The sweet taste of corruption

Question 1:

I have never spoken against God for the simple reason that God does not exist. How can you speak against someone who does not exist in the first place? I have never spoken against Christianity either, because there is no such thing in the world as Christianity.

What exists in the name of Christianity I have always called Crossianity. It is the worship of the cross, not of Christ. It is fear of death, not love of life. Just take a few things out of the life of Jesus and Christianity disappears. If he is not crucified can there be a Christianity? Jesus is not important; what is important is crucifixion. Even more important is the fiction of resurrection, but that is possible only if first Jesus is crucified. It is a corollary.

These so-called Christians worship Jesus because of resurrection. That is a great consolation against death. That's why I say they are worshiping the cross, the crucifixion, the resurrection - not for any love for Jesus and his teachings but because of a deep fear of death. This fear of death makes them believe in things which they know are impossible. But when you are in a psychological turmoil of fear you can believe anything, just as a temporary consolation.

They believe Jesus walks on water, turns stones into bread, makes wine out of water, raises the dead back to life. Just remove these things which don't have anything to do with Jesus' teachings - or do you think these things are necessary for there to be a religion? Then there cannot be any Buddhism, there cannot be any Jainism, there cannot be any religion other than Christianity. But all these religions are there.

Buddha never made wine out of water. In fact if he had come to know that, "Jesus is going to make wine out of water when I'm gone" - because Jesus came five hundred years afterwards - he would have condemned this man as a sinner. This is criminal - making wine out of water? This is against the law of every country. Just try to make marijuana and you will know whether you are worshiped or imprisoned.

A very intelligent man, Timothy Leary, served seven years in jail because he was teaching that LSD can make man in every way superior to what he is now: his consciousness can be wider, his love can be deeper, his sensitivity can touch unknown peaks which have never been touched before. In every dimension LSD can be a tremendous boost for human growth. Just because of teaching these things he was put in jail.

He was a professor, perfectly acquainted with the chemistry of LSD and the chemistry of the mind.

He was not an illiterate person; what he was saying was based on scientific discoveries. But still, because he was teaching a philosophy supporting drugs, he was imprisoned for seven years. He is not a man of great guts; professors rarely are. He may have never thought that just by teaching a philosophical attitude you can get into so much trouble.

Since he has been out of jail he has forgotten all about his philosophy. Now he is teaching something else - he has to teach, he has become a world-famous man. He can't remain silent, he can't keep quiet. The old thing he cannot teach again; otherwise he will be back in jail. Now he is teaching something absolutely absurd. Now is the time that he should be in a madhouse.

Those seven years in jail were absolutely unjustified. On the one side these politicians go on talking about the freedom of speech, and on the other hand a man cannot say something which he feels is a scientific fact. It may not be - then prove it!

A cultured society need not throw a man like Timothy Leary in jail. You have so many scientists, let them prove what he is saying is wrong. There is no need for any court, for any law to come into it.

And if he is right then he should be accepted, then he should be received as a messiah because he is bringing a new way of transformation. If he is right, welcome him. If he is wrong, prove him wrong; that's enough.

This is very primitive, ugly, to throw him into jail because he is saying something which goes against the law. But who told you that the law is anything ultimate? You have made the law. Science goes on progressing. You will have to change your laws if they go against science; science is not to be prevented.

I am not saying that Timothy Leary is right, no, don't misunderstand me. What I am saying is, he has been mistreated without any justification. I also say he is wrong, but he is not a criminal. To be philosophically wrong does not make a person criminal.

But when I say he is wrong, I also say that there is some truth, maybe just a little bit, in what he is saying. His idea of changing men's mind chemically has a truth about it because mind is chemistry.

And there has never been any method which was not chemical which has ever been used to change mind.

Just look - yoga is the ancientmost methodology of changing mind. What do they do? Body postures are physical, but in certain postures your body chemistry changes. So simple: if you stand on your head the whole normal functioning of your body, its mechanism, is turned upside down. More blood is going into your head, less blood is going into your feet. More blood in the head is going to change the chemistry of your mind, more oxygen is going to change the chemistry of the mind.

