Chapter 30
[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]
INTERVIEW WITH FRED BRUNING OF NEWSDAY, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
Q: BHAGWAN, HOW DO YOU STAY WARM IN SUCH A COLD ROOM?
A: is not cold.
Q: TO ME IT IS VERY COLD.
A: To me it is only cool.
Q: HAVE YOU ALWAYS FELT BETTER IN COLD SURROUNDINGS, EVEN AS A CHILD?
A: Always Q: I WOULD LIKE TO ASK A QUESTION THAT IS ASKED IN MEDITATION:
WHO ARE YOU?
A: It is a little bit complicated. It is not an ordinary question. When you ask "Who am I?" you are not waiting for an answer. There is nobody to answer you. But by constantly inquiring "Who am I?" slowly, slowly other thoughts start disappearing. You become more and more attuned with only one thing -- this quest: "Who am I?" When all thoughts have disappeared and only the sound "Who am I?" remains, that is the miracle moment. That sound also disappears.
First it kills all your thoughts, and finally it commits suicide -- not that you get an answer, but the question disappears. And that is the moment of ultimate bliss.
Q: HOW OULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
A: Impossible.
This question is possible [to ask] only of an object. And I am not an object; I am subjectivity. I can describe the table, I can describe the grapes, I can describe the
whole world -- except me. Description is applicable only to objects. I am always the witness. If I describe myself -- in the very nature of things -- that description becomes false, because I am again witnessing it. I am always the witness, which cannot be reduced to an object.
Q: IS IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DESCRIBE OTHERS, OTHER INDIVIDUALS?
A: No. As objects of course, but not as a subjectivity. I can describe the color of your hair, I can describe the clothes you are wearing, but I cannot describe you, the being that you are -- that remains indescribable. And that's the whole mystery of existence: that at the ultimate core, at the very center, is something that you can experience, but you cannot explain.
Q: DO YOU EVER HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT YOUR WORK, ABOUT YOUR ROLE?
A: There is no question. For thirty-two years I have not encountered any doubt in me, any question in me. Yes, before I became enlightened I had millions of questions, millions of doubts. The moment I came to know myself, that dark night was over. Now there is no question of doubt, no question of repenting, no question of planning for the future. Just this moment is enough -- I am totally contented with it as it is.
Q: THINGS COULDN'T BE BETTER?
A: No, not for me. For you, yes.
Q: I DON'T UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.
A: That's why I am saying it. You are not sure; I am sure.
Q: MAYBE YOU CAN HELP ME UNDERSTAND?
A: I can -- that's my whole business.
Q: AND YOU ARE GOOD AT IT?
A: I am just perfect -- not good.
Q: YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW THINGS ARE FOR ME BEFORE YOU CAN DETERMINE WHETHER THINGS COULD BE BETTER OR WORSE.
A: No need for me [to know]. All sleeping people are sleeping people. It does not matter to me whether this man has a Ph.D. degree and asleep, this man is a doctor and he is asleep; that man is an engineer and he is asleep -- that does not matter to me. My problem is simple: they are all asleep and they will be better off if they are awakened.
Q: I AM ASLEEP AS WELL.
A: You are asleep as well.
People [have been] doing everything in sleep for millions of years.
Q: IS EVERYONE IN THE ROOM ALSEEP, AS FAR AS YOU ARE CONCERNED?
A: As far as I am concerned, yes.
Q: IS SHEELA ASLEEP?
A: Yes -- sound asleep.
Q: HOW WILL YOU AWAKEN HER?
A: I am trying...
Q: DO YOU EVER GET TIRED OF THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE? DO YOU EVER FEEL 'ENOUGH'?
A: I have never read any of my books.... I have never heard any of my tapes. I don't even bother what I said yesterday. And if you ask me tomorrow about this meeting, I will not be consistent with it at all. Because I don't carry comparison, memory; I simply go on existing moment to moment. You get bored because you compare: the same wife every night, the same kiss, the same geography... It is strange, unless you are asleep, to remain with one woman for thirty or forty years -- it is just a miracle!
Q: THAT IS JUST WHAT MY WIFE KEEPS SAYING!
A: That's good. Somehow help her to come here... All wives who run come here finally. Because you can run from one husband to another husband, but finally you have to run from husbands to my place.... Here there is no husband and no wife.
Q: IS MARITAL FIDELITY WORTH ANYTHING?
A: Nothing -- just nothing.
Q: YOU DON'T THINK IT MIGHT BE GOOD FOR SOME, NOT GOOD FOR OTHERS?
A: No. The very word 'fidelity' is ugly, dirty.... If I love you, I love you. If I don't love you, I don't love you. I am a simple, sincere, straightforward man.
What do you mean by fidelity? Fidelity means: when you don't love, even then remain faithful. Anything that goes against love is ugly. What is the need of fidelity? If I love you, is that not enough? You need some fidelity too? That means there is a doubt in your mind -- you are afraid: today love is there; tomorrow it may not be. So something legal, religious -- the church, the court, and some condition of fidelity -- so when love goes away and the spring is over, you can cling to these props: fidelity, court, law religion, church. Love needs nothing.
Q: HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED MARRIAGE?
A: Never considered marriage.
Q: DO YOU HAVE CHILDREN?
A: No. How can I have children? Not even my sannyasins have children.
Q: WHY DO YOU SAY: "HOW COULD I HAVE CHILDREN?" OF COURSE YOU COULD HAVE CHILDREN.
A: I don't want my child to be in this world with Ronald Reagan, Soviet Union, Ethiopia, India. In this starving world, where people are piling up nuclear weapon to destroy the whole planet... I would not like my child in this world -- no!
Q: WHO DO YOU CONSIDER HISTORY'S MOST ADMIRABLE FIGURES AND MOST DESPICABLE?
A: Your whole history is bunk.... I mean the whole human history is bunk, because it is written by people who were victorious; it is all false. For example, in India, Britain ruled for three hundred years and they were the writers of history.
And whatsoever they wrote was wrong. They were not writing about the reality, the fact. To them the Indian revolution was only a mutiny; it was not revolution.
Revolution has respectability about it; mutiny is something ugly to be crushed.
The moment India became independent, they rewrote the history -- they changed those three hundred years. Now, who is right?
When Stalin came into power in Russia, he changed the whole history of the revolution -- he even changed pictures. Trotsky was the second figure to Lenin, so in every picture he was sitting next to Lenin. Stalin was nobody. He changed the pictures: Trotsky was removed; Stain's picture was put instead. And all the old books were destroyed. Trotsky himself had escaped and he was in Mexico, writing history. He was on the last page, when one of the murderers from Stalin hit him on the head with a hammer.
