INTERVIEW WITH THE WORLD PRESS
The Last Testament Vol 3 10
Tenth Discourse from the series of 30 discourses - The Last Testament Vol 3 by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Richard Wagner, CBS Network; Scott Miller, KGW-TV, Channel 8, Portland (NBC Affiliated); Bob Chase, KEX Radio, Portland; Sally Hill, Associated Press, Portland; Mike Housical, The Globe, USA; The Daily Telegraph, Syndey, Australia; The Star, London, UK; Linda Kramer, San Francisco Examiner; Jerry Thompson, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; Mike Zeilinzinger, Night Ridder Newspapers; John McCoy, Seattle Post Intelligencer; Eric Follet, Stern Magazine; Bill Harlem, Denver Post, Colorado
Osho,
The press understands you are going to make a statement first and then they could ask questions.
Beloved Friends,
I welcome you all on this historical event. For the first time in the whole history of mankind a religion has died. I have never wanted it to be born in the first place. But because I was in silence and isolation a gang of fascists managed to create it. It was absolutely necessary that it should be completely destroyed. I am against all religions, because they have done only harm to humanity. They have given you nothing except the disease AIDS - that is their great contribution. Their insistence on celibacy is the cause of all sexual perversions in the world.
They have divided humanity into Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism. There are three hundred religions on the earth. Because of these religions humanity cannot be one. No child is born Hindu or Christian. But these conditioned, forced, in every possible way to adopt a religion of their parents. This is a great crime against human beings, because they are not given the chance to inquire into reality: what is the truth? Even before they have asked the question they are being supplied with the answers, ready-made answers. There whole life they will go on carrying those ready-made answers like parrots and deep down their ignorance will remain the same - there will be no transformation.
Belief is the enemy of truth. Faith is poison to every enquiry. Doubt is innocence and it is not given to you by anybody. You bring it with you, you are born with it. Doubt means questioning, it means quest, it means individual enquiry. All the religions are based on belief systems, that’s why they have crippled human mind. They have kept humanity in a retarded state. Science is based on doubt. Just within three hundred years science has given so much to humanity, that in ten thousand years religion have not been able to do anything comparable to it.
I hate the word ism. And because I was silent Ma Anand Sheela managed to compile a book Rajneeshism. That was not my book. I have never read it - the question of writing does not arise. And today you have seen that is has been cremated. It is an event of great rejoicing, because I don’t want to belong to all those criminals who have given you holy books - no book is holy. All books are just books, either they are good or bad, well written or not well written. How a book can be holy. But once you call a book holy, you become blind. Just look in Holy Bible, there are five hundred pages of sheer pornography. This is your holy book. And this is the book kept in the courts; and you have to take oath on a pornographic book? I don’t want to add anything into this ugly literature. My books are simply books - just as I am simply a human being.
I am not a savior. That is so humiliating to human beings. I am not a messenger; I am not a prophet. Nobody has ever been a savior. Jesus could not save himself even. And what guts, what nerve. He calls himself the shepherd and the whole humanity, sheep. And there are millions of people who don’t feel even insulted.
To what degradation human mind has fallen? Don’t you have any pride of being human? I want to restore your humanity to you and the only way is that I should not be in any special category. I am amongst you, just like you an ordinary human being. With a little difference, very little difference: you are asleep, I am awake. It is my own fault. I am not condemning you. If I can’t sleep, whose fault it is? Not only that I am awake, I go on trying other people to wake up. The reason is: because I have known sleep and I have known all the sweet dreams and all the nightmares, but I have also known the beauties and the blessings of awakening. And I would like to share my experience to everybody.
Hence I am not your leader, you are not my follower. Just being friends is enough, more than enough. Perhaps only in friendship something can transpire between me and you. Only in loving sharing perhaps you may wake up.
I don’t have any catechism, no theology, nothing for you to believe in. I have taken away all psychological nonsense. I have taken away God from you, because that is nothing but a small child’s desire for the protection of the father; it is retardedness. Only retarded people believe in a God; only greedy people believe in heaven; only cowards, people full of fear and paranoia believe in hell. I have taken all those things from you: there is no God, no heaven, no hell.
I want to share only one thing with you, which does not make you a religion, but it certainly makes you a new kind of man. I call that methodology, meditation. It is an inward journey. You have to go alone on it. The crowd cannot go with you. As you go deeper within yourself. Just by witnessing your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings a tremendous mutation happens: thoughts stop, emotions disappear, feelings evaporate, all that is left is pure awareness. And that awareness is your flowering, your ultimate reach beyond which there is nothing. You have arrived home.
Certainly one who reaches to this peak he will have many qualities. Religiousness will be one of those qualities. So you will not be a religion, but you will have a quality of religiousness. What do I mean by religiousness? A gratitude to existence, a love affair with the flowers, with the birds on the wing, with the sunrise, with the sunset, with the trees, with animals, with people. This love affair I call religiousness. From this day you should not think in terms of being a religion, but in terms of being religious: a quality of love, gratitude, a sensitivity for beauty, for music, for poetry and all that makes you ecstatic. The dance comes on its own, the song arises on its own and it is an individual approach.
You are not to follow somebody else’s footsteps, because you are not going outside, you are going inside yourself, where you will not find any footsteps, because nobody can enter in your interiority, in your subjectivity.
Do this because just my silence and isolation gave Anand Sheela and her fascist gang to exploit you. I am going to destroy everything so history never repeats again. I will not be always with you - one day I will have to go. Before that I want to destroy every possibility. I don’t want any popes behind me, any high priestess, any Ayatollah Khomeini. No, I want to leave you alone, so content and fulfilled that you don’t need anybody between you and the truth of existence.
Hence I have withdrawn red cloths. Now all the colors of rainbow are your colors. You can use any color, so you can mix with the wider humanity more easily. And when there are so many colors, why get addicted to one color? But if you love it and if you want to keep it, it is up to you. It is your freedom. You need not wear mala with my picture in the locket, no. You have to go inwards, the mala will be left out. Somebody may steal it, damage it, there is no need of it.
