INTERVIEW WITH THE WORLD PRESS
The Last Testament Vol 1 27
TwentySeventh Discourse from the series of 30 discourses - The Last Testament Vol 1 by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Pritish Nandy
Illustrated Weekly of India, Mumbai, India
Osho,
Namaskar.
Glad to see you.
Very glad to see you, too.
Start.
I want to start off with a question which you must have been asked several times in the recent past. For about three and a half years, you kept a maun, and after that you gave it up. Why did you choose to take a maun? Why did you choose to give it up?
There were many reasons, but the most fundamental was concerning my sannyasins. I don’t want them to be intellectually related to me, because that has nothing to do with the real experience of your being.
There were many people who were just hanging around me. They loved my words, they loved my way of thinking. And I am not a thinker, and I am not a preacher, I am not a prophet or messiah. I want to share my experience – and for that, only those who are capable of living with me in silence are ready to understand me. So for three and a half years, I was silent. The basic reason was that those people who were hanging around my words, were interested intellectually in me, dropped out.
And the people who were in love with me – not with my words or theories – they remained. The moment I saw that all the people whose concern was their head are gone, I started speaking again. Now, with these people, speaking is a totally different experience. They can read me between the words, they can read me between the lines, and they are not addicted to my words. If I am silent, they are as happy as when I am speaking to them.
But what is the difference between being addicted to your words and being addicted to you?
There is a great difference. Being addicted to my words is just intellectual. Being in love with me is total. Being in love with me is not a conviction, it is an experience. Being in love with my words, somebody can destroy it very easily – just a little better argument, and the person is finished.
But a person who is in love with me, nothing can disturb him. His trust is not based on any argument: it is not philosophical, it is existential.
But both kinds of people draw sustenance from you. One may draw sustenance from his love for you; some may draw sustenance from their love for what you are saying. Why do you want to make a distinction between these two kinds of people? Why do you think one kind of lover is less important than the other and needs to be dropped off?
He is not only less important, he is absolutely wrong. His approach toward me is wrong, and what he is doing with my words – creating certain belief systems, creating some philosophy, some ideology, which is going to prevent him from knowing himself.
My whole work is to help people to know themselves, and those who become addicted to the words are creating a hindrance for themselves. It does not matter whether they are Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan or addicted to my words – it is the same thing. They are hung up in their heads. And the reality is somewhere far deeper, where no word has ever entered, and no word can ever enter. It is in your uttermost silence, in your meditative, peaceful serenity.
So it is not a question only of difference, or degrees; they are polar opposites. Those are the wrong people – unnecessarily wasting their time here.
But does a master choose his flock? In any religion of the world, or any beliefs of the world, or any faith in the world, does the master ever choose his flock? He says what he has to say, he leads the way, shows the way, or even doesn't do that – he lives his own life, and by his example, people follow him. How does it matter to him who follows him?
I am not a leader, so nobody is allowed to follow me. They are my fellow travelers, they are my friends, and I am absolutely certain who should be my friend.
Followers – who cares! Flocks – who cares! Crowds – who cares! These are individuals – I care. And I don’t want any wrong person, for any wrong motive, to waste his time. It is not harming me, he is harming himself. It is out of compassion that I want him to be released.
And they went away. The device worked perfectly well: they went away and new people have come in their place. While I was silent, they became sannyasins. Their approach is totally different; their search is different.
So remember, I am not a leader, I am not a prophet, I am not a messiah. I have no business to do with all that company. I am a simple man, just like you and my people. If there is any difference, the difference is very slight. The difference is that you are asleep, and I am awake.
Osho,
Only this morning in your discourse, you said that you are not a simple man, you are an extraordinary man.
Only an extraordinary man can say that he is a simple man.
I understand.
A simple man cannot say that.
Okay – these are your friends.
These are my friends.
But you hardly interact with them.
I am continuously interacting. I am dancing with them, I am talking with them, I am sitting in silence with them.
But it is hardly a one-to-one communion with anyone.
There is no need. I have created a field, where just sitting by my side is enough. Otherwise they will be gone, if there is no communion. What will they be doing here? For what will they be here? I dance with them, and they feel my love, they know my love.
Love is something that need not be expressed in words, or expressed even in actions. They can see it in my eyes. You are seeing it in my eyes. Not only are they my friends, you are my friend. That’s why you are here. This is the beginning of a friendship and it is not going to end easily.
Osho,
In the earlier days of the commune – not here, but in India – you were perhaps in closer touch on a day-to-day level with people.
No. Not much, just when I was initiating them into sannyas.
But you are slowly withdrawing yourself, one believes.
Yes, that’s true, because now I can have a contact even from a distance. Now physical contact is not necessary, particularly with my people. Even though I never come out of my room, they know I am there. They know, and they feel. In the beginning it was necessary to come into contact, because that was the only language those people could have understood.
As love deepens, as meditation deepens, distance makes no difference. I have my communes all around the world. Those people who are in a commune in Germany or in Holland or in Switzerland feel me as deeply as my people who are here.
But you have this gorgeous feminine mafia in between.
That is true. Love always has a feminine mafia in between. It is really gorgeous!
Indeed.
Just be here and you will see the whole of Arabian Nights is actually lived here.
Osho,
You speak, among other things, of freedom. Freedom of all kinds: intellectual, emotional, sexual. How can you yourself live such a rigid, boring, dull, disciplined life?
It is not disciplined for me, it is not dull for me, it is not rigid for me. To me, it is the most comfortable life. It is not that I have disciplined myself; it is that, living in many ways, I have found the most comfortable way, the most luxurious way to live.
But surely the most comfortable and the most luxurious is not necessarily the best way to live one's life?
To me it is. To many it may not be. But whatsoever is the best for you is luxurious for you. And I don’t say that all my sannyasins have to live in my discipline, the way I live, or the ritual of my living. No, they are free to find out their own ways. But I have found mine and I am perfectly contented with it. So it is not dull – I am enjoying it every moment.
It's an extremely structured life – that's what I meant.
It is not structured. It may look from the outside as if it is structured; it is not structured.
For example, I have tried to wake up at three o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at four o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at five o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at eight o’clock in the morning – and finally I found that six suits me the best. Now, for an outsider it may look a structured life that every day I wake up at six, but to me that has been the best moment. After that, sleep becomes a headache; before that, the whole day becomes dull, sleepy. But I have found my time, exactly at six.
Now scientists say that for two hours every night you have the deepest sleep; if you wake up exactly after these two hours, you will have the most awakened day. In these two hours your temperature falls, so it can be measured from the outside, too. And I have tried that – that when does my temperature fall? It falls between four and six. And exactly at six… And this is a later thing; I had found my time long before, for thirty years I have been waking up at six. It is just recently that I found out what scientists say about these two hours, wherever in the night they happen – and to different people they happen at different times: somebody may find it at five o’clock, somebody may find it at three o’clock.
Vinoba Bhave used to wake up at three o’clock, and that became the discipline of his ashram. Everybody has to wake up three o’clock. Now, that is nonsense, that is stupid. For Vinoba it may be the right time, but all those people in Vinoba’s ashram are unnecessarily suffering. Then the whole day they feel dull, sleepy. Then Vinoba’s explanation is that you are lazy, sleepy: change your diet, your diet must be wrong; change your other habits, something must be wrong. And the only thing that is wrong is that they are waking up at the wrong time!
So to me it is not structured. I have looked for it and found the right point, the balanced point. The same with my food – I have found what suits me, how much is needed, how much keeps me in a wellbeing, and I go with it.
I am a very luxurious, lazy, comfort-loving man, and I have found everything that is needed to make me comfortable. I possess nothing – I am the poorest man in the world, in that sense. Otherwise, I am the richest, because my people have made everything available to me. It does not belong to me, it belongs to the commune, but you will not find such a commune anywhere else in the world – now, or in the whole history of man.
No ashram with five thousand people has ever lived in central air-conditioning; this is the only city in the whole world which is completely air-conditioned. And my people are eating the best food possible, enjoying their life in different ways. It depends on them.
Well, it's said you are the guru for the rich.
Yes, I am.
Osho,
But how do you combine this highly individualistic philosophy that you spoke about, where you talk in terms of even finding your own personal goal in terms of what time you should wake up and what you should eat – your own levels of comfort at every point – how do you combine that with the principles of community living which your own people follow?
My people have every facility available. We have the Italian restaurant, we have the Chinese restaurant, we have the Indian restaurant, we have Continental food available, we have American food available. All kinds of wines and champagnes, all kinds of cigars and cigarettes – everything is available. They have to choose and find.
Yes, but they have basic norms of community living which they follow. Now, they may be self-imposed, those norms, or they may be structured by the commune…
Nobody is imposing anything.
I'm saying “self-imposed.” The commune has certain ground rules…
No, not even self-imposed. The very word imposed is not right.
