The Human Rights Declaration: Hypocrisy of a barbarous society

Question 1:

One of the most fundamental things to be always remembered is that we are living in a hypocrite society.

Once, a great philosopher was asked: "What do you think of civilization?"

The philosopher said, "It is a good idea, but somebody has to change the idea into a reality.

Civilization has not happened yet. It is a dream of the future."

But the people who are in power - politically, religiously, socially - are in power because civilization has not happened. A civilized world, a mature man, needs no nations - all those boundaries are false - needs no religions, because all those theologies are simple fictions.

The people who have been for thousands of years in power - the priests, the politicians, the super- rich, they have all the powers to prevent human evolution. But the best way to prevent it is to convince man, "You are already civilized," to convince man, "You are already a human being. You need not go through a transformation, it is unnecessary."

And man's weakness is that knowing perfectly well there exists no such thing as civilization, there exists no such thing as human sensitivity, still he starts believing in all the lies that the politicians have been speaking, the priests have been preaching, the educationists have been teaching - because it seems simpler to just believe, you don't have to do anything for it.

To recognize the fact that you are not yet a man creates fear. The very ground underneath your feet disappears.

Truth makes you utterly naked - naked of all lies, naked of all hypocrisies. That's why nobody wants truth; everybody believes that he has got it.

Do you see the psychological strategy? If you don't want to give something to someone, convince him, hypnotize him, repeat again and again, "You have got it." And when thousands of people around you - your parents, your teachers, your priests, your leaders - are all believing it, it seems almost impossible for new arrivals in the world, small children, not to be convinced of this thousands-of- years-old idea. Millions of people have lived and died believing that civilization has happened.

So the first thing I want you to understand is that we are still barbarous. Only barbarians can do things that we have been doing for thousands of years - not human beings. In three thousand years, five thousand wars... and you call man civilized?

In the twentieth century - exactly in the middle of the twentieth century - you can produce Adolf Hitler, you can produce Josef Stalin, you can produce Benito Mussolini, you can produce Mao Tse- tung, and still you believe man is civilized?

Adolf Hitler alone killed six million human beings, and killed with great sophistication. Science and technology have been used. One million Jews have been simply burned in gas chambers - within seconds thousands of people are nothing but smoke going out of the chimneys. He killed so many people that it was impossible to give each person the conventional grave.

Man has never been so poor - even beggars have graves, but he had killed so many people that to make graves for all of them... the whole of Germany would have became a graveyard. So he had deep ditches prepared, and people were simply thrown into the ditches and covered with mud.

Before throwing their bodies in the ditches he destroyed even those dead peoples' dignity. Their clothes were taken away; their heads, their beards, their moustaches were shaved so you could not recognize the face of the person. Their heads were cut off; so you would find somewhere the head and somewhere the hand and somewhere the leg and somewhere the remaining parts of the body.

And thousands of people - it was impossible to figure out who you were looking for.

Why did he do that? So that nobody could be recognized. Even if somebody was found dead, he could not be recognized; he did not even have his whole body. And you say that man is civilized?

And this is not the end of the story. Seeing the second world war, one would have thought that just a little intelligence is needed and the second world war should be the last world war - seeing what man himself has been doing to man. But no, we are preparing for the third world war - and the last.

Albert Einstein was asked, "Can you say something about what is going to happen in the third world war?"

And Einstein said, "Excuse me, I cannot say anything about the third world war, but I can say something about the fourth."

The questioner could not believe it. He said, "You cannot say anything about the third - and it is so complicated - yet you are ready to say something about the forth, which will be even more complicated!"

Albert Einstein said, "You don't understand. I can say something definitively, categorically, about the fourth. And that is that the fourth is never going to happen, because the third will destroy all life - not only human beings, roses too. All that is living will disappear from the earth."

And you say that humanity has become civilized?

No, you have been deceived and this declaration of human rights by the United Nations is nothing but the same hypocrisy.

George Gurdjieff used to tell a small story - but it is about humanity. The story is that there was a magician. He lived deep in the mountains and the forests, and he had thousands of sheep. But the problem was that the sheep were afraid of the magician because every day the sheep were seeing that one of them was being killed for his breakfast, another was being killed for his lunch. So they used to run away from the magician's place, and it was a difficult job to find them in the vast forest.

Being a magician, he used magic. He hypnotized all the sheep and told different sheep... to some, "You are a man, you need not be afraid. It is only the sheep who are going to be killed and eaten, not you. You are a man just like I am."

Some other sheep were told, "You are a lion - only sheep are afraid. They escape, they are cowards.

You are a lion; you would prefer to die than to run away. You don't belong to these sheep. So when they are killed it is not your problem. They are meant to be killed, but you are the most loved of my friends in this forest."

In this way he told every sheep different stories, and from the second day, the sheep stopped running away from the house. They still saw other sheep being killed, butchered, but it was not their concern.

Somebody was a lion, somebody was a tiger, somebody was a man, somebody was.... Nobody was a sheep except the one who was being killed.

This way, without keeping servants, he managed thousands of sheep. They would go into the forest for their food, for their water, and they would come back home, believing always one thing: "It is some sheep who is going to be killed, not you. You don't belong to this mob. You are a lion - respected, honored, a friend of the great magician." The problems of the magician were solved.

I am telling you this story because it is literally true about you. You are being told things, and you accept them without even looking all around to see whether those things coincide with the reality or not.

The first thing... My first objection to the UN's Declaration of Human Rights is that rights exist only when there are duties. Duties are roots, rights are the flowers: you cannot have rights without duties.

And to celebrate a day in the year for human rights... but they don't celebrate a day for human duties, which comes first.