But, it is up to you. I don’t want to enforce anything on anybody. You can use mala if you like, if you can use whenever you like, you can stop using whenever you like. The only thing that you have to remember is don’t forget that life comes to its fulfillment only when you have reached to your innermost center. That is the only truth. Everything else is nonessential. The only essential thing is to realize your being, your silence, your reality. And for that no belief is needed.
Sheela has created a hostility. That’s a simple methodology of all fascist minded people. Create hostility in the neighbors, that makes you dependent on the leaders, because you are afraid. The leaders promise you they will protect you against the enemies. This becomes a great opportunity for them. Now we have to drop all hostility completely. Nobody is our enemy, we are not against anybody and anything that Sheela has done in three and half years, we have to undo it.
City of Rajneesh has to become again Antelope. I have advised the council that, “Please change that name.” Antelope was perfectly beautiful name, and why hurt people who had lived there for generations? And I have offered to Oregonians that if they want they can purchase all the properties belonging to sannyasins and we will vacate Antelope completely, because we have enough land here, three times bigger than New York. So what do we need poor Antelope for?
And just before coming to your press conference, I was delayed in an interview with Attorney General Frohnmeyer. I have told him that now, there is no point in your case against the city of Rajneeshpuram. His only argument was that religion and state are being mixed. Now there is no religion! So while you were burning Rajneeshism, the book, in the crematorium you have burned also poor Frohnmeyer. Now there is no point in it. If religion itself is not there, the city becomes immediately legal.
Any questions?
Richard Wagner,
CBS Network.
Could you explain why you make the statement that religion has given humanity nothing except the disease AIDS? I don’t understand that.
You are right. It has given many more things too.
For instance?
It has given a divided humanity, it has given thousands of wars, bloodshed, murders, burning of living people, it has certainly given many more things.
But specifically, how has religion contributed to AIDS?
Two reasons. One, every religion propagates that celibacy is something spiritual, which is absolute nonsense. Celibacy is unnatural. And there has never been anybody who was celibate unless he was impotent. Your body functions according to its own program. It does not know that you are a Catholic monk. It goes on creating male sperms same way, whether you are Catholic monk or not. What you are going to do with those sperms? The natural repressed is bound to find some perverted way and religions managed monks to live together, nuns to live together, and they are not to meet each other. That was full opportunity for monks to be homosexuals. Homosexuality is a contribution of religions and AIDS is the ultimate outcome of homosexuality. So it is a long chain.
What came first, religion or AIDS?
Religion.
But we all understand that AIDS is a virus. How can a virus be caused by a religion?
Homosexuality can be caused by religion and homosexuality can cause the virus.
Scott Miller,
KGW-TV, Channel 8, Portland (NBC Affiliated)
If in fact you don’t have a religion going here, how can your foundation still claim tax exempt status and won’t that create a problem for you getting donations in the future?
The foundation is to spread meditation which creates a new kind of religiousness, although it is not a religion. It is far better than all the religions. It claims to be a charitable tax exempt status. In fact, no religion should be given any tax exempt status. Because homosexuality is not a charity.
Does what you say include then your foundation here? Do you believe that you should be giving up your tax exempt status?
It is not a religion; it is simply a religiousness. It should be given, it is charitable. It is not going to give AIDS to humanity.
I guess I hear you saying that you are a religion or you are religious for the.
It is totally different.
You are religious when it comes to tax purposes.
No!
But you’re not religious when it comes to.
No! I am not saying that.
. Separation of church and state.
. You are misunderstanding me.
Set me straight then!
So try to understand. I am saying that I am not a religion. We are meditators, we don’t belong to Christianity, to Hinduism, to any organized religion. And we don’t have any organized religion either. We don’t have any beliefs which make a religion. Meditation is a scientific method, but the scientific method can contribute to human growth immensely. It can give you more peace, more silence, more joy and ultimately a feeling of deathlessness.
I call this experience religiousness. And I will claim tax exempt status for it.
I grant you there is a very fine line there, do you think.
I am going to fight for it.
Do you think the Internal Revenue Service will see that fine line that you’ve just described to me?
I will see. I will see how much brains they have.
Bob Chase,
KEX Radio, Portland.
With regard to the investigation that is underway at Rajneeshpuram, I’m wondering if you have subpoenaed to offer any testimony with regard to the investigation?
I have not received any subpoena. In fact I have asked the investigators that I want to be interviewed and four times they gave me the appointment and just fifteen minutes before they informed it is canceled. They seem to be afraid, just taking my interview. I have not received any subpoena. I would love! I want to see your investigators, because I also want to know what is their depth. I can also investigate them. I am waiting for their subpoena; I will enjoy it!
Up to now they have proved very coward. Four times on my request they gave the appointment, FBI, state police, attorney general’s office, county police, all top people are here. And they could not take a single person’s interview. What kind of people you have got? And tell them, if they don’t subpoena me I am going to subpoena them!
Sally Hill,
Associated Press, Portland
At a previous news conference I asked you whether Oregonians and your disciples could ever coexist peacefully and you answered, “never!” yet it seems that these overtures you’re making to Oregonians and those in the former city of Antelope seem to head along those lines. Can you speak to that please?
That time you had escaped the moment I said, “never,” without even waiting that what I am going to say. “Never”: you thought you had understood my meaning. It was a single word, it has many implications. You need some lessons in journalism.
First let me make you aware that I had said “never” for coexistence, because coexistence is a political word, and I hate politics! Secondly, coexistence means you remain hostile to each other but somehow because fate has managed you to be together, so you accept each other unwillingly, just the way America and Soviet “non-coexist.”
I wanted to say that day also, but when I looked I saw you had already left.
I went to get my notebook.
I mean. Coexistence never, because I want one existence. Coexistence is between enemies. I want one existence. We are already four year old Americans, somebody may be hundred year old, somebody may be two hundred year old, we are the latest ones, the most fresh and young. We want one existence. I had refused the coexistence.
How do you intend to go about attaining this one existence?
