The Fruits Are Ripe

[NOTE: This discourse is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 8.]

ANSWER: Never.

Peter Gillins UPI Wire Services, USA

Q: BHAGWAN, PETER GILLINS FROM THE UNITED PRESS. ON ABC'S MORNING INTERVIEW PROGRAM THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT YOU CONSIDERED YOURSELF TO BE THE GURU OF THE RICH AND YOU WOULD LEAVE IT TO THE OTHER RELIGIONS TO TAKE CARE OF THE POOR. IN LIGHT OF THAT, DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO PAY TAXES ON THE MONEY THAT YOUR FOLLOWERS GIVE YOU IN THE FORM OF DONATIONS?

A: Nobody has given anything to me, and I don't accept anything from anybody.

Whatsoever I use is loaned to me just for the time being. I am wearing this watch only for these two hours.

Q: SHOULD YOUR FOUNDATION BE REQUIRED TO PAY TAXES ON DONATIONS? DO THE RICH NEED CHARITY -- WHICH IS THE PURPOSE OF TAX-EXEMPT STATUS?

A: Those rich people are intelligent enough to pay their own taxes. I don't have to take care of that. I myself have never paid any tax because my work is concerned with outcome, not with income.

Mark Haas KATU TV, Channel 2, Portland, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, LAST YEAR YOU BROUGHT THE POOR AND HOMELESS INTO YOUR COMMUNE, PRESUMABLY TO HELP THEM AND IN LIGHT OF THAT MY QUESTION IS, WHY DO YOU ACCEPT THE ROLLS ROYCES THAT YOU ACCEPT WHEN PERHAPS THAT MONEY MAY BE USED TO HELP THE POOR AND HOMELESS THAT YOU WANTED TO HELP LAST YEAR?

A: I have not accepted a single Rolls Royce. Those Rolls Royces are owned by the sannyasins. And remember clearly that I am not a Rajneeshee. You can see from my clothes. I am just a guest here, and if my host feels to take care of me and enjoys it, who am I to interfere in it?

Greg Hoy 7 Network Australia TV, Australia Q: BHAGWAN, THIS MORNING YOU EXPLAINED TO US THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOURSELF AND HISTORY'S SELF-PROFESSED PROPHETS AND MESSIAHS. YOU EXPLAINED THAT YOU WERE NOT SPECIAL AT ALL AND THAT YOU DID NOT WISH TO PLACE YOURSELF ON A HIGH PEDESTAL. DOES IT OCCUR TO YOU THAT THERE MAY BE THOSE THAT SEE THE REGAL WAY YOU DRESS, AS OPPOSED TO THOSE WHO FOLLOW YOU, SEE YOUR JEWELED, BORROWED WATCHES AND NOW -- FAMOUS BORROWED ROLLS ROYCES AND THINK THAT YOU HAVE VERY SUCCESSFULLY PLACED YOURSELF HIGH ON A PEDESTAL, AND IT'S AN ELEVATION YOU OBVIOUSLY ENJOY?

A: I am certainly successful. I am going to be more successful... and I highly enjoy my people, whatsoever they offer. But you must remember these are not real diamonds, and this is the cheapest, most beautiful watch in the whole world.

This is made by my own sannyasins, artists, craftsmen, jewelers. The same watch from Piaget is half a million dollars. This watch, as far as dollars are concerned, is not more than one hundred dollars. But if you want me to sell it to you -- I am not going to sell it to you for ten million dollars.

This is a work of love, and love cannot be purchased.

Richard Draper KOIN TV, Channel 6,

Portland, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, TEN DAYS AGO IN THIS HALL, YOU TOLD A GROUP HERE -- AND I QUOTE -- "WE HAVE TO DEPROGRAM AMERICA FROM DIRTY POLITICS, FROM FANATIC RELIGIONS, FROM ALL KINDS OF HYPOCRISY."HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO DEPROGRAM AMERICA?

A: America is too small a thing for me. We are trying to deprogram the whole world. I have my people around the world trying to deprogram every country, every religion, from all the conditions that have been forced upon them.

And remember one thing. Don't get confused when I use the word deprogramming -- because there are psychologists who are trying to deprogram people. They are not really doing deprogramming, they are doing RE- programming. A Christian moves out of the fold, he is brought back forcibly to the deprogrammer, who reprograms him back into Christianity.

I am simply deprogramming and then leaving you alone to your own consciousness, your awareness, and to do whatsoever your insight allows you, your responsibility feels. It is you who have to be decisive about yourself.

Neither the Bible, nor Koran, nor Gita; neither Jesus, nor Buddha, nor me -- nobody is going to dominate and manipulate you like a puppet. A deprogrammed person is one who is no more a puppet, who has declared his independence from the bogus God and his prophets, messiahs and incarnations.

We are already doing it. If you want to see how we are doing it, come to these people, be with these people, live with these people and you will understand it.

There are things which can only be experienced. Don't be afraid, because you will be deprogrammed; only through deprogramming you will know what it is and how it is done. You are welcome.

Jon Tuttle KGW TV, Portland, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, AS WE UNDERSTAND, THERE ARE JUST TWO RAJNEESHEE COMMUNES LEFT IN THE UNITED STATES. ACROSS THE COUNTRY WE HEAR REPORTS THAT BOTH MEMBERSHIP AND DONATIONS ARE ON THE DECLINE. IT APPEARS THAT TO DATE AMERICA HAS LOOKED AT RAJNEESHISM AND SAID, "NO THANK YOU." DID YOU COME TO THE WRONG COUNTRY AT THE WRONG TIME?

A: Whenever I would have come, it would have been the wrong time. I cannot come at the right time -- in spite of all the watches given to me. I just either come before the time or come after the time.

But this is the fate of a person like me.

The message that I am giving will never fit with the existing society. But I enjoy to be a misfit. That means I am still alive. Those who have fitted completely, comfortably, are just small parts in a big mechanism. I have belonged to no

society, to no country, to no religion. I will always be a misfit even amongst Rajneeshees, because I am not a Rajneeshee. It is just their love and their tolerance that they allow me to be here. Otherwise I don't follow anything of Rajneeshism.

I can't follow anything. I simply live moment to moment. It is perfectly true. I have come at the wrong time. But that is the way, the ONLY way I can come. But we will try to change the time.

I am not going to fit with your dead and rotten society; I am going to change it.

Q: THE OTHER HALF OF MY QUESTION WAS WHETHER THIS WAS THE WRONG COUNTRY. WAS IT A MISTAKE TO COME TO THE UNITED STATES?

A: All countries are wrong, because the very idea of country is idiotic. This whole earth, this whole world, is one.

