Chapter 1

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

LOOKING BACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEO-SANNYAS MOVEMENT, IT APPEARS TO ME VERY WELL PLANNED, JUST LIKE A SEED WHICH HAS IN ITSELF THE WHOLE PLAN OF THE TREE. IN WHICH STATE OF GROWTH IS THE TREE OF YOUR RELIGION NOW?

ANSWER:* It is true, but nobody has planned it. Looking backward, you can see all the stages from the seed to the flower, but if you see at the seed, you will not be able to predict what is going to happen.

The seed is completely closed. It has potential, but we don't know whether the seed will fall in the right soil, or will fall on a stone and will never grow, or may be eaten by animals, destroyed by children. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future; the future remains open, unknown, unknowable.

And that's how sannyas has grown. I have never planned it -- not the way an architect plans how the building is going to be. The building is a construction, it is not a growth. A construction can be planned, but growth is life. It is an opening into many dimensions. What root, what dimension it will take, nobody knows.

I have functioned from this innocence continuously. I am not a man who plans. I trust existence so much that planning means distrust. I know the existence has helped me up to this moment, and I have never done anything. The next moment also will be taken care of. To me, this trust is real religion -- not believing in Jesus Christ or God, or believing in The Bible, or Koran.

No. Living a life of spontaneity without any plan, trusting whatsoever happens is the right thing. And when I say whatsoever, I mean whatsoever, because we don't have any plan, we cannot have any judgment of what happens. If we have a plan, then there is every possibility of disappointment.

Existence has no obligation to follow my plan. That's why religious people have been telling all along the centuries, "Man proposes and God disposes." There is no God to dispose, we have disposed God himself, but if man proposes, he is bound to come to a point where there will be disappointment.

Our vision is small; existence is infinite. So whatsoever we can decide will be of no significance. In fact, it will create all kinds of hindrances. If existence is going to the south and we plan to go to the north, then there will be a tension between you and existence. This is the cause of so many people around the world living in anxiety, anguish, tension, disappointment, frustration. The reason is, that in the first place they started expecting, hoping, desiring, planning. Existence is not at fault. Existence is not deposing their proposals. Existence is simply going on its own way; and my experience is to just go with existence. I call it the "let-go way."

So wherever the river takes....

Yes, retrospectively you may be able to figure that there seems to be a planning, but there has never been a planning. But things have happened that should give every sannyasins courage to live without bothering about future. My whole experience proves this.

Just things go on happening. You allow them to happen, that's all. Don't hinder.

Don't try to change the direction. Relax. Trusting like a small child holding his father's hand, unworried that the night is descending, that the way is long, that there is every danger in the way -- wild animals, thieves, robbers. he has no worry, he knows his father is holding his hand.

While the father is tense, in great anxiety, the child is enjoying every moment just by his side, not affected by his anxiety at all.

A:* Existence itself. A father is not much of help; that's what the old religions have provided man, they have provided God the Father. That is a small projection. The child had trusted the father, and now he is grown up. Now he knows perfectly well his father is fallible. When he was a child he knew his father is infallible, but not he is in a great dilemma. The father is fallible and he has become dependent on an infallible God.

This is the simple reason why every religion projected an infallible God far above, omnipotent, everywhere present so you need not worry that he may not be seeing you. Omniscient, knowing everything, past, present, future, so you need not worry that something he may bypass or may ignore. Omnipotent, all powerful, he can do everything, there is nothing which is impossible for him.

The religions used the child's psychology to create God the Father. But it is a dangerous game. It means you are depending on a fiction. It means you are living in a dream world. It means your prayers are addressed to nobody; no answer is going to come.

Existence is there, surrounding you everywhere; there is no need for any theologian to prove that existence is. There is a great need to prove that God exists. Still nobody has been able to prove it. For five thousand years, philosophers, theologians, logicians, all have been trying hard to prove the existence of God, but nothing is proved. So I am not projecting anything. I am simply saying you exist, it does not need any proof; the trees exist, the sun exists, the moon exists, the stars exist, so many animals, men, women. No theologian has ever tried to prove that existence exists.

Existence simply means that which exists; it needs no proof. It is solidly here, now. So I am not in favor of projecting any imaginary thing, because if you live with imagination you will never grow. You will remain a child. With God the Father, you will remain the child, retarded. It is your retarded child's need that a fiction of God is required. Without the God the retarded child feels nervous, afraid; he does not know where to go, what to do. Nobody is there to take care of him. Nobody is to guide him, nobody is.... All is darkness, and there seems to be no possibility of light.

But with the God in heaven, the retarded child is perfectly happy.

A:* I am continuously destroying their projections. I am not allowing any projections as far as I am concerned, and this is being done for the first time. In the past, the so-called Masters were all allowing people to have all kinds of projections about them because it was a simple, logical thing: they were projecting God, the fiction of God was projected by those so-called Masters.

