Spirituality is not for sale

Question 1:

Greece is beautiful. I would love to stay here, and I would like to establish a big commune too. But it all depends on how much courage the people of Greece have, whether they can digest me or not.

Question 2:

It is difficult to talk about the world tour, for the simple reason that all governments are so afraid of me. I have applied to all the countries, I am waiting for their visas, and they go on postponing. It is almost two months... and they don't even have the guts to say no, because they know perfectly well that if they say no I am going to expose them publicly. So neither do they say no, nor can they say yes, because they are afraid of their church, of their mob. So for two months continuously, at least twelve countries have been postponing my visa.

Greece was most courageous to accept and welcome me immediately.

So I cannot say where I will be going next - most probably Italy. The next possibility is Switzerland, and the third possibility is France - but these are only possibilities, because it is not in my hands.

For the first time I am realizing that we are living in a world which consists only of big prisons called nations. Man has not even the basic right of free movement. It is tragic; it is sad and ugly. And I am asking only for a tourist visa, for four weeks or six weeks... and they don't seem to have even the guts for that.

QUESTIONS FROM CARNIVAL NEWS, SWITZERLAND.

Question 3:

It is one of the contradictions of the human mind: when you are afraid the best way to defend is to be aggressive. Their aggressiveness is symbolic of their deep fear. They know perfectly well that if they are not aggressive they can be won over. Their philosophical background is rotten, their religious ideology has no foundations in truth; they are aware of their weaknesses.

My people are bringing their weaknesses to the surface. It is a good sign that they are aggressive; it simply shows they have started going down the drain. How long can they be aggressive? This aggressiveness is simply a facade to hide their fear, but that fear is deeper than their aggressiveness.

This aggressiveness they cannot maintain forever; it needs energy to maintain it or it will wither away.

But their fear is not going to wither away. It will be best for them, rather than being aggressive, to be more understanding - understanding of their fear, understanding of what my people represent to them and why they are feeling so afraid. They must be in the wrong: if you are not in the wrong you don't need to be aggressive.

My people are not aggressive; what to say of aggression, they are not even defensive. They are simply at ease with themselves, perfectly alert that what they are doing has their total support. It is not a split personality - one half of them supporting it and the other half against it.

But the crowd in the world is split, it is schizophrenic, and you are simply provoking their repressed side. Remember one thing: the repressed side is more powerful because it has never been expressed. The side that they have been showing to the world has been used, it has been losing energy; the side that they have been hiding within themselves is gathering energy. You simply remind them of their own real self - of their own rebelliousness, of their own youth, of their own life that they have not lived.

They are not aggressive towards you; really, they are repentant. But you are making them repentant - without you they were dragging somehow towards their graves. Suddenly you come in between and create a great question mark about their whole way of life, which is nothing but misery and suffering. It is natural...

Be compassionate towards them. Against their aggressiveness you have to be loving and compassionate. Their aggressiveness is very superficial. If your compassion and love are deep enough, soon they will be on your side, soon they will be my people.

By being aggressive one thing is certain: they have shown interest in you and in me. It is just that they don't know how to show respect in a more courteous way.

Question 4:

There is a tremendous difference. The Christian's love is only an idea in the mind. My love is my heart; it has nothing to do with my thoughts, it has something to do with my being.

For example, Jesus defines God as love. According to me, this is very insulting towards love. God is non-existent and he is making love only an aspect of God - "God is love." God can be many more other things.

If I were to define with the same words I would say, "Love is God." Then God cannot be anything else than love, then it becomes synonymous with love - and if love is God then there is no need to prove the existence of God. It is proved by the experience of love.

God is no longer a person who creates the world; it is an energy of love which is creative. This whole universe is creative love. I simply cancel the idea of God.

Love is all.

The more you are loving the more you are divine.

When you reach to the highest peak of love, you have the experience of godliness - not of God. To me, godliness is just like a fragrance: you feel it but you cannot catch hold of it.

The difference can be seen in actuality. For two thousand years Christians have been teaching about love, and for two thousand years they have been killing people, burning people alive, destroying cities, burning cities. They called it a crusade, jihad, religious war. The very term religious war is contradictory: there cannot be any religious war; every war is irreligious.

To be religious means to be beyond stupid violence, murder, arson, killing. But these two thousand years show the reality of Christian love: in the name of love they have killed so many people, burned so many women alive, that it seems absolutely strange that they still have the nerve to talk about love.

