Freedom from blind biology

Question 1:

It is absolutely fascinating, and there is no need to feel any fear about it. In fact, what we have been doing for millions of years is mass production - accidental mass production.

Do you know to what kind of a child you are going to give birth to? Do you know if he will be blind, crippled, retarded, sick, weak, vulnerable to all kinds of diseases for his whole life? Does your lover know what he is doing? While you are making love you have no conception, not even a possibility of guessing.

You are giving birth to children just like animals, and you don't fell scared about it, you don't feel any fear about it. And you see the whole world full of retarded people, crippled, blind, deaf, dumb. All this rubbish! Who is responsible for it? And is it not mass production?

My conception of giving scientific birth to a child is that, conscious, alert, knowingly, we are bringing a visitor to the earth. We know who he is, what he is and what he is to become finally; how long he will live, how much intelligence he will have. We are discarding all possibilities of blind children, deaf children, dumb children, retarded in any way - physically, psychologically - and you are feeling fear? Don't be stupid.

The scientific birth of a child is not animalistic. You are transcending the animal by giving birth to a child scientifically. It is fascinating, the greatest, most fascinating thing around. We can manage it, it is already a scientific reality. We can manage healthier people, who will live as long as we want, and we can give them as much intelligence as is needed for their work.

A couple comes to a scientific lab and tells them that they want a child like Albert Einstein, but better than him, living two hundred years; and he should never suffer any disease, he should be strong.

The scientific lab finds the right egg from the bank, the right semen from the bank, and the child is produced in a test-tube with all precautions.

You will have to adopt the child, you cannot produce the child. Production of children is animalistic.

Adoption of children of your own imagination.... Everybody wants a Shakespeare to be born, wants their child to be a great poet, a great musician, a great dancer. Every mother thinks that her child is going to be in some way a superhuman being, and every mother is frustrated - the child turns out to be just rotten. He just gets lost in this whole crowd on an overpopulated planet. This is mass production.

But adopting a child, you can contemplate on all the qualities that you need. You can ask the advice of the experts as to what other qualities will be helpful in his life, how much he will be capable of love.... You want a Romeo? - you can get a Romeo. It is only a question of chemistry. Romeo has more male hormones than anybody else - he is richer; that's why one woman is not enough for him.

You want a poet who will transcend all the poets of the past? A scientist in comparison to whom all the scientists of the past will look like pygmies? A musician who brings the unknown, the invisible, through sounds to you? A poet who sings songs of joy and celebration as nobody else has ever done? You can ask anything, and they have just to work out, calculate which female egg, which male semen will produce such a human being.

That semen is not yours, that egg is not your wife's; you adopt the child. In this way you can get what humanity has always dreamed about: the birth of the superman, a man who is made almost of steel. Your Muhammad Ali the Great will not be able to face him - just one punch on his nose and he will be finished. What makes you afraid? Don't you want to get above animals? The desire that it will be your semen, that it will be your wife's egg, is simply ugly.

Children belong to the universe.

What speciality has it got that it is your semen? What is the point of creating a crippled person, just because it is your semen? Science can manage to raise you above animality - and it is not mass production, it will be just the opposite. There is not going to be an assembly line the way cars are produced. It is going to be very individual because every couple has the choice and the freedom to decide what kind of child they want.

How has the idea of mass production come into your mind? Do you think everybody would like the same kind of child? You are wrong. Do you think science labs will go on producing children according to their own desire, and you have to adopt them? Then it will be mass production. I am not for it. You are absolutely free to choose. Right now you are absolutely blind and doing whatsoever you are doing in utter darkness. You are simply a slave of blind biology.

Don't you want freedom from blind biology? Don't you want to go above this stupid attachment to the idea that the child is born out of your semen and your wife's egg? Those eggs don't know to whom they belong. And what is special about your semen? You don't know anything about it. You are completely unaware of what kind of people are struggling within you to be born. You have no choice, you are simply a slave.

What I am saying about scientific birth makes you go beyond slavery, blindness, darkness. It makes you in a certain way more spiritual, because you are no longer concerned that you semen, your wife's egg, are absolutely needed for your child. You give your requirements; you adopt the child.

And you can ask experts what will be the best for the child. Would you not like your child to be a unique genius?

For futile attachments, you are satisfied with a crippled child. And giving birth to a crippled child, a blind child, are you doing any favor to the child? He will never forgive you! You are responsible. And he will have to live a life which is not life a all.

