INTERVIEW WITH THE WORLD PRESS
The Last Testament Vol 2 03
Third Discourse from the series of 30 discourses - The Last Testament Vol 2 by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Ted Viramont,
Madras Pioneer, Madras, Oregon, United States
Glad to meet you.
Osho,
How's your day gone?
Just…
What's an average day consist of for Osho?
Only of blissfulness – the same.
Do you have leisurely pursuits at all?
Nothing.
Osho,
Do you believe in fighting injustice?
I don’t believe in anything.
You don't believe in anything? Do you think that one should fight injustice?
One should not have “shoulds” and “should nots.” One should simply exist spontaneously. If the moment brings fight, fight – and fight totally, intensely. But don’t fight for a belief, don’t fight for a prejudice. Live in the moment. Be alert, and out of that alertness whatsoever happens, enjoy it.
So let me explain it exactly because that may help you to understand other questions and answers.
Thank you.
I don’t have any belief system. I don’t have any creed, dogma. My whole approach is existential.
Right now, you are there, I am here – and this is enough. You may have prepared your questions, I have not prepared my answers.
Yes, I can see that.
So you can ask your questions. And I am a crazy man, I may say anything that comes in the moment. I don’t care for any consistency, and I don’t care for any respectability. My whole responsibility is to this moment. Beyond that, there is nothing.
How's this moment going for you?
Beautifully.
Great.
Your mustache is giving me great joy!
Thank you.
You are only missing a beard. It is half-hearted – just go the whole way!
Well, one is coming up. I've been thinking about growing one, you know.
Do it! A man without a beard and mustache is just like a woman with a mustache and beard.
Osho,
I have to thank you. About a year and a half ago, I had a really dark time in my life, and somebody suggested to get into meditation. I bought your Orange Book on meditation. Some of them I couldn't use, some of them I could, and the one that changed what was happening for me was the laughter meditation. I would get up everyday and I'd say, “Do I have to get up again?” And with the laughter meditation, as soon as I knew I was awake and I started laughing, the whole day went completely differently. So I need to thank you for showing me this meditation.
Just one meditation has done that much for you. If you try a few others, you will not find words to thank me.
I have 112 methods of meditation. If a person can manage even 10 out of those, his life will be a sheer joy with no dark moments, with no frustration, with no tension, no anxiety. Whatsoever happens, he will be able to accept it without any grudge, without any complaint. His gratitude toward existence will be infinite.
We are very ungrateful to existence. It has given so much to us, and without our asking. And we are such ungrateful creatures that we don’t even bother to look around at what existence is continuously doing for us – the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the birds, the animals, the people. You are living in a tremendously beautiful dream. But you have to be awake about it. Only then a gratefulness arises. I call that gratefulness true religion.
A man need not be a Christian to be religious; need not be a Hindu to be religious. All that he needs is a deep gratitude toward existence. He need not believe in God, he need not believe in heaven and hell – just a simple phenomenon: a deep-felt gratitude that this existence would have been missing something without you, that this vast existence needed you, no one else. Your place was empty before you, will be empty after you – you are irreplaceable. That gives a great contentment.
Man’s greatest need is to be needed. And when you feel that the whole existence needs you – otherwise you would not have been here.
Osho,
Somebody told me, that the only devils running around are the ones that are in our own hearts. Do you think that that's true?
There are no devils. With God, all devils disappeared; they were shadows of your God. Without God, the devil cannot exist.
You will be surprised to know that the word devil and the word divine have the same root; it is a Sanskrit root. In Sanskrit, divine is deva. From deva comes the English words divine and the devil. In fact, the devil and God are two sides of the same coin. There is neither God nor devil. You are there – either asleep or awake. If you are asleep, then life is misery, suffering, anguish, meaninglessness. If you are awake, all dis-ease disappears. For the first time, you find yourself surrounded by tremendous beauty, bliss, silence, serenity.
And to experience this, all that is needed is very simple: one should put his prejudices aside. One should not be a Christian, otherwise he cannot come to this moment of luminosity. One should put one’s communism aside, just for the moment. I am not saying put it aside forever. I am saying just put it aside for the moment, because I know that once you have put it aside for a single moment you have put it aside forever.
Why do you think that is?
Because the experience will transform you so totally that you need not go to the church; the whole existence becomes your church. You need not read the Bible; the songs of the birds, the fragrance of the flowers, the sound of the running water will give you all the gospels that you need. And they will be living. They will not be dead words printed in a book. They will be alive – as alive as you are.
And, if your heart starts dancing with the living that surrounds you, what is the need to be a Christian, what is the need to be a Mohammedan? These are for people who are asleep, and have never tasted anything of life. These are toys given to children to play with, to remain engaged, to remain busy. Your religions are not for mature people; they are childish.
Osho,
To change the subject here, does society have a responsibility to its disadvantaged people?
No.
None?
None. Society has destroyed people in the first place, and then starts talking about responsibility. Each child is being destroyed by the society, distracted from his nature, distracted from what he was going to be, what existence has meant him to be.
First the society distracts him, disturbs him – and then when he is disturbed, these great public servants start coming and saying that the society has some responsibility. This is a very cunning game. First make a man sick, and then run to fulfill your responsibility, service, duty, humanity, compassion, and bring medicine. But why hurt the person in the first place?
All children are born so innocent that if you can just leave them alone to be themselves, if you love them – and love is not a responsibility.
I am reminded of a small anecdote:
A Hindu monk was traveling toward the highest Hindu sacred places, Badrinath, Kedarnath, in the Himalayas. It is a long journey, tedious. Just in front of him a small girl, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, was carrying a boy, fat and heavy.
The sannyasin was very tired, and just as he was passing he said to the girl, “My daughter, you must be tired. You are carrying so much weight.”
The girl was very angry. She said, “Weight? You are carrying weight. This is my brother.”
Love is not a responsibility, love is not a duty. Love is your joy. So, out of your love do whatever you can do. But not out of your Christianity, not out of your ideology, not out of a sense of responsibility. Otherwise you will never be able to forgive your son, and neither will your son ever be able to forgive you. Duty is a dirty, four-letter word. Never do anything for the sake of duty because you are doing it reluctantly. And whomsoever you are doing it for, you are humiliating.
Children are there, just like flowers. What responsibility do you have toward the roses? Yes, to give water, some manure, but that is not responsibility, that is your joy – because your roses will be bigger and more fragrant. What you are doing is nothing in comparison to what you are going to get. You are not doing anything compassionate to the rosebush. In fact, the rosebush is being compassionate toward you. What have you done? Just put a little water, manure, taken care. And the rosebush comes with all its thankfulness, with all its flowers, and your whole house becomes fragrant. Suddenly you are no longer in an ordinary house: you are in a palace, you are in paradise.
And the same happens with children. They are also flowers: nourish them. But that is not your responsibility, it is your love. If there is no love, please don’t do anything, otherwise you are going to destroy the child. Love is the only safety. The child is too fragile, handle it with care. Responsibility is too big a word, and too heavy. Duty is just ugly. Why not rejoice in nourishing the child? Why not enjoy making him an individual?
But you are trying to make him a Christian; you are dragging him to the church, you are forcing him to believe in a God. You are creating fear in him: “If you don’t believe you will go to hell.” You are creating greed in him: “If you follow the church line, you will be rewarded a thousand fold in heaven after death.” You will destroy his whole life. And you will feel great that you have done your responsibility.
This is not responsibility, this is simply irresponsibility. A response should come only out of your loving heart. If you love the child, then you would like the child to find his own truth. You would not like him to live on a borrowed truth. Your child, and living on a borrowed truth? What are you doing? – making him a beggar? You would not like your child to be obedient against his reason, against his will. You will teach the child that obedience is not a virtue, neither is disobedience a virtue: “You have to choose. We can offer you whatever our understanding is – which is not perfect, which is not infallible. We can place everything that we have experienced in life, and it is up to you to choose or not to choose. You have to be yourself, not just my son.”
He has come through you but he does not belong to you. You have been a passage. But if roads start claiming people who walk on the roads, just think how much more difficult life will become. Once you travel on a road, the road says, “Stop! Now where are you going?” And what are parents except roads?
Osho,
Last year's program for the homeless, was that your idea?
I don’t have any ideas.
Were you happy with the results?
I am perfectly happy with any kind of result, so it does not matter.
Osho,
I lived for a time in a tropical environment, and I really liked the frangipani, the plumeria, the large ferns. When I came here to Madras it was quite an adjustment for me, environmentally. What were your first impressions when you arrived here at Rajneeshpuram?
I love every challenge, and that was my first response. Seeing this desert – I had not come to stay here, but this desert won’t let me go.
Why?
I have to make it into an oasis. And in four years we have done much. For fifty years, the land was lying here for sale. And it is not a small piece of land – 126 square miles. The Oregonians had not done anything for this poor land.
My first reaction was that I have to be here now.
You have to be here now?
I have to be here now. I had not come with the intention to stay either in America or in Oregon, but seeing the desert I decided that this desert has to be changed into a lush, green garden.
Are we talking figuratively or…?
No, I am talking literally. I never talk figuratively. We are going to change it – we have changed it. Now there are houses for five thousand sannyasins, all centrally air-conditioned. We have our own crops; we are self-sufficient, we have our own vegetables. These grapes are ours – you should taste them. And soon we will be making wine and everything – so go on coming.
Great grapes.
What are your impressions of the city now?
I enjoyed it; I am enjoying it. I always enjoy anything which is creative. To paint on a canvas is a small thing, but to change the desert into an oasis is real creativity. And our people are enjoying. They are working twelve hours, fourteen hours every day. Even God tired in six days, and on the seventh day he had to rest – and since then nothing has been heard about the fellow.
Osho,
Excuse me!
[for laughing.]
That’s great.
Our people don’t have any holiday because our work is our pleasure, our work is our worship. And even working twelve, fourteen hours a day, they have enough energy to laugh, to dance, to sing, to love. We are enjoying it immensely. It is really groovy.
Osho,
I saw on television that you told some reporter to tell the Australians you were coming down there. So do you have any plans in the immediate future to go?
