This existence is paradise

Question 1:

This has been the tragedy of the whole human history. People want to convert other people to their idea, their ideology, without realizing that this is against the freedom of the individual. All kinds of conversion are fanatic. All the missionaries are simply businessmen - just selling invisible things to gullible people. They are the greatest parasites that have existed ever.

You have to understand one thing very clearly. This is not a religion, it is only a religiousness. You can open your heart to anybody you love, respect, but to make any effort to convert him is a trespass.

You are entering into that man's territory, you are an invader. And the reason why people do this is very strange.

Psychologically, all the people like Witnesses of Jehovah and other idiots, who are forcing their ideas on other people... their means may differ, but their end is the same. A Mohammedan comes with a Koran in one hand and a sword in the other. You can choose. The Christian missionary comes with The Holy Bible in one hand and bread and butter in the other. You can choose. But both are doing the same thing. They are trying to enslave you, to destroy your freedom of thinking, freedom of inquiry. They want you to believe, they want you to become part of their politics of numbers.

What is the power of the Polack pope? Six hundred million Catholics are his power; otherwise he is a simpleton. Take those six hundred million Catholics away, and he will have to go back to Poland and be just a Polack. His popedom depends on how many people are Catholics. More people are needed, so the kingdom becomes bigger.

Every religion has tried to convert the whole world. What is the psychological reason for it? What kind of mind becomes a missionary? You have not yet experienced the truth for which you are canvassing. If you can convert somebody to your ideology, that will give you a sense that certainly what you have is true. More people are converted to your ideology, and your conviction that whatever you are saying is true grows stronger. When somebody refuses, anger arises in you.

It is his birthright to refuse. He wants to go on his own way. Why should you be angry? He is not your slave. But the anger arises because he has not helped you to become stronger in your own belief. Your truth is not your experience. It is simply a belief, and all beliefs are lies. They need support from outside.

Truth needs to convert nobody.

Even if the whole world is against me it will not make me angry. It will certainly make me feel sorry, but not angry... sorry for them, because I had brought a golden treasure for them to share. And I was not trying to convert them. They could have enjoyed my experience and gone on their way with all my blessings. Perhaps my experience somewhere on their way might have helped them. But I cannot be angry. It is their choice.

I have never followed anybody. I have never been part of any religion, any political ideology, and it seems everybody around the world is angry with me. Christians are angry because I will not accept all that they say about Jesus Christ - I know it is not possible. I will not accept all that they say about God, because none of them has experienced it. I will not accept their spirituality - it is all bogus.

Basically, they are all materialists.

Just the other day I received two letters - one letter from a minister of a Methodist church... very respectful, very loving. The reason was that he had heard on the television that I am going to distribute all the Rolls Royces to my sannyasins. He wants one for his Methodist church. These are the people who were against my Rolls Royces, but when it comes to getting one, they are ready to be beggars.

Another one I have received from The Dalles. The bishop tells me, "It will be a good gesture of friendship and love from your side towards Oregonians if you withdraw the case against the community church in the City of Rajneesh."

In the first place it was not a Christian church; it was a community church, it belonged to the whole community. And if sannyasins are living there, they have every right to use it, they are part of the community. But before the old council had to resign they donated the church - which is absolutely illegal - to The Dalles, to the head office of their fellow Christian worshippers. Now, what has The Dalles to do with it?

In the first place it was illegal; a community church cannot be donated to a Christian hierarchy. A community church remains a community church, it will belong to whoever constitutes the community.

But we don't need it. It is so old, and so dirty, and so dilapidated - no sense of beauty. So I said, "It is okay, we will withdraw the case. You can have it, although it is illegal."

But the council, before dissolving itself, also gave up the fire station with the community church. Now I cannot conceive that fire stations have also begun to be Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans.

He does not mention it.

I have said to him, "I will ask my people - because I don't hold any power - I will advise them to give the church to the Christians, because we don't use such dirty and dilapidated places. It is good for people who are sad and miserable and suffering, with Jesus Christ on the cross - it is good for them. It is not good for my people who are dancing and laughing and enjoying. They need a different kind of place, where laughter is not sin, where love is not condemned, where the cross - which is a symbol of death - is not praised. But what about the fire station? That should be returned to the city."

