Danger: truth at work

Question 1:

THAT'S precisely why - because it appears to be the very truth.

Truth is dangerous, dangerous to all those people who have been living in fictions, beautiful lies, nice dreams, utopias.

Truth is bound to be looked on as an enemy by all these people, because it is going to shatter all that they have believed and lived for.

Truth is just the death of all kinds of lies, howsoever consoling they may have been.

Why were the common people against Socrates? Why were the masses so antagonistic to Al-Hillaj Mansoor? Why were the orthodox, the religious, the respectable against jesus? Their only crime was they were saying something which was tremendously disturbing to people's sleep. Nobody wants to be disturbed when he is having a beautiful dream.

And people don't have anything else except dreams.

There have been, all around, dream merchants who have been selling dreams to people and exploiting people - and in return they were not giving anything.

All the religions, up to now, have been dream sellers, exploiters of people's weaknesses.

Yes, there are weaknesses. Every man who is born is going to die. You cannot hide the truth of death.

How long can you make the cemeteries beautiful? Gardens, lawns, flowers, marble graves... but you cannot hide the fact of death.

You can see that in every country the cemetery is outside the city. It should really be exactly in the middle of the city, so everybody passing by comes to be reminded of death again and again - because that is the only thing that is certain.

Everything else is just probable; may happen, may not happen. But death is not a probability.

Death is the only certainty in your whole life.

Whatsoever happens, death is going to be there. You cannot escape from it. You cannot go anywhere away from it.

Death will meet you wherever you go.

I am reminded of an ancient parable. A very great king dreamed that death was standing before him - a dark figure. He became frightened even in his dream. But he was a brave man: somehow he gathered his courage together and asked this strange figure, "Who are you? And what do you want?"

The figure said, "I am your death, and I have come to warn you: Don't forget the right place, and the right time to meet me." Only this much he said, "Don't forget the right place and the right time to meet me, tomorrow." And the shock of his statement was such that the dream was shattered, the king woke up. It was in the middle of the night but he immediately called his wise advisers, astrologers, dream-interpreters, future-predictors, all sorts of people; and he told his dream.

They all started quarreling and discussing and arguing about what the dream meant. The old servant of the king, who had been almost like a father to him - he had raised him from his very childhood....

The king's mother died early, and his father was constantly going on faraway journeys, invading countries, conquering, expanding the empire. So he was left with this trustworthy servant and he treated him almost like a father.

The old man was standing by his side. He whispered into the king's ear, "Don't waste time! These people can quarrel for centuries; they have been quarreling for centuries. These philosophers, these astrologers, these prophets - they have never agreed on anything. And it is going to be morning; tomorrow is just going to begin and there is not much time. My suggestion is, you take your fastest horse and escape from this place." The advice appeared to be solid: "And let these people argue.

They are not going to come to any conclusion at all. The evening will come soon - they will take centuries - and there will be no conclusion. If you depend on them, you will repent; you just escape!

Leave these people here; let them argue and I will be listening to their arguments."

The king simply slipped away, took his fastest horse and rushed as fast as it was possible, away from the palace where the dream had happened. By the evening he had gone hundreds of miles, and he was very happy that he had come so far away: "Now it will be difficult for death to find me at the place, at the fixed time."

The sun was setting. He had reached the outskirts of the city of Damishk. Just to rest... because the whole day he had not eaten, he had not even taken a cup of water. Time was so precious! Thirst is not going to kill you just in one day, hunger is not going to kill you just in one day. He was going to rest in a garden just outside of the city. He went into the garden and was tying the horse to a tree, and was thanking the horse, because the horse was really perhaps the best horse in the world.

He was thanking the horse and saying to him, "You really proved your mettle today. Even I was not aware that you can go so fast. Now rest, and I will arrange for your food and for your water."

Just then, he felt a hand on one of his shoulders. He looked back. The same black figure was standing there, laughing. The king was shocked; he said, "Why are you laughing?"

Death said, "This is the place and this is the time. I was worried whether you will be able to make it or not - but your horse certainly is the best horse in the world. I also thank him!"

Where can you escape? Perhaps wherever you are going, there is the right place and the right time.

In fact every place is the right place for death, and every time is the right time.