Yoga has been teaching you breathing exercises. Breath is chemistry. With more oxygen in your lungs you are a certain man; more carbon dioxide, and you are a different man. If your lungs are full of carbon dioxide you are dead; if they are full of oxygen .... There are millions of small, very small rooms; with your breathing, only one third of those small sacs receive oxygen, two thirds remain filled with carbon dioxide. This is your normal state.

With yoga-breathing those sacs, those small rooms, start removing their carbon dioxide, throwing it out and filling themselves with oxygen. When all the sacs are full of oxygen your vitality is different, is bound to be different - normally you are only one-third alive. And that much oxygen in your body is going to change everything - but it is all chemistry.

So I say there is a certain truth in what Timothy Leary was saying, yet I am against his supporting drugs to transform man. That is dangerous.

In fact, politicians are idiots; otherwise they would have used this man; he would have proved of immense help to them. He would have shown them how to enslave people forever. Drugs can be created - and people can be made addicted to those drugs - which will cancel all revolutions, all rebellions. Anything that goes against the status quo, the drug will prevent it.

I am against him for other reasons too - because drugs can only change mind, and man is not only mind. He is something more. The real transformation has to happen in that something more - in consciousness. And no drug can even touch consciousness. It can change the mechanism of the mind, the chemistry of the mind. It can give you hallucinations of samadhi, of nirvana, enlightenment; but those are only hallucinations, they are not true.

One day you miss your injection and they are gone and you are back in the dumps. And when somebody falls from nirvana, he is going to have multiple fractures - everything destroyed. If you are going to fall, it is better never to try climbing so high. It is better to crawl on the earth if you are going to fall; at least you won't have any fractures. Drugs can take you very high but you will have to come back down; it was the drug, not you.

Meditation changes not your mind, but you, your consciousness.

And the change comes by your own awareness.

Nobody can fall from awareness. The greater the awareness, the less is the possibility of falling.

When awareness is complete, entire, then there is no way you can fall.

You have arrived.

This feeling of arriving can be given by drugs; hence the influence of alcohol, marijuana, LSD, opium - and there have been hundreds of other drugs around the world. They have always been used.

And Timothy Leary is not saying anything new: for thousands of years there have been people who have not only been talking about them, but have been using them and thinking that they are reaching closer and closer to paradise.

In India you can find thousands of Hindu sannyasins taking all kinds of drugs, to such a point that they become so accustomed to drugs that drugs don't affect them. Then they start keeping dangerous snakes, cobras and other kinds, with them, because only a cobra bite on their tongue will give them a little bit of hallucination. A cobra bite will kill you; to them it is just a drug - for a few hours they are flying high. In fact there are monks in India - if they bite you, you will die, their whole body, their whole chemistry has become so poisoned.

Timothy Leary was wrong but he should have been encountered on philosophical, psychological, scientific grounds. Sending him to jail simply shows that the country, even a country like America, which is the most sophisticated and cultured in the world, is still barbarous. It does not know how to handle questions, problems. This is not a way of handling a philosophical ideology. It simply shows a very primitive society.

And Timothy Leary did not prove to have guts. When he came out he started talking about taking a trip to the moon; he started recruiting people, because he wants a few hundred people to go with him to the moon. And there are fools who are getting recruited. Nobody is asking "What are you going to do on the moon? Why don't you do it here?"

On the moon they are going to expand their consciousnesses. But why on the moon? This man has to do something. He has lost his job, the university won't take him back. He cannot go back to his old philosophy because that means jail again. Out of all this mess has arisen a great idea: go to the moon because this earth is going to be finished soon!

So many fools become interested. They don't even know that on the moon you cannot exist. The oxygen is not enough, water is not there, nothing grows on the moon. You cannot live on the moon.

The idea of expanding consciousness ... you will not be there at all to expand anything. But he is getting money, support.

Now the government is not taking any action against him. This is the time that action should be taken against him: "What nonsense are you teaching?" But this goes against no law because there is no law that says that going to the moon is criminal, or arranging a trip to the moon is criminal.