No, not at all.
You're enjoying this desert too much, I take it.
Just I go on creating gossips.
Shame on you! You're going to get all those people out there really amped up, and – yeah!
How's your health?
Health? Very good.
Very good?
Mmm, because my sickness is such that it just needs to be taken care of. It is not a sickness. For example, I have allergies. In four years here, I have not suffered a single attack of asthma, breathing trouble, because the climate is dry. Humidity is difficult for me.
My people love me so much that they will not wear any perfume, they will not come close to me when they have been working for twelve hours and perspiring, because any smell can disturb me. So this small oasis is taking every care. My sickness is not something which needs any medicine. I was born with my problem, nothing can be done about it. You can only take precautions.
It was difficult to take precautions in the ordinary world. Now, how can I prevent a neighbor from using perfume, burning incense? And particularly in India, every house has a god, every house burns incense. And they were giving me asthma attacks. I had to find a place where, for at least twenty miles, there is no neighbor. Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” and later on he adds, “Love your neighbors too” – which is more difficult.
I don’t have any neighbors; this is almost an island. And my people are aware of my difficulties, so they take care. That’s why I am perfectly healthy. Otherwise I can immediately be sick. It is not a question of time. Just open a bottle of French perfume here and I will be sick. I will not be able to sleep the whole night, my breathing gets so disturbed.
So that was one of the reasons I had told Sheela to look for some place big enough that we are far away from neighbors. I don’t want to interfere in their life, and if they enjoy perfume then who am I to prevent them from enjoying it? And she has found the perfect place for me.
Osho,
What happens to Rajneeshpuram when you die? It continues on as it is?
I cannot say anything, simply because I hate to dominate people. Even now, what is happening is none of my concern. I am just a guest. It is their place. I am not even a sannyasin – you can see. You are a little sannyasin – almost half. I am not a sannyasin at all. They love me, so they tolerate me.
You must admit that you have something to do with the religion of Rajneeshism?
Nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing. I enjoy talking, and out of those talks if somebody creates any ism, that is their business.
Osho,
It's written that Christ advocated nonviolence. According to the scriptures in the Bible, early Christians were fed to the lions when Rome ruled the world. And later Christians went on crusades, where they killed a lot of people. It is now hundreds of years later. Do you advocate nonviolence?
No.
You don't advocate nonviolence? You don't advocate violence?
No, I don’t advocate. I simply share my experiences of life. And it is up to my people to decide for themselves. I am not going to decide for anybody. They cannot dump any responsibility on me.
Sly of you.
Yes.
So there's really…
And this thing that Christians used violence, they killed people, they burnt people, they did everything – it seems to be going against Jesus Christ, it is not so.
Oh?
Because Jesus himself is very violent in his behavior. He talks about love; he talks, but he behaved just the opposite. He threw the money changers out of the temple with a whip in his hand. Is that nonviolence?
No.
He cursed a fig tree, because he and his followers were hungry and the tree did not welcome them with fruits. And it was not the season for figs to appear on the tree. Now, he is not only violent, he is idiotically violent. Cursing a poor tree which has nothing to do – when the season comes, the figs come. Do you think this man is nonviolent?
I'd been led to believe that for a while.
Yes, every Christian has been led to believe that. It is not…
I'm not a Christian.
You may not be. Christ himself was not a Christian, he was a Jew. He never heard the words christ or christian, because in Hebrew these words are not there. He was known as the messiah, which is equivalent to the Greek christ. His whole life – and it was not a long life, only thirty-three years – is full of incidents in which he proves himself arrogant, aggressive, violent, egoistic. And if his followers turn out to be the same on a larger scale, he is responsible for all that.
No sane person can say, “I am the only begotten son of God.” Just think, somebody in Madras declaring, “I am the only begotten son of God.” What will you think? That this man should be handed over to the police, should be sent to a mental institute: he is a crackpot. And that’s what the Jews thought of Jesus. In fact, they never crucified a messiah, they only crucified a crackpot.
Christians have proved perfectly well that the Jews were right to crucify this man. Retroactively, two thousand years of Christianity give evidence that that man was worthy of crucifixion. Jews were right, that man was dangerous. He himself was insane, and he was creating insanity in other people.
In fact, they delayed – he should have been crucified three years before. He started teaching only when he was thirty. If I had been there, I would have suggested crucifying him right away. “Don’t wait. In three years he will be able to collect a few fools, a few idiots – which are everywhere – and then it will become difficult. Then crucifying him will be wrong, because crucifixion will become the beginning of a new religion.”
So, whatever Christians have done, they have followed Jesus Christ, step by step. And until Christianity disappears from the world, it will be very difficult to live peacefully. It is Christianity which has been making every effort to prevent science from progressing.
Science would have developed immensely in these three hundred years, but the Christians on every step, from Copernicus to Galileo to Columbus – America was discovered against the Christians, against the pope, and I am amazed that when the pope comes, still you welcome him!
Osho,
You were in India at the time India gained her independence from Britain. What kind of an effect did that have on you – living under the British rule, and then not to have them anymore? It must have been rather traumatic for most Indians?
I am a little eccentric. I was more pro-British than pro-Indian.
Why was that?
Because everything that has happened in India – technology, science, education, colleges, universities, railway lines, roads, cars, airplanes – everything has happened because of the British rule. If there had been no British rule, India would have been the same as Ethiopia.
Before the British rule, for thousands of years they were burning women alive if their husbands died. Husbands were never burned when their wives died. I don’t see… It is a simple arithmetic, that this is a male chauvinist society. The husband is trying to control even after his death. The wife was forced in such an ugly way, that if you visualize the whole scene you would not believe it. And these are the Hindus who talk about great spirituality.
It is obvious that if you push a living person into a funeral pyre, the person is bound to try to escape. So what they used to do is first they would make the funeral pyre, and put the dead body of the husband. Then they would put the living body of the wife on and tie her to the wood, put many more logs on top of her, and then pour as much purified butter as possible. So that when the fire comes up there is great smoke, and you cannot see what is happening.
One hundred priests would be surrounding it, chanting mantras. A second circle will be of musicians playing drums, and making all kinds of noise, so nobody hears the screams of a living woman, burning and dying there. And this was all religious ritual. They have been doing it for thousands of years. The whole credit goes to the British Empire, that they prevented it, they made it criminal. It was criminal.
India has been poor for thousands of years. It is said in Hindu scriptures that people never used locks on their houses. Even if they were going for a few months’ pilgrimage they would not use locks, because there was no fear of anybody stealing. This is absolutely wrong. My understanding is that first, they had nothing to be stolen. Second, locks were not yet invented.
Indians are so lousy – they will not try to do anything. They would rather starve, but they will not make any effort to become rich. The country is tremendously capable of becoming rich, but the people’s minds are not able to use the opportunity.
Before Britain came into India’s history, these poor people were giving birth to ten children – only one would survive and nine would die. There was no medicine, no medical care. Now it is just the opposite, because of Britain. Out of ten children, only one dies, nine live. And that one dies also because of Indian stupidity – because Mahatma Gandhi was against vaccination, he was against allopathy. He was against everything that has been invented after the spinning wheel – and nobody knows when the spinning wheel was invented, perhaps ten thousand years before – after that, everything is evil.
It seems God made the spinning wheel on the sixth day and after that… Anything – railway trains, telegraph, post offices, telephones, radios, televisions – Gandhi was against all these things, he would not agree to them.
You will be surprised. I was a guest in the house of his son, who was my friend. There were so many mosquitoes in his ashram. And there were bound to be, because he was keeping many cows there, which are worshipped like mothers, and there was so much cow dung everywhere. I have never seen a dirtier place in my life. But it was all in the name of spirituality.
In the day somehow I managed, but at night I told my friend, “I will have to go to a nearby place” – which was nine miles from there – “and I will sleep there. How you can sleep with so many mosquitoes?”
He said, “No, we sleep.”
I said, “I don’t see any mosquito nets.”
He said, “My father would never allow the luxury of sleeping in a mosquito net.”
So I asked, “What substitute has he given?”
And he had given a substitute – kerosene oil. You paint your face, your hands, your legs, anything that is open, with kerosene oil. And go to sleep. Now, even the mosquitoes are intelligent enough not to come near you. But how you can sleep with kerosene oil?
And I said, “I suffer from allergies. I cannot even try it. This is my first and last visit to you. Any time you want to come, you can come to me. I’m not going to come here. This is sheer stupidity.”
Britain introduced much sanity. I am against slavery, I am against Britain dominating India, but I am not a fanatic in any way. I condemn Britain for whatsoever wrong they have done. But they have done so many beautiful things, I have to appreciate them.
So when India became independent in 1947, my whole family was involved in the freedom movement. Almost every member of the family had gone to jail, had suffered. But I was absolutely against – against my family, my father, my uncles. And I told them, “You don’t know what you are doing. Britain has maintained peace for the first time in the whole history of India.” Before Britain there was continuous civil war. In Gautam Buddha’s time, India was divided into two thousand independent kingdoms. India had never been one country before the British; it was Britain’s contribution that India became one.
And as Britain was leaving, India started falling apart. Pakistan became separate, Bangladesh became separate. Now the Sikhs want their own separate country. Soon the Bengalis, the Assamese – they have always been separate, it was under the British force that they remained one.
I used to tell my father, “You don’t understand the enormity of what can happen if Britain simply leaves the country. There will be violence, and millions of people will be killed.” And that’s what happened.
My father wept before me, and he said, “You were right. We were thinking that you always argue against anything – any unpopular thing and you are for it. And you were protecting and arguing for the British government so much.”
I said, “Now look. Britain has left, the country is divided. Trains are burning, houses are burning, children are being mutilated, women are being raped. This is your independence. This is what you had gone to jail for, and suffered.”
And in these forty years after Britain has left, India’s situation has become worse and worse. The population goes on growing. Birth control, the pill, abortion, are all against the religions, against spirituality.
When Britain left India the whole of India – including Pakistan, Bangladesh – was only four hundred million people. Now, India – without Pakistan, without Bangladesh – is eight hundred million. It has doubled in forty years. Its soil is completely prostituted.