Now, facts like death.... Religions have been trying to console you, giving you ideas that can help you to create a buffer between you and the fear of death - shock absorbers - so that you don't get shocked continually; otherwise life would become impossible. So all kinds of fictions have been woven into mythologies, into theologies. Anybody saying the truth is bound to cut through all these cobwebs, these mythologies, these fictions.

And when you see suddenly the naked truth, you are going to be against the person who has brought you such a shocking gift.

You would like to believe that it is not true, but you know it is. Hence the anger; otherwise there is no need to kill Socrates.

If you are right, and you know that you are right, then let this man befool himself with his "truth" - it does not matter to you. The people of Athens believed in an afterlife, as did the people of the whole earth. Everybody, except the atheists, believed in an afterlife of some kind. The Greek mythology was rich, but Socrates said, "Nothing can be said about death because nobody has ever returned.

So we have to keep our minds open. We cannot accept any fiction about death and life after death, because there has not been a single eyewitness. Until I die, I cannot say whether one lives after death or not. If I die, then there is no question, no problem arises - I am simply not there.

"What was the problem when you were not born?" His argument was solid. In what trouble were you when you were not born? - what anxiety, what anguish, what suffering? You know that there is no question of any suffering or any anguish when you were not born. Who was going to suffer, and who was going to be in anxiety and anguish? - you were not there!

Socrates just simply looked at death with the same vision. If you are simply finished, as the atheists say; if you completely disappear, if nothing of you will remain, then there is no problem because you are not there. With you, all problems, all anxieties disappear. This is one possibility.

The other possibility is that perhaps the theists are right, and you survive. But then too, he said, "I don't see any problem. You are surviving right now, and somehow you are managing your misery, your anxiety, your problems; somehow you are managing. And if you are there, you will be experienced, more experienced; you will be able to manage."

So he said, "I don't see any problem to be bothered about. Either I die, then there is no question; or I will be there, more experienced, more wise. And I can trust myself: if I could pass through life, I will pass through death too. But I cannot say anything before I have experienced it. And I cannot promise you either, that when I have experienced it I will be able to come back and tell you, because up to now nobody has come back. Perhaps there is no way to come back. Perhaps the very bridge falls as you pass, all communication becomes impossible. But nothing can be said about it.

He would not say anything definitely, and that was the problem that he was creating in people's minds. He was creating anxiety. That was one of the points raised against his being in Athens:

"He should be expelled or sentenced to death, because this man has been creating anxiety and anguish in people's minds. People who were perfectly happy doing their work, comfortably.... This man meets them, and once he has met them, they are never at ease again."

And this was a routine thing for Socrates: just to go around the town, to catch hold of anybody and ask him any question. Even if the other person wanted to escape, Socrates wouldn't allow it: "You have to answer!" And then, once you had answered a question, he would hammer your answer from every possible angle and soon you were left without any answer. Then he would tell you, "You can come to my school" - he had a school - "if you want to learn, because your answer was absolutely bogus. Some idio0t has sold that answer to you and cheated you. You have been living a lie."

Yes, lies can be comfortable can be very convenient.

Truth, in the beginning, is very inconvenient, is very uncomfortable, but in the end it is the ultimate blessing.

We can summarize: a lie is always sweet in the beginning, bitter in the end; the truth is bitter in the beginning, sweet in the end.

But you need patience for the end. If you are impatient, then you are going to buy some lie.

The common masses have no mind of their own. For centuries they have been conditioned, hypnotized, brainwashed continuously.

So when a man like me says something, it needs guts in the first place even to hear it. Then it needs tremendous courage to absorb it, because it is bitter, it goes against all your conditioning.

So only a very few people who are really seekers of truth will be ready to go through all this turmoil.

Everything will go upside down: their God, their heaven, their hell, their devil, their messiahs, their prophets.

A thick wall exists between you and truth. And all these people are standing between you and the truth. You will have to tell them, "Get lost! Go to Oregon!" That is my translation for "Go to hell,"

because that has become too old. We should continue to make proverbs fresh.

A Christian will have to put Christ aside; it is very difficult. It was difficult for Jews to put Moses aside when Jesus was telling them something far truer; it was difficult to put Moses aside. Now the same problem arises for the Christian; it is difficult for him to put Jesus aside. And Jesus' claim is far more than Moses ever claimed. Moses never claimed that he is the only begotten son of God.

