Chapter 06

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

I have seen the questions for today and they make me feel ashamed -- ashamed that Indian genius has fallen so low. It cannot even ask significant questions; to find significant answers is absolutely impossible. All the questions that have been shown to me are simply rubbish: yellow journalism fulfilling the demands of the third class humanity in which I am not interested.

This is a country of tremendous intelligence. This country reached to the highest peak in the history of mankind, the Himalayan peaks of consciousness. And now it seems we have fallen so low that unless a question is concerned with something inhuman, ugly, nobody is interested in the answer.

I am not a politician, so whoever dares to ask me a question should remember that I am not here to console you or to give you answers which you want. You may get hammered on the head. Because I don't have anything to get from you in response.

My whole effort is to create a little flame of intelligence, a little scent of humanness, so before you ask your questions, be aware! I am not only answering your questions, I am answering the whole mind of a certain continuity. This continuity is of Gautam Buddha, Kabir, Nanak -- and your questions belong to the gutter. You should ask these questions to the politicians, don't waste my time.

This is just to indicate to you that if you don't want to be hammered badly then be alert. The questioner in the introduction says that he is my old lover; he has been writing against me for years. I can understand -- old lovers are dangerous -- love can change into hate very easily. And what kind of love did you have? You have not written a single word for me, you have been exploiting me and my name, and in such ugly ways that I feel it below myself even to answer you. So remember it, and ask your questions.

MOST HUMBLY, MY FIRST QUESTION: WE WERE ALL EXCITED ABOUT YOUR EXPERIMENT IN RAJNEESHPURAM. UNFORTUNATELY, THAT FAILED. KEEPING ASIDE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND CHRISTIAN BLACKMAIL WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS FAILURE?

You, and your kind.

First, the experiment never failed. The experiment has been absolutely successful. That was the problem, that it was successful.

Who cares about experiments which should have failed? Why should the American government or Christianity or anybody be interested in an experiment which has failed? It was absolutely successful, beyond their comprehension. Its success was the problem, so please drop that word `failure'; it does not exist in my vocabulary.

Whatever we wanted to do, we did it! A small commune of five thousand people against the greatest world power in history survived for five years and created the commune. And the commune was created in a desert which had never been cultivated, had never seen flowers, had never seen birds.

Within five years it became an oasis; we made houses for five thousand people with every modern comfort. We made roads which are better than any government's, America included.

The desert blossomed, it became green. We cultivated it, we made dams, created lakes; thousands of birds started coming. It was a miracle to see that thousands of deer from all over Oregon assembled in that desert of one hundred and twenty-six square miles.

That said everything, because anywhere except Rajneeshpuram their life was in danger, they were going to be hunted. In America, for ten days each year, people are given total freedom to kill deer. In Rajneeshpuram they were standing on the road; you could go on honking your horn and they would not move. They knew you, that you were not going to harm them; you would have to come down and push them to the side.

Swans appeared, in a desert. There were three hundred peacocks from all over America. It seems that birds and animals are more intelligent than journalists.

There was a tremendous harmony between the animals, the birds, the trees, the flowers. We created an ecological system.

We were self-sufficient and we never begged a single dollar from America. We never asked for any help from America.

You cannot live as a country without American help. You are a failure, you are beggars. Your country was at one time a golden bird and you have brought it to this condition.

American politicians were tremendously hurt that their help was not needed, because that is their way to create slavery. Help is simply a cover-up. If you take help in money you become enslaved, without knowing. We never asked for anything.

This was hurting the American politicians -- the success. And each year there was a world festival; twenty thousand sannyasins were coming from all over the world. That time was a golden dream come true: twenty thousand people meditating, singing, playing on their musical instruments, dancing, rejoicing.

Twenty thousand people had one kitchen! Just conceive of twenty thousand people eating together, while there was dancing, singing, rejoicing, because that is my basic message: not renunciation, but rejoicing.

Sannyas became degraded because it became associated with renunciation. It was not so in the beginning. In the days of Upanishad, the days of Vedas, sannyas was not a renunciation. All your seers had their communes in forests, rich communes. Poverty has never been praised in the Vedas or in the Upanishads.

And renunciation is against God. The Sanskrit word for god is `ishwar', and ishwar means richness, abundance.

