The whole existence is with you

Question 1:

It is not an esoteric question; it belongs to the inner science of man. The moment one becomes enlightened, he is no longer confined in his own body; his vision is as big as the whole universe.

So when I said that this earth is the only place where life has blossomed, where not only life but consciousness has arisen, not only that but there have been a few people who have reached to the ultimate expression of consciousness - to me, that is godliness - I can say it with authority because it is my own vision. But a few things have to be added to it.

There are almost fifty thousand planets in the whole universe where life has reached to the animal stage... some planets where life has only reached to the vegetable state. But there is no planet other than earth where there exists something similar to man - not only alive... Animals are alive, but man is conscious of his life. To become conscious of one's consciousness is the highest stage, and that is not far away.

You are aware of your life.

You can be aware of your awareness.

Self-awareness will reveal you the mystery of existence.

You have not to accept it on my word. If you accept it, it becomes esoteric for you. To me it is an actual experience, and there are many experiences which I am not telling you about for the simple reason that they will look esoteric - because you cannot conceive of them. To me they are realities, but to you they have to become realities.

I mention this point especially, because I am immensely concerned that life on the earth is not destroyed; it is existence's most ambitious flight.

You are not alive; existence is alive in you.

You are not conscious; existence has become conscious in you. The moment you become conscious of consciousness, existence achieves its fulfillment. You are so blessed in that moment that you can bless the whole universe; that is the meaning of the word 'Bhagwan'. It does not mean God; it simply means the blessed one, one who is blessed and who is capable now to share his blessing with anybody who is ready to receive it.

There is nothing esoteric in it, but it belongs to the science of the inner journey - it is not part of the objective science. So to those who are addicted with the objective science it may look esoteric, but to those who are not addicted to the objective... and remember that the object cannot exist alone without your subjectivity; your subject, your consciousness, is the polarity.

It is strange that logical scientists go on denying that there is anything inner in man. They accept the outer and they deny the inner; they accept the things in their house and they deny themselves.

It is simply ludicrous, but it cannot go on for long. More and more intelligent people are searching inwards because the outer search has led to death - to the ultimate death.

The inner search will lead you to deeper layers of life and finally to the eternal life in the same way as the outer search leads you to death, because objects are dead. Studying dead objects, and denying the living subject who is studying them... Do you think one object can study another object? - that is impossible. Do you think one stone can observe another stone? Can it do research about the other stone?

To enquire into the objective world, you need an inner consciousness, a subjectivity. That subjectivity is your consciousness. And objective science has come to nuclear weapons, ready to destroy the whole of life on the earth and turn it into pure objectivity without any subject. Just the opposite happens when you reach to your innermost being: everything becomes alive, conscious. The whole existence becomes a dancing, singing, rejoicing universe, and your vision has no limits; you can see things which are not possible with objective eyes.

I had to state this just to emphasize the fact that to destroy life on the earth is going to be the greatest loss to existence, because nowhere else has it evolved to the point where a Zorba can become a Buddha. Nowhere else has it blossomed into the ultimate potential, transforming it into an actuality.

Galileo proved that this small earth moves around the sun. It may be a factual thing, but I say unto you that the whole universe, not only the sun but the millions of other suns which you see as stars in the night, and millions of solar systems are all really moving around the earth - not factually, but in a symbolic sense because this is the only sacred place where life exists, where consciousness exists, and where a few people have been capable of achieving the ultimate expression of being, enlightenment.

Question 2:

Everybody does it; mankind has been accustomed to misery. Misery is taken for granted; it is thought to be natural. Not to be miserable is dangerous in this vast crowd of miserable people simply because they cannot believe that someone is not miserable - something must be wrong with him.

The society has penetrated deep in your mind; it is not only that others will not believe your laughter, you yourself don't. Your mind is part of the society; it has created it. Your parents, teachers, priests - they all have created your mind. A mind is something implanted in you by the society; it belongs to the society, not to you. It is society suspecting your laughter, making you afraid that perhaps you've gone insane - because there is no reason to laugh.

It is a very strange situation: when you are healthy, you don't think that there has to be a reason to be healthy. You don't rush to a doctor in panic saying, "Save me doctor, I am healthy! Do something immediately... something has gone wrong, I am no longer sick." Nobody asks, "Why am I healthy?"

But if you are sick you ask, "Why am I sick?"; you go to the expert to enquire about your sickness and how to cure it.