Is there anything that can be done to save India, do you think?
I don’t think that anything can be done. Perhaps it is time for India to die. There is a time to be born, there is a time to live, and there is a time to die. It is impossible – because for thirty years I have been trying just that hopeless job in India. Touring all around the country continuously, telling people, “What you are doing is going to destroy you.” And my reward? They would throw shoes at me; they would throw stones at me; they poisoned my food twice; and before I left they made their last attempt on my life by throwing a knife.
Ten thousand sannyasins were present when they threw a knife at me. And the police somehow got the information from their agents, so twenty police officers were present there, before the knife was thrown at me. It seems almost impossible that with ten thousand witnesses – perhaps you can say that “They are sannyasins, they may be lying.” But your twenty high-ranking police officers, they were also witnesses. Still the man was released from the court, with respect. He has not done anything, the knife has never been thrown – and the knife itself was presented there by the police, it was lying on the table of the magistrate.
The magistrate informed me via a friend, “Forgive me. I know, but I am a man with a family, so many children. My promotion is due. I am being pressurized by the politicians and by the religious leaders, ‘If that man is not freed completely, then you will be in trouble.’ And I don’t want to be in trouble.”
The man belonged to a fanatic Hindu organization. That organization is going to rule India sooner or later, because Hindus are in the majority. And every stupidity that was there three hundred years ago will be brought back, because that is the Hindu tradition, the Hindu religion. The tradition of suttee – burning the widow – will be back.
Britain introduced divorce, its days are finished. The moment India is controlled by Hindus – and it is not far away – divorce cannot remain legal. In the Hindu religion there is no place for divorce. Marriage is forever.
They are interested in strange things – for example, that cow slaughter should be stopped. Not that abortion should be legalized, no, that is not the problem at all; that birth control should be promulgated, helped in every possible way, no, that is not the problem. The problem is that cows should not be killed.
Such a country, which cannot even see the priorities – I am not saying to kill the cows, but I am saying to first save humanity. Otherwise, who is going to save the cows? They will be killed by themselves.
My feeling is that Britain has done two wrong things. In the first place it imposed slavery on the country; in the second place like a coward it escaped from its responsibility. Britain should have remained there till they had educated people not to be violent, not to be superstitious, not to be against each other – Hindus against Mohammedans, Mohammedans against Buddhists, Buddhists against Jainas. There are so many sects and sub sects, and everybody is against everybody else. And the country is spiritual, and nonviolence is its ideology! This is all nonsense. It is just hypocrisy.
Britain has done a very lousy job. I was certainly angry with Lord Mountbatten. He was the wrong person to send to India, to make India free. He had no experience of politics; in fact, his whole life he was just a playboy. Just to keep him away from England – because he belonged to the royalty, and if a person belonging to the royalty is a playboy, then everybody’s wife is in danger, everybody is in danger so they kept continuously sending him out of England. But you cannot send him out just like that – he was royalty, he could have been the king. It was just by chance that he was not the eldest son.
First they sent him to Burma. When he came back from Burma, he was immediately told, “Pack your luggage and go to India. You have a great job to do: make India independent.”
Just think – the sheer immensity of the work. When you make a country a slave, for hundreds of years you have to fight for it. And within a day, you can make it independent. I don’t see the logic. Even when I was only seventeen I could not see the logic of it. I wrote a letter to Lord Mountbatten, “This is not the right time for this country to be independent. If everything is peaceful, it is simply cold war. Once the pressure of British control is gone, then…”
Did the independence of India have any bearing on your outlook on life?
No, because I am not interested in nations, I am interested in one world because my understanding is that, unless the world is one, we cannot stop wars; we cannot stop politicians cheating people, there is no way out for humanity except to commit suicide in a Third World War.
It's a big job, don't you think, to try to bring the world together in one.
It is a big job, but nuclear weapons have made it easy. On both sides – in America and the Soviet Union – now they have piled up so many nuclear weapons that they can destroy the earth seven hundred times. Now, neither America wants to get into a nuclear war, nor does Soviet Russia. But nobody can say it. Both will go on saying that they are ready, and both are continuing to pile up weapons. Now it is absolutely absurd. For what are you piling up weapons? You have seven hundred times more than is needed to destroy this poor humanity, and life on this small planet.
Because of nuclear weapons, the Third World War has become almost an impossibility. They will go on talking about it because that keeps them in power. People are afraid; people don’t know the whole information, what is going on. The Americans are afraid of the Russians; the Russians are absolutely in darkness, and they think the Americans are monsters or something. The Soviet clique that rules can rule only if it can maintain the idea that the Third World War is just on the horizon.
I have a certain respect for Richard Nixon, for one thing: that if the man wanted not to be thrown out of the White House, he could have simply started the Third World War. That was the simple way out of Watergate. Any cunning politician like Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong or Mussolini or Adolf Hitler would have done that. In that way, Nixon is not a student of Machiavelli. He should read The Prince – but it is too late.
The only way politicians know to dominate people is either to keep the threat of war continuously alive through newspapers, television, radio, speeches – keep people frightened so they need your direction, your leadership. Adolf Hitler writes in his autobiography that a nation can become strong, great, only under two conditions. Either you go on creating a threatening atmosphere: “You are going to be destroyed,” or you start a war.
Do you think that governments will keep escalating and escalating until they forget what war is like, and then blow ‘em all up?
They cannot forget, and particularly at this time when they have accumulated so many weapons. It is dangerous to forget, they can backfire. They can destroy you, if you don’t destroy them beforehand. Either you have to use them in war, or you have to throw them in the Pacific. You have to get rid of them. It is not a time to forget, and who can forget?
Just the other day I saw a petition of the fifty scientists who are responsible for creating the nuclear weapons in America, urging the president and the Supreme Court: “We were not aware what we were doing. And now it is beyond our capacity, to conceive what is going to happen if war happens. Nothing like it has ever happened before. So it is time to stop.”
Those fifty – the most important American physicists, nuclear experts – are urging: “It is time. Not much time is left; stop creating more, and somehow destroy these weapons or use this energy in some creative way. Find a way that the energy can be used to produce electricity, to run factories; it can be done.” But the politicians want to be on top. And both America and Russia go on threatening each other.
Smaller countries like India are trying to create nuclear plants. Fifty percent of India’s population is on the verge of starvation, and India is exporting its wheat to outside countries.
Rajiv Gandhi is my friend, but I would like him to be assassinated, just like his mother. What he is doing to the country is simply inconceivable. And what are you going to do by creating a nuclear plant? You can never become a great nuclear power. It will take three hundred years for India to become a power like America or Russia. And in three hundred years, if you are going to create nuclear weapons, not a single Indian will be alive. This is simply a madhouse.
So I say that this is the time. We can make people aware to drop all boundaries, if you want to drop wars. And I am not appealing to the politicians. My appeal is to the intelligent people of the world, to the young people of the world.
These fifty scientists should join hands with the Russian scientists, and should declare that they are not going to produce any more nuclear weapons.
I want that there should be a world academy of scientists. I can give them a place in my commune; we have enough space.
Have you let them know?
Yes, and that’s what you have to do.
Okay.
Make them aware that I am inviting them.
If all the scientists of the world refuse to cooperate with the politicians – and this is the time to refuse – and if all the scientists of the world can refuse, and all the poets and all the painters, and all the people who are not political, but creative, the masses can be convinced. Then Ronald Reagan cannot deceive anyone.
If the whole intelligentsia of America appeals to the masses, “We should withdraw our boundaries. Now there will be no visa for entry, and now there will be no passport. Burn all the passports, burn all the green cards. We are one world, and there is no need for any of that. Movement from one country to another should be the birthright of every human being.”
This is the time that, under pressure – humanity is under two pressures: one is nuclear war, the other is the disease AIDS, which is spreading like wildfire and which has no cure. Not a single medical person in the whole world expects that there will be a cure sometime in the future – no possibility. The disease is a category in itself. It is not to be put in the same category as other diseases – cancer, tuberculosis and all that. They are now nothing, you should not call them diseases.
AIDS has no cure – and it is so contagious that you need not be sexually involved with somebody, even kissing you can get it.
I heard last week they found the AIDS viruses in tears also.
Tears also, soon they will find it in perspiration. Any infected liquid coming out of your body will carry the virus. This is going to be an even bigger danger than nuclear weapons. And anybody who has AIDS would not like anybody else to know about it, because he will be condemned. Governments are repressing the information on how many people have AIDS.
The government is repressing that?
All over the world – because if any government accepts that there are so many people suffering from AIDS, then two things are clear: that that government is declaring that its people are sexually perverted, homosexuals; and secondly, accepting that AIDS is there, then it is the responsibility of the government – what are you doing about it?
And there seems to be nothing that can be done. So the only way is to suppress the information; don’t let it surface. But this is more dangerous. Every AIDS person should be stamped, the way you stamp your cattle, just on the forehead. He is a walking nuclear weapon, and he can infect anybody. Kissing should be prohibited, not drugs. Drugs will do, but kissing won’t.
People should be made aware of what precautions should be taken. No government is trying to do that. In fact, if you declare of somebody that it seems he has symptoms, no hospital accepts him.
We have two sannyasins here who have AIDS. We have made a special place for them – the most scenic place. We are giving them every facility that is possible, because those people are going to live only a few months – at the most two years, that is the maximum. Most probably within six months they will be gone. We are trying to make their six months as comfortable, and as beautiful, and as relaxed, as we can. But in the outside world, people who have confirmed AIDS are freely moving around. But they can bribe the physicians to keep it secret. And that is part of the physician’s oath, that he will not make the disease of the person known. This is very dangerous.
They are not allowed in the hospitals because they may spread it in the hospitals. Soon their families – the moment they come to know, then all love and all sacrifice and all responsibility will disappear. Then your own wife will not be ready to live with you. Your own father will suggest, “Get lost.” Your friends will turn their backs on you, nobody would like even to look at you. This was the situation of lepers in the Middle Ages. But lepers are not dangerous, in fact there are many kinds of leprosy which are not infectious.