Why are they not talking about human duties? Because they don't want to give you your human rights. Without duties, rights can only be talked about, but you won't have them in your hands. And about duties, these politicians who have made this declaration have no notion at all. I will give you a few examples.

They say that every human being is equal. And of course it satisfies the ego of every human being - nobody objects. It is one of the most dangerous lies to tell human beings.

I say to you, equality is a myth.

There are not even two human beings who are equal - in any way, in any dimension. I don't mean that they are unequal, I mean that they are unique, incomparable, so the question of equality or inequality does not arise. Are you equal to these pillars in the hall? The pillars may be beautiful, but you are not equal to them. But does that mean you are inferior to the pillars? It simply means you are not a pillar - pillars are pillars, you are you.

Every human being is a category unto himself.

And unless we recognize the uniqueness of each individual, there are not going to be any human rights, and there is not going to be a civilized world - human, loving, rejoicing.

In the declaration they emphasized the fact again and again that you should love all human beings; you are all brothers. But have you ever seen brothers being in love? Have you ever seen brothers being friends? The way brothers fight, nobody fights.

And just saying, "You are brothers," does not make it a reality. These people who declared these human rights - what authority have they got? Who are they? Politicans... and they are the cause of all the wars, they are the cause of all kinds of violence happening all over the world.

These are the people who have kept almost half of humanity - womankind - in a state of slavery.

But looking at the declaration I had really a great time... because it does not talk about sisters, only brothers.

Sisters don't count - yet they are half of humanity.

They are not even mentioned.

These politicians are articulate, clever, cunning... mostly coming from the legal profession. They are saying there should be no discrimination between man and woman, between black and white.

Between races, religions, political ideologies, there should be no discrimination. And who is making the discrimination? These are the same people who are making the declaration.

They have enslaved the woman for centuries, and they are not yet willing to give her freedom - which, according to their declaration, is a basic human right.

The blacks are being treated as animals. Just at the end of the last century, the blacks were still be sold, auctioned in marketplaces like a commodity. And even today, they are not respected as the white people are respected.

And these are the white people - all these politicians are white. These white people have been driving the whole of humanity, for three hundred years, into slavery. They all had their empires.

England had the biggest empire; it was said that the sun never set in the British Empire. Somewhere or other in the British Empire the sun was shining and it was day - all around the earth. But other white people were not far behind: the French, the Portugese, the Spanish - they all had vast empires, exploiting the whole earth. They have been the parasites: and it is hilarious that all these parasites are now declaring human rights.

This is a deception. It is not meant; what they are saying they don't mean. It is just to give you an idea that you are equal to everybody, you are a brother to everybody, that you have all the human rights.

But I know - all these human rights are just hypocrisies.

I know by my own experience.

There is one human right enumerated in this declaration: Nobody can be arrested without a warrant.

I was arrested exactly like that in America - without warrant, without any arrest warrant or search warrant. Not even verbally did they inform me what crime I had committed. And when I asked them, "What crime have I committed? I must know at least," the answer was loaded guns - twelve loaded guns surrounding my jet airplane.

When guns are answers, then you can be certain civilization is far away.

They did not have any arrest warrant. The simple thing for the court would have been... but they not only arrested me, they were clever, they had deliberately arrested me at such a time that I would have to be in jail for at least two days. On Monday the court would open - only then could I be bailed out. They themselves were certain that I would be bailed out because there was no reason to hold me; they didn't have any proof, any evidence against me. They had chosen a certain situation in which for two days the court was closed - so at least they would have the satisfaction of torturing me for two days. On the third day... I was not amazed when the court refused to give me bail.

The magistrate, a woman, did not even allow my attorney's to question the fact that I had been arrested without any arrest warrant. In a democratic country which claims to be the greatest democratic country in the world, the court would not allow them even to discuss it, because to discuss it would be an exposure. There was no question of giving me bail. In the first place I had been arrested without any warrant, and even after three days they didn't have the warrant - the question of bail does not arise. The bail was not given.

In the second court, in a higher federal court, again the question, What about my arrest? - which is the basic question - was not discussed.

Everything else is secondary. First, you arrest somebody without even telling him why he is being arrested....

And in these human rights, these same politicians sitting in America, say that nobody can be arrested without an arrest warrant; this is a fundamental human right. If I was not arrested, I might not have known.

They say nobody should interfere in anybody's philosophy, religion, political ideology - that is every individual's birthright. But my commune in America has been destroyed for the simple reason that Christianity - my being not a white man, my commune being universal.... There were black people, there were people from all over the world. It was the only place where there was no discrimination of any kind. They destroyed a commune which was fulfilling human rights in every detail.

On the surface man has become civilized, but deep in the darker parts of his unconsciousness he is still barbarous.

In the introduction to this declaration it says, We are determined to eliminate all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief. And this is not true in any country. Religions are fighting continuously, and if the government consists of fanatic, religious people, the minority is crushed and destroyed in every possible way. The desire is good, but the people who are desiring it are all wrong.

In the convention at which the UN declared these fundamental rights, the Soviet Union was absent; eight other communist countries were absent. America was present. Unanimously the declaration was adopted - all in favor and nobody against. I am mentioning it because it was basically an American initiative to make this declaration. And America is the first to be going against every human right.

Just now, America has given two hundred million dollars to the terrorists in Nicaragua, a small country which has become communist, just like Cuba. To destroy the country, America has flooded it with terrorists. Now millions of dollars are being poured in continuously, to support the terrorists with weapons and with everything. And in this declaration it says that every country is sovereign, and no other country should interfere in any other country's life, religion. That is their business - how they want to live, what they want to believe or not to believe. It is nobody else's business at all. If in some small country people have accepted communism as their lifestyle and their social structure, who is America? - and what right have they?