The people had no acquaintance with God, but they know the Master, so they were believing in the Master. And to create such a belief, faith, Masters have been doing things which are really ugly, which may be right for a street magician but are not right for a Master.

For example, all the miracles of Jesus -- either they never happened and were created when he was dead by his disciples, because in no Jewish literature contemporary to Jesus.... It is impossible to ignore such a man, he must have been a great news -- a man who walks on water. Do you think the contemporary literature can ignore him? A man who makes a dead follower come back to life again will be ignored? If these things are ignored, then what is news?

Not a single mention of Jesus Christ, not even his name. So the most probable all these miracles are created by the followers to create that man as a reliable representative of God. No ordinary man can walk on water, and he walks.

Naturally, he has some direct relationship with the original source of life.

So first, either they were most probably invented around all the Masters of the world, and few cunning people had even managed to arrange them. I know about a man, a friend of mine, who was worshipped like a God. He has done a small thing. He was traveling from Havarrah* station, he entered into the first class. He was a Mohammedan fakir. The ticket collector came, he asked for the ticket. The fakir said, "I never travel with a ticket. I am a God's man; everything belongs to me. You don't waste my time. Move on!"

And this was simply insulting. A government servant doing his duty, you are without ticket and behaving in such an arrogant manner. The ticket collector also became adamant. He said, "You get down the train, otherwise, I will call police.

The train will not move until you get down. And don't force me, because I don't want a religious man to be arrested. You simply get out. I have nothing to do with you, but without ticket in this train, I am not going allow anybody to travel -- God's man or not."

The fakir said, "If you want me to get out, you will have to push me out. I am not going by myself."

One thing led to another, and finally the conductor became angry and pushed the* man outside the door, threw his box, his bags. The fakir laughed and he said, "Now, you were saying if I am inside the train the train will not move; now listen to me. If I am outside the train, the train cannot move!"

A crowd gathered, and the driver is trying his hard, the engineer is trying his hard. Nothing seems to be wrong, but the train is not moving. The guard is showing his flag, but the train is standing. By and by all the passengers got out, there was a huge crowd, and the fakir was standing there with closed eyes.

The station master came running and he said, "What is the matter?" The conductor said, "Now this is my duty." But people and crowd were so angry at the conductor, they were ready to kill him:"You insult a man of God? And we are being delayed unnecessarily? Somebody has to attend court, somebody has to do some business, somebody has some appointment -- who will be responsible for this?"

The crowd forced the conductor for an apology. The fakir said, "Touch my feet, and remember, never misbehave with any man who seems you to be religious and is traveling without ticket."

He had to touch his feet. The fakir entered the train and passengers had to rush into their compartments because the train started moving. That made him famous for thousands of people -- that this is divine power.

And there was nothing! He has bribed the conductor and the driver -- just two persons, and a miracle is done and he becomes a Godman.

Now it is possible Lazarus was Jesus Christ's friend. It can be managed very easily that his death is bogus, and Jesus revives him back to life, because Lazarus was not the only person who has died in Jesus's life. He was here for thirty-three years, in thirty-three years, thousands of people in Judea must have died. And if the man knew how to bring them back to life, then he was really cruel, knowing the secret and not bringing the people back to life.

And only why Lazarus? A friend, who can conspire.

I am in that way the first man who is not allowing my people to make me an object of any kind of projection. Many of them will feel hurt, because their expectations it is a very complicated phenomenon. If I am a miracle man, then they are disciples of a miracle man. If I walk on water, then I am fulfilling their ego, too. And I am a totally different man -- I will start drowning in the water -- that will destroy their ego and they will most probably run away from me, never will mention my name, that they were my followers who drowned in the river.

With me only people who are really ready to grow can remain. Thousands have come to me, but they all wanted some fulfillment of their ego from me. But that I cannot do; I cannot be a source of their retardedness, stupidity, superstition. No, because I will not support, they had to find some other Master somewhere who was ready to support.

In fact, there have been moments when, without my knowing, they managed to project some things. I came only to know about it later on; but the moment I knew it, I destroyed it completely. A young man one night came. I have never seen him. He was well educated. He asked me that, "My doctor has suggested to come to you and ask for a glass of water."

I said, "But who is this doctor and why he should suggest me, because I am not a doctor and I don't treat patients?"

He said, "He has told me that you will refuse, but you remain there, you don't leave."

It must have been nine o'clock in the night. Up to twelve he was sitting there in front of me. I said, "Okay, you can sit." I continued my work, whatsoever I was reading. I went on reading, and once in a while he will say, "Why, I have to go four, five miles; my house is far away, my mother will be waiting." And because I am sick, my mother had come to visit me. She had gone to sleep, but seeing the light is on of my room and I am talking to somebody at twelve o'clock, she came out and asked what is the matter.

