Chapter 19

[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 BY DER SPIEGEL

A: It is not the classical return of the native, because I don't belong to any nation.

The whole earth is my home.

So I don't consider any part of the world as foreign to me.

And right now I have not decided where to settle. My people are looking for places around the world; in two weeks time perhaps it will be decided where I will be.

A: No.

A: It was not ignominy.

If it was ignominy, then what was Jesus Christ when he was crucified; that was thousandfold ignominy.

Then what it was when Socrates was poisoned. It was not ignominy; it was simply a reward to be rebellious, to be intelligent, to belong to the world of Socrates and Buddha.

I don't consider it as an ignominy.

A: Yes, I take it in the stride.

And it has been a great experience. I have learned much out of it.

They may have been doing their worst, but I have turned their worst into my best experience - and that is one of my teachings, how to turn the worst into the best.

It has shown me the two face of America, which I would have never seen outside the jail.

Outside the jail there is a mask of democracy.

The same people inside the jail immediately change their mask, and start behaving like any fascist.

I have also seen in the jails the beauty and the humanity of the people who are confined there - the criminals. They are far more human, far more superior than the people who are the jailers, the administrators, the bureaucracy.

So it has been a good experience.

The American idea of democracy has disappeared from my mind; it is simply a hypocrisy.

A: Yes.

A: No. It has become stronger.

A: No. Those who have deserted me have come back.

A: It always becomes. It is a simple psychology. It has become stronger because the people who have left fell again in love with me, the people who were only sympathizers became sannyasins, the people who were just interested in my ideas but had no idea to be part of my movement are now approaching me to be part of the movement.

America has helped immensely my movement, and I have opened my doors of the movement - now there will be no need for the red clothes, no need for the mala; so that a wider section of humanity can participate in this immense event.

A: Yes.

A: There is no contradiction.

They are fascist, but their fascism has helped me because their fascism has opened many peoples' eyes about them, about me.

Without any warrant they arrested me. Without showing any cause, they arrested me. They had no valid reason to keep me in the jail without trial.

For twelve days they kept me in jail, changing from one jail to another - without any trial, avoiding trial.

A: They had, but they were trying to avoid to reach the place and taking me from one jail to another, then another. Five jails they changed just to take as much time - because they knew perfectly well that before the judiciary they cannot prove any crime against me. They had none.

And that's what happened. The moment they produced me, they had nothing to prove.

So it was a strategy to just harass me even before trial, to punish me - for no crime.

They asked me to sign under the name "David Washington" and I said, "This is absolutely illegal; that is not my name. And you are U.S. marshall. On your coat is written 'Department of Justice.' What kind of justice is this - that you are forcing me to sign under a name which is not my name."

He said, "Either you sign it, or you will be sitting in this office the whole night on the cold, hard steel bench; and you know your trouble of the back. Either you sign it, or you sit here. Whenever you sign, we will give you a bed to sleep."

So I told him, "You write the name - because I cannot write the name."

Just to make a document that... the U.S. marshall has in his own writing, written the whole form. And I have signed my own name, I have not signed 'David Washington.'

This was their strategy, so that on the board my name does not appear, so nobody knows where I am.

I asked them, "Can I contact my attorneys?"

He said, "No; but your attorneys can contact you."

I said, "You seem to be a very intelligent man. How my attorneys can contact if they don't know that my name is David Washington? And naturally your receptionist will say to them that nobody like me is in the jail. I cannot contact the attorneys. The attorneys don't know my name even.

You just try to tell me how it can be possible."

And he said, "I don't want to talk and argue with you. And it is better for you that you don't argue about anything; otherwise, things will be worse for you."

I said, "I don't care for any worse things, because all that you can do is torture my body but you cannot torture me.

A: Certainly. A man who has nothing in his hands is being arrested by twelve guns surrounding him.

