Chapter 14

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

Q: GOOD EVENING, AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SEEING ME. IT'S A PLEASURE TO SEE YOU AGAIN IN INDIA. I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS HERE IF YOU COULD PLEASE ANSWER THEM. YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTING INTERVIEWS TO JOURNALISTS AT THE SAME TIME YOU HAVE BEEN TAKING YOUR DISCOURSES, GIVING DISCOURSES, TO YOUR SANNYASINS. IS THERE ANY PARTICULAR REASON FOR THIS, BHAGWAN?

A: It makes no difference to me whether I talk to my sannyasins or to the journalists, because finally the word will reach to my sannyasins.

Through the journalists, it will reach to others also.

There are many people who would like to listen to me but cannot come for many reasons. Their orthodox mind, their traditional thinking, lies that they have heard about me... through journalism it is possible to reach even these people.

Journalism is simply a means and I use all the means possible to spread the fragrance that has happened to me.

I have chosen particularly journalists because even if I do not talk to them they go on writing about me all kinds of stupidities, lies... it is better they should talk with me, have a clear conception about me. It is their duty to their readers that the truth is conveyed and lies are not spread. I respect journalism tremendously because it is one of the greatest means to protect the individual, his freedom of expression, his individuality, against the powerful vested interests.

I am alone against the vested interests -- they have immense power, but if the news media is with me to convey the truth to the masses -- a single individual can be more powerful than a government.

And I have seen this happen in America. The news media has the credit that the American government could not murder me. They had made every arrangement -- I will give you just few examples...

In one prison they asked me to fill the form but not to write my name on it. The Marshall asked me to write David Washington as my name and told me that, "In the jail you will be called David Washington, and you have to respond to this name."

I refused and I told that man that, "First, you remove your coat." On his coat there was a seal saying Department of Justice and feel ashamed of yourself that you are the highest authority of justice in America, asking me to do something absolutely illegal. And what is the reason? It is so simple that I write David Washington and you poison me in the night and nobody will be able even to find it out that where I disappeared. Perhaps on the aeroplane also, you had entered my name as David Washington. So David Washington comes to the jail and tomorrow you can release him. I simply disappear in the air. It is not so easy to befool me. I will write my name -- if you want to go home because it was midnight, otherwise you fill the form in your handwriting, write whatsoever you want... I will sign it.

He wanted to go home. Tired... he himself was. He filled the form as David Washington. My strategy was clear and I signed my signature which are known all over the world. He looked at my signature and he said, "I do not understand what you have written."

I said, "There is no need for you to understand. This is my signature. This is not David Washington's signature. Now you can kill me. And remember, whether you kill me or not, in the morning every newspaper and every television station and every radio will carry the news... the whole idea of democracy is simply in the words. In reality, it is a hypocrisy."

While coming to the jail there was a woman with me, a prisoner, a black woman.

She asked me can she be of some help because she is going to be released tomorrow morning. If there is any message to the newspapers, to the news media, who are surrounding the jail you can give it to me.

I told her just listen carefully the talk between me and the Marshall and whatever transpires you report to the news media.

The next morning the whole America was agog that this is simply a fascist regime pretending to be democratic. There seems to be no respect for the individual. They removed me from the jail immediately because they wanted to destroy the form.

In the second jail, they put me in a cell with a man who had Aids. And who was just dying. At the most seven days more were left for his death. For six months he has been there and nobody has shared the cell because the doctor has told that no other prisoner should be put there. The disease is so dangerous and so infectious that anybody who lives with him is bound to get it.

They put me in that cell. As they left, the man himself said to me "Bhagwan, I have been seeing you on the television and this is nothing but a cunning strategy to kill you. I am dying from Aids. Please don't touch anything in the cell. Knock on the doors till all the parties come and force them to change you from this place to another. And I am with you. I am dying, but I am still human. These people who have put here, only look human. This doctor has not allowed even murderers to enter this cell. This doctor himself never enters the cell. He enquires about me from the outside. You have not done any crime, you have been arrested without any arrest warrant. You have not been allowed the facility to contact your attorneys and now they put you in a cell which is nothing but sure death."

I had to knock the door for continuously one hour. Then the jailer appeared, then the doctor appeared, and I asked them, that "Are you aware that this man has Aids? Are you aware that for six months you have not been putting anybody in the cell? Then why you have put me in this cell? And I am not a criminal. You have not even proved before a court that I have committed any crime. You are criminals because you are trying to kill a man who has not done anything wrong."

