Chapter 22

[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 ANAND BAZAR PATHIKA, CALCUTTA

A: It is a very complicated question. It looks very simple....

Man can be divided in three layers: physical, psychological, spiritual - and there is one more, which has never been named by the mystics down the ages; in India it is called the turiya. In English, we can call it "the fourth." And I call my way also the way of the fourth.

I am the fourth, you are also the fourth. One may know it, one may not know it; but the fourth is our reality, it is our consciousness. It is the highest evolution in existence. Once you know the fourth, the other three are separate from you.

I can see I am tortured, but I don't feel I am tortured. I can see I am hungry but I don't feel I am hungry; the body is hungry and I am aware of it. So these twelve days have been immense significance to me. I really feel thankful to the fascist government in America for giving me this opportunity.

They harassed, they tortured; in every direct and indirect way they tried to hurt me, but they were very much puzzled - one of the jailers asked me, "What is your secret? Because you are being put in conditions which are against your body; you are put with people who won't allow you to sleep the whole night.

You are put by the side of two television sets - from six morning up to twelve in the night full speed they will go on - and after the televisions have stopped then the inmates will start talking cell to cell. Now twelve cells are there; the first cell man is talking to the twelfth cell man - of course they have to shout, loudly.

For twelve days they did not allow me to sleep for a single moment. But I looked as relaxed - that's why he had asked, that what is the secret?

I said, "The secret is simple: I simply go on watching what is happening. I am not thinking in terms that you are doing it to me - I am apart. You are doing to somebody and I am a witness, why should I be worried? You can kill me, but you cannot disturb me.

"You can poison me, but I will drink it the same way as I drink a glass of juice; it will not create any chaos in me, any fear in me. Because I have come to know that my reality is immortal, there is no way to destroy it. There is no secret, and if you want to learn the secret then come to my commune and learn meditation."

Physically, I lost weight - in twelve days, eight pounds. Because the food I inquired always they said it is not available. Which was not true, because other inmates told me, "It is available; not only available, we will make you available."

I asked for fruits, fruits are not available. And within fifteen minutes other inmates will bring apples and other fruits, and they will say, "They are all available to us, why they are not available to you?"

Vegetarian food is not available. I said, "I don't ask anything special, just vegetable salad, curd, or milk, bread or yogurt..."

"Difficult. We cannot manage for one person. We have to look for four hundred people."

So I said, "Then whatever you can manage and then I will see whatever I can eat from it." So twelve days I was almost fasting, just drinking water sometimes....

The inmates made me available juice - that was a miracle, that the jailer says he cannot make, and inmates bring me bottles of juice! And this gave me also a beautiful experience of the people who are called criminals; they are far more human than the people who are in the bureaucracies of the world.

I will ask for a toothpaste and two days it will take. And if toothpaste will come then toothbrush will not be there. I will ask for a soap and it will come by the time when I am leaving for another jail. But the inmates heard it and they will bring from their own; they will say, "This is absolutely fresh, we have not used; you can see it is closed. Bhagwan, if you can accept it, it will be a great joy to us."

In every jail I found the criminals more human, more loving... more capable of spiritual growth than the bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy was absolutely ugly. And with the mask of democracy, it becomes more ugly. If you are straightforward and you say that you are a dictatorship, then I have nothing to say about it. But you pretend to be democratic, and then you use such methods....

For example, they put me in a cell with a person who was suffering from high- risk confirmed herpes. And for six months they had not put another prisoner with him, the doctor won't allow. And the doctor was present, the jailer was present when I was given the cell.

Now I cannot see who is more human - the doctor, the jailer, or the person himself? He was from Cuba, so he was unable to speak English much. But he wrote on a piece of paper that, "Bhagwan, they are torturing you. I am confirmed case of herpes and they are hoping that by keeping you here with me you may catch herpes. I will try to keep everything clean, whatever I can do, but it will be good you call these dogs again and tell them."

I called the jailer again and showed him the slip and told him that "The doctor was here; for six months you have not put anybody here. And I am not even a prisoner - I have not even been trialed; you are simply holding me without any trial. And you put me with this man; what do you think - I am going to live here forever? Tomorrow I am going to be out and I will see you, that the whole world press will know about it."

Immediately, without saying anything - and I said to the doctor, that "Doctor, you don't have the heart of a man. This patient is more human than you. It would have been far better that you should have suffered from herpes than he is suffering."