My vision gives total freedom to you, and of course, great responsibility. Right now you are producing children without any responsibility.

You have means available to determine what color the child should be, what kind of face - Greek, Roman? You can create children who will look like sculptures, utterly beautiful, with genius in some dimension of life, living a life of love, intelligent enough to discard all the priests and all the politicians.

They will not become followers of a leader, they will be enough unto themselves.

Right now, what are you doing? First you create in blindness, darkness a child, not knowing what he is going to turn out like. Then you force him to become a slave by making him a Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, or politically giving him a certain ideology - socialism, fascism, communism. And he is not intelligent enough to rebel against all these slaveries.

The child of my vision will be absolute freedom. He will not belong to any political party, he will not belong to any organized religion. He will have his own religion, he will have his own political ideology.

What is the need for him to hang around Karl Marx and be a communist? He can think better than Karl Marx - and Karl Marx is not a great thinker. He can live so long that he is not in a hurry about anything; patient, ready to wait - he has time enough.

Just think of Albert Einstein living three hundred years. He would have given miracles to the world.

But because he wa living in an accidental body, he had to die.

We can discard disease, old age. We can program life in every way. We can even program the life of the child, so that when he wants to die only then will he die; otherwise he can go on living. If he feels that there are still juices that he has not tasted, if he feels there are still dimensions that he has not explored, if he feels that more time is needed, then he is the master, to decide how long to live.

Up to now, you have lived seventy years on average - that includes people who live one hundred and fifty years in some places of the world. In Russia there are people who have passed one hundred and fifty years, and they are still young. There are people in a certain part of Kashmir, which Pakistan has invaded, who live very easily to one hundred and fifty, sixty, seventy. And it is a surprising fact - I have been to those people - a one hundred and fifty-year-old person is just working in the field the same way he was working when he was fifty - with the same strength, with the same gusto.

All that is needed is better planning, better crossbreeding. It is a known and applied fact about animals. Do you see the many kinds of beautiful dogs around the earth? - small, big, powerful, or just beautiful. Just to see them jump around you is such a joy. Do you think they came out of blind nature? No, for centuries we have been crossbreeding dogs.

You know it as a fact - the whole world accepts it - that a man should not get married to his own sister. Why? That should be the most simple thing, to get married to your own sister. You love her already, you have been together since birth, you know each other. But why have all cultures prohibited it? All cultures have said that marriage should be with distant people, people who don't come from the same family tree, because the bigger the distance, the better the product.

If a white American marries a Negro, the child will be far better than a white American marrying another white American, or a Negro marrying another Negro, because the distance between those two is immense - different centuries. They have grown in different atmospheres, their programming is totally different from each other. So when these two totally different cultures, traditions, conventions, lifestyles meet, they give birth to a better man, who has a double heritage:

the heritage of the Negroes and the heritage of the white Americans.

In a scientific lab it will be possible to find eggs and semen cells as distant as possible. And we can create through that crossbreeding a totally new man. There is nothing scary about it. It is not mass production. The couple has to say what kind of person they would like to have as their child.

It avoids all accidents. And we will be creating the universal man - not the Chinese, not the Indian, not the English, but the universal man. So please, just feel fascinated, don't feel scared and afraid.

There is nothing to be afraid of.

You have seen the way children have been produced in the past. For millions of years you have been doing the same thing - what is the outcome? The outcome decides the value of what you have been doing. Once in a while there is an Albert Einstein or a Bertrand Russell - once in a while!

This is not right. It should be the ordinary phenomenon, usual. Once in a while, perhaps there will be a person who is born out of some unawareness, unalertness on the part of the scientist; otherwise, everybody should be a genius. Just think: the whole world full of people like Rabindranath, Jean- Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Heidegger!

And we can prevent people like Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin from being born, because they have been calamities here. We can close the door completely on all Genghis Khans, Tamerlanes, Nadir Shahs - all those ugly monsters whose whole life consisted of killing people, destroying people, burning people.

The way we have lived has not proved right. We have only a crowd of pygmies all around - this is what you should be scared of! But having a garden of geniuses, creative people, a garden from where we have removed all fanatics, idiots, politicians - in short, we have taken out all that was poisonous, all pollution....

There is so much in the idea. Now, how many people are suffering because they have a snubbed nose? Their whole life they feel inferior. How many people are suffering because they have only nose? If you look at them, everything else is so small and the nose is so big....

