Either politicians remain or humanity remains

Question 1:

I am sorry, but I doubt it. If one has brains there are so many beautiful things in life to do; it is impossible for such a man to be interested in politics at all. Politics is for the lowest category of intellect. You can see it all over the world.

I am reminded of one of my friends who was a national figure in politics. His whole life he devoted to two things: one, which was his priority, that cow slaughter should be stopped; and the second was, that Hindi should become the national language.

I once asked him, "You go on calling the cow 'the holy mother'; then who is the bull - the holy father?"

He became angry. I said, "It is a simple thing. If the cow is your mother, then the bull has to be your father."

He said, "You always confuse me."

Another time I asked him, "What about Charles Darwin's theory that man is evolved out of monkeys?"

He said, "Absurd! Monkeys are animals, man is not. Man is divine. God has made man in His own image."

I said, "Then what about the cow? The monkey is an animal. You cannot accept that man evolves out of monkeys but you go on calling the cow your mother. Isn't the cow an animal?"

And, moreover, you reject the bull, the poor bull, who has done no harm to you except given you birth - without the bull the cow cannot be your mother. You should be all-grateful to the bull. You became angry on that point; now you are denying Charles Darwin's theory simply because monkeys are animals - but what about the cow? Can't you see such a simple logic? Then only one thing remains - which will be very absurd ...."

He said, "What? Nothing can be more absurd than Charles Darwin's theory."

I said, "You just wait. The cow is the mother, and the monkey is the father and man is a cross-breed.

It is not that I am saying it - it is you who should say it, but you are not capable of any intelligence.

This is a simple thing. You have the mother; the father is missing - the bull is not acceptable. Charles Darwin has the father; the mother is missing. That is very strange of Charles Darwin too, that he talks about the male monkeys becoming man. Then who became the woman? Very strange - what about the female monkeys?

"Charles Darwin nowhere mentions female monkeys. It is strange, a man who continually worked on the theory must have come across the question that, okay, the monkey becomes the man, but who becomes the woman? Female monkeys must become women, but there is no reference to them in Charles Darwin's books. So the monkeys are our forefathers and cows are our foremothers.

"I don't know whether such a word exists or not and I don't care either - I have never come across such a word as 'foremothers'; but if 'forefathers' makes sense, then 'foremothers' also makes sense."

He was so angry that he said, "You will never talk sense."

I said, "What can be more sensible? Man is a cross-breed - all the qualities of the cow, and all the qualities of the monkey. Man is so rich! No other animal is a cross-breed; that's why man has become the supreme-most, the highest animal in the world."

And this man - Seth Govindas was his name - was respected all over the country; but he couldn't see simple things.

In India there are thirty languages of almost equal importance. There are a few differences; for example, Hindi is spoken by more people, but Bengali has a far richer literature, more refined language. Just to hear two Bengalis talking is such an experience in itself. Their language is so sweet, every word is so rounded.

I had one Bengali girl as my post-graduate student. In Hindi her name would be Rama. Rama means beautiful, attractive, but when I asked her her name - she was a Bengali - she said, "Roma."

I tried hard ..." Roma? Has it something to do with Rome?" She said, "No, it is your Hindi 'Rama,' but in Bengali it becomes Roma." Roma certainly is more romantic; Rama looks hard, harsh, clear-cut but not rounded.

Bengalis have their claim that they have the best literature, not only in India, but perhaps in the whole world - a great tradition of the best poetry.

What does it mean, just counting numbers? Hindi may be spoken by many people; the numbers are not much different. If Pakistan had not been divided from India then Bengali would have been spoken by more people than Hindi, because half of Bengal went into Pakistan. Otherwise Bengali is spoken by more people than Hindi. So it is just a political accident that the country got divided and half of Bengal became Bangladesh and half of Bengal remained in India. But if you look at world languages, Bengali will come before Hindi.

But numbers don't count. Tamil has its own literature, far more ancient than the literature of Sanskrit, because the people of South India are the original Indians. The people of North India are invaders.