They became so afraid -- afraid of whom? Afraid of the news media. Because I told them, "As I get out of the jail I'm going to tell to the news media what happened with me. This doctor is not a doctor of light. He should be punished and the only punishment can be he should be put in this cell with this man."

I was removed immediately to another cell and they removed me as early as possible thinking that there will be no news media people outside, but America has a very awakened, alert news media. They were there twenty-four hours around any jail I was. They were following the cars on their helicopters. They could not manage to hide me in some place where the news media was not aware.

I respect news media. But I would like to say that Indian journalism is not yet of that great quality. It is third rate.

Without asking me they go on saying things that I have never said. This is the reason why I am giving these interviews.

Q: I HAVE A SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION TO THIS IF I MAY, BEFORE I GO ON TO THE NEXT ONE.

YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT HOW IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE A FREE AND FEARLESS MEDIA AND ABOUT HOW YOU ARE ANSWERING ALL THESE QUESTIONS SO THAT INDIAN JOURNALISTS CAN WRITE ABOUT IT SO THAT IT CAN GO TO OTHER PEOPLE.

I HAVE SUBMITTED A LIST OF QUESTIONS: IMPORTANT QUESTIONS IN OUR OPINION, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IF YOU HAD ANSWERED THEM BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE CLEARED A LOT OF MISCONCEPTIONS. BUT I FIND THAT THESE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED FROM MY ORIGINAL QUESTIONNAIRE. I HAVE EVEN BEEN ASKED NOT TO ASK YOU THESE QUESTIONS.

A: Those questions were rubbish. I simply did not want to call your questions before the people `rubbish'. That's why I cancelled them.

But if you are interested in rubbish you can ask. But then be prepared.

I have chosen the best questions that you have asked -- because my whole effort is that you should inform the people about the basic things. My fundamental approaches about life, about religion, about philosophy, about people's mind and how it can be transformed. Those questions that I have answered are out of compassion for you. I did not want to insult a lady, but if you are not a lady you can ask. But remember, then I will not be a gentleman.

I'M AFRAID I'M A JOURNALIST FIRST AND A LADY AFTERWARDS SO OF ALL THESE QUESTIONS, I'LL HAVE TO ASK YOU ONE AT LEAST. ONE OF THE QUESTIONS THAT YOU HAVE CUT OUT IS, WAS ASKED, MORE FROM A GENUINE CONCERN FOR YOUR WELL-BEING THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

THIS WAS THE QUESTION PERTAINING TO THE FACT THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THIS AREA ARE QUITE UPSET WITH WHAT THEY CONSIDER IS CONFUSION AND COMMOTION. THEY SEE THAT THEIR CHILDREN WILL BE UNDULY, LET'S SAY, THEY'LL BE UNDULY INFLUENCED. SOME TIME AGO WE HAD ALSO CARRIED A VERY BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN ARTICLE BY ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES ON HOW SHE FELT ON YOUR RETURN. BUT MUCH OF THE FEEDBACK THAT WE HAVE GOT HAS BEEN VERY VIOLENT. THEY'RE EXTREMELY VIOLENT, TO THE POINT THAT WE'VE HAD TO THROW ALL OF IT OUT. NOW IF THERE IS SUCH AN UNDERCURRENT AGAINST YOU, DOES THAT WORRY YOU?

These are the people who do not understand me. And these are the people who do not want their children to grow. These are the people who do not want to help this country move into contemporary times. These are the obstacles in the evolution of this country.

They should come here with their children. They should ask questions concerning the growth of their children, the education of their children, the morality of their children. The answers that they cannot give, I am ready to give.

That's what is making them upset.

I say there is no God. Now catch hold of those people who are upset. Let them prove that there is God. If they cannot prove then it is simple sincerity to accept that our God is only a belief, not an experience. Don't give to your children beliefs. Those beliefs have been killing this country for centuries. This country has lived almost ten thousand years of a very civilized past. Yet it is hungry, yet it has no scientific attitude towards life. No technological approaches, which can transform the poverty. And the reason is that every child is being fed up with belief while science depends on doubt.

I teach doubting... and unless you have the courage to doubt you will never come to know the truth. Your truth will always be borrowed and a borrowed truth is not a truth.

Those people who are upset prove by their being upset that they are wrong. I am not upset, I am not upset that the great majority of people will destroy the meditations of my sannyasins.

