The Immaculate Deception

Question 1:

There are no holy books. All books are human, but each religion has been deceiving people that their book is the only holy book. And by saying, "This is the only holy book," they are saying that it is written by God.

And they all give strange arguments, which are absolutely illogical, without any evidence. For example, Hindus say that the Vedas are holy, and the only holy collection of books - there are four Vedas; other than the Vedas, anybody pretending that his book is holy is simply committing a sin against God.

If you look into these four Vedas - and the first effort should be to find some inner evidence - you will be surprised, because there are things in the Vedas which only human beings can say. Those I call internal proofs. There is no need for any outer proof. For example, there are passages in the Vedas in which a brahmin is praying to God, "Increase the milk of my cows, so that this year's crop should be the best, compared to my neighbors'."

Now, what business has God to write these things? And if God is writing this, then to whom is he praying? There are other passages in which a brahmin is praying to God, "Destroy all my enemies.

Kill them. Uproot them completely, entirely." These are human minds. There is no way to prove to anybody that God has written these things. And the Vedas are full of such rubbish; ninety percent, just rubbish.

If somehow it is proved that God wrote these Vedas, then he should be in a mental asylum. What is holy in it? Asking that "my enemies should be killed, uprooted entirely" - what is holy in it? And what is holy in it, that "my crop should be better than my neighbor's crops"? - certainly human, but nothing holy. But Hindus worship those books without even bothering what they are worshipping.

So the first thing to remember: there are no holy books, there are only books well written or not well written. Yes, there are masterpieces, but none of the so-called holy books comes into the category of a masterpiece. I want to insist on that fact too: that not only are they not holy, according to human standards they are not even masterpieces.

For example, Mikhail Naimy's book, The Book of Mirdad, or Kahlil Gibran's book, The Prophet, or Rabindranath's book, Gitanjali, or Fyodor Dostoevsky's book, Brothers Karamazov - these are masterpieces. None of the holy books - the Vedas, the Gita, the Koran, The Bible, the Torah - no holy book even comes near to these masterpieces. So they are not only not holy, they are not even worth calling masterpieces.

But each religion insists - because its whole business depends on that insistence - the book has to be holy, otherwise who is going to listen? And the book decides what you have to do, what you have not to do. It takes all responsibility off your shoulders. It relieves you of being a responsible person in your own right. It dictates to you, and it does not allow you to argue, because you cannot argue with God. Once you accept a book as holy, there is no question of any argument. You have to accept whatsoever is said in it.

The Christians believe The Bible is holy, that the Old Testament and the New Testament, both are holy. For the Jews only the Old Testament is holy; the New Testament comes from this crazy man, Jesus. It is not holy. But if you look in the Old Testament you will come across at every step such rotten stuff, that even a third class daily newspaper is far better. If you want to waste your time, you can waste it reading any third class daily newspaper, that will do.

The New Testament is nothing but four disciples' collection of notes, of whatsoever Jesus may have said or may have done. And they all four differ from each other, so it does not seem that they are eyewitnesses to all the events they are talking about. A few events one apostle leaves out, a few other events the other ones talk about. These words that they have collected have come from Jesus.

Jesus is a perfectly ordinary human being, and that was the trouble - that he was trying to prove that he was the only begotten son of God, and the Jews were not ready to believe it. And the Jews were perfectly right.

Jesus could not prove in any way that he was the son of God. And why should only he be the son of God? To me it seems simple, logical, understandable: either everyone is the son of God, the daughter of God - or no one. But if everyone is the son of God, if everyone is the daughter of God, then Jesus loses the specialness, the extra-ordinariness; then he is just like anybody else. Then what authority has he got?

To impose the authority he has to keep himself above you. You are just human; he is divine. You are just the byproduct of the original sin of Adam and Eve; he is not. He is the product of the great act that happened between the holy ghost and Mary. Strange: you are the byproduct of the original sin, and he is the byproduct of some spiritual act. Now, all that the holy ghost is doing is so unholy, because even the consent of Jesus' mother is not there. And she is somebody else's wife - this is absolutely a crime. At least she should be willing. She knows nothing about it. She has been made pregnant perhaps under chloroform, or given some anesthesia - she must not have been conscious, must have been sleeping, must have been absolutely unalert about what is happening.