Okay – the commune has certain ground rules. How do you combine this highly individualistic philosophy of yours with the ground rules of the commune?
There are no ground rules in the commune. It is a commune of individuals who are not in any way parts, but members, living. And they have to live according to their own way. If they feel this fits for them, good. If they feel this does not fit for them, we have all kinds of work available. For example, a doctor is tired of patients and hospitals and he becomes a sannyasin. We have a hospital, but he does not want to become a part of the hospital. He is fed up and finished – he wants to go farming. Perfectly good, he goes farming. And he enjoys it for the first time in his life. He wanted, his whole life, to farm. There are professors…
This could be extremely dangerous if a farmer wanted to be a doctor after joining you, and he joined your hospital – that could be extremely dangerous.
A farmer cannot be allowed to be a doctor. He will be sent to study medicine. Even the doctors who have come here from different countries are not allowed to practice unless they get the Oregon certificate to practice. The farmer needs no certificate. It is not a qualified job; it is not something that is harmful to anybody.
But he must know the land use laws.
That we are fighting, and we are creating our own land use. And Oregonians have never used the land the way we have used it. For fifty years this land was just lying barren, a desert. We have made it an oasis. They will have to change their ground rules for land use, because we are showing them how land should be used.
When I had come here there was only one house. And 126 miles of land – just barren, dead, only a few junipers. Junipers are known as the camels of the trees, but they were also in a very poor, dying condition. Since we have come we have managed to make dams, we have collected rainwater – enough that all the junipers have become big, thick, green. We are making the whole city a green place – and those idiots are discussing in the courts about land use! They should come here and see how land has to be used. And they have much land in Oregon lying like this. Where else can you find 126 square miles of land so easily?
It was for sale for fifty years – nobody purchased it. What would they do with a desert? We have changed it into a garden. Go on coming every year, and you will be surprised that every year you will find expansion – more people, more trees, more birds. There was not a single bird when we came here. Now there are peacocks, swans, and – because of the water – deer from all the other places have moved here. We have thousands of deer now, and we are thinking to make a deer park especially for them. In fact, deer have never enjoyed such a luxurious life as they are enjoying here, because we have sown the grass that they love most – alfalfa. They are eating it so much that you will not find such fat deer anywhere in the world!
You will not find such prosperous and well-kept sannyasins anywhere, for that matter.
No, you will not. And if you go on the roads in the night, the deer will be standing in the road and you will have to stop. They know my sannyasins don’t harm anybody. So there are peacocks… In my own garden there are one hundred peacocks, and they won’t give way for me to drive. They stand just there in front of me…
They are actually there to prevent journalists.
No!
Because I was actually prevented from seeing your house.
You will be prevented, but not by peacocks! For that we have sannyasins.
You're telling me!
But those peacocks or those deer, they have understood one thing, that these people are nonviolent, not any way harmful. You can be with them without any fear.
Osho,
The Oregonians don't think so.
Oregonians are far more retarded than the deer.
Then why the sub-machine guns?
For those Oregonians who are retarded – because they will understand only machine guns, no other language. It is not for the deer. No bird, no animal is being killed here. In Oregon, every year there is freedom from the government to kill deer; all over the state, deer are killed. This is the only place we have stopped it: no deer can be killed here. If anybody kills a deer on this land he will be in trouble.
Those guns have never been used yet, and I don’t think they will ever be used. Those retarded Oregonians are so afraid, they don’t come near. And we don’t have long-distance guns. But if it is needed, we will have them.
We are nonviolent; we don’t want to do any harm to anybody. But we are not Gandhians – if you do harm to us we will give you the other cheek – we are not Christians. We respect you so much that if you hit us, you will get a bigger hit. We respect your dignity, your individuality, your humanity. Christ’s statement that when somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek, is a humiliation of the other man. You are reducing the other man into an animal, a sub-human species. You are becoming holier-than-thou, just by giving one cheek – what about if he wants to hit you a third time? What cheek are you going to give? We don’t give the other cheek – if somebody hits our cheek, we will hit him on both of his cheeks together, simultaneously. We respect people. We respect their humanity. We don’t want to prove that we are holier than you; we are just as human as you are.
The hostility in the Oregonians is perfectly good for us. One thing is that they don’t come here – no disturbance, that’s what I wanted. On all sides, for fifty miles around, we are completely isolated, doing our thing without any interference, without any trouble.
What is that “our thing”?
Many things: people are meditating. In India it was a trouble…
Why?
Others were getting disturbed, because my meditations are 112 methods, in which a few are chaotic, dynamic, active. The people have to throw out all their screams, shout, throw out their anger, dance, jump, jog. Naturally the neighbors would be disturbed in the early morning, and every day the police were there, saying that the neighbors are complaining. So I told my people that we have to find a place where there are no neighbors.
Secondly, the police force is ours, so there is no problem!
That can be very dangerous.
No, not dangerous at all. The police force belongs to the state government. They are part of the state police force. They have been trained by the state, but they are sannyasins and they know what you are doing, you are not disturbing anybody. And we have such a vast land that you can go on doing it in one corner and nobody will know.
We have a nature institute which allows people to go naked. They have a special lake for themselves. They can go naked, walk naked in the forest; nobody interferes. Even if you move naked in the streets of the city, nobody is going to look back, “What is the matter?” It is your thing – that’s your thing.
That is sad. That's a reflection. It's a sad comment if an attractive person is walking naked and no one looks around.
…because everybody has his own freedom, and even looking around is an interference. If you look at a man for more than three seconds – that’s the conclusion psychologists have come to – that is an interference.
Well, I've been looking at you for about fifteen minutes already.
You have been doing immense interference! But it is perfectly okay with me, because you at least blink. I don’t blink. You should see that, that I don’t blink. When I am talking, I forget blinking.
But everybody is free to do his thing. If somebody wants to hug somebody on the street – in India it was an unnecessary problem, that somebody is hugging – it should be nobody’s business. If you don’t want to see, don’t see. Just turn your back and go away, or close your eyes.
Here we have absolute freedom. If people want to hug each other – and it is a beautiful experience to hug each other…
But if you have total freedom to hug each other; you also give total freedom to hit each other. And that could be dangerous.
No. When people hug each other, nobody wants to hit each other. When people are prevented from hugging, then the only way to touch the other is by hitting. There is a basic psychology involved in it. Sigmund Freud said that people have invented guns, arrows, because they were prevented from hugging each other, loving each other.
Love is really a man trying to enter the woman. Now if that is prevented, the man will try to enter from a distance with a gun. That gun is phallic according to Freud, and all the other psychologists agree with him. If you allow people total freedom of love, violence will disappear. Gandhi and people like him are responsible for violence in the world.
In Gandhi’s ashram, nobody could fall in love with any woman. There was strict discipline that no woman meets in secrecy with any man. His own secretary, Pyarelal, could not follow this discipline; his own sons could not follow this discipline – the discipline is stupid.
But when you prevent people from loving, then their very energy of love becomes hate. Hate is not different from love; it is love standing on its head, doing shirsasan.
In other words, you believe that if Hitler had had a Jewish girlfriend to make love to, he wouldn't have committed violence on the Jewish population?
Certainly. Hitler was rejected from everywhere: his parents rejected him, he was never given love by his parents. He was continuously condemned. He wanted to become an artist, no art school allowed him entry. He wanted to become an architect, no school of architecture allowed him. Then finally he became a soldier. Now, there is no way to avoid the fact that the man was basically interested in art, in architecture, but being rejected from everywhere. The army was the only place where he was accepted. And he was even thrown out of the army after the First World War. He was one of the most rejected persons in the world, and he took good revenge – he did well.
What do you mean, “He did well”? You would support what he did?
It means he has given you a lesson to love people, respect people; a person should not be rejected so much that he becomes simply a maniac – that’s what you made Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitlers will be born again and again if we cannot allow people freedom of love, warmth, dignity, respect – just for being themselves. We respect people if somebody reaches the top of Everest; some Edmund Hillary, then we respect him. If somebody invents something, we respect him. If somebody is a painter like Picasso, we respect him. But we don’t respect people just for being themselves.
Everybody cannot be a Picasso and everybody need not go to Everest – and it would be silly! We have to respect people as they are, without any demands on them.
But you don't either: you attacked Mother Teresa recently.
I attack Mother Teresa because she is doing so much harm to humanity.
In what way?
These are the people… Mother Teresa is only symbolic; I call her Mother Teresa the Terrible. These people – Teresa or Pope the Polack or Jesus Christ or Mahatma Gandhi – all these people in a very subtle way… I never suspect their intentions; their intentions may be good, but their actions are dangerous. These are the people who are keeping the world poor.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor.” Now this is something absolutely wrong. The poor are not the blessed, they are the cursed, the condemned. But he consoles them by saying that they are blessed.
