It Is Possible
[NOTE: This discourse is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 29.]
Mike Wolfe KBND RADIO BEND OREGON
Q: BHAGWAN, MY NAME IS MIKE WOLFE. I'VE BEEN IN THE RADIO AND TELEVISION BUSINESS -- IN WASHINGTON D.C., DENVER, COLORADO -- SO I'VE TRAVELED A BIT AND GOT TIRED OF THE BIG CITIES AND CAME TO CENTRAL OREGON. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I THINK IS INTERESTING TO ME, AND WILL ALWAYS MAKE ME REMEMBER YOU, IS THAT I HAVE A SIX-AND-A-HALF-YEAR OLD SON WHO WAS ALSO BORN ON DECEMBER 11TH. SO I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER BHAGWAN'S BIRTHDAY.
A: That's great!
Q: I DON'T BELIEVE IT WAS THE SAME YEAR, HOWEVER.
THE HOSPITALITY, I MUST SAY, IN THE BEGINNING HERE THAT WE HAVE RECEIVED.... AND FOR THOSE WHO ARE LISTENING, THERE IS OF COURSE CONTROVERSY, MAYBE MISREPRESENTED CONTROVERSY, THAT RAJNEESHPURAM IS AN ARMED CAMP. I HAVE NOT SEEN THAT; THAT THE PEOPLE ARE COLD AND DISINTERESTED IN THOSE OF US WHO LIVE OUTSIDE -- AND I HAVE NOT SEEN THAT. AND I WOULD SAY TO YOU THAT I HAVE NOT FELT IN MANY ROOMS IN MY LIFE AS MUCH LOVE AS THERE IS IN THIS ROOM RIGHT NOW. AND I DON'T THINK PEOPLE MAY REALIZE THAT.
I WANT TO TALK FIRST ABOUT THE CITY OF RAJNEESHPURAM WHICH I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO VIEW AND VISIT IN A VERY QUICK WAY TODAY, AND ASK IF THIS DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS, THAT MAYBE THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS NOT AS FAMILIAR WITH AS I NOW BELIEVE THEY SHOULD BE, COULD IN YOUR MIND DEVELOP INTO A PROTOTYPE OF WHAT CITIES POSSIBLY COULD AND SHOULD BE?
A: Yes, that's exactly my idea. This loving commune should become a prototype, because in the vast world, even though you are in the crowd, you are alone.
Here, even if you are alone, you know and you feel the warmth of people all around you.
Love is something which is nobody's monopoly. A loving person is simply a love-radiating energy. And when there are thousands of people radiating love, there is a certain energy field. I called it the Buddhafield. Anybody who comes will receive the love, the friendship, the hospitality... but people are afraid to come.
Q: WHY?
A: For the simple reason that we are strangers. This is animal instinct. Animals are afraid of strangers. Every animal has its own territorial prerogative. If you keep out of the territory he will not get disturbed or upset, but if you enter into his territory, then immediately he is hostile. That instinct is still alive in man.
We are outsiders. In many ways our ways of thinking are different, our values are different, our priorities are different. We are for a better man and for a better humanity, and their fear and hostility is natural.
Q: ARE THE HOSTILITIES CREATED OR PERPETRATED BY THE LACK OF UNDERSTANDING AND THE ABSENCE, AS IT WOULD APPEAR TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD, OF A WILLINGNESS FOR THE RAJNEESHEES TO GO OUT, RATHER THAN ACCEPT IN, SO PEOPLE CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT THEM?
A: No. This is my basic standpoint: not to go out, because that is interfering into somebody's world. I am not a missionary and I hate the word. I don't want anybody to be converted, and I don't want anybody to be convinced that we are right. In fact the people who try to convince others that they are right are basically, deep down in themselves, not convinced that they are right.
Convincing others, they are making an effort to convince themselves.
When they see they have a crowd convinced, then they feel at ease. Then they know, "I cannot be wrong. If so many people are converted by me, then I cannot be wrong."
This outgoing is impossible for me or my people. We are here, we do no harm to anybody, and we don't want to interfere in anybody's thinking, way of life, his style, his religion, his politics -- we do not want to interfere. We accept him as he is. But if he wants to be acquainted with our world, he is welcome.
Q: BUT TO BE EXPOSED TO YOUR WORLD, TO HAVE SOME POSITIVE EXPOSURE -- THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO hate THIS PARTICULAR GROUP, THERE ARE PEOPLE WITHIN THE GROUP, I WOULD IMAGINE, WHO FEEL
THAT AND REALIZE THAT HATE OUTSIDE. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT GOES ON HERE -- WOULD IT NOT BE A GOOD IDEA, not AS A MISSIONARY, not REACHING OUT TO CONVERT, BUT IN FACT TO INFORM?
A: I will wait, because if they are hating me and my people, they are on the way towards Rajneeshpuram. Hate is a relationship, and sometimes far stronger than love. And once they come here, then we will see....
Q: BUT IT SEEMS THAT SOME OF THIS HATE -- USING THAT WORD, SINCE I BROUGHT IT UP -- IS BRED BY FEAR, WHICH IS BRED BY SOMETHING UNKNOWN. THIS IS A MYSTERIOUS WORLD INSIDE THIS VALLEY.
A: Yes, that is true. That mysteriousness in this valley will attract only those people who are ready to go on an adventure, who want to explore, who want to know the unknown -- and those are the only people who have any worth.
Q: WHAT KIND OF WORTH?
A: They are adventurers -- they are on a pilgrimage to know the unknown -- they are the real people. Others are just living like animals, without exploration.
Q: SO YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT THAT SELECT GROUP OF RISK-TAKERS?
A: Yes. With me, only that select group can have a communion.
Q: WHAT IS... WHAT IS THE FUTURE -- AND I KNOW YOU DON'T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE OR ADDRESS YOURSELF TO IT -- BUT WHAT IS THE FUTURE OFRAJNEESHPURAM? WE GOT OFF THE TRACK A LITTLE BIT. I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY, THE TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT THAT I'VE SEEN TODAY -- AGRICULTURALLY, CERTAINLY THE COMMUNAL WAY OF LIFE. WHAT DO YOU VIEW AS THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS VALLEY FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THIS TRAVEL WITH YOU?
A: I'm not concerned with it. My concern is with people and their growth. The city is their concern, not my concern. And I have so many intelligent people here, architects, engineers, doctors, professors -- from all the professions, daring, adventurous people have come to me. Now it is up to them, a mundane affair, I don't care about it. I trust them, they will be able to manage, and they are managing. And they will be able to develop it technologically, but it is not my concern at all.
Q: WHAT IS YOUR CONCERN?
A: My concern is their spiritual growth. Their intelligence should come to its highest peak. They should be deprogrammed from all past, rotten and dead, meaningless and harmful.... My work is not to create the city, but to create the man, and then the man will take care of the city and the houses. That is a totally different matter. I don't bother about it.
But my basic concern is the individual. The individual is to me the highest value in life. And all the religions of the world have repressed the individual. They have all made him feel guilty, they have all made him somehow think himself unworthy, a sinner. All the religions, in different ways, have forced everybody into a corner where he is no more human. They have humiliated humanity. It was their vested interest.
