The so-called holy books are just religious pornography

Question 1:

Just disgusting. These people, who have been thought to be messengers of God, who have been teaching compassion, love, have never considered at all that a woman is also human. They are born out of a woman. Still, they have all shown nauseating disrespect towards womanhood. The reason is very clear. The reason is: they are afraid of women.

And it is a psychological truth that you are afraid and at the same time fascinated. Fear and fascination exist together. In fact, the fear is the byproduct of fascination. They are fascinated, which is natural. There is nothing wrong in it, it is absolutely human. But if they want to be a messiah or a tirthankara or a paigambara or an avatara then they have to fulfill the conditions which the tradition prescribes for them to fulfill. And all the traditions are made up by man. Up to now we have lived in a manmade society in which the woman has not been taken into consideration at all.

Confucius - and the whole of China is influenced by Confucius' thinking - believes that there is no soul in a woman, she is only body. Killing a woman is not a murder. So for thousands of years in China, if somebody killed his own wife it was not a crime. It was just as if you want to destroy your chair, your furniture, or anything that belongs to you; you possess it, it is yours - exactly as the woman is yours. You are the possessor; you can kill her. There was no law in China to prevent a husband from killing his wife. And there was no punishment either, because the woman was a thing, not a being. And Confucius is thought to be one of the wisest men in the world. Now, what kind of wisdom is this? He is the founder of Confucianism, but all that Confucius has done is to confuse the human mind and nothing else.

Every religion is afraid of women, because every religion is afraid of sex. Every religion is repressive of sex, against sex. Naturally, it is a byproduct that every religion has to be against the woman, the woman has to be condemned. If you condemn sex you are bound to condemn the woman. If you respect the woman - it is a corollary - you will respect sex also, as a natural thing.

And why were these people against sex? They are different in their attitudes about everything except sex. About sex all religions agree; that seems to be the only agreement amongst religions. So it seems to be tremendously important that we should go deep into the whole phenomenon: why they are afraid of it. They are afraid of sex because it is the greatest energy in man, the most powerful pull of nature and biology. There is no way to destroy it. Either you can condemn and repress it, or you can understand and transform it. But the second is a long and arduous path and needs tremendous intelligence, awareness - because sex is an unconscious force in you. Each cell in your body is made of it, is vibrant with it. Your conscious mind is nothing compared to your unconscious sexual energy; hence the fear that the unconscious can take possession of you any moment.

But to repress seems to be easier. Repression needs no intelligence in the first place; any idiot can do it. In fact, only idiots do it. I have been surprised, seeing hundreds of monks in India belonging to different religions - they are all repressing their sexuality. My surprise was that the more they repress their sexuality, the more stupid they become, exactly in the same proportion. Repressing nature is such an idiotic effort that it is bound to destroy your intelligence.

The Jaina monk is the most repressive of all in the whole world. There are only twenty-two Jaina monks left in India who live like Mahavira: naked, following exactly the ancient path. I have met all the twenty-two, because I was roaming all over India, so it was not difficult to meet these people or anybody I wanted to meet; sooner or later, somewhere or other it was bound to happen. Strange...

all twenty-two are in the same way, stupid - no sign of intelligence. You cannot see a single ray of light in their eyes. They are dull, dead. It has to be so, because they have been repressing life energy, life force.

When you repress life energy you will become dull. And the methods you are going to use to repress life energy are bound to make you more and more stupid. For example, they cannot eat even twice a day. They have thousands of rules - so they can eat only a few things, which cannot provide them with all the vitamins, proteins, which are needed for intelligence to function. They are starving. And intellect is a luxury. When all the needs of your body are fulfilled, only then intellect gets energy, because it is at the highest level of your being. If on the lower levels your energy is starving, then it cannot rise to reach to the higher levels.

A Jaina monk's food is absolutely devoid of proteins. He's not a meat eater, and I am not suggesting that he should eat meat. But I have suggested to them, "You can use soya bean, which is as good as meat, or even better." But those fools will not use the soya bean because it is not written in their scriptures - at that time the soya bean was not discovered. I have argued with them that it is not nonvegetarian, it is vegetarian. They say, "It is vegetarian, but it is not written in the scriptures. And Mahavira, who is omniscient, must have known better than anybody else what has to be eaten."