These are religious people. First, he is asking for a community church, as if it is a Christian church.

Second, he does not mention that the fire brigade has nothing to do with Christianity.

I have received a third letter too, from the old mayor, ex-mayor, and other dignitaries, saying to me, "It will be a peaceful gesture from your side if you advise your people to dissolve the City of Rajneesh as a city."

I am surprised: not a single letter has come which shows any gesture of love and peace towards us.

They want every gesture of love and peace to come from us. Love and peace cannot exist from one side - and that too for material gain.

The Methodist church wants a Rolls Royce. Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor." How can I give a Rolls Royce? - because cursed are the rich. A Methodist church having a Rolls Royce - they all will go to hell. Then who will be responsible?

Poverty has been praised by Christianity as spiritual. What are poor people going to do with a Rolls Royce? They don't even have any shame - begging for a Rolls Royce. I could have given not one, but all ninety Rolls Royces to the Christians, but they have to understand they will have to lose their heaven and their Jesus Christ.

If you want heaven, you have to carry your cross on your shoulder. And remember, Jesus says even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven. No, I cannot do that much injustice to these idiots. Let them pass with the camel through the eye of the needle. If camels are going into heaven, I am not going into heaven, my people are not going into heaven. We have chosen hell. At least it will be better than Oregon.

All the letters want us to make gestures of peace. A small minority - just five thousand sannyasins in this desert - and the whole of America, the greatest destructive power in the world today, is begging for gestures of peace from us. They should show some peace. It should come from the majority of the people. We will welcome it - our hands are ready to shake hands, but their hands want Rolls Royces, churches, fire stations.

All the religions of the world are phony. They say one thing, they do something else, just the opposite.

They are all hypocrites.

We do what we say. If in paradise everything is luxurious, then we are practicing luxury, to be ready.

Unprepared, what will you do in heaven, in paradise? The saints will be looking silly, because their whole life they practiced celibacy - and in heaven, beautiful young girls are available free of any charge. Those dead bones, those dry people who have practiced torturing themselves, how are they going to adjust in paradise? Impossible.

My people will create, even in hell, a paradise. If they can create an oasis in this desert, which has been lying deserted for fifty years.... Nobody purchased it - what will you do with a desert? We accepted the challenge of the desert. We have changed it into a beautiful oasis.

And in hell you will find all the colorful people of the whole history, juicy people - poets, painters, dancers, actors, actresses, sculptors - all creative. You will not find a single dodo saint - dull, dead, with a long face. In hell you will find people who laugh, who dance. There will be music, because all great musicians will be there. Because for thousands of years all the cream of humanity has been going to hell, you will find that those people have changed hell into paradise already. All the scientists, the most modern technology, delicious food - everything that you enjoy; no guilt, no sin, no church.

But all religions have been converting people on the basis of fear and greed. They are creating paranoia - that in hell you will suffer for eternity. And in heaven you will rejoice for eternity - all that you have to do is just to believe in their dogma. Don't ask any question, don't be skeptical; simply be retarded. Have faith in Jesus Christ, have faith in Moses, have faith in Krishna, in Mohammed.

And for such a simple thing - just having faith - the whole eternity of luxuries!

These people are simply exploiting your fear and your greed. But why are they so interested in exploiting you? They themselves are not certain; looking into the certainty in your eyes, they feel at ease.

One journalist - he was a rare case because journalists don't go to heaven, cannot go to heaven - by some accident reached heaven. But on the door he was stopped by the gatekeeper, and the gatekeeper said, "All vacancies for journalists in heaven are full. In fact, we have ten journalists and they don't have any work. In heaven there is no newspaper, no television, no radio, because there is no news; here, nothing happens. Just angels go on playing on their harps, 'Alleluia, alleluia.' How much news can you make out of that? You go to hell! There is tremendous news... so many papers, so many networks of television, radio."

But the man said, "I have come here: at least give me twenty-four hours, just a chance to visit the place. And have mercy on me - if I can convince one of the journalists inside heaven to go to hell, then there will be a place vacant, and you can give that place to me."

It looked logical. The gatekeeper allowed him, but said, "Remember, only twenty-four hours!"

After twenty-four hours the journalist came to the gate. The gatekeeper said, "You cannot go out."

The journalist said, "Why?"