The same should be the situation about your inner world. Sadness is sickness, and you accept it; laughter is health, and you are afraid to accept it - you are suspicious of it. That suspicion is not yours; that suspicion belongs to your mother, to your father, to your teachers, to your priest, the church, and all kinds of so-called leaders.

If a child is not burdened with all this conditioning, when he is laughing he will accept it naturally.

When he is sad he will enquire about why he is sad. He will go to the psychiatrist to enquire what is the cause of his sadness, why he is so serious, why he cannot laugh, why he cannot sing and dance.

A person who cannot laugh, cannot sing, cannot dance - do you think he will be able to love? It is impossible; his love will be a sad affair, full of tears, without any joy.

People are finding lovers so that they don't feel lonely. Loneliness hurts, but they are not aware that the other person is also lonely. And two lonelinesses together make the problem multiplied; it does not dissolve the problem. You were lonely; now another person is lonely. You were sad; now another person is sad. Now both will be carrying the sadnesses of each other, sicknesses, seriousness, moods of despair and anguish - now they are doubled. Before a person falls in love, he should have a right understanding about his own state... is he capable of loving? He cannot laugh, he cannot sing, he cannot enjoy music; he cannot enjoy anything... how is he going to enjoy love?

The priests of all the religions have poisoned everything.

They have poisoned your love, they have poisoned your laughter.

They have poisoned your capacity to rejoice, to dance, to sing.

Just look at your churches... The moment you enter a church you become serious - just watch it.

The moment you enter a church the climate inside you changes - you become serious. You become Christian, which is simply a disease just like Hinduism, Buddhism... different names of diseases.

Can you make love in a church? Jesus Christ hanging on the cross looking at you... It will be a very strange scene. You cannot even laugh. Have you seen any statue of Jesus smiling, laughing, dancing? No, all that you know is the crucified Jesus.

My own understanding is that Christianity has become the biggest religion of the world because it is a sick religion - more sick than any other religion. The cross and a serious Jesus - naturally, on the cross one has to be serious! It will look really odd if he starts laughing on the cross; he has to follow etiquette. His seriousness, his death, his cross have been helpful to millions of miserable people to join his company: "He seems to be the right person."

He has told you to carry your crosses on your own shoulders, and you are carrying not wooden crosses, but far more deep psychological crosses of sadness, misery, anguish, anxiety, meaninglessness. These are your crosses. His cross was not that big, and it was something outside him; you are carrying your crosses within your hearts. There seems to be some kind of affinity between you and Jesus Christ.

The writer of ZORBA THE GREEK, Kazantzakis was expelled by the Greek Orthodox church because he created Zorba - a man full of joy, full of love, a man full of music, carrying no cross at all - a fiction even, and one of the best that this century has created. And the great artist Kazantzakis was expelled from the church because he had done something immensely unchristian.

The church does not want you to be happy. Society does not want you to be happy. The psychoanalyst does not want you to be happy. Nobody seems to be interested in your happiness; everybody wants you to be miserable. There must be some vested interest in your misery - there is: the miserable man is easily enslaved. He is already broken. He has no guts left; he cannot fight, he cannot rebel; he cannot be a revolutionary, he has no hope. It does not matter to him; he is in such misery, what more misery can slavery be?

India remained for two thousand years in slavery without a single revolution worth calling a revolution.

They call a few things... in 1942 Mahatma Gandhi called his movement a revolution. It is simply untrue. The whole revolution died in nine days. And a country of four hundred million people... How many people participated in the revolution? And why did it die out in nine days? These are not revolutions, just little efforts towards revolution which died before they were born.

India was not ready for any revolution; hence, the masses remained aloof - for them it mattered nothing. They were under the kingdom of Hindu kings before Mohammedans came; they were miserable. Mohammedans became emperors; they were miserable. Britishers came; they remained miserable. Their misery does not change. Why should they bother who is ruling them? Their hearts are so deeply sad that you cannot make them sadder.

All governments want people to remain miserable, and all priests want people to remain miserable, because only miserable people go to the priests for consolation. Only miserable people think of paradise; only miserable people want to be assured that blessed are the poor, blessed are the humble because they shall inherit the kingdom of God.

For thousands of years misery has been imposed upon you. You are born into it; it is part of your blood and bones. That is the reason that when you feel laughter, to yourself you look awkward, embarrassed. But tears are perfectly okay, because for thousands of years man has been full of tears - his whole life is nothing but tears.