Don Lattin San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, California, USA Q: BHAGWAN, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO ELABORATE ON TWO THINGS YOU SAID IN POONA ON WHAT HAPPENS WHEN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS BECOME INSTITUTIONS -- WHEN BUDDHA BECOMES BUDDHISM OR RAJNEESH BECOMES RAJNEESHISM. YOU WARNED THAT ONCE A RELIGION BECOMES ORGANIZED, VIOLENCE ENTERS INTO IT.

ORGANIZATION IS GOING TO BE VIOLENT; IT HAS TO FIGHT ITS WAY. I WANTED YOU TO COMMENT ON THAT, IN LIGHT OF THE WEAPONRY WE SEE AND THE SECURITY FORCES IN RAJNEESHPURAM.

THE OTHER THING YOU SAID ON THAT SUBJECT WHICH I FOUND VERY FASCINATING WAS "WE HAVE TO LEARN ONE THING, NOT TO INSTITUTIONALIZE RELIGION. WHEN THE MASTER GOES, LET THE RELIGION GO." I WANTED YOU TO COMMENT ON THAT IN THE LIGHT OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WAS MADE HERE LAST SUMMER THAT THREE COMMITTEES WERE BEING FORMED TO OVERSEE RAJNEESHISM ONCE YOU -- IF YOU -- LEAVE YOUR BODY.

A: Your question needs no answer, because the answer is all over the place. Look at the guns around me; look at the organization of Rajneeshism -- and I am still alive, I am not dead. But I am fighting with everybody, not only the people who are not Rajneeshees. I am fighting with every Rajneeshee too.

Don't get institutionalized. Don't become an organization; remain an organism.

Whatsoever I have said is absolutely true, and you can see the organization and the guns as evidence of it. And when I am going to die, who cares what happens? Please at least let me die peacefully.

Mr. Romano Giachetti EPOCA Magazine, Italy Q: BHAGWAN, I LIVE IN NEW YORK, BUT I AM ITALIAN.

A: It is great. In America, everybody is a foreigner!

Q: I HAVE BEEN IN THIS CITY EIGHT HOURS NOW, AND I HAVE A NUMBER OF EMOTIONS, MOST OF THEM STRONG. BUT I WAS FOLLOWING YOUR LECTURE THIS MORNING AND THERE WERE MANY THINGS THAT YOU SAY THAT BROUGHT ME BACK TO ITALY. MY... THIS IS A SERIOUS QUESTION!

A: Just ask it. Don't say it's serious. If you say it is serious you have already destroyed its seriousness. Just say it.

Q: AMONG THE MANY THINGS THAT YOU SAID THAT IMPRESSED ME, THERE WERE A FEW THAT BROUGHT ME BACK TO A CULTURE THAT I THOUGHT I HAD LEFT IN ITALY, NAMELY THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST; THAT ANY RELIGION THAT IS ORGANIZED MEANS EXPLOITATION OF A LOT OF PEOPLE -- AND MANY OTHER THINGS THAT YOU SAID. IT CAME TO ME THAT THERE WAS ONE ITALIAN THINKER, ANTONIO GRAMSCI, WHO HAS SAID MANY THINGS THAT WERE VERY SIMILAR TO YOURS, ESPECIALLY THE ONE ABOUT GOD, THE ONE ABOUT RELIGION, AND ABOVE ALL THE ONE ABOUT THE NEW KIND OF CONSCIOUSNESS THAT WE NEED IF WE WANT TO CHANGE LIFE ON THE PLANET. HE WAS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY.

THE QUESTION THAT I HAVE IS, DO YOU SEE ANY POSSIBILITY FOR THE BIRTH OF A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF COMMUNISM, OF ALL THE SYSTEMS THAT EXIST ON THE PLANET?

A: There is every possibility -- not only possibility, but I would say almost certainty of its happening.

Even in a communist country, consciousness cannot be prevented from growing, from spreading; love cannot be prevented. In communist countries they can nationalize your house, your money, your other commodities, but they cannot nationalize your being. That is everywhere just the same. It makes no difference.

And to bring the consciousness to its highest peak, any place is as good as any other place. The question is basically the individual's decision.

I have sannyasins in the Soviet Union. Of course, they cannot come into the open, they are underground sannyasins. They are being persecuted, but persecution somehow always helps people to spread the message and their number is

growing every day. My books are prohibited in the Soviet Union, but my people are writing them with their own hands or making typescripts, and they are moving hand to hand, from one person to another person.

In fact, in the basements of houses where my people meet in Soviet Russia, they are more excited than anywhere else, because for the first time certainly they are doing something that gives them their dignity back.

Communism has nothing to do with God, heaven, hell. Communism is an economic theory. In fact, this should not interfere with religion. Religion is not their domain, but Karl Marx is their Holy Bible because he said there is no God, there is no consciousness even. What consciousness we have is only a by- product. The moment we die, the consciousness is finished.

They have not explored within, they have not meditated; they have simply believed in Karl Marx, in DAS KAPITAL. So I include communism also in all the other rotten religions. That is a different kind of Christianity, a different kind of Hinduism, a different kind of Buddhism -- and they all are bent upon destroying the individual. All the religions of the world, communism included, are bent upon destroying the individual, his freedom.

I am trying my best, even in communist countries, and the message is reaching.

And the problem is not so big as it appears. Even if there are only two hundred enlightened people in the whole world, the third world war is not possible. So the work is not that big. We CAN manage it, we WILL manage it, and I am absolutely certain about it.

Jeff McMullen 60 Minutes, Australia Q: BHAGWAN, WHO IS THE BETTER SHOWMAN, IN METAPHYSICAL TERMS IF YOU LIKE, YOU OR PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN?

A: Nobody can beat me. I am the best showman in the whole history of man.

Q: IF THAT IS TRUE, WHAT KIND OF SHOW DO YOU ENJOY? IS THIS THEATER, OR CIRCUS?

A: This is my circus, my carnival. And I enjoy it immensely.

Marilyn Deutsch Public Broadcasting System, USA Q: BHAGWAN, I'D LIKE TO GO BACK TO THE IDEA THAT YOU HAVE SAID YOU ARE THE RICH MAN'S GURU. I AM WONDERING, THOUGH. YOU KNOW OF SUFFERING ON THIS EARTH AND STARVING PEOPLE IN AFRICA. DO YOU HURT WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT OTHER PEOPLE

SUFFER SO AND DIE FROM STARVATION, OR HAVE TO SLEEP ON STREETS AND THINGS LIKE THIS?

A: I know, and I know also why they are suffering there. They are suffering there because of your priests and your politicians. Still, all the religions are against birth control methods. They want abortion to be made illegal. Pope the Polack continuously says that these children are sent from God, so we cannot prevent them.

I am not responsible for this poverty that you see on the earth. If the world listens to me, this poverty can disappear immediately. But they are listening to the wrong people, because they have become accustomed to listening to them for centuries. The Hindu shankaracharya, the Mohammedan caliph, the Christian pope, howsoever they may be different in small, meaningless matters, are absolutely together in that people should continue to produce more and more people. Then this world is going to die, naturally.

