Chase the woman gently

Question 1:

The women is not the weaker sex, as it has been said by man for centuries. The woman is the stronger sex. She is made weaker. For centuries upon centuries she has been conditioned; she has been told she needs a protector.

The Indian scripture of Manu, which has dominated the Hindu mind for five thousand years and still dominates it, says that when the woman is a child she should be dependent on the parents, protected by the parents. When she is young, she should be dependent on the husband and protected by the husband. When she is old, she should still remain dependent - on the boys, her children, and be protected by her own children. For her whole life she has to be protected by somebody. If for thousands of years you protect somebody in this way, you are bound to create weakness, dependence, fear.

And it has been almost accepted as a scientific fact that man is the stronger sex. It is absolutely wrong! The woman is the stronger sex, and she has to be, because she has to produce children.

She has to be pregnant and go through all the troubles of pregnancy.

Not a single man could stand one pregnancy. Just think of yourself being pregnant for nine months:

You cannot eat, you vomit; you go on carrying a weight which is growing bigger and bigger within your belly. And then the final stage, the baby comes out of you. The passage is so small, the baby is big; it is painful. The woman passes almost through death when the child is born. And you think she is weaker than man?

Women live longer than men all over the world; the difference is of five years. If man lives on average seventy years, the woman lives on average seventy-five years. Strange, the weaker sex lives longer.

Man is more prone to sicknesses, diseases, infections, than woman. And the difference is not small, it is double. Women are prone to sickness in comparison to man just half as much; if they get sick, it is only fifty percent as often. If man has to be considered, he gets sick and is available to any infection twice as often as women, and more.

What is the cause of it? The woman has more resistance power. The man is very weak against small bugs - and yet he becomes Muhammad Ali the great! He cannot fight small bugs, he is incapable of doing any boxing against them. But the woman does.

It is a very strange thing that the suicide rate of the man is double that of the woman - and woman is the weaker sex? She suffers more, her whole life in the past has been of suffering. Women have been treated like cattle.

In China for thousands of years the woman has not been believed to have a soul. So if the husband murders his wife, he commits no crime. The woman was a possession. Without a soul, so much resistance against diseases? And man has a soul, but the resistance is only half that which a woman has.

The man becomes frantic very soon, carries thousands of worries in his head, is almost on the verge of falling into anxiety, anguish, suicide. It starts even in the mother's womb.

An experienced woman who has given birth to one or two children can tell whether the child in her womb is male or female. How can she guess it? Very simple guesswork, which is absolutely certain. The boy starts kicking in her womb; the girl is calm and quiet. And the mother can feel that difference. The boy is becoming tense, worried already, already trying to learn boxing. The girl is very silent in the mother's womb - creates no movement, is more stable, more centered, more grounded.

Women threaten that they will commit suicide, but they do not do it. The difference is again the same: men commit suicide twice as often as women do. And it has to be understood that their suicides are also different. The woman commits suicide because the man forces her to commit suicide. Man commits suicide because of his own anguish, worry, despair.

If the woman were not forced by man to commit suicide, no woman would commit suicide. In fact, the woman's suicide is really a murder - murder by the man: man's society, man's rule, man's power.

And the woman has survived all along without any complaint. That is strength. Man forcing the woman to commit suicide should be punished - it is a murder. But behind the word suicide he is completely free of any crime.

Your question is that women are becoming juicier here every day. They would become juicier all around the earth every day; they just have to be given the opportunity. It is their intrinsic nature to be juicier. The woman has to nourish the child - she needs the juice. The woman attracts the male - she has to be juicier. She is certainly more beautiful, more proportionate; her body is an artwork.

I do not believe in the bogus Christian story that God created man first. The story must have been created by a man, because what use is man? And then he created the woman, taking a rib out of the man. This is simply to insult women: "You are nothing but a rib taken out of man. You are not human beings".

If I have to write the story, I will say God first created Eve, not Adam - because the woman is creative, she is going to give birth. In fact, there was no need for Adam to be created by God. The story is, that God made love to the first woman he made. If that is true, then Adam is simply superfluous. The woman, and God making love to the woman... Adams will follow of their own accord. Adam need not be created, he will be born. But you need the woman first. Without her there is no possibility of anything getting born.

But for thousands of years, if you go on hammering the idea that woman is a weaker sex.... The woman has shrunk, she has accepted the idea. She has lived according to the male chauvinist's philosophy.