And I asked them that, "What is the point of these twelve guns? Even one gun would have been enough. I don't have any weapon. Do you want to show me your power? This shows your impotence, that even a single person without any weapons you have to arrest with twelve loaded guns. And what is your fear of me and my commune? You are the greatest nuclear power in the world. You are afraid of a man who has not done anything wrong. On the contrary, who has contributed to America something beautiful.

We transformed a desert into an oasis. We made it self-sufficient for five thousand people. We made it green. We made dams and lakes. We changed the whole face of it.

For fifty years nobody was ready to buy it - and it was not a small land, it was one hundred twenty-six square miles.

We made the roads, we made the houses, we made everything by our own hands - just by sannyasins. Nobody from outside.

And it was one of the most beautiful town, centrally air-conditioned with all he comforts, with all the modern facilities, and people were so happy - that those that came could not believe that people can be so happy working the whole day and still dancing in the night, singing in the night, playing their guitars.

If this is a crime, then certainly you can arrest me; but what crime is this? If I have made five thousand people houses, roads, buses, airplanes, cars - everything available, and they are living happily and joyously, and in a very contemporary way.

In four years time not a single baby is born because they understand the world is too much populated.

In four years time not a single crime has been committed - no rape, no murder, no suicide, not a single man has gone mad. And these are the American ways of life - rape, murder, suicide, madness.

In five thousand people not a single man is a beggar.

America has thirty million street people. They don't have any roof, they don't have floors, they don't have bread for tomorrow; and they are the source of all crime obviously.

In a city where no crime has existed for four years - the city judge is there sitting doing nothing, the city police is there, they have not been able to catch a single person in four years. If you call this crime, then I don't think what you are doing.

A: My people are non-violent.

They were protesting in their own ways.

Many sannyasins were fasting unto death. They were meditating continuously around the jails, wherever I was. Around the world sannyasins were sending thousands of telegrams, telephones, to the president, to me, that this is absolutely ugly; and this degraded America's image.

But my people are not violent. They will not do anything which has something to do with violent protest. And I love that they never threw a single stone at the White House; I love that rather than that, they went on fasting, they sat there meditating but they never did anything.

Silently they made available themselves. They asked the government that, "If you don't release Bhagwan, then we are already voluntarily to be arrested. We would like to be with him in jails rather than to be outside without him."

And this is what I want, that this should happen; and this should.

A: Yes.

A: It seems.

A: Yes. There are other incidents also - looking backwards after this bomb.

They knew my back is a problem. They were driving me in such a rash way to hurt my back as much as possible - sudden stop, then sudden rash. I told them that, "You know that my back is bad, and your cars are not so good and you're hurting me. My hands are chained, my waist is chained" - and they were chaining my waist exactly where it hurt on my back. So the chain was there and the back seat is there. "And you suddenly stop - my legs are chained, I cannot do anything. I cannot even move. And your chains are hurting my back." But they won't listen.

They put me in a jail with a prisoner who had lived alone in the cell - which was meant for two persons - for six months. He had high risk confirmed herpes, incurable, and very easily infectious. They put me with that man. I had no idea.

Just another inmate wrote a note to me that, "Bhagwan, they are putting you there knowingly because for six months they have not put anybody else in the cell because that man is dying of herpes and he is a serious risk. To be in that small cell with him, to use the same sink, to use the same toilet, it is risky, it is dangerous."

I showed the note to the jailer and I said, "You must remember that you cannot keep me here always. Soon I will be out, and soon the whole world will know what you have been doing with me. And your doctor has been here to check me, and he is also part in the conspiracy - because he knows the man has herpes.

You know the man has herpes. The whole jail knows the man has herpes."

Even the man - because he was from Cuba, could not write English - he also tried to inform me that, "Bhagwan, they have put you in danger.

I am dying, and they want you also to die."

A: Indirect means. Direct means will expose them. Indirect means, and this plan was their last resort.

They were waiting, if the court decides me not to bail out then everything is okay. If the court decides me to bail out, then this bomb will finish me.

And the bomb was in such a place where only authorities can put it. Nobody can enter there. There are three gates; you cannot enter.