Looking at Trotsky's history -- and he was one of the chief characters in the history... Lenin was not a very impressive person; he had no charisma. He was a great organizer...
Trotsky had charisma, and he had influence over the masses. Both together were immensely helpful and complementary to each other.
Q: YOU HAVE READ WIDELY?
A: I have read immensely.
Q: DESPITE THE FLAWS IN HISTORY, WHO DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE ADMIRABLE INDIVIDUALS?
A: You will not even have heard those names that I consider admirable. For example, I consider admirable a poet in Japan, Basho, who has written a few small haikus -- three-line poetries. But each haiku is a tremendous experience of meditation. No poet in the whole world has been able to put so much in those few words. But only a meditator can understand it.
Q: YOU HAVE EXPRESSED YOURSELF IN THE PAST ON CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS, THOUGH?
A: I have spoken on many individuals.
Q: JESUS FOR INSTANCE?
A: Yes, I have spoken on Jesus, Moses, Mohammed. I have spoken on hundreds of people... There are three hundred fifty books that I have spoken; I have never written anything -- those are all spoken words.
I have admired one Chinese: Chuang Tzu. He is the most absurd character in the whole history of man; that is why I admire him.
Q: WHY DO YOU ADMIRE ABSURDITY?
A: Because life is absurd. To search for meaning in it is going to be frustrating.
That's why western philosophy has come to a certain philosophy of existentialism, which talks only of meaninglessness.
Chuan Tzu says that there is no need to search for meaning. If you search for meaning, then you will end up in meaninglessness, and that will be frustrating.
Life is an absurdity -- it is a mystery. You need not search for meaning, you have just to live it, enjoy it. And I agree with him.
Q: YOU SEEM TO DELIGHT IN CONTRADICTIONS. I THINK THAT IS PART OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING?
A: Yes, that's what I am saying; I am always contradicting myself knowingly, so that nobody can make a consistent philosophy out of me.
Q: BUT IN THE END, WHAT WILL BE LEFT BUT A SERIES OF CONTRADICTIONS?
A: Those contradictions, if you pass through all of them, first will create confusion in you; second, will create a tremendous silence in you. If you persist, if you don't escape from the confusion, they will create a silence in you -- and that silence will be a revelation. So I am not giving a philosophy to people; I am giving a device for them to discover the ultimate silence of existence -- which is meaningless, as meaningless as a roseflower is.
Q: HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
A: I don't want to be remembered.
Q: BUT YOU WILL BE!
A: That is other people's problem.
Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT SET ON YOUR TOMBSTONE?
A: No. Nothing. Once I am gone, I am gone. Then whatsoever my people want to do, they can do.
Q: CAN YOU TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR DAY TO DAY LIFE; WHAT DO YOU DO?
A: First thing to understand about is that whatever I am doing, I am not a doer -- I am always a witness. Taking a bath in my bathroom, there are two persons: one is taking a bath, another is watching. And the watcher is me. The one who is
taking a bath soon will be in a grave. So as far as my inner being is concerned, it is just the same, twenty-four hours. Sleeping, I am watching; talking to you, I am watching; sitting silently in my room for hours, I am watching. So as far as my essential being is concerned, I am only a witness. But the doer is there -- I have to get up in the morning. But I never get up on my own -- I am a lazy person.
Q: WHO WAKES YOU?
A: Somebody takes care of me... she is here: Vivek. She wakes me up at six o'clock in the morning. And then one and a half hours I enjoy my bathroom.
Q: ONE AND A HALF HOURS?
A: One and a half hours -- that is minimum.
Q: WHAT GOES ON?
Great things...
Q: I SAW THE INTERVIEW ABOUT THE VERY ELEGANT BATHROOM AND YOUR INVITATION.
A: Yes, I have not only one bathroom -- I have two, because if something goes wrong with one bathroom, the other is all ready, emergency ready. I cannot miss anything.
Q: WHAT KIND OF EMERGENCY?
A: Just some plumbing problem arising...
Because I cannot miss anything -- I want to take as much out of each moment as it is possible. I love taking a bath(tub), playing with soap bubbles. Albert Einstein discovered everything about the universe, playing with soap bubbles. My one and a half hours is nothing -- he was sometimes six hours in his bathtub.
Q: MAYBE HE HAD TROUBLE GETTING OUT.
A: His wife had trouble getting him out. But because I won't have any wife, there is no trouble.
Q: SO YOU ARE READY FOR THE DAY AFTER?
A: Yes. One and a half hours taking my bath, I am taking my shower. And I have all the best hypo-allergenic soaps, shampoos, conditioners -- I enjoy them immensely.
Q: AND THEN AFTER... DO YOU DO ANY ROBUST WORK, ANY KIND OF EXERCISES?
A: Just a little exercise in my bathroom.
Q: ALSO IN THE BATHROOM...
A: My bathroom is big enough.
Q: AND THEN IS THERE A PERIOD OF STUDY?
A: No. For five years I have stopped studying anything; not even a newspaper -- nothing.
Q: DO YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD?
A: No.
Q: IF I ASKED YOU WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN NICARAGUA OR EL SALVADOR, WOULD YOU KNOW?
A: No -- unless Sheela informs me; that is her duty. She is my secretary; if she feels that something is happening which needs to be informed, then she brings it to me.
Q: IS THERE ANYTHING IN CURRENT HISTORY?
A: Yes, right now she is bringing every information about AIDS, which is significant.
Q: IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING THAT IN SEPTEMBER YOU WILL INVITE SOME VICTIMS OF AIDS TO THE COMMUNE FOR CARE. IS THAT TRUE?
A: Perhaps, perhaps. Spread the gossip.
Q: HOW DO YOU THINK THE SANNYASINS WOULD RESPOND?
A: Just the way they are responding -- they will laugh.... They will laugh, because my sannyasins don't consider death a calamity; it is a celebration, a new beginning.
Q: DO YOU THINK AIDS REPRESENTS SOME COSMIC PUNISHMENT FOR WHAT'S GONE WRONG SOMEHOW?
A: No. There is no punishment in existence and no reward -- each action has its consequence. It depends on you, what you want to call it.
Q: SO AIDS HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE BEYOND ITSELF? IT EXISTS, IT KILLS AND IT MEANS NOTHING MORE THAN THAT?