Nicaragua appealed to the world court; and the world court is full of American judges. Still the world court said to America, "Your act is against the human rights declaration, it is criminal." Ronald Reagan simply cancelled it. He said, "We don't care about the world court or their decisions." Now these are the people who have made the declaration. They have created the world court to decide in situations where some conflict arises. And these same people are not ready to listen.

Do you see the politics behind it? The World Court, the declaration - all are facades to hide things.

If some small country was doing it, then the world court would be right, and America would have taken action in favor of the world court to destroy that country because it was doing a criminal act.

Now, because America itself is doing the criminal act, it simply can say, "We don't care about the world court."

And what can the world court do? It has no armies, it has no power. It has all the power that has been given to the politicians; but if those politicans themselves go against the law that they have made, what can the court do?

And the UN is silent. Its Court has been insulted. If the people in the UN have any dignity they will dissolve the UN and dissolve the world court - because what is the point? Today America is doing it tomorrow the other countries will. And the Soviet Union is far better, and is right, because it never participated in this declaration. It is not part of this declaration; no communist government participated in it. So at least they have shown from the very beginning that these things are all bogus: "Who are you trying to cheat?"

All the rights are, in a way, not very rational. For example, in this long declaration, the right to leave the body when one has lived enough and is now weak, sick, old, a burden, and of no use... One is suffering unnecessarily and waiting for death. Why wait? Why put this man unnecessarily in torture?

The society is responsible for thousands of people who are in torture - in hospitals or in nursing homes. They don't have any possibility of coming back to life healthy, creative, of any use. But they can go on vegetating; and medicine is developed enough - you can keep them in the hospitals for years. Artificial breathing... perhaps the man is already dead, but because of the artificial breathing you are deceived.

In this long list, one of the most important human rights is not included; and that right is the right to leave the world, to give the ticket back, to say, "I want to go back home? Who are you to prevent me or anybody?"

But that right, which is very significant today because in the advanced countries, the average life has gone to such lengths that more and more people will be in a situation where their sons and daughters are already old - eighty, ninety.... The fourth or fifth or six generation has already arrived, and that fifth or sixth generation cannot have any connection with a man one hundred and twenty years old, just vegetating in a hospital. Those new arrivals have no relationship, they don't have any respect.

Now, months pass and those old people are hanging around in the hospitals waiting, hoping that somebody may come - a friend, a child, an old acquaintance - to meet them. Nobody comes.

People avoid them. They are boring, naturally. It is almost as if you are reading a fifty-year old newspaper. They don't have anything new; everything is fifty, sixty years old. If you go to them they will talk only about those golden days when they used to be young, and life was an adventure. You cannot connect with them, and you feel simply bored. Everything has changed in fifty years, and those people are not even aware of what has changed.

But no government in the world accepts euthanasia, the right to die. In this long declaration it is not included.

Politicans are very, very cunning. They don't want to be controversial, so they say only things which you like or everybody is going to like. They are not concerned with the actual situation, and the changes it needs. Their whole effort is in how to make you happy just by giving you bogus words.

Nowhere in the world are any of the basic rights being applied.

I will go through a few important rights.

WHEREAS DISREGARD AND CONTEMPT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS HAS RESULTED IN BARBAROUS ACTS WHICH HAVE OUTRAGED THE CONSCIENCE OF MANKIND....

It has two implications in it. One is that the people who made this declaration have accepted that humanity is civilized. That's why once in a while if there is any barbarous act, those human beings in the world - the whole of mankind - suffers in conscience, feels the pain, the anguish. Both are lies, because I don't see humanity having any conscience.

When Mohammedans kill Hindus, no Mohammedan thinks that he has done wrong - the question of conscience does not arise. In fact, according to his religion he has done some virtuous act. He was trying to convert the Hindus to Mohammedanism, because if you are not a Mohammedan you cannot enter paradise.

He was trying to help you in every possible way, to smuggle you, rightly or wrongly, into paradise.

From the front door or from the back door, it doesn't matter. But you are resistant, you don't want to go to paradise, you are determined to go to hell - that's why he prevents you, he beheads you:

It is better to be killed by the hands of a religious Mohammedan. The KORAN says, "The man who is killed by a Mohammedans will enter paradise, just as the Mohammedans who have killed him will enter paradise." So they are really trying to save people from going to hell - why should they feel any pain in their conscience?

No Hindu feels it, no Christian feels it. Christians have killed more people than anybody else, and particularly they have burned living people. Others have been killing and then burning; Christianity has a shortcut. Why make it in two parts? When the book can be published in one book, why make two volumes? First kill the man and then burn him? - burn him directly! Thousands of people have been burned alive.

I don't see anywhere that anybody is outraged.

If people are outraged things will change - because who is doing them? We are doing them.

This sentence in the beginning of the declaration is such a lie. First it says, "Barbarous acts...." In fact, in these fifty years we have done more barbarous acts than in the whole history of man. In ten thousand years we have not been able to do so many barbarous activities as we have done just within fifty years. We are becoming more and more barbarous - of course with a style and method.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki - what do you think? Are these barbarous acts, or an effort to send the beautiful people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima directly to paradise together? Whole cities, more than two hundred thousand people, entered within five minutes. I don't think there was ever such a crowd at the gates of paradise. And it was America that was responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is now absolutely confirmed by the people who understand military science that dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was absolutely useless. Japan was already surrendering - Germany had surrendered and now there was no question that Japan could go on fighting; not for more than one week, or maybe not even that long.

Seeing that Germany was finished, Japan could not fight alone. It is a small country of very courageous people, brave people but a very small country. It was fighting with the support of Germany, and when the main support disappeared.... Japan was going to surrender.

