The future is open

Question 1:

Meditative people cannot be corrupted - ever. If somebody is corrupted, that only means he was not meditative. And about Sheela, I can tell you certainly: she had no interest in meditation, in my way of life, my philosophy. Her interests were totally different.

She had come first to me because her husband was suffering from cancer, and the doctors in America had said that he cannot live more than two years. She was desperately in search of someone who could help.

Her husband, Chinmaya, was a beautiful man. He remained with me, and it almost always happens, when you are facing death meditation is easy. You cannot postpone it, because tomorrow you may not be here to meditate.

So Chinmaya tried hard to meditate, and that helped him to live. All the medical experts were agreed.

They could not believe what had happened to him, because two years was the maximum limit for his disease.

But he lived almost ten years, and lived happily in spite of cancer, and died happily. Just a few years more and he would have been enlightened. But he reached to the point that in the next life the remaining small part can be done. His next life will be the last life.

Sheela had to remain with him, so it was just accidental, her coming to me, her remaining with me.

And when Chinmaya started going beyond the two-year limit, she started behaving in an ugly way towards him.

Naturally, he was sick, had cancer... he was not so much interested in sexuality. All that he needed was womanly warmth.

So Sheela started having lovers. That was a great wound in Chinmaya. And my feeling is, he would have lived a little longer, but these wounds were becoming more and more. And Sheela was constantly fighting with him.

Before he died, Sheela had divided the room in two parts, and she was living with her new boyfriend and Chinmaya was left alone.

Cancer.... And he had passed eight years beyond medical speculation. When he came to be examined by the doctors they could not believe it. They said, "This is nothing but a miracle."

I do not do any miracles, and I do not believe in any miracles. But he meditated. There was nothing left for him - only cancer and death.

But this wound, that at these last moments of his life Sheela would divide the room - and he could hear her laughter, joy with her new boyfriend - perhaps that was too much. Perhaps the will to live disappeared.

In a way, he was killed by Sheela.

Sheela never meditated. Not only that, you must have observed, she never even listened. While I was speaking she was sleeping. All the years in India, the time of my discourse was the time for her to sleep. Perhaps she was saving that time for the night with the boyfriend.

As far as I am concerned, I accept all types of people. I don't make conditions. Whoever comes to me, he is welcome.

Even if Sheela comes back - as a person, as an individual - she will have my trust and love just the same. I will not support her actions, her illegal and criminal actions. For that she will have to go to the court, go to the police.

And my suggestion will be that it will be better to come and confess everything before the court, and say to the court, "These are my acts and I am ready for the consequences. And don't be soft towards me. Be as hard as I have been with these poor people." That will give her dignity, respect.

You will start feeling proud of her.

Rather than hiding in the Black Forest like a criminal - and how long can she hide? My sannyasins are all over the world. They have already reached the place where she is hiding. They have informed us that the people who are with her are almost in a sick state - guilty. They have committed a crime against those who had loved them.

Their guilt will kill them. At least, it will keep them unhealthy psychologically. They may go mad.

My suggestion is they should come back. Our love is unconditional.

And I would like to make one point clear: that a person can act in a wrong way; that does not mean that the person becomes wrong. Action is a small thing. A person is a tremendous reality. And the action is already past, and the person has a pure future in front of him.

If he hides the action he destroys his own future, because that action will go on and on in his mind as guilt. If he confesses it and is willing to take whatever punishment is needed for it, he will clean himself completely. His future will become pure.

Confessing to the court, she will get the most lenient punishment. And I would like to tell to the court that no criminal needs punishment; all criminals need treatment.

For centuries criminals have been punished and you have not been able to change anything.

Criminals go on growing; then you grow more courts, more advocates. It is an unnecessary burden.

And the criminals - even if you imprison them, you are doing an absolutely irrational act, because living five years or ten years in jail means living in the university of criminology, where all the real masters of crime are. You will learn more, and you will learn one thing from all great criminals: that to commit a crime is not illegal, but to be caught is illegal.

So all that you have to do is not to be caught; you have to be more clever, more cunning. Crime is not the problem. The problem is being caught.

So anybody who is sent to a prison comes out a bigger criminal. When he went into the prison, perhaps he was just an amateur - that's why he was so easily caught. When he comes out, he comes out as a professional, expert. Now it will be difficult to catch him.

So my suggestion to the courts of the whole world is that up to now what you have been doing with the criminals is not right. A criminal has something wrong in his psychology. He needs psychiatric treatment.

