha was alive there were many people who reached self-realization, enlightenment. But as Buddha died and these people died, the very organization that was supposed to help people to meditate fell in the hands of a priesthood, and rather than helping you to meditate they started creating rituals around the image of Buddha. Buddha became another God. Adinatha disposed of God, Buddha never accepted that God exists, but this priesthood cannot exist without a God. So there may not be a God who is a creator, but Buddha has reached godhood.

For others the only thing is to worship Buddha, to have faith in Buddha, to follow the principles of Buddha, to live life according to his doctrine; and Buddha got lost in the organization, the imitation. But they all forgot the basic thing which was meditation. My whole effort is to create a religionless religion. We have seen what happened to religions which have God as the center. We have seen what happened to Adinatha's revolutionary concept, godless religion. We have seen what happened to Buddha -- organized religion without God.

Now my effort is: just as they dissolved God, dissolve religion also. Leave only meditation so it cannot be forgotten in any way. There is nothing else to replace it. There is no God and there is no religion. By religion I mean an organized doctrine, creed, ritual, priesthood. And for the first time I want religion to be absolutely individual, because all organized religions, whether with God or without God, have misled humanity. And the sole cause has been organization, because organization has its own ways which go against meditativeness. Organization is really a political phenomenon, it is not religious. It is another way of power and will to power.

Now every Christian priest hopes some day to become a bishop at least, to become a cardinal, to become a pope. This is a new hierarchy, a new bureaucracy, and because it is spiritual nobody objects. You may be a bishop, you may be a pope, you may be anything. It is not objectionable because you are not going to obstruct anybody's life. It is just an abstract idea.

My effort is to destroy the priesthood completely. It remained with God, it remained with godless religion, now the only way is that we should dispose of God and religion both so that there is no possibility of any priesthood.

Then man is absolutely free, totally responsible for his own growth. My feeling is that the more a man is responsible for his own growth, the more difficult it is for him to postpone it for long. Because it means if you are miserable, you are responsible. If you are tense, you are responsible. If you are not relaxed, you are responsible. If you are in suffering, you are the cause of it. There is no God, there is no priesthood that you can go to and ask for some ritual. You are left alone with your misery, and nobody wants to be miserable.

The priests go on giving you opium, they go on giving you hope, "Don't be worried, it is just a test of your faith, of your trust; and if you can pass through this misery and suffering silently and patiently, in the other world beyond death you will be immensely rewarded." If there is no priesthood you have to understand that whatever you are, you are responsible for it, nobody else.

And the feeling that "I am responsible for my misery," opens the door. Then you start looking for methods and means to get out of this miserable state, and that's what meditation is. It is simply the opposite state of misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety. It is a state of a peaceful, blissful flowering of being, so silent and so timeless that you cannot conceive that anything better is possible. And there is nothing which is better than the state of a meditative mind.

So you can say these are the three quantum leaps: Adinatha drops God because he finds God is becoming too heavy on man; rather than helping him in his growth he has become a burden -- but he forgets to replace him with something. Man will need something in his miserable moments, in his suffering.

He used to pray to God. You have taken God away, you have taken his prayer away and now when he will be miserable, what will he do? In Jainism meditation has no place.

It is Buddha's insight to see that God has been dropped; now the gap should be filled, otherwise the gap will destroy man. He puts in meditation -- something really authentic which can change the whole being.

But he was not aware -- perhaps he could not be aware because there are things you cannot be aware of unless they happen -- that there should be no organization, that there should be no priesthood, that as God is gone religion should also be gone. But he can be forgiven because he had not thought about it and there was no past to help him to see it, it came after him.

The real problem is the priest, and God is the invention of the priest. Unless you drop the priest, you can drop God, but the priest will always find new rituals, he will create new gods.

My effort is to leave you alone with meditation, with no mediator between you and existence. When you are not in meditation you are separated from existence and that is your suffering. It's the same as when you 1/08/07

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take a fish out of the ocean and throw it on the bank -- the misery and the suffering and the tortures he goes through, the hankering and the effort to reach back to the ocean because it is where he belongs, he is part of the ocean and he cannot remain apart.

Any suffering is simply indicative that you are not in communion with existence, that the fish is not in the ocean.

Meditation is nothing but withdrawing all the barriers, thoughts, emotions, sentiments, which create a wall between you and existence. The moment they drop you suddenly find yourself in tune with the whole; not only in tune, you really find you are the whole.

When a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the ocean it does not find that it is part of the ocean, it finds it is the ocean. And to find it is the ultimate goal, the ultimate realization, there is nothing beyond it.

So Adinatha dropped God but did not drop organization. And because there was no God, the organization created rituals.

Buddha, seeing what had happened to Jainism, that it had become a ritualism, dropped God. He dropped all rituals and single-pointedly insisted on meditation, but he forgot that the priests who had made rituals in Jainism are going to do the same with meditation. And they did it, they made Buddha himself a God. They talk about meditation but basically Buddhists are worshipers of Buddha -- they go to the temple and instead of Krishna or Christ there is Buddha's statue. There was no statue of Buddha for five hundred years after Buddha. In Buddhist temples they had just the tree under which Buddha became enlightened, engraved on marble, just a symbol. Buddha was not there, only the tree.

You will be surprised that the statue of Buddha that we see today has no resemblance at all to Buddha's personality, it resembles the personality of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great came to India three hundred years after Buddha. Till then there was no statue of Buddha. The priests were in search because there was no photograph, there was no painting, so how to make a statue of Buddha? And Alexander's face looked really superhuman, he had a beautiful personality, the Greek face and physiology; they picked up the idea of Buddha's face and body from Alexander. So all the statues that are being worshipped in Buddhist temples are statues of Alexander the Great, they have nothing to do with Buddha. But the priests had to create the statue -- God was not there, ritual was difficult, around meditation ritual was difficult. They created a statue and they started saying -- in the same way all religions have been doing -- have faith in Buddha, have trust in Buddha, and you will be saved.

Both the revolutions were lost. I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest, you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is.

It is said that every morning Lao Tzu used to go for a walk in the hills. One friend asked him, "Can I come with you one day? I would particularly like to come tomorrow, because I have a guest who is very much interested in you, and he will be immensely glad to have the opportunity to be with you for two hours in the mountains."

Lao Tzu said, "I have no objection, just one simple thing has to be remembered. I don't want anything to be said because I have my eyes, you have your eyes, he has his eyes, we can see. There is no need to say anything."

The friend agreed, but on the way when the sun started rising the guest forgot. It was so beautiful by the side of the lake, the reflection of all the colors, the birds singing and the lotuses blossoming, opening, he could not resist, he forgot. He said, "What a beautiful sunrise."

His host was shocked because he has broken the condition. Lao Tzu did not say anything, nothing was said there. Back home he called his friend and told him, "Don't bring your guest again. He is too talkative.

The sunrise was there, I was there, he was there, you were there -- what is the need to say anything, any comment, any interpretation?"

And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization.

I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way.

So all things can be removed. Now all that has been left to you is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence. The word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to call it just a simple, innocent silence and existence opens all its beauties to you.

And as it goes on growing you go on growing, and there comes a moment when you have reached the 1/08/07

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very peak of your potentiality -- you can call it Buddhahood, enlightenment, bhagwatta, godliness, whatever, it has no name, so any name will do.

MILLIONS OF SANNYASINS ARE SHARING YOUR LOVE AND JOY. WHAT MAKES A PERSON GET

INITIATED INTO SANNYAS? HOW DOES THIS MIRACLE HAPPEN?

It is certainly a miracle, but its happening is very simple.

In the past there was no exact word to explain it, but by a coincidence Carl Gustav Jung, one of the greatest psychologists of this age, coined a word because he came across an experience for which there was no word.

He was staying in an old mansion which had two big wall clocks and it was known that they always showed the same time. It was also known that even if you changed one, soon they again got in tune with each other and started showing the same time. He tried twice, thrice to change one clock five minutes ahead and soon he found that both the clocks had managed somehow, and just at the middle -- two and a half minutes -- again to show the same time. He was puzzled about what was happening. Because he had a scientific mind he tried to figure it out. He listened to the wall, he went around the clocks and he found the reason -- both the clocks were very old and very heavy and very big and they created a certain sound and certain sound waves and those sound waves helped them to come to a similar time. Those sound waves could not remain discordant; they fell into accordance slowly. He had to discover, the whole night he could not sleep and he discovered something he called 'synchronicity.'

It is non-causal. We know in the world only one thing; that something causes, then something happens.

If there is no cause then there is no effect. So the world knows only one way of things happening: a cause leads to an effect. This is the causal relationship.

The whole scientific world is based on the causal relationship. Synchronicity has no place in it. But in human life everybody who is a little alert may have found it -- you were sad and just then came a friend laughing, joyous, hugging you, telling you a joke, and you forgot your sadness and you started laughing with him.

It can happen the other way also: your sadness may be so heavy that the man who is coming laughing, seeing you may stop laughing. Your sadness may have such an impact that it will be impossible to tell a joke to you; it will look almost inhuman, out of context, because you are so sad and the person is telling a joke. The joke also needs a certain context which is missing.

You shake hands with a friend and you find he is almost dead, like a dead branch of a tree, that nothing flows -- no warmth, no love, just a ritual. But shaking hands with another friend you feel immensely enriched, something flows, some warmth, some love. After shaking hands you can certainly say that you are not the same man as you were before shaking hands with the friend: you were dull, you were sad, but just a touch of his hand and his joy has triggered something in you.

Now this cannot be explained by cause and effect; it can be explained only by a new law, the law of synchronicity. And that's what initiation is. A man of silence, a man of joy, a man of bliss attracts you.

Perhaps you may not even be aware that he attracts you, that somehow you want to be with him, that you want to sit with him, that you want to talk with him. His being is creating some synchronicity in you. Your heart starts beating with a different rhythm.

These millions of sannyasins. I have nothing else to offer to them. If they become Catholics, Catholicism has much to offer them. If they are converted to another religion, that religion may offer them something. It is a known fact that anybody changing his religion always gets tremendous respect in the new religion. He is condemned by the old religion that he has left behind, but he is respected very much by the new religion because he has proved that the new religion is better than the old.

I used to know a very old Jaina monk. He was not a Jaina by birth, he was a carpenter by birth. The carpenter is a lower class in Hinduism but somehow because he was making some wooden statues of Mahavira in a temple he became interested in Jainism, and finally he became a Jaina. He was very much condemned by the Hindus but it meant nothing because he was already a low-caste person, already condemned -- you cannot condemn him more. But in Jainism he was raised to a very high level of sainthood. Other Jaina saints became smaller. This carpenter became a very respected saint.

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respected so much.

Then I figured out the reason why he is being so much respected: because to the Jainas it has proved one thing, that Jainism is a higher religion than Hinduism. This man is a proof. No Jaina has ever been converted to Hinduism, but many Hindus have been converted to Jainism and this is a proof.

He did not speak much, he had nothing to say, but just because he had come from another religion, he had immense respect. I told him one day, that "You should not remain in the illusion that this respect is for you."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I mean this respect is simply because you were not born a Jaina. This respect is simply to show to the world that Jainism is a far higher religion than Hinduism, otherwise why should a Hindu, on his own, get converted to Jainism?" I said to him, "You can try. You go back to Hinduism. All the condemnation that Hindus have for you will drop. They will respect you. They have never respected any carpenter, but they will respect you because they will say "Now this proves certainly that Hinduism is a higher religion because a man has been in both the religions and finally he decides to be a Hindu and drops all saintliness and all great respect." And then, you will see, these same Jainas will condemn you, will say lies against you, will create allegations against you."

The man was simple. He said, "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am living in an illusion."

I said, "If you understand that then your growth will not stop. It does not matter what you are -- Hindu or Jaina or Buddhist -- that doesn't matter. Remember the basic work, just don't get lost into all kinds of illusions which happen in life."

The sannyasins who are coming to me, I have nothing to offer to them. In fact, they will be condemned by their societies, by their religions. They will be condemned by their families, by their friends. They are not going to gain anything, they are going to lose much. But still something in their hearts starts moving -- it is beyond the control of their mind. In spite of themselves they become sannyasins.

It takes time. For a time there is a conflict between their hearts and their minds. The mind is trying to pull them back, telling them to remain where they were, giving all the arguments that they will be simply a loser and will not gain anything. But sooner or later the mind must lose. If there is something that is pulling your heart, mind can fight for a time but cannot win.

So I say sannyas is just like falling in love. It is a synchronicity. You simply find that something indefinable, unnameable joins you with me and you want it to be declared to the world. That is initiation.

Initiation is simply a declaration that I am not going to keep it to myself, that I have come in contact with a new force, with a new energy, with a new love, with a fresh world. I am going to declare it to the world whatsoever the cost.

And although sannyasins will have to suffer, will be persecuted, will be condemned, still they will have a joy that their persecutors cannot have. They will have a silence which their condemners cannot have. And it is spreading like wildfire, with no organization, with no preachers, with no missionaries, with nobody continuously harassing you with the Bible.

I have never converted anybody and I have insisted to my people that they never convert anybody. But if somebody wants to be a friend, our doors are open and he is welcome.

Initiation is simply your gesture that you want to come in and our gesture that you are welcome. It is certainly a miracle, and particularly with me, because neither can I give you anything in this life nor can I promise you anything in other lives. I don't have any opium for anybody.

But I can make this very moment a tremendously beautiful moment, without giving anything to you, without anything visible passing from my hands to you.

But there are invisible things. We accept x-rays without any trouble, why can't we accept that love also has its own rays and silence has its own rays, its own radiation.

And of course, enlightenment has a tremendous force to transform a person. It is a miracle.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #17

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Chapter title: None

3 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601035

ShortTitle: LAST517

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH BBC & API

INTRODUCER: Mr Benare(*) who Acharya (inaudible), and Mr Kedamasingh(*) from BBC and AFP, and Mr Lalit Josi(*) from France(*) PTI.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU WENT TO UNITED STATES WITH ALL THE DETERMINEDNESS TO SETTLE

DOWN AND YOU HAVE COME BACK. DO YOU FIND THE (INAUDIBLE) SOME TIME IN FUTURE TO

SEE SANNYASIS AND THE DISCIPLES?

A: I have never gone there with a determined or undetermined intention to settle. It was just a coincidence that American sannyasins were looking for a land to create a commune of their own and my health was not good, I had gone just for my health reasons. And my health problems are such they don't need any medical care, they need only controlled environment. For example, I have many allergies: perfume, smoke, dust. If they can be avoided then I am perfectly happy, there is no problem. If they cannot be avoided then my breathing is affected and I have asthma attacks. There is no cure for allergies.

The same way humidity affects, if humidity is too much then again asthma starts and it is a very severe attack -- whole night, then sleep is impossible. I am just coughing and tossing and turning. So I need a certain climate which is cold, non-humid and by chance my people had found a place which suited to me very much. It was a desert, that's why they could get it. Otherwise to find such a big place was almost impossible. It was one hundred twenty-six square miles and because it was a desert, nobody was ready to purchase it. For fifty years it was on sale and not a single offer came. So it was very easy for them to get it.

And to me it suited very much -- it was non-humid, it was cold, very small rain, very small smoke, that too dry and cold. Living there for one and half year my all symptoms disappeared. It was at that point that I asked the American government for permanent residence. But I have not gone with the intention to settle there.

My people are all over the world and I have communes almost in every country. The Americans were trying to have their own commune; this was their commune, I was there simply guest.

But the government and behind the government, Christianity, both became very disturbed by my presence and the sannyasins. The government was disturbed because we created a certain kind of far higher communism than exists in Soviet Union by simply removing money from the commune. That in the commune nobody can purchase anything. All your needs will be fulfilled by the commune. You can donate to the commune but you cannot purchase anything in the commune.

And we were an island far away. The closest town was thirty miles. So once the exchange status of money was removed... you may have millions of dollars and I may not have a single dollar -- you are not rich and I am not poor. We are in the same space and in the same boat. You are unnecessarily loaded for your, with your money which cannot purchase any single thing and whatever you can get from the commune, I can get from the commune.

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of any sort, just by removing the money inside the commune, suddenly there was nobody poor, nobody rich.

This created certainly a trouble in the American politician's mind. People started coming to see the commune, how people are happy, how people are healthy, and how they have managed the desert to become an oasis. We were creating our own food, our vegetables, our fruits, we had our greenhouses, we had our own milk product. There were five thousand sannyasins, not a single beggar. In fact, two hundred American beggars had joined us and we had accepted them and they felt for the first time that they are being treated as human beings. Otherwise, they were treated as dogs.

It is thought in the world America has created an image that it is the richest country but there are thirty million beggars in America who are on the streets without clothes, without food, without house.

The American politician's fear was that slowly, slowly news media started coming: television, radio, newspapers and visitor started coming just to see that what has happened and why these people are so happy. Because my basic teaching is meditation so people started the day by meditation, then there was a talk by me -- any question anybody asked, then they go for their different works, then a single kitchen for five thousand people -- a scene worth seeing because just fifteen people can manage five thousand people's kitchen and we are wasting millions of women's energy and life just in kitchens. And these fifteen people were chosen as the best cooks, so our people were having the best food possible.

One of the greatest problems for vegetarians... because I am a vegetarian and my sannyasins are vegetarians. One of the problems has been, which vegetarians have no answers to the non-vegetarian, that

"Why not a single vegetarian has been able to achieve a Nobel prize? Why not a single vegetarian has been discovered something, invented something, why they are intellectually far behind than the non-vegetarian?"

And it is a truth. You cannot deny it. Forty percent of the Nobel prizes go to the Jews, the three Nobel prizes that have come to India were not for people who were vegetarians. All the three persons were non-vegetarians.

It is found that the vegetarian food lacks few proteins which are absolutely necessary for intelligence to grow. So I had added non-fertilized eggs in the vegetarian food as essential. The non-fertilized egg has no life so you are not killing, it is almost vegetable, but it fulfills all the needs. So I angered the vegetarians because to them just the name ègg' is enough to get angry with me. I angered the non-vegetarians because I destroyed their basic argument that man has to remain non-vegetarian otherwise he will lose all intelligence.

Now there is no need for man to remain non-vegetarian. If a non-fertilized egg can fulfill all the demands that the body and the mind needs then there is no need to kill any living being just for food. It is ugly, inhuman, anaesthetic, insensitive.

So all kinds of people, for example, Christians were angry because I was turning their people into vegetarians. That I was teaching to my people that alcohol is also a drug, just as marijuana is or L.S.D. is. In Christian countries you make marijuana and L.S.D. illegal, crimes... thousands of young people are suffering in jails, but alcohol is not crime because Jesus was drinking alcohol. That does not make it religious, it is as much a crime as any other. Either make every drug available to people or stop alcohol also.

But Christian mind cannot conceive Christ committing a crime. And when I said it, that "It is a crime, not only a crime, but Christians say that `Christ changed water into wine,' that is even more criminal. If somebody is changing water into wine, this man should be locked up."

I was stating simple facts, nobody answered them but they became angry. The politicians were angry because in a communist world I have created a small commune against capitalism. In a Christian world I had created a small oasis of people who did not belong to any organized religion but who were simply religious. My approach is that a scientific man is simply scientific, he is not Hindu scientific, he is not Mohammedan scientific, he is simply scientific. And a religious man is also simply religious. The moment you put an adjective to it you destroy its beauty, its quality -- you bring it down from its great heights.

These things created in their minds and they could not find any logical or legal way to destroy the commune. They became so drastic that they arrested me without any arrest warrant, without even showing me a cause why they are arresting me. They are talking about a democratic, freedom of the individual, respect for the individual and this is the respect for the individual -- that you don't even show him the cause why he is being handcuffed, chained, taken into prison, and if I ask anything the answer is the gun. Twelve guns around me, no answer. And for twelve days they dragged me into, from one jail to another jail, constantly lying that they are taking me to the airport -- and they will take me to another jail.

I asked them, that "If you want to keep me in jail you can keep me in one jail, what is the need... because all your jails are similar. If you want to torture me you can torture anywhere, but I know your trouble because the whole world knows I am in the jail and if something happens to me here then you will be 1/08/07

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condemned. So you want to take me to some place that nobody knows."

But the press helped immensely and I came to understand for the first time that against the powers of undemocratic governments the press is the only security for individuals who have no power. The whole press was surrounding their jails, twenty-four hours. In a jail they even tried to force me to change my name. I said, "For what? Because this is absolutely illegal." They wanted me to sign under David Washington. I said, "This is absolutely absurd and you are U.S. marshall. On your coat is written Department of Justice but I don't see what justice is this and under what law it comes that I should sign under a name which is not mine and I can see your point that you are putting in jail David Washington and you can kill me and nobody will be able to find out what happened to me, where I disappeared, because there will be no record at all. In your files there will be David Washington. I cannot write it. But if you want, you write in your own handwriting."

He had to write because he had to go, otherwise he had to sit with me the whole night. So he had to write.

I said, "You write in your own handwriting, David Washington, and everything fill it.... I will simply sign it." I signed it and I always sign in Hindi.

He looked at it, he could not understand, he said, "What it is?"

I said, "It must be David Washington. I don't know. But this is my sign and you should remember that if anything happens to me this sign will prove that David Washington was not David Washington."

Within three hours they changed my jail again because their policy went wrong. Immediately the press came to know that they have forced me to sign under a false name.

They knew it perfectly that they have nothing against me so they tried to reach the court which was only eight hours from the place where they had arrested me. It took twelve days, that eight hour journey... took twelve days, five jails and all kinds of harassment because they knew all my allergies, so they will create every possibility for me to be affected.

They kept me with people who were having dangerous diseases so I can get infected. People who have been living alone for six months and the doctor has not allowed anybody else to be their inmates... they forced me to live with those people. Those people themselves told me that, "Bhagwan, this is absolutely unjust and we are suffering from a certain disease...."

One man was suffering from confirmed herpes and he was dying and he said to me, that "I have been living here alone and without telling you anything they have... and the doctor was present here and the jailer was present and the marshall was present here and they all know it. And you had, they have forced you to live here and this is very infectious disease. And once you get it, you cannot get rid of it."

They knew that it was difficult to prove but how long you can keep me from the whole world news media. They were pressurized that I should be brought to court immediately, as quickly as possible. Finally they had to bring me to the court and in the court they knew that they have nothing to prove against me. So they played a very fascist strategy. They asked my attorneys for negotiation. My attorney said, that "There is no question of negotiations. The man is absolutely innocent. Why we should be negotiating? We should go for a trial, let the judge decide."

But they said, "It will be easier for you and easier for us without trial, we can negotiate." And the negotiation was tricky. The negotiation was: "that if Bhagwan accepts that he is guilty, then we will drop the case, and the court will give him a nominal punishment that for five years you cannot enter America. If he does not accept guilt and he says, Ì am not guilty,' then we are not going to give bail on any account.

The whole government is determined, five million dollars, ten million dollars, fifteen million dollars -- no amount of money... we are not going to give a bail. Bhagwan will remain in jail as long as the trial continues and the trial can continue for five years, for ten years, for fifteen years, because it is in our hands

-- how to go on postponing, changing courts."

They made it clear that they have no case. My attorneys came to me with tears in their eyes, the best attorneys of America, and they said, that "We have never been in such a dilemma. They have proposed a negotiation which is absolutely illegal, ugly, inhuman. And they have made it clear that they don't have any case but they want to punish you. At least they want you to accept that you are guilty, so nobody can say that they arrested you and you were an innocent person. And the problem is: if you don't accept it they may prolong the case as long as they want. If eight hours' journey can be prolonged to twelve days, how long they can prolong the case, we don't know and how much strategy they can play into it -- difficult to say.

They will torture you. They can kill you in these ten years. Your whole commune will be in torture, in mental anguish. Your all the sannyasins around the world will be suffering, so we pray you that you simply 1/08/07

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accept that you are guilty and let this be finished because the government seems to be adamant."

I accepted in the court that I am guilty. And without saying to me, they imposed a fine of four hundred thousand million dollars. That was not part of the negotiations at all. And five years I cannot enter America.

I told the judge that, "You need not be so lenient with me. You can make it that in my whole life, at least in this life, I cannot enter America because even if you want, I will not enter America."

And I told the U.S. attorney before I left the court, that "The way you have behaved you have forced me, under oath of speaking only truth and nothing but truth, you have forced me to lie. And then upon that lie you have imposed half a million dollars punishment and five years' punishment to remain outside America.

But I am going outside America; I am not going to be silent, I am going to say to the whole world that this is the way your so-called democracies work. Their faces are just masks, inside they are all fascist. And whenever they come against a person whom they cannot answer, then they start in a desperate way to destroy him."

And I was warned by my attorneys that "Be careful when you go to jail."

I said, "What is the problem? Just to take my clothes..." when I was released by the court. And it was true, what they have heard was found true. When I went into jail the whole ground floor was empty which had never been. There were so many people working, the whole staff. There were not a single person.

I inquired the man who was taking me in, "What is the reason why everybody is absent?"

He said, "Perhaps shifts are changing."

But I said, "I have been in twelve days, shifts have been changed all the twelve days. First the person comes, then the older person leaves. The whole shift has gone, the new shift is not here? It is little suspicious."

He said, "Nothing, there is nothing suspicious."

But he was nervous, he was perspiring. And I said, "Why you are nervous and why you are perspiring?"

He left me in a room with a man who was also alone, to give me my clothes and things. That man was shaking and trembling. I said, "What is the matter? What has happened to the jail today?"

He said, "I have to take the signature of my boss so I will have to go out." This was for the first time in twelve days they have left me alone. Otherwise always two persons with guns were with me. I was chained, my legs were chained, my waist was chained, still there were two people with loaded guns. This was the only time... he left me alone.

After fifteen minutes he came back, gave me the packet, took my signature. I found out that there was no question of anybody's answer, anybody's question or anybody's signature -- only your signature that you have received your things, that was all. There was no question of any boss to signing it. And no boss has signed it.

But the reality is they had put a bomb in that room but it was a timebomb and they were not certain when the court is going to finish. Otherwise their final aim was that if the court leaves me, then the bomb can finish me. And who can put the bomb in a jail inside in a room, except the authorities, except people who are in power, no ordinary person can even reach there!

And these people go on talking about respect for the individual and freedom of the individual.

American experience has been of tremendous value to me that we have yet to be civilized, that civilization and democracy have not yet happened. They have to happen, they are still dreams.

Q: WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED A MESSAGE FROM NEW DELHI SAYING, INDICATING THE

POSSIBILITY OF YOUR NOT RETURNING TO INDIA. YOU MAY GO SOMEWHERE ELSE FROM

NEPAL?

A: That's absolutely wrong(?)(or right??)

Q: YOUR DISCIPLES WHO CAME TO RECEIVE YOU AT THE AIRPORT DISPLAYED THEIR

PLACARDS READING ÌN THE LINE OF BUDDHA, A NEW BUDDHA IS WELCOME.' WHICH MEANS

THEY CONSIDER YOU AS NEW BUDDHA. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AS A REINCARNATION

OF BUDDHA, OR NEW BUDDHA?

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A: No. If it true that Nepal is the land of Buddha and India has not been right to claim itself the land of Buddha. That privilege and prestige belongs to Nepal.

And `buddha' simply means the awakened one. It is not a personal name.

I am not anybody's incarnation. I am myself. But I am as much awakened as it is possible for human being to be.

So it is perfectly right if somebody calls me àbuddha.' There is nothing wrong in it. And it will be good to come from India to Nepal to pay a visit to the land of Buddha who has been cunningly claimed by India as India's son, which is not true.

Q: BHAGWAN, IS IT CORRECT THAT YOU OWE THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA SOME TAXES?

A: No. Because I don't have any income, how can I have any taxation? I don't have any belongings, no property, no bank account. I am the poorest man in the world. Of course, with richest friends!

So everything that I have belongs to my friends, nothing belongs to me.

So if any taxation is to be paid, it is to be paid by my friends, not by me.

I am simply keep out of law and legalities.

(Transcriber's note: Side A ends abruptly before end of tape. No overlap with Tape side B. There does seem to be a question missing.)

A: .... in Fiji.

But I have communes all over the world. I have a commune in Nepal already and I will not have any commune again in which I will be living. I will be having only a small residence with facilities for few friends to come and visit me.

So from all over the world people can come and visit me.

Q: WHERE?

A: Either in India or in Nepal.

Q: BHAGWAN, DID YOU THINK (INAUDIBLE) NEPAL IS THE BEST PLACE FOR YOU TO SETTLE

BECAUSE IT IS A HINDU KINGDOM AND VERY PEACEFUL LIFE AND NOT MUCH OF POLITICS(*) AND PROBLEMS AND WEATHER IS ALSO NOT SO COLD AND NOT MUCH OF HUMIDITY?

A: These are considerations are there. And I love the Himalayas, particularly the part that falls under Nepal.

So either I will have a place in the Himalayas here or in the Himalayas in India. In fact, it is the Himalayas where I will be residing. Where that Himalayas falls in is not my much concern. Those are political lines. Neither Himalaya believes in them nor I believe in them.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #18

Chapter title: None

4 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

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Archive code: 8601045

ShortTitle: LAST518

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

GENERAL PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: BHAGWAN, THE QUESTION I WANT TO ASK YOU IS, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR

VISIT? WAS IT PRE-PLANNED, OR JUST SPONTANEOUS?

A: My whole life is spontaneous, nothing is pre-planned. My friends have been here, they have been asking for many years for a visit. I have a commune of sannyasins in Nepal, and hundreds other sannyasins.

But the moment for me to feel that this is the time to go never came before.

Right now I was without any occupation, just resting in the Himalayas. I thought it will be a perfectly good time to visit these people. So it was simply spontaneous.

Q: YOU WERE DESCRIBED IN A PHRASE AS BEING VERY ANGRY ABOUT AMERICA. IS IT

TRUE?

A: For thirty years I have never been angry about anything or anybody. But people may have felt that I am angry, because whatever I have said about America goes against the common illusion about America, that it is a democracy.

My own experience of four and a half years in America is totally different. It is just a mask of democratic principles. Behind it is simply a fascist regime. And it is not being said out of anger. It is simply a fact. But when a fact hurts you, you think I am angry.

I am not angry.

Q: HOW DOES ONE BECOME BLISSFUL? FOLLOWING IN YOUR FOOTSTEPS, OR THERE ARE

OTHER WAYS?

A: Nobody can become blissful following anybody's footsteps, including me. The follower always remains a carbon copy. I am against all following. One should find one's own way. That's the only way one can be blissful and one can find the truth.

The people who are with me are not my followers, they are just my friends. And my whole teaching is that they should become more and more independent of any organized religion, of any gurudom, they should be more individual and they should think for themselves. I do not teach faith. On the contrary I teach the reasoning, scepticism, intelligence, because faith has been the failure of whole humanity. The people who believe are going to become blind. Every belief makes you blind. So my whole effort is to destroy all your beliefs, to deprogram you, and to leave you alone to be yourself.

If one can manage to be oneself then there is nothing else to be done. That very phenomenon to be oneself is the beginning of a transformation that makes you a new man; blissful, fulfilled, full of contentment.

Now there is nowhere to go; you have arrived. Just to be oneself is to be at home.

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Q: THIS IS MY FINAL QUESTION. AFTER THAT, ARYA(*) PRAKASH(*) YOU ARE BELIEVED TO

BE THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL MAN IN THE WORLD, AND YET IT IS NOT CLEAR WHAT IS THE

CONTROVERSY. CAN YOU GIVE ANY COMMENTS?

A: It is true that I am the most controversial man in the world, and it is one of the controversies that nobody knows what is the controversy. I myself don't know.

Q: WHAT PART DOES SEX PLAY IN YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE?

A: Nothing. I have spoken on sex because it plays so much significant role in all the religions of the world. They are all against sex. They are all repressive. They teach people to be against sex, against life, to renounce life, to renounce the pleasures of life. Because of them I had to speak that it is all nonsense and it is against nature.

Their whole teaching makes people perverted. A repressed sexually person is a perverted person and ninety percent of psychological insanity is created by sexual perversions. And they have made the whole humanity perverted. Homosexuals they have created. The homosexuals were created in the monasteries because you forced men to live separately from women, and women to live separately from men. Naturally the women became lesbians, men became homosexuals.

All the religions of the world are responsible for homosexuality and the other perversions. Even because of a repressed mind people have made love to animals. And now the homosexuality has brought the world to the ultimate destructive disease AIDS. And all the religions are responsible for it.

I have spoken against repression because I want sex to be accepted, just as you accept everything else in life naturally -- sleep, eating, clothing, you don't make any fuss about it. But there are religions, for example Jainism believes that clothing is unspiritual. Now if you make clothing unspiritual then you will create trouble for many people. Even the Jainas themselves have never been able to go out of India, for the simple reason that the climate will not allow them to remain naked. And it is stupid, because their five thousand years of teaching and there are only twenty two naked monks in India. It cannot be called a great achievement, in five thousand years only twenty two people; and one dies and is never replaced because even in India in cold climate you need clothes. Perhaps in summer you may be able to live without clothes, but this is stupid. Why torture your body?

All the religions have been teaching about fasting. I am against. Either there are people who are teaching

'Eat, drink and be merry.'

There are thirty million Americans who are dying because of over-eating. Now these are idiots. And there are people who are teaching for fasting, 'Don't eat. The longer you fast the more spiritual you are.' I cannot conceive that to be hungry can in any way be synonymous with spirituality. If this is so then the whole world should be hungry. And it is good to be poor, and there is no need to destroy poverty, it is a spiritual phenomenon.

I have spoken against these things because all these religions have been teaching unnatural, inhuman, unpsychological principles to be lived by people. But as far as my philosophy is concerned, there is no question to be specially concerned with sex. It is a simple fact of life; there is nothing special in it. At the most it is fun. And after the pill it is nothing but fun. Before the pill it was a dangerous game because you may have produced children and those children will prove a burden to you because they will make you poor. Now after the pill even that burden is removed. Before the pill the woman was a loser, because the women around the world were living simply as reproductive factories continuously producing children.

Their whole life was wasted in producing children, bringing them up. They could not get educated, they could not get cultured, they could not understand literature, they could not understand great music or great philosophies. Nothing was available to them. Their only work was just to go on producing children.

The pill has changed the whole thing. It is the greatest revolution that has happened in the world. Now the woman is equal to man. What no other revolution could do the pill has done; it has made the woman equal to man. Now she is not in the danger of being pregnant unless she wants it. So sex is no more just a biological thing for reproducing children. It is simply a beautiful, loving game. If you don't like it, don't play 1/08/07

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it, but don't try to teach people that it is something unspiritual. It is neither spiritual nor unspiritual. It is just like any other game -- football or volley ball, or playing cards. It is just like that, nothing of any importance.

So in my philosophy of life I do not give any importance to such things.

Q: (INAUDIBLE)

A: I will get negative response everywhere. Even I go to another planet, so what is the reason, what is the point. Coming to Nepal I will get the negative response. So it makes no difference to me whether I am in America, or in India or in Nepal. Wherever I am, I am going to get the negative response because I am going to speak against people's traditions, against their superstitions, against their religions, against their philosophies, against their whole past. So they are not responsible for being negative. I am responsible, because I have decided to say the truth, whatsoever the cost. And I am ready to pay the cost, and I am paying it.

So there is no problem. Wherever I want to make people negative, I go there. I have come to Nepal, now I will make people negative here. Then I will go somewhere else, where people are still not negative. Unless I have made the whole world negative, I cannot go to another planet, that's the difficulty.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) SEE THE POINT THAT CONTROVERSY (INAUDIBLE) A: It is nothing new. Everything that I say is going to be controversial. For the simple reason, because unless I see that something is wrong, I will not speak. There is no reason. If everything is right I will remain silent. I will speak only when I see something is wrong. And the moment I see that something is wrong in your tradition, in your belief system, immediately there is controversy. Because you cling to your conditioning, you think it is your ego. It is not your ego. And because you cannot contradict my argument, otherwise there will be no controversy, either convince me when I am with you there is no controversy, or be convinced by me and be with me, and then there is no controversy.

You cannot contradict my argument, hence the controversy remains. No religion has dared on any point which I have criticized to give the counter argument. I am willing. If you say is reasonable, understandable, I am ready to be convinced, and accept it...

(gap in tape to a259)

... as the mother. Otherwise the bull should be the father. And on what grounds you accept the cow as your mother because it gives the milk? Then there are camels who give milk, goats who give milk, in different countries different animals are used for milk, so they all should be mothers. This is simply stupid.

And in fact calling the cow your mother, and then exploiting it in every possible way; the milk is not for you, it is for the kids of the cow. And you are not giving that milk to the kids of the cow. The milk goes to you. You are exploiting your own mother, depriving your own brothers and sisters. And then the cow becomes old, it automatically reaches to the butcher. Who sells it to the butcher?

All the cows that are owned by Hindus when they become old how they reach to the butcher? You sell them. You sell your own mothers. And to the butcher. And then you go on making movements that cow slaughter should be stopped.

Every slaughter should be stopped, why only cow slaughter. Why there should be this preference? Life should be respected, not only in the cow but in every animal, in everywhere. Reverence for life I accept; but when you start choosing just one certain animal, then you yourself create a controversy, and you don't have any argument for it. Otherwise there is no controversy.

I am willing to accept any reasonable argument, but you are not willing to accept any reasonable arguments, so the controversy remains. You have made me a controversial figure, and I enjoy it. I don't see there is any harm in it. I am doing something that I love, to destroy in every way anything that is ugly, irrational, insane, insensitive. Perhaps you may not accept it today, but tomorrow or day after tomorrow.

You will have to accept it. No truth can remain unaccepted forever, and no lie can remain accepted forever.

The BIBLE says that the sun goes round the earth. It is a lie. Galileos proved that the earth goes around the sun. It is a truth. But Galileo was controversial, because the whole Christianity was against him. He was dragged to the court of the Pope and Pope told him that either you will be killed because you are destroying 1/08/07

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the faith of our people; and Galileo was simply amazed. He said, "In what way? If the earth goes around the sun, why it should affect your faith, your religion? Just because it is written in the BIBLE and you are afraid that if one statement is proved wrong in the BIBLE, then you cannot say it that it is the word of God. God cannot commit a mistake.

Just because this statement proves wrong, there arises the suspicion, what about other statements?

Perhaps they are also wrong? And they are wrong. But Galileo was an old man, almost on the death bed, and he was forced, and he was a man very sensible, and had an immense sense of humor. When the Pope asked him that "You will have to change the statement in your book," he said, "I will change it. But just remember, my changing the statement will not make any difference. The earth will still go around the sun."

And he changed the statement, and in the footnote he wrote that "My changing the statement makes no difference, because the earth does not listen, does not read, neither the sun bothers about Galileo." But sooner or later the whole Christianity has to accept it. Nobody talks about it, no priest has the courage to say that the BIBLE is right. It is ignored. It is not talked about. But the sentence is there, it is not removed yet. If the Christians had courage, they should have removed it.