And this was the fear of President Truman of America: Japan may surrender tomorrow; then he will miss the chance to drop the atom bombs. And they had put so much money and energy and genius into creating atom bombs, they wanted to try them.

Man is not important, but money.... Their bombs had to be tried.

And you say that because of barbarous acts, the civilized people feel a prick of conscience. Was President Truman a civilized man or not? Even his own military experts had told him that it was absolutely meaningless, unnecessarily destroying human life. But he went ahead.

The next morning hundreds of journalists had gathered at the White House to see President Truman, because world's greatest catastrophe created by man had happened. Their first question was, "Mr.

President, did you have a good sleep in the night?" - because he had gone to bed only after he had received the message: "Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in smoke, they are no longer on the map of the earth." Then he went to bed; otherwise he waited for the news to reach him.

He said, "Yes, I slept more peacefully than ever, because our experiment has succeeded. Now we are the greatest power in the world."

And you are talking about conscience?

More than two hundred thousand people died within three minutes, and the man whose order killed them, slept very 'peacefully,' as he had never slept before. And if this is the situation of President 'True-Man,' then what about the people who are not such true men?

As far as I am concerned, civilization is still a dream, a hope, a utopia. And if we don't get into the tricks of the magician, and start believing that we are civilized people, the hope can become a reality, the dream can become a concrete experience.

And conscience arises only after meditation, never before it. You are not born with a conscience.

You can watch small children: if they see an ant they will kill it. Do you think the small child has some conscience? Do you think the small child is a criminal, a murderer? No, nothing like that. It is just out of curiosity, he's just exploring his world. He has entered into a new world, and he is exploring it.

But there is no question of conscience. He does not feel that when he has been beating a dog for no reason, the dog also feels pain. Children don't have any conscience; they have only seeds.

All these politicians are trying to convince humanity: "You have a conscience." You DON'T have. You will have to grow it, you will have to work upon yourself. You will have to learn how to be silent, and how to listen to the still, small voice within.

I don't think any of the politicians who made this declaration have had any experience of what conscience is, of what consciousness is. It comes only after a long, long pilgrimage inwards. You are not given everything by birth. You are given by birth only the necessary things for survival; everything else is given only as a seed. If you are intentionally interested in evolving your consciousness to its highest peak, then it is up to you.

Nature provides only for survival - not life, not joy, not silence, not ecstasy, not love. Nature can manage itself with only lust - what is the need for love? Why create complications? Love you will have to find, consciousness you will have to grow. You will have to become a gardener of your own being - your being is your garden.

Your being is the Garden of Eden talked about in THE BIBLE. That Garden of Eden is not somewhere else on some other star - it is within you. You have been thrown out of it, and you have been running all around but never going in. The moment you go in, you are back in the Garden of Eden.

But now, nobody has taken care for thousands of years. You have never been back inside.

Everything has gone to seed; now nothing blossoms, no foliage, no greenery. But you can bring it back to life because everything is potentially there.

These people don't understand what conscience is.

They have learned only words.

I have heard... a psychologist was appearing for an oral examination for his doctorate. There were three examiners. The first question they asked was: "What are the most important qualities of the human mother's milk?"

The psychologist was a little puzzled: "What has psychology to do with mother's milk? I have not come here to be an expert in milk products or anything. But what to do, I have to answer...."

So he said, "First, it has all the nutrients for the child's growth - it is perfect food. Second, it comes from within the mother's body, so it is warm, easily digestible; and because it comes from within, it cannot be carrying any infection, any disease which may be around. The child is protected."

They said, "Right! Now, the third?"

There was a moment of silence because he could not figure it out - what is the third? The first two also he had made up. The third was coming up again and again in his mind, but he was repressing it. When he could not find anything else he had to say it. He said, "The third is that it comes in nice containers!"

Now, these idiots are going to be psychologists! And that was the first thing that had come to his mind - "nice containers."

Looking at the declaration, my first feeling was that these people are articulate, they can play with words. They can use beautiful words which influence you and deceive you, and hide the reality.

ARTICLE ONE: ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE BORN FREE.

This is absolutely nonsense.

If all human beings are born free, leave a child in freedom: he will die within twenty-four hours.

Man's child is the most helpless child in the whole world - what freedom can he have? He cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot fly....

In fact, one scientist had the idea - and I feel some sympathy with his idea - that human child is born earlier than he should be. He needs at least nine months more in the mother's womb because he is not complete, he's still growing. You see animals, kids - they are born and they start walking around and searching for food. They are more independent and they are more complete. For the human child it is impossible to survive without the support of the mother and the father and the family or other human beings.

What freedom can he have?

This is what I say is the most cunning part of the politician's mind: He is giving you the idea that you don't need freedom. "Don't ask for freedom. You are born free; all human beings are born free."

All human beings are born utterly helpless and dependent. It may take years for them to be free.

Then too, millions of people never become free. This declaration is saying that they are born free. I am saying millions of people die - even then they are not free. And you know it from your life: you are not free.

The husband is there, the wife is not free. The wife is there, the husband is not free. I have seen husbands and wives walking on the road - the husband is not even free to look here and there! He looks straight ahead, like a Buddhist monk, just four feet ahead. And his wife is looking out of the corner of her eye - where is he. What kind of freedom is this? The moment the husband reaches home, the first question is: "Where have you been?" - and you are a free man - "Why are you late?"

When I was in school, I was usually late. Life outside was so beautiful, and around my school there were so many mango trees. And when the mango season comes, just to pass by the side of mango trees - such fragrance, such sweetness in the air. The mango is certainly the king of all the fruits.

There were other fruit trees too, and I was mostly in those trees rather than in class.