Here in this commune it is totally different. The woman finds herself absolutely free from all the jargon that man has been teaching her. And we have given all the opportunities to women that no society anywhere has been able to give them. All societies have taken away opportunities - and things need opportunities to grow, to reach to their potential.

The woman has somehow survived because she is so strong. But she has only survived - no nourishment. Here she is nourished, here she knows she is accepted on an equal basis. In fact, the women in the commune have more responsible posts than men. This is just a compensation - small, but it may become the model for the whole universe. And they are running the commune better than any society run by men.

In four years of the commune's existence there has not been a single crime, not a single murder, not a single suicide. Man has not been able to create a society where crimes are not growing. And as the woman becomes juicier, more powerful, stronger, takes her natural position, the man is bound to become lazier. That is his nature - he is bone lazy.

I have been in a few aboriginal communities in India. They are very primitive people; they live in the mountains, in the jungles. Somehow they are free form the stupidity the whole humanity lives under.

Their small, primitive communities are matriarchal, not patriarchal. The woman rules, the woman is powerful. But I saw men almost shrunken, lazy, doing nothing. I was surprised. What happened to the strong sex?

The strong sex - the so-called strong sex - seeing that the woman is doing perfectly well, better that he can do, has done only one thing: he has married four, five women, and he sits in the house in the rocking chair, smoking, looking after the children. The woman works for everything - for food, for clothing, for all the necessities of life. Man's work has become confined just to looking after the children - which is not much of a job.

The woman takes all the responsibility of the outside world - farming the land, growing the gardens, weaving the clothes. And she also is responsible for the household: making food, making the house comfortable - and the man simply goes on becoming lazier and stupider. I would not like it to happen here. It is ugly.

Man should take the challenge. If women are becoming juicier, now is the time to prove.... And as far as laziness is concerned, I alone am enough. I am ready to take all your laziness upon myself.

But remember that you have been for centuries lying, befooling. This is a great opportunity to prove that you are stronger - but every man deep down knows he is not.

Every man feels a deep inferiority complex, for the simple reason that he cannot produce children, he cannot give birth to life. His function in giving birth to children is only that of an injection. Any injection can do that. In fact, in the future, injections will be doing that; then man will be completely out of a job.

Don't be lazy... because it is easier to be lazy. Seeing that everything is going perfectly well, and women are doing perfectly well, the natural instinct is to fall into laziness; there is no need for you to do anything. But this is a wrong way of thinking. When women are doing so much, at least you have to prove your equality. You cannot prove that you are superior - forget it, that is completely out of the question - but you can at least prove yourself equal.

I know you cannot produce children. That inferiority in you is to be used as another opportunity.

Down the centuries man has been using that, and you are not to forget it. Man has created great music, great art, great poetry, great drama, great sculpture. Women have not done anything.

In the first place they were not allowed. In the second place, to give birth to a child, a living child, is such a great creative act that they don't feel they have to make a dead statue. Leonardo da Vinci may make beautiful statue of Jesus Christ, but it does not breathe. Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, is far superior. Howsoever beautiful the statue, it is just a dead stone. Jesus was an alive human being. So the woman has no inferiority complex in her.

I would like you to be creative. Man has to prove his equality, and he can prove his equality only by creating. And there is so much to create! We are in a desert, and we have to create a lush, green oasis. We are surrounded by all kind of hostile forces. We have to be strong enough to face them.

It is a great encounter between the past and the future. We have to stand for the future; they are standing for the past. Those who stand for the past miss the present. Those who stand for the future have to take care of the present, because the present is going to become the future.

Don't get lazy because women are doing perfectly well, taking all the responsible jobs in the commune. Gather yourself together, take responsibility. Of course you cannot give birth to a child - there is no need - but you can give birth to many things which the woman may not be attracted to. Yes, beautiful paintings are needed, beautiful gardens are needed, beautiful lakes are needed; beautiful music, poetry, literature, are needed.

Perhaps the woman may not feel attracted. She is already a creator, a born creator. Man is not a born creator. Unless you make the effort to be a creator - that is, to be a painter, or a gardener, or a farmer - you are bound to fall into laziness. And laziness is a slow death. You cannot live life abundantly if you are lazy; life needs strength, overflowing energy. You cannot even love, because you don't have any juice to share. You are becoming a dry bone.