Because I am withdrawing everything that Sheela has created as a rift. City of Rajneesh was one of the basic rifts. I am changing it again into Antelope, I am offering all the properties that we have purchased from Antelope people back to them, or to anybody who wants to purchase, and we are ready to move from out of Antelope. So Antelope belongs to Antelope people, it is their city and whatever they want to do they can do.
We are ready to drop all the cases against the state if the state understands a simple thing that now there is no religion, they should drop their case of mixing religion with state. We will withdraw all our cases against them. These are the steps that we would like to take. We have put in this desert two hundred million dollars to change it into an oasis.
If the state is helpful, and we don’t want any illegal help, we can change this whole desert into an oasis. We can make it one of the most beautiful holiday spot, a tourist center which will help Oregon’s economy immensely. We are ready to do everything.
Mike Housical, The Globe, USA, The Daily Telegraph, Syndey, Australia, The Star, London, UK.
Sir, you talked earlier about how you would like to leave these people when you finally decide to leave them. Have you decided if you’re going to spend the rest of your days here or have you plans to travel on?
No, I am going to be here.
Forever?
Forever. Green card or no green card, I am going to be here forever!
You don’t have plans to open any other communes in any other parts of the world?
Yes, I have all over the world so many communes, almost in every country.
But the people come here for three months, four months, to stay with me, and then go back. I am going to remain here. If Oregon or American government wants me to travel then they should issue tomorrow my green card. Then perhaps I may start thinking of traveling!
But it is not a promise - I am saying, perhaps.
Linda Kramer,
San Francisco Examiner
Regarding your comments on AIDS, should practicing homosexuals leave the commune?
We are trying, the whole commune, six thousand people, have gone through the vigorous tests to know whether they have AIDS or not. We have found only two persons and few homosexuals. Out of these two persons, one has died; only one remains. We are providing him everything, love, respect, because he is only a victim. The real criminals are there in the Vatican.
And the homosexuals - I am telling them that you start dropping this habit and move towards heterosexuality. And they will do it, because they can see what is the outcome of it. Now no homosexual can say that they are more progressive then heterosexuals, that they are avant-garde, that they are far ahead intellectually, these heterosexuals are lagging behind just like animals. No, they cannot say that. AIDS has stopped all their mouths. It has proved that homosexuality is a degradation.
So we will change them. And we have all kinds of therapies and those homosexuals have to go through all the therapies. We are going to deprogram them from their homosexuality.
Would you discourage people who don’t wish to lose the habit from coming to you.
Then they can leave! We don’t want homosexuals here because they are potentials for AIDS. Either they have to change or they have to leave. The choice is theirs. Okay?
Jerry Thompson,
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I wonder if you could tell us what you know about where Sheela is now and the latest. We in Canada haven’t really heard all the news and the statements you have made about the attempted murder, the arson, wiretap, and various other things like that. So could you tell those in Canada who don’t know anything about this what the story is behind that, what happened and why?
You are too late! That story is old. We create new stories. That story you can find in old newspapers and other places.
Do you expect ever to see her again, or have you said your last words to her?
I am perfectly willing if she is courageous enough, she should come here and face me before the commune. She is making allegations which are absolute lies and she is hiding like a criminal in Black Forest in Germany. Now if she has not committed any crime, why she has escaped? If others have committed the crime, they should have escaped. Her escape is proof enough.
And the whole gang that has gone with her, they are all involved, because sannyasins are going and telling it to the police, to the FBI, revealing all the facts and they have found all the evidences. All the houses were bugged. And they have created far more sophisticated mechanisms than Nixon had used. Every telephone was taped. We have found all the mechanism that they were using; all that has been given to the police.
They had left in their room, in Sheela’s room, literature on poisons, literature on how to kill people, and they had attempted three persons to kill. And one of them was my own personal physician. He suspected that this poison is a certain poison which is not detectable. So he was examined here, in Bend, and doctors said that, “There is no disease, but you are certainly sick and the only explanation is that some poison has been given to you which is not detectable.”
When Sheela left we found the literature in her room. In one of the books the only poison that is underlined is the same which my physician was suspecting, the undetectable poison is underlined. That is the only poison that is underlined in the whole literature. So they were giving that poison to many people, now many other people have come because nobody ordinarily thinks is somebody offers you a cup of tea and you become suddenly sick, you don’t immediately think of poison. You think perhaps you are sick, you rush to the doctor and doctor cannot find any disease. He says, “Just rest.” What else can be done about it?
We have found in their literature books how to make bombs and we have found chemicals and other material which makes bombs.
They had killed one person, they overdosed him, one of the street people that they had brought here to take over the county. And three thousand people were keeping drugged completely for twenty-one days so that whatever she wants, they will do. They were like robots. And drums of drugs have been imported from outside America, because to purchase from here will become a problem, what you did with all those drugs? So those drugs were purchased from outside America and were brought in.
One of the street people they overdosed; he died on the spot. They simply threw his body outside Rancho Rajneesh. The police has found the body, but they could not figure out what has happened to the person, who was the person, because he was a street man, no address from where he has come, no identity card, nothing. So they simply dropped the case. Now people are coming up and saying that he had died here in the city and they had dragged him out.
They burned the planning office in The Dalles and now there is absolute evidence of one sannyasin who had driven the people who bombed, burned the office and she drew them back. She had gone with Sheela, afraid that she may be caught, but in Seattle she started feeling that it is better to be caught than to carry this guilt whole life and then to remain like a criminal in a foreign land. So from Seattle she came back and she confessed and she has confessed all other crimes of the group, because she was on intimate of the whole company.
So every evidence is there now. If they want to catch those people, they should not wait long.
Do you think that her intention was merely to take over and replace you, or did she have some other bigger plan in mind?
No, certainly this was the. Because even my milk was poisoned. Not in such a dose that I will die, but in such a dose that I will not come out of my silence; so I became. Remain sick and I don’t feel like speaking. She was afraid of my speaking to the people again because that will certainly expose her. And that’s what happened. She wanted to become the chief priestess of the religion, controlling so much money, so many people. I have one million sannyasins around the world. To control one million people around the world, all the communes, all the money; she was almost in a position of a queen!