And what Jesus says - there is nothing that makes it look divine; it is just ordinary wisdom that has come through the centuries. But the Christian has to believe in the holiness of The Bible, that it is written by God. Strange: we know that it is written by four apostles; in The Bible itself it is written that it is written by these four persons. It is not even firsthand, it is not that Jesus has written it; it is secondhand.

But Christians go on declaring it holy. There is a vested interest: unless it is holy, who is going to believe in it? And once you accept something as holy, then you are gullible. Then you will accept anything, then you will accept any absurdity, any inconsistency. You will not think about it - how can you think about something which God has written? It has to be accepted in its totality, entirety.

This is the reason that each religion tries to enforce the idea that their book is the holy book. Of course they have to deny other holy books simultaneously, because there cannot be so many holy books, for the simple reason that all these holy books are so contradictory to each other that it will be impossible to make any sense out of it. They have to be denied.

Hindus cannot accept The Bible, the Torah, the Koran as holy. Neither can Christians or Jews or Mohammedans accept the Vedas as holy. What to say about Christians, Jews and Mohammedans - they are the three religions that happened outside India. But there are other religions, other than Hinduism, which happened in India - Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism: they don't believe that the Vedas are the holy book.

Buddha condemns the Vedas, criticizes the Vedas as drastically as possible, because the Vedas supported - you will be surprised, and this is the holy book - the Vedas supported all kinds of violence. In the Vedic ritual animals have to be sacrificed. You will be surprised that today the Hindus are continuously asking the government - creating trouble, movements, riots - that cow slaughter should be stopped. But the Vedas, their holy book, are full of instances that in their particular rituals, cows were slaughtered: gomedh yajna, cow slaughter ritual. And it is not only that the cows were slaughtered and thrown away; the brahmins who slaughtered them ate them.

If you have been to India, or if you have been in contact with Indians anywhere, you may have come across the surname Sharma, which is very common. It is a brahmin surname, Sharma. But the person whom you will be introduced to as Doctor Sharma, Professor Sharma, even he may not be aware what Sharma means. In the Vedic rituals the slaughtering of the cows was called sharman, and the brahmin who was the expert in doing it was called Sharma. These are the descendants of those people.

Certainly Buddha was angry, and it was not that only animals were slaughtered, even man was slaughtered. Just as there were gomedh yajnas, there were narmedh yajnas, man slaughtering rituals. And certainly they must have eaten the flesh of man too, because the brahmin will not slaughter something unnecessarily. Now, no Hindu talks about the fact that their Vedas are full of cannibalism, violence, nonvegetarianism. And these books were written by God! Buddha and Mahavira both hammered on the Vedas. Of course there was no way to answer Buddha and Mahavira.

But the trouble was Buddha became prevalent, he convinced millions of people: the day he died, his sayings became holy. The game remains the same. The players change but the rules of the game remain the same, because now the question was, for the followers of Buddha: "Hindus have the Vedas - holy books; Jainas have their holy books. If we don't have holy books we are a loser in the race, in the competition."

So it is a question of competition. Who bothers what Buddha was doing his whole life? His sayings were collected, and those sayings became holy. And Buddha was saying, "There is no God" - still his sayings start having the same status as the Vedas. The same happened with Mahavira. He was saying, "There is no God" - but his sayings became holy, you cannot argue against them.

I have been talking to Buddhist monks, Jaina monks, and they would see my point, and they would say, "We can understand, but please don't raise it in public. There we cannot accept it." For example, the Jaina monk cannot use the modern toilet, for a strange reason - because there is water, and Mahavira had said, "You should not defecate in water." And he was right, because in India people are doing all kinds of things in rivers, and they drink the same water also. Their buffalos also take their bath in the same river - their cows, their animals, their horses. And they are taking baths there and people are washing their clothes; everything is happening. Then they are drinking the same water.

So it was perfectly right for Mahavira to say, "At least do not defecate and urinate in the water." But now that has become a holy statement. So the Jaina monk, Jaina nun, cannot use the toilet because there is water. In privacy they also laughed with me, said, "It is true, but in public we cannot say it, we cannot go against the holy scripture."