The gatekeeper said, "All the ten journalists have left. You created such a rumor - that a new newspaper is going to start in hell. It needs a chief editor, a Sunday editor, and all kinds of journalists, and it is going to be the biggest newspaper - so they all have left. You were lying. There is no newspaper like that which is going to happen."

The man certainly had been lying to the journalists; but when ten left, he said to the gatekeeper, "Please let me go. Perhaps there is some truth in it."

The gatekeeper said, "But you know already that you were lying!"

He said, "I know. But if ten people can believe in it, there must be some truth in it. I cannot remain in heaven anymore."

This is the psychology of conversion. People convert others to Catholicism, to Hinduism, to Mohammedanism, for the simple reason that they don't have any authentic experience of their own.

They are shaky inside; they know that they know not. They want to be certain. This is the easiest way: to convince people. In convincing people, they are convincing themselves. And the more people are converted to their path, the more certain they become that they are on the right path.

That's why you are feeling angry; otherwise there is no need to feel angry. So remember, your anger shows your emptiness. It shows that you are not certain. Rather than convincing others, it will be better to experience the truth that is available to you.

Go deeper into meditation.

That's the only way to attain to certainty.

Then the whole world can be against you, but there will be no anger, only compassion.

Question 2:

A rebel needs no master. If he needs a master, he is not a rebel. A rebel is a master unto himself.

Rebellion is his religion, and there is no other religion for him.

To follow a master, and at the same to think yourself a rebel, is a contradiction in terms.

A rebel can only be a friend. A rebel can learn from all the sources available, but a rebel cannot be a follower. He cannot be a believer. A rebel cannot afford a master. He has chosen his individuality, his freedom, and he is not going to be enslaved by any master.

That's why I go on insisting to you that I am not your master, because I don't want anybody to be enslaved. It is a psychological slavery: whatever I say you believe, whatever I do you believe - and still you think you are a rebel?

To be a rebel needs guts.

Yes, you can be my friends - and I am available to you: whatever I know, whatever I have experienced, is always available to you. And I don't ask anything for it - your trust, your surrender, your faith, no! I cannot be inhuman to any human being.

In the past, your so-called masters have all been inhuman to you. What does it mean when Jesus says, "I am the savior"? What does it mean when he says, "I am the shepherd and you are the sheep"? What more humiliation do you want? And still there are millions of Christians who think that they are sheep, and their shepherd is hanging on the cross.

I am not your shepherd, you are not my sheep.

A rebel is a beautiful human being. A sheep? - you have fallen far below being human. Have you seen sheep? They always move in a crowd - so close to each other, rubbing their bodies against each other. They cannot move alone. No sheep is a rebel - they feel comfortable and cozy only in a mob.

Only lions move alone. Lions don't move in a crowd - they are rebels. I would like you to be lions, not sheep.

I am not your master, you are not my disciples. You love me - that's enough. I love you and respect you, and respect your freedom. In this freedom and love, if something can transpire and transform you, that will be beautiful. But nobody was the master and nobody was the slave.

This is not a religion, this is a love affair; and in love, nobody is a master. This is the highest that can be possible. And I would like you to live at the highest peak of human growth.

There is not much difference between me and you, a very little difference: you are asleep, I am awake. But that is not much of a difference. You can be awake any moment. I was also asleep one day. If I can be awake, why can't you be? The capacity to sleep proves the capacity to be awake.

You can sleep only if you can be awake. Stones don't sleep, because they cannot be awake.

All that is needed is just a little shaking, a little cold water thrown into your eyes. That's what I am doing every day, day in, day out. Once in a while you open your eyes too, but old habits die hard; then you close them again. Once in a while you hear me too, but then you pull the blanket over yourself again. Just human - just a little bit more rest, just a little bit more of a beautiful golden dream.

And naturally, sometimes you get angry at me because I am disturbing your dream. But I am not angry. Even if you pull up your blanket again, turn to the other side, start snoring again, I am not going to leave you. I know that you are not dead - you can pull up the blanket, you can move to the other side. So it is very close; just a little more effort and you will be awake.

I am not your savior, just a friend who knows both the states: the state of sleep and the state of being awake. And I feel that you are missing such a great joy, of opening your eyes and seeing the sunrise, and the birds singing, and the fresh morning air. And I feel compassion for you, that you are unnecessarily wasting your time in dreaming, while real life is waiting for you.

