Rabbis and rubbish!

Question 1:

It is difficult for people to understand something that they have never experienced in their lives. They are all doers... but even in their lives there are things which happen. For example, when they fall in love: do they do it or does it happen? Can you manage for love to happen? Either it happens or it does not happen; doing has no place in it. But millions of people are not even aware that love is a happening; that's why they cannot understand what is happening around me. I am not the doer of it.

This is not a movement like other movements. Nobody is planning it, nobody has ever planned it.

I started living out of my silence and peace, and people started coming to me and joining me. In the beginning I was alone, a wanderer; slowly, slowly more and more people came. I had not called them; something in them fell in love with me, and what had begun only with one man has become now a vast caravan covering the whole earth - even countries where I have never been, like the Soviet Union, China, other communist countries.

My feeling is that when you have something truthful it has its own fragrance. It spreads by itself.

And whoever is receptive to it, whoever is in search of it immediately gets hold of it. Just like subtle threads... people start moving towards the source of it.

It seems difficult for people to understand. For example, somebody who is a communist and is trying to organize a communist party finds it so difficult. Somebody is a socialist, somebody is a fascist - and great work and great planning is needed to do it. And here there is no work, no planning; it is a movement which can only be compared with a love affair.

I do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, I do not know where I am going to be tomorrow.

I have no plans for the future. This makes my people one of the most mysterious in the world - unplanned, unorganized, yet in such tremendous love, with no rules, no regulations, with no discipline, no creed, no cult, no church, no God. Still, something of the heart is blossoming.

There is a song that goes on spreading amongst my people, there is a dance to their ordinary activities; they are forgetting how to walk because their walk is turning into a dance. They are forgetting how to plan because they are seeing that things can happen on such a vast scale without planning.

Nobody is a leader here. These people are not my disciples; they are my friends, they are my fellow travelers. We share something which is not of the mind, which is beyond mind... a silence, a serenity, an ecstasy, a tremendous blissfulness and an experience of eternal life.

These are not theories. I am not preaching to them. These are happenings which are becoming more and more actual in more and more people's lives. It will certainly be difficult for doers to understand it. I can say only one thing - it is a beautiful haiku by a great master, Basho, and it explains everything, perhaps even that which cannot be explained. Basho says in this haiku... it is a small poem, only a few words, three lines:

SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.

If you look logically it seems absurd. But if you see it existentially, lovingly, aesthetically, with the heart of a poet, you can see immense meaning in it.

Sitting silently, doing nothing - that's what we mean by meditation - the grass grows by itself...

everything else happens by itself. You simply learn how to be silent, how not to do anything - and the flowers will blossom on their own, the birds will sing on their own, and your life will become a happening, an ongoing experience, moment to moment, of tremendous joy.

I never think in terms of a movement, in terms of making a church, a religion; I simply go on sharing my heart with whosoever knocks on my door. And the grass goes on growing....

There are one million sannyasins around the world, and at least three million people who have tremendous sympathy towards me and towards my people. If you want to know something about miracles, this is the miracle - not walking on water, that is simply stupid; not turning water into wine, that is criminal.

The only miracle I know of is the miracle that starts happening like a wildfire spreading from heart to heart, changing and transforming people's consciousness and bringing them to a higher level of being - creating a new man in them.

Question 2:

In the first place there is no surrender at all. Nobody is surrendered to me; they all are surrendered to love, just the way I am surrendered to love. They are all surrendered to higher states of consciousness, not to me; I don't count at all. Include me out!

So the first thing to remember: there is nothing like surrender here. That very word is ugly; it is another name of spiritual slavery. In other religions people are surrendered. This is not a religion, and I am against all spiritual slavery.

Secondly, I do not brainwash people. My work is totally different. I simply take my people beyond the mind, and the moment they experience something beyond the mind, they themselves wash their minds - naturally, because it is so cluttered with crap from thousands of years. That dirty work I don't do; they do it themselves.