In one of the biggest jails - in the middle of the night I reached there - and they asked me to fill the form. But my name will be David Washington.

I said, "Why my name should be David Washington? I have my own name." And this is coming from the U.S. Marshall, and I told the man that "You are the law enforcement authority in the country. On your coat is written 'Law of Jurisprudence; Department of Justice.' What kind of justice is this? You are making me lie."

He said, "Whatever you say, no argument is going to help you. Either you sign it or you sit on this hard bench, and we know about the condition of your back.

This hard steel bench for your whole night... otherwise we can arrange a cell and you can sleep. But you will have to sign."

I said, "I will sign. You fill the form, because I don't know even the spelling of David Washington. You fill the form." He could not understand my idea; his idea was that on the board there will be no mention of me, so even if they kill me, or if something happens to me there will be no way to find out where I disappeared, what happened. Because none of my name entered in the jail at all.

So I made him write "David Washington" and every information and I signed in Hindi my own name. He looked at the name but he could not figure it out, what it is. And I told the press that "You can go and see: You can ask, "Who is this David Copperfield and what is this sign?" - because my sign are known all over the world - "And how it happened? And why you managed to force him?"

One girl who was going to be released was listening to all this, and I told him, "You will not be able to keep me here long." The girl went out.... because every prison wherever they went to put me was followed by the press, by the media.

And the news media immensely helped me, and for the first time I understood that no television, no radio should be under government control, it is dangerous.

Because televisions, the radios, the newspapers, they all forced the fascist bureaucracy not to harm me. In the morning, the first news was on the video, on the radio that I have been forced to sign under a false name. They immediately changed the jail, because then it was dangerous; now David Copperfield is there.

If they ask "Where is David Copperfield?" they cannot produce. And all over the news is there that I am there behind David Copperfield. In the early morning, immediately I was taken to another jail. This continued in twelve days for....

Q: YOU WERE KEPT IN TWELVE JAILS...?

A: No, five jails.

Q: WHAT IS THE MOTIVE BEHIND THAT?

A: The motive was simple: The motive was to harass me to such a point that even my people.... Five thousand sannyasins has made a beautiful commune, a dream come true - and they were afraid of that commune. The commune was becoming a pain in the neck of the politicians, because so many things had happened in the commune that they could not conceive how it is possible.

Nobody was poor, nobody was rich, and there was no dictatorship, nobody was forcing that you have to distribute your riches.... A simple method I had used, and that was that money should not be used inside the commune. With the outside world we will use the money, but inside the commune money will not be used.

And by a simple strategy, all poverty, all richness disappeared. If money is not used, then whether you have millions or not a single dollar makes no difference.

And everything will be provided by the commune, so whatever you need you simply ask.

They saw for the first time that communism can succeed without any dictatorship, and they saw that we converted a desert into an oasis. For five thousand people, fully air-conditioned houses we made. We never took anybody from the outside to work; we worked. We made lakes, we made waterfalls, we were turning it into a beautiful paradise. We were self- sufficient; we started growing our food - our vegetables, our fruits, our milk products.

And for fifty years the land was lying dead, nobody was purchasing it. So the question was rising all around, that "If these people can change the desert, can live happily, can live comfortably, can work hard... still can meditate.... We started the day with the meditations, then the work; then five thousand people eating in one restaurant, one kitchen, one family.... You cannot figure out who is rich, who is poor because everybody is having the same kind of things.

We had five hundred cars for sannyasins: anybody can use. Five planes, one hundred buses which were continuously running; each five minutes you can get the bus wherever you are going.... They became afraid and jealous that this commune is going to create trouble for them, that "What you are doing?"

Thirty million people in America are in the streets without shelter, without food, without clothing. Two hundred out of them had come to us, we absorbed them and they turn out to be beautiful human beings.

For four and a half years there was no crime, no murder, no rape, no suicide, nobody going mad. It was such a healthy and....

Q: YOU HAVE GIVEN UP THE IDEA OF SETTING UP ANOTHER COMMUNE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD - WHY?

A: I will tell you....

The only way to destroy the commune was somehow to either destroy me or harass me so much that I leave the country, or deport me so my people become miserable - and they became miserable. In twelve days, many of them was not eating. This was the idea behind it, to keep me harassing me, so the commune falls apart. Because although I was not a member of the commune nor I was holding any post in the commune, but I was their soul.