My few Rolls Royces -- which are not mine, I just use them -- I can give to Ethiopia. Do you think Ethiopia will be saved? If you are certain, then take all the Rolls Royces from here, and give them to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is created by the pope, and I have to sell my Rolls Royces...? What kind of logic is this?

Why should I bother about the people who don't listen to me, if they are starving? They are not even ready to understand me, to listen to me. This I am saying from my own experience.

India... I have been there, for thirty years continuously moving around the country, a wandering teacher. Nobody is ready to listen. They are ready to throw stones at me, they are ready to throw shoes at me, they are ready to throw knives at me, they are ready to make attempts on my life, and when these people start dying I have to sell my Rolls Royces? I am not going to do that.

Whether there is Ethiopia or not does not matter at all. What does it matter? If India disappears, it will be unburdening the whole world, bringing a little more richness. In fact this world needs one fourth of its population, and the only way is for twenty years, absolute birth control. And abortion should not only be legal, it should be rewarded.

You should stop giving Nobel prizes to criminals like Mother Teresa, who is increasing the world population by saving the orphans. You should give your Nobel prizes to people who can bring this whole world to one fourth of its population.

Q: WHAT ABOUT YOURSELF? DO YOU THINK YOU DESERVE A NOBEL PRIZE?

A: I do not, because what will it do -- only two more Rolls Royces...!

Peter Coster

Australian Newspaper Service, Australia Q: BHAGWAN, WHY DO YOU THINK SUCH A DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF ATTRACTIVE YOUNG WOMEN ARE DRAWN TO YOU?

A: I am not a homosexual. I am heterosexual. I love women and they love me.

And what I am saying to them is absolutely appealing to them, because I am speaking against all male chauvinists of the past. I stand for absolute liberation of women from man's hold, even to the extent that there should be no marriage, because marriage is a bondage, a life-long bondage.

People should live naturally just as all animals live -- no marriage, no divorce, no quarrels, no problems. Have you seen any henpecked camel? And on the other hand, have you seen any man who is not a henpecked husband?

You have repressed the woman, you have taken away everything from her. They were not allowed to be educated, they were not allowed to be economically independent, they were not allowed even to go out of the house, they were not allowed even to show their faces to other human beings. These people who have continuously killed the spirit of the woman are the worst criminals we have known, but they are worshipped. They are worshipped by men, because they have given men power over half of humanity.

Here, everybody is absolutely free. If two persons feel like making love, and they agree, then it is nobody else's business to prevent them. Anybody preventing them -- any law, any court, any politician, any priest -- is simply going beyond his limits.

My community is a community of love. And of course, as I have said, I am the greatest showman in the world. Women are bound to be attracted to me.

Q: I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION. YOU TALK OF PHYSICAL LOVE WITHOUT AMBITION AMONG SANNYASINS. ARE YOU CELIBATE?

A: No. Why should I be? I am just natural, why should I be unnatural? If you want to meet celibates you go to a Catholic monastery, and you will meet celibates doing nothing but masturbating.

I don't see that anybody can be naturally celibate. He is bound to become a pervert, some way or other.

And I am a simple, natural man. I follow my natural instincts in every way. I have loved many women -- perhaps no man may have loved so many women. In the beginning I used to keep a count; then I dropped it, because what is the point?

Q: BHAGWAN, ONE FINAL QUESTION. WHY DO YOU THINK OUTSIDE PEOPLE FEEL THREATENED BY THIS COMMUNITY OR YOU?

A: I don't care at all. The outside does not exist. We are absolutely contented and happy herenow. They should take care of themselves. We are not hostile to them, we are simply unconcerned. They are hostile towards us.

And remember one fundamental law of life. If they are hostile, they have hate towards us, sooner or later they are going to fall into my trap, because hate can turn into love very easily, just as love can become hate very easily.

But my people have nothing to do with them. We are not hostile to them, we are not against them, we never think about them.

For five years I have not seen a single newspaper. I don't read. I don't see television. I don't know what is being said about me. I don't care, because I have no desire to be a respectable great master, a messiah, a prophet. I am just an ordinary man. And I am notorious enough -- what is the point of reading it again and again?

Bruno Glaus World Press Institute, Switzerland Q: BHAGWAN, MY QUESTION REFERS TO THE WORLDWIDE FAMINE CRISIS. DON'T YOU THINK YOUR LECTURE THIS MORNING MAKES THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM AND THE CURRENT GOVERNMENTS VERY HAPPY, BECAUSE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY THINK ALSO. I QUOTE:

"STARVATION IS A WAY OF NATURAL BALANCE" OR I QUOTE, IF I QUOTE IT WELL: "HELPING THE POOR IS DESTROYING THEIR LICENSE TO HEAVEN." THAT'S EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THEY SEE THE WORLD.

A: They must be quoting me.

Q: DON'T YOU THINK YOUR COMMUNITY STABILIZES, BY THIS KIND OF VIEW, THE CURRENT POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEM?

A: No, my community is so much more intelligent that there is no need for nature to balance it. In four years' time here, not a single baby has been born.

Four sannyasins have died. I am not going to overburden the earth. It is simply a way of nature to establish harmony.

It is in fact absolutely true that service to the poor has been the basic cause of poverty remaining for centuries. You go on throwing a few crumbs off your table, and those poor people go on hoping for more, and your priests go on telling them, "Just wait a little. After death you are going to be in paradise." And in paradise, even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but no rich man can enter the gates.

They console the poor to remain poor. They make him happy because the rich man will suffer in hell. They make the rich man happy because their consolation

of the poor prevents revolution. The happy rich man goes on contributing to make big cathedrals, churches, because he knows that if he can manage here, he will be able to manage there too -- if even a camel can manage, do you think Rockefeller, Morgan or Ford will not be able to manage? They are certainly far more intelligent than a camel.

I am certainly against poverty, and I want to destroy it completely. But to destroy it completely one thing has to be understood, that all preventive measures should be taken.

People who are not giving birth to children should be rewarded. People who are giving birth to children -- their income taxes should go higher and higher. People are doing just the opposite. If you have more children, you have less income tax.

This is strange. The government policy is family planning, and on the other hand if the family is bigger you support the bigger family, you don't support the person who has no family.

These priests and politicians are responsible for keeping poverty somehow alive.

They are still doing that. Send help to Ethiopia, send help to India. It fulfills the ego of the super-rich countries, and it also keeps those poor countries in a subtle, mental slavery, always dependent on you.

If I am listened to, it is so simple a matter. We just need one world government; we don't need any countries. We need one government, one world, and that government, that world can easily see where the problem is.