That young man just fell into my mother's feet and he said, "You help me! Just I am not wanting anything, just a glass of water."

So my mother said, "Why don't you give him a glass of water? And there is no problem in it, I will bring it."

I said to her, "You don't know: that glass of water can be very dangerous." She went in and brought a glass of water just to satisfy her, otherwise she was getting very much upset, that "What kind of compassion you have? He is simply asking one glass of water. If it can help him, why you should hinder?"

I gave the man, and as he drank the water, his whole face I could see changing.

He touched his stomach; he said, "My God, the pain has gone."

He was suffering from stomach pain for six months, and the doctor finally got fed up of him because there was no pain, there was just something psychological.

And the doctor knew me. I had to ask that man, that "It is good that your pain has disappeared, but be kind to me. Don't start talking about it to other people, otherwise there are so many sick people all around, and I don't want to be surrounded by all that kind of crowd."

He said, "No, I will not say. Just you do one thing. Once in a while I will come with a bottle of water, you just touch it. I will do."

He cured many people! And I told him that "I myself fall sick, and I have to call the same doctor who has sent you to me, and I am drinking water with my own hand. Can't you see a simple thing?" He was not willing to listen. He said, "I have experienced a miracle. Not only in myself, I have seen the miracle happening into others, and you have just touched the water."

It took me months to convince that man that it was just his mind, there was no pain, that's why the doctor had failed. Finally I had to call the doctor and tell the doctor, "Explain to him that medicines were creating more trouble because there was no pain and he was continuously asking for medicines." And the doctor told him, that "I had sent you here because your thing was completely mental. And you may have helped some people, because out of hundred, almost ninety percent people are suffering from mental diseases which don't exist. That's why there are so many "pathies" in the world: allopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, ayurveda.

In every country there are many pathies, and the miracle is they all work. And their working is totally different, except allopathy, no pathy is scientific. but even allopathy cannot defeat those pathies -- percentage is the same. They also cure people: just ten percent people they will not be able to cure. But ninety percent people are there, they can be cured by any pathy, and these ninety percent people are the people allopathy will not be able to cure.

So if you look at the figures, those bogus pathies are doing greater work than allopathy. Allopathy is certainly going to cure the ten percent; about the ninety it cannot be certain. But those pathies certainly will not cure the ten percent, but about ninety percent they can manage.

I had a friend who was a doctor without any degrees, without any education medicine, but he was a great physician in that way -- if you count the people that he cured. In his house -- he was a bachelor and he lived alone -- his lab was worth seeing. His lab was all bogus. There was nothing in it -- test tubes, bottles, all kinds of colored water moving from one bottle into another bottle, and many kinds of beds and chairs, electric chairs. And any sick person seeing his lab will be immensely impressed. He never took the stethoscope in his hand. He has invented a certain bed ... you will have to lie down on it ... the stethoscope will be put on your chest, and above you there were two bottles of colored water and they will start jumping up and down because of the stethoscope. And you will look at them, and this man seems to be a great scientist. And he will be watching those colors, and that's how he will decide what color of medicine is going to help you. And it was all water.

He was caught, because the medical profession will not allow him.

I stood for him in the court. I said, "It is not a question of whether he has a certificate or not. The question is, the man managed thousands of people, from suffering he has saved them. And you bother too much about a piece of paper that he is not an MBBS, and all these MBBS who has filed the case against him.

The reason is not that they are against him, the reason is that he is attracting the patients and they are all losing their business. And they cannot compete with him, he is really such a genius.

The magistrate laughed. He said, "What you are saying is right. I know this man because he has even cured me. But as far as law is concerned, I have to prevent him from practicing medicine. And because I understand your argument and my own experience is in his favor, so I will not give him any punishment -- just he should stop being a physician any more.

I told the man, "You don't be worried. You move to another town in a faraway place where people don't know you. Take all your instruments and start again."

And he is still doing.

And I told him, "Remember, that as medical profession becomes alert about you, change the place. You cannot remain in one place, they won't let you, and this time this magistrate has helped you. We don't know any other court will help you or not."

I have been trying in every possible way to destroy the projections. I don't want my people to have faith in me. I want them to experience me. I want them to experience what I have experienced. I can show the way. I cannot walk for them.... They will have to walk alone. I can give them encouragement, but I cannot give them the truth.

And the real function of the Master is to give you encouragement. Just by his presence, his blissful life, peaceful life, creates a certain milieu in which you can move easily toward dropping your plannings, projects, and allowing existence to happen. So what is happening in sannyas is not a doing on my part or on anybody's part; it is a happening.

And it has gone so beautiful, and it is going so beautifully. And I don't see that I can ever be disappointed, because in the first place I don't bother whether the river is going to the north or to the south. Wherever it goes, wherever it lands, that's my home. That's where I always wanted to go, but I was not aware.