And you ask me why I have dropped.... Because the same problems will arise again.

Q: THAT IS WHY YOU ARE NOT RETURNING TO POONA ALSO?

A: No. Poona is continuing, but under the same problems - if I reach there, the problems will multiply. Right now they are going, but my reaching there will create their problems immediately.

So I have decided, unless a government invites me, supports me, gives me the land, I am not going to start a commune. I have communes all over the world, so I will remain somewhere guiding my communes around the world. But my being in any commune is going to be dangerous to the commune.

Q: RAMAKRISHNA MISSIONS ARE FLOURISHING EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. THEY ARE NOT FACING ANY PROBLEMS. WHY YOUR COMMUNE, YOUR MISSIONS - WHATEVER MAY BE THE FORM OF THAT - - IS FACING SO MUCH PROBLEM?

A: It is very simple. Ramakrishna missions are not against any religion, are not against any superstition, are not against any politics. My situation is just the opposite.

I am against all organized religions, because to me, truth cannot be organized and the moment you organize it you kill it. I am against all the superstations which have gathered in thousands of years.

For example, manusmriti in India is five thousand years old, but still has the grip on the Hindu mind. Ramakrishna mission has not to say a single word against it.

Q: AGAINST MANU...

A: Against Manu.

Q: AGAINST MANU SHAHIDA*...

A: MANU SAMHITA.... And I want MANU SAMHITA to be burned, because that is causing so many troubles for India that no other book can be compared. It has created the caste system, it has created one fourth of India almost in a subhuman condition, reduced them.... But Ramakrishna mission will not speak against Manu.

Q: BUT RAMAKRISHNA MISSION... RAMAKRISHNA AND SWAMI VIVEKANANDA...

A: Just wait a minute. Don't use those two names together, because to me those are totally different names, of different qualities of man. First, Ramakrishna mission: Ramakrishna mission is not created by Ramakrishna; it is Vivekananda's creation. So one thing, it does not come out of an enlightened mind.

Vivekanand is a very clever politician. If he is speaking amongst Christians, he will praise Christ. He has not the guts to criticize on any point.

I cannot do that. If I see that something is wrong, I have to say it. If there is something good, I praise it, but I keep the right to criticize also.

If he is speaking amongst Buddhists, he will not speak anything against Buddha or Buddhist scriptures. He created Ramakrishna mission as a synthesis of all religions.

Now, for me the very idea of synthesis of all religions is like synthesis of all lies, which will be far bigger a lie. There is no need of so many religions - all that is needed is a certain quality of religiousness, which is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. When you are truthful you are religious; when you are loving you are religious; you are respectful of life, you are religious.

That does not mean you are Hindu, does not mean you are a Buddhist. I want the whole world to be religious, but not a synthesis of Christianity and Judaism and Mohammedanism and Hinduism - and what kind of synthesis that will be?

If you just conceive the idea, it will be such a hodgepodge.

Mohammed says four wives are allowed: Now how you are going to synthesize with those who think that only one wife is religious, more than that is sin. So the synthesis will be two wives! Neither the Mohammedan will be... agree to it nor the non-Mohammedan is going to agree. Mohammed himself married nine women, naturally - he is no ordinary man. Ordinary men are marrying four; an extraordinary man, a prophet of God has to marry nine.

How you are going to synthesize? Jainas think unless you are naked and live naked without any possessions you cannot be enlightened. Now, according to Jainas even Gautam Buddha is not enlightened, because he uses clothes. How you are going to synthesize these people?

If you ask Jainas and Buddhas and Hindus that Jesus Christ crucifixion is for the salvation of humanity, that it is the greatest sacrifice God has given, His own son, to save humanity - all the three will laugh. They will say that "This is stupid!

God who is omnipotent can create the whole world, He can change it any moment - without any sacrifice, without any crucifixion, without all this drama."

Secondly, they cannot accept Jesus as enlightened, because he is being crucified.

According to Hindus, Jainas and Buddhists - all the religions born in India - anybody who is enlightened cannot be crucified. Existence is not so unkind.

Of course, in India it has never happened. I am not saying they are right; only I am saying how you are going to compromise all these people? It will be a bazaar, and everybody disagreeing on every point.

Mohammedans say God created animals for man to eat - no question of argument, because it is written in the book of God and the book of God cannot be questioned.