And when I went there to take my clothes, the whole ground floor was absolutely empty - which it had never been. I asked the man that, "What is the matter? There seems to be nobody today. Is it a holiday or something?"

He said, "No, nothing; that it is shift (inaudible) More people will be coming."

I said, "Shift always happens when the new people come in and then the old people leave. Why the old people have left before?"

He said, "I don't know."

When I went in, there was only one man - who gave me my clothes and said that, "I am going out to take the signature of my boss."

I had never been for twelve days left alone, although I was chained completely - hands, legs, my waist, and my hands were also chained with my waist chain so I could not even move my hands. Still, two of the man were always by my side.

This was the first time I was without chains left alone. The man locked the door from the outside.

And in the same room the bomb was found, just they missed the right timing because they could not figure out what time the court will be finished.

But it didn't blow up because...

(The remainder of Tape side A is inaudible.)

(Tape side B)

(inaudible)... they could not prove it. In Carolina court they could not prove it.

So six people who were with me were released immediately, but they insisted that I should not be released. This is strange, because if the allegation is not proved then why I should not be released. They insisted that I should be released only by Oregon court. Then why these six people are being released?

But the magistrate was a woman, and she was waiting for a increment.

She was waiting to become a judge. So they could pressurize her. They made it clear to her that, "If you release this man then your..."

A: Tremendous element of corruption.

And this was told me by the jailer, by the sheriff, by my doctor in the jail, my nurses - they all said the same thing, that this is what has happened; "That woman was not capable enough. She was pressurized. And this is harassment - relieving your six people, and just keeping you makes no sense." Either keep all the seven if you want to decide it on Oregon...(inaudible) ... Or just leave all the seven and have the trial in Oregon, no problem.

But they wanted me to keep alone so they can harass me into jails, from one place to another place.

One of the airplane pilots told me - Airplane pilot, that is U.S. marshall's airplane - that, "We understand how you are being harassed. Our routes are being changed so that we never reach Oregon. So we have to drop you somewhere from where our route is changed - suddenly; otherwise, we have reached the first day evening in Oregon. These twelve days you would not have suffered, but they have been continuously doing it. They will not say us. Exactly at an airport they will inform that, "You have to go south. You have to go here, you have to go there. And we know that why they are doing this. This has never been done. This is for the first time that the route which was determined has been changed."

So they were just trying to harass me in every possible way.

They will put me in a cell between two television sets, and these two television sets will start six in the morning up to twelve in the night with full speed. So there was no possibility of sleeping in the day.

A: No. Nothing you can ask them that they will do.

And this is an American jail

A: Yes. It is third degree method.

And when at twelve the televisions will stop, then they have managed the inmates to talk loudly from cell to cell. So that I could not sleep for twelve days a single moment.

A: Not at all.

Anybody would have gone mad if it was not I.

I was simply lying down with my eyes closed, relaxed, not bothering whether the sleep comes or not, not bothering about what is happening - just watching whatever happens.

But their strategies were such.... They will put into a cell where twelve persons are chain smokers. And I am so much allergic to the smoke - and they knew my whole medical background, because I had already given them in my application that these are my troubles; that tears will be flowing twelve days continuously from my eyes, eyes were red, no sleep, tears were flowing of eyes. My throat was choked, I was coughing; and I was wondering that any moment my asthma attacks can start again and then it becomes a troublesome thing.

And no sleep, no rest; my back is hurting. They will not give me a pillow, they will not give me a blanket, they will not give me a bedsheet - which was given to all inmates. They will give me just a dirty bed mattress, and they will say, "This is all that we can give to you."

A: They never gave me anything. They did not even allow my name into their registers. What....

A: No. Just once. And that too is very tricky. I told to the doctor that, "My problems are my allergies, my asthma, my diabetes, my back. So you please check these things - because what you are checking are not my problems."

They checked my temperature. I said, "I don't have any temperature."

So normal.

They will take my blood pressure; normal.

And they will declare to the press that I am absolutely normal.

They will check only things which were normal, and they will avoid things which were my problems.