After each new invention, new discovery, new revelation of truth, all religions should go for new editions of their religious books. They should keep them up to date. They are not keeping, they are five thousand years old, two thousand years old; and naturally they are carrying thousands of mistakes, for the simple reason because five thousand years before it was not known. Whatever was known was collected.

But now we know so much. In five thousand years man has discovered so many things, that every religion has become absolutely irrelevant and I am simply bringing whatever the latest truths and the latest story, either by science or by people who are deep meditators. My own experience I trust more than anybody else.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) THE COW GETS OLD, SHE DIES IN THE HOME (INAUDIBLE) HOW CAN YOU

JUSTIFY IT?

A: That simply means why you are poor. You will remain poor. It is uneconomical. To keep a cow that is no more giving milk, no more giving goods for your fields. It is uneconomical, it is (inaudible) poor.

Q: AREN'T YOU CUTTING THE WHOLE POINT?(*)

A: No.

Q: YOU SAID THAT 'WHY DO YOU SAVE THE COW AFTER IT STOPS TO GIVE MILK TO THE

PERSON,' AND NOW YOU SAY, 'WHY DON'T YOU SELL, IT IS UNECONOMICAL'?

A: Yes, I say it because both the points are true. I would like the cow to be still used for some economic purpose. Just keeping it in a home, feeding it, and letting it die, and you are starving yourself. You cannot feed your cow well, there should be something better which can be managed. For example, there can be a government production where you give your cow. And the government takes care of all cows. When you take thousands of cows together it will be far more economical, and less a burden on the poor people.

Rather than the king having so many palaces, it is better to have a great field where old cows can be kept if you want to preserve them and not to kill them. And I love to respect life but you should see that it does not make you so poor that you yourself start dying in the name of religion.

That's what is happening in India. And Nepal is even more poorer than India and it will become more and more poor. You should use machines for milking the cow; you should use more scientific methods for keeping the cow healthy. In the developed countries of the west one cow gives as much milk as forty cows give in Nepal. And you call the cow your mother? And they don't call the cow their mother, but they take care scientifically, and they make it a point that cow helps you economy. Not that it becomes a burden on you. It is just a superstition that you are keeping the old cow. It is not reverence for life. Because as far as reverence for life is concerned, there is nothing -- what about other animals? What about a dog that is old and is of no use? In India or in Nepal only you will find dogs on the streets, not in developed countries. We 1/08/07

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don't have any respect for life. You are keeping simply a superstition and sacrificing for it.

And man comes first. Man cannot be sacrificed for anything else. If we can preserve life without harming man and his life, good. But man should not suffer for any superstition. Now this is simply making humanity suffer for superstitions.

In India I am more acquainted. For example it happened that there is a temple in Lucknow, it is Rama's temple, and many monkeys are being fed there; that is thought to be religious just because monkeys are Hanuman. Rama's devotees. So Hindus go to the temple, give food to the monkeys. So many monkeys have gathered near the temple, on the trees, and suddenly one monkey must have got mad, and he started attacking people; and when he started attacking people -- all are not Hindus, and particularly in Lucknow there are many Mohammedans who would not tolerate it. They started hitting those monkeys with stones and sticks, and other monkeys started getting mad, and then it became a great problem. That the road had to be blocked, because nobody could pass from that road. Nobody could reach to the temple. The monkeys will kill him. The parliament has to think, what to do. You cannot kill because the Hindus will be angry, and you cannot leave the situation as it is because it is dangerous to humanity.

Now just a superstition -- monkeys are not gods; and when they start destruction towards human beings then certainly something has to be done. Even if human beings become destructive towards other human beings, you put them in jail. But these monkeys cannot be put in jail because the whole India will go mad.

Their gods are being put in jail.

There was a situation that in some parts, of Himalayas perhaps in Nepal also, you have that animal neel gai.

It is not a cow, but it looks like a cow. It is bluish, so it is called neel gai. But just because it is called cow.... It's population became too much, it started coming down to the plains and destroying crops. And the government was worried what to do, because Hindus were absolutely against to kill, because it is a cow.

The name is cow only.

(Long gap between Tape sides A and B)

A: Be scientific in your reasoning and your behavior. Don't be dominated by your superstitions. That is my basic point. Whatever you do, do it with intelligence, not because your forefathers were doing it.

Whether it is intelligent or not does not matter. No, you have to decide that it should be rational and reasonable and you should go with time. So naturally I come in conflict with every kind of people, whether they are Christians, or Hindus or Mohammedans, because my basic point is not to oppose any religion, my basic point is to pull out people from their superstitious background into the light of intelligence and reason.

Only then we can live more comfortably, more happily, more naturally, and this earth can become a paradise. But it cannot, because of our superstitions are such.

In America, I was presented by the U.S. marshall himself, a BIBLE telling me that "This is the word of God."

I asked him, "Have you ever read it, from the beginning to the end?"

He was a little hesitant. He said, "No, I have not read it completely. Just few portions which our priest speaks on, then I read it."

Then I said, "You don't know, and you don't have any authority to say that it is the word of God. Five hundred pages in your BIBLE are pornographic, and I don't think God will write pornography."

He was shocked. I said , "You can just open any page and I will show you the pieces which are pornographic. And just now a group of atheists have published all those five hundred pages together...

Q: IS IT ILLUSTRATED?

A: No it is not illustrated. But I am going to publish it illustrated. Because pornography has to be seen, then only you can understand it. Reading you cannot understand it.

The president of that atheist group has written to me that we are making an effort, perhaps it will be banned, but we hope that we have your blessings. I said, I send my blessings. I would love that it is illustrated. They said it will be too costly and beyond our capacity, 500 pages with so much pornography the book will become ten thousand pages if we illustrate it.

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you are responsible. You should have taken those pages long before. Why you are keeping those pages?

Still there is time. You should take those pages out. The reasonable thing is that those pages are ugly, and because those of pages, I appeal to all the governments of the world to ban the holy BIBLE of the Christians. It should not be allowed in public to be sold, or in a public library, or in any church. But nobody looks into it, even the priests.

I had asked one bishop that can you deliver a sermon on any of the pages out of these five hundred in the church. You have been delivering sermons every Sunday and you choose certain passages. These are BIBLE passages. You can choose, and I am giving you five hundred pages to choose any page. He looked for one week and he said, "I cannot speak on these pages. Those people will kill me, and at least I will lose my bishophood."

But I said, "These are biblical passages."

He said, "I understand that they are biblical passages, but they are so ugly and so obscene that how I will make them spiritual? I cannot, there seems to be no way. I have thought every possible way somehow to rationalize, but I don't see any way, so please forgive me."

Then I said, "Then it should be rational that you should appeal to your pope, to your high priests, and you have a conference to remove these five hundred pages and make BIBLE pure. And if you cannot do it, then naturally the controversy will remain, I will go on saying it and you cannot defend yourself. Otherwise I am simply stating whatsoever is reasonable." But it becomes controversial because the other party is not ready even to listen. And they don't have any argument. They have forgotten even to argue.

Q: JUST YOU SAID ABOUT ECONOMIC: ALL THE THINGS OF LIFE SHOULD BE SEEN

ECONOMICALLY (INAUDIBLE)?

A: They can be. Just you have to be alert, aware of all the findings. For example, we have disturbed the ecology of the earth, and because we have disturbed the ecology of the earth, everything has become disturbing. The earth cannot yield as much as it was possible, the rivers have become dangerous.

Bangladesh is flooded just because in Nepal and in India we have cut so many trees that the rivers are reaching to Bangladesh with such a speed in that the ocean cannot absorb with water with such speed. With the trees, the water was slowed down and it was coming with a speed that the ocean was absorbing it. Now it comes with such speed that the ocean throws it back.

Bangladesh has been suffering every year with floods. Poverty has been increasing with every flood, their crops are destroyed.

Now it is simple and human that in Nepal and in India trees should not be cut. You are killing a whole country, their crops you are destroying. It does not matter that it is not your country. Yesterday it was your country, it was part of India, but now you are no more concerned with those people. They were always poor, now they are more poor than ever. Just simple methods that we can plant trees which is not a big thing. If you cannot plant trees, at least you can put rocks in the river, so that their flow is slowed down and the current is not so great that the ocean cannot absorb. Perhaps trees will take a little time to grow, but rocks are available around every river. You have just to put them in the river and you can save millions of people from poverty and you can show a great respect and love for humanity. It is not your country so it is not an urgent concern for you. And it will be economical in the sense that if you can help Bangladesh for its crops, that no floods come there, that water reaches only as much as Bangladesh needs, not less not more, Bangladesh will be ready and certainly willing to help you in some way or other. And they can help.

The whole world is living unnecessarily divided into nations. We should start thinking more of the whole globe as one. For example, I just told you that thirty million people in America are dying because of over-eating, and exactly thirty million people in America are dying because they have no food. Now what a simple solution. These thirty million people should be just a little bit human and reasonable. If they are not compassionate on themselves at least they should think that they are killing thirty million people without food, and they are killing themselves also by eating those thirty million people's food. Just a small understanding, just a little reasoning, and sixty million people are saved. Otherwise sixty million people are going to die. And this seems to be absolutely stupid. I don't see any reason there that it should happen. But it is happening. And if you say, as I was saying to Americans, they are hurt.

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and if you suggest them something which is more intelligent, they feel hurt. Their egos are hurt.

We should think about everything on a global scale, and now that science has given us so much energy that if we can avoid a third world war, which is in our hands, which is absolutely meaningless; a war is meaningful if somebody wins, somebody is defeated. In a third world war, nobody will be the winner and nobody will be defeated. All will be destroyed, equally destroyed. It has lost meaning, it is no more a game.

So if we can simply make them understand that the third world war is the end of wars, now there is no possibility of war. If you have a little bit of intelligence, and they all have gathered so much nuclear energy that they can destroy humanity seven hundred times, all that energy can be used for creative purposes. If all that energy is released for creative purposes there will be nobody poor. There is no need for anybody to be poor, uncomfortable, sick, without medicine, without hospital.

So much energy is ready, but it is kept ready for war, to kill; not to help people to live longer, to live better, to live more comfortably. Scientists have come to a conclusion that every human being can live at least three hundred years. The body has the potentiality to renew itself for three hundred years. And we have been dying so early just because we don't know how to provide the right food for the body so that it can continue for three hundred years, and just think, if an Albert Einstein can live for three hundred years, how much he can contribute to human progress. Because his intelligence will go on growing. If in seventy or eighty years time a scientist can give you so much, in three hundred years it is almost incalculable what will be his contribution. And not only one scientist; all the scientists can live that long. Old age is not necessary.

It is just because of our ways of eating are not scientific. We have not chosen them according to any science.

For example, no vegetarian has yet received a single Nobel prize. And I have asked the vegetarians that

"Have you any answer? Only non-vegetarians are receiving Nobel prizes. In fact, vegetarians should be receiving more because they are eating purer food, and they are more spiritual as they say. But the reality is that their food lacks certain proteins which make your intelligence. Their food is not sufficient for mind. It is sufficient for the body, so vegetarians remain vegetable. And a simple thing, a non-fertilized egg has to be added to the vegetarian food. And it has all the proteins which the non-vegetarian is getting from meat and other ugly things.

But just the word 'egg' is enough to make them angry with me. All the vegetarians in India are angry with me because I am teaching people to eat eggs; and I am telling them that I am teaching non-fertilized eggs, which are not life, they don't have any life, they are just pure protein.

My feeling is that we are living according to the past, without thinking of all the present discoveries, the present knowledge, and that's why we are poor, unnecessarily live in sickness, in old age, die so soon. Now in Soviet Russia there are people who have reached one hundred eighty years of age; and not one person, hundreds. There are more people who have reached one hundred fifty, and just it is a question of their food, what they are eating. And for centuries they have lived like that, and they have lived long. It is not a new thing, it has nothing to do with communism or Soviet Russia. Just it is a small part where people have always lived long, and they have never had old age. And nobody bothers to look at those people, what they eat, how they exercise, what is the reason that they can live one hundred eighty years, and the man is still young, and still working in the fields like any young man? And you cannot believe that he is one hundred eighty years old.

It has been found that their main diet is yoghurt and it is now a proved fact that yoghurt can give a longer life span. And yoghurt is a simple food. It can be made available to whole humanity, there is no question. Now the fact is known for ten years, but no effort is being made in any country to promote yoghurt. It is just a different kind of curd, which can be available to everybody -- cheap, simple, but it seems we just go on living the way we have become accustomed. Any change seems to be difficult.

And my whole effort is that every change should be the easiest thing in life. We should be ready to change as quickly as knowledge changes. We should keep pace with knowledge; we should not lag behind, and we are really lagging far behind, so I cannot say that every man is contemporary. They are only few men, perhaps a dozen men in the whole world, who can be called contemporaries. Others, somebody is living five thousand years back, somebody is living two thousand years back, without even bothering that where you have stopped.

And the gap can be filled so quickly, just the young generation has to understand. So my whole approach is to the young generation, and my whole hope is with the young generation. The old are too old to change.

Okay.

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The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #19

Chapter title: None

12 January 1986 am in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601120

ShortTitle: LAST519

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

OPEN AIR INTERVIEW WITH ENZO BIAGY, AKA SARJANO, ITALIAN TV

THE QUESTION IS ASKED IN ITALIAN.

A: I am not a madman so I cannot be a prophet or a messiah or a savior. All these peoples who have claimed to be prophets, messiahs, saviors are simply crackpots.

For the simple reason I don't belong to their category because there is no God, and without a God you cannot be a prophet, you cannot be a messenger... messenger who?

And you cannot be a messiah... representing whom?

I am simply a human being and the people who think that I am a rascal raise a very significant question.

There are people who think I am a communist, there are people who think I am a capitalist, there are people who think I am a Hindu and there are people who think I am a Christian. There are people who think that I am a fascist and there are people who think I am an anarchist.

So it is so amusing that I started thinking "Who am I?"

And I found that I am only a mirror, so whoever looks into me finds his own face in me.

If a monkey looks into me he thinks I am a monkey.

Question asked in Italian and translator says as follows:

Q: WHO ARE YOUR FOLLOWERS AND WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS?

A: They are my friends. The very idea of somebody being a follower is humiliating and I cannot humiliate anybody.

To me, each individual has a dignity of his own and all the leaders are criminals because they have reduced people into followers.

And a follower can at the best be a good carbon copy. He can never be his original self.

Only a friend can help you to attain to your dignity, respectability, integrities, individuality....

I don't have any followers. I have millions of friends and millions of enemies. I love both, because both belong to me. In some way or other I am helping both. Interviewer says Thank you.

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Query:-

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #20

Chapter title: None

20 January 1986 am in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601200

ShortTitle: LAST520

Audio:

Yes

Video:

No

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH ENZO BIAGI, AKA SARJANO, ITALIAN TV

Q: THE FIRST QUESTION IS, WHAT IS YOUR TEACHING? (INAUDIBLE) A: I do not have any teaching at all. I am not a teacher in the sense that I don't give any philosophy of life, any discipline to live, and programs to follow. I have a certain approach to life which I share with my friends, my approach begins with de-programming. That is a key word as far as I am concerned.

Initiation into my friendship means initiation into de-programming. Everybody is programmed by birth

-- either as Christian, or Hindu, or Jew or Mohammedan. The child is born innocent, but he is burdened very soon with hundreds concepts, and he lives with those concepts his whole life. This is living a borrowed life; it is not authentic, it is not sincere, because it is not yours.

You have not discovered any of those things that you are trying to live. So my first thing is to help you get rid of all your conditions. Those who come to me, if they are Christians, will no more be Christians; if they are Hindus will no more be Hindus; if they are Mohammedans will no more be Mohammedans. I simply give them back their innocence, their humanity, their purity, their individuality.

So my basic work is destroying their conditionings. And it is a very simple work, because none of their conditioning is based on logic, intelligence. It is all superstitious. They have been provided with certain logical structures, but those logical structures are all phony. They are not authentic. For example, all the religions are based on the greatest lie in the world -- God. No religion has been able to prove logically, scientifically, has not been able to give any evidence, and yet they go on burdening every child that comes on the earth with the idea of God. It is very simple to take away the idea; just I have to show to the person that your idea is enforced upon you. It is not your intelligence that has accepted it; it is your innocence which has been corrupted by your parents, by your teachers, by your priests, and all logic that they have given to you is phony.

For example, all the religions say that the God is needed, otherwise who will create existence. Existence is there, and there must be a creator. Without a creator, how can there be creation? But they stop there. An intelligent person will go a little more further, he will ask, "If this is the case, then who created God?" God is there, and he has no creator. Then where your logic has gone? Existence needed a creator, and the creator himself needs no creator. This is not logic, this is just fallacious exploitation of human innocence; a child cannot argue. He simply accepts it.

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Query:-

I am reminded of a beautiful anecdote. A professor of philosophy in the University of Paris was a little eccentric, which is not rare. The professors of philosophy are rarely not eccentric. And he was the head of the department and he used to make statements which were absurd, and one day he went a little too far. He began his lecture with the statement that, "I am the greatest man in the whole world."

This was too much. One student stood up, he said, "You are a great philosopher, a great logician, hence we ask you to prove this statement. Give us the logical background." The professor was absolutely ready, willingly, happily. He spread the map of the world on the board, and he asked the students, "What country do you think is the greatest in the world?"

Obviously they all said, "France." And the professor laughed. The students could not understand why he is laughing.

And then he asked, "What do you think about the greatest, the most sacred place, the city, in France?"

And they all said, "Paris. The most beautiful."

And he laughed again. The students were feeling a little uncomfortable. Perhaps he is leading into some unknown logical conclusion. But still they were not aware where he is leading. And then he asked, "What is the greatest thing, the greatest place in the greatest city of the greatest land in the world?"

And they all said, "Of course, the university. The temple of wisdom."

The students said, "Of course the greatest place in Paris is the University."

And the professor laughed again, and asked,"Which department is the greatest in the university?"

Now the students were caught. They knew that he has managed a phony argument. Looks like logic. But it is not logic. They had to say, "Of course it is the philosophy department."

And the professor had a hearty laugh and he said, "Now do you understand why I said 'I am the greatest man in the world'? I am the head of the department of philosophy."

All arguments about God, about heaven, about hell, are just like that. My work is to destroy the phony structure of logic and simply your rocks start disappearing, your mythologies start disappearing, leaving you a pure space. And from that pure space arises your individuality. You are no more part of the crowd.

That's my basic work -- to make you an individual, not just a cog in the wheel, not just a part of the crowd. To give you an integrity and to give you a freedom of the soul, that you are no more bound into any slavery called Christianity, or Hinduism, or Judaism; for the first time you are just yourself. And now it is your search for truth, your inquiry into truth. And remember, all the answers that have been given by others to you, can never be a salvation to you. Only your own answer found by your own hands, by your own search, can deliver you from ignorance, from misery, from anguish.

I don't have a teaching. I have only a device.

I am not a teacher, I am a master.

Teachers have teachings, the masters have a certain device and methodology to transform people.

Q: WHY HAVE YOU BEEN IN JAIL IN AMERICA, AND FORCED TO LEAVE?

A: Why Socrates was poisoned? Why Jesus was crucified? Why many attempts were made on the life of Buddha? They have not done much to me. They have simply arrested me without any arrest warrant, without showing any cause, why they are arresting me, without allowing me my birthright to call my attorneys. They did not answer me; their only answer was twelve loaded guns around me.

But I enjoyed the whole experience. They were far more kind to me than people were to Socrates. They did not poison me. They were far more kind to me than people were to Jesus; they did not crucify me. They simply harassed me for twelve days, from one jail to another jail. And it does not matter at all to me. In fact, it was a great experience. I always wanted to visit hell, but hell does not exist. America provided me the opportunity to visit it. And after twelve days, because there was no case against me, I had not done any harm to anybody; I had not committed any crime against anybody; my only crime was that I had created a commune of five thousand people, who were so happy and so rejoicing that their joy and their blissfulness became a jealousy in the neighbors, to the politicians, and particularly to the Christians.

Christians have been coming to the East converting millions of people to Christianity. This was for the first time somebody there who had taken thousands of Christians out of their fold, and they were absolutely helpless. And the people that they have converted in the East are not educated, are not cultured, are not of the higher strata of society. The people that Christians have converted in the East are beggars, aboriginals, primitives, orphans, people dying on the streets. They have not been able to convert a single intellectual, a 1/08/07

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single intelligent person in the whole East.

Naturally they were very much offended, because I was not converting beggars, I was not converting orphans, I had converted their best minds; I had converted only the intelligentsia. And I was not converting the intelligentsia into another religion either, which is easier to take one toy from you and give you a new toy. Everybody is happy with something new. The old was rotten, getting dirty, was almost dilapidated, has been used for many centuries by many people, and it is beautiful to get a fresh, new toy. I was not converting those people into another religion. I was simply deprogramming them and they had no answers.

So it was the Christianity behind the politicians who pressed them that I should be thrown out of America. It was simply a question of the poverty of Christian theologians. Otherwise they should have come up front. I was ready to argue about everything.

Q: STOP. WE ARE CHANGING THE REEL.

A: Are you a Christian?

My being sent out of America is simply an indication of the poverty of Christian theologians. If they had guts they would have invited me to have an open encounter. But they knew that they don't have any logic to support them. So they tried a criminal way to throw me out of the country. But that is not going to stop me.

Wherever I am, I will be doing the same. They cannot throw me out of this planet.

So it is simply the defeat of Christianity and defeat of the great powers and the great nation, United States of America, that they could not manage a single individual who was standing against them, not by any armed force, but by simply proposing a new way of looking at things. They wanted to remain blind, and this is my whole life's experience; that I am selling candles in the city of the blind.

It is not their fault that they get angry with me. It is my own fault, but I am helpless to commit it, and I am going to commit it again and again, until my last breath.

Q: HOW HAVE YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY MANAGED TO BECOME SO RICH?

A: It did not manage to become rich. Only the rich are attracted to me; because only the intelligent are attracted to me. You have to understand a certain hierarchy of values. You never ask, "Why a poor man is not attracted to the paintings of Picasso?" You never ask, "Why a poor hungry beggar is not interested in the music of Mozart." But you continuously ask why only rich people, cultured people, intelligent people, educated people are attracted towards me.

Religion is the ultimate luxury. And of course those who can afford it will be attracted towards it. It is not for the poor. The poor does not need religion. In the name of religion the poor has been given only opium, consolation. In the name of religion, something pseudo, something false, has been provided to the poor.

The true religion is not possible for the hungry man, for the man who is dying with sickness, disease, old age. He cannot be interested in the flights of consciousness. He wants something to eat; he wants some shelter to live; he wants some clothes. It is too cold, and he is naked, and you are talking about meditation, you are talking about consciousness? You are talking how to attain to the ultimate peaks of your being? It is simply absurd.

So it is not that my people have managed to be rich. In fact whoever comes to me is already rich. That's why he comes to me. Religion starts only when you are bored with your richness, when you have everything that money can provide and still you find you are empty. You have everything that you can possess. And still you find that something is missing which money cannot give to you, and you have to find some other way.

When money comes to the end of its capacities it gives you everything; and soon you start getting fed up and bored. That is the point where either you commit suicide, or you start a search that can bring you to a man like me. So I simply attract the rich. And I don't provide any opium; so my way of life is not for the poor.

Q: HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOUR CHARISMATIC EFFECT ON PEOPLE?

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A: It's very simple; because I am not a politician. The politician speaks whatever the people want to hear.

I speak whatever is my experience. I don't care whether you like it or you don't like it.

When I am speaking, I am speaking with my whole heart, irrespective of your reaction. My simplicity, my honesty. I am not in any way trying to influence you. There is no desire to convert you. All that I am doing is, I am enjoying to share my experience. You will find in the world people who are all interested in you to convert. You will not find people who are not interested in converting you, who are simply interested in sharing their heart and their soul with you.

So I don't know what charisma is, because I have never come across any charismatic personality in the whole world.

I am not interested in influencing anybody. I am tremendously happy simply to share my vision with you. Perhaps my sincerity, my truth, my authority behind it, becomes a charismatic influence on you; and when I say my authority, I do not mean that I am an authoritative man. There is a vast difference which has to be remembered.

A authoritative man has always a borrowed authority. When people say, "Listen to me, because my word is God's word," this is the voice of the authoritative man. He is using God's name to enforce his authority. When the Pope speaks, he is speaking in the name of Jesus Christ. He is authoritative.

I am not authoritative, because I am not speaking in anybody's name. No God to support me, no holy Bible to support me. It is simply my own experience. That gives tremendous authority to me. Perhaps all these qualities together -- the authority behind my word, my own experience, no desire to influence you, my sincerity to expose the truth, and my obligation to you, that you listen to me. You are not obliged by me. I am obliged by you, that you gave me a chance to unburden my heart; it is something like a raincloud when it is full of rainwater. It want to shower somewhere.

It is just like when a rose opens its petals it wants the breeze to come and take its flavor, its fragrance, to far away places. I am obliged to you.

Perhaps that's what is impresses you as charismatic. Otherwise I am a very simple man. I don't do miracles, I don't make wine out of water because I am not a criminal. That is a crime; to create drugs out of water. I don't pretend to be the only begotten son of God. I don't say that you have to believe in me; on the contrary I say that I provoke you to think, to doubt, to be sceptical. Because I know that if you doubt, if you inquire, you are bound to find truth, that I have found.

(Tape side B)

It is only the people who are afraid of their truth that force you to believe, that say "Have faith." Because they are afraid if you inquire you may not find anything what they are saying. Their insistence on faith simply proves that they themselves don't know. Otherwise, why be afraid of doubt and inquiry?

My invitation is to inquire; because I know whatever I am saying is there within you, just as it is within me.

Q: IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT IN YOUR COMMUNES THERE IS LIMITLESS SEXUAL ACTIVITY. IS

THAT TRUE, AND WHAT IS SEX, AND WHAT IS LOVE?

A: In the first place, there can never be limitless sexual activity. Biology prevents it. It is not within your hands. How many times you can make love in one night? And you will know that it cannot be limitless.

There is a limit. And it comes very soon.

It is absolutely absurd that in my community there is limitless sexual activity. In fact, there are so many activities going on that nobody has time for sexual activity. And I am not for repression; that does not mean that I am telling you to be licentious. When I say, "Don't repress" I simply mean, "Listen to the body. It has a wisdom of its own." When you are eating, can you eat limitlessly? You know perfectly well that your body gives you clear cut indications when to stop. And if you listen to the body, you will be healthier.

There are two kinds of extremists: one who will fast, will not listen to the body that 'I am hungry', and the other will go on eating when the body is crying that 'I am overloaded. Stop.' In America I came to know there are thirty million people who are dying because they have no food, no clothes, no shelter. And thirty million exact number, thirty million other people who are dying because they are eating too much. Now we 1/08/07

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must be living in an insane world. Just a simple thing has to be decided. Sixty million people are dying for a simple misunderstanding. Thirty million starving and thirty million overeating. Sixty million people can be saved within a minute.

Just what you do with your food, what you do with your thirst? You don't go on drinking. You know when your thirst is gone. You stop. Then why sex has become a problem?

In my commune, sex is a natural thing as everything else. Neither too much nor the other extreme. Just the middle way, the golden middle(*).

And you asking me about "What is sex, and what is love?"

Sex is something biological. All animals are sexual beings. Only man has the privilege to have something higher than sex. Not just the meeting of the bodies but the meeting of two souls. That's what love is.

Love can contain sex. Sex cannot contain love.

Sex is a small thing. Love is vast and tremendous. It can be without sex too; it is not necessary that a love relationship should have sex. In fact, my experience, is the more you go higher than sex, and you start enjoying a spiritual communion with a friend, with a woman, with a man; from that state of communion sex seems to be so far away, so much in the hands of blind biology, love seems such a freedom, and such a growth that it goes on growing; that you may not like even to get down to the dark valleys of sexuality.

But I am not preventing. I am simply saying that as love grows deeper, sex becomes shallower. When love reaches to its optimum, sex disappears.

It seems so childish; just think of yourself, just putting yourself a little far away, and looking yourself making love. And you will be surprised -- is it you doing all these gymnastics -- stupid, idiotic.

The real transformation of sexual energy is love. But it happens only if you allow sex a natural acceptance. It does not happen to the monks of all the religions. They are the loveless people. They cannot love, because they have not even gone into sex. They have avoided the basic energy which can be transformed into love, so they may talk about love but their talk is just bullshit. They don't understand anything about love and they cannot understand. You have to go step by step; and your body is your first step.

You cannot ignore it; it is so basic, so much rooted in existence. Ignoring it is simply committing suicide. Ignoring it means perversion. So all the monks of all the religions, all the nuns of all the religions are perverted as far as sex is concerned. They will have to find some way. They will become homosexuals, they will become lesbians. And that is an ugly state.

And religions have forced people to become homosexuals, lesbians, making love to animals; and we still go on respecting celibacy. It should be declared a crime. Nobody can be celibate, because that is against nature.

You have to learn acceptance of nature, and through that acceptance is transcendence. By being in a sexual relationship, perhaps the relationship and the intimacy will create something new, which is love. And as love grows, sex starts sinking, because it is the same energy that is changing, it is moving into a higher form. When love comes to its maturity, sex disappears. That is true celibacy. But you have not done anything for it. It has come to you as a gift from nature.

When celibacy comes as a gift from existence, it is tremendously beautiful; but when you impose it upon yourself you create homosexuality, and then you will create one day AIDS. Just the other day somebody was saying to me that Mother Theresa is opening a hospice in New York for AIDS patients. And the person told me, "She is doing great service to humanity."

I said, "This is nonsense. These people are the people who created AIDS. So if they are opening hospitals, nursing homes, it is simply repentance. It is not service. The whole vatican should be converted into a hospice for all the AIDS patients; because these are the people who have created it. And it is not service; it is simply repentance."

I simply teach acceptance of your nature; and through acceptance, immense transformations happen. But they come on their own accord. You don't have to force them.

Love has a beauty. Sex is ugly. Sex is something like the roots of a rose bush. Those roots are going to be ugly. Love is like the roses; although those roots are continuously sending energy to the roses, it is the roots and their energy that is becoming roses, so I will not say to you, "Cut your roots because they are ugly." Do not cut the roots, help them to be strong, nourish them; and you will have thousands of roses blossoming.

And that will be what I call love.

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Query:-

Q: WHAT IS YOUR RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS?

A: Every child is born happy. Every child is born innocent and beautiful. And then something happens; all those beautiful children get lost; all their innocence is destroyed. All their joy is turned into misery.

Just look at a child, collecting seashells on the beach. And he is more happy than the richest man in the world. What is his secret?

That is my secret too.

The child is in the moment, enjoying the sunshine, the salty air of the beach, the beautiful expanse of the sands. He is here now. He is not thinking of the past; he is not thinking of the future. And whatever he is doing, he is doing totally, intensely; he is so absorbed within it he has forgotten everything.

And that is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don't let past move(*) your mind; don't let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet.

To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.

All the time you are simply missing, and you are never given by existence two moments together; it gives you only one moment at a time. And that one moment either can be lived, or can be missed. There are two ways to miss it -- let past burden you, let future attract you, and it is gone. You are losing the real for the unreal. And this is the whole misery of humanity.

All that I try to help my friends to understand is, to live in the present. Just now, there is no misery, no suffering, no anguish. Just move away from the present, and you have gone into something unreal; and the unreal is bound to be miserable.

Reality is ecstatic; and to join with reality the only way is not to miss the present moment. And if you know just the taste, once, how it feels to be in the present -- looking at the sunrise or the sunset, just be there, so that you can have a little taste of the present -- and you will be surprised that you have the key all the time with you. The master key, that can open all the doors of the mysteries of life; its ecstasies, its beauties.

You don't need a Jesus Christ to lead you into paradise; you are capable to be in paradise right now.

Because paradise is not somewhere above. It is somewhere here.

I am reminded; there was a great atheist and he had written in his sitting room the motto of his whole philosophy -- God is nowhere. So anybody coming to visit him was bound to see it in gold letters on the wall that it was impossible to miss it. And then, naturally, the discussion will start. And then a child was born to the atheist, and the child was growing up. He was learning alphabet and he was learning slowly to make words. And one day he was sitting in the lap of his father, the great atheist, and he started reading the sentence on the wall.

He could read 'God is' but 'nowhere' was too big a word. He could not make it. So he cut it in two pieces. He read "God is now here." The father was shocked. He had never thought about it, that 'nowhere'

can be also read as 'now here.' And it is said that disturbed his whole atheist philosophy. He started thinking of 'now here' and the implications of it. Not that you will find God if you are now here.... Not that you will find god now, here; but you will find something more than god. You will find godliness. That is my word for the ultimate experience of bliss.

Remember these two words, now here; and you know the secret of the ultimate happiness. There has never been any other secret, and there will never be another secret. This is it.

And it is so simple, and so easily possible for every human being. You need not be part of any church, any organization. You need not carry a holy Bible , or the Vedas or the Gita or Koran. All that you have to do is just a little understanding of your own mind, its function, how it functions.

Your mind is never in the present, and time is always in the present; so time and mind never meet. This is the misery -- that you are missing the train every moment; and you will go on missing your whole life.

One great mystic was dying. And his disciples were surrounding him, and they asked him, "What is your last message, master?"

The dying master opened his eyes, and indicated towards the roof of his small hut. One squirrel was running on the roof making noise. All the disciples looked at the roof. For a moment, there was utter silence.

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Query:-

The master said, "This is my whole life's message." Be in the moment. How beautiful it is just to listen to the squirrel on the roof and not to bother about anything else. And he said, "Can I die now?" And he died, with a smile on his lips, with a bliss on his face; but even that last moment his message was just to be here now.

That is my message.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #21

Chapter title: None

14 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601145

ShortTitle: LAST521

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH KATHY GANNON, FOTO PRESS

Q: BHAGWAN, THERE SEEMS TO BE A RESURGENCE OF CONSERVATISM, NOT ONLY IN

POLITICS BUT IN PEOPLE'S SEARCH FOR INNER-STRENGTH, FOR TRUTH, PEACE. GROUPS

SUCH AS THE MORAL MAJORITY APPEAR TO BE GAINING GROUND, STRENGTHENING THEIR

INFLUENCE. WHAT IS THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THIS RESURGENCE? HOW DOES IT

CONFLICT OR DIFFER FROM YOUR TEACHINGS?

A: It always happens, whenever society comes to a point of revolution, the conservative forces have resurgence; for the simple reason -- to prevent the revolution that is oncoming. It is a defence measure. But in fact, it is an acceptance of defeat.

Conservative forces either in politics or in religion remain silent when they are certain that nothing is going to overthrow them. But when they see the danger, they collect all their energies to prevent any rebellion, any change, any transformation; so it is a good sign. It is just like, at the time of death it happens always that the person simply becomes perfectly healthy. All diseases disappear. It is the last effort of his life energy. He risks everything because death is so close. Now he cannot be moderate. Before a candle dies, the flame of the candle burns the brightest. It is a natural phenomenon.

You are asking me, "Why it is happening?" It is happening because man is at the very door where either he has to die or to transform. You will see this resurgence all over the world. But this is a resurgence that certifies the victory of the revolution. The old society is at the point of death. Before dying it will make its last effort to survive. But a last effort is a last effort. It cannot survive.

And you are asking me how I see it in reference to my ideology. I rejoice, because I can see the death, and I can see the conservative forces resurging with great energy. To me, it is a rejoicing, a moment of celebration.

The new is going to happen very soon; the old is having its last breath.

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Query:-

Q: BHAGWAN, THERE ARE THE FEW THAT ARE VERY RICH, AND THOSE THAT ARE POOR; BUT IN THE MIDDLE SITS THE GREAT MAJORITY WHO ARE AVERAGE IN INCOME AND

INTELLECT. DO THEY POSSESS THE CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND YOUR TEACHINGS? OR MUST

SOME MATERIAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY BE ATTAINED BEFORE ACCEPTANCE CAN BE ACHIEVED?

A: The basic question is not to achieve material sufficiency; because there have been even poor people who have attained to the ultimate. When I say that the poor cannot understand the highest flights of consciousness, I am simply talking about the rule, not about the exceptions.

Kabir was a poor man; so was Farid a poor man. And there have been others too who achieved to the ultimate. But they were not of average intellect; they had as superior an intelligence as any Albert Einstein, perhaps better.

So the real thing is, the average intellect is a barrier. The average intellect cannot understand me, for the simple reason because when you talk about the higher realms of being the average intellect is left far behind. It is inconceivable to it; so the question is not material sufficiency. Even if somebody has all the worldly riches with him, but has an average intelligence, all his possessions are not going to help as far as religious growth is concerned. Then too he needs a sharper intelligence, a keener insight; otherwise there are so many rich people in the world. But you don't see so many enlightened people. I have known richest people; but their riches are only of the world; not of consciousness. Their consciousness is poor.

I used to stay in a palace of a very rich man. He was thought to be the silver king of India because he has the hold of the whole market of silver; it was in his hands to bring the prices down or up. But he was a man of average intelligence. I asked him, "You have everything conceivable." He was the only man in the whole world who had a Rolls Royce made specially with solid gold. Even the engine was solid gold, nothing but gold was used.

I asked him, "You have beautiful palaces; you have everything that one can think of, but I feel sorry for you because you are not yet bored. You are still thinking of having more and more. That shows the average intelligence. A higher intelligence gets bored very soon, because it can see that you can have everything of the world, but still inside you remain empty. In fact, when you have all the things in contrast you see your emptiness more clearly. And you see that death is approaching, and you are still collecting seashells on the seashore. And death will snatch away everything from you, and you will be dying just like any beggar.

There will not be any difference in your death and in the death of a beggar. And unless you can make a difference in the quality of your death, it indicates that you have not been able to make a qualitative difference in your life either. Death is only a conclusion; it concludes your whole life, and if you have to die like a beggar then I can say to you that you have lived like a beggar. You may have lived in the palaces; but that does not make any difference."

He said, "I have never thought about it. I am so busy, there is so much to do. In fact, I am surprised when I hear that somebody is bored."

I told him, "You should remember, buffaloes are never bored; donkeys are never bored; dogs are so busy without any business, they are never bored. Except human beings, no other entity, no other living being in existence experiences boredom; and all human beings also don't experience it. It is experienced only by the highest intelligent people. A Jean-Paul Sartre experiences boredom; a Jaspers experiences boredom; a Marcel experiences boredom.