They needed a world of slaves, not a world of rebels. And you can make a person shrink if you make him guilty. You can make him afraid of hell, you can make him greedy for heaven, and this way you can make him completely forget this moment, this life. All the religions have been trying... either they are focusing you on the past, or they are focusing you on future, beyond death. No religion bothers that you should be alive, laughing, living, loving, flowering -- here and now -- and that's my purpose.
Q: DO YOU THINK THAT THEY DO THIS BECAUSE THEY ARE BIG BUSINESS AND THAT IS THE WAY TO CONTROL PEOPLE?
A: It is a great conspiracy between the politicians and the priests. It has been for thousands of years. The conspiracy is that the politician rules people as far as worldly things are concerned and the priest rules people as far as their psychology, their mind, their souls are concerned. And they have enslaved man in every possible way: the politician from the outside and the priest from the inside -- they have destroyed all potential of human beings.
My work is to bring that potential back, make the person aware that he is not guilty if Adam and Eve disobeyed God -- that is their business. You cannot be guilty for Adam and Eve disobeying God. This is so stupid! In the first place, disobedience is not always bad. And as far as Adam and Eve's disobedience is concerned, it was certainly beneficial to humanity. In fact, God was the enemy, because he was prohibiting Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. Now, who is the enemy?
Wisdom, knowledge, science -- all that we value in life -- paintings, poetry, sculpture, nothing would have happened if Adam and Eve had not disobeyed.
They would have been still naked animals in the garden of Eden, chewing grass!
Q: MY GOD, I HOPE THAT... I CAN'T PICTURE ALL OF US IN THIS ROOM CHEWING GRASS!
A: You cannot picture it because of Adam and Eve. You should feel grateful to Adam and Eve!
Q: I DO NOW!
A: Yes!
Q: YOU KNOW, PSYCHOLOGISTS TELL US ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS ARE DIRECTED BACK TO OUR MOTHER, BUT NOW YOU'RE TAKING IT SO DAMN FAR BACK, I CAN'T EVEN COMPREHEND IT!
A: They take all the problems to the mother and they forget the real father. That is male chauvinistic psychology. The whole psychology is created by man, just as all the religions are created by man. The woman is condemned by the religions, and she is condemned now by the psychologists. In fact the psychologist is slowly taking the place of the priest because the priest is becoming out of date.
Younger generations are no more interested in the priest. They have seen five thousand years of human history, what these priests have done.
The younger generation is more interested in psychotherapy, in psychoanalysis, in other different methods of psychic exploration. The priest is no more in the powerful position that he has always been.
So you will be surprised that all the priests in the world are now studying psychology, to become psychotherapists. It is going to become a necessary qualification for every bishop, every priest, to have some degree of psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, because they are aware that their power is slipping away and the psychologist is replacing them. He is becoming the new priest. But the trouble is, the new priest is also serving the old vested interest; he is not revolutionary.
Q: IS NOT THE PROCLIVITY TOWARD PSYCHOLOGY APPOINTMENTS OR PSYCHIATRY APPOINTMENTS -- WHERE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO ESSENTIALLY, AS THEY STATE IT, FIND OUT ABOUT THEMSELVES -- SOMEWHAT THE SAME PARALLEL AS TO WHAT YOU'RE OFFERING HERE IN RAJNEESHPURAM?
A: No! Because your psychologists, even the founders -- Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Adler, Assagioli -- even they knew nothing about themselves, so how can they help you to know yourself?
Jung had been to India. He went to see the Taj Mahal, he went to Calcutta, to Bombay, and everywhere he was told, "You being a great psychologist, the place you should go first is to a man in south India, Maharishi Raman." That man was conceived by the whole country as one who knows himself "You should go there
and see whether it is true or not. And if he knows himself, perhaps you can learn something from him; if he does not know, you can help him to know."
But he would not go there, and in his diary he wrote: "I was afraid to go there, to face the eyes of a man who knows himself, because I don't know myself." He returned without going to Maharishi Raman. And when he was back he must have been feeling guilty, that this is not right. Going to see the ruins of palaces was worthless for a psychologist. He was not a historian. Going to see big cities, what was the point for him? He must have started feeling guilty, that everywhere he went, every friend he knew, all the professors in all the universities, in all the psychological departments, were pointing towards one man -- and he did not go there.
Out of that guilt he started writing against Indian mysticism. He started saying that Westerners should remain aloof to the Eastern tradition of mysticism, because it is dangerous for the Western man. Western man's development is different, Eastern man's development is different, their psychologies are different. This he said for the first time after coming back from India.
Psychologies are not different. There may be minute details which are different, but the basic psychology is not different, cannot be different. He projected his own fear over all history.
So I don't think these psychologists are helping anybody in any way. They can't help themselves. Do you know, the suicide rate of psychologists is double that of average human beings.
Q: I THINK IT'S EVEN WORSE....
A: Yes. It may have grown higher, because for five years I have not been reading a single word, of any book, of any newspaper. For five years I have simply stopped... so perhaps it may have gone higher. But five years ago, it was double.
And the same was the situation with madness -- it was double any other profession. And the same was the proportion of all kinds of perverted acts.
These people -- suicidal, insane, committing perverted acts, finding excuses to do them through psychology -- do you think they can help anybody to know himself?
Q: IF YOUR THINKING AND YOUR BELIEF IS AS YOU STATE IT -- AND I ASSUME CERTAINLY THAT IT IS -- AND THE WORLD IS IN THE CHAOS THAT IT'S IN... I MEAN, THIS IS ABOUT AS SCREWED UP AS IT CAN GET....
A: Yes.
Q:... MAYBE A LITTLE WORSE DOWN THE LINE, BUT I MEAN, IT'S PRETTY CLOSE TO MAXIMUM.
A: It is.
Q: WHY THEN DOES NOT BHAGWAN STEP FORWARD, NOT AS A SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, NOT AS A GOD, BUT AS A MAN WHO HAS RECOGNIZED WHAT THE PROBLEM IS, HAS AN IDEA OF THE SOLUTION, AND MAKE THAT AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW? GRANTED, IT'S AVAILABLE IF THEY COME HERE, BUT IT IS A MASSIVE JOURNEY TO COME HERE, AND THE ROAD IS TERRIBLE, BY THE WAY, WHICH DOESN'T HELP, EITHER....
A: It is a massive journey. That's why you are here: you take the message.
Q: BUT I'M NOT A MISSIONARY EITHER.
A: No, you are not a missionary.
Q: AND I DON'T WANT TO BE A MISSIONARY.
A: No. I don't want anybody to be a missionary....
Q: BUT YOU'VE BECOME A MAN OF THE WORLD.
A: No.
Q: YOU HAVE BECOME A MAN WHO IS VERY VISIBLE. OH, BUT OF COURSE YOU HAVE.
A: Mmm?
Q: THE WORLD PRESS KNOWS ABOUT BHAGWAN. YOU MUST BE ONE OF THE GREAT SHOW BUSINESS TEACHERS OF ALL TIME.
A: That's true!