My work is to pull them out of their brain identities; to pull them out of their minds and to give them an experience of beyondness. And then it is up to them to keep the crap or to throw it away - and nobody wants to keep the crap. And if they want a brain completely dry-cleaned, what is wrong in it? Everything should be washed and clean.

Yes, nobody else would do this, because when somebody else does it he has his own crap to replace in your brain. He deprograms you not to leave you deprogrammed; he deprograms you to REprogram you.

I simply take you beyond the mind. That is the whole method of meditation. Once you yourself know that, "I am not the mind, not the brain, not the body," you start dropping all conditionings which are unnecessary hindrances in your growth, an unnecessary burden to carry.

When you are trying to open your wings and fly to the stars, of course you would like to go lightweight; you start dropping luggage. And in that luggage, if you drop the holy books, the holy KORAN, THE HOLY BIBLE, I am not responsible for it, it is up to you. When you are beyond your mind you can see that your holy book is five hundred pages of pure pornography: now do you want to keep it or get rid of it? You see that your God is just a fiction, your devil is just a fiction; your heaven and hell do not exist anywhere.

It happened once...

A king came to a master very haughtily - obviously, because he was the king. He asked the master, "I have come to enquire about something. Have you something to say about heaven and hell? I want

to understand. I am getting old, soon I will be dying. Before I die I want to be completely clear where I am going, why I am going, and if things can be changed. Does hell really exist? Does heaven really exist?"

The master said, "You are such an idiot. Sit down first, and ask like a disciple. Here you are not the king; here I am the master."

And the king was furious. Before his courtiers - he had come with his commander in chief, prime minister, the queen - this man calls him an idiot. He pulled his sword out of its sheath and was obviously going to cut off the head of the master.

And the master said, "Wait just a moment! This is where the doors of hell open. Now you can cut.

Cut the head off - this is where the doors of hell open."

You cannot kill such a man. The master remained the same as he was - but the king changed. He could see the point: that it is anger, it is hatred which open the doors of hell. Hell is not some place somewhere; it is your psychology, it is your mind - a certain conditioning.

He put the sword back into the sheath and the master said, "This is where the doors of heaven open.

You have understood. Now you can go."

These are not physical things, not geographical places, just your mind. When you go beyond the mind... and only from the beyond can you see your mind exactly, how it looks, what garbage you have been gathering in it. Have you made a hell or a heaven out of your mind? It is up to you to change it or not to change it. I don't think anybody is not going to clean it completely, clean it of all rubbish.

I am not brainwashing anybody. Everybody is washing his own brains - and everybody has to wash his own brain. The washing gives you such freshness, such newness, such perceptiveness, such clarity about things - about your relationships, about yourself and the world - that it is not a loss, it is an immense gain. People on the outside may be thinking that I am brainwashing people; they should come here and see that I am not brainwashing anybody. I don't wash even my own clothes...

poor Chetana has to do it.

And I have one million sannyasins; how can I manage to brainwash so many people? And there is no need when you can do the job perfectly well. I simply show you the way to get out of your mind and then everything else is left up to you. If you are some kind of a psychological hippie and don't want to wash your brain, it is up to you. Then live in the hell, in the stinking brain that the society has given to you. But that is going to be your decision; it has nothing to do with me.

There is no surrender here; there is no brainwashing here. My connection with my people is purely of love, of heart, and of absolute equality. I am not superior to anybody. Only inferior people pretend to be superior. Only people who are suffering from an inferiority complex manage in some way to be superior, so that they can forget their inferiority, and they can show to the world that they are not inferior people.

I don't have any inferiority complex; hence I don't need to be superior. I am simply an ordinary human being. To me, just to be ordinary is such a relief that only idiots would like to be extraordinary. To be extraordinary is such a tension, an anxiety, a worry, and you have to continuously keep your extraordinariness. It is a competitive game; somebody else may prove more extraordinary than you.

Then what are you going to do? It is a continuous nightmare.

Just to be ordinary is immense relaxation and tremendous peace - no competition with anybody, no fear from anybody. Nobody can take away my ordinariness from me.