This disease AIDS is the ultimate outcome of homosexuality. It has to be dissected, analyzed, and given the whole perspective. I call AIDS a religious disease because homosexuality was born in monasteries. Keeping men together, not allowing any women to enter the monastery, not allowing the monks to go outside and mix with people, keeping nuns in their nunneries, not allowing any men to enter – what do you expect?
All the religions have been preaching celibacy. Now, celibacy should be made illegal. Anybody saying that he is celibate should be imprisoned immediately. All the monasteries should be closed, because those monks are dangerous: they have all been homosexuals. It is not their fault. When you take the vow of celibacy, your body, your chemistry, your physiology, your biology has no idea what celibacy is. And there is no way to communicate the idea to your body and biology. It remains just hung up in your head, and your body goes on functioning in the same way. It goes on creating semen, it goes on creating sexuality. Now what do you have to do with it?
In lonely places, people have been known to make love to animals, because even a man was not available. If you make the woman unavailable, he becomes a homosexual; if you make even man unavailable, he becomes a victim of sodomy, he starts making love to animals.
Love is such a natural phenomenon that preventing it has caused the whole problem. Politics has brought you to the nuclear Third World War. And your religions have brought you to an even better chance of committing suicide, AIDS.
This is a time of such pressure that if we bring all the pressure to the public’s eye, there is a possibility to change the whole situation. It is always in danger that people take drastic steps. Otherwise, who risks? And when everybody’s life is at risk, who bothers whether you are American or Indian or Russian or Chinese? This is the time when we should stop calling ourselves Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Germans. And the people who have some kind of world fame should appeal to the whole world: “Destroy your identity cards, destroy your visas, destroy your maps, and remember that the whole earth is ours.”
War will disappear. There will be no need for war. In fact, just as monasteries are responsible for homosexuality, wars are also responsible for it, because you don’t allow soldiers to take their girlfriends with them. So what are the soldiers going to do?
They're not going to make love to their guns. They're going to make love to something else.
They can make love even to guns. If you are left only with a gun and nothing else, you are intelligent enough to make an effort.
My right hand's better than a gun.
A gun is perfectly good. To me, this pressure of AIDS and nuclear weapons is a great opportunity and challenge. And I hope that something good is going to happen soon, that we will not be so idiotic as to die and destroy this beautiful planet. We are going to do something.
Do you have any idea what that is?
I have. And soon you will know.
Okay.
Just a few more days.
A few more days?
Yes, my people are preparing.
Okay, thank you.
We obviously have a lot of work to do on our planet here.
Right.
Osho,
Do you think that we should, in the meantime, continue to explore off our planet?
No.
No?
Right now there is no time. It is sheer stupidity to waste money and time going to the moon and to Mars, because the nearest planets don’t have life. There is a possibility of life, but those planets will take a lifelong journey, they are millions of light-years away. As far as we know, we are the only living people in our solar system. In other solar systems, scientists guess there may be at least fifty thousand planets that have some kind of life. But this is not the time to discover their life. This is the time to save our life.
And if the world becomes one, which I don’t see is such an impossible thing – if Oregon and California can be one nation, I don’t see why Canada cannot also be part of it. Why can other nations not also be part of it?
Doesn't that start with ourselves though?
I have started. In my people you will find people from all religions, people from all nations, even Russians. You will find people of all races – white, black, yellow.
If it's possible for Oregon and California to be side by side, and be part of one nation, is it not possible for sannyasins and the rest of Oregon to live side by side, and be part of one nation?
We are absolutely ready. For us there is no problem. Even if somebody descends here in Rajneeshpuram from some other planet, he will be received with celebration. We have no problem. All the problems are on their side, we have no hostility.
Are you putting the responsibility on them, then?
No, I’m not putting responsibility, just stating a fact. We are a minority, such a small minority that it is simply idiotic for Oregonians to be afraid of us. We should be afraid of them; we are not afraid. It is really a hilarious situation.
Oh, I've been out there. You should be afraid of some of those people out there!
No, we are not. We are not afraid of anybody. And that is making them more afraid, more hostile. We went on inviting them – we invited the governor, we invited the attorney general: “Before you start saying anything about us, please come and see. And then say whatsoever you want to say.” But they don’t even have the guts to come here.
You have such impotent people in your governor, in your attorney general that I am simply surprised that their wives don’t divorce them. We are not going to kill them: we have not killed anybody. We are asking them to come, but they won’t come. On the contrary they have put their army on alert – that within three hours’ notice they have to be ready to reach Rajneeshpuram, any day. Strange. We invite the governor, he is inviting the army. He should have told us. We could have invited the army ourselves! Why go such roundabout ways? We are straightforward people. We can invite the army, just the way we invited the street people. We can have a project: three months Share-a-Home with the army!
There are no immediate plans for that right now, is there?
That's great! Are there any plans in the future that you can see that would be similar to the street people's invitation?
No, I never repeat anything.
Uh?
No, always something bigger.
Well, I understand there would be something bigger.
Something bigger is going to come next month.
Next month?
Next month.
I would be happy to hold it until next month if you want to tell me now.
You will be there. You will be an eyewitness to it.
I'd be delighted. What's the date?
Just wait.
Okay, I shall pull out my patience and…
Yes.
…and put it on.
Good.
Any hints?
Do you think it's true that the more light you have, the better you can see what is trivial and outmoded in your conditioning?
Right – the more comfortable you are, the more luxuriously you live, the more richness in all the dimensions of life, the more is the possibility for you to become aware of one thing: that you have everything, but you don’t have yourself. You are surrounded by all the luxuries – there is nothing more to be added to it – but who are you? Living in a palace, but what the hell are you doing there? The question is bound to happen.
The poor man cannot ask it. He is looking for bread, he is looking for his children’s medicine, he has no house. Do you think he will start inquiring about his interiority, about truth, about the meaning of life?
It is impossible for a poor man to be religious. That’s why I say I am the rich man’s guru. It has nothing to do with me. Only the rich man has the opportunity to inquire beyond mundane things. The poor man – I feel sorry for him, but I cannot think that I should go to Ethiopia and teach meditation there. They will kill me, and I am not suicidal.
The world has enough technology now. If its old prejudices and stupidities can be dropped, we can make the whole world a paradise. Nothing is lacking. If we can reach the moon, if we can create so much destructive power, why can’t we create creative power? The same power can be transferred into creativity, because power is always neutral. You can burn your cigar with a lighter; you can burn your house too. Your lighter does not give you any instructions what to do.
Science has made all the energies available. You are using them in the service of death. Use them in the service of life. It seems all the politicians of the world are followers of Reverend Jim Jones, because they are trying to turn the world into a Jonestown. Except Rajneeshpuram. And sooner they realize it, the better.
You said you felt sorry for the poor man because he…
I feel sorry. Not for his hunger. I feel sorry that he cannot move into higher realms of experience. I don’t feel sorry for his hunger; I don’t feel sorry for his death. I feel sorry that he could not afford the greatest experience of life: of the eternal flame in himself.
The pope may be sorry also, but he is sorry because these people don’t have food, don’t have clothes, don’t have hospitals. I know those who have clothes and have hospitals and have schools, they are also in tremendous misery, suffering. They may not be starving but they are not rejoicing either.
I would like the whole world to live so luxuriously that people start becoming bored with luxury. You should ask me how I am bored with Rolls Royces.
How are you bored with Rolls Royces?
90 Rolls Royces – anybody would be bored. And my people are going to try to have 365. They are bent upon boring me. What can you do?
And the whole earth is capable, for the first time, of such luxury that you don’t feel any material need. If all material needs are fulfilled, then what are you going to do?
There is nothing other than meditation. That is the only door that is still left open. You have knocked at all other doors and seen there is nothing. Only one door is still open, inviting. And whoever has entered that door has never come back frustrated, disappointed. There is not a single case in the whole history of humanity that anybody who has reached the center of his being was disappointed, felt meaningless, was miserable, committed suicide. Not a single exception.
That’s why I say meditation is a scientific thing. That’s how science works. If you can find something without any exception, it becomes a rule. Meditation is a scientific method, because in the whole of history nobody has denied that it leads you to the ultimate blissfulness. But what can I do? It is just a simple question.
I feel sorry for the poor man because he cannot understand Mozart. I feel sorry for him because he cannot understand the dance of a Nijinsky; he cannot understand the flute of Pannalal Ghosh or the sitar of Ravi Shankar. My being sorry and sad is for totally different reasons. I would like him to enjoy the best music in the world, the best poetry, the best painting, the best dance. I would like him to reach the highest peak of his intelligence, but his poverty is preventing him. And the politicians and the religious leaders are responsible for his poverty.
It is such a strange phenomenon that these politicians go on sympathizing with the poor people, with the starving people, with the dying people; and the same politicians go on throwing food into the sea. Ethiopia is dying, and Europe has thrown thousands of tons of fresh oranges into the ocean.
And the political leaders go on talking about sympathy, compassion. The religious leaders go on talking about sympathy, and they are against birth control. They are against abortion: “It should not be legalized.” Strange. They are responsible for creating more population, and that means more poverty. The politicians are putting seventy-five percent of their nation’s income into war, army, nuclear weapons, and people are dying – even their own people.
Thirty million people in America itself are on the streets. And you are creating nuclear weapons, and you are making efforts to reach Mars or the moon. You must have gone nuts!
And because I simply say the facts, they are angry at me. They don’t have any answer. I am ready for an open discussion with Ronald Reagan, or Governor Atiyeh, or anybody. And I would like them to face me, and say why what they are doing, and what they are saying, are totally contradictory things. On the one hand you are responsible for poverty; on the other hand you are showing so much great sympathy because these poor people are going to vote for you. You are against birth control methods because if birth control is applied, where is Mother Teresa going to find orphans? It is such a complicated vested interest. Mother Teresa will die if there are no orphans. What will she do? And who is going to give her a Nobel Prize? Orphans are needed, urgently needed – the more the better.
It is a very simple thing. Just the people of the world have to be made aware of it. And that is your work.
That's what I will try and do.
