Commune Is The Way

[NOTE: This discourse is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 18.]

Q: PROBABLY THE FIRST QUESTION ON MY MIND IS, WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU, WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR RELIGION, THAT PEOPLE FIND SO APPEALING? WE SEE PEOPLE LIKE ISABEL AND SHEELA AND SARITA AND K.D., PEOPLE THAT WE THINK ARE LIKE OURSELVES, AND SEE WHAT THEY HAVE HERE, AND WE ASK OURSELVES, WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU AND THIS PLACE THAT IS SO ATTRACTIVE TO PEOPLE?

A: It is very simple. I am so ordinary a man that nobody can feel any inferiority with me. And all the so-called religious leaders of the world were nothing but egoists, making everybody feel inferior, guilty, sinners. I don't make anybody feel guilty. If he feels guilty already, just coming to me his guilt disappears. I transform sinners into saints instantly, and that's what appeals to them -- that I am one of them, and they're my fellow travelers, not my followers.

I am nobody's leader. They are not sheep and I am not their shepherd. I am just a human being, as they are. And my emphasis is that every human being has the birthright to become enlightened. This is nothing special.

Q: BUT ARE YOU REALLY AN ORDINARY MAN? WHEN WE SEE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE PART OF THE COMMUNE AND WHO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR WAY OF LIFE, THEY SEEM TO WORSHIP YOU, AND THEY TREAT YOU WITH REVERENCE, THEY TREAT YOU WITH RESPECT THAT, PERHAPS, THEY WOULD NOT TREAT OTHER PEOPLE. SO DO YOU REALLY CONSIDER YOURSELF AN ORDINARY MAN? YOU CALL YOURSELF THE ENLIGHTENED ONE.

A: I am. I don't consider, I don't think. I am just an ordinary man. And that's why they adore me. They have adored for centuries people who are just egoists, people who have been deceiving them, calling themselves prophets, messiahs, only begotten son of God, and all kinds of nonsense. They are intelligent enough to see that I am not putting any burden on them. I am trying to remove all burden. I am saying to them continuously there is no need to worship me, because I am just amongst you. There is no need for adoration.

Q: BUT THEY DO GIVE IT, AND THEY DO NOT TREAT YOU AS AN EQUAL.

A: That is the problem. The more I try to be nobody, the more they love me. Now what do you propose I should do?

Q: I HOPE YOU'RE NOT WAITING FOR AN ANSWER. I REALLY DON'T KNOW. I'M SUPPOSED TO ASK THE QUESTIONS. IF YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE NOT THEIR LEADER, WHAT DO YOU DO FOR THEM? DO YOU JUST SET AN EXAMPLE? WHAT DO YOU OFFER THEM?

A: I don't offer them anything except myself. I am available to them. I have no secrets. I am completely open. All the prophets and the messiahs had secrets, esoteric philosophies. I have none.

But I say to them that being nothing, nobody, brings you all the blessings of the world. And just being close to me, slowly they start feeling also that they are nobodies, nobody is special. And the moment one feels he is nobody, the whole existence starts pouring immense blissfulness. It showers on him like flowers.

And once you have known the secret, that is how you can commune with existence.

With your ego you cannot commune with existence; you are separating yourself.

With no ego, there is communion. And that communion is enlightenment. That is real godliness. I don't have any God to offer them, but certainly I can show them the way to godliness. And remember, godliness is nothing special. It is our birthright, we just have to claim it.

It has been said for centuries, again and again, that you have to earn virtue. It will take many times, many lives for you to reach the kingdom of God. They have made it very far away, it is always beyond death. I say to my people that this is sheer stupidity. They were exploiting people's gullibility. They were exploiting people s hope.

I am saying to them that there is nothing beyond this moment. Don't wait for any Godot. Live this moment in its totality and squeeze the whole juice out of it. And if the next moment comes, do the same to it. Go on squeezing each moment and you will be surprised that unawares you have entered into paradise. In this very

life, here and now, existence knows only one tense: the present. It knows no past, it knows no future.

So I simply help them to be here and now, getting more rooted in the present, and then everything becomes possible. And it is not a question of deserving God.