Jesus claims that he is the only begotten son of God. Can you put it aside and tell Jesus, "Go to Oregon"? It will be difficult. Rather than doing that, you would prefer me to leave Oregon. That's what your politicians are trying; they are telling me, "Leave Oregon." That seems to be simpler, because with me they have no ties. I have not sold them any sweet dreams. I have not promised them anything, nor am I promising them now.

My whole work is to demolish, to demolish all the lies that are surrounding you and not to replace them by anything else, but to leave you utterly naked in your aloneness.

To me, only in your aloneness will you be able to know the truth - because you are the truth.

You are not to go anywhere to find truth. Neither can Jesus give it to you, nor can Krishna give it to you, nor can Buddha give it to you, nor can I give it to you. It is not a commodity that somebody can just give to you.

Just think: if truth is a commodity, a thing which can be given to you, then it can be stolen, it can be taken back, it can be lost - anything can happen to it.

But nothing happens to truth. It happens to you, but nothing happens to it. It cannot be stolen, it cannot be purchased.

There is a story in Mahavira's life.... One of the very famous kings, Bimbisara, had conquered the whole of India and the neighboring countries. He had made a vast empire. He was a man who, once he wanted something, would have it. He had never come across anything that he wanted and could not find a way to get. He had heard many times about Mahavira, who was just resting for the rainy season outside the city, his capital.

He enquired, "What has this man got? - because I see thousands of people going to him."

Somebody said, "He has got the truth."

Bimbisara said, "Then there is no problem. How much does he ask for it? I am ready to pay. There is no question of bargaining, you simply enquire how much he wants for it."

The man could not say to the king, " You are talking like a fool." He said, "It is better, your majesty, that you go to him and you negotiate. I am a poor man, don't put me in this situation. You are a great king; he is a great tirthankara, a great soul which rarely happens. Only twenty-four persons reach that height in one cycle of existence." He is saying that in millions and millions of light years, only twenty-four... and he is the last for this cycle. Now there is not going to be another man of his caliber again in this cycle of existence. When this whole existence burns out - when all these stars and galaxies and solar systems have gone, disappeared, and a new creation starts from the very scratch - then the first tirthankara will appear. "Now this man is very rare because for millions of years there is not going to be another comparable to him. So it is better you go."

Bimbisara went with all his paraphernalia, and he was respectful to Mahavira - just a formality. In India even if a king goes to a sage, he has to touch the feet of the sage; that is just a formality. And he said. "I have come for a simple thing. Give me your truth, and whatsoever you want - even if you ask for my whole empire - I will give it to you. This is my whole life's standpoint: anything that I want, I have to have it. What it is going to cost matters not."

Mahavira laughed, he said, "You unnecessarily came this far. In your very capital lives one of my disciples. He has got the truth; and he is a very poor man - he may be ready to sell it. I am not ready to sell it. And you must know that I am also the son of a king. I was going to inherit the kingdom of my father; I renounced it to get the truth. Now, how can I sell it for a kingdom? Even if you give me the whole kingdom, how can I sell it? I have already renounced a whole kingdom to get this truth, and after forty years of struggle, I have found it. I cannot sell it.

Mahavira must have had a sense of humor that Jainas have missed completely. He sent him back to the poor man in the capital. He had never gone to that quarter of the capital, because only the poorest, the very poor, in fact the outcasts, lived there. His golden chariot was standing there before the poor man's hut. The poor man came running, and Bimbisara said, "Rejoice! I am ready to give anything you want, just give me the truth. Your Master has sent me; I am coming from Mahavira."

The poor man said, "My Master must have joked with you. Perhaps he did not want to hurt you before so many people because you had gone with your whole court, all your advisers, ministers, generals. He did not want to hurt you or say no to you. That's why he has sent you to me. I can give my life if you want. I am just your poor servant; I clean your streets. You can ask for my life and it is here, ready - you cut off my head But truth...? Yes, I have got it, but the very quality of truth is such that it cannot be given. Not that I don't want to give it to you; I am absolutely willing.