Instead of making prisons, make places where he can be given psychiatric treatment, where he can meditate, study, become more intelligent. And give him all the respect that is due to a human being.

His acts do not count; what counts is his being.

I had chosen Sheela to be my secretary, not because she was meditative, not because she understood my approach towards problems. My reason for choosing her was totally different.

She had a very practical mind, very pragmatic. She was intelligent. And thirdly, because she had no idea of my total vision; just necessary instructions she could repeat like a parrot. And I needed a parrot.

I was in silence. I had no need of a very articulate man, because the articulate man will hear me but his mind will constantly be changing it, making it more sophisticated, more polished. He will edit, he will add. It will not be pure. I needed a parrot who knows nothing of philosophy, knows nothing of religion, knows nothing of the ultimate problems of life. Sheela was perfect. She could only repeat what I was saying to her.

These were the basic reasons in the beginning that I had chosen my secretary.

Another point to be understood, which is significant.... Many questions have come that, "You are an enlightened being. How could you choose wrong people?"

Those questions are out of a misunderstanding. An enlightened person can see you in the moment in your totality, but your future is unpredictable. And there are only two possibilities: if your future is freedom, it has to be unpredictable. If your future is not freedom, then it can be predicted.

Almost all the religions have chosen a predictable future, but the implication is that man becomes a machine. Only machines are predictable.

If Mahavira, Buddha and others can see the whole future of humanity, that means everything is already determined. So what you are doing is simply being a robot. The idea of freedom becomes an illusion.

But to me, freedom is the highest value. To save freedom, I am ready to kill God. If God is there, no freedom is possible, because God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, he knows all, he is present everywhere, and he is all powerful.

Under such a despot - Adolf Hitler millions of times magnified is your God - how can small human beings have the taste of freedom? It is impossible.

I would like to repeat the sentence of Friedrich Nietzsche, who once in a while used to have tremendous insights. He said, "God is dead and man is now free."

Putting these two together is a tremendous insight. God is dead - that has been said by many atheists in different ways, that is not new. What is new is the other part: and from now on man is free.

God's death becomes the freedom of man. God's life becomes the death of man. The choice is very clear. If you choose God, then you have chosen to be a robot, a machine who is destined to do something and there is no way to change.

The murderer will be a murderer.

The thief will be a thief.

The sinner will be a sinner.

The saint will be a saint.

And I am amazed that all over the world, our magistrates, judges, all the courts - from the smallest court to the Supreme Court of any nation - are filled with religious people. They all believe in God, and still they punish the sinners. Can you see the contradiction?

If God determines everybody's life - before you are born your life is written already, what you are going to be, what is going to be your whole flavor of character - if this is true, then no sinner should be punished. That is against religion. He was simply fulfilling a destiny that God has given him.

If you want to punish, punish God!

Then no saint should be praised, because whatever he is doing, he is in the same boat as the sinner. There is no difference. He is not holier than the sinner. Both are mechanical robots. One is manufactured to be a saint, another is manufactured to be a sinner. Neither the sinner is to be condemned, nor the saint is to be praised.

But strange things go on happening. People go on believing in God, and yet they go on insisting that whatever you do, you are responsible for it.

But responsibility needs freedom. Without freedom it is not possible for me to be responsible for my acts.

A puppet is not responsible for the dance, because the strings are in the hands of the puppeteer who is hiding behind the curtain. He is responsible. He can make the puppet dance, he can make the puppet fight, he can make the puppet sit cross-legged in meditation. But the puppet is not responsible for good or bad. If there is God, then there is no good, no bad.

These are simple implications.

God creates man, and God creates his destiny.

Nietzsche is a madman, but once in a while mad people have tremendous insights. Your sane people have no insight at all. This is something of supreme value when he says God is dead and, from now on, man is free. But freedom means responsibility.

So don't unnecessarily waste your time writing letters to me. I can see your present moment.

You can stand before a mirror. The mirror can see you the way you are in the present moment. The mirror cannot see that tomorrow you will be a murderer.

The tomorrow is open. All the dimensions are open. You can choose anything, and there are instances where murderers have changed and become great saints. This proves the freedom of man.

So when I had chosen Sheela to be my secretary, my reasons were: the secretary has to be pragmatic, practical in worldly affairs, because she will be taking care of the commune. And she will have to manage the commune amidst a world... she has to be alert and aware about worldly ways.

She was not very educated, she had no university degree - she has been a waitress in a hotel in America - but I did not want a very intellectual person to be my secretary, because the intellectual person will destroy my messages by his intellect. And I wanted just a parrot - and she was good at doing it.