My love will not take you to war, will not create crusades. My love will help you to dance, to sing.

My love will help you to commune with more and more human beings, in deeper and deeper ways - ways of the heart.

If my love succeeds there will be no war in the world. If my love succeeds there is no need of anything else - because when your heart is full of love you cannot be angry, you cannot be frustrated, you cannot feel meaninglessness, you cannot feel anguish; you cannot think in terms of existence being just an accident. Love is such a fulfillment, such a deep contentment that everything else simply fades away. You become pure love... and the flowering of pure love is the flowering of your consciousness, of your being, of your existence, of your destiny.

Christian love is just a word. My love is a reality. If their love was also a reality, things would have been totally different.

I have been asking the pope, with respect and love, for a public discussion about the fundamentals of religion. He is such a coward that he is not willing. Here, just as an example, the archbishop of this beautiful island phoned the owner of the house, who is my host, saying, "If you are not going to throw him out from your house, we are going to burn it." You can see the love - Christian love.

I am not doing any harm to anybody, and if he feels I am wrong, he is invited and welcome to have an open discussion about anything that he thinks I am wrong about. Why burn the poor house? - I will be gone within a few days, and the house is beautiful.

But I have informed the archbishop, "If you are going to burn it... at least if you cannot be Christian just be a gentleman: inform me so I can be inside and you can burn me too. That will be a proof of your love."

Talking is one thing.

Living is totally another.

Question 5:

I cannot do that because it is not in my hands; otherwise I would have done it. If they love me, if they feel a deep synchronicity with me... you should ask them because it is in their hands.

As far as I am concerned, whatsoever was unnecessary, whatsoever was organizational I have taken away. That was within my hands. Love is not in my hands; I am in the hands of love. I cannot take it away.

But my people are perfectly free to take their love whenever they feel. My love will remain the same towards them because it is unconditional; it has nothing to do with whether they love me or not. I will continue to love them.

I cannot - just forgive me - I cannot accept your idea. Love is the only thing that has remained between me and my people, and that should be the only thing that should remain amongst people.

Everything else can be dropped, but not love - because love is God, love is religion.

Love is my whole way of life, and they have accepted love as their way of life too. But they are absolutely free... because love gives freedom. It is not a bondage that I can take away; it is their freedom, and I cannot take away their freedom. I do not possess anybody.

Love is not possessiveness.

Love is pure freedom to the other person to be himself.

How can I take it away? It is impossible.

QUESTIONS FROM THE ORANGE CONNECTION, GERMANY.

Question 6:

It is possible to grow without having a master, but the journey will be very long, very uncertain. It may take lives to arrive at some certainty of the path.

Nobody sailing in a boat around the world will ask the question, "Is it possible to go on the journey without a map?" Of course you can go.... The map does not insist, "I have to be with you." No pilot flying around the world will go without a map, without a guide - although the guide and the map are not necessary, he can go without them.

The past of humanity has unnecessarily made the master somebody very superior. That creates the idea in your mind: Why accept anybody as superior to you? It hurts your ego to accept a master.

But as far as I am concerned, the master is only a guide.

Even if you go to see the ruins of the golden days of the Greek civilization, you take a guide with you. The guide is not superior to you; he simply knows more about the terrain, he can be helpful.

The master is only a guide, a map. He can make your journey small, he can make your journey less arduous, he can help you to reach even in this life - no need to wait for another life. And the strangest thing is that he is not asking anything for his advice, you are not paying him anything for his advice. He enjoys showing the path to people, just as the gardener enjoys when the flowers blossom; something in his heart also blossoms.

To say it exactly, with each disciple becoming enlightened the master again becomes enlightened; again the whole experience is refreshed. And the more disciples become enlightened... without taking anything from you, the master is getting enough from existence itself. The master only gives to you, he does not take anything from you. Why should you be afraid of someone who can help without charging you anything?

But the yellow journalism goes on spreading lies. Just the other day I heard that I take twenty-five hundred dollars from each person who becomes a sannyasin - that is the fee. I thought, "That is a great idea!" I have lost millions of dollars. I have not taken even one cent from anybody. There are people who are selling even spirituality; beware of them. Spirituality is not for sale; it can be shared, but it cannot be sold.

But it is still your decision. If you want to go alone, that is perfectly good - but whether you will reach or not, I cannot say anything about it. Because I know your mind... Somebody goes to his land, his own country, telling me that he is going to finish incomplete things and will be here within two months. I wait for him. Two months pass, three months pass, two years pass...