One of the jailers in America, very educated man, came to give me a BIBLE seeing that I am just sitting the whole day with closed eyes, doing nothing - good chance to convert a man. So he gave me a BIBLE. He said, "This is the book of God."

I said, "If it is a book of God, then certainly I will keep it with respectfully, but how did you come to know? When God told you?"

He said, "No, God has not told me, it is written in the book."

I said, "You are educated, intelligent... I can write a book and can write it: 'These are the words of God.' Will you believe that book, that it is words of God?"

He said, "No."

"But then why you can believe Jesus' words? What is the difference in my words and Jesus' words to you? And if this is the book of God, then what about KORAN? - the same claim.... What about VEDAS, the same claim; what about GITA, the same claim.

So Ramakrishna mission is a political movement, trying to be nice to everyone.

So everybody is right, everybody is good. And don't bring any controversial things in - just compare those things which can be compared without any controversy. That's why they are not opposed.

My situation is just the opposite: I don't believe that any of the organized religions is worth saving. They are too old, too rotten, and too dirty. And as time has passed they have become more and more stinking.

A totally new religious consciousness is needed in the world, which will not be under any label - Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian.

And that's my effort. My people are not Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew...

they are just people, human beings. Naturally, every religion is against me because I have taken their Jews, I have taken their Hindus, I have taken their Mohammedans and I am dangerous to every religion.

Strange fact: They don't agree on any point; they agree only on one point, and that is me. They agree on me, that I am wrong - about anything else they don't agree. And nobody is ready to argue with me. I have been challenging them openly, "Come, face to face. And I am not calling you to my people; I will come to your congregation. And I am ready to argue with you on point by point, how you are false and how you are creating a bogus kind of religiousness" - which does not help anybody. On the contrary, it creates only wars and bloodshed.

For five thousand years how many wars they have fought, jihad, religious wars.... And they have been killing each other, and doing nothing.

So my position is different from Ramakrishna mission. And my position is also different about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Ramakrishna is an enlightened being, but uneducated, inarticulate - very simple, a villager. He could not create a religion; he experienced it, but he could not express it.

This is one of the troubles - there are people who can express things which they have not experienced and there are people who have experienced things but they cannot express. It is not necessarily that you see the sunset and you may be able to paint it the way Picasso paints it. And it is possible Picasso may paint it without seeing it, and you have seen it but you cannot paint it - those are two different qualities. And that has created a problem.

Ramakrishna knew; Vivekananda had no experience of his own, but he became the leader of the movement. So one blind man who is articulate became the leader of other blind people. Ramakrishna is left completely out. Only his name is there; neither his experience nor his methods of experience.

I have met many Ramakrishna Mission people; they don't understand Ramakrishna at all. All that they know is what Vivekananda has said.

Ramakrishna never wrote a single book, never gave sermons - just sitting, talking in a ordinary way.

Q: WHAT IS (INAUDIBLE*) ON HIM?

He was a great man. Ramakrishna is a man one can be proud of. But Vivekananda is third-rate. But Vivekananda has become the high priest, and he has created the whole movement - all the books and all the literature is created by Vivekananda and his followers. It will be right to call it Vivekananda Mission rather than calling it Ramakrishna Mission.

Q: AMONG THE ENLIGHTENED PERSONS IN THE WORLD - TRUE, (INAUDIBLE) - YOU FIND RAMAKRISHNA MOST (**UNINTELLIGIBLE) BEING, OR WHAT?

A: No, there are many. Gautam Buddha is there, Mahavira is there, Lao Tzu in China is there, Chuang Tzu in China is there, Basho in Japan is there, Nagarjuna in India, Vasbandhu* in India....

Enlightenment has happened only in the East, for the simple reason because the whole Eastern concept (Tape side 2: gap from side one to side two) So science has come to a peak in the West, and religion has come to a peak in the East. So there have been many hundreds. In Tibet there have been many people - - Milarepa, Marpa, Naropa.

In India, thousands.

Q: AT THE SAME TIME YOU WERE SAYING THAT GAUTAM BUDDHA WAS AN ENLIGHTENED MASTER (INAUDIBLE) A: Certainly.

Q: LIKE MAHAVIRA HAS, YOU KNOW, THESE THINGS. HOW DO YOU...

A: Yes, I understand.