On the first day when I reached middle school, I was half an hour late. The teacher said, "This won't do. At least with me, this will not do. If you have to study my subject, you have to be here before I come into the class - five minutes earlier. Why are you late?"

I said, "Listen - just because of this question I am not going to get married!"

He said, "What? The question of marriage?"

I said, "I will explain to you: I have been hearing it everywhere in my neighborhood; every wife is asking, 'Where have you been? Why are you late?' and I have decided that these questions I am not going to answer. So I am sacrificing my whole life - I'm not going to get married - because of this question, and you think I will answer it for you? I would rather change the subject. Goodbye!"

He said to the class, "This is a strange boy. Irrelevant things he brings in - marriage? What has marriage to do with my subject, geography?"

But he became interested in me. After school he caught hold of me and he said, "Now, we can sit. I want to understand what is the matter. Why?"

I said, "Nobody has the right to ask me why I am late, where I have been. It is my life: If I want to spoil it, it is my right. You are only a servant, to teach geography. You are not there to ask such questions to create dependence in me. I hate such questions. I can leave the school; I can completely forget about being educated, there is no need. Because if Jesus, without being educated, can experience himself; if Kabir, without being educated, can know the ultimate.... I am not interested in any business, in any service, in any employment. So if you want me in your class, you will have to be a little more human - not continuously interfering in my freedom."

This first article says: "All human beings are born free."

These are the strategies of hypnotizing and conditioning humanity. They have given you the idea that you are born free - now there is no need to fight for freedom, there is no need to create an inner revolution which makes you really free - free from everything, free from the body... because the body is a bondage.

The East is far more truthful. It says you are born in bondage, not that you are born free. Your body is a prison and your mind and your brain are prisons. Your consciousness is confined in a very small space, and your consciousness is capable of spreading all over the universe. Because you don't know the potential, you think this is all you are.

These people, according to me, are criminals - greater criminals than those who go to the gallows - because they are deceiving the whole of humanity. But the deception is very clever: "You are born free." Naturally, freedom is not a question, not something to be created, to be deserved, to be earned, to be worthy of; you are already free!

George Gurdjieff is the only man in the whole of history who has said such a tremendously significant thing: "You don't have any soul." Now, throughout the whole world, all the religions believe that you have a soul, that you come with a soul. George Gurdjieff's voice is alone in the whole of history, saying that not all man are with a soul; the place of the soul is empty. There is a possibility - you can work, you can create the soul - but you are not born with it.

I know, and Gurdjieff knows that you are born with a soul - but the idea that we are born with a soul has not been helpful. It has made man more asleep: We are born with a soul, God is within you, the kingdom of God is within you, so what do you have to do? Things that are not within you, work hard to get them - money, power, respectability - because nobody says, "Every child is born with money, every child is born with political power, every child is born with respectability." Nobody will say that.

These things have to be earned.

Freedom, consciousness, God, whatever you call it, has to be discovered. It is hidden, dormant; it has to be made dynamic, has to be made fully mature. It should be brought to flower and fruition.

But to tell people, "You are born free - and equal in dignity and rights".... People can go on lying so smoothly, with such beautiful words - destroying those words.

Nobody is equal.

This is a psychological truth.

Neither in your body nor in your mind nor in your talents... nor among your geniuses - nobody is equal. A Sigmund Freud is a Sigmund Freud; a Bertrand Russell is a Bertrand Russell; a D.H.

Lawrence is a D.H. Lawrence. There is not even one other D.H. Lawrence, and never will be.

Each individual is unique.

This idea of equality is so ugly, but it has become almost the religion of the contemporary man - 'equality.'

I say to you, it is the most destructive idea that has penetrated into the human mind. You have to be reminded about your uniqueness.

ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE ENDOWED WITH REASON AND CONSCIENCE AND SHOULD ACT TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER IN A SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD.

These are all assumptions without any validity. All human beings are not born with reason, are not endowed with reason.

For example, there are people, very few... I have just named Bertrand Russell - he can be said to be endowed with reason. A J. Krishnamurti... but ordinary people are living with all kinds of superstitions. Unless you have dropped all your superstitions, you cannot be said to be a rational person. What does reason mean? For the Hindus, the cow is the mother. This is 'reason.'

I was talking to a shankaracharya - the equivalent of the pope to the Hindus - and I asked him, "Are you sure that the cow is your mother?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

"Now," I said, "just entering your temple, I met your mother. So I was puzzled: who is your mother, this woman or the cow? Or perhaps one is your step-mother?"

He said, "What are you talking about? The woman is my biological mother, but the cow is my spiritual mother."

I said, "My God! What about the bull? You must have some relationship with the bull or not? - your spiritual father? And who are you? - just a bull; or perhaps castrated, not even a bull."

You live with superstitions, and you talk about reason.

All Christians believe - and the whole group of politicans who have drawn up this declaration, ninety percent of them are Christians - they all believe that Jesus is born of a virgin mother. And they are rational beings....

It happened: One college girl got pregnant. She tried to hide it, but there are a few things you cannot hide. Truth is one, pregnancy is another! It is just impossible; it goes on becoming bigger and bigger.

Finally her mother discovered it. She said, "What is the matter?" And the girl had to confess. The mother took her to the doctor.

The doctor examined her and said, "Even without examining her... she is pregnant - and eight months. Now abortion is not possible."

The mother started shouting and screaming at the girl: "You have blackened our name, destroyed our respectability in the society."

But the girl said, "Mom, I have not even touched the hand of a man. How can I be pregnant? This is impossible!"

Hearing this, the doctor got out of his chair, went to the nearby window and looked at the sky.

The mother said, "Why you are looking there?"

He said, "I am looking for the three wise men from the East."