My people are condemned all around the earth. I am condemned for the simple reason that I am telling you to throw the crosses off your shoulders. If you are so much attached to carrying something, carry a guitar - but a cross is not something to be carried.

I have been teaching my people to be happy, rejoicing, loving, because those are natural things which have been repressed. But strange people have the majority under them. I have told my people to drop all old conceptions. For example, you have been told for centuries that love is unspiritual.

Love to God is perfectly okay - that is spiritual love because there is no God, so you can go on praying and be very loving to God who does not exist. But love to a woman or a man is dangerous because the woman is real, the man is real.

They have tried to divert your love to a nonexistential thing so you cannot love those who are real.

And they have made it clear to you that these two loves are opposite to each other: either you can love a woman or you can love God... strange! I can't think why there should be such a competition between God and a woman. Is God a woman?... so jealous?

Why has a man to renounce life and its joys to attain the same pleasures in heaven? What kind of logic is this? Here everything is sin, and the same things in heaven become rewards, to the same saints who were told not even to look at a woman.

In India there was a saint, Surdas, who took his eyes out. His name, Surdas has become equivalent to blind man, because to call a blind man "blind man" looks a little inhuman. In India a blind man is called surdas - the name of a great saint. It simply means a blind man, but looks more sophisticated and does not hurt the blind man. Surdas took out his eyes because he was afraid that if the eyes are there and women are all around... and there are things which are beyond your control. Sometimes you see a face and you like it, you love it. It happens in such a split second that you cannot remember in that second that you are a religious man, you have renounced the world. It is better to get rid of the eyes so you will not see who is man, who is woman, who is beautiful. And this is not an exception.

In the Soviet Union before the revolution, there were thousands of men and women - a very fanatic Christian cult which demanded that you cut your genitals. And people were cutting their genitals to assure the church absolutely about their chastity, celibacy. The poor woman was again at a loss what to cut... the man was going far higher in spiritual growth. Then finally they started cutting their breasts. There were thousands of women who had cut their breasts and they were thought to be very religious. Men who had cut their genitals were thought more religious - they were saints.

All these religions have been poisoning your naturality. My effort is to throw any unnatural conditioning off you, and introduce you again to your innocence, to your nature.

Just the other day my secretary Anando reported to me that there are reports in the newspapers that there are sexual orgies here. I said, "But I am here, and you don't invite me either. Great things are happening and I am present, and I have to come to know about great things through newspapers.

This is not right."

She said, "But no orgies are happening. These are all false reports."

I looked into the report and I found what the reason was. It must have come from the hotels and places where my people are staying. No orgies are happening anywhere, but this is part of my teaching: whatever you do, do totally. So when my people are making love, they really love. They groan, they moan, they scream, they dance, they sing. And, you know, the hotel walls are not very thick, so all the neighbors are keeping their ears to what is happening... It must be an orgy! Two persons making so much noise... not possible!

They also make love, but they make love according to the tradition that the woman should not move.

And to prevent her movement the man is on top of the woman. Now this is beast over the beauty - he's muscular, he's bigger, and the poor delicate woman is simply crushed under him. What kind of love...? And he is in a hurry to finish it soon because it is a sin - the sooner finished the better!

You should not rejoice in it, you should not prolong it, and your neighbors should not know. So the woman remains quiet, silent, almost a corpse. That is the definition of a lady.

A lady is not a woman. A lady is a dead woman; a lady simply means a good lay, she simply lies down and remains with closed eyes.

And do you know why women close their eyes when you make love? - just to avoid seeing you. You are doing such a nasty thing to them, they don't want to see; they don't want the light on. The man is finished within seconds, because only he is making movements.

Neither the man attains orgasm nor the woman attains orgasm. Orgasm needs a little more articulateness, a little more skill. Orgasm needs first a long foreplay - unless sex is accepted as natural, it is not possible - a foreplay with incense burning, a music record going on, Irene Pappas singing! And before you start making love - love should not be an immediate thing - you should dance, you should sing, you should prepare your bodies to rejoice, you should prepare your bodies for the thrill. And waiting is a thrill.

You should make love only when it happens naturally, listening to music, dancing, the beautiful fragrance of incense, flowers... Your love chamber should be a temple. I cannot use the word 'church'; it is too ugly. That's why I am using the word 'temple'.

And when your energies are flowing, moving, enjoying and your whole bodies are ready - not just your minds which want to make love... The woman certainly needs her whole body to be ready because her whole body is orgasmic.

