Truth is found in your own boutique

Question 1:

Religion as such does not exist yet; hence, whatever is known as religion should remain separate from the state for the simple reason that it is not religion - it is pseudo, fake.

You cannot ask the same question in reference to science. Can you ask that science and state should remain separate? Nobody even thinks about science's separation for the simple reason that science exists, has come of age, has contributed immensely to human growth, welfare, health, longevity.

In every possible way science has been a blessing.

Hence, nobody will think of science remaining separate from the state.

Religion has not been a blessing yet.

It has been a curse.

But remember, it is not religion.

It is pseudo-religion.

Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Mohammedanism - these are all cults. These are all exploiting humanity in the name of religion. They are not religions at all. They are superstitions.

Of course superstitions should remain separate from the state. What kind of superstition it is does not matter: Hindu, Christian, Jewish. Superstition of all shapes and sizes should be kept as far away from the state as possible because the state is power, and if superstitions become joined with power they can do immense harm. They are doing immense harm even without the state. They have managed to create power of their own, they have their own generators. That's what is meant by "organized religion".

A religious person has no power.

He is humble. Not that he has practiced humbleness, he simple enjoys being humble. He has simply understood the stupidity and suffering of the ego, and by that sheer understanding, all that nonsense has disappeared. Suddenly he finds himself humble, egoless; he is harmless.

But organized religion is nothing but politics in the name of religion. And the people who organize it are not religious, cannot be. The popes, the shankaracharyas, the imams, the rabbis - these people are not religious at all for the simple reason that they are full of knowledgeability, while a religious man knows he knows nothing. He knows that existence is so mysterious, there is no way to reduce it into knowledge. He is mystified by existence.

A truly religious person is a mystic.

He is a poet - not writing poetry, but living poetry.

He is a painter - not painting on the canvas but painting on his own consciousness continuously.

He is a musician; he may have never touched any instrument but he is continuously playing on his own inner being a music which cannot be translated in any way, cannot be brought from those higher realms of being to the lower, darker valleys of our life.

He is a dancer; he may not move from one posture but his being is in a continual dance.

A religious person cannot be Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan. To be religious is to be so vast you cannot confine it in such small prisons - churches, sects, creeds, dogmas.

A religious man has no catechism.

He knows love, he knows truth, he knows beauty, he knows authenticity. But he also knows that these values are impossible to express. You can live them, you can be them - that is the only way of expressing them. But you cannot say. You can show, but you cannot say.

Christians in India asked me again and again, "Why don't you make a small book containing your religious vision, just as we have the Christian catechism?"

I said, "You can, because you are not religious. I cannot, because I am religious. My experience is so vast that no words are capable of containing it."

Religion has not ever existed up to now. Only once in a while has there been a religious person.

And whenever there has been a religious person, soon the pseudo-religious people, politicians with religious masks, gathered around. It is not Jesus who created Christianity. It is not Buddha who created Buddhism. It is not Mahavira who created Jainism.

Very strange, almost unbelievable .... Jesus was crucified by the Romans because Judea was a slave country under the Roman empire and what a strange fate, that Rome became the citadel of Christianity! It still remains the citadel of Christianity.

Mahavira fought against Hindus and particularly brahmins, the priestly class among Hindus - and his religion was founded by eleven brahmins, all brahmin scholars. He fought his whole life against brahminism, and finally the people who made his religion were no one but the brahmins. And they were perfectly efficient in creating a religion, they had all the experience of ages. They have been, for centuries, the priests ... because in India it is decided by your birth what your profession is going to be.

Your profession is going to be just the same as your father's; if he was a shoemaker, you will be a shoemaker, and your children will be shoemakers. This has been going on for ten thousand years. It is very ugly in a way, that there is no freedom of movement, in life you cannot move and change; but in a way, very economical, very efficient economically. Humanly it is ugly, but economically nothing could be better than that ....

A child is born in a brahmin's house: from his very first day he lives in the climate of being a priest.

From his very childhood he is being respected by the whole society. He need not be taught, he simply catches it from his climate. By the time he is a young man he knows all the ins and outs of priesthood; when he is initiated into priesthood he is all ready. Economically this is a very perfect arrangement.