I have been receiving letters from women sannyasins, asking, "What is happening? In the whole world, man chases the woman. Here we have to chase men - and they escape!" This is ugly. This is humiliating yourself - or have you become so lazy that you cannot even chase a woman? Do you want a rocking chair? The women can provide you with a rocking chair - so sit on the rocking chair.

But you cannot even sit there, because women will be chasing you. They are full of juice and they want to share it, and it can be shared only with somebody who is equally overflowing.

Our commune is proving something significant. It is proving that if women are given the opportunity, they will prove far superior to men.

And if women are given the opportunity, the man will become lazier. They will not feel competent enough, so rather than joining in the race, it is safer for their egos to sit by the side of the road.

But that is a kind of suicide. You have to take the challenge. Come out of your laziness! And you become juicier only when you are creative. That's why poets, painters, musicians, are more juicy than others - even if they are creating third-rate music.

The music of the Beatles has not to be called music, it is sheer madness. You cannot put the Beatles in the same company with Mozart, Wagner, Tansen. What the Beatles are doing is just something monkeyish, and naturally their music is finished; the Beatles are past already. Mozart is going to live forever. As long as humanity is there, and intelligent people are there, he will be alive. The Beatles were finished within ten years - came like a wind, and went away.

You have to create something in which your inner potentiality becomes actualized, materialized.

And then you will be surprised that the more you create, the juicier you become. Poets have always attracted beautiful women, painters have always attracted beautiful women. Any kind of creativity makes you juicier. The woman knows where the juice is; it is her natural instinct. And what is the point of falling in love with a lazy skeleton?

So stop escaping from women. Start chasing them, because it is absolutely unacceptable... for the simple reason that the natural phenomenon - not only in man, but all over in nature - is that the male chases the female, and the female tries to escape, although she does not want to escape.

She goes very slowly, she goes on looking back. But it is a beautiful game of hide-and-seek. The woman, all over nature, is the one who hides. It is the man, the male who seeks. We cannot change nature, and if you try to change it you become something of a perversion. The game is so joyous....

Chase the woman, because that gives her strength, recognition; that makes her feel she is attractive, beautiful, wanted. And that is a great need in the feminine psychology: to be wanted. Don't take away something from my women here, because it is absolutely unnatural for them to chase men. It is unfeminine, it is not ladylike.

I don't know what this word "lady" means, but I figured out it means "a good lay." I don't know English, so I can manage my own meanings. Now, a good lay has to be chased. The good lay is not going to chase you, that will look unfeminine. Be a gentleman! And just as I think lady means a good lay, a gentleman means one who lays her gently. And you are chasing....

Chase the woman gently. And let her feel one of her greatest needs: that she is needed. That will make her juicier. And chasing her, you will come out of your laziness, so it is just the right thing to do.

If any man is not chasing a woman he is betraying me! I have chased women my whole life - of course, very gently. And you guys here are trying to destroy the whole natural balance! A woman loves immensely to be chased, it is her inner necessity. Don't deprive the woman of her most basic need.

I was a lecturer in the university... just by coincidence I was sitting with the vice-chancellor - he had called me to discuss a few things about my behavior - and at that very moment a girl student came in. She was in tears.

The vice-chancellor asked her, "What is the matter?"

She said, "Look at these letters! A few boys go on continuously writing me love letters. They even throw pebbles at me. They are harassing me!"

Naturally the vice-chancellor said, "You just name those people, they will be punished."

I said, "Wait. You don't understand psychology. Let me take the case in hand. I am teaching psychology - you don't know anything about it." He was shocked that a lecturer should say that. But it was absolutely certain that he had no idea of psychology. He had been the chief justice of a high court.

I said, "It is not a court. You know how to deal with criminals, but this is not a crime. In fact, if this woman receives no letters, if nobody pays any attention to her, nobody chases her, nobody throws pebbles at her, she will be in great despair."

The girl was shocked, but her tears disappeared. I said to her, "Just look within yourself. Don't you enjoy all those letters? Don't you enjoy all those people chasing you? Are you not creating jealousy in the other girls of your class?"

For a moment she was dumb. Then she said, "Of course, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I had come with these letters to show to the vice-chancellor just to make it known that I am the most chased girl in the whole university."

I said, "You are intelligent, you have understood the point." And I said to the vice-chancellor, "Never interfere in things which you don't know about."