But you are selectively using that verse. The full verse is: “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.” Those who inherit the earth can never be poor, so he was using the word poor purely metaphorically.
Just wait a minute, just wait a minute. You are quoting wrongly, I was quoting rightly: “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God,” – not earth.
There are two versions – the King James version says the earth.
There are not two versions!
The King James version says the earth.
It is the kingdom of God, basically, in Hebrew. The kingdom of the earth is already possessed by the rich, it is already inherited. Jesus can only promise something in the faraway future, after death. All the religions have been playing that game, of promising people things beyond death. There is no evidence of anything beyond death, whether the poor enter into paradise or the rich enter. It is more probable that the rich will enter.
There is no possibility for the poor in paradise, if there is no possibility for them here on earth! And these people… Teresa collecting orphans, what is she doing? Creating more poverty in the world. She is against abortion, she is against birth control, she is against the pill: these are sins, naturally. If these things are allowed, orphans will disappear – and with orphans disappearing, who is going to give the Nobel Prize to Mother Teresa?
I condemned her; she wrote a letter to me. In the letter she said, “I will pray to God to forgive you.” Now the sentence looks perfectly nice, but not to me. It is nasty.
I wrote back to her, “In the first place I don’t believe in any God, so who are you to pray to a God who does not exist? At least you should have asked me. Secondly, who are you to pray on my behalf? I have not given you the authority. And I have not committed any sin, that God should forgive me. If he meets me, he will have to ask forgiveness from me, because what he has done to the world is enough!”
All these Tamerlanes, Genghis Khans, Nadirshahs, Alexander the Greats, Ivan the Terribles, Adolf Hitlers, Mussolinis, Joseph Stalins – who is responsible for all these people? Who is responsible for Ethiopia dying? Who is responsible for half the world being poor and on the verge of death? Who is responsible for nuclear weapons?
If God is the creator, and if he is omnipotent, omniscient, he knows everything – past, present, future – then he knows that there will be Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And even knowing that, he creates the world? He knows that there will be a nuclear war, and people are piling up nuclear weapons. Even the day he created the world, he knew that one day there would be a nuclear war, and millions of people would suffer tremendous torture and death. “And this is your God,” I told her.
She never replied. I again wrote to her, “Reply – because otherwise I am going to sue you in the court. Who can ask for my forgiveness from God, on my behalf, without my permission?”
These people are simply trying to increase their numbers. All those orphans become Catholics; all those poor people, aboriginals, become Christians. The hospitals, the schools, the food – these are all strategies. Islam had the strategy of the sword. Christians have the strategy – because the world has changed, ways have changed – they come with bread and butter in one hand and a Bible in the other. Mohammedans used to come with a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other hand. But it is the same – just to purchase you. They are using people’s poverty to make great numbers of Christians, because numbers have power. It is simply politics, nothing else; there is no religion in it. The pope before this Polack who is now the pope, was a homosexual – it was well known all over Italy.
The earlier pope?
Yes, he was a bishop in Milan before becoming the pope, and the whole of Milan knew about it because he was continuously going around with a homosexual, a young man.
But that's purely a sexual preference.
That’s what I am saying – that it is perversion, not preference.
Osho,
You mean a man like you, who believes in free sex, you would object to people exercising a sexual preference?
No, it is not a preference. Otherwise, soon you will be making love to the camera, making love to the electric pole. And please, don’t disturb my junipers! It is not preference, it is unnatural. This homosexuality is a religious contribution to humanity. It started in the monasteries, where only men were living and no woman was allowed in. It started in the nunneries, where only women were living and no man was allowed. Naturally, man is intelligent enough to find some way.
All the monks have been either masturbators or homosexuals, but in some way they have to do something. You cannot change their biology by just preaching. Their bodies won’t listen to your Bible.
But you were a celibate at twenty-one. Why can't they be?
I have never been a celibate.
Your Bible says that.
I have never been a celibate. If people believe it, that is their foolishness. I have always loved women – and perhaps more women than anybody else. You can see my beard: it has become grey so quickly because I have lived so intensely that I have compressed almost two hundred years into fifty.
Of sexuality?
Yes. But I am not a homosexual. These people have been talking of celibacy, and creating sexual perversion. And the sexual perversion has led to the disease AIDS, which can kill almost two-thirds of humanity. Who will be responsible for it?
Osho,
Where do you draw the line between sexual perversion and sexual experimentation?
There is no sexual experimentation. Sex is a purely biological thing, absolutely determined by biology. For example, in the wild no animal is homosexual. But in a zoo, if only male animals are there and no female is available, they turn into homosexuals. Your world is a zoo, not a wild place. In a wild jungle, nobody… No animal ever turns into a homosexual.
So would you, like Rousseau, talk in terms of going back to nature, to the wild?
No. I am not saying back to nature, I am saying forward to nature. Not back – back is not my vocabulary – forward to nature. There are tremendous treasures hidden in nature, which these perverted people have denied humanity enjoying. I am against these people, because what they are saying and what they are doing ultimately results in something like a curse.
All the religions have been preaching celibacy, and nobody has ever bothered whether celibacy is medically possible or not. Even Mahatma Gandhi at the age of seventy was having wet dreams in the night. And you cannot find a more sincere man, trying more sincerely than he tried to be a celibate. For forty years, no success. And do you know, in the end he started sleeping with a naked woman? But Gandhians don’t talk about it.
Gandhians even approached Mahatma Gandhi, asking him, “Please don’t do it.” Vinoba was one of them, Kalelkar was another; Maulana Azad, Kripalani, all asked him, “Please don’t do this ‘experiment’” – in your language. It was not an “experiment”; it was forty years of failure of celibacy.
And all these popes… Just two days ago, a Christian minister was jailed for one and a half years because he was abusing small children. That is experimentation. In the pulpit, in the church, he is talking about celibacy, and inside the church he is abusing small children. One of the fathers filed the case, and he got one and a half years in jail. Now many others have come, because they were afraid to say anything against the religious leader, but now he is in jail, many other children have said that he has been doing the same with them.
But this is not just about one priest I am saying this: all the priests have to do it! We are forcing them to do it. We respect their celibacy, and that respect is a bribe to remain celibate. And their biology does not know about your respectability; their biology has its own laws and it follows its own laws.
The people who have been consoling the poor are the enemies of the poor. Poverty can be destroyed immediately. All that is needed is that nations should disappear – only then can wars disappear.
And seventy-five percent of every nation’s income is going into war efforts. America is even pouring eighty percent of its income into nuclear weapons. Now, if the whole world stops this nonsense, what is the need to be poor? We have so much energy, so much money, so much scientific intelligence.
But it is strange. In England, in Europe, in America too, they are destroying food – and Ethiopia is dying. And soon India will be in the same position. If you see Rajiv Gandhi, tell him that he will be responsible for India’s poverty and people dying there, because he is exporting wheat outside India, and his own people are on the verge of death – half the country. But he wants a nuclear plant. Tell him that this is not a child’s game, and he doesn’t understand anything about humanity. He had better go and become a pilot again, that is his place! He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t need to be the prime minister of a country which is suffering from poverty – and he is looking to create a nuclear plant! For what?
Even if India puts every penny into creating nuclear weapons, it will take three hundred years for them to be equal in power to America or the Soviet Union. And do you think that for three hundred years, America and the Soviet Union will be staying where they are? It is stupid, absolutely stupid, for a country like India to think of nuclear weapons, atomic energy.
But they go on saying to the poor – in India all the Indian religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism – all go on saying, “It is your past life’s bad actions, that’s why you are poor.” That’s the reason – because of these religions – that for five thousand years at least, India has never revolted, has suffered all kinds of poverty, slavery, and accepted it. The religious leaders were telling them, “If you rebel or if you do anything against it, you will have to suffer in the future life.”
Let me tell you one thing: you will be surprised. One of the great Jaina teachers in India is Acharya Tulsi. There is a Jaina sect, Terapanth, and he is the head of that community. Their basic philosophy is that if somebody is dying of thirst, and you have water, don’t give it to him – because he is suffering from his past life’s karmas, and giving him water means interfering into the punishment. He will be punished again soon, he cannot get rid of it – and by interfering, you have committed a crime: now you will suffer also.
If somebody is drowning, simply go on walking. Let him drown – it is his past life’s actions, and you should not interfere in any way. For example, if you pull that man out of the water and tomorrow he murders somebody, you are also responsible for that murder. You see, the logic is great! If you had not saved that man, the murder would not have happened. So in the next life you will also suffer, because you saved that man and took part in the murder.
If you teach people for thousands of years that it is your bad actions in past lives which create poverty, you are stopping them from revolting, you are stopping them from doing something to change their situation. You are telling them, “Just accept the situation in which you are.” And that’s how the East has accepted, and remained poor.