So the eleven brahmins who consolidated Mahavira's teachings when he died turned the whole clock backwards. Whatever Mahavira had done they managed to undo - and in such a sophisticated, intelligent way that not even now, after twenty-five centuries, have Jainas recognized that they have been ruled by the brahmins against whom Mahavira's whole life was dedicated. He fought these same people who have since then been ruling.

The same happened with Buddha. He was not a brahmin, he was a chhatriya, the warrior caste, lower than the brahmin. Brahmin is the highest caste, the warrior is number two in status. And Buddha rebelled against it. He said, "Nobody comes by birth as a brahmin or a warrior or a business man; these things one has to learn. One becomes what one does."

Brahmins were very much against Buddha because the warriors are not supposed to be priests; their duty is to fight. And when Buddha started preaching, this was against the whole tradition - he was trying to be a brahmin, and he was born a chhatriya. This is pure and simple rebellion. But Buddha was of great charismatic personality. He managed to influence millions of people, and when the brahmins saw that this man could not be destroyed by easy and ordinary means they started organizing Buddha's teachings. They started organizing Buddhism. And when Buddha died the people who wrote his scriptures were all brahmins.

You will be surprised that in India, the priest of the temple where Buddha became enlightened is still a brahmin. For twenty-five centuries the same family has provided the priest of the temple.

The temple stands as a memorial of Buddha's enlightenment. But the brahmins who were his contemporaries simply denied that he was enlightened - to them, except for a brahmin, nobody can be enlightened. Before your enlightenment you will be born as a brahmin. So in your other lives all that you can earn is a life as a brahmin.

From all your good deeds, your morality, your character, this will be your earning - that you will be born as a brahmin. Then the doors open for you, you can become enlightened - but nobody can jump the class barrier. And Buddha did exactly that: he just bypassed the brahmins and entered the world of nirvana. This is impossible, unforgivable! His contemporaries could not accept Buddha as enlightened or a wise man; they thought him just a nuisance, a disturbance. But when he died he left such a tremendous impact on millions of people that brahmins were clever enough to see this was not an opportunity to be missed.

They were not like the Jews, who missed the whole opportunity of Jesus. If the Jews had been as clever as the brahmins, the moment they had crucified Jesus, the second thing would have been to create a religion around Jesus. In both ways they would have profited - I am using their term.

Nobody would have ever condemned them for crucifying Jesus because they would have been the popes, they would have been the representatives of Jesus. And they could have managed to interpolate all his teachings with Judaism. There was no difficulty; Jesus was a jew, he was speaking in the Jewish language, he was speaking within the Jewish religion. The interpolation would not have been very difficult.

It was very difficult with Buddha. It was difficult with Mahavira because Mahavira was speaking a totally different language. But the brahmins were clever enough to change the whole climate around Mahavira, around Buddha; they created bogus pseudo-religions - but organized. And they have been exploiting since then.

Organized religion is one of the ugliest things that has happened in history. And the state should remain separate from organized religion, because organized religion is nothing but all kinds of superstitions - beliefs - beliefs without any evidence, doctrines, creeds, which go against every scientific discovery and invention. The state should not support any pseudo-religion, any organized religion. That is supporting charlatans, cheats, deceivers, exploiters, parasites.

Let me summarize what I am saying. I am saying: religions should not be mixed with the state because there is no religion yet. And whatever exists in the name of religion is not religion. That brings me to a totally different understanding.

Religion is in the process of birth.

Just as it took three hundred years for science to come of age, if humanity survives, then religion will also come of age. That day it will be sheer stupidity to say that state and religion should remain separate, because it will mean that all which is valuable in life and all that is great in existence should remain separate from the state - that the state should not be benefited by the enlightened ones, that the state should continue to exist in its dark world of politics, dirty in every possible way, that it should never see the light.

Yes, today I agree that the state should remain separate from religions. Remember, I am saying it should remain separate from religions - I am using the word in the plural.

But when religion comes of age - religion in the singular, just as science is singular - then it will be simply stupid to keep state and religion separate.

Then you have to translate religion into what it actually is: then it is love, then it is understanding, then it is silence, peace. Then it is wisdom, meditativeness; then it is intelligence, pure intelligence.

