India: A New Present for a New Future

The first question

Question 1:

Ayub Syed,

The Indian mind is programmed to be that of a slave; it is not ready to function in freedom.

That's where the roots of the problems are. Twenty-two centuries of slavery have given a certain conditioning to the Indian mind: it understands only one language, the language of the jungle.

Whosoever is powerful is right - "Might is right". If there is nobody to dictate to it, if there is nobody to boss it about, then the Indian mind knows no way to function, what to do, what not to do. It has no inner guidance.

And it has not been a slave for only twenty-two centuries; even before that it lived in a spiritual kind of slavery - politically free but spiritually not free.

The brahmins have been ruling the soul of the country for at least five thousand years, or more. They have dominated, dictated, guided, forced a certain discipline in every possible way, but that discipline comes from the outside, and the moment the outside agency that was creating the discipline is removed, the Indian feels at a loss. He has no integrity, no consciousness, but only a character, merely a poor character.

The difference has to be understood. Character is imposed by outside agencies: the society, the state, the church. Consciousness is individual; consciousness comes through meditation. Nobody can impose consciousness on you, you have to discover it.

And the Indian mind believes in the collectivity. It is not individual - it has no respect for the individual at all. One should adjust to the society, one should bow down to the vested interests, to the status quo. The man of character is one, according to the Indian programming, who is not a rebel, who lives according to the tradition, the scriptures. the so-called saints who are nothing but agents of the past.

A man of character in India is not really a man of character, he is only a slave. Because he is obedient he is respected - the more obedient you are the more you will be respected in India. But the obedient person is really a slave: he has no guts, he has no consciousness; he cannot say no, hence his yes is also impotent.

The Indians understand only one language: that of enforcement. If you enforce something upon them they are very law-abiding.

For two hundred years the English people ruled India and found the Indians very law-abiding.

Lawlessness was never a problem before the end of the British Raj, but these thirty-three years of freedom have seen India falling apart, becoming a chaos - something which looks strange if you don't understand the root cause. The root cause is that freedom is absolutely strange to Indian programming. India needs a totally different kind of government. Democracy is an imported idea.

Indians are very reluctant about importing technology, importing new methods, new machines. They are very insistent on the spinning wheel, on Indian self-sufficiency. They are afraid of science, technology. The whole of Gandhian philosophy is anti-technology, anti-science, but they have imported the concept of democracy.

India has never been democratic, hence democracy has no roots in Indian consciousness, not at all.

Democracy is failing; something totally different is needed in the Indian context. Democracy cannot succeed - at least not now - unless a context is created for it.

The people who fought for Indian freedom were all educated in England. Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, all these people were educated in Britain. They saw democracy functioning there beautifully and they be-came immensely impressed by it. But English democracy has a long tradition.

When India became free it immediately imported the idea of democracy. Ideas cannot be imported like that. You have to create the soil, you have to create the right atmosphere. So Indian democracy is just like a paper flower: you can go on hanging it on your tree, but it will not give fragrance. It may deceive people who are not close to the tree, but it cannot deceive the tree, it cannot deceive you, it cannot deceive the butterflies and the bees, it cannot deceive the birds who sing on the tree - they know It is a paper flower. No bee is going to come to the flower. And how can you deceive the tree?

The tree will not nourish it - it is not joined to the flower, and there is no way to make it part of the tree.

Before democracy can start functioning in India, India needs something like a cross between democracy and dictatorship, something in-between - something which has the ingredients of both, the best of both.

China has succeeded in a shorter period. China became free after India, four years afterwards, but China is in a far better state today than India. It has a bigger population, with greater problems, but it has been able to solve them because it is not living under a democracy. It is a dictatorship. Russia could manage only because of a dictatorial regime.

I am not a supporter of dictatorship, I am for democracy, but democracy is possible only if we can prepare the ground for it. The parliamentary system that has been imposed upon India is so foreign to the Indian mind that it cannot function. You can see it in the Indian parliament - the behaviour of the members is so childish. They are continuously quarrelling, fighting. No work at all happens in Indian parliaments, simply unnecessary argumentation about pointless, meaningless things. Opposition for opposition's sake. A sheer waste of time and energy.

It will be better if India shifts to a presidential form of government which will be something between democracy and dic-tatorship. Democracy is needed so that no dictatorship becomes an absolute imprisonment for the country. So after each five or ten years you can change the government. But as far as the functioning of the government is concerned, during the period in which the government is in power it needs absolute control of the country.