Q: AND I BELIEVE THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT TO BE. HOWEVER, I THINK THAT AT THE SAME TIME, ON A SERIOUS NOTE -- WELL, AM I CORRECT OR AM I NOT? -- IF YOUR MESSAGE IS AS YOU STATED, WOULD IT NOT BE TO THE BENEFIT OF ALL MANKIND IF BHAGWAN WOULD TAKE HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD?
A: No, not on the road. I can manage from here! And I am managing it well!
Q: WELL, I'M SURE YOU ARE. BUT WHAT I'M SAYING THOUGH, GETTING BACK AGAIN.... YOU KNOW, I WAS INTIMIDATED.... I READ IN THE RAJNEESH TIMES, A RECENT ARTICLE -- AND ON THE BACK PAGE IS THE KIDS' CORNER WHICH WAS THE ONLY ONE I UNDERSTOOD. AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THAT COLUMN, A YOUNGSTER HAD TALKED ABOUT HOW HE WAS VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE PRESS CONFERENCE THAT WAS HELD HERE TWO WEEKS AGO AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE WORLD PRESS TO GATHER AND MEET WITH YOU, AND TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAD TO SAY, BUT ALL HE HEARD WAS THE SAME OLD QUESTIONS.
NOW I HAVE BEEN RACKING MY BRAIN SINCE THE PRESS KIT WHICH CONTAINED THAT PARTICULAR EDITION CAME TO ME, TRYING TO THINK OF SOME OTHER QUESTIONS. BUT I'M JUST A PRETTY SIMPLE GUY. WHAT I SEE IS, VERY SIMPLY, THAT YOU HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE AT THIS POINT DON'T BUY, WHICH YOU MAY NOT CARE ABOUT. WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT IT?
A: Why should I care?
Q: BUT WHY SHOULDN'T YOU CARE?... AND WE CAN PLAY MONOPOLY WITH THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
A: No.
Q: YOU STATE THAT YOUR INTEREST IS IN THE INDIVIDUAL. IS THAT ONLY THE INDIVIDUAL WHO IS HERE, OR WITHIN THE RAJNEESH GROUP?
A: No. The individual is everywhere, whether he is here or not, because only the individual exists. Societies are just names, collectivities are all names. The reality is only of the individual. And I am trying my best, sitting in my room. That's why You can see in all the papers, on the radio, on the television, a man who does not go out of this small valley. And I will go on hammering all over the world from here. What is the point of traveling?
Q: WELL, LET ME ASK YOU THIS: YOU DO NOT GO OUT OF THE VALLEY, BUT IS IT NOT CORRECT THAT YOU SPENT THREE NIGHTS IN BEND AT THE RIVERHOUSE MOTEL A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO?
A: No.
Q: THEN SOMEONE IS PAYING YOU THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT BECAUSE THEY ARE IMPERSONATING YOU.
A: Hmm!
Q: BECAUSE IT WAS TOLD TO ME THAT YOU SPENT A SUNDAY NIGHT, A MONDAY NIGHT AND A TUESDAY NIGHT, WITH A NURSE AND A BODYGUARD. AND YOU WERE SEEN IN THE JACUZZI AND IN THE LOUNGE AND YOU WERE HAVING A GREAT TIME. SO I WANTED TO KNOW WHY THEY KEPT SNIFFING MY HAIR TODAY BEFORE I SAT DOWN TO TALK TO YOU, BECAUSE I KNOW THEY DIDN'T SNIFF EVERYBODY'S HAIR AT THE RIVERHOUSE IN BEND, OREGON.
THOSE KINDS OF MISDIRECTED IDEAS -- IF IN FACT YOU WERE NOT THERE -- SOMETIMES BREAK DOWN A LITTLE CREDIBILITY FOR BHAGWAN, AND I WONDER IF IT'S POSSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU ARE SAYING -- GETTING BACK TO IT SOMEWHAT SERIOUSLY -- TO BE PROJECTED TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.
A: First, the nonserious part.
Q: DON'T TRY TO GET A BIGGER LAUGH THAN I DID.
A: I was not in the hotel, but I can be.
Q: WELL, YOU PROBABLY COULD BUY THE HOTEL IF YOU WANTED TO.
A: In fact, I have... and I have everything that any hotel in America can have. You have just to see my bathroom. Perhaps it is the best in the whole world.
Q: YOUR BATHROOM?
A: My bathroom.
Q: IS THAT AN INVITATION?
A: Yes.
Q: I'VE NEVER BEEN INVITED TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE. I'VE BEEN TOLD I BELONGED IN THE BATHROOM BEFORE, BUT NEVER INVITED TO ONE.
A: I am a rare and a unique person in every way: I invite you into my bathroom!
Q: THAT IS UNIQUE. BUT WHERE DO WE GO FROM THERE?
A: There is nowhere to go. Enjoy the jacuzzi there, enjoy the shower there, enjoy the hot shower, enjoy the ice-cold shower....
Q: AND THEN GET OUT... L UNDERSTAND! I NEED TO KNOW THIS FOR MY OWN EDIFICATION: HAVE YOU EVER INVITED A MEMBER OF THE PRESS TO YOUR BATHROOM BEFORE?
A: No...
Q: THANK YOU. I THINK THAT'S IMPORTANT.
A:... because I never liked any man the way I like you.
Q: I WONDER IF THIS COULD BE LOVE?
A: This is!
Q: INVITED TO THE BATHROOM.... WELL, I'M SURE THE LISTENERS OF THIS PROGRAM ARE THINKING YOU AND I ARE GOING TO START A NIGHTCLUB ACT.
WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL -- SINCE YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THIS A MOMENT AGO -- OF UNITING THE WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, WHICH IS SOMEWHAT MATERIALISTIC, AND THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHY, WHICH IS TRADITIONALLY NOT MATERIALISTIC BUT IS MORE AN INNER -- WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT -- AN INNER RECOGNITION OF ONESELF?
NOW YOU HAVE DONE A MAGNIFICENT JOB IN MANY RESPECTS -- THAT DIAMOND WRISTWATCH OF COURSE IS CERTAINLY NOT AN EASTERN PHILOSOPHY -- AND YET THE REST OF YOUR PRESENTATION IS SOMEWHAT EASTERN. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THOSE TWO CULTURES TO UNITE?
A: That's what I have been doing! And that's why both sides of the culture are angry at me. The Easterners are angry with me because they think I am materialist....
Q: AND ARE THEY RIGHT?
A: No.
Q: YOU'RE NOT MATERIALISTIC?
A: No, not in their sense. And the Western people -- particularly the materialist, the communist -- they are angry with me because I am bringing spiritualism.
My approach is that man is both together. This existence is not split into matter and spirit. This existence is one organic unity, just as your soul and your body are an organic unity. Your soul cannot exist without your body, and your body cannot be alive without the soul.
I am destroying the whole idea of the separation, of a split between matter and mind, body and soul, materialism and spiritualism. I call myself Zorba the Buddha. My restaurants, my discos are all named after me: Zorba the Buddha.
Now Buddhists are angry. The ambassador of Ceylon in America wrote me a letter saying, "In my country people will be angry about it. Please don't use Buddha's name with Zorba." I replied to him, "We don't mean your Buddha; your Buddha's name was Gautam Siddhartha. Buddha is not anybody's name, it is a quality. It means the Awakened One. It can be used for anybody who is awakened. So don't get upset about it."