If Buddha had known that Jesus was going to change water into wine, he would have called him a sinner. But Christians will drop Jesus Christ immediately if all these miracles are removed. They don't believe in Jesus Christ: they believe in the cross, in the death, in the resurrection, in the raising of the dead, in his changing stones into bread, in changing water into wine.

Why do they believe in these things? Something inside them seems to be consoled ... something - fear of death. Now they can say, "There is no need to be afraid of death, there is resurrection; one man has proved it. There is no need to be afraid, you are a follower of Jesus Christ. He can raise even dead people back to life. You need not be afraid of hunger, starvation, you are a follower of Jesus Christ; he can turn stones into bread."

These miracles - which are all invented, none of them is a historical fact - are invented to fulfill your psychological needs. That's why I say there is no Christianity; nobody trusts Christ, so how can you be a Christian? And all the miracles are bogus, because if these miracles had happened the whole community of Jews would have disappeared from the world. They would have all become Christians.

If the resurrection actually happened it made no impact on the contemporaries of Jesus. Can you believe this? A man who has been crucified, rises again in immense glory, with a halo of light around him, walking, meeting people, talking to people - do you think Jews would not have been tempted to follow this man? Do you think Jews are made of stone? They are as human as you are, with all the fears that you have. Their seeing in their own lifetime, with their own eyes, a man coming back from death would have transformed the whole Judaic system into following Jesus Christ. But not a single Jew was converted.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from his grave back to life, what do you say about the people who were witnesses to it? They were all Jews; and it is not a small thing - if it is not news then what is news? Lazarus was a Jew, all the people around were Jews; still they did not accept Jesus as a messiah. Certainly all these stories are false, they never happened; otherwise they would have left a tremendous impact on his contemporaries. That is the true criterion.

How many people followed Jesus? What kind of people followed Jesus? Not a single rabbi, and yet Jews had one of the most ancient traditions of scholarship. Nobody was impressed by this man.

If contemporaries are not impressed do you think the polack pope, after two thousands years, is a Christian? On what grounds? There is no Christianity, because Christ could not influence anybody.

He has not left any impact on the world. What exists in his name is something else.

So it is absolutely wrong to say that I have been speaking against Christianity: there is no Christianity to speak against. I would have loved to speak against it, but where is it?

Friedrich Nietzsche I quote again and again. He said, "The first and the last Christian died two thousand years ago on the cross" - underline the words, "THE FIRST AND THE LAST CHRISTIAN."

So what Christianity are you talking about? There is not a single Christian in the whole world.

I cannot speak against Christianity. Yes, I have been speaking against something which is pretending to be Christianity and is not. I have been speaking not against religion, but against religions. Yes, that is true, because the very fact that there are so many religions makes it so clear that they all cannot be true. They all can be false, but they all cannot be true.

I have looked into all those religions and I don't see that any of them is true, because they are based on premises which they cannot prove.

They ask you to believe.

The moment somebody asks you to believe in something, that means he has no reason, logic, no existential support for what he is saying.

A man of truth never asks you to believe.

He asks you to experiment, to experience.

He says, "I have come to a point, you can also come to the same point. But you will have to travel, my reaching is not enough for you to believe. You will have to know it yourself, I can only show you the way."

The man of truth always shows the way but never asks you to believe.

He inspires you to walk on the path but he never says that before you have experienced, your faith, your belief is needed. This is something to be understood.

If you believe in something then there is no need to explore. If you believe, if you have faith, then what is the need for exploration? Then it is just pointless, all enquiry is pointless. Having faith and enquiring simply means your faith is not real, you are still trying to find out whether it is true or not.

Your faith is not faith if you enquire.

And without enquiry, how are you going to manage to have faith? I say to you, "There are seven gods; believe it." But you will say, "How to believe it? There is no support for believing it - and why seven? Why not six, why not eight?" No, the people who require you to believe also require you not to doubt, not to question, not to ask why.

What kind of people can become believers? - utterly cowardly, boneless, spineless, just hollow, nothing inside, no spirit. If you are a man you should have some courage to doubt, to question, to enquire. Yes, you can take the belief as a hypothesis, and you can say, "Now we will enquire whether it is true or not. If it is true we will be always grateful to you. If it is not true then we will inform your that you had better change your mind."