Gautam Buddha is enlightened. It is an individual experience, and there is no way to organize it. You cannot make Buddhism. Buddhism means people who follow Buddha. Nobody can follow Buddha.

The enlightened person is like a bird flying in the sky leaving no footprints, so you cannot follow.

Amongst the enlightened people, only one thing is possible. You can sit by the enlightened person open, available, silent. It is a certain kind of energy that emanates from the person, ignites you, can make you aflame. He may, if he is articulate, help it by his words. If he is a poet, he may help it by his poetry or by his painting.

But the moment the enlightened man dies, the people who managed to create a religion are the totally different kind. They are the same as Vivekananda - scholars, pundits, knowledgeable people.

Actually in Buddha's life it happened while he was alive nothing was written. He spoke for forty-two years morning and evening. Many became enlightened while he was alive. When he died, a council was called of all the disciples that, "We should write down what he has been said for the benefit of the coming generations."

The people who were enlightened remained silent. They said, "What we have experienced...

(Gap in tape, as if it has been erased) ... in his presence is inexpressible, it cannot be written. We cannot take part into this affair. Please leave us out."

The only man, Ananda, who has remained forty-two years continuously with Buddha as his caretaker, has listened all his sermons, all his discourses, all his interviews, he was asked but he started crying. He said, "I know what he has said, but I don't know; because I don't have any experience. I can repeat like a parrot what he has said, but you should not depend on my words because I am an ignorant man. In forty-two years much I must have forgotten, much I may have added of my own; and I don't know what is right and what is wrong because I don't have my own experience."

And finally Ananda has to be depended on because he was the only one who was ready to write, and now whatsoever Buddhist's scriptures are originated in Ananda, who was crying and saying that, "My experience is nil. I am just like a machine repeating."

So I am against organized religions for the simple reason that it prevents people from searching on their own. It gives them ideas that you believe and you will reach, that this is the philosophy, you live by it and you are on the right path. But what guarantee?

I teach you a method, not a philosophy. I give you a certain scientific approach so that you can reach to your own center. If you reach, good; if you don't reach, you can try some other method.

But I don't give you a faith.

You cannot betray me because I don't ask any loyalty. It is not a question of loyalty and faith. It is a question of deep friendship and love. If I love you I will give you the method that has given me the light; perhaps it may suit you.

Mahavira I will call one of the greatest enlightened persons because he starts his every sentence with "perhaps." That is very rare. Even his students and disciples asked him that, "Why you always start your sentence with a 'perhaps'?"

He said, "What has happened to me may not happen to you. I don't want to cheat you or deceive you. If it does not happen to you, you will remember that I had said "perhaps." If it happens, good; if it does not happen, you have not been deceived from the very beginning.

And all the religions believe on believing, and my whole approach is not to believe, not to have faith, but to inquire. Belief has not to be the basis of a true seeker, but doubt has to be the basis of a true seeker. Just as doubt is the basis of all scientific research, doubt should be the research of all inner journey.

In my vision, science and religion are two wings; but both are based on doubt - one directing towards the objective world, one directing towards the subjective world. Sooner or later, in a better and more sophisticated world we will not have religions; we will have only religion which will be in-directed doubt, and science out-directed doubt.

Q: THAT IS SAYING SAID YOU ARE AGAINST ALL ISMS.

A: I am all - totally against all isms.

Q: JUST (INAUDIBLE) IN A SHORT SENTENCE OF WHY YOU CALL ISM AROUND KRISHNA MISSIONS A POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.

A: I call them political for the simple reason because they are not religious, one thing; and this is politics.

To me also every day advice comes from people - well-meaning people, that if I am speaking before Christians I should not speak against Jesus, why annoy people. If I am speaking with Jews, then I should not speak anything against Moses; why annoy people.

And this I call a political strategy.

I should speak what I feel like speaking, not dependent on who is listening and what will be his opinion.

Q: SO WHAT'S THE MOTIVE OF THAT? WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THIS MISSIONS?

A: These missions are simply exploiting, as other religions have been exploiting.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN? WHAT SHOULD BE THE ATTITUDE OF SOCIETY TOWARDS WOMEN? WHAT IS GOD AND WHAT DOES ATTAINING GOD ACTUALLY MEAN?

A: Let us first dispose God. There is no God, so the question of attaining him does not arise. Anybody who attains him, simply proves he is a crackpot.

The woman is a far more important matter than God.