Extraordinariness can be taken away; somebody else can prove himself more extraordinary. I am absolutely non-ambitious, non-competitive, and that's my teaching to my people.

If you want to live really peacefully, joyously, each moment paradise is possible. Just a little understanding...

Question 3:

People only come to me, nobody can leave me. He can go away... but he will have to carry me in his heart, because it is not something that can be broken, it is not a bondage that you can be free of. It is pure love.

You can be with me, you can be far away from me, you can start thinking that you have left me; but I have never seen a single person who has been with me that has ever left me. It is impossible - because he comes through his mind, but while he is here he starts synchronizing with my heart. He can leave with his mind, but what about the synchronicity that has happened between my heart and his heart? That will remain with him wherever he goes - and that is the real thing. His being with me or not with me does not matter.

And yes, I can say to you that I have enough people right now to prevent a nuclear war in the world.

Nuclear war is not going to happen. In spite of stubborn and adamant people like Ronald Reagan, it is not going to happen. They are piling up nuclear weapons; we are also doing something. We are piling up more consciousness, more love, more ecstasy; these are invisible weapons they cannot see. But I can say with absolute authority that I have enough people to prevent the nuclear war.

There is not going to be any nuclear war.

Man is finished with wars. We are going to enter into a new era of peace. Up to now there has never been peace. History can be divided only into two periods: war, and preparation for war.

But peace has never existed. Nuclear weapons have proved a blessing in disguise because they have changed the whole phenomenon of war itself. A war is meaningful only if somebody wins and somebody else is defeated; it is an ego game. But nuclear weapons have destroyed the whole game. Now nobody can win and nobody can be defeated; everybody will be destroyed. War loses all point: if it means a global suicide then it is not going to happen. The politicians may continue to talk about it; they will continue to talk about it, because their power over people is because of war.

If it becomes certain that war is impossible, then who cares about the politicians and their nuclear weapons. They will go on talking about possible war, summit meetings, new propositions - but all that is now absolutely meaningless. They are not aware that something else is happening on the side. Perhaps unconsciously they are....

I have done no harm to America, and yet the whole American government became so troubled by my presence, so terrified that they wanted in some way or other - because they had no legal way - to throw me out of America. They had no legal way to destroy the commune in America; they did everything illegal, everything criminal, everything against their own constitution, and destroyed a beautiful commune - an oasis in the desert which could have proved a model for the future humanity.

But perhaps deep down they became aware that what was going on there went against their politics, their war efforts, their nuclear weapons.

I am reminded of an old Jewish story...

It is said in the Old Testament that God destroyed two cities, big cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, because they became sexually perverted. Homosexuality was there, lesbianism was there, people were making love to animals. Making love to animals is called sodomy because of Sodom, the city Sodom. God became so angry that he destroyed both cities.

In Judaism there is a small current - which is really something beautiful - of rebellious mystics called the Hassids. Hassids can see that it is absolutely ugly that God should get angry, that God should be destructive and violent, that God should be incapable of changing his own people's minds. It proves absolute impotency on the part of God, and it proves him to be a dictator.

Hassids have created a different story which is not included in Jewish scriptures, because Hassids are thought to be rebellious people. They are; they have their own way of explaining things. They also say that these two cities became so perverted that God decided to destroy them. But one Hassid, a great mystic, lived in one of those cities. He went to God and said, "Before you decide you have to answer a few of my questions."

The mystic asked, "In Gomorrah there are one hundred thousand people, and the same is the population of Sodom. But I know that each city has one hundred tremendously good people, and you are going to destroy both these cities. What about those one hundred good people in each city?

Two hundred good people whom you have nothing against will be destroyed because others have been doing perverted acts. I was thinking that God is compassion and he would never destroy any good man. What is your answer?"

God said, "If it is true that there are one hundred good people in each city then I am not going to destroy them. One hundred people are far more important than the whole majority of perverted people."

The mystic said, "My second question is that really there are not one hundred people; there are only ten people in each city, but do you think quantity should be more important than quality? You are ready to save the city for one hundred people; are you ready to save it for ten people or not?"