Good. So come back again. Or do you have some more questions?
No, nothing.
Come back – and next time with a little beard!
Madras Pioneer, Madras, Oregon, United States
Glad to meet you.
Osho,
How's your day gone?
Just…
What's an average day consist of for Osho?
Only of blissfulness – the same.
Do you have leisurely pursuits at all?
Nothing.
Osho,
Do you believe in fighting injustice?
I don’t believe in anything.
You don't believe in anything? Do you think that one should fight injustice?
One should not have “shoulds” and “should nots.” One should simply exist spontaneously. If the moment brings fight, fight – and fight totally, intensely. But don’t fight for a belief, don’t fight for a prejudice. Live in the moment. Be alert, and out of that alertness whatsoever happens, enjoy it.
So let me explain it exactly because that may help you to understand other questions and answers.
Thank you.
I don’t have any belief system. I don’t have any creed, dogma. My whole approach is existential.
Right now, you are there, I am here – and this is enough. You may have prepared your questions, I have not prepared my answers.
Yes, I can see that.
So you can ask your questions. And I am a crazy man, I may say anything that comes in the moment. I don’t care for any consistency, and I don’t care for any respectability. My whole responsibility is to this moment. Beyond that, there is nothing.
How's this moment going for you?
Beautifully.
Great.
Your mustache is giving me great joy!
Thank you.
You are only missing a beard. It is half-hearted – just go the whole way!
Well, one is coming up. I've been thinking about growing one, you know.
Do it! A man without a beard and mustache is just like a woman with a mustache and beard.
Osho,
I have to thank you. About a year and a half ago, I had a really dark time in my life, and somebody suggested to get into meditation. I bought your Orange Book on meditation. Some of them I couldn't use, some of them I could, and the one that changed what was happening for me was the laughter meditation. I would get up everyday and I'd say, “Do I have to get up again?” And with the laughter meditation, as soon as I knew I was awake and I started laughing, the whole day went completely differently. So I need to thank you for showing me this meditation.
Just one meditation has done that much for you. If you try a few others, you will not find words to thank me.
I have 112 methods of meditation. If a person can manage even 10 out of those, his life will be a sheer joy with no dark moments, with no frustration, with no tension, no anxiety. Whatsoever happens, he will be able to accept it without any grudge, without any complaint. His gratitude toward existence will be infinite.
We are very ungrateful to existence. It has given so much to us, and without our asking. And we are such ungrateful creatures that we don’t even bother to look around at what existence is continuously doing for us – the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the birds, the animals, the people. You are living in a tremendously beautiful dream. But you have to be awake about it. Only then a gratefulness arises. I call that gratefulness true religion.
A man need not be a Christian to be religious; need not be a Hindu to be religious. All that he needs is a deep gratitude toward existence. He need not believe in God, he need not believe in heaven and hell – just a simple phenomenon: a deep-felt gratitude that this existence would have been missing something without you, that this vast existence needed you, no one else. Your place was empty before you, will be empty after you – you are irreplaceable. That gives a great contentment.
Man’s greatest need is to be needed. And when you feel that the whole existence needs you – otherwise you would not have been here.
Osho,
Somebody told me, that the only devils running around are the ones that are in our own hearts. Do you think that that's true?
There are no devils. With God, all devils disappeared; they were shadows of your God. Without God, the devil cannot exist.
You will be surprised to know that the word devil and the word divine have the same root; it is a Sanskrit root. In Sanskrit, divine is deva. From deva comes the English words divine and the devil. In fact, the devil and God are two sides of the same coin. There is neither God nor devil. You are there – either asleep or awake. If you are asleep, then life is misery, suffering, anguish, meaninglessness. If you are awake, all dis-ease disappears. For the first time, you find yourself surrounded by tremendous beauty, bliss, silence, serenity.
And to experience this, all that is needed is very simple: one should put his prejudices aside. One should not be a Christian, otherwise he cannot come to this moment of luminosity. One should put one’s communism aside, just for the moment. I am not saying put it aside forever. I am saying just put it aside for the moment, because I know that once you have put it aside for a single moment you have put it aside forever.
Why do you think that is?
Because the experience will transform you so totally that you need not go to the church; the whole existence becomes your church. You need not read the Bible; the songs of the birds, the fragrance of the flowers, the sound of the running water will give you all the gospels that you need. And they will be living. They will not be dead words printed in a book. They will be alive – as alive as you are.
And, if your heart starts dancing with the living that surrounds you, what is the need to be a Christian, what is the need to be a Mohammedan? These are for people who are asleep, and have never tasted anything of life. These are toys given to children to play with, to remain engaged, to remain busy. Your religions are not for mature people; they are childish.
Osho,
To change the subject here, does society have a responsibility to its disadvantaged people?
No.
None?
None. Society has destroyed people in the first place, and then starts talking about responsibility. Each child is being destroyed by the society, distracted from his nature, distracted from what he was going to be, what existence has meant him to be.
First the society distracts him, disturbs him – and then when he is disturbed, these great public servants start coming and saying that the society has some responsibility. This is a very cunning game. First make a man sick, and then run to fulfill your responsibility, service, duty, humanity, compassion, and bring medicine. But why hurt the person in the first place?
All children are born so innocent that if you can just leave them alone to be themselves, if you love them – and love is not a responsibility.
I am reminded of a small anecdote:
A Hindu monk was traveling toward the highest Hindu sacred places, Badrinath, Kedarnath, in the Himalayas. It is a long journey, tedious. Just in front of him a small girl, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, was carrying a boy, fat and heavy.
The sannyasin was very tired, and just as he was passing he said to the girl, “My daughter, you must be tired. You are carrying so much weight.”
The girl was very angry. She said, “Weight? You are carrying weight. This is my brother.”
Love is not a responsibility, love is not a duty. Love is your joy. So, out of your love do whatever you can do. But not out of your Christianity, not out of your ideology, not out of a sense of responsibility. Otherwise you will never be able to forgive your son, and neither will your son ever be able to forgive you. Duty is a dirty, four-letter word. Never do anything for the sake of duty because you are doing it reluctantly. And whomsoever you are doing it for, you are humiliating.
Children are there, just like flowers. What responsibility do you have toward the roses? Yes, to give water, some manure, but that is not responsibility, that is your joy – because your roses will be bigger and more fragrant. What you are doing is nothing in comparison to what you are going to get. You are not doing anything compassionate to the rosebush. In fact, the rosebush is being compassionate toward you. What have you done? Just put a little water, manure, taken care. And the rosebush comes with all its thankfulness, with all its flowers, and your whole house becomes fragrant. Suddenly you are no longer in an ordinary house: you are in a palace, you are in paradise.
And the same happens with children. They are also flowers: nourish them. But that is not your responsibility, it is your love. If there is no love, please don’t do anything, otherwise you are going to destroy the child. Love is the only safety. The child is too fragile, handle it with care. Responsibility is too big a word, and too heavy. Duty is just ugly. Why not rejoice in nourishing the child? Why not enjoy making him an individual?
But you are trying to make him a Christian; you are dragging him to the church, you are forcing him to believe in a God. You are creating fear in him: “If you don’t believe you will go to hell.” You are creating greed in him: “If you follow the church line, you will be rewarded a thousand fold in heaven after death.” You will destroy his whole life. And you will feel great that you have done your responsibility.
This is not responsibility, this is simply irresponsibility. A response should come only out of your loving heart. If you love the child, then you would like the child to find his own truth. You would not like him to live on a borrowed truth. Your child, and living on a borrowed truth? What are you doing? – making him a beggar? You would not like your child to be obedient against his reason, against his will. You will teach the child that obedience is not a virtue, neither is disobedience a virtue: “You have to choose. We can offer you whatever our understanding is – which is not perfect, which is not infallible. We can place everything that we have experienced in life, and it is up to you to choose or not to choose. You have to be yourself, not just my son.”
He has come through you but he does not belong to you. You have been a passage. But if roads start claiming people who walk on the roads, just think how much more difficult life will become. Once you travel on a road, the road says, “Stop! Now where are you going?” And what are parents except roads?
Osho,
Last year's program for the homeless, was that your idea?
I don’t have any ideas.
Were you happy with the results?
I am perfectly happy with any kind of result, so it does not matter.
Osho,
I lived for a time in a tropical environment, and I really liked the frangipani, the plumeria, the large ferns. When I came here to Madras it was quite an adjustment for me, environmentally. What were your first impressions when you arrived here at Rajneeshpuram?
I love every challenge, and that was my first response. Seeing this desert – I had not come to stay here, but this desert won’t let me go.
Why?
I have to make it into an oasis. And in four years we have done much. For fifty years, the land was lying here for sale. And it is not a small piece of land – 126 square miles. The Oregonians had not done anything for this poor land.
My first reaction was that I have to be here now.
You have to be here now?
I have to be here now. I had not come with the intention to stay either in America or in Oregon, but seeing the desert I decided that this desert has to be changed into a lush, green garden.
Are we talking figuratively or…?
No, I am talking literally. I never talk figuratively. We are going to change it – we have changed it. Now there are houses for five thousand sannyasins, all centrally air-conditioned. We have our own crops; we are self-sufficient, we have our own vegetables. These grapes are ours – you should taste them. And soon we will be making wine and everything – so go on coming.
Great grapes.
What are your impressions of the city now?
I enjoyed it; I am enjoying it. I always enjoy anything which is creative. To paint on a canvas is a small thing, but to change the desert into an oasis is real creativity. And our people are enjoying. They are working twelve hours, fourteen hours every day. Even God tired in six days, and on the seventh day he had to rest – and since then nothing has been heard about the fellow.
Osho,
Excuse me!
[for laughing.]
That’s great.
Our people don’t have any holiday because our work is our pleasure, our work is our worship. And even working twelve, fourteen hours a day, they have enough energy to laugh, to dance, to sing, to love. We are enjoying it immensely. It is really groovy.
Osho,
I saw on television that you told some reporter to tell the Australians you were coming down there. So do you have any plans in the immediate future to go?
No, not at all.
You're enjoying this desert too much, I take it.