The people of North India who speak Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati are all Aryans. They are blood brothers of the French, Italians, Germans, English, Swedish, Russians, but they have no relationship of blood with the South Indians. South Indians have a blood relationship with the negroes.

There was a time when Africa and India were connected. It is now a well-known fact that continents go on shifting - they are not stable. You just cut out the maps of India and Africa and put them together and you will be surprised - they fit perfectly. The south of India fits perfectly with the lines of Africa. Some time in the past the land parted; Africa shifted away, over thousands of years.

South Indians are negroid, their blood is connected with the negroes; their skin is black, their language has no connection with Sanskrit at all. You will be surprised: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannad - the four main languages of South India - have not a single word from Sanskrit, while Russian has forty percent, German has sixty percent, Lithuanian has seventy percent, English has thirty percent. French, Swedish - all the European languages originated predominantly from Sanskrit.

Naturally, South India does not want to be dominated by a Sanskrit-originated language, Hindi. They have no connection with it.

I told Seth Govindas, "These are simple facts. This country cannot have a national language. Just as Russian has no national language, the country can have only provincial languages. And it can use one language, for example English - because English is only understood by two percent of Indians, but those two percent of Indians are spread all over India, in every language group. So English remains a link language, not a national language, because two percent of the people speaking it cannot make it a national language. But it can become a link language.

"Every language has its own state, its own independence, so that it can grow independently without any pressure from any other language. There is no need for a national language, just a link language so that all these thirty languages don't fall apart." That's how in Russia ... Russian is only a link language. The same is the problem in Russia: thirty six languages, so widely apart - you cannot impose one language as the national language.

India is not a small country like England or Switzerland or France; it is a sub-continent. England can have one language, but a sub-continent cannot have one language. You cannot impose it - and for thirty years, forty years continuously, they have been trying. English remains the national language and there is no hope of an Indian national language ever.

I told that old man, "Just see the facts."

But certainly politicians don't have brains.

In India I knew many politicians, but I have not seen any brains in them.

Simple things that anybody will understand, things which don't need great genius, politicians will miss. One of my friends was commander-in-chief of the Indian armies. When Pakistan invaded India, this man - his name was General Chaudhuri - asked permission of the prime minister to counter attack; it was needed, just being defensive would not help. That's a simple military strategy:

if you become defensive you are already defeated; the best way is to be aggressive.

If Pakistan has invaded one part of Kashmir, Chaudhuris idea was that we invade Pakistan from four or five fronts. They will be confused, they will run amok; they will not be able to decide where they have to send their armies. Their attack will become a failure because they have to defend all the borders of their country.

But politicians. The prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, informed him, "Wait till six o'clock in the morning."

General Chaudhuri told me that he was thrown out of the army - not publicly: publicly he retired honorably, but he was kicked out. He was told, "Either you resign or we will throw you out."

The reason was that he attacked Pakistan at five o'clock in the morning, one hour before the order.

That was the right time; by six o'clock it would be sunrise, people would be awake. Five o'clock was the perfectly right time - everybody was asleep - to drive them crazy. And he did what he was saying - he made the whole of Pakistan tremble. He was just fifteen miles from Pakistan's biggest city, Lahore.

The whole night Jawaharlal and his cabinet were discussing this way and that way, to do it or not to do it. And even by six o'clock in the morning they had not come to any conclusion; they just heard on the radio that "General Chaudhuri is entering Lahore."

That was too much for the politicians. They stopped him just fifteen miles away from Lahore. And I can see that was sheer stupidity. If the man had taken Lahore, the problem of Kashmir and India would have been solved forever. It is not ever going to be solved, the problem of the territory of Kashmir which Pakistan has occupied - and it was because General Chaudhuri was told to come back, "because India is a non-violent country and you did not wait for the order."

He said to them, "I do understand military strategy; you don't. Even by six o'clock - where was your order? Pakistan has already occupied a certain territory, the most beautiful part of Kashmir - and you were just discussing the whole night. This is not a question to be discussed, this has to be decided in the warfield. If you had allowed me to take over Lahore then we would have been in a position to bargain. Now we are not in a position to bargain. You pulled me back, I had to come back."