All those religions, without exception, ask you for faith.

I am speaking against all kinds of beliefs because I want you to know the reality. I want you to experience the truth - and the only way to do that is for all your beliefs to be demolished completely, eradicated from your being totally, uprooted, root and all, so that you are free to enquire, so that you are free to move in any direction, any dimension that you choose.

All religions are giving you blindfolds.

My dentist puts a blindfold on me. Have you ever heard that in dentistry a blindfold has to be put on the poor man whose teeth you are going to drill? He has to put the blindfold on me, but he is not successful. He puts on the blindfold so that he can make signs to his nurse because he cannot speak. If he says anything that goes against my idea ... he has to convey messages to his assistant, his nurse, because she has all the mechanism, all the knobs on her side. And I keep the dentist on this side, and say, "Don't you be close to the knobs and the mechanism, let the nurse manage. You just be on this side and you do your work."

So he has to make signs because he cannot whisper, because if he whispers, I stop. If he says something that is difficult ... so he found a blindfold. That poor man ... because of the strong light I can even see the shadow of his hands, and I stop him and say, "No indications!"

And I say, "This is not right, because you can drill on the wrong tooth and I cannot even say anything.

I cannot even see what is going on. These are my teeth; at least I have the right to say, 'Don't drill on the wrong one.'" But I can understand his trouble; if he starts arguing with me, then the dentistry is never going to happen.

And I don't start anything on belief, I start with doubt. I start by being skeptical because that is the only right way to enquire. Only then one day can you come to know something; otherwise your whole life you will be a believer with nothing solid as your experience.

The man who was very much upset and agitated and said that I am corrupting the minds of youth - it is true. That's exactly what I am doing: corrupting the minds of youth. But this is not something new. Socrates was poisoned for the same crime that I am committing. The crime was, corrupting the mind of the youth.

Now nobody can say Socrates was corrupting the mind of the youth. Socrates is known as one of the wisest men who has walked on the earth, but he had accepted, the way I accept, "Yes, I corrupt, because there is no other way to make them innocent again. You have corrupted them, you have poisoned them, you have distorted them. Now if I remove your distortions, your poisons, your corruptions, naturally to you it looks as if I am corrupting. But you have spoiled them; I am putting things right."

But it is natural; a person who believes in God, hearing that I say there is no God, will think I am corrupting the minds of youth.

I am simply purifying, cleaning, just removing all the dust that has gathered on their mirrorlike mind.

But if they think that dust is the mirror then of course they will think I am corrupting the mirror; I am simply cleaning it. But one thing is important: Socrates was blamed for corrupting the minds of the youth, and this man also is saying I am corrupting the minds of the youth. What can we do?

Young children are not available to us. They are being corrupted in your churches, in your synagogues, in your temples; they are not available to us. In your schools they are being corrupted, we cannot prevent it. Old people are gone almost beyond the border; now there is only dust, no mirror. And to waste my time on old people whose one foot is in the grave and the other is going to follow soon - do you want me to corrupt them?

I am reminded: three great Russian novelists, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gorky were great friends.

They were sitting in Leo Tolstoy's garden discussing. And when men gather together you know what they discuss: women. When women gather together you know what they discuss: men. That's why if a woman comes into a man's group, it feels as if she has disturbed the whole thing, because now they cannot discuss women. So boys' clubs are separate.

Even in parties, after dinner the boys will move into a separate room to have some drinks and cigars.

But the basic thing is not the drink, because they can drink there, they can smoke there - the basic thing is they need a place where they can discuss women. That is the real topic. And the women also want them to move because then they can discuss men. That is the only juicy topic in the whole world.

So all the three old men were discussing women. Gorky said something: he said, "The woman is the most deceptive animal in the world. Howsoever loving a woman may be, you can never believe her. She can deceive you."

Chekhov said, "You are perfectly right. She can not only deceive you, she can kill you. She really kills you slowly, slowly, slowly. Every day it goes on and on; finally you are killed."

And they both asked Leo Tolstoy who was sitting there with a very long face, "What is your idea?"