And still you want that I should not speak against these people – Buddha, Mahavira? I have to speak. To me these are far bigger criminals than Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, because those people have done very little harm. Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews, but how many poor people has Mahavira killed? And living in poverty is far more dangerous, is far more of a suffering, than dying in a beautifully, scientifically-managed gas chamber in Germany. Within seconds you are smoke – holy smoke! – rather than suffering for millions of years.
No, I am against all these criminals. And I mean what I say.
Osho,
Do you think that if the nations of the world did not invest such a large part of their gross national product in nuclear arsenals, they would have used it more meaningfully – they would have found some alternative means of creating a situation of terror in the world?
The question of whether they invest in nuclear weapons or in something else all depends on us, not on them.
It is born out of the desire to conquer, to rule: you conquer nature, you conquer other nations, you conquer the weaker half of mankind.
I understand, but now it is absolutely idiotic. Up to now, it was meaningful to conquer. With nuclear weapons you cannot conquer – nobody is going to be victorious, and nobody is going to be defeated. All are going to be finished. In that way, nuclear weapons have served a great cause: now war is meaningless.
M.A.D. – mutual assured destruction.
Yes, so it is meaningless. They are not going for the Third World War. They will talk about it, talk about peace, they will play the games. And they will put small nations into fights and wars so that they can sell their out-of-date weapons to them. But they are not going for a big war. Pakistan and India may get into a war, Bangladesh and India may get into a war, but Russia and America are not going to go to war, because both are perfectly aware what it means. There is no victory.
War was meaningful, you are right, because it was conquering. Now, with nuclear weapons the whole situation changes. We can put this whole energy into conquering new planets, going to the stars. We can conquer nature, which is deteriorating, and we can put nature back into its harmoniousness as it always was. We can feed people. We can create “medical food” – just pills; if you cannot grow more wheat, you can just swallow a pill and that will do.
The whole world has to be made aware of what a situation we have reached, that war is absolutely meaningless, so now no more pouring your energies into more nuclear weapons.
Then why are you investing in missile silos?
I am investing only in toy guns. Those toy guns are enough to keep the Oregonians afraid. They don’t do any harm, but just by keeping them here, the Oregonians remain far away.
Osho,
The rumors that you are shifting to Australia, are they right? Do you have any such plans whatsoever?
No, I will be visiting.
When is that?
That will depend. If America wants me to go out, to go to Australia, perhaps I may stay there forever. I have a beautiful commune there on the sea beach. I may stay there. So there is a great opportunity for America to get rid of me. But first, my green card. Without a green card, I am not going out of America. I am going to fight up to the Supreme Court.
They have six classes, six types of people who can apply for an American green card. I have applied on five. On each, I will fight separately. One file will take twenty years to finish by the time it reaches the Supreme Court. Five grounds. Then I will start on the second. For one hundred years, they cannot do anything to me! And for me, the sixth class is not difficult – that is marriage. I can marry as many women as they want. But they cannot throw me out of America. If they are intelligent, they should immediately issue my green card – then perhaps I may never come back. If Australia is there… And I have my communes in many beautiful places. In Holland we have purchased a big, ancient Christian monastery.
Where is this?
In Holland. It was meant for Christian monks and a school for Christian children – beautiful gardens, accommodation for three hundred people – and we are renovating it. I may stay in Holland.
I may stay in Germany. In Germany we have twelve communes of the same size.
As this?
Yes. Germany is my country. Now the color red is no longer connected with communists, it is connected with me. And we have sannyasins in the Soviet Union. We have sannyasins in other communist countries; we have sannyasins in East Germany. They are not only there, they want to make a commune: I am stopping them, because if they make a commune and they come above ground they will be in difficulty – remain underground. But they are so excited, they want to make a commune in East Berlin. My sannyasins in the Soviet Union are more excited than anywhere else.
How do you stay in touch with them? Or how do they stay in touch with you?
That I cannot tell you. But I am in touch, and they are in touch, and everything is going just groovy!
Anything…?
Osho,
You were extremely concerned about the spread of AIDS. If rumors are to be believed, you are starting a new program which will possibly have something to do with AIDS.
That’s only a rumor.
Osho,
Why is this particular affliction so important that you keep talking about it everywhere?
Because it has no medicine, no cure.
Neither has cancer.
Cancer only of one type, but there are many types of cancer which have a cure; they can be operated.
Only forty percent of cases get cured.
Yes, and people who have cancer are not contagious. They will not spread the cancer all over the world. AIDS is a different phenomenon – and with no cure. The person is sure to die within two years. The person can contaminate not only by sexual intercourse but by kissing. If his saliva comes in contact with you, you can get it. Kissing is going to be prohibited. In my commune I have told people to drop kissing completely, learn the art of the Eskimos who rub noses, which is far more hygienic. And no fear of any epidemic: at the most a cold, which is not a disease. If you don’t take medicine, it goes away in seven days; if you take medicine, it goes away in one week.
I am concerned about AIDS, certainly, and particularly for my people. My communes are creating every prohibition, precaution, and every sannyasin is being tested. We have found two sannyasins who have AIDS, and for them we have made a beautiful place; we have given to them the most scenic place in the commune. We will take care of them. And they are respectable people; they need not hide it. They are simply victims of religions.
In the outside, it is totally different. If somebody is found to have AIDS he will be treated just the way lepers used to be treated in the past. He will no longer be a respectable citizen; he will fall in his own eyes. He will not be allowed into restaurants, he may not be allowed to visit, even his own family will not want him to live in the house.
So what is happening – the most dangerous thing – is that people who have AIDS are hiding it. They are bribing physicians, doctors, and hiding it. I know, absolutely for certain, that one of the senators has AIDS. He has the power to hide it, and he will continuously spread it.
If it can spread even by kissing or by saliva… And there are a few experts who think that there is a possibility that if the disease becomes of enormous proportions, which it is becoming… But the governments are hiding it, the state governments are hiding it, because nobody wants to accept the fact that their country is full of homosexuals – because it is a homosexual disease.
But it has spread beyond gays.
Yes, it has gone beyond now; it is not confined only to homosexuals. But it is created in homosexuality, and then it spreads. It can go to a woman, then from women it can go to another man who has never been homosexual. And there is no way…
But to stop kissing is like saying that you don't shave because you might get a nick in your cheek with the blade which might give you tetanus.
No, it is not that way.
In fact, a man shaving his beard looks like a woman – it is ugly. As far as women are concerned, they love beards. You can ask my women here. A man without a beard and a mustache is just half a man. Just think of a woman with a mustache and beard – looking like a sardarji – that’s what is happening to men. A stupid idea, because man biologically feels attracted to the feminine physiology, her face. He thinks that the woman’s face is beautiful, because it is without beard and without mustache. He is just a fool, he does not know the simple laws of nature. To a woman, a man without a beard and mustache has no appeal. And you can see that all your prophets, all your messiahs, they had beards – and beautiful beards. And they influenced people tremendously. Most of the credit will go to the beard.
It happened, when Lincoln was standing for the presidency in America, he had no beard, no mustache. He was a thin man, a tall man, and ugly. While he was campaigning, one small girl told him, “Uncle, if you grow a beard and a mustache you will look far more beautiful.” And the idea got into his mind, and he grew his beard and mustache! Now, it is very difficult to know whether that played some part in his winning – I think it did.
But Michael Jackson doesn't have.
I am not saying that there are not exceptions. I am simply saying that it is not like a beard – that if, out of fear, you stop shaving… Because if that becomes the situation, then ninety-nine percent of people die on their bed. So don’t sleep on the bed! Just sleep on the floor!
That's right, I agree.
But then how do you stop kissing? That's exactly what I'm saying.
No, kissing is a totally different matter, because we can find better ways.
Of foreplay? Hardly any.
Many! You don’t know the feminine body. It is all erotic.
I'll ask you those questions separately, perhaps!
You can ask separately. But for this, you have to remember that the woman’s whole body is erotic. You can play it from anywhere – it is a strange musical instrument. Vatsyayana knew it five thousand years ago, when he wrote his sutras. He suggests that lovers should press each other’s earlobes, and that gives great joy. That seems very hygienic. And in fact there are tribes… Eskimos never kiss, they rub noses.
They don't know what they are missing.
No, they know – because they see the missionaries, and they think that these are fools. Even Eskimos think the missionaries are fools, because they are transferring diseases to each other. It is not that they are unaware of kissing – they are perfectly aware. There are aboriginals in India, in Thailand, and in other parts of the world, where rubbing noses is the common practice – kissing is not.
And when something like AIDS is standing at your door, it is a small question of being intelligent enough to take precautions. At least try once, and see how you feel. You may enjoy it more than kissing. At least it is more fun – something new and novel.
Good.
How long will you be here?