That's where in this century French philosophy defeated the whole British domination over philosophy for centuries, the German domination over philosophy for centuries. One is surprised, what happened suddenly? Because you don't come across a single great philosopher in France in the past. Since Aristotle to Bertrand Russell you will find great Greek philosophers, great German thinkers, great British philosophers; but you will not find a single French name. But something changed suddenly. With Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosophy proved far higher. Bertrand Russell became a pigmy for the simple reason because Jean-Paul Sartre brought words like boredom, anguish, despair, meaninglessness for the first time into the world of philosophy. He proved to be the keenest intellect.

Bertrand Russell is not bored. He has written much, but it is all average. Jean-Paul Sartre has not written much, but whatever he has written is not average; each single statement has come out of tremendous agony of the soul. He sees that life has no meaning, that it is an accident, that there is no way to make any meaning out of it, that you can go on playing with things just to avoid boredom. Otherwise you are going to commit 1/08/07

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suicide. Because there is nothing else to do. It is all repetition. The same thing you have been doing your whole life. And you will continue to do it till you die. And strange that even people don't want to die.

I knew one great dramatist. He was dying, he was seventy five, he had asked me to come immediately. I rushed to his house and I said, "What is the urgency?"

He said, "Urgency? I am dying. Try to save me."

I said, "But for what; because I have known you for twenty years. It is the same routine. You have lived for seventy five years, and you are still not bored? Be thankful that death has come and you need not commit suicide, that death is a deliverance. I don't see any point. What you will do?"

He was angry at me. He said, "I have asked you to do something, to meditate for me. I am dying, and you are talking strange things."

I said, "I am not going to meditate for your life; because what you will do tomorrow? You will repeat your yesterday. But you have done it, and what have you gained? You just tell me, can you do anything new? Are you capable of thinking anything new. In twenty years I have never seen. I have looked into your dramas -- it is the same story, it is the same triangle. Just the names are different; but it can be reduced to the same plot. And you think you have created one hundred dramas? They are all carbon copies of each other. And you are still not bored? That shows average intelligence. And religion begins when you start feeling bored with your ordinary life, with the mundane life; when you are fed up with it all."

Naturally the poor man will need a tremendously powerful intelligence to be fed up of things which he had not got; that needs great intelligence. But the average man, wherever he is, whether poor, whether middle class, whether rich, does not matter. His average intelligence cannot get fed up with the world. And religion begins with the boredom, with the anguish, with the meaninglessness of all that you have been doing, of all that you have been. It is radical transformation.

I am reminded of a beautiful story. A king used to go in the night around the capital to see that everything is alright or not; is there some dissatisfaction? In disguise, he will go on the horse. He was puzzled about one thing only. The whole city was sound asleep, just a mystic was always awake, sitting under his tree, immensely joyous, enjoying the silence that has descended over the capital, enjoying the coolness of the night, the beauty of the stars. The king started becoming interested in the man. He seemed to be a rare man. He had nothing and he was so joyous; his eyes were sparkling with some unknown bliss; his whole being was radiating a certain energy field. Even the king, passing by his tree, had felt a certain breeze of silence, of joy, of bliss, of peace.

One day he could not contain his temptation. He touched the feet of the mystic and asked him, "Would you accept my invitation. I would love you to be in my place." And naturally, just like the average mind, although he was inviting the mystic, deep down he was hoping that he will reject. An ascetic, one who has renounced the world, can not come to the palace. But that was unconscious.

But the mystic was really a great master. He said, "Okay, so I am ready. Should I come right now, or tomorrow morning. Because tomorrow is not certain."

The king was shocked. This is not expected of mystics. This is the working of the average mind.

Because he has invited himself, now he cannot withdraw. But his respect for the mystic disappeared. They reached the palace; the king gave him his best chambers, he gave him his best clothes, and each thing he accepted the respect in his eyes was going down.

Next day they were eating together, the most delicious food the king has ordered for the guest. But deep down the king was thinking, "I have been cheated. This man was pretending. He befooled me, he exploited me, he managed to impress me." And the mystic was enjoying the delicious food, and it was hurting hard in the king's heart; this is not the way of a mystic. It is all against the expectations of the average mind. Luxury is not for the mystical people.

Everyday the respect was turning sour. Within six months he had almost come to a point of hatred. The mystic said to the king that "I think it is time you should ask me a question. Why you go on carrying things within you? You could have asked any time. And I think now the moment has come. The love has disappeared, the respect has disappeared, and I have been watching all these things going away; and now hatred, anger, frustration has entered in you. This is the time you should put it out. Be straightforward."

The king said, "Yes, there has been a question that has been haunting me since you have come into the palace. It has become more and more clear. The question is, I want to ask you now what is the difference between me and you? You are living in luxury, you are living in the palace, you are enjoying all the riches possible. Now what is the difference between me and you? Why I am still a worldly man and you are a mystic, a master? I don't see the difference."

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The mystic laughed. He said, "It is a beautiful morning. Can we go for a walk? And perhaps, walking, I may be able to answer the question." They went for a walk.

The king again and again said, "What about the question?"

And the mystic said, "Wait just a little more. A little patience."

Then they reached the river, the boundary of the king's kingdom. And the mystic said, "I am going, leaving your empire to you. Are you coming with me or not?"

The king said, "How I can come with you? I have a kingdom, and I have thousand and one problems to solve."

And the mystic said, "Have you received the answer? I am going because I don't have a kingdom, and I don't have any problems."

Suddenly the king saw the difference, felt deep remorse, fell into the feet of the mystic that, "Forgive me. I had been stupid, but please come back. Don't go away. Otherwise my whole life I will carry this wound that there was a great master so closely available, and I missed in my stupidity."

The mystic said, "I have no difficulty to come back, but the problem is the same thing will happen again.

Your respect, your love that has arisen back will disappear. I have no problem, I can come back. It makes no difference to me whether I go ahead or I go back, but it makes much difference to you. And I would like to leave you in a state of love, respect, gratitude rather than in a state of hatred, frustration. It is not basically a question of what you have, the question is are you contented with it? And you have a very average mind. If you are discontented with it, then there is a possibility of growing into the world of religion; moving higher into consciousness; a tremendous discontent with the world, a tremendous discontent with yourself as you are, that needs intelligence."

What can I do? I can simply explain to you for the average mind the priests have created a bogus religion, which changes nothing in them. The whole world is full of Mohammedans, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, but nothing has changed in them. The priests exist for the average mind, the poor mind. He gives you a substitute, not the real thing. He cannot give you the real thing. Nobody can give you the real thing.

It is your own discontent which can bring you to the brink of revolution.

So the question is, not whether you are poor, whether you are middle class or super-rich. Condensed into a simple maxim, the question is, whether you have intelligence enough to feel the frustration of the ordinary life. Once you start feeling the frustration of the ordinary life, you are bound to go into search for something else, something different, something qualitatively different. The average mind goes on into the world of quantity; you have a house, you want a better house; you have so much money, you want more money. This is the world of quantity.

The intelligent mind moves in a new direction, a new dimension of quality. It is not a question of more money, more houses, more prestige, more power. It is a question of deep understanding, of immense insight, of coming to terms with existence, of having a communion with the whole, so that you can start feeling an explosion of meaning, and music and poetry.

But for the change from quantity to quality, you need an intelligence so sharp as a sword. And that's my whole work here; to go on shining your sword, giving it more sharpness. Your average mind is created by your society, because it needs only average mind, because it needs clerks; it does not need the mystics. It needs school teachers, it needs station masters, it needs business men. For that, the average mind is the right mind. The mystic is dangerous. You cannot make a mystic a station master. You cannot make a mystic a clerk. The difficulty is that the mystic cannot deal with quantity.

(Tape side B)

The story is about Nanak that his family was in great trouble. They were poor people, and they wanted him, now he was young, they wanted him to be employed somewhere; but wherever they managed to employ him, within a week or two he was sent back. Because the people said that this man is utterly useless.

Finally, the father went to the king and said his misery; he has been an old employee of the king and he has served him his whole life, he was retired. He said, "I am in great difficulty. This is my only son and you have retired me. Now we have to depend on his earnings, but wherever we find somehow some employment he is turned back."

The king said, "There is no problem. You have served me with such honesty and such loyalty, I will put him into some department and something that he can do, something very easy. You send your son." And he was put in the ration shop where his work was only to measure wheat, rice, and other food stuff for different regiments of the king; and just give it to the responsible person who had come.

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The very first day the trouble started. He was weighing and he started putting things into the bag the regiment officer had brought. It was going good up to twelve; from one, two up to twelve everything went well. But at the point thirteen -- the Hindi word for thirteen is tera; it also means dying, yours. It also means thirteen, but it also means -- mera means mine, tera means dying; so when he came to tera he stopped. He went on fourteen, fifteen, but he went on saying "tera"; he forgot the first meaning, thirteen; he remembered only the second meaning, that everything is yours. So the number went on from thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. But to him, it stopped at tera; and the officer looked at him, is he mad or something?

He reported to the king, that what kind of man you have chosen? He does not know more digits than thirteen. He stops at thirteen, and then goes on counting thirteen, thirteen, thirteen.

Now that officer is the world of quantity. He could not even think that tera also means dying; tera simply means 'thirteen'. Now, on that simple word, two separate paths. One of quantity, one of quality.

The king himself came to see what had happened. Tears were flowing from Nanak. He was in a ecstatic mood, continuously pouring to everybody who was coming; beggars started coming, other people from the streets saw that he is just not taking any note who is taking. He is simply giving and shouting "Tera."

The king looked at him. He was a man of certain understanding. He said, "He may be wrong for you all.

But he is a man of rare quality. I will remove him from here, otherwise he will destroy my palace. But this man is worth not to be a servant, but to be a king." And the king touched his feet; and that was the day that he was recognized by others, when the king touched his feet.

A certain intelligence that can change you from any moment of life into the qualitative realm; and the average mind is not born average. It is kept average by your belief systems, by your religions, by your politicians, by your education. He is kept average.

The family appreciates the average child; not the very intelligent child. Because the very intelligent child is continuously a trouble, a problem. He raises questions which the parents cannot answer; and they feel embarrassed. The average child never raises any questions.

So there is no problem for gaining material satisfaction. If you remain average, you can have the whole world. Nothing will happen to you. But you can sharpen your mind. And the method is simple: just what has been done to you, do the opposite. They have told you to have faith; don't have faith. They have told you to believe; don't believe. Doubt. They have told you to be with the crowd. I say to you, be an individual. And you will drop your averageness. It is just forced on you.

Each child is born with tremendous potentiality. But nobody wants him to have that become actual. He is prevented early, because the society needs retarded people. Otherwise, who is going to be a soldier; who is going to be a policeman; who is going to be a priest? Who is going to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan? Only retarded people are needed.

The vested interests are immensely afraid of intelligence. And that's why they are all against me. This is my crime. I am corrupting people, because I am taking away people from the crowd, and I am taking away their averageness, their retardedness. This they call corruption.

But this is not new. They poisoned Socrates for the same reason. The same was the crime against him in the court, that he corrupts the youth. That authentically sincere man was simply telling people how not to believe. How to gather courage to doubt, inquire, so that you can come to know the truth by yourself, because all borrowed truths are not truths, but lies.

Q: BHAGWAN, IS THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUSLY MOTIVATED PEOPLE ON

GOVERNMENT DIRECTING POLICY? WHERE WILL THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF RELIGION

ON STATE, LEAD?

A: It will lead even to a worse kind of world than we have got. It is the influence of the religious leaders, religious doctrines, that has created the hell of the earth. And now, it is certainly increasing.

The reason again has to be understood, is that the politicians are also afraid of the rebellious youth. The wings of the youth have to be cut. It cannot be allowed freedom. You can talk as much as you like about freedom, but don't act it. And to be on the safer side, it is better to cut your wings, so you can talk about freedom. But you cannot open your wings and fly into the sky, and have a taste of freedom.

The politicians are worried, because the youth is slipping out of their hands. And the only way they can find is, to have the support of the religious establishments. Together with political power and religious tradition, perhaps they hope they can prevent the changing consciousness of the new age. So they are in a 1/08/07

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conspiracy against the future of humanity; a conspiracy against the new man. And both are afraid of the same thing, so naturally there is an affinity.

Religion can influence people, through parents, through education systems, through churches, from the very childhood. Politics comes later. Religion comes very early in your life. It makes the foundation of your life. And they both are together. Again I say, this is a good sign; because they can see that separately they cannot stand the upheaval that is going to come. They have to join hands. Otherwise there is nothing common between politics and religion. The only thing common is the vested interest in keeping people retarded.

You are asking me what will be the influence, what will be the impact of it? It will be a calamity if they ever succeed. It will be an abortion of the new man. And that is the only hope, because the old man is finished; it is just a dead corpse, that is somehow just dragging itself just out of old habit.

There is a story in India; a great warrior Ramasangha(*) was fighting the Mohammedans invaders, and he was a furious warrior. In the war, his head was cut. Naturally, when your head is cut you have to fall down, lie down dead. But Ramasangha was such a furious warrior, he forgot. He went on cutting people's heads without head. In fact, he created a havoc. The enemies started escaping. They had never seen such a scene -- a man without head cutting people this way and that way.

Perhaps that story is not true. I don't think it is possible without a head. But, it has a symbolic meaning.

Just out of old habits, the old man goes on dragging himself. He has died long before, but he has forgotten to lie down; he goes on continuing. Not only that, he is conspiring that the new man should not arise, for the simple reason because the new man will be so alive, that perhaps it may remind the old man that "You are dead; that it is time you should be in your grave." All your politicians and all your religious leaders should be in their graves. But for that the new man is needed to give them the idea that they have been dead long before. They have not seen the living being, with all its joy and dance and song and love.

It is good. Let them join -- let all the dead people of the world join together. They are not more powerful than a single living new man. It is a crowd of corpses. And they are making their last effort. They will do everything nasty that they can do, because when it is a question of survival you forget all courtesies, mannerisms; you put them everything aside, your animal comes out.

So the coming days are going to be very decisive; whether the animal, the barbarious, who has been doing nothing but fighting, killing, burning alive people for centuries, is to remain our future too? Or we are going to have a new future, a clean slate, to write our history from the very scratch.

It is tremendously decisive and I don't see that the old order can win against the rising sun. It has to give way. That is the nature of things.

The old has to die for the young to live; they have to vacate the place, howsoever resistant they may be and however long they may have occupied it, it does not matter. When the new man knocks on the door, they have to vacate the place, and simply go into their graves, silently and gracefully. Otherwise we will have to force them. We don't want to do that.I am reminded again; an old man, a Jew, was dying. All his four sons had gathered. The man was lying there, just in front of them, on his bed, just the last moments.

But the sons were puzzled. The first son said, "What we are going to do, to carry his body in the casket to the graveyard? I think he should have a Rolls Royce, a limousine. The old man always wanted a limousine, but could not manage because of his miserliness. At least let him have it now, although he will be dead, and it is going to be only one way journey; he will not come back again."

The second son said, "You are always wasting money. What does it matter to a dead man, whether it is Rolls Royce or an ordinary car? I don't agree; a dead man knows nothing, and anyway he is not accustomed with Rolls Royces. He could not manage his whole life, why we should waste our money when he is dead?"

The third boy said, "In fact, what is the need of a car? We can arrange just a truck from the municipal committee. A dead man cannot make any distinctions. It is free of charge."

Listening to all this, the old man managed somehow to sit in his bed, afraid that what the fourth is going to suggest. He said, "Wait, where are my shoes?

They were all shocked. They said, "What you are going to do with your shoes?"

He said, "I am still alive, I can walk to the graveyard. Gracefully, let me reach to the graveyard and don't waste anything, and don't do such an ugly thing calling a municipal corporation truck. And the fourth has not still spoken. Perhaps he may like to drag me just down the road? Just find out the shoes because I am finishing every moment. Let me die gracefully."

The only man has only one choice; either he dies gracefully or he will force the new man to drag him to the graveyard. No politicians and no religious leaders can save that is dead. No politicians, no religious 1/08/07

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leaders can prevent what existence wants to produce. It is going to come. Existence is far infinitely more powerful than all your tiny politicians and your stupid Popes and Ayatollah Khomeiniacs, and Shankaracharyas.

If existence has a desire to create a new humanity because the old has failed, then no matter what these people try to prevent it, they are not going to succeed. Their very efforts show that deep down they know they are losing power. People are slipping out of their hands. So it is a desperate last effort. But absolutely meaningless and absurd.

(Tape side C; seems to be a gap)

There were few more questions I had rejected. But I don't want the journalist to go with the idea that I rejected them because I don't have the answers. I rejected them because they were not worth answering. But not to give him the idea that I don't have the answers for them, I will answer shortly and quickly.

First, he had asked that from America to India, from India to Nepal, now what am I going to do? Now I am going to do a world tour. Because I don't believe in politician boundaries, and I conceive the whole earth as mine; and I have my people all around the world, many of whom I have not seen for years. And I would like to see all of them. So rather than calling all of them in one place, which will be impossible, because now there must be at least three to four million people, the only way is that I should move, go around the world, have a look at my people, give them a little more fire; because they will need fire to burn many things.

Second, he had asked that "Bhagwan, you live in luxury, your life style is luxurious. What about your sannyasins?" In the first place, I am the poorest man in the whole world because I don't possess anything.

And whatever I use belongs to my sannyasins, not to me. They have simply borrowed it for a time being to be used by me. And what gives you the idea of luxury? Perhaps you see the diamonds on my cap, you see the diamonds on my watch. Don't be befooled. They are not diamonds, they are absolutely proletarian authentic stones. Just my people have cut them in such a way that they can defeat diamonds; even my watch is made by my own people, and it is studded with stones, not with diamonds. It has no value as far as cost is concerned; otherwise it is invaluable because it is a gift of love.

If you want to know about my food you can ask Devaraj, my personal physician. He does not allow me more than two thousand calories per day. Do you think it is luxury? He is sitting in the kitchen weighing everything -- it should not be more than two thousand calories in the whole day, twenty four hours. Two thousand calories are given to really sick people who are eating in the hospital.

Would you like to change places? I am ready. You can have my robes, but you will have to eat my food too. And it looks apparently that I am using a very costly robe. But it is all synthetic. In the long run, it is the cheapest material possible. If I am using cotton, I will be using ten robes in the same time. Just one robe will do. It is the cheapest and the most beautiful. And everything from my shoes to my head is made by my sannyasins.

And what do you consider my life style? How can you manage to think it is luxurious? I don't drink alcohol, I don't go to dances, I have not seen a movie, I simply come two times out of the house to see only my people. I don't read anything -- books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television. I am not a member of any luxurious club. My life style is very simple. Mostly I am asleep. I love sleeping; because to me sleep is synonymous to meditation and in sleep there are nobody who is a beggar, nobody who is an emperor. Sleep is very communist.

What has given you the idea that I am living luxuriously? And whatever way I am living, it is my people who want me to be as comfortable as possible. It is their love. I have not asked it.

As far as my sannyasins are concerned, I am their luxury. They are the richest people in the world because they have me. There is no group compared to them. Catholics have that idiot pope.

There is not a single group of seekers in the whole world who has a mystic amongst them, as a friend, who is not creating any kind of slavery; who is trying to give them their individuality, their freedom, their original face. They are the richest people in the world. So never say again that my people are poor.

Third, you had asked that "Your sannyasins need you, although you insist for independence. Can your sannyasins exist without you?"

You have to understand three words. One is dependence, which has been the law down the ages. To destroy dependence I have to talk about independence. But the reality is neither dependence nor independence. Independence is only an antidote for dependence. It is like you have a thorn in your feet, then you take another thorn to take it out. The second thorn is as much a thorn as the first. But it helps you to take out the first. That does not mean that you should start worshipping the second thorn. You have to throw 1/08/07

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them both.

Dependence has been the law through the ages. That is one thorn. I give you another thorn --

independence, so that you can destroy dependence. Then what is left is tremendously beautiful and unknown experience -- that is interdependence. The whole existence is interdependent. You cannot exist for a single moment absolutely independent. You are breathing. You are dependent on the air surrounding you.

If oxygen is removed from the air you will die immediately, with all your independence in your pocket.

You are thirsty, you have to drink. You cannot say that I am an independent man; I cannot drink water; I will remain, I will exist without water. Life is interdependent. We are all joined together; we are not islands.

We are a whole continent.

I teach independence just as an arbitrary device to destroy dependence, so that you can become available to a new phenomenon -- interdependence. We all need each other. The farthest star is also feeding you; the sun is far away. It takes for its rays to reach to you almost ten minutes. And for the light, ten minutes is a very long journey. To you ten minutes seems to be a very small fragment of time. But not to the light.

Because light travels one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second; multiplied by sixty, that will be one minute travel; multiplied by ten that will be ten minutes' distance. So many miles! But we live on it; our bodies are warm because of the sun. Otherwise you will simply go cold.

Scientists are worried that one day the sun is going to die, because it is for millions of years radiating heat. It does not have an inexhaustible source. Its source is limited. One day, suddenly, the fuse will go off.

One night you will see the sunset, and there is not going to be any morning again. But you will not survive either to see, that there is no more any morning. You will all become cold turkeys.

Life is one, an organic unity. Yes, my people have a certain communion with me, the same way I have a certain communion with them. There is no question of dependence, no question of independence. It is a question of becoming one.

Your fourth and last question was, "What happened to you in America?" Now the story is so old, it seems older than Adam and Eve. So please forgive me! I don't deal in junk.

Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #22

Chapter title: None

16 January 1986 pm in

Archive code: 8601165

ShortTitle: LAST522

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

PRESS INTERVIEWS

Q: BHAGWAN, WHEN I LISTEN TO YOU I FEEL I AM FLOATING IN THE OCEAN AND I AM

FILLED (INAUDIBLE) DIVINE, BUT YOU DO NOT SPEAK ABOUT THE ZERO. IS IT BECAUSE THAT

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WE ALL COME FROM THE ZERO AND WE WILL VANISH IN THE ZERO?

A: This is one of the most familiar perennial questions man has ever asked. It is immensely significant to understand few implications of it, before I answer the question directly.

First, the way it is presented it is not a question. It is a statement. You are saying, from the zero we all come, and into zero we all dissolve. Where is the question? You are speaking as if you know. A question comes as an inquiry. This is not an inquiry. You are stating something out of your knowledgeability. Please forgive me if it hurts you. I am helpless, because I can say only what is true. And truth always hurts.

You do not know that you come from the zero, do you? You do not know that you disappear into the zero, do you? You are simply covering your ignorance. It would be better to say that "I don't know from where I come, and I don't know where I go." Anything that you accept without questioning is dangerous, because you start believing in it.

I say to you, you don't come from zero; because out of zero nothing can come. That is the exact meaning of zero. It is empty, it is nothingness. Out of nothingness, something is not possible. And something cannot dissolve into nothingness again. There is no way. The scientists are aware of the fact that in existence you cannot destroy anything; you can change its forms. Even a small piece of rock, you cannot destroy it. You can crack it into pieces, but the rock is still there, in pieces. You can make it into powder, but the rock is still there. You can throw it into the ocean, it may disappear from your eyes, but it is still there you know.

Nothing that exists can go into non-existence. And vice versa. That is non-existence cannot come into existence.

From where you got the idea that we come from zero? You don't know anything from before your birth, where you were. You don't know when a person dies where he goes. Your ignorance you are covering in a word, zero. Don't be satisfied so soon.

I would like you to cut a seed and look into it. You will not find any flowers, you will not find any fragrance, you will not find any leaves, branches. But they are all there; just you don't have the eyes to see.

They are potentially there, and you can see only the actual. The potential eludes you. Sow the seed in the garden, and one day suddenly you see green sprouts coming out of nothingness. You know they were not in the seed. From where they are coming? And then a great foliage, a whole bush, and hundreds of flowers, and that beautiful perfume. It was not in the seed. You had looked into it. But I say to you, it was in the seed. Otherwise it cannot come. From where it can come? It was potentially in the seed, and we don't have the eyes to see the potential; we can see only the actual.

In Soviet Russia there is a scientist and a great photographer, Kirlian. He has developed a special kind of camera, very sensitive lenses, very sensitive films. And he takes the film of a rosebud, and when he shows you the picture you are simply amazed. The rosebud is not in the picture, but a fully grown up flower.

After seven days the rose becomes the flower and the strangest thing is, it is exactly as the picture was.

Kirlian has developed a more sensitive eye than we have. In can take the pictures of the potential. Now Kirlian is working on diseases. You bring a perfectly healthy person to him. He takes the picture and says that "Within six months this man is going to have tuberculosis," because it shows in his picture. And within six months that healthy person falls sick, has tuberculosis. It was in the seed, in the potential. Our eyes are very limited.

So I would like to remind you, you don't come from a seed. You come from a fullness of existence, from perfection; from a fulfilled existence. You were in the seed, and perhaps one day you will go back into that silence of the organic whole.

But don't call it zero. It is not empty, it is full. It is full of everything that you see in the universe. It is full of all the stars, all the suns, all the planets, all the people, all the flowers; and much more. Because every day, new stars are being born.

There is no zero anywhere. It is only an abstract concept in mathematics. It is non-existential. In reality, there is no zero. Have you met zero in reality anywhere? In reality you always meet something, never nothing. Nothing is only a concept, and don't be deluded by the concept.

I am reminded of a beautiful story. A small girl, Alexis, has reached into the land of the fairies. She is presented to the king, and the king asks little Alexis, "Have you met any postman coming towards me?" He was waiting for some urgent message, and it was getting late.

Alexis said, "Nobody, sir." And the king misunderstood the word nobody. He thought "nobody" is

"somebody".

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So he said, "But if you had met nobody on the way towards me, nobody must have reached before you.

Where is he?"

Alexis was puzzled. She simply said, "Sir, nobody is nobody."

But the king said, "I know nobody is nobody, but where he is?"

Zero is only a mathematical concept, man-made, it has no existential status. We come from a divine fullness, and we are carrying that fullness within us, with each beat of our heart, our life belongs to that divine fullness.

Even in death; you don't disappear into a zero. Only the body, your house, which has become old and dilapidated, disappears into its elementary forces. But you, as a consciousness, as a being, go on moving into new forms, until that ultimate moment when you realize your divineness, when you realize that you are not just a man, but something more; that you are not just a part of time, but part of eternity. After that realization, you don't go into another form. You have come to the end of a long pilgrimage, you have come to the goal, you have reached home. You enter into the divine fullness consciously.

You have come out of divine fullness unconsciously. That's why you don't know from where you are coming. But when you enter consciously, with full awareness, you know that the circle is complete. That's why we have called the world samsara. `Samsara' simply means the circle. Whenever the circle is complete, you consciously enter into the same space, into the same blissfulness, from where you had come, but unconsciously. And the world is nothing but a school, to change your unconsciousness into consciousness.

Please don't use negative words like zero. They are dangerous. If you put two zeros on both the extremes of your life your birth is out of zero, your death is into a zero, between these two zeros what you can be, except a zero? Between two zeros, what meaning you can have? What fullness you can experience? Your life will be just a desert. A long series of empty moments with no significance. Avoid negative words! Use positive words; because existence is positive. There is nothing negative in existence, and if you become accustomed to negative words, you lose contact with existence.

It will be a great blessing to you if you can drop that word zero, and start thinking of a divine, overflowing energy that has created you. Just a small word can change your whole flavor of life. It can give you a new song and a new dance, because on both the sides there is a divine fullness. Your life is no more empty. You can see yourself as part of a vast organic unity that this universe is.

And to me this is what religiousness means -- to be positive, to approach life positively. Learn to say

"Yes," and drop to say "No." And you will be surprised, that what a revolution comes by a simple change.

Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT ARE YOUR SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE EXISTING LAW AND LEGAL

SYSTEMS IN THE WORLD, SO AS TO MAKE IT MORE EFFECTIVE AND ABIDING?

A: I would like to start from a small story. It happened twenty five centuries before in China. There was a wise man, Lao Tzu. The emperor of China appointed him as supreme-most judge of the whole empire.

And Lao Tzu tried to persuade the emperor that he will repent: "Don't do this; I am not going to fit with your legal systems, because it is basically wrong. It does not need reformation; it needs revolution."

But the king was stubborn, and he insisted that "You become my supreme judge."

The first case appeared before him in the court -- a thief has stolen from the richest man of the capital almost half of his treasures. It was a great crime. The legal system that was prevailing in the country would have given him death. But Lao Tzu called the rich man also to the court and said that "Both these people are criminals. And they both should be sentenced to jail for six months."

The rich man said, "What kind of justice is this? I have been robbed. My half treasure has been stolen by this man, and you are punishing me; for what?"

Lao Tzu said, "Because you have accumulated so much money that it is bound to create thieves in the country. You are a criminal first. This man comes in a secondary category."

The rich man rushed to the king and said that "What kind of man you have chosen to be your supreme judge? He is dangerous. Today I am going to jail, tomorrow you will go to jail!"

Of course, immediately Lao Tzu was removed.

You are asking me what improvements, what changes, are needed in the legal system. As I see it, it is basically wrong. It needs nothing less than a revolution; because down the centuries you have been increasing your courts, judges, legal experts, and laws have become everyday more and more complicated.

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hand the crime goes on increasing, ten times more than your legal system. You have not been able to cope with it. There is something very fundamentally wrong.

As I see it, first the whole legal system is based on social revenge, not on social compassion. Sometimes it goes to stupid extremes; for example, suicide is a crime, and if a man is caught committing suicide, he has not yet committed. He has been simply caught making an effort to commit. Then your legal system, sentencing him to death, is strange. That's what he was going to do. So why all this fuss? Years of arguments, courts, judges, wastage of time and money, and finally you sentence the man to death. And that's what he was going to do, on his own, without your support.

Your whole legal system is a revenge system. The society punishes a person because he was disobedient, because he did not follow the crowd, because he was not part of the mob. He tried to be an individual on his own. He was playing his game according to his own rules. Revenge is not going to help, because you are doing the same crime that the criminal has committed. Of course, you have the support of the whole society; so nobody calls your punishment a crime. But any unprejudiced mind can see what you are doing.

A man commits rape. A man commits robbery. A man commits murder. Certainly something has to be done. But not punishment. Because the man who commits rape simply means he is sexually unsatisfied.

And your society has not given him a chance to be sexually satisfied.

Mohammedans are allowed to marry four wives. In the world there is an equal proportion of men and women. Now if men are going to marry four wives, then what about those three men who will remain without wives? And if they start committing rape, is it a crime? Nizam of Hyderabad just forty years before had five hundred wives. And you want to prevent rape? Maharaja Patyallah(*), he was a beautiful man; in Patyallah(*) any beautiful woman was in danger. She was going to be taken sooner or later, once the Maharaja looks at her, the next day she will disappear. He must have been a really courageous man. He could not manage to take away the daughter of the Viceroy of India. So he raped.

Now, this man seems to be psychologically sick. He had hundreds of wives, concubines, and still he rapes. He does not need punishment. He needs treatment. He should be sent to a psychiatric hospital where his mind can be put right. Something is wrong with his mind. The punishment cannot change him, because the punishment has nothing to do with psychology. In fact, once a person goes to jail, jail becomes his home. He goes again and again. Jail is a kind of university, because there are master criminals. When you send somebody for the first time in jail, he is an amateur. In the jail he finds great masters of crime, experts.

He learns the art, he learns that it is not the crime that has brought him to the jail. It is being caught that has brought him to the jail.

You can go on committing as many crimes as you want. Just don't be caught. Because crime is not punished; being caught is punished. This is a strange situation. Those who are caught are in jail. Those who are not caught may be very respectable citizens, powerful people in the society.

(Tape side B)

I am against all kinds of punishment. The whole idea of punishment is inhuman. Anybody committing a crime simply shows that he needs psychiatric help. Instead of jails, we need psychiatric hospitals, where the person can be taken care of respectfully, with dignity, because once a person's dignity is destroyed you have reduced him into a permanent criminal.

In a psychiatric hospital, he should be respected, he should be treated just like any patient. You will be surprised to know that in the past many patients were punished for the simple reason because they were not thought to be patients. For example, somebody was mad. He was punished, he was sent to a jail. Now we can see the stupidity of it all. A madman, you are sending him to jail? It is very difficult to decide whether you are mad or he is mad. What the jail can do to a madman? He needs a dignified respectful treatment. And that's what we are doing now.

About other crimes, the same is the situation. Crime does not happen out of nowhere; it is something in your mind. Something is wrong, which can be put right. And we have enough development of psychological sciences that the mind can be changed completely. One thing is certain, that the criminal has a very powerful personality. His personality, his power, if diverted towards creativity, may bring great blessings to the society. Right now they become a burden on the society. Thousands of people in jail are living on your labor, on your taxes, on your work. And when they will come out of the jail, they will come more with great expertise, and you will not be able to catch hold of them so easily.

The whole idea of punishment is barbarious. The legal system should change its foundations. Every crime should be treated as a mental disease. And then things will be totally different; then society is 1/08/07

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showing compassion, not revenge. And you are helping people to become more human, more integrated.

And while they are being treated, you can teach them, you can allow them to learn some skill, some craft, so when they come out of the psychiatric hospital they are not dependent on the society. They can create their living by their own effort, and you have given them so much respect, so much dignity, that it will be impossible for them to commit again a crime.

I am reminded of a mystic who had only one blanket. In the day he used to cover his body with the blanket. In the night he used to cover itself to protect him from the cold. One cold night, a full moon night, a thief by accident entered his cottage. I say by accident, because otherwise who goes to a mystic's hut to steal what you can get there? In fact, the mystic was awake. He went behind the thief. The thief was shocked, embarrassed. The mystic said, "Don't be worried. I have just come because I have been living in this place for thirty or more years, I have not found anything. Perhaps you can find. We can divide it. I will join in the search!"

The thief could not believe this man. He said, "I am a thief."

The mystic said, "Forget all about these adjectives. Who is not a thief? Everybody is stealing something or other. People are stealing knowledge through books, people are stealing every kind of thing; so don't be worried. And I am a holy man, and I am joining with you. It is a search. I have been here for thirty years looking for something. There is nothing in this house. Perhaps it is not in my fate; maybe you have a better fate. Something may be found. And I don't ask much. Just half of the share."

The thief was very much puzzled. He had never come across such a man. He said, "Thirty years you have been here and you have not found anything. There is no possibility. Just let me go. It is so cold, but seeing you I am perspiring. You have made me so nervous, and it is just by accident that I have entered. Just forgive me."

The mystic said, "Only on one condition, that you will have to take this blanket; because this is the only thing I have got. And you have honored me so much. Because thieves enter into kings' palaces; who comes to a poor man's hut. You have honored me. For a moment I feel like a king. So just don't refuse. Take this blanket."

The thief could not say anything, but when he saw that the mystic was naked, he had only the blanket, he felt really sorry that he has done for the first time something wrong. In his whole life he has never felt that he has done anything wrong. But to face this man was so difficult, to refuse this man was so difficult, he escaped with the blanket out of the door.

The man shouted, "Stop!"

And the thief stopped and looked back and he said, "Have I done anything wrong?"

He said, "Yes, at least close the doors. And you have forgotten to give me at least just a thank you. It may help you in the future some time. So say thank you, close the door. And then you can go away wherever you want."

He said, "Thank you," closed the door and ran away.

Naked, the saint was sitting near the window, looking at the full moon. And he heard a song. The meaning of the song is, "I am so poor, I could not give him anything more. He must be in desperate need.

Otherwise who comes five miles out of the city to a lonely isolated hut of a mystic. If it was in my power, I would have given him the full moon. Not less than that. But I am a poor man. I cannot do anything else than give my blanket."

Later on the thief in another case was caught by the police, brought to the court, was asked "Do you know anybody who can identify you?" He said, I don't know anybody, except a mystic who lives outside the city. Perhaps he can recognize me."

The saint was called to the court, he recognized the thief, but he said to the magistrate that "Don't punish this poor man. I had given him my blanket, he has not stolen. And he is a very graceful gentleman. He has not only not stolen my blanket, he said `Thank you, sir,' and when I said to him, `Close the doors' he is so obedient. He closed the doors. He is a very humble man. Forgive him.

The mystic was very much respected in the surroundings. The magistrate himself was a follower of the mystic. When he said, forgive him, he forgave him. As the mystic was leaving the court he found the thief following him. He said, "Why you are following me?"

He said, "Now I am going to be with you forever. I have never come a man who has ever respected me as a human being. You have given me dignity. Others have treated me like a dog, a thief; and the more they have mistreated me, the more I have done the same things, out of revenge. You are the only man who has not bothered about my actions. But you have looked directly into my eyes, and into my being. I am not 1/08/07

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going to leave you." The thief became a saint in his own way. He became the successor of the old saint.

The whole legal system needs to drop revengefulness. It has to become compassionate; it has to treat human beings with respect. Actions don't count. What counts is the whole personality, which is a vast thing.

An action is a small thing. Don't make it too big. And we are making it too big. Somebody does something wrong -- and remember it is human to err; everybody commits mistakes. But the mistakes should not be taken as equivalent to his life. It is only a small fragment in a long series. Don't give it too much importance.

Don't make it the focus of light. Don't throw that man into a jail, undignified, unhonored, all his humanity taken away. Don't behave with that man as if he is an animal.

Society needs to be more compassionate. Law needs to be more compassionate. Remember, man is not for law; law is for man. And if law is not helping man, then it has to be changed. It has not helped. There is no doubt about it. And I am not saying that "Withdraw all laws, and dissolve all courts." I am saying that your courts and your laws and your legal experts should make the whole phenomenon based on compassion, not on revenge.

And compassion is the essence of all religions. And if we cannot create our legal system based on the essential, fundamental religious experience of the ages, then future will condemn us; then future will think about us as barbarious, then future is not going to accept as civilized people, cultured. I am reminded of H.

G. Wells.

One man said to him, "What do you think about civilization?"

And H G Wells said, "It is a good idea, but it has yet to happen."

Civilization has not happened? And a man of the calibre and intelligence like H G Wells thinks so. It has not happened yet. We are still living in a barbarious age. Perhaps we have better clothes, better houses, polite nice manners; beautiful masks to hide our faces; but deep down, there is the animal who hankers for revenge.

It is strange to see that still there are countries where death sentence is legal. If a man has murdered someone, and you think it is a crime; certainly it is a crime. Nobody has the right to destroy somebody else'

life. But what you are doing? You destroy that man's life. And I don't see the logic, because if this man's murder, crucifixion, was going to revive the other man, then too there was some logic in it. Instead of one man dead, now there will be two men dead. And you think law is satisfied, the society is satisfied; but this satisfaction is ugly.

So I will not go into the details of law, because that is not my function. My function is to change the foundation. Then details will change automatically. Up to now revenge has been the foundation; let compassion be the foundation in the future.

It is a very strange experience. I have been visiting jails, teaching prisoners meditation, and I was surprised that they are more innocent than your magistrates, than your advocates, than your law makers.