It is an absolute need in feminine psychology, and it is a very complicated phenomenon. If she is not chased, she is in despair. That means she is worthless, nobody is paying attention to her, nobody writes love letters, nobody approaches her. Nobody tells her, in a roundabout way, that he loves her.

She is waiting.... Don't let my women wait!

And out of despair a woman starts chasing men, because she sees time is passing - and time passes faster for the woman than it passes for the man. Because she is a beautiful flower, delicate in every way, her youth, her beauty will be soon gone. By the time she is forty-eight her menopause comes, and after that who bothers to chase her? She is in a hurry: youth will not be forever.

A man can be loved even when he is old. This is strange. You will find many young girls falling in love with an old poet, who is older than their fathers, an old painter, an old musician - young girls.

I know twenty-year-old girls were falling in love with Picasso. And it has been always so, never the reverse.

I have never seen a young man falling in love with an old woman of seventy, eighty, ninety. And if any young man falls in love with a woman who is ninety, the motivation must be different. It must be money. The woman is just about to go into her grave - it is not difficult for a few days to pretend that he loves her, and then all her money is going to be his. But no young man is going to fall really in love with an old woman.

The woman's beauty, youth, is a very fleeting phenomenon. So she becomes despairing, afraid; time is running out and these lazy guys are not chasing her! Now, don't be so cruel, don't be so unkind. Be human, compassionate.

This word "compassion" is composed of passion. To be compassionate means to be in love.

Compassion is just a dimension of love. Passion is hasty, hectic, a little violent. Compassion is gentle, nice, understanding - but it is passion after all.

It has to be remembered that when a woman out of despair chases a man, the man is bound to escape because something unnatural is happening. When the woman chases you, it simply means she is an unwanted woman, nobody is chasing her. The woman chasing the man becomes unattractive. The man cannot take it: she is not a woman, she is a monster.

Things are very much correlated. If women start chasing, men are bound to escape. The whole game has turned upside down. The chaser becomes the chased, and no man can love a woman who is chasing him. The very phenomenon of chasing makes the woman worthless, she is not a challenge. Man wants challenge. He wants to chase, he wants to be victorious. That's why nature has arranged it in such a way that in all the animals, man included, the males should chase the females.

Give great contentment to the woman. And don't be worried that you will have to chase her to the very end of the earth. She is willing, she is just giving you a little more chance to chase her, so it becomes a more attractive challenge. And once you start burning with the challenge, the woman becomes almost a fairy, not of this world. Your burning desire for her makes her a dream girl. You dream of her, you think of her, you write poetry, you play on the guitar. It is perfectly good.

And never be worried. She is not trying to escape you, she is just giving you a chance to chase.

Take the challenge as a man, and soon she will allow you to be victorious. And that's what the man desires: victory. But when a woman chases a man it is going to be defeat. If she catches hold of him, he is defeated. He will fall on his knees and beg her, "Please leave me, find someone else. I am not one to be defeated."

So just understand the natural way of things, and don't go against nature, because going against nature creates all sorts of problems. To be natural is to be unproblematic. And to be natural is so beautiful.

To be natural is so at ease, at home.

Question 2:

Yes. I am also glad that it is happening. Go through the process. Something in your mind is still thinking in terms of white and black.

My commune has nothing to do with white and black. My commune is open to all with equal respect.

Just look at me. I am neither black nor white, but it does not give me any trouble. I simply enjoy it.

Not being black, not being white, with one hand I can chase a black woman, with another hand I can chase a white woman.

Of course, my ways of chasing are very subtle. I chase them sitting in my chair. I don't have to do all kinds of gymnastics. I don't have to take them to the cafe, to the restaurant, to the movie; I am simply sitting in my chair. But even if I look in their eyes, that is enough: cafes and restaurants and movies are nothing before it. Just waving my hand... and I see the woman becoming so happy. It makes me happy in return. And I have not done anything - just waved my hand!

When I see you laughing, it is a nourishment to me. When I see you singing and dancing with me, I become healthier. What medicines cannot do for me, my people, rejoicing, do.

Feel for everybody who is here. Don't think in terms of you being black. Black is beautiful - it has its own beauty, just as the white color has its own beauty. The black color is not to be condemned; the black color and the black people have to be discovered and welcomed. They are stronger than white people. White husbands are always afraid of black servants, chauffeurs, for the simple reason that their wives might find them more attractive. And certainly they are more powerful sexually - they are more primitive!

And they come from a world where only strong people can survive. Those who are weaker will not be able to take the sun of Africa; they will be finished.