Two days out here in Oregon, but about a week in the United States.
And whenever you come to the United States, this is the capital of the world!
Illustrated Weekly of India, Mumbai, India
Osho,
Namaskar.
Glad to see you.
Very glad to see you, too.
Start.
I want to start off with a question which you must have been asked several times in the recent past. For about three and a half years, you kept a maun, and after that you gave it up. Why did you choose to take a maun? Why did you choose to give it up?
There were many reasons, but the most fundamental was concerning my sannyasins. I don’t want them to be intellectually related to me, because that has nothing to do with the real experience of your being.
There were many people who were just hanging around me. They loved my words, they loved my way of thinking. And I am not a thinker, and I am not a preacher, I am not a prophet or messiah. I want to share my experience – and for that, only those who are capable of living with me in silence are ready to understand me. So for three and a half years, I was silent. The basic reason was that those people who were hanging around my words, were interested intellectually in me, dropped out.
And the people who were in love with me – not with my words or theories – they remained. The moment I saw that all the people whose concern was their head are gone, I started speaking again. Now, with these people, speaking is a totally different experience. They can read me between the words, they can read me between the lines, and they are not addicted to my words. If I am silent, they are as happy as when I am speaking to them.
But what is the difference between being addicted to your words and being addicted to you?
There is a great difference. Being addicted to my words is just intellectual. Being in love with me is total. Being in love with me is not a conviction, it is an experience. Being in love with my words, somebody can destroy it very easily – just a little better argument, and the person is finished.
But a person who is in love with me, nothing can disturb him. His trust is not based on any argument: it is not philosophical, it is existential.
But both kinds of people draw sustenance from you. One may draw sustenance from his love for you; some may draw sustenance from their love for what you are saying. Why do you want to make a distinction between these two kinds of people? Why do you think one kind of lover is less important than the other and needs to be dropped off?
He is not only less important, he is absolutely wrong. His approach toward me is wrong, and what he is doing with my words – creating certain belief systems, creating some philosophy, some ideology, which is going to prevent him from knowing himself.
My whole work is to help people to know themselves, and those who become addicted to the words are creating a hindrance for themselves. It does not matter whether they are Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan or addicted to my words – it is the same thing. They are hung up in their heads. And the reality is somewhere far deeper, where no word has ever entered, and no word can ever enter. It is in your uttermost silence, in your meditative, peaceful serenity.
So it is not a question only of difference, or degrees; they are polar opposites. Those are the wrong people – unnecessarily wasting their time here.
But does a master choose his flock? In any religion of the world, or any beliefs of the world, or any faith in the world, does the master ever choose his flock? He says what he has to say, he leads the way, shows the way, or even doesn't do that – he lives his own life, and by his example, people follow him. How does it matter to him who follows him?
I am not a leader, so nobody is allowed to follow me. They are my fellow travelers, they are my friends, and I am absolutely certain who should be my friend.
Followers – who cares! Flocks – who cares! Crowds – who cares! These are individuals – I care. And I don’t want any wrong person, for any wrong motive, to waste his time. It is not harming me, he is harming himself. It is out of compassion that I want him to be released.
And they went away. The device worked perfectly well: they went away and new people have come in their place. While I was silent, they became sannyasins. Their approach is totally different; their search is different.
So remember, I am not a leader, I am not a prophet, I am not a messiah. I have no business to do with all that company. I am a simple man, just like you and my people. If there is any difference, the difference is very slight. The difference is that you are asleep, and I am awake.
Osho,
Only this morning in your discourse, you said that you are not a simple man, you are an extraordinary man.
Only an extraordinary man can say that he is a simple man.
I understand.
A simple man cannot say that.
Okay – these are your friends.
These are my friends.
But you hardly interact with them.
I am continuously interacting. I am dancing with them, I am talking with them, I am sitting in silence with them.
But it is hardly a one-to-one communion with anyone.
There is no need. I have created a field, where just sitting by my side is enough. Otherwise they will be gone, if there is no communion. What will they be doing here? For what will they be here? I dance with them, and they feel my love, they know my love.
Love is something that need not be expressed in words, or expressed even in actions. They can see it in my eyes. You are seeing it in my eyes. Not only are they my friends, you are my friend. That’s why you are here. This is the beginning of a friendship and it is not going to end easily.
Osho,
In the earlier days of the commune – not here, but in India – you were perhaps in closer touch on a day-to-day level with people.
No. Not much, just when I was initiating them into sannyas.
But you are slowly withdrawing yourself, one believes.
Yes, that’s true, because now I can have a contact even from a distance. Now physical contact is not necessary, particularly with my people. Even though I never come out of my room, they know I am there. They know, and they feel. In the beginning it was necessary to come into contact, because that was the only language those people could have understood.
As love deepens, as meditation deepens, distance makes no difference. I have my communes all around the world. Those people who are in a commune in Germany or in Holland or in Switzerland feel me as deeply as my people who are here.
But you have this gorgeous feminine mafia in between.
That is true. Love always has a feminine mafia in between. It is really gorgeous!
Indeed.
Just be here and you will see the whole of Arabian Nights is actually lived here.
Osho,
You speak, among other things, of freedom. Freedom of all kinds: intellectual, emotional, sexual. How can you yourself live such a rigid, boring, dull, disciplined life?
It is not disciplined for me, it is not dull for me, it is not rigid for me. To me, it is the most comfortable life. It is not that I have disciplined myself; it is that, living in many ways, I have found the most comfortable way, the most luxurious way to live.
But surely the most comfortable and the most luxurious is not necessarily the best way to live one's life?
To me it is. To many it may not be. But whatsoever is the best for you is luxurious for you. And I don’t say that all my sannyasins have to live in my discipline, the way I live, or the ritual of my living. No, they are free to find out their own ways. But I have found mine and I am perfectly contented with it. So it is not dull – I am enjoying it every moment.
It's an extremely structured life – that's what I meant.
It is not structured. It may look from the outside as if it is structured; it is not structured.
For example, I have tried to wake up at three o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at four o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at five o’clock in the morning, I have tried to wake up at eight o’clock in the morning – and finally I found that six suits me the best. Now, for an outsider it may look a structured life that every day I wake up at six, but to me that has been the best moment. After that, sleep becomes a headache; before that, the whole day becomes dull, sleepy. But I have found my time, exactly at six.
Now scientists say that for two hours every night you have the deepest sleep; if you wake up exactly after these two hours, you will have the most awakened day. In these two hours your temperature falls, so it can be measured from the outside, too. And I have tried that – that when does my temperature fall? It falls between four and six. And exactly at six… And this is a later thing; I had found my time long before, for thirty years I have been waking up at six. It is just recently that I found out what scientists say about these two hours, wherever in the night they happen – and to different people they happen at different times: somebody may find it at five o’clock, somebody may find it at three o’clock.
Vinoba Bhave used to wake up at three o’clock, and that became the discipline of his ashram. Everybody has to wake up three o’clock. Now, that is nonsense, that is stupid. For Vinoba it may be the right time, but all those people in Vinoba’s ashram are unnecessarily suffering. Then the whole day they feel dull, sleepy. Then Vinoba’s explanation is that you are lazy, sleepy: change your diet, your diet must be wrong; change your other habits, something must be wrong. And the only thing that is wrong is that they are waking up at the wrong time!
So to me it is not structured. I have looked for it and found the right point, the balanced point. The same with my food – I have found what suits me, how much is needed, how much keeps me in a wellbeing, and I go with it.
I am a very luxurious, lazy, comfort-loving man, and I have found everything that is needed to make me comfortable. I possess nothing – I am the poorest man in the world, in that sense. Otherwise, I am the richest, because my people have made everything available to me. It does not belong to me, it belongs to the commune, but you will not find such a commune anywhere else in the world – now, or in the whole history of man.
No ashram with five thousand people has ever lived in central air-conditioning; this is the only city in the whole world which is completely air-conditioned. And my people are eating the best food possible, enjoying their life in different ways. It depends on them.
Well, it's said you are the guru for the rich.
Yes, I am.
Osho,
But how do you combine this highly individualistic philosophy that you spoke about, where you talk in terms of even finding your own personal goal in terms of what time you should wake up and what you should eat – your own levels of comfort at every point – how do you combine that with the principles of community living which your own people follow?
My people have every facility available. We have the Italian restaurant, we have the Chinese restaurant, we have the Indian restaurant, we have Continental food available, we have American food available. All kinds of wines and champagnes, all kinds of cigars and cigarettes – everything is available. They have to choose and find.
Yes, but they have basic norms of community living which they follow. Now, they may be self-imposed, those norms, or they may be structured by the commune…
Nobody is imposing anything.
I'm saying “self-imposed.” The commune has certain ground rules…
No, not even self-imposed. The very word imposed is not right.