They are more innocent people. I have been in jail in America for twelve days, and that gave me a great experience, from the inside. I have been to jails before, but I was an outsider. This time I was an insider, and inmate. And I was surprised to know, utterly surprised, that the people you have condemned as criminals, condemned for their whole life to live in darkness and dismal cells, which is worse than death, are far more innocent, loving, understanding.

In twelve days I was in five jails, because they were afraid to keep me in one jail. It was surrounded by news media, by sannyasins, by people who love me; and they were afraid that something may go wrong. So they went on changing me from one jail to another. It was good for me, because I came to know thousands of criminals -- and not a single person in those five jails, and each jail had five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred people -- not a single criminal was against me. They were all in favor of me, because they were looking on the television continuously, my statements; and when I passed through the cells, every criminal was showing me the sign of victory. And they were shouting in different languages that "Bhagwan, don't be worried. Final victory is yours!"

I will ask the jail authorities for small things -- a toothbrush, toothpaste, a soap, a towel, a comb, and it will take twelve hours for the toothbrush to appear, but the toothpaste is not there! And if toothpaste will appear, then toothbrush is not there. If the soap will appear, the towel is not there. I cannot take a shower.

But I was amazed that these criminals will go on throwing things into my cell; and they will say, "Bhagwan, this is absolutely new, we have not used it. This toothbrush, you can see it is still sealed, we have been keeping it, we had never known that this will be our blessing, to give it to you."

I will ask for milk and the answer was, no. And some criminal will bring his own milk, and he said that

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milk, no fruits, knowing perfectly well that I am vegetarian, and I will not be eating anything else than fruits and vegetables, milk. You will be surprised that in twelve days whatsoever I have eaten has been given to me by the criminals, not by the jail authorities. Out of their own -- because they used to get one apple every day, and if I was in a cell where there were six people, they all bring their apples. I had six apples. I will say, "I cannot eat six apples. And it is, you know, you are all Christians, just one apple Adam and Eve had eaten, and humanity is suffering still. And you are giving me six! Do you want me to get out of jail or not?"

I came to see that we are not doing justice to these people. Their small act, maybe in a fit of anger, they did something. And it has become their whole life. You have not given them a chance to change. You have finished them. You have put a full stop. Just a small fit of anger, and the man may have done something.

What he needs is, to be taught how anger can be dispersed, how one can come above anger; but this you are not doing. By forcing him into jails, you are making him more angry. You are creating more criminals.

Your whole legal system is a criminal system.

Q: I AM A LAWYER. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MEDITATE, AND WHEN, WHEN I AM OCCUPIED

ALL OF THE TIME. SO PLEASE SUGGEST.(*)

A: It is important to understand because all the teachers of meditation in the world have been telling you that you have to keep a separate time for meditation. Mohammedans have to meditate five times in the day.

Five times they have to close their shops, their businesses if they are real Mohammedans. But this is absolutely impractical. If the man is driving a railway train, or flying an aeroplane, and he has to stop five times, this is not going to be meditation, this is going to be a massacre!

My approach about meditation is totally different. I do not say to you that you have to have a separate time for meditation. Meditation has to be just like breathing -- you don't have a separate time for it, that in the morning you breathe and then you go to your business and forget breathing. You go on doing your things, and breathing continues.

Meditation has to be something like that, that it runs like an undercurrent in your all activities of the day.

I will suggest you a very simple meditation. Whatever you are doing -- you may be digging a hole in the earth, planting new rosebushes in your garden, working in your shop, or fighting a case in the court -- it does not matter what you are doing. Do it consciously, do it with full awareness.

I will tell you what I mean by it. Once Buddha was passing in Shrivasti with his dearest disciple, Ananda. A fly came and sat on his forehead. Just as we will do, he simply waved his hand and the fly was gone. Then he stopped, and took his hand very carefully, very consciously. The fly was no more there, and he waved his hand with great grace. Ananda could not understand what is happening. He said, "You have the fly few minutes before, and it is gone. Now what are you doing?"

And Buddha said, "That time I did it wrong. I did it without awareness. I continued to talk to you, and mechanically I simply waved my hand without being conscious of what I am doing. Now I am doing it as I should have done in the first place, to remind me that it does not happen again." Any action done with awareness becomes meditation.

(Tape side C)

In the beginning it will be difficult, you will go on forgetting again and again. But don't be discouraged.

Even if in twenty four hours you can manage for twenty four seconds, that is more than enough. Because the secret is the same. If you can manage it for one second, you know the key. You know the knack. Then it is only a question of time. Slowly, slowly, you will be having bigger gaps when you are aware. The action continues; not only it continues, it becomes better than ever before; because now you are doing with such consciousness. Its quality changes, because you are conscious, you are totally there. Your intensity changes, your insight, your understanding;

and the action that you are doing starts having a grace of its own.

Meditation should be slowly spread all over your life. Even while going to sleep, lying down on your bed, it will take few minutes for you to go to sleep. Those few minutes be alert, of the silence, of the darkness, of the relaxed body. Remain alert as sleep starts descending on you, till you are completely overwhelmed by the sleep, and you will be surprised that if you had continued to the very last moment when sleep took over you, in the morning the first thought will be again of awareness; because whatever is the last thought before you go to sleep is always the first thought in the morning when you wake up. Because it continues as an undercurrent in your sleep.

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You cannot find time, nobody has time. The day is so full. But six or eight hours in the night can be transformed into meditation. Even a Buddha will feel jealous of you. Even he cannot meditate eight hours. It is simply an intelligent effort to transform your sleep. You are taking a shower. Why not take it with awareness. Why take it mechanically? Just doing like a robot, because you have been doing it every day, so you go on doing it and it becomes mechanical. Do everything non-mechanically, and slowly, slowly meditation will not be a question that it needs separate time. It becomes spread all over your day, twenty four hours. Then only you are on the right track.

The people who meditate ten minutes in the morning, are not going to gain much. Because ten minutes of meditation, and twenty four hours against it, how you are going to win? You have to put twenty four hours of meditation against twenty four hours of ordinary life. Then there is absolute guarantee that success is going to be yours.

Q: BHAGWAN, WHY ONE NEEDS A MASTER?

A: Nobody needs a master.

But then, the journey will be very long. It may take many lives for you to discover the truth. So this is the first thing to remember, that the master is not an absolute need. You can go on your own alone, because truth is nobody's monopoly. You can seek and search and find it. The only thing is, how long it will take for you, because there are thousands of ways which lead nowhere. And there is only one way that leads to truth.

How you are going to find that one way amongst thousands of ways? The only logical method will be, move on every way and find out that this is not the right way. Eliminate it. Move on another way, and find out this is not the right way; eliminate it. Elimination is the only way for the person who has no master.

But how long it will take for you to eliminate thousands of ways? Perhaps thousands of lives. And who knows, you may get discouraged. Most probably you will get discouraged. You may start thinking, perhaps there is no road, no way. Just to console yourself you may start thinking, there is no truth. I am simply wasting my time, my energy, my life. So remember it. As far as I am concerned, the master is not an absolute need. But, without a master it is almost impossible to find the right path, and the most shortest path that leads to the ultimate truth.

The master cannot give you the truth. But the master can show you that you need not go on wrong paths.

He can eliminate those paths. Without him, you will have to go through those paths and eliminate yourself.

The master can eliminate them for you. He cannot show you the right path. Let me insist it. He cannot show you the right path, he cannot show you the truth. But he can show you what is false, what is wrong. And if you know what is false, what is wrong, then you can discover the truth more easily.

The master's function is to eliminate the false and leave you alone with the truth and the right path.

Ordinarily people think that the master gives you the path. No, he does not give you the path. He simply takes away all wrong paths. Then whatever is left is for you to travel. It is up to you. If you choose a long journey, which will be spread over many lives, you are free to do it. But if you want, if truth is a thirst and an urgency, then the master is the greatest friend in this world. And remember, I don't want to call the master the master. Because that gives an impression as if you are a slave. And that's what your so-called masters have been doing. They are masters, and you are spiritual slaves.

The real master is only a friend, nothing more, nothing less. He can share his experience with you, he can show you how he has been failing, how he has been going on wrong ways, how he has faltered, fallen, how many lives he has been searching. And help you to avoid all that.

If you understand the master as a great friend, you will not unnecessarily waste your life searching for truth. What is the harm, to give your hand in the hand of a friend? Why are you so afraid? I can see, the fear is because your so-called masters have created slaves around themselves. The real master does not create slaves. He creates independent people, individuals. And he takes your hand only to the point where wrong paths are eliminated, and only the right one is left. That is the moment he will pull his hand away from you; in spite of you; even if you want, the master will say, "You have to go alone from here. Nobody can accompany you to the ultimate shrine of truth. Everybody has to go alone, totally alone. Up to here it was okay. I was eliminating the false, but now you are standing facing the right path, so I have to say goodbye to you." A friend knows when to help and when not to help. A friend knows when to hold your hand and when to leave you alone.

Find a master who can be a friend, and does not enslave you. He can be of tremendous help.

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Okay.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #23

Chapter title: None

17 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601175

ShortTitle: LAST523

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

PRESS INTERVIEWS

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, CAN A BUDDHA LIKE YOU BE IN PRISON? I AM NOT ABLE TO

UNDERSTAND.

A: I can understand your difficulty. But it seems you are not aware of the history of human consciousness. Socrates is poisoned, and he is a Buddha. Gautam Buddha himself died out of food poisoning. Al-Hillaj-Mansoor, one of the greatest Sufi mystics, is killed by the fanatic Mohammedans.

Sarmad, another man of immense experience of the ultimate truth, is killed again by the fanatic people, the orthodox, the traditional.

Many attempts were made on the life of Buddha to kill him. It is not a new thing. It is as old as man himself. You have always treated your highest expressions with inhumanity. While they are alive, you try to kill them, and when you have killed them, then you start worshipping them. Your worship is nothing but to cover your guilt.

Many attempts have been made on my life; just seven years before in a morning discourse, ten thousand sannyasins were present, and the police was informed by some anonymous person that a group of fanatics is going to make an effort to kill Bhagwan. So twenty top police officers rushed to the place where I was speaking. In their presence, and in the presence of ten thousand sannyasins, a knife was thrown at me. The man missed the target. But the police caught him red-handed. Ten thousand eye witnesses, it is almost impossible to find for any attempt on life, and twenty police officers. They got hold of the knife, and it was a police case. Still the man was set free, and the magistrate gave the judgment that no attempt on life is being made.

But he must have felt guilty, because through a common friend, a doctor, he informed me that please forgive me. I am a poor magistrate. The pressure of political parties over me is too much. They want the man to be freed. I know the attempt has been made, and there cannot be more solid evidence -- ten thousand eye witnesses, and twenty top police officers also witnesses. But the politicians will destroy me. I have to listen to them. So just please forgive me.

What happened in America with me is nothing new. It has always been happening. You have to understand one thing, that whenever there is somebody who has a message for you, which goes against your 1/08/07

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traditional ways, your orthodoxy, your conditioning, then your whole priesthood, your politicians, the status quo, all the vested interests are against such a man. For the simple reason because he is a disturbance. If people listen to him there is going to be a revolution. And that revolution will change everything. It will throw those who are in power. It will throw those priests who are dominating you.

Naturally those who are in power would not like it. It is better to finish one man rather than to loose all their vested interests. Why they crucified Jesus? He has not committed any crime. He was a simple man. He has not done anything illegal. But why they insisted to kill him? For the simple reason he was upsetting the whole society. He was saying things which go against the past, which go against the old, which bring some new light, which take you into the unknown. He is opening doors for progress. And there are people who don't want any progress. They want a static society, a dead society. And these people are in power.

Naturally, every Buddha has to go to jail, and every Buddha has to be killed or crucified. Twenty five centuries have passed since Socrates was poisoned, but nothing has changed. Against Socrates, there was no crime. They invented a bogus thing against him; that was that he corrupts the minds of young people. He was giving the new people new insights. He was giving more intelligence to people. He was making them aware what is wrong in the old, rotten society, and how it can be changed. But the old society thinks this is corruption. He is dangerous. He should be removed, before it is too late.

I had not done any crime; my only crime in America was, what Christian missionaries have been doing for centuries all over the world. They have been converting people into Christianity. But the people they convert into Christianity are the orphans, the beggars, the poor, the starving, the aboriginals. They have not been successful to convert a single cultured, educated, high-class individual anywhere in the whole world.

Their problem was that I was attracting the cream of the society; the people who had become part of my commune were doctors, engineers, electronic engineers, scientists, professors, legal experts, surgeons, educationists. That was the shock to the fanatic Christians. They have not been successful in the world to change a single educated man to Christianity. And I have taken their best people out of their fold. This was my crime.

Ronald Reagan, the President of America, is a fanatic Christian. He is a fundamentalist Christian. And he wants America to be a Christian country, and the pressure of him and the Christian priests was that a man like me is dangerous; because I am influencing the highest intelligentsia of the country. And if it goes on, it is going to destroy the very roots of Christian religion. That was the reason why they arrested me without any warrant. They could not show even what is the cause for which they are arresting me. It was simply a joint effort of the Christianity and the politicians to destroy a commune which was the first effort ever made, and it was so successful that anybody who had come to the commune was immediately convinced of its potentiality, of its power, of its future. It was almost a dream come true. The Christian priest was afraid about his Christianity, and the politician was afraid because I am not a politician. And the people who have joined me are not political.

I want human beings to be absolutely free of politics, and free of orthodox, traditional, dead religions.

Each individual should find his own truth. There is no need for any priest to become a mediator between him and truth.

But they cannot prevent me. I am going on a world tour. In fact, they have allowed me more scope. I was working in America; they should have remained silent. That would have been more favorable to them.

Now the whole world is available to me. I am going on a world tour to every country of the world. And the people in America who are interested in me can meet me anywhere. I will be around America, on every island. I cannot enter America, but Americans can come out. I have my own ways. It is not easy to defeat me.

But I can see your question has a point; the point is that you expect that a Buddha should be something superhuman. He cannot be jailed. He cannot be killed. He cannot be poisoned. These are your superstitions.

No buddha is superhuman. Every buddha is as much human as you are. It is your potentiality. You can become a Buddha any moment you decide. It is a question of decision.

But we have been told, and we have accepted it because it is very consoling, if somebody says to you,

"You can become a buddha," you say, "How I can become a buddha. A buddha is a special superhuman being. I am an ordinary human being." And to create this idea, stupid stories have been invented. I will tell you few stories that can make it clear.

Buddha is born when his mother is standing; no mother gives birth to a child standing. Have you seen any woman giving birth to a child standing? And the story does not stop there. Buddha is born from the mother's womb, himself standing on the floor. And the story still does not end. He walks seven feet; just 1/08/07

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born baby walks seven feet, and declares to the whole world that I am the greatest buddha, the suprememost that has ever been or that will ever be. Now, this is all nonsense. No gynecologist will support this. And how a just-born baby can walk, and can talk. But this is just to create the idea in your mind that Buddha is special.

Mahavira does not perspire. He is a special human being. He is not just like you. Now this is impossible unless, instead of skin he has plastic. Perspiration is an absolute necessity. You can ask any physiologist, that without perspiration you cannot live. It is a protection against death, because for life your temperature has to remain exactly the same. When it is too hot, and you don't perspire, your inner temperature will go on higher and higher; and your life span as far as temperature is concerned is not very big. From ninety-eight to one hundred ten, only twelve degrees; that is your life span, twelve degrees. And if the heat is too much, and you don't perspire, you will die out of your own inner heat. Perspiration is a tremendous strategy of nature.

It releases water from every pore of your body, so the heat of outside becomes involved in evaporating the perspiration. It does not reach to you. Perspiration prevents the heat from reaching to you. It keeps your temperature exactly the same -- whether it is cold or hot outside, your inner temperature has to remain the same. Now Mahavira does not perspire.

Why such stories are invented? Just to make you feel inferior, and to make these people feel superior; to create a gap. That gap is not helpful, that gap is dangerous, because that gap makes you remain what you are. You start thinking, what can I do? Mahavira is a special person, Buddha is a special person. Jesus is the only begotten son of God. You are not son of God. You are son of a poor man, just ordinary like you. Jesus is the son of a virgin woman. Now that is absolutely idiotic. Virgin girls don't give birth to people. But Jesus has to be separated from the ordinary humanity. This keeps him above, and it has kept humanity crawling on the ground, feeling that this is our faith, our destiny. We cannot go above where we are. We are not born of a virgin mother, we are not the only begotten son of God. We perspire, we need deodorant. We are ordinary human beings, mortals. We cannot become the awakened ones, the buddhas.

But I say to you, all these stories are false, they are invented. And they have cheated you for centuries, and you have to destroy all these stories. And remember one fact: that everybody was a human being just like you, so that you can also aspire to reach to the stars. There is no need for you to remain crawling on the earth. You can also become a buddha. You can also become a Socrates. You can also become a Mohammed.

Nobody is preventing you except your own ideas that you have collected from the society, from the priests; and all those ideas are poisonous. They are killing you, and they are preventing you from growing, expanding, attaining to higher states of consciousness.

I say unto you that to be a buddha is your potentiality. If you don't claim it, except you nobody else is responsible. And no special quality is needed to become a buddha. All that is needed is to be more alert, to be more conscious, to be more calm, to be more silent, to be more peaceful, to be more compassionate; and all these things are possible for you. Not to perspire is not possible for you, but to be compassionate is possible for you. To be kind and to be loving is possible for you.

I am bringing Buddha within your reach, and that hurts. That hurts every priest of every religion.

Because he has made Krishna, Rama, Mahavira, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, so special and so far away from you, so superhuman, it is a need for the priest to make the ideals far away from you, so he can settle in between you and the buddha; he can become the mediator, the agent.

If there is no difference between you and buddha, then the priest and his profession is finished. Then there is no need for popes, bishops, ministers, Shankaracharyas. What is the need? You can manage it yourself. And they have not been of any help. Twenty five centuries have passed since Buddha and there have been almost half of the humanity buddhist. How many buddhas they have created? Now half the humanity is Christian. How many Christs they have created in two thousand years? Can't you see the failure of your priesthood, your churches, your temples, your mosques? They have utterly failed. Five thousand years have passed since Krishna; and all the Hindu priests and all their rituals have been gone down the drain. They have not been able to produce another Krishna. So what is the point? This priesthood is an unnecessary load. These people are exploiting your blood. They are parasites, not priests.

But when you say any truth like that, you endanger yourself. As I entered Nepal, my friends told me immediately, "Don't say anything against Hinduism."

I said, "Why?"

They said, "This is a Hindu kingdom."

To them I said, "Okay." But to myself I said, if this is a Hindu kingdom then I have to say something against Hindu priests. Because what is the point of saying something against the Christian priests. For that I 1/08/07

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am going to Italy from here directly, to encounter the Pope in his own land. I have been challenging him for a public debate, and he has been like a coward, remained silent. Now I am going exactly to Rome, and challenge him there in his own country.

These people are all around, in different names, and whenever there will be someone who can create a rebellion, and change the deadness in which the society has fallen, and make people alive again, they are bound to be angry. They would like such a man to be jailed, to be poisoned, to be killed, to be removed. His presence is too dangerous.

But I want these people to remember that you can kill me. But you cannot kill my spirit. Jesus is crucified, but his spirit became more solid a phenomenon through crucifixion, crucifixion has not finished Jesus. In fact, crucifixion made Jesus a historical event, a milestone. So I am not worried about when I am going on a world tour, it can turn out to be a world tour in different jails. I would love it. It will be a great experience to see different countries, their different ways of harassment, cruelties, inhumanities. I will be enriched by it.

Your question is simply because you expect something from people like Buddha, something superhuman. For example, the story is if Buddha sits under a tree, and it is not the season for the tree to blossom in flowers, but when Buddha sits under the tree, the tree blossoms immediately into flowers. I don't believe. I have tried sitting under trees. They don't blossom. Do you think trees are more intelligent than man?

It is said that a serpent bites on Mahavira's feet, and instead of blood milk flows out. I was speaking with a Jaina monk, who spoke before me, and he prays that Mahavira was a superhuman being. Even when a snake bites him, blood does not come out of his feet, but milk. After him I had to speak. I said this is possible only in two ways: one that in Mahavira's body there is no blood, it is filled with milk. But that milk would have turned into curd long before. He will be stinking of curd. Second possibility is that Mahavira's feet has the same kind of mechanism that a mother's breast has. Then it is possible that milk can come out.

But to think that his feet has a breast in it does not make Mahavira special. It makes the snake very intelligent. He finds the right place.

(Tape side B)

Just your expectations. Otherwise, they are all human beings. Just like me and you. The only difference is, they are awakened and you are asleep. But you can become awakened any moment.

Q: BHAGWAN, DO YOU TAKE A SPECIAL PLEASURE IN BEING MISUNDERSTOOD BY THE

UNTHINKING CROWD OF JOURNALISTS, POLITICIANS, AND THE LIKE? DO YOU MIND YOU ARE

THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION?

FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS THAT YOU ARE AN INFINITE SOURCE OF INTELLECTUAL DEPTH.

YOU HAVE BEEN USING LOGIC, TO DEMASTER LOGIC, USING INTELLECT TO GO BEYOND

INTELLECT, IS NOT IT AN UNACCEPTABLE PARROT? YOUR FRIENDS ARE LESS ATTRACTED BY

YOUR BOOKS THAN YOUR ENEMIES; YOUR ENEMIES OPPOSE YOU IN PUBLIC BUT THEY

BECOME LEARNED PEOPLE BY STEALING YOU, AND MAKE A DECENT A BUSINESS OUT OF

THEIR OUTFIT. THAT IS, THE RADIO IN NEPAL DEPENDS SIXTY PERCENTS ON YOU ON ITS

RELIGIOUS PROGRAMS, AND YET THE PEOPLE DON'T HESITATE TO SAY THAT RAJNEESH IS A DANGER TO SANATHAN(*).

NUMBER THREE, WHY BHAGWAN, WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE KNOW YOU ONLY AS A SEX GURU TO

THE EXCLUSION OF OTHER THINGS YOU HAVE EXPRESSED IN ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED

BOOKS?

A: I certainly enjoy to disturb people, because there is no other way to help them. When somebody is asleep, the only way to wake him up is to disturb him, shake him, throw cold water into his eyes. Of course, he will be angry, he may be seeing a beautiful dream, and you are disturbing him.

I enjoy disturbing people for the simple reason if they are disturbed, then there is a possibility of changing their minds. They have started thinking. It does not matter, they may start thinking against me. But if they start thinking, sooner or later, they will have to come closer to me. The danger is the non-thinking person. To think against me is not a problem. I am reminded of a beautiful anecdote.

In Judaism there is a revolutionary tradition called Hassidism. The founder of Hassidism, Baal Shemtov, wrote a beautiful book and sent the first copy of the book to the chief priest of the Jews, as a present. One of 1/08/07

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his disciples carried the book. He told the disciple that "You have to give the book in the hands of the rabbi himself. Don't give it to anyone else. And remember whatever is the response of the rabbi, what he says, what he does, what shows in his eyes, on his face, everything you have to note it. And you have to report me immediately, so that you don't forget."

The disciple went to the chief rabbi. He was sitting in the garden with his wife, taking his morning breakfast. The disciple presented the book. He took the book in his hands and he said, "What it is? Who has written it?"

And he said, "It is my master, Baal Shemtov, it is his first book, and he wanted it to be presented to you."

And the rabbi became mad. He threw the book out of the garden into the street. And he said, "Never dare again to bring that man's books in my house." He was just furious.

The wife said to him, "This is not right. You could have thrown the book when the person had gone. Or you could have put it in your library where there are thousands of books. You need not read it. You have not read many of those books. This also can be put there. But there was no need to become so furious, so angry; this is below you. You are the chief rabbi of the Jews. This does not suit you."

The disciple went to his master, Baal Shem, and told him that "The rabbi is a dangerous fellow. He threw the book out in the street. He was furious with anger. He hates you. But his wife is very nice. She told that it was not right of him. He could have kept the book in the library, or even if he wanted to throw it he should have thrown it when I had left."

You will be surprised to know what was the response of Baal Shem, and Baal Shem is one of the buddhas of a very unique quality. Baal Shem said to the disciple, "You don't understand. That rabbi will read the book, that rabbi will become one day my disciple. But that woman which you think is nice will never read the book, will never be interested in me." And that's what happened finally. The chief rabbi turned a disciple to Baal Shem, but his wife remained an orthodox Jew.

The disciple said, "But how you figured it out? The situation was just the opposite."

Baal Shem said, "You don't understand human psychology. I had touched the emotions of the rabbi, and when you touch the emotions of somebody, you have disturbed his heart. He will cool down, he cannot remain disturbed forever. He will start thinking that he has done wrong. He will go out and take the book back, and would like to see what this man has written, but the woman will never look in the book. She was suggesting a nicer, mannerly way to dispose it of. She was not touched. The rabbi was disturbed, she was not disturbed.

And this is my experience. If I can disturb you, there is a chance to find a friend in you. I have touched your emotions. If I cannot disturb you, there is no chance. You have remained a stone statue. I have not been able to reach to your heart. The enemy and the friend are not very different people.

One of the great political thinkers of the West, Machiavelli, has written in his masterpiece book

"Prince", that you should not say anything to your friend which you would not like to say to your enemy.

Because who is your friend today may become your enemy tomorrow. And you should not say anything against your enemy, because today he is your enemy; tomorrow he may be your friend. Then it will be very embarrassing. Keep balanced. And he is right, deeply right about human psychology.

I have seen people disturbed, I have seen people angry, and I have seen those same people changing.

They have become my friends, because they started thinking about it. They could not sleep unless they had found some solution. Certainly they could not go back, they could not settle back into their old mind. It has been disturbed. They have to find something new.

So I certainly enjoy. You have said that perhaps I am the most misunderstood man in the whole history of consciousness. That is true, for the simple reason because Gautam Buddha never left Bihar. The name Bihar comes from Gautam Buddha, because he was travelling in this province; Bihar means travel. Because he travelled continuously in the same province, it became Buddha's bihar, his travelling space. Naturally, he could not reach the vast humanity when he was alive.

Jesus lived in Judea, an unknown country, a small country; nobody has heard about it; not a single reference about Jesus is found in any contemporary book of any other country. Naturally he could not disturb anybody else than Jews. The same is true about all the old spiritual masters.

Now, the world has shrunken very small. Even sitting in one place, I can disturb the whole world.

Science and technology has made it possible. Jesus has no idea that there are other people than Jews. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew. He died as a Jew. He had never heard even the name Christian. The Christian came three hundred years afterwards; when his statements were translated into Greek, then the 1/08/07

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Jewish word Messiah became Christ, and the followers of Christ became Christians. Poor Jesus never knew that his followers will be called Christians. The world was big, approach was impossible.

Now it is different; the world is small, approach is very simple. I can disturb the whole world without any difficulty. And I am going to do it, because I am a very fair person. I cannot disturb only you. I will disturb everybody equally. And I don't feel worried about being misunderstood. That is the beginning of understanding. First you have to misunderstand. The misunderstanding comes because you have a certain prejudice, you have a certain mind, a certain ideology. And when I say something, it conflicts with it.

Naturally, you favor with your own conditioning. Whether it is right or wrong is not the question. It is your conditioning, it is your religion. It is your holy book.

In America the first day when I was in jail, the sheriff of the jail was a very gentle man; and seeing me that I have nothing to do there, he brought a BIBLE and he said, "This is my present to you."

I said, "Have you read it yourself, from the first page to the last?" And I said, "Be honest, you are keeping holy BIBLE in your hands. Don't lie!"

He became a little nervous, then he said, "You are right. I have not read it from the first page to the last."

I said, "That's why you have brought it to me. Because in this BIBLE there are five hundred pages which are nothing but rotten pornography. I have read it from the first page to the last. This book should be banned. This book should not be in any church, in any library, in any university. Because it is sheer pornography, and not one or two pages, five hundred pages."

He said, "My God, I had never thought about it."

And I showed him few pages, and I told him, "Read it. Can you read this page before your daughter?"

And he had to confess, "I cannot. This is ugly."

But this is holy BIBLE. He said no more. "You have disturbed me. Now I cannot sleep. My whole life's idea was that this is God's word. But how can God write such pornographic passages?"

Naturally, first one gets a shock, first one tries to defend, tries in every way to find that "I am not right, he is right." That is what creates misunderstanding. But truth has always been misunderstood, because the whole majority of humanity lives in lies. So whenever a truth is said, it hurts.

And there is a misunderstanding. But truth has a quality. You cannot deny it. You can try denying, but sooner or later you will have to accept it. So every confusion, every misunderstanding, is just temporary. It cannot remain forever. If I am saying something which is true, then your misunderstanding will be dispelled. So I am not worried about misunderstanding. Please misunderstand me as much as you can, because that is the only way that you will come to some understanding.

You have also asked that there are people who go on stealing from my statements, my books. This is happening all over the world, not only in Nepal. It is happening in the films, it is happening in televisions, it is happening on radio, it is happening in newspapers, magazines, all kinds of people are trying to steal. But, I am not worried about it. Truth is truth. It need not be necessarily concerned with my name. Let them steal.

They are stealing truth. Let them present it in their own name. No harm. Because I am not interested in my name; I am interested in my truth.

If the truth reaches to the people, just as you said in your question that sixty percent of the radio in Nepal is stealing from my books, help them to steal hundred percent. My name is irrelevant. What is relevant is truth. And truth is nobody's property -- neither mine nor yours. So why think in terms of stealing? Perhaps they are not stealing; they are impressed but they are cowards, they cannot say my name.

But still they are doing my work. So far so good. Help them. Find out more passages for them to steal.

Anyway, the message has to reach to the people. In whose name it reaches is not my concern at all. Just it should reach.

Truth is universal. It is not mine, it is not yours. So the question of stealing does not arise.

You have also asked, that I have four hundred books in my name. Still people only read one book, which is about sex. That too they don't read the way I have written it. The name of the book will make it clear. The name of the book is "From Sex to Superconsciousness." It is a book of a scientific methodology, how you can transform your sex energy into consciousness, superconsciousness. How your sex energy can become your samadhi. But nobody talks about samadhi or superconsciousness. They think the book is about sex. The book is not about sex. The book is against sex. It is anti sex. Because it is an effort to show you the technique, how sexual energy can be purified. How it can start not going downwards, and taking you downwards, but can start moving upwards, uplifting you higher.

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force. It recreates you. It gives you a rebirth. It creates a new man in you. It makes a child of you, so innocent, so utterly pure; it is a spiritual rebirth.

But people are sexually repressed, so much so that anything, just the word sex, immediately triggers their repressions. I have heard about a psychoanalyst. A man was brought to him by his family, and they said, "Something has to be done. This man is going mad."

The psychoanalyst said, "Wait, let me examine him."

He drew a line on a paper and asked the man, "Do you see what this line reminds you?"

He said, "What? It reminds me of sex."

The psychoanalyst was a little shocked. Just a line, reminds him of sex? So he made a triangle. Seeing the triangle, the man simply closed his eyes. He said, "Don't make that. You are so filthy. Just stop! Sex, sex. Are you a psychologist, or what?"

The psychologist tried one more effort. He drew a circle. And the man hit the psychologist and he said,

"You idiot. You are not a psychologist. You are a sex maniac. This is all pornography."

The psychoanalyst said, "Cool down, sit down. Just I have one question to ask you. Does anything remind you of anything else?"

He said, "No. Everything reminds me of sex."

Repression is one of the greatest problems for man to face. All the religions have repressed sex. They have told you, it is sin. They have told you it is against religion. It is against God. Celibacy is spiritual. Now all these things are absurd. Sex is a natural phenomenon. It is not against nature, not against life, not against God. Because if it is against God, then why he goes on creating people with sexual energy? On the one hand you say God creates everything. Then who has created sex? It must have been God. And if God is not against sex, then how it can be sin. And if it is sin, then God is the greatest sinner in the world because he has given sex to millions of people, millions of animals, millions of insects, millions of birds, millions of trees. This whole existence has sexual energy, because that is the only reproductive energy. This whole creation is full of sexuality. God cannot be against it.

The priest is against it, and why the priest is against it? He is against it because he wants to create guilt in you. That is the secret of torturing you, of enslaving you. If you feel guilty, you are bound to go to the priest, to confess, to ask for a prayer, to ask for some repentance, to ask how to get rid of this guilt -- fasting, austerities. And the priest goes on telling you how you can get rid of it. You are in the grip of the priest because he has made sex a sin.

But this is not true religion. In the VEDAS the seers were all married people; they were not celibate.

The Rishis, the poetry of the VEDAS is written not be celibate people. It is written by people who were married, they had children, they lived a normal life. The UPANISHADS were written by married people, not by celibates.

(Tape side C)

Up to the time of Buddha and Mahavira, there was a very life affirmative religion in this country. There was no denial of any life energy. There was total acceptance, and how to transform it. It was those days when Vatsyayana wrote his KAMASUTRAS; and have you forgotten that we have called Vatsyayana one of the greatest rishis of this country? A man who writes a book on sex, the first book in the whole history of man, has been called by us one of our greatest seers.

Now those were the days of life affirmation. With Buddha and Mahavira, things changed. They were both from the warrior race. And their rebellion was against the brahmins. So whatever brahmins have been doing up to that time, they reversed the whole thing; because brahmins were allowing marriage, sex, children, even to the seers, Jainas and Buddhists denied it to their monks. It is a very strange thing that because Jainas denied sex to their monks, people started feeling that Jaina and Buddhist monks are higher, more spiritual, than Hindu seers. Shankaracharya had to follow Buddha and Mahavir, and made celibacy the central point of all people who renounce life, who want to grow spiritually.

I am simply trying to bring you the original religion back. I want you to understand that the true religion cannot be against life, it can be only against death. The true religion is for more life, for eternal life; it is an alchemical process -- how to transcend death. And that's what I have written in that book.

But just the title has attracted people. And you will be surprised, the people who have been reading it are the monks, and the nuns; it has gone into many editions in almost all the languages of the world. You will find it in every monastery. Strange! Three hundred and ninety nine books, nobody bothers, which are purely spiritual. This book attracts them because of their own repression. It shows something about them. It is not a healthy thing. It is very sick.

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Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, HOW CAN AN INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING BE TRANSFORMED

INTO AN EXPERIENCE OF HEART(*)?

A: The intellectual understanding cannot be changed, cannot be transformed, into a spiritual experience.

In fact, the intellect has to be put aside if you want a spiritual experience. Intellect is a barrier, not a bridge.

Intellect can think, but it cannot see.

I am reminded of a small story. Gautam Buddha is staying in a village. In that village there was a blind man, who was a great intellectual, a giant. He has defeated the whole village, on the point that light does not exist. The whole village tried to convince him that light exists, you are blind. But the man said, "If lights exists, then let me touch it. I want to touch it and feel it."

They said, "Light cannot be touched."

He said, "Then I can hear it. You can hit it by something, so I can hear the sound."

They said, "That is not possible."

He said, "Then it bring it close to my nose, I can smell it." That too was not possible. He said, "I can taste it. These are the four possibilities with me, and you go on saying 'No, no' to every possibility. You simply want me to condemn as a blind man. When I am ready to explore the experience of light with all the senses that I have got, you deny it. I say to you that light does not exist."

When Buddha came to the town, the people brought the blind man to Gautam Buddha, and they said,

"We have tried hard, but he does not listen. On the contrary we feel defeated; we know light is. But how to convince this man who is blind? But he is a great logician. He gives great arguments. He is a very intellectual man."

Buddha said, "You have brought him to a wrong person. He does not need a philosopher. He needs a physician. I have a physician, my own personal physician. You take him to my physician. His eyes perhaps can be treated. You cannot convince him about light, but you can treat his eyes. And the day he will open his eyes, there will be no need to convince him intellectually. He will see the light himself."

It took six months to treat his eyes. Buddha moved to another place. He came running the day he could see light, he fell into the feet of Buddha crying out of joy, and he said, "Forgive me. All my intellectuality was absolutely useless. It is an experience for which eyes are needed, not argument, not logic, not intellect."

Spirituality needs eyes. It does not need intellectuality. And you are asking how to transform intellectuality, to have the transformation. It cannot be done. You will have to put your intellectuality aside; you will have to become as innocent as a child, with no argument, with no intellect, with no reasoning. Just a simplicity, a silence, and you will attain to those eyes I am talking about. You will be able to see the transformation happening.

Through intellect, you can gather knowledge, but you cannot become a seer. And all knowledge that is gathered, is borrowed, is meaningless. Unless the truth is discovered by you, it is not truth. Others may have discovered, you cannot just go on repeating their words. It will be simply like a parrot.

That's what people are doing all around the world. Like parrots they go on repeating the VEDAS, the UPANISHADS, the BIBLE, the KORAN. They don't understand what they are doing. They don't have any experience of their own. And it is a question of individual experience; and the basic necessity is to put aside everything that you have borrowed from others, all your scholarship, all your knowledge.

Can't you drop that which is not yours? And you will be surprised that when you start dropping that which is not yours, you will be left with nothing. And in that purity, in that silence, when there is nothing borrowed, burdening you, when you are unburdened, you can open your wings and fly to the highest star.

That is the only transformation possible.

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, CAN LIFE BE HELPFUL IN FINDING THE WAY TO TRUTH?

A: Only life can be helpful in finding the truth. Those who have been teaching to you, "Renounce life", are taking you away from truth. Life contains truth as its center. You have to live life with totality, with intensity, with awareness, with gratitude to existence; and life itself will take you to the innermost shrine of the ultimate.

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I am not against life. All the religions have been teaching you life- negative things, renounce this, renounce that, renounce your family, your children, your wife. Renounce everything, and escape to the mountains. It is fortunate that you have not listened to them, otherwise there would be no life left. All people would have escaped to the mountains. Who will feed them?

It is a very strange thing. The people renounce life, but they depend on the people whom they have renounced. They give them food, they give them clothes, they give them shelter. It is strange. They should not accept these things. If you have renounced life, then you should not have any concern with people who have not renounced.

Millions of people have renounced life under the impact of life negative religions. And do you know what has been the effect of it? Millions of women have become widows, and their husbands are alive; millions of children have become orphans, and their fathers are alive; millions of people have become poor, because there is nobody to help them to earn livelihood for them. And we have worshipped these people.

These people to me are criminals. They have hurt so many people; they are violent. And what they have gained. They have not made life more beautiful, they have not made life more loveable, they have not made life any contribution. They have not created anything. They have been just a burden to other people. And if you look into their eyes, you will not find any spirituality.

I have been wandering and looking into the eyes of different religions, monks and nuns, and I simply see a kind of deadness, not intelligence, not sharpness, not aliveness. They have forgotten to sing, they have forgotten to dance. They are living corpses. I don't see it as spirituality. Spirituality should be richer, multi-dimensionally richer. Wherever you are, you can start growing spiritually there. Your wife is not a hindrance, your children are not a hindrance. Your business is not a hindrance; in fact these are all opportunities for you. These are tests for you. If you can remain silent, loving, compassionate, joyful, in all these situations; if you can manage a tranquility, an equilibrium, in failure, in success, in sickness, in health, in richness, in poverty. If you can remain the same, undisturbed, this is spirituality.