But the future is open.

I went into silence. The direct communication between me and you stopped; she became the only communication. She saw the opportunity, the great opportunity that you love me so much and you trust me so much that whatever message she brings from me you believe it.

That gave her a clue that you can be exploited, that she can bring any message to you which I have not given. She can change the message and you will trust totally and do it accordingly. That's why for three and a half years you simply remained unaware of what she was doing. And power has a strange quality. It brings all your hidden desires to the surface. That's why power corrupts.

It is not power that really corrupts, it only brings all the corrupted ideas in you to the surface, because power gives you an opportunity to give those ideas a reality. Those dreams can be transformed and materialized.

And everybody is full of so many unconscious desires, of which he himself is not aware. Only power will show. And it has been happening all through history.

When Indira Gandhi came to power in India she was innocent, intelligent, not political at all. She had not come from the lowest political levels, fighting, struggling and reaching to the top. That way one becomes very cunning, clever, experienced. She had just got the power because she was the daughter of the first prime minister of India. So she never moved through the power struggle. She had never dreamed about it, she had never thought about it. Her father had never mentioned it.

But the committee, who was to decide, was in a very difficult position. There was Morarji Desai - who was strong, adamant, stubborn and a perfect idiot. Once he gets into power, he is not going even to listen to the committee who appoints him. And he will do all kinds of stupidities, and there will be no way to prevent him.

And there were others, but they were all provincial leaders. Only Morarji's and Indira's names were national names - Indira's because she was the daughter of Jawaharlal, and had followed Jawaharlal his whole life, taken care of her father because her mother died very early. And she sacrificed everything for the father. She sacrificed her own husband, abandoned her own husband, because she could not serve these two masters.

So it was thought that Indira will be good. She is innocent, not political, has never shown any political lust, has never tried to take advantage of her father's position. It will be good to put her against Morarji Desai, because her father had so much respect and love that certainly she will be chosen.

And she was chosen. But once she got into power, things started changing. She became almost a dictator at one point.

She imposed an emergency on the whole country. She forced all the political people into jail. She did whatever she wanted. She dissolved the parliament. She went on postponing the elections. And this was the natural result of all her dictatorial methods - that she has been assassinated by her bodyguards.

But nobody had any idea that a woman could turn into an Adolf Hitler.

The same happened in this small commune. You were engaged in creating an oasis in the desert, I was living in isolation and silence - and she had the gap between the two. You were engaged in the work so much, and I was out of contact with you.

I have never been in any power position in my whole life, and I will never be, because I know something bigger than power. I know something more powerful than power.

I know love.

I know trust.

And I love unconditionally, and I trust unconditionally. And I love and trust even those who are strangers, even those who have done things against me.

Just the other day Deeksha phoned. Knowing that now Sheela is gone, she wants to come back.

And I told her that she is welcome. She has been giving to the INS and their agents all kinds of false stories. She has been giving them absolute lies about me. But that does not matter. Perhaps she was angry, and in anger a person can do anything.

But my doors can never be closed. So I have informed her, "You can come."

Hundreds of people are informing that they want to come; they were rejected by Sheela.

A few of them were intimate friends of Sheela in India, and they were rejected for the simple fact that here she never wanted anybody to be so close as to be a friend.

Politicians don't want friends. They keep a gap. For example, no man was able to put his hand on the shoulders of Adolf Hitler in a friendly way, or hug him.

You don't hug gods. You don't put your hand on the shoulder of God. The people who are thinking they have become great powers will not allow you that much intimacy and friendship, because you become dangerous. Being so close, you can do anything.

Champa was one of Sheela's close friends in India, but she never came here. A great intelligent step, knowing that here Sheela will not like to treat her in the same way, the same friendly way - gossiping, sitting playing cards. Here she will be the fascist leader and you have to be just the followers.

Just a few days before Sheela left - I have heard the story yesterday from a person who was present in the meeting - she told a few people who were in some way part of her criminal strategies, "You have to surrender to me totally. Whatever I say you have to do."

Two persons, Siddha, the vice-chancellor of the meditation university here, and Prabodhi, one of the close workers in Sheela's group, simply disappeared.

We have been searching for them, they both were useful. Siddha was certainly one of the best psychiatrists you can find, had all the highest qualifications, has been for twelve years the head of an army psychiatric hospital. Prabodhi was very accurate in her work.