Even a poor country like India, where people are starving, is exporting wheat to other countries. It seems we are living in a madhouse! Indians are dying, starving, and they are exporting wheat. But they have to export, because they want to make nuclear weapons. From where are they going to get nuclear plants?

They need money for that.

Seventy-five percent of the national incomes of all the countries goes to war, either fighting or preparing for fighting. If the world is one, seventy-five percent of the income of the whole world is immediately released. Poverty disappears like a dewdrop in the early morning sun.

Ma Mary Catherine The Rajneesh Times, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT POLITICS?

A: Do I have to say?

I curse it. It is the calamity that has made us live for centuries in suffering.

Politics is absolutely unnecessary. But politicians will not allow it to become unnecessary because then they lose their presidencies, their White Houses, their Kremlins, their prime ministerships.

Politics is not needed, it is really out of date. It was needed because nations were continuously fighting. In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars.

If we just dissolve the boundary lines -- which exist only on the map not on the earth -- who will bother about politics? Yes, there will be a world government but this government will be only functional. It won't have any prestige to it, because there will be no competition with anybody. If you are the president of the world government, so what? You are not higher than anybody else.

A functional government means the way railways are run. Who cares who is the president of the railways? The way the post office is managed and managed perfectly, who cares who is the head postmaster general?

Nations have to disappear, and with the disappearance of nations politics itself disappears. It commits suicide. What remains is a functional organization that takes care. It can be made rotary like a Rotary Club, so sometimes a black man is the head, sometimes a woman is the head, sometimes a Chinese is the head, sometimes a Russian is the head, sometimes an American is the head -- but it goes on moving like a wheel.

Perhaps not more than six months should be given to one person, more than that is dangerous. So for six months be president and then go down the drain forever.

And no person should be chosen again. This is simply poverty of intelligence that you go on choosing the same person as president again, again and again.

Don't you see it as poverty of intelligence? You don't have any intelligent people?

You have just one dodo to go on?

In one world there is no need for political parties, either. Individuals should decide individually. There is no need for any political party, it is very destructive of democracy. Although people say that democracy cannot exist without political parties, I say to you democracy cannot exist if political parties are there, because they have their vested interests.

Each individual is free to run for any post or to vote for anybody he feels right.

And whoever comes out may be far wiser than your presidents and prime ministers. Perhaps because he is going to be there for only six months, he cannot waste his time inaugurating this university, inaugurating that bridge, inaugurating this road, inaugurating all kinds of nonsense and wasting time.

And the parliament is simply arguing about absolutely meaningless affairs as if they have eternity in their hands. A small bill takes years to pass.

A man who has only six months cannot allow this stupidity. He will choose scientific advisers, experts in different fields. For example, in economics he will find all the best economic minds in the world to advise him. He has not much time. He cannot go on with third-rate politicians who know only the art of lying and nothing else. If he has to decide about education, he will ask the advice of the great educationists of the world. But right now strange things happen....

In India, when I was there, in Morarji Desai's government a man became the education minister of the central government. I know the man. I have seen many

idiots, but he is only number two -- because number one is Morarji Desai. He is the education minister. He is going to decide the whole educational system of the country.

But he decides nothing. The bureaucracy goes on running in the same way. They go on playing the small games of back-biting, of pulling legs, of making every effort to reach to the top. Just a single formula I give to you: one world.

Q: MANY POLITICIANS HAVE ASKED IF YOU ARE RUNNING THIS PLACE.

A: No. Never. Who wants to fall back in all that bullshit? It was so difficult to get out of it. It took many lives for me to get out of it all -- and you are asking me again to take a dive into the bullshit? No. Absolutely no!

Emico Franceschini La Repubblica, Italy Q: BHAGWAN, I AM ENRICO FRANCESCHINI FROM La Repubblica, AN ITALIAN NEWSPAPER.

A: I love Italians... except their spaghetti.

Q: IF I MAY FIRST FOLLOW UP ON THE QUESTION CONCERNING COMMUNISM THAT A COLLEAGUE OF MINE ASKED YOU BEFORE. YOU SAID THIS MORNING THAT MESSIAHS, PROPHETS, INCARNATIONS OF GOD ARE CHEATING US, KEEPING US REPRESSED AND PREVENTING US FROM REBELLING AGAINST THE STATUS QUO. YOU SAID THAT POVERTY AND HUNGER ARE NOT A BLESSING. BUT COMMUNISTS HAVE SAID THESE SAME THINGS FOR MANY YEARS AND HAVE TRIED TO DO SOMETHING TO ELIMINATE POVERTY AND HUNGER. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?

A: Yes, they have tried to eliminate... not poverty, but richness. And they have eliminated it. Now the whole of communist Russia is equally poor. That gives a certain satisfaction, of course, but it is not my goal. I want to destroy poverty.

I am all for the rich man. I am the rich man's guru.

Q: LET ME ASK YOU ANOTHER QUESTION. IF, AS YOU SAID THIS MORNING, YOU ARE JUST AN ORDINARY MAN, WHY IS THERE A BUDDHAFIELD AROUND YOU THAT MAKES THE GRASS GREENER, AND PUTS MORE BIRDS IN THIS VALLEY?

A: It always does around an ordinary man. To be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. You can go around the world and you will

never find an ordinary man. Everybody is exceptional, everybody is special, everybody is imagining himself something big.

I am just an ordinary man, that's why a Buddhafield exists around me. You become an ordinary man, and see.

Q: JUST A VERY BRIEF QUESTION: SINCE TO LAUGH IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU AND TO THIS COMMUNITY, IS THERE ANYTHING IN THE ARTS, LIKE MOVIES, LITERATURE, THAT MAKES YOU LAUGH? DO YOU LIKE WOODY ALLEN?

A: I am so happy that I am continuously laughing with my sannyasins -- and there is no reason why. Sometimes even I am surprised why they are laughing, but I join them in their laughter.

To me, life is not rational, it is very irrational. I enjoy everything -- except spaghetti.

Tarcisius Munaku World Press Institute, Kenya Q: BHAGWAN, ONE CORRECTION. I AM FROM ZIMBABWE.

A: That's okay. From wherever you are, I am glad to see a black man. To me black is beautiful, and I am all for the black people, although they have not started coming to me; perhaps they are so poor, so downtrodden, that they are involved in their own misery.

But take my message to them, that I would like as many black people as possible here.

Q: HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE LACK OF FOLLOWERS WITH BLACK SKIN IN THIS COMMUNITY?

A: The world has been divided into the East and the West. Now it should be divided between the North and the South. The South has been completely denied, ignored. It has not been able to grow in intelligence. It has the same potential as the white people of the North. Perhaps the black man has more potential than the white man.

One thing is certain, that black people's intelligence has not been used for centuries, perhaps never. So it is absolutely raw, unused, ready to burst forth.