I enquire, "What happened to the guy? Is he still finishing things?" And I am informed that when he went back he fell in love with a woman; he has forgotten all about meditation, he has forgotten all about enquiry into truth. The unconscious behavior of man is accidental, very accidental.

I have heard about one salesman, a real estate salesman, whose boss was very angry. He was his best salesman, but this time he had done something really not right. He had sold a big piece of land to a man at a very good price, and the boss was very happy; he had even raised his salary.

That land was lying there for years and nobody was purchasing it, and he had managed to get the highest price. But then came the rains, and the man who had purchased the land came running and said, "You are all cheats! That land is six feet under water."

The boss called the salesman saying, "This is not good."

He said, "Don't be worried. You just wait two days. I will manage..."

And after two days he came and he said, "I have managed, everything is settled. I have sold two boats to that man."

The boss said, "My God! He was so angry, so aggressive, and you managed to sell him two boats?

Where did you get those two boats?"

He said, "We had them in our basement for years and I was waiting for some opportunity to sell them. I told the man about the beauties of the water. I told him that for now he can use boats, and when the water is gone he can make his house just six feet higher and it will be on a lake; it will be called Lake Palace. And the man said, 'Really! That's a great idea.'"

And the salesman told him, "There are two boats. So while the water is there, use the boats, enjoy, and when you have raised your house... then too the boats will be needed in the rainy season. Or if you can manage to keep the water all the year round this will be the most beautiful house in the whole city, surrounded by water. And there is still ground - you can make a beautiful garden, a beautiful house. Just think of it!"

The salesman was saying that the question is not what you are selling, the question is what dreams you attach to the commodity you are selling. Only dreams are sold.

There are people like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who for a few dollars will initiate you into meditation.

This is ugly; this has never happened in the East. He has accumulated a fortune. If somebody gives you something that is another thing - but he has a rate: two hundred and fifty dollars for every initiation.

And the human mind is so stupid: when you pay two hundred and fifty dollars for something you can never go against it; otherwise you will look like an idiot. Because you have paid two hundred and fifty dollars, you start telling people it is a great thing - two hundred and fifty dollars are nothing for it, it is cheap. If you say it is nothing, that means you have been befooled, that you were stupid to pay two hundred and fifty dollars.

The real master never takes anything from you. What have you got? - you are spiritually poor, that's why you need a master. The master only gives to you, and gives out of love. And the fundamental of love is that the more you give the more you have; it is an inexhaustible eternal source of life.

But I will not say that one cannot find it without a master. One can find it, but one needs great patience; one needs to be very alert not to be caught up in something else on the way. One needs not to fall into ditches which are everywhere along the way. One needs to be an absolute seeker: he may fail many times, but his search continues. His spirit does not start feeling frustrated; he keeps his spirit high. He will be alone, and the path is lonely.

There are difficulties, but one can move without a master. But if he is without a master just because of the ego, then he is never going to reach - because ego is the first barrier that prevents the search for truth.

And if the master is not trying to be something holier than you... and no real master can do that. He is just a human being amongst you; it is only that he knows the way and he can show you the way.

It is his joy to show you the way. There is no contract; he is only a friend.

That's why I have changed the word 'master', because it gives a certain sense of slavery, spiritual slavery. He is the master and you are the slave. He is the master, he owns you; he is the master and you have to follow his orders. I have changed that word. I say the real master is only a friend and his joy is to help. You are not obliged to him, he is obliged to you: you accepted his advice and you could have rejected it.

Question 7:

The whole truth cannot be told, so there will always be surprises waiting for you.

The whole truth is a very big mystery, far bigger than is possible to express. It has so many dimensions, so many aspects; anybody who thinks he has told the whole truth does not know truth.

I will tell you two stories - one is very famous - from PANCHTANTRA, one of the ancientmost collections of parables in the East. Aesop's fables in the West are all stolen from PANCHTANTRA; nothing is new in them. PANCHTANTRA is at least two thousand years older than Aesop's fables.

In fact, there has never been any such man as Aesop. Somehow, because Gautam Buddha was continuously quoting from the parables of PANCHTANTRA...

There have been many names given in love to Gautam Buddha because of his qualities; one is Bodhisattva. Moving from one language to another till it reached the West, Bodhisattva became Bodhisat and finally it became Aesop, one knows not how. All those stories had been compiled thousands of years before Buddha and were told by Bodhisattva Gautam Buddha.

