Only idiots are consistent

Question 1:

Just so that I can surprise you.

Question 2:

I never prepare for an interview. I simply want to see the questions to avoid you feeling embarrassed by my answers.

If I see a stupid question I'm going to call it stupid. Not to hurt you, not to make you feel embarrassed I just look at your questions.

There is no need for me to prepare.

If I know I will answer; if I do not know I will simply say, "I do not know."

Question 3:

There are no questions which I do not want to answer, but there are millions of questions I cannot answer for the simple reason they do not interest me; they don't come into my world view. For example, if you start asking about biochemistry, physics, mathematics, I don't know, I cannot answer them... but they are not concerned with my way of life and my teachings.

Whatever is concerned with my teachings, I am always ready to answer it as fully as possible.

Question 4:

If I had a mind I would not be contradictory. Mind is a computer. No computer ever contradicts; it gives always the same reply, it is always consistent.

My state is of a no-mind.

The mind is there for utilitarian purposes; for example, I am using it now to answer your questions.

But my own being is beyond the mind; it is a state of no-mind.

I contradict because life goes on changing. If you ask me in the morning I will say, "It is morning"; if you ask me in the evening, do you want me to say it is morning just to be consistent? I will say, "It is evening."

I say only that which is the case. It does not matter whether it contradicts anything said in the past.

When it was said, it was absolutely true for the moment; what I am saying this moment is absolutely true to this moment. And there is no reason why you should bring those two different moments, two different situations together, and get unnecessarily puzzled that they are contradictory.

Do you remember your own childhood? Have you not been contradicting yourself by changing your clothes every year? If you were still in the same clothes you had when you were six months old you would be really cute and very consistent!

I do not think consistency is an intelligent value. Only idiots are consistent, because they cannot see the changing climates, they cannot see the changing details of life. It is changing every moment.

The more intelligent you are, the more you will be changing with it.

I am not a logical person, I am existential.

One who is existential is bound to contradict a thousand and one times, yet his contradictions simply show his intelligence.

Question 5:

Just this time, answering you.

Question 6:

I don't take seriously either myself or anybody else - particularly you.

Question 7:

Why are only you the journalist? why not me? why not the pope? why not Ronald Reagan? Do you think these are questions worth answering? That's why I have to see them. Idiots are all around.

One thing I must say: there was another man who was enlightened who died just a few days ago, J.

Krishnamurti. Without him I am feeling alone.

The question of "Why?" you should ask yourself. Why are you miserable? Why are you sleeping when you have the capacity to be awake? Perhaps you are having a beautiful dream: perhaps you are making love to your neighbor's wife, and you don't want to be awakened.

I simply decided that if sleep is going to be my existence, it is not for me, because it is almost close to death. Either I have to be awakened or dead, but I will not be in the limbo of a sleepy existence.

When you move like a robot, work like a robot, live like a robot and one day die like a robot, you have not decided it. The burden is on you to prove why you have not decided to be enlightened.

And you have some guts. You are asking me... It is only a question of decision, decision to be free, decision to be awake, decision to be blissful whatever the cost. You are not ready to pay the cost; that's why you are not enlightened.

The cost means I had to lose my family, I had to lose my nation, I had to lose my religion, I had to lose everything. But I was ready: whatever the cost I am going to be enlightened. It happens only in your absolute aloneness, and for that aloneness you have to drop many things which you think are very valuable. You have to drop respectability, you have to drop ambition, you have to drop false knowledge, you have to drop your ego.

If you are ready to do it, you can become enlightened this very moment. Not even a single moment does it have to be postponed.

Enlightenment is your nature.

You already have it; you are just not aware of it.

Question 8:

I don't have any feelings of hatred or anger against anybody - and now it is impossible to have them.

Once you are awakened you cannot go back; otherwise, just to hate you I would have gone back!

Question 9:

No, there is nobody. You are the only outstanding personality I am meeting.

Question 10:

I have just said, J.Krishnamurti.