Both simply disappeared. And I inquired of Sheela what happened to them, Why? If they had to go, nobody is prevented, they could go - but why so suddenly and without giving any reason, and without giving any address? And now we have been phoning their families. They have not heard anything about them.

These two persons remained silent when Sheela said, "You have to give your total surrender to me.

Whatever I say you have to say yes. The word no does not exist anymore for you."

Amitabh, the chancellor of the meditation university, did not come back here. He had gone for three days just to relax in Hawaii, and from there he informed that "I am not coming back." Now, he has been associated with me for a long time, and he was the only certified psychoanalyst, perfectly insured, and he had the qualifications for being a chancellor of the university.

He had been coming to India every year for six, nine months; only in hot summer he could not tolerate it there, so he had to come back.

But without any reason - just so that they should not come back - it seems Sheela had created fear in these people, that coming back can be dangerous. And they were in powerful positions, they must be knowing many secrets. If they were not totally surrendered to Sheela, then they could be dangerous.

Power has the capacity to bring out the worst in you. It has never been known in the whole history that power has brought out the best in you.

Your question is significant, that meditation cannot be corrupted.

Yes, it cannot be corrupted. On the contrary, if a person is meditative, loving, power can bring the best out of him. And I would like that experiment to happen here.

The worst has always come out of power. But meditation can change the whole situation, the whole alchemy. And now I am suggesting people for power who are meditative, intelligent, loving. And I hope that we will be able to manage something new.

Use power to bring the best out of man.

And anyway, nothing like Sheela is going to happen, because now I am not going to stop speaking and being in direct contact with you.

I don't have any power, but I have love, which is far more powerful than any power. I cannot dictate to you - but I need not dictate. Just a gesture of love is enough. Just my fingers pointing to the moon, and your eyes will turn towards the moon without any order, commandment.

So don't feel afraid at all, but remember your responsibility, which has become bigger, because Sheela was forcing you to do the work. Now you will have to do it out of your own spontaneous joy.

Your responsibility has become far greater. For example, last night it happened that the journalists who were here for a press conference also wanted to go to the funeral of the beautiful sannyasin Lazarus.

They were feeling hungry, and Isabel became very disturbed because all the restaurants were closed by eighty thirty, and all the people from the restaurants, disco, everywhere, had gone to the funeral procession.

Now, this is not being responsible. It had never happened in Sheela's time. So do you need a Sheela to keep you on the right track?

The journalists were hungry and they wanted to attend the funeral, but before attending the funeral they wanted to eat something. Somehow Anuradha arranged some food for them.

But this is not right. When nobody is dictating to you, that does not mean that you become lazy.

Your output should be better than it was in Sheela's time. That will prove that the fascism that she was imposing on you was absolutely meaningless. But if your output falls down, then you know you are supporting Sheela. Then you are saying that without Sheela you cannot work, you need a whip.

I don't want anybody to whip you. There is no need. You can see the point that a skeleton crew should have been there in every place. That has always been the case; any gathering of the whole commune, there was always a skeleton crew available for essential things. Now, by closing restaurants completely you showed your love towards Lazarus, but you did not show responsibility.

And you forgot that these are the things which help fascists to revive, because that seems to be the only way that works, otherwise things start falling apart.

I am giving you total responsibility and an opportunity. You have to prove that you don't need any dictatorial regime to run the commune. You will remain alert, and you will remain aware of your responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility go together. More freedom, more responsibility. Total freedom, total responsibility. I hope nothing like this will happen again.

Question 2:

You must be crazy. I am not a leader. A lover can never be a leader. All the leaders are loveless; their whole being is directed to one goal - to be on the top, and whatever means are needed they will use to reach the end. They don't care about good means, they only care about their end.

A leader is a political phenomenon, and all politicians - without any exception - suffer from an inferiority complex. And the people who suffer from an inferiority complex are bound to get into politics, into leadership, so that they can prove to themselves and to the world that they are not inferior, they are superior.

But whatever power you can attain, it cannot destroy your inferiority. It has nothing to do with your inferiority; it is a projection to cover it up.

Inferiority disappears only in deep meditative silence. Then you know such a uniqueness that you don't want to be anybody else other than who you are. Just to be yourself is such a bliss. Who wants to be a leader?

You are asking, "What are the responsibilities of a leader?"

Ask the leaders. I am not a leader, so of course I don't have any experience of the responsibilities of a leader.

I know love, and I know the response of love.