"If you can take it, take it. You can kill me; if you find it inside me, so far so good - I am ready. I will be happy that I had the chance to serve you so intimately and so closely. But I warn you, you will not find it there because the truth has to be authentically yours, only then is it true. If it is somebody else's, then it is no longer true. My truth cannot be your truth. The moment I say something about the truth, you only hear the words - the truth is left behind. The truth can never be squeezed into words; there is no way."

Words have been reaching the common people and they have been believing that those words are the truth - somebody believing in the words of Jesus, somebody in the words of Buddha, somebody in the words of Mohammed - but they are not the truth.

No book contains truth, no word can ever contain it.

But you become satisfied, and whenever somebody disturbs your satisfied state, you are angry. And of course you have the majority of people with you. That helps you tremendously - so many people cannot be wrong.

And truth never happens to crowds, it happens only to individuals.

Whenever truth comes, it comes in the vibe of an individual, so that individual is always standing against the whole crowd.

Otherwise, the whole crowd is with you, because they have also been fed with the same kind of stuff. The Catholics: how many are they? - perhaps six hundred million. Now, any Catholic has a great consolation, that six hundred million people are with him. Six hundred million people cannot be wrong. And against one person... naturally they feel that this person is a disturbance. It is better to finish this person and go to sleep, back to their dreams.

It is not new to me. From my very childhood I have been in the same position. My father would take me with him if he was going to some ceremony, some marriage, some birthday party, anywhere.

He would take me on the condition that I should remain absolutely silent, "Otherwise, you please remain at home."

I would say, "But why? Everybody is allowed to talk, except me!"

He said, "You know, I know, and everybody knows why you are not allowed to talk - because you are a disturbance."

"But," I said, "in things which concern me, you promise me that you will not interfere with me, and promise you that I will remain silent."

And many times it happened that he had to interfere. For example, if some elderly man was there - a faraway relative, but in India it doesn't matter - my father would touch his feet, and would say, "Touch his feet."

I said, "You are interfering with me, and our contract is finished. Why should I touch this old man's feet? If you want to touch them, you can touch them twice, thrice; I will not interfere, but why should I touch his feet? Why not his head?"

And that was enough disturbance. Everybody would explain to me that he was old. I said, "I have seen many old people. Just in front of my house there is an old elephant; I never touch his feet. That elephant belongs to a priest; it is a very old elephant. I never touch his feet, and he is very wise - I think more wise than this old man. Just old age does not give him any quality. A fool remains a fool - perhaps becomes more foolish as he becomes older. An idiot becomes more idiotic as he grows old, because you cannot remain the same, you are going to grow. And the idiot, when he becomes senile... then his idiocy is multiplied. And that is the time when he becomes very respectable. I am not going to touch the feet of this old man unless it is proved to me why I should."

Once I went to a funeral; one of my teachers had died. He was my Sanskrit teacher - a very fat man, funny - looking, and funnily dressed in the way of old brahmins, ancient brahmins, with a very big turban. He was a laughingstock in the whole school but he was very innocent too. The Hindi word for innocent is bhole, so we used to call him Bhole. As he entered the class, the whole class would recite loudly, "Jai Bhole" - long live Bhole. And of course he could not punish all the students; otherwise, how was he going to teach, whom was he going to teach?

He died. So naturally, thinking that as he was my teacher I would behave, my father didn't ask for the contract. But I could not, because what happened there I had not expected - nobody had expected it. His dead body was lying there when we arrived. His wife came out running and fell upon him and said, "Oh my Bhole!" Everybody remained silent but I could not. I tried hard, but the harder I tried, the more difficult it was. I burst out laughing and I said, "This is great!"

My father said, "I had not made a contract with you thinking that as he was your teacher you would be respectful."

I said, "I am not disrespectful, but I am surprised by the coincidence. Bhole was his nickname and he used to get angry about it. Now the poor fellow is dead and his wife is calling him Bhole and he cannot do anything. I am just feeling sorry for him!"

Every place I used to go with him he always made the contract; but he was the first party to break it because something or other would happen and he would have to say something. And that was enough, because that was the condition - that he was not to interfere with me.