India can be put in a better situation only if the government starts working on a war footing - less than that won't do. If th e country understands only one language then you have to speak that language.

My own name for this cross between democracy and dictatorship is "benevolent dictatorship" - not absolutely dictatorial, so there can be a possibility to change the government. After at least ten years the government can be changed, but for those ten years the government has to be totalitarian, with absolute power, and all lawlessness will disappear immediately.

In these thirty-three years India functioned in a disciplined way only when Indira declared the Emergency. In those few months India functioned without any lawlessness. The smugglers disappeared, the bribery disappeared the dacoits disappeared. Crime suddenly fell to a minimum and the whole country was functioning without strikes, without protest marches, without any chaos anywhere.

Indians understand that language immediately. And they are not at fault: for centuries they have been fed on poison. They have not been prepared to function as free human beings and they cannot immediately start functioning that way.

If a person has functioned with crutches for thousands of years and you withdraw the crutches, he will fall. Maybe he is not crippled, maybe he is basically healthy, but now he has become dependent on the crutches. You cannot withdraw crutches so suddenly.

A rabbi was telling his wife on her birthday, "I would like you to live one hundred years and three months."

The wife was a little puzzled about those three months. She said, "Why those three months? I have never heard of such a thing! One hundred years is enough! Why those three months?" The rabbi smiled and said, "I would not like you to die suddenly!" Yes, those three months are needed. Nothing can be taken away suddenly.

Freedom came to India very suddenly, without any preparation The so-called "Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, had not prepared the country at all. The so-called leaders were only efficient in creating a little bit of chaos here and there, and when freedom came they were absolutely at a loss as to what to do because all their efficiency was in creating chaos.

So even though freedom did come - thirty-three years have passed - but those leaders still know only one thing: how to create chaos. They go on doing the same. And those leaders perfectly well that the only way to be in power is to go on creating chaos. The whole concern of those who are in power is to remain in power, and they can only remain in power if the country remains in chaos. So people go on fighting and they go on managing somehow, proving to the world that they are very much needed, otherwise the country will fall apart. And the interest of the people who are not in power is also in creating chaos because that is the only way to come back into power or to come into power.

So the politicians have learned one trick: they have gained freedom - freedom means they have gained power for themselves - and they know they have gained the power through creating chaos; that's the only way to be in power. So India should not be left alone - let people fight in every possible way. When people are fighting, their energies are wasted in fighting each other and you can easily rule them, because then the people become weaker every day. And those who are not in power know that if they can create more chaos than you can control, then of course sooner or later they will be in power. So it is a political game. Nobody is really interested in the welfare of the country.

The second thing to remember is that India has lived in a very repressive way. The cause lies in the phony morality. If people have lived with repression then whenever there is some freedom, that repressed energy starts uncoiling itself. Any energy repressed is sooner or later going to take revenge. Whenever there is a chance, an opportunity for the energy to explode, it will explode. Once the pressure on the lid is removed then the lid is going to be thrown off by all the repressed vapour inside.

And India has lived longest under moral repression, so the people are boiling within. They talk about morality, but they go on raping women. They respect the saints, but they go on mur-dering, butchering. They go on talking about God, moksha, nirvana, truth, Yoga, devotion, prayer - beautiful words! - but if you look at their life, all that they do is destructive.

India is not a creative country. No repressed society can be creative - the repressed society is afraid of creativity because creativity means expression - creativity is against repression, it is just the polar opposite.

So Indians have double faces: one face to wear in public and another face to wear in private.

Some years ago two rabbis met for lunch. After conducting a heavy philosophical exchange, the two turned to lighter topics.

"So," said one, "what do you think? One of our boys got to marry that Elizabeth Taylor!"

"Oh," snapped the other, "it won't last a year!"

The first rabbi sighed and said, "I should have such a year!"

The Indian mind is full of sexuality, full of anger, full of hatred - and it talks about love, talks about compassion, talks about non-violence. But don't be deceived by their talk - their talk simply shows that just the opposite is inside them. And now they are free; there is no pressure on them to go on repres-sing. So everywhere in the country every day... I think nothing like this is happening anywhere else in the world. People are burnt alive! Women are raped everywhere - mass rape!