All these qualities, values, enrich life; they will enrich the state. By the sheer presence of an authentic religion the politicians will start dropping their dirty ways, their cunning policies. They will start feeling ashamed. Religion will function like a mirror, and politicians seeing their own faces - which they have never seen, because to see your face your need a mirror ....

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin found a mirror on the street. He looked into it and said, "My God!

I never thought that my father had gone to a photographer; that old man, I never thought he was so fashionable. But it is good that although he is dead, at least I have got his photograph." He came home, fearing that his wife ....

Just the way wives are, husbands are; the husband hates not only the wife but all the relatives of the wife. Strange, those relatives have done nothing - or perhaps they have, because if the father and the mother had not been there in the world, at least this wife would not have been produced. And the wives hate all the relatives of their husbands. Their hatred is so much that only to focus it on the husband is not sufficient; it spills all over.

Afraid that if his wife found the photograph she would burn it immediately, Nasruddin went upstairs in the attic and somewhere managed to hide the photograph - which was not a photograph at all, just a mirror. But you cannot hide anything from your wife. That has not been possible since there have been husbands and wives. You cannot hide. His wife was doing her work, but seeing from the corner of her eye that he has brought something, is hiding it in the attic - "I will take a look at it. Let him first do his thing."

Nasruddin came down. As he came down he passed his wife; she was going up. He said, "Where are you going?"

She said, "The same place from where you are coming."

The wife went up and found the mirror. She looked into it and said, "My God! So this is the woman he is after. In his old age, the father of two dozen children - but I will teach him a lesson. And he is hiding her photograph in my house.

Without a mirror you can't see your face.

The politician has remained dirty, ugly, for the simple reason that he has no mirror. And the mirror is possible only from a higher consciousness. It has to be a mirror of consciousness, no ordinary mirror will do. It is not his physical face which he will see - it is his corrupted soul.

When the true religion comes of age, religion, without any effort on anybody's part, will become the light of everybody: of the teacher in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities; of the state, of hospitals. A true religion is bound to overwhelm all values of life.

My effort here is to create an unorganized religion.

Hence, I call it religionless religion to emphasize the fact that it is not an organized religion; that I am not your leader, your messiah, your prophet; that I do not bring to you the word of God; that I am not in any way special.

These are the ways of the old pseudo-religions.

Everyone tries to prove that the founder of his religion is the only true messenger of God. God Himself is a fiction, and from that fiction they go on deriving more and more fictions - the true messenger of God, another fiction. Then the true message from the messenger - another fiction.

It becomes so complicated that unless you deny God Himself you cannot deny anything; then you have to follow every detail of the whole superstitious structure. And all these religions prove that their book is written by God ....

I am not claiming anything; hence you cannot organize a religion around me.

I am making every effort to create barriers, hindrances, for those who will try to make a religion organized around my teachings.

In the first place it is impossible to find out what my teachings are. Anybody is going to go nuts finding out what my teachings are, because I have not been teaching at all. These are not gospels that I am giving to you, they are simply gossips. Now, have you ever heard of any religion being created around gossips?

I am not giving you a message from God.

I simply enjoy talking, I love it!

In India, my dentist used to tell me, "At least when I am working on your teeth you should stop talking." Just five minutes work takes two hours! - because the poor fellow had to stop. Of course he is my disciple so he could not tell me to stop, to shut up. I say that many times to him while he is doing dentistry - it is, of course, difficult to do dentistry on me - I tell him many times, "Shut up!" If his gas is not running well I tell him, "Hit the cylinder!" And he has to hit it, because I insist, "You hit the cylinder." And he was surprised that by hitting it, it works.

My dental nurse was also there. I always have a woman there in case I need some support - then I cannot rely on a man. So I go on telling her, "Keep an eye on the doctor. Don't listen to him, listen to me because I am your Master. He is not your Master." So the poor nurse has to listen to me!

They could not talk loudly because I would hear, and they had to talk while I was talking, to discuss what to do - the work had to be done. So they started whispering. I said, "No whispering at all! At least in front of me, no affairs, no whispering. Speak clearly so that I can hear what is going on."

So my dentist was saying, "With you talking it takes two hours, three hours." He said, "You say all kinds of things."