And she has come from a very low class. She was just a hotel waitress.
Are you making any attempt, is your organization making any attempt to track her down and deal with her own your own?
No, we are not making any attempt, we are giving every evidence to the police. We don’t want to take law in our own hands. There is no need.
Mike Zeilinzinger,
Night Rider newspapers
Even before the recent rift as you describe it, law enforcement agencies were already here, already looking at records. Not in the commune, but were already investigating this operation. now that they are here, now that many outsiders have come to look into the files and look into the books and look into the tape recordings that have been discovered, do you fear that whole process may destroy this place and destroy what’s going on here?
No. They may try, because I don’t trust this attorney general. He may take the advantage to harass sannyasins. I have heard the rumor that he plans at least to arrest one thousand sannyasins which are absolutely innocent and he is not trying to take any action against the criminals. But as far as commune is concerned, there is no problem. We are giving them every evidence, we are absolutely open, we have given them space inside the commune and they are free to move and find whatsoever they want. And sannyasins themselves are going to them and giving information.
But attorney general’s interest seems to be not to catch the criminals, but take an advantage of the situation and destroy the commune. I will not allow this to happen. The governor and attorney general both are in conspiracy against the city. The governor wants to bring emergency on the city. Strange, you are here, there is no riots, there are nobody who is murdered, killed, people are cooperating with the police and still he wants to create an state of emergency. For what reason?
And attorney general has put the National Guard on alert. I want to know the whole world, that these dirty politicians are the ones who are destroying democracy in America. We will fight for democracy and we will fight for human rights. We are not going to allow them to harass innocent people.
We are not taking the law in our hands, but if they do not do anything, then my communes in Germany will start suing them in the courts, because they have deceived the German communes also of money and not small amount, forty-three million dollars. If they move and hide in Switzerland, then my commune is going to reveal to the police that Sheela has committed bigamy. Her husband is here, American husband. He was also poisoned. Because he did not die, she went away and married a Swiss sannyasin, just to remain in Switzerland. She has committed bigamy.
So we will see. If these people don’t do anything, still we will find laws. In India she cannot enter, because there she has committed many crimes. And now we are informing Indian government, ten million dollars, books she has brought from India and she has not paid back the money to the Indian foundation.
Could you elaborate a bit on this conspiracy that you allege?
Right now it is very difficult, what is in their mind, because they don’t open their mind. Even I have been just now in interview with the attorney general, and I said it again and again, that your case has gone down the drain. He did not answer that. You know politicians are very clever not to speak what is in their mind, what they want to do. But whatever is their mind, we are alert.
John McCoy,
Seattle Post Intelligencer.
You said earlier that you were not the head of a religion, you were not a prophet, you are not a savior, you are a meditator among friends, among fellow meditators. Why then are you so remote? Why are you in the chair, you in the Rolls Royce, not available except at these discourses to your fellow meditators?
Because I have achieved. They are on the way. And obviously so many people cannot be accommodated in this chair.
How about the Rolls Royces? Many could be accommodated there!
They all belong to these people; nothing belongs to me, I don’t anything.
Will they ride in those cars?
They don’t want. I had offered, I had asked the trustees who own the Rolls Royces that give them to the sannyasins. They are not willing. They say because I have used them, for them they have become immensely valuable and they will keep them as memorial. So they do not want to give and sannyasins don’t want to take either. And sannyasins have enough cars.
The commune has almost more cars than any city can claim, hundred buses, five airplanes and nowhere to go!
Eric Follet,
Stern Magazine
You would like to make your friends here in the commune self-reliant in every way, material as well as spiritual, not dependent on you anymore.
That’s right.
Does it not mean that your final and most logical goal must be to dissolve the commune and leave it?
My commune does not consist of idiots; it is an commune of very much intelligent people. And many intelligent people whom Sheela has driven out, out of fear, because they were more intelligent than her and she was afraid. Any moment they can take over and manage better. They are all coming back. The chancellor of the university, the vice-chancellor of the university, all old sannyasins with all the education possible in the world. We have geniuses, scientific, who can do miracles, who can start producing anything we want. We have best surgeons, one of the best plastic surgeon. We can have one of the best hospital in America, where people will have to come. We can open industries, we can open businesses. We have all kinds of geniuses, there is no problem.
Money is not a problem at all. Money is the simplest thing in the world. I have lived without money my whole life and I have lived as richly as anybody can live. Perhaps even kings and presidents cannot live so richly. And I don’t have a single cent. I have not even seen how one dollar bill looks like. I don’t have even pockets, because I have nothing to keep in my pockets. But I have people who can manage anything.
When Sheela left she told few sannyasins that, “Now it will be difficult for you to arrange more Rolls Royces for Osho.” The sannyasin simply laughed. And after she has left they dropped the regular Rolls Royce, they have started purchasing limousines. Now I have got six limousines. Soon ninety limousines will be there!
Are these German limousines by chance, German cars?
Yes, I love. Now I am chauffeur driven, I am not driving myself. You can see outside my latest limousine there. And Rolls Royce is making one special limousine which will take one and half year, which will be one of its kind in the whole world. It will cost half million dollars.
My people can arrange anything, there is no problem. So don’t be worried about money. And I am not against wealth, I am not against luxury, I am not a masochist ascetic. If we can enjoy paradise here, then why wait for death?
And I have not seen in any religious scripture that Rolls Royces are available in paradise. I think Jesus must be still moving on his donkey. Poor fellow, here was also moving on his donkey, in paradise the only Son of God still moving on donkey. Let them move, what we can do?
The little book which you ordered to be burned today contains almost nothing else but quotes of you, which you use in quite similar form in your other books. Does that mean that you will burn all your books one day?
No, those are simply books and this was Sheela’s effort to make a holy book. We have burned a holy book.
Bill Harlem,
Denver Post Colorado
This morning you mentioned several requests from local people for peace offerings from you. I believe you mentioned a Methodist that wanted a Rolls Royce. You said that these people be offering peace offerings. Could you be more specific, what would you consider a peace offering from the local community?