They are a vast ocean... and my sannyasins are just like a dewdrop. The dewdrop is not afraid of the ocean and the ocean is upset of a dewdrop. It must be important.

Their beliefs are empty of any content. Otherwise they should be happy that I am here. They should bring their children. They should help their children to ask questions that they cannot answer.

A morality which is afraid of intelligence is not a morality. It is the greatest immoral thing in the world.

A religion which is afraid of being questioned shows clearly that it knows deep down that there are no foundations to its temple.

And this is not only the question of the people here. This is the question of the people around the world.

Socrates was condemned by the Greeks. Their own greatest flowering, their own genius. The Greeks never could reach higher than Socrates -- in intelligence -- yet they condemned him. And the reason: they were afraid that his influence can corrupt their children.

Socrates' influence can corrupt their children. Their stupidity cannot corrupt their children but really what they call corruption is Socrates can expose and that's my function too.

I can expose all lies that you have been telling to your children. That is your fear.

You are afraid of truth: and you call that truth can corrupt. Yes, truth can corrupt lies.

I bring a medicine and you are sick. Medicine can destroy your sickness. So whoever is upset is invited. Either I will upset him completely and he will be a sannyasin, or I am ready to be upset completely and be a follower to him.

This is how human beings should behave with each other. This is how intelligence requires that people should interact. I am not saying that "Agree with me" -- I am inviting you. Come with all your disagreement, but without understanding me, without listening me, if people get upset that simply shows their weakness, their retardedness.

I crossed that question simply because I don't want to call anybody retarded. I don't want to call anybody stupid. But your question cannot be answered unless I say the truth. Only intellectually retarded people are upset. Intelligent people are never upset. In fact, intelligent people are always in search of someone who can upset them, because that will be a new beginning of a journey. A new search, in a new dimension.

Only retarded people don't want to hear anything that goes beyond their mind.

They are perfectly satisfied like buffaloes, chewing the same grass their whole life. Don't upset a buffalo.

But the whole progress of man depends on those few people who have been courageous enough to upset us, who have destroyed our old beliefs, who have punctured our old moralities, who has given us visions of a new world, of a new future, who have taken us out of the past and its bondage into the freedom of the future.

Q: THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING THAT ONE. WHAT DO YOU, YOU FORESEE AS THE FUTURE OF YOUR SANNYAS MOVEMENT? DO YOU SEE IT AS PROSPERING, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE NOT HERE?

A: Sannyas movement is not mine. It is not yours. It was here when I was not here. It will be here when I will not be here.

Sannyas movement simply means the movement of the seekers of truth. They have always been here.

Of course, they have been always tortured by the ignorant masses: killed, murdered, crucified, or worshipped.

Remember: it is the same whether you crucify or you worship. Both are the ways how to get rid of those people. One is crucifixion, another is worship. Worship is more cultured. We say you are an incarnation of God, we will worship you. But we will not do what you say. How can we do? We are ordinary human beings.

You were extraordinary -- either you were a prophet sent by God, or a messenger, or the only begotten son of God, or you were a reincarnation of God - - you could do miracles. We have created all kinds of miracles, only for one reason. To create a distance between us and the people who have been seeking the truth and the people who have ultimately found the truth. We were not ready to go with them. There were only two ways: either to kill them, destroy them, so we can forget them and forgive them.

They were a disturbing element, a nuisance. We were asleep and having such beautiful dreams and a Gautam Buddha comes and starts shaking you and tells, "Wake up!" Naturally you get angry.

There have always been a line of seekers of truth... I call it sannyas. It is eternal. It is sanatan. It has nothing to do with me.

Millions of people have contributed to it. I have also contributed my own share.

It will go on becoming more and more richer. When I am gone there will be more and more people coming and making it richer. The old sannyas was serious. I have contributed to it a sense of humor. The old sannyas was sad. I have contributed to it singing, dancing, laughing... I have made it more human.

The old sannyas was somehow life-negative. I have made it life- affirmative. But it is the same sannyas. It is the same search. I have made it more rich. I have made it more grounded in the world because my whole teaching is `be in the world, but don't be of the world.'

There is no need to renounce the world. Only cowards renounce it. Live in the world, experience it. It is a school. You cannot grow in the Himalayas. You can only grow in the world.

Each step is an examination. Each step you are passing through a test. Life is an opportunity.