Many women die just because so many people rape them that they fall dead. And the mahatmas of the country go on talking about celibacy, but the same mahatmas are being caught doing all kinds of criminal acts.

The saints go on talking about non-attachment, non-possessiveness, and you will not find any more greedy people than these. They are greedy for pleasures in the other world and here too they are greedy, but in a roundabout way. They will not collect the money for themselves, they will collect the money for the temple - and they are the real owners of the temple.

You will be surprised to know that even the stone statues in the temples own land. What a tricky mind! The priest owns the land. For example, the temple at Bodh Gaya where Gautam Buddha became enlightened, even that temple is dominated by Hindus. It does not belong to the Hindus.

Buddha became enlightened, the temple was made in his memory; he was a rebel, he was not a Hindu; but the priest of the temple is a brahmin, he is not a Buddhist. Brahmins are very cunning!

The god of the temple owns thousands of acres of land and the priest goes to the court on behalf of the god of the temple. Now, you cannot take that land and distribute it into the hands of the landless poor people, because how can you take the land from the god? And the priest cannot give it to you - he is just working there on behalf of the god. He is not the owner, the owner is just a stone statue! It cannot sign an agreement, you cannot put the statue in gaol, you cannot do anything. For thirty-three years the battle has continued in the courts, but the courts cannot do anything. There exists no law saying how to take land from a Stone statue. And the same is true about thousands of temples in the country.

And the priest will go on talking about greedlessness. He will teach people: "Don't be greedy, donate to the temple. Greed is not good! If you donate to the temple you will gain a thousandfold in the other world." And whatsoever they donate to the temple is really donated to the priest. He is the real owner, but he is dominating via a stone statue.

All kinds of things go on happening in India for the simple reason that the country lacks character - character in my sense, character that arises as a by-product of consciousness. India is absolutely characterless, but what they think is character, they go on bragging about all around the world: that they are very religious, very moral. And that is sheer nonsense!

I have seen their morality, I have seen their character - it is bogus, it is just painted. And when you have a painted face your face can be exposed. Just any opportunity...

I was a professor in a university. One of the professors wanted to come to see me with his wife, but he turned up alone. I asked, "What happened to your wife? She was going to come - and she was so eager to come!"

He said, "There was some trouble. When we came out it started raining, so she had to go back." I said, "But if you could come, why has she not come? It is not raining so much, just a little bit. It is not so much you don't seem to be totally wet."

The professor said, "You know my wife. She paints her face so much that just a few drops of water were enough to expose her real face, so she had to go back. Her make-up got lost!"

My personal physician is Devaraj; his granny and aunt are here. The grandmother is eighty-five years old, with perfect make-up - lipstick and all. Now, a slight rain will expose the reality, but she must be taking great care about it because even Arup could not judge her age. When I told her, "She is eighty-five," she said, "Eighty-five! She does not look eighty-five!"

People go on deceiving in many ways. Nothing much is wrong if you have a painted face, but if you have a painted soul much is lost. Maybe in the West people are more interested in painting the body, but in India they are more interested in painting the soul, which is far worse. Painting the face is nothing much - the face, after all, is not you - but the soul, the inner being, if you paint it, just a little scratch and the reality will show. Any opportunity... you are not going to lose the Opportunity.

Beware of the person who has been forcing himself to be a celibate, he can be a rapist any moment.

Only my people cannot be rapists - there is no need! There is no reason at all.

One of my mediums is Champa. Her friend from America has come; he is a photographer and a famous publisher of photographic books. He told Anutosh, "I have never in my life seen so many beautiful women gathered in one place as I see here!" And when he says that he means it because he is a photographer - he has that sense to know what beauty is. He must have seen so many photogenic faces.

But he said, "One thing puzzles me: the women are so beautiful, so strong, so alive, but the men look a little wishy-washy, derailed - as if they are escaping from the women!

I would suggest to Champa's friend: be here for two, three months and you will become wishy- washy! With so many beautiful women around, how long can you stay alive? They are bound to make you afraid. Here just the opposite happens: in the world, the outside world, it is the man who takes the initia-tive, here it is the women! In the outside world they say, "When a woman says no, don't be too bothered about her no - she means yes." But here there is no chance for the woman to say no, the man says no - and he really means no! He escapes.