We are part of existence already. It is not a question of earning. No virtue is needed, because it is not a bargain, not a business. Just we have to be a little quiet, silent, so we can hear the still small voice within. And we can also hear the silent music that surrounds the whole existence.

And that I call godliness. There is no God, but there is certainly a quality of tremendous beauty, grace, love.

Q: SIMPLY AND BRIEFLY: IS THERE A WAY THAT YOU CAN HELP THE PUBLIC UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS TO BE A SANNYASIN? I WILL GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE: MOST PEOPLE ARE FAMILIAR WITH CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIANS. THEY BELIEVE THAT CHRIST IS THE SAVIOR, THE MESSIAH. CHRISTIANS TRY TO LIVE THEIR LIVES ACCORDING TO A CERTAIN SET OF STANDARDS. CAN YOU GIVE ME SOMETHING BRIEF LIKE THAT FOR HOW SANNYASINS LIVE?

A: I don't have anything like that. I don't have any catechism, any dogma. I don't offer any principles, any philosophy, any theology. My sannyasins live individual lives in freedom.

Q: SO THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD SANNYASIN, LIKE THERE IS A BAD CHRISTIAN, OR...?

A: No. There is no good sannyasin, there is no bad sannyasin; there are only sannyasins. Good and bad are ugly words and I have dissolved them completely.

Here is no judgment. Everybody has to be responsible for himself, his freedom and whatsoever he wants to do with his life. So it is difficult for me, impossible, to explain to the outside people how a sannyasin is. The only way is to invite him to be here, live with the sannyasins, experience what they are going through.

Taste it -- their fragrance will be my explanation. The taste of being with the sannyasins is my theology. Those people will have to come to the well, the well does not go to the thirsty.

Q: SO, IF THERE IS NO GOOD AND BAD AND NO JUDGING, HOW DOES ONE KNOW IF HE IS IMPROVING? OR IS THERE EVEN A NEED TO IMPROVE? OR IS THAT UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL? OKAY, AM I HAPPY WITH WHAT I AM DOING NOW, AM I HAPPY WITH THE LEVEL I AM AT NOW?

A: I do not teach that you have to become somebody other than what you are. No improvement is needed. No goal is there to be achieved. Whatever you need is already provided by existence each moment. It is up to you how to use it, or not to use it.

Q: YOU KNOW, I'M NOT VERY FAMILIAR WITH THE BIBLE. I DO KNOW A LITTLE BIT ABOUT IT. BUT WHAT YOU JUST SAID IS ALMOST SOMETHING THAT I THINK IS IN THE BIBLE: THAT ANSWERS ARE THERE, YOU JUST HAVE TO OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE THEM. EVERYTHING THAT YOU NEED IS HERE RIGHT NOW. YOU JUST HAVE TO OPEN YOURSELF UP TO IT. THE ANSWERS ARE ALL THERE.

A: No, it is not in the Bible. You don't know anything about the Bible. In the Bible it is said, seek and ye shall find, ask and you will receive the answer, knock and the door shall be opened. This is totally against what I am saying. I am saying, seek and you will miss. Do not seek because it is here right now. In seeking you will forget the moment which is slipping by. Do not ask because you are the answer. Why become a question? It is simply stupid to become a question when you can become the answer.

Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THOSE OF US WHO DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR WAY OF LIFE?

A: I don't care. I simply allow them their freedom -- nor do I subscribe to their philosophy, their religion. It is perfectly right they don't subscribe. But we are not at all worried about them. They are worried about us. That makes the difference. Somehow they are troubled by us. We are not troubled.

Q: DOES THAT AMUSE YOU?

A: Yes, it amuses me immensely. It is our whole entertainment. Their worry, their concern, their continuous curiosity makes it clear that whatever philosophy, theology, religion they belong to, it is not giving them what they want. It is not making them joyful. It is not making them sing, dance. It is not giving them anything substantial, any nourishment.