The woman is in every way equal to man. In many ways she is a little superior, and that has become the problem for the poor woman - her superiority.

For example, man feels inferior - he cannot give birth to children, the woman can do that. Man's part in it is negligible, just a syringe can do that. Man is not in any way essential for reproduction, and that feeling that woman can create life must have created a deep inferiority in man; and whenever there is inferiority, the effort is bound to be to reduce the other inferior to prove one's self superior.

And that's what has been done down the ages, why women have been forced to be inferior in every possible way - no education, no religious education, no social mobility - in every way hampered, cut down, caged. It is out of fear of man.

But if you behave out of fear and destroy the freedom of woman, she also is going to react; and naturally she has become bitchy. We have turned all the women bitchy. They are all nagging - that is their way of torturing you. You have taken their freedom. In revenge, they are making you as frustrated and in despair as possible.

So the whole humanity is living in an unnecessary anguish.

The first thing is the woman has to be completely freed, given all the opportunities that are given to man; and it should be accepted that she has few superiorities. For example, if one hundred ten boys are born, then one hundred girls are born - because ten boys die before the marriageable age, but those hundred girls stick. The boys have less resistance to disease than the girls. And to keep the balance, nature produces more boys and less girls - because by the time of marriage they are equal.

Now, there is no harm to accept that that is a fact. There is no question to feel inferior about it.

The woman lives longer than man - five years longer. If man dies at seventy- five, then woman dies at eighty. Now, this is a simple fact. You cannot do anything about it, and there is no need to feel inferior about it.

The woman has less possibilities of going mad than man. Man go mad in double quantity than women. Man commit suicide in double quantity than women.

We have to accept things as they are, and figure out what may be the reasons and what can be done about them rather than repressing.

For example, there may be certain hormones which give the woman a longer life.

Those hormones can be given to man. There may be few hormones which give women a more resistance to diseases; they can be given to man. There may be few hormones which prevent women to go mad less - they talk about going mad more, but they don't go; they talk about committing suicide more, but they don't commit.

So those hormones can be given to man. In fact, there is no reason to feel inferior; just man and women are different. And if the differences are such that can be helped then it will be good to help each other.

And there are qualities which man has - he has a muscular body, more animal strength than the woman. He has more wider scope of thinking than the woman - the woman is more interested in the neighborhood, whose wife is flirting with whom, she's more interested than she is interested in a far-away star, what is happening to it-who cares what has happened to it, let it happen! Somebody's wife is escaping. Her scope of thinking is very closed. Man's scope is very wide.

They both can be supplemented to each other because both are needed.

It happened that one of the famous scientists, Archimedes, who was also an astronomer, one night, clear night, looking at the stars, was walking on the road and fell into a well. It was a lonely street - only a small hut. An old woman saved him. Archimedes said to the woman that, "You don't know who I am. I am a great astronomer, a great scientist. Even kings from all over Europe come to learn and understand things with me, but as far as you are concerned you have saved my life, you can come tomorrow and I will look into your life chart and see what is in your future."

The woman laughed. She said, "Forget all about it. You can't see one feet ahead that there is a well. What you can see in the future?"

But both are complementary. Somebody is needed to see at the stars, even at the risk of falling in the well; but somebody is needed also to look at the well - otherwise, life will be a chaos.

So my own feeling is that man and women are complementary and they should be not put into categories of inferiority and superiority. They should be complementary beings.

And certainly man is alone, just as woman is alone. Only together they become an organic whole.

And that's why I have so much respect for love, because love is the chemia(*) which makes man and woman one whole, they lose their individualities, their egos, and for the first time there is no man, no woman, just one energy; and that energy should be respected.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS, BUT WITHOUT UTTERING A WORD OF SEX. BUT WHILE YOU WERE SO MUCH IN A FAMOUS FOR YOUR LIBERTIES ON SEX OR YOU ARE SO MUCH CRITICIZED BY SEVERAL CORNERS AND OTHER(*) PEOPLE(*). WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?

A: The simple reason is that people have been for centuries living a repressed sex life. They have been told by all the religious prophets and the messiahs and the saviors that sex is sin.

To my understanding, sex is your only energy, it is life energy. What you do with it depends on you. It can become sin, and it can become also your highest peak of consciousness. It all depends on you how you use the energy.

There was a day when we had no idea how to use electricity. Electricity was available always and was killing people, but now it is your servant. It is doing everything that you want.