I have heard... one millionaire had a very big nose and very small eyes, but he was the richest man in the community. People used to laugh behind him, but nobody ever dared.... He was invited by a family for dinner. The family was concerned about only one thing: their child, who was a born philosopher, asked about everything.

From the morning they were teaching him, "You can ask anything, but when the rich man comes, you are not to ask about his nose." They told him so many times that he became immensely interested, "What is so great about the nose?" They had never prevented him from asking any question. Why was this nose so important?

And he was really excited, eagerly waiting for the millionaire to come. When he came in, the child laughed. He said to his parents, "He has only nose, nothing else! And why were you preventing me...? He is a rare specimen!" He destroyed the whole effort.

But people... almost everyone is suffering from something or other. Somebody is suffering from his color, somebody is suffering from his tallness; somebody is too tall, somebody is too small. What have you produced? This is mass production - accidental, produced in darkness. At least human beings - who are the crown in existence - should not suffer anymore from an inferiority complex.

The only way is scientific production of children. And there are immense possibilities in it.

For example, if the child is produced in a scientific lab, they can produce a similar child simultaneously. The other child will be kept in the lab growing simultaneously; exactly as the one who has gone out to be adopted by a family, the other will be growing in the scientific lab. Just the existence of the other gives great opportunities.

For example, you get a fractured leg. Now no need to bother to fix the fracture - the leg from the other fellow can be taken and given to you. Something goes wrong, berserk, in your head - now there is no need for all the psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists. Your head is just removed, you get a fresh head.

The other person will remain in anesthesia his whole life, in a deep freeze. He will not know anything of what is happening. He is just there in case something goes wrong with you - and many things go wrong in life, even with every precaution. Something can always go wrong; life is a long affair. You may have a car accident... now, that cannot be prevented by scientific reproduction of children.

In fact, those children will not believe in the fifty-five miles per hour limit; that will be sheer stupidity.

The people who are going to live three hundred years will change everything around. Rather than keeping to fifty-five miles per hour for millions of people, why not create better and straighter roads where you can move at two hundred miles per hour?

Your roads are just ugly, so many turns - their roads will be totally different. In fact, in Japan one scientist has proved that if a car moves at four hundred miles per hour - and a car can - at four hundred miles per hour the cars, just because of that great speed, rise one foot above the road. No bumps, no troubles from the road. There may be snow, and there may be ice; let it be there - you will be simply going one foot above.

In fact, that possibility makes it a great opportunity. If you can move four hundred miles per hour one foot above the road, the road is not really needed! You need only launching roads. The moment you pick up speed, then you can go anywhere; roads or no roads make no difference.

But all depends on whether we have courage enough to rise over our fearful selves. We have to rise above the scary feeling. Be fascinated with the New Man!

The New Man must have a new kind of birth. The New Man must have a new kind of life, a new kind of love, a new kind of death. He will be new in every possible way. He will replace the old models who are overcrowding the earth - junkyards. They are not needed.

It is a simple process of programming the first cell. And only the first cell can be programmed, because then it goes on reproducing itself - that is an autonomous process. You can program it for everything. Right now it is difficult; it is programmed for all kinds of diseases, it is programmed for death, old age. You can't have any control over it. There is no way to change the program now, because all the cells have the same program.

If they are programmed for a particular disease that you get by inheritance, you will suffer from that disease. It could have been changed, but only in the first meeting of the male and the female cells.

Everything can be programmed, and an exact copy of you can be kept in the lab. If your heart is not functioning well, the new heart is available - which will fit you exactly, because it comes from your copy, your twin.

Any new thing scares, but it scares only cowards. Any new thing fascinates, but it fascinates only the brave ones. Be brave, because we nee a new, brave world.

Question 2:

It is so simple that I wonder, cannot you figure out small things yourself? The brain is a mechanism, it is not Einstein's soul. The brain is just a computer. We will transplant Einstein's brain; that does not make any difference to the journey of his soul. His soul will go on moving, and if he wants to be a plumber and really desires to be a plumber, he may become a plumber.

But this brain he has developed, which is unique.... You may not be aware that he himself donated his brain to Harvard University: "When I die, my brain should be studied as carefully as possible to find what the difference is between my brain and other people's brain." And there is a great distance.

He himself was curious. He said, "Of course, I will not be able to know, because I will be dead, but it may help you, humanity, to know what the difference is."