That is the reason they go on looking, perhaps somewhere else.... They are curious, but also afraid, because they have been conditioned. They have lived according to a certain dogma. A man who has lived for seventy years according to a certain dogma is in a really big mess if he comes across sannyasins. He can see there are people who are happy, dancing, singing for no reason at all. To dance is enough, a reason unto itself. To sing is enough, you need not be rewarded for it in heaven. In the very singing of it you are rewarded.

They can see these people are happy. That makes them curious. But they are afraid to come too close, because of their seventy years' devotion to Christ, to the Bible. They don't want to recognize the fact that for seventy years they have been idiotic, not Christian. They have been calling their stupidity Christianity. It needs guts to come close to my sannyasins. Those who have guts, they are coming, from all over the world. Those who have no guts, let them go to hell. It is none of our business to interfere in their journey, in their pilgrimage to hell. Let them go.

Q: HOW MANY SANNYASINS ARE THERE NOW THROUGHOUT THE WORLD? WE HAD HEARD THAT PERHAPS YOUR NUMBERS WERE SHRINKING AND THERE WERE NOT AS MANY.

A: Never shrinking. We are always expanding. But we don't bother about numbers, we don't even have an exact account of how many people are there.

But they are every day growing; around the world in every center people are taking sannyas, joining communes. There are almost eight hundred thousand sannyasins.

And a few have left; they can be counted very easily on ten fingers... a dozen or two dozen people. And even though they have left, they are in tremendous trouble, because once a sannyasin, you cannot again become part of the old world. Now they are in a limbo. They cannot mix with the old world. I have already deprogrammed them. They cannot go to the church and listen to the sermon without thinking this is idiotic. They cannot come back because of their egos. Now that they have left, how should they approach Bhagwan again? I would like them to know that the doors are open. Nobody is going to ask you why you had left. We never ask anybody why they have come.

Q: IT APPEARS THAT MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN TOP, OR VISIBLE POSITIONS ANYWAY, IN THE COMMUNE AND WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION AND THE RELIGION ARE WOMEN. WHY? HOW DID THAT COME TO BE?

A: Certainly. Because I am a man.

Q: AND WOMEN ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU?

A: Certainly. I love them. I love you.

Q:... AND WE HAVE ONLY MET.... DO YOU THINK THAT -- THIS IS GETTING INTERESTING -- DO YOU THINK THAT WOMEN ARE NECESSARILY BETTER THAN OR MORE IMPORTANT THAN, OR PERHAPS SMARTER THAN MEN?

A: They are lovelier, delicious, tasteful. And they have been repressed for centuries, that's why they appear not to be so intelligent as men. Otherwise, they are exactly equally as intelligent as men. And more earthly than the man. Man is always a moongazer: the woman doesn't care about the moon. She cares about the earth, her concern is very practical.

And I am creating a certain way of life which is not schizophrenic, which does not divide materialism from spiritualism, a life in which materialism and spiritualism are together -- not as enemies, not as contradictories, but as complementaries. And one has to begin from the earth. Even if you have to go to the moon, you have to begin from the earth. The woman is very earthly. I don't need moongazers, I need very earthly people. And the woman gives roots to you. A man without a woman is without roots.

Q: IS THERE A SPECIAL WOMAN IN YOUR LIFE? OR DO YOU HAVE MANY?

A: I have so many that it is very difficult to say who is special. In this moment you are. It is moment to moment.

Q: WELL, OKAY, OTHER THAN THIS MOMENT, IS THERE A COMPANION THAT YOU SHARE YOUR LIFE WITH?

A: No. I don't make any contracts, particularly about love, because love is a very delicate phenomenon. It is just like the wind. A cool breeze comes in and passes from the other door. You cannot catch hold of it, you can enjoy it, but if you try to catch hold of it you miss the moment of enjoyment. In a closed fist there is no wind. If you want to enjoy, keep the fist open.

I have no contract with anybody. I never promise anything. Because I don't know if tomorrow I will be there or not. And who knows, the next moment somebody else enters into my life, and I am enchanted. I never make any promise.

Q: HOW CAN SOMETHING SO FLEETING GIVE A MAN ROOTS THEN?

A: It gives you roots. It is not that you love one woman, then you will get roots.

What gives you roots is that you love. Lovers can change but your love remains.