In Tibet, for centuries there has been a tradition that when the child is born.... You cannot conceive what they do. They dip the child into ice-cold water nine times. A very strange thing! Nine children die; only one survives out of ten. But I know their reason. In Tibet, to survive you will need immense strength against the cold. It is icy cold all around. It is better to die in the very beginning, better to get out of the race. Otherwise, you will be continually sick, a burden on the society, on the parents, who are all poor, and you will carry a guilt within yourself your whole life - that you are of no use, worthless and unnecessarily existing like a parasite.

It looks cruel to dip the just-born child into ice-cold water, but I can see their point. It is better to retire from the very beginning, rather than suffer for seventy years. So only ten percent of children survive, ninety percent die in that ice-cold dipping. But those who survive are immensely strong.

The same is the situation in Africa. They have to be strong, the sun is too much. Their blackness is really a protection against the sun. Their strength has been always a point of jealousy in white people's minds; in fact, the white man has always felt inferior. And just to destroy that inferiority within himself, he forced the black people to be inferior. He made them slaves, he sold them in the markets like a commodity. They were not given education, they were not economically free. They were always second-class citizens.

Even now, in the twentieth century, in the most modern country of the world - in America - the blacks are still fighting for their rights, and they are not receiving them. But in my commune, which is ahead of time... in my commune it is the twenty-first century! We have left the twentieth century far behind. Here, every color is respected.

You say you have been with me for ten years. Not really, if you had been really with me for ten years it would be impossible for this question to arise in your mind. Yes, I have never talked about Africa, because nobody ever asked about Africa, nobody ever asked about the African people.

I answer your questions; otherwise, I have nothing to say. I have found the answer, now no question arises in me.

If you want to drink out of my experience, you have to use your question as a bucket is used to draw water from a well. The well is not in any need of your bucket, he is perfectly contented. But he is happy to give you water, to fill your bucket, because he knows the more he gives, the more water - fresh, younger - flows in through hundreds of sources.

The same is my experience. You go on asking me and I will go on answering you. But if you don't ask, there is absolute silence in me. There is no question that has arisen in thirty-two years. Once you have found the answer, how can questions arise? But you have questions; use them as buckets.

I am available, infinitely happy to give you all that I have, because the more I give, the fuller I am.

You have been with me physically for ten years, but somewhere lurking in your mind the idea has remained that you are a black person. And the white people have conditioned you to think that you are inferior. Just now, because somebody in the press conference asked me about Africans - why they are not coming here - the shadow that has been always lurking somewhere in your unconscious came into your conscious immediately. And my answer may have helped to bring it up.

There is no other way to get rid of things. If you go on keeping them deep in your unconscious, you may be unaware of them but they are there and growing their roots deeper and deeper. Underneath your unconscious mind there is a collective unconscious mind - which is far bigger. Underneath your collective unconscious mind is the cosmic unconscious mind - which is as big as the whole universe. So the deeper you repress something, the more you are giving it chances to survive. Bring it into the conscious mind.

It is good that somebody asked the question, and you have become disturbed, shaky. Don't repress it. Shake yourself perfectly well!

There used to be - there is still in some areas - a Christian sect called Shakers. I condemn their whole theology, but I accept their shaking. That's what they used to do in their churches: they would shake themselves as strongly as possible till they fell on the ground. I call it Dynamic Meditation!

There has been another Christian sect which was even better; they are called Quakers. Shaking is a little bit gentle, but quaking is as if an earthquake is happening. And that's what they used to do. I don't accept anything of their theology, but shaking and quaking are perfectly useful methods.

So if you are shaking inside, bring it out. And what has shaken you? - I said a truth. And I cannot say anything else. That's why I am against taking the oath in the courts. The oath in the courts means that if you don't take the oath you are liable to lie. That is accepting that you are a lying person. I am against the oaths in the courts, for the simple reason that they are already giving the judgment, without you asserting a single word. They have already judged: "You will lie, so take the oath."

But it is so stupid. If a person can lie, how can the oath prevent him? And particularly a person like me, who does not believe in God, who does not believe in heaven and hell - what oath can prevent me from lying? There is no fear of hell, there is no greed for heaven, and I don't want to meet your bogus God. I am completely fulfilled in myself. The oath can make superstitious people afraid; the oath can make a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan afraid. The oath cannot make my people afraid - there is nothing to fear.