One of the most famous parables is the five blind men and the elephant. They had never heard about elephants when for the first time an elephant came into the city. All five blind men were great friends and great philosophers.

When you don't have eyes you naturally become a philosopher; you can't see, you can only think.

You can't see light, you can't see color, you can't see rainbows, you can't see flowers - but you can go on thinking and making philosophies about all these things.

All five went to see the elephant and they all touched different parts of the elephant, and again a great philosophical argument arose. One was saying, "That elephant is like huge marble pillars just like we have in the temple" - because he had touched the legs of the elephant.

The other said, "Nonsense." He had touched the ears of the elephant, and the Indian elephant has smaller ears than the African. He said, "It looks like a big fan that rich people use." In the past when there was no electricity every rich person had an attendant to move a big fan over his head. And he said, "You are just stupid. A fan cannot be a pillar..." And so on and so forth.

One man with eyes was looking at all these five blind people, and he said to them, "You don't have eyes. In the first place you should always remember that. And when you are talking about something you should always know whether you are talking about the same thing. One is talking about the ears and the other is talking about the legs - and the elephant is so big, and you are blind."

Truth is too big, too vast. It has many dimensions.

So I will go on telling you about different aspects, which blind people will think are all contradictory, inconsistent - because sometimes I will be talking about the legs of the elephant, and sometimes about the ears of the elephant, and sometimes about other parts of the elephant, and naturally those will be totally different statements. Only when you have opened your eyes will you be able to see the whole elephant.

The second story I wanted to tell you is about Gautam Buddha. He is passing through the jungle, it is fall, and the whole path is full of dead leaves and the wind is making great music with the dead leaves. And Ananda, finding him alone asks him, "I have been with you for thirty years, but you always go on saying something new. Have you told us the whole truth? Are you going to tell us the whole truth or not?"

And Buddha bends down, takes a fistful of dead leaves in his hand and shows them to Ananda saying, "Do you see these leaves in my hand?"

Ananda says, "Yes, I see. But don't try to change the subject. I was asking something else, and you are trying to change the subject."

Buddha says, "No, I am not changing the subject. Now see all the dead leaves in the whole jungle...

Whatever I have told to you is just a few dead leaves in my fist."

To tell the whole truth is impossible; it is too big. Millions of leaves fluttering and dancing in the wind...

it is too big. Whatever I am saying is simply saying so that you become interested in enquiring. I cannot give you the truth, but I can give you a certain thirst for truth - and that is enough. If you are thirsty, you will find the source of water.

Until my last breath I will go on giving you surprises - and who knows, maybe even after my last breath! I will try!

Question 8:

It is difficult for poor journalists to be authentic. They are really touched; I can see their faces, I have seen even tears of joy in their eyes. But when their reports come, they are negative.

It has nothing to do with the interview that they have done with me; what they have written they could have written without the interview. They are talking about the gossip going around, about the archbishop preparing for a protest, that people are afraid that if I remain here then I will destroy their old tradition and I will corrupt their youth - just the old charges which they had against Socrates, corruption of the youth.

But in my heart I know this is not the journalist; this is just a poor human being serving under chief editors, owners, and following their dictates. They send him here not to report exactly what I am saying, and what he feels and what he sees; they are sending him here just to make his story look real: "He has been there."

I know a few journalists even became sannyasins, and when they went back they were thrown out out of their jobs. I know about journalists who have been trying hard, that have seen with their own eyes that there are no sex orgies going on, there are no drugs. But the people who own the papers are not interested in truth; they are interested in the circulation of the paper. And the circulation of the paper depends on sensationalism - so create some sensation, real or false.

And particularly against me it is very easy. I don't even read any newspaper, any magazine, anything; for seven years I have not touched them so I don't know what they are writing and what they are doing. It is just that my people sometimes report to me when it is too much for them....

The other day I was informed that the same journalist who was so touched wrote that I have escaped from America to evade taxation. I have not escaped from America, and I don't have any income for any problem of taxation to arise. There is no problem for me in America about taxation. In fact they have prohibited me from entering America for five years... but nobody bothers to look at facts.

Perhaps the journalist must have been feeling very bad, hurting. But this is the human situation.

The owners want circulation, so any strange thing one cannot even believe... One journalist was here and he had seen me sitting here for two hours. He was taking photographs and what he has printed in his newspaper is a photograph of the archbishop - that crazy guy - and one of my Greek sannyasins, Mukta.