To become the center of the cyclone is spirituality. Don't escape from the cyclone, otherwise you will miss the center. This whole life is a cyclone; and you have to become the center of the cyclone. The whole cyclone moves. But the center remains unmoving. It remains silent, undisturbed, undistracted.

Yes, life is the only way to truth. There is no other way.

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, WHY IS IT THAT A SANDALWOOD TREE IS ALWAYS SURROUNDED BY

SNAKES?

A: First, literally, the sandalwood tree is an unique tree. Its fragrance is a magnetic force, and the snake

-- you have always thought that the snake listens to music, and you have seen it, that the snake dances, sways with the music. But you will be surprised to know that the snakes don't have ears. It is now an established scientific fact that snakes don't have ears. Even the scientists were very much puzzled, because they can see that snakes are affected by music; but they don't have ears. They have dissected their whole body, there is nothing like ears in their whole body. And finally they have found recently that, although they don't have any ears, their whole skin is sensitive to sounds. That's why they sway. Without ears, their whole body listens. And because they don't have ears, the energy that goes to ears is available to their nose.

There is a certain division. You may have observed that blind people are very clear about sounds. Blind people are beautiful musicians, blind people can remember sounds very easily than people who have eyes, for the simple reason because the energy that is involved in the eyes moves to the ears. Now the snake has no ears, its energy moves to the nose. It has a tremendously sensitive nose. And the sandalwood tree attracts it. This is the literally meaning of your question.

But I understand that you are not asking the literal meaning. You are asking the symbolic meaning. And there is a great symbolic meaning.

In the biblical story, Eve and Adam are seduced by the snake, who tells to Eve that if you eat from the tree of knowledge you will become like gods. That's why God has prevented you from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Now this is a great temptation. She persuades Adam and they both eat from the tree of knowledge. Who is this snake? Snake don't speak.

This snake is symbolic, and the tree of knowledge is symbolic. The tree of knowledge is not the tree of wisdom. Remember the distinction. Wisdom comes out of your own innocence. Wisdom means your innocence becoming mature, your innocence coming of age, your innocence flowering, releasing its 1/08/07

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fragrance. It comes from within you. Knowledge comes from somewhere else, from a tree. This is symbolic.

It is borrowed knowledge. Then the snake is the priest, who is telling you to read the GITA, read the KORAN, read the holy BIBLE, because this will make you knowledgeable.

But no book can make you knowledgeable. It will burden you with information. But it will be always borrowed, not authentic, not yours. The snake in the biblical story is the first priest of the world. There is a story that one day a newly recruited devil came running to the old devil, the master devil and said to him,

"Do something immediately, because one man on the earth has found the truth. And if he spreads the truth into people, what will happen to our business?"

The old devil said, "You are a new recruit. Don't be worried. My people have already reached there."

But he said, "I am coming from there, I have not seen any of your people."

He said, "You cannot see that way. All those priests, pundits, scholars who are surrounding the man who has found the truth are my people. They won't let the masses reach the man of truth. They won't let the man of truth reach the masses. They will become the mediators. They will represent the master to the masses.

They will become the interpreters, and that's how we manage to distort every truth. It has been found many times before, you don't be worried. We have experts, how to distort it, interpretation. We have scholars, we have pundits, we have rabbis, we have popes, we have all kinds of snakes. They will do the job."

And this has been happening. This is not only a story. You will be surprised to know that Mahavira rebelled against Brahmins. But his chief disciples, eleven disciples, were all Brahmins. That is strange. He was fighting against Brahminism, and his chief disciples are all Brahmins. Mahavira has not written a single word. All that is written is written by those eleven Brahmins. Naturally it is distorted. It is not what he has said. It cannot be what he has said.

The same happened with Gautam Buddha. He was also from the race of the warriors, Kshatriyas; and he was also rebelling against the priesthood of Brahmins. But his most closest disciples are all Brahmins. He has not written a single word. When he died, all the Brahmins gathered together and they wrote all Buddhist scriptures. Now they don't represent the reality. They represent the Brahmin interpretation. Naturally, it is very protective of Brahminism against which Buddha was fighting his whole life.

These are the snakes. If Buddha is a sandalwood tree, then these scholars and pundits, these are the snakes. And naturally, before anybody else, they smell who has found it. And it is very difficult because of these snakes to reach to the sandal tree directly.

I am trying my best to reach you directly. I am not allowing any snakes between me and you. I am a walking sandal tree.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #24

Chapter title: None

18 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601185

ShortTitle: LAST524

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

PRESS INTERVIEWS

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Q: WHY THOUSANDS OF DEAD RELIGIONS HAVE WEAK PREMISES, ETC. PLEASE COMMENT.

A: It is not a tragedy. It is something of a fundamental, existential truth. The living Buddha is always going to be homeless, for the simple reason that it is very difficult to accept a contemporary human being as someone who is awakened. It goes against your ego, that you are asleep, and somebody else is awakened. It hurts you. Hence the living, awakened person is always condemned, poisoned, crucified.

But when he is dead, then things change completely. You can worship a dead Buddha, because he is not your contemporary. He is not your competitor. You can give him qualities which he never possessed. You can make him a god, which he never was. Now it is in your hands, whatever you want to make out of it.

And then it is easy to worship him.

The dead is acceptable. The living is dangerous; because the dead in your hands can be changed according to your expectations, but not the living. With the living the situation is just the opposite. You are in his hands; he will change you. The dead cannot change you. You can change the dead. You are powerful over the dead saints, but over the living you have no power. Naturally you love your power.

When Gautam Buddha was alive, dozens of attempts were made on his life. And finally he died with food poisoning. He was condemned as much that you may not believe. He was passing through a village, the whole village gathered together; they abused him. They said ugly things, they used vulgar words. And he remained silent, listening to them. His disciples were getting furious; but because the master was present, they had to remain silent.

When the people of the village had ended insulting him, he asked them politely, lovingly, compassionately, "Have you said everything that you wanted to say, because I have to reach the other village. People must be waiting there, and I don't want anybody to be waiting for me unnecessarily. If you have to say something more, I will be coming back again from the same route, and I will have enough time for you. Then you can say whatsoever you want to say.

One of the men from the crowd said, "We were not saying things. We were condemning you. We were insulting you. We were abusing you."

Buddha said, "That is what you were doing on your part. But you have forgotten one thing. That I am not taking it at all. In the other village before your village, people had come with sweets and flowers to present to me, and I said, Ì don't need.' They had to take them back. I ask you, what they will do with those sweets and flowers?"

Somebody in the crowd said, "Of course they will distribute in the village."

Buddha laughed and said, "What you will do? I refuse to take all your abuses. Now go and distribute in the village. Give it to your children, to your parents, or whomsoever you want. Or keep yourself. I refuse to take. And you cannot give me anything which I refuse to take."

A living enlightened being is not in your hands. If you want to be related to him, you have to be in his hands. That needs guts. That needs courage. That needs intelligence. That needs capacity to risk all and everything.

Naturally, the living enlightened being is not worshipped. He is condemned, he is refused, he is not accepted. The same person, when he is dead, creates a great change in your mind. First, because you have condemned him while he was alive, you start feeling guilty. Whatever you have done was ugly, inhuman.

To compensate, you start worshipping. You move to the other extreme. You make statues of the same person; but now it is within your hands, what to make of that man.

Do you know the statue of Buddha differs in different countries? In Nepal, it has a different shape, different face. It is Nepalese. In Japan it is certainly different. The Japanese buddha has a big belly. The Chinese buddha is different. It is exactly like a Chinese, with the cheek bones protruding. The Indian buddha is totally different. And you will be surprised to know that none of these statues have any similarity to the real man, because for three hundred years no statue was made of Buddha. After his death there were no pictures, no cameras, no photographs, no paintings.

After three hundred years Alexander the Great came to India. He was a beautiful man. He impressed the imagination of the Indian artist. And the Buddha carries the face of Alexander the Great. A dead saint is in your hands. Whatever you want to do you can do with him.

You try with living, enlightened beings also to impose your ideas. Those who listen to you are not 1/08/07

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authentically enlightened, because they are being instructed by the unenlightened; they are following their own followers; they are being dominated by the ignorant. Your so-called saints, respectable, are not truly arrived to truth yet. They have simply fulfilled your expectations. Whatever your idea is how a saint should be, they are behaving in the same way. You will respect them, but they are false.

A real buddha is going to be condemned. He cannot be respectable in his contemporary world, because he will not listen to your suggestions. People go on giving me suggestions. They say to me, "Bhagwan, don't say this, this will create trouble." They don't understand that if I listen to them, then I am not the man to be a master. I will do what I feel spontaneously to do. If it creates trouble, then perhaps existence needs trouble at this moment.

If I have to remain homeless, no harm. Because anyway, every home is just a house. You have only an illusion that it is a home. Many people have lived before you in that house, and are gone. You will be gone soon. Somebody else will be living there -- your children. There is only stable home, that is in the graveyard. There you go with a one-way ticket; you never return back. That is permanent abode. That is the only home. These homes that you think are your homes are just caravanserais. So when my people ask me,

"Bhagwan is it okay if we arrange a hotel for you to stay, I say Èverything is a hotel;' and I have told my secretary, Prem Hasya, just today that Buddha remained without a home for forty two years, walking, moving from one village to another. You arrange one aeroplane for me, so I can go on moving around the world all the year round; no need for a house, no need for a home."

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR VISITING NEPAL. QUESTION: YOU

ARE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SPIRITUAL BUSINESSMAN. WHAT IS THE SECRET OF YOUR

SUCCESS?

A: It is a very pertinent question; in the meeting of the top businessmen of Nepal. First I would like to remind you, I am not a businessman. For the simple reason, I don't have even a bank account anywhere in the world. I don't have even pockets in my robe. I have not touched money for fifteen years. I remained in America for five years, but I have not seen a dollar bill.

How can you call me a businessman? Perhaps you may have heard that I have ninety-three Rolls Royces. In fact, I don't have even a Honda. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces belonged to the commune of the sannyasins in America. Not only they had those, they had three hundred other cars. They had one hundred buses, they had five aeroplanes. It was one of the richest communes that has ever existed in the world. And that's what pushed the American politicians to insanity. They could not tolerate that even their president cannot afford to have ninety-three Rolls Royces. But those Rolls Royces don't belong to me. I am not the owner of those Rolls Royces. I don't own anything; not a single rupee.

Just the other day, few American idiots must be staying in the hotel. When I passed by their side one ugly and fat and retarded woman said to the others, "This is the man who has ninety-three Rolls Royces."

Strange, that people are not interested in my teaching, in me, in my way of life. They are interested in the Rolls Royces. It shows their mind.

I have been receiving thousands of letters from people around the world. Everybody condemning me for having ninety-three Rolls Royces; yet thousands of letters reaching to me that Bhagwan, if you can give one Rolls Royce to me it won't make any difference to you. Ninety-three or ninety-two, what difference it will make to you? But to me it will be my lifelong dream fulfilled. And you will be surprised to know that I received a letter from a Bishop, who was continuously talking against me, and against the Rolls Royces.

That's why I had come to know his name. And finally I received his letter, asking me that if I can donate one of the Rolls Royces to his church, it is a tax exempt charitable religious body, and he will be very glad.

I told to one of my secretaries to write to the Bishop, that I am absolutely willing. Do you want a regular Rolls Royce, or would you prefer a long-stretch big Rolls Royce, a limousine. And immediately came the reply, if you are so compassionate, then a limousine will do. But unfortunately I had to inform him that I can give you anything, but they don't belong to me. You will be caught by the police.

My situation is like this: two beggars sitting under a tree, under the influence of opium, looking of the moon, full moon night, were talking business. One beggar said, "Tell me exactly how much you will take for the moon?"

The other beggar said, "Who told you that I am thinking to sell it?"

And you call me the most successful spiritual businessman? Spirituality and being a businessman is a 1/08/07

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contradiction in terms. Either you can be spiritual, or you can be a businessman. Because the whole art of business is, to give you less and take you more from you. That is the profit. In spirituality, there is only giving and no taking. I have not taken anything from anybody. I have given my love, I have given my understanding, I have given my experience, without any condition, to anybody who was thirsty, and ready, and open and receptive. But I have not put any condition on him, that he will have to pay for it.

Spirituality is just sharing something that you have got. And there is no need to take anything from the person you share, because the very nature of spiritual experience is such, the more you give it, the more it grows within you. There is no need to take it from anybody else. Just go on sharing, and you will be surprised that it functions against the ordinary laws of economics. In economics, if you go on giving things, soon you will be a beggar. But, in the spiritual economics, if you don't give, then whatever you have got, that will also die. To keep it living you have to keep it flowing. Don't make a pond of your spiritual experience. Let it be a river. Soon the river will reach to the ocean, and the whole ocean will be yours. And you need not ask for anything.

One thing I have to remind you in this reference; in Russia my sannyasins are being persecuted, just as they are persecuted in America, or in other countries. In Russia they think that my sannyasins are working for America, that I am representing capitalism; and in America they think that I am the greatest communist on the earth. It is a very strange situation. All kinds of labels have been given to me which are contradictory.

They all cannot be true together.

Hindus think I am converting people perhaps to Christianity. Christians are against me because they think I am taking away their cream, their youth, out of the Christian fold. Naturally I am converting them into Hinduism. Looking at all these labels and condemnations, I thought I should have a look actually who am I? An agent of FBI, or an agent of KGB?

And then I remembered a small story.

An old man, very simple, found by the side of the road a small mirror. He had never seen such a thing in his whole life. He looked into the mirror. He said, "My God, this seems to be the picture of my father. I had never thought that that old man was so romantic; that he will have his picture to be taken. But it is good that I have found it. I will keep it as a memory. But I will have to hide it from my wife, because if she comes to know that this is my father's picture, she is going to destroy it immediately."

So he went in the house, very silently. The wife was surprised. He never comes so silently. There must be something going on. He went upstairs. The wife went on watching him. She also went upstairs slowly, without making any noise. She saw him hiding the mirror in a suitcase. She could not figure it out -- what can it be? But she said, how long he will be here. Soon he will have to go to work again. And he had to go to work.

The moment he had to go to work the wife went up, opened the suitcase, found the mirror, looked into the mirror and said, "My God. Fifty years I have lived with this man, and this sonofabitch is running after this rotten woman. I will kill her."

Looking into myself I found that I am a mirror. Whoever looks into me finds his own face reflected.

You are a businessman, what can I do? When a monkey looks into the mirror, he finds another monkey there.

I am not a businessman at all. This is not the way of a businessman. I am certainly trying to persuade you to grow, to bring your potential to its ultimate height. I am not going to give you anything. I don't have any commodity to sell. I am simply trying to provoke in you a challenge.

(Tape side B)

You have the real thing, but you are not looking at it. You have ignored it. You have the seed, which can become a beautiful flower and fill your life with fragrance. I will take away things from you which in fact you don't have. And I will give you only those things to you which you already have.

Now what kind of business is this?

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, WHY PEOPLE CALL RAJNEESHEES MAD PEOPLE?

A: They are mad. If you are sane, then my people are certainly mad. If you have eyes, then my people are blind; if you have found the truth, then my people are lost. It is all a question of relativity.

If you look at my people, you will find a totally different experience. First, there is no Rajneeshee in the world because they are not my followers. They are not Hindus, they are not Buddhists, they are not 1/08/07

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Christians, they are not Mohammedans, because all those people are followers. My people are my friends, they are not my followers. So there is not a single Rajneeshee in the whole world. They love me.

So first you will have to drop the idea of somebody being a Rajneeshee.

Secondly, have you loved somebody, ever? If you have not loved somebody ever, you will not understand that love is mad. Because love is not of the mind, it is of the heart. Love is not logic, it is not reason. That's why all lovers look mad. But unfortunate are those people who have never tasted such madness.

There are other dimensions also. Perhaps you may have some creativity in you. Have you loved music?

Have you loved dancing? Have you loved painting, or sculpture; anything creative? And you will know that while you create the mind stops, and something bigger than the mind takes over.

One of the greatest painters, Vincent Van Gogh, was asked once that when you are painting you look like a madman. Vincent Van Gogh said, "I don't look, I am. Because while painting I forget all reasoning. I forget my mind, my intellect. I forget myself. The painter disappears. Only there is a creativity. The painting is there, but the painter is not." Naturally this will look mad. How painting can be there without the painter?

Because we are accustomed of logical thinking, of dividing things.

One of the greatest dancers of this age was Nijinsky. Perhaps he was the greatest dancer of all the ages, because he had something which has never been seen in any dancer. He used to take jumps while dancing, so high that scientists said it is impossible, it is against the law of gravitation. You cannot jump that high.

But what to do with this man? He jumps, he goes beyond the law of gravitation. And even more strange was the phenomenon when he had jumped high, gone beyond the limit of gravitation, he will start falling back.

The ordinary way is, you fall fast with a thump on the ground. But that was not the way with Nijinsky. He will fall like a feather, very slowly, coming with ease, as if it is within his power, as if gravitation has no power over him. He was asked by the scientists, "How you do it?"

Nijinsky said, "Don't ask me that, because I have tried it. Whenever I try, I cannot do it. I have failed always, whenever I have tried. It happens only when I forget completely, and there is only dance and the dancer disappears. Then it happens. I am amazed as much as you are amazed. I don't know how it happens. I must be mad."

The people who are with me are in deep love, in deep friendship. They are in great creativity, far greater than any painting, and far greater than any music, and far greater than any dancing. Because they are creating their own being. They are creating their own soul. Yes, they are mad people. And they are fortunate that they have the guts to go out of your so-called sane intelligent, mundane world. Whoever has courage amongst you would also like to be mad, like my people.

This madness is not the ordinary madness when a man falls below his mind. It is an extraordinary madness, when a man rises above his mind. Both go out of the mind, but the ordinary madman goes down; the spiritual madman goes up, higher than the ordinary logic, reasoning, thinking. Just look at my people.

You will not find more intelligent people anywhere. Their madness has a method in it.

Just look at me! Do you think I am mad? If I am mad, then I hope that you all should be mad. That will be the greatest blessing in your life.

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, WHAT IS THE MIND? HAD IT A BEGINNING OR AN END. AND A RELATED QUESTION: FINDING OUT ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF THE MIND, IS IT ENOUGH

TO FREE US FROM THE CYCLE OF DEATH AND REBIRTH?

A: Mind has no beginning, but mind has an end. Meditation has a beginning, but meditation has no end.

This is the whole circle of life. Have you understood?

Mind has a(*) beginning. Then all the religions had been looking for that beginning. Christians say that the world was created by God four thousand four years before Jesus Christ; that is six thousand years before today. Then certainly mind has a beginning. But it is strange. The great Christian theologians have never asked a simple question, that what God was doing for eternity, before six thousand years.

Secondly, why suddenly one day, it must have been January, Monday, why he began the creation? Why he created the whole world? What caused him to create it? Is there some bigger power than him, who ordered him to create it? Is there some desire hidden in his being, that he wanted to create it?

But God is desireless, and there is nobody above him. So why, at a certain point, suddenly, he started creating? He seems to be whimsical. And you cannot depend on such a God, because tomorrow he may start 1/08/07

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thinking to destroy. If he can create without any valid reason, he can destroy without any valid reason.

All the religions will say mind has a beginning, because the world has a beginning, because God created it. I say to you, mind has no beginning, because existence has never been created. It has always been here.

And it is very simple. Why make it complex? God created the world -- why? Because the world is there, a creator is needed, somebody should create it. But the question arises, who created the God? And then you say, God is never created. He has always been here. If God can be here, without being created, then why bother with God. This existence is perfectly beautiful. It has always been here. Do not accept any unnecessary hypothesis.

That's why I say, mind has no beginning. Because existence has no beginning. But mind has an end. It ends into meditation. You can call it, it gets transformed into meditation.

Meditation has a beginning, but no end. Then it goes on and on, for infinity, for eternity. Mind is a small thing. Meditation makes you part of existence. It allows you the freedom of becoming one with the whole.

And to me that is the only way of being holy -- to be one with the whole.

You are asking, if we can understand the workings of the mind, will they disappear? Certainly, absolutely. The only way for the activities of the mind to disappear is to be a witness to them. Just see them, clearly. Without any judgment. Just be a watcher, uninvolved, unattached. And those activities start disappearing, like shadows. And when mind is no more in action, that is what we call meditation. When mind is not functioning, you have arrived at the beginning of meditation.

And you are asking, will it deliver us from death? Will it deliver us from being born again and again?

Certainly, because it is only ignorance that keeps you being born again and again. Because you are always dying with a desire unfulfilled. That unfulfilled desire takes you into a new form. Existence is very compassionate. It does not want you to be discontented. It does not want you to be unfulfilled in any desire.

When you are dying, if you are hankering for something, something that you always wanted but you could not get, something that was always in your mind, haunting you, and you were not able to find it, existence will give you the right form in which your desire can be fulfilled. Existence is very favorable, very friendly. You are children of it. It has to be friendly to you. And if you are crying for toys, teddy bears, it will provide you with teddy bears.

I am reminded of an old Jewish man who was on his deathbed, a very miserly man. His four sons had gathered and they were worried, when the old man dies, what arrangements have to be done; how they should be done? The man has not died yet. He is listening to their talk. They are whispering.

The first son said that, "Our father always wanted a Rolls Royce, but being a miser he could not manage.

At least when he dies we should bring a Rolls Royce to carry his dead body to the cemetery."

The second son said, "You are just being stupid. For a dead man what difference does it make whether you are carrying him in a Rolls Royce, or in a Ford? It doesn't matter. The dead man is dead. He will never know the difference. Why waste money?"

The third man said, "Even Ford will cost money. My suggestion is, we should phone to the municipal corporation, and they can bring their truck in which they go on throwing beggars and others into the cemetery. A dead man is dead, whether he is your father or your mother, it does not matter."

Before the fourth was going to speak, the old man somehow managed to sit up in the bed and said,

"Wait! Just find out where my shoes are."

They said, "But what you are going to do with shoes. You were going to die."

The man said, "I am still alive. Just give me my shoes. I will walk to the cemetery. You are all for wasting money."

Now this man, what do you think? If he dies he is going to be born, his whole life he must have repressed thousands of desires, even at the point of death he is concerned about money.

A man of meditation dies without any desires. He dies in silence. Hence there is no question of his being born in another form. And a man of meditation knows that death is a lie, that death has never happened; it only appears from the outside. You see somebody dying, from the outside, but you don't know that is happening inside the man. His inner being never dies. But most of the people live unconsciously. Naturally they die unconsciously, unaware that death has not happened.

Death has never happened in the whole eternity. Death is just an outsider's observation. The meditator observes from within. He sees himself, his body dying, his mind dying, his heart drowning. The beats are going farther and farther away, and the breathing is drowning. He goes on seeing all this, and he also goes on seeing that it is not affecting him at all. It is only the body and its components which are decomposing, falling apart. But his own being is intact.

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This experience of immortality takes him to the universal shore. This whole existence is full of consciousness. When I said, there is no God who created the world, please don't misunderstand me. When I am denying a God outside existence, there is a purpose. The purpose is, I want God to be inside existence.

An outsider God is not of much value. A God inside everything, in the stones, in the stars; all that exists is overflowing with divineness.

The moment you understand your own immortality, now there is no rebirth for you. You have become part of the universal godliness, you have become one with the whole. Just like in the early morning sun, a dewdrop slips from the lotus leaf into the ocean, and disappears. On the one hand it disappears in the ocean.

On the other hand, it becomes the ocean. Both the things happen simultaneously.

Be ready to disappear. That is the only way to become all. Lose small boundaries, so then you can become one with the unbounded. It is your birthright.

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, THE WESTERN MIND SEEMS TO WANT TO REDUCE EVERYTHING, NO MATTER HOW SUBTLE, TO THE KNOWN. THE EASTERN MIND SEEMS TO WANT TO REDUCE

EVERYTHING, NO MATTER HOW CONCRETE, TO THE UNKNOWN. CAN WE HELP EACH OTHER?

A: The existence can be divided in three categories: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable.

What is known today was unknown yesterday; what is unknown today may become known tomorrow. So there is not much difference between known and unknown. It is only a question of time.

Science, that means the West, believes only in two categories -- the known and the unknown. And as a corollary, scientific mind of the West believes that there will come a day when we will have reduced everything into the known, and there will not be left anything unknown. That is one of the basic assumptions of scientific inquiry. We are everyday discovering more and more, and the unknown is shrinking, becoming smaller and the known is becoming bigger.

Naturally one can conceive somewhere in the future a time is bound to come when everything will be known. But if it is true, then that will be the death of humanity. If all is known, then there is no adventure left. If all is known then there is no more any challenge. Then life will be very empty. If everything is explained, there will not be anything mysterious. And to lose the miraculous, you will lose something tremendously valuable.

It is the unknown, undiscovered, that goes on challenging you to progress, to evolution, to reach new heights, new peaks of consciousness. But if a day comes that all is known, everything is reduced into simple formulas, then there will be no romance, there will be no poetry, there will be no beauty, there will be no joy. There will be nothing left which is valuable.

But fortunately the West is not right. The division between the known and the unknown is not complete.

The East has a threefold division -- known, unknown, unknowable. It agrees with the West that the unknown can become known, but the unknowable will always remain unknowable. There will always be mystery around human consciousness. There will be always mystery around love, friendship, meditation, consciousness. We may be able to know all that is objective. But the subjectivity, the innermost core of human consciousness, will remain always a mystery. And this has been the persistent effort of the East, to make it clear to the whole world that the unknowable should not be denied, otherwise you will take all juice out of human life. You will create robots out of human beings, you will destroy them, and they will be just machines and nothing more.

And modern science, for the first time in the history, has started to agree with the East. As modern physics has entered deeper into matter, into electrons, neutrons, protons, the physicist has become puzzled.

Things seem to be becoming mysterious. Up to now he was thinking the unknown is turning into known.

Now he is not of the same opinion. Now he is saying that we are entering into something of which we have never thought about, the unknowable.

(Tape side C)

So there is not much difficult of bringing East and West closer. They are already coming closer. Just the Eastern meditators have to understand the latest scientific researches, and the scientists of the West have to understand the deepest explorations of meditation. And this is not difficult. And they will come to a synthesis which will not be just forced. It will come out of the experience, naturally, spontaneously.

I am educated in the ways of the West. I have been a professor of philosophy and logic, teaching Western philosophy and Western logic. From Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to Bertrand Russell and 1/08/07

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Jean-Paul Sartre. But, in my own individual life, I have been working deeper and deeper into meditation, reaching farther and farther into my own inner space. And I have found the center of the cyclone. I can see it absolutely clearly that the time has come when East and West can join together in a combined effort, because the search has led both to the same point, the unknowable.

The unknowable can be called the truth, can be called the nirvana, can be called liberation. These are different words.

I am reminded of Albert Einstein's last words. Before he died, he said to his friends that "If I am born again, I would not like to be a physicist. I would rather like to be a plumber." They were surprised, a man of the calibre of Albert Einstein wants to be a plumber? For what? Einstein died, he could not answer them, but I can answer them. He had explored the objective world, the outside world, as much as any man in the whole history. He has found the atomic energy. But he himself remained unknown to himself. He knows so much about the matter, and he knows nothing about his consciousness. This is the reason he wants in his next life some simple job like a plumber, which does not need any intellectual effort, so that he can devote his energies for inner exploration.

In my vision, in the future, there will be only science; no religions. And the science will have two wings, just like a bird; one wing for objective inquiry about the matter, about the outside, about the other. And the second wing for inner inquiry, to find out what it is which is living in me, which is conscious in me; to discover the interiority of my own being, my subjectivity. Science will have two aspects, just like every coin has two aspects.

There is no need for any religion -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, Jaina, Jew; there is no need. Science is enough. And it can do both the work. One side for the outside, and the other side for the inward pilgrimage. That is going to be the meeting point between East and West. And sooner it happens, the better.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #25

Chapter title: None

19 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601195

ShortTitle: LAST525

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

PRESS INTERVIEWS

Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ATTITUDE OF THE BUDDHA, MESSIAHS, AVATARAS, TIRTHANKARAS, TOWARDS WOMEN?

A: Just disgusting! All these people have insulted woman-kind down the ages as much as it is possible.

None of them can be forgiven. None of them can be forgotten.

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Christians have a trinity of God, the holy ghost, and the son, Jesus Christ. But in the trinity there is not a woman. A very strange family. The father is there, the son is there, but where is the mother? And what purpose has this holy ghost? Why keep this idiot there? A woman would have been perfectly human and understandable. But in the highest trinity of Christianity they cannot accept a woman.

Jesus was teaching in the village of his birth, and a crowd was listening to him. His mother, Mary, came running because her son has come to the village; and she was waiting long, for years he had not been there.

She is standing outside the crowd and somebody shouts to Jesus, "Your mother is standing outside the crowd."

And do you know what Jesus says? He says, "Tell that woman" -- he does not use the word mother -- he says, "Tell that woman that I don't have any mother. I have only my father who is above in heaven." And these people you have worshipped. You have never asked about their behavior. He had twelve apostles, his chief disciples. But amongst them there was not a single woman, although there were women far more devoted than those apostles.

One of the most beautiful women of Judea, Mary Magdalene, was a prostitute, but listening to Jesus she went through a transformation. She dropped her profession and devoted her whole life to Jesus, but she was not accepted as one of the apostles. You will be surprised to know that when Jesus was crucified all those twelve male apostles escaped, afraid that they may be caught with the same result. What happened to Jesus may happen to them. They were afraid of crucifixion, they had seen the misery, the anguish of Jesus. They all escaped. But three women -- Jesus' mother, about whom he said, "Tell that woman she is not my mother," was still there, unafraid. Everybody knew she was the mother of Jesus. Nobody knew those apostles.

Mary Magdalene, a prostitute, had more courage and more guts than those so-called holy men. And another woman of the same name, Mary was also there. These three women brought Jesus' body from the cross. Not a single man was there. But the Christian church has not accepted those three women as saints.

Those twelve cowards who escaped, they are great saints. The woman has been condemned by all the religions.

Mahavira says that no woman can go to the ultimate liberation directly from the woman's body. Strange, because the same person continuously teaches people that you are not the body, you are the soul. If you are the soul, then the question arises, is the soul of a woman also feminine? Is the soul of man also masculine?

The soul cannot be feminine and cannot be masculine.

Consciousness is simply consciousness, it has no sexuality, it has no genitals. But he forgets when it comes to woman. He says, "A woman has to do austerities, practice virtue; all that will help her to be born as a man in the next life. And then she can make efforts for ultimate enlightenment. Only man can become enlightened. No woman can become enlightened."

You will be surprised to know that in spite of all these teachings, one courageous woman became enlightened. Her name was Mallibai. She lived a few hundred years earlier than Mahavir. The woman had really attained to all the qualities of the enlightened person. She has the tranquillity, the silence, the unconditional love, fearlessness, absolute freedom. They had to accept her, but they played a trick.

In my childhood I used to go to a Jaina temple which was just near my house. There are twenty-four statues of the Jaina tirthankaras. They are all alike. I never discovered that there is one woman, for the simple reason that the Jainas have changed her name. From Mallibai they have changed her name to Mallinath. Do you see the disgusting, ugly, male chauvinist mind? Mallinath one thinks naturally must have been a man. The name is of a man, but she was a woman.

It took years for me to discover that Mallinath was not Mallinath; it was a woman. But why did they change the name? Because they were feeling embarrassed. It goes against their whole teaching and their whole philosophy. No person can become enlightened from a woman's body. What is wrong in a woman's body? It is more beautiful than a man's body; it is more strong than a man's body. Perhaps you will be surprised when I say that, because you have been carrying the idea that man is stronger, but only muscularly he is stronger. But that is not the only strength in the world, there are far more superior strengths.

For example, the woman has more resistance to diseases than man. That is her real strength. More men fall sick than women. To keep the balance nature has to produce ten boys more if it produces one hundred girls, it has to produce one hundred ten boys. Because by the time they become mature enough to get married, ten boys would have gone down the drain. But those hundred girls will be still around. They have a far stronger grip on life.

Women live five years longer than men all over the world. If man's age is seventy, then woman's age is 1/08/07

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seventy five. Women talk about committing suicide, but they don't commit. And whenever you find that a woman has committed suicide, be very careful; in most of the cases it will be a murder. Either the husband has murdered her, or the mother-in-law has murdered her, it is not a suicide. Women simply talk, it is the man who commits murder, commits suicide. Twice as many men go mad as women. One thinks this is strange, because women act crazier. They throw things, they break plates, they hit with pillows, and they are always ready to throw a tantrum, weeping, screaming. They know the whole paraphernalia of how to torture the husband. But they don't go mad. Perhaps they don't go mad because every day they have a release, they don't accumulate.

Man cannot cry, it is unmanly. He cannot throw things, it doesn't suit him. He cannot break plates or scream. He accumulates, and one day he explodes, wholesale.

What is wrong with a woman's body? Why she cannot become enlightened? I have been working with millions of people, men and women. I don't see any difference as far as enlightenment is concerned. But even a man like Buddha, who is the best of his kind, was afraid to initiate women into his commune. For fourteen years continuously he refused women, he would not initiate them. What is the problem?

Perhaps it is not the woman that is the problem, it is repression that is the problem. All those monks are repressed people, their sexuality is boiling within. To allow women into the commune is dangerous, because these people who are carrying a repressed sexuality, finding women close enough, may not be able to control themselves. But this is something wrong with your methodology, your discipline. For your wrong discipline, why you should insult women?

In my commune, women and men have lived together with no question of fear, because basically I am against repression. In fact, you will be surprised to know that my swamis, the male sannyasins, were afraid of women. They were trying to escape from women, not vice versa, because while making love man loses some energy. The woman does not lose anything. Seeing the fact, the man becomes aware that, "I am being stupid. This is not a bargain, I am simply losing, and the woman is enjoying. I am being befooled."

It was continuously reported to me by women sannyasins, "What has happened to your sannyasins?

They find excuses to escape."

I said, "Nothing has happened. I have allowed you both total freedom, and freedom brings understanding. They have seen that in sexual relationship they are the losers, they are the fools. Next day, they have the hang-over. Naturally, everybody wants to protect himself, and everybody has the right to protect himself."

But Buddha was afraid, because he would not allow a man even to see women. He would not allow a man to touch a woman, he will not allow a man to talk with a woman. Now if this is the situation, then naturally women have to be kept out of the sangha, of the initiated commune. But finally he reluctantly agreed, he had to agree. His mother died when he was born, and he was brought up by his mother's sister from the very first day. She was the woman he had known as his mother. He knew she was not his mother, his mother had died, but she had given him more than any mother. She did not get married, just because of him, because if she got married perhaps she would have her own children and she may not be so careful of Gautam Buddha. She loved the boy, and the boy had as much potential that it looked like he was going to become a milestone in the history of man. She sacrificed her whole life.

And when this woman came to her own son and asked to be initiated, Buddha could not refuse.

Reluctantly he initiated her; but then the door was opened. If you initiate one woman, you cannot refuse another woman. And what he said at that moment is worth remembering. He said, "My religion was going to last for twenty-five centuries. Now it will last only five centuries, because the women will corrupt everything."

This is strange. Why should women corrupt? It can happen only if your male sannyasins are corruptible, if they are ready to be corrupted. And if they are ready to be corrupted, I don't think his religion was going to last for twenty- five centuries. People who want to be corrupted have thousands of ways to be corrupted.

Woman is not an absolute necessity. They can become homosexuals, in all the monasteries they have become homosexuals.

But all these prophets have misbehaved with woman. It is time that the woman should assert her individuality, should assert her spirituality, and should condemn all those people who have been against women, who have reduced her into a sub- human species. A totally new quality of religious consciousness is needed, which accepts men and women equally.

There is nothing to be afraid of. And if spiritual beings are so much afraid, then who will be fearless?

I am reminded of a small story. Two Buddhist monks are coming from the village back to their 1/08/07

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monastery. Before the monastery they have to cross a small, mountainous river. The current is very strong.

The old monk is ahead, and he finds a beautiful young woman standing on the bank of the river, and she says, "Reverend, night is coming. I am alone, my house is on the other side, and I am afraid to enter this mountainous river. The current is so strong. I am afraid, I may be taken by the current and drowned. Won't you help me?"

The old man remembered Buddha's sayings, "Don't talk to a woman." He didn't say anything, he simply lowered his eyes because he had seen her. She was beautiful. Already his heart was beating faster, she had already affected him. It was dangerous. He simply jumped into the river to get back to the monastery as quickly as possible. When he reached the other side he remembered that his young sannyasin, a young bhikku is also coming just behind him. And he is too young. If my heart started beating faster, if I started thinking of things which cannot be said, what about the young man? At that time he saw the young man carrying the girl on his shoulders. The old man was furious, and also jealous. The young man put the girl back on the ground. The girl thanked him. But the old man did not speak to him. He was really angry, he was not in a state to talk. But before they were entering the monastery, on the steps before the door, he stopped and said to the young man, "I am going to report it to the master. You have committed a grave sin."

The young man said, "What sin, what are you talking about?"

The old man said, "Ah ha. Are you trying to befool me? What about that beautiful girl that you were carrying on your shoulders?"

The young man simply said, "I have left her on the bank of the river, but it seems you are still carrying her."

Man and woman are part of one humanity. They should not be thought of as separate. Religion is for both, and together they can grow better than in separation. We just have to drop all kinds of sexual obsession, repression, which are ugly inheritance from ignorant, primitive days. We are living in a more sophisticated, more intelligent century. We should behave according to the contemporary times.

Q: BHAGWAN, RIGHT NOW I AM FEELING YOU, TASTING YOU, DRINKING YOU LIKE A DRUNKARD. AS WITHOUT BOTTLES THERE WILL BE NO DRUNKARD, WITHOUT YOUR PHYSICAL

PRESENCE, HOW WILL I BE ABLE TO FEEL YOU, TO TASTE YOU, TO DRINK YOU? AND THE

QUESTION IS: WHY IS THE WORLD SO SICK TODAY?

A: Love knows no distance, love knows only closeness.

You may be miles away; just close your eyes and let your heart take possession of you. You will find me sitting by your side; you will find your hand in my hand. This is my promise.

The world is miserable because the world has forgotten how to be. The world is in suffering because people have listened to all kinds of superstitions, followed all kinds of wrong thoughts, and are lost in a jungle. Naturally there is great anxiety. Time is slipping out of your hands, death is coming closer every moment, and you have not even known about life. And life is fleeting by.