Just I go on creating gossips.
Shame on you! You're going to get all those people out there really amped up, and – yeah!
How's your health?
Health? Very good.
Very good?
Mmm, because my sickness is such that it just needs to be taken care of. It is not a sickness. For example, I have allergies. In four years here, I have not suffered a single attack of asthma, breathing trouble, because the climate is dry. Humidity is difficult for me.
My people love me so much that they will not wear any perfume, they will not come close to me when they have been working for twelve hours and perspiring, because any smell can disturb me. So this small oasis is taking every care. My sickness is not something which needs any medicine. I was born with my problem, nothing can be done about it. You can only take precautions.
It was difficult to take precautions in the ordinary world. Now, how can I prevent a neighbor from using perfume, burning incense? And particularly in India, every house has a god, every house burns incense. And they were giving me asthma attacks. I had to find a place where, for at least twenty miles, there is no neighbor. Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” and later on he adds, “Love your neighbors too” – which is more difficult.
I don’t have any neighbors; this is almost an island. And my people are aware of my difficulties, so they take care. That’s why I am perfectly healthy. Otherwise I can immediately be sick. It is not a question of time. Just open a bottle of French perfume here and I will be sick. I will not be able to sleep the whole night, my breathing gets so disturbed.
So that was one of the reasons I had told Sheela to look for some place big enough that we are far away from neighbors. I don’t want to interfere in their life, and if they enjoy perfume then who am I to prevent them from enjoying it? And she has found the perfect place for me.
Osho,
What happens to Rajneeshpuram when you die? It continues on as it is?
I cannot say anything, simply because I hate to dominate people. Even now, what is happening is none of my concern. I am just a guest. It is their place. I am not even a sannyasin – you can see. You are a little sannyasin – almost half. I am not a sannyasin at all. They love me, so they tolerate me.
You must admit that you have something to do with the religion of Rajneeshism?
Nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing. I enjoy talking, and out of those talks if somebody creates any ism, that is their business.
Osho,
It's written that Christ advocated nonviolence. According to the scriptures in the Bible, early Christians were fed to the lions when Rome ruled the world. And later Christians went on crusades, where they killed a lot of people. It is now hundreds of years later. Do you advocate nonviolence?
No.
You don't advocate nonviolence? You don't advocate violence?
No, I don’t advocate. I simply share my experiences of life. And it is up to my people to decide for themselves. I am not going to decide for anybody. They cannot dump any responsibility on me.
Sly of you.
Yes.
So there's really…
And this thing that Christians used violence, they killed people, they burnt people, they did everything – it seems to be going against Jesus Christ, it is not so.
Oh?
Because Jesus himself is very violent in his behavior. He talks about love; he talks, but he behaved just the opposite. He threw the money changers out of the temple with a whip in his hand. Is that nonviolence?
No.
He cursed a fig tree, because he and his followers were hungry and the tree did not welcome them with fruits. And it was not the season for figs to appear on the tree. Now, he is not only violent, he is idiotically violent. Cursing a poor tree which has nothing to do – when the season comes, the figs come. Do you think this man is nonviolent?
I'd been led to believe that for a while.
Yes, every Christian has been led to believe that. It is not…
I'm not a Christian.
You may not be. Christ himself was not a Christian, he was a Jew. He never heard the words christ or christian, because in Hebrew these words are not there. He was known as the messiah, which is equivalent to the Greek christ. His whole life – and it was not a long life, only thirty-three years – is full of incidents in which he proves himself arrogant, aggressive, violent, egoistic. And if his followers turn out to be the same on a larger scale, he is responsible for all that.
No sane person can say, “I am the only begotten son of God.” Just think, somebody in Madras declaring, “I am the only begotten son of God.” What will you think? That this man should be handed over to the police, should be sent to a mental institute: he is a crackpot. And that’s what the Jews thought of Jesus. In fact, they never crucified a messiah, they only crucified a crackpot.
Christians have proved perfectly well that the Jews were right to crucify this man. Retroactively, two thousand years of Christianity give evidence that that man was worthy of crucifixion. Jews were right, that man was dangerous. He himself was insane, and he was creating insanity in other people.
In fact, they delayed – he should have been crucified three years before. He started teaching only when he was thirty. If I had been there, I would have suggested crucifying him right away. “Don’t wait. In three years he will be able to collect a few fools, a few idiots – which are everywhere – and then it will become difficult. Then crucifying him will be wrong, because crucifixion will become the beginning of a new religion.”
So, whatever Christians have done, they have followed Jesus Christ, step by step. And until Christianity disappears from the world, it will be very difficult to live peacefully. It is Christianity which has been making every effort to prevent science from progressing.
Science would have developed immensely in these three hundred years, but the Christians on every step, from Copernicus to Galileo to Columbus – America was discovered against the Christians, against the pope, and I am amazed that when the pope comes, still you welcome him!
Osho,
You were in India at the time India gained her independence from Britain. What kind of an effect did that have on you – living under the British rule, and then not to have them anymore? It must have been rather traumatic for most Indians?
I am a little eccentric. I was more pro-British than pro-Indian.
Why was that?
Because everything that has happened in India – technology, science, education, colleges, universities, railway lines, roads, cars, airplanes – everything has happened because of the British rule. If there had been no British rule, India would have been the same as Ethiopia.
Before the British rule, for thousands of years they were burning women alive if their husbands died. Husbands were never burned when their wives died. I don’t see… It is a simple arithmetic, that this is a male chauvinist society. The husband is trying to control even after his death. The wife was forced in such an ugly way, that if you visualize the whole scene you would not believe it. And these are the Hindus who talk about great spirituality.
It is obvious that if you push a living person into a funeral pyre, the person is bound to try to escape. So what they used to do is first they would make the funeral pyre, and put the dead body of the husband. Then they would put the living body of the wife on and tie her to the wood, put many more logs on top of her, and then pour as much purified butter as possible. So that when the fire comes up there is great smoke, and you cannot see what is happening.
One hundred priests would be surrounding it, chanting mantras. A second circle will be of musicians playing drums, and making all kinds of noise, so nobody hears the screams of a living woman, burning and dying there. And this was all religious ritual. They have been doing it for thousands of years. The whole credit goes to the British Empire, that they prevented it, they made it criminal. It was criminal.
India has been poor for thousands of years. It is said in Hindu scriptures that people never used locks on their houses. Even if they were going for a few months’ pilgrimage they would not use locks, because there was no fear of anybody stealing. This is absolutely wrong. My understanding is that first, they had nothing to be stolen. Second, locks were not yet invented.
Indians are so lousy – they will not try to do anything. They would rather starve, but they will not make any effort to become rich. The country is tremendously capable of becoming rich, but the people’s minds are not able to use the opportunity.
Before Britain came into India’s history, these poor people were giving birth to ten children – only one would survive and nine would die. There was no medicine, no medical care. Now it is just the opposite, because of Britain. Out of ten children, only one dies, nine live. And that one dies also because of Indian stupidity – because Mahatma Gandhi was against vaccination, he was against allopathy. He was against everything that has been invented after the spinning wheel – and nobody knows when the spinning wheel was invented, perhaps ten thousand years before – after that, everything is evil.
It seems God made the spinning wheel on the sixth day and after that… Anything – railway trains, telegraph, post offices, telephones, radios, televisions – Gandhi was against all these things, he would not agree to them.
You will be surprised. I was a guest in the house of his son, who was my friend. There were so many mosquitoes in his ashram. And there were bound to be, because he was keeping many cows there, which are worshipped like mothers, and there was so much cow dung everywhere. I have never seen a dirtier place in my life. But it was all in the name of spirituality.
In the day somehow I managed, but at night I told my friend, “I will have to go to a nearby place” – which was nine miles from there – “and I will sleep there. How you can sleep with so many mosquitoes?”
He said, “No, we sleep.”
I said, “I don’t see any mosquito nets.”
He said, “My father would never allow the luxury of sleeping in a mosquito net.”
So I asked, “What substitute has he given?”
And he had given a substitute – kerosene oil. You paint your face, your hands, your legs, anything that is open, with kerosene oil. And go to sleep. Now, even the mosquitoes are intelligent enough not to come near you. But how you can sleep with kerosene oil?
And I said, “I suffer from allergies. I cannot even try it. This is my first and last visit to you. Any time you want to come, you can come to me. I’m not going to come here. This is sheer stupidity.”
Britain introduced much sanity. I am against slavery, I am against Britain dominating India, but I am not a fanatic in any way. I condemn Britain for whatsoever wrong they have done. But they have done so many beautiful things, I have to appreciate them.
So when India became independent in 1947, my whole family was involved in the freedom movement. Almost every member of the family had gone to jail, had suffered. But I was absolutely against – against my family, my father, my uncles. And I told them, “You don’t know what you are doing. Britain has maintained peace for the first time in the whole history of India.” Before Britain there was continuous civil war. In Gautam Buddha’s time, India was divided into two thousand independent kingdoms. India had never been one country before the British; it was Britain’s contribution that India became one.
And as Britain was leaving, India started falling apart. Pakistan became separate, Bangladesh became separate. Now the Sikhs want their own separate country. Soon the Bengalis, the Assamese – they have always been separate, it was under the British force that they remained one.
I used to tell my father, “You don’t understand the enormity of what can happen if Britain simply leaves the country. There will be violence, and millions of people will be killed.” And that’s what happened.
My father wept before me, and he said, “You were right. We were thinking that you always argue against anything – any unpopular thing and you are for it. And you were protecting and arguing for the British government so much.”
I said, “Now look. Britain has left, the country is divided. Trains are burning, houses are burning, children are being mutilated, women are being raped. This is your independence. This is what you had gone to jail for, and suffered.”
And in these forty years after Britain has left, India’s situation has become worse and worse. The population goes on growing. Birth control, the pill, abortion, are all against the religions, against spirituality.
When Britain left India the whole of India – including Pakistan, Bangladesh – was only four hundred million people. Now, India – without Pakistan, without Bangladesh – is eight hundred million. It has doubled in forty years. Its soil is completely prostituted.
Is there anything that can be done to save India, do you think?