So remember it: there is no question of anybody being your master. These masters have exploited you enough! It is time to stop this exploitation. An authentic human being cannot reduce you to a sheep. If there is any sin, Jesus has committed it, and that was making you sheep, and posing as your savior.

And when he was being caught, just a few minutes before, his disciples asked, "What about us?" He said, "I will be coming soon to deliver everybody who has faith in me from all suffering and misery.

And I will take you to the house of my father in paradise."

Two thousand years have passed, and that guy has not been seen since then. How long can you stretch the word "soon"?

And I can say, with categorical certainty, that he is not going to come back again. He could not save himself! - how can he save the whole humanity?

He died in tremendous doubt. At the last moment he shouted, looking at the sky, "God, my father, have you forsaken me?" He was expecting a miracle - naturally. He was believing himself to be the only begotten son of God. The only begotten son is being crucified, and God - sitting on a white cloud with angels playing on their harps - does not come to save him? Jesus died shaken. His faith was only that of a crackpot, it was not authentic experience.

I do not expect anything; nobody can disappoint me. I don't have any God - I am happy just being myself.

Remember one thing: if there is a God, then you are all slaves, and freedom is impossible. The first principle of rebellion is that there is no God, no savior, no prophet, no messenger; you are alone, and you have to learn to depend only on yourself. That brings independence. And independence is such a joy, is such a beauty, is such a maturity, is such a flowering, that nothing more is needed.

You feel so contented, so fulfilled, and the whole existence becomes your paradise.

It is not a question of going into paradise. It is a question of going within yourself, reaching to your very center of being, which changes your perspective. This very existence becomes paradise. They are the same trees, the same birds, the same people, and yet they are no longer the same because you are no longer the same. Now you are not dreaming; now you are awake.

For the awakened one, this existence is paradise. Every moment it is paradise. And when I say this, I am not saying it according to any holy scripture. There are no holy scriptures, there are only books.

I am saying it out of my own experience, out of my own authority. I am ready to share with you. And it is not something that can be sold or purchased. Only in deep friendship, in love, does the transfer, the transformation happen.

You are all rebels.

Only rebels can have a contact with me.

And I would like you to be a rebel always.

I respect your rebellion. It would be so ugly for me to have five thousand sheep around me. Even if I become the shepherd, what would be the joy from it?

I want five thousand rebellious spirits, five thousand burning torches, lights unto themselves - and then to be amongst you is a joy.

Question 3:

There is no need to ask for any forgiveness. You can ask every question possible - personal, impersonal, it does not matter. I want to open myself completely to you. I want to be an open book, I don't want to keep any secrets from you. So it is perfectly right to ask the question.

The reason why I have not given birth to a child is very simple. First, look at the world - the whole mess of it. Look at the population, which is already four times more than this planet can support comfortably. Thousands of people are dying in Ethiopia every day out of hunger. Fifty percent of the people in India - that means four hundred million people - are undernourished, can barely manage one meal a day. Soon India will be a far bigger Ethiopia. And the same is the situation of many poor countries of the Third World.

And it is not great, even in Great Britain. It is not great, even in the greatest world power, America.

Millions of people are on the streets; they don't have a decent shelter, they are beggars.

And you want me to give birth to a child?

What will I give him as his inheritance? This world - this madhouse which is piling up nuclear weapons to commit suicide, global suicide? Do you want me, and my child also, to be burned, tortured, killed by nuclear weapons? The nuclear weapons have come to a point where the whole of life on the earth can be destroyed seven hundred times! There is no need, because one time is enough.

What will I say to my child - "This is the world I have brought you into"? Only sleepy people can bring children into the world, because they don't know what they are doing. Their children are accidental.

My child cannot be accidental.

This world is no longer the place to give birth to more children. For at least twenty to thirty years there should be total birth control so that the population of the world comes to one-fourth. Right now it is four billion; by the end of this century it will be five billion. When it becomes five billion, you will see everywhere starvation, hunger, people dying - and no way to help them.

No, I cannot give this world to my child.

On the other hand, do you see what religions have done? This is what politics has done; politics has ended in nuclear weapons, prepared for a global suicide. And what have religions done? They have created the disease AIDS, which is going to kill two-thirds of the whole of humanity. Politicians and priests have always been in conspiracy against humanity. This time it is absolutely clear.