After four years of research the difference has been found. It is very small. That small difference can be introduced into any brain and it will start functioning on a far higher level. But you will be again scared that science introduced something into your brain. It is just a little difference, but it makes a great difference: Einstein had proportionately more of certain cells than any other brain. Now, those cells can be cultivated and introduced into any brain.

But nobody is interested. The research is finished, the findings are at hand. Nobody is interested, because the whole world is interested in how to destroy each other. They are so much occupied with war, day in and day out, that many beautiful things that go on happening in scientific research are just lying by the side. Nobody is using them.

So don't be afraid that Einstein will be stuck for seventy years against his will, no. Einstein is a totally different phenomenon than the brain. The brain is just a thing attached to the soul of Einstein. The same brain can be attached to another soul. It will function the same, because it is an attachment; it has nothing to do with the soul. The soul will only supply the energy for the brain to function. If an idiot's brain is attached to you, your soul will supply energy to the idiot's brain; you will function like an idiot.

And you know small things change your behavior. You drink alcohol - although it is called spirits, it is not a spirit. Your spirit is absolutely unaffected by the alcohol. Alcohol goes into your brain, into your body, and creates all kinds of disturbances - pleasant, unpleasant. There are other drugs, such as LSD, which can change your whole mind at least for a few hours or a few days.

When Aldous Huxley for the first time - he was a pioneer in that sense - took LSD, he could not believe it: everything looked more beautiful, luminous. Even the chair in front of him was radiant, had an aura of light around it. What had happened?

The LSD had tricked his mind, influenced his mind. He saw the beauty of the flowers - those flowers he had seen before, but not the way they were appearing today. The fragrance was overpowering.

His soul was the same, but the attached brain now had LSD in it, and was magnifying everything.

Aldous Huxley was a beautiful man of immense intelligence; hence, through LSD he saw only paradise. He started experimenting with other people. Then he became aware that it is not LSD that creates paradise; for some people it creates hell. It depends on the person's mind - LSD only magnifies, multiplies. If you are a miserable person, LSD will make you a million times more miserable. If you are a man of joy, LSD will magnify your joy a thousand times.

He became aware that it is not LSD that creates paradise. LSD does not create anything, it is simply a magnifying glass. So the same flower looks more beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful; the same fragrance is now so dense and overpowering. But a man who is miserable, a man who is continuously down in the dumps, will find himself in the darkest hole ever. That's why Aldous Huxley wrote a book and named it HEAVEN AND HELL. It is a book about LSD.

Your soul remains unaffected. When LSD has run out of your physical system, you are back home, the same miserable person you have been before, or the same joyous person you have been before.

But the experience of two or three days under LSD changes many of your ideas.

Aldous Huxley himself was so much impressed that he thought all the mystics who have experienced heaven must have been creating something like LSD by their exercises, prayer, meditation and other methods. That's not true. He was so much impressed that he thought this is the ultimate panacea.

But soon he became aware that it not true, because a few people go into hell.

Your brain is a separate thing from your soul, so don't be worried about Einstein. His brain is already in the Harvard University, resting in alcohol. Do you think Albert Einstein is caged there in that bottle? Albert Einstein must be a plumber somewhere - perhaps here, because where else can he find a place where plumbers are as much respected as professors? where plumbers are not lower than presidents? This is the only place where nobody is higher or lower. Everybody is doing something essential, something which is needed.

I am reminded of a phenomenon that has happened in India. Jainism is the oldest religion in India.

In one of the conferences of the Jainas, I challenged them. I told them, "If you are really a religion, you should create a commune consisting only of Jainas. And then you will know that you don't have a complete philosophy.

"Who is going to make the shoes? Jainas cannot do it. Who is going to be a plumber? Jainas cannot do that. Who is going to clean the toilets? Jainas cannot do it. Then what kind of religion is this?"

I told them - and made many enemies. That has been my life's work. I am going to write a book like Dale Carnegie: "How to Influence People and Make Enemies." I told them, "You are parasites. You are living amongst Hindus, exploiting Hindus; you are parasites. Why should anybody else clean your toilets?"

This is the first commune in the whole world which is not in any way parasitical. Here everybody is doing everything. In fact, there is so much movement - professors become plumbers. One day you see the professor teaching in the university and another day you find him plumbing. And you are surprised - what has happened? He says, "I got bored teaching, teaching, teaching. I am on holiday from teaching, and plumbing is beautiful."