The U.N. decided for a cease-fire line. So now for forty years, U.N. armies have been there patrolling; on the other side Pakistans armies are patrolling, on this side Indian armies are patrolling. For forty years - just nonsense! And in the UNO they go on discussing and nothing comes out of it.

And the territory that has been occupied by Pakistan you cannot take back because of the cease- fire. They have really decided in their parliament that the territory occupied by them is combined with Pakistan. Now they show it on their maps. It is no longer occupied territory, it is Pakistan's territory.

I had told General Chaudhuri, "This was such a simple thing, that you have to be in a bargaining position. If you had taken Lahore they would have immediately agreed to leave Kashmir because they could not lose Lahore. Or if a cease-fire was to come, okay, then Lahore remains with us when we cease fire. Either way there will be something to bargain. India doesn't have anything to bargain with - why should Pakistan bother?"

But politicians certainly don't have brains.

I was thinking that perhaps this is applicable only to Indian politicians, but coming to Oregon I was really surprised because I saw greater idiots.

Just the other day Oregon's assembly decided that the post office of the City of Rajneesh will continue to be called the post office of Antelope. Now can you see the foolishness? Antelope is dead; there is no longer any Antelope anywhere, the people of Antelope buried it. But the post office should be called the post office of Antelope.

The city is called the City of Rajneesh. It has no post office. The real, the living city, has no post office; the dead, the unreal city has the post office. And naturally the postmaster goes on rejecting all mail that comes in the name of the City of Rajneesh because it is the post office of Antelope. Can you think these politician have brains?

If they wanted to destroy the City of Rajneesh they should have had the guts, and they should have resolved in the assembly that the City of Rajneesh should be again called Antelope. That would have been logical, and the post office would certainly be the post office of Antelope. Or they should have changed the name of the post office.

Both were logical. But what they have done - the city they cannot touch because it is against the constitution. The people of the city have changed the name. They have the right to change the name; that is their constitutional right. The majority decided to change it, and the assembly cannot interfere.

But those idiots think that they can at least save the post office, the post office of Antelope - and nobody in that assembly asked, "When the city is no longer there ... how can there be a post office of a city which is non-existential?" And this is going to create unnecessary problems.

I would like my people to go to court first against the postmaster general of America - because it is just a simple rule that whenever a city changes its name, within one month the post office has to change its name. But a year has passed and we have been asking the postmaster general and he has been delaying. He must have been waiting for these politicians to decide in the assembly.

So first go against the postmaster general, asking why he delayed for one year when the simple rule is one month. And who is he to decide that the post office should continue to be called Antelope's post office? Then go against the assembly also; their decision is stupid. Either change the name of the city if you have guts - go against the constitution - or if you don't have guts then let the post office name be changed.

But politicians don't show any sign of brains.

I am reminded of a story. A great politician had developed a tumor in his brain, perhaps a canceric growth. It was a very complicated operation, his whole brain had to be taken out. He was lying down on the table; it was a long and very delicate operation. The doctors were operating on the brain in another room. When the operation was over, they came back to take the politician ... he was missing! "My God, where has he gone?"

The nurse said, "A man came running and he said, 'You have been chosen the president.' The patient stood up and started walking. I tried to prevent him, I said, 'Your brain is in the surgery, and they are working on it.' He said, 'Now that I am the president I don't need the brain. Let them work on it. Whenever I need it I will come, but at least for five years forget all about it. I am the president; brains are needed by small people, nobodies. Where is the need for brains for a man who has risen to the highest post?'"

The whole of history proves it, that politicians have been the most idiotic people around. But the strange fact is that the more idiotic the politician is, the more possibility there is for his success.

That's what happened in Adolf Hitler's case.

Perhaps Adolf Hitler was the most idiotic politician ever, but he went on succeeding. He went on conquering countries. It was an amazing phenomenon. The reason is very strange. He knew nothing of military science - that was the reason for his success. His generals would tell him that this is absolutely wrong, this step is absolutely wrong.