One Jaina monk was in the town. Jaina monks sit on a very high pedestal, so that even standing you can touch their feet with your head... at least a five-foot, six-foot-high pedestal - and they sit on it. Jaina monks move in a group, they are not allowed to move alone; five Jaina monks should move together. That is a strategy so that the four keep an eye on the fifth to see that nobody tries to get a Coca-Cola - unless they all conspire. And I have seen them conspiring and getting Coca-Cola, that's why I remember it.

They are not allowed even to drink in the night and I have seen them drinking Coca-Cola in the night.

In fact, in the day it was dangerous to drink Coca-Cola - what if somebody saw it! - so only in the night.... I had supplied it myself so there was no problem about it. Who else would supply them?

No Jaina would be ready to do it, but they knew me, and they knew that any outrageous thing, and I would be ready to do it.

So five pedestals were there. But one monk was sick, so when I went there with my father, I went to the fifth pedestal and sat on it. I can still remember my father and the way he looked at me... he could not even find words: "What to say to you?" And he could not interfere with me, because I had not done any wrong to anybody. Just sitting on a pedestal, a wooden pedestal, I was not hurting anybody or anything. He came close to me and he said, "It seems, contract or no contract, you are going to do whatsoever you are intending to do; so from now onwards we will not make the contract, because it is absolutely unnecessary."

And those four monks were in such uneasiness and they also could not say anything - what to say?

One of them finally said, "This is not right. Nobody who is not a monk should sit on an equal level."

So they told my father, "You bring him down."

I said, "You think twice. Remember the bottle!" because I had supplied the Coca-Cola.

They said, "Yes, that's right, we remember the bottle. You sit on the pedestal as long as you please."

My father said, "What bottle?"

I said, "You ask these people. I have a double contract: one with you and one with them, and nobody can prevent me. You all four agree that I can sit here, or I will start telling the name of the bottle."

They said, "We are perfectly satisfied. You can sit here, there is no harm - but please keep silent about the bottle."

Now, many people were there, and they all became interested... what bottle? When I came out of the temple everybody gathered; they all said, "What is this bottle?"

I said, "This is a secret. And this is my power over these fools whose feet you go on touching. If I want, I can manage to tell them to touch my feet, otherwise - the bottle...." These fools!

My father, on the way home, asked me, "You can just tell me. I will not tell anybody: what is this bottle? Do they drink wine?"

I said, "No. Things have not gone that far, but if they remain here a few days more, I will manage that too. I can force them to drink wine... otherwise I will name the bottle."

The whole town was discussing the bottle, what the bottle was, and why they had become afraid:

"We have always thought that they were such spiritual sages, and this boy made them afraid. And they all agreed that he could sit there, which is against the scriptures." Everybody was after me.

They were ready to bribe me: "Ask whatsoever - you just tell us what is the secret of the bottle."

I said, "It is a very great secret, and I am not going to tell you anything about it. Why don't you go and ask your monks what the bottle is? I can be there, so they cannot lie - and then you will know what kind of people you are worshipping. And these are the people who are conditioning your mind!"

In the university there used to be a professor who wanted to resign because of me. He was a very old, senior professor, and very much honored. Perhaps he is still alive. His name was Doctor S.N.L.

Shrivastava; he was a Ph.D., D.Litt. In philosophy he was a well known name - and he threatened to resign because of me. His condition to the university was that if I was not expelled from the university, then this was his resignation: only one could live in the university, either I or he. And I was just a student, only a first-year student. I had just matriculated from my village and had come to the bigger town. And within three months he became such a mess that when he saw me he would get out of the class!

I would run after him and tell him, "What is the matter? Why are you going away? I pay the fee. You are supposed to teach, I am supposed to learn, and all that I do is learning. If I ask a question, it is just to learn."

"But," he said, "you ask questions which are always putting me in a dilemma. If I say yes, then I am caught; if I say no, then I am caught. Each of your questions is just to provoke other questions, and there is no end to it. Three months have passed; you don't allow me to go any further than the first day. We are still stuck there; and I know that there is not going to be anything else for these two years you are going to be here with me. You won't let that first day be finished. So it is better...."