Just look at Ram without Sita and you will see something is missing, something tremendously important is missing. Perhaps the heart is missing, only the dead corpse of Ram is there. Just think of Krishna without those beautiful girls dancing around him. His flute will lose its song.

I was trying, in the commune, to bring back the original sannyas. Not of renouncing the world, but living the world as a gift of god; it is a gift.

This became a problem because American spectators, American television, American news media started coming every day -- planes started coming to see the commune, to see what is happening. And the whole of America was agog to see that these people have turned the desert into a paradise.

We were not politicians. There was no political party, no political ideology. We were neither communists nor capitalists, and yet we were living the best life possible -- of love, of friendship.

We became a wound to the American politician. The only way was to destroy the commune, so that the very question would be removed and there would be no need to answer. The commune was destroyed by the American government and fanatic Christians because it was the first time that Christians had moved out of their fold without getting into another fold.

A Hindu becomes a Christian: he leaves one prison and enters another. A Christian becomes a Hindu: he leaves one bondage and accepts another. For the first time they saw that you can leave the prison and there is no need to enter another prison. You can be a free man.

A sannyasin is religious but has no religion. A sannyasin is a spiritualist but he is not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan, not a Christian. And by coincidence the American president, Ronald Reagan, is both a third-rate politician and a fundamentalist Christian.

They tried every means to destroy us. Poor Sheela had nothing to do with it. She certainly became a victim; I have all compassion for her. It has to be understood how you can become entangled. All the telephones from the commune were taped. I was in isolation and silence; Sheela was my secretary and the president of the foundation. Seeing that all the telephones were taped , she started taping the incoming calls to find that the government, F.B.I., C.I.A.,and other government agencies, had their agents in the commune hiding as sannyasins, who went on giving information.

Sheela was not a criminal. When I chose her as my secretary she was an innocent woman of great intelligence, but the American politicians destroyed her innocence. Whatever they were doing, she had to do as a counterattack, as a defence. All her crimes are basically the crimes of American politicians which she repeated -- just to save the commune.

I have nothing but compassion and sadness for her. She is not a criminal and whatever she did, there was no bad intention in it. She even bugged my own room; she bugged two hundred houses. Naturally, logically, it seems that she was even trying to find out what I do in my privacy, what I say in my privacy.

That is not true. The truth is that she wanted to be alert because I lived in a house alone. If in the night anybody opened the doors, which were of glass, her bugging would inform her immediately and she could reach there. It was for my protection, not against me. She never did anything against me or against the commune.

I know she would have died for me, she loved me -- not the kind of love that you have shown me. Your love is simply cunning. You say you are my lover, old lover, but all these years you have been writing articles so ugly and obscene that you should be behind the bars, not asking questions to me.

So drop the idea of failure. We succeeded -- it was the first commune in the whole history of man which succeeded. And remember one thing about human jealousy: it is never jealous of failure. Have you seen anybody jealous of failure?

Jealousy is always of success. Seeing a beggar on the street, do you feel jealous?

But seeing a rich man's skyscraper you feel jealous.

It is a strange mind, undeveloped, retarded. If the same building catches fire you will feel sympathetic, you will say to the man, "We all have sympathy for you. It was bad, it should not have happened." And all the time, when the building was there, every day you had thoughts against the building and against the man who had made it.

Who is jealous of India? I have been around the world, I have not found anybody jealous of India. But I have found people who are jealous of Gautam Buddha, who are jealous of Krishna, who are jealous of Nanak, who are jealous of Kabir.

Because these diamonds that we created, their countries have not been able to produce, even to imitate. In all the languages of the world there are not words which can be compared to Nanak or Kabir. There are not scriptures which can be compared to Dhammapada and Gita.

If the commune was a failure it would have been still alive, but it became a success and nobody can tolerate a success.

IN THE PRESS CONFERENCE YESTERDAY YOU SAID YOU ARE DISILLUSIONED AND YOU WANT THE THIRD WORLD WAR. BUT SOME PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME AND MILLIONS OF OTHERS ARE NOT EVILDOERS. WE WANT TO SURVIVE. WHAT IS THE WAY? WHAT IS THE SORT OF NEW CREATION YOU ENVISAGE?