But he never listened to the generals, he listened to the astrologers. He had his astrologers who said, "This is the right time - move into France, move into Poland, or move anywhere." That was decided by the astrologers and the stars, not by military science. Naturally he baffled everybody.

If he had moved according to military science, then on the other side the same military science is known.

If he had bombed London according to military science, then London would have been ready and prepared. But it was being decided by the stars, by an idiot astrologer. His generals were absolutely impotent. They could see that this was nonsense, but this nonsense was succeeding so they also slowly slowly became silent: "Perhaps he is right."

You will be surprised that Churchill had to call astrologers from India - because Western astrology is different from Eastern astrology. These are just fictions, so there can be as many astrologies as you want. Stars don't care about you, so you can manage anything. They don't object either, they don't have any idea that you are here.

I have heard: one elephant was passing across a bridge and a small fly was sitting on top of the head of the elephant. When they were just in the middle of the bridge - the bridge was not made for elephants to cross; it was a poor village, and a poor bridge temporarily made for the rainy season - the bridge started shaking. The fly said, "Uncle, our weight is too much."

The elephant heard some buzzing noise. He said, "Just say it loudly - who are you? And where are you?"

The fly said, "I am just sitting on your head and our weight is too much."

The elephant said, "My God, I was not even aware that you were here." But the fly included itself; He said, "Our weight is shaking the bridge."

Man is not even a fly so far as stars are concerned. And people are such ... they ask the astrologers, "What time will it be good to start a business; are the stars in the right position? When will it be good to get married; are the stars in the right position?" All stars are in the right position - but all marriages are in the wrong position. This is enough proof that stars don't care about you, they don't know about you. But you can create fictions. Churchill did not ask the Western astrologers because they would give him the same advice as was being given to Adolf Hitler. That wouldn't be the right thing. Churchill understood why this man was succeeding. He was succeeding because whenever they expected him to attack, he never attacked. And whenever they never expected, could never conceive, there he attacked.

It was a simple rule of war that you attack at the weakest point. It is so obvious; you don't attack the enemy at his strongest point. But those astrologers don't know what is a weak point and what is a strong point. They look towards the stars - and the stars have no idea that there is a war going on.

He called those astrologers from India; the war took a turn, because now Churchill was also functioning like a fool. He was also no longer listening to his generals. He said, "You keep out of it - because that man is mad. He knows no military science and it is not going to help. Now astrology is going to help." And astrology did help. Poor Adolf Hitler was defeated. He was succeeding because of astrology - he was defeated because of astrology.

But the man was absolutely an idiot about everything. When Germany started retreating, the generals would not inform him, "We are being defeated," because any general who said that would be shot immediately. Adolf Hitler could not be defeated, so this general must have gone mad."

When the bombs were falling on Berlin itself, just outside the house where Adolf Hitler was living in the basement, then too the German radio continued to say that "we are winning all over the world."

Nobody was ready to get shot unnecessarily - what was the point? This man was not going to listen.

Adolf Hitler thought himself almost a demigod. His word was the law, and if he said that he was going to conquer the world, it was going to happen. The bombs were falling outside his house; he could hear the buildings falling, people crying, the noise, the explosions, still he was consulting the astrologers: "Which country are we going to invade next?" To the very last moment he was convinced he was winning. Can you think that a man who has a little bit of brain would be so thick?

But other politicians are not different either - maybe more of less, but the brain is not the business of the politician. The politician has to be stubborn, adamant, fanatic; these are the qualities that make him succeed. He has to be foolish enough to believe that he has, by birth, a determined future, a destiny. He is the man of destiny. Only fools can believe that.

The more intelligent you are, the less stubborn, the less fanatic; more thinking, doubting, more skeptical. Skeptical about yourself - you cannot think of yourself as a man of destiny. You cannot think that you are born to dominate the world.

And these people are what our whole history is about. Our whole history needs to be burned, completely burned, erased. We should start writing from ABC again, because this history is being taught to every child. And these people are called Alexander the Great, Genghis the Great Khan, Ivan the Terrible - and they are praised, their qualities are praised. And much of the praise is just fiction because those histories were written by their court clerks. Those court clerks who were writing those histories were paid. The better the praise, the more they were paid.