Do you think my sannyasins can be rapists? Impossible! They have been raped! And remember always, the woman has more sexual potential than man; she has the capacity for multiple orgasms.

Man is very poor in that sense. In twenty-four hours he can have one orgasm, and that too depends on his age, but the woman can have multiple orgasms. Naturally, men can become wishy-washy, afraid, shaken, always escaping. The moment they see a beautiful woman coming towards them they start meditating! This is my device for them to meditate!

The Indians cannot meditate because when they meditate, in their fantasy women start coming, but my sannyasins immediately start meditating even when real women are there! This is a totally different situation.

The Indian mind is repressive, and a repressive mind is dangerous. Firstly, it will not be creative because it cannot be expressive; it will be afraid of expression. Secondly, the mind is boiling with too much repressed energy which will explode. Any weak moment, any available opportunity, and it cannot miss it. And how long can you pretend? You cannot pretend twenty-four hours a day; sometimes you have to rest and relax too. The moment you rest and relax you have to put your character to one side, otherwise it keeps you uptight the whole time. Indians are very uptight, but they have been thinking that this is what religion is all about.

Willy loved to play golf, but the only course anywhere near his house belonged to a country club that wouldn't accept Jews. "No problem," thought Willy, "I"ll just call myself William, and they"ll never guess I'm Jewish! "

Sure enough he was accepted.

So the very next day Willy went onto the course, found some partners and began to play. At the fourth hole, however, after a very careful swing, poor Willy missed the ball completely. Instinctively, he let out a holler, "Oy gevalt!" he shrieked.

Suddenly realizing what he had said, Willy smiled broadly and added with a flourish, "Whatever that means!"

A tale is told of a certain countess who was half French and half English. When she was in labour with her first child, her husband was beside himself with anxiety.

The doctor tried to calm him down. "She's got plenty of time to go," he said. "Let's play cards." So he dealt out a hand, but then suddenly a cry came from the bedroom, "Mon dieu! Mon dieu!" The count jumped up from his chair. "Not yet, not yet," soothed the doctor. "Keep on playing."

So they did, but again came a wail, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

The husband was on his feet again, and still the doctor did not look up. "Not yet," he insisted, "not yet. Your turn to play."

A few minutes later the voice upstairs cried, "Oy gevalt!"

Then the doctor stood up and declared, "Now!"

You can hide, but only to a certain extent; beyond that the reality is bound to surface.

India has done almost a miraculous job of five thousand years of suppression. Now for the first time India has become free, democratic, hence the anarchy, the chaos, the lawlessness. But in a way this is good: it shows the reality, the authentic reality of Indian mind, its character, its "morality", its so-called religion, its "spirituality". All that garbage is exposed for the first time - in that sense it is good.

Now we have to make a totally new kind of India. The past has failed - five thousand years of work has gone down the drain! A little freedom has exposed everything. So now there is no need to go on doing the same again; we can start learning a new language.

That's what my work is here: to give you a new language - of expression, of creativity, of transforming your energies from the lower to the higher, from the baser metal into gold. This school is an alchemical school, my sannyasins are alchemists, and this alchemy has to be spread not only in this country but all over the world. But this country needs it immensely more than anybody else.

You ask me, Ayub Syed: WHY IS INDIA DRIFTING TOWARDS LAWLESSNESS?

It is its true character, its reality. It is not drifting towards lawlessness, it is simply exposing itself, it is dropping its hypocrisy. Freedom has given us a great chance to see ourselves as we are, naked.

Freedom has become a mirror - now we have to think again. Now our whole past is useless.

This is a shock, but much can be learned from this failure. A revolution can happen! Character should not be imposed anymore, but consciousness should be helped to grow. And if consciousness is helped to grow, soon this lawlessness will disappear and an inner discipline will arise. For that to happen India needs a certain society, a certain atmosphere.

For the transition period democracy should be put aside. For the transition period a presidential form of government with more dictatorial power than the American President has will be of immense help.

But that power has not to be used to impose the same old character - no need to commit the same mistake again - that power has to be used to de-programme people from the past and to give them a taste of consciousness. a taste of awareness. They have to be helped to become more individual, but democracy will not be able to do it; it will simply lead India into more and more chaos.

Remember perfectly well that India has never been a nation. It is a vast country and it has always been many nations, never one nation. If it drifts into lawlessness it will start falling apart it will become small pieces.