She said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "And I am also looking for the star because it happened once - when Jesus was born. The star came, leading three wise men. It seems it has happened again - a virgin birth!"

But ask these Christians, "Where is your rationality?" Jesus is born out of virgin mother. He is crucified and he's resurrected too, he makes dead people come back to life - and these are the fundamentals on which the faith of a Christian depends. You just take a few things out - it is very strange - and you will find Christianity to be the most irreligious religion, the poorest as far as religiousness is concerned.

The virgin birth - cancel it, if you have reason. Resurrection - cancel it, if you have reason. Walking on water - cancel it. Raising the dead back to life - cancel it. Changing water into alcohol - not only cancel it, but find the guy and give him to the police, because it is a crime, it is not a miracle. But if all these things are cancelled, what remains in Christianity? That is the poverty of Christianity.

In Buddhism, you cannot cancel anything because nothing is based on superstition. Buddha himself has cancelled anything that smells of superstition - it is just pure rationality.

But to say that man is endowed with reason by birth.... It doesn't seem so. Looking at the world, it doesn't seem that it is a rational world. We have not been living according to reason, we have been living according to all kinds of irrational things.

But these are sweet words to believe: that you are ENDOWED WITH REASON. The more idiotic you are, the more you will believe it, and sooner.

... AND CONSCIENCE, AND SHOULD ACT TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER IN A SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD.

Conscience arises only after deep meditation - never before it. It is a flowering of meditation.

Only very few people in the whole world, in the whole of history, have been conscious, have had conscience. Both the words mean the same, but because of religious people, in all the languages except French they have created different meanings for the two words. Only in French is 'conscience' and 'consciousness' one word, it means the same thing.

Religions around the world have tried to take conscience separately from consciousness for a certain reason: consciousness comes only after meditation. How long can you deceive people?

It is just like when you bring light into the room, and darkness disappears. The moment you are in a meditative state, you have consciousness, awareness.

They created another word, 'conscience.' And conscience is what the priests, the church, the religion, teach you about what is good, what is bad, what is virtuous, what is sin - all these teachings make your conscience. It is a very clever trick to separate conscience from consciousness.

There can be no conscience without consciousness.

But they have created a false, artificial conscience.

For example, I was born in a very ancient religion - perhaps the ancientmost. It is a small religion as far as numbers are concerned, but they have their superstitions.

Up to the age of eighteen I had not seen a tomato in my house. Do you think tomatoes are dangerous people? But because the color of the tomato is the color of meat, that was enough to debar it. Up to the age of eighteen I had never eaten in the night, because it is prohibited by that religion - you can eat only between sunrise and sunset. Eating in the night you may eat some insect, some ant:

some violence may happen. So it is better to eat in light, in full light.

When I was eighteen my friends were going to see a beautiful castle very close by, a few miles away.

I went with them. I had no idea, I had not even thought about it, but going up the hill to the castle...

and it was so beautiful, so old, and there were so many things to see, that nobody was ready to prepare food.

I asked, "Do something - soon the sun will be setting and I am feeling very hungry, you are feeling hungry. The whole day long we have been moving on the mountain... it has been tiring, but it has been an experience."

They said, "As long as the sun is there, we don't want to miss. There are a few more things to see."

I was the only one who was not accustomed to eating in the night. They were all eating at night so there was no question. By nine or ten o'clock in the night, they had prepared such delicious food - and particularly after the whole day's hunger, starvation, and moving on the mountain, I was in a dilemma - what to do? Then I told them: "There is a great difficulty. I have never eaten in the night, and the religion in which unfortunately I have been born, thinks that if you eat in the night, you will go to hell. I don't want to go to hell just for one night's food, but I cannot sleep either. Moreover, the smell of your food is too much!"

They persuaded me, saying, "We will not tell your parents or anybody.

Nobody will ever know that you have eaten in the night."

I said, "That is not the point - I will know. The question is not my parents or anybody. You can tell the whole world, that's not the problem. The problem is that I cannot conceive of myself eating at night, after eighteen years of continuous conditioning." But they persuaded me - and I had to be persuaded. I ate, but I could not sleep; I had to vomit the whole night. Now, nobody else vomited.

Twenty persons were with me; they all slept - they were tired, they had eaten good food. They slept well. I had to remain awake the whole night, vomiting. Unless I was completely clean of the food, I could not sleep. It was just in the morning nearabout five that I went to sleep. That gave me the idea: perhaps eating in the night is dangerous. Just one time and the whole night became hell! And those who have been eating in the night for their whole lives... perhaps the idea that they go to hell is right. But the whole world is eating in the night. If it is true, then everybody will be going to hell. And these twenty friends are sleeping so beautifully - nobody has vomited so nothing was wrong with the food, and nothing is wrong with these people. Something is wrong in my conditioning; I have been brought up with a wrong idea. But once you accept something, this creates a false conscience that goes on telling you, "Don't do this, do this." This is not consciousness. Consciousness simply knows what to do, what not to do. There is no question of choice. Consciousness is a choiceless state - you simply know what is right. You are not born with conscience. It has been created by the religions, and they have exploited man through creating conscience. It is time that we should drop the word 'conscience' because it has become associated with a long past and has wrong connotations. You should use the word 'consciousness.' But consciousness is the fragrance of your becoming absolutely silent; it does not come with your birth. Yes, if you can attain consciousness, you will have a new birth; you will be reborn. That's what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again, you will not understand me." He does not mean in your next life. He means that you will have to transform your being, rise in your consciousness: "Only then will you be able to understand me." If you have consciousness and silence and meditativeness, there is no need to say that the whole of humanity is one. It is - it is your experience. And it will not be only a brotherhood, it will be a brotherhood and a sisterhood! But it will be just a byproduct; there is no need to declare it as a fundamental right.