Mukta had gone to see the archbishop asking, "Why are you making so much fuss? What are your problems?" She had gone to invite him here. She belongs to one of the famous families of Greece, and the archbishop was shaking hands with her. The caption says: Osho is shaking hands with the daughter of one of the most famous families. And the journalist was here! He knows that this picture is not mine!

But that archbishop looks so crazy and mad, even in the picture, that they could not resist the temptation to publish it. Outside of this place, all over Greece nobody will be bothering about what the truth is. The journalist has been here, he has taken photographs, and this is the photograph that he prints!

But I know that it is not the journalist; it is the people who own the newspapers. Either some political party owns them or some religious fanatic group owns them, or some super-rich people own them.

They all have their vested interests, and they have to move accordingly. There is no trouble at all for my sannyasins in St. Nicholas, but if you look at the newspapers you will think things are really getting hotter and hotter every day.

It is simply an ugly society, where everything can be purchased with money. Journalists have to sell themselves for money - and they are helpless. A few journalists have tried.... For example Satyananda, a German journalist, insisted that he had been to the place and each word that he had written was absolutely true. But STERN magazine - and he was their most important and senior journalist - decided that he had been hypnotized! They said, "Either you drop sannyas or you are fired. And your article cannot be published as it is; we will have to edit it."

But he asked, "How can you edit it? You have not been there."

They fired him. They edited the article and changed its whole tone. It was written with great love and with great understanding, but it became negative rather than positive.

I am not against the journalists; I am simply stating the fact that freedom of thought, freedom of printing does not exist. It is just talked about.

Question 9:

In the first place, I am not going to take that rotten place, the Vatican. I have some taste!

Let the pope remain in the Vatican; he fits there. So the question of a next step does not arise - I am not going to take the first step even. And I don't belong anywhere: no country seems to be courageous enough to let me live there.

I am reminded of my university days when I was a student. I was expelled from one college, from another college - I have so much experience about expulsion. Finally one principal said, "Listen, wherever you go you cannot last more than two months; you will be expelled. I can take you in my college on one condition: that you will never attend the classes."

I said, "This is a strange condition. Then why am I joining the college?"

He said, "That's how it is - because I don't want to disturb my professors and students. I have heard all the stories about you. You argue too much. So you can think about it."

I said, "That's good, but what about the percentage?"

He said, "That I will take care of. You will get enough percentage for being present so that you can appear in the examination. But you show up only in the examination - not the whole year."

I agreed with him because there was no other way. This was a simple way. Perhaps the same kind of arrangement has to be made somewhere, that some country gives me citizenship with the condition that I never live in that country: "You can have a passport... and then just go away wherever you want - but never come back to this country."

I know that is going to happen, and I don't blame anybody. I am responsible for everything that has happened to me or is going to happen to me - and I am perfectly happy about it. I can be without a country, without a religion, without a race: what more freedom can you ask for?

You are asking about the Vatican in Italy. The pope is so afraid that he is preventing my visa. For two months the top man in the ministry has been promising, "Within just two days a telex will be arriving"... and two months have passed! Whenever he is asked it is just "within two days..." But he cannot do anything against the pope. It is a Catholic country. Politicians depend on votes. The pope has informed all Catholic papers and news media that nothing should be published, broadcast, televised, for or against me.

I have heard that he was very pissed off because while he was on tour a television company came to Nepal where I was staying and had a one and a half hour interview with me - and before he went back they televised it. Thirteen million people looked at the show. The director informed me, "This is the first time that any show has attracted thirteen million people. It happens only when there is some disaster. Are you some kind of disaster?"

I said, "I am."

And he informed me, "The whole country is discussing for and against; there is not a single person who is neutral."

Another television company is trying to reach here, but... The pope will prevent me from coming into Italy because he knows one thing, that he has no valid ground to argue with me. And he also knows the Italian people are only formally Catholics.

In fact it was the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, under the orders of the Roman emperor, who crucified Jesus. And it is a strange fate that Rome and the Roman empire disappeared and fell into the hands of the Christians. The Roman empire had crucified not only Jesus but thousands of other Christians.

I remember a very strange story. It was the tradition in Judea that every year at their annual functions three persons were to be chosen to be crucified, but one could be forgiven. Pontius Pilate was thinking that they would ask for Jesus to be forgiven, because he was simply naive, simple man who somehow got this idea fixed in his head that he is the only begotten son of God. It is innocent, there is nothing wrong in it; what harm can it do to anybody? Even if somebody thinks he is God, let him think it and help him. If he is enjoying it, why disturb him? I don't see the point: what was the problem?