As you grow older you will find yourself in more anguish, because the life that was an opportunity to find the truth, to find meaning, to find some eternal nourishment, you have wasted in collecting seashells on the beach, colored stones, and death will take everything away. Hence the tension goes on growing, and the whole world is becoming tense, particularly at these times, because the third world war is hanging just on the horizon. That is the death of all.

For the first time humanity is feeling the fear of a universal death. Before, individuals have felt it, it was a small thing. Now it has become total and global. Any moment any computer in the Soviet Union or America can go wrong. It is not even in human hands, now everything is being controlled by the computers.

And you know, you cannot depend on machines, you cannot depend even on men. Just a small accident and the whole world will be just going up in smoke, hence the tension is tremendous. But you can make it a great opportunity too, because death is so close and life is more unreliable than it has ever been. You can change your life into deep silence, into meditation; you can realize, under this pressure it is easier to realize, your innermost center, which is immortal. No nuclear weapons can destroy it. And once you have felt it, all tension, all misery, all anguish, will simply disappear as if it was never there before.

This is the time for everybody to meditate. This is the time that, except for meditation, nothing can help you to get out of your misery. And meditation is a simple phenomenon. Just whenever you have time, sit silently, doing nothing. Relax, close your eyes, watch your thoughts as if you are watching a movie on the 1/08/07

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screen. You are just a watcher. And you are in for a great surprise, perhaps the greatest surprise of life. If you can watch your thoughts just as if they are moving there on the screen, and you are not involved in them, they start dispersing. It is your involvement that gives them life energy. When you withdraw yourself and become just a witness, thoughts start falling, like leaves which are dead start falling from the trees.

Soon you will be surprised, the screen is empty.

The moment the screen of the mind is empty, a miracle happens. Your consciousness, which was focused on the screen of the mind, finding nothing there, turns upon itself. The circle is complete. It went from you up to the screen, but there is nothing there to stop it, and it comes back to the original source.

Consciousness coming back to the original source is what I call enlightenment. You have become awakened, you have opened your eyes for the first time. Now for you there is no death, no misery, no pain; for you there is only blissfulness. And this blissfulness is not something that you will attain after death. This blissfulness is something that happens here and now.

I teach the religion of here and now.

All the religions have been teaching you postponement. That is a very cunning trick. They have been telling you, "After death you will get the results." Nobody comes back after death so you don't know whether any result happens or not.

I teach you immediate experience. And if you are doing it, wherever you are doing it, I am going to be with you.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #26

Chapter title: None

20 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601205

ShortTitle: LAST526

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

PRESS INTERVIEWS

Q: ARE YOU THE BEGINNING OF A NEW RELIGION?

A: I am certainly the beginning of something which is far more precious than any religion can be. I am also the end of all the old religions.

The old religions have not helped humanity to progress in consciousness, in being. On the contrary they have hindered man's growth, his spirituality, in every possible way. The old religions became simply a facade of politics. In the name of religion, politics has reigned all over the world.

One thing that is most important to understand is that truth cannot be organized. The moment you organize it, you kill it.

Truth is an individual experience, and it can never become a collective phenomenon. Those who have attained the experience of it were individuals, not crowds, not mobs, not Hindus, not Mohammedans, not 1/08/07

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Christians, not Jews; but just individuals. Moses is an individual, just as Mahavira is; Gautam Buddha is an individual just as Jesus Christ is. They experience something in their aloneness, in their silence, in their innermost shrine of being. The church is not outside, it is within you.

But the Christians are looking for the truth in a church which is outside. They are looking for truth in a collectivity, in a crowd, and it is clear to anybody who has a little bit of intelligence that in two thousand years they have not produced a single Jesus Christ again; neither have the Buddhists been able to produce in twenty-five centuries another Gautam Buddha.

And it is not that people have not worked hard. People have worked tremendously hard; down the centuries millions of people have sacrificed themselves and everything they had to become enlightened. But nothing has happened; there seems to be something fundamental missing. They forgot one thing: that Gautam Buddha was not following anybody, and they are following Gautam Buddha; that Jesus Christ was not following anybody, and they are following Jesus Christ. That is the point where they missed.

You have to be just yourself, individual, not a carbon copy of anybody else. You have to assert your original face. Existence believes in originality, not in imitation. There are millions of Christians, but not a single Christ.

I am reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche's statement -- he said that the first Christian and the last Christian died on the cross two thousand years ago, the first and the last. Then what are these crowds doing? Almost half of humanity is Christian. What is this half of humanity doing if the first and the last Christian has already died two thousand years ago? They are simply deceiving themselves. The days of organized religion are finished.

I declare a totally different conception. I will not even call it religion because that word is associated with the old religions; I will call it only religiousness. I am the beginning of religiousness. Religion is bound to be Hindu, bound to be Mohammedan, bound to be Christian. Religiousness need not be Hindu, how can it be Hindu? How can it be Mohammedan?

If love cannot be Hindu, cannot be Christian, if silence cannot be Jewish, then why should religiousness

-- a quality, a fragrance -- have any adjective to it?

Yes, I am the beginning of something new, but not the beginning of a new religion. I am the beginning of a new kind of religiousness which knows no adjectives, no boundaries; which knows only freedom of the spirit, silence of your being, growth of your potential; and finally the experience of godliness within yourself -- not of a God outside you, but a godliness overflowing from you.

The old religions are just corpses, stinking; still they are immensely powerful, because the whole past has given them prestige, authority. And nobody wants to leave power and authority. They go on manipulating humanity, exploiting human beings; they go on keeping you retarded. They don't want you to evolve, because the moment you evolve and you become intelligent, you will be free from the bondage which is their vested interest.

Anybody who is intelligent cannot be a Hindu, cannot be a Mohammedan, cannot be a Christian, --

because all these religions have done so many ugly actions in the past, they have killed millions of people, burned people alive in the name of God, in the name of love. They have been simply destructive; they have not enhanced beauty, they have not contributed to humanity in any way. They are parasites. They have sucked you for centuries, they have been living on your blood.

It is time that churches should be transformed into schools, into hospitals. Temples and mosques, synagogues and gurudwaras should be used for art galleries, music schools, for teaching painting and sculpture. And the priests should cease to exist. It is ugly; the priesthood should simply disappear from the earth, because man does not need anybody to mediate between himself and existence.

I am reminded of a great master, Lao Tzu. He used to go every day for a morning walk. One of his neighbors asked him, "A friend has come to visit me. He is a poet, a lover of beauty, and he is also very much interested in you. He wants to accompany you tomorrow morning on your morning walk."

Lao Tzu said, "I have no objection, except a simple condition: that he should not speak while we are walking in the mountains."

The friend said, "That's acceptable."

All three started the next day before sunrise. It was a beautiful calm and quiet early morning; and then the sun started rising above the hills, and with it the flowers started opening and the birds started singing.

The poet forgot about the condition. He said, "How beautiful!" Just two words, and then he remembered. He didn't say anything more.

Back home, Lao Tzu called the neighbor and said, "Your friend is too talkative; I cannot afford to have 1/08/07

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him again. And he is stupid too. I was there, listening to the songs of the birds, seeing the sun rising, listening to the wind passing through the trees, hearing the sound of running water. No mediator is needed.

What can he add by saying, 'How beautiful!'? He simply disturbed."

Existence and you are enough. There is no need for any agent between you and existence to interpret, to say, "How beautiful!", to take messages from you to existence and bring messages from existence to you.

That's what the priests have been doing down the ages; they have kept you away from reality. They have been standing between you and reality.

A truly religious person does not need anybody between himself and the sunrise, between himself and the stars in the sky, between himself and the fragrance of the flower. It is all divine, you just have to be open to it.

When the priesthood is dissolved, organized religions finished, then humanity will be one. Otherwise, they have created so many barriers between man and man. Every evening since I came here I have gone for a walk. The first day one man said, "Osho, this is not pranam that I am doing to you; this is salaam."

Pranam is Hindu, salaam is Mohammedan.

I said to him, "To me, both mean the same."

The second day he said, "I have come again."

I said, "That's good, but don't say what you said on the first day."

Why create barriers? It is the same experience. A loving welcome... whether you call it pranam or whether you call it salaam, does it make any difference? But in his mind there must be great difference, that he wanted to indicate to me that he is a Mohammedan. Just to be human is enough. To be Mohammedan, to be Hindu, to be Christian is to be below your humanity, is to fall from your height, is to lose your dignity.

Yes, I am the beginning of something new. You can call it religiousness, but don't call it religion.

Q: YOU SAY YOU ARE A BUDDHA, AND HIS TEACHING WAS BASED ON SIMPLICITY, A SIMPLE

LIFE. YOURS IS BASED ON COMFORT AND LUXURY. WILL YOU PLEASE COMMENT ON THAT?

A: It is a significant question, with tremendous implications to be understood; one is that there is no difference. You will be surprised to hear it, because you don't understand the inner mechanism of transformation.

Buddha was born a king. He got fed up with his palaces, with his richness, with his luxury; he became a beggar. In the middle of one night, he renounced his kingdom and went into the forest as a beggar.

I was born as a poor man. I got fed up with up poverty. In the middle of one night I renounced poverty, and since then I have been living like an emperor. What is the difference? Just one difference is there: Buddha's renunciation was simple, my renunciation is very difficult. To renounce a kingdom luxury and is a very simple phenomenon; you just get out of the palace and into the mountains. But to renounce poverty is not so easy, otherwise you would have all renounced it. I have done the more difficult task.

But the inner mechanism is the same -- a drastic change in your lifestyle helps you to become enlightened. It doesn't matter whether from the palace you move to the hut, or from the hut you move to the palace. A drastic change in your lifestyle brings the revelation easily, because it uproots you from your ground, it brings you to a totally new territory. You cannot remain the same, you have to change.

Obviously it seems Buddha did a great thing, but it only seems so. I have done the greater thing. You try! -- and you will know immediately that to renounce empires is the easiest thing in the world. To renounce poverty is the most arduous phenomenon.

But there are other aspects of it too; I am not in favor of poverty, and neither are you. It is natural that nobody should be in favor of poverty, because to be in favor of poverty means to be in favor of hunger, to be in favor of being without clothes, to be in favor of being without shelter, to be in favor of sickness, old age, and no medicine. Nobody is in favor of poverty.

But Gautam Buddha and the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jainas, all these twenty-five people who have impressed this country immensely, have impressed the whole East, were born as kings. You have to understand it: Buddha was born as a king. The incarnations of Hindus, Rama and Krishna, were born as kings. You have not accepted a single poor man as a buddha, as a tirthankara, as an incarnation of God --

that shows your mind.

You respect luxury, you respect kings. In fact, you have respected Gautam Buddha not because he was a beggar, but because he renounced his empire. Just think, if Gautam Buddha was born a poor man, and one 1/08/07

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night he had renounced his poor man's house, with no clothes, no food, the father dying without medicine. I don't think you would have ever accepted him as a great master; you have never accepted anybody like that.

Why were the twenty-four tirthankaras all kings? Is not anybody else intelligent enough to be spiritual?

Is the whole world empty, with nobody to give it challenge? Do only kings have a prerogative, a monopoly?

The reason is that these kings renounced their kingdom, and became beggars. In your eyes, the kingdom is so valuable that it is amazing that a man would renounce something for which you have been hankering your whole life. The man is not respected for himself or his spirituality, he is respected for the money that he has left behind. You are still counting money, you are still looking at the bank balance.

I used to know a postmaster, a poor man, the only earning member of a big family. When his wife died and his children got married he asked me, "I am tired and all my duties are fulfilled. I can renounce the world."

I said, "What have you got to renounce? How much is your bank balance?"

He said, "Bank balance? I don't have a bank balance, just three hundred and sixty rupees in the post office."

I said, "You can renounce, but don't tell anyone that you had only three hundred and sixty rupees when you renounced; otherwise nobody is going to pay any attention to your renunciation. People will simply laugh."

After ten years I met the man in New Delhi. He had gathered a good following. One of his disciples told me, "My master was a great rich man; he renounced everything."

I went to see the master. Looking at me, he felt a little nervous. I said, "Don't be worried. I will not tell anybody that you renounced only three hundred and sixty rupees." But they all heard it. Since then he has lost all his following. He is very angry with me.

I want to emphasize the fact that, although you think that you respect Buddha because he renounced, deep down you still respect the empire, the kingdom, the riches -- not Buddha himself.

With me the situation is totally different. I have renounced poverty. You have to look eye to eye with me. Either you respect me, or you don't respect me. But money does not come in between.

The people who have respected me are far more religious than you who have respected kings because they renounced their kingdoms. The people who have respected me, have respected me, not the kingdom that I had renounced. I had no kingdom; their respect is direct, immediate. It concerns me, it has nothing to do with anything else.

And moreover, I am against this whole idea of Gautam Buddha, Mahavira and other tirthankaras renouncing their kingdoms. Because they not only renounced their kingdoms, they raised the value of poverty, which you have never thought about -- they made poverty something spiritual, which it is not.

Poverty is the source of all crime, all sickness, all that is ugly in life. They made poverty something spiritual, and thousands of people became beggars with Buddha. But have you looked into the whole situation?

The people who followed Buddha left behind them crying and weeping wives, crying and weeping children, old parents. What happened to those people? The wives became prostitutes, the children became orphans, the old parents died without any care and without any medicine, because the man who was the earning member had become spiritual. And this happened to millions of people. Who is responsible for this?

I cannot forgive Buddha, or Mahavira, or other tirthankaras. They raised poverty to spirituality, convinced people, and destroyed thousands of families, millions of people. And the people who became beggars became a burden on the society. Because if you have renounced the world, then you don't have any right to ask for food from that same world; you don't have any right to ask for clothes, for shelter, from that same world. This is a strange thing: you condemn the world, and the world feeds you. You renounce the world, and the world supports you. You live on it. These are the people who have reduced the East to poverty, to slavery.

No, I am not in favor of poverty.

And finally, I have also renounced. Buddha renounced this world, because this world's pleasures are momentary. Try to understand the subtlety of the logic: he renounced the world, this world, because its pleasures are momentary. But he is renouncing it to gain another world beyond death, the pleasures of which are permanent and eternal.

Look around the world into different religions' idea of the other world. I will give you a few instances to understand their psychology.

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paradise, where rivers of wine are available, you can drink as much as you want, swim in it, get drowned in it. But it's very strange: in this world wine is a sin, and in that world it is a reward. I can't see the connection.

In this world the woman has to be condemned. She is the source of sin, she is the door to hell. If you can manage to renounce the woman you become a saint, and the saints are rewarded with beautiful women in paradise. Not ordinary beauties, those women never grow to be more than sixteen years old. They are stuck for millions of years at the age of sixteen. They don't perspire, they are always young.

In Arabian countries homosexuality has been prevalent for centuries. It is a very shocking thing that in paradise, for saints, young boys are also made available.

Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, Jesus... they all renounced this world because its pleasures are momentary for a world where pleasures are eternal. I renounce the world of eternal pleasures for this world, where pleasures are momentary. Who is renouncing more? I would hate a girl who has remained for millions of years stuck at age sixteen. She is a prostitute and she has been used by millions of saints.

I have heard about a disciple whose master, whose whole teaching was celibacy, had died. After a few days the disciple also died. Of course the first thing he looked for in paradise was his master, and he soon found him under a beautiful tree -- which remains eternally green! He saw the master, but he was very much shocked because in his lap was sitting an American Hollywood actress, Marilyn Monroe. She was very beautiful, but without any brains, just flesh without any soul. The disciple was very shocked. The master has been teaching celibacy and here he is hugging a naked film actress! But then he thought, "Perhaps this is his reward! He deserves it. His whole life he was celibate; he would not allow any woman even to touch his feet; he would not see any woman. Certainly he deserves it."

He came close, fell at the feet of the master, and said, "My great master. You certainly deserve such a beautiful woman."

Before the master could reply Marilyn Monroe said, "You idiot. I am not his reward. He is my punishment."

I have renounced that world. To me each moment is paradise, and I don't have any desire for eternal pleasure. In fact the very idea is sick. Just think, if you have anything forever you are going to get bored -- if you have any intelligence. The woman may be very beautiful, but to have the woman eternally... just think of eternity, forever and forever, the same woman. In no religious scripture is there any mention of divorce in paradise. Once you are caught by the woman you are caught forever.

Whenever I think about the paradise that all the religions have created I simply freak out. I don't want to go to paradise. Absolutely no! It is only for idiots. I would rather go to hell, because the best and the most colorful people, the most creative people, all the great poets, all the great painters, all the great dancers, all the great sculptors, you will find there. In heaven you will find only dried up saints with no juice. It will be utter boredom; you cannot even have a good conversation.

You cannot find Byron in heaven, you cannot find Shelley, you cannot find Bertrand Russell, you cannot find Jawaharlal, you cannot find Rabindranath Tagore, you cannot find Maupassant, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, Socrates. You cannot find the cream of humanity there.

You will find only dull, unintelligent, retarded people. Their qualities are that they can fast for twenty-one days, but that does not give intelligence. Somebody can stand for twelve years and will not sit down, but that is not a quality. Somebody lives naked, but that is nothing creative; every child is born naked, every animal lives naked. If nakedness is spiritual, then all animals will be ahead of you.

I have also renounced, and my renunciation is far greater. I have renounced the world of eternal pleasures for this beautiful world of momentary pleasures. I have renounced eternity for the moment; to me it is enough. And I call this contentment.

All your saints are full of desire, whatever they say. They go on saying to you, "Be desireless." But why? -- so that in paradise all your desires can be fulfilled. But this is not desirelessness; it is motivated. I say to you, there is no need to be desireless. Live each desire with as much awareness as possible, and you will feel a tremendous contentment arising in you. Each moment it goes on growing -- you feel fulfilled, here and now. I do not promise you anything after death, because that is a very cunning device of your priests, your prophets, your messiahs. I want you to experience something here.

I am a realist, I am not a dreamer. And my experience is that if you can live each moment with contentment, awareness, silence, joyfulness, this very earth becomes paradise; there is no other paradise anywhere. All those paradises are invented only for idiots to be exploited.

I have renounced everything hocus pocus.

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Q: NO GOVERNMENT CAN TOLERATE YOU, NO POLITICIAN WILL ALLOW YOU TO ENTER, NO

PERSON ON A CHAIR WILL ALLOW YOU TO MAKE A DENT INTO THEIR POSITION. NO CHURCH, NO RELIGION, WILL FORGIVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO THEM AND NINETY-EIGHT

PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION CANNOT ACCEPT YOU. HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO

DEPROGRAM THIS GREAT HUMANITY AND CHANGE THE FACE OF THIS EARTH?

A: It is true, no government will allow me to do what I want to do. No religion will ever come to support me. Nobody who has a vested interest is going to be friendly towards me. Nobody who is in power has the guts even to listen to me.

I count this as a great victory, because nobody before me has threatened so many people around the world. Their very fear is a proof of my truth. If I were false there would be no need for them to be afraid of me. They could have exposed, they could have argued, they have all the means. They could have told the whole world that I am wrong. Their fear is that I am not wrong. And truth knows no defeat; it can be delayed, but it cannot be defeated.

You say ninety-eight percent of the people are in the grip of politicians, of priests, how are you going to deprogram and change the whole humanity? You have forgotten the remaining two percent. You have forgotten yourself.

When Karl Marx started thinking of communism, he was alone; now half the world is communist. Two percent of the people is enough. The ninety-eight percent look like a big majority, but the question is not going to be decided by a majority. The question is to be decided by who is true.

Truth has its own ways, very subtle ways. Two percent of the people is a big phenomenon. If I can get to two percent of the people's hearts it is enough. Because those ninety-eight percent of people who are not standing with truth, they are standing with something which is already dead. They are standing with things which are lies, they are standing with things which are superstitious.

Just two percent of the intelligent youth around the world is enough, and we can make the whole world aflame. I don't see that there is any problem.

I have been talking to all the races, to all the nations, to different cultures, and I have always found a tremendous rapport between me and the intelligent people -- a deep synchronicity everywhere around the earth. Only the stupid are not with me, I don't want them to be with me. I want only the intelligent people; and they are with me. They can understand, and they are the people who change the world. The vast majority is never active, it is dormant.

Only the small minority, the arrowhead... once the small, intelligent minority gets the idea and starts moving, the majority follows automatically. The majority has always followed; if it has followed people who have no truth in them, why cannot it follow people who have some vision of truth?

But don't be worried about that. I am not interested in governments, I am not interested in popes and Shankaracharyas and -- Ayatollah Khomeiniacs. I am interested in the young people. Their age does not matter, maybe they are sixty or seventy. All that is needed is a fresh intelligence. And if they are with me, we are going to change this world. Nobody can prevent us. I have not come across a single argument against me. Against me there are only gossips, and gossips cannot do anything, they are simply indications of failure. The majority is having a nervous breakdown.

Just the other day, while I was coming back from my walk one man shouted very angrily, "What is the purpose of your coming to Nepal?"

I looked at the man. I wanted to ask him, "What is the purpose of your being in Nepal? What is the purpose of your being born?" My purpose is clear -- I corrupt people. Whosoever has guts, I corrupt him.

That has always been the purpose of the category of people I belong to. Socrates was corrupting people, Heraclitus was corrupting people, Pythagoras was corrupting people. I am simply doing the same. But it is good to be corrupted in the hands of Socrates because that will bring a rebellion in you, a revolution in you.

I don't want to have anything from you.

I simply want to give you something that I have got.

Q: WHAT IS WOMAN? AND FINALLY, A JOKE FOR NEPALESE PEOPLE.

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A: Before I answer you, there have been a few more questions which I rejected because they were very simple. But I don't want anybody to feel that his question is rejected. I am very sensitive about it; so first I will give the answer to those questions which I have rejected.

One was, that I am a self-appointed buddha but still I could not see what was going on behind my back in the commune, and the commune was destroyed. The question arises in many people's minds, because you have a certain expectation of a buddha, of an awakened man. You think that an awakened man has to know everything that goes on around him. If you think that then you are not aware of the history of the awakened people.

Gautam Buddha was betrayed by his own cousin-brother, Devadatta. He was preparing to betray him for years, and he convinced five hundred people to go with him and leave Buddha, because Buddha was not really awakened; Devadatta was the real awakened one. What do you say? Gautam Buddha was not aware of this, therefore he was not enlightened?

But your expectations are without foundation. Gautam Buddha was given poison in food, and he ate it.

Is that not enough for you to deny that Gautam Buddha was enlightened? He could not see that the food just in front of him is poisoned.

Mahavira is described by the Jainas as having all the qualities of God. He is omnipotent, all-powerful; omniscient, all-seeing, past, present, and future; omnipresent, past, present, future. But his own son-in-law betrayed him and prepared the ground to take thousands of his followers away with him, convincing them that he was the right tirthankara, Mahavira was not. What do you say about it? Mahavira is omniscient, that's what Jaina scriptures say; because of these scriptures you go on carrying absurd expectations that he sees everything, not only in the present, but the whole eternal past and the whole eternal future. But it has been known that one day he was standing before a house begging for his food and the house was empty. The people had left just the day before. Now this man cannot know whether the house is occupied or empty? He knows all past, present, and future, and he does not know that the house in front of him is empty?

In fact your definitions are false. Enlightenment simply means that one knows oneself. It does not mean that he becomes omnipotent, that he becomes omniscient, that he starts seeing past, present and future. It simply means that he is no more ignorant of his own self; nothing else.

So please drop unnecessary expectations. I am a simple human being, who has come to know himself and is totally blissful, immensely contented, with his knowing. There is no question left. You are all full of questions, I am just empty of any questions. I am not even full of answers. It is your question that creates my answer, otherwise I am empty. And I don't claim any miraculous powers.

But you go on projecting ideas of your own which have nothing to do with me. Now you say that I am a self-appointed buddha, as if you know what you are writing. Let us go into it a little deeper.

Do you want a buddha to be appointed by a committee? Naturally the committee will be of unenlightened people. The blind people will be appointing a man who has eyes. They will certify that, yes, he has eyes. Do you want a buddha to be chosen by a majority? Is it a political thing? The majority is blind, the minority is blind. How can they choose, how can they select? Do you want a buddha to be nominated by some king or some queen? But what do they understand about enlightenment? The àwakened one' is not a title that can be conferred by a government, it is not an award like the Nobel prize that a committee can decide. It is not a degree that a university can give. Then how does it happen? It is not self-appointment either, it is self-revelation.

In your experience there are things which may help you to understand. You have a headache; now only you know it, even your doctor cannot know whether you have it or not. Is it a self-appointed headache, or has a committee decided, or has there been an election? You know when you have a headache.

The moment one becomes full of light and full of blissfulness one knows -- it is self-revelation. So please don't use ugly words, because you are not using ugly words only to me. You are using those ugly words to all the awakened ones of the whole history.

Q: WHY DO YOU NOT LAUGH HERE WITH US? YOU USED TO LAUGH IN YOUR COMMUNE IN

AMERICA.

A: It is relevant. The commune in America consisted only of my sannyasins, who were deep in meditation, who had no questions to ask, who simply enjoyed my being with them. There was a certain harmony between my heart and their hearts. So it used to happen that when they would laugh, I would 1/08/07

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laugh; when they would dance, I would dance. You are still a little distant. If you want me to laugh with you, you will have to come a little closer, become a little more open, a little more receptive. If you want me to dance with you, you will have to start dancing.

I am available, it all depends on you. It is a question of communion. Right now I can only talk to you intellectually, not heart-to-heart, not being to being. It takes time to attain to that growth. It took four years of five thousand sannyasins living with me for all distance to disappear, for me to become completely one with them. Then their laughter was my laughter, and their dance was my dance. Don't feel sad; you can manage it.

Now, the question that has been waiting: what is a woman? It is a simple question, yet great implications are in it. A woman is a man with a womb. That's exactly the meaning of the word woman: womb plus man.

She has more than man has, she is richer than man is. She can produce life; man cannot. And because of this, because she is capable of producing the greatest thing, life, man has always felt an inferiority complex.

To avoid that inferiority complex he has tried in every way to destroy the dignity of woman, to cut her wings, to engage her in the house, not to give her an education, not to allow her financial independence, not to let her move in the society freely, not to allow her to have friends of her own. These were the strategies to reduce her into a slave so that man can forget his inferiority complex.

He has done a few more things with himself. He has tried to create paintings, he has tried to create literature, he has tried to create great pieces of art, dances, poetry, just in order to feel that he is a creator.

At the same time he reduced the woman's freedom, destroyed her humanity in every possible way, in smaller ways.

I was a professor in a university. One of my friends, a professor in the same department, said to me, "I am in trouble. I had never thought about it before, but now it has become tremendously important. I have fallen in love with a woman who is taller than me. Now she insists on marriage, and I don't want to become a laughing stock, because she is really too tall, almost one foot taller than me." The man was very short, and he said, "Even now when we are not married, whenever we go anywhere together somebody asks her, Ìs he your son?' And that hurts me very much." No man wants his wife to be taller than him.

It is time to understand clearly that there is no question of inferiority. Man is man, woman is woman; man has immense capacities which woman does not have. The woman's interest is very local, limited. Even the wife of Albert Einstein is not interested in his far away galaxies and stars. She gets fed up with him. She said, "Sometimes you should forget all about these stars. What have we to do with them? The real thing is that our neighbor's wife is having an affair with somebody else, and you are talking all kinds of nonsense.

Talk something juicy."

The woman is very earthbound, man has strange interests, adventures. The woman is not interested in that. So there is no question of comparison. The woman creates life. But just life is not the real thing. Man can create consciousness. Very few women have been interested in creating consciousness. Life is a lower thing. Consciousness is a higher thing. The woman is capable of creating consciousness, but very few women seem to be interested.

All the meditation techniques have been discovered by men, all the religious experiences have been discovered by men. All the art, all science, all poetry, even books on cookery are written by men. The best cooks in the greatest hotels of the world are men. Don't feel inferior; and neither does the woman have to feel inferior. She creates life; without her there would be no life and without life there is no possibility of awakening, of superconsciousness, of the ultimate experience of life. All the buddhas are born of a woman, they are indebted to the woman.

Both have their own uniqueness, there is no need to compare. If we accept each other in our uniqueness, men and women can become friends. Up to now they have been intimate enemies. I would like them to be intimate friends.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #27

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Chapter title: None

22 January 1986 am in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8602220

ShortTitle: LAST527

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW BY ENZO BIAGI, AKA SARJANO, CORRIERE DELLA SERA, ITALY

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU NEVER STOP SURPRISING US. HOW COME YOU DECIDE TO GO FOR A WORLD TOUR?

A: It is very simple. People don't live in the moment. They plan for the future. Hence they are surprised.

I live in the moment. I don't know about the next moment. So it is not only I surprise others; I surprise myself too. I keep the coming moment open, unplanned. I don't know what is going to happen. This way, life is more juicier, more adventurous, more spontaneous. This way one is always young, never gets old.

This way even death is a surprise, not a shock.

One enters into death too with great joy, to discover something; and if the whole life has been a moment to moment journey, discovery, the death cannot be otherwise. Because the death is not the end of life, it is the very culmination, the very peak, the height.

Q: WHEN CAN WE EXPECT YOU IN ITALY?

A: Any time. Perhaps I may start my world tour from Italy.

Q: DO YOU EXPECT TO BE WELCOME IN ITALY (INAUDIBLE) THE POPE AND THE VATICAN?

A: Certainly. In fact because of them, I am going to be welcome in Italy. The Pope and his company have exploited Italy for centuries and I don't think Italians are dumb or retarded. They can see the parasite in the Pope.

I am going to be welcomed by the intelligentsia of Italy, by the youth of Italy, and by all those who are bored and fed up with the rotten Christianity that the Pope represents. I have always felt Italy to be my country, more than any other country. It does not belong to the Pope. It belongs to me. In fact, Jesus Christ was crucified by the Italians. They should do the same with the Pope.

It is not a coincidence that Italy became the citadel and the center of Christianity, because Jesus Christ was crucified by the Italian governor general, Pontius Pilate in Judea. It created guilt in Italy. And out of the guilt, Christians have exploited Italy. They destroyed the Roman empire, they destroyed the whole glory of the country. They destroyed its fundamentals of philosophy. The Roman philosophy of life is very close to me, because it was the philosophy of a pagan. It was not devoted to a god, a fiction. It was not devoted to the other world, another fiction. It was basically devoted to man, his life, his joys. It was a very earthly and pragmatic world view. That's why I say, Italy belongs to me, not to the Pope.

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Q: THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT HAS ALREADY STATED THAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU IN

THEIR COUNTRY. WHY DO YOU THINK THEY ARE SO AFRAID OF A MAN THEY HAVE NEVER

SEEN BEFORE?

A: Every government is afraid. And every organized religion is afraid, for the simple reason that I am against all kinds of establishments. I am against the whole past of humanity. I want to begin the history anew, fresh. The past has been ugly, and the responsibility goes to the politicians and the priests. And I don't want it to be repeated in the future again.

Naturally, I am the greatest enemy of establishment today in the world. They are afraid because they don't have any argument against me. Whatever I am saying is so true that they cannot deny it. They are aware that their intelligentsia, their young people, are going to understand. Germany particularly is afraid.

The reason is Adolf Hitler, and what he has done to the world. He is the politician par excellence. With Adolf Hitler, the Germany is completely disappointed in the politicians, and the politicians know it perfectly well, that the German youth is seeking and searching some substitute for them. They know also that even far away countries, wherever I have been, the German youth has been reaching to me.

Their concern is that if I come to their country, I can change the whole mind of the youth, which is the future. I can manage very easily to put their youth against themselves. They can see that even without going to Germany, I have the largest number of sannyasins in Germany, and I have not gone there. Once I am there, it will be difficult to find a young man who is not a sannyasin. So those cowards politicians are trying to prevent me from entering Germany. They don't understand me. This helps my work. This makes their weakness clear, and brings it in the open and loudly.

As I have reached Europe, my sannyasins in Germany are going to sue the government in the courts because it is absolutely illegal to prevent me. I have never been in the country. Naturally I have not committed any crime in the country. They don't have anything against me. And to prevent a person who has not done anything in your country, he has not even entered in your country, is simply absurd.

The reason that they have given why they don't want me to enter in the country is so lousy, that is makes one laugh. They have said that they don't want me to enter Germany because I am not going to be a help to their country. Then they should make a general law that only people who are certain to be a help to their country can enter Germany. And before I have entered, how they have managed to find it, that I cannot be a help to their country. I have thousands of sannyasins there, I am a help to them, they are a part of their country, they want me to be in the country. They cannot be deprived.

They have been asking me, should they go into the courts against the government? I have been telling,

"Just wait, let me be in Europe; then sue the government. With me in the Europe it will be a totally different scene, then all the sannyasins of the Europe will be of tremendous help to you; and you will feel stronger, and the government will feel weaker.

"We are going to defeat them, and I am going to enter Germany. Whether they change their law or not, it does not matter."

Q: SEVERAL OF YOUR SANNYASIN FRIENDS; AND THEY SUGGEST THAT YOU COME TO THE

BORDER OF GERMAN AND AUSTRIA, AND THEY WILL COME IN THEIR THOUSANDS AND

THOUSANDS TO VISIT YOU AND DANCE ON THE BORDER, SO THAT THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT

WILL BE EXPOSED ALL OVER THE WORLD. WOULD YOU LIKE THIS TO HAPPEN?

A: I am going to do many things. That is one of the things. I am going to call them to the border, be with me, declare to the world news media that if our master cannot to Germany, Germany can come to our master. And I have seen the American jails. I would love to see the German jails too. If they don't change the law, still I am going to enter Germany and show to the world that how your so-called democratic governments are behaving with absolutely innocent people.

Q: YOU HAVE ATTACKED ALL THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, POLITICIANS, THE

PHILOSOPHERS, THE SCIENTISTS, THE GURUS, INTELLECTUALS, THE POPE, MOTHER TERESA, EVEN GANDHI, THE MEDIA, THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, AND THE WHOLE WORLD AS SUCH.

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Query:-

IS THERE EVERYTHING WRONG IN THIS WORLD? IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN SAVE?

A: It looks a little bit strange, when I say everything in one stroke. It looks strange because you don't understand that all things in the world are part in an organic unity. They are not separate things, so it may be possible that if you take a fragment, it will look good and worth saving. But it is dangerous. It has been part of a poisonous unity. To save it can pollute your future.

For example, if the politicians have been corrupt, if the priests have been corrupt, if the educationists have been corrupt, who creates your intellectuals? The educational system, the theologians, the philosophers, the political ideologies, they are all part of your intellectuals. Their minds are conditioned by them. You cannot save the intellectuals. Saving them you will be saving much of the priests, much of the politicians, much of the educationists.

Even your paintings, howsoever beautiful, are influenced. Your sculpture is influenced. You can see in the middle ages even your greatest artists, people like Michaelangelo have worked their whole life in the churches and cathedrals, just painting the stories which are all fictitious about Jesus. Your sculptors have been in the hands of the priests, making statues of Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira to be worshipped. Your musicians have been part of the course(*) of the universe. Your philosophers have been part of theology, part of the courts; none of your philosophers have the guts to expose the religions and their patent lies.

Even men like Kant, Hegel, giants in the world of philosophy are completely silent about Christianity.

Whom they are cheating? They are showing their cowardliness, and they are trying to propound a philosophy that somehow supports the religion, the vested interests, the establishments. They are not revolutionaries.

Everything is entangled with everything else. Society is an organic unity. And when you want to clean the whole human race, the whole human consciousness it is better to drop it all and begin absolutely fresh, rather than choosing pieces, which may look good as pieces, but they have been part of a poisonous system for centuries, and they carry the poison. They may destroy your whole project for the future. And what is the need?

We can create a new man, we can create a new art, and we can create new architecture. If we can create a new religiousness, we can create new philosophical understanding of life, we can create new art, new poetry, new paintings. Why not get rid of the old, so that you are not chained with the dead. It is something like your father dies, your mother dies. Your father had beautiful eyes. They were real, alive, in the organic unity of your father's body. But if you dig those eyes out, and save them...

(Tape side B, no overlap)

... that they were rebels, revolutionaries, that they were against the past. No. They were trying to take help from the past so that they can have the authority of the past. They wanted to be authoritative. The desire to belong to the past is the desire to be authoritative. I don't want to be authoritative. And there is a difference to be remembered between these two words, authoritative and authority. The authoritative person is always deriving his authority from ancient scriptures, traditions, prophets, and all that. He is not certain about his own experience to be enough of an authority. He needs props and supports.

My experience is enough unto itself. It is a authority in itself, without anybody's support. In fact, their desire to belong to a tradition, their effort, the way Jesus is trying continuously to persuade that "I am your messiah." The way Buddha is trying to persuade the Jainas that I am your twenty-fourth Tirthankara is pitiable. That simply shows these people, don't rely on their own experience; their experience is not authoritative. They need some extra authority, some certificates from tradition, some sanctions from holy scriptures.

It happened, one of very impressive man in this century in India was Ramateertha. He impressed America immensely, Europe and other countries. Naturally he thought, that when he comes to India he is bound to influence millions of people. When he could influence people of other traditions, other religions, it is a natural corollary that he is going to influence the Hindus to whom he belongs.

So he reached first to Varanasi, which is the center of Hindu wisdom, and thought to be the oldest city in the world. Perhaps it is. There is not a single scripture in India which does not mention Varanasi; the oldest of the scriptures still mentions Varanasi. Many cities have arisen and disappeared; Varanasi has a certain permanency. And it is the most sacred city in India, the citadel of Hindus; Hindu scholars, pundits, priests.

So Ramateertha reached Varanasi, because if Varanasi recognizes him as a saint, then the whole India is bound to recognize him.

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But to me, this is the poverty of the man; to seek recognition from others. You don't have your own experience certainly. Otherwise that experience authenticates you. There is nothing else that you need. It is enough, more than enough. It is only one who is empty within who wants some sanction from outside.

He called the meeting of the wise of Varanasi. He stood up to speak. He had not spoken more than few minutes, and a Hindu scholar, a Brahmin pundit, stood up. And he said, "Stop all this nonsense. First answer me one question: Do you know Sanskrit? Because listening these few minutes to you, it seems you don't know it. You are quoting from Persian, from Urdu, but you are not quoting from Sanskrit. And your pronunciation is not that of a Sanskrit scholar."

And it was true; he was born in Punjab, near Lahore, which is now in Pakistan. His mother tongue was Urdu, not Hindi. He was educated through the medium of Urdu, and he was a scholar of Persian, Arabic.

That was the atmosphere around Rapal(*). It was a Mohammedan area. He has read even VEDAS and UPANISHADS through the translations in Persian. He had no idea of Sanskrit or Hindi. He had to accept it.

And the Brahmin pundit said, "Then first go and learn Sanskrit; and don't destroy our time and don't waste our energy. Without knowing Sanskrit, you cannot be accepted by the Council of the Wise as a saint."