Sex is bio-electricity. Just the question is how to use it.

And the first principle is not to condemn it. The moment you condemn anything, you cannot use it.

So I was against repression. I was not teaching sex. I was simply teaching that sex should be accepted as a normal, natural thing in life - just as sleep, as hunger, as everything else.

And secondly what I was teaching has been completely ignored by the critics. I was teaching that sex can be joined with meditation, and once sex can be joined with meditation its whole quality changes.

Sex without meditation can only reproduce children.

Sex with meditation can give you a new birth, can make you a new man.

Q: TO HAVE SEX WHILE MEDITATING?

A: Yes. Rather say otherwise, meditating while making - while making love.

Because just a small change makes much difference.

In a monastery two monks were talking - because they were given time, for one hour or two hour every day evening to meditate and to walk. They were thinking whether smoking will be right because it has not been prohibited, but still they were afraid; so they thought it is better to ask the abbot.

The next day one was very angry, and when he saw the other coming, smoking, he could not believe his eyes. He said, "What happened? I asked the abbot, 'Can I smoke while meditating?' He said, 'Never!' And he was very angry. And you are smoking. Have you not asked?"

He said, "I also asked, but I asked him, 'Can I meditate while smoking?' He said, 'That's a great idea. Why waste time? While you are smoking, if you can meditate too that's a great idea. Do it!'" So I will not say that while you are meditating make sex, no. I will say while you are making love, meditate. And it is one of the most peaceful, silent, harmonious state - where meditation is the easiest, when you are coming closer to an orgasmic experience your thoughts stop, you become more an energy, more fluid, throbbing all over, and that is the moment to be alert - whatever is happening, the throbbing, the orgasm reaching closer and closer, and you know there is a point beyond which you cannot return. Just watch. And this is the most secret and inner watchfulness; and if you can watch that, you can watch anything else in life, because that is the closest and most engrossing experience.

I have written only a small book. The name of the book is "From Sex to Superconsciousness," but nobody has paid any attention to superconsciousness, only sex; and the people who have been reading it are all monks, nuns - of all religions.

And I have written four hundred books on all kinds of matters, subjects, which are of immense importance to people like monks - who are searching for truth; but, no. The problem is they are suffering, and their suffering - Q: YOU WERE SAYING THAT MERE SEX WILL GO ON PRODUCING MORE AND MORE CHILDREN ONLY; BUT SEX WHILE MEDITATING, WHAT DO YOU PRODUCE?

A: You will produce yourself anew. You will find that you are not finished as you are. There are higher levels of your intelligence, of your consciousness; and as you start producing those higher levels of your intelligence and your consciousness, you will be surprised - your interest in sex starts disappearing, because now sex is producing something far greater than life, it is producing consciousness. Life is a lower thing; consciousness is a higher thing. And once you are capable of producing consciousness, then there is no barrier that you cannot make love, but it will look very dull, it won't give you any joy, it will look sheer wastage of energy. You would rather like your energy to create higher and higher pyramids of consciousness in you 'til you reach to the ultimate point, which I call enlightenment.

Q: SO ANYTHING WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS IS SIN - YOU MAYBE(*) SAY THAT?

A: In fact, the very word "sin" in its origin means "forgetfulness," and that's very beautiful to remember.

Consciousness means remembrance, awareness; and sin means unawareness, forgetfulness.

But I will not use the word "sin" because it has been used and contaminated by all the religions. I will simply call it unconsciousness, forgetfulness - which are the original meaning of the word.

Q: AND WHAT IS VIRTUE?

A: Consciousness, more awareness.

Q: ABOUT EVERYTHING?

A: About everything. And once you are fully alert, your whole life is a virtue, whatever you do has a flavor of purity, a fragrance of the divine.

Q: WHY THIS IDEA OF YOU HAS NOT HAS NOT, I MEAN IN COMPARISON, APPEALED TO THE POORER SECTION OF THE WORLD RATHER THAN THE RICHER SECTION; AND WHY YOU WERE LABELLED AS A GURU OF THE RICH.

A: The reason is simple.

To a hungry man, the music of Mozart will not appeal. Now it is not a fault of Mozart, nor it is a fault of hungry man - just the hungry man is far away from the heights of the music of Mozart. The hungry man will not understand.