And that gives you roots. That is permanent, that is not a fleeting thing. I have always loved. Addresses have changed, but I have been writing love letters my whole life. That gives roots, and that gives you a very beautiful centering and a feeling of earthliness. From there you have to start to grow, just like a tree. The phenomenon of the tree is exactly similar to what I call my religion. (BHAGWAN SPEAKS TO THE VIDEO CREW) Change it. There, you see? No contract even with the film. In the middle of a sentence the film changes... what to do?

A tree is exactly symbolic of what my religion is. The tree grows roots deep under the earth. The deeper the roots go, the higher the tree stands up. It is equal, proportionate. If the tree wants to reach to the stars then the roots will have to reach to the very hell.

My commune is a very balanced phenomenon. There are more women than men, for the simple reason that I am preparing the earth. Men are coming. Soon you will see equal numbers. But they can come only, the trees can grow upwards only, when the ground is ready. The woman is of tremendous importance.

Q: WHAT WILL THE CHILDREN PLAY?

A: The children are the commune's. They are not yours or mine. In the first place my approach is that the world is already overpopulated, so don't burden it anymore. And science has given you the greatest revolution in human history, the pill, which makes you absolutely capable of making love just a play, a fun, a game. There is no need to be serious about it anymore. In the past, of course, people were serious, because children will come, and who is going to take care of the children? So first my emphasis is, remember, the earth is already too burdened and we have to unburden it. So in four years' time, in my commune not a single child has been born. Although four sannyasins have died, we have not even replaced the four sannyasins with four children.

Q: IN HOW MANY YEARS?

A: In four years.

Secondly, there are children, because when sannyasins come, a few sannyasins come with children. When they became sannyasins they were already mothers and fathers. Those children are here, but the commune is responsible. We remove the responsibility from father and mother. We make them free, unburdened. Their children are there, they can love them, they can live with them, they can go to them, they can call them, but they belong to the commune.

If they don't care about their children, the children are not going to suffer in any way. The children have the whole commune of uncles, aunts, and they go on making friends with different kinds of people.

This is a tremendous education and a great preparation for a rich life. It is an established fact that the boy loves his mother and the girl loves her father. But this kind of love remains only in the mind. The boy cannot make love to the mother. That is unimaginable. The boy fantasizes but goes on repressing it, feels guilty. The girl feels guilty. You can see small girls flirting with their fathers. It is natural; he is the only man she knows from the very beginning.

This is a very significant thing, because the girl becomes impressed with the idea of men according to the image she carries of her father. And the same with the boy: his whole life he will remain frustrated. He will not find the right woman

for the simple reason that it is always his mother that he is looking for, unknowingly, unconsciously.

When he falls in love, he cannot say why he has fallen in love with this particular woman, but psychologists know perfectly well. Something in this woman resembles his mother -- perhaps the color of the hair, the style of her dress, the way she walks, the sound of her voice, her eyes, her face, her color -- anything.

But something resembles the mother so much that the boy has fallen in love. But the woman soon will not be able to fulfill all the demands that the boy is going to make, that he was making on the mother. And soon he is going to discover that she only walks like his mother, but she is not the woman he was seeking, searching.

In the commune we destroy this neurosis completely, because the child goes on moving with many aunts, many uncles. And remember, father and mother are later additions to language. Uncle and aunt are far more ancient; because there was a time when there was no family, so everybody of the age of the father was an uncle. Nobody knew exactly who was the father.

I would like my commune's children not to be focused on one figure, but to have a rich experience of many women, many men, so they have only a general, vague feeling which can fit with any woman, any man.

Q: HOW WERE YOU RAISED? WERE YOU RAISED IN THE SAME WAY?

A: No. How I could be raised in the same way? I had to fight for it. I had to struggle for it. I was raised in a family, but the family never thought that I belonged to them, because I never listened to them.

In fact I had made it clear that if they want me to do something they should keep quiet. If they say they want me to do it, then I'm not going to do it. Then I will do just the opposite, because I don't want to be ordered in my life, and I don't receive anyone's commandments. I told them, "If you want to throw me out of the house you can. This is your house. Remember, I am born through you, but I have my own individuality and I have to discover it on my own. Your orders will not help me."