This was very shattering experience, very shocking, but it can be shattering and shocking only to a person who has no inner light of his own. And, you will be surprised, he started learning Sanskrit. What a poverty! It is shameful. And he was so much shattered that the Council of the Wise, which is the topmost council of the Hindus, has rejected him that he drop his orange clothes. He has no right. He started using white clothes 'til he becomes a scholar in Sanskrit as if to become wise, to become enlightened, Sanskrit is a necessity. That is absolutely stupid. Buddha never knew any Sanskrit. He never spoke Sanskrit. Mahavira never knew Sanskrit, he never spoke Sanskrit.

He went to the Himalayas, learning Sanskrit, and one day he saw his wife coming up the hill. He was married before he renounced the world and became a sannyasin. The poor woman had accepted, as it has been the case for millions of women in India, with grace and gratitude, with joy although it is going to be a very difficult life for her because he had not left anything, he was not a rich man. He was just a lecturer in a college. He came from a poor family, he was a very intelligent boy, so he was getting scholarships, and that's how he finally managed to top the university in mathematics, and became a lecturer of mathematics.

But he had not much to leave behind. The poor woman was happy that her husband has become a holy man.

In pain, in anguish, but still she was not angry.

Hearing that he has come back after years of traveling, she sold the few ornaments that she had for the ticket from Punjab to the Himalayas, just to see him. There was no other expectation. One of his disciples, Sadha(*) Bonsingh(*), was sitting with Ramateertha as he saw the wife coming. Ramateertha told the Bonsingh(*) that "Close the doors, and don't allow that woman in."

Bonsingh(*) was a very intelligent man, and he had written few very beautiful articles, poetry. He said,

"This is strange, because I have seen you meeting hundreds of women in the West. I have seen you shaking hands with people, which is against Hindu spirituality. This act seems to be ugly. The poor woman you have left. Somehow she is managing by cleaning people's houses, their toilets. And she has come to see you; and you are closing the doors. What is the fear? Do you still believe that she is your wife? Then you have not renounced. What is the distinction between another woman and this woman? So either you allow her, and let her see you; or I am going to leave you. It has been difficult for me to accept that you are learning Sanskrit just to get a sanction from those idiots, none of whom is enlightened. But I have been keeping silent. But this is too much."

(GAP IN THE TAPE)

... being a holy man by the Pope. Now the Pope himself has no enlightenment. He is not an awakened being. What meaning his sanction carries? And the person who starts believing himself as saint because a sanction has been given by the Pope is also not self-realized. Otherwise he will not wait for the sanction.

I don't have any sanction; I am nobody's saint. No tradition supports me. No orthodoxy stands behind me, no holy scripture can certify me. But I don't need. Even if they want to, I will reject. Because my own experience is more than enough, and it gives tremendous freedom.

So certainly I am a strange friend, master; and with me begins a new era of religiousness. And I want to destroy everything that is old, past, dead. I don't believe in renovating old houses. I want to make a new house, fresh, for the new man to live in it.

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Q: DESCRIBE HOW IS IN YOUR VISION, YOUR MAN EAST AND WEST ZORBA THE BUDDHA, AND A SCIENTIST WITH WINGS, RELIGION AND SCIENCE. SO IF YOU CAN BRIEFLY EXPLAIN

WHAT IS YOUR VISION OF THIS SYNCHRONICITY, THIS UNITY THAT WE TRYING TO CREATE IN

THE WORLD AND WHAT WE CALL HUMAN.

A: The old man was schizophrenic. He was split between the body and the soul, between matter and spirit, between this world and that world. And he was told by the old religions, the old prophets, the messiahs, the saviours, to choose.

If he chooses the body, he chooses the matter, he chooses this world, he is a materialist, he is a Zorba; and the Zorba was condemned by all the religions around the world, without exception. If he chooses the spirit, he chooses the other world, he chooses God. Then he is a spiritual being. Then he is a saint. But in either case, he will be in anguish, he will be in suffering, because both are intrinsic parts of his being, and he is being cut into two.

So whatever he chooses, Zorba or Buddha, he will remain half. And the half can never be totally fulfilled. The half will remain always a wound because the other half is missing. So the Zorba is missing; he becomes almost an animal, loses all dignity. And that hurts. The buddha is missing; he becomes almost a god, but he loses contact with reality. He starts living in a dream, in fantasies. He has lost his roots. Now his flowers cannot be real ones; they can only be plastic. So all buddhas have plastic flowers, and certainly plastic flowers can't have fragrance and can't have life.

The Zorba remains only the roots; and the roots are ugly, and the roots live underground in the darkness of the soil. They can't even see the light of the sun, the stars of the night. They live like thieves in darkness, hiding themselves, hiding their ugliness. This has been the history of the past men. I can say with absolute certainty that the past history of man is hysterical; it is sick.

(Tape side C)

The new man accepts the whole man. It does not divide. It teaches an organic unity. Its fundamental philosophy is that you are one whole, not body and soul, not this world and that world. Your body is only the visible part of your soul. Your soul is only the invisible part of your body. This world contains that world within it. Just you have to go deep into it. In each experience, if you are intense and total, you will find within this world that world too. This contains that. They are not separate. There is no guilt, there is no sin.

Yes, you can commit mistakes, which is absolutely human. And you commit mistakes because you are not aware. I say to you, you are allowed to commit mistakes, but don't repeat the same mistake again and again. That means unawareness. When you commit a mistake for the first time, it is perfectly okay, because you have never committed it before, so how you can be aware of it. So it is a good learning. Learn something out of the mistake. And be aware that it is not repeated. So commit as many mistakes as you can.

But they have to be always new, so you go on learning and you go on growing in awareness.

So all the rituals of religions, and all their prayers and all their mantras and chantings, are reduced to a simple method: awareness. All their sins are reduced only to mistakes. The original meaning of the word sin is good. It means forgetfulness. So don't commit the same mistake again, otherwise it becomes a sin; it becomes a forgetfulness. But I would not like to use the word sin, because it has become so much associated with guilt, and guilt is the heaviest load on humanity. To take it away, we can make people so light that they can almost fly.

The new man will not have any guilt. The new man will not have any split. The new man will have only one religion; that is awareness. The new man will have only one world, this world. Because that world is hidden behind it. This world is like a circumference, and that world is the center. And I call the whole man the holy man; then he becomes Zorba the Buddha.

Then the whole life, with its whole spectrum, all the colors of the rainbow, you can live without any fear, without any guilt. You can dance like a Zorba, you can meditate like a Buddha, and I don't see there is any contradiction. In fact, if you have danced totally, deeply, so deeply that the dancer disappears in the dance, that is the time to start meditation.

And when you have meditated, and you are full of silence and peace and blissfulness, so much so that not that you are blissfulness, but you can bless the whole world, that is the moment to dance. Your dance then will be a showering of blessings to the whole world.

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schizophrenic. And let us have a new man; organic, healthy, whole. And with the new man comes a new world into existence, which will not be divided by politics into nations; which will not be divided by religions into different sections, fighting, murdering, killing, burning living people.

We can make this earth a paradise, if we are together. If there are no nations and no churches, no religions, nothing dividing man from man. Then we will have so much energy available which is being involved into wars, into fighting, into organizing; that this whole earth can blossom into new flowers of consciousness.

Okay, Sarjano.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #28

Chapter title: None

23 January 1986 am in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601230

ShortTitle: LAST528

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

INTERVIEW WITH AMAREESH, "PSYCHOLOGY TODAY"

Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT CAN YOU RECOMMEND TO WESTERN PSYCHOLOGISTS, WHO WANTS

TO BE MORE THAN AN AGENT OF EGOIST IDEOLOGIES?

A: They will have to find a totally new orientation. As the Western psychology is, it is based on the ego.

The whole effort is how to enhance the ego of the individual, how to make it more solid, more assertive, more ***, more ambitious. And the whole problem is that the Western psychology does not accept anything beyond mind. It divides man into body and mind. Body is mortal, so is mind. Between these two there is nothing which is eternal and can be made a base for a new psychology.

Western psychology goes on sharpening the mind, making it more efficient, more successful, but that means you have to depend on a certain kind of self, otherwise there is no binding between this mind and the body. They will fall apart. They need to be glued together and that glue is the ego. Unless Western psychology rises above the mind and finds a self which is not an invention, but it is ***.

It is difficult for it to get rid of the ego; something is needed as a center. Either you have a real center or you have to create a substitute center which will be false, but for the moment it will do. And once you have accepted a false center that is the ego, you are solving one problem, giving man a center, giving his body and soul a bridge. But you are on the other hand creating thousand and one problems. Then you have to go on hiding the fact that the ego is false, because if the man comes to know that the ego is false, he will simply fall apart. He won't have a center, he won't have any roots, he won't have any being.

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peddling. If you stop peddling, it is not only going to stop the bicycle from moving, it will make the bicycle fall immediately because it has only two wheels. Moving, it is possible that they can support you. The whole trick is then the movement. It is a subtle trick. By the time the cycle is at the point A and is going to fall, you have moved it to the point B. By the time it is going to fall at the point B you have moved it at the point C. By the time it is going to fall at the point C you have pedaled it at the point D. This is the strategy; otherwise it will fall at any point, A,B,C, just a slow down. Just don't pedal. Let it remain at one point just for few seconds and it will fall.

The same strategy is needed for the ego. You have to go on and on towards new ambitions, from A to B, from B to C, from C to D. You cannot stop being ambitious. The moment you stop being ambitious, suddenly your whole structure will fall apart. You won't have any center, you won't have anything that you can call "I". And in that state, except madness, nothing else is possible.

So the Western psychology has to teach ambition, make the ambition the very nourishment of your I, your ego and the ambition has to be a constant process which stops nowhere till you die. It starts by the moment the child starts understanding language and it goes on and on up to the last breath. It is a very strange game. To keep anything false, giving you the appearance of the real, you cannot stop the process and have a look at it. You can look at it only in the process. Then, it looks perfectly there.

Gautam Buddha has an analogy. He could not have used bicycle because there were no bicycles. He uses the analogy that you are having a lighted torch in your hand and you move your hand round and round.

That gives an illusion of a round circle of fire which does not exist, but it appears to exist. But you have to move fast. You can't give gaps. You can't move from a to b so slowly that the person can see that there is only a lighted torch, there is no circle. He should not see the gaps. There are gaps: when you are moving, howsoever fast you are moving, there are gap. But our eyes have a certain capacity; they cannot see the gaps if it is moving fast enough.

The fire circle is the ego according to Gautam Buddha. You can watch it only in movement. In movement it exists, that's why we have to goad the child, "Come first into the class. Be at the top of your university." We have to goad everybody from every side -- the father, the mother, the relatives, and then one day the wife and the children. Even children are goading their father that,"Neighbors are having new cars and you are still having five year old model. It is shameful. We feel embarrassed. You are not a successful man. What are you doing? Can't you earn enough to have a new model every year?" The wife is continuously goading; she needs new clothes, new diamonds, new ornaments, because neighbors are having it, and it is a question of prestige -- your prestige!

I used to stay with one of my friends in Calcutta. He was a simple man, using very simple clothes, simple life, but his wife was loaded with all kinds of precious stones. And they both used to go with me to the meetings where I was speaking. I asked him that "This is strange: you live like a poor man, your wife is carrying so much load...." He said, "She is my showcase. She is my prestige. I don't need to carry that load: she carries it for me. It is enough that people know she is my wife. All those diamonds and all those rubies and emeralds she cannot earn. They are my gifts. I can afford to be simple without being poor; just I have to keep my wife loaded continuously. She is the most loaded woman in the whole Calcutta and everybody knows she is my wife -- that's enough. She is my showcase, my advertisement, my success, my bank account -- everything she is. I need not."

From the childhood to the old age you are being continuously harassed that "Keep on moving, more and more." The reason is very basic. The people may not know why it is happening. The reason is very basic, because your ego will fall at any moment if you stop. You cannot stop until your last breath. Then nobody cares: you are dead! If your ego falls it is not a problem.

But while you are alive if your ego falls, it is going to create problems. When a person goes bankrupt, why he commits suicide? Was his life only his bank account? If he has gone bankrupt that does not mean that life has to be finished. Any failure and you immediately think of committing suicide. Students fail in examinations and immediate idea is to commit suicide. Why? Because the ego has fallen; now they don't have anything to support them, anything to call their center. They have lost their center, now they are an empty circumference. It is so empty that it is better to end the life rather than to carry this emptiness.

This is a known fact that people at the peak of their success feel utterly bored, utterly deceived by life itself. They had never thought that on the way. On the way everything looked beautiful, but by the time they have reached the end of the ladder suddenly they have to stop because there is nowhere else to go. They have reached to the end of the ladder before their death. The ego disappears. It is only in the process. While they were going from one rung to another rung, it was there. But when they have reached to the last rung, it 1/08/07

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is just not there, and suddenly a realization: that their whole life they had been working for something which has never existed in the first place, that they had been deceived by everyone, that the whole educational system has been a deception, that even the parents who pretended to love them did not love enough.

Nobody was there in their life who could have told them the truth and now wasting their whole life, rising on this ladder, they find at a point from where there is nowhere to go. Suddenly, the wheel of fire has disappeared, they are disillusioned. All successful people if they are intelligent, die disillusioned. Only mediocre people can avoid disillusionment, for two reasons: because they are mediocre they cannot reach to the very end of the ladder -- the competition is tough and they don't have the intelligence to make it.

Secondly, even if they can make it, they are not intelligent enough to see that they have lost their center.

The western psychology had to fall upon the ego. In fact, whenever they feel that somebody is psychologically sick, their diagnosis is that his ego is not strong, that he needs some more strengthening of the ego, more assertiveness, more aggressiveness, that he is too humble, that he is too simple, that he is not making his way enough competitively, that he allows others to pass ahead of him, that he does not prevent him, that he does not pull the legs of others and reach ahead of them. That his ego is weak, his ego should be strengthened.

Because of the woman's liberation movement, the women started going to the psychoanalysts and they had more time also to afford. The husbands had to do their job, earn the money; the wife had all the time in the world. And psychoanalysis is in the fashion.... As the women in the West started going to psychoanalysts, the liberation movement has taken a very egoistic turn. It had to, because psychoanalysis goes on teaching to them that "You have been exploited down the ages because you have weak egos. Man has never allowed you to have a strong will, strong ego, aggressive, assertive. You have been told that to be aggressive and assertive is unwomanly. To be humble is to be graceful. You have been told things which go against strengthening the ego and that is your downfall, down the ages. And that is your basic sickness. The only way to get out of this sickness is to assert. Do whatever the man is doing. If the man are smoking cigarettes, you have to smoke cigarettes. Don't think that it is unwomanly."

Now in the East, no woman of higher classes can even think of smoking. It just looks ugly. It just does not fit. And certainly the eastern woman has more grace. And grace has a beauty of its own.

The western woman may have a beautiful face, but it is harsh. It is not graceful. It is hard. And this has been continuously hammered into her mind that "This is the way to fight. She has to be just like the man: she has to learn Aikido and she has to learn Judo, she has to learn Jujitsu, she has to learn Yoga. She has to be capable of fighting on the same ground as man. She should not be befooled by man's teachings of humbleness and grace and beauty and calmness, equilibrium, tolerance, patience. She should forget all those words; they are the causes of their slavery. And the woman has agreed. That has not made her free. That has simple made her unwomanly. That has turned her natural sexuality into a perversion, because if man is the enemy, then how you can fall in love with man? That is going to be a contradiction. It is better to be lesbians; you love another woman of your own kind. And that's what the woman's liberation movement has turned into: lesbianism.

And the whole thing is that western psychology has chosen -- rather than discovering the real center -- a cheaper substitute: a false ego. It has destroyed man, because it has went into man's mind as ambition. There is no other way for the ego to keep alive. It has destroyed man, because it has went into man's mind as ambition. There is no other way for the ego to keep alive. It has destroyed the woman of all her beauties, of all her unique qualities. In the name of freedom it has not given freedom. It has simply degraded her whole being. It has not raised her consciousness. It is really a laughing thing that the women who are in the liberation movement have conscious-raising sessions. They don't know anything about consciousness and their consciousness-raising sessions are really consciousness-degrading sessions.

Their consciousness means how to be against men, how to be equal in every field. If man uses dirty words, vulgar words, then women have to use the same dirty and vulgar words -- that is equality. I wonder, sooner or later, they are going to pissing standing, because consciousness-raising the cost. Their whole movement has turned into utter stupidity and the reason is psychoanalysis.

You are asking me how the psychoanalysts in the West can find a better framework than ego supplies to it. The only, without exception, the only way is meditation -- which western psychology has been avoiding.

It has been avoiding to protect its whole structure, its whole literature. Its founders, its great psychoanalysts, they all will be drowned, forgotten if meditation enters into the area. Because meditation can help you to discover something beyond your mind.

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and mind, but beyond mind. And to reach to the self you have to learn the ways how the mind can be silenced, so its constant chattering is not there. Because the real self is absolute silence.

Unless western psychology incorporates meditation, it is going to remain attached with the ego. It cannot leave the ego, because without ego then there is no center to man. At least there is something -- it may be false -- but something to hang around... but it destroys the whole life of man. It drives him into more and more, it makes him speedier without knowing where he is going, why he is going, without even inquiring who he is.

Western psychology has not asked a basic question -- who am I? -- because that question will destroy the false ego. And to ask that question means you are entering into the world of meditation, and meditation in other words is a state of no-mind. And western psychology has been at great pains to deny any such state as no-mind -- mind is the end of your being -- and without exploring and without even looking at the whole long history of the eastern mystics -- this is a very unscientific attitude. The western psychology is not only a... one century old science. It is just born.

The eastern mysticism is almost ten thousand years old. And it is not a question of one man saying it or one country saying it; different countries, different races, different times, and they had no exchange of ideas, have reached to the same conclusion. You can not simply go on ignoring it. Half of the humanity -- and perhaps the best half because it became civilized long before the West, it became cultured long before the West, it has lived all the glories that West thinks he is attaining now.... Looking at its literature, looking at its sculpture, looking at its music, its poetry, you have to think about that the people who have created such sculpture, the people who have created such great poetry, such great painting, such great music, should not be ignored out of hand. They should be listened carefully and whatever they are saying should be explored without any prejudice. They are saying that mind is not the end of man; no-mind is his basic reality.

The mind is a changing phenomenon, it is a flux -- and we know it! Each moment it is changing. The thoughts are continuously in a traffic. You cannot keep one thought in your mind more than for few seconds. It is unstable flux. It cannot constitute man's basic reality. Something more solid is needed. And it is there, it has been discovered. People have lived it. And you can see the difference: the greatest psychoanalyst in the West is still prone to the same kind of sicknesses as any ordinary man, to the same madness, to the same schizophrenia. As far as his expertise is concerned he is well- trained, but as far as his humanity is concerned, he is just as ordinary as anybody else. There is no transformation in him.

Psychologists have been known to rape their patients -- now how these people are going to help?

Psychologists go mad more than any other profession, twice than any other profession. They commit suicide twice than any other profession. They are not joyful people, they are not calm and quiet, they don't show the mystics' silence, the mystics' joys, the mystics' certainty, authority. It is all mind work.

The mystic seems to be far above than the psychoanalyst. In fact they are afraid to encounter the mystic, because in front of the mystic they are in the same position as when a camel comes by the side of a mountain. Camels don't like to go to the mountains; they like the desert. There they are the mountains.

Carl Gustav Jung was in India. He went to see the Taj Mahal, he went to see Khajuraho, he went to see the temples of Konarak, but he did not go to see Ramana Maharshi. And wherever he went, he was again and again told that "You being one of the topmost psychoanalysts in the West, you should not miss this opportunity of meeting a eastern mystic who has come to his full flowering."

He was in the South, within two hours distance he could have reached Ramana Maharshi. For three months he was in India, but he avoided. This cannot be just coincidence. And he himself felt that he needs to give some explanation, otherwise it will be felt that he has been avoiding. And naturally, he was a great intellectual and a great psychoanalyst -- he could find any excuse and any explanation and he found the explanation which is very dangerous. His explanation was back in *Zurich, he gave the statement that he did not go to see Ramana Maharshi because the ways of the East and the West are different and the eastern way is dangerous for the western man because he has developed differently, his tradition is different, his culture is different, his religion is different, his whole psychic development is different. It is dangerous to bring into this different psychology any method from the East because that is developed for a different kind of man, for a different kind of psychology -- that's why I did not go." But this is all rubbish because who was saying to you that you have to follow Ramana Maharshi, who was saying to you that you have to use his techniques, his methods?

All that people were insisting was that you should at least see him. Just meeting him would not have destroyed your western psychology. And if it is so weak, so fragile, that just seeing the Ramana Maharshi it is going to be destroyed, then it is not worth -- it should be destroyed and sooner the better. Why waste time 1/08/07

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with such a weak thing? Ramana Maharshi is not afraid of you.

When he was told that Carl Gustav Jung is here and he has been continuously told by every psychologist he is meeting in India that "It is useless to meet professors of psychoanalysis in India because they are simply repeating like parrots what you are producing in the West. It is better to go to see something unique and different so you have a certain comparison. Perhaps he may be coming." And Ramana was overjoyed.

He said, "He is welcome. Whenever he wants to come, I am available."

And this man is uneducated. He left his home when he was only seventeen. He is not an expert in anything. He is not a logician, he is not a philosopher and he is not afraid of one of the founders of psychoanalysis. He is happy to see him. But the psychoanalyst is a coward.

To me this is not just an incident between Jung and Ramana; it is very symbolic, very significant. The western psychoanalysis is afraid because it is based on shifting sands, it has no foundation. So if you ask me, I cannot suggest you small changes here and there. I cannot tell you how you can renovate leaving the old structure intact -- just giving it a new paint, a new arrangement of furniture and things like that. No. The whole structure is from the foundation is wrong.

The western psychology has to drop the ego and has to find the real self and that is possible only through meditation. And the East has done it for thousands of years. So it is not something new, it is not something unexplored, it is not something Quixotic. It is something for which centuries stand in support.

And not a single meditator has gone mad, not a single meditator has committed suicide, not a single meditator has committed rape. It is not only expertise, intellectual understanding; it is a transformation of the man himself.

The psychoanalyst has to be reminded of one of the Socratic sayings: physician, first heal thyself. The psychoanalyst himself is sick, utterly sick. He is not different from the patient. They are in the same boat.

He is having the same nightmares, he is suffering from the same mental tensions, he is feeling the same meaninglessness and he is trying to help people who are having the same diseases. How he can be a authority? With what face he can emphasize to the patient that things can be different? His whole personality is not involved in his work. It is only his education. It is something like a man gets educated in the history of art, becomes a great historian about all the art that has happened in the world, but he cannot draw a straight line himself. Because that does not come in the history. That is not a point at all. His expertise is history. This is the situation with the psychoanalyst: he knows everything about the mind, but he does not know how to change it, he cannot change his own mind, because for every change you have to be separate from the thing you are going to change. And he is identified with the mind -- who is going to change whom?

Meditation creates the gap. It takes you beyond and behind the mind, then you can change, because mind becomes an object to you. Then you are no more identified with the mind. Then you can rearrange or you can completely change and the mind cannot affect you at all. You are so far away, so above, that the mind cannot reach to you.

The mind not reaching to you gives you a tremendous power. You can reach to the mind and you can change anything you want and the mind is for the first time helpless. And you can help your patients for meditation.

Right now they are telling to their patients futile exercises of dream analysis. The patient comes twice a week or thrice a week for one hour, talks about all his dreams. And while he is talking about the dreams, sitting behind the couch, do you think the psychoanalyst is listening to him? Is he capable of listening? For that he will need a silent mind which he has not got. Perhaps he is dreaming himself, sitting behind.

It was a great device of Sigmund Freud that the patient cannot see the psychoanalyst, whether he has gone to sleep, whether he is dreaming, whether he is listening or not.

I have heard about a very rich man who was going through the psychoanalysis for almost ten years. The psychoanalyst was tired but could not get rid either, because he was paying too much -- he could not afford it. But something has to be done, because he was driving him nuts! Listening to the old, the same rotten stuff, again and again which we had.... He had listened thousands of times, but because he pays and pays more than anybody else, he cannot say that your dream analysis work is finished. That will cut almost half of his income. He had to suffer. He had to tolerate.

One day he came with an idea. He said to the rich old man that "I have got some urgent work and I know your dreams -- for ten years I have listened to you -- so what I will do: I will put my tape-recorder.

You continue to talk, my tape-recorder will tape it. And in the night, when I am free of all this work --

silently, at ease -- I will listen to the tape, and that will be more significant."

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The rich man said, "I have no objection." And he was having every day session, so next day when the psychoanalyst was entering his office, he saw the rich man getting out. He said, "But this is the time you come in. You are getting out." He said, "Yes, because I have left my tape-recorder. In the night, finished with all the business and work, silently, I taped all my dreams. Now my tape-recorder is talking to your tape-recorder. We both are saved! Do you think only you have got ideas? And now there is no question of any fee! Tape-recorders are talking with tape-recorders. Neither I am involved nor you are involved."

All that psychoanalysts are doing is just telling their patients to go deeper into their dreams and bring their dreams. And then each school of psychoanalysis interprets their dreams differently -- so it is not a science yet. It is just anybody's guess.

The same dream you take to Sigmund Freud and the meaning is always sexual. Whatever the dream, he will bring it to sex. Sex is the source of all the dreams. You cannot dream something, you cannot even imagine something, which he cannot reduce to sex. He is a perfect master about that. You may think that you have worked out perfectly, that this thing cannot be reduced to sex, but he will reduce it to sex. His whole life's expertise is only one thing: how to reduce everything to sex.

If you go to Jung with the same dream, it will not be interpreted as anything sexual; it will be interpreted in terms of mythology. He may take you thousands of years back -- perhaps to Atlantis, the continent that has drowned and disappeared, perhaps to some aboriginal tribe in Thailand which you have never heard about -- but he will reduce it to some mythology. All dreams are mythological and you are carrying a collective memory of the whole humanity. So he is capable to find from anywhere, something that corresponds to your dream. And this is his expertise, mythologies.

If you go to Adler with the same dream, he will reduce it to will to power, because everything is to him nothing but will to power. And these are the greatest founders of three schools. Then there are small schools and they go on growing, and they all have their interpretations. And you simply confuse the patient; you don't help him. You simply make things worse than they were before, because before there was only a dream, ordinary dream. Now there are universal mythologies, sexual perversions, will to power and whatnot.

You have not helped the person. You have filled his mind with more rubbish, you have puzzled him more, and there is not a single man in the whole western world whose psychoanalysis is complete. And there will never be a single man whose psychoanalysis will be complete. What kind of science is this?

Because the criterion for psychoanalysis to be complete is that all your dreams disappear.

They have been analyzed, they have been brought to consciousness -- now they have nothing to do with you. They should evaporate. Your sleep should become dreamless sleep, what Patanjali calls sushupti, which is very close to samadhi. But not a single man has been able through psychoanalysis to reach to the state of sushupti, dreamless sleep. So the question of samadhi does not arise.

Samadhi means when sushupti, dreamless sleep, becomes alert, awake. When you are asleep as far as the body is concerned, you are asleep as far as the mind is concerned, because there is no disturbance of any dream, there is no tension in the body -- but beyond the mind, the no-mind is fully alert. He knows that the mind is without any dreams, he sees it, it is without any dreams, he sees it the body is absolutely relaxed.

And this seeing, this alertness, continues twenty-four hours. Then sushupti becomes samadhi.

The western psychology has not even reached to sushupti. And it can never reach! Because dreams are such a thing: you can go on analyzing and new dreams will be coming up. Because every day you will be living and every day you will be repressing. You cannot express everything while you are living in the day.

That repression will become dreams. And what can you do with mythologies which are millions of years old, which are there in your collective unconscious? They are inexhaustible. And what you can do with will to power, because that is another name of the ego.

The whole teaching, the whole culture, the whole civilization is nothing but will to power -- through money, through politics, through education, through everything -- just more power.

How can you get rid of dreams? Nobody can be fully psychoanalyzed. That is a complete failure of the whole system, of the whole science.

In the East we have never bothered about dreams. This is something to be noted, that for ten thousand years we have been working with the mind, but we have never bothered about dreams. On the contrary, rather than making too much fuss about dreams, we have called the whole world a dream. Do you see the point? The western psychology is making your dreams a great reality that has to be solved, encountered, analyzed and we have, with a single gesture, rejected the whole world and whole life as a dream. No analysis is needed, no profound philosophy is needed. It is all dreamstuff. What you have to do: you have to 1/08/07

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find the one who is dreaming. The dream is not important, but the dreamer. This is where eastern and western psychologies depart: they become entangled with dreams and the East simply puts dreams aside and start looking for the dreamer, because the dreamer is the real thing. And if we can manage and change and transform the dreamer, the dreams will disappear. The dreams are projections of the dreamer. Who is the dreamer? Where is the dreamer? Rather than wasting time with analysis of the dreams -- which is endless, ad infinitum -- they have simply reached directly to the dreamer. And what they have found is the real self.

And in finding it, they have found a tremendous energy of awareness.

Because you were not aware of it, that's why there were dreams. In your unawareness was the existence of dreams. In your awareness they evaporate just like dewdrops evaporating in the morning sun. The moment you become aware of your authentic being, all dreams disappear.

So in the East there have been thousands of people without any psychoanalysis, who have dropped all their dreams, who have not only reached to a dreamless sleep but has simultaneously reached samadhi -- the ultimate goal of human health, wholeness, immortality.

The western psychology needs a complete change. It is not going to be just a partial change here and there. It is going to be en toto. And the thing that will bring the change is meditation: going into the no-mind, beyond mind, so that you can be a witness of your mind and its activities, of your body and its activities. And this no-mind has no ego. This real self is not an ego. It is part of cosmic consciousness, it is part of the whole existence. It is not yours.

The western psychology is on the verge of a great revolution. The revolution will come from the experiences of the mystics. Perhaps, Ramana Maharshi may not have been of much help. He may have impressed Jung as a charismatic figure, but he may not have been of much help. But I can be, because I know as much western psychology as any Jung, as any Freud, as any Adler. And I know the East not theoretically, but as my own experience. I can become the bridge. And it will be difficult to find a man like me, for the simple reason because those who study the western psychology don't become mystics and the people who become mystics don't bother to study western psychology.

I have been doing all kinds of unnecessary things.

Okay, Maneesha?

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #29

Chapter title: None

23 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601235

ShortTitle: LAST529

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH ENZO BIAGI, AKA SARJANO, IL MANIFESTO, ITALY

Q: YOUR COMMUNE IN AMERICA OREGON, HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS BOTH, AS AN

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EXPERIMENT OF AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIETY AND AS AN EXPERIMENT OF A REAL

COMMUNIST.(*) WOULD YOU AGREE?

A: Yes, I agree. I agree totally.

It was an experiment for both: as an alternative society and as a higher quality of communism.

The old society has some basic things on which it depends. There have been many critics of the old society but none of them has succeeded to hit the very roots. They have been just pruning the leaves.

So the critics have been criticizing and the old society goes on and on. Their criticism has not made any difference to it.

The roots of the old society are hidden like all roots of all the trees. They are not available unless you dig deep.

For example, the family is the basic unit of the old society.

Marriage is the basic unit of the old society.

Money as the means of exchange -- is very fundamental to the old society.

Religious orientation -- whatever the religion may be; but the old society needs a certain religion. It is the opium that keeps the people asleep and drugged.

In my commune we were destroying the very roots. We were destroying the family, we were dissolving the family into the commune.

The children were not going to belong to the parents: they could love them, they could meet them, they could invite them, but they cannot possess them. They have been only vehicles of bringing those children to the world. The children are not their property. The commune will take care of the children.

Hence, marriage loses its relevance.

You can be together with a woman or a man as long as you love. Except love, there is no other reason to be together. There should not be any other reason to be together. Because any other reason is going to be wrong reason.

No law, no logic, no convenience, no respectability... the moment you see the love has disappeared it is time to depart in deep gratitude, friendship, remembering all the beautiful moments that you have given to each other. Not spoiling it by fighting, quarreling, going to a court for a divorce -- it is absolutely ugly.

When there is no marriage there is no question of divorce.

When there is no marriage prostitution disappears automatically.

Prostitution is the shadow of marriage. It is the marriage in which love has died that creates the prostitute -- the ugliest institution in existence.

The old society forces the woman to sell her body for money.

This is a crime which cannot be forgiven and strange is the fact that all the old societies are against prostitution and they are the causes to create it; and they can't see the simple logic that when a man cannot feel love for his wife and cannot enjoy her... she is no more an ecstasy to him -- he tries to find, perhaps he can buy ecstasy, he can buy love, he can buy happiness... a desperate effort of a miserable man.

In the ancient times it was not possible for women to have male prostitutes for the simple reason that they were reduced to such slavery. They had no right, no say, how the society should be run. They had no money but in this century, as women have become slowly financially independent, simultaneously a new institution has come into being: male prostitution.

Now the woman is doing the same as man has been doing. She is also hoping for hers through money.

Those beautiful moments can be captured back which she has lost.

But money cannot buy few things.

It cannot buy love.

It cannot buy peace.

It cannot buy ecstasy.

The old society is miserable, but itself is responsible for all the miseries.

Then there is the money as a means of exchange and it is money that has created classes. The so-called communism created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels does not take note of the basic fact. They miss the most fundamental thing... they want to distribute the money equally, but they don't see the point that it is the money which has created the classes.

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will be people who will be having less money, because to earn money is an art. To accumulate money is an art. To create wealth is an art. And everybody is not so talented.

Soon there will be poor and the rich. But they did not see, they both were blind about the most important thing -- that the easiest way to disappear is to take the money out of the society; that it is no more the means of exchange... then there is nobody poor and nobody rich. There is no need to create a classless society: just remove the money and the classless society comes into being.

The commune should take the responsibility of providing the basic needs of the members. Everybody should get whatever is his need. And we had managed in our small commune of five thousand people for four years, the highest quality of communism that has ever existed on the earth. It was an alternative society because it dissolved the family, it dissolved the marriage, it dissolved divorce, it dissolved the whole of possessiveness of the parents over children. It dissolved money. It made a classless society. It dissolved any need of a ruling class and the ruled. It created a functional structure.

So the president was not more prestigious than the plumber. He was doing his work; the plumber was doing his work.It was possible that the plumber was doing a better work as a plumber than the president was doing his work. Then the plumber has to be honored and respected.

Yes, our commune was an alternative society and a higher form of communism.

And we have proved that it is possible. We were not only theoreticians; we have practically proved it, against all odds, against the greatest, mightiest government... We managed to create an oasis in a world of misery.

People rejoicing and dancing. People feeling completely unburdened of the whole past and unconcerned of the future.

Those four years we had managed to give reality to a dream which man has been dreaming for millenia.

Q: HAS THE FACT YOU LEFT AMERICA TO BE CONSIDERED A FAILURE OF YOUR

EXPERIMENT?

A: It was not a failure. It was an absolute success.

We succeeded doing everything that we wanted.

We managed to prove that whatever is our theoretical idea is practical. It is pragmatic, it is down-to-earth: that is our success. I call it absolute success -- not in terms of time that it existed in only four years, but in terms that it existed at all!

It was going to be destroyed: that is not something unexpected. It was going to be crushed. In fact, it threatened the greatest world power -- that is its success. It challenged the greatest power -- that is its success. That the greatest world power had to use illegal means, undemocratic means to destroy it, is its success.

America has failed, not the commune. Otherwise a small commune of five thousand people: what harm it could have done to America? It had no clear weapons, it was not a danger to anybody, it could not have conquered America. What was the fear?

The fear was not of nuclear weapons: the fear was not that this commune is going to conquer them. The fear was that this commune is transforming a dream which is hidden in every man's unconscious. That this commune is making something real... that man has always wanted to experiment with but has thought that it is a dream, and it is good to dream about them but you cannot materialize them.

We proved it. Anybody who thinks it was a failure is absolutely wrong. We succeeded in every way. We threatened the greatest power -- what more success do you want?

Such great powers are not threatened by small things. They don't take any care. They could have ignored, but they could not ignore. They had to take note of it and they had to understand it clearly that if this commune goes on growing sooner or later it is going to threaten their very existence, without any nuclear weapons.

It is going to take away their youth. It is going to take over their people. It is going to take away their most potential power -- human power; then they can go on keeping their nuclear weapons, they will be of no use.

The fear, the paranoia, in the American government's mind, against a single man and his small commune is a proof of absolute success.

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Q: BHAGWAN, THAT MEANS THAT THERE IS NO HOPE FOR WHEREVER PEOPLE LIKE YOU

WILL TRY AN EXPERIMENT LIKE THIS -- IT WILL, IS IT BOUND TO BE DESTROYED?

A: No, there is always hope. They can destroy one time, they can destroy hundred times, but they cannot destroy it always.

Each time they will destroy we will be creating more sympathy, more lovers, more people on our side.

Each time a man like me will be jailed, you will find more and more people coming closer to our philosophy, way of life.

This is how history functions. They will destroy few times but each time they will be weakening themselves and they will be strengthening us. We invite them to go on destroying till we are more powerful than them and they cannot destroy any more and they have to commit suicide because nothing else is left for them to do.

Q: WE THINK THAT THERE HAS BEEN SOME MISUNDERSTANDING WHEN YOU TALK AGAINST

POVERTY TOO. IN FACT, IT HAS BEEN A REPORT TODAY YOU ARE AGAINST THE POOR. WILL

YOU PLEASE MAKE IT CLEAR: ARE YOU AGAINST POVERTY OR AGAINST THE POOR?

A: There is no misunderstanding. I am against poverty, but without poverty how can there be poor people?

If I destroy poverty, I am destroying at the same time poor people too.

The poor people exist through poverty. The misunderstanding is created by the people who would like to say that destroy poverty, but love the poor. What they are saying is: that the poor man can be still a poor man without poverty? They are trying to save Jesus, they are trying to save all the old religions because Jesus is not saying that he is for poverty -- he is saying, "Blessed are the poor."

But how these people can be poor without poverty? And if he wants these people to be poor, he is for poverty: without any confusion. I am against poverty, hence I am against the poor man because the poor man is nothing t a byproduct of poverty. Once the poverty is withdrawn the poor man disappears. So there is no confusion.

It is better I should say that, "To me, they are both the same thing."

But the distinction has been made down the ages so I can understand what the question is. They have always said, "Condemn the evil, but don't condemn the evil man."

But without the evil how the man can be evil? That is beyond my comprehension. They say, "Destroy sickness, but love the sick people." t if you destroy the sickness, where you are going to find the sick people? To me, it is sickness that makes them sick and if you are really destroying sickness there is not going to be anybody who is sick, and nobody needs your sympathy.

So I am against poverty and I am against poor man.