There was a time when he started taking notes - what else to do? "If he insists on talking and won't allow me to work, it is better to take notes of what he is saying - they may be useful later on." He has compiled a whole book - it will be coming soon. It must be a unique book in the whole history of mankind: a man talking under dentistry, in the dentist's chair. People want to escape from the dentist's chair - I enjoy it.

I simply love talking.

It does not matter what I am talking about. What matters is, that I am talking and you are listening.

The essential religion happens there, in my talking and your listening.

In that meeting, the essential religion happens.

So you cannot find out any teaching. You cannot reduce it to ten commandments - do this, don't do that. That kind of thing you cannot find because one day I will say, "Do this," and another day I will say, "Don't do this." It is impossible to manage all my contradictions.

It is easy with Jesus, because what contradictions can there be in just those four gospels - which are not even four - just one gospel written by four persons, each a little different version of the same thing. What contradictions? And he is not a man of logic who will think in contradictions or talk in contradictions. He is not attuned to the very deep esoteric traditions of religion, which talk in paradoxes. His teaching is simple, so you can make a catechism, you can organize a church.

With me it is going to be tremendously difficult, impossible. I want it to be impossible because I want you to remain individual religious persons. If you are together here, that is just a friendly togetherness, not a commitment; not in any way are you sacrificing your freedom, your independence, your individuality.

How can you organize a religion around a man who teaches you disobedience, rebellion?

All these teachers are responsible; although others organized the religion, these teachers are responsible. If I meet Mahavira and Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed, I am not going to forgive them so easily. They cannot just use the excuse: "When we died others organized the religion." I will tell them, "But you left the message in such a way that it could be organized. Who is responsible for that? You should have made arrangements to make it impossible to be organized."

If there had been no organized religion on the earth we would have seen a totally different flowering of humanity. A different fragrance would have been there on this earth, not this stink that you can see everywhere, in every church, in every temple, in every mosque, in every synagogue. It is through organization.

Organization immediately becomes power.

Now, six hundred million Catholics organized under one leader - it is power. Otherwise the pope is just an ordinary polack. But the crowd that follows him ... and the crowd is following Jesus Christ - and not even Jesus Christ; the crowd is following God .... It is a very strange game. They can't see God's back, whom they are following. They can't even see Jesus' back, whom they are following.

They can see only this polack pope. But he consoles them by telling them, "I am directly connected to Jesus, to God." These people have direct phone lines.

I don't have any phone, not even a phone line from here to Jesus Grove, what to say about Jesus and what to say about God? I have no phone lines, for the simple reason that I don't want to be disturbed by these people. But all these religious leaders in some way implied that they have a direct connection with the ultimate source of life and existence.

I don't have any direct connection with any ultimate source of life.

I have only a connection with the immediate life - not the ultimate, the immediate.

My whole emphasis is herenow.

This very moment is all to me.

You cannot create a religion around me.

You can dance around me, you can sing around me, you can paint around me. You can do a thousand things around me, but you cannot do politics around me. And if you do then you are an idiot. Then you are simply wasting your time, you are in the wrong place. If you want to play politics, be somewhere else. Here, finally you will realize that you wasted your time, this was not the place for politics.

My religion is only a quality, a religiousness.

This is the problem for politicians to understand. They think that here in our city, state and religion are mixing. They are absolutely wrong. There, state and religiousness are one, not mixing; there is no question of mixing. What do you mean by mixing? In Washington they are mixing, in Salem they are mixing. Here, they cannot mix - here, they are one, because here religion is not Christianity, is not Hinduism.

Here, religion is only a silence of the heart.

Now, won't you allow a teacher to teach silently, peacefully, joyously? Won't you allow a teacher to have these religious qualities? Won't you allow the school to have the climate of love? Of truth?

Of sincerity? Of so much authenticity that work becomes worship? Won't you allow a school to be religious in this sense?

Then you don't understand education, you don't understand religion, you don't understand anything at all. You don't even understand the basic meaning of the word "education." The attorney general of Oregon needs to look in the dictionary for the basic meaning of education. To me he seems to be absolutely uneducated, illiterate.