Just a rose flower will do. But they are not even that generous!
Sannyasin told me at the burning this evening, I asked him what the deep meaning of this ceremony was, and he said, “Well, it’s all a big joke.”
That’s right! That is right because I consider sense of humor as one of the most important religious qualities.
Thank you, Osho.
Osho,
The press understands you are going to make a statement first and then they could ask questions.
Beloved Friends,
I welcome you all on this historical event. For the first time in the whole history of mankind a religion has died. I have never wanted it to be born in the first place. But because I was in silence and isolation a gang of fascists managed to create it. It was absolutely necessary that it should be completely destroyed. I am against all religions, because they have done only harm to humanity. They have given you nothing except the disease AIDS - that is their great contribution. Their insistence on celibacy is the cause of all sexual perversions in the world.
They have divided humanity into Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism. There are three hundred religions on the earth. Because of these religions humanity cannot be one. No child is born Hindu or Christian. But these conditioned, forced, in every possible way to adopt a religion of their parents. This is a great crime against human beings, because they are not given the chance to inquire into reality: what is the truth? Even before they have asked the question they are being supplied with the answers, ready-made answers. There whole life they will go on carrying those ready-made answers like parrots and deep down their ignorance will remain the same - there will be no transformation.
Belief is the enemy of truth. Faith is poison to every enquiry. Doubt is innocence and it is not given to you by anybody. You bring it with you, you are born with it. Doubt means questioning, it means quest, it means individual enquiry. All the religions are based on belief systems, that’s why they have crippled human mind. They have kept humanity in a retarded state. Science is based on doubt. Just within three hundred years science has given so much to humanity, that in ten thousand years religion have not been able to do anything comparable to it.
I hate the word ism. And because I was silent Ma Anand Sheela managed to compile a book Rajneeshism. That was not my book. I have never read it - the question of writing does not arise. And today you have seen that is has been cremated. It is an event of great rejoicing, because I don’t want to belong to all those criminals who have given you holy books - no book is holy. All books are just books, either they are good or bad, well written or not well written. How a book can be holy. But once you call a book holy, you become blind. Just look in Holy Bible, there are five hundred pages of sheer pornography. This is your holy book. And this is the book kept in the courts; and you have to take oath on a pornographic book? I don’t want to add anything into this ugly literature. My books are simply books - just as I am simply a human being.
I am not a savior. That is so humiliating to human beings. I am not a messenger; I am not a prophet. Nobody has ever been a savior. Jesus could not save himself even. And what guts, what nerve. He calls himself the shepherd and the whole humanity, sheep. And there are millions of people who don’t feel even insulted.
To what degradation human mind has fallen? Don’t you have any pride of being human? I want to restore your humanity to you and the only way is that I should not be in any special category. I am amongst you, just like you an ordinary human being. With a little difference, very little difference: you are asleep, I am awake. It is my own fault. I am not condemning you. If I can’t sleep, whose fault it is? Not only that I am awake, I go on trying other people to wake up. The reason is: because I have known sleep and I have known all the sweet dreams and all the nightmares, but I have also known the beauties and the blessings of awakening. And I would like to share my experience to everybody.
Hence I am not your leader, you are not my follower. Just being friends is enough, more than enough. Perhaps only in friendship something can transpire between me and you. Only in loving sharing perhaps you may wake up.
I don’t have any catechism, no theology, nothing for you to believe in. I have taken away all psychological nonsense. I have taken away God from you, because that is nothing but a small child’s desire for the protection of the father; it is retardedness. Only retarded people believe in a God; only greedy people believe in heaven; only cowards, people full of fear and paranoia believe in hell. I have taken all those things from you: there is no God, no heaven, no hell.
I want to share only one thing with you, which does not make you a religion, but it certainly makes you a new kind of man. I call that methodology, meditation. It is an inward journey. You have to go alone on it. The crowd cannot go with you. As you go deeper within yourself. Just by witnessing your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings a tremendous mutation happens: thoughts stop, emotions disappear, feelings evaporate, all that is left is pure awareness. And that awareness is your flowering, your ultimate reach beyond which there is nothing. You have arrived home.
Certainly one who reaches to this peak he will have many qualities. Religiousness will be one of those qualities. So you will not be a religion, but you will have a quality of religiousness. What do I mean by religiousness? A gratitude to existence, a love affair with the flowers, with the birds on the wing, with the sunrise, with the sunset, with the trees, with animals, with people. This love affair I call religiousness. From this day you should not think in terms of being a religion, but in terms of being religious: a quality of love, gratitude, a sensitivity for beauty, for music, for poetry and all that makes you ecstatic. The dance comes on its own, the song arises on its own and it is an individual approach.
You are not to follow somebody else’s footsteps, because you are not going outside, you are going inside yourself, where you will not find any footsteps, because nobody can enter in your interiority, in your subjectivity.
Do this because just my silence and isolation gave Anand Sheela and her fascist gang to exploit you. I am going to destroy everything so history never repeats again. I will not be always with you - one day I will have to go. Before that I want to destroy every possibility. I don’t want any popes behind me, any high priestess, any Ayatollah Khomeini. No, I want to leave you alone, so content and fulfilled that you don’t need anybody between you and the truth of existence.
Hence I have withdrawn red cloths. Now all the colors of rainbow are your colors. You can use any color, so you can mix with the wider humanity more easily. And when there are so many colors, why get addicted to one color? But if you love it and if you want to keep it, it is up to you. It is your freedom. You need not wear mala with my picture in the locket, no. You have to go inwards, the mala will be left out. Somebody may steal it, damage it, there is no need of it.
But, it is up to you. I don’t want to enforce anything on anybody. You can use mala if you like, if you can use whenever you like, you can stop using whenever you like. The only thing that you have to remember is don’t forget that life comes to its fulfillment only when you have reached to your innermost center. That is the only truth. Everything else is nonessential. The only essential thing is to realize your being, your silence, your reality. And for that no belief is needed.