Okay – the commune has certain ground rules. How do you combine this highly individualistic philosophy of yours with the ground rules of the commune?
There are no ground rules in the commune. It is a commune of individuals who are not in any way parts, but members, living. And they have to live according to their own way. If they feel this fits for them, good. If they feel this does not fit for them, we have all kinds of work available. For example, a doctor is tired of patients and hospitals and he becomes a sannyasin. We have a hospital, but he does not want to become a part of the hospital. He is fed up and finished – he wants to go farming. Perfectly good, he goes farming. And he enjoys it for the first time in his life. He wanted, his whole life, to farm. There are professors…
This could be extremely dangerous if a farmer wanted to be a doctor after joining you, and he joined your hospital – that could be extremely dangerous.
A farmer cannot be allowed to be a doctor. He will be sent to study medicine. Even the doctors who have come here from different countries are not allowed to practice unless they get the Oregon certificate to practice. The farmer needs no certificate. It is not a qualified job; it is not something that is harmful to anybody.
But he must know the land use laws.
That we are fighting, and we are creating our own land use. And Oregonians have never used the land the way we have used it. For fifty years this land was just lying barren, a desert. We have made it an oasis. They will have to change their ground rules for land use, because we are showing them how land should be used.
When I had come here there was only one house. And 126 miles of land – just barren, dead, only a few junipers. Junipers are known as the camels of the trees, but they were also in a very poor, dying condition. Since we have come we have managed to make dams, we have collected rainwater – enough that all the junipers have become big, thick, green. We are making the whole city a green place – and those idiots are discussing in the courts about land use! They should come here and see how land has to be used. And they have much land in Oregon lying like this. Where else can you find 126 square miles of land so easily?
It was for sale for fifty years – nobody purchased it. What would they do with a desert? We have changed it into a garden. Go on coming every year, and you will be surprised that every year you will find expansion – more people, more trees, more birds. There was not a single bird when we came here. Now there are peacocks, swans, and – because of the water – deer from all the other places have moved here. We have thousands of deer now, and we are thinking to make a deer park especially for them. In fact, deer have never enjoyed such a luxurious life as they are enjoying here, because we have sown the grass that they love most – alfalfa. They are eating it so much that you will not find such fat deer anywhere in the world!
You will not find such prosperous and well-kept sannyasins anywhere, for that matter.
No, you will not. And if you go on the roads in the night, the deer will be standing in the road and you will have to stop. They know my sannyasins don’t harm anybody. So there are peacocks… In my own garden there are one hundred peacocks, and they won’t give way for me to drive. They stand just there in front of me…
They are actually there to prevent journalists.
No!
Because I was actually prevented from seeing your house.
You will be prevented, but not by peacocks! For that we have sannyasins.
You're telling me!
But those peacocks or those deer, they have understood one thing, that these people are nonviolent, not any way harmful. You can be with them without any fear.
Osho,
The Oregonians don't think so.
Oregonians are far more retarded than the deer.
Then why the sub-machine guns?
For those Oregonians who are retarded – because they will understand only machine guns, no other language. It is not for the deer. No bird, no animal is being killed here. In Oregon, every year there is freedom from the government to kill deer; all over the state, deer are killed. This is the only place we have stopped it: no deer can be killed here. If anybody kills a deer on this land he will be in trouble.
Those guns have never been used yet, and I don’t think they will ever be used. Those retarded Oregonians are so afraid, they don’t come near. And we don’t have long-distance guns. But if it is needed, we will have them.
We are nonviolent; we don’t want to do any harm to anybody. But we are not Gandhians – if you do harm to us we will give you the other cheek – we are not Christians. We respect you so much that if you hit us, you will get a bigger hit. We respect your dignity, your individuality, your humanity. Christ’s statement that when somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek, is a humiliation of the other man. You are reducing the other man into an animal, a sub-human species. You are becoming holier-than-thou, just by giving one cheek – what about if he wants to hit you a third time? What cheek are you going to give? We don’t give the other cheek – if somebody hits our cheek, we will hit him on both of his cheeks together, simultaneously. We respect people. We respect their humanity. We don’t want to prove that we are holier than you; we are just as human as you are.
The hostility in the Oregonians is perfectly good for us. One thing is that they don’t come here – no disturbance, that’s what I wanted. On all sides, for fifty miles around, we are completely isolated, doing our thing without any interference, without any trouble.
What is that “our thing”?
Many things: people are meditating. In India it was a trouble…
Why?
Others were getting disturbed, because my meditations are 112 methods, in which a few are chaotic, dynamic, active. The people have to throw out all their screams, shout, throw out their anger, dance, jump, jog. Naturally the neighbors would be disturbed in the early morning, and every day the police were there, saying that the neighbors are complaining. So I told my people that we have to find a place where there are no neighbors.
Secondly, the police force is ours, so there is no problem!
That can be very dangerous.
No, not dangerous at all. The police force belongs to the state government. They are part of the state police force. They have been trained by the state, but they are sannyasins and they know what you are doing, you are not disturbing anybody. And we have such a vast land that you can go on doing it in one corner and nobody will know.
We have a nature institute which allows people to go naked. They have a special lake for themselves. They can go naked, walk naked in the forest; nobody interferes. Even if you move naked in the streets of the city, nobody is going to look back, “What is the matter?” It is your thing – that’s your thing.
That is sad. That's a reflection. It's a sad comment if an attractive person is walking naked and no one looks around.
…because everybody has his own freedom, and even looking around is an interference. If you look at a man for more than three seconds – that’s the conclusion psychologists have come to – that is an interference.
Well, I've been looking at you for about fifteen minutes already.
You have been doing immense interference! But it is perfectly okay with me, because you at least blink. I don’t blink. You should see that, that I don’t blink. When I am talking, I forget blinking.
But everybody is free to do his thing. If somebody wants to hug somebody on the street – in India it was an unnecessary problem, that somebody is hugging – it should be nobody’s business. If you don’t want to see, don’t see. Just turn your back and go away, or close your eyes.
Here we have absolute freedom. If people want to hug each other – and it is a beautiful experience to hug each other…
But if you have total freedom to hug each other; you also give total freedom to hit each other. And that could be dangerous.
No. When people hug each other, nobody wants to hit each other. When people are prevented from hugging, then the only way to touch the other is by hitting. There is a basic psychology involved in it. Sigmund Freud said that people have invented guns, arrows, because they were prevented from hugging each other, loving each other.
Love is really a man trying to enter the woman. Now if that is prevented, the man will try to enter from a distance with a gun. That gun is phallic according to Freud, and all the other psychologists agree with him. If you allow people total freedom of love, violence will disappear. Gandhi and people like him are responsible for violence in the world.
In Gandhi’s ashram, nobody could fall in love with any woman. There was strict discipline that no woman meets in secrecy with any man. His own secretary, Pyarelal, could not follow this discipline; his own sons could not follow this discipline – the discipline is stupid.
But when you prevent people from loving, then their very energy of love becomes hate. Hate is not different from love; it is love standing on its head, doing shirsasan.
In other words, you believe that if Hitler had had a Jewish girlfriend to make love to, he wouldn't have committed violence on the Jewish population?
Certainly. Hitler was rejected from everywhere: his parents rejected him, he was never given love by his parents. He was continuously condemned. He wanted to become an artist, no art school allowed him entry. He wanted to become an architect, no school of architecture allowed him. Then finally he became a soldier. Now, there is no way to avoid the fact that the man was basically interested in art, in architecture, but being rejected from everywhere. The army was the only place where he was accepted. And he was even thrown out of the army after the First World War. He was one of the most rejected persons in the world, and he took good revenge – he did well.
What do you mean, “He did well”? You would support what he did?
It means he has given you a lesson to love people, respect people; a person should not be rejected so much that he becomes simply a maniac – that’s what you made Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitlers will be born again and again if we cannot allow people freedom of love, warmth, dignity, respect – just for being themselves. We respect people if somebody reaches the top of Everest; some Edmund Hillary, then we respect him. If somebody invents something, we respect him. If somebody is a painter like Picasso, we respect him. But we don’t respect people just for being themselves.
Everybody cannot be a Picasso and everybody need not go to Everest – and it would be silly! We have to respect people as they are, without any demands on them.
But you don't either: you attacked Mother Teresa recently.
I attack Mother Teresa because she is doing so much harm to humanity.
In what way?
These are the people… Mother Teresa is only symbolic; I call her Mother Teresa the Terrible. These people – Teresa or Pope the Polack or Jesus Christ or Mahatma Gandhi – all these people in a very subtle way… I never suspect their intentions; their intentions may be good, but their actions are dangerous. These are the people who are keeping the world poor.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor.” Now this is something absolutely wrong. The poor are not the blessed, they are the cursed, the condemned. But he consoles them by saying that they are blessed.