ARTICLE TWO: EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO ALL THE RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS SET FORTH IN THIS DECLARATION WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF ANY KIND, SUCH AS RACE, COLOR, SEX, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, NATIONAL OR SOCIAL ORIGIN, PROPERTY, BIRTH OR OTHER STATUS.

All these are bullshit. The first question I was asked as I entered America was that I had to declare under oath that I am not an anarchist. If I am an anarchist, I cannot enter America. Anarchism is a political ideology. I cannot conceive that these people go on declaring these things. Who is going to aks them: "When are you going to practice them?" Everywhere there is discrimination - in different ways in different countries, but discrimination is there. Mankind needs a great uproar against these so-called humanitarians. They think they are doing a great service. For example, in India, for the same amount of work the woman will be paid less. And in this declaration it is said that for the same amount of labor, the same rewards should be paid - whether it is man or woman, white or black does not matter. But it is not true. In America, I was in six jails, and in all the jails there was not a single white man. In six federal jails - which were huge, six hundred people, seven hundred people in one jail... but all black people. And you say discrimination is not there. It seems strange - in a white country all the criminals are black. And that was not all. I inquired of a few black inmates - because they all loved me; they had been watching me on television every day for five years, and they had become involved in controversies themselves. They were reading my books, and they were happy that I had come at least for one day to their jail - they would remember this day for their whole lives. I asked them, "What is your crime?" They said, "All these people you see have not committed any crime. They have been arrested the way you have been arrested - without any arrest warrant. And we have been told again and again: 'You will be taken to the court next week, tomorrow,' but that tomorrow never comes." One man told me that he had been there for nine months without being taken to court. Now this declaration says nobody should be arrested without an arrest warrant, nobody should be kept in jail unless he is proved a criminal. Innocence needs no proof; you have to prove a person criminal, only then can you keep him in jail. Otherwise you cannot keep him in jail. But people have been there for nine months, eight months, six months in jail - and all young people. So I started figuring out the reason: it is not that they have done anything wrong. The reason is that they are young and revolutionaries. They want rights for the blacks, equal rights for blacks. That is their crime. But they cannot be taken to court because the court will release them, so they go on keeping them in jail. But this is absolutely criminal on the part of the government of the U.S. I have seen only six jails and nearabout three or four thousand young black people. Perhaps thousands of people are in other jails. They told me, "Because there is too much pressure from all over the world, that's why they are taking you to court. Otherwise, if the world had remained silent, if the news media had not spread all over the world that the whole government is doing everything criminal against an innocent person.... The pressure is too much and the eyes of the whole news media are focused on you. They are, under compulsion, reluctantly, taking you to court." Still, they took twelve days. That too is against human rights. From the place where I was arrested, the court where I had to be present was only five hours' flight. My own jet was there. We offered them our jet; we said, "You can have your pilots; you can have your people, and you can take me to the court. What is the need to keep me here in your jail?" They would only take me in their own airplane. The whole strategy was: "Today the airplane has not come... something is wrong with the airplane" - they had only one airplane, it seems. "The pilot is sick..." They took twelve days to make a five hours journey. But looking at other inmates I thought, "It is very quick, only twelve days...." Every government goes on doing everything illegal and everything against human rights.

And these people are the representatives of governments and without any shame they can make this declaration - perhaps without even feeling what they are doing. They are lying utterly - white lies!

ARTICLE THREE: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND SECURITY OF PERSON.

But death is not included - and it is important. Because birth is not in your hands - you are born without your consent - now only death is there. And you have the choice: either to die without your consent or to die with a dignity of a human being, with your own consent - not to give death a chance, but to move, yourself, when you have lived. But they are worried about putting death into it because then all the religions and all the political parties will be creating havoc for them. Everything has to be consolatory: 'life' - but what kind of life? Just in the last year, six months ago, in Europe the common market had accumulated mountains of butter and other foodstuffs. People were dying in Ethiopia - one thousand people per day - and they had a surplus but they would not give it to Ethiopia. That surplus had to be drowned in the ocean. Just in drowning it, two billion dollars were wasted - that was not the value of the food, it was just the labor of shifting and drowning it in the ocean. And they are doing it every six months, because every six months the surplus is there and you need more warehouses. And what will you do with it? - fresh crops are coming. But you will not give it to Ethiopa. In India, fifty percent of the people are living below the medical standard of nourishment and twenty-five percent of the people are almost starving. Fifty percent of people in the villages are eating only one time a day - and when I say eating, don't think of the Taj Majal Hotel. It means just bread, salt, a little sauce from mangos or from other fruits - that's all. This is not food. Unless the world is one, we will not be able to give everybody enough nourishment. And what does it mean to say that you have the right to life? Because people are there; and people are dying, people have died. America is doing the same, Stalin's Russia was doing the same. It is not something happening only in Europe. Every three months America drowns its surplus - and that is worth billions of dollars. In the days of Stalin, Russia was using wheat instead of coal in their railway trains because wheat is cheaper, it is surplus and coal is difficult and costly to obtain in Russia.

People are dying - that is not important. People are starving - that is not important.

ARTICLE NINE: NO ONE SHALL BE SUBJECTED TO ARBITRARY ARREST, DETENTION OR EXILE.

I have been subjected, so I am a witness to it, that this declaration is not being used by any government - and particularly by America, which was the sponsor for this declaration. I have been in detention in England - not even for an arbitrary reason. I wanted just to stay for six hours at the airport in the first-class lounge because my pilots had flown their time and they wanted to rest. It is against their laws to fly more than twelve hours, so we had to stop. My pilots said, "They may create trouble; they may say that the first-class lounge is for first-class passengers and you are not a passenger; you have your own plane. Now what class is it, how can they decide?" So I said my people to purchase two tickets, two first-class tickets for the morning flight: "We will go with our plane, but purchase two tickets in case they bring up this point" - and they brought up that point.