They are not coming to me for the simple reason that my teaching is difficult for them to understand. The poor people may turn Catholic, may turn communist, but they cannot become Rajneeshees, because the poor people have hopes with the Catholics -- yes, after life, after death -- they have hopes with the communists

in this life. Of course it is a big bargain, but they are certainly impressed by those things.

What I am saying just goes above their heads for a simple reason: you cannot ask everybody why they do not understand Mozart's music -- but what can Mozart do about it? You have to learn classical music, its delicacies -- only then you can understand Mozart. I am speaking in favor of luxury, richness in all dimensions of life. Naturally the poor, wherever they are, will not feel in tune with me. But in fact, I am the only person they SHOULD feel in tune with. I can drag them out of their poverty.

Just look at my communes around the world. We have hundreds of communes around the world, and they are all living richly, joyously. We would like the same for you and for your country and for your people. But it is a very strange phenomenon: you tend to listen to those same people who are the cause of your poverty, your degradation, your slavery.

In India I have experienced it. I was talking to people to make them free of all mental bondage, all spiritual slavery, but they were turning against me, because they think their spiritual slavery is not slavery, it is something holy, a divine heritage.

It is very difficult. I can very easily reach people who have known the taste of richness and have found frustration in it, those who are educated and have found that all this education is worthless. It does not give you wisdom to live; it gives you only knowledgeability that can allow you somehow to vegetate.

The gap is big, even in India. Here you will see all white people. In India it was the same. All white people, ten thousand sannyasins from all over the world, were living with me -- but the Hindus were trying to kill me. They made attempts to kill me. Before ten thousand white people a Hindu stood up and threw a knife at me. That is their response. I can understand it, because I am speaking against their tradition, and they are so burdened with tradition they cannot imagine themselves free. (SOUND OF DOORS BANGING) Has some black man reached there?

SHEELA: TODAY ONE OF THE PRESS PERSONS IS REPORTED TO HAVE COME WITH A GUN TO SEE IF SOMEBODY ELSE HAD A BETTER SHOW THAN HE DID, THEN HE WAS GOING TO SHOOT YOU.

A: That's great. Shoot me before all these media people. I would not like to die in a dark dismal room lying on a bed. Shoot me! This is the right moment. I have done everything that I wanted to do, I have experienced everything that is possible to human consciousness. There is nothing to lose. Shoot me this moment. Gather courage, don't be afraid. I will tell my guards not to prevent you. My guards are not to shoot the person. Assassinate me, because Jesus missed the media... at least don't let me miss the media.

Q: I WAS GOING TO ASK WHY -- YOU SAY IT'S BEEN FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU LAST READ NEWSPAPERS, LAST SAW THE TELEVISION HOW COME YOU KNOW ABOUT ETHIOPIA IF NOT FROM THE NEWSPAPERS AND THE T V?

A: Ask the Ethiopians. Go there. What have I to do with it and how can I answer it? Go to Ethiopia and ask those people why they have not come. That is their business, not mine.

Q: NO, HOW COME YOU KNOW THERE IS HUNGER AND STARVATION IN ETHIOPIA WHEN YOU DON'T READ THE NEWSPAPERS, WHEN YOU DON'T WATCH TELEVISION? WHERE DO YOU GET THE INFORMATION?

A: Just from your questions -- that's enough for me. I answer your questions, that's enough. I don't want to go into details. I have a vision of my own, a clarity.

I am just like a mirror; you come before it and the mirror will reflect you. The mirror is not a photograph; the moment you are gone, the mirror is again empty.

I am just an empty mirror; you ask the question -- I will respond with my totality. But my response is pure, it is not the response of a scholar. It is not out of knowledgeability, information, it is simply the clear insight of an ordinary man.

John Ng'anga Thuruo World Press Institute, Zimbabwe A: Great. I was thinking there is only one. Two is too many!

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU DESCRIBED PROPHETS, JESUS AND OTHER MESSIAHS AS LIARS. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT WHAT YOU TEACH IS THE TRUTH?

A: I am not teaching anything, so there is no question about my teachings; nobody can ask whether they are true or not. I am teaching only methods. I don't give you any dogma, any philosophy that you can discuss and argue and find out whether it is true or not. I give you only a method. Practice the method, and you will experience what I am saying. Your experience will prove that what I am saying is truth.

These people here are here because they have experienced something. They have left their countries, their families, they have left everything they had, just to come to me.

And LOOK at me. This is stupid; when you are asking a question, looking here and there is simply stupid. Just look at me. And listen to what I am saying, because when you are moving this way and that, you are not listening. Perhaps you are thinking that it is nothing.

Q: I AM LISTENING.

A: Then you must have understood what I have said -- I have no teachings, I have only methodologies. I am a scientific person; science has only experiments. I have only experiments.

Those who are courageous enough go through the experiments, and if they find something there, it becomes THEIR truth. It is not my truth. I don't emphasize to believe in me; even the method has to be accepted only as hypothetical.

This is very pleasant for me because I don't have any principles. Nobody can contradict me, nobody can criticize me, nobody can say that what I am saying is not true. To say that he will first have to go through the experiments, the meditation, the silence, the joy, the blessing, and he will know. And I have never come across a single person who has followed the path and has not reached.

Existence is very compassionate.

Q: BHAGWAN, ANOTHER QUESTION. THE FOLLOWERS, YOU CALL THEM SANNYASINS, LOVE YOU SO MUCH -- I HAVE SEEN THAT AND YOU MUST BE AWARE ABOUT A COMMUNITY LIKE THIS THAT LIVED IN JONESTOWN, GUYANA, WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE SOME YEARS BACK.

DON'T YOU THINK THAT IF YOU EVER TOLD THEM TO TAKE A POTION, THEY WOULD DO SO?

A: They love me, I love them; how can I help them commit suicide? Reverend Jim Jones was a Christian. And the whole responsibility of Jonestown's suicidal act is the responsibility of Christians from Jesus to Pope the Polack. All Christians are responsible for it because they have been teaching that all that is beautiful is beyond death. Jesus was doing the same as Reverend Jim Jones, they belong to the same category. Jim Jones was only repeating Jesus. Jesus was saying, "You are all going to be with me, and soon I will come back and take all of you into the glory of God." Two thousand years have passed. The guy has not been seen again.

Nevil Aschen National Public Radio, USA Q: BHAGWAN, IS IT PLANNED THAT THE LEADERSHIP OF THE RAJNEESH FOUNDATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS ARE ALL FEMALE? IS THERE A REASON FOR THAT? IS IT SOMETHING DELIBERATE?

A: Yes, there is a reason. I love women, and I want to give them all that has been taken away from them through the whole history of man. This is just a little compensation. All the women are running this whole circus of mine, and they are doing it beautifully. And there are other reasons also.

A man is more head-oriented. He thinks for and against. It is really very difficult for a man to say a total yes or a total no. He is a split personality. Some part of him says yes, some part of him says no.