Soon they became understanding, because how long could they fight? And slowly they started understanding what I was saying. Now my mother is a sannyasin. My father, who died a few years ago, died a sannyasin, and before his death he told me, "We were trying to mold you, we were trying to make you.

Forgive us. If we had succeeded, we would have destroyed something beautiful."

Q: HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN THEY FINALLY UNDERSTOOD?

A: When I came back from the university, then they had to understand it, because their first thing was to get me married -- just the general idea around the world, that if a person is married then his wings are cut, he is chained. Then he

forgets all about revolutionary ideas, rebellion, those youthful dreams of a better world, better humanity. Just chain him to responsibility. He has a wife who nags him. He has children who are not allowing him to sleep in the night, and he has a job where he never reached in time because of those children and the wife. He forgets all about revolution, a new man.

So that was their way. They thought that the first thing after I came back from the university was to force me to get married.

Q: HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED REBELLING?

A: I must have been four years old when I started rebelling.

Q: FOUR?

A: Four.

Q: THAT'S YOUNG.

A: It is, yes, certainly young, but I was strong enough. I was even ready to go and beg on the street, but not to be commanded, and not to be forced to do anything.

Q: AT FOUR?

A: Four.

Q: WAS THERE ANYONE THAT YOU ADMIRED WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP?

A: Yes... a few people I admired, but very few people. I admired one of my professors, for the simple reason that he had as much respect towards me as I had for him. When I used to enter his room, he would stand up to receive me. I would say, "This is not right, this is not done." He said, "I don't do it for anybody, but somehow, the moment I see you I cannot remain sitting. It feels embarrassing."

I loved the man. He was a gambler, a drunkard, but a very prominent philosopher. Most of his years he was teaching in America. Only in his old age he had come back home, and that was the time I entered the university. He had just come back from Havana. We fell in love with each other for the simple reason that he had been in rebellion his whole life. His wife, his sons, his daughters were all in New Delhi. He never lived with those people, only on holidays. He made it clear to them that, "Too much time with you drives me insane, so I will be coming only on holidays."

And then he found my ideas... because I was continuously arguing in the class. I was not just a silent listener getting ready for the examination. The examination never meant anything to me. Learning was my purpose. And I said to him that the examination does not matter, what matters is learning, so I have to argue if I see that something is wrong, that something you are saying is illogical -- and on so many points he found himself wrong. But he was a man of tremendous courage. He accepted that he was wrong and I was right.

Slowly, slowly we became more and more close and intimate, so intimate that one day he took all my luggage from the students' hostel to his own house. He said, "You don't live outside, you live with me." I said, "It will be a little difficult for you. For me it is just beautiful -- so silent a place, and a beautiful bungalow with a beautiful garden -- but for you it is going to be difficult."

And within three days he understood what I meant. After three days he said, "You were right, because I want to drink, but I cannot drink before you, I feel bad. I want to smoke, but I cannot smoke before you, so in my old age I am hiding in the bathroom and smoking. You have brought my childhood back.

When you go to sleep, then I drink. I have to keep my bottles hidden." I said, "I know everything, because when I see cigarettes in the bathroom, and only we two persons are here, it is a simple deduction who is smoking. I am certainly not smoking. And I know that you are drunk; in the morning I see your hangover. So I know where you are hiding your bottles; I have figured it out, because you go to the university every day."

He was the head of the department of philosophy, and I was a rare visitor. I was a student, but I visited the university very rarely, only to some professors whom I liked. If their period was happening I would go, otherwise I would remain in the house. So I explored the whole house and I found out where he had been hiding the bottles. I said, "You don't do this. Now it is becoming embarrassing to me. Just for me, you have to smoke hiding, you have to drink like a thief. If you cannot smoke before me, and cannot drink before me, I am leaving."