Certainly he has raised a tremendously significant question: even in the eyes of God, is quantity more important than quality?

God said, "If it is true that ten people in each city are good people I will save those cities. I don't care about quantity, the real thing is quality."

The mystic said, "Then I come to the last and the real question. There is only one good person; that is I. Six months I live in one city and six months in the other city. What is your decision?"

And the Hassids say God changed his decision. Gomorrah and Sodom were never destroyed. A single man against two hundred thousand perverted people has a certain power which is far superior to any other power. It is unfortunate that Jews don't accept the Hassid mystics; they are the cream of the people that Judaism has created. There is nothing in Judaism if Hassids are taken away, out of Judaism. Then it is all rubbish - rabbis and rubbish!

But the Hassids are the greatest people who have walked on the earth. Just look at this one Hassid who defeated God by simple argument and saved two hundred thousand people. And his argument is basically very fundamental. It is my argument.

I am not bothering about their nuclear weapons. Let them go on piling them up - the Soviet Union, America, and other mad nations can also join them. I don't care about them; my concern is to create a quality of consciousness in thousands of people so that existence itself would like to protect them.

Existence is compassionate. And I have already got enough people. No nuclear weapons can kill their spirit, no nuclear weapons can kill their love, no nuclear weapons can kill their goodness of the heart. Existence is on my side, not on the side of Ronald Reagan. There is going to be no third world war.

Question 4:

I love them, just as I have always loved them. Sannyas is just a formality, it does not matter. They cannot drop me; I am going to haunt them in their nights, in their dreams, in their hearts. So dropping sannyas does not matter. I don't pay any respect to rituals and formalities.

I know one thing: once somebody is here with me, I make a way in his heart of which he may be absolutely unaware. He may drop sannyas, but I am going with him. I am spread over all my people; they are my home. So I will love anybody who drops sannyas exactly the same as I have been loving him when he was a sannyasin - with no difference at all.

Love never depends on formalities.

Question 5:

It is a new beginning. It means that now I have enough people in the world and I am making it impossible for nations to let me stay long enough anywhere. I want to be on the road continuously.

I am a little lazy, so I need the support of the nations to deport me, not to let me stay anywhere.

Naturally I will be moving around the earth, meeting my people more.

And I have my people everywhere. Even if they don't allow me into the countries, I can meet my people outside the countries, in the airports.

Question 6:

Man is sick, and out of his sickness many problems arise. Because he is sick he would not like to be ignored; he would like to be exploited, to be cheated, to be deceived - but not ignored. He would like to be manipulated so that he can feel, "People need me."

There is a great need in everybody to be needed. That disappears only when your sickness disappears. When you are really enlightened, completely conscious, then there is no need to be needed; otherwise man will accept anything.

I was a professor in a university. I was sitting with the vice-chancellor one day and a girl came in, a postgraduate girl. She complained to the vice-chancellor that there was a student who was constantly harassing her, writing letters to her, standing in the middle of the way when she came to the university or went to her home.

The vice-chancellor said, "I will call him and put him right, don't be worried."

I said "Wait. Before you put him right I would like to ask this girl a few things, and then I would like to ask you a few things."

He said, "Me?"

I said, "Yes. You just wait. First listen to what transpires between me and the girl." I said to the girl, "Be sincere, are you not enjoying this?"

She looked embarrassed, but she was really a sincere girl and she said, "Perhaps you are right. I am sorry that I complained. I am enjoying it."

The vice-chancellor said, "What?"

I said, "You keep quiet. Your number is going to come."

I asked the girl, "Just think: if nobody throws pebbles at you, nobody writes letters to you, nobody writes your name on the blackboard, nobody prevents you on the way, nobody punctures your cycle, nobody takes any note of you... would you be happy? I can make that arrangement."

She said, "No, I would not be happy. I know there are girls who are utterly miserable for the simple reason that nothing is happening in their life, nobody takes any note of them. They are dying. I even know a girl who writes letters to herself, just to show people that somebody has written a letter to her."