My effort is that Zorba and Buddha have to be bridged. Zorba represents the materialist's life in all its luxury -- hence this diamond wristwatch, hence all my Rolls Royces. I live the most luxurious life that any man has ever lived, with no worry. People have much more money -- I don't have a single cent -- but they cannot live such a luxurious life as I am living, with no worry, no bank account, no income tax... and having everything that anybody can have!
Q: WHAT IS YOUR SECRET, BHAGWAN? I REALLY THINK YOU'RE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS. I MEAN BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU'VE JUST DOCUMENTED, YOU MUST BE ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT CON MEN, IT WOULD SEEM.
A: I am!
Q: AND IT TAKES A GREAT MAN TO ADMIT THAT.
A: Certainly!
Q: AND IT TAKES AN EQUALLY GREAT MAN TO SIT AND ACCEPT IT AND REVEL IN IT, BHAGWAN.
A: Right!
Q: I WANT TO ASK YOU A QUESTION ABOUT THE FORMER DEAD CITY OF ANTELOPE. THIS HAS OF COURSE CREATED A GREAT DEAL OF CONTROVERSY. I HAVE ONLY LIVED IN THIS CENTRAL OREGON AREA FOR ABOUT FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS. THIS IS MY FIRST TRIP TO THIS PARTICULAR AREA. IT WAS MY FIRST TRIP THROUGH ANTELOPE, AND I GUESS THE QUESTION I WOULD HAVE TO ASK IS: WHY WOULD ANYBODY WANT ANTELOPE? I MEAN WHAT IS THE PURPOSE AND
WHAT ARE THE PLANS? I DON'T SEE IT BECOMING A RESORT AREA. I DON'T SEE IT BECOMING AN INDUSTRIAL AREA. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE FOR THEIR OWN PARTICULAR REASONS, WHO OF COURSE DON'T THINK YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT MAN -- AS I'M SURE YOU'RE AWARE. WHAT WAS THE POINT?
A: In fact, again you bring me to something in which I have no interest. Just not to be impolite to you, I am answering it.
When we came here four years ago there was 126 square miles of land, just desert, and that one house there, for a guard to take care of the land -- what could he do with 126 square miles of land...? And the owners had been trying to sell it for almost half a century, but who would purchase this desert, for what?
When we came here I wanted a big place. That big a property was not available anywhere else. When we came here we needed our people to stay in Antelope, because there were no houses here. Before we made houses and roads and restaurants and eating places, they had to remain in Antelope. The population of Antelope was less than my sannyasins. And the Antelope population started behaving with great hostility: they wouldn't allow any permit, they wouldn't allow them to purchase any land, they wouldn't allow change of zone -- small things. My people told them, "We don't want your city or your government. We are simply here for the time being, and we will be moving to our own city. But we have to create the city, and before we create it we have to be here. This is the nearest place."
And because they wouldn't listen, and they tried in every possible way to hinder, naturally my people thought that the best way was to take over the government.
What is the need of asking permission from these people when we have the government and we give the permission? -- so they took over, there was no problem in it.
If you had come four years ago and seen Antelope, you would not have believed it.
Q: I DIDN'T BELIEVE IT TODAY. I COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT ALL THE FLACK WAS ABOUT.
A: Four years ago it was absolutely a cemetery.
Q: WHAT IS IT NOW?
A: Now it is a dancing place. We have made a dead city alive. Now hundreds of sannyasins are living there. And since we took over the government, we have done many things there: we have made better roads, we are trying to make new houses, a big housing colony, we are going to make a big hospital there, we have
taken the school and raised the standard of the school. We are doing everything there, and now it is part of us. Now nobody can take it over from us.
Q: BUT THEY ARE TRYING?
A: They are trying and we are enjoying. They are trying to collect 84,000 signatures so that in the next election they can ask the governor to dissolve Antelope into Wasco County.
They certainly know they cannot win, because only eight or ten old Antelopians are there and one hundred sannyasins are there. They cannot win democratically, and this is absolutely unconstitutional. If it is done, then we are going to fight up to the Supreme Court.
Q: WAS IT CONSTITUTIONAL TO TAKE IT OVER IN THE FIRST PLACE?
A: Taking over is not the problem. They are the majority; the majority should rule. It is not a question of taking over.
Q: IS IT AN IMPORTANT ENOUGH QUESTION THOUGH, NOW THAT YOUR CITY IS ESTABLISHED?
A: Not yet. They are not allowing it to be established yet. Our city is under litigation. And we have been telling them that if you allow us whatever we need, if you help -- and we are creating a beautiful place for you in a desert -- we can leave Antelope. That was our basic proposal to them.
Q: AND THAT STANDS NOW?
A: No. No more.
Q: NOW YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LEAVE?
A: Now we are not going to leave!
Q: AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO INVITE ANY OF THOSE PEOPLE INTO YOUR BATHROOM?
A: No.
Q: YOU WILL FIGHT THIS AS HIGH AS IT MUST GO?
A: We will fight it, and I know constitutionally it is absolutely wrong to dissolve.
So let them.. and then we go to the Supreme Court. And it has been so in many cases; we have never been losers.
Last year we brought thousands of street people to share our homes with us, and the Oregon government got simply mad about it. They started thinking that we were going to take over the county or we were going to take over Oregon.
Q: THEIR FEELING WAS THAT YOU WERE CONTROLLING THE ELECTION, I THINK, IS THAT NOT CORRECT?
A: No, not at all.
Q: NO, I MEAN their FEELING WAS THAT.
A: Their feeling was that.
Q: AND THAT WAS REJECTED BY THE ELECTION COMMISSION LAST WEEK.
A: Yes. That has been rejected.
Q: BUT, IN DEFENSE OF YOUR ACTIONS, IS NOT THE OREGON ELECTION LAW, RESIDENT LAW -- I MEAN YOU CAN WALK IN AND TEN MINUTES LATER YOU CAN VOTE -- SO ANTIQUATED THAT, ON THE BOTTOM LINE, IF YOU WANTED TO CONTROL THE ELECTION -- WHICH PROBABLY YOU DID...
A: No.
Q:... THAT YOU COULD BRING THESE PEOPLE IN AND THAT THEY COULD HAVE VOTED LEGALLY IN THAT ELECTION. IS THAT NOT CORRECT?
A: We were not concerned with taking over the county. What will we do with the county? It is unnecessary, taking the burden of the county, which is bankrupt -- why should we bother? We have to develop our own place!
Q: WHAT DID YOU BRING THE PEOPLE IN FOR?
A: We had surplus money. After every festival we have nearabout two to three million dollars and we want to share it. This time we will be bringing some other group. Each year we are going to bring different groups of people -- perhaps we may invite the blacks!
Q: MY GOD, I DON'T KNOW IF OREGON'S READY FOR THAT!
A: Get ready! But every year we are going to invite somebody or other.
Q: WELL, THE COMPLAINT THOUGH, IN THE BEND AREA AND IN OTHER AREAS, WAS THAT YOU BROUGHT THEM IN AND THEN YOU TURNED THEM LOOSE.
A: No.