And you will be surprised: he said, "No, you don't leave. I will stop smoking, I will stop drinking." He threw away all the cigarettes, the best that he had brought from Havana. He poured all the wine that he had brought from outside into the gutter, and he said, "Nobody has been able to convince me. My doctors were against my smoking because my heart is weak, my lungs are weak. My doctors were against drinking because I have diabetes. But I never cared, I told those people, 'I may live two years less, that does not matter, but I will live in freedom.' You never asked me not to smoke. On the contrary, you told me, 'Smoke in front of me. If you feel too embarrassed, I will start smoking with you.

If you feel too guilty drinking, I will share.'" I loved that man. Only very few people I have found, but I was never impressed by anybody. I have never followed anybody. I have met remarkable men, but the more remarkable a man was, the more alert I was not to be influenced, because I want to remain myself -- good, bad, famous, notorious, but I want to be just

myself And I have retained my individuality, not even a dent on it. I don't like even a dent on my car.

I was born just as everybody is born -- in families -- but with a rebellious mind.

And as far back as I remember -- that is four years old -- I started asserting myself, slowly, and then it became absolute assertion when they asked me to get married. I asked my father, "Are you satisfied with your marriage? I have seen you being nagged by my mother every day. You cannot even eat your meals peacefully... I have seen you eating your meals, your eyes down, and the mother continuously hammering you, because that is the only time she gets when you are at home, otherwise you are in the shop. Do you want me also to be harassed by another woman? You think it over."

I asked my mother, "Are you happy that you got married? Are you happy that you have eleven children? Your whole life is wasted -- what have you got out of it? -- not even a single moment of peace. So please, before asking me to marry, think for fifteen days, and then, if you both say so, I will get married. But remember, I am giving you a great responsibility... my whole life." And that was really a great challenge for them.

My father broke down within three days. He said, "I take my words back. I will never again ask you to marry. I have suffered much, and I know everybody is suffering." My mother took fifteen days -- naturally, women are stronger, can resist anything longer than men -- but after fifteen days she told me, "You forget about marriage. Our life is enough proof, and we don't want you to get into the same trap. You be yourself."

Q: WELL, BHAGWAN, THEN WE KNOW YOU'RE NOT MARRIED; WE KNOW YOU GET TO EAT YOUR MEALS IN PEACE. HOW DO YOU SPEND THE REST OF YOUR DAY? DO YOU MEDITATE A LOT? DO YOU GET INVOLVED IN ANY KIND OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY? WHAT DO YOU DO IN A TYPICAL DAY?

A: I do many things. One, I have always loved my bathroom -- the bathtub, the shower. So, one and a half hours in the morning, one and a half hours in the evening, three hours every day, I devote to my bathroom -- that is my temple.

Q: WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU DO IN THE BATHROOM FOR THREE HOURS A DAY? OR SHOULD WE NOT DISCUSS THAT ON VIDEOTAPE?

A: Just I enjoy sitting under the shower, lying down in my tub. I change from hot, extreme hot, to extreme cold, freezing water. That is immensely healthful to the body. One and a half hours is not long. It goes so fast because I enjoy it so much. So three hours go into the bathroom.

Two hours, or two and a half hours in the morning, I talk to my disciples. Then in the night, two hours, just the way I am talking to you, I talk to some journalist, some author. So four or five hours I am talking.

Then I enjoy my food. I don't like to talk even, because whatever I am doing, I want to do it totally. When I am eating, then I just want to eat and relish every bite to the fullest. So one hour or one and a half hours -- because I take two meals, lunch and supper -- and then I take, before I go to sleep in the night, my whole life I have taken some special sweets which are made only in Bengal, India. So in all, one and a half hours goes to my food.

Two hours I sleep in the day. I have napped as long as I can remember, and I love to sleep because to me sleep is just meditation, as pure and as simple and as relaxing. And whatever time remains in the night, I go to bed at about ten or eleven, it depends on the interview. I wake up at six in the morning. I love sleeping on a king size bed -- I love big things! (LAUGHTER) Q: WHAT DO YOU DO FOR FUN? WHAT DO YOU DO FOR RECREATION?

A: I go for a one-hour drive in one of the ninety Rolls Royces.

Q: IT WOULD TAKE ABOUT AN HOUR TO SELECT ONE OUT OF NINETY, I IMAGINE....