In this commune we make holidays by changing your job, we don't have any other holidays. But changing the job, scientifically, is a holiday, because when you are functioning as a professor, a certain part of your brain functions - only a certain part, not the whole brain. When you are a plumber, another part of your brain functions; the professor is on holiday. This way we don't lose time, we don't lose days, and still we enjoy holidays as much as we want!

Don't be afraid about Einstein. Just remember, your body is not you.

Question 3:

I certainly have avoided speaking on Protestantism, for the simple reason that the man who created it, Martin Luther, is not worth considering at all. Jesus Christ may be crazy, nuts, but Martin Luther was just a politician.

There is no difference between the Catholic's basic doctrine and the Protestant's. Why did he create so much fuss and divide Christianity into two parts? - because he himself wanted to become the pope. Finding it difficult... and remember, he was a German, and Germans have something in them that drives them to become Adolf Hitlers; they want to be always on the top.

Just the other day one Germany journalist was asking me, "Why don't you use Mercedes-Benz?"

I asked, "Why should I use Mercedes-Benz? I have tried all the models of Mercedes-Benz, I have the latest Mercedes 500, but they don't come even close to a Rolls Royce."

He said, "This will make Germans feel very bad. The Mercedes-Benz has to be the topmost car."

Why? It is a good car; my secretary uses it. But the Rolls Royce is simply unique, no other car comes close to it. But to the Germans, it hurts. Strange, what kind of psychology is there?

It very much hurt Martin Luther that he was just a bishop. And no German has ever been chosen as a pope. Perhaps they were afraid that once a German becomes the pope, no one knows what he will do.... He tried hard in the beginning to be chosen a pope.

It is a good thing about popes, that by the time a person becomes a pope he is almost on his deathbed. Only this Polack who is now the pope has deceived - Polacks are Polacks. Perhaps he has forgotten to die! Otherwise, popes have been dying after one year, two years, three years at the most. So it gave chances to other people.

Martin Luther tried many times, but he was never chosen. Then he rebelled. That's why his religion is called Protestantism. It is a protest - the protest of a politician, the protest of a German, the protest of a man who wanted to be on the top but could not be.

But there is no difference of any significance in their theologies. They both believe in Jesus Christ, they both believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, and they both believe in his resurrection after the crucifixion. The only difference is that Catholics also worship Jesus' mother, Mary.

For this much difference, why should I bother about these people? I am hitting at the very roots.

These small matters don't matter. So when I am speaking against Christianity, remember, I am not speaking only against Catholicism. I am speaking against all the sects and cults - and there are many. I am speaking against Christianity as a whole.

Martin Luther was against the pope because he could not become the pope. You can see he was not really against the pope; he himself wanted to be the pope. It was just the old story of Aesop....

A fox was trying to catch hold of beautiful grapes, ripe, inviting. But her jump was not enough to catch hold of the grapes. She tried many times. She was not aware that a small rabbit was watching, hiding in a bush. The moment she saw the rabbit, she walked away with dignity. The rabbit said, "Auntie, what is the matter?" The fox said, "The grapes are not ripe."

That's what Martin Luther said, "The grapes are sour." If he was really against the pope, then why did he want to become the pope?

I will not accept - even if all the Christians of the world ask me to become the pope, I will not accept it. I will not accept even if the whole world asks me to become God, the creator, the father who is...

(A noise is heard on the roof of Rajneesh Mandir)... above the roof of Rajneesh Mandir. Those are just two electricians! I will not accept it. Anything that is wrong, howsoever powerful it makes you, I am not going to accept. I am fulfilled, and I am absolutely contented with myself. I have no protest, no complaint, no grudge against anybody.

It was for this simple reason that I have not talked about the Protestant section of Christianity separately. There is nothing separate about it. It is just the German mind that makes it separate and I am not in favor of this kind of German mind.

I have more sannyasins in Germany than anywhere else, for the simple reason that they have seen the ugliness of Adolf Hitler and what he did. The younger generation does not want to carry that German mind any more, and this is the only place where we can deprogram them.

We have one dozen communes in Germany. It takes a little hard work to break down the German mind, but it is worth trying, because once it breaks down the breakthrough is not far away. And once a German drops the German mind - it takes longer for him to drop his mind, but once he drops it, he drops it forever.

Those people have guts. I love them. Sooner or later the whole of Germany is going to be red. We cannot leave Germany, for the simple reason that they are the strongest people in the world. If they can alone fight the whole world, and go on winning for five years under the leadership of a crackpot, these people are of immense value. If we can change Germany, we can change the whole world.