"But," I said, "you are so learned, with so many degrees, honorary degrees, and thirty years' teaching experience, you must have passed so many students - why are you so disturbed? If you don't know, you can simply say "I don't know." Your only trouble is that you cannot say "I don't know." I am not your trouble. You want to keep the pretension that you know everything, and the fact is nobody knows everything, not even you know everything."

He was teaching us Aristotelian logic; he was the professor of logic and philosophy. And in India, for the first two years you have to learn logic, so those two years, the beginning two years, are devoted to Aristotle and his logic. And I said to him that even Aristotle was not all-knowing; he was as ignorant as anybody else. He writes in his book that women have one tooth less than men.

Now look at the fool. He had two wives; he could have told Mrs. Aristotle One or Mrs. Aristotle Two, "Just open your mouth." And in fact women are always keeping their mouths open; there was no need to say it. If he was afraid he could have counted them in the night when they were asleep. But no, in Greece it was believed, traditionally believed, that a woman had to be, in everything, smaller than man, lower than man. How could she have exactly the same number of teeth as a man? But he never bothered to check.

So I told Shrivastava, "This man, you say, is a logician, the father of logic? It is such a simple thing that even a very mediocre man would have thought of it: the first thing is to count the teeth. And what was he doing with two wives anyway? Only then should he have written it. Without counting their teeth, he was just believing public opinion. And for thousands of years in Greece, this was the opinion - nobody bothered to count them. But it is simply strange that neither any men bothered nor any women bothered. At least some woman should have counted them, and said that this was absolutely absurd and nonsense.

But he said, "It is enough and I don't want to listen any more. I am going to the vice-chancellor to give my resignation: either he expels you or I resign."

He didn't come for three days, so the vice-chancellor called me. I asked him, "What is my fault? You expel me - there is no problem in it - but please tell me what is my fault? Have I asked any single question that was not related to logic? And if I have come to learn logic, I have to ask questions because my doubts should be satisfied. Otherwise the man should say that he does not know, and I am allowing that. Once he says,'I don't know,' I will not raise that question again. He is not courageous enough even to say,'I don't know.' And now this is a threat, that he will resign.

"He knows that he is a valuable professor. If he resigns in the middle of the term, where are you going to get a man of the same caliber? He knows that against a student who has been in the college only three months, it is going to be decided in his favor. But," I said, "it is not going to be easy. Then my fight, which was going on with S.N.L. Shrivastava, will start with you. I will be here in your office every day. You will have to give me in writing what the reasons are that I have been expelled."

He was a really nice and intelligent man. He said, "I don't see that there is any reason for you to be thrown out and I would be the last person to expel you. But please understand my situation:

we cannot lose that professor. So do one thing.... I will not expel you; I will make arrangements in another college. You do not have to do anything else, just do me a favor: I will make arrangements in another college, and you move to that other college. Jabalpur University has at least twenty colleges, so you can choose any college you want."

I said, "It is not a question of my choosing any college. You phone all these principals to see if anybody is ready to accept me, because now everybody knows about this S.N.L. Shrivastava thing:

that the best professor of philosophy in the university is ready to resign. Then who is going to take me? You try; I am ready." Out of twenty colleges, only one principal was ready to accept me - on the condition that I would never go to the class. He would give me the percentage needed, but I should never go to the class.

I said, "That is a perfect arrangement. I myself don't like unnecessarily bothering to go and then finding idiots there who don't know what they are doing, what they are teaching. So this is a good arrangement; you can make it. But remember, I am not going to pay the fees. I am doing you a favor, so you arrange for the fees for two years. I will never go to that college; you arrange for the fees, and you take care of everything. After two years I will come to you. If anything goes wrong, then you will be responsible."

He said, "I will take every responsibility" - and he took every responsibility.

After two years I went to him and said, "Give me my permission card to enter the examination. I am not going to that college; I have not even seen that college."

This is the way of the common masses - even the educated people belong to the common masses - they don't have integrity, intelligence or even the courage to say, "I don't know." Now this condition, I know, had come from the professor. The principal had asked the professor, "Can we accept this student? This is the trouble...."

And the professor said, "I don't want any trouble in my class. You can accept him only on the condition that he never comes to the class."

And now, just before I left India, I read an article by the same professor, Soleri is his name, proudly declaring that I was his student. I have not seen his face, he has not seen my face; I have never been in his class or on his college campus or around there. And now he is proud that I have been his student and that he always knew that I am going to be somebody special. These fools! They can lie so easily. But their whole lives are full of lies.