The woman functions through her heart, which knows no division. If it says yes it is total, and yes is beautiful only when it is total. If it says no it is beautiful.

Anything which is total has a beauty. Anything which is half and half, fifty-fifty, is schizophrenic.

So not only the women who are in a biologically feminine body are running the show, but also the men who are there have become more feminine than they would have imagined ever. They have become more graceful, more loving. Their heads are not more in the way, they have fallen deep into their hearts.

In fact, all my sannyasins are women!

Howard Sattler 6PR Radio, Australia Q: BHAGWAN, I HOPE I WON'T REPEAT MYSELF YOU HAVE BEEN CONTINUALLY TELLING US THAT YOU HAVE THE GREATEST CIRCUS IN THE WORLD AND AS WE KNOW GREAT CIRCUSES TRAVEL. I WONDER IF YOU WOULD RESPOND TO STORIES FROM THE SOUTHWEST OF AUSTRALIA THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO TOUR THE CIRCUS THERE AND THAT THE CIRCUS IS GOING TO SET UP ITS BIG TOP THERE NEAR A LITTLE TIMBER TOWN CALLED PEMBERTON.

A: Spread the rumor that I'm coming!

Q: I WONDER IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO TELL THE PEOPLE THERE, PARTICULARLY THE CHRISTIAN LEADERS WHO HAVE BEEN LEADING A LEGAL AND A MORAL BATTLE AGAINST YOUR PEOPLE OVER THERE, WHAT THEY CAN EXPECT IF THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN AND WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE FOR THEM?

A: They are going to be shocked by my message. Make it clear to them that my coming to Australia is going to create an immense turmoil in the whole continent, because I don't believe in their morality -- it is all hypocrisy. I don't believe in their values, which are only a mask, and I'm going to hammer on that mask as hard as I can.

My whole work is to reveal your original face to you. Naturally, if you hammer on somebody's mask he freaks out, because he has been thinking that that mask is his face. So the first response to me is always that of a shock. But if he has some guts -- which I think Australians have -- if they have some guts, they will wait to see what is behind the mask. Let the mask slip and you will be surprised: your

personality was just mumbo-jumbo. This is your individuality, your true being, and it brings freedom with it. It brings wisdom with it. It brings a new kind of morality with it.

So just tell them to get ready!

Q: WE'RE READY. THANK YOU.

Tom Senior KPTV, Portland, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, GETTING BACK TO YOUR WRISTWATCH FOR A SECOND.

AS AN ENLIGHTENED MASTER, WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT TIME IT IS?

A: Just for your sake. I know the heat; my people are suffering in the heat and you must be suffering too. I can continue forever. I am sitting in an airconditioned place, you are not. It is just a little bit of concern for my people and for you all who come from all over the world. I don't want you to be ascetics.

I want you to enjoy Rajneeshpuram, not to suffer the heat here. Otherwise there is no problem... I can stop looking at the watch. You seem to feel offended by it.

If that is so then it is great, because to offend is my whole work.

Carlo Silvestro Grazia Magazine, Italy Q: YES, ANOTHER ITALIAN. BHAGWAN, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SPEAK ON WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS POSSIBLE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN, AND ALSO IF THERE IS ANY HOPE FOR A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN WHICH IS NOT GOING TO BE ENTANGLED IN THE USUAL PATTERN OF SADO-MASOCHISM.

A: It is a very significant question. Ordinarily, religions have made it impossible.

Any beautiful relationship between man and woman -- they have destroyed it.

There was reason to destroy it.

If a man's love life is fulfilled, you will not find so many people in churches praying. They will be making love, early morning love, on Sundays. Who bothers about the idiot who is preaching in the church? If people's love lives are of immense content and beauty they won't bother about whether God exists or not, whether the philosophy preached in the Bible is true or not. They are so contented with themselves.

Once in a while it happens that I pass on the road and two lovers are hugging each other. They don't even look at me. I feel so happy; they must be in an immensely groovy place.

Religions have destroyed your love by creating marriage. Marriage is the end, not the beginning. Love is finished. Now you are a husband, your beloved is a

wife. Now you start trying to dominate each other. It is politics, no more love.

Now every small thing becomes a point to be argued.

And marriage is against human nature, so sooner or later you are going to be fed up with the woman, and the woman is going to be fed up with you. And it is natural, there is nothing wrong in it. That is why I say marriages should not be there, because marriages make the whole world immoral. A man sleeping with a woman, and they are not loving each other but still are trying to make love because they are married -- this is ugly, disgusting. This I call real prostitution.

When a man goes to a prostitute, at least it is straightforward. He purchases a certain commodity. He does not purchase the woman, he purchases a certain commodity. But he has purchased the whole woman in marriage -- and for her whole life. All husbands and all wives without exception are caged, trying to get free of it. But even sometimes in countries where divorce is allowed and they manage to change the partner, within a few days they are in for a surprise. The other woman or the other man proves an exact copy of the one they have left behind.

I remember hearing about one man who married eight times -- of course, it must have been in California. When he married the eighth time, after two days he recognized that he had married this woman once before too. And then he started thinking, "What have I gained by changing women? It all comes back to the same rut."

Stability in marriage is unnatural. Monogamy is unnatural. Man is by nature a polygamous animal, and anybody who is intelligent will be polygamous. You can't go on and on eating Italian food. Once in a while you want to visit the Chinese restaurant!

I want people to be completely freed from marriage and marriage licenses. The only cause of their being together should be love, not law. Love should be the only law.

Then what you are asking is possible. The moment love disappears, say goodbye to each other. There is nothing to fight for; love was a gift of existence. It came like the wind, it has gone like the wind. You will be grateful to each other. You may part, but you will remember those beautiful moments you had been together. You may remain friends, if not lovers. Ordinarily lovers when they part become enemies. In fact, they become enemies before they part -- that's why they part.

Ultimately, if both persons are meditators, not just lovers, trying to transform the very energy of love into a meditative state.... And that is my whole approach towards man and his relationship with woman. It is a tremendous energy. It is life. If, while making love to your woman, you can both move into a silent period, utterly quiet, no thought passing through your minds-as if time has stopped -- then you will know for the first time the real taste of love. That kind of relationship can remain for the whole life, because it is no more just biological

attraction which fades away sooner or later. Now you have a new dimension opening.

Your woman has become your temple. Your man has become your temple. Your love has become your meditation, and this meditation goes on growing, and when it is growing you start becoming more and more joyful, more and more nourished, more and more strengthened. There is no relationship, there is no bondage to remain with the woman. But who can renounce joy? Who can ask for divorce when there is so much joy? People are asking for divorce because there is no joy, just despair and twenty-four hours a day nightmare....