A: That's all -- nothing more than that; nothing more in it. Religions bring the idea of punishment and reward, and through that they bring heaven and hell and the whole theology: that you are a sinner, that you are a saint. To me, there are only people -- neither sinners nor saints. And everybody has to do what he wants to do. If a person ends up with AIDS it is totally his responsibility; he was doing things which have brought him to a certain end. And he should be perfectly happy with it -- nobody has forced him.
Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THOSE THINGS: HOMOSEXUALITY AND DRUG ABUSE?
A: I don't. Each individual's thinking... as far as I am concerned, anything that is unnatural, anything that is not part of the program or your biology, physiology, is going to lead you into trouble. But you may like the trouble -- you may love the challenge.
I am against homosexuality, lesbianism and all kinds of perversions. But that is my personal opinion. If any individual chooses to be homosexual, there is no condemnation in me for the person. I am not going to throw him into hell; I am not going to judge him. That is his [way]. I have told my opinion; [if] still he feels that homosexuality is the only thing that is appealing to him, then he has every right to be a homosexual.
Q: BUT YOU SEE THAT AS AN UNNATURAL ACT?
A: Not only see -- I say also say that it is an unnatural act. But you are free to do something unnatural.
Q: WHAT FOR YOU IS SEXUAL PERVERSION?
A: It is a religious disease, sexual perversion.... It is a religious disease. All the religions of the world are responsible for it because first they started forcing celibacy on people, which is unnatural. Unless you are impotent, you cannot be celibate. And the strangest thing is: not a single impotent person has become enlightened in the whole history of man.
That means that all these people -- Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishna -- all these people were more sexual than ordinary people. It is their oversexual energy that does not feel contented with women and children and the ordinary, mundane world. After all this experience they are still too full of energy and they want to go on some higher quest. All these people are oversexual.
No impotent person has contributed anything to the world, because he cannot be creative. His basic creative energy, sex energy, is missing. Telling people to be celibate and then putting monks in one place, in one monastery and putting nuns into another place, and not allowing men and women to meet, you are creating the situation for homosexuality. So Catholics are responsible, Hindus are responsible, Buddhists are responsible -- they are creating the situation.
Q: I DON'T THINK CATHOLICS OR BUDDHISTS OR HINDUS ARE ANY MORE LIKELY TO BE HOMOSEXUALS THAN ANYONE ELSE.
A: They have to be. Particularly their monks -- what will they do?
Q: BUT THAT DOESN'T EFFECT NECESSARILY THE MASSES OF PEOPLE.
A: That reflects, because those... for example, in India there are five million Hindu monks. Now these five million Hindu monks are staying in Hindu families, are coming in contact with Hindu children, women -- all kinds of people. And they are bound to spread their perversion in every possible way.
They will be abusing children for their sexuality.
They have been caught: just now, three or four days before, one Christian priest has been imprisoned for one and a half years because he was abusing small children.
Q: BUT THESE SEEM ISOLATED INCIDENTS...
A: They are not isolated. They don't come to your notice -- that is one thing...
because the church wants to repress them, the society wants to repress them, the government wants to repress them. How many homosexual senators do you have?
Q: GOT ME...
A: No information about your senators.
Q: YOU SUSPECT THAT THEY ARE ALL...
A: I know.
Q: HOW DO YOU KNOW?
A: One personally I know.
Q: YOU PERSONALLY KNOW A HOMOSEXUAL UNITED STATES SENATOR?
A: Yes, yes. Yes.... Not only homosexual, perhaps he may have AIDS.
Q: WHO IS THE PERSON?
A: Name I cannot tell you -- that's your work to find out.
Q: HOW DID YOU COME UPON THIS INFORMATION?
A: I will not tell you anything, but one thing I can tell you: that every vested interest is trying in every way to repress such information. For example, the pope before this pope was a homosexual -- everyone in Italy knew. He was a bishop in Milan, and he was always hanging around with a homosexual, and everyone knew. Then he became the pope and that homosexual man who was hanging around him became his secretary, came to Vatican.
Q: WHEN YOU SAY EVERYBODY KNOW, WHO IS EVERYBODY?
A: Because you could have asked in Milan to anybody. These are things which people know, but which will not come to be given as evidence in the court. These are not easily provable things.
Q: BUT PEOPLE SAY THINGS ABOUT YOU THAT MAY NOT BE TRUE.
A: There is no problem. No, no -- you can ask me. I am not a pope and I am not a president and I don't care a bit about any respectability -- you can ask me. And I can put their information. correct. They may not be well informed. I can inform them about myself perfectly well.
Q: THERE MAY BE SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE UNABLE TO SPEAK OF.
A: No -- not a single thing.
Q: PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE...
A: Whatever they say, you just tell me.
Q: THEY SAY THAT YOU HAVE DEVELOPED THIS ORGANIZATION FOR YOUR OWN BENEFIT, THAT YOU ARE A LLIAR, THAT YOU ARE A CHEAT, THAT YOU TREAT PEOPLE UNFAIRLY, THAT YOU HAVE BEEN COARSE AND UNKIND IN YOUR DEALINGS WITH OREGON AND OF ANTELOPE FOR VERY PARTICULAR SELFISH REASONS.
A: So start with one, so I can answer you.... For example, I have not been coarse and unfair to Oregonians; I have been very lenient and very liberal. I should not have been so liberal. And from now onwards I will be coarse and I will show them what roughness means.
Q: HOW HAVE YOU BEEN TOO LIBERAL, TOO LENIENT?
A: We have just been factual -- calling a spade a spade. But now I am going to call a spade a fucking spade -- you can go and tell those Oregonians.
Q: I THINK PEOPLE FEEL THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THAT FOR SOME TIME.
A: No, I have not been doing anything. Go point by point, so I can put you right.
Q: THE POINT WAS THAT THINGS CAN BE SAID ABOUT PUBLIC PEOPLE WITHOUT THERE BEING ANY TRUTH TO WHAT IS BEING SAID.
A: No. But you don't come across a man like me in your public people -- you can ask me and I can answer you directly. For example, you cannot ask your public people; they depend on you, their respectability depends on you. If a senator says he is a homosexual, perhaps next election he is gone. But as far as I am concerned, I am not dependent on anybody in the whole world -- not even your God. So I can simply be true. Only I can be true -- anybody who is dependent cannot be true.
Q: I MIGHT ASK YOU HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE IN THE BANK, AND YOU MAY TELL ME THAT YOU HAVE NOTHING IN THE BANK. I CAN'T TELL WHETHER THAT IS TRUE OR NOT.
A: Just listen to me: you can inquire. Has anybody ever seen me with a single dollar? I don't even have pockets. I don't have even a diary to keep my accounts.