The vice-chancellor said, "What am I listening to?"

I said, "You keep quiet; your number has not come yet." So I asked the girl, "Do you want that boy to be called or not?"

She said, "No."

Then I said, "Be human, be understanding. That boy loves you; do you love him or not?"

She said, "I have never thought about it, but I like him."

Then I said, "You can go and like him a little better so he need not do anything nasty. And be courageous... liking is not enough, love him."

And the vice-chancellor again was going to say something. I said, "You keep quiet."

He said, "But I cannot. You are teaching students to love each other."

I said, "Do you want me to teach them that they should hate each other?" I told the girl, "Now you can go because I have to talk with the vice-chancellor."

And when she left I asked the vice-chancellor, "Just remember when you were young and you were in the university, what was the situation? Did you love any girl or not? Now you are sixty-five, be sincere and honest. Do you still feel for some woman or not?"

He said, "My God! I never thought that I would have to be interrogated by one of my professors."

I said, "You have to answer me; otherwise I will call a meeting of the whole university - all the professors, all the students - and you will have to answer before everybody. So just finish it before me; otherwise you will be in trouble."

He said, "I am already in trouble. You have sent that girl with the message to love the boy - and you don't know that the boy is my boy! And now you are teaching me, corrupting the whole family. I have a wife, I have children... I did not say it before the girl that the boy is my boy - and I could not say it because you would not allow me to speak!"

I said, "Just remember your own youth. Just remember right now, even though you are sixty-five; love never becomes old. And don't be afraid: I am not going to tell anybody about you."

He said, "It is true. Love never gets old. I still feel sometimes when I see a woman that perhaps if I was not married I would have chosen this woman. And as far as my wife is concerned, you know, she is just a kind of lifelong punishment. I console myself according to the Indian philosophy that it must be because of my bad actions in my past life that I have got this woman. Now somehow I have to patiently suffer."

I said, "You got this woman because you had not guts enough to say to your father that you wanted another woman with whom you were in love."

He said, "How did you come to know?"

I said, "I have been talking to your father also. We are great friends; we meet every day on the morning walk. He has nothing to do and he enjoys talking. So he was talking to me one day and he said, 'He has become vice-chancellor but he has no guts. He was in love with a girl and still he didn't say it. We arranged his marriage with another woman because she was bringing much money, diamonds, ornaments, gold, a bungalow, and a car as her dowry.'

"So it is not the past life actions that you are suffering from; you are suffering from cowardice - and not only are you suffering from cowardice... The other woman that you loved has remained unmarried just because she could not love anybody other than you. I know her too."

He said, "You are dangerous, you know too much about me. Just keep quiet. Be kind to me and don't tell anything to anybody."

I said, "I never tell anything to anybody, but as far as public speeches are concerned I cannot promise. I will not use your name, but I am going to speak of it."

Man wants to be needed, to be loved, to be respected, to be attended, to be praised. A thousand desires... and when these are not fulfilled he is ready for anything. Even manipulation will do; at least that makes him feel that he is alive. Even cheating will do; at least he feels that somebody takes note of him. It is a very strange world. When people cannot get the real thing, then they will be ready for anything as substitutes. When you cannot get love, you are ready to accept sympathy as a substitute. Sympathy is not a substitute.

In India there is an old story...

A woman, a poor woman, purchased a beautiful bangle - it was her whole life's earnings - a gold bangle. And she went around the town making much noise: somebody must take note of the bangle, somebody must ask, "Aha! What a beautiful bangle you have got. From where did you get it?" Just a poor woman... you cannot be hard on her. But nobody asked her - because who takes care of beggars, poor people. People don't even take note of them. When the servant passes through your room, you don't even think that somebody has passed.

After the whole day's effort she failed and she put fire to the small hut where she used to live. The whole village gathered and she was beating her breast saying, "I am finished, my house is finished."

At that time another woman asked, "My God, where did you get such a beautiful bangle?"