Q: AND THAT THEY THEN BECAME WARDS OF THE VARIOUS VENUES THAT THEY LANDED IN, FOUND THEMSELVES IN... FOUND THEMSELVES INTENTIONALLY BREAKING LAWS SO THAT THEY WOULD HAVE....
A: No. That is absolutely wrong, because we had brought people first with a contract that whenever they wanted to go, we would give them the ticket, return ticket.
Q: YOU PROVIDED THEM ALL A TICKET?
A: We provided all those people with whom we had the contract. After two weeks, we dropped the idea of the contract, because the idea was... how would these poor people dare to come here on a one-way ticket? So we gave them round trip tickets -- they could go back -- but once they settled here, they started sending messages to their friends. Then we told the people, "If they want to come.... Your people are there, you can contact them. You know what the situation is here -- if they want to come, we will give them only a one-way ticket" -- and that was the contract. So those people who had the contract for a one-way ticket got a one-way ticket, and that was their responsibility. We have nothing to do with it.
And we were giving them three months to be here, every facility, but the Christians -- particularly Christian churches and associations around -- became very much troubled about that. The fear was that perhaps we would turn them into sannyasins. Christians started coming here, Christian priests started having demonstrations in Madras, in Portland, and they persuaded them to go back.
Here they were receiving everything free, here they were living better than they had ever lived before, and many of them are still here. After three months it was a free choice for them: if they wanted to go back, their ticket was there; if they didn't want to go back, they could remain here. They HAVE remained here, and we have been receiving hundreds of letters from the people who have left saying that it was wrong on their side to listen to the Christians and leave the place.
They would love to come back again.
It was not our responsibility letting those people loose in Oregon. It was the State of Oregon and the Christian churches of Oregon who created the whole paranoia. The state created the paranoia about the election, and the churches created the paranoia about religion. But the people who are here -- nobody has tried to make them sannyasins. If they wanted to become, that was their business.
And sannyas is such a nonserious phenomenon. It is not a fanatic type of group; it is very loose and free. If you want to become a sannyasin we don't make any conditions, we don't ask for any qualifications. You simply become a sannyasin.
If you want to drop it, goodbye, you drop it. When you drop nobody stops you, when you want to become a sannyasin nobody stops you.
So those people who are still here are never going to leave. And we had no intention about the election. That's what the commission has found, that we had no intention at all to bring those people for the election.
Q: IS THERE ANY WAY FOR THIS SEGMENT OF THE GENERAL SOCIETY TO COEXIST WITH THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF OREGON UNDER THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF THINGS? CAN YOU GUYS GET ALONG WITH THE FOLKS OUTSIDE? IS THERE A POSSIBILITY OF THAT?
A: I don't think so.
Q: I MEAN, I DON'T CARE WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT, BUT NO MAN OR NO GROUP IS AN ISLAND, AND I THINK THAT'S PROBABLY THE TRUTH. AND AT SOME POINT THERE IS GOING TO HAVE TO BE SOME COOPERATION IN SOMETHING. I KNOW YOU ANSWERED AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE IF THERE WOULD BE ANY POSSIBILITY FOR COEXISTENCE, SAY WITH THE PEOPLE OF WHAT USED TO BE ANTELOPE, AND YOUR ANSWER WAS NO. BUT MY QUESTION IS: IS THERE THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE RAJNEESHEES CAN BECOME COEXISTING, NOT SUBSERVIENT, BUT COEXIST WITH THE PEOPLE OF OREGON?
A: No. To me the word COEXISTENCE is political, and it does not carry any good connotations with it. Coexistence means that we are enemies, but -- what to do? -- we have to get along.
Q: CHOOSE ANOTHER WORD THEN, WHERE THE PEOPLE OF OREGON, WHERE THE STATE OF OREGON IS CONCERNED, THAT THE RAJNEESHEES COULD IN FACT ACCEPT.
A: I don't compromise on anything.
Q: WELL, I DON'T THINK THAT I'M ASKING YOU TO COMPROMISE.
A: No. I will make every effort to bring to the Oregonians what we are. We are exposing ourselves to all media and everybody is welcome, but we are going to remain ourselves and there is no need for any coexistence. They exist there in their way, we exist here in our own way -- PARALLEL EXISTENCE, that is my word.
Q: PARALLEL MIGHT BE EVEN A BETTER WORD.
A: Yes Q: Coexistence, I THINK, DOES DENOTE A HOSTILITY THAT IS ACCEPTED.
A: That's it. That's why I said "Never." When the question was asked about coexistence, I said, "Never." But the woman did not even wait for me to explain what I wanted to say. She did not ask about the implications. She simply left.
That was enough. Coexistence finished! That woman immediately left the mike, and that was really symbolic.
Q: WELL, I DIDN'T WANT TO COME TO THE PRESS CONFERENCE, BECAUSE I KNEW THAT YOU AND I WOULD GET ALONG VERY WELL, AND I'D PROBABLY DOMINATE THE WHOLE PROCEEDINGS.
AT THE... AT THE RISK OF BEING REDUNDANT -- AND THESE ARE THE MECHANICAL THINGS, SOME OF THE OTHER THINGS THAT CAME OUT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE TALK TO ME FOR A MINUTE ABOUT GOD, AND THE FACT THAT YOUR ANSWER OR RESPONSE WAS, I BELIEVE, PARAPHRASING "HE IS MAN'S GREATEST LIE."
A: Right.
Q: OR SHE IS MAN'S GREATEST LIE -- WHICHEVER THE CASE MAY BE.
A: Right!
Q: THAT'S IT?
A: Yes.
Q: LET'S TALK AGAIN ABOUT YOUR BATHROOM!
WHAT ABOUT THE QUESTION THAT CAME UP AT SOME POINT.... I HAD READ SO MUCH ABOUT RAJNEESHEES AND BHAGWAN. FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS IN THIS AREA, I HAD NOW BECOME SO INUNDATED WITH INFORMATION.... YOUR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, YOUR PUBLIC
RELATIONS DEPARTMENT, SENT ME THE WORLD'S LARGEST PRESS KIT.
IN SIXTEEN YEARS I COULD NOT READ EVERYTHING THAT WAS IN THERE, BUT I TRIED! THE QUESTION THAT HAS COME UP IS THE JIM JONES PROBLEM, THE PARALLEL THAT HAS BEEN DRAWN THAT THIS IS IN FACT A RELIGIOUS FANATIC WHO IS CONTROLLING A CULT OF PEOPLE WHO WILL DO ANYTHING THAT HE DECIDES THAT THEY SHOULD DO -- WHETHER OR NOT HE DECIDES THAT. I BELIEVE YOUR ANSWER WAS SIMPLY THAT THE CHRISTIANITY FACTOR IS NOT IN EXISTENCE HERE, THAT LIFE AFTER DEATH IS BETTER THAN LIFE DURING LIFE. IS THAT THE COMPLETE ANSWER, AND IS IT NOT PROBABLY SAFE TO ASSUME THAT IN SOME RESPECTS THE TRAGEDY THAT HAPPENED AT JONESTOWN WAS A RESULT OF PEOPLE FOLLOWING AN INDIVIDUAL BLINDLY, AS OPPOSED TO A CHRISTIANITY QUESTION?