In Gautam Buddha's time there were two thousand kingdoms in India, two thousand countries. Now if lawlessness grows a little more, if chaos spreads a little more, India will start falling apart. Punjab will want to have its own Sikhisthan the kingdom of the Sikhs, South India will want to separate from North India, the Bengalis will not want to live with non-Bengalis, Hindi-speaking people will not want to live with non-Hindi-speaking people, the Maharashtrians will want to have their own independent country.

In fact, it is strange - the very name is strange means "nation", Maharashtra means "a great nation".

Now this is "the only country in the world"! The country is only a nation, and in the nation there is a province with the name "the great nation". A small nation and within it a great nation! You see the stupidity of it?

Gujarat would like to have its own... India can fall apart and become at least thirty countries very easily. It is a subcontinent. And Indians are very quarrelsome; they have always been fighting with each other. That has been very destructive in the past because their energies were lost. Small armies came and conquered India for the simple reason that India was never a nation.

For the first time again it is a nation, just as for the first time it is a democracy and for the first time really free. These are great opportunities - they can be used - but democracy can prove fatal.

Democracy is beautiful, a rose flower, but you have to prepare the bed. You cannot grow roses in the desert - and that's what we have been trying to do for these thirty-three years .

I believe absolutely in democracy, that's why I say a little k of dictatorial preparation will be good for the flower of democracy. Dictatorship has to be used as a means, the end remains democracy.

Hence dictatorship has to be used in a way that it can be dropped at any moment, and the best way is to create a presidential system according to the n context. Create law but not enforced - teach people the beauty of lawfulness, the beauty of understanding each other, the beauty of not encroaching on each other's space. In India everybody is ready to encroach on everybody's space, nobody respects anybody else's territorial imperative.

This is the problem my sannyasins are facing every day If sannyasins are moving hand in hand, every Indian is against it. They are not doing anything to those people, they are not doing any harm to anybody. If two persons are lovingly holding hands or hugging each other, it should not be anybody's business - you should not interfere in it.

In fact, if two persons are fighting a crowd gathers to watch and enjoy it, but if two persons kiss each other then people are very angry. People seem to be set against love and life, and they are all for destruction! Anything beautiful is hated, anything ugly is enjoyed, indulged in.

In Indian films kissing is not allowed, but murder is allowed. You can see the point! I will allow kissing, I will not allow murder.

Just the other day Alfred asked one question, because I had said - it has been reported to me again and again by many people - that one Indian was holding a Western sannyasin woman in such an ugly, obscene way that it was certainly exhibitionistic, because he was just standing by the gate inside the ashram so everybody passing by could see. It was nauseating! Many people reported it to me, and I said that if such a thing happens then throw this type of person outside immediately.

And Alfred was very angry because I had said just the day before that if two sannyasins are kissing each other it is nobody's business. They are not kissing any Indian, they are not kissing anybody else, they are kissing their own lovers. So Alfred was angry that I said to throw that Indian out if it happened again. He said, "The Indian was doing something to a woman, he was not doing it to you!" Alfred, you don't understand because you are not a sannyasin. I say to you he was doing it to me, because I am involved with my sannyasins and my sannyasins are involved with me. To be a sannyasin means to become a part of me; to be a sannyasin also means you let me become a part of you. If something ugly is done to any of my sannyasins it is done to me. If Meeten is murdered, something of me is murdered. If some repressed, ugly mind is trying to do some obscene thing to any sannyasin, I am involved in it.

And this is not a public place, it is not a road, this is my Buddhafield! I will not say anything if it happens in Poona somewhere on the road - that is not my business at all. But this is my home and these people are part of me, part of this Buddhafield. Here, nothing like this can be allowed.

Yes, if two persons are beautifully hugging and loving each other there is no problem at all, nobody prevents them, but Indians cannot be beautiful about hugging and kissing. Centuries of repression suddenly takes them to the opposite extreme Either they will be very moralistic, "holier than thou", or suddenly they move to the other extreme, their pendulum goes to the other extreme. They start behaving in an ugly way.

Ugliness cannot be tolerated, beauty should be respected. Beauty is the greatest divine quality in existence, beauty is the face of God, but ugliness is evil. Lawlessness is ugly and lawfulness imposed from the outside is also ugly; they are two extremes of the same phenomenon.