He said, "Don't ask me. If my wife hears it .... And I don't trust either of you. I don't trust anybody, man or woman. If my wife hears my idea about women there is going to be great trouble. I am not going to say anything."

Those two persons said, "You are such a great, world-famous writer. You should leave some opinion about women because it carries weight. And you have written so much and so beautifully, and you have characterized women in such a manner that we don't think anybody can even come close to you."

And that is true. Tolstoy created novels like ANNA KARENINA - no novel comes close to it: Anna Karenina is such a character.

They said, "You should say something about real women."

Tolstoy said, "Don't tempt me. I will say something but I will say it only when one of my legs is in the grave; I will say it and jump into the grave and be killed. Before that I am not going to say anything."

So much fear, even in a man like Tolstoy. And he was a very fanatical Christian. But all religions make you a fanatic, for the simple reason that unless you are a fanatic you cannot forget that your belief is superficial. By becoming a fanatic you become so involved and committed that you forget completely that it is only a belief.

I have been speaking against faiths, beliefs. Of course I do not corrupt old people unless old people themselves come to me to be corrupted. That is their business, that simply means they are not yet old; their spirits are still young and rebellious. Their bodies may be old but they are not old.

I don't go after anybody to corrupt him.

People come from all over the world to be corrupted by me.

What can I do?

They are in such a search, they travel thousands of miles just to be corrupted. There must be something in this corruption! That old, agitated, upset man should come here and have a little taste of corruption. It is really delicious, there is nothing that tastes so good as corruption; otherwise I don't see why people should come here. And I have been escaping from people - you can just see - from one city to another city to another city, in such a small life!

I have been escaping from people, and I came to Oregon thinking that nobody would come here.

But once you have tasted corruption, it does not matter where I go - even if I go to hell, the young people are going to come there to be corrupted because only the young mind can understand that this is not corruption, this is purification.

They come here already corrupted, and for the first time they see that one can live without any corruption, without any belief, without any faith, without any God, without any religion. One can live with tremendous joy, with a song in one's heart, a dance in one's whole being.

There are a few children, there are a few old people, there are many young people, but as far as I am concerned consciousness is always young. There are children who have a consciousness which is not related to their physical age. There are old people who have a youthful consciousness which is not related to their age either.

In fact, consciousness has no age.

It is always youth, always spring.

It is always rebellious.

I simply help you to uncover your rebelliousness, because to me to be a rebel is to be religious.

Yes, I corrupt people. And I am going to corrupt people. And my people are going to spread all over the world the same corruption.

I am not going to be poisoned as easily as Socrates. In these twenty-five centuries people like me have learned much. I am not going to be crucified as easily as Jesus. They told him to carry his cross, and the poor man carried it. My cross will go on my Rolls Royce. And one hundred Rolls Royces will follow it!

In twenty-five centuries we have learned something. And I have my style, my way. I cannot carry the cross. No court can order me to be poisoned and killed. I am not so simple as Socrates. They had given Socrates the alternative, "You can leave Athens or you can stop teaching your truth and we will not sentence you to death."

For me both alternatives were perfectly good. I would have left Athens, I have left Athens so many times. But just outside Athens I would have created my campus. And the same youth ... in fact, they would have been more interested in coming than they ever were when Socrates was in Athens. It was simply ordinary arithmetic.

In London you can find thousands of people who have never gone to see the Tower of London for the simple reason that "any day we can go and see it, the tower is always there." But do you know what happened in the second world war? The rumor came that Hitler was going to bomb the Tower of London. Thousands of people who had lived their whole life in London, had passed by the tower millions of times, but there was no hurry, the tower was there .... But "Adolf Hitler is going to destroy the tower" - and thousands of people were rushing to see the tower because tomorrow it might not be there.

I would have taken it, it was a perfectly beautiful chance. I would have left Athens, and just outside the boundary of Athens - Athens was only a city - I would have started my school, and the people who had never come to my school in Athens would have come because then perhaps I might leave completely, go far away.