One of the great emperors in India was Akbar. He was making a new capital. He wanted to shift the capital from Delhi to a fresh capital, completely newly-made. His whole life he poured as much money into it as possible - and he created a city, Fateh-pur Sikri - a beautiful city, almost a miracle city. All stonework ....

He gathered all the best stone artists and craftsmen from the world, and the best stones, marble. He made the whole city his whole life. Nobody has ever lived in it, because to create a capital so that the whole of Delhi could be shifted in just a single move .... Akbar died and Fateh-pur Sikri remains incomplete, although a vast city. So much money wasted, such huge and beautiful buildings, each inch a piece of art - but for what? Nobody has ever lived there. Nobody is going to live there ever, for the simple reason that when the city was made nobody thought of water. Nobody thought that many more things are needed when people live there - land is needed for crops ....

It is a very weird experience to be in Fateh-pur Sikri, a city made with so much money. I think no other city has ever been made in that way - and nobody ever lived in it. It was a ghost town from the very beginning, and it is going to remain a ghost town.

Even now thousands of people can be accommodated there, but other necessities are not available.

And Akbar never went there to see what was happening. He wanted to wait for it to be completed; then he would go there. Akbar is thought to have been one of the intelligent emperors, but I don't think so. What kind of intelligence is this?

There was another Mohammedan emperor who almost surpassed Akbar. He simply ordered the whole of Delhi to move - from Delhi thousands of miles away to Aurangabad. Aurangabad was very close to Poona.

Now his order had to be followed, the whole city had to be emptied immediately. It was a military operation. Everybody was thrown out of his house; the whole of Delhi was emptied - almost half a million people moving thousands of miles, not knowing what was going to happen in Aurangabad.

And nothing was prepared there!

At least Akbar had planned the city, made the city. Aurangabad was a small place. Where were these people going to live? And nobody bothered about their food supply for this whole journey. It took months; almost eighty percent of the people died, twenty percent reached Aurangabad. And you can think in what condition they were if eighty percent died on the way.

Those twenty percent had become sick, old. The journey took at least ten years from their life. They were utterly wiped out - in fact, feeling jealous of those who had died, because it was so terrible to live. And then in Aurangabad there was no space and that idiot king said, "No, this is not the right place - we should go back." The whole journey again! This man's name was Muhammad Tughlak.

Do you think these type of people have any brains? By the time they reached Delhi almost everybody was dead. Delhi was empty; it became a military camp. And all this for no reason at all! The only reason was that Muhammad Tughlak's father had died in Aurangabad and he wanted Aurangabad to be made the capital of India in his memory.

But to make a capital for half a million people, to move them thousands of miles - and trains were not there, buses were not there. People were moving by foot, on camels, on horses, on donkeys, on bullock carts. And nobody bothered about how the food was to be managed for the whole journey, how water was to be managed .... And they had to pass through the whole desert of Rajasthan, where most of the people died, just because of thirst.

If you look at history you will be surprised - why do we go on teaching these people's lives to our children, why do we contaminate our children? What is the point?

I feel that politics and politicians should be completely debarred as far as the education of the new generation is concerned. The new generation should be helped to forget the whole past so they can start living anew.

There is a saying that history repeats itself. Yes, it repeats itself because you go on teaching it.

Just stop teaching history and it won't repeat any more.

You teach it, you poison the minds of children, and they start having political ambitions themselves.

You make them ambitious. In every possible way you make them ambitious.

Your whole education system is not to make children intelligent but to make them ambitious.

Yes, you try to make them intellectuals - that too is a help for being ambitious.

If they are intelligent they won't be ambitious at all. If they are intelligent they would like to live a very simple and ordinary life in tune with nature, in harmony with existence, with trees, with birds, with animals, with people. They would not like to dominate anyone or be dominated by anyone. They would like to live together in friendliness, not as masters or slaves.