And the poor woman said, "If you had asked this before you could have saved my house."

She burned the house just to get attention. People would gather, they would sympathize, and perhaps someone would take note of her bangle. It looks strange that people would like to be oppressed, people would like to be manipulated, people would like to be cheated, deceived; but it is all human. It is because they have not been receiving what they wanted that they have agreed even to these ugly things.

It is a sad and tragic commentary on our society: we are not taking care of people, we are not respectful of people, we are not loving with people. Although there is a big crowd, the biggest that has ever been on the earth - five billion people - everybody is still alone, alone in the crowd.

Question 7:

I can understand their doubt - but I am not a pessimist. My peaceful commune in America has been destroyed by the ugly fascist forces of the American government. That does not mean that finally peace and love and freedom are going to be defeated. That was only a battle lost. But a battle lost does not mean that the war is ended. In fact that was the beginning of the war.

The attack on the peaceful commune in America has proved something: that the American government is afraid of peace, is afraid of silent people, is afraid of rejoicing people. It has proved one thing absolutely: that a small commune can make the biggest power in the history of man so afraid.

It has not been a defeat; it has been a victory. The destruction of the commune does not matter, because my commune does not consist of houses and roads; my commune consists of people, consciousnesses.

And it was good that the commune in America was destroyed by America. Five thousand meditators have spread out all over the world. They know how the commune was created, step by step - and thousands of communes can evolve around the world; they are evolving. Hundreds of new centers are opening because the people who have lived in a commune, who have tasted the joy of a commune, cannot live in a miserable society. They feel completely out of tune so they have to create their own small groups which will start becoming bigger and bigger.

If you see with my eyes, then I don't see that the destruction of the commune in America has been a defeat. America has committed suicide, has betrayed its own fear, opened and exposed itself. If we have thousands of communes around the world, America and the Soviet Union and countries who are thinking of very powerful destructive weapons are bound to feel impotent. The people of the commune have spread everywhere and they are opening new places.

They are bound to feel impotent.

I have become free.

First, America was so interested to throw me out; now they are worried that my movements should be stopped. I was not moving, I was simply living in the desert there. They forced me to move and now they have become aware that this movement is more dangerous. At least I was confined in a small place that was far away from any neighbor. The closest town was twenty miles away, and we had one hundred and twenty-six square miles around us of pure desert, mountains and juniper trees. We were living there absolutely alone, isolated from the world.

They were unnecessarily disturbed, and now they are repenting about it because my people have spread all over the world. With them, the message has gone all over the world and America is exposed for its ugly action. They have not even been able to defend their action. I have been attacking them continually but not a single answer has come from them.

My attacks have been reported all over the world, through all the news media, but Ronald Reagan seems to have completely lost his nerve. I am ready for a public contest with him, to say that whatever he did was absolutely unconstitutional, illegal and criminal. And he forced it to be done - because everywhere I was told by authorities that it was from high above, "We cannot do anything else."

Now he is feeling that it would have been better not to have touched my commune, to have left it alone. Now five thousand people are around the world and I am going to be continually moving around the world; now the whole world is my commune.

And how long can he prevent me from entering America? The people of America are with me. I have never come across a single person in the whole of America who was not with me, just seeing that the whole thing was absolutely ugly, inhuman. How long is he going to prevent me? The court has decided only five years... and five years will be gone soon.

I will be back in America with a greater commune. And this time the commune is not going to be in a desert, it is going to be exactly in Washington.

Question 8:

Man has enslaved women, and it was man's responsibility to give them freedom, to give them dignity and equality. I have not only tried in every possible way to make them equal, but something more - because they need some compensation. For centuries, man has been exploiting them; hence in my commune I put all the women at the top in every department. Not only should they be given equality for a few years, they should be given something more than equality just to keep the balance.

They have suffered so long, and my understanding is that if women take it from men it will not be a beautiful situation. If they fight for it and take it, then men and women will always remain enemies - and that's what is happening through the women's liberation movement. That movement is creating a kind of antagonism, it is reactionary. Whatever man has done to them they would like to do to man; that will be again an ugly situation. Can't we ever get out of ugly situations?