I will be gone. That does not mean that the sannyas movement will be gone. It does not belong to anybody.

Just as science does not belong to Albert Einstein. Why the search for truth should belong to somebody? To Gautam Buddha? To J Krishnamurti? Or to me?

Or to you?

Just as science goes on growing and every scientific genius goes on contributing to it and the Ganges goes on becoming bigger and wider -- oceanic; in the same way the inner world needs a science. The objective world has a science. The inner world needs a science and I call sannyas the science of the inner world. It has been growing but because it goes against humanities attachments, ignorance, superstitions, so-called religions, churches, priests, popes, shankaracharyas...

these are the enemies of the inner search because the inner search needs no organization.

Sannyas movement is not an organization: that is why I call it `movement'. It is individual. People join. I had started alone and then people started coming and joining me and slowly, slowly the caravan became bigger and bigger. But it is not an organization. I am nobody's leader. Nobody has to follow me. I am grateful that you have allowed me to share my bliss, my love, my ecstasy. I am grateful to you. Nobody is my follower, nobody is lower. There is no hierarchy. It is not a religion. It is pure religiousness. The very essence. Not a flower, but only a fragrance. You cannot catch hold of it.

You can have the experience of it, you can be surrounded by the perfume, but you cannot catch hold of it.

Religions are like dead flowers you can find in Bibles, in Gitas... When they were put in the Bible they were living, they were fragrant, but now it is only a corpse.

All holy books are corpses, dead flowers and nothing else.

Truth, the living truth, has to be discovered by each individual by himself.

Nobody can give it to you.

Yes, somebody who has achieved it can transpire a thirst in you, a tremendous desire for it. I cannot give you the truth, but I can give you the desire for it.

I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon... please don't get attached to my finger which is indicating the moon. This finger will disappear.

The moon will remain and the search will continue.

As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers of sannyas will go on blossoming.

Q: BUT THERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS PARTICULARLY SPECIAL ABOUT YOU THAT BINDS SO MANY OF YOUR SANNYASINS TO YOU. WHAT IS IT?

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE IT?

A: There are many things -- not one. Why sannyasins are so much deep in love with me.

First, I am the only man in the whole history who gives you individuality. The so-called gurus were doing just the opposite: they were taking away your individuality. Their whole effort was that you should surrender to them. That your function was just to touch their feet and receive their blessings.

My effort is totally different. You cannot receive any blessing by touching anybody's feet. On the contrary, you are making that man more egoistic and sick.

Ego is the cancer of his soul. Don't make anybody sick. Be compassionate. Never touch anybody's feet.

I give you self-respect, which nobody has given before. I make every effort to make you an individual standing on your own feet, not dependent on me.

It is a strange phenomenon because I give you freedom, you love me. Because I make you yourself, you love me.

My effort is to take away all traditions, orthodoxies, superstitions, beliefs, from your mind so that you can attain a state of no-mind... the ultimate state of silence, where not even a thought moves. Not even a ripple in the lake of your consciousness.

And the whole thing has to be done by you. I am not saying that "Just follow me.

I am the savior. I will save you." All that is crap. Nobody can save you, except yourself. And the spiritual independence is the only independence worth calling independence. All other independences -- political, economic, are just so so, superficial.

But the real and authentic independence is that you are not dependent for your inner growth on anybody. Those who have come to me have become more and more independent. More and more themselves. That's why they love me. I am not making them a crowd, I am making them absolutely individuals. I am not even giving them ideologies to be practised... disciplines to be practised, I am simply sharing my own experience. Out of that experience they have to find their own discipline.

This is a company not of a master and disciples, this is a company of a master and potential masters.

Q: THANK YOU. JUST ONE MORE QUESTION. YOU HAVE SAID IN AN EARLIER INTERVIEW THAT THIS IS NOT YOUR FINAL RESTING PLACE...

THAT YOU'LL PROBABLY MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE. HAVE YOU MORE OR LESS THOUGHT ABOUT WHERE YOU PLAN ON MOVING? ANY PARTICULAR... NOT POONA? I THINK IT WILL BE SHUTTING DOWN... IS POONA SHUT?"

A: No, the Poona ashram will continue. I am not going to Poona. I will be staying in Bombay... now I have to upset Bombay. Poona I have upset enough.

And then there are many other places which are left and it is not right, they need being upset.

So I will be moving to new places, upsetting people. When they get upset enough then I will move to another place. My remaining life is going to be a wandering upsetter.