Pontius Pilate also could not see the point. What was the problem? - Jesus was only saying strange things... let him talk; if you did not want to believe in him, he was not forcing you. And nobody was listening to him either; just a few poor people surrounded him in the hope of going toparadise. No educated, cultured people, no scholarly people, no rabbis, no rich people were around him; he was absolutely powerless. He rodeon a donkey, saying that he was the only begotten son of God. Let him enjoy it. Just something in his head is loose - but that should not be a reason to crucify him.

But the people did not ask for Jesus to be released; they asked for Barabbas who had committed seven murders, who was really a murderous man. And if you think about miracles, with Jesus nothing happened, no miracle; but with Barabbas miracles happened. This was a miracle: after seven murders the people asked that Barabbas should be released. Either God missed his target or... what happened? He forgot the name of his own son and remembered Barabbas? Something went wrong.

But it was a miracle. Barabbas was not thinking... he was also thinking that Jesus would be saved.

Jesus was only thirty-three and he had been teaching for only three years, and he had done no harm to anybody; he had committed no crime. Barabbas could not believe when he was released; he looked back again and again thinking, There seems to be some mistake - Barabbas and free?

And within three months he committed another murder.

It was the tradition that once the emperor had forgiven somebody he could not be given the death penalty again. So now Barabbas was free to murder as many people as he wanted, but he could not be crucified. For such people they had in Italy a coal mine which was very deep. There was always danger and every year people were dying there; so people who could not be crucified were sent to the coal mine. Barabbas was sent to the coal mine and the second miracle happened. The coal mine collapsed after a few days and everybody - hundreds of people were working inside - died, except Barabbas. He came out alive!

This made even the emperor think that Barabbas was in some direct connection with God. This man had been saved twice from death. People started touching him because he was divine, and he was invited for the annual festival in Rome. The emperor wanted to see what would happen one last time. Barabbas was to fight with a hungry lion - and you will be surprised: the miracle happened the third time. He killed the lion barehanded and was declared victorious. Even the emperor had to think that he was no ordinary man and he should be set free again, should be given all the rights of free citizens. He was released, was given all the rights of free citizens, respectability.

But all those years Jesus was haunting his mind. He was so innocent and he had been killed... And finally, listening to Christian missionaries who were underground in basements teaching the gospel, he became a Christian. And the day he became a Christian he was crucified! God seems to be absolutely against Christians: poor Barabbas was saved three times from death, and the day he became a Christian he was crucified.

But slowly, slowly - this is how the dynamics of mind and life work - Rome started feeling guilty for killing innocent people who were not doing any harm. The ultimate result was that the whole of Rome became Christian. The empire that had killed Jesus died and it became a Christian kingdom.

But deep down every Italian is still a pagan.

I have come in contact with thousands of Italian sannyasins; they don't have any deep conditioning of Christianity. It is very superficial. Deep down they are still pagans; they enjoy eating, they enjoy love, they enjoy dancing. They enjoy all the things of life. They don't care about the pope; they pay respect to him, a formal respect, but in their lives they are more close to Zorba than the Greeks.

I love the Italians. Just one thing I hesitate about, which is that they look a little greasy - but I can tolerate that. And the second thing is their spaghetti. I don't know that it is something bad....

Just by coincidence an Italian woman who was one of my first sannyasins... She is a professor, but I don't think she has ever taken a bath. On her face you can see layers and layers of powder.

She stinks... and this was a bad fate for spaghetti. She prepared spaghetti and brought it for me - and the spaghetti was also smelling and stinking the same! Since then I have become so afraid of spaghetti that I have never tried it. That one experience... I did not even taste it. I somehow managed that that woman should go away. I said, "I will eat it" - and the moment she was gone I flushed it. Even after flushing it my whole bathroom was stinking!

In this whole world I am only afraid of spaghetti. Everybody says it is beautiful, perfect. It must be...

but my association with it is such and has gone so deep that even the name spaghetti and I can start smelling it!

So in Italy I am afraid only of two things - not of the pope, not of Christianity and Catholicism; those are just so superficial that...

Italians are still pagans, life-affirmative people. So from the very beginning I want to warn them that when I come there, please don't present spaghetti to me. And secondly, try to be a little less greasy.

Question 10:

My God, in German! Not in this life... and I am not going to be born again.