Question 11:

Because I am on the right way. Why are you convinced that you are a man or a woman? Why are you convinced that you are alive and not dead? When you have a headache what makes you convinced that it is really there and you are not just imagining it?

I am simply on the right way.

My eyes are open, my vision is clear.

In my whole life I have never for a single moment thought that I have done anything wrong. Half a century is enough to prove that I must be on the right path.

The people who are not certain whether they are on the right path or not are certainly not on the right path - uncertainty is a proof. Rightness has an autonomous authority; it does not depend on any other reason. Just to be on the right path... everything proves you to be right. There is not a single doubt which has arisen in me in my whole life about my path, about my way of living. Even if the whole world says I am wrong, it will not make any difference at all. I will still be right, because the question is of my own inner feeling, my own inner authenticity, my own inner authority.

Question 12:

Every flower has to die if it is not a plastic flower. Only plastic flowers live for centuries.

All the religions that have lived for centuries are plastic. The real flower may have been with Gautam Buddha, but it died; it had to die - and what remains afterwards is the fragrance. If you have sensitivity enough you can still smell in the air all those people who have blossomed on the earth.

They are still your contemporaries.

The person who lives in your time may not be your contemporary, but the person you feel, experience, the person who moves your heart into a dance is a contemporary. To me Buddha is a contemporary, Lao Tzu is a contemporary, Bodhidharma is a contemporary, Zarathustra is a contemporary. I can still taste their experience because it is my own experience too.

Rajneeshism is dead. I wanted it to be dead before I drop my body. This has happened for the first time... and I wanted it to happen because I wanted to be certain that only the fragrance remains, not a dead structure, because the fragrance cannot be represented by the priests and the popes, and the fragrance cannot create religions. It may once in a while touch a man and drive him almost crazy with joy....

But Gautam Buddha did not allow the religion to die before his eyes; he forgot that what he is teaching, the priests will distort. They will create a structure which will be absolutely against him.

Buddha has said, for example - his last words were, "Don't make any statues of me. I am not a god.

And do not worship me, because I do not want you to be reduced into a lower status. You can love me, but you cannot worship me. Love does not need statues and temples."

But the day he died just the opposite happened. It is very surprising: he was the only man in history who said, "Don't make my statues" - and in the world there are more statues of Gautam Buddha than anybody else. There was a time when there were only statues of Gautam Buddha and in a few languages like Arabic, Urdu, Persian, the word 'buddha' became synonymous with statue. His were the only statues, so in Arabic and Urdu BUDH - that is their way of calling Buddha - means statue, and BUDHKANNA means the temple where the statue of Buddha is stationed. This is just an example.

On everything they went wrong. Buddha had said, "You should be vegetarians - but if an animal dies a natural death you can eat his meat too because you are not killing him." And he was very logical too; he just forgot that his being logical was going to be exploited by the priests, by the followers.

Now you will find in China, in Korea, in Japan, in Sri Lanka, in Burma, in every hotel, a big board with the writing: Here only dead animals' meat is sold. The whole of Asia is Buddhist, except India.

How did so many animals die? - that is the mystery.

Animals are very obliging, and I have asked the Buddhist priests, "If you eat only the animals who die naturally, then why all these places for killing animals? Why does all this hunting go on? You are all Buddhist, the whole country is Buddhist, so no animal should be killed; you should wait for his natural death." Buddha was logically right that if an animal is dead then it is almost vegetable, there is no harm in eating its meat; you are still nonviolent.

But life is not logical; life has its own very subtle ways of bypassing all logical systems. Seeing the situation, I declared Rajneeshism, the religion, dead before my eyes. Now there is no Rajneeshism, but only a fragrance. You cannot catch hold of it in your fist; you cannot make a dogma out of it.

You can enjoy it, you can love it, you can sing it, you can dance with it and it will not be a bondage to you; it will bring more and more freedom to you.

And now it is never going to die.

Once it has died, now it has become an eternal fragrance.