Man's sexuality is local, genital; woman's sexuality is all over her body. So by dancing and singing, her whole body will be throbbing, will be getting ready, will be getting warmer. The lady will be disappearing and the woman will be coming back.

Of course the lady should be on top, never the man on top. That is inhuman. And that is purely according to sexual science, that the man should be under the woman because then he cannot move much, and if he cannot move much then his ejaculation will not be within three seconds, it will take time. Let the woman move. And when you are in joy, you shout, you scream, you moan, you groan, and you don't care about the neighbors. Then only it is possible for both to come to an orgasm.

Orgasm is a gift of nature that leads you to religiousness, because through orgasm you come to know a unity with existence. For a moment you disappear, time stops, mind functions no more... all is silent and all is beautiful; but it is only for moments. But once you have tasted it, you would like it to remain with you twenty-four hours.

The first man who must have discovered meditation... I am absolutely certain that the discovery was made through orgasm, because there is no other way to discover meditation. In orgasm all those basic elements are present which make meditation. And some adventurer, enquirer, must have thought, "Why am I feeling so euphoric, so ecstatic?" And he must have noted these three points: I disappear - a certain am-ness remains, a certain is-ness remains, but there is no I. Time disappears - there is no past, no future, just the moment, the present. Mind disappears - no thoughts.

Anybody with a little intelligence could have figured out that if these three things can be managed without making love then the same experience will happen. This is the origin of meditation. Nobody knows how many thousand years ago some unknown explorer - the greatest explorer in the world - found it out, but it worked. Because with love you are always dependent on the other person, and for two persons there is a certain kind of dependence on each other.

Meditation manages to make you egoless, to bring you to the present moment, and to stop the thought process - and you have a far bigger orgasm without any sex involved in it. Once you have the key in your hands you can remain twenty-four hours in your inner being in the same bliss, in the same benediction.

So my teachings look very contradictory to people - they are not. I teach you to make love as totally as possible so that you can transcend it, so that you can find by yourself what is making love such a joyful event - but it is only for moments. Those three ingredients which constitute orgasm you can try separately, and that's how I have managed meditation. Those three ingredients you can attain.

And once you can have an orgasmic experience alone, you are free from women, you are free from men, you are directly in contact with existence - there is no mediator. Only such a person can go beyond sex.

Going beyond sex does not mean that sex was sin. In fact, sex was the cause of all the spirituality that arose out of it. So even the man who has gone beyond sex can enjoy sex just for fun, once in a while. Sex is not against spirituality.

When you have experienced orgasm in sex, don't forget the afterplay. Just as there is foreplay which brings you to a thrilling readiness, after orgasm, if you turn your side and you say, "Now I am feeling sleepy," this is insulting. You don't understand the woman; your sex is only genital. Once you have ejaculated you start feeling sleepy because you have lost energy, you have become dull. Sleep will rejuvenate you so the natural cycle seems to be falling into sleep. But the woman's whole body was involved - she is still throbbing.

Modern sexology has come to understand that a woman is capable of multiple orgasms - one after another, at least six orgasms - and you have given her only one orgasm. She is still ready for five orgasms, and this is an ordinary situation: the husband goes to sleep, and the wife cries and weeps.

If the husband is more considerate - and he should be more considerate to a woman who has given him such a beautiful experience... He should be considerate: afterplay, a little more music, a little more song, a little more playfulness, or just lying down together. She will cool down; she will again become a lady. Unless she becomes a lady, you are not supposed to go to sleep; when she becomes a lady you can say goodbye and go to sleep.

So I know from where those reports are coming. My people are staying in hotels and they must be making a racket. And I don't want you to prevent your rackets - it is your private affair; it is your private room. You are paying for it. Now what you do in the room is your business; it is not the business of the bishop.

Basically, my insistence is on totality. Whatever you do be total in it, be natural in it, and soon you will discover that laughter and joy are natural. Sometimes you may like just to dance for no reason, just because you are so full of energy and the energy wants to dance. Then don't prevent it, don't repress it, because every repressed energy becomes poisonous.

Express it, and don't be worried about the world. Take one thing for granted: since you have been with me, the world knows you are crazy. Now there is no problem. They know you are crazy; you need not be worried about them. You be crazily in love with life, nature, so that you can transcend both life and nature. And there is a transcendence waiting for you, but it is only for those who live totally.