I would like a totally different kind of morality, law, discip-line, that arises from your own innermost source. And when it can happen, why should we go on depending on outer, formal things? When the real is possible, why remain with the plastic and the false?

Indians have been moralistic out of fear and greed - fear of hell, greed for heavenly pleasures. This is not real morality. I don't believe in any hell and heaven! Destroy the idea of hell and heaven and then be moral. Then your morality is an end unto itself, then it has a beauty; then it is not out of fear, then it is not for any motive, you are doing something good because you enjoy doing it.

An old lady was impressed by the sermons of Morarjibhai Desai and she told a friend about him.

"Do you know," she said, "he can preach about hell as if he was born and reared in that place!" But people have lived in fear. God is also nothing but their projection of fear. That's why in all the languages of the world we have words like "God-fearing". This is an ugly word! We use it synonymously with "religious", and the religious person is never God-fearing, he is God-loving. But we call religious persons "God-fearing". Fear has nothing to do with religion at all; fear is anti- religious. Love is religion. But the idea of God that we have carried all along is just there to create fear, it is not the true vision.

A man falling from a plane started praying to God to save him. "Oh, God, God, God! Save me, save me! Please, save me!" Nothing happened, so he decided to try Allah. "Oh, Allah, Allah! Save me, save me!" Suddenly a great hand came from the sky, caught him and gently placed him on the earth.

"Oh, thank God!" the man uttered in relief.

Suddenly thunder boomed from the sky and an enormous foot came down to earth and squashed the man out of sight.

But this is your idea of God, Allah: that if you cry "Allah! Allah!" he will save you and if you thank God he will come and crush you, and vice versa. This is nothing but an exploitation of fear. God simply means the loving energy of existence.

Indians have to be educated for democracy. Indians have to be educated to respect each other's views, visions, styles of life. Indians have to be educated to respect the differences in people's lives, thoughts, attitudes, approaches. But Indians are very interfering with each other and very argumentative. For five thousand years they have not done anything but argue, so they have become very skilful in argumentation. They can argue about anything, for or against, and they are continuously quarrelling. And this quarrelsomeness is a destructive thing; the whole energy has to be put into creativity.

Ethel lay in bed freezing. The draught from the open Window ran icy-cold through her blanket, but her husband Sam was snoring deeply, unaware of his spouse's discomfort.

Finally Ethel could take it no longer. She propped herself up on an elbow and poked a finger in her husband's stomach. "Sam, Sam, it's cold outside!" she exhorted. "Sam, close the window, it's cold outside!"

Now Sam awoke, somewhat furious. "So? If I close the window," he growled, "will it be warm outside?" This argumentativeness, this continuous fighting has gone very deep into Indians" blood, bones and marrow. They have to be taught that these arguments don't help, they simply destroy. Creativity has never been taught, has never been respected. We have respected saints only for one reason:

because they were great self-torturers. We have never respected poets, painters, sculptors - never.

Nobody knows who the architect of the Taj Mahal was, nobody knows who made the beautiful temples of Khajuraho, nobody knows who the people were who worked their whole lives creating the caves of Ajanta and Ellora. But we know all kinds of fools who fasted, who stood on their heads, who did nothing in their lives but rest on a bed of thorns, who remained naked in the cold! We know all about these idiots and we respect them - we have raised temples in their honour. And nobody knows about the creators; we have not even bothered about them.

This an absolutely wrong approach towards life.

Creativity should ke appreciated so that energies become diverted more and more towards creativity.

The Indian mind knows nothing about creativity, and the energies are there.

And remember one fundamental law about energy if you don't use it in creativity it becomes destructive, it goes sour, it becomes poisonous. It has to be used; you have to create something. If you cannot create a beautiful poem or a painting or a sculpture, then you will kill somebody or you will burn somebody or you will rape somebody.

If God is the creator, then the only way to worship him is creativity.

India also suffers from a fatalistic philosophy: "Everything is being done by God. If you are poor, God is responsible; if you are sinners, God is responsible. It is fate - what can you do?" The fatalistic philosophy has made India utterly lazy, uncreative, lousy.

One of the sutras of Murphy is: If it doesn't work, it was made in India.

Another of his sutras is: When you are happy, be happy; when you are sad, blame God.

This fatalistic attitude has kept people and their energies imprisoned. There is nothing for you to do, you just have to be a watcher and things go on happening - they are beyond you. No, this is not right.