A: Wait!
It is not only that he was a Christian priest. There is great implication in it. The whole Christianity is death-oriented; the cross is its symbol. And if Jesus was not crucified, there would have been no Christianity at all. The Jews simply missed the point. The man was nuts! They should have ignored him, he was doing no harm to anybody. To crucify that nut created Christianity. I call Christianity, CROSSIANITY. It is not Christianity.
Q: HOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO SAY BHAGWAN IS NUTS, AND IF THEY WERE TO CRUCIFY YOU WOULD THE SAME THING HAPPEN?
A: It will happen again if they crucify me. Again there will be another Christianity, so better tell them....
Q: LEAVE YOU ALONE!
A: Leave me alone!
Q: OKAY.
A: It is in their favor if they leave me alone. If they assassinate me, it will be in my favor.
Reverend Jim Jones had no similarity at any point with me. All his disciples were mostly black, illiterate. All my disciples are white....
Q: I SAW THREE BLACKS TODAY.
A: Yes, three you can see in five thousand people. That does not make even one percent. These white people have come from all over the world, they are all well educated, most of them are graduates, a large number of them have master's degrees, many are Ph.D.s, few are D.Litts. His group and my group are poles apart.
Those people were blindly following him, because that is what Jesus teaches. He was simply repeating Jesus' drama. Jesus is responsible.
Q: FOR JONESTOWN?
A: Yes. And the pope should be hanged!
Q: WHO SHOULD BE...?
A: For Jonestown -- the pope.
Q: WELL, HE WASN'T IN OFFICE THEN. THE POPE AT THE TIME SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANGED...?
A: Any.
Q: JUST PICK ONE OUT.
A: Any will do, because he represents Jesus Christ.
Q: BUT THEN WHY NOT HANG ALL THE PRIESTS AND THE BISHOPS AND THE CARDINALS AND THE ARCHBISHOPS...?
A: That will be great!
But that's what Jesus was doing with people, his followers: "Believe in me, have faith in me, follow me." And that's what Reverend Jones was doing: "Whatever I say you have to follow."
Here I am saying to my people, "Don't believe in my statements. Think over them, argue over them. You love me -- that is another thing. That should not become your belief."
Q: BUT ONE OF THE GREAT PLOYS IN THE HUMAN MIND AND MANEUVERABILITY IS FOR SOMEONE TO SAY, "DON'T DO THAT," WHICH MAKES THEM WANT TO DO IT EVEN MORE.
A: So what do you want? I should say, "Do it"?
Q: NO, NO. DOES THAT NOT PUT AN AWESOME RESPONSIBILITY ON YOU TO HAVE THIS KIND OF DEVOTION?
A: No. Because I have been consistently denying to them, telling them, almost every day for thirty years, that I am not your leader, that I am not a prophet, that I am not a messiah, that I am not the only begotten son of God -- I am just an ordinary man as you are, with a slight difference: you are asleep, I am awake.
But that is not much of a difference. I can just shake you a little and you will be awake.
I have been telling them that I don't have any dogma to give them, any belief system to give them. Christians have told me that I should publish a catechism in which my whole doctrine is presented in short, but that is impossible. I have 360 books and I have contradicted myself thousands of times, because to me, consistency is something that belongs to the stupid, unintelligent, retarded. A consciousness which goes on growing is bound to contradict at each step the step that preceded it.
They cannot make any belief out of my books, out of my teachings. They can love me, and love is not adoration. Adoration is for somebody who is higher than you. Now I am doing my hardest to tell them that I am not higher, but I don't take any responsibility if they don't listen. If somebody adores me, that is his responsibility, not mine. If somebody thinks he is my follower, that is his idea, not mine. I am not responsible for anybody. I am only responsible for myself, and I want my people to be responsible for themselves.
Q: IS ANYONE HERE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYONE ELSE?
A: No, nobody is responsible for anybody else.
Q: IS ANYONE IN THE WORLD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYONE ELSE?
A: In fact they should not be. Only politicians and priests have been exploiting people and saying "We are responsible for you. We take the responsibility." That is a strategy to make them enslaved. The priest says, "Don't be bothered. You just follow the Christian dogma, have faith in Jesus Christ and you will be saved."
They are taking their responsibility. Jesus was taking the responsibility for saving the whole of mankind, and he has not been seen for two thousand years -- what a great savior!
I am nobody's savior. I have saved myself, that's enough.
Q: QUITE LUXURIOUSLY TOO.
A: Quite luxuriously, because I don't believe in any ascetic ideas. My idea about asceticism is that it is a psychological sickness, it is masochism. It is torturing yourself, and in a sick mind you can enjoy torturing yourself There are two kinds of torturers: the sadist who tortures somebody else and enjoys, and the masochist who tortures himself and enjoys. Both kinds of people fit together very beautifully. The best couple in the world will be a sadist husband, a masochist wife, or vice versa. Both will be of great....
Q: A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN, RIGHT?
A: Yes, a marriage made in heaven, because one will enjoy torturing the other and the other will enjoy being tortured. So that is perfect, the best marriage I can conceive.
I am not a masochist, hence I enjoy everything that life can give to me. And I am not a sadist, so I don't tell any of my people to torture themselves in any way:
enjoy to the fullest. And I don't give them any promises.
Just see the difference: I don't give any promises for their future, after death, that they will be benefited, rewarded -- I don't even talk about the future, I simply talk about this moment. I cannot believe how people can even think of me in reference to Reverend Jones and Jonestown. This is just the opposite place.
Here we love, we live, we live to totality, and we try to squeeze every moment to the very last drop of its juice. I have never ordered them in anything.
And as far as death is concerned, I am life-affirmative. I want death to disappear from the earth, and there is a possibility if the idiotic politicians don't go on wasting scientific genius in piling up nuclear weapons. There is a possibility, very commonly accepted by biologists, that a man can live for three hundred years very easily, and without any old age.
In India I have seen people, in a small part of Kashmir which is now under Pakistan -- they have invaded that part; it is a very small place, a few thousand people -- who live for 150 or 160 years. The oldest man in that community was
180 years old when I went there, and he was working in the field!
I asked him, "How long have you worked?" He said, "I don't know how to count.
People say that I have been working here for at least 150 years. When I was thirty, my father died, and since then I have been working." And he was still young!
There are hundreds of people in the Soviet Union who have reached beyond 150; they also are middle Asian, from the other side of the Himalayas. Scientists think that three hundred years is very easily possible, and if more efforts are made, we can postpone death as long as possible.
Unless a man wants to die -- because who would like to live for one thousand years? Perhaps....
Q: I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY THE GUY OF 185 WOULD WANT TO KEEP LIVING WHILE HE'S WORKING IN THE FIELDS.
A: You cannot. It is difficult to believe when you....
Q: THEN WE'D HAVE TO CHANGE THE WHOLE STRUCTURE OF THIS PLANET. THE ENTIRE PLANET WOULD HAVE TO BE CHANGED.
A: No, nothing. All that we have to change is the way we have been producing children -- only that has to be changed, nothing else, because the father's cell and the mother's egg have the program for the whole life. The meeting of those two decides the whole life of the person: how long he will live, what kind of nose he will have, what color of hair, what color of skin, what kind of diseases he will have, when he will die. The whole program is in the first two genes.