That is the criterion: Germany in our hands, the whole world is in our hands, because nobody can have as much resistance as the Germans.

I have been experimenting, and I have been successful. Once a German has fallen in love with me, it is forever. You ask Haridas. He came to me somewhere around fifteen years ago; since then he has not left for a single moment. His old mother wanted to see him - she had to come, he would not go. He will not leave me for a single moment. And when his mother saw the flowering of her son, the transformation, she did not wait; she immediately became a sannyasin. I have given her the name Haridasi. She is old, but a beautiful woman, very loving.

Martin Luther was the same type as Adolf Hitler. He created this schism in Christianity, but he has not contributed anything to the world - that's why I don't criticize him. I simply ignore the fellow. He is just below me.

Question 4:

I am going to confuse and confound all the Yankees, all the monkeys, all the donkeys, all the camels - because there is no other way to make them lions, and finally to create the child.

Yes, it is true that I have nowhere to go. I have got it, that which you are seeking and searching for. But still I will not accept the idea of being your leader, guide, because those words have very wrong connotations with them. The religious leaders and guides have exploited the whole humanity so much that I don't want to be associated with them in any way - and those words make me associated with them.

I am utterly contented, there is nothing more; but I go on walking, moving, just to destroy the idea that I am the leader and you are the follower. You are seeking; I have found it, but can't I play and seek with you just to help you feel that you are not followers but fellow travelers?

I do not want to insult you by calling you followers. I respect you. A small device I had to maintain:

that is, just to go on seeking and searching with you, knowing perfectly well that there is nothing for me to seek. And there is nothing for you to seek either. It is just that I know it and you don't know it.

Just being your fellow traveler, I will infect you. I am contagious! Sooner or later you will realize my play, and you will be grateful, remember. You will be grateful that I never became your leader, never reduced you to be the led, never gave you any guidance - that is humiliating.

But just being with you - and I know you have got it, just the way I have got it - in some proper moment I will shake you and wake you up.

It is not guidance.

It is just shaking and waking.

Guidance is needed for a goal somewhere far away - what path to follow. I want you to remember that it is not only you who respect me, I also respect you.

Buddha could not say that, Mohammed could not say that, Jesus could not say that. And I feel there is some weakness in these fellows. Somehow they are feeling a gratification from being the leader, the guide, the prophet, the messiah, the savior. Something of the ego is there - very subtle, sophisticated, refined, slippery, you cannot catch hold of it, but it is there in their declaration of being higher than you, better than you. They have arrived and you are miles away, with miles to travel, arduous miles.

Buddha and Mahavira say, "Where we are, you will take lives to reach." They are creating such a big distance between you and themselves. That's the way of the ego.

I am trying in every possible way to close any gap between me and you, knowing perfectly well that there is a little difference:

I am awake, you are asleep.

Playing with you, singing and dancing with you, I am certain I will make you awake without being your leader, without being your guide. Don't be worried, I am not renouncing you. When I say that I am not your leader, don't think that I am abandoning you. Don't think that if you are not my followers, then what the hell are you doing here? I take life very nonseriously. It is really a great joke!

I know more jokes than anybody in the whole world, and I can say with absolute certainty that there is no joke which is bigger than life itself. What a joke - that you are it, and you are seeking it! You are where you are meant to be, and you are running all around, searching for the right place. Not only that, you are suggesting to me that I should take my right position as the guide. I am in my right position - not as the guide, but just as a playmate. Can't you accept it?

That means your ego comes in between. Your ego wants me to be the master of masters, the greatest master in the whole history of the world, because only then can you say, "I am the follower of the greatest master in history; certainly I am one of the greatest followers in the whole history."

I am not going to help you in strengthening your ego. I am perfectly aware what hurts you. You would like me to fulfill the image and all kinds of expectations so that you can feel, "This is the right guide, and I am the person who has found the right guide. All other leaders are pygmies, and their followers, of course, are even worse."

No, I am not going to help you in that way. I will play the role of being a very ordinary man. I know, and you know, that I am not an ordinary man, but what to do! I don't guide you, I help you. You don't need guidance, you need just a little help, a hit... just a little cold water thrown against your eyes so that you wake up.