But you are selectively using that verse. The full verse is: “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.” Those who inherit the earth can never be poor, so he was using the word poor purely metaphorically.
Just wait a minute, just wait a minute. You are quoting wrongly, I was quoting rightly: “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God,” – not earth.
There are two versions – the King James version says the earth.
There are not two versions!
The King James version says the earth.
It is the kingdom of God, basically, in Hebrew. The kingdom of the earth is already possessed by the rich, it is already inherited. Jesus can only promise something in the faraway future, after death. All the religions have been playing that game, of promising people things beyond death. There is no evidence of anything beyond death, whether the poor enter into paradise or the rich enter. It is more probable that the rich will enter.
There is no possibility for the poor in paradise, if there is no possibility for them here on earth! And these people… Teresa collecting orphans, what is she doing? Creating more poverty in the world. She is against abortion, she is against birth control, she is against the pill: these are sins, naturally. If these things are allowed, orphans will disappear – and with orphans disappearing, who is going to give the Nobel Prize to Mother Teresa?
I condemned her; she wrote a letter to me. In the letter she said, “I will pray to God to forgive you.” Now the sentence looks perfectly nice, but not to me. It is nasty.
I wrote back to her, “In the first place I don’t believe in any God, so who are you to pray to a God who does not exist? At least you should have asked me. Secondly, who are you to pray on my behalf? I have not given you the authority. And I have not committed any sin, that God should forgive me. If he meets me, he will have to ask forgiveness from me, because what he has done to the world is enough!”
All these Tamerlanes, Genghis Khans, Nadirshahs, Alexander the Greats, Ivan the Terribles, Adolf Hitlers, Mussolinis, Joseph Stalins – who is responsible for all these people? Who is responsible for Ethiopia dying? Who is responsible for half the world being poor and on the verge of death? Who is responsible for nuclear weapons?
If God is the creator, and if he is omnipotent, omniscient, he knows everything – past, present, future – then he knows that there will be Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And even knowing that, he creates the world? He knows that there will be a nuclear war, and people are piling up nuclear weapons. Even the day he created the world, he knew that one day there would be a nuclear war, and millions of people would suffer tremendous torture and death. “And this is your God,” I told her.
She never replied. I again wrote to her, “Reply – because otherwise I am going to sue you in the court. Who can ask for my forgiveness from God, on my behalf, without my permission?”
These people are simply trying to increase their numbers. All those orphans become Catholics; all those poor people, aboriginals, become Christians. The hospitals, the schools, the food – these are all strategies. Islam had the strategy of the sword. Christians have the strategy – because the world has changed, ways have changed – they come with bread and butter in one hand and a Bible in the other. Mohammedans used to come with a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other hand. But it is the same – just to purchase you. They are using people’s poverty to make great numbers of Christians, because numbers have power. It is simply politics, nothing else; there is no religion in it. The pope before this Polack who is now the pope, was a homosexual – it was well known all over Italy.
The earlier pope?
Yes, he was a bishop in Milan before becoming the pope, and the whole of Milan knew about it because he was continuously going around with a homosexual, a young man.
But that's purely a sexual preference.
That’s what I am saying – that it is perversion, not preference.
Osho,
You mean a man like you, who believes in free sex, you would object to people exercising a sexual preference?
No, it is not a preference. Otherwise, soon you will be making love to the camera, making love to the electric pole. And please, don’t disturb my junipers! It is not preference, it is unnatural. This homosexuality is a religious contribution to humanity. It started in the monasteries, where only men were living and no woman was allowed in. It started in the nunneries, where only women were living and no man was allowed. Naturally, man is intelligent enough to find some way.
All the monks have been either masturbators or homosexuals, but in some way they have to do something. You cannot change their biology by just preaching. Their bodies won’t listen to your Bible.
But you were a celibate at twenty-one. Why can't they be?
I have never been a celibate.
Your Bible says that.
I have never been a celibate. If people believe it, that is their foolishness. I have always loved women – and perhaps more women than anybody else. You can see my beard: it has become grey so quickly because I have lived so intensely that I have compressed almost two hundred years into fifty.
Of sexuality?
Yes. But I am not a homosexual. These people have been talking of celibacy, and creating sexual perversion. And the sexual perversion has led to the disease AIDS, which can kill almost two-thirds of humanity. Who will be responsible for it?
Osho,
Where do you draw the line between sexual perversion and sexual experimentation?
There is no sexual experimentation. Sex is a purely biological thing, absolutely determined by biology. For example, in the wild no animal is homosexual. But in a zoo, if only male animals are there and no female is available, they turn into homosexuals. Your world is a zoo, not a wild place. In a wild jungle, nobody… No animal ever turns into a homosexual.
So would you, like Rousseau, talk in terms of going back to nature, to the wild?
No. I am not saying back to nature, I am saying forward to nature. Not back – back is not my vocabulary – forward to nature. There are tremendous treasures hidden in nature, which these perverted people have denied humanity enjoying. I am against these people, because what they are saying and what they are doing ultimately results in something like a curse.
All the religions have been preaching celibacy, and nobody has ever bothered whether celibacy is medically possible or not. Even Mahatma Gandhi at the age of seventy was having wet dreams in the night. And you cannot find a more sincere man, trying more sincerely than he tried to be a celibate. For forty years, no success. And do you know, in the end he started sleeping with a naked woman? But Gandhians don’t talk about it.
Gandhians even approached Mahatma Gandhi, asking him, “Please don’t do it.” Vinoba was one of them, Kalelkar was another; Maulana Azad, Kripalani, all asked him, “Please don’t do this ‘experiment’” – in your language. It was not an “experiment”; it was forty years of failure of celibacy.
And all these popes… Just two days ago, a Christian minister was jailed for one and a half years because he was abusing small children. That is experimentation. In the pulpit, in the church, he is talking about celibacy, and inside the church he is abusing small children. One of the fathers filed the case, and he got one and a half years in jail. Now many others have come, because they were afraid to say anything against the religious leader, but now he is in jail, many other children have said that he has been doing the same with them.
But this is not just about one priest I am saying this: all the priests have to do it! We are forcing them to do it. We respect their celibacy, and that respect is a bribe to remain celibate. And their biology does not know about your respectability; their biology has its own laws and it follows its own laws.
The people who have been consoling the poor are the enemies of the poor. Poverty can be destroyed immediately. All that is needed is that nations should disappear – only then can wars disappear.
And seventy-five percent of every nation’s income is going into war efforts. America is even pouring eighty percent of its income into nuclear weapons. Now, if the whole world stops this nonsense, what is the need to be poor? We have so much energy, so much money, so much scientific intelligence.
But it is strange. In England, in Europe, in America too, they are destroying food – and Ethiopia is dying. And soon India will be in the same position. If you see Rajiv Gandhi, tell him that he will be responsible for India’s poverty and people dying there, because he is exporting wheat outside India, and his own people are on the verge of death – half the country. But he wants a nuclear plant. Tell him that this is not a child’s game, and he doesn’t understand anything about humanity. He had better go and become a pilot again, that is his place! He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t need to be the prime minister of a country which is suffering from poverty – and he is looking to create a nuclear plant! For what?
Even if India puts every penny into creating nuclear weapons, it will take three hundred years for them to be equal in power to America or the Soviet Union. And do you think that for three hundred years, America and the Soviet Union will be staying where they are? It is stupid, absolutely stupid, for a country like India to think of nuclear weapons, atomic energy.
But they go on saying to the poor – in India all the Indian religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism – all go on saying, “It is your past life’s bad actions, that’s why you are poor.” That’s the reason – because of these religions – that for five thousand years at least, India has never revolted, has suffered all kinds of poverty, slavery, and accepted it. The religious leaders were telling them, “If you rebel or if you do anything against it, you will have to suffer in the future life.”
Let me tell you one thing: you will be surprised. One of the great Jaina teachers in India is Acharya Tulsi. There is a Jaina sect, Terapanth, and he is the head of that community. Their basic philosophy is that if somebody is dying of thirst, and you have water, don’t give it to him – because he is suffering from his past life’s karmas, and giving him water means interfering into the punishment. He will be punished again soon, he cannot get rid of it – and by interfering, you have committed a crime: now you will suffer also.
If somebody is drowning, simply go on walking. Let him drown – it is his past life’s actions, and you should not interfere in any way. For example, if you pull that man out of the water and tomorrow he murders somebody, you are also responsible for that murder. You see, the logic is great! If you had not saved that man, the murder would not have happened. So in the next life you will also suffer, because you saved that man and took part in the murder.
If you teach people for thousands of years that it is your bad actions in past lives which create poverty, you are stopping them from revolting, you are stopping them from doing something to change their situation. You are telling them, “Just accept the situation in which you are.” And that’s how the East has accepted, and remained poor.