Question 13:

None of these terms categorize me, because I am a simple human being - awakened, alert, self- realized. Remember me just as someone amongst you... not holier, not higher. I don't belong to these big categories.

I belong among the very ordinary human beings who have no categories.

Question 14:

I do not have dreams. Once you are beyond the mind, dreams disappear. Dreams are the repressed part of your mind. I have never repressed anything; if I wanted to call you an idiot, I have called you an idiot. I don't have to dream to call you an idiot.

I live life fully and naturally without repressing anything in it; hence there is no material for dreams.

For thirty years I have not dreamt at all. My sleep is as profound and deep as it can be, with only one difference: the innermost core of my being still remains awake like a flame burning in a dark house.

Question 15:

No - because I do everything with such totality that no part is left out of it. Regret happens only when you do something halfheartedly, when you are in a state of either/or: to do or not to do.

To marry this woman or not to marry this woman... Whatever you do, you will repent. If you marry, then the other half which was saying "Don't marry" will take revenge, and that will be the repentance.

It will continuously say to you in each situation when the woman does not fit with you, "Look, I have been saying to you, 'Don't marry this woman,' but you didn't listen. Now suffer!"

If you don't marry the woman, then too you will repent your whole life because you missed an opportunity. Who knows... maybe that was the woman who was made for you. You will marry some other woman and there will always be a comparison. Of course in comparison the first woman will be the winner because you never married her, so you don't know her. The one that you have married you know, she is horrible; that other woman was really a beauty, was not of this world. The more your wife will prove horrible, the more the other woman will become otherworldly, divine, a great poetry, a song, a great ecstasy. But this will be repentance.

I never have any either/or. I simply see a thing and if my totality wants to do it, I do it; if my totality rejects it, I reject it. There is nothing left over for dreams, for repentance, for even looking back. I never think of the past and I never think of the future; the future is nothing but a projection of the past - better, modified, but still the same past. From where can your future come? It will be your past painted in a better way. Your woman has a better nose, beautiful eyes, is really sweet, soft like butter... but these are all ideas coming from your past that you are projecting in the future.

I don't have any future, and I don't go into the past.

Children always think of the future because they don't have any past, and old people always think of the past because they don't have any future. Old people go on describing the beauties of the past that they have never experienced, but they believe they have experienced the golden old days, the golden childhood.

I have nothing to repent.

I simply live the moment and move on.

Question 16:

There is no point at all, except in your ignorance...

It is wasting the present, regretting the past: the past you cannot undo but you can waste your present. And tomorrow you will regret that you wasted the whole day unnecessarily and again you are doing the same thing; you are again wasting the present.

All that you have got is the present; you can regret, you can imagine, you can dream - or you can live.

My suggestion is, please live. What has happened has happened, it makes no difference any more.

You are alive, the climate is good, why bother about unnecessary things? Enjoy the moment.

Question 17:

I never miss anything. But it seems the whole world is missing my Rolls Royces. It is a very insane world. When the Rolls Royces were there, they were jealous; now that they are gone, they are missing them. I am simply left out! They may be again there, and people will start feeling jealous....

Just the other day a few beautiful photographers were here. All my people tried to prevent me from being photographed by the side of a Honda, but I insisted that this picture should be taken. The Honda does not belong to me; neither did those Rolls Royces. But let people at least enjoy; they will feel good. It is very strange that people's minds should be concerned about things with which they have no concern at all.

I am reminded of two alcoholics on a full-moon night, completely drunk. They were lying down under a beautiful tree, and the full moon came up.

One man said, "I would give any price for this moon. I am ready to purchase it."

The other man said, "Forget all about it, because I am not going to sell it at any price."

The question of selling the moon does not arise. They were drunk... but it seems everybody is a little unconscious. I have never asked what happened to those Rolls Royces; even when they were there I never went to see all of them together. Every day when I went for the morning talk or the evening interview, one car was brought to me. It does not matter whether there are ninety-three, or nine hundred, or nine - or none. But the whole world was concerned about the Rolls Royces.