First, you hear only what you want to hear. You don't hear me. I have not even used the word `evildoers'. I have not used the word `evil' at all. How have you heard it?

I have not said that I am not an evildoer and certainly I have not said that you are not an evildoer! You must be! This idea is arising out of your own heart. I had said that I would like meditators, sannyasins, people who are interested in raising their consciousness, to work hard before the world disappears in nuclear destruction. I said that you are not only a body; your body will be destroyed but your being will be transplanted to another planet. There are fifty thousand planets in the whole span of the universe where life exists. This tiny earth is nothing. But you never heard this; you have made the question out of your own mind.

As far as the second part of your question is concerned: when you were not born were you worried about the world? Were you worried about what is happening in the world, whether people are living peacefully, lovingly? If before your birth you were not concerned with the world, after your death you will not be concerned. Where were you before your birth? -- you must have been somewhere because nothing is destructible. So even if this whole earth is destroyed you will be somewhere. I am not concerned about that. My concern is that while you are here use this time -- which is very short -- perhaps five years, ten years, at the most fifteen years.

This world cannot be saved, but you can be saved. And that is a totally different thing. If you can achieve a realization of your consciousness, then your being is saved. Then wherever you are you are in bliss, whatever the planet.

This is the experience of centuries, that a man who becomes enlightened like Buddha, Mahavira, Bodhidharma is not born again anywhere. Their soul becomes part of the universal soul. You can call it God, you can call it Brahma, you can call it the Absolute, the Ultimate. This has been the search of this country, its intensive search for almost ninety thousand years: how not to be imprisoned into a body again, because the body is a prison, a very strange prison -- it moves with you. Wherever you go you take your prison with you.

Our whole religious development is how to get rid of this prison and how to be in a state of splendor, universality, how to become one with existence. That is the real aim of life.

So what I had said was, I am going to work for those who are really concerned with their being. I am not going to waste my breath on the dead, blind, unconscious humanity which is simply preparing its own suicide. Let them succeed -- they will be born on some planet, in some form. They cannot be worse than they are right now. Can you think of anything worse than yourself?

A rosebush is far better than you -- at least it has its perfume. A bird on the wing is far better than you -- at least it has the freedom of the whole sky, needs no passport, no entry visa. It does not belong to any church; is not Christian, is not Hindu. Wherever you will be you cannot fall below where you have already fallen.

What I had said was totally different. I had said that looking around the world, seeing the real faces of people, not their masks, I am no more interested in humanity and I am no more interested in this planet earth. I am interested only in those few individuals who want to achieve to universal consciousness.

Where the body disappears you are simply a consciousness, a pure consciousness, satchitanand, you are truth, you are consciousness, you are bliss.

I said to you that for ninety thousand years this country has been persistently searching for only one goal. It is Christianity that has given the wrong idea to the educated people of the country. The uneducated people of course don't have any idea, but the educated people have been told that your Vedas are only five thousand years old. This is a great lie. Christianity believes that God created the world only six thousand years ago, so they have to fix the whole evolution within a six thousand year framework. That is absolute stupidity.

In the Rigveda we have evidence that there were certain stars in the sky ninety thousand years ago. They are described in detail. Since then, they have disappeared. Now science accepts that these stars were there ninety thousand years ago. Now how can a man five thousand years ago, without any scientific instruments, write about these stars in such detail unless they were seen?

RIGVEDA is at least ninety thousand years old, perhaps more. And for these ninety thousand years our only search has been how to get out of this prison.

What are you in your body? -- just go to a medical college to see the bones that you are hiding under the skin. The skin is only a cover, under the skin there are only bones. Even a doctor, a friend of mine, was afraid to keep the whole inner structure of bones in his clinic. He said, "It makes people afraid to come." So he was hiding it at his house. That created another trouble, his wife was against it.

But I told him, "Whether you keep it in the house or not, you are keeping it within yourself, your wife is keeping it, everybody is keeping it."

We have never been interested in that, our interest is totally different. Our interest is in finding who is hidden behind these bones -- the intelligence, the consciousness. So if the world disappears into the smoke of a nuclear war nothing is lost, just skin and bones -- which are going to be lost anyway.

Right now you lose them individually. Politicians, out of compassion, are preparing a collective death. Why bother to die individually when we can die altogether?