And still you want that I should not speak against these people – Buddha, Mahavira? I have to speak. To me these are far bigger criminals than Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, because those people have done very little harm. Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews, but how many poor people has Mahavira killed? And living in poverty is far more dangerous, is far more of a suffering, than dying in a beautifully, scientifically-managed gas chamber in Germany. Within seconds you are smoke – holy smoke! – rather than suffering for millions of years.
No, I am against all these criminals. And I mean what I say.
Osho,
Do you think that if the nations of the world did not invest such a large part of their gross national product in nuclear arsenals, they would have used it more meaningfully – they would have found some alternative means of creating a situation of terror in the world?
The question of whether they invest in nuclear weapons or in something else all depends on us, not on them.
It is born out of the desire to conquer, to rule: you conquer nature, you conquer other nations, you conquer the weaker half of mankind.
I understand, but now it is absolutely idiotic. Up to now, it was meaningful to conquer. With nuclear weapons you cannot conquer – nobody is going to be victorious, and nobody is going to be defeated. All are going to be finished. In that way, nuclear weapons have served a great cause: now war is meaningless.
M.A.D. – mutual assured destruction.
Yes, so it is meaningless. They are not going for the Third World War. They will talk about it, talk about peace, they will play the games. And they will put small nations into fights and wars so that they can sell their out-of-date weapons to them. But they are not going for a big war. Pakistan and India may get into a war, Bangladesh and India may get into a war, but Russia and America are not going to go to war, because both are perfectly aware what it means. There is no victory.
War was meaningful, you are right, because it was conquering. Now, with nuclear weapons the whole situation changes. We can put this whole energy into conquering new planets, going to the stars. We can conquer nature, which is deteriorating, and we can put nature back into its harmoniousness as it always was. We can feed people. We can create “medical food” – just pills; if you cannot grow more wheat, you can just swallow a pill and that will do.
The whole world has to be made aware of what a situation we have reached, that war is absolutely meaningless, so now no more pouring your energies into more nuclear weapons.
Then why are you investing in missile silos?
I am investing only in toy guns. Those toy guns are enough to keep the Oregonians afraid. They don’t do any harm, but just by keeping them here, the Oregonians remain far away.
Osho,
The rumors that you are shifting to Australia, are they right? Do you have any such plans whatsoever?
No, I will be visiting.
When is that?
That will depend. If America wants me to go out, to go to Australia, perhaps I may stay there forever. I have a beautiful commune there on the sea beach. I may stay there. So there is a great opportunity for America to get rid of me. But first, my green card. Without a green card, I am not going out of America. I am going to fight up to the Supreme Court.
They have six classes, six types of people who can apply for an American green card. I have applied on five. On each, I will fight separately. One file will take twenty years to finish by the time it reaches the Supreme Court. Five grounds. Then I will start on the second. For one hundred years, they cannot do anything to me! And for me, the sixth class is not difficult – that is marriage. I can marry as many women as they want. But they cannot throw me out of America. If they are intelligent, they should immediately issue my green card – then perhaps I may never come back. If Australia is there… And I have my communes in many beautiful places. In Holland we have purchased a big, ancient Christian monastery.
Where is this?
In Holland. It was meant for Christian monks and a school for Christian children – beautiful gardens, accommodation for three hundred people – and we are renovating it. I may stay in Holland.
I may stay in Germany. In Germany we have twelve communes of the same size.
As this?
Yes. Germany is my country. Now the color red is no longer connected with communists, it is connected with me. And we have sannyasins in the Soviet Union. We have sannyasins in other communist countries; we have sannyasins in East Germany. They are not only there, they want to make a commune: I am stopping them, because if they make a commune and they come above ground they will be in difficulty – remain underground. But they are so excited, they want to make a commune in East Berlin. My sannyasins in the Soviet Union are more excited than anywhere else.
How do you stay in touch with them? Or how do they stay in touch with you?
That I cannot tell you. But I am in touch, and they are in touch, and everything is going just groovy!
Anything…?
Osho,
You were extremely concerned about the spread of AIDS. If rumors are to be believed, you are starting a new program which will possibly have something to do with AIDS.
That’s only a rumor.
Osho,
Why is this particular affliction so important that you keep talking about it everywhere?
Because it has no medicine, no cure.
Neither has cancer.
Cancer only of one type, but there are many types of cancer which have a cure; they can be operated.
Only forty percent of cases get cured.
Yes, and people who have cancer are not contagious. They will not spread the cancer all over the world. AIDS is a different phenomenon – and with no cure. The person is sure to die within two years. The person can contaminate not only by sexual intercourse but by kissing. If his saliva comes in contact with you, you can get it. Kissing is going to be prohibited. In my commune I have told people to drop kissing completely, learn the art of the Eskimos who rub noses, which is far more hygienic. And no fear of any epidemic: at the most a cold, which is not a disease. If you don’t take medicine, it goes away in seven days; if you take medicine, it goes away in one week.
I am concerned about AIDS, certainly, and particularly for my people. My communes are creating every prohibition, precaution, and every sannyasin is being tested. We have found two sannyasins who have AIDS, and for them we have made a beautiful place; we have given to them the most scenic place in the commune. We will take care of them. And they are respectable people; they need not hide it. They are simply victims of religions.
In the outside, it is totally different. If somebody is found to have AIDS he will be treated just the way lepers used to be treated in the past. He will no longer be a respectable citizen; he will fall in his own eyes. He will not be allowed into restaurants, he may not be allowed to visit, even his own family will not want him to live in the house.
So what is happening – the most dangerous thing – is that people who have AIDS are hiding it. They are bribing physicians, doctors, and hiding it. I know, absolutely for certain, that one of the senators has AIDS. He has the power to hide it, and he will continuously spread it.
If it can spread even by kissing or by saliva… And there are a few experts who think that there is a possibility that if the disease becomes of enormous proportions, which it is becoming… But the governments are hiding it, the state governments are hiding it, because nobody wants to accept the fact that their country is full of homosexuals – because it is a homosexual disease.
But it has spread beyond gays.
Yes, it has gone beyond now; it is not confined only to homosexuals. But it is created in homosexuality, and then it spreads. It can go to a woman, then from women it can go to another man who has never been homosexual. And there is no way…
But to stop kissing is like saying that you don't shave because you might get a nick in your cheek with the blade which might give you tetanus.
No, it is not that way.
In fact, a man shaving his beard looks like a woman – it is ugly. As far as women are concerned, they love beards. You can ask my women here. A man without a beard and a mustache is just half a man. Just think of a woman with a mustache and beard – looking like a sardarji – that’s what is happening to men. A stupid idea, because man biologically feels attracted to the feminine physiology, her face. He thinks that the woman’s face is beautiful, because it is without beard and without mustache. He is just a fool, he does not know the simple laws of nature. To a woman, a man without a beard and mustache has no appeal. And you can see that all your prophets, all your messiahs, they had beards – and beautiful beards. And they influenced people tremendously. Most of the credit will go to the beard.
It happened, when Lincoln was standing for the presidency in America, he had no beard, no mustache. He was a thin man, a tall man, and ugly. While he was campaigning, one small girl told him, “Uncle, if you grow a beard and a mustache you will look far more beautiful.” And the idea got into his mind, and he grew his beard and mustache! Now, it is very difficult to know whether that played some part in his winning – I think it did.
But Michael Jackson doesn't have.
I am not saying that there are not exceptions. I am simply saying that it is not like a beard – that if, out of fear, you stop shaving… Because if that becomes the situation, then ninety-nine percent of people die on their bed. So don’t sleep on the bed! Just sleep on the floor!
That's right, I agree.
But then how do you stop kissing? That's exactly what I'm saying.
No, kissing is a totally different matter, because we can find better ways.
Of foreplay? Hardly any.
Many! You don’t know the feminine body. It is all erotic.
I'll ask you those questions separately, perhaps!
You can ask separately. But for this, you have to remember that the woman’s whole body is erotic. You can play it from anywhere – it is a strange musical instrument. Vatsyayana knew it five thousand years ago, when he wrote his sutras. He suggests that lovers should press each other’s earlobes, and that gives great joy. That seems very hygienic. And in fact there are tribes… Eskimos never kiss, they rub noses.
They don't know what they are missing.
No, they know – because they see the missionaries, and they think that these are fools. Even Eskimos think the missionaries are fools, because they are transferring diseases to each other. It is not that they are unaware of kissing – they are perfectly aware. There are aboriginals in India, in Thailand, and in other parts of the world, where rubbing noses is the common practice – kissing is not.
And when something like AIDS is standing at your door, it is a small question of being intelligent enough to take precautions. At least try once, and see how you feel. You may enjoy it more than kissing. At least it is more fun – something new and novel.
Good.
How long will you be here?
Two days out here in Oregon, but about a week in the United States.
And whenever you come to the United States, this is the capital of the world!