One bishop in America was continually condemning my Rolls Royces in his sermons. When I was ordered to leave America, he immediately telegrammed me, "Now that you are going it will be a great act of charity if you can give one Rolls Royce to my church" - and this was the man who was continually condemning. All the condemnation was nothing but deep jealousy.

Now, seeing the picture with the Honda, millions of people will feel relaxed. They don't know that neither the Rolls Royces belonged to me, nor the Honda. I don't even know to whom the Honda belongs; it was just standing there on the road.

I do not miss anything. You miss things only when you don't live them. And why should I miss? - wherever I am there is paradise, you can see, and wherever I will be there will be paradise. And if the world is too worried about ninety-three Rolls Royces, I can make it one hundred; I can tell my people to start collecting again.

It is not only that I am crazy; I have one million crazy people around the world. One hundred Rolls Royces is not a big problem... And immediately you will see that people are sad, jealous, and thinking that Rolls Royces don't fit with spirituality. I don't see that there is any contradiction. Sitting in a Rolls Royce I have been as meditative... In fact, sitting in a bullock cart it is very difficult to be meditative; a Rolls Royce is the best for spiritual growth.

Question 18:

Who is Sheela? I have one million sannyasins; you can't expect me to remember the names of all my people. I recognize them by their faces, I recognize them by their eyes, I recognize them by their laughter.

I don't know about whom you are asking. You should bring a picture and then ask the question.

Question 19:

I have never been there. Only one thing I know: I have many Swiss sannyasins - thousands - and beautiful communes in Switzerland. I have seen my sannyasins from Switzerland: they are the cleanest...!

Switzerland is a little piece of the Himalayas - smaller mountains, but still the same quality and the same scenery. It must be a beautiful country; I have seen the beauty of its people. And I respect Switzerland: for one hundred and forty years they have not fought a single war. That shows they are not psychologically sick. They are living in an earthly paradise; if they can also learn how to live in the inner paradise, they will be the most happy people in the whole world.

And I am going to go there. Every government is worried. Cabinet meetings for an entry visa? - nobody has ever heard of it. And parliaments deciding whether I should be allowed in or not... And I am coming unarmed, not with an army - but every country wants to decide, wants to take time, and they go on telling my people that we are considering whether to allow this man in or not.

Newspapers all over the world, in all the countries where I have applied for an entry visa - just for a tourist visa - are publishing that I am a dangerous man, don't let me in. Certainly I must be a dangerous man; so many people cannot be wrong.

If they have secret cabinet meetings to decide... and not only that, governments are asking other governments. For example, every government is asking India if they should allow me in or not.

Every government is asking America if they should allow me or not. And every government is asking Germany... Germany has ordered that I should not be allowed in, and if Germany is so afraid - one used to think that Germans are brave people - if they are afraid, then naturally everybody is going to ask, "What are your reasons for rejecting this man?"

So it is taking months to get the bureaucracy moving. Even if the top man decides that the visa should be given, somebody in the bureaucracy stops the process, stops the file, because he is a fanatic Catholic, a fanatic Mohammedan, a fanatic Hindu, or a fanatic communist, and then the whole process has to begin again.

This does not seem to be really a free world. It seems there are prisons in the name of nations, and you are not free to move amongst human beings. And I am not asking them - their own people, thousands of my sannyasins in their own country are saying, "We have invited him." But they are being delayed... Parliaments can delay, but they cannot stop. I will find a way to enter every country.

If they stop me, then there are courts, and my sannyasins will go to the courts.

Just for a tourist visa you ask parliament, you have secret meetings with the cabinet? - and for a man who is not going to do any harm to anybody, who has never done any harm. I will be coming to Switzerland, and before I come to Switzerland you can do as much harm to me as you can manage.

I can see from your questions... that's why I want to see the questions just five minutes before I come to answer them: your questions show your mind.

So do as much harm as you can. Create the atmosphere that "the man is dangerous; it is easy to let him in, it will be very difficult to get him out." I am enjoying this whole scene.