A: You can ask my personal physician. He is one of the best physicians of England, member of the Royal Society of Physicians.

A: There was no way for her to know what medicines have been given to me.

Only on one time when I went from India to America she was with me, and at that time I remember Devaraj has given me medicines just because my pain was too much and I could not sleep - and the journey was long, to keep me completely asleep the whole journey.

That is the only time she must have known what medicine has been given to me.

A: These are absolute lies.

A: She is going nuts.

I don't possess anything. Even my dress I don't possess; it belongs to the commune.

And I use watches only made by my own people. This watch from Piaget will be quarter million dollars, but this is not Piaget - anybody can be deceived, and these are not real diamonds, they are just stones. And my own people have made it. It has no value at all as far as money is concerned, but it is invaluable as far as their love is concerned.

I use only my own people's things - from my shoes up to my cap everything is made by my own people.

All she is talking is absolute nonsense.

You can see it is not a Piaget watch.

A: It is made by my followers, and I will not sell it any price - and still it does not belong to me anyway. I cannot sell it. Still it belongs to the commune.

This misunderstanding she has been spreading, that I have ninety Rolls Royces -

A: Ninety-three. They all belong to the commune. I have never gone even to the garage to see those ninety-three Rolls Royces.

Whenever I go for a public discourse, they bring a car; or I go for a press conference, they bring a car. What I will do with ninety-three Rolls Royces? That is simply stupid. But people around the world has donated. I cannot accept because I don't possess anything, and I don't want to possess anything.

I am as naked as I was born, and I will die as naked as I am now.

So I told people that, "If people are donating Rolls Royces for me, then make a trust and it becomes a asset to the commune. If they are donating watches to me, make a trust and it becomes a asset to the commune. But I will be using only my people's things that they have made."

A: There was nothing in the letter.

All that she wrote was, she had come back from Australia and she wrote that she does not feel anymore the same excitement coming here as she feels in Europe, in Germany, in Singapore, in Japan, in Australia. That was the whole note.

The person who has brought it to me, I told the person, "Tell Sheela that I have been watching it even without your note; that since I have started speaking, the whole commune has been in a tremendous joy. After three and a-half years silence they can again talk to me, ask questions; and I am again available to me. But I have watched that you have been sad."

She never wanted me to speak. She was insisting again and again that it will go against my health.

I said, "What I will do with my health? Even I cannot say what has remained to be said, then what is the reason of being alive and being healthy? So it will be better if I live five years less but I complete my way of life and its philosophy."

So against her will I started speaking.

The reason why she did not want me to speak was that for three and a-half years, when I was in isolation and silence, she has all the power; and she was representing me - to the press, to the television, to the radio, to the whole world.

Once I started speaking, she is nobody.

And in three and a-half years she has accumulated a great ego, that she is somebody, a celebrity.

So when the note was brought to me, I told to the person that, "It would have been better if she had come herself. This is cowardly. She is just two minutes drive from my place. She could have come, or she would have asked me to come - there is no problem. But sending a note, just tell her that, "The reason why she does not feel excited here is that here she is nobody; that great image she has made of herself has fallen. She feels good in Europe because she is still my representative - in my name she is still somebody big. But remember I can come to Europe also, and your joy will disappear.

So that joy is not your joy. It is dependent on me, and anything that is dependent is not worth of anything." And I told her that, "You have been in power for three and half years. Now enjoy being powerless. And it has more beauties and more joys, but give it a chance."

But she was not willing to listen.

Next day she left with her small group that was supporting her, and now she is spreading all kind of lies.

A: She was just a secretary to me.

There was no other kind of relationship.

And I had chosen her my secretary for the simple reason that she has been in America long time, she was married in America, so she was a permanent residence. Secondly, she was Indian so she will be able to communicate with the Indians who were coming to the commune; and she will be able to communicate with the Americans and the American government and the authorities. That was simply the reason - that she was able to do both; otherwise, Indians who are coming will feel completely abandoned, nobody will be looked after.

And if I choose some Indian then that Indian will not know the laws and the ways and the American lives.