AIDS is a religious disease, and all the founders of religions are responsible for it. They are the greatest criminals. Small criminals are being punished in the courts, and the real and great criminals are worshipped in churches, in mosques, in synagogues, in temples. It is really an insane state of affairs.

All the religions teach that celibacy is spiritual, and nobody - not a single human being - has asked the question, "Is celibacy possible?"

It is absolutely impossible. In a healthy body, the male sperm will be created. And what are you going to do with those male sperm? - because their biological function is to make life continue, they are in a hurry to reach the female egg. When you feel horny, what does it mean? Your small bag of male sperm is overcrowded; they want to get out of there, they want to explore the world.

Do you see the absurdity of all these religions? You may be a Christian, you may be a Hindu; you may take the vow of celibacy, you may become a monk, you may be worshipped as a saint - but your physiology knows nothing about your Christianity, about your Hinduism. Your physiology has its own program, which is not under your mind's control. It goes on functioning according to its own program.

You may have this idea in your head, that celibacy is spiritual, but it will never reach to your blood cells, to your bones, to your stomach. There is no communication. There is no line of communication between you and your physiology. It functions on its own, it is autonomous.

So because all the religions insisted on celibacy, they created homosexuality, masturbation, sodomy, lesbianism. For all sexual repressions and for all sexual perversions they are responsible. And humanity has suffered under their idiotic idea.

In your monasteries the monks are all homosexuals. If they are not homosexuals, then they will be masturbating. Religions don't allow the monks and nuns to meet and have a little love affair, at least once in a while - every weekend. One day in a week can be given as a holiday from your saintliness.

But there is no holiday.

So these people created homosexuality, these people created sexual abuse of children. And now homosexuality has come to such a peak that it has exploded into the disease AIDS. Even to call it a disease is not right. It is death itself, because AIDS has no cure. Every disease has a cure - if not today, then tomorrow it will have a cure. But all the scientists who are studying AIDS are unanimous that there is no possibility of any cure for it. What does that mean? There is only one thing in life which has no cure, and that is death.

AIDS is nothing but slow death; it is not a disease. It may take six months to two years, but the person is going to die in a very ugly, inhuman, condemned, guilty way. What has he done to himself? It would have been better to die suddenly. But for two years continuously contemplating all that he has done, and this death that is coming.... Nobody can invent a better torture.

Do you want my child to be born in this idiotic world full of AIDS? Do you know that a few children are born with AIDS? What will be their whole life? - within two years they will be gone. They will not have any life.

And AIDS is spreading like wildfire, for the simple reason that no nation wants to give exact information as to how many people are suffering from AIDS, because no nation wants to be condemned in the world as homosexual, as perverted, as sexually sick. So governments are repressing information. The doctors don't want anybody who has AIDS to be admitted to their clinics, hospitals, nursing homes.

The best way is to convince the man that "You don't have it," so they can get rid of him; otherwise he is dangerous. If they keep him in the hospital, the doctor is in danger, the nurses are in danger, other people are in danger. But to tell that man that he does not have AIDS is making the whole society available to him, forcing the whole society into danger.

And AIDS does not spread only by sexual contact. You can kiss somebody who has AIDS, and the saliva is enough to transfer the disease to you. Now kissing should be prohibited completely, it should be made illegal. Somebody is crying and weeping and tears are rolling down his cheeks, and out of compassion and love you wipe those tears with your hands. Be alert: tears carry the virus of AIDS. It should be prohibited. Nobody should show such compassion, it is too dangerous.

Such a dangerous phenomenon, and doctors are not accepting it. State governments are trying to make it such that in tests of a hundred people who have AIDS, at least ninety will come out clear, so that the state is not condemned, so it is not burdened with so many AIDS people. Nobody exactly knows what to do with these people. But you are taking a great risk. You have saved your name, your state's name, your government's name, but those people who have been left in the society will create more and more problems.

Do you want me to bring a child into this world? I love too much. I cannot give this world to my child.

I love your children too much. In the four years this commune has existed, not a single child has been born here. This is intelligence. This is not a time to bring children, this is a time to reduce the population of the earth.