You will be grateful one day that I never accepted the idea of the leader and the led, because once you accept the idea of the leader you free the led from all responsibility. Once you accept that the savior is here, it means you have nothing to do; you have just to be faithful, believing. And I am destroying all your beliefs and all your faiths - how can I be the leader? The leader needs believers.

I am something utterly different from the people you have known before: Jesus, Moses, Mahavir, Krishna, Buddha. I am not part of their company.

With me begins a new era in enlightenment, where the master will be just playing games with you, where the master will not allow you to be behind him, but drag you by his side. I can put you ahead of me, but I cannot put you behind. It is a subtle device.

So don't feel depressed, I am not abandoning you. I am your master, you are my follower. But don't tell it to anybody, keep it a secret!

Question 5:

Nobody ever drops sannyas. Yes, once in a while a coward takes sannyas. And I am just incapable of refusing, so even if a coward comes to take sannyas... I know perfectly well he will not be a sannyasin. He will wear the robe, he will make every effort, but sooner or later he will be gone.

I say nobody drops sannyas except those people who have never been sannyasins; they only looked as if they were sannyasins. I allow them to have the opportunity, because sometimes it happens that a person who takes sannyas without any understanding of what it is - perhaps already thinking, "Let us try it. There is nothing binding; when I go home, I will go home in the same dress as I had come, I will leave all these red clothes behind" - even such a person has the potential. So I don't refuse anybody.

It is unpredictable. The man becomes a sannyasin, already thinking that this is just to take part in the commune - it looks embarrassing not to be a sannyasin here, it is the "in" thing, so just as a fashion he enters. But he does not know that you cannot trick me. I allow him, and start playing the game with him. Ninety percent of these people turn out to be sannyasins. Ten percent, who were only pretending to be sannyasins, drop out.

That's why I say, no sannyasin drops sannyas. Only those who were not really sannyasins drop it.

But what have they to drop? They were never sannyasins in the first place.

To have a taste of sannyas, to have a taste of me, to drink the wine I am making available to you, to laugh and to sing and to dance - then it is impossible that anybody can drop sannyas.

Yes, a few idiots will be there who will dance only because everybody else is dancing; it looks awkward not to dance. They will be in red clothes because everybody is in red clothes and they don't want to look like outsiders. Those few idiots will come and go. But my compassion for idiots is as much as for any genius - in fact, a little more. I try my hardest so that the idiot drops his camelhood, becomes a lion. And I have succeeded with many idiots, I have seen them transforming into lions. And a few idiots even have reached to the stage of the child.

So my sannyas is available for everybody - with no qualifications, with no conditions. I don't demand that you have to follow a certain discipline, then only can you become a sannyasin.

One day I said this and a few camels went to the office. They said, "Bhagwan says no qualifications, no conditions. We want to become sannyasins, but we will not wear the red clothes and we will not wear the mala." These camels don't understand that red clothes and mala are not qualifications, they are not conditions. They are your identification card - spread all over your body, so no need to pull it out of your pocket and show people. You will be seen anywhere from miles away.

The red color is really the color of danger. It is your identification card; it is not your quality, it is not your qualification, it has nothing to do with your discipline.

So remember, no camel should go to the office and ask for sannyas.... Then why are you asking for sannyas? Just believe you are sannyasins - because you will not be wearing the mala, you will not be wearing the red clothes. So what is the trouble? Why even ask for sannyas? Imagine, believe that you are a sannyasin.

But if you ask to become a sannyasin you will have to carry the identification card around the world, because this is how I have approached millions of people. Just think, if I had not given a particular uniform to you, you would have been lost in the world. I would not even be able to recognize you, you would not feel any connection with me. You would not even be able to drop sannyas, and your sannyas would not create any troubles for you in life. And I want those troubles in your life, in your work, in your job.

I want you to be constantly in a state of challenge, surrounded by hostile forces, because this is the only way a real sannyasin grows - out of fire, burning all around.

My sannyasins have been thrown out of their jobs, they have been thrown out of the universities where they were teaching, where they were professors. They are fighting in the courts. When you fight for your sannyas you have some respect for it, some love for it; you have some connection with me. When you are in trouble and you have to suffer many things, and you are ready to suffer but not to drop sannyas, that makes you stronger. It brings your capacities to their peak. You are ready to die, but you are not going to compromise.

Against me and the sannyasins, in Oregon, they have a slogan written on the trucks, buses - anywhere they can find a place. The slogan is: It is better to be dead than red.

I would like you to remember: It is certainly better to be dead than not to be red!