Then tears may also come, but they will not be of sadness; they will be of joy, they will be of gratitude, they will be of sheer blissfulness.

Tears are a language of anything overflowing.

If you are so full of sadness then your tears are of sadness.

If you are so full of joy the tears will be of joy.

I am not saying prevent the tears; they have their own beauty.

But they should be of joy, they should be of love, they should come out of your silence, out of your peace, out of your heart in tremendous gratitude that existence has given you life, has given you consciousness, and has given you a crazy friend like me.

Question 3:

Patience has been exploited by people.

There has been poverty for centuries and people have been told just to be patient, "It is a test of your trust in God." They have been told just to be patient, "It is only a question of a few years and then you will be entering into paradise."

Patience has been used as part of an exploitation of people in every field, but patience itself is a beautiful quality.

You should not allow your patience to be exploited.

But to be patient, to me means trust - trust in nature, trust in existence, trust in yourself. Things are going to be better every day; whatever happens, your patience finds in it something better for you.

It is a very great alchemy; it changes suffering into blessing. It is a great instrument in your hands, you just have to understand that the instrument has to be used by you, not by others on you.

There are continuous changes in life - life is a flux.

Heraclitus says, "You cannot step twice in the same river."

I say to you, "You cannot even step once in the same river."

The river is continuously moving... There are ups, there are downs, there are days and there are nights.

Patience consists of seeing things in a way that everything becomes a joy to you. For example, you can see that every day has been sandwiched between two dark nights. That will give you good misery and sadness - what a life it is... just a small day and two big, dark nights.

A man of understanding will see that every night is so small between two beautiful sunny days. Life is the same - your outlook changes. There are people who will not look at the roseflower, they will look at the thorns. They will be in deep despair that existence cannot even produce roses without thorns, but they are paying more attention to thorns than to roses.

A man of understanding will love the rose, and will take the thorn as a protection for the rose. It is a protection; the same rosebush is supplying juice to both - to the rose and to the thorn. The thorn must have some natural function. Its function is to protect the rose - it is a soldier, a guard.

Once you see life just from a different angle, your heart starts throbbing in a different way. Everything can be looked at with negative eyes, and there are people who will think about everything with negative eyes; they may become good critics, but they will be utter failures in life. There is a way to see life with positive eyes.

I was visiting a palace in Jaipur in India. Jaipur is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The man who was creating it, Maharaja Jai Singh, wanted to defeat Paris, but he died before he could complete the project. So Jaipur has remained incomplete, but it has tremendous beauty. No city in India has that quality.

I was visiting his palace. His grandson, who is now in the place of the grandfather, said to me, "Please, don't take note if you see something incomplete in the palace."

I said, "What is the matter?"

He said, "My grandfather had a certain idea that nothing should be made complete, that then it has a certain kind of deadness; something should remain incomplete... possibilities for growth. And by coincidence he could not complete Jaipur. He died. And this was his whole life's philosophy; he never made anything complete. Something will be missing in it, and the people who come with negative eyes immediately see the missing thing. The whole palace is so beautiful, but their whole concern becomes concentrated on a small stone that is missing, and they become frustrated."

Perhaps Maharaja Jai Singh had some understanding of life.

In life nothing is perfect, everything has some imperfection.

Imperfection means life is still growing, evolution is still happening. The day everything is complete will be the worst day in existence, because that day everything will become dead. There will be no growth, no need for evolution; everything will be stuck. Don't look to the imperfections; look at so much beauty that surrounds small imperfections.

It is a change of perspective that brings patience to you. Then you know that everything is good, and everything is going to be better because it has been going on for centuries becoming better and better. There is no need to be worried about tomorrow; tomorrow is going to be better.

The whole existence is involved in bettering itself.

You have to be just a little patient, you should not be in a hurry. You should not ask that everything should be given to you right now.

Everything comes in its own time.

Everything comes when you are ripe.

Everything comes when you deserve it - this is my experience.

In the last thirty years I have not felt, even for a single moment, any impatience, and I have seen that everything goes on becoming better. Existence itself is involved; we are part of it - there is no need to worry. Even something that looks dark today may prove just the beginning of a new dawn.

Before the dawn the night is the darkest.

Just watch life.

Try to understand life and patience will come to you on its own accord.

I was in jail in America. In the first jail the sheriff of the jail asked me, "Perhaps you would never have thought that you would be in a jail."