This is the time to be very alert about AIDS. Perhaps this is the only place in the whole world where every precaution has been taken against it. All six thousand sannyasins have gone through tests.

No other place has guts enough to put the whole city through tests. They are afraid that they may find people who have AIDS. And the people who feel perhaps they may have it are not going through the test - for the simple reason that if they go through the test and they are found positive, then even their wives, their children, their parents, will refuse them. They will have no place in their own home.

They will not be allowed in any restaurant. Their own friends will become their enemies.

So they don't want to be tested; the government does not want it, the hospitals do not want it. And the fire is spreading; nobody wants to recognize it, to see it. This is not intelligence. Just closing your eyes does not mean that the enemy has disappeared.

We have found a few people with AIDS - two persons. We have made a beautiful isolation place for them; the best that we could afford has been given to them. They have all our respect and love, because they are victims.

If anybody has to be punished, it is pope the Polack, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Hindu shankaracharya.

These people are still going on preaching celibacy. These people should be immediately imprisoned.

There is no question; no two opinions about it are possible. Anybody who teaches celibacy is teaching homosexuality, is teaching sexual perversion. And these people go on teaching no birth control, no Pill, no abortion. Do they want to see the whole world starve and die in agony?

Their interest is totally different. If people use birth control methods, then from where is Mother Teresa going to find orphans? Her whole business will be finished. And these orphans are being converted into Catholics, so the pope is in absolute support.

You give Nobel Prizes to these people who need to be sentenced to prison for their whole life! They are the cause of poverty in the world, they are the cause of the orphans in the world. And they are still free, preaching the same old nonsense. They go on saying God gives children. On what authority do they know it? Have they got any proof, any evidence that God gives children to people?

And if God gives children to people, then their God must be absolutely insane. Seeing this earth overpopulated, thousands of people dying, he goes on giving children?

There is no God.

It is the greatest lie invented by the religions to exploit humanity.

And I am surprised.... Mother Teresa has been in correspondence with me. Because I condemned her so much in India, she finally had to write a letter to me in which she said, "It is out of my compassion that I am serving the orphans."

I replied to her, "Your compassion is costing too much. You can be compassionate to something else, but please stop this compassion to orphans, and stop talking this nonsense that God gives children."

And I wrote to her, "God is omnipotent, all powerful. If he really wants to give children, then he can do anything. What about the Pill? Can't God remove the Pill? God could part the ocean for Moses to move with all his followers; can't he make a passage in the condom? He can part the ocean, he cannot part the condom? So leave it to him. If he wants - he is all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere - he will do whatsoever he wants to do. Why are you bothering and teaching people against birth control methods?"

Her next letter came without any answer to what I had written. She simply wrote, "I will pray to God to forgive you."

I had to write to her again: "I have not given you the authority to pray on my behalf. I can sue you in the court. Who are you to pray on my behalf to a God who does not exist? You are interfering with my freedom. Stop praying, at least for me! I do not want anybody's prayer, anybody's forgiveness; I am not committing any sin. Pray for yourself."

And that was the end of the correspondence.

No, I cannot conceive that in this ugly situation anybody who has some love will bring children into the world. This is impossible for a loving heart.

Use all birth control methods, and let us see God's omnipotence. I tell you he is absolutely impotent.

He does not exist.

Question 4:

As a homosexual you are not even a human being, what to say about a second-class citizen? You have fallen from dignity. I have great love for you, but that does not mean that I will support your perversion.

You love me, but your love is meaningless if you cannot understand what I am saying. Be heterosexual. Homosexuality is just a habit that you have got, an ugly habit. Drop it. It is simply a question of dropping it, because it is not natural. Wild animals in the jungle are never homosexual; but in zoos, where females are not available, they turn into homosexuals. All your monasteries are zoos! Why are you becoming part of a zoo? Gather courage: Why are you afraid of a woman?

My love is for you. That's why I am condemning homosexuality continually - because I want you to become natural again.

But homosexuals used to think, before AIDS, that they are very progressive people, avant-garde, more intelligent than heterosexuals. Heterosexuals are just backward, primitive, just doing the old thing; and they are doing new experiments, new explorations. But AIDS has proved you were wrong.

You were perverted. No heterosexual in this commune has suffered from AIDS.

Do you want me to support AIDS? Supporting homosexuality exactly means that - supporting AIDS.