Now women in the liberation movement are turning to lesbianism, just so that they do not have to love men. They hate men. This is not a situation in which humanity can grow. Lesbianism is not going to satisfy women; neither is it going to give them equality. They are trying in every way, forgetting completely that equality does not mean similarity.

If men are smoking then women are smoking. It was graceful of women for centuries not to smoke, because it is stupid - it has no reason behind it. Because men are using certain kinds of clothes, women have to use them though they may not make them look beautiful. Perhaps they would like some hormones to be injected so they can grow beards and mustaches just to be similar to men.

My effort is that man should give woman her place, respectfully, with apologies. She is equal, but she is not similar. She is different and she should remain different; her difference is her beauty - and the difference between men and women is their attraction.

It is the duty of man to bring woman to the same status as he is, because he is responsible for reducing the dignity of woman. There is no need for a women's liberation movement; just a little intelligence on man's part and the woman can have equality without any conflict and without any antagonism, without any bad feelings.

On the contrary, man giving woman back whatever belongs to her, with apologies for the bad behavior of the forefathers - for which he is not responsible, but of course he is representative of all those people - will create a bridge. And a loving bridge will create more friendship.

I would like men and women to be different, equal, and yet in immensely deep love and friendship.

Question 9:

Money is certainly one of the greatest inventions of man, and it has helped tremendously in the past.

But there is a negative side of it too: money has created poverty and richness, the classes and the class struggle; money has created capitalism, money has created communism. Money has helped in many ways in the exchange of things - as a means of exchange - but now its function can be taken by better means which can avoid its negative part.

For example, in my perspective, instead of money as currency every society should become a commune. We can make a limit, five thousand or ten thousand... If the town is bigger then it can have two communes, three communes. But instead of a family, a commune takes over. The commune takes care of the children, the commune fulfills the needs of people, and the people don't have to use money. Whatever they need, the commune fulfills the needs.

Money can be used between one commune and another as a means of exchange, but not between individuals. That will destroy the distinction between the poor and the rich. And instead of currency...

which is something ugly because it goes on moving through so many hands, many of which will be of sick people suffering from diseases and infecting the notes. Perhaps this is one of the causes of many infections spreading into the world.

Instead of currency each commune should use credit cards, and those will be used between commune and commune. Computers can manage all the accounts perfectly well - so nothing has to be really exchanged; the computer can keep the accounts.

And within the commune there is no need for any money or any credit cards; whatever you need the commune supplies you with. There will be different needs - there is no harm in it, all are our people - and if somebody needs cigarettes he gets cigarettes, if somebody needs beer he gets beer. Certainly nobody gets anything which is harmful to him or to the society. And the commune has one kitchen; for five thousand people we had one kitchen which was run by fifteen people.

Now it is absolutely uneconomical and absurd that thousands of women are involved in kitchens; their whole life is nothing but a kitchen and children. If they get bitchy it is absolutely natural; just try once in a while for twenty-four hours to do their work, and you will know that either you will commit suicide, or you will burn the whole house and be finished with it.

The kitchen is not a joke and the children are real devils. The whole day they will sleep and the whole night they will wake you up, continually. This is needed, that is needed, they want to go to the bathroom... They are very creative geniuses. Thousands of women, almost half of humanity... it is a great loss. Only a commune can save them. And there is no need that the commune kitchen should be taken care of only by women; it should be taken care of by whoever is the best cook - and men have been found to be the best cooks, not women.

Five thousand and ten thousand people eating together, somebody playing on the guitar, somebody dancing, somebody singing... then life seems to be worth living. And a commune can afford doctors to look into whether food is hygienic or not; they can see whether people are being fed on junk.

That's what is happening around the world: just open somebody's skull and you will find all kinds of junk inside - ice cream, spaghetti....