Sheela has created a hostility. That’s a simple methodology of all fascist minded people. Create hostility in the neighbors, that makes you dependent on the leaders, because you are afraid. The leaders promise you they will protect you against the enemies. This becomes a great opportunity for them. Now we have to drop all hostility completely. Nobody is our enemy, we are not against anybody and anything that Sheela has done in three and half years, we have to undo it.
City of Rajneesh has to become again Antelope. I have advised the council that, “Please change that name.” Antelope was perfectly beautiful name, and why hurt people who had lived there for generations? And I have offered to Oregonians that if they want they can purchase all the properties belonging to sannyasins and we will vacate Antelope completely, because we have enough land here, three times bigger than New York. So what do we need poor Antelope for?
And just before coming to your press conference, I was delayed in an interview with Attorney General Frohnmeyer. I have told him that now, there is no point in your case against the city of Rajneeshpuram. His only argument was that religion and state are being mixed. Now there is no religion! So while you were burning Rajneeshism, the book, in the crematorium you have burned also poor Frohnmeyer. Now there is no point in it. If religion itself is not there, the city becomes immediately legal.
Any questions?
Richard Wagner,
CBS Network.
Could you explain why you make the statement that religion has given humanity nothing except the disease AIDS? I don’t understand that.
You are right. It has given many more things too.
For instance?
It has given a divided humanity, it has given thousands of wars, bloodshed, murders, burning of living people, it has certainly given many more things.
But specifically, how has religion contributed to AIDS?
Two reasons. One, every religion propagates that celibacy is something spiritual, which is absolute nonsense. Celibacy is unnatural. And there has never been anybody who was celibate unless he was impotent. Your body functions according to its own program. It does not know that you are a Catholic monk. It goes on creating male sperms same way, whether you are Catholic monk or not. What you are going to do with those sperms? The natural repressed is bound to find some perverted way and religions managed monks to live together, nuns to live together, and they are not to meet each other. That was full opportunity for monks to be homosexuals. Homosexuality is a contribution of religions and AIDS is the ultimate outcome of homosexuality. So it is a long chain.
What came first, religion or AIDS?
Religion.
But we all understand that AIDS is a virus. How can a virus be caused by a religion?
Homosexuality can be caused by religion and homosexuality can cause the virus.
Scott Miller,
KGW-TV, Channel 8, Portland (NBC Affiliated)
If in fact you don’t have a religion going here, how can your foundation still claim tax exempt status and won’t that create a problem for you getting donations in the future?
The foundation is to spread meditation which creates a new kind of religiousness, although it is not a religion. It is far better than all the religions. It claims to be a charitable tax exempt status. In fact, no religion should be given any tax exempt status. Because homosexuality is not a charity.
Does what you say include then your foundation here? Do you believe that you should be giving up your tax exempt status?
It is not a religion; it is simply a religiousness. It should be given, it is charitable. It is not going to give AIDS to humanity.
I guess I hear you saying that you are a religion or you are religious for the.
It is totally different.
You are religious when it comes to tax purposes.
No!
But you’re not religious when it comes to.
No! I am not saying that.
. Separation of church and state.
. You are misunderstanding me.
Set me straight then!
So try to understand. I am saying that I am not a religion. We are meditators, we don’t belong to Christianity, to Hinduism, to any organized religion. And we don’t have any organized religion either. We don’t have any beliefs which make a religion. Meditation is a scientific method, but the scientific method can contribute to human growth immensely. It can give you more peace, more silence, more joy and ultimately a feeling of deathlessness.
I call this experience religiousness. And I will claim tax exempt status for it.
I grant you there is a very fine line there, do you think.
I am going to fight for it.
Do you think the Internal Revenue Service will see that fine line that you’ve just described to me?
I will see. I will see how much brains they have.
Bob Chase,
KEX Radio, Portland.
With regard to the investigation that is underway at Rajneeshpuram, I’m wondering if you have subpoenaed to offer any testimony with regard to the investigation?
I have not received any subpoena. In fact I have asked the investigators that I want to be interviewed and four times they gave me the appointment and just fifteen minutes before they informed it is canceled. They seem to be afraid, just taking my interview. I have not received any subpoena. I would love! I want to see your investigators, because I also want to know what is their depth. I can also investigate them. I am waiting for their subpoena; I will enjoy it!
Up to now they have proved very coward. Four times on my request they gave the appointment, FBI, state police, attorney general’s office, county police, all top people are here. And they could not take a single person’s interview. What kind of people you have got? And tell them, if they don’t subpoena me I am going to subpoena them!
Sally Hill,
Associated Press, Portland
At a previous news conference I asked you whether Oregonians and your disciples could ever coexist peacefully and you answered, “never!” yet it seems that these overtures you’re making to Oregonians and those in the former city of Antelope seem to head along those lines. Can you speak to that please?
That time you had escaped the moment I said, “never,” without even waiting that what I am going to say. “Never”: you thought you had understood my meaning. It was a single word, it has many implications. You need some lessons in journalism.
First let me make you aware that I had said “never” for coexistence, because coexistence is a political word, and I hate politics! Secondly, coexistence means you remain hostile to each other but somehow because fate has managed you to be together, so you accept each other unwillingly, just the way America and Soviet “non-coexist.”
I wanted to say that day also, but when I looked I saw you had already left.
I went to get my notebook.
I mean. Coexistence never, because I want one existence. Coexistence is between enemies. I want one existence. We are already four year old Americans, somebody may be hundred year old, somebody may be two hundred year old, we are the latest ones, the most fresh and young. We want one existence. I had refused the coexistence.
How do you intend to go about attaining this one existence?
Because I am withdrawing everything that Sheela has created as a rift. City of Rajneesh was one of the basic rifts. I am changing it again into Antelope, I am offering all the properties that we have purchased from Antelope people back to them, or to anybody who wants to purchase, and we are ready to move from out of Antelope. So Antelope belongs to Antelope people, it is their city and whatever they want to do they can do.