I don't have any connection with any bank in the whole world. You can put your F.B.I. or C.B.I. or whatsoever nonsense you have in America -- if they can find a single bank account of mine, I am ready to be shot. They should inquire. And I am ready -- if they can find a single paise in my name anywhere...
Q: YOUR BEING WILLING TO ANSWER QUESTIONS DOESN'T SETTLE THE ARGUMENT.
A: Nothing settles the argument. Has any argument ever been settled? Is it settled that Jesus was the son of a virgin girl? For two thousand years theologians have been arguing, and he was simply a bastard.
Q: YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IS MORE EASILY DEALT WITH THOUGH...
A: No, this is a simpler case to decide, because a virgin woman giving birth is a simple matter to decide. My case of bank account will take a long investigation.
Q: BUT IT COULD BE DETERMINED.
A: Yes, it can be determined.
Q: THE OTHER CANNOT.
A: The other can also be determined -- I determine it. And no medical person can refuse me.
Q: THAT HAS TO DO WITH MATTERS OF FAITH. WHAT IS YOUR NOTION OF FAITH?
A: Faith is simply for the ignorant and the idiots; faith is not for intelligent people. Intelligent people try to know things. Either they know, or they don't know. If they don't know, they simply accept that they don't know.
Q: BUT PEOPLE SAY THEY HAVE FAITH IN YOU.
A: Nobody can say that.
Q: I TALKED TO MANY PEOPLE HERE WHO SAY...
A: Then they are wrong...
Q: ... WHO SAY THEY TRUST YOU.
A: ... because I am continuously saying to them that nobody should have belief in me, nobody should have faith in me. What more can I do?
Q: IT SEEMS TO ME, THAT MAKES YOU MORE APPEALING TO PEOPEL.
A: So what do you say: Should I start saying to everybody they should believe in me, everybody should have faith in me? -- will that convince you?
Q: I THINK THAT PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO YOU FOR THIS VERY KIND OF CONVERSATION.
A: That is people's business, but as far as I am concerned, I can only do two things: either I can say, "Have faith in me" or I can say "Don't have faith in me,"or I can remain silent. But in all the cases I am guilty. Just look at the situation: if I am silent, you can say I am silent and that is misleading If I say "Don't have faith in me" you say, "They have faith in You because they love Your idea of not having faith in You."
Q: EXACTLY RIGHT, YES. YOU ENCOURAGE QUESTIONING, BUT IS THERE ANY FORMAT SET UP FOR YOU TO BE QUESTIONED BY THE PEOPLE?
A: No format is settled. They have to ask their questions. And there is no need for any format, for the simple reason that I don't come to you or to my people with any answers ready -- your question creates the response in me. So if I know, I will tell you. If I don't know, I will tell you I don't know anything about it.
Q: A SANNYASIN MY FEEL THAT PERHAPS THE MONEY SHOULD BE USED DIFFERENTLY. HOW WOULD THAT PERSON MAKE IT KNOWN TO YOU THAT HE HAS RESERVATIONS ABOUT THE WAY MONEY IS SPENT?
A: I have nothing to do with money, and I have nothing to do with how it is spent.
Q: HAVE YOU NO INFLUENCE IN THE WAY MONEY IS SPENT?
A: No, I have no influence, no information -- that is different corporations, different corporation heads; they have to settle their own things.
Q: I THINK WHEN YOU SAY THAT, PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE SIMPLY DON'T BELIEVE IT.
A: That is their business.... By not believing it, it does not mean that they are right. There is half of the world not believing in God. All the communists around
the world don't believe in God. All the Buddhists in the world don't believe in God. All followers of Jainism don't believe in God. But even that does not prove that God is not. -- neither it proves [does it prove] that God is, because half of the world has faith in God. It simply proves that God is just a bogus word. You can go on arguing about it for millenia and you will not come to any conclusion, because in the first place there was nothing to conclude about.
Q: WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A CAPITALIST?
A: I am a super-capitalist -- without a single cent.
Q: YOU ARE IN A VERY FORTUNATE POSITION.
A: That's why I am known as the Blessed One. I don't have to bother about any taxation. I don't have to bother about any bank account. I don't have to bother to earn, and [know] how to spend -- and still everything is available to me.
Q: HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY YOU HAVE COME INTO SUCH GOOD LUCK?
A: No -- I have simply accepted everything that has come (on) my way. Good or bad, I have accepted it.
Q: DID YOU FORESEE ANYTHING LIKE THIS YEARS AGO?
A: No.
Q: WHAT WERE YOUR HOPES THEN?
A: I am a without-hope person.
Q: NEVER HAD HOPES FOR YOURSELF? NEVER DREAMS AS A YOUNG MAN?
A: No. Just before twenty-one, I had.
Q: WHAT WERE YOUR DREAMS THEN?
A: They were dreams about becoming enlightened, and they were fulfilled. They were dreams about knowing myself, and they were fulfilled. And after that,now I have nothing to dream.
Q: YOUR DREAMS DID NOT HAVE ANY KIND OF MATERIAL ELEMENT IN THEM?
A: No. From the very childhood I was not interested in anything else than myself.
Q: THAT'S UNUSUAL.
A: It is. It is, in such an insane world, to be so sane is...
Q: HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THAT? IS IT YOUR UPBRINGING, YOUR PARENTS?
A: Very difficult to account for it, because my parents were just ordinary people, as everybody's parents are. They tried their best to bring me to their religion. But I was rebellious -- I made it clear to them that 'please leave me alone; let me search for myself'.
Q: WHEN DID YOU BEGIN SAYING THINGS LIKE THAT TO YOUR PARENTS AND WHAT DID THEY SAY TO YOU IN RETURN?
A: Almost when I was four -- I started small. About small things -- it is not only about big spiritual things -- about small things. For example, if my father would say, "You just get out of the room -- don't disturb me." Then there was no way. I would simply refuse and say, "You can go out if you are disturbed. I am not going out of the room alive."
Q: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU DISOBEYED; WERE YOU PUNISHED?
A: I was punished.
Q: HOW?
A: In every possible way corporal punishment was used. I was punished but I was never angry and I had no complaint. I said...
Q: YOU WERE HIT? YOU WOULD BE HIT BY YOUR FATHER?
A: Yes. My father hit me, and he...
Q: WITH HIS HAND?
A: With his hand. And his whole life he repented for that one hit. Only once...
because I had long hairs when I was a small child; I had very long hairs. And my father was in continuous trouble because he was a small shop- keeper, and I was continuously passing through the shop; the house was behind the shop. And everybody will ask, "Whose daughter is this?" That was very much hurting him - - that he has to tell everybody that 'he is my boy, not my daughter'. And one day he became very angry and he said, "This is an unnecessary irritation... and the whole day you are coming in and out. Either you start going through the back door or you cut your hairs." And he hit me.