It is a small commune. We had only two persons for whom we were caring; one of them has died. Nine, from other communes around the world, have arrived. And many others who are not sannyasins are ready to become sannyasins, just so that they can have a place, respect, dignity.

But how many AIDS people can we support? And why should we support them?

If AIDS people have any guts left in them - and now they have nothing to lose, they have lost everything - they should all move to the Vatican. The Vatican has to become the AIDS camp! They created homosexuality, now they have to take the consequences of it.

There was a time when Rome was at its highest peak of culture, and there was a proverb: "Every road leads to Rome." Now it is not heard anymore, because that Rome has fallen, disappeared. But I say to you, now create a new proverb: "Every road leads to the Vatican, particularly for those who are suffering from AIDS. Go to the pope and tell him, 'This is the result of your teachings of celibacy.

Now take care of us!'"

This is a small commune.... And I have never advocated celibacy, I am against it. I have always taught love and how to transform your love more and more into the higher qualities which are inherent in it. Celibacy is not my number.

So I think the commune should tell the AIDS people, "We will pay for your tickets; you go to the Vatican. That's all that we can do for you."

It has to be made clear in the whole world.... The Vatican is big enough, has enough marble palaces, and enough money. The Vatican is the richest city in the whole world. Talking about poverty - and the pope is the head of the richest empire! They should make arrangements for AIDS people.

Question 5:

Gachchhamis have nothing to do with religion. Gachchhamis have something to do with your determination. These are the gachchhamis. It is not a prayer....

"I go to the feet of the awakened one, to his commune, to his truth."

This is simply a declaration on your part. The awakened one does not indicate any individual; it simply means all the awakened ones of the past, of the present, of the future. It simply means the quality of being awakened. And you are making yourself remember, "I am dedicated to only one thing: I have to become awakened."

..."To his commune... to his truth."

No particular name is mentioned. All the communes of all the awakened ones are implied in it. Of course the truth is the same; whoever has awakened has found the same truth.

The gachchhamis are simply a remembrance of your own decision. They are going to remain. And the gachchhamis are individual, they have nothing to do with any collectivity. And they are profoundly beautiful.

They serve another purpose also. "I go to the feet of the awakened one," means you are at least for a moment putting your ego aside, for the commune, for the truth. The only way to reach awakening, and the truth it reveals - all that is needed is to drop the ego completely. But even to put it aside for a moment will give you a tremendous experience, a glimpse. Just a small breeze of awakening will move through your being. It has nothing to do with religion.

Question 6:

That's a very simple matter, because I have never taught you any religion, I have never taught you any belief system. If you have created something inside you, it is your doing. Undo it.

Today, we will be burning the book of RAJNEESHISM, symbolizing that we are not a religion but a way of life, a way of religiousness. There are no Rajneeshees, only friends of Rajneesh.

Inside you, if you have created any idea of a religion - if you can create it, you can uncreate it. It is a very simple matter, just give it a try. It is your own imagination, it does not exist; how long can you carry it within you? It will not be supported from the outside. All the props will be taken away from you, and your inner idea will fall flat on the earth.

If you cannot manage, I will manage. But first I will give a chance to you, because I want you to do it. And I know you are capable of doing it. But if I see you cannot do it, then I will start hammering from every side. Then don't feel hurt.

Question 7:

Politicians are always cowards. Politicians suffer from an inferiority complex. The attorney general of Oregon has not enough courage to come here and see what is happening. But I think he cannot sleep; he must be dreaming about us, continuously thinking of us.

The governor wants to declare a state of emergency, to impose on Rajneeshpuram something absolutely absurd - because there is no violence happening, nobody is fighting, no- body is killing, nobody is doing any harm to anybody.

The state police are here, the county police are here, the city police are here, the FBI people are here - nobody is hindering their work. Whatsoever they want to do, they are doing. They cannot find any tension anywhere. And still the governor wants to declare a state of emergency, and the attorney general has put the National Guard on alert.

My suggestion is, they should also have hydrogen bombs, missiles aimed at Rajneeshpuram.

America misses not having a Hiroshima - this opportunity they should not lose.

It is simply idiotic what he is doing. I feel like calling him the Idiot General of Oregon, not attorney general of Oregon.

Okay?