There can never be a friendship between the owner and the owned, the boss and the servant, the leader and the led. There can never be any friendship. Friendship can happen only when there is a very subtle undeclared form of equality - not the equality communism talks about, because that is politics, that is forced equality.

I have heard ... there was a very strange Greek king who had a very beautiful, very precious, golden bed, made of twenty-four carat gold, studded with diamonds and all kinds of precious stones. It was kept only for guests. But whosoever was unfortunate enough to be his guest never came out of the King's guest house alive because he was determined on one point: the guest had to fit his bed. His bed was so precious that if the guest was a little longer, then cut his feet off; if needed, cut off his head - but make him to the size of the bed. If he was a little smaller, then stretch him. Perhaps this king was the man who invented traction.

They used traction on me. When I first heard about traction I started wondering, from where does this word "traction" come? I found that it comes from Christian churches of the Middle Ages where they used to torture people, pulling them from both sides - hands on one side, legs on the other - to confess that they were in contact with devils, with witches, that nuns were having intercourse with the devil, that monks were having intercourse with ghosts ... all kinds of things. And unless you confessed, this traction would continue.

It was by chance that a monk had a bad back; and when they did this traction to him, he confessed, and he also said, "One thing more: my back was bad and I have been suffering for years; your traction has been a great blessing to me. I am grateful; my back is perfectly okay, I can walk!" That's how this traction came - it is a religious device used by medical science.

But that Greek king was even more ancient, he was really the pioneer. People got killed in both cases, because it was very, very difficult to find a person exactly the same size as his bed. And he was a king - no ordinary person was going to be his guest, only very extraordinary people.

The bed was not made according to anybody's size, so everybody was either too long or too short.

Everybody came out dead in the morning. From his guest house nobody came back alive because he never could find a man who could fit his bed. And the bed was so precious that people's lives did not matter at all.

These people have dominated humanity - they are still dominating humanity.

Their whole game is one of retarded minds.

It is time we burned the whole of history and started from the very beginning, fresh.

That's my whole work with you.

Talking to you I am really trying to burn your conditionings, trying to remove all the rubbish that you have been carrying your whole life ... just trying to clean you and make you utterly blank so that you can start sprouting your self - otherwise you are so full of junk that there is no space for your self.

I used to stay in a very rich man's house in Indore. The man was certainly one of the richest men in the world. I don't know anybody who has been given as many titles as that man. In India Seth is a title which is given to super-rich people. He was called Sir Seth, not just ordinary Seth, Seth of the Seths: Sir Seth means above the head, the chief. And he was the only man who has ever been called Sir Seth in the whole of history.

And he had so many titles .... When you saw his letterhead, you could not believe it: Sir Seth, Raoraja Sir, knight and whatnot; everything was there. And he had a huge palace, but so full of junk - precious junk, but junk after all, is junk. Everything that came into the market anywhere in the world was immediately purchased, and things went on gathering in his palace.

He asked me, "How do you like it?"

I said, "I just wonder if I can get out of this palace alive, because there is no space to live in this place. You cannot move!" I took him to my bedroom, that was his best room. I said, "You just look - you move anywhere and you stumble into something." All models of television, all models of radio were there, and I said, "Television has not come to Indore yet - why possess these sets?"

He said, "That is my order to all of my offices around the world: anything new, purchase immediately for the palace."

Useless models of television sets ... I said to him, "One day I would like to go around your whole palace with you, because if this is the situation of the guest house, I would like to know what the situation of the host is. It must be worse." And it was.

This guest house was a small house in the garden; between the garden and the palace there were beautiful fountains and trees and lawns, and then his palace. The first floor was full of horses! I said, "My God! Do you like riding?"

He said, "No."

I said, "Then what are these horses doing here?" - and such beautiful horses I have never seen.

He said, "Just my orders. Anywhere, any beautiful horse, immediately it has to be purchased." Rare horses I have seen but nothing to be compared to Sir Hukumchand's horses. Then elephants in one corner; in another corner, camels - and they stink!

I said, "Sir Seth, you must be going crazy with all this stink."