Once a group of nuns, five nuns, who were very much interested in me - Jaina nuns - stayed. They cannot stay in a householder's home. I was staying with a friend's family and on top, one floor was still empty. The person had not moved in, so the friend asked him, "Just for five days don't move; these nuns want to stay, and once you have moved they cannot stay there. So let them use the house for five days."

And I was staying there so it would be easy for them; otherwise the Jaina society would not allow them to meet with me. The Jaina society was afraid that I might corrupt their minds, and certainly they were right. If I get the chance to corrupt anybody I am going to corrupt him - because that is the only way to put you right. You are standing on your head. To put you right side up I have to change many things in you.

They could not have come to see me because what excuse could they find to walk from the temple where they were staying, and come here every day? And if people came to know that I was staying there, that that's why they were going there, then immediately their prestige would be at risk. And they were highly respected nuns. So my friend said, "The best way is that they stay upstairs. It's empty, and nobody will be bothering." And after dark nobody visited them. Nobody can visit after the sun has set; then the Jaina nun is unavailable. This is just to protect her celibacy, to protect her repressed sexuality. So this was the arrangement, that after dark they could come down and meet me, and nobody would know - and this house was outside the city, far away from the community where Jainas live.

But the next morning, when I was walking in the garden, the man who guarded the house came running to me and said, "What kind of women are staying upstairs? The whole night I was puzzled about what they were doing. They would bring something in buckets and throw it on the street."

Finally he went there with a torch to look, and he was surprised: these women were strange. They could not urinate in the toilet; they were urinating in a small size bucket, and when it was full they had to throw it out. I talked to them. They said, "Ah, we understand, but it is against the holy scripture."

Buddhist monks walk with naked feet. Buddha and Mahavira both had said, "Don't use leather, because if you use leather for any purpose - shoes, suitcases, or anything - then animals are going to be killed. You may not kill them, and you may not know who is killing them, but indirectly you are the cause of their being killed. So you have to accept your responsibility; don't use anything made of leather."

Mahavira was very strict, so they cannot use shoes. And I asked Jaina nuns and Jaina monks.... To walk in Mahavira's time may have been a little different; they were walking just on plain earth. Now these poor monks and nuns are walking on coaltar, and in the hot summer... their feet start getting wounds, but they cannot wear shoes. I said, "It is perfectly true. But look at my shoes, they are not made of leather. Now synthetic leather is available, which is manmade; nobody is killed. You can use shoes made of cloth, they are available." But just the word shoe is enough. It is against the holy scripture.

I had seen these poor women and men, and I told them, "What you are doing - that's what I am saying to do, but you don't understand." Their feet would start bleeding, then they would put cloths around the feet, and I said, "That's what a cloth shoe is, but well made, better made, more comfortable. What you are doing looks stupid. And carrying so much load on both feet..." because they had to wind it perfectly so that it didn't get loose through walking and fall off. But this too they would do only when they were out of sight of their community. If the community comes to know that you are covering your feet with cloth, then you are trying to cheat. You fall from grace.

Buddha was not so strict about leather. Perhaps the question was never raised because it was already an accepted fact. Jaina monks were very old; in Buddha's time they were at least five thousand years old. And Buddha was trying to prove that he was the twenty-fourth tirthankara of the Jainas, so he must have been following in every way. He must have been walking barefoot, and his sannyasins, his bhikkhus, his monks, must have been doing the same, and the question was never raised.

But in another reference, a strange thing happened: Buddha had said, "Whatsoever is given to you when you go begging, never reject it. That is insulting." And he was careful, because if he allowed people to reject anything then they would choose whatsoever they wanted, good things only, and other things would be rejected. "So accept whatsoever is given gracefully, thankfully, and eat it. And don't throw away anything, whatsoever is given to you." He had to be careful, because he knew that people would throw away whatsoever they didn't like, and whatsoever they liked they would eat.

One day it happened: a monk was coming from begging and a bird flew over and dropped a piece of meat in his begging bowl. Now, it was not ever thought that something like this would happen.