My people here and around the world are learning that love is only the jumping board. There is much more ahead of it, which is possible only if two persons remain intimate for a longer period of time. With a new person, again you begin from scratch. And there is no need for a new person, because now it is not the biological or the physical aspect of the person, but you have come into communion spiritually.

To transform sex into spirituality is my basic approach. And if both are lovers AND meditators, they will not mind, once in a while, if you visit a Chinese restaurant, or she goes to visit some continental restaurant! It is not a problem.

You love the woman; if she is feeling happy once in a while with somebody else, what is wrong in it? You should be happy that she is happy, because you love her. Only meditators are capable of dropping jealousies.

Be a lover -- that is a good beginning, but not the end. Go on trying to be more meditative. And be quick, because your love may be finished the day the honeymoon is finished.

So meditation and love should go hand in hand. If we can create a world where lovers are meditators too, then there will be no problem of continuous torture, nagging, jealousies, hurting each other in every possible way.

Love without meditation is bound to turn into hatred any moment -- beware -- but love with meditation will become deeper and deeper, more and more intense. And perhaps two persons will feel together so attuned, a kind of at-one- ment, that they would love to be together forever.

But that is not a condition. Any day, even if one partner decides, "Now I am moving from this crossroad, away from you. Thank you for all you have done. I remember all these beautiful moments, but I cannot continue" -- that's enough.

No court is needed to decide for you that you are married, to decide for you that you are divorced. What an insane world we are living in! Even our love is not free.

And when I say that love should be our freedom, they condemn me all over the world as the "free-sex guru." Certainly I am all for freedom of love. And in a way they are right: I don't want sex to be a commodity in the market. It has to be freely available just two persons agreeing, that's enough. And this agreement is only for the moment; no promises for the future, because they become chains around your neck. They will kill you. No promises for the future, just relish this

moment. And if next moment you are still together, you will be able to relish it more.

So I don't use the word RELATIONSHIP. I use the word RELATEDNESS. You can relate, but don't create relationship. If your relating becomes a lifelong process, good. If it does not, that is even better. Perhaps this was not the right partner, and it is good that you separated. Find another partner. There must be someone somewhere who will be waiting for you. But this society does not allow you to find out who it is who is waiting for you, who is the person who will fit with you.

They will call me immoral.... To me, this is morality. What they are trying to practice is immoral.

Burt Rudman KOMO Television, Seattle, Washington, USA Q: BHAGWAN, WE'RE HERE TO DO A STORY ON YOUR PERSONAL SECRETARY, SHEELA, AND I WAS HOPING THAT YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HER, AND PERHAPS WHY IT WAS WITH SHEELA WITH WHOM YOU SPOKE DURING YOUR VOW OF PUBLIC SILENCE.

A: You can just see Sheela: she is so beautiful. Do you think anything more is needed?

I have chosen her as my secretary because she has lived with me for many years, and I have seen not only her physical beauty, but also her spiritual beauty. I have seen her intelligence. I have seen that she can manage this whole commune of crazy people.

Q: SHE WAS DISCUSSING WITH A GERMAN MAGAZINE RECENTLY THE FACT THAT THE REASON THAT MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE RAJNEESH TRUST WERE WOMEN WAS THAT BECAUSE WOMEN ARE MORE INTELLIGENT THAN MEN. AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU SHARED THAT FEELING WITH HER?

A: That's true. Even if a man wants to function more intelligently, he will have to acquire some feminine qualities. As a man, he is just a barbarian.

To acquire some feminine qualities.... And just see, all qualities are feminine:

love, compassion, sympathy, service, sharing -- all qualities are feminine. Even if a man wants to function at the highest peak of his intelligence, he will have to be guided by his heart.

And we are suffering so much because we have ignored the heart, we have completely bypassed the heart. Our whole educational program is how to bypass the heart -- the feeling part, the emotions, the sentiments, the smiles, the tears --

and just go directly to the head. And the head is the most insensitive place in the whole existence.

Inside the skull there is no sensitivity at all. Even if a bullet is put inside your skull or my skull, under anesthesia, and I wake up, I will not feel that there is anything inside the skull. The skull is completely insulated in a way -- it is insensitive. That's why all of science has gone in an insensitive way and has become a curse rather than a blessing.

The heart has to be the master, and the head has to be the servant. Just because physiologically the heart is lower and the head is higher, it does not mean that the head is superior. The superior part of your being is your heart. The delicate, the nice part, the most beautiful part, is your heart. So whenever you start moving towards the heart, the heart guides the head. Then whatever you do, you do with sensitivity.

That's why I said all my sannyasins are women in essence. They have accepted the heart as the master and the head as the servant. As a servant, the head is perfectly good. As a master, it is absolutely wrong.

Swami Ramateertha The Rajneesh Times, Germany Q: BHAGWAN, I WAS VERY SHOCKED AT HEARING YOU SUPPORT THE PRODUCTION OF TEST-TUBE BABIES, SAYING THEY COULD BE GENIUSES, MORE BEAUTIFUL AND HEALTHIER THAN HUMAN BEINGS. SURELY THE BEAUTY OF OUR INNER BEING IS ALL THAT MATTERS? -- OR WERE YOU JOKING?

A: No. Very rarely I am serious, and at the time I made that statement I was very serious. I mean it -- because the man that has been created by blind nature, blind biology, has not proved a real growth for humanity. You can see it.

Charles Darwin says that monkeys became man. But, since that time -- that must have happened a million years ago -- for these one million years man has not created anything better. Monkeys were far more intelligent; at least they gave birth to humanity. Human beings seem to be absolutely impotent. They go on creating carbon copies of themselves. This has to be stopped.

I have heard... it happened in an office. The orders from above came that the office is too cluttered with old files -- thirty years, fifty years old -- they should be destroyed. But make sure that every file's carbon copy is kept.... But what is the point? Why destroy the originals?

Man has been meeting with woman accidentally up to now. Hence, you feel shocked -- anybody will feel shocked, I can understand -- to think that a baby should not have the mother's womb, the warmth of the mother, the care of the mother, the love of the mother.... But, you know, there are many other things also

in the mother: her nagging, her hatred, her jealousy, her stupidity. He will get all those things too.

And we can see, the specimens are available all over the world. This is what has come out of your relationship: Adolf Hitler is born out of your human relationship, he was in a mother's womb. Joseph Stalin is born in the same way.

And all these criminals -- Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, Nadirshah, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan -- history is full of these monsters. They have also come out of loving women.

I don't trust any more in blind biology. I trust more in a conscious human being.

It is better to give the birth of the child to a test tube, where we can choose the best semen, the best egg from the woman. And there is no need to be worried because they are anonymous; in fact, every hospital should have a bank. They have banks for blood; they should have banks for semen and eggs, and they should look into the best semen cell and the best egg meeting in a very clinical way -- in a test tube. They will not have the heritage of your ugly past. They will be fresh beings and we can program those eggs and the semen cells so that more health, more life, more intelligence becomes possible.