I am simply saying the truth as I see it. That's what has shaken you. But what can I do? If there are people who don't listen to Mozart, is Mozart responsible for that? If there are people who cannot understand the paintings of Van Gogh, is Van Gogh responsible for it? To understand Van Gogh you will have to grow more sensitive, more aesthetic; you will have to understand the mind of a creative painter.

Just the other day I saw a picture of Van Gogh's painting. Why has this picture suddenly been published? Van Gogh was condemned for this same painting for his whole life, and even after his life. And now suddenly the painting has become the most important of Van Gogh's paintings. I will have to tell you what the painting is and what happened.

The painting is of stars, but they are not the way you see them. They are more whirling, they are not static; they are more liquid than solid. Now who has seen a liquid star going round and round on its center? In Van Gogh's time, science itself condemned it as only imaginary. But now physicists have discovered that the stars are actually as they are painted by Van Gogh; they are liquid and whirling, they are not solid, static.

Something almost miraculous... Van Gogh could see something that science had to wait for one hundred years to discover. And now they are all paying respect to the genius of the man, to his unimaginable intuitive forces. How did he manage to see stars the way they are? If you want to understand Van Gogh, you will have to raise your consciousness. You cannot appreciate Van Gogh just the way you are; there is a gap.

If Africans are not coming to me, it is not my fault. There is a big gap, they cannot understand me.

Their problems are not spiritual - why should they come to me? Their problems are very material, mundane. They need food, they need water, clean water. They need medicine, they need hospitals, they need schools. They need all kinds of things; and I am not distributing things here.

Only those who have everything and still find themselves discontented, who have all kinds of power and still feel they are empty; those who have been educated in the great universities of the world - Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Varanasi - and still they find, after all this long process of education, wasting one-third of their lives.... What have they got? A few papers certifying that they are an M.A., a Ph.D., a D.Litt., but their ignorance remains the same after all this knowledgeability.

They have not become knowers, they don't know even themselves. All these universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Varanasi - they all have failed them, they have deceived them. They have not been true to their promise. Out of the university they come full of knowledgeability, but with no experience of their own: all knowledge borrowed, but no experience authentically their own. These are the people who will be coming to me.

Africans, I am sad to say, cannot come. But I am not responsible for it. It is not a question of their being black, it is a question of their poverty, their slavery. And as far as religion is concerned, I am condemning all the religions, because I find them pseudo, not true; mythological, not existential. The Africans are not even at that stage where they have a pseudo religion. They are far away, back in the world when there was no religion, only magical rituals.

I am condemning the religious people. What can I say to Africans who are five thousand years behind? They are still believing that a certain ritual can kill a man, that a certain ritual can save a man from dying, that a certain ritual can do miracles. There is such a gap! That's why they are not coming to me. You are fortunate that you have come and you have been here with me for ten years.

I don't ever discriminate between the black people and the white people. To me, anybody who is trying to seek, search inwards.... Inside nobody is black and nobody is white. Inside there are no colors. Inside it is luminous whiteness. Remember, white is not a color, just as black is not a color.

It is strange that we say black people, white people; both are colorless, in different ways.

You can see... in the rainbow you will not find white and black. These two colors you will not find in the rainbow; all other colors are there. Why is the rainbow not interested in white and black? - because they are not colors. Black simply means that all colors have been absorbed.

You have to understand a little bit of scientific fact. When you see something black, that means none of the sunrays falling on it are reflected back. It absorbs them, it does not let any sunray escape.

White does just the opposite. It reflects all the rays, and all the colors together create the illusion of white.

You can try it. Just on your ceiling fan, instead of three blades, put seven blades. Paint each blade in different colors - paint on it all seven rainbow colors. Then put the fan on, and you will be surprised:

when those blades start moving fast, you only see white; all those colors have disappeared.

The reflection of all colors is white; rejecting all the colors is white. Absorbing all sunrays is black.

The black people had to be black because they had to absorb the sunrays; otherwise they would be too much, they would kill them. They had to create a device, a simple device - to be black. It is not very costly, it is a very small amount of pigment. Things are becoming more and more costly, but still the black pigment is not more than half a dollar's worth. But it protects them from being burned by the sun, because the black immediately absorbs sunrays.

The white cannot accept all the sunrays; that is also simple. The white races live in colder countries where the sunrays are not so strong. To survive they don't need to be able to absorb all the sunrays.