And you are not the ruled. Here in this commune nobody is a ruler and nobody is ruled. That's the whole point of creating this commune and other communes around the world, where people can live as individuals without being divided into classes of the rulers and the ruled.

This is not the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union they were trying to create a classless society, but they were not aware of a simple fact, that to force the society to become classless, they will have to create new classes - the ruler and the ruled.

Yes, the capitalist and the poor have disappeared, but the ruler and the ruled have appeared. And a strange thing came about.

When I say the capitalists and the poor have disappeared, I mean the capitalists have disappeared and poverty has been distributed equally, so now nobody feels poorer than anybody else. The Soviet Union is still a poor country - even the middle class people in America are far richer - just the names have changed. The bourgeois and the proletariat are no more there.

But an even more dangerous thing has happened, because a capitalist can go bankrupt and become poor. A poor man - if he is intelligent - can become the richest man. There is mobility, movement in a capitalist society. People are continuously changing: from middle class to super-rich, from super- rich to middle class, from middle class to lower class, from lower class to middle class - everywhere the change goes on.

But in Russia this is not possible; there is no mobility. The rulers are rulers and the ruled are ruled.

For sixty years the same gang has been ruling, and the whole country is in the same position of being ruled, dictated.

Remember, here there is no leader, no led, no ruler, no ruled.

Even the people who are presidents of the foundation, commune, investment corporation and other corporate bodies, are not different from you. They don't have any more special powers than you have.

And they are not rulers. They are servants of the commune. They have put themselves in a humbler position - because they have the capacity, generosity, love for the commune - that they are ready to be servants of the commune.

To serve out of love is beautiful.

To rule is ugly, and I want my people to be the most beautiful people about everything.

Beauty has many dimensions. I want my people to be beautiful in all dimensions: graceful, humble, humane, loving, trusting, responsible individuals, intelligent, meditative. But not rulers and ruled.

So I don't know, because I have never been a ruler and I have never been one who is ruled.

I have never accepted anybody above me - not even God - and I have never accepted anybody below me, not even the devil.

To me, both are friends.

Question 3:

You are asking about a real master. I am not even a master, so the question of being real or unreal does not arise. This is the same game in different ways - the rulers, the ruled, the exploiters, the exploited; and in the spiritual world, the masters and the disciples, the saints and the sinners. But the division goes on and on.

Can't you live without division? Is there any necessity to divide? I am not a master, and I have never been a disciple either.

I have matured and centered and meditated, searched and found myself on my own accord. I have never followed anybody, and I don't want you to follow anybody - me included.

I am just a man who has awakened, and you are still asleep. The difference is not much. You can be shocked, shaken and awakened - just a little cold water on your eyes and you will be awakened.

I don't do such drastic things, because I don't want to interfere in your beautiful dreams. Even to interfere in anybody's dreams, to me, is violence. You can be pulled out of the bed and given a good slap on the face and you will be awake.

But I don't want to do such drastic things. It is transgressing, trespassing in your individual world.

If you want to decide to sleep a little more, what is the harm? I have never heard that anybody has done any harm while he is asleep.

In fact, there is a story about Nadirshah, one of the most ugly monsters who has happened on this earth. He was really and absolutely inhuman.

Once, while he was invading India, a very beautiful prostitute was brought in the night to give him some entertainment, and while she was going back, she said she was afraid: "It is dark, and I have to go seven miles."

Nadirshah said, "You don't understand that you have been a guest of Nadirshah. You will not go in the darkness; you will go in light."

The woman said, "But how can I go in light? It is the middle of the night."

Nadirshah told his soldiers, "Put fire to all the villages on the way, all the forests on the way, so the prostitute can go in light to her place."

Many villages were put on fire, the forests were put on fire. The prostitute could not believe that this can be a way to go in light.

This man, Nadirshah, heard about a great wise man in India, and he asked him to come. The wise man said, "To come to you will be enough proof that I am not wise, so the thing will be useless. You will have to come to the well."

Nadirshah felt intrigued and excited too. He had never seen anybody disobey him. This man must have some guts. He went to the man and he felt some strange aura and energy around him.

He said, "I have come. I want to ask you: it is said in the scriptures that to sleep too much is bad, but I love to sleep. In fact, I drink too much, and then to get up becomes difficult. The hangover...

and then it is better to have more to drink and go to sleep again. What is your suggestion? Should I stop it?"

The old man said, "No. Whatever the scriptures say means nothing. They were not written for you.

They had no idea that a man like you will take instructions from the books. I would suggest you should sleep twenty-four hours, you should sleep forever. There is no need to wake up."