I simply went to a barber shop just in front of my house. And I told him, "Shave my hairs completely." He was an old opium addict -- otherwise nobody would have cut my hairs completely. So he was in his mood -- he simply shaved my whole head. In India you shave your head completely only when your father dies; otherwise nobody will shave your hairs.
I came back, and before I came back home, others had already reached there, thinking that my father is dead. My father was sitting there, and they said, "What is the matter? I saw your son shaved -- and you are alive!"
Then I reached there and he said, "What have you done?" I said, "This is the answer to your hit. If you are against long hairs, you will be half against small hairs" I said, "Let's satisfy you one hundred percent. So I have shaved them completely. And in the future, remember: if you want to hit me, I will not complain about it, but I will respond in my own way."
Q: SHOULD CHILDREN DEFY THEIR PARENTS?
A: Certainly. If Adam and Eve had not disobeyed God there would have been nothing in the world.
Q: WHEN SHOULD CHILDREN OBEY THEIR PARENTS?
A: Nobody should obey anybody unless your intelligence says it is right. But that is you obeying your intelligence -- not your father, not your mother.
Q: BUT IS A CHILD PREPARED TO DO THAT?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: SO IF A CHILD CHOOSES TO WALK INTO WHAT AN ADULT...
A: Perfectly good. Rather than creating this stupid and mediocre world, it is far better that few thousand children every year jump into the ocean and die -- but leave the world with intelligent, rebellious, vibrant people.
Q: BUT THAT WOULD TERRIFY PARENTS.
A: Let them be terrified! I have terrified my parents -- why should I bother about other parents?
Q: BUT YOU'VE NOT BEEN A PARENT. ISN'T THAT TOO EASY FOR YOU TO SAY?
A: No, because I know my parents and it was not easy for them. In fact I had not been a parent because of them, because they wanted me to be married. I said, "Then there is no way. If you keep quiet, some day perhaps I may get married.
But if you continue in some way persuading me, then there is no way."
Q: IF YOU SAW A CHILD PUTTING HIMSELF OR HERSELF IN DANGER, YOU WOULD NOT REACH OUT TO THAT CHILD?
A: I will tell the child that "there is danger, and you are going into danger; you can die. I can make help available to you if you want, but if you have decided to go into it, then go -- with all my blessings."
Q: YOU WOULD NOT PHYSICALLY RESTRAIN A CHILD WHO INSISTED ON WALKING ON THE RAILROAD TRACKS?
A: No, I will not. I will not interfere in anybody's freedom, whatsoever the freedom is for.
Q: BUT THAT'S ONLY THE FREEDOM TO DESTROY YOURSELF.
A: No.
Q: IN THE CASE OF THE CHILD.
A: This is only one case. The question is: out of a hundred cases there may be one case where your example may be applicable In about ninety-nine cases there is no death involved. Just for one percent I am not going to destroy the freedom of ninety-nine percent of the people.
Q: BUT IS THAT ANY MEANINGFUL LIMIT ON A CHILD'S FREEDOM -- TO PROTECT THE CHILD FROM DANGER?
A: I will tell everything to him, and if he allows me I will help him physically to get out. But if he says that he wants to go into it, that he understands what I am saying, then with all my good wishes he can go.
Q: AND IF PEOPLE SAY THAT YOU ARE TOO DETACHED FROM THE WORLD, YOU ARE MAKING NO SENSE EXCEPT YOURSELF; WHAT YOU SAY REALLY DOESN'T APPLY TO THE BROAD POPULATION?
A: I don't care -- why should it apply? Everybody has intelligence, everybody has to decide for himself. This whole idea that you should interfere in other people's life is being brought by the political leaders, by the religious leaders. They have conditioned the whole humanity that you have to serve others, you have to sacrifice yourself, that you have not to be selfish. My whole approach is that you have to be selfish, and only if you enjoy serving somebody -- serve -- because there is no other reward.
Q: YOUR STATEMENTS ABOUT SERVICE TO THE POOR: YOU'VE SAID A FEW THINGS THAT ARE NOT NECESSARILY CONSISTENT?
A: I am not a consistent man -- you should remember that.
Q: SHOULD YOU BE HELPING THE POOR? ARE WE NOT OBLIGED AS HUMAN BEINGS TO HELP THOSE IN LESSER SITUAITONS?
A: No. All these are just nonsense words: 'human beings' -- where are human beings? Just in theory... Monkeys never became man -- perhaps human monkeys may have become -- but I cannot say Ronald Reagan is a man; a chimpanzee perhaps.
Human beings would not have been in such a stupid state in the first place. Why is there so much poverty? -- those poor people are responsible for it.
Q: THE POOR PEOPLE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN DILEMMA?
A: Certainly, yes.
Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO SOMEONE WHO LIVED IN THE GHETTOS OF NEW YORK OR CHICAGO?
A: I have lived in India which is far worse.
Q: AND WERE YOU SAYING THOSE KINDS OF THINGS?
A: Yes. I have been saying there and they were trying to kill me. They are responsible because they have accepted religious ideas which make them poor.
They have accepted a certain ideology that your poverty is your past life's
punishment: in your past life you have committed bad actions -- that's why you're poor.
Q: I DON'T THINK THAT IS WHAT THE POOR OF THE UNITED STATES BELIEVE, BHAGWAN.
A: No, I don't know about... This they cannot believe, but they also believe that you are born is sin; you are born because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. And the whole humanity has to suffer for it until you repent, until you become Christians, until you become a follower of Jesus, who will persuade God -- because he is the only begotten son of God -- to save you. So the question has been removed from its real context: that there is exploitation. The rich are rich because they know how to exploit. The poor are poor because they are not intelligent enough and not allowed to be intelligent enough so that they are not exploited -- one thing. Second -- the poor go on increasing the population of their own; the rich people don't increase their population.
Q: SO SHOULD THE POOR BE PUNISHED FOR THAT?
A: They are already punished. Who is saying that they should be punished?
Q: WHEN YOU SPEAK THIS WAY YOU SOUND SO UNSYMPATHETIC.
A: I am, I am.
Q: YOU ARE UNSYMPATHETIC TO THE POOR?
A: I am, because those poor are a great calamity on the earth, and they go on producing because they don't have any other entertainment than sex. And they are not ready to listen to me. They are ready to listen to the pope, who goes on saying that birth control is against God, that the pill is the worst thing that has happened to humanity, that abortion is anti-life. They listen to these people, and these people are making them more and more poor.