We are ready to drop all the cases against the state if the state understands a simple thing that now there is no religion, they should drop their case of mixing religion with state. We will withdraw all our cases against them. These are the steps that we would like to take. We have put in this desert two hundred million dollars to change it into an oasis.
If the state is helpful, and we don’t want any illegal help, we can change this whole desert into an oasis. We can make it one of the most beautiful holiday spot, a tourist center which will help Oregon’s economy immensely. We are ready to do everything.
Mike Housical, The Globe, USA, The Daily Telegraph, Syndey, Australia, The Star, London, UK.
Sir, you talked earlier about how you would like to leave these people when you finally decide to leave them. Have you decided if you’re going to spend the rest of your days here or have you plans to travel on?
No, I am going to be here.
Forever?
Forever. Green card or no green card, I am going to be here forever!
You don’t have plans to open any other communes in any other parts of the world?
Yes, I have all over the world so many communes, almost in every country.
But the people come here for three months, four months, to stay with me, and then go back. I am going to remain here. If Oregon or American government wants me to travel then they should issue tomorrow my green card. Then perhaps I may start thinking of traveling!
But it is not a promise - I am saying, perhaps.
Linda Kramer,
San Francisco Examiner
Regarding your comments on AIDS, should practicing homosexuals leave the commune?
We are trying, the whole commune, six thousand people, have gone through the vigorous tests to know whether they have AIDS or not. We have found only two persons and few homosexuals. Out of these two persons, one has died; only one remains. We are providing him everything, love, respect, because he is only a victim. The real criminals are there in the Vatican.
And the homosexuals - I am telling them that you start dropping this habit and move towards heterosexuality. And they will do it, because they can see what is the outcome of it. Now no homosexual can say that they are more progressive then heterosexuals, that they are avant-garde, that they are far ahead intellectually, these heterosexuals are lagging behind just like animals. No, they cannot say that. AIDS has stopped all their mouths. It has proved that homosexuality is a degradation.
So we will change them. And we have all kinds of therapies and those homosexuals have to go through all the therapies. We are going to deprogram them from their homosexuality.
Would you discourage people who don’t wish to lose the habit from coming to you.
Then they can leave! We don’t want homosexuals here because they are potentials for AIDS. Either they have to change or they have to leave. The choice is theirs. Okay?
Jerry Thompson,
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I wonder if you could tell us what you know about where Sheela is now and the latest. We in Canada haven’t really heard all the news and the statements you have made about the attempted murder, the arson, wiretap, and various other things like that. So could you tell those in Canada who don’t know anything about this what the story is behind that, what happened and why?
You are too late! That story is old. We create new stories. That story you can find in old newspapers and other places.
Do you expect ever to see her again, or have you said your last words to her?
I am perfectly willing if she is courageous enough, she should come here and face me before the commune. She is making allegations which are absolute lies and she is hiding like a criminal in Black Forest in Germany. Now if she has not committed any crime, why she has escaped? If others have committed the crime, they should have escaped. Her escape is proof enough.
And the whole gang that has gone with her, they are all involved, because sannyasins are going and telling it to the police, to the FBI, revealing all the facts and they have found all the evidences. All the houses were bugged. And they have created far more sophisticated mechanisms than Nixon had used. Every telephone was taped. We have found all the mechanism that they were using; all that has been given to the police.
They had left in their room, in Sheela’s room, literature on poisons, literature on how to kill people, and they had attempted three persons to kill. And one of them was my own personal physician. He suspected that this poison is a certain poison which is not detectable. So he was examined here, in Bend, and doctors said that, “There is no disease, but you are certainly sick and the only explanation is that some poison has been given to you which is not detectable.”
When Sheela left we found the literature in her room. In one of the books the only poison that is underlined is the same which my physician was suspecting, the undetectable poison is underlined. That is the only poison that is underlined in the whole literature. So they were giving that poison to many people, now many other people have come because nobody ordinarily thinks is somebody offers you a cup of tea and you become suddenly sick, you don’t immediately think of poison. You think perhaps you are sick, you rush to the doctor and doctor cannot find any disease. He says, “Just rest.” What else can be done about it?
We have found in their literature books how to make bombs and we have found chemicals and other material which makes bombs.
They had killed one person, they overdosed him, one of the street people that they had brought here to take over the county. And three thousand people were keeping drugged completely for twenty-one days so that whatever she wants, they will do. They were like robots. And drums of drugs have been imported from outside America, because to purchase from here will become a problem, what you did with all those drugs? So those drugs were purchased from outside America and were brought in.
One of the street people they overdosed; he died on the spot. They simply threw his body outside Rancho Rajneesh. The police has found the body, but they could not figure out what has happened to the person, who was the person, because he was a street man, no address from where he has come, no identity card, nothing. So they simply dropped the case. Now people are coming up and saying that he had died here in the city and they had dragged him out.
They burned the planning office in The Dalles and now there is absolute evidence of one sannyasin who had driven the people who bombed, burned the office and she drew them back. She had gone with Sheela, afraid that she may be caught, but in Seattle she started feeling that it is better to be caught than to carry this guilt whole life and then to remain like a criminal in a foreign land. So from Seattle she came back and she confessed and she has confessed all other crimes of the group, because she was on intimate of the whole company.
So every evidence is there now. If they want to catch those people, they should not wait long.
Do you think that her intention was merely to take over and replace you, or did she have some other bigger plan in mind?
No, certainly this was the. Because even my milk was poisoned. Not in such a dose that I will die, but in such a dose that I will not come out of my silence; so I became. Remain sick and I don’t feel like speaking. She was afraid of my speaking to the people again because that will certainly expose her. And that’s what happened. She wanted to become the chief priestess of the religion, controlling so much money, so many people. I have one million sannyasins around the world. To control one million people around the world, all the communes, all the money; she was almost in a position of a queen!
And she has come from a very low class. She was just a hotel waitress.
Are you making any attempt, is your organization making any attempt to track her down and deal with her own your own?
No, we are not making any attempt, we are giving every evidence to the police. We don’t want to take law in our own hands. There is no need.