And she had known both. She was born in Indian, brought up in India, and then for years she was in America - married there, educated there. So she was perfect.

And she had a certain quality.

She was not in any way spiritual.

A: No, not at all. She was not interested in meditation, she was not interested in any high values - but that was a qualification in the beginning.

I knew that I have to change her sooner or later. She was absolutely materialistic.

But for the foundation you need only stones - ugly, uncut, unpolished. And she was like that.

So I - I was waiting, that one day, even if she had not left, I would have asked her to resign for a better person - because the foundation is laid, now we have to make the temple and you are not capable of it.

A: It was simply for five years I have not been reading anything - no book, no newspaper, no radio, no television. I have stopped getting any information from the world. But I have told my people that if you feel something is very significant for the humanity-at-large, you inform me.

So my medical staff informed me that this disease AIDS is spreading fast, and there is a possibility that it may destroy most of the humanity before nuclear weapons are used.

They brought all the research that has been done on AIDS.

In that research I found that sexual intercourse is not the only thing that the disease can be contacted. Even kissing - the saliva is a carrier.

Even tears are a carrier. So you may be absolutely innocent - somebody is crying, just a baby, and you wipe the tears and you may not be aware and those tears can get mixed with your food and somehow get into you; then you can be infected.

So I told my people that if tears and saliva, things like that, are infectious - and the disease has, up to now, no cure; and the scientists say there seems to be no possibility either in future that there will be a cure, it is incurable. Then it is better to avoid it.

And kissing is not something natural, because Eskimos don't kiss - they rub their noses. In fact, when for the first time they saw Christian missionaries kissing, they could not believe it - that how unhygienic, unhealthy. If you think about it, then it looks unhygienic, and unhealthy, and stupid; then noses look far more cleaner.

A: Yes. I have suggested it, that it is better to rub the noses - unless somebody has a cold, because that can create the trouble. Any liquid coming out of the body can be a carrier.

And the oldest Indian book on sexology, five thousand year old, the sutras of Vatsayana, has many other methods. It says if you rub each other's ear lobes they are more erotic than lips. So I said, "They are absolutely hygienic and they never have any cold. They don't bring any liquid of the body." So be just intelligent.

I have nothing against kissing.

It was simply to protect the people from unnecessarily getting into a disease which has no cure.

And my commune perhaps was the only one in the whole world that took all the measures against the disease.

A: Yes. Five thousand peoples went through tests because I made it absolutely clear that anybody who is found with AIDS will be respected the same as he was respected before, he will not be a condemned person. He is just a victim, unknowingly something has happened. What can you do.

We found two persons having AIDS. We made beautiful houses for them at the most scenic place in our land, and we made everything that they wanted - because their life span was not more than two years, six years most probably - at the most two years. So I asked them that if they want anything, that they wanted to do in their life, they wanted to have in their life, they just ask, the commune will provide. "And you are perfectly respected. You can come to the meetings, but please don't touch anybody physically." They were coming to the meetings, and they were happy that they are not condemned.

I told all the homosexuals in the commune that, "You declare." Whoever is a homosexual should declare, and they declared - because they all felt for the commune. And I told them that, "Now you should start moving in heterosexual sexuality; homosexuality is ugly, unnatural, it is a by-product of your so-called religions."

They forced celibacy on people, and they forced monks to live separately, nuns to live separately, and that was the cause of homosexuality. And out of homosexuality this is the ultimate outcome.

So I call AIDS a religious disease, and I tell that the popes, the shankaracharyas, the Ayatollah Khomeini, these are the people who are the criminals. They should be punished, and celibacy should be a crime; only then we can get rid of homosexuality.