A communal kitchen is needed, and everything should be communal. People are working for themselves. Whatever their commune cannot produce they purchase from another commune; whatever extra they produce they exchange with another commune - so there is no need for anybody to be poor, there is no need for anybody to live in scarcity.

Money has lost its value, it is no longer needed. It has done something good, but it has also done something very bad.

Question 10:

Just as I have been telling you: children should belong to the commune, not to the parents. Children with parents have been in great trouble for centuries, because to be with parents is bound to be a conditioning. They belong to some religion, they belong to some church, they belong to some political party; they go on putting their own superstitions into the heads of the children, directly or indirectly. And every child becomes conditioned.

Children should belong to the commune; the parents can have them on holidays. The parents can go and live with the children in their hostels and it will be far more loving. Twenty-four hours a day together destroys love; it is better that children should be away. The children will be much freer. They should be in the hands of teachers who are trained in meditation, who are trained for non-conditioning the children, for not putting any superstitions into the children. There will be many teachers... In a small family, all belong to one religion, to one superstitious tradition, to one orthodoxy, so the conditioning is reinforced again and again from every side.

When the children were living in the commune that was destroyed in America, they were living separately. The parents felt tremendously relieved of a great burden and the children felt tremendously free and happy. In four years our experiment gave us great insight: children became more mature without their parents. They were not throwing tantrums because there was nobody to listen to their tantrums.

We had a gradation: small children should be taken care of by the bigger ones and the bigger ones should be taken care of by the other older ones. It was such a great joy to see children taking care of other children with such love, with an understanding which adults cannot show. And there was no conflict, no struggle, no fight for toys because they were all together. They had their own family of children, and everybody was protective of the small children; everybody felt responsible.

As they were growing they were far healthier, far more intelligent, were getting mature earlier. In our education system in the commune we had half the day for ordinary education and half the day to do something skillful - some craft, carpentry, sculpture, or anything the children wanted. They were getting into doing things which we cannot conceive of such small children doing - carpentry or some other kind of craft. And they enjoyed doing it more than the other part of their ordinary education, because their creative intelligence was more in use. In ordinary education only memory is used, not intelligence.

So there is no problem about conditioning and children. We can create a separate section in the commune where children can have their garden, farm their fields, their hostel where they can do their things; where teachers can be trained not to condition anybody for anything; where every kind of literature should be available for children to read. If they want to understand something the teachers are there to help them - but the teachers don't have any idea to impose on them.

It is only a question of changing our teaching colleges and preparing teachers for teaching children without conditioning them. All this can be very easily managed.

Question 11:

They do not understand me. I certainly teach hedonism - but not only hedonism; I also teach spiritualism. My whole way of life is to bring a synthesis between hedonistic values and spiritual values. They are wrong in saying that I teach pure hedonism. No, I teach hedonism as a base for spiritual growth.

Zorba is the base.

Buddha is the ultimate flowering.

Zorba is the roots.

Buddha is the fruits and the flowers.

But tell the Italian people that I am coming there with all my people from all over Europe to make them understand that I am not a hedonist, that I am not only a spiritualist either, that I am both together. It is difficult to understand because it has never happened before.

Up to now man has lived in a split, hedonists against spiritualists. This is the cause of the misery of humanity; this is the reason why there has not been any evolution. Charles Darwin says that man has evolved out of the monkeys. Perhaps thousands of years back a few monkeys rebelled - they must have been great monkeys - and changed themselves into human beings. But since then what have human beings been doing? They have not taken any quantum leap. Does that mean that evolution has finished? that man has come to the end of the road?

It doesn't seem so. Man is so miserable, in so much suffering that this cannot be accepted as the end. And all my own experience and authority say to you that this is not the end. I have been a hedonist, and I have changed myself into an awakened consciousness. This can happen to every human being; now this is the way of evolution.

And my feeling about the Italians is that they are very loving and understanding people. I have thousands of sannyasins in Italy. They were the first to become sannyasins from the West, and I have found them immensely loving people. A little greasy... and I love everything about their greasiness; I just don't like spaghetti. That has no place in my evolutionary program.