The word "education" means drawing out whatsoever is the potential of the person. Educating means "drawing out," just the way you draw water from a well. The water is there, already there; you have to draw it out, then you can quench your thirst. The word "education" means drawing out.

And drawing out truth from a man - which is there, just laying, it has to be awakened; drawing out love - which is there, it has to be mined; drawing out authenticity, compassion - which are all there; somebody just has to knock at the right door.

This is religion:

Knocking at the right doors of human potentiality.

My teachers will be religious, my students here will be religious, because to me religion is not something that is only on Sunday; for one hour, you become religious in the church.

Just today Vivek gave me a cream - she felt that some rough skin had come on my face. I looked at the cream and I really enjoyed what was written on it. Cream apart, what was written on it was, "Seventh Day Scrub." Great! It is the name of the cream - "seventh day scrub cream." Six days you work, seventh day you scrub.

I said, "This cream is religious. And if the attorney general of Oregon comes to know about this cream mixing with people's faces ... but that's what God must have done: used the seventh day scrub. Six days creating the world, naturally he must have collected all kinds of dirt, and needed a good scrub. My religion is not seventh-day scrub cream.

To me religion is not something separate from life - or separable.

You are religious or you are not. It is not that for one hour per week you become religious, that is impossible. That is almost like saying that every Sunday for one hour you breathe, and then for six days no more breathing, because you have to do other kinds of work. Breathing continues seven days, day in, day out. Even when you are asleep the breathing continues.

My sannyasin is religious even when he is asleep. Even when he is dying he is religious because religion is a new way of the heart beating in tune with existence. When your heart starts beating in harmony with existence, you feel an at-one-ment with the trees, with the rocks, with people, with animals. You start feeling a relatedness. You are part of an organic mystery, and you are so filled with this mystery that whether you are a mayor or governor or a president does not make any difference.

If the president is allowed to breathe, if the president is allowed to live, if he is allowed to have his pulse continue and his heart continue to beat, won't you allow his innermost core, his being to be in tune with existence, to pulsate with existence? In fact that should be the most basic requirement for anybody to be the president of a country.

In my city everything is religious, but religious in my sense. I am changing the whole meaning of religion. No religion is being taught in the school - nobody is taught that there is a God, that Jesus Christ is His prophet. Nothing is taught but we live religiously, we walk religiously, we eat religiously.

You cannot stop it.

A state has no value compared to such religiousness. We can sacrifice everything for it, but we cannot sacrifice this religiousness. This is our very life. And it is a question of twenty-four hours a day. There is no possibility of dividing, so that from eleven to five you are mayor, so you are not religious - at eleven you put your religion in the suitcase and lock it so that it is not stolen, then go to the office. This is sheer nonsense, and the people who go on talking this way are continually doing the same stupid thing - which is not happening here.

This attorney general is going to take the oath on THE BIBLE. I would like my commune to fight this man to the Supreme Court. Drag him, ask him, "Why THE BIBLE? The case is secondary, first the oath has to be considered. Why THE BIBLE? Why in the name of God? If this is not mixing religion with state then what will be? First prove God; otherwise it is a superstition."

We don't mix. Even if God comes here to Rajneeshpuram I don't think any of my sannyasins are going to mix with Him. He will be just an outcast. Just the idea that He thinks He is God will be enough for my people to laugh and tell Him, "You get lost."

Take an oath on THE BIBLE? - why? THE BIBLE is full of lies, and you are taking an oath to remain truthful, on a book which is full of lies! You can ask any scientist; the book is full of lies. The earth is flat in THE BIBLE - and you are taking an oath on flat earth! In the very oath you are lying; the earth is not flat.

Or you take the oath in the name of God, whom you have never seen. The judge has no idea who this guy God is. Why can't you be simply human? If you really want to say truth, say it! If you don't want to say truth, don't say it. That is the business of the whole court, to find out that it is a lie. The oath makes no sense. For what does the court exist? The juries, the judges, the advocates of the other party, they will all find out whether it is true or not.

Asking you to take oath .... In India once I was in a court. I refused to take the oath; I said, "I cannot take an oath in the name of God. I don't know this fellow. First you have to produce Him, I must see Him. Who is this fellow on whose name I am taking an oath? And why should I take an oath on the name of somebody to whom I have not even been introduced?