He said, "No; in fact I have become so accustomed to it I don't go anywhere because I can't sleep without this fragrance."

He had to feel that in the whole world he was the only man - that was his liking. He wanted, in everything, to be at the top. He had one Rolls Royce made of solid gold; it is still there. It was useless because he was afraid to take it out - it was dangerous. It was too costly - all solid gold, completely; even the mechanism inside was solid gold. It never moved, it simply remained in a showcase.

I said, "What is the point?"

He said, "The point is that I am the only person in the whole world ...."

I said, "That is very easy, it can be done in a very simple way. Just shave half your hair, and you will be the only man in the whole world with half the head shaved. Why waste so much money? Just cut half of your moustache and you will be a walking exhibition. This car is stuck here - people have come to see it. They will not need to come anymore. You go to the temple, you go to the office; wherever you will go, your half-moustache will declare that you are the only man in the whole world ....

The palace was three-storied - not even space to go into the rooms which were fully packed with strange things; even he had no idea what they were, but they had been purchased because they had come new in the market.

I told him, "Sir Seth, your palace represents exactly the mind of people. You have money so you can fill your palace with all kinds of junk. People don't have that much money so they fill their minds - that is cheaper - with all kinds of junk."

And politicians particularly do this because the politician has to deal with the lowest mob. He has to descend to the lowest, only then can he communicate. And slowly slowly he becomes that person - retarded, mediocre, having a mob psychology. You become that which you go on practicing continuously.

You ask me, "Do politicians have brains?"

I can only say what I have experienced and seen. Certainly the question will arise, because if I say they don't have any brains then how do they go on working? They go on working just like computers, just like robots. They go on working, not intelligently, but mechanically.

Two thousand years of history we know clearly, with evidence. One thing comes out absolutely clearly, that all political leaders have functioned mechanically. That's why history is repeated - because of the mechanical behavior of the politicians. It is the same wheel that goes on moving: the same ambition, the same desire, the same strategy, the same tricks, the same exploitations - and the same results.

But now the game has come to a point where either the game has to finish or humanity has to be ready to commit suicide.

The game is not so precious, the game is just worthless. Humanity cannot be sacrificed to the political game.

Human individuals should start declaring that the earth is one, the whole of humanity is one; that we don't want any nations, we don't want this dirty politics; that we don't see any problem, why Russia should be against America, or America be against Russia.

The Russian people are as innocent and simple as Americans. It is just the topmost politicians who cannot let you relax, because your relaxation is their death. They want you to remain continuously tense, afraid, so that they go on playing the game that "the war is coming and we have to prepare for it."

I want my people to declare that there is going to be no war and we are not going to be participants in it, that this war is absolute absurdity.

And it is good that politics has brought you to this logical conclusion. Without it there would be no hope of getting rid of politicians. Now there is a chance, and we should not miss it. It is so glaringly clear that it is a question of either/or.

Either the politicians remain or humanity remains.

And this is where politicians themselves have dragged us. They cannot back out, there is no way back. Life only goes on forwards, never backwards. And they are all pushing towards war - reluctantly, afraid, because they are going to be killed in it themselves.

It is time that consciousness be raised, that people be made alert and aware that the question is no longer of communism or democracy, Russia or America; the question is politics, or religion. And when I say religion I don't mean religions. When I say religion I mean religiousness.

The religions are all fictitious.

Just the other day I was talking to you about three fools visiting at the birth of Jesus Christ, coming from the East to touch his feet. But the story is so fictitious that I would like you to be reminded of one thing: what led them to the place where Jesus was born, in an unknown corner of Bethlehem, in a stable?

The story says that a great star led the way. They followed the star and then the star stopped, just on top of the stable, so they knew Jesus was there, and they went in. This star makes the whole thing clearly fictitious, because stars don't move in a direct line. They don't move in any other way than in orbit; every star moves in a circle.

And the stars are so far away that it would be very difficult to decide which stable the star was above!