Q: COULD THE POOR SAVE THEMSELVES BY LISTENING TO YOU?
A: Certainly -- immediately.
Q: HOW WOULD THAT WORK, THOUGH?
A: It would work immediately. For example, in India I had been telling people for thirty years to use birth control methods, to use the pill, to use abortion --
whatsoever prevents population growth. But it goes against their religious ideas, it goes against their tradition.
Q: BUT EVEN IF THEY WERE TO BEGIN PRACTICING BIRTH CONTROL, THAT WOULD NOT PAY THEIR FOOD BILL FOR THE NEXT MONTH. HOW CAN THEY SAVE THEMSELVES NOW BY LISTENING TO YOU?
A: The government was providing for free every birth control method. And in thirty years they have doubled the population. When I started speaking to them they were one four hundred million Indians; now there are eight hundred million Indians.
Q: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POOR TONIGHT; THE PERSON WHO IS HUNGRY TONIGHT, THE PERSON WHO HAS NO MONEY TO PAY HIS ELECTRIC BILL TONIGHT; WHAT CAN HE DO?
A: He should go to the church and first ask the priest there to give him food. Ask your god, ask your savior -- he has been saying that he is coming back. Two thousand years have passed and and he has not come back yet, so 'you give us'.
And your savior was turning stones into bread, walking on water, raising the dead. So why can't the pope do the same? He's his representative, an infallible representative -- he should do all these things. If he cannot, then burn the whole Vatican.
Q: YOU SPEAK WITH SO MUCH DISDAIN FOR JESUS, ALTHOUGH WE ARE IN PART OF THE COMMUNE CALLED JESUS GROVE, AND IN THE PAST YOU HAVE SPOKEN RATHER FONDLY, IT SEEMS TO ME, OF JESUS AS A...
FIGURE. HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND?
A: No. I have spoken about only half of Jesus before; now the remaining half.
Before, I spoke abut the day; now I am speaking about the night -- twenty-four hours I have to finish.
Q: PEOPLE SAY YOU ARE THE GURU OF THE RICH, THE YUPPIES' GURU?
A: People don't say -- I say.... This is actually the fact. That's why I say I am not like other public figures. Nobody -- Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha -- had the guts to say that they are the rich man's guru, and they all were. Buddha had all of the kings of India come to his feet, offer him thousands of acres of land and gardens. He was the rich man's guru but he had not the guts to say it. I have the guts to simply say what is the fact: I am the rich man's guru, because only a rich man can be religious -- a poor man cannot be.
For example, if you ask Albert Einstein, "Can you teach a poor man higher mathematics, physics?" he will say, "How can I? First he has to go through the complete courses of the university and at least have a master's degree in physics.
Then, perhaps I may be able to start from scratch."
Religion up to now has never asked for any qualifications from anybody. And religion is the highest experience in life. This is a strange situation: Only a rich man -- who has lived with all luxuries, all comforts, who has attained to his ambitions and is now feeling that nothing satisfies, that nothing brings the delight he was hoping for -- is ready to go into the direction of religion. A poor man asks for food, a poor man asks for medicine; he does not ask for meditation.
Q: HE HAS MORE IMMEDIATE NEEDS THOUGH, BHAGWAN.
A: And I don't have food to offer him.
Q: BUT IS IT A WORTHY WAY TO SPEND A LIFETIME, MINISTERING TO THE RICH?
A: Only one man in the whole world ministering to the rich, and the religions -- three hundred religions are there -- and all their priests and all their public servants are serving the poor. And just look: one man is looking after the whole rich world so well, and everything is going perfectly well. And all those idiots -- three hundred religions -- and millions of monks and nuns, and what are they doing?
Q: WELL, YOUR JOB IS EASIER THOUGH, ISN'T IT?
A: So I am ready to change. If they have guts, I am ready to change -- I can become the pope, pope can come here.
Q: WHAT WOULD BE THE FIRST THING YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WERE THE POPE?
A: First I will destroy Catholicism completely.... Because if six hundred million people are deleted from the world, we have solved a great problem for poverty.
Q: DO YOU HAVE ANY USE FOR PROSTESTANTISM?
A: I will take them when their number comes. First: Catholics... because Protestantism is nothing much -- it is below my dignity even to condemn them.
Q: YOU DON'T THINK OF MARTIN LUTHER AS A SUBSTANTIAL INDIVIDUAL?
A: Martin Luther was simply a politician, and wanted to be a pope himself.
Because he could not be a pope -- so the protest, and the Protestantism. And that is just a German mind and nothing else. And you cannot think...
Q: WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF A GERMAN MIND?
A: Just zero! Mind and German...? German and mind are contradictory terms.
Q: WHAT KIND OF MIND SCORES HIGHER?
A: Polacks! They are the highest. So just see a single man taking care of the whole world's rich people, without moving out of his place, and all these people are taking care of the poor... And just compare the work of one man against three hundred religions and their millions of servants, and you can see.
In my commune, not a single baby has been born in four years, and I have not told anybody that you have not to give birth. Simply stating that the world is too much populated... you should think -- you are intelligent.
Q: THERE SHOULD BE NO MORE CHILDREN?
A: For twenty to thirty years there should be no children.... Only then can we cut the population to one-fourth of what it is now. And once one-fourth of the population is there, then every couple can be allowed to have two children.
Q: HOW COULD THAT EVER WORK?
A: If it is not going to work, then AIDS will work, then third world war will work.
Q: DO YOU HAVE A VISION OF THE FUTURE THAT INCLUDES A THIRD WORLD WAR?
A: If I am not the alternative, then there is no world.
Q: YOU OR WORLD WAR III?
A: It is me or the whole world. Really, things have come to such a point: either they have to listen me or go to hell.
Whomsoever they have listened to up to now have led them wrong. The politicians have created the nations, the wars, and now the ultimate war -- the third world war -- they are preparing for every day, piling up more and more nuclear weapons. They already have more than are need -- seven hundred times
more. They can destroy the whole earth seven hundred times -- still they are piling up. I don't know what kind of arithmetic these people have learned.
Q: WHAT'S YOUR ADVICE TO RONALD REAGAN IN REGARD TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS?
A: Just drop all those nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean -- that is the meaning of the name 'Pacific Ocean'. Drop all nuclear weapons. Be first and declare that "we are not for war, whatsoever the consequence."
Q: DO YOU FEAR THE SOVIET UNION?