In other cities in the world the things were totally different. First, nobody was ready to go through the test - because who knows, he may have AIDS. Then even his own wife, his own children, his own parents, his own family will close the doors. Even his own friends will turn into enemies. He will be thrown out of the job. So nobody was ready to go through the text. No hospital was ready to admit any patient of AIDS because doctors were afraid, nurses were afraid, other patients were afraid. No government was ready to declare that how many AIDS patients you have - because that means condemnation of that nation. So it is a very dangerous phenomenon. And nobody wants to bring it into light, and any disease that goes on underground in darkness is bound to spread like a wildfire - - and you will never know. You may be just kissing a friend, without thinking of sex at all; you may be just wiping the tear of a small child - because just now they have found three children born with AIDS. So now it is....

That was the reason I told that kissing should not be intelligent.

A: The reason is that humanity has lived under sexual repression.

Repress anything and your mind becomes focused on it. For example, if it said to you that, "Don't eat apples" then your mind will start fantasizing about apples.

This is the whole beginning of the Biblical story. God is responsible because he told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. Now, in that vast garden of Eden I don't think Adam and Eve would have been able, even up to now, to find those two trees; but God pointed them and that creates curiosity, a certain infatuation. Those two trees became the most important trees in the whole garden. And why God is prohibiting them?

Sex has been prohibited by all religions in some way or other.

A: Discouraged, condemned, called a sin; and celibacy has been raised to saintliness, spirituality.

It has created a very schizophrenic state in humanity.

You cannot destroy your sexuality. You are born out of it. Your every cell is sexual, and your biology does not understand your principles and theologies and your religions. You may go on talking about celibacy, but your body goes on creating male sperms. What you are going to do with them?

So either it will take some repressive form - it will become homosexuality, it will be lesbianism, it can become even sodomy - you may make love to animals, which looks so ugly.

But the whole responsibility goes to religions.

And if you don't do anything of this, that even a man like Mahatma Gandhi was having nocturnal emissions at the age of seventy. But somehow those sperms have to get out because new sperms are being created. And you have only a small space, they have to vacate it for the new ones to come.

So when I spoke on sex and I told that there is nothing sin in it, it is a normal, natural thing - like anything - eating, sleeping, walking. It is just part of you, and the most important part because it reproduces, it is creative. If anything in you is most important, it is your sexuality.

So rather than condemning it, there are ways to transform it.

My book on sex is not in support of sex. It is against repression, and it is in support of bringing meditation and sexual energy together.

A: It is possible.

That is what has happened in India; only in India, a school for thousands of years has been here called 'tantra'. That is the whole effort, and I think tantra is something that has to be brought to the whole world again, to every individual - because it teaches you that while making love you can also meditate, and if meditation and love-making mix into each other your sexuality starts changing its quality, it starts moving upwards. Then it is no more interested in women or men; now it is finding far more juicier spaces, more more luminous spaces. It can reach to the ultimate point of illumination, what we call enlightenment.

The book is about enlightenment. The name of the book is "From Sex to Superconsciousness" but nobody bothers about superconsciousness.

The interest of the people simply shows their mind.

And you will be surprised that Christian priests, Hindu monks, Jaina monks, Buddhist monks, nuns - they have all been reading the book. Nobody is interested in the other books; they are all reading. That book has been sold the most, has been translated in almost all the languages; and the purchasers are the religious people.

One thing more in concern with it, that it was condemned by the religious leaders, and strangely it was also condemned by the people who create pornographic literature. And this is something to be understood - because if I am right, then there will be no pornography. If I am right then there will be no monks and no nuns, and with them the pornography also disappears.

Pornography exists only because of repression.

It is such a simple truth to see - that "Playboy" is against me.

A: They will run out of business.

So that means the pornography and the so-called religious leaders are in a subtle, unconscious conspiracy against whole humanity.

A: I have never lived with plans. I live moment to moment. I never think of the past, and I never think of the future - because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. Only this moment exists. The next moment I keep open. So whatever happens is good.

I have no regret, no complaint. Whatever has happened has not disappointed me because I was not planning for something else. I had never planned; that has kept me absolutely unburdened, free and light - just like a white cloud, with no destination, with no goal, just floating wherever the wind takes it.

So wherever the life takes me, I am absolutely available; but I don't have any plan.

A: Thank you. Come again whenever you feel like.