The common masses are, in a way, innocent. But the pedagogues, the priests, the politicians - these are the people who go on poisoning the common masses and keep them at the level of a mob.

What we call democracy has not yet come to the point of being a democracy. It is still, everywhere, only a mobocracy, because the mass that elects the people is a mob; it is not yet alert or aware.

Just a few days ago was the president's election here. What I heard was, that before the election on the sixth of November, on the night of the fifth of November, before the Wasco County Court, all the Christian congregations gathered. All the priests - who are enemies of each other, continually fighting, arguing about who is right, who is wrong and who is closer to Christ and God and who is not closer, and who is really orthodox and who has just gone astray - they all gathered there together.

All the priests, with all their congregations, before the county courthouse... for what? To pray against the Antichrist, to save Wasco County.

Now who is the Antichrist in Wasco County? And Wasco County needs to be saved from the Antichrist? I really enjoyed it, that they are all praying for me - because I don't think there is anybody else who can claim to be the Antichrist. But I am a little crazy. They say I am anti-Christ, anti-Buddha, anti-Mahavira, anti-Krishna, anti-semite.... Anything - just put "anti" before it and it refers to me. And in reality I am just for myself and not against anybody. I don't care a bit about Christ, so why should I be anti-Christ? I don't care about anybody! They never cared about me, why should I care about them?

These people go on.... The journalists asked the priests, "Who is the Antichrist?" and they were not even courageous enough to utter my name. They just went round and round answering, "We are just praying so that the county is saved from evil forces." But why only Wasco County? Are all the evil forces gathered here in Wasco County? They should have gone to the White House in Washington and prayed there. because if all the evil forces are gathered anywhere, there are two places: the Kremlin and the White House. And if the world is going to suffer, it is going to suffer from these two places: the Kremlin and the White House.

But the strangest thing about these priests is: in the second world war in England they were praying to God, the Christian God, for England's victory, for Winston Churchill's safety; and the Christians in Rome, where the pope is, in the Vatican, were praying for Mussolini's safety and his victory - to the same Christian God. Not only that, Adolf Hitler was being blessed by the Christian bishops, and they were praying for his victory - to the same Christian God. Now what happened to that Christian God? He must have committed suicide! How to decide? - all are his people, and his agents are praying. In whose favor is He going to decide?

And Christians don't see the point that when Adolf Hitler is in power, then the Christian priest prays for Adolf Hitler. He is just a coward. He could not say, "I will not pray for you and the ideology you stand for. I am going to pray that you should be defeated." But no, brave people don't become priests; they have other, better things to do. These are cowards. And these cowards go on poisoning other people's minds; they make other people cowards. They have destroyed the whole of humanity and made it into a madhouse.

So if the masses are against me, it is expected. It cannot be otherwise, it is natural.

What is unexpected is that there are a few people all around the world who are able to stand with me, who are courageous enough to put their prejudices aside and listen to me, who are intelligent enough to recognize the truth when they come across it - whatsoever the cost and whatsoever the consequence.

In fact, nobody before me has had such intelligent people as I have got around the world, people of such caliber, so receptive, so willing to go through the fire test.

Yes, it is walking on fire when you go towards truth.

It is going to burn you, it is going to burn you completely. And then that which remains unburned, alive, is your reality. Everything else, which got burned, was rubbish poured over you by others.

Nobody can burn the truth, but to attain the truth you will have to drop so many things, so many burdens.

But I am fortunate that at least one percent of humanity is almost ready to jump and create the first religion of the world: the religion of truth, consciousness - with no lies about God, heaven, hell, devil - just the purest twenty-four-carat truth.

Even one percent around the earth is a tremendous force. You should not think that it is only one percent against ninety-nine percent. No, those ninety-nine percent are nothing because they don't have any fire of their own. They are dead before death; they are just walking corpses.

This one percent is tremendously powerful because it is alive.

The fire in it is going to transform the whole world. And those ninety-nine percent don't count at all.

So I am not concerned with what the masses think about me. I am concerned only about the one percent of intelligent people in the world - what they think about me.