There are already so many nuclear weapons that every man can be killed seventy times, and they are going on piling them up. Sooner or later it is all going to explode, it cannot be avoided.

I have been trying my whole life that it should be avoided, but seeing the politicians around the world I have changed my position. I say it should not be avoided, it is better to get through it once and for all, to be finished with it.

Those who can experience their inner self will dissolve into the universal self; those who cannot, will find in fifty thousand planets some other cage, some other imprisonment -- but I don't see that there is any trouble.

JAIL IS A TERRIBLE THING. YOU HAVE NEVER SPOKEN ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JAILS. IN THE JAILS DID YOU FEEL BETTER MENTALLY, OR MISERABLE?

Every person is in a jail, not only in one jail but many jails. First your body is a jail, then your ideology is a jail, your politics is a jail, your church is a jail. Chains upon chains; it does not matter that a few more chains are added.

In my twelve days in American jails, one day in an English jail, one day in a Greek jail, I loved it. I loved it for the simple reason that it was not affecting me at all. I was as blissful as ever; that gave me a tremendous confirmation that my bliss cannot be taken away from me.

If an American jail cannot take it away from me, then no hell can take it from me -- that's what I said to the American jailer in whose jail I was for the first three days. He was surprised that I was not worried; in fact I had never had such a time -- twenty-four hours of meditation, no disturbance.

I said, "Why should I be disturbed? Just because chains are on my hands, chains are on my legs, chains are on my waist -- why should I be disturbed? My body is a jail, on that jail you have put a few more ornaments. I am perfectly happy." My bliss was absolutely confirmed, because an American jail is the most refined way of torturing people.

I said, "You have freed me from the idea that if I fall into hell there will be a problem. If I can manage an American jail there is no reason why I cannot manage an old, out-of-date bullock cart type hell where no improvement has happened since the beginning. I would love to visit it."

I was perfectly happy, but I was certainly not happy about millions of people who are in jail and suffering for no reason except that they are black.

Now the difference between a black man and a white man is so small. In the old days the difference used to be near about four anas. Now prices have gone high - - it may be a difference of one rupee. And remember, that difference is in favor of the black man. The black man has a pigment of color which makes him worth one rupee more than the white man. That black pigment of color protects him from the sun, the white man is unprotected. God seems to be more concerned to protect the black man than the white. The white man's body is weaker, the black man's body is stronger.

It was a surprise to me, whenever I entered a jail in America there were black people behind bars who had seen me on the television, because in every jail there are televisions. And they were showing me the two fingers of victory. They were talking in their own languages which I don't understand, but this language I can understand. They were saying,"Your victory is our victory and we are going to be victorious," because all the sins are on the white man. He has tortured the whole human earth for three hundred years, sucked its blood, has been a parasite. He should understand it, confess his guilt, be humble and help these people whom he has made poor.

These black people in American jails filled me with tears; those tears were for their freedom. We have done enough harm to them, it is time they should be compensated.

But as far as I am concerned I was absolutely blissful; just as I am blissful here, I was blissful there. Space makes no difference in your state of being, nor does time make any difference, nor life, nor death.

THERE HAS BEEN SO MUCH DISAPPOINTMENT WITH SO MANY SPIRITUAL LEADERS OVER SO MANY YEARS. WE HAVE STILL HOPE IN YOU. WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO THIS THING?

Worship creativity, worship those who are making this world a little more beautiful, worship those who are filling the world with a little more music, a little more song, a little more dance.

I want to change the definition of sannyas from renunciation to rejoicing. We have forgotten even to laugh, because no saint laughs -- have you seen any statue of Jesus laughing? Mahavira laughing? No. Saints are not allowed to laugh. The whole country has become sad.

I preach life, I preach love, I preach laughter and I preach creativity. I am against renunciation of anything except stupidities, superstitions.

I teach one humanity -- together we can make this country its old self again. We have to make it! Otherwise, by the end of this century fifty percent of your people will be dying and hungry all around you. You will be in a graveyard, not in a country. And just think: if fifty percent of the people are dying around you, what kind of life can you have?

Solutions are simple. Just your minds are old, they are not contemporary. So I end my answer: I want you to become contemporary.