A: So, one hour after my sleep in the afternoon -- I wake up at two -- I go for a drive. My people have made a special road for me. Perhaps I am the only man in the whole world who has a special road without any traffic. It is used only for one hour in twenty-four hours. I love driving, I have always loved it.

Then whatsoever time is left, I am sitting in my chair. I use only one type of chair -- this is the type -- I have many chairs of the same type, so wherever I am, I am in the same type of chair. I have designed it myself, and I have not found any other chair more comfortable than it is. Then I simply relax with closed eyes. You can call it meditation. I cannot call it meditation because to me meditation is now my very nature. Not that I am doing anything, I am just sitting with closed eyes, no ideas floating in my mind. Just utter silence.

My life is simple in a way, no complexity; in a way a very strict routine, too.

Every day at the same time in the morning I wake up, every day at the same time in the morning I talk to my people -- and that's how I go around the clock.

Q: DO YOU EVER GET BORED OR TIRED OF ROUTINE?

A: Never. For thirty-two years I have not experienced boredom. And I don't see any hope that in the future I will have to experience boredom, because I am never comparing. The same bath, the same bubbles, the same pine fragrance...

but it is the same only if you compare with your yesterdays. I never compare anything with my yesterdays.

I can eat the same food for years. The sannyasins who cook my food -- they get bored cooking the same thing, they want to change. But if I like something, I simply like it, and I like it every day. The same thing for years creates no boredom in me because there is no comparison. It is always fresh, and I am always excited.

You can ask Vivek, she is here. She brings my food, she takes care of my clothes, my bed, my whole routine, that it goes exactly right. She asks again and again, "We can change to some other sweet...." I say, "Wait. If I feel bored sometime, I will tell you." But I never feel bored. If sometimes I change anything in my food, it is for her sake, because she is getting so bored. And I am eating -- she is simply bringing the plate. She is getting bored carrying the plate, it is human -- so change it.

Q: HOW IS YOUR HEALTH? YOU SEEM TO BE LOOKING VERY WELL.

A: My health is very good and getting better. Oregon, its dry climate, its hostile people, all have been tremendously helpful. I am feeling very good.

Q: WELL, THAT'S ALL THE QUESTIONS I REALLY HAVE -- UNLESS THERE IS ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD. IS THERE A MESSAGE, ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY?

A: I would like to say that Oregon is so beautiful that the people who live in Oregon should not behave in ugly ways. It is an insult to this beautiful land. If you have such a beautiful land, it needs and deserves beautiful people, too. So tell the people that I would like them all to come and visit this place, and see that there is a different way of living, too, without hostility, without antagonism, without hatred, without crime. In four years' time, no crime has happened in this commune, no woman has been raped, nobody has been murdered, nobody has committed suicide.

People are so happy and relaxed and rejoicing, who wants to die? And who wants to waste time quarreling, fighting, killing? Who wants to steal? Their very blissfulness prevents them from everything the world is full of.

My people work hard, but they call it worship. It is worship. Working on the farm, digging the earth, if you are sensitive enough you will feel it as worship.

And if you feel it as worship, you will not get tired. They work ten hours, twelve hours, whatever is the need -- it is their responsibility -- and still nobody is complaining. Nobody is saying that this is too much.

And these are not average, common people. There are Ph.D.s, D.Litt.s, almost everybody is highly educated. Doctors are there, professors are there, engineers are there, architects are there, legal experts are there. Perhaps we have the biggest legal firm in the world: four hundred sannyasins are legal experts.

Everybody is doing, but nobody is being coerced to do anything.

So tell the Oregonians: I love this land and I am not going to leave this place.

Q: KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT HUMAN NATURE, CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW SOME OREGONIANS MIGHT FEEL THREATENED BY YOUR PRESENCE HERE?

A: They are all -- not some -- almost ALL are threatened.

Q: IF THE TABLES WERE TURNED, WOULD YOU PERHAPS NOT FEEL THREATENED IF OREGON WERE YOURS AND A SMALL UNKNOWN GROUP CAME IN, WOULD YOU NOT MAYBE FEEL THREATENED?