Nobody was giving meat, knowing that Buddha was vegetarian and his monks were vegetarian. But this bird was absolutely unaware that this was a Buddhist monk.

The monk was in difficulty: what to do? He could not throw it away because that was against Buddha's order. He could not eat it, that too went against Buddha's order. So he came into the commune, stood up there with his begging bowl and said to Buddha, "Bhante, now you tell me what I am to do. A bird dropped a piece of meat in my begging bowl. I cannot throw it out because it is against your order. I cannot eat it either because we are vegetarians. So what am I supposed to do now? I am in a dilemma."

Even Buddha, for a moment, was in a dilemma. What to do? - because if he says, "Throw it away,"

then he is allowing throwing away, and one exception can become a rule. Then people can quote it: "Things can be thrown out; in certain situations, things can be thrown." If he says, "Eat it" - then he is allowing meat to be eaten; that may become a precedent for others to eat meat. But balancing both the sides, he thought, "The birds are not going to drop meat every day." So he said, "We are vegetarians, and we will remain strictly vegetarians, but you I allow to eat it, so that nobody ever throws out anything which is given to him."

Now all the Buddhists are meat eaters - that was enough. Now the Buddhist monk stipulates, manages through his agents, and sends the message: "Give me meat. If you give me meat then there is no question; if it comes into my begging bowl I will eat it." So the whole of China is Buddhist and eats meat; Japan is Buddhist and eats meat; in Korea - in the whole of Asia, except India, they all eat meat.

That small incident... but man is so cunning. And a Buddhist monk argues, "It is in the scriptures, the holy scriptures. Even Buddha himself said, 'You can eat it if it is dropped in your begging bowl.'"

Now, Buddha had never thought that these people could manage this. It is very easy just to send a message. Every Jaina monk sends a message about what he wants to eat, and that is prepared.

He is not allowed to ask, so he does not ask directly, but he sends the message through an agent.

And slowly people become aware what his likings are; what he likes most, they prepare that.

Between Buddha and Mahavira there were many disputes on many points. One was the point that Mahavira used to say, "Vegetarianism means you should not eat meat; obviously you should not kill anything, and you should not allow anybody else to kill for you."

But Buddha had a small difference about it. He said, "If one animal dies by itself, a natural death, then what is wrong with eating it?" That was his controversy with Mahavira. And he seems to be logical... that killing is violence, not meat-eating. If the animal dies naturally and you eat the meat, you are not doing any violence. But he had never thought that this argument with Mahavira....

And these arguments were because of the fight for the tirthankarahood - who is the tirthankara, Mahavira or Buddha? And there were six others... and all eight were continuously arguing against each other about small details, unnecessary details. Now, this is a very small, a minute detail, but Buddha proved better as far as argument was concerned, because violence is bad. The reason is not meat-eating, the reason is that you destroy life. But if without destroying life... life has left the body by itself, then why not eat it? What is the problem? Where is the violence?

His argumentation was good, but he was not aware that this argument was not going to remain just an argument with Mahavira, it was going to decide the fate of millions of people. Now the whole of China, which is one fourth of the world, and the other remaining Asian countries, which are all Buddhists - Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Tibet, are all Buddhist - they all eat meat.

On each butcher's shop you will find a notice written in big letters: "Here only dead animals' meat is sold." That's all. What else do you need? And from where do they get so many naturally dying animals? That is a miracle, that millions of people are getting meat every day; there is never a shortage. The animals are very mathematical! They go on dying in exactly the right number every day, naturally, to fulfill the needs of all these people. It does not happen in any other country, it only happens in a Buddhist country. They are being killed, they are being butchered. But that notice is enough for the monk and the layman to be satisfied. It is written in the holy book that to eat the meat from an animal which died naturally is not violence.

Buddha tried his whole life to insist that there is no holy book. Now his book is holy, Mahavira's book is holy.

The Koran, the Mohammedan's holy book, is so childish, so primitive - because Mohammed was illiterate. He could not write himself. He must have spoken, and somebody else must have written it.