The judge said, "Okay, then on the SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA?

I said, "The SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA? - which is full of lies and statements of a man, Krishna, whom you cannot trust, who has broken his own promises, who was not a man of his word." He said he would not fight in the Mahabharat war, he would only be a charioteer. That was his promise given to the other party - because both parties had approached him and asked him, "Fight for our side."

But he was a very clever and cunning man.

He was having an afternoon nap when Arjuna and Duryodhana, the heads of both the parties, reached there. Duryodhana was a very haughty and egoistic type of man. He sat near the head of Krishna. Arjuna was humble; he sat near the feet of Krishna, so naturally Krishna's eyes first saw Arjuna. And he said, "Why have you come?"

Arjuna said, "Not only I - my brother Duryodhana is also there, sitting behind your head. We both have come - I have come to ask you to participate in the war from my side, and he has come to request you to participate from his side."

Krishna was very clever, he was a politician par excellence. He said, "Because I saw you first, you have the choice. I give you this choice: Both of you are my relatives, both are my friends; from one side I will fight, from another side my army will fight. You can choose."

Duryodhana was very much afraid; he was just a stupid type of man, he could not understand subtler things. He thought, "Now Arjuna will choose the army." Krishna had the biggest army, the most sophisticated, technically-equipped army. "He will choose the army, what will I do with Krishna?

It is already finished." But Arjuna chose Krishna.

Arjuna said, "This is my good fortune that you gave me the chance to choose - I was afraid .... I choose you; Duryodhana can have your army."

Now Duryodhana became a little alert - there seems to be something fishy! Arjuna is so happy choosing Krishna alone, leaving the whole army, the biggest in the world at that time, to Duryodhana.

Duryodhana said, "This is not fair because you alone are more important" - this was all lies. "You alone are more important than your whole army. We will miss you. Without your guidance what are we going to do with your army? I want one promise more: you will not fight."

It was known, it was the myth, that Krishna had a divine wheel, a chakra, which was invisible ordinarily. But whenever he wanted, he could materialize it. That chakra moved around his finger, and he could throw it at anyone; wherever that person was, the chakra would cut off his head. It did not matter - miles apart, maybe in a crowd, it did not matter; that was his divine power.

Duryodhana said, "We know that your chakra alone is enough, it can cut off anybody's head. So I want a promise. The army you have given to me - what about your arms, because that chakra is with you." Krishna promised that he would not use it, but he did use it.

"Now, you ask me to take an oath on this man's book, who could not keep his own word? I cannot."

The judge said, "Then the only way is the constitution of India."

I said, "That is absolute nonsense. Those politicians - most of them I know - are the ugliest, the greatest hypocrites. Nobody can lie more efficiently than they can. And this constitution goes on being amended every day. You want me to take an oath on a constitution made by politicians, which needs amendments every day? Just be a little more respectful about truth. Can't you simply trust me? - you can trust my oath. This seems to be stupid: you can trust my oath - as if an oath has some miraculous power - and you cannot trust me! Just trust me.

And what is your business here? So many jurors, twelve jurors, three judges, and the opposite party's advocates - what are you all doing here? If I simply say the truth then what is your business here? What are you trying to find out?

This is going to happen, because there is a case .... My secretary asked to argue against the attorney general herself, and the court has permitted it. Now there is great agitation. If they are afraid of her - and these people think themselves bigshots, they are nothing but used cartridges!

There is nothing inside, they are hollow. Yes, she will be enough to put them right.

In every school Christianity is being taught. In every possible way it is stuffed down the throat of every child directly, indirectly. The government, even the parliament, begins with prayer to God. I wonder how do you find so many fools to fill the parliament? And nobody asks, "Why this prayer to God?"

Democracy is for the people, of the people, by the people.

From where comes this God? - he is not people. This despotic God, a dictatorial God, who believes in dictating, believes in giving commandments - you are praying to Him in a democracy, and still you think you are keeping religion and state apart!

Only in this place does your kind of religion not exist, so there is no question of mixing them. Here exists a totally different quality of religiousness which is one with all that we do. We eat religiously, we drink religiously; what can we do about it? We do everything religiously - we even breathe religiously.