Now Mahavira is not a chemist, is not a physician, is not a physiologist; he knows nothing about the inner working of the body. He knows nothing about vitamins or protein, or anything that is absolutely necessary as a nourishment for intelligence. They cannot take milk because it is animal food. They cannot take anything made of milk - it is animal food. And their logic is, "You are depriving the animal's kids - that is violent." Naturally, they become dull, they lose gusto for life. In fact they want to lose it; they are afraid of it. If it is there, then who knows, in some weaker moment it may take possession of you. Hence, the fear of the woman.

No Jaina monk is allowed to touch a woman. What to say of touching a woman, the Jaina monk is not allowed to sit in the place where a woman has been sitting before, because she leaves her vibes there! What to say to these fools? Nine months they have been in their mother's womb, continually showering in the woman's vibe. Then for years they have been nurtured and nourished by the mother's milk. Their whole body is made up by the woman.

The father is almost an inactive partner in the business; I say almost - any injection can do his work.

He can be easily removed from the whole process of reproduction and he will be removed, sooner or later, because we can find better methods, better seeds. Right now it is all accidental. Now science has come to a certain maturity. About animals we are not so accidental now; their breed has evolved. But about man we are not scientific; the breed is not evolving, because everybody and anybody is allowed to reproduce children. This is not going to be for long. This should not be continued for long. Man's business is finished. He only triggers the process, then the whole burden falls on the woman.

These fools are saying that you cannot sit in the same place where a woman has been sitting before.

Jaina monks carry their own small rug with them, because who knows, by mistake you may sit in a place where a woman was sitting before. So they carry two things: a small brush with which they clean the place - as if with a brush you can remove the vibrations - then they spread their small mattress that they are carrying with them, always carrying - you cannot touch it, you are not allowed to touch it - and then they will sit on it.

I have asked these monks, "If you are really a little bit alert, then please, I will show you two places.

In one place a man has been sitting and in the other place a woman has been sitting. You decide by feeling the vibration which one is the man's and which one is the woman's...?" Even science has not been able to discover any such detector yet.

And of course they decline: "We are not going to do any such thing."

But I said, "The reality is you cannot do it. You have just learned gibberish. Vibrations - what do you know about vibrations? And what can those vibrations do to you?"

Now, the fear is the fascination. The woman fascinates, it comes into their dreams; they have been able to throw her out from their waking hours, but in their nights.... Mahatma Gandhi was very much impressed by Jaina monks. He was a strange fellow - born a Hindu, but not much of a Hindu:

ninety percent Christian, nine percent Jaina, one percent Hindu. Many times in his life he was on the verge of converting to Christianity; one time he was ready to convert to Jainism. He accepted three persons as his masters: one is a Jaina, Shrimad Rajchandra; the second is Leo Tolstoy, who was a fanatic Christian; and the third is Henry Thoreau, who was also a fanatic Christian.

I have been talking to these Jaina monks and telling them the story of Mahatma Gandhi, what happened to him. In his ashram no love affair was allowed; even husbands and wives, if they wanted to become inmates of the ashram, had to take the vow of brahmacharya, celibacy. That was a basic rule. So there were husbands and wives but they were both celibate. It was not being followed; they were caught again and again. And Gandhi was a masochist, just as I have told you that Mahavira had masochism in him - enjoying torturing oneself.

There is a certain mind disease which gives you pleasure out of pain. So what Mahatma Gandhi used to do, whenever a couple was found that had broken celibacy.... And it was such a sensitive affair that there was no need for an actual sex relationship to happen. Just holding hands - if somebody had seen them, that was enough; or hugging each other - one's own wife. What Mahatma Gandhi would do is, he would go on a fast, he would torture himself. He would not punish those people, but it was really a greater punishment than any you could have invented because the whole ashram would condemn the couple. The couple would be tortured by their own conscience: "It is because of us he is fasting." They would weep and cry and persuade him, "Forgive us, we will never do it again; but break your fast."

He would say, "I am not punishing you; I am punishing myself. This is a symbol to me that I am not pure enough; that's why around me such impure things happen. I am simply purifying myself." Now this too is a very subtle way of the ego: you have done something and I decide to be responsible for it. On the surface it looks, "How saintly!" - but deep down nothing can be more egoistic. Who am I? How does my purity or impurity come into your life? But he was just thinking in terms of the old scriptures - that if you are a real saint then around you nothing impure can happen. But what is impure? A man loving a woman - what is impure in it? His own woman, not against her will - what is impure in it? And if it is impure, then everybody is born of impurity. Your very birth is in impurity.

I have asked these Jaina monks, "What happened to Mahatma Gandhi in the last years of his life?"