The only thing that bioengineering has to do is to change the program. And they ARE capable, they are saying they are capable of changing the whole program, that the child will not have any old age, that the child will live three hundred years, that he will not be vulnerable to all kinds of diseases, infections, that he will have the highest I.Q., intelligence possible.
Q: WOULD THAT BE, IN YOUR MIND, A HEALTHY WORLD?
A: It will be for the first time healthy. Up to now it has been just a sick and mad world. It will be really healthy when there are no diseases....
Q: WELL, WOULD YOU DO AWAY AT THE SAME TIME WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT CONSTRUCTING GENES AND THE DNA PROGRESS THAT'S BEING MADE, AND PROCREATION AND THE ENTIRE PICTURE -- WOULD YOU DO AWAY WITH EGOS, WOULD YOU DO AWAY WITH THE COMPETITIVE FACTOR? COULD YOU DO AWAY WITH ALL OF THE NEGATIVES LIKE JEALOUSY, LIKE GREED AND THINGS LIKE THAT?
A: Yes. That can be done.
Q: SO YOU'RE REALLY TALKING THEN ABOUT A GENEALOGICAL, BIONIC PERSON, CONSTRUCTED?
A: Certainly. And that will be the dream of all those people who for centuries have been thinking of a superman.
Q: DOES THE WORLD REALLY WANT A SUPERMAN?
A: This world does not deserve it.
Q: BUT THIS IS WHERE IT HAS TO START, OR AT LEAST WHERE OUR LIFETIME IS CONCERNED.
A: It needs it.
Q: THIS IS NOT "THE PRICE IS RIGHT" AND YOU SUDDENLY OPEN THE CURTAIN AND THERE IS A SUPERMAN -- IT'S THE DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS, THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS....
A: Very simple. Within twenty years -- because one generation of twenty-year- old young people, supermen moving around, not hippies -- you will see the difference. Within twenty years -- it is not a question of a very long time. And when we can give the child the intelligence of an Einstein, we can give him the aesthetic sense of a van Gogh, we can give him a face as beautiful as Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, why should we go on living with this mediocre, biological, accidental world?
And it is strange that whenever I mention it to people, they raise the question that it will be something inhuman, mechanical, but about other things they don't bother. When you have cancer, then you don't say,"It is natural. Leave it, don't do anything, because that operation is going to be mechanical, that operation is going to be technological, and this beautiful cancer in me is natural."
When we are ready to take man-made medicines for our diseases -- and diseases come from nature -- nobody bothers about it, everybody is willing for medicines, operations, surgeries.
Q: WELL, THEY ACCEPT IT TO HEAL, BUT NOT TO CREATE.
A: That is just the next step! If so much healing is needed, why not create a man who needs no healing?
Q: I DON'T KNOW IF I BUY ALL OF THAT PART OF IT. I SEE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING BUT... I DON'T KNOW IF I'M READY TO START ACCEPTING....
WE'VE GONE FROM YOUR BATHROOM TO CREATING SUPERMAN AND THAT IS A GIANT, QUANTUM LEAP FOR ME.
A: It is!
Q: AND FOR MOST PEOPLE?
A: No. Not for my people! They are accustomed to Q: BUT WE'RE BACK TO THE ACCEPTANCE OF WHAT BHAGWAN SAYS....
A: No. That is not the way. They have been listening to me and they know that I give them every day a quantum leap that they have never expected. And they have been with me for a decade or two decades, and they had not been expecting that I will say this. They go on waiting for tomorrow morning.
Q: AND THEN THEY SAY, "WHAT HAS HE GOT FOR US TODAY?"
A: Yes!
Q: COUPLE OF THINGS, POPULAR QUESTIONS. THERE HAVE BEEN NEWSPAPER REPORTS, TELEVISION, RADIO, ANY OTHER FORM OF MEDIA THAT THERE MAY BE, THAT THE RAJNEESH EMPIRE -- YOU EXCUSE MY WORD -- IS CRUMBLING, THAT THERE ARE MAJOR DEFECTIONS, SOME OF THE CORPORATIONS ARE NOT DOING AS WELL FINANCIALLY, AND SUSTAINING THEMSELVES AS IT HAD APPEARED THEY WERE. TRUE OR FALSE?
A: It is all wrong. But those people need some consolations. People who are hostile to us need some consolations. If these things give them consolations, good. But everything is wrong -- my empire is increasing every day.
Q: WELL, PROBABLY IT'S BECAUSE YOUR RESTAURANT CLOSED IN PORTLAND, DID IT NOT?
A: We closed it not because we are shrinking; we closed it because we wanted our people to be here.
Q: DIDN'T BUSINESS GET A LITTLE BAD?
A: No, our business is increasing so much in Europe that we have to send people from here to Europe.
Q: DIDN'T YOU HAVE A BUSINESS THAT JUST WENT BANKRUPT SOMEWHERE?
A: Nowhere!
Q: I WONDER WHO I WAS READING ABOUT. WHERE DO THEY GET THESE REPORTS?
A: These reports come to you or to the newspapers and they make big headlines out of them. If a sannyasin has a business of his own and he goes bankrupt, that does not mean that my empire is going bankrupt.
Q: BUT IT DOES TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT YOUR EMPIRE IS NOT SUCCEEDING.
A: They can go on dreaming.
Q: IS THIS AN EMPIRE? IS THAT A QUOTE?
A: It is certainly an empire!
Q: I WANTED TO MAKE SURE I CHOSE THE RIGHT WORD.
A: It is the right word.
Q: I FOUND IT INTERESTING THAT WHEN SOMEONE ASKED YOU AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE IF YOU WANTED TO TAKE OVER ALL OF OREGON AND YOU SAID NO, IT WAS TOO SMALL, YOU WANTED THE WORLD, THEY PROBABLY TOOK YOU SERIOUSLY. DO YOU WANT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, BHAGWAN?
A: I was serious!
Q: ARE YOU INVOLVED IN AN EFFORT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD?
A: Certainly!
Q: WHEN CAN WE LOOK FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO TAKE PLACE?
ANTELOPE TODAY, THE WORLD TOMORROW?
A: No. We are not going to take the world the way we have taken Antelope. This is nothing. We are going to take the world over in a totally different way which is not political at all. We are increasing our people all around the world. We will take it over spiritually. We are not interested in politics. They forced us to take that dead town, Antelope, they FORCED us to take it.
Q: HAD THEY NOT FORCED YOU -- AND I THINK WE TALKED ABOUT THIS BEFORE AND I WANTED TO CLARIFY IT -- HAD THEY NOT FORCED YOU, WOULD YOU HAVE GIVEN IT BACK?
A: Now, no.
Q: I THOUGHT YOU SAID EARLIER THAT YOU WOULD HAVE. NOT NOW.... I MEAN, HAD THEY COOPERATED.
A: Things have gone.... In the beginning if they had cooperated there would have been no question of us taking it, because it is unnecessary trouble for us. We have our own work to do, we need more people here; we don't want our people to live in Antelope, because it is unnecessary trouble. Every morning they have to be brought here, every evening they have to be sent back.