A: No. We don't feel threatened even when we are a small group. So it is unimaginable that we own the whole Oregon and a small group is there, and we feel threatened. We will enjoy that group, we will absorb that group. We will not leave it alone, we will not be hostile to it. They will be our guests.

And it is beautiful to have different kinds of people, strangers. It gives richness.

It is simply ugly that the same type of people, the same churches, the same Bible... it makes life dull. I would like any small group, there is no question of being threatened. One feels threatened because one feels one is not happy where he is, what he is, and these people are happy. Their dance is threatening.

Otherwise, such a small commune... what is the fear?

But just a few days ago, a secret document has been discovered and it has been on television. The governor and all the big officials, the secretary of state, the attorney general, the head of the police and all the government agencies had a secret meeting. And the governor lied. Because they did not allow any journalists in....

This is ugly: in a democracy why should they try to hide things from people?

They did not allow any journalists, and the governor said, "I will have a press conference after the meeting" -- and he lied in the meeting. Everything he said was a lie.

Now that secret document has been found. He had the idea that it had been destroyed -- perhaps he had ordered it to be burned, but somehow it was not burned and somebody discovered it. The document says that in that secret meeting they decided that the army should be put on alert, against us; that the military should be ready. At any notice, within three hours they have to reach Rajneeshpuram.

So it is not a few Oregonians who are threatened.... I am simply amused at the foolishness of this man, Governor Atiyeh. We are not a nation, we don't have an army. You can simply throw a few bombs on the commune and finish it. Just one airplane bringing half a dozen bombs -- small, old fashioned bombs -- and that will do. You don't need an atom bomb. It is not Hiroshima -- Hiroshima was big -

- it is not Nagasaki. And there is no need to waste so much money. You can bring just any old-fashioned, out-of-date bombs and just finish us.

But remember, while your bombs will be falling on us, we will be dancing and singing. We will celebrate it. We celebrate everything. We are celebrants.

Q: HOW OLD ARE YOU?

A: I am ancient.

Q: COULD YOU BE A BIT MORE SPECIFIC?

A: Very ancient. You can see in me, in my eyes... you will see the whole past of humanity. I am as old as existence itself -- because I have always been here. I am part, just as you are part, of this existence. And I have been in so many bodies that now I cannot get identified with any body. When you have to change so many trains, you are bound to feel that no train is yours; at the coming junction again you have to change the train.

In this body I have been fifty-four years. But in fifty-four years I have lived a life which is not possible to live even in two hundred years. I have lived intensely, totally. Whatever I have been doing at whatever time, I was doing it with my whole heart, as if the next moment is death.

Q: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH? THAT'S AN INTERESTING QUESTION.

YOU WILL COME BACK IN ANOTHER BODY?

A: No.... No more. This time is the last time. I have been coming into bodies again and again, but this time it is the last time. After enlightenment, you cannot come back to the body. That is the only disadvantage.

Q: WHEN DID YOU BECOME ENLIGHTENED? HOW OLD WERE YOU? WAS IT THIS LIFE FOR YOU?

A: Yes. When I was twenty-one years old.

Q: WHAT ABOUT OTHERS? WHAT ABOUT THE SANNYASINS: WHEN THEY DIE, WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS LIFE, WILL THEY COME BACK AS HUMANS?

A: A few will not come. A few are bound to come. It all depends on them. If they die unenlightened, they will have to come back. This is an existential condition, that existence sends you back again and again and again unless you have passed the examination. Enlightenment is the examination. Then there is no question of coming back to the university -- you have learned everything, experienced

everything. Your being dissolves into the whole, becomes one with it. It is tremendous freedom. Being caged in a body is really carrying your jail around you wherever you go. But as far as I am concerned, this is the last time, so I am trying to make the most of it.

Q: SO THEN, IS THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED, SO THAT WHEN YOU DO LEAVE THIS LIFE YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO CARRY AROUND THE PRISON OF YOUR BODY?

A: Right.

Q: THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. IT'S BEEN A PLEASURE.

A: Good. Come back again.

The Last Testament, Vol 1