He himself was shocked when he heard a voice. He was in the mountains taking care of his sheep and goats. He heard, "Write!" He looked all around, there was nobody. Again he heard, "Write!" He said, "I am uneducated, I cannot write. And who are you?" There was nobody around. He must have been very much shaken, must have become afraid. And this is just a symptom of an unbalanced mind, who mistakes his unconscious voices for voices coming from outside.

It is his own unconscious. But to the conscious, the unconscious is far away. It is inside. But if the mind is unbalanced... and there is ample proof that Mohammed's mind was unbalanced, because his whole life was the life of a fanatic - killing people, and by killing, converting them: "Either you become a follower or be ready to die." Mohammedanism has converted one third of the world, not by argument but by the sword. He was not able to argue; he had no capacity to read or write, or to think.

So when he heard this unconscious, he rushed home shivering, feverish, really afraid. He went to bed and told his wife, "I cannot say to anybody else that God has spoken to me. I don't believe it! I must have gone mad - perhaps too much heat in the desert, the mountains, and continuously moving in that heat has driven me crazy or something. I have heard... and I would like to tell you so that I am unburdened."

That woman convinced him. That's what I say to you again and again, that leaders need followers for them to be convinced that they are leaders. That woman convinced him that it was really God:

"You are not mad, God has spoken to you." The woman must have loved Mohammed, because she was forty years of age and he was only twenty-six. And he was poor, uncultured, uneducated, yet that very rich woman had married him: she must have been in love with the man. So she convinced him: "Don't you be worried. More voices will be coming. This must be the beginning, that's why God said, 'Write!' If you cannot write, don't worry. You just say what is told to you, we will write it." This is how the Koran was written. And it was not written in one day or one month or one year, because Mohammed was not so articulate a man. It took his whole life. Once in a while something would come out and he would say, "Write it."

The Koran was written over many years, and what has come out is almost worthless. It cannot come even from an intelligent human being, what to say about God - if there is any God. And if these books are the proof of that God, then that God is really unintelligent. Now, the Koran says strange things which Mohammedans go on following - because it is holy.

Mohammed himself married nine wives. He was poor. He could not afford even a single wife. But because the rich woman fell in love with him, and she was forty years old and he was only twenty-six, soon she died and he had all the money. So he started marrying any kind of beautiful women he could find. And he states in the Koran that every Mohammedan is entitled to have four wives - that is a special favor for Mohammedans from God.

No other religion allows four wives. Now, where are you going to get four wives? By nature, man and woman are always almost in an equal proportion, so one man, one wife, seems to be a very natural order of things because the proportion is the same. But if a man has to marry four wives, he is taking three other men's wives. Now those three other men, what are they going to do? It became a good strategy for Mohammedanism. These three other Mohammedans have to grab the wives of others - not of Mohammedans, non-Mohammedans - and convert them to Mohammedanism.

In fact, the moment a woman gets married to a Mohammedan she is a Mohammedan; no special conversion is needed.

And particularly from India they caught thousands of women. The Hindu society was in difficulty because Hindus don't believe in conversion, just like Jews. These are the two oldest religions, which don't believe in conversion. A Jew is a Jew by birth, a Hindu is a Hindu by birth. And once a Hindu woman has become Mohammedan she has fallen. She has become untouchable, she cannot be taken back. So they went on finding women from every place and that helped tremendously to increase their population. Do you see the point? One man can create many children if many women are available, but one woman can give birth to only one child once a year. She will take one year at least to give birth to one child. Mohammedans increased immediately because each Mohammedan is entitled to have four wives.

And through the sword... and it is very surprising that people believe it. The Koran says, "If you cannot convert somebody to a Mohammedan, it is better to kill him, because at least you will relieve him of a wrong life that he was going to live." Just for his sake, relieve him! They have relieved millions of people, and they go on relieving them. Either way they relieve you. If you become Mohammedan you are also relieved, because God is compassionate.

To be a Mohammedan is just to believe in three things: one God, one prophet Mohammed, one holy book, the Koran. That's all - these three beliefs and you are saved. If you are not willing to be saved by these three beliefs, then the sword is going to save you immediately. But they won't allow you to live a wrong life. They know what a right life is; and other than their life, all lives are wrong.