I would like every man to be rich in all the dimensions of life.

I am all for riches and to me riches does not mean only money. A man who cannot understand the greatest literature of the world is a poor man and I hate him! He is living unnecessarily... he is simply a burden on the earth. Either he has to improve, either he has to sharpen his intelligence, or he has no future.

In all the dimensions poverty has to disappear -- and with the poverty the poor man disappears automatically.

The man remains... just that ugliness of poverty disappears. I cannot say "blessed are the poor", "blessed are the sheep", "blessed are the ugly"... just I cannot say, and I cannot tolerate anybody else saying this. I will condemn him, criticize him to my best. Because I want this earth to be full of beautiful people --

multi-dimensionally rich; contributing more beauty, more joy, more blissfulness.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO DESTROY POVERTY FROM THE WORLD?

A: My advice is very simple.

First, absolute birth control for twenty to thirty years.

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On the other side, after seventy-five years, freedom for everybody to choose if he wants to die then he can simply go to the hospital and register himself that he has lived enough and now there is no point in living and he wants to be relieved.

So on the one hand, we prevent the new people coming and on the other hand we make the old people move faster in the queue... so the world population is reduced to almost one fourth of what it is, then the earth is plenty, rich, nourishing.

Secondly, nations should disappear from the world. They are one of the causes of poverty, sickness, war, destruction and misuse of technology, science and the energy that man produces.

We need one world. If we want to be rich, we need only one world. No political lines on the earth. Then it will be very easy to see.

There was a time in Soviet Russia they were using wheat instead of coal in their railway lines, in their engines; because they had a bumper crop of wheat and wheat was cheaper than coal and they don't have many mines for coal.

The whole East was dying hungry; they cannot eat coal. They have mines of coal, but they cannot eat coal. But the wheat is being used as coal. If it was one world things would have been simple. Shift the coal where it is too much and useless and send the wheat where it is needed -- don't burn it: it is not something to be burned when people are hungry.

Just few months before in Europe they drowned millions of tons of food in the ocean and just close by in Nigeria, in Ethiopia, people were dying. In Ethiopia people were dying in thousands because they had no water, no food. And in Europe you are drowning food, fresh food, into the ocean.

In fact, one hundred thousand dollars were wasted just in drowning it: because you need labor to drown the food.

If the world was one, Ethiopia would not have died the way it has died. And it has been happening always... America goes on destroying its crops, drowning its food in the ocean, but will not give it to those who are dying. For the simple reason because if you start to giving food then your own economy suffers.

Then the prices come down and no country wants -- particularly people who are holding the markets, don't want the prices to come down.

And why they should bother about Ethiopia? Ethiopia or no Ethiopia -- it makes no sense to Europe. It is good if it is finished: one problem is solved.

We need one world.

Just the idea of one world means tremendous energy involved in preparation for war -- nuclear weapons, atomic energy, millions of the best minds humanity has ever produced; all the scientists, all the technologists, are freed to do some creative work.

If they can manage atomic energy to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if they can manage nuclear weapons to destroy the whole world, why they cannot manage with the same energy, to produce more food?

To produce better clothes? To produce better houses? To produce totally a new kind of world which has never been dreamt of, which is now possible. Unpolluted, ecologically sane... there is enough food in the oceans; just our scientists have to work on it. Very nourishing food can be found from the oceans.

And ultimately science goes deeper into it, there is bound to come a time when science can create synthetic food; just as synthetic clothes, just as everything man can made(sic) which will be better -- far more improved than nature.

Man can live at least three hundred years very easily. Just if he gets the right kind of food and if the whole scientific world changes its direction from death to life it is possible.

Things are very simple. Just we have not explored. If you look at the back you can understand it.

There was a time when man lived only on hunting. He had no idea that fruits can be eaten, that crops can be grown. If anybody had said that he would have been thought crazy. Because people had never done that.

They have all lived on hunting and to live on hunting was a very difficult process because you may get some day food, and you may not get some day. It was all accidental.

But as the population grew they had to listen to the dreamers who said these fruits can be eaten; that crops can be grown... and that was a tremendous revolution -- from hunting to cultivation.

And we are still hanging there. Standing in my window I see every day, and I feel so sad.

One couple is working since I have come... they may have been working long before... with their hands, preparing the ground to sow the seeds. They have not even come to use the bullocks or the horses, they are living almost fifty thousand years back.

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morning to evening they are preparing the ground just by hands. It will take months to prepare... which could have been done with bullocks or horses within a week. Which could have been done by a tractor just in few hours.

But perhaps they have no idea. We have to bring science, technology, to every field of life. In every possible way.

Man's mind clings to the past. Everything new seems to be unnatural. It is not true.

I use hundred percent polyester and my father was very much against. He will say, "This is unnatural: you should use cotton." But I told him, "Do you know... there were times people never used cotton, they were naked; and when for the first time cotton was used there were people like you who said it is unnatural, because our fathers, forefathers, have never used it. And I feel perfectly comfortable in it.... I have never felt so comfortable in any other kind of clothing. So have I to understand my own experience or just to follow the old trodden path?"

Poverty is not something of a great problem. The problem is divisions of nations, divisions of religions.

You can see it in India. The man is poor if he is Hindu, if he becomes converted to Catholicism he becomes rich. Hindu, he will remain poor; Christian, he need not be poor.

But is it right to exploit the man? Is it right to purchase the man's ideology by giving him food, shelter, clothing, education? Why can't you give him without any conditions -- just as a human being? It means

`there is enough, but first you have to be a Christian.'

Poverty is not necessary: your Hinduism, your Buddhism, is a barrier. Be Christian and poverty disappears.

I want all these religions to disappear... so all their riches can be used for the benefit of all.

Reduce the population, destroy nations, destroy religions, and the world would be as rich as you cannot dream.

It is a very simple phenomena.

Q: BHAGWAN, WE AGREE WITH YOU IN TOTAL AND FOR, WHATEVER HELP WE CAN BE WE

WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IN WHICH CIRCUMSTANCE WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO CREATE

ANOTHER EXPERIMENT OF AN ALTERNATIVE SOCIETY TO OFFER AS A MODEL TO THE WORLD?

A: This time I am not going to create a society or a commune, as a model. I have done that.

But my people will be creating communes around the world -- on the same model. So that I don't become tethered to one small space; one single spot, with only few thousand people.

I would like to remain available to all of my sannyasins around the world. Now I am going to be a constant wanderer, a traveller, looking what my people are doing around the world. Helping them to do it better.

So I am not going to put my energies into a small model -- that I have done... and this is not my habit --

to do anything again. Once is enough.

I have moved to another experiment, now I will be moving around the world continuously, travelling, reaching to every sannyasin, to every lover, to every friend, to every sympathizer; and creating a worldwide movement... and now it is up to my sannyasins to create communes.

This way I will be able to work on a bigger scale, larger scale. And it will become more impossible for any stupid government to destroy my work because it will be spread all over the world.

Q: YOU TALK ABOUT MEDITATION. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

MEDITATION TECHNIQUES AND MEDITATION ITSELF? AND HOW THERE CAN BE MEDITATION

THAT CAN DRIVE YOU IN A BULLDOZER, OR WORKING TWELVE HOURS A DAY?

A: Meditation techniques are not really meditation.

Meditation techniques only prepare the ground.

They are needed because people's minds are so full of rubbish... that before meditation can be started, that rubbish has to be removed.

Meditation techniques are just to remove the rubbish. If that is removed, then starts meditation.

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If somebody comes with a mind clean, he does not need any technique. He can directly enter into the space I call meditation.

And the space called meditation has nothing to do where you are, what you are doing, or not doing. It is simply a constant awareness, an undercurrent of alertness. So you can work twelve hours on a bulldozer or you can just sit silently doing nothing. Deep underneath your work or no work there is a thread of alertness.

I have loved always a story... There was a master thief -- he was never caught and it was thought to be an honor if he stole from your house. People talked about that, "The master thief has visited us." Because it was not an ordinary thing... he never went to ordinary people -- he went only to the super rich, to the kings, to the emperors. So to be visited by the master thief people used to brag about it. It was more valuable than what he has stolen. His coming was more valuable. He was getting old. His son asked him, "That now you are old and you have not taught your art to me."

The master said, "It is never late. You can come tonight with me and I am going into a very beautiful palace."

The son followed. He was very much afraid. Although he was young and strong; and the old man has passed eighty, but he was unafraid... He made a hole in the wall; the son was perspiring, it was a cold night and cold wind was blowing and he was so nervous he could not believe that that old man's hands were not even shaking. And he was doing as if it is his own house. He made the hole, he entered in the hole, he called the son -- he was very much afraid to enter in it -- but now he himself has asked and what the father will think of him, so he entered. The father said, "Don't be afraid, can't you see me? And you are just with me, just watch me... and behave! This is not the way of becoming a master thief. Follow me!"

He followed, but his legs were trembling, his breathing was no more normal, his heart was thumping...

he could not believe that the heart can make so much noise. The night was silent, but the old man was as if absent. He opened the doors upon doors -- he had a master key -- he entered into the innermost chamber; he opened the door of a closet... beautiful, very costly dresses. He told the son to go in and to find out the best dress you like. And as he went in the old man closed the lock, locked the door, shouted loudly, "Thief, thief!" and ran out from the backside, from the same hole they had entered.

Everybody was awake... the whole house, the servants, and the master and the children and the wife and the guests were there and they were all looking all around... where is the thief? and certainly there has been a thief, because the hole in the wall was a proof.

And the young man could not believe that his father will do such a nasty thing to him. He has always been nice.

Closing the doors, putting the lock, and then shouting thief, thief! And running away. Now how he is going to get out? His mind could not function: your mind would not have functioned either.

It was such a situation where mind has to stop, because mind can work only with known situations. As the unknown comes in, the mind stops, simply stops.

Then a maid-servant came in, looking all around. She thought perhaps it is good idea to look in the closet. She opened the lock, opened the door, she was having a candle in her hand, looked inside, and the young man had no idea what he is doing, why he is doing, he simply blew the candle out, pushed the servant, the maid-servant, and ran out from the same hole, but now everybody has seen him. They all followed. And he was running for life, so he was running at his best. He could not do better... he had been a good runner, he has participated in the university, he has been a good competitor, he has been a champion runner, but he could not believe that this is double that he is doing. If he had done this much he would have been the national champion.

The people were still following and more people had joined them -- neighbours and others and they were all shouting and they had torches and he comes by the side of a well, and still not knowing what is happening; because he is not in a situation to figure out, to think -- there is no time -- mind needs time to think.

Those who know, say "mind is time". They are not two entities. If there is no time, there is no mind. If there is no mind, there is no time.

He had no time to think, but things were happening on their own accord. This is what I call a spontaneity.

He just took over a big rock and he could not believe that he can take that big load in his hands... the rock was too big, and he threw the rock into the well. Not knowing what he is doing, and why.... And ran away. All the people who were following gathered around the well thinking that he has jumped into the well. Listening to the rock sound falling into the well.

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He reached home....

The old man was fast asleep!

He was snoring!

The young man could not believe that this is your father. He pulled his blanket and he said, "Is this a way to behave with your own son?"

The father opened his half-eyes and said, "So, you are back? The remaining story you can tell me in morning. If you are back, it seems everything went right. But don't disturb my sleep. Just go and have a good rest."

The son could not believe that he is not even curious what happened to him... his life was at risk at every moment... he could have been caught, he could have been given to the police, the people could have shot him -- anything was possible, and he is saying, that "You are back, that's enough, the remaining story you can tell me in the morning, that is not very important. What is important is that you are back and I am happy."

In the morning the father said, "There is no need to tell the story. This is the whole art. If you want to become a master thief you have not to function out of the mind, you have to function out of your totality, spontaneity. Now you can choose -- this is my business, my whole life's work... I have given you a taste. If you love it, the adventure of it, the ecstasy of it, then you are welcome my son. From today you can go on your own because there is only one lesson in this path."

Meditation is a single lesson of awareness, of no-thought, of spontaneity, of being total in your action, alert, aware. It is not a technique, it is a knack. Either you get it or you don't.

Q: DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR SANNYASI AND FRIENDS HAVE NOW LEARNED THE LESSON

ABOUT THE DANGER OF AN ORGANIZED RELIGION?

A: They certainly have. I have been telling to them my whole life the dangers of organized religion.

But just telling is not enough. They need something practical. I gave them a practical situation.

They have learnt it... they have burnt their fingers in learning it -- they will never forget it, they will never repeat the same mistake again.

I am happy. Once in a while people need something actual, not theoretical.

Q: IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE TO SPEAK BOTH TO REAGAN AND GORBACHOV WHAT

WOULD YOU SAY TO THEM?

A: I would say to them that if they have any humanity left in them then the first thing is: help to create one world.

They are the greatest powers in the world -- if they want, it becomes a very easy thing.

They are in a situation to destroy the whole world. I can show them an alternative that you are also in a state of creating one world... perhaps it has not dawned on their consciousness, that the power they have is not only capable of destroying the world, it is also capable of creating one world. Because never before in history two countries had so much power that the whole world will have to listen to them. All that is needed that they should agree on the point that we want to create one world. Then all these small nations, poor nations, can be given the alternative to choose... Either a third world war or one world.

(Tape side C)

And in the third world war only America and Russia are going to lose -- nobody else. Because nobody else has got anything to lose.

Even if the third world war does not happen, most of the countries will die out of starvation and population. Can you understand: I used to think that by the end of this century India will have the population one billion. Right now it is nine hundred million. For the first time in thousands of years it will be the first time that it will go ahead of China. Up to now China has been the leading country having the greatest population. But just the other day, I came to know that by two thousand -- by the end of this century

-- India will not have only one billion population, it would have doubled its population as it is now... that is nine hundred million it is now.... It would have doubled: that means, eighteen hundred million. One billion 1/08/07

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and eighteen hundred million.These people are going to die by themselves -- without any war. In fact, war will be a great release of their tension, of their worry, of constant death ahead.

The only countries one third of the world -- the third world -- will die of poverty, starvation, sickness....

The remaining world -- which is not poor, but which has not the clear powers compared to Russia or America, will die of AIDS; which is even uglier than dying with a starvation.

So this world is finished.

Only in the third world war America and Russia are going to lose. They are going to destroy themselves.

The remaining world is going to commit suicide on its own -- they don't need your help.

So I will suggest to these people that just be clear about the situation. You are going to lose, if there is a war. Only you will be the losers, and you both will be destroyed in it.

You can propose to the world that we have decided to be together. Rather than to die together; we have decided to live together -- and create one world.

And nobody can prevent Soviet Union and Russia from creating one world. They can remove all the lines from the map very easily -- there is no problem at all.

And once they decide that they are not going to fight, then their tremendous energy -- which is involved into war efforts -- will be available for them, and for the whole world, to make a paradise out of it.

Okay, Sarjano.

The Last Testament, Vol 5

Chapter #30

Chapter title: None

24 January 1986 pm in Kathmandu, Nepal

Archive code: 8601245

ShortTitle: LAST530

Audio:

Yes

Video:

Yes

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

INTERVIEW WITH ENZO BIAJI, AKA SARJANO

Q: YOU SAY THAT MARRIAGE HAS DONE ITS WORK AND IS NOW OUT OF TIME. WE AGREE.

CAN YOU SUGGEST THE COMMUNE AS A NEW BASE UNITY OF LIFESTYLE? AND SAY THAT THE

CHILDREN WILL GROW UP MORE FREE IN THIS CONTEXT. IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL BUT IT'S VERY

DIFFICULT FOR A MOTHER, ESPECIALLY AN ITALIAN MOTHER, TO THINK THAT HER CHILD

DOESN'T BELONG TO HER. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

A: Every transformation, every revolution is difficult in the beginning because you are accustomed of the old and to adopt to the new creates the difficulty.

The very idea of possession is anti-love.

You possess things, you don't possess living beings.

But unfortunately we have reduced living beings into things. It will hurt to drop the possessiveness but it 1/08/07

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help immensely for the mother in understanding, in spiritual growth, and the hurt will be healed very soon.

It is just an old habit transferred from one generation to another generation that `you possess me', Ì

possess you'. Dropping possessiveness means Ì am myself', `you are yourself' -- we meet out of independence, we love out of freedom, not out of any contract.

And once a person has tasted love, non-possessive love, he will be surprised that what he had been thinking of love was not love but fear.

It is fear which wants to possess so that you cannot escape, so you remain always part of the furniture of the house. So that you remain obedient, so that you are not an independent being, but just a projection of the idea of your mother, of your father, or your wife, or your husband.

The difference is so much as if a bird comes out of the egg, he must be afraid, he is entering into an unknown world. Inside the egg he was safe, secure, no problems. Getting out of the egg is a trauma, but once he looks at the stars and the whole sky is his, once he opens his wings and rises high into the heavens, he knows that the egg was not his home -- it was a prison. Now he has found himself.

In finding freedom, one finds himself.

And only a free man is capable of loving.

You cannot expect love from slaves. You cannot expect love from prostitutes. They can pretend; you pay for it. You cannot expect love from a child who feels in a bondage -- he will pretend, and he will pretend his whole life because you are training him for pretension not for love. He will pretend with his wife, he will pretend with his children, and this way the disease goes on and on.

Intelligent people are needed to come out of this vicious circle and I am not saying that you are not allowed to love... I am saying you are not allowed to possess.

You can love your children, you can love other people's children -- what is special in your children?

They are as strangers to you as other children. Your love should have some unconditional quality about it.

In a commune a boy, a girl, will be getting love from thousands of people and it is one of the most significant thing to remember that when a girl is brought up by the mother she hates the mother her whole life. She cannot forgive her, she cannot forget her -- on the one hand; and on the other hand -- she is just a replica of her own mother.

The same is about the boy.

And it is known fact that the girl wants to love the father, the boy wants to love the mother, but this is thought to be a criminal act.

As the boys and girls will grow up the father and mother will create a distance between their own children and themselves, but the harm has already been done.

Scientists say that the first days of life are the most important in your whole life because you get certain impressions which you will carry your whole life.

The boy will carry the impression of his mother his whole life -- he could not get the mother, but he will search the mother in other women, and no other woman can fit with his idea.

The same is true about the girl.

People fall in love and you ask them, "Why you fell in love with a certain woman, or a certain man?"

And they are at a loss to answer, because it is something unconscious of which they are not aware.

The reality is you fall in love with a woman who had some similarity to your mother. Maybe the similarity will be very superficial -- the hairdo, the sound of her voice, the way she talks, the features of her face, the eyes, anything; just a small thing, and you fall in love. You fall in love with a fragment, but soon after marriage you will discover the woman is not a fragment, she is a whole continent, so is the man. Both are going to be frustrated, because what the hairdo will do. Even if the nose of your wife is exactly the same as your mother's, it is not going to make your life a joyous pilgrimage.

What does it matter if your father resembles with the husband you have chosen. Because he was professor, very scholarly, always talking of great things, and this man is also a professor talking of great things -- but these things don't constitute life... so when you are together twenty-four hours you start discovering so many things which do not resemble to your father or to your mother.

Finally when you discover the whole phenomenon of your woman, that small fragment is so small, it makes no difference at all. Then there is frustration, then there is constant quarreling.

This is one of the basic facts why no couple is happy and I say it without any exception.

No couple is happy around the world and every couple is pretending to the outside that they are living in paradise... they are living in hell! twenty-four hours. They pretend to be loving only when guests come, visitors come, otherwise the house is hell.

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I have heard: two men used to visit a restaurant and they both remained till the manager forced them to leave. This was a great similarity -- just those two men one day when they were getting out of the restaurant, one man asked the other, "Why do you stay so long?"

He said, "I am married and as long I can remain away from the home, it is peaceful."

But he asked, "What is the cause of your staying because you are also staying?"

He said, "It is better that you should not know."

But the man insisted to know.

He said, "I am a bachelor. As long as I can remain away from my empty house it feels I am alive; when I enter into my house it seems I am entering a grave."

When you are alone you cannot live.

When you are together with a partner you cannot live.

Certainly the whole human psychology is beserk.

In the commune children will be part of the commune. They will have many uncles, many aunts, many sisters, many brothers. They will not get a certain fixed idea in their mind how a woman should be or how a man should be.

Almost ninety percent psychological problems will dissolve and for the remaining ten, also I have some idea. As the children grow to sexual maturity they should be allowed absolute freedom, with all the cautions so that they don't get pregnant.

Now the Pill is available. First it was available only for the woman, now it is available for the man too.

All kinds of birth control methods are available.

After the year thirteenth or fourteenth, the girl or the boy are going to be sexually mature. It has to be understood that nature has brought them to maturity. As far as nature is concerned they are capable of producing children, but the society, the family, the old rotten structure will prevent them, up to twenty-five years of age -- that means a difference of ten or eleven years before they get married; and for these ten years every society insists that you should remain celibate. You are asking the impossible.

Then nature has matured their sexuality -- it is none of their fault -- it is as simple you can take a vow that I will not allow my hairs to grow, but are you capable to do that? Your hairs will continue to grow. You can go on reading BHAGAVAD GITA and holy BIBLE and you go on, on your knees, praying god that, "I have taken the vow". That, "I will not grow my hairs, but they go on growing."

Your biological structure is not under control of your mind, and sex is the most important part of your biology because whole nature depends on sex for the production.

These ten years are going to be of perverted sex. They could have been a great experiment, a great experience.

In a commune the children will be allowed to have all knowledge, all medical support, so they don't get pregnant. And they should move with different boys, with different girls... there is no hurry to decide.

And there should not be any hurry to decide.

First let the boy experience few dozen girls, let the girl know few dozen boys; only then you can expect for her to decide that who seems to be more closer to her being, who will be a partner with whom she would like to travel a long way. And the boy will also be able to see which is the girl, what are the qualities that impress him. And they should go on changing in the commune because it is not a settlement, they are just playing around with their love energy... to have an experience before they decide.

And my understanding is that if ten years of experience cannot make you come to a conclusion, in a seventy year life, what more do you want?

These ten years will settle.

Nobody is made for you; neither you are made for anybody else.

It is a search, a groping in the dark, for the most convenient companion who is non-possessive, who loves freedom, who loves to give freedom, who is not only non-possessive, who is against being possessed.

That she is absolutely open to share love, without any conditions.

These ten years will be the most significant of your life.

Right now they are a nightmare.

And then you can decide whenever you want, or you can decide that a married life is not for you.

Perhaps you would like to continue the same way as you have been doing for ten years -- nothing is wrong in it.

It is absolutely up to you! No parent decides it. It is your decision to choose a partner, or not to choose a partner.

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One thing more to be remembered: that at the age of nearabout eighteen you have the greatest sexual power that you will ever have in your life. After eighteen your sexual power starts declining and it is sheer stupidity to decide for marriage at twenty-five, when sexual power has already declined tremendously -- you will not be able to satisfy a woman.

The most satisfying sexual orgasm is between eighteen and nineteen. You are at the prime of your energies but the education goes up to twenty-five, twenty-six, and if you are going to do a Ph.D. it may go up to thirty, or if you are really a bookworm it may go up to thirty-five -- to have a D.Litt.

I came across a man in Varanasi. He was the only man in the whole world... and that was his only achievement, useless, but he was praised -- perhaps I was the only man who condemned him in front of him... he had seventeen M.A. degrees in seventeen subjects.

All that he has been doing his life was moving from one subject to another, and attaining another M.A.

to prove that he is, in the world, the only man who has seventeen M.A. degrees. And the people who had brought him to me had brought him with great praise. They told me, "He is a rare individual."

And I looked at him and I told him that, "You are absolutely idiot. What are you going to do with your seventeen degrees? You have wasted your whole life. Now collect all your papers and keep on your chest and move in your grave. Perhaps God may very impressed seeing seventeen masters' degrees...."

First the man was shocked and then tears came to his eyes and he said, "Perhaps you are the first man who has told me the truth. I have wasted my life, I have never loved -- I had no time, I never got married -- I had no time, I was running from one department to another department, my whole idea was to have all masters' degrees that are available in the university of Varanasi. But your attitude shocks me, hurts me, but still I do understand -- I have wasted my life."

By the year thirty-five sexual energy is fast declining. That is the reason that most of the people in the world don't have the orgasmic experience because that orgasmic experience was possible between eighteen/nineteen, somewhere there, when you were so full of energy and the woman was so receptive that making love was a divine dance.

When mens' energies have declined, womens' energies have not declined. So she feels continuously frustrated. And man feels deep down that he is the unfortunate one who has never known what orgasm is but he cannot accept it.

Ninety-eight percent women in India had no sexual orgasm. And that is one of the basic experiences that nature gives you, as a gift. With that experience you for the first time become aware that life is not just mundane, it has something divine in it.

My own understanding is that it was the orgasmic experience which created the mystics in the world.

Because if meeting with a woman, totally, can give you such an experience; meeting with the whole universe, merging with the whole universe, totally, you can imagine how much, how vast, how infinite it is going to be.

It is going to be absolute orgasm.

But if you have missed the first, you have no possibility to attain the second. The first was an indication of a new dimension.

You will collect money and power and prestige and you will die as everybody has died.

In the commune the children will have all orgasmic experiences and before they decide they will know what kind of a woman or what kind of a man brings them to that holy experience. That is going to be decisive -- not astrology, not palmistry, not parents, nobody can decide it... that merging and meeting and that great experience, overwhelming both the lovers, is enough; it has decided.

(Tape side B; no overlap)

Q: MOST OF US IN RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN LOOKS LIKE A SADO-MASOCHIST (INAUDIBLE)(*). AND THERE ARE NOW MORE AND MORE PEOPLE WHICH

CALL THEMSELVES THÈSINGLES', CHOOSE TO BE OR NOT. THIS IS A NEW PHENOMENON IN

THE WEST INCREASING EVERY DAY. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? AND DO YOU THINK

THERE IS ANY HOPE FOR A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN WHICH DOESN'T

ENSLAVE BOTH?"

A: The phenomenon of people living alone is disgusting because it is out of frustration. They wanted to be with someone, they have tried and they have failed again and again.

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Now it is out of failure they have reached to a conclusion that it is better to be alone, but their aloneness will be sad, empty, ugly, because it has not come out of any abundance of love -- it has come out of the psychopathy of love.

And it is true, the best couple in the world is one in which one partner is a masochist and the other is a sadist. They fit very well.

The sadist wants to torture, the masochist wants to be tortured. You cannot find a better combination.

Both are happy -- there is no complaint, but the situation is ugly.

To settle in such a state that the one is sadist and the other is masochist; two sick people cannot create a healthy relationship. In fact, their relationship is based on sickness.

Most of the couples who seem to cling together are of this type because they are fulfilling each other's need, and it is a natural byproduct -- if you cannot find somebody who fits with your psycho-pathology, it is better to be single... but that is not going to make you psychologically healthy.

Your singleness may create thousands of perversions.

I have heard a story that two men were going to Alaska. At the last village they stopped to purchase few necessary things: toothpaste, (inaudible)(*), et cetera, and the shopkeeper said that, "I have something more which perhaps you are not aware, you will not get a woman there."

They had not thought about it -- that is true. In Alaska, where you are going to get a woman? So the man said that, "I have some arrangements, I have a rubber woman. You just pump it and it is more beautiful than any woman, and it is very easy, it never quarrels, never nags you and easy to carry, just take the air out, fold it back and keep in the pocket -- nobody will know."

They both looked at each other and said, "It is a good idea."

But one said, "I don't have money."

The other said, "I have money." So they purchased the woman -- a really beautiful woman with filled air with all the right proportions of the body.

After two years, one man came back.

The shopkeeper said, "As far as I remember, two men has gone, where is the other?"

He said, "Don't mention him. I shot him."

He said, "Why you shot him, he was your friend?"

"Don't call him my friend!" he said. "When I was out, he was making love to my woman. He was cheating me continuously. I had asked him again and again, are you making love to my woman? Because I had paid for it. And he said, `No, I am not interested in women.' But one day I came in the middle of the day and saw him making love to my woman. I shot both."

These singles will find rubber womens(sic), these singles will have to come to some understanding about their sexuality. And their singlehood will create the same situation as celibacy has created for thousands of years.

But it is a sign that old marriage has failed. That people are so tired of it that they choose to be single rather than getting married and entering into a continuous nightmare.

I have lived with hundreds of families, I have not come across a single couple who is happy, but what else to do? The society has managed everything in such a way that they have to pretend to be happy -- that is their respectability, prestige in the society, but deep down they are dying of a cancer, cancer which is invisible and cannot be operated upon.

The world can be so joyous, just few stupid ideas have to be removed. Give chances to children to experiment with sex so that before they decide, they decide with full awareness that the person they are choosing fits with them -- not on a fragmentary basis but whole to whole. And then too it is not a marriage according to law, it is not a marriage according to social customs, it is a marriage between those two people.

Any moment they feel that old joy is disappearing then why continue? Say goodbye, find out new partners

-- the world is so full of men and women, perhaps you may find somebody else, your woman may find somebody else... and don't think of permanency... in existence everything is momentary, what is beautiful today may turn ugly tomorrow; what is so great this moment that you are ready to accept it for your whole life, may turn so sour tomorrow that you may like to kill yourself or the other person.

But there is no need of all these things. It should be a free-floating, free-moving society.

In each constitution of the world this should be a birthright of man to choose a partner, to change a partner, without any hindrance from the government or the society because it is an individual affair.

And when the children are being taken care of by the society there is no problem. And children will not be losing you -- the mother can visit them, the father can visit them; they will be still calling yoùfather', 1/08/07

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calling the woman `mother'. To them, nothing has changed. To them, it is perfectly good. In fact they will be very understanding that if love has disappeared it is good that you have separated, rather than torturing each other your whole life.

Life is so simple

man has made it so complex

unnecessarily....

It seems that the religions of the world, the politicians and other powerful people of the world don't want human beings to be happy. They don't want to be in a state of euphoria, they want them to be miserable.

There is some vested interest in their misery. If they are miserable, continuously burdened with wife, with husband, with children, with parents, with job, with unemployment, they cannot be rebels. They are dying under the burden of their own life. Who has time for rebellion?

But if my idea is to (inaudible)(*) spread, and people are happy and independent -- joyous, then the vested interest will be in tremendous trouble, because these rebellious people are not burdened with anything; their whole energy is available to revolt against anything that hinders human happiness.

Just the other day there was a question about drugs. Alcohol is almost universally legal, marijuana is not, LSD is not, Ecstasy is not, and the strange thing is that alcohol is the most dangerous drug out of these four I named.

Ècstasy' has no bad effects, is non-addictive, simply gives you a pleasant feeling, a well-being... it is prohibited. I can't understand. Why you prevent people from feeling well-being? And it hurts nobody. The whole medical research is in favor of it; that it is the absolutely harmless drug. It will bring you out of your sadness, make you smile and laugh and dance and song(sic), but it is illegal. You may have to suffer in jail if you are caught with Ecstasy.

Marijuana grows in the Himalayas wild and has been used by the people for thousands of years, with no bad effect. It certainly gives you hallucinatory feelings, but rather being in real hell it is better to be in a hallucinatory paradise -- what is wrong in it? If you cannot give a real paradise, at least let people have some glimpse in their dreams, in their hallucinations....

LSD can be more perfected, it can be perfected to the point where anybody can take it without any prescription and can feel immensely good, healthy, full of energy, and can see life in its utter beauty... the same rose flower and you see it for the first time radiating, surrounded by a aura of light.

LSD intensifies your sensitivity. All people are not born with sensitivity and nobody is training them to create more sensitivity about beauty, about joy, about compassion. LSD can do that, but LSD is illegal.

Alcohol is legal -- which has no plus points. Alcohol simply destroys people, helps them to forget, but the next day they fall in a deeper ditch -- the hangover. In Kulu, Neelam reported to me that she has a friend who has two friends: one is alcoholic and another lives on marijuana. The alcoholic has destroyed his whole life, his business is ruined, his family is ruined, he is ruined. And the man who is(sic) being taking marijuana is fully healthy, his business is good, his family is together -- but marijuana is illegal, and alcohol is legal. Why alcohol is legal? One wonders....

It is in favor of the vested interests.

Drugs like Ècstasy' are not in favor; they are in favor of humanity but they are not in favor of the vested interests.

And the same is situation on many fronts.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE BEEN VERY HARD WITH THE HOMOSEXUAL, ESPECIALLY WITH

LESBIAN LADIES. THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SO MUCH CONDEMNED AND DISCRIMINATED

(INAUDIBLE)(*) IN OUR SOCIETY, THAT WE REALLY DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO ADD YOUR CRITICS

AGAINST THEM. CAN YOU PLEASE SAY A FEW WORDS ABOUT THIS.

A: I cannot support anything unnatural.

It is homosexuality which has brought humanity to the AIDS and AIDS may destroy two-thirds of humanity, without nuclear weapons.

I am certainly against homosexuality. I am so much against it that even people of very great genius, talents, creativity... I have appreciated them on all accounts but as far as homosexuality is concerned I cannot support even Socrates. He was a homosexual. His homosexuality destroys much of his credibility that he did not understand Tao -- the way of nature.

1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

And homosexuality, moreover, is a religious disease. And condemning all the religions, for all the harm they have done to humanity: one of the greatest harm is homosexuality. Because it is these religions who started preaching celibacy and started separating man monk*s from female nuns.

If you go into the history of three thousand years, you will be surprised, the nuns were having discourse with the devil. And a special investigator by the pope was appointed in the middle ages to find out the nuns who had had any sexual contact with the devil. And they tortured the nuns, interrogated the nuns, day and night, and finally they managed them to confess; the way they manage in Communist Russia... they can manage to confess anything -- just go on torturing, there is a limit to human capacity. Don't let them sleep, don't give them food; finally the woman thinks it is better to accept rather than deny, and then acceptance has to be according to the investigator. And thousands of nuns in the middle ages were burned alive because they had confessed. First you force them to confess that they are having intercourse with devil, and then because they have confessed themselves, you burned them alive.

Who was responsible?

And the monks created homosexuality. The monks are the cause, if some day humanity is going to die through an ugly disease, AIDS, the whole blame goes to the religions.

I am not condemning, I am simply clarifying the situation that the homosexuals should understand that they are victims of a religious tradition and they should come out of it... and it is not difficult, just we have to create places where homosexuals can be hypnotized and convinced for heterosexuality.

Lesbians -- religions created, but more than that, now the women's liberation is created. Against man, how a woman can love a man? A woman can only love a woman.

No-one knows if homosexuality has brought to AIDS to what dangerous disease is in the future that lesbianism may bring. It is better to stop it now.

And I am not angry. It is my compassion. I would like religious people to make arrangements for homosexuals to be changed into heterosexuals -- men or woman. It is their duty, otherwise they should be punished, not homosexuals, not lesbians. But I am against anything that is not in harmony with nature: it is bound to create troubles because nature makes your body in a certain way, your biology in a certain way --

it is made for heterosexuality, it is not made for homosexuality.

There is no condemnation in me, there is no criticism either. I am simply putting the facts: all the homosexuals of the world and all the lesbians of the world should protest against the religions, the churches, the pope, that, "You are responsible for distracting us from our natural being and you have to pay for it.

Now open hospitals, nurseries, where we can be put back in harmony with nature otherwise we are going to destroy your churches, your temples, your mosques, because we are burning we cannot allow you to be unscratched and nobody is pointing the finger towards you."

Q: YOU SEEM THE MOST ELEGANT SPIRITUAL FIGURE IN THE WORLD. THE LOOK, WHICH

SEEMS A VERY IMPORTANT MATTER TODAY, IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU TOO?"

A: To me what is important is my truth, is my experience, and certainly the truth changes the look... the experience changes everything.

It is such a great inner revolution that the whole body is bound to follow it.

Truth brings beauty, compassion, charisma.

But just look does not matter to me; what matters is truth.

Q: IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO SPEAK BOTH REAGAN'S AND GORBACHOV'S WIVES, WHAT

WOULD YOU SAY TO THEM?

A: Wives are powerful people, as far as their husbands are concerned. Their husbands may be presidents and prime ministers of countries, but before the wife, they are nobody.

So I will tell to both the ladies that the whole existence of humanity in your hands....

Dictate to your husbands that it is time for Soviet Union and America to be friends and share scientific wisdom for the benefit of all humanity. Otherwise, nag them, throw clothes at them, wake them in the middle of the night, sit on their chest, beat their chest -- unless they say "Okay".

1/08/07

Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-

Wives can do miracles.

I am reminded of a story: a king was asking his close circle of wise people that, "Can you find a husband in my kingdom who is not henpecked?"

They all said, "Of course, thousands of people are not henpecked."

But one man, Birbal who was one of the wisest of all remained silent.

The king asked him, "Birbal, why are you silent?"

He said, "I am silent because the greatest king of the country is asking the question and I suspect you are a henpecked husband yourself, and I don't see any possibility of finding another person more powerful than you."

The king said, "You are right, but still try. I would like to see a man who is not henpecked."

So two horses were given to Birbal: one white and one black, great stallions, and he was told that, "Take these two horses and if you come across a man who is not henpecked let him choose one out of the two.

These are the best in our kingdom."

He went to many many people. He knew it is an exercise in futility but finally he reached a small cottage. A wrestler, a very big man, maybe seven feet high, very strong and muscular, was massaging himself in the early morning sun. His body was worth seeing -- almost steel.

Birbal thought perhaps this is the man; such a strong man cannot be henpecked. He asked the man, "Are you henpecked?"

He said, "If you say the word again I will kill you here and now. Take your words back. Me and henpecked?"

Then Birbal said, "Where is your wife?"

He said, "She is inside, you can see, preparing my breakfast."

A very small lady, thin....

Seeing both Birbal was convinced that he is not a henpecked person. This woman he can throw thousand feet high! What she can do to him.

So he said, "I am satisfied. The order are the king has said who is not a henpecked husband he can choose one stallion; they are the two greatest horses in the kingdom -- one is white, one is black -- which one you like?"

And he said, "Wait a minute." And he called his wife, "Darling, should I choose the white or the black."

The woman said, "Choose the white! And if you choose the black then remember, nobody is going to be bad than me. I will put you to your senses."

So the man said to Birbal, "White."

Birbal said, "Now, no more, because you are a henpecked husband -- with all these muscles and with this height, you may be a champion wrestler but before your wife you are nothing. And she is just a tiny woman but she challenged you that if you choose the black one, then I will show you who I am. Choose the white! Otherwise I will make your life a hell and you simply have chosen the white. Now I cannot give neither the white nor the black and I have to report to the king that, `Drop this search, there is nobody who is not henpecked.'"

So I would like to say to these ladies of the president of America and Russia, that you have immense power in your hands, you can change the whole course of history -- just scream loudly, break plates, throw things all around, and your husband is going to say, "Forgive me, I will do whatever you say."

What all the pacifists of the world have not been able to do, women can do it.

Okay?

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