A: There is no problem, nothing to be worried [about]. If the whole world drops war, what can Soviet Union do? Let them conquer the whole world -- what is wrong? Rather than getting destroyed completely, it is perfectly good to have a Soviet government all over the world. What is wrong in it?
Q: IN THIS COUNTRY THERE IS A TERM PEOPLE DESPISE: 'BETTER DEAD THAN RED'
A: So then, be dead; but we have decided to be red. We are not deciding for being dead. So our slogan is: Better to be red than dead.
It is only a question... Just think: if I say [this] to Soviet leaders, they will ask the same question that 'American is going to run over us'. If I say to Americans, they think 'the Soviet Union is going to run over us'. So nobody is willing to do it first, but somebody has to do it first. And America, being a far more intelligent, far younger nation, far more democratic, far more intelligent -- I would like to appeal to America first: that you be the pioneer.
Q: YOU'VE SAID SOME HARSH THINGS RECENTLY ABOUT AMERICA.
YOU SAID THAT VIOLENCE IS THE RELIGION OF AMERICA...
A: I say all kinds of things in different contexts.
Q: YOU'VE SAID THAT "I BELIEVE THAT VIOLENCE IS THE RELIGION OF AMERICA, THAT AMERICA HAS MISTREATED MANY GROUPS: RED INDIANS, BLACK PEOPLE..."
A: That's true.
Q: WHY, THEN, DO YOU REMAIN HERE IF YOU FIND SO MUCH EVIL IN THE UNITED STATES?
A: I will fight it.
Q: WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT, SAY, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION?
A: We are creating the commune of joyous, happy, silent, dancing, singing, loving people. And this commune is going to create a sabotage your whole American Society. If just a small atom can explode and destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then don't think a small commune cannot sabotage the whole American continent.
Q: HOW WILL THAT WORK?
A: You will know only when it has worked. Had you any idea how atom bomb would worked before it worked? Even those who made it had no idea how it would work. Einstein suffered his whole life after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, repenting that,in the first place, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt that atom bombs can be made. He was not aware that so much is possible through a single explosion. And now we have seven hundred times more power to destroy.
This small commune is a life-energy phenomenon. If dead matter can explode...
This type of experiment has never been done; what we are doing here is totally new -- we are creating a certain kind of energy field.
Q: THIS IS WHAT THE EVANGELICALS SAY. REALISTICALLY, DO YOU THINK THAT WILL HAPPEN?
A: Those people have no idea what is going on here. Don't compare with all those retarded people.
Q: LIKE BILLY GRAHAM, FOR INSTANCE?
A: Yes. Billy Graham is the final word as far as retarded people are concerned.
You can even just look at his face, and this is a face of a chimpanzee, not of a man. Well shaved.... Dressed in American way, but he is a chimpanzee. Just undress him and you will find...
Q: WHICH IDEAS OF HIS DO YOU FIND MOST OFFENSIVE?
A: Everything, because I find Jesus a crackpot -- so what about these people. I don't criticize Billy Graham or that kind of people. I think of Jesus as a crackpot, and these are...
Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF REVEREND MOON?
A: He should be sentenced for his whole life, not for one and a half years... and with him, all the other bishops and priests who have signed a petition for him, that he should be released and should not be punished.
Q: ARE YOU DISTRESSED THAT SOMETIMES PEOPLE PUT YOU AND REVEREND MOON IN THE SAME CATEGORY?
A: They can put wherever -- everybody is free to do that. In fact, Moon's and my name mean exactly the same thing: the moon.
Q: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU?
A: Absolute difference -- there is nothing similar. I don't have any god, I don't have any paradise, I don't have a savior, I don't have a gospel, I don't have a holy book, I don't teach a certain theology, doctrine, creed, discipline. On the contrary:
I teach individuality, freedom, doubt, skepticism, agnosticism: these words are anathema to those people like Reverend Moon.
Q: AND YET, IN YOUR COMMUNITY THERE IS A SENSE OF ORDER AND AUTHORITY HERE.
A: There is a sense of order, and that sense or order is coming out of the intelligent people living here. Nobody is ordering.
Q: BUT THOSE PEOPLE SAY THEY DRAW THEIR ENERGY FROM YOU.
A: They can say whatsoever they want to say -- what do I have to do with that?
Nobody is ordering, nobody is trying to enforce a certain system of them. I am simply explaining my experience, my attitude, my approach to life, and leaving it to them. If they want to live, they are free; if they don't want to live, they are free. If they want to be here, good; if they want to go away, that is even better.
Q: I SPOKE TO A YOUNG WOMAN TODAY WHO ONCE SAID THAT, WHILE SHE THOUGHT THERE WAS NOT CHANCE THAT YOU WOULD EVER DO THIS, THAT IF YOU DID AS JIM JONES DID, SUGGEST A MASS SUICIDE, THAT SHE WOULD HOPE THAT SHE WOULD DO THAT. WHEN YOU HEAR THAT, WHAT DO YOU FEEL? WHAT DO YOU THINK?
A: Certainly, that woman is telling her heart. She is not telling anything about me -- she is telling about herself. And as far as she is concerned, you have to ask her.
That is her love for me, but I have not asked anybody to die for me -- I have asked people to live for me.
This is the only place on the earth where Jonestown cannot happen, because I am in total love with life -- with everything that life is. There is no denial, no renunciation of anything. And I would like my people to live as long as possible.
But if somebody feels that way, that is his freedom. What can I do, I...
Q: WOULD YOU CONSIDER THAT A FANATICAL KIND OF RESPONSE?
A: No, not at all. Not at all.
Q: WHY NOT?
A: It is simply her love.
Q: ISN'T THAT A DANGEROUS KIND OF LOVE?
A: Love is always dangerous. So people who are not capable of living dangerously are not capable of loving, either.
Q: WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE JONESTOWN INCIDENT, WHAT DID YOU THINK?
A: I thought this is where Jesus had led people.... This was Jesus's doing. If I get him, I am going to slap him on both his cheeks together, so he cannot give me another cheek....
Because that's the whole conclusion, logical conclusion, of Jesus. Jesus was telling to his people that he is going to his Father's house to prepare a place for them, and then he will come and take them. Now two thousand years have passed; he did not come back.
Now it is simply logical that Jim Jones thinks, "Why bother first going, preparing?" -- it is better to take the whole lot with you. I think this seems to be more logical and mathematical, and if Jesus had done that, that would have been better -- there would have been no Christianity. That would have been a great blessing in the world: if he had taken those twelve fools that he used to call apostles, humanity would have been saved from so much misery and suffering.