... Because his whole life he was repressing, repressing, repressing, and the moment came when it became too much, beyond his capacity to control it anymore. Then people find rationalizations.

Then he started to sleep with a naked woman - but he had a cunning mind, he rationalized it. He said he was just testing whether anywhere in his unconscious the woman still had some attraction.

Does he still feel fascinated by a naked young girl? And he was beyond seventy and the girl he was sleeping with was only twenty.

This was not told to the public at large, because his disciples were afraid that he would lose his mahatmahood. People will start thinking, "What is this?" It was suppressed, kept from reaching the public; only a few disciples, close disciples who could keep their mouths shut, knew about it. But in the eyes of those close disciples Gandhi had already fallen, he was no more the same mahatma he used to be.

I have been telling these Jaina monks, "Try to understand Gandhi, what happened to him. And this will happen to you. But you can remain so starved that there is no energy left in you." That was Mahatma Gandhi's mistake; otherwise this would not have happened. It was because he was eating well, nourishing food, milk, everything that was needed for the body. He was very concerned about the body, very careful about the body. That was the reason that it happened. Energy was there, and he was not a dull man. He was tremendously intelligent. But as the energy rises to intelligence, it also goes deeper, to your very foundation of sexuality. It goes to the roots. If the energy goes to the flowers, it has to go to the roots. There is no other way to reach the flowers; it has to go through the roots. But I have found these people so dull. I would be talking to them and I could see they have not heard anything; their eyes look almost dead, their bodies have shrunken. They look ugly.

They have been against sex, that's why they have to be against the woman. Jainas believe that nobody can be liberated from a woman's body. Only man can be liberated, can attain to the ultimate - their word is MOKSHA... but only from a man's body, not from a woman's body. What is wrong with a woman's body? There is no difference at all. The only difference is physiological, and that too is not much of a difference - not a difference that can make a difference.

Man's sexual organs are hanging out and woman's sexual organs are hanging in, that's the only difference. Just turn your pocket and let it hang out; the pocket becomes male. Put it back to its original position, it becomes female. This you call a difference? The same pocket? It is because there is not much difference that now science has discovered a man can become a woman just by simple plastic surgery; a woman can become a man just by plastic surgery. If there was some fundamental difference then it would not be possible. By plastic surgery you are just turning the pocket out or in, and nothing much is there.

Jainas say a woman is condemned by her having a female body. First she has to become a man.

So there are Jaina nuns - they are not striving for liberation, they are striving to be born in the next life as a man, then they will work for liberation. There is one step more for them than for a man.

"Ladies first" does not apply.

One woman in the history of the Jainas must have been a woman of tremendous courage, intelligence, and a rebel; she rebelled against this idea. Her name was Mallibhai. She simply rebelled against this whole idea; she said, "This is just created by man." And she must have been a charismatic woman, certainly, to become a Jaina monk. She was not going to become a nun, because a nun has the goal to become a monk in the next life. She became a Jaina monk. A Jaina nun is allowed to have clothes, she is not to be in the nude; that stage will come in the next life, if she succeeds.

But this woman Mallibhai is a rare rebel. I have looked all around the world - I don't find another woman of the same rebelliousness. She became a monk. She dropped her clothes and she declared to the Jainas, "I am a monk and I am striving for liberation, and I don't care a bit what your scriptures say." She was certainly charismatic, and she fulfilled all the requirements that are prescribed for a tirthankara, and the Jainas had to accept her as a tirthankara.

But they played a trick. When she died they changed her name: Mallibhai - bhai designates a woman; they made the name Mallinath - nath designates man. So if you read the history you will not find in twenty-four tirthankaras that there has been a woman, because for her name they don't say Mallibhai, they say Mallinath. And they have deceived the whole world, and they have continued on the old trip. One woman has proved it, and one woman's proof is enough for all women. But the cunning priesthood changed the name when she died. They not only changed her name, they changed the statue. It is a man's statue in the temples; in Jaina temples there are twenty-four tirthankaras' statues - all men!

I used to go to Jaina temples and ask, "Who is Mallibhai?"

And the priest would become shaky and he would say, "Er... Mallibhai? Are you a Jaina?"

I said, "No, I am not a Jaina. But I am not a male chauvinist. Who is Mallibhai out of these twenty- four?" And he would show me.

But I would say, "This is a man's statue. The sexual organs are hanging out and I am absolutely certain there was no plastic surgery at that time."

Soon they became aware, so whenever I would go to a Jaina temple they would say, "The temple is closed. You are not allowed in the temple."