Q: THEY'D NEVER HAVE TO DISPLAY THEIR COURAGE TO ME, RIDING THAT ROAD TWO TIMES A DAY, EVERY DAY.
A: It is something, because this road, this county road, is worse than the road that goes to hell!
Q: I CANNOT YET SPEAK FROM PERSONAL AUTHORIZATION ON THAT.
A: I can, because I visited.
Q: I WILL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT. IS THERE A HEAVEN AND IS THERE A HELL? AND WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL ME WHAT PART OF OREGON THEY ARE BOTH IN?
A: You are sitting in heaven and the county road goes to hell!
Q: YOU ARE A MAN WHO CERTAINLY, THERE IS NO DOUBT, LOVES THE CONTROVERSY THAT SURROUNDS YOU.
A: I love it.
Q: YOU ARE A MAN WHO I THINK WOULD LIKE TO HAVE EVERY HUMAN BEING IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD AT LEAST TO HAVE HEARD ABOUT YOU.
A: Certainly. I would like the entire world either to love me or hate me; I would not like a single individual in the whole world to ignore me. And that's the way my empire is expanding. I have more friends, I have more enemies -- every day they are increasing.
Q: YOU ARE ALSO A MAN WITH, WITHOUT QUESTION, A MAGNIFICENT SENSE OF HUMOR. AND IN ORDER TO RULE THIS EMPIRE -- NOT RULE, I'M SORRY... YOU DO NOT RULE; YOU JUST LIVE IN THIS EMPIRE -- TO
ACCEPT ALL OF THE HASSLES AND CONTROVERSIES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS AND PROBABLY SOME OF THE TRUTHS ABOUT YOURSELF, YOU WOULD HAVE TO HAVE A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR.
A: I really enjoy....
Q: LET ME STOP YOU ONE SECOND. I READ IN THE OFFICE, IN THE WELCOME ROOM -- WHAT DO YOU CALL IT?... THE VISITORS CENTER -- THAT IF THE WORLD COULD LAUGH, IF EVERYONE IN THE WORLD COULD LAUGH OVER A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR PERIOD IT WOULD CHANGE THIS ENTIRE MALIGNANCY THAT WE ALL SEEM TO LIVE IN.
THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAID; THAT'S WHAT I SAID.
A: It will help, but it will kill that woman.... Laughter is good medicine, but you should take as much as you can absorb; otherwise it can kill you, it can drive you mad.
Life is a very mysterious phenomenon where laughter is part and where tears also are part. Once in a while to be sad, really sad, is not bad. Sadness has its own beauty. You have just to learn to enjoy the beauty of sadness, its silence, its depth.
Life is everything all together, and we allow our people to live in all dimensions.
If somebody is crying and weeping, nobody is going to stop him here. Somebody may give him a hug and go on his way. That hug was not to stop his tears, but just a spontaneous response.
We believe in life in its totality, in its days, in its nights, the sunny days and the cloudy days. We believe that everything in life can be enjoyed. You need just a little more awareness, more consciousness of what is happening. You are not your mind, you are not your body. There is a witness somewhere inside you who can go on looking at the mind, at the emotions, at the physiological reactions.
That witness is you. And that witness is capable of enjoying everything, once you get centered there.
My whole method of meditation is to get centered at your witness, and then let life and its games go on. Enjoy, laugh, cry, but whatever you do, do it totally, with no shame, with no guilt.
And, as you said, I am certainly a man who enjoys being controversial. I cannot conceive a man who has any guts not being controversial. The people who are not controversial are simply hypocrites -- just goody-goody, nice to everybody, just changing their masks the whole day, to fit with everybody.
One American, Dale Carnegie, has written a book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. My idea is "How to Influence People and Create Enemies."
Q: WHY? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT, BY COMPARISON, TO CREATE ENEMIES?
A: Because if you can create an enemy, you have created a potential friend. I will tell you one old Hassidic story.
Hassids are not traditional Jews. Jews don't accept Hassids as religious for the same reason that nobody will accept my people as religious: the Hassids sing and dance and enjoy and eat and drink.
This Hassid sent one of his disciples to the chief rabbi of Jerusalem to present him the first copy of his book that had just been published. And he said to the disciple, "When you give it to him, remember, give it to him, not to anybody else.
You have to be very alert and watch what he says, remember exactly every word; what he does, remember exactly his acts."
The disciple went. The chief rabbi was sitting in his garden -- it was a beautiful evening, the sun was just setting -- and the wife of the rabbi was also sitting there. He presented the book of his Master and said, "It is my Master's book's first edition and this is the first book that has come off the press. Out of great gratitude he sends it to you."
The chief rabbi said, "That Hassid? He has some guts to send me his book." He took the book from his hand and threw it over the fence into the street. The wife said to him, "This is not right. You could have thrown that book when the disciple had gone, or you could have put it in the library where you have thousands of books. What harm could that book have done to you?"
The disciple came back and he said, "That chief rabbi is just a rotten man! He is not even a gentleman. You send him a present and he throws it with such hatred over the fence into the street. But his wife is certainly a woman worth respecting.
She suggested to him,'You could have thrown it afterwards. Why hurt him? Or you could have just put it in your library where there are thousands of books.
What harm could that book have done to your library?' " The Master said to the disciple, "I am going to convert that rabbi one day, but his wife is beyond me."
Q: WHAT KIND OF A MAN ARE YOU? NOT WHAT YOU BELIEVE WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THAT -- WHAT YOUR THINKING IS.
A: Just crazy, nothing.
Q: JUST A CRAZY OLD MAN? SOMEHOW I FELT THAT YOU WOULD ANSWER SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
A: It is a fact!
Q: WHEN YOU SAY, "JUST A CRAZY MAN..." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
A: Exactly what it means.
Q: MENTALLY DERANGED?
A: No.
Q: WELL, IN THE INTERPRETATION OF CRAZY, TO SOME, THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS.
A: No. Crazy simply means one who has gone out of his mind. Now, two types of people go out of their minds. One is the madman that you know ordinarily as crazy; another is the meditator. He also goes out of his mind, but going out of his mind he goes higher, to the witness. The madman going out of the mind goes lower, to the mind. Both are crazy! I belong to the first category.
Q: TOMORROW I'M GOING TO TALK TO SOME PEOPLE WHO ARE INVOLVED IN YOUR CITY AND I LOOK FORWARD TO THAT. AFTER THAT I'M GOING TO TALK TO THE FORMER AND CURRENT RESIDENTS OF OUR FAVORITE SUBJECT, ANTELOPE.
A: Good!
Q: IF YOU WERE TO WANT ME TO SAY SOMETHING TO THEM DURING THIS CONVERSATION -- NONE OF WHOM I'VE MET -- WHAT WOULD IT BE, IF ANYTHING?
A: No. I have nothing to say to them, because I don't consider they will be able to understand anything. I have seen idiots around the world, but Antelope simply defeats all the idiots. You will come across them tomorrow!
Q: BHAGWAN, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. I HAVE ENJOYED IT. I THINK YOU ENJOYED IT TOO.
A: I enjoyed even more!
Q: THANK YOU!
A: Good!
The Last Testament, Vol 1