Looking at your questions I did not cross out a single question for the simple reason that you should be given as many hits as possible, so without any guilt you can go back and go on writing against me. And you can invent, you can tell lies... all yellow journalists are doing that. Your questions show that you are a yellow journalist.

These questions are not philosophical, these questions are not religious, and these questions are not concerned with the mysticism of life. You think that by your questions you are going to catch me.

You are wrong. Through your questions, I am going to catch you.

And I hope that then, when I am in Switzerland, you will not be cowardly. You should come again with the worst questions you can find - and next time when you come I will not look at your questions, because now it is settled that I can say anything I want to say.

Question 20:

In what way does it matter? I heard of it four hundred and four years or four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ was born - on the first of January, Monday, six o'clock, early in the morning. It was created in front of me; I am the only witness.

Question 21:

Do you have heros too? A country which has not been to war for one hundred and forty years cannot have heros. Heros are born out of war; without war there are no heros - unless you count as heros film stars, pop singers, football champions, boxing idiots. I don't count them as heros.

And I respect Switzerland that it has no war heros; just simple human beings are enough. Who needs a hero? What are you going to do with a hero?

Adolf Hitler in his autobiography writes, "The bigger the war, the bigger the heros that are created."

Naturally he wanted to have the biggest war, and up to now he is the biggest hero. You may hate him; that does not mean... He managed to create the biggest war in the world; only now Ronald Reagan can beat him - and I think this cowboy actor is going to beat him. He must be boiling within to write his name in golden letters in history. But he should remember that after the third world war there will be no history and no heros and no humanity. Adolf Hitler is going to be the last hero. Now there is no way to defeat him.

Switzerland is full of nice people, beautiful people, living silently and peacefully - it is the country which has the lowest crime rate. Don't ask me about the heros; I would rather say Switzerland is a hero amongst the countries.

Question 22:

I will have to enquire from the names of my sannyasins - they are the only famous Swiss people.

Right now I remember only one name, because he is a connecting link between me and the Swiss sannyasins. His name is Pragyan. I think only of my people.

Question 23:

I am not familiar with any currency. I have not touched money for thirty years. My people take every care of me. I don't even have pockets in my robe. When I first told my tailor thirty years ago, "Don't make pockets," he said, "What are you saying? Then when you need to carry some money or something, where will you keep it?"

I said, "From now on money is dead to me."

He said, "You are crazy and you drive ME crazy. Money is dead? But the pockets are harmless; let them remain because by chance you may need to carry something." I said, "No."

For thirty years I have not touched money. For five years I have been in America and I have not even seen a dollar bill. There is no need. I have never purchased anything, I have never gone to any shop. My people love me, I love them; they understand what my needs are - which are not many - and they take care of me. Even before I feel the need of something, somewhere some sannyasin has already felt it.

When I came here one of my sannyasins, Prem Hasya, was worried because all my watches that sannyasins have presented to me - and I have given them to a trust, I don't possess anything - have been captured by the American government. She was worried that I may be without a watch. I don't really need a watch; somebody wakes me up, somebody tells me, "Now come to the lecture..."

I don't need a watch; when I have to finish the lecture depends on my bladder. When it becomes as unbearable as poverty, chastity, obedience, then I finish it. I came without a watch... and immediately somebody was ready with a watch.

When you are in deep communion whatever you need is immediately felt by the people who love you. That that need is there... and they immediately try to make arrangements for it. Existence has been taking care of me, and thirty years' experience shows that my trust in existence is absolutely right. I have never missed anything. I have never been in a situation where I needed something and it was not there.

I don't know anything about Swiss currency, and I don't think I will ever know anything about Swiss currency. I will be in Switzerland; as far as the currency is concerned, my people will take care of it.

You should not be worried about it.

Question 24:

Every commune should go bankrupt, because that will help people to move on their own and not depend on the commune.