These are the holy books. All these holy books are a heavy burden on the human soul. So first I want to say, there are no holy books - including mine. All books are human. Yes, there are well written books and there are not-so-well written books, but there are no categories of holy and unholy.

You ask me, "Why did all the holy books have to create the concept of the devil?"

The arithmetic is very simple. The arithmetic is that you cannot create God without creating the devil.

It is absolutely necessary for God's existence, because where are you going to dump everything that is wrong in the world? If only God is there then he is responsible for everything - for Buchenwald, or any other concentration camp of Adolf Hitler, where millions of Jews are just gassed; within seconds they evaporate.

After the second world war, when it was discovered, nobody could believe their eyes. Even Germans could not believe it because they were not aware of what was happening. Millions of skeletons...

everything had been taken away from them. Even if they had a tooth covered with gold, that had been taken out; that was more precious than the life of the man. And before they were sent into the gas chamber they were destroyed completely as far as their identity, individuality is concerned.

First they had to undress and be naked; then their hair, beard, mustaches were shaved completely.

Those who have survived somehow say that they could not believe, when they looked into the mirror, that "This is me." Everything had been taken away. Naked they were standing there, shaved, and they were told that they are going to have a bath - just for hygiene and cleanliness. When they entered those gas chambers they were going to take a bath; that was what was told to them. They never came out to tell others that there was no bath. Once you are inside the chambers, suddenly you are gone within seconds. It was an oven to burn people alive - and so fast and so efficient. You can understand: German efficiency, German bureaucracy. It must have been really tight, because millions of people died and nobody in the country even heard the rumor that this was happening.

And the people who were doing it were doing a holy job, because to them Adolf Hitler was the incarnation of Elijah. He was a prophet, "So whatsoever he is doing is right. It must be God's will that Jews are no longer needed." So they were perfectly righteous about what they were doing.

They never felt that they were committing any crime; they were simply following the orders from the prophet. And his book was holy: to the Nazi, Adolf Hitler's book My Struggle is as holy as The Bible to the Christians, and the Vedas to the Hindus. And whatsoever Adolf Hitler says is the word of God.

But why, you ask, is the devil needed? It is very simple. To whom are you going to delegate all the wrong that is happening in the world, that continues to increase: the suffering, the misery, the anguish? If God alone is there, then of course he is the only source of all responsibility. To save him from all this responsibility, the poor devil.... So the first fiction is God, and to keep him clean and good - he is the good guy - you need a bad guy in contrast. And you can dump everything wrong on the bad guy: it is the devil.

In Germany Adolf Hitler was the prophet of God; in England he was the devil. Mothers used to make their children afraid. If they were playing outside and their mother did not want them to stay outside, just one thing was enough: "Adolf Hitler is coming" - and they would run in. Adolf Hitler in England, and in every other country wherever he has invaded or was trying to invade, was the devil incarnate.

All the religions need the devil. It is a safety for God. Adam and Eve fell from grace, committed the original sin because of the devil. Otherwise, God was so good: he had given them all. He had given them good advice - what to eat, what not to eat - and he was taking care of them, but this devil disturbed it. And still, whatsoever goes wrong anywhere, it is the devil who disturbs.

It is somehow absolutely necessary because existence is a mixture of good and bad. A person like me, who says there is no God - I can say there is no devil either, because the very necessity for the devil disappears. God was the reason. Now the very reason is not there; there is no devil. And I accept existence in its totality, in its goodness, in its badness, as it is - not dumping the badness on somebody's head, because that does not help at all.

For all these thousands of years this is what you have been doing: giving everything good to God, that it is his blessing, and throwing everything bad on the devil, that it is his doing. But it has not helped. The good has not grown, the bad has not decreased. In fact the bad has increased, the good has decreased. If you look at history, it seems the devil is winning and God is losing ground - because there is more and more that is inhuman, ugly; more and more that is animalistic arising. It is not decreasing. So your device of dividing good and bad has not helped, because your dividing is basically unnatural and wrong.

Good and bad are sides of one coin, two sides, just like day and night, life and death, love and hate.