Q: YOUR FOLLOWERS HAVE BEEN CALLED FOOLS AS WELL.
A: They are!
Q: DO YOU TELL THEM THAT?
A: Yes. They are here -- I tell them.
Q: THEY JUST DON'T LISTEN THOUGH?
A: They do not. They know me -- they don't care what I say.
Q: YOU ONCE LIVED A VERY SIMPLE KIND OF LIFE; NOW YOU LIVE A VERY OPULENT KIND OF LIFE. WHAT HAPPENED?
A: I am just a contradictory man. One day I can again live a simple life; there is no problem in it. But whatsoever I do, I do it totally.
Q: IS THERE A POSSIBILITY THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL GIVE ALL THIS UP?
A: Every possibility -- any moment, because in the first place, nothing belongs to me, so I have not to give up anything. This watch is given to me for your interview. In my room, I am not... even wearing a watch. The car comes to me when they have to take me here. Nothing belongs to me. Everything belongs to the commune or to the Trust. So in the first place, I am still a poor man -- pretending to be a rich man.
Q: IF YOU GAVE ALL THIS UP, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
A: I will just go to sleep.
Q: PERMANENTLY, OR FOR THE EVENING?
A: Permanently.
Q: WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN TO ALL THIS AFTER YOU ARE DEAD?
A: I don't care, because nobody bothers. When I was not here, I was not concerned abut the world; neither the world was concerned about me. When I am not here, you think only one thing: that I am dead. You forget the other part:
that you are dead for me, too. The connection is finished: The world is no more there for me, just as I am no more there for you. I become absent to you; you become absent to me.
Q: DO YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION?
A: I know; I don't believe. I don't believe in anything.... I know my own past lives. That's why I know there is reincarnation.
Q: WHAT WERE YOUR PAST LIVES?
A: Now, that will be a belief for you, only fiction. And a man who can write three hundred fifty books can write three hundred fifty fictions, also. So that is not much use...
Q: BUT HOW MANY LIVES HAVE YOU HAD IN THE PAST?
A: As many as you want. One thing I can say: I can lead you to the point from where you can look at your past lives -- at least one life -- and that will be proof enough of reincarnation. Telling my stories will not be of any use.
Q: COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLE OF HOW IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST?
A: No. I never give anything which can become a belief in any way.
Q: WHAT ABOUT FUNERAL PREPARATIONS? HAVE YOU MADE SOME ARRANGEMENTS?
A: No.
Q: WOULD YOU WANT TO BE CREMATED IN THE NEW CREMATORIUM?
A: That my people will think of. Who bothers? -- I am gone. People are so much worried about controlling, things, even after their death. When I am not there, this body is just matter. So whatsoever they want to do... if they want to throw it into the river, most probably that will be the right thing.
Q: DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE IN OREGON FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?
A: I don't know. If I get the green card, I may go out. If I don't get the green card, I am going to be here.
Q: YOU'VE GOT THE PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA WORRIED NOW, I UNDERSTAND?
A: In the whole world I have my communes, but everywhere I will have the same problem, so first I will have to settle here. If the green card is settled here, then I will go to Australia to fight again -- whatever card they have.
Q: THE LAST THING, BHAGWAN: DO YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FOR THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA?
A: I certainly have a message. Because America is not an old country like India, which has existed for thousands of years and has a burden of a long past, prejudice, conditioning. America is just a child compared to a country like India or China -- three hundred years mean nothing.
America has a very superficial layer of conditioning. If it can drop that conditioning -- being Christian, being Jew, being American -- America can become the first country of the world opening the doors for a new humanity. It is a risk thing, dangerous, but only America is young enough to take the risk.
Drop all religions, drop the boundaries of the country, throw away all nuclear weapons, declare to the whole world that "we are no more for war -- if anybody wants to invade us, we will welcome them."
Q: IF YOU WERE AN AMERICAN CITIZEN AND YOU CHOSE TO VOTE; WOULD YOU BE A REPUBLICAN OR A DEMOCRAT?
A: I will be simply what I am. I cannot conceive myself in any other role....
They both are the same type of people -- this is just a political conspiracy. It depends on a certain psychology of people, and democracy is using it.
People's memory is very short -- three years. So four years, five years, one party rules, and naturally it cannot fulfill all the promises that it has given to the people. It starts falling in people's eyes, and for five years the other party has been giving promises that "we will do what they have not done." So after five years, the other party comes on top, and this game goes on playing. Those two parties are conspirators, shareholders in the same company. It is a rotation of a wheel.
I don't see any difference in their ideology; I don't see any difference in their principles; I don't see any difference in their faces -- they are all the same people, playing a game. It is a football: one time on this side and one team on that side. It doesn't make any difference to me.
I am against parties. I want democracy to be partyless. Unless it is partyless, it cannot be democracy -- it is only temporary dictatorship. Four years, five years or whatsoever time in different countries... You give to a party four years' dictatorship: it is temporary dictatorship; it is not democracy.
Democracy will be possible only when there are no political parties and each individual decides on his own. Nobody is going to campaign, nobody is going to convince him. He is not a party member; he has not to follow a party line -- he has to decide himself.
Q: RONALD REAGAN THINKS HE PRESIDES OVER A DEMOCRACY. IS HE INCORRECT?
A: Absolutely incorrect. He does not preside over Rajneeshpuram.
Q: IS HE A DELUDED MAN?
A: He is... senile.
Q: HE'S TOO OLD TO BE PRESIDENT?
A: He really should go back to cowboy work, cowboy films, to Hollywood -- don't waste the time of the world unnecessarily. Even as a cowboy actor, he was a third class actor.
Q: YOU LIKE MOVIES, ISN'T THAT RIGHT?
A: Once in a while, if my people suggest them to me.... Perhaps one or two which I liked. One was "The Brothers Karamazov." That is Dostoevsky's novel that I have always loved, and I consider it more valuable than the holy bible. Another was "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy. That is a masterpiece of genius. So once in a while, if somebody sees something beautiful that they would like my time to be wasted on, they bring it.
Q: I READ SOMEWHERE THAT YOU LIKED "PATTON" AND "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS."
A: "Ten Commandments" I liked, as a film!
Q: YOU DIDN'T LIKE THE BOOK!
A: No. 'Commandment' -- the very word -- is not for me.
Q: DO YOU SPEND MUCH TIME LOOKING AT VIDEOS?
A: No.
Q: AND YOU'RE NOT READING ANYTHING ANY MORE?
A: No, for five years I have not read anything, but before five years I have read as much as people will read in five lives.
Q: THANK YOU.