I don’t think that anything can be done. Perhaps it is time for India to die. There is a time to be born, there is a time to live, and there is a time to die. It is impossible – because for thirty years I have been trying just that hopeless job in India. Touring all around the country continuously, telling people, “What you are doing is going to destroy you.” And my reward? They would throw shoes at me; they would throw stones at me; they poisoned my food twice; and before I left they made their last attempt on my life by throwing a knife.
Ten thousand sannyasins were present when they threw a knife at me. And the police somehow got the information from their agents, so twenty police officers were present there, before the knife was thrown at me. It seems almost impossible that with ten thousand witnesses – perhaps you can say that “They are sannyasins, they may be lying.” But your twenty high-ranking police officers, they were also witnesses. Still the man was released from the court, with respect. He has not done anything, the knife has never been thrown – and the knife itself was presented there by the police, it was lying on the table of the magistrate.
The magistrate informed me via a friend, “Forgive me. I know, but I am a man with a family, so many children. My promotion is due. I am being pressurized by the politicians and by the religious leaders, ‘If that man is not freed completely, then you will be in trouble.’ And I don’t want to be in trouble.”
The man belonged to a fanatic Hindu organization. That organization is going to rule India sooner or later, because Hindus are in the majority. And every stupidity that was there three hundred years ago will be brought back, because that is the Hindu tradition, the Hindu religion. The tradition of suttee – burning the widow – will be back.
Britain introduced divorce, its days are finished. The moment India is controlled by Hindus – and it is not far away – divorce cannot remain legal. In the Hindu religion there is no place for divorce. Marriage is forever.
They are interested in strange things – for example, that cow slaughter should be stopped. Not that abortion should be legalized, no, that is not the problem at all; that birth control should be promulgated, helped in every possible way, no, that is not the problem. The problem is that cows should not be killed.
Such a country, which cannot even see the priorities – I am not saying to kill the cows, but I am saying to first save humanity. Otherwise, who is going to save the cows? They will be killed by themselves.
My feeling is that Britain has done two wrong things. In the first place it imposed slavery on the country; in the second place like a coward it escaped from its responsibility. Britain should have remained there till they had educated people not to be violent, not to be superstitious, not to be against each other – Hindus against Mohammedans, Mohammedans against Buddhists, Buddhists against Jainas. There are so many sects and sub sects, and everybody is against everybody else. And the country is spiritual, and nonviolence is its ideology! This is all nonsense. It is just hypocrisy.
Britain has done a very lousy job. I was certainly angry with Lord Mountbatten. He was the wrong person to send to India, to make India free. He had no experience of politics; in fact, his whole life he was just a playboy. Just to keep him away from England – because he belonged to the royalty, and if a person belonging to the royalty is a playboy, then everybody’s wife is in danger, everybody is in danger so they kept continuously sending him out of England. But you cannot send him out just like that – he was royalty, he could have been the king. It was just by chance that he was not the eldest son.
First they sent him to Burma. When he came back from Burma, he was immediately told, “Pack your luggage and go to India. You have a great job to do: make India independent.”
Just think – the sheer immensity of the work. When you make a country a slave, for hundreds of years you have to fight for it. And within a day, you can make it independent. I don’t see the logic. Even when I was only seventeen I could not see the logic of it. I wrote a letter to Lord Mountbatten, “This is not the right time for this country to be independent. If everything is peaceful, it is simply cold war. Once the pressure of British control is gone, then…”
Did the independence of India have any bearing on your outlook on life?
No, because I am not interested in nations, I am interested in one world because my understanding is that, unless the world is one, we cannot stop wars; we cannot stop politicians cheating people, there is no way out for humanity except to commit suicide in a Third World War.
It's a big job, don't you think, to try to bring the world together in one.
It is a big job, but nuclear weapons have made it easy. On both sides – in America and the Soviet Union – now they have piled up so many nuclear weapons that they can destroy the earth seven hundred times. Now, neither America wants to get into a nuclear war, nor does Soviet Russia. But nobody can say it. Both will go on saying that they are ready, and both are continuing to pile up weapons. Now it is absolutely absurd. For what are you piling up weapons? You have seven hundred times more than is needed to destroy this poor humanity, and life on this small planet.
Because of nuclear weapons, the Third World War has become almost an impossibility. They will go on talking about it because that keeps them in power. People are afraid; people don’t know the whole information, what is going on. The Americans are afraid of the Russians; the Russians are absolutely in darkness, and they think the Americans are monsters or something. The Soviet clique that rules can rule only if it can maintain the idea that the Third World War is just on the horizon.
I have a certain respect for Richard Nixon, for one thing: that if the man wanted not to be thrown out of the White House, he could have simply started the Third World War. That was the simple way out of Watergate. Any cunning politician like Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong or Mussolini or Adolf Hitler would have done that. In that way, Nixon is not a student of Machiavelli. He should read The Prince – but it is too late.
The only way politicians know to dominate people is either to keep the threat of war continuously alive through newspapers, television, radio, speeches – keep people frightened so they need your direction, your leadership. Adolf Hitler writes in his autobiography that a nation can become strong, great, only under two conditions. Either you go on creating a threatening atmosphere: “You are going to be destroyed,” or you start a war.
Do you think that governments will keep escalating and escalating until they forget what war is like, and then blow ‘em all up?
They cannot forget, and particularly at this time when they have accumulated so many weapons. It is dangerous to forget, they can backfire. They can destroy you, if you don’t destroy them beforehand. Either you have to use them in war, or you have to throw them in the Pacific. You have to get rid of them. It is not a time to forget, and who can forget?
Just the other day I saw a petition of the fifty scientists who are responsible for creating the nuclear weapons in America, urging the president and the Supreme Court: “We were not aware what we were doing. And now it is beyond our capacity, to conceive what is going to happen if war happens. Nothing like it has ever happened before. So it is time to stop.”
Those fifty – the most important American physicists, nuclear experts – are urging: “It is time. Not much time is left; stop creating more, and somehow destroy these weapons or use this energy in some creative way. Find a way that the energy can be used to produce electricity, to run factories; it can be done.” But the politicians want to be on top. And both America and Russia go on threatening each other.
Smaller countries like India are trying to create nuclear plants. Fifty percent of India’s population is on the verge of starvation, and India is exporting its wheat to outside countries.
Rajiv Gandhi is my friend, but I would like him to be assassinated, just like his mother. What he is doing to the country is simply inconceivable. And what are you going to do by creating a nuclear plant? You can never become a great nuclear power. It will take three hundred years for India to become a power like America or Russia. And in three hundred years, if you are going to create nuclear weapons, not a single Indian will be alive. This is simply a madhouse.
So I say that this is the time. We can make people aware to drop all boundaries, if you want to drop wars. And I am not appealing to the politicians. My appeal is to the intelligent people of the world, to the young people of the world.
These fifty scientists should join hands with the Russian scientists, and should declare that they are not going to produce any more nuclear weapons.
I want that there should be a world academy of scientists. I can give them a place in my commune; we have enough space.
Have you let them know?
Yes, and that’s what you have to do.
Okay.
Make them aware that I am inviting them.
If all the scientists of the world refuse to cooperate with the politicians – and this is the time to refuse – and if all the scientists of the world can refuse, and all the poets and all the painters, and all the people who are not political, but creative, the masses can be convinced. Then Ronald Reagan cannot deceive anyone.
If the whole intelligentsia of America appeals to the masses, “We should withdraw our boundaries. Now there will be no visa for entry, and now there will be no passport. Burn all the passports, burn all the green cards. We are one world, and there is no need for any of that. Movement from one country to another should be the birthright of every human being.”
This is the time that, under pressure – humanity is under two pressures: one is nuclear war, the other is the disease AIDS, which is spreading like wildfire and which has no cure. Not a single medical person in the whole world expects that there will be a cure sometime in the future – no possibility. The disease is a category in itself. It is not to be put in the same category as other diseases – cancer, tuberculosis and all that. They are now nothing, you should not call them diseases.
AIDS has no cure – and it is so contagious that you need not be sexually involved with somebody, even kissing you can get it.
I heard last week they found the AIDS viruses in tears also.
Tears also, soon they will find it in perspiration. Any infected liquid coming out of your body will carry the virus. This is going to be an even bigger danger than nuclear weapons. And anybody who has AIDS would not like anybody else to know about it, because he will be condemned. Governments are repressing the information on how many people have AIDS.
The government is repressing that?
All over the world – because if any government accepts that there are so many people suffering from AIDS, then two things are clear: that that government is declaring that its people are sexually perverted, homosexuals; and secondly, accepting that AIDS is there, then it is the responsibility of the government – what are you doing about it?
And there seems to be nothing that can be done. So the only way is to suppress the information; don’t let it surface. But this is more dangerous. Every AIDS person should be stamped, the way you stamp your cattle, just on the forehead. He is a walking nuclear weapon, and he can infect anybody. Kissing should be prohibited, not drugs. Drugs will do, but kissing won’t.
People should be made aware of what precautions should be taken. No government is trying to do that. In fact, if you declare of somebody that it seems he has symptoms, no hospital accepts him.
We have two sannyasins here who have AIDS. We have made a special place for them – the most scenic place. We are giving them every facility that is possible, because those people are going to live only a few months – at the most two years, that is the maximum. Most probably within six months they will be gone. We are trying to make their six months as comfortable, and as beautiful, and as relaxed, as we can. But in the outside world, people who have confirmed AIDS are freely moving around. But they can bribe the physicians to keep it secret. And that is part of the physician’s oath, that he will not make the disease of the person known. This is very dangerous.
They are not allowed in the hospitals because they may spread it in the hospitals. Soon their families – the moment they come to know, then all love and all sacrifice and all responsibility will disappear. Then your own wife will not be ready to live with you. Your own father will suggest, “Get lost.” Your friends will turn their backs on you, nobody would like even to look at you. This was the situation of lepers in the Middle Ages. But lepers are not dangerous, in fact there are many kinds of leprosy which are not infectious.