It does not change my mind; nothing changes my mind. They did really well. Live so luxuriously that you can go bankrupt. Only misers don't go bankrupt - but they go liferupt. Choose between bank and life: my choice is life. Who cares about banks?

Question 25:

My people have already arranged many places. It must be somewhere palatial where I will be staying - but I don't have any idea. They have twelve places, and when I go there they will show me the pictures of twelve places: whichever I want. But I have told them, "You can choose. You know my needs, they are not much; even a small house will do. But it should have a big lawn where people can come and I can meet them."

And Switzerland has beautiful places, beautiful houses. There is no scarcity of beautiful houses in Switzerland; that is not the question. The question is the boundary: whether the Swiss government has guts enough to let me cross their boundary. That will be decided soon. If they say no, then they will have to fight in court for saying no to a person who has done no harm to Swiss law, to Switzerland, who has never been to Switzerland. This will simply degrade their reputation in the world.

Question 26:

For seven years I have not read anything - no book, no newspapers - and I don't watch television.

My eyes are more precious and I don't want to destroy them. My eyes are to watch the trees and the stars and the oceans, not stupid programs on television.

Television is one of the things which is medically absolutely wrong... because light comes directly into your eyes. It is easier than reading, because you are just sitting and watching; so people go on watching for hours and burn their eyes. Small children are burning their eyes. Science has to be a little more alert. Television should be changed a little. In a movie your eyes are less hurt because the screen is not the direct source of light; it simply reflects light. The same is possible for television...

or some other way... But eyes should not be in contact so closely with a direct source of light.

I don't watch any television and I don't listen to any radio. I live in utter silence and joy and peace.

I don't have to entertain myself. It is for miserable people to look for entertainment; it is for people who want to forget themselves... so they go to the movies, look at television. And I have no interest in what goes on in the world, because it is the same: for centuries the same stupidities have been reported.

I used to live in a place and a doctor who had gone a little cuckoo used to come every day to my house - he was living just across the street - to read the newspaper. One day, to see whether he is really cuckoo or people just think he is cuckoo, I gave him a one-year-old newspaper. He read it from the beginning to the very end.

I asked, "Do you realize it is a one-year-old newspaper?"

He said, "I realize... but what difference does it make? The same things go on happening every day, the same murders, the same rapes. Names change - but the same politics, the same exploitation of people, the same wars. So you need not worry... you can give me any newspaper; I have simply to pass my time."

I said, "The people who think you are cuckoo are cuckoos. You are a very sane person."

He said, "That's what I say to them, but nobody listens."

No, I don't read any newspapers. If something significant happens - something that my secretary feels is significant and I should be made aware of it - then she brings a cutting. That too I don't read; she reads it. For example, the death of J.Krishnamurti: she brought the cutting. I was more shocked by the news than by the death. A man like J.Krishnamurti dies, and the papers don't have space to devote to that man who for ninety years continuously has been helping humanity to be more intelligent, to be more mature. Nobody has worked so hard and so long. Just a small news article, unnoticeable - and if a politician sneezes it makes headlines.

Question 27:

Who says I live in my own world? My own world consists of my own people. Their number is not small, and they have all kinds of talents, all kinds of educations, different personalities. One million sannyasins - that is my world. All those million sannyasins are increasing; there must be at least three million who are sympathizers, who are ready to become part of my world.

I am not living in a cave, and anybody who wants to enter into my world needs no passport, no visa.

I am ready to take the whole world into my world; that's my very effort. That's why I know the human mind, its functions, its different strategies of keeping people asleep.

One day I was asleep and part of the whole world. Today I am awake. I have known the sleeping mind within myself; I know the awakening within myself. I am certainly richer than you. You know only one dimension of your being; you are ignoring the other dimension. And I am not a recluse living in a cave or a monastery; I am moving in the world.

But basically my people are my world, because my people have shown courage and I feel responsible for them.