I said, "I keep my future open. I can be anywhere... even in hell I will not be disturbed."

He took me to my cell. He said, "It is unjust. You have been arrested without any warrant, without even giving you any calls - you have not been allowed to inform your attorneys. This is simply unjust.

In my whole life I have never seen something like this happening."

I said, "This is a good experience for you. Things like this can happen. To me it makes no difference whether the arrest warrant was there or not, I would have been here anyway. And these days I will be in the jail are going to give me a new experience and a new perspective of life which I would have missed."

He said, "You seem to be a little bit of a strange type."

I said, "I am. This is only the beginning. We will come to know each other more."

And just within two days he became so friendly to me that he was worried that soon I would be freed, and "We will miss you forever." Because in those two days, thousands of telegrams, telephone calls and telexes and flowers came from all over the world, he said, "I have never seen such a thing. In my jail there have been cabinet ministers, secretaries, great politicians. Nobody cares about them but you seem to be really influential all over the world. Now my wife wants to see you, my children want your autograph, and if you don't mind, I also want your autograph to show to people that you have been in my jail. I am proud that we had the chance to take care of you for two days."

He really took good care. He put me in the hospital ward and when I left, even I started thinking, "Should I leave or not?" because all the nurses were crying. I said, "My God, this is difficult."

Six nurses weeping and saying, "We will miss you."

I said, "I can understand. I can stay here forever - for me there is no problem - but they won't let me stay. And you should understand, you are only six; I have left five thousand people in my commune, and one million people around the world who must be crying and weeping. But looking at your faces, it feels like I should forget the world and remain here. I had never thought that jail can be such a beautiful place."

They said, "It never was. It is you who changed it. When so many telegrams and so many telephone calls started coming we realized we had to clean everything because everybody was concerned about your allergy. We had not cleaned for years."

The whole jail was full of flowers. They had no space to put flowers. They started asking me, "What to do? Now flowers go on coming and we don't have place, and the whole jail looks like a flower shop."

Even the old man who had received me into the jail, the head of the jail, had tears in his eyes when he let me out.

He said, "We will remember you - in just two days you changed our whole jail. Our inmates have never been so happy. We have five hundred inmates. They all know you because they all see you on television every day, and they are happy that they had a chance to live with you for two days in the same jail. Now it is no longer a jail for them. It has become a pride for them."

After twelve days being in five jails, when I came out the last U.S. marshal who took me out of the jail said, "This is strange, you are looking better than you looked when we took you to the jail."

I said, "That is your fault. What can I do about it? I enjoyed the whole thing. It was such a new experience, and my doctor will be very happy that I have lost eight pounds. Having nothing to do, I was continually walking in the corridors. Not getting my food... I was just taking juice or fruits so it has been tremendously good for my health. And whenever I gain weight again I will inform you and you can arrest me. There is no need of any warrant. There was no warrant this time; next time there is no need for any warrant. And twelve days are not enough! - keep me at least for fifteen days."

He said, "But nobody likes jail."

I said, "Who is bothering about the jail? - I like everything. I find something beautiful in it. Sitting in my cell twenty-four hours after thirty years of continually talking to people - this was a great holiday. The nurses were beautiful; they were taking every care, and the inmates were very beautiful.

You think them criminals - your bureaucrats are more criminal, more inhuman than the inmates.

Wherever I arrived they welcomed me behind the bars showing me the victory sign saying, 'Osho, don't be worried, you will be victorious because they are doing absolutely criminal and wrong things.

We have been watching you on the television; we are all with you.'"

Those twelve days are a beautiful memory to me; otherwise the very name 'jail' looks bad - it all depends on how you look at things. In the first jail, the jailer became so interested in me and so angry about the injustice that was being done to me, that he allowed a world press conference inside the jail.

I said, "But it may harm you."

He said, "I don't care. I have got only two years before being retired; at the most they can retire me now."

I asked, "But has there ever been a press conference inside the jail for a prisoner?"

He said, "Never, but we will make history." He invited all the press and we had a beautiful press conference inside the jail.

The whole of America was shocked.

The government was shocked: "What is the point of keeping this man in jail? He has gained more sympathy from people, and even from jail he is still available to people on television. Millions of people are seeing him who would have never thought about him."

They regretted that they had committed a mistake, and I enjoyed that they committed a mistake.

They destroyed the commune. They are fools...

They think a commune consists of houses and roads; they don't understand anything higher than matter.