Then we brought up the tickets! The officer was shocked. He had not thought that we would have tickets too. I said, "Now what do you think?" He said, "I cannot do anything. I will have to ask the higher authorities." And who was the higher authority? It seems it was the prime minister herself.

When the man was gone I looked into his file; he had left it on the table. The government had given him orders. I have never asked for any entry visa into England. They should not have bothered.

But they decided in Parliament that I should not be allowed in the country - in case I should ask to enter. When the man came back I told him, "I do not want to enter England, even if the whole of England wants me to enter England, I am the last person to do it. I have no business in England, I just want to sleep in the lounge. And from the lounge you cannot enter the country. It is closed; you will remain only at the airport. And the airport is international. It is not England." But he said, "What can I do? The insistence is from the top: 'If he insists then put him in detention. That's the only way. He can remain in jail for six hours.' " I had to remain in jail for six hours - not even for an arbitrary reason. I had not committed any crime, I had the tickets, I had the plane, I just wanted to rest. But the politicians - because I have been exposing them continuously - now have become so frightened that even my sleeping six hours in the lounge at the airport is dangerous for the religion of England, its morality, its character. I can corrupt the youth just by staying in the lounge! These people are not lovers of human beings. Nor do they have any respect for human dignity.

ARTICLE EIGHTEEN: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION; THIS RIGHT INCLUDES FREEDOM TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION OR BELIEF, AND FREEDOM, EITHER ALONE OR IN COMMUNITY WITH OTHERS AND IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, TO MANIFEST HIS RELIGION OR BELIEF IN TEACHING, PRACTICE, WORSHIP AND OBSERVANCE."

"Freedom of thought and expression" - I have never done anything except to express my thoughts.

If that is a human right, then no government has anything against me. I am not active in any politics; I am not interested in any power. I am simply saying whatsoever I see more clearly than all these blind politicians. What is the fear? Just now the pope has called a World Conference of Religions.

All the chief priests and leaders of other religions have been called. My sannyasins from Italy have been writing to me: "We are insisting to the pope - and his secretary is very much interested in you and is willing to extend an invitation, but the pope is against it." In fact for eight months the Italian government has been thinking about whether to give me a three weeks' tourist visa or not. And the pope has been the cause of the whole delay. And these people go on saying, "We love freedom of thought, freedom of expression." Nobody loves freedom of thought. It has to support him, then it is loved. "Freedom of expression...." The pope has put my books on the black list so that no Catholic should read them. They have a black list. In the Middle Ages, whenever a book appeared on the black list it was burned all over Europe. Now they cannot do that, but this much they can do: no Catholic should read it. And Catholics are not a small minority - seven hundred million people, a world in itself. Now, preventing them simply means you have accepted defeat; it simply means you don't have any answers to me. But then why all this nonsense about a declaration of human rights?

ARTICLE NINETEEN: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF OPINION AND EXPRESSION; THIS RIGHT INCLUDES FREEDOM TO HOLD OPINIONS WITHOUT INTERFERENCE AND TO SEEK, RECEIVE AND IMPART INFORMATION AND IDEAS THROUGH ANY MEDIA AND REGARDLESS OF FRONTIERS.

This is not right. The Indian parliament has urged Indian journalists and news media people not to give any space to my ideas. The American government has been pressuring the Indian government so that no news media people from the West should be allowed to take my interview. The American government has been doing two things: telling all the governments of Europe, and Australia, that I should not be allowed to reside in their countries, that I should be sent back from everywhere to India. So all the countries of Europe have passed resolutions in their parliaments that I cannot be allowed in their country even as a tourist for three weeks. The American idea is that I should not be allowed to enter any other country and nobody who wants to see me or meet me should be allowed to come to India. In this way they feel they can destroy the sannyas movement. This goes on in reality. And in words, beautiful and great slogans... but empty.

ARTICLE TWENTY-TWO: EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO THE FREE DEVELOPMENT OF HIS PERSONALITY."

I don't see that you are allowed to have freedom to develop your personality. In the first place, the people who wrote this don't know that personality is the false part of you, and it has not to be developed at all. Your reality is your individuality, which has to be discovered. But they don't talk about individuality. They may not have ever thought of it. Because they are only personalities, they don't yet have their individuality awake, alert. Naturally, they are writing the word 'personality'.

'Personality' is an ugly word. It means a mask; the very root of the word is 'mask.' And we don't want people to have masks. People should be natural, spontaneous, themselves.

ARTICLE TWENTY-FIVE: ALL CHILDREN, WHETHER BORN IN OR OUT OF WEDLOCK, SHALL ENJOY THE SAME SOCIAL PROTECTION.

Now, if this is true, it cancels marriage! If a child born from a marriage and a child born outside of marriage have the same rights, then marriage loses all meaning. What is the meaning of marriage?

But they don't have the courage to say that. And this too is not true, because nowhere are children born outside marriage respected. They are condemned in every possible way. I gave this much time to this rubbish because these are the people who are controlling the whole world, and these are the people whose heads should be hammered as much as possible. They have kept humanity in slavery - this should not be allowed anymore. They don't have any right of declaration. We have the right to declare. We are the people. As far as my people are concerned, we declare that we will live freedom, love, humanity. We will grow into our individuality and we will help anybody who is inviting and welcoming us. The only basic right is to become god. And unless you have found god within yourself, everything else is mundane. Finding godliness within you, everything else is found simultaneously.