Question 28:

I have friends and to everyone I say, "You are my best friend." And when I say it, I mean it; I sincerely and authentically mean it. Everybody who is my friend is my best friend; below best is not worth calling a friend. So I don't choose and have a hierarchy that these are my best friends, and these are a little less best. I have only best friends, and it is impossible for me to choose one.

Question 29:

Now this is what I call an idiotic question! You should ask me, "Osho, can you START thinking?" As far as stopping, I did it thirty years ago; since then I have not thought.

You ask the question, and your question gets the response. That is the only moment when I use thought. When nobody is asking me anything there is nothing to think about. My whole being is so full of ecstasy, there is no space for stupid thoughts to move around.

Question 30:

There are millions of people I am grateful to. All the people who have been receptive to me, who have opened their hearts in deep trust - I am grateful to all of them. They have welcomed me into their very being. They have not left any privacy, any secrecy; they have shown me whatsoever they are, and I am grateful to all these people. These are my sannyasins. I call them my best friends.

Question 31:

Mankind as a whole is going towards its ultimate graveyard. But there is hope... it has not reached the graveyard yet. It can be stopped; its route can be changed, its inner being can be changed.

And there is certainly a point in doing it because this is the only place in the whole vast universe where life has blossomed and consciousness has arisen, which is the most mysterious and the most valuable thing existence has been able to produce.

This earth is the very hope of existence. If this earth becomes a graveyard... then the whole universe is already a graveyard. Millions of solar systems, millions of suns and millions of planets are all dead; on this small planet existence has succeeded in evolving to the point of becoming a Gautam Buddha.

And that gives a tremendous hope that everybody can become a Gautam Buddha.

There is a point... mankind has to be stopped, and I am working with my people to stop mankind from destroying itself. And I am absolutely certain that the forces of life are far greater than the forces of death.

We are going to win.

Question 32:

The world is already too populated. To have children is a crime - and the very idea of your own blood is possessive, monopolistic, capitalistic. Why my own blood? What speciality has my blood got? The blood of a beggar and the blood of an emperor are not different; it is not that the blood of the poor is water and the blood of the emperor is pure gold.

I love children; it does not matter to whom they belong. In fact, it is easier to love the children of other people than your own children; they are such a pain in the neck. To love somebody else's children is perfectly good: they are always nice, beautiful, angels. But if you are thinking of your own blood, those same angels will turn into devils.

I love children - and there are so many children in the world, what is the need to create my own children and go through this nuisance? When other people are going through the nuisance, I can just enjoy the fragrance of the children. And particularly at this time every intelligent person should stop producing children, adopt the children of the poor, find beautiful children who are dying of hunger.

But my love towards children is just like loving flowers. I love flowers, but that does not mean that I have to pluck those flowers and bring them into my house and decorate a flowerpot. That is ugly.

Wherever I meet children, I have immense love towards them, but that is enough. I don't cut their heads off and collect them in my room. Alive I cannot tolerate them; dead... it won't look right. And what need have I? - I have so many sannyasins who are everything to me. They are my family, they are my friends, they are the ones who are my children. There are elderly sannyasins who are my fathers, my uncles, my mothers. I have got so many people, such a big family - and one which has never existed in the world before.

Question 33:

Unless you ask I have nothing to say. On my own part I am absolutely silent. Silence is the only thing that I have not said - which cannot be said.

Question 34:

There is nothing unknown about me. But one thing you must make Swiss people aware of about me: I am a dangerous man.

Question 35:

I have never seen my passport. My people take care of it.

When I was in jail in America I had no phone numbers of my attorneys, or of the commune, or of my secretaries - because in my whole life I have never phoned. The U.S. Marshal was surprised and asked, "Who should we inform that you have been arrested?"

I said, "Whomsoever you like. As far as I am concerned, I don't know anybody. You can inform your wife; she may enjoy hearing what her husband is doing - arresting innocent people without any warrant."

I have such a different way of life that it sometimes looks unbelievable. I don't know where my passport is right now. Somebody must be carrying it somewhere.

Question 36:

Just now I am feeling great. Just a little dance from you...