Mike Zeilinzinger,
Night Rider newspapers
Even before the recent rift as you describe it, law enforcement agencies were already here, already looking at records. Not in the commune, but were already investigating this operation. now that they are here, now that many outsiders have come to look into the files and look into the books and look into the tape recordings that have been discovered, do you fear that whole process may destroy this place and destroy what’s going on here?
No. They may try, because I don’t trust this attorney general. He may take the advantage to harass sannyasins. I have heard the rumor that he plans at least to arrest one thousand sannyasins which are absolutely innocent and he is not trying to take any action against the criminals. But as far as commune is concerned, there is no problem. We are giving them every evidence, we are absolutely open, we have given them space inside the commune and they are free to move and find whatsoever they want. And sannyasins themselves are going to them and giving information.
But attorney general’s interest seems to be not to catch the criminals, but take an advantage of the situation and destroy the commune. I will not allow this to happen. The governor and attorney general both are in conspiracy against the city. The governor wants to bring emergency on the city. Strange, you are here, there is no riots, there are nobody who is murdered, killed, people are cooperating with the police and still he wants to create an state of emergency. For what reason?
And attorney general has put the National Guard on alert. I want to know the whole world, that these dirty politicians are the ones who are destroying democracy in America. We will fight for democracy and we will fight for human rights. We are not going to allow them to harass innocent people.
We are not taking the law in our hands, but if they do not do anything, then my communes in Germany will start suing them in the courts, because they have deceived the German communes also of money and not small amount, forty-three million dollars. If they move and hide in Switzerland, then my commune is going to reveal to the police that Sheela has committed bigamy. Her husband is here, American husband. He was also poisoned. Because he did not die, she went away and married a Swiss sannyasin, just to remain in Switzerland. She has committed bigamy.
So we will see. If these people don’t do anything, still we will find laws. In India she cannot enter, because there she has committed many crimes. And now we are informing Indian government, ten million dollars, books she has brought from India and she has not paid back the money to the Indian foundation.
Could you elaborate a bit on this conspiracy that you allege?
Right now it is very difficult, what is in their mind, because they don’t open their mind. Even I have been just now in interview with the attorney general, and I said it again and again, that your case has gone down the drain. He did not answer that. You know politicians are very clever not to speak what is in their mind, what they want to do. But whatever is their mind, we are alert.
John McCoy,
Seattle Post Intelligencer.
You said earlier that you were not the head of a religion, you were not a prophet, you are not a savior, you are a meditator among friends, among fellow meditators. Why then are you so remote? Why are you in the chair, you in the Rolls Royce, not available except at these discourses to your fellow meditators?
Because I have achieved. They are on the way. And obviously so many people cannot be accommodated in this chair.
How about the Rolls Royces? Many could be accommodated there!
They all belong to these people; nothing belongs to me, I don’t anything.
Will they ride in those cars?
They don’t want. I had offered, I had asked the trustees who own the Rolls Royces that give them to the sannyasins. They are not willing. They say because I have used them, for them they have become immensely valuable and they will keep them as memorial. So they do not want to give and sannyasins don’t want to take either. And sannyasins have enough cars.
The commune has almost more cars than any city can claim, hundred buses, five airplanes and nowhere to go!
Eric Follet,
Stern Magazine
You would like to make your friends here in the commune self-reliant in every way, material as well as spiritual, not dependent on you anymore.
That’s right.
Does it not mean that your final and most logical goal must be to dissolve the commune and leave it?
My commune does not consist of idiots; it is an commune of very much intelligent people. And many intelligent people whom Sheela has driven out, out of fear, because they were more intelligent than her and she was afraid. Any moment they can take over and manage better. They are all coming back. The chancellor of the university, the vice-chancellor of the university, all old sannyasins with all the education possible in the world. We have geniuses, scientific, who can do miracles, who can start producing anything we want. We have best surgeons, one of the best plastic surgeon. We can have one of the best hospital in America, where people will have to come. We can open industries, we can open businesses. We have all kinds of geniuses, there is no problem.
Money is not a problem at all. Money is the simplest thing in the world. I have lived without money my whole life and I have lived as richly as anybody can live. Perhaps even kings and presidents cannot live so richly. And I don’t have a single cent. I have not even seen how one dollar bill looks like. I don’t have even pockets, because I have nothing to keep in my pockets. But I have people who can manage anything.
When Sheela left she told few sannyasins that, “Now it will be difficult for you to arrange more Rolls Royces for Osho.” The sannyasin simply laughed. And after she has left they dropped the regular Rolls Royce, they have started purchasing limousines. Now I have got six limousines. Soon ninety limousines will be there!
Are these German limousines by chance, German cars?
Yes, I love. Now I am chauffeur driven, I am not driving myself. You can see outside my latest limousine there. And Rolls Royce is making one special limousine which will take one and half year, which will be one of its kind in the whole world. It will cost half million dollars.
My people can arrange anything, there is no problem. So don’t be worried about money. And I am not against wealth, I am not against luxury, I am not a masochist ascetic. If we can enjoy paradise here, then why wait for death?
And I have not seen in any religious scripture that Rolls Royces are available in paradise. I think Jesus must be still moving on his donkey. Poor fellow, here was also moving on his donkey, in paradise the only Son of God still moving on donkey. Let them move, what we can do?
The little book which you ordered to be burned today contains almost nothing else but quotes of you, which you use in quite similar form in your other books. Does that mean that you will burn all your books one day?
No, those are simply books and this was Sheela’s effort to make a holy book. We have burned a holy book.
Bill Harlem,
Denver Post Colorado
This morning you mentioned several requests from local people for peace offerings from you. I believe you mentioned a Methodist that wanted a Rolls Royce. You said that these people be offering peace offerings. Could you be more specific, what would you consider a peace offering from the local community?
Just a rose flower will do. But they are not even that generous!
Sannyasin told me at the burning this evening, I asked him what the deep meaning of this ceremony was, and he said, “Well, it’s all a big joke.”
That’s right! That is right because I consider sense of humor as one of the most important religious qualities.
Thank you, Osho.