Do you know, hundreds of letters come from India now, saying, "We never could manage to meet you here. We are ready to come to Oregon to meet you." I was in their city, I lived in their city for twenty years; now they are willing to come to Oregon just to see me. Every day there are letters saying, "We missed you in India. Please allow us to meet you just for a few minutes."

There I was available. Naturally they thought, "Anytime." In Bombay I lived in a skyscraper, a beautiful building, "Woodlands." One family lived just above me, just above my head. For three years I lived there. I was being talked about all around the world, but they could not gather courage to come down just a few steps to see me or to meet me. When I left Bombay then they became aware. And, can you believe it, don't you think it unbelievable? - they left Bombay and came to Poona; left their family, left their business, became sannyasins: the husband, the wife, and their girl, the whole family.

And I asked them, "What was happening to you for three years?"

They said, "We always thought, you are there every day. We were hearing about you so much, reading about you so much. We thought we could manage any day. But when you left Bombay, suddenly we became aware one day you may even leave life, and this chance has not to be lost."

My mathematics is different. I do not agree with Socrates being unnecessarily a martyr. There must have been some suicidal instinct in these people - Jesus, Mansoor, Socrates; somewhere they wanted to die, they were tired of living. And this was a good opportunity, so that the whole responsibility goes on others.

Or, if I had chosen not to go out, I would have become silent in Athens; silence makes no difference.

For three years I have been silent here, still corrupting the youth and their mind - in silence. If you know how to corrupt, you can corrupt even in silence. It is a skill. You know perfectly well that for three years I was silent. What were you doing here? - being corrupted! And nobody could even say to me, "You are corrupting them," because I was silent.

I would have remained in Athens, but in silence, and still the corruption would have continued, because my corruption is not confined only to words. It is existential. It is infectious. You can infect anybody with your disease, even in silence. Corruption is just like a disease. In fact in silence it works even better because words are a longer route. I say something to you, you hear something else. Then you start interpreting it, what it means.

Words out of my mouth are just like arrows out of your bow; they cannot come back. And what happens to them in your mind is beyond me. Your mind is such a mess that it is impossible to put anything in it. Even if you drop the purest diamond in the Big Muddy Ranch it will be lost. You will soon lose track of where it is.

Silence is a short cut.

It goes directly, heart to heart.

They cannot crucify me. They know perfectly well that by crucifying Jesus they committed a mistake, they created this whole nonsense of Christianity. By poisoning Socrates they made him an immortal.

They cannot be so kind to me. They will have to allow me to corrupt as long as I want to corrupt, and as long as people want to be corrupted by me.

But make it clear to these people, say, "To you it looks like corruption; to us it is a purification of the soul. It is a bath, we are rejuvenated by it. And if you have any doubts, come to our place; don't be afraid."

They are so afraid of even listening to the truth, what to say of experiencing it. Even listening to the truth their whole personality starts falling apart because they are somehow keeping it together. It is just glued, it is not an organic whole. They are afraid that just a single shock of truth is enough and they will fall apart. Hence my books are on the black list of pope the polack - they should not be read. It is a sin to read them.

In Jabalpur, where I lived for twenty years, there is a big theological college where they train Christian missionaries for Asian countries; it is the biggest in Asia. I used to go there. I had a few friends there, but the principal informed those friends that I should not be entertained inside the campus "because you are making that man known to the students and to other professors. Now small meetings have started happening in your houses and he will corrupt you."

My friend told me, "This is what the principal has said, and he wants you not to be entertained anymore in the campus. And we are poor professors, we cannot antagonize him."

I said, "You don't be worried. I will go and see him myself." I went to Principal Mackwan, who was the chief of Leonard Theological College, and I told him, "You prepare missionaries for the whole of Asia - and you are afraid of me, a single person, coming into the campus of all those missionaries who are going to convert Asians to Christianity! You don't trust your professors, you don't trust your Christianity, you don't trust your missionaries. You don't trust your students who are going to be missionaries. Your whole campus - there are ten thousand people on the campus - I can corrupt them, and those ten thousand people cannot corrupt me? And you are included in those ten thousand people.

"I am here and I am going to come every day - not in the campus anymore, to your office, just to be corrupted by you."

He looked shocked. He said, "To be corrupted by me?"