In each love affair the man releases millions of living cells. Only one of them will reach the female egg; he will become Ronald Reagan. They all rush -- it is really a great rush.... Millions of living beings, although they are very small and you cannot see them with your eyes -- and it is a big race, bigger than any race that happens on the earth.

Thinking of their size, the track between the semen and the woman's egg proportionately is two miles long. If they were your size, the track would be two miles long. A two-mile track... and they are fighting hard to survive, because there is not much time. They are always close to the third world war. They can live only two hours, not more than that. And only one cell reaches the egg and the egg closes. It rarely happens that two cells reach simultaneously, that's why twins are born.

Rabindranath Tagore, one of the great poets of India, was the thirteenth child of his father. The other twelve proved just idiots, nobody knows their names even.

Now, it is a long blind passage. If Rabindranath's father had stopped after the twelfth child -- which seems to be a good point to stop; one dozen is enough, more than enough -- then you would have missed one of the most beautiful beings on the earth: a great poet, a great painter and a great human being... in every way beautiful.

But in a test tube it is so easy. Those twelve should have been discarded. We have chosen Rabindranath to be the first child -- and who knows how much more potential would have been in him if he had gotten the best female egg.

Nobody knows.

We don't know the potentiality of humanity. Give it a chance. What I am saying is, give it a chance. It looks in the beginning inhuman. Everything new looks inhuman in the beginning.

Do you know, when the first railway train moved from London to a nearby station, just eight miles' journey, nobody was ready to sit in it... even for free.

Lunch was served, free, but nobody was ready to enter the train because the priest in the early morning said in church that God never created any railway train; this is unnatural, this is dangerous, this is inhuman. Don't sit in it.

What do you think would have happened if people had stopped? There would have been no trains, no cars, no airplanes, no rockets to reach to the moon, and we have to reach to the stars. We need more stronger bodies, we need more intelligent people, and we need people who are clean of all old crap. That is possible only if we make a clinical, medical arrangement for the birth of man. I am absolutely in support of it.

Bob Chase KEX Radio, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, FOR THE LAST MANY YEARS WE'VE BEEN TOLD BY RAJNEESHEE LEADERS THAT THE REASON FOR THE VOW OF PUBLIC SILENCE WAS BECAUSE YOU HAD NOTHING MORE TO SAY, THAT YOU HAD SAID IT ALL IN YOUR TEACHINGS AND WRITINGS. IS YOUR FEELING NOW THAT THERE IS SOMETHING NEW TO SAY, THAT THE PAST BEARS REPEATING, OR IS IT THAT YOU ENJOY THE SHOWMANSHIP IN THE SETTING THAT YOU HAVE HERE TODAY, FOR BREAKING THE PUBLIC SILENCE?

A: Your question implies so many things.

First, my silence was not because I have said everything. My silence was because I wanted to drop those people who were hanging around my words. I wanted people who can be with me even if I am silent. I sorted out all those people without any trouble. They simply dropped out. Three years was enough time.

And when I saw all those people -- and they were not many, but they were hanging around my words. I don't want people to just believe in my words; I want people to live my silence. In these three years it was a great time to be silent with my people, and to see their courage and their love in remaining with a man who perhaps may never speak again.

When the work was done, when those people had left, there was no need to remain silent. I am back again, and I have much more to say -- and I will always have much more to say. Even on my deathbed, or in the chair being assassinated, I will still be saying something. I will not die silently.

And I enjoy talking to my people. I enjoy their response. And, of course, I am a showman. Everybody is, they just don't have the guts to say it.

Ma Prem Isabel Press Relations Bureau, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA

Q: BELOVED BHAGWAN, I'M NOT A JOURNALIST, BUT I DEAL WITH JOURNALISTS ALL THE TIME. AND BEFORE THE PRESS CONFERENCE IS OVER, I HAVE A QUESTION THAT EVERYBODY ASKS ME BUT NOBODY ASKED YOU TODAY. AND THAT IS, DURING THE TIME YOU DIDN'T SPEAK, SHEELA WAS SPEAKING ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND MANY PEOPLE GOT OFFENDED WITH HER COMMENTS. AND EVERYBODY ASKS, "HOW COME SHEELA IS YOUR SPOKESPERSON? HOW COME SHEELA MAKES THOSE STATEMENTS? SHE IS ANTAGONIZING PEOPLE."

WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THAT?

A: I was also very much offended by Sheela.

Whenever she came back, I hit her hard, because she was not the way I would like her to be-really outrageous! She was falling below the standard. And I was continuously telling her, "Don't be worried, we don't have anything to lose. We have the whole world to gain and nothing to lose. Be outrageous!" There is a saying that "No news is good news." It is only half, the other half I have to make.

If no news is good news, then good news is no news! It has to be sensational. I have been sharpening her like a sword. "Go, and cut as many heads as you Isabel, I agree. I was also offended.

Kathleen Stone KBND Radio, Bend, Oregon, USA Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE SAID YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN THE OUTSIDE, NO INTEREST IN POLITICS. WHY THEN DID YOU TAKE OVER THE TOWN OF ANTELOPE, OR YOUR FOLLOWERS, YOUR COMMUNITY?

AND WHY THEN DID YOU SAY YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR FOLLOWERS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD?

SHEELA: BHAGWAN, I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A CORRECTION. IT'S THE TOWN OF....

A: No. No need.

Q: I'M SORRY. THE CITY OF RAJNEESH, THE FORMER TOWN OF ANTELOPE.

A: I am not a Rajneeshee, first, you have to remember.

Q: I UNDERSTAND THAT.

A: And I have not taken over the dead city of Antelope.

Q: BUT YOUR FOLLOWERS HAVE.

A: They are not my followers either. They are my fellow travelers.

Now, I have such a big caravan. If a few people decide to make a dead city alive, why should I interfere? They should try to find other dead cities around and make them alive with laughter and joy. That's why I said -- because the question was asked to me, "Are you going to take Oregon?" -- I said, "No! It is too small a thing. I would like my people to take over the whole world."

But that was simply a joke. And I love jokes.

Penny Allen Esquire Magazine, USA Q: BHAGWAN, A NUMBER OF YOUR SANNYASINS HAVE TOLD ME THAT THEY SENSE A CERTAIN RIPENESS IN THIS MOMENT. THEY FEEL THAT THE FRUIT OF RAJNEESHISM IS RIPE NOW AND READY TO BE PLUCKED FROM THE TREE. DO YOU FEEL THIS ALSO, AND IS THIS WHY YOU HAVE CHOSEN THIS MOMENT TO ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS OF THE PRESS?

A: Yes, they are right. And this is the right moment to declare to the whole world that our tree has blossomed and the fruits are ripe, and to invite them to come and share with us. It is true.

The Last Testament, Vol 1