Man brings no written fate with him; he comes open-ended, he comes like a clean slate. You create yourself by your actions - you are creating yourself every moment.

You have heard the proverb: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. But that is not true about India. In the first place they never try, so they never fail - there is no question of fail-ure because they never try, and even if they try then they will agree with Murphy's sutra: If at first you don't succeed, you fail again. Not "try, try again", "you fail again" - nothing can be done about it.

Murphy says: When in doubt, worry.

Why did the Mexican mother forbid her daughter to marry an Indian?

She did not want her grandchildren to be too lazy to steal.

Mulla Nasruddin hadn't taken his wife out in a long time, so he called her into the living room and said, "I"ve decided something," and he slapped his arm on the couch arm for emphasis. "We"re stepping out this coming Monday if, God willing, we"re alive. And if not, we"ll go Tuesday." India is suffering from its own past: its philosophies, its saints, its scriptures, its religion, its morality.

Unless we disconnect ourselves totally from the past there is no hope. A drastic revolution is needed, an absolute disconnection, a discontinuity - less than that won't do.

Ayub Syed, this is my approach: a discontinuity with the past so we can start anew, afresh. There is no need to go on renovating the old collapsing house; it is better to destroy it and make a new house instead.

But Indians have become so accustomed to the old, so ob-sessed with the old that they go on renovating it, they just go on patching it up. And every moment it is collapsing on this side or that side, it needs new props, and anyway it is not worth living in - it is dangerous to be inside it. So everybody is living outside, and the whole work is: how to maintain it so that it does not collapse.

Nobody dares to live inside because it can collapse any moment, but everybody is making every effort to keep it, to manage it. The whole energy is wasted in keeping the heritage, and there is nothing much in that heritage.

People who are obsessed with the past are people who have forgotten how to live in the present.

India needs a real education; for that purpose a certain educative climate is needed. It needs a scientific technology, not a fatalist attitude. It needs a scientific approach about everything, not just praying and worshipping and asking God to do this favour and that. Enough of all that!

And this lawlessness can disappear because nobody is benefited by it, everybody is a loser, except the politicians. The politicians are having their day because the more chaos there is, the more you will have to depend on them. Make people more and more lawless, more and more chaotic, and then they will have to depend on you.

A really disciplined society does not need to depend much on the government or on the politicians, so we have to learn that too: that politicians are reaping a good crop out of your misery. Only they are benefited, nobody else, and they are all in a conspiracy. If one party fails - and every party is bound to fail because the problems are vast and no party has the guts to disconnect itself from the past... Every party goes on respecting the past, honouring the past, because that's the only way to get the votes.

I get only curses from all over the country; they would like to kill me. Every day I receive letters saying: "You should be killed! You should be thrown out of the country!" Now, no politician can risk that much so they have to go on paying respect to the past knowing perfectly well that it cannot help you. We have to create a new present and through it a new future, but the politicians cannot do it.

I am creating sannyasins. These sannyasins can do much, not only for this country but for the whole world. They can bring a new education into existence, a new kind of man, a new kind of discipline, a new love for life and creativity, a new consciousness, a meditativeness. When a person acts out of that meditation, his acts are always beneficial to himself and to others. He is a blessing to himself and to the whole universe too.

The last question

Question 2:

Pramod,

I have never come across any such joke yet. If you can find one, send it to me! To me all jokes are beautiful - the more outrageous they are the more beautiful - because my work here consists of shattering all your conceptions, your prejudices. So there is not a single joke that I have come across which I would not dare to tell. There is no question of daring - I simply enjoy!

A nice little old lady bought a parrot for companionship in the sunset of her life. The sweet little creature - the woman, I mean - had very sedate bridge parties and teas once or twice a week, and the parrot always disgraced her by screeching the word "shit" over and over again.

This practice continued until the old lady tried to discipline the parrot by putting it in the refrigerator, but the parrot continued to screech this obscenity. Finally when the parrot made its usual utterance, the old lady put it in the freezer and at the same time plucked out a couple of feathers. This went on for weeks.

During the last period in the freezer the parrot noticed a turkey trussed up and ready for the oven lying on the shelf below. Of course it was completely plucked.

The parrot eyed the turkey and asked, "What did you say? "Fuck"?"