Once you accept their total, integrated wholeness, then there is a possibility of making immense changes. Then the good can be put into the central place of your being and the bad can be used as a means for good. Poison can be used as a medicine, and everything that the religions have called bad can be used in a tremendously beneficial way.

For example, sex they have condemned as bad and as the doing of the devil. In fact, Sigmund Freud.... The first Jew must have written the story of the serpent seducing poor Eve's mind, and then comes another Jew, Sigmund Freud, who says that the serpent is nothing but a phallic symbol.

To him everything is phallic. Wherever he looks he finds only phallic symbols and nothing else. A rocket is a phallic symbol, a flagpole is a phallic symbol, anything - you name it and he will find it - so the serpent certainly, very easy. He was condemned as the devil, now Freud makes him the sex symbol - but the condemnation continues.

You condemn sex, then you become unable to transform its energy. And it is simply energy. It can move in any direction, downwards, upwards. If you accept it, in the very acceptance it starts moving upwards, because you are befriending it. The moment you reject it, you are creating an enmity, a division in yourself.

This division between God and devil is not just there in the holy books, it has penetrated you, it has made you schizophrenic. One part thinks, "This is me, the good part, and the bad part must belong to the devil." You are split. Now, how are you going to change that part you have rejected in your being as yours? It is there, and it is intensely powerful. Your rejection makes it more intense because you don't use it; you go on collecting it, you go on repressing it. Ninety percent of the mind diseases in the world are nothing but repressed sexuality, and fifty percent of bodily diseases are repressed sexuality.

If we can accept sexuality naturally, ninety percent of your mental diseases will simply disappear, and fifty percent of physical diseases will simply disappear, leaving no trace behind. And you will find human beings, for the first time, in a totally new age of health, wellbeing, wholeness. To me only that wholeness is holy, when your schizophrenia is no more there; when you are one, integratedly one, and courageous enough to accept everything, that "this is me. Whatsoever it is, it is me. And I am going to make use of it the best I can."

And you have the intelligence to make use of it There is no problem at all. The problems are created problems, created by people who have vested interests in those problems. Those vested interests would not like those problems to disappear completely - otherwise what will happen to them, what will happen to their profession? Their whole interest is in keeping humanity as it is. But now it has come to a point where either you have to change, and throw away all your past inheritance which divides you, and become whole; or you get ready to commit a global suicide - because there is only a certain amount of anguish that you can bear. Now it is becoming unbearable. By the end of this century we will be coming to the point when it will become absolutely unbearable. And then there are only two possibilities: suicide or sannyas.

By sannyas I simply mean you accept yourself in your totality. You don't bypass any part of yourself, you don't hide anything in darkness. You bring yourself into the light, and see yourself with the eyes of a friend - because this is your energy and this is the energy that you have to work upon. When you come to it as a friend, it also comes to you as a friend. And to befriend oneself is one of the greatest things in life that can happen to a man.

Jesus says, "Love your enemies like you love yourself." But he forgets completely that nobody loves himself - how can he love the enemy? And an even more difficult saying... he says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." That is even more difficult. You can love the enemy because he is far away, but the neighbor just banging on your door - how can you love the neighbor? - and just like yourself....

I say don't commit that mistake. Because you don't love yourself, if you start doing with your neighbor what you have done with yourself you will kill him! - because you have killed yourself. You are living a posthumous existence. Please don't do the same to your neighbor, and never do the same to the enemy. What has he done to you? Why be so ugly to him? It is of course your birthright to do whatsoever you want to do with yourself, but it is not your birthright to do the same with your neighbor or your enemy. No, I would like to say to you, you have never loved yourself. Forget the enemy, forget the neighbor - first love yourself.

Bring your good and bad together, don't divide - become one. And in your oneness you will see that there is no God outside and no devil outside. Those were projections of your inner division. Then you will see outside also a wholeness, an immense unity between darkness and light, between death and birth. You will see that unity and wholeness everywhere, hand in hand, working together.

Nothing is against anything, they are all complementaries. What you call good and what you call bad are complementaries. They cannot exist separately, they can only exist together. And to put yourself together is the way to see the universe in its totality, in its togetherness.

Okay Sheela?