These are survival measures - don't make politics out of them!

And as far as your inside is concerned, there are no colors, just a luminosity, just pure light and utter silence. It is the same in the black, in the white, in the yellow, in the brown - it does not matter what kind of container you have, the content is the same.

You are fortunate, I say it again, to have been here for ten years. But do you remember anybody discriminating against you because you are black? In fact, I had to enquire who the questioner is, because I don't see you as black and white; I simply see you as red people! My concern is with the red people.

It is good that you got disturbed. But it is not your responsibility. It is nobody's responsibility, it just happens that the black people have not risen in consciousness, in intelligence. They have been struggling at the lowest level of survival.

The same is the situation in India. There was a time, twenty-five centuries ago when Gautam Buddha was alive, when the country was agog with arguments, philosophies, theologies. There were wandering masters all over the country discussing things of the beyond, searching for methods of meditation, contemplation, concentration. The country was not at the survival level; the country was perfectly happy, their basic needs were fulfilled. And when the basic needs are fulfilled, suddenly you find new needs of a higher order arising in you.

Do you think a hungry man should come to me to ask about meditation? A hungry man will come to ask about bread and butter. And if I start talking about meditation to him, he will say, "First give me something to eat so that I can at least hear you, what you are saying."

In India, there has been a great fall. After Gautam Buddha, India went down and down and down.

Alexander the Great reached India three hundred years after Gautam Buddha, and after Alexander the Great, India became a constant target of invaders of all kinds, of all countries - whoever wanted to loot. India became a victim for two thousand years. It lost its glory, it lost its spiritual interest.

I was there for seven years in Poona, and people were asking why Indians don't come to me. When people from all over the world are coming, why are Indians not coming to me? Or even if they come, they are only few and far between, and they are all rich people who come.

I said, "It is so simple. The whole of India is struggling at the lowest level, trying somehow to manage to survive." When somebody is drowning in a river, do you think he will ask a question about meditation? He will say, "Save me! Take me out of the water!"

You can tell him, "The best way is meditation. Don't be worried about the water, everybody has to die someday. Die meditatively. Celebrate! And I will participate in celebration from the bank. I will dance and sing and play on the guitar, and you die joyously." That man is not going to forgive you.

If somehow he comes out, he is going to break your guitar and your neck and teach you a lesson, that this is not the way to behave with a drowning man!

In India the poor people were not coming to me. Those who were coming were either the upper middle class people or the super-rich. But it is not my fault that Indians are poor. It is their own responsibility.

What have Africans been doing for five thousand years? If Africa was not able to provide a higher standard of life, they should have moved. Who is preventing them? But they are clinging, just as in India the farmers go on clinging - and eighty percent of India consists of farmers. They go on clinging to their small pieces of land, which have been exploited by their crops for centuries: now the land doesn't have anything to give. But they are clinging, starving.

The gap is big.... I can tell them how to bridge the gap, but there were two African journalists in the world press conference, and I could see they could not understand what I was saying. And they were journalists, educated. In fact, they could not ask the question itself adequately.

One was standing in front of me, trying to make an effort to question me, but he was going in a strange round and round way. I could not see what he was trying to ask. And when I figured it out and I answered him, he did not listen - because my answer was finished and he was still standing there like a rock. Everybody else asked the question, received the answer, and immediately moved away to give place to somebody else. But this man was just standing there. He had not even enough intelligence to know that my answer was finished. He looked absolutely like an idiot.

The second African asked the question better than the first; it was perfectly clear. Perhaps he was preparing it, rehearsing it, cramming it, because I could see that he must have crammed the question. And I have reason to say that - because when I started answering him, he would not look at me. He was looking here, he was looking there. Except at me, he was looking everywhere. In fact, he was cramming, inside, the second question. He did not want to get disturbed by my answer - he might forget the second question.

As my answer was finished.... If you have to ask a second question, it has to be related to my answer. But his second question was absolutely unrelated to my answer. Now what can I do?

You ask, "Why are Africans not coming?" in such a way - as if I am responsible for the fact that they are not coming. They cannot. They are not even contemporaries, what to say about the twenty-first century? They are five thousand years old - stuck, fossilized.

You are certainly blessed to be here, and any idea of black, of Africa - I am going to hammer all those things out of you. It will be good if you drop them yourself, just to be compassionate to me.

Hammering is not for a lazy man like me - and I am not a blacksmith either!