And that is my whole effort, that each of your actions should have the quality, the fragrance, of godliness.

Our religion is an inquiry into truth, and it is an eternal inquiry. In life, in death, in everything, the inquiry is to continue. So if our people are in a state they can't stop their inquiry. And their inquiry is going to enhance the state and its status. Their inquiry is not against Christians or Hindus or Mohammedans or anybody, nor is their inquiry for anybody. Their inquiry is for truth.

And the greatest thing about truth is that when you find it, you are simply amazed that it was hidden in the inquirer himself.

Just two days ago, two things happened. I was looking for a toothpaste that is not available here but was available in India, and a few other things. Suman, who is in charge of our boutique, phoned almost all over the world, because they have stopped producing that toothpaste in India; but the same company exists all over the world - it is a Swiss company. So she was phoning all over the world.

As a few other things were needed, so she was looking for some oil, and other things - and Rafia, who is sitting here, found the toothpaste in the boutique! It was not found anywhere in the whole world. I said, "That's really great!"

Then the second day it happened that Vivek was looking for a blanket for me, and she said it was needed within two days. So they phoned the manufacturer, and he said, "Two days will be too soon, it will take at least seven days." So Suman asked, "You must have an agent in Oregon; you can give us the address and we can find it from there." They gave her the address - and it was the address of our boutique, Rajneeshpuram. We are the only agent of that company in the whole of Oregon!

Now Suman could not say to him, "I am phoning you from the same boutique." She simply said, "Okay we will try your agent."

The inquiry into truth is almost like that. You look all around the world and finally you find it in your own boutique. And it is not something that is in any way against democracy. Inquiry for truth or inquiry for great consciousness or inquiry for greater love - in what way are these things against the state? And if these things are against the state then you should teach in every school hatred, unconsciousness, lying, deceiving, cheating; that will be true education.

Then every politician should declare that he is a cheat, hypocrite, deceiver, mean, because these are qualifications for being a good politician, and these are qualifications for being in power. A man of love, a man of truth, a man of sincerity is disqualified.

If this commune becomes illegal, that means truth is disqualified, honesty is disqualified, love is disqualified. Then everything of value is illegal, and all that should be criminal becomes legal, political, approved by the state.

This case is going to be of decisive importance. That man, the attorney general, does not know it, but unknowingly he has put his head into a nest of bees. He will repent his whole life because we are not going to leave things so easily. We have the right to define religion in our own way; nobody can prevent us. If Christians can define their religion in their way, and the Hindus can define their religion in their way, and every other religion is allowed to define things, why are we not allowed to define things in our own way?

For us, there is not God. But there is godliness - just a quality, a presence.

For us there is not heaven or hell. But there are heavenly moments, hellish moments - and they depend on you. They are not geographical. It is not that you enter hell or heaven; it is that you create hell or heaven for yourself. And it is up to you at anytime to change.

For us, religion has nothing to do with any creed or cult, with any holy book.

Vivek was just asking me, "Why are your discourses called 'The Rajneesh Bible'?"

They are called "The Bible" just to make it clear to the whole world the "bible" simply means the book, it does not mean the holy book. That's why you say "bibliography". Is there anything holy in a bibliography? A bibliography simply means a list of books. It is really just "the book", and I want it to be clear to the whole world that a bible has nothing to do with holiness.

I am not a holy man because to me the word "holy" seems so phony, so bogus that I would prefer just to be a human being. Just to be a human being is so grand, so great; there is nothing greater than that. But strangely, man has been trying to become God. Rather than trying to become man he had been trying to become God. God he cannot become because there is no God, and nothing like God is possible.

But in making the effort to become God and trying hard to rise higher, he falls, is bound to fall. And when he falls, he falls below the human being. That's where all your religious people have fallen, your so-called holy men and saints and sages. Trying to become God they have fallen even from being human beings, they have become subhuman.

Our effort is just to be alive human beings.

This is our religion.

And there is no question of mixing because they are not two for us.

In each of our acts we are totally present. We don't leave anything out of it, we are totally in it.

Whether the city remains legal or illegal does not matter.

What matters is that we are going to define religion for the first time in the right way.