In Indore, in India, there is one of the most beautiful Jaina temples, perhaps the most beautiful in India. It is made all of glass - the whole temple. When you enter it you see yourself reflected in a million mirrors around you, because the whole temple is just small pieces of mirror. I love the place for its beautiful land, its quiet - but they would not allow me to enter. Once I had been in, then the door was closed on me.

I approached the man who had made the temple and said, "This is strange. You allow even spectators who are not Jainas, you allow visitors; Christians can come, anybody can come in the visiting hours" - because the temple was such a unique piece of art, up to twelve in the morning only Jainas could enter it to worship, but after twelve visitors were allowed - "I am not even allowed in with the visitors. The moment the priest - and he is always standing at the door - the moment he sees me, he says, 'You are not allowed.'" I asked the man who had made it... and it was a very precious gift that he had given to the country.

He told me, "I know, and I myself wanted to meet you. The priest has informed me." And it happened because for six months I had to stay in Indore, because my father was very sick and he would not let me go. So I had to stay and the hospital was just five minutes walk from the temple, so whenever I had time I would knock on the door and the priest would hit his head with his hand and he would say, "I have told you again and again that for you, this temple is closed forever."

The man who had made it said, "I wanted to meet you. I can tell the priest you should be allowed in, but please don't ask questions which we cannot answer. Your question is valid; I know you are right. Actually Mallinath was a woman. But why disturb things? For twenty-five centuries we have maintained that he was a man, and now nobody asks about it. All history books have accepted it.

You are a strange fellow. From where have you got this idea? We have made it absolutely clear in all the history books, in every possible way. In every temple the statue is of a man."

I said, "Don't be bothered from where I got the idea. The question is.... On the temple door you have written, 'Truth is the highest religion.' Inside, where the shrine is for twenty-four tirthankaras, you have written satyameva jayate: 'Truth is always victorious.' I am not concerned. Who cares?

What business is it of mine to be bothered whether this was a man or a woman, whether this person existed or not, even? I am not interested in that. But you should erase these words: satyameva jayate. And just underneath you have the statue of Mallibhai as Mallinath - and truth is the highest religion! Erase these two sentences, and I will never come to this temple again; if you don't erase them, I am going to continue this every day. You go on refusing, I will go on continuing."

And by and by many people became aware, because at odd hours I would go there - sometimes in the morning when Jainas were worshipping - and he would be closing the door and saying, "You cannot come in," and sometimes when spectators were going in he would close the door. And for six months I had no other business; my father was sick, and the temple was just five minutes away. I could go two, three times, four times, as many times as I liked. Even in the night sometimes I would knock and the priest would wake up and he would say, "What! Even in the night...?"

I said, "Unless you erase those two sentences I am not going to leave."

Finally they had to erase those two sentences. I said, "I am finished with your temple. Now you can do whatsoever you want. You have accepted that even in the name of truth there is untruth; even in the temple of truth, you have been lying for twenty-five centuries. One rebellious woman - and you have destroyed her completely. And you have been repeating the same again, that the woman cannot achieve salvation; and the woman has proved that she has become a tirthankara."

Jainas had to accept Mallibhai. She must have been a tremendously strong woman to say that she is going directly to moksha, she is not going to be born in a man's body. ... Because bodies are left behind - a man's or a woman's, they will be burned on the funeral pyre and the soul is not feminine or masculine. And it is the soul, the innermost consciousness, which is being transformed. "The woman had proved it absolutely and you had accepted her; and still, when she died, you started lying again."

It is a male chauvinist world. All Hindu avataras are men; not a single woman is accepted. Not that there have not been women of much more strength, of much more power than these so-called avataras, but they have not been accepted just because they are women, and it is a man's world.

A Mohammedan can marry four women, he is allowed to by the Koran. A woman is not allowed to marry four men. Now this is unjust. A woman cannot enter into the Mohammedan mosque, she has to pray from the outside. She is filthy, just because she is a woman; she is not even allowed to pray inside the mosque. In a synagogue there is a separate place for the woman, partitioned; she cannot sit with the man. Mostly at the back she has a place, or on the balcony she has a place.

I am reminded of a story - I don't know whether it is right or wrong. When Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel, Indira Gandhi, who was prime minister of India, went on a visit to Israel. She wanted to see a synagogue and how the Jews worship and what they do. So Golda Meir took Indira Gandhi and they sat on the balcony. Indira Gandhi asked Golda Meir, "Is it a rule of the synagogue that only prime ministers can sit on the balcony?" - because Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi both were women. Golda Meir did not want to say that in the Jewish tradition the woman is kept separate.