I said, "Yes, you corrupt me, or I will corrupt you. It is an open challenge. You are the head of this institute. Ten thousand people follow you, they think you are some great sage. Corrupt me, make me a Christian; I am ready to be converted. But if you fail, then be ready to be converted to my way, which has no name."

He said, "I don't want to create any conflict, any controversy."

I said, "There is no controversy, no conflict. I will simply sit here silently; you corrupt me. Or, you sit silently, I will corrupt you. Nobody will ever even hear what is going on."

He said, "Let me think about it."

The next day I was there again. I said, "Principal Mackwan, have you thought about it? Have you asked your wife?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "That's what thinking means. When a husband says, 'I will think about it,' it means he will consult his wife."

He said, "You are something because actually - that's what I did."

And I said, "That shows that you are not even man enough - how can you be a Christian?" Just behind him was Jesus, a wooden sculpture on a cross. I said, "Give that cross and Jesus to me because it does not belong in your office. You are not man enough; you asked your wife. Do you think Jesus asked anybody, 'What do you think - is it okay to be crucified, or escape?'"

That man became a friend - and of course became corrupted slowly slowly. His house became my meeting place. He said, "You are irresistible. You say things which are certainly against our scriptures, our tradition, but not against our reason."

And when I left Jabalpur, among the people who had come to give me a send-off was this old Principal Mackwan, with tears in his eyes. He said, "I will miss you. You became a reality in my life, far more real than Jesus Christ has ever been. Jesus Christ has been just a belief. I am not courageous enough to drop that, but you know it has dropped. I cannot say to the world, 'I am no longer a Christian,' but I have come to say it to you because perhaps we may not meet again. I am old, and I know you - once you leave a place you never look back."

And I have never gone back to Jabalpur. Perhaps he is dead now. But on the station he confessed to me that he is no longer a Christian; he has started enquiring, although it is too late. But he is happy; even though it is late, and the evening of his life has come, "Perhaps there is not time enough to enquire, but I am immensely satisfied only with this, that at least I am not dying with false beliefs, insincere, inauthentic, not my own. I don't have any truth yet, but at least I can die with this contentment, that I have started the journey. And if there is a beginning perhaps one day there will be an end to it too."

Every being is in search of truth, but small fears go on preventing you.

Now all those Christians and Jews are having meetings. Just two or three days ago I received a printed invitation card which must have been distributed in some big church somewhere in Oregon:

they are going to have my discourses every Sunday.

Why, when I am here? And these discourses will be discussed by the priest, by the bishop, argued against; it will be said that these are all anti-religious ideas, that this man is a heretic.

Why not come here? If you want to call me a heretic, come here and call me a heretic. In fact I love the word. I enjoy being called a heretic because only very rare human beings have been called heretics. To be orthodox is nothing; to be a heretic needs guts. Come here and say, "You are corrupting people." That will give me a chance to corrupt you too.

In fact in my whole life I have not met a single man whom I have not corrupted; whether he knows it or not, that is a different matter. I know if perfectly, that he is corrupted; he will never be the same again. Even those who have left me for this reason or that reason, do you know their situation? They cannot mix in society. I have corrupted them so much they cannot mix in the society.

They cannot come back here because they have been telling lies against me, now how to face me?

So a rare thing is happening: in Santa Fe all those fools are gathering together. They have left me. What kind of departure is this? - they are still together! They are my people; they cannot mix anywhere. Now they are gathering together in one place, and they are continually talking about me, against me. That does not matter.

Whether you talk for me or against me, you have to talk about me. They cannot forget me. And when you are talking about me, even if you are talking against me, you have not left me yet. I am still very much alive in you. In fact you are talking against me just to get rid of me but you cannot get rid of me. The more you talk against me, the deeper I will be going in you.

It is impossible to come in contact with a man who has experienced truth and to go away without being touched this way or that, for or against.

When I will be leaving this world I can promise you one thing - I will leave this world divided into people who are for me and people who are against me, but there will not be a third kind. And these both are corrupted by me.

Those who are in favor of me have used the opportunity for growth.

Those who are against me missed the train.