This disease AIDS is the ultimate outcome of homosexuality. It has to be dissected, analyzed, and given the whole perspective. I call AIDS a religious disease because homosexuality was born in monasteries. Keeping men together, not allowing any women to enter the monastery, not allowing the monks to go outside and mix with people, keeping nuns in their nunneries, not allowing any men to enter – what do you expect?
All the religions have been preaching celibacy. Now, celibacy should be made illegal. Anybody saying that he is celibate should be imprisoned immediately. All the monasteries should be closed, because those monks are dangerous: they have all been homosexuals. It is not their fault. When you take the vow of celibacy, your body, your chemistry, your physiology, your biology has no idea what celibacy is. And there is no way to communicate the idea to your body and biology. It remains just hung up in your head, and your body goes on functioning in the same way. It goes on creating semen, it goes on creating sexuality. Now what do you have to do with it?
In lonely places, people have been known to make love to animals, because even a man was not available. If you make the woman unavailable, he becomes a homosexual; if you make even man unavailable, he becomes a victim of sodomy, he starts making love to animals.
Love is such a natural phenomenon that preventing it has caused the whole problem. Politics has brought you to the nuclear Third World War. And your religions have brought you to an even better chance of committing suicide, AIDS.
This is a time of such pressure that if we bring all the pressure to the public’s eye, there is a possibility to change the whole situation. It is always in danger that people take drastic steps. Otherwise, who risks? And when everybody’s life is at risk, who bothers whether you are American or Indian or Russian or Chinese? This is the time when we should stop calling ourselves Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Germans. And the people who have some kind of world fame should appeal to the whole world: “Destroy your identity cards, destroy your visas, destroy your maps, and remember that the whole earth is ours.”
War will disappear. There will be no need for war. In fact, just as monasteries are responsible for homosexuality, wars are also responsible for it, because you don’t allow soldiers to take their girlfriends with them. So what are the soldiers going to do?
They're not going to make love to their guns. They're going to make love to something else.
They can make love even to guns. If you are left only with a gun and nothing else, you are intelligent enough to make an effort.
My right hand's better than a gun.
A gun is perfectly good. To me, this pressure of AIDS and nuclear weapons is a great opportunity and challenge. And I hope that something good is going to happen soon, that we will not be so idiotic as to die and destroy this beautiful planet. We are going to do something.
Do you have any idea what that is?
I have. And soon you will know.
Okay.
Just a few more days.
A few more days?
Yes, my people are preparing.
Okay, thank you.
We obviously have a lot of work to do on our planet here.
Right.
Osho,
Do you think that we should, in the meantime, continue to explore off our planet?
No.
No?
Right now there is no time. It is sheer stupidity to waste money and time going to the moon and to Mars, because the nearest planets don’t have life. There is a possibility of life, but those planets will take a lifelong journey, they are millions of light-years away. As far as we know, we are the only living people in our solar system. In other solar systems, scientists guess there may be at least fifty thousand planets that have some kind of life. But this is not the time to discover their life. This is the time to save our life.
And if the world becomes one, which I don’t see is such an impossible thing – if Oregon and California can be one nation, I don’t see why Canada cannot also be part of it. Why can other nations not also be part of it?
Doesn't that start with ourselves though?
I have started. In my people you will find people from all religions, people from all nations, even Russians. You will find people of all races – white, black, yellow.
If it's possible for Oregon and California to be side by side, and be part of one nation, is it not possible for sannyasins and the rest of Oregon to live side by side, and be part of one nation?
We are absolutely ready. For us there is no problem. Even if somebody descends here in Rajneeshpuram from some other planet, he will be received with celebration. We have no problem. All the problems are on their side, we have no hostility.
Are you putting the responsibility on them, then?
No, I’m not putting responsibility, just stating a fact. We are a minority, such a small minority that it is simply idiotic for Oregonians to be afraid of us. We should be afraid of them; we are not afraid. It is really a hilarious situation.
Oh, I've been out there. You should be afraid of some of those people out there!
No, we are not. We are not afraid of anybody. And that is making them more afraid, more hostile. We went on inviting them – we invited the governor, we invited the attorney general: “Before you start saying anything about us, please come and see. And then say whatsoever you want to say.” But they don’t even have the guts to come here.
You have such impotent people in your governor, in your attorney general that I am simply surprised that their wives don’t divorce them. We are not going to kill them: we have not killed anybody. We are asking them to come, but they won’t come. On the contrary they have put their army on alert – that within three hours’ notice they have to be ready to reach Rajneeshpuram, any day. Strange. We invite the governor, he is inviting the army. He should have told us. We could have invited the army ourselves! Why go such roundabout ways? We are straightforward people. We can invite the army, just the way we invited the street people. We can have a project: three months Share-a-Home with the army!
There are no immediate plans for that right now, is there?
That's great! Are there any plans in the future that you can see that would be similar to the street people's invitation?
No, I never repeat anything.
Uh?
No, always something bigger.
Well, I understand there would be something bigger.
Something bigger is going to come next month.
Next month?
Next month.
I would be happy to hold it until next month if you want to tell me now.
You will be there. You will be an eyewitness to it.
I'd be delighted. What's the date?
Just wait.
Okay, I shall pull out my patience and…
Yes.
…and put it on.
Good.
Any hints?
Do you think it's true that the more light you have, the better you can see what is trivial and outmoded in your conditioning?
Right – the more comfortable you are, the more luxuriously you live, the more richness in all the dimensions of life, the more is the possibility for you to become aware of one thing: that you have everything, but you don’t have yourself. You are surrounded by all the luxuries – there is nothing more to be added to it – but who are you? Living in a palace, but what the hell are you doing there? The question is bound to happen.
The poor man cannot ask it. He is looking for bread, he is looking for his children’s medicine, he has no house. Do you think he will start inquiring about his interiority, about truth, about the meaning of life?
It is impossible for a poor man to be religious. That’s why I say I am the rich man’s guru. It has nothing to do with me. Only the rich man has the opportunity to inquire beyond mundane things. The poor man – I feel sorry for him, but I cannot think that I should go to Ethiopia and teach meditation there. They will kill me, and I am not suicidal.
The world has enough technology now. If its old prejudices and stupidities can be dropped, we can make the whole world a paradise. Nothing is lacking. If we can reach the moon, if we can create so much destructive power, why can’t we create creative power? The same power can be transferred into creativity, because power is always neutral. You can burn your cigar with a lighter; you can burn your house too. Your lighter does not give you any instructions what to do.
Science has made all the energies available. You are using them in the service of death. Use them in the service of life. It seems all the politicians of the world are followers of Reverend Jim Jones, because they are trying to turn the world into a Jonestown. Except Rajneeshpuram. And sooner they realize it, the better.
You said you felt sorry for the poor man because he…
I feel sorry. Not for his hunger. I feel sorry that he cannot move into higher realms of experience. I don’t feel sorry for his hunger; I don’t feel sorry for his death. I feel sorry that he could not afford the greatest experience of life: of the eternal flame in himself.
The pope may be sorry also, but he is sorry because these people don’t have food, don’t have clothes, don’t have hospitals. I know those who have clothes and have hospitals and have schools, they are also in tremendous misery, suffering. They may not be starving but they are not rejoicing either.
I would like the whole world to live so luxuriously that people start becoming bored with luxury. You should ask me how I am bored with Rolls Royces.
How are you bored with Rolls Royces?
90 Rolls Royces – anybody would be bored. And my people are going to try to have 365. They are bent upon boring me. What can you do?
And the whole earth is capable, for the first time, of such luxury that you don’t feel any material need. If all material needs are fulfilled, then what are you going to do?
There is nothing other than meditation. That is the only door that is still left open. You have knocked at all other doors and seen there is nothing. Only one door is still open, inviting. And whoever has entered that door has never come back frustrated, disappointed. There is not a single case in the whole history of humanity that anybody who has reached the center of his being was disappointed, felt meaningless, was miserable, committed suicide. Not a single exception.
That’s why I say meditation is a scientific thing. That’s how science works. If you can find something without any exception, it becomes a rule. Meditation is a scientific method, because in the whole of history nobody has denied that it leads you to the ultimate blissfulness. But what can I do? It is just a simple question.
I feel sorry for the poor man because he cannot understand Mozart. I feel sorry for him because he cannot understand the dance of a Nijinsky; he cannot understand the flute of Pannalal Ghosh or the sitar of Ravi Shankar. My being sorry and sad is for totally different reasons. I would like him to enjoy the best music in the world, the best poetry, the best painting, the best dance. I would like him to reach the highest peak of his intelligence, but his poverty is preventing him. And the politicians and the religious leaders are responsible for his poverty.
It is such a strange phenomenon that these politicians go on sympathizing with the poor people, with the starving people, with the dying people; and the same politicians go on throwing food into the sea. Ethiopia is dying, and Europe has thrown thousands of tons of fresh oranges into the ocean.
And the political leaders go on talking about sympathy, compassion. The religious leaders go on talking about sympathy, and they are against birth control. They are against abortion: “It should not be legalized.” Strange. They are responsible for creating more population, and that means more poverty. The politicians are putting seventy-five percent of their nation’s income into war, army, nuclear weapons, and people are dying – even their own people.
Thirty million people in America itself are on the streets. And you are creating nuclear weapons, and you are making efforts to reach Mars or the moon. You must have gone nuts!
And because I simply say the facts, they are angry at me. They don’t have any answer. I am ready for an open discussion with Ronald Reagan, or Governor Atiyeh, or anybody. And I would like them to face me, and say why what they are doing, and what they are saying, are totally contradictory things. On the one hand you are responsible for poverty; on the other hand you are showing so much great sympathy because these poor people are going to vote for you. You are against birth control methods because if birth control is applied, where is Mother Teresa going to find orphans? It is such a complicated vested interest. Mother Teresa will die if there are no orphans. What will she do? And who is going to give her a Nobel Prize? Orphans are needed, urgently needed – the more the better.
It is a very simple thing. Just the people of the world have to be made aware of it. And that is your work.
That's what I will try and do.
Good. So come back again. Or do you have some more questions?
No, nothing.
Come back – and next time with a little beard!