But Indira Gandhi thought, "It is because we are both prime ministers, so a special place is being given to us." Yes, it was a special place, but not for prime ministers - it was for two women. Even though they are prime ministers, it doesn't matter; a woman is a woman.

The people I have spoken of in the past with great respect - I have to confess to you that I had to drop many aspects of their life, otherwise you would not have been able to understand me at all.

Now I want to make the whole thing complete. I want you to know them in their utter nudity - good, bad, right, wrong. Many of my statements will look contradictory to my old statements. Don't be worried. What I am saying now is the right thing, and whatever I say tomorrow will be more right.

The last sentence that I will utter on my death bed will be the ultimate right - before that you cannot decide. I am alive and I am not in any bondage with the past.

On Buddha, how much I have spoken! But he was very disrespectful about women. He wouldn't allow women to become nuns, he would not initiate them. There seems to be some fear of women deep inside him. And it is clear in his statement - for almost fifteen years he continued to deny them:

"I am not going to initiate women." What is the fear? Why not initiate a woman, when the women are asking to be initiated? Why prevent them from seeking and searching the truth? Is it man's monopoly? Truth also, is it a commodity and man's monopoly?

Finally, very reluctantly he agreed - but not happily. He had to agree, because the woman who came to ask was the woman who had mothered him. His own mother died in giving birth to Gautam Buddha. His mother's sister remained unmarried, sacrificed her whole life to raise Gautam Buddha.

And she gave him more love than any mother can give and she sacrificed her own life, naturally; she poured all that she had on him. When she came - her name is Mahamaya - old, tears in her eyes, and she said, "I know for fifteen years you have been rejecting women, but I am your mother. Just remember, I have sacrificed my whole life. Can't you even give initiation to me? Can't you share the truth that you have found?"

It was under compulsion; he could not refuse Mahamaya, it would have been too cruel. But what he said is still cruel. He accepted her, he gave initiation to her, sadly, without any ceremony, and said after the initiation, "My religion was going to last for five thousand years, now it will last only five hundred years, because I have allowed women to enter. They will destroy it." How can women destroy it? I don't see the point at all.

In my commune there are more women than men; they work as hard as men, perhaps more lovingly than men. They have the capacity of love, more than man has. They have not destroyed, they have created the commune.

Why is Buddha so afraid? I know why he is afraid. He is afraid... his own fear, deep down, is that perhaps he is still fascinated with women. At least he is not able to trust his monks. He knows that they will be fascinated, and soon what he has been teaching - celibacy - will be destroyed. It is celibacy that will be destroyed, why the religion? What has religion to do with celibacy? In fact, with men and women together, the religion will grow. There will be children and there will be more children and it will become a vast tree.

If I was in his place I would have said, "My religion was going to last only five thousand years, now it is going to last forever; because a woman has entered, now it is complete. With only men it is incomplete. Now it is a real commune, alive, because it can give birth to living beings." But the fear...

and the fear is possible only if it is somewhere deep down in your own unconscious too.

As far as I'm concerned, I trust everybody, even those who have betrayed me. I still trust them, because my trust is unconditional. It does not depend on you, it depends on me. If you choose to betray, that is your business, but you cannot destroy my trust in you. Do you see the point? Because I trust unconditionally, you cannot destroy it; but if there are conditions, then certainly you can destroy it - you don't fulfill the conditions and you have destroyed the trust. But trust with conditions is a bargain, it is not trust.

Trust can only be unconditional, and its source is within me. It does not depend on you or your behavior or action.

Even if you killed me, my trust in you would remain the same. You betrayed, really, yourself; you fell, really, in your own eyes. But for me you remain the same person.

Shiva had been my bodyguard for years. Then he dropped sannyas. Then he started speaking - against me. He wrote articles in German magazines - STERN and other magazines - against me. But if he comes back and wants to be my bodyguard he will be again by my side. And I know perfectly well what he has done. That does not matter at all, it is his doing; he should be worried and concerned about it. As far as I am concerned, I have remained exactly the same. He can come again and be my bodyguard. Nobody else will accept him as a bodyguard, because that is the easiest place from which to kill a man.

Just now Indira Gandhi has been assassinated by her own bodyguards. Three bodyguards shot her - eight bullets, creating sixteen wounds, because all the bullets passed through her chest, belly, from the back to the other side. And if the bodyguards want to kill, that is the easiest and the safest place from which to kill a person.