They are millions and millions of miles away. The distance is so great ... but the story sounds as if the star was just sitting on the roof of the stable; only then would it have been possible. But do you know, stars are very huge, they cannot come that low; otherwise the whole earth would be destroyed, with Jesus Christ included.

Our sun is a star. It is sixty thousand times bigger than this earth - and this sun is a very mediocre star. There are stars which you see in the sky which are millions of times bigger than our sun.

Now, a star leading the way seems almost like somebody holding a torch ahead, or a lamp, and then coming to the stable and telling them, "This is the stable." Stars can't do that. They cannot move out of their orbit - even for Jesus Christ they won't do it.

But all religions are fictitious.

Just as there are science fictions there are religious fictions.

All holy scriptures are religious fictions, and not of first grade quality. In fact, they cannot be counted as great literature - only fragments are great.

For example, in the whole of the Old Testament, just one small piece can be counted as literature, all else is rubbish. That small piece is "The Song of Solomon," which Jews don't even want to talk about - and that is the only important thing in their whole scripture! But they want to ignore it for the simple reason that Solomon certainly seems to be a wise man, certainly a religious man; a man of tremendous sensibility, aesthetic, moral; a man who knows what beauty is, what poetry is.

Except for that small piece, everything else is only worth burning. In the New Testament, just a small piece, "The Sermon on the Mount," is enough for Jesus to be counted as a man of some worth. All else is just written for the mob. The same is true about other religions.

So when I say religion I simply mean the religious consciousness: a certain quality - not a certain dogma, not a creed, not a cult, not something organized but something felt deep in the heart, something closer to when you see in the morning a beautiful sunrise .... You feel something, something is stirred in you. You cannot express it, you cannot tell anybody what you are feeling.

All you can do is, you can hold the other person, and with your finger you can show the sunrise without saying a single word.

If the man has any aesthetic sense, any sensibility, he may be able to feel it; otherwise there is no way. You cannot argue, you cannot make a statement, you cannot do a commentary. You can only point it out ... fingers pointing to the moon.

All religious sages have only pointed to the moon. And all organized religions have caught hold of the fingers, forgotten all about the moon, and are worshiping the fingers. Now, the fingers are not the moon - they never were.

In Kashmir there is one hair of Hazrat Mohammed which is worshipped. A few years ago, the hair was stolen. Now there was great turmoil; riots happened, because certainly some Hindu must have stolen it. Many people were killed, many houses were burned, many temples destroyed, many mosques were burned. And after three days the hair was found back in its place. I know for certain it is not the same hair.

But what difference does it make? To the idiots ... who knows whether the first hair was of Hazrat Mohammed or not? And even if it was of Hazrat Mohammed, what does it matter?

In Kandi in Ceylon there is a huge temple, one of the most important in Ceylon - important because it has one too of Gautam Buddha. I have been to Kandi. The tooth is not of Gautam Buddha, for the simple reason that it is not a human tooth at all! It is so big - and I got it confirmed from people who understand animals, man. I had taken a vet with me. He said, "It is certainly of some animal; it cannot be of a man in any way."

And now it is confirmed by other sources also that it is from some animal. But it makes no difference; every year the festival continues, millions of Buddhists go on worshipping.

Organized religion clings to fingers.

Fingers are not in the moon.

If you really want to see the moon you will have to forget the fingers completely; otherwise fingers will come in between you and the moon. They have to be ignored. They have done their work, they have indicated; say goodbye to them.

Religious consciousness is a receptivity, a vulnerability to the existence that surrounds you, so alive that if you are open, its living vibes start moving within you, dancing within you. It is so full of joy - just you are closed. It is overflowing with bliss - just you are not there to receive it.

Religious consciousness means receptivity to the joy the universe is made of.

Yes, that is the stuff the universe is made of.

Any intelligent person is of necessity going to be religious.

Politics is only for idiots. Its day is finished. We have to begin a new history in which there will be no place for politics. We want to get rid of all this retardedness, this mediocrity. We want the earth to become really the very cream of the whole universe. It can become, it has the potential.

Unfortunately we have not used it. But the time has come - and I am preparing you to use it.