Dostoevsky or Turgenev or Chekhov. He will not be able to understand the paintings of van Gogh or Picasso - for the simple reason that his basic needs are not fulfilled.

A hungry man is not only poor in the sense that he has no food, no clothes; he is also poor that he will miss all that is great in life, all that is achieved through centuries of refinement.

A man who has been hungry for three days, in the full moon night will not be able to see the moon. He will see a bread floating in the sky.

So what can I do about it.

My absolute understanding is that religion is the highest luxury in life because it is the highest consciousness.

The hungry stomach lives at the lowest consciousness.

Q: SO IN THIS IDEA YOU CANNOT BE TOTALLY FOR THE WHOLE WORLD?

A: I can be, because I can change those hungry people. They are being prevented by your religions and by your politicians to remain hungry - because they are in some way their investment.

For example, can you find a single Hindu who is rich, educated and has converted himself to Christianity or Catholicism? Why not? Why only the orphans and the beggars and the poor, aboriginals, they become converted? Now it is in the interest of the pope, in the interest of Mother Teresa, in the interest of the whole Christianity, that the poor remain and that the poor go on becoming poorer and poorer. More poor are there more catholics will be there, and that is their whole dream - to turn the whole world into Christianity.

The politician also is interested in keeping people poor for the simple reason because the poor people can be purchased. Educated, rich people cannot be purchased.

And as far as I am concerned, I see it so simple to change the whole poverty of the world that it is simply amazing, it is so obvious, why it goes on missing people.

One thing, no population growth for thirty years. And simple methods are available, just people have to be made aware that if you go on listening to Mother Teresa and pope and shankaracharya - who are against birth control - then by the end of this century India will have one billion population. Half the country will be starving, and we will not have any way what to do.

And still you go on supporting Mother Teresa, go on giving her rewards and awards and Nobel prizes - without even seeing into the fact that these are the people responsible for poverty.

All religious people who are teaching people against birth control should be imprisoned immediately. It should be a crime, the greatest crime, to teach people against birth control; otherwise the whole country is going to die.

You sentence to death a man who murders a single person, and your pope and your Mother Teresa and your shankaracharyas are going to kill half a billion people by the end of this century in this country only.

Now the pope is coming and your government is preparing for great welcome. If your government has any guts, the pope should be told clearly that he cannot teach against birth control, against abortion. He can teach about spiritual things, that is his business; but he should not teach anything that makes this country more poor. If he teaches, he will be thrown out immediately.

Q: THAT WILL TAKE THIRTY YEARS TO CHANGE THE COMPLEXION OF THAT SOCIETY.

A: No, not thirty years. It will start changing immediately because I have few more things to say.

That is the long-range program so we don't get on whatever we do is undone by the population; so we prepare beforehand for thirty years absolute control. And for the time being, every country is devoting so much money and labor, intelligence, science, technology, to war - which should be absolutely stopped.

Neither Soviet Union is very rich - people are poor. The dream of becoming rich for sixty years has remained a dream, it has not come true.

Even in America thirty million people are on the streets, and still they go on pouring all their energy and their technology and their science and their best minds in creating more and more nuclear weapons. For what? Already they have got enough to kill humanity seven hundred times. Now I don't see the point.

What is the use of creating more? So if all war efforts can be dropped - and they will have to be dropped. It is a simple question of intelligence. Then the whole energy can be moved to make the poor come out of their poverty.

We have so much money and power wasting in war efforts that that whole money, if relieved, the poverty can disappear just like a dewdrop in the early morning sun.

And there is no point in war. The war has lost all its meaning. It was meaningful one day when somebody was going to be victorious and somebody was going to be defeated. Now nobody is going to be victorious and nobody is going to be defeated. The whole earth is going to be dead. So the war is no more significant, it has lost its whole meaning. It is only a question of the intelligentsia of the world to force its stupid politicians that, "You come to a conclusion, and stop all efforts of war. And whatever energy...

(Tape side C: gap between sides B and C) ... and particularly about me because I never read.

For five years I have not read anything - no book, no newspaper, no magazine. I have not seen any television. I am simply fed up with all this stupid information.

I am not the guru at all of anybody, poor or rich. I am just a friend who is available to help if you need the help. And that, too, is your freedom - to come with me or not to come with me. When you come, I welcome you; and when you depart, I give you a goodbye with the same love. There is no question of loyalty, no question of betrayal.

Okay?

Come again if your questions are left.