But if Shiva comes back and wants to be my bodyguard, I will be immensely happy to have him. It does not matter. He has to take responsibility for whatsoever he is doing, whatsoever he has done; he has to take the whole responsibility for it. But it is none of my business to interfere in his doings.

If he feels it right to write against me, perfectly good; if he feels happy to write against me, perfectly good. But for ten years he was sitting by my side. He must have a tremendously idiotic mind - in ten years he could not see anything wrong. It took ten years for him, and now, after dropping sannyas, he becomes suddenly articulate. So what was he doing for ten years - sleeping?

No, it is not against me that he is writing those articles. It is just to console himself that what he has done by dropping sannyas is right, because the man was wrong. He has to prove it to himself that "the man was wrong, that's why I have dropped sannyas." Otherwise it will continuously be a wound - that I loved him so much, trusted him so much, so unconditionally, and this is what he has done to me. I can understand his difficult situation. So writing against me, he is simply trying to cover up the wound that he has inflicted upon himself.

So remember that if Buddha is afraid of women, women are still fascinating to him. That's why he projects the idea... a simple arithmetic. He knows that "if even to me, once in a while, the woman becomes attractive, then what about my monks? They will be spoiled." But the idea of their being spoiled arises only if you deny sex; otherwise there is no spoiling, I don't see anybody spoiled. No natural instinct spoils you. But repress it, then it is perverted, and slowly slowly you are spoiled by the perversion.

You will be surprised - there are Catholic monasteries where women have not entered for one thousand years. What to say about a woman, a six-month-old baby girl is not allowed to enter with her father or brother into the monastery. A six-month-old baby! Inside the monastery what do you think - monks are living or monsters are living, who are afraid of a six-month-old girl? What kind of people are living inside? So sexually perverted.... All sexual perversion has come through your religions. Ninety percent of mental diseases have come through your religions, because of sexual perversion.

You ask me what my attitude is about these messiahs, apostles, tirthankaras, avataras, paigambaras. What to say to you? I say: simply disgusting, nauseating. They have done so much harm to humanity that when humanity becomes aware, they are going to destroy all these synagogues and temples and mosques and gurudwaras and churches. These people are your real enemies, but hidden behind a facade, a mask.

The Christian trinity could not allow a woman in it. What was so difficult? They could have done, instead of the holy ghost - what is the need of the holy ghost? I can't think what kind of phenomenon this holy ghost is, and what is his purpose, and what is the need. A woman would have been far better; father, mother, son - it would have looked more logical. This holy ghost, is he man or woman?

But no, even though millions of Christians worship Mary, she is not accepted in the ultimate hierarchy.

A woman is, after all, a woman.

Jesus had not a single woman among his twelve apostles. And you will be shocked to know that when he was crucified, all those apostles escaped. Only three women did not escape: one was his mother Mary; another was Mary Magdalene, a prostitute, but she had fallen in tremendous love with this man Jesus; and the third was also named Mary, sister of Martha. These three women proved far more courageous, not afraid; thousands of enemies all around, everyone against Jesus; they were shouting, rejoicing in his crucifixion.... All the apostles had escaped, afraid that if they were caught perhaps they would be crucified too. They may have said sometime to the master, "We will live with you and we will die with you." Saying is one thing, doing is totally another.

Only these three women were ready to dare, to be crucified - if that is what is going to happen, then it is okay. It is worth dying with the master rather than to live without him. But this loving heart is very rare to find in a man. When it happens in a man then there is no difference. Still they were not apostles - they should have been the only apostles. Those cowards who had escaped should have been rejected.

But just the other day the lord chancellor in England, who has thrown one bishop out of the church, said, "I would believe more in Matthew, Luke, Mark - the apostles whose words are in the New Testament - because they were eyewitnesses." He's absolutely wrong, they were not eyewitnesses; they had escaped. The eyewitnesses were three women, but he does not mention them. Those three men have written the story, but they were not eyewitnesses. Those three women have not written; they must have thought: Who would bother about their writing? Who would listen to them?

But the lord chancellor is absolutely wrong in making those three fellows eyewitnesses; they were not. And what they have written is different from each other. If they were eyewitnesses it would have been exactly the same.

To me, what Thomas has written - which is not included in The Bible because Thomas was not available there; he had gone to India with Jesus, he had written his gospel in India; I have spoken on it - his words seem to be truer, more authentic, closer, for the simple reason that he himself must have attained to a certain state of light. That light filters through his words. It is not in the New Testament that you find that light.

Okay Sheela?