My commune consists of people.

My commune consists of people's love.

They cannot destroy it; they have increased it. The number of sannyasins has increased all over the world. And every day it is increasing, for the simple reason that people have become aware that the governments are afraid of me. That means I have some message which can change the whole of society.

Just be patient and be understanding. Everything always goes on going better and better - that is my experience. Whatever happens, ultimately things turn out even better.

Now my commune has spread all over the world. The whole credit goes to the fascist government of America.

Question 4:

I can understand your problem. To be finished with misery is going to create troubles for you in a miserable society; that's what scares you. You become a stranger, an outsider, but don't be worried.

Miserable people can do no harm to you; they are so engrossed in their misery, they cannot do any harm to you.

The bishop here in St. Nicholas has been threatening for three weeks that he is going to take a protest march in the city against me. But every time he changes the date. The difficulty is that only a few old women come to this congregation. Now, taking those few old women for a protest march, he will just look like a buffoon. He calls those old ladies "the concerned citizens of St. Nicholas"!

My people are moving into the town and nobody is against them. The young people... Because that bishop started finding that the protest seems to be difficult, he started a signature campaign.

Naturally, that is easier. If the bishop goes to somebody, just to get rid of him they will sign. But a few young men, seeing that the bishop is gathering signatures against me, have started a campaign of collecting signatures for me. Those young men don't know me, and I don't know them, but they want me here.

The bishop phoned the owner of this house, a famous film director, saying, "We will burn the house, and you will never be forgiven by God for becoming the host to a very dangerous man."

And the director told him, "You can burn the house because it is old and I am no longer interested in it. But before you bother about me being forgiven or not forgiven by God, you should look just above your head: Katzantzakis' soul has not forgiven your rotten church. First get forgiveness from Katzantzakis and then think about other people."

But strange things the bishop was asking the director, "Do you think Osho is a messiah?" Perhaps deep down he is also afraid - who knows?

The director said, "I do not know, but one thing is certain, that I am always for those who are stoned and I am against those who stone them."

This bishop has no power. He has not even the guts to come here. He is deep down afraid, "Perhaps this man may be a messiah - who knows?" Jesus was not recognized by the Jews as a messiah and they crucified him. Perhaps the people of St. Nicholas don't know that a messiah has come, and they may be unnecessarily creating a protest march... And this and that...

Who cares about their protest march? And if he wants to burn the house, I will be in the house and he can come and burn the house. There has been one criminal act by Greece, that against Socrates; now there will be a second criminal charge against Greece. He cannot even come close to here; how is he going to burn the house... with the help of those old ladies? Great revolutionaries he has collected!

You need not be scared. You remain in your blissfulness. What you are saying to people is absolutely right, misery is the difference.

There are one million sannyasins. Not a single sannyasin has yet been killed by anybody. I received threats every day for thirty years that they are going to kill me. They have even tried three times, made attempts to kill me and failed. What can I do about it? Those are idiots. They should come first and ask me, "How to kill you?" Just as I answer everybody else, I will answer them too and show them the right way, because I don't want that they should be caught and they should be punished after they have killed me. So I can manage everything for them!

Three times they have tried and failed - twice in India and once in America. Even the American government failed. They had planted a bomb in the jail, underneath the chair where I was sitting.

They should have asked me, "At what time are you coming? - because we have to fix the time bomb at the exact time." I would have told them; they did not ask me. I arrived one hour earlier - what could the time bomb do? The poor time bomb waited. I left and then they had to remove the bomb.

Don't be scared; there is nothing to be afraid of.

The whole existence is with you.

Question 5:

The black people have been treated so badly in the past that they have become afraid of getting involved in anything outside the circle of the blacks. It is just their past that is so heavy on them; - moreover, they are poor, struggling somehow to survive. They cannot be interested in consciousness, in individuality, in the higher values of life. Their poverty prevents it; their past prevents it.

I am against all kinds of missionaries, all kinds of conversions, so I cannot send my people there. I will wait. Slowly, slowly they will be coming, but it will take time.

It is not only the blacks who are missing in my people. Many people from the poor countries are missing for the simple reason that they cannot think of anything other than bread; bread is all that they can think about. They don't have any question about the meaning of life, the meaning of existence. These are faraway questions which don't belong to them.

I cannot help it. Unless their poverty disappears and their fear of the past disappears, it is not very likely that many black people will become sannyasins.

Okay, Maneesha.