Nadirshah said, "This is strange advice. Twenty-four hours? Forever?"

The old man said, "Yes. Although it is against all the scriptures, but I say on my own authority that people like you need twenty-four hours of sleep, because whenever you are awake you will do some mischief. Asleep, much violence, much war, much trouble to the world will be stopped."

So there is not much wrong. And I never trespass, I just persuade from the outside of your bedroom.

I don't even get in your bedroom, because to get in your bedroom without your permission is not right. And how to ask a sleeping man, "May I come in, sir?" So my whole work takes place outside your bedroom.

I create devices outside your bedroom. For example, I may scream suddenly that the house is on fire. I have not done anything to you. And hearing that the house is on fire - even in sleep people hear that.

It is strange. They will not hear great advice in sleep, but if you say, "The house is on fire!" they will immediately hear it, and they will run out of the house.

That is up to you. It is not my responsibility. One thing I know: when you come out and you see the sunrise and the birds singing and the beautiful sky so colorful, and the flowers, you will be grateful to me - although the house is not on fire.

But I can lie. I don't think this lie harms anybody.

And all enlightened people have to lie, because truth cannot be said to you. You won't understand it; you are fast asleep, snoring. Secondly, truth cannot be said in language. The moment you put the experience of truth in language, it becomes untrue.

So, rather than distorting the truth and making it untrue, it is far better to create a device - which is a lie. But it works!

I have brought many people out of their bedroom, asking "Where is the fire?"

And I say, "I don't know. Just once in a while I get this urge to call 'The house is on fire!'"

I don't know the responsibility of the leader; I don't know the responsibility of the led.

I know the responsibility of love. I know the responsibility of the beloved. When love calls you, listen to it. That's the only responsibility. When love says something to you, let it enter into the deepest core of your being.

When love knocks on your door, open the door.

The real beloved, in fact, does not close the door at all, but waits at the door for the lover to come, so that he need not even knock.

Sannyas is a love affair. It has nothing to do with ruled and the rulers, leaders and the led. It has certainly to do with love and lovers.

And the beauty of love is: it does not create hierarchy.

I may be enlightened, you may not be enlightened, but because I love you, I am not holier than you.

Because I love you, I declare that you have every capacity, ability, potentiality to be enlightened. It is just a question of your decision.

But I cannot impose the decision on you. At the most, love persuades. And love has many ways to persuade. It is only hate that imposes.

Just looking into your eyes is a persuasion, is a message.

Just the gesture of my hand is to touch your heart.

The silence that I love - and I speak only to give you these few small pauses of silence. Just look at this silence, and we all have become one. All divisions are lost and there is an immense peace, a tremendous feeling of joy arising in you.

I want to give you the taste of enlightenment in as many ways as possible, so one day finally you say, "Okay. I am going to wake up now."

Question 4:

Power-oriented people can create much, but their creation is basically criminal. And sooner or later, it is going to fall apart.

Meditative people, loving people, can create higher things, better things. And whatever they create is never in the service of death and destruction. Whatever they create is basically godliness. Whatever they create remains forever; it is eternal.

Adolf Hitler used to say that the regime that he is creating is going to last for one thousand years.

I want you to know, what we are creating is going to last forever.

Love is immortal. Love knows no death. Meditation leads you within yourself to eternity.

So don't think that I had put Sheela and her group to create the commune. They turned out to be power-oriented. Perhaps any one of you would have turned out to be the same. You all carry the same desire to be somebody special.

What has happened was bound to happen. It is a tremendously good experience that it happened so soon, just in four years. And now we have learned a lesson and we will not allow it to happen again.

The whole fault was mine, that I was silent. I had my reasons to be silent. I wanted to be silent forever, because words don't convey... it is not real communion that happens through words. I wanted to communicate through silence.

So my reason was there to be silent, but I cannot say that it was not my fault. I knew that something like that is possible, but I also knew that I can start speaking any moment when I see that things have come to a peak and they have to be stopped.

And no harm has happened to you. In fact, you have become more mature through the experience.

It will make you more responsible, less dependent on authorities, more responsible on your own towards the whole commune.

We will turn this fascist nightmare we have passed through, into something beautiful. It is always in our hands to change things.

I have started changing the same nightmare into a beautiful experience that will help you along the way, and you will not fall in the same hole again.

Sheela has done a great service to you, and you should feel gratitude to her and her gang.

Question 5:

There is no difficulty.

Just trust in doubt.

Okay?