A:* It is. It is a contradiction to call it a modern religion, or better, a religionless religion, which will make the contradiction more clear. But to me, existence allows contradictions. it is not logical; it is very illogical. In fact, existence depends on contradictions. What is life and death? Are not they contradictory?

But both are going to happen to one person, to the same person. In fact, a dead person cannot die. That would be consistent. If some dead person dies, it is absolutely logical; but what happens is contradictory. A living person, life suddenly becomes death.

If you look into existence -- and I am not a philosopher, I am simply existential, not even an existentialist, just existential, I see everywhere contradiction. Light cannot exist without darkness; darkness cannot exist without light. For example, ordinarily people think that a blind man must be living in darkness. They are wrong. A blind man knows nothing of darkness, because to see darkness you need eyes. If a blind man cannot see light, he cannot see darkness. They are two poles of one phenomenon; for both, eyes are needed. Now it is something almost impossible to conceive what the blind man experiences: no light, no darkness, then what? Is there something else that he feels?

No. You must be thinking that a deaf person is enjoying silence continuously.

You are wrong. A deaf person knows nothing of silence, because he knows nothing of sound. Sound and silence go together. Light and darkness go together. Everything -- if you find anything, you can predict that there must be something polar opposite to it. Without the polar opposite, it cannot exist.

For example, man cannot exist without women: they are polar opposites. And that's why they are so much attracted to each other, they are like positive and negative polarities of electricity. But because they are polar opposites, you have to understand the whole thing. First, they will be attracted to each other and they will be opposed to each other. This is the whole problem of all the couples in the world, of all lovers in the world. They are attracted to each other, and the same is the cause of their continuous fight. They are opposites to each other. That's why homosexuals became known as gay people -- they have no polarity, there is nothing to fight. They are always smiling (laughter) They look really gay. But their gayness, their delight is very superficial. It has not the tension of the opposites. The force is not there.

Have you ever heard any story about gay people which can be compared to the stories of Romeo and Julio, Majnu and Laila, Shiri* and Farhad*? Not a single love story about millions of gay people who have lived on the earth. There was not that attraction to create a story, there was no conflict. In fact, a man loving another man is simply loving his own mirror image. So you can go on loving your mirror image, there is no trouble.

Lesbians have no trouble with each other, but these are mirror images. If you want excitement, you have to pay for it. If you want a tremendous experience of ecstasy and love, then you have to fight for it. It all comes in single package.

That's why I am continuously contradicting myself. It is absolutely in tune with existence.

I call my religion "religionless religion." I call it religionless because it has nothing to do with all the religions which have existed up to now. But still I call it religion, because I also want to deny the atheists, the anti-religious.

They both were part of the old game. The theist and the atheist, they were the polarity in the past. If I simply call this a religionless phenomenon, it becomes atheism, and it is not atheism. I want to insist that I am not a theist nor an atheist.

In fact, both are idiots -- they are discussing about something which does not exist. One is saying God is; another is saying God is not. But both are concerned about God, and they are wasting their whole life arguing about God.

So I am giving a new term to religiousness. It is no more concerned with God, no more concerned with heaven and hell, no more concerned with all kinds of theologies or anti-theologies. It is a scientific search into your consciousness. But because it is a search into consciousness, I call it religion. I cannot call it simply science, because science is arrowed toward the objective reality. Religion is arrowed toward the subjective reality.

A scientist goes on working with all kinds of things -- except himself. In his lab, he has done all kinds of experiments, but he has completely forgotten himself.

He is the only one in his lab who has not been even touched by any experiment.

Religion is experimenting on your own consciousness, so I use a little different word just to make the distinction. Science experiments, religion experiences.

Science is objective, religion is subjective. Science is concerned with all that you can see, and religion is concerned with the one who sees. To make this distinction clear, I have to use a contradiction. There is no other way, otherwise, I will be falling into something wrong which is not my approach.

A:* The reason is simple. What the critics say is absolutely wrong. The reason is that Adolf Hitler has cheated Germany, deceived its youth as nobody else has ever done to any country. They are so much frustrated with political leadership, messiahs -- Adolf Hitler was pretending to be a messiah. he thought that he is a reincarnation of Old Testament prophet Elijah. And after the second world war, Germany has seen something which no other country knows about. Millions of people were killed, and the people of Germany itself were not aware what is happening. They were not aware that one million Jews were being gassed, and what they see the smoke from chimneys of concentration camps are thousands of peoples' lives becoming smoke.

Adolf Hitler cheated them by saying that you are the people who are meant to rule over the world. Of course, the people cannot say that they were not responsible in supporting Adolf Hitler. They were responsible as much as Adolf Hitler. It was a mutual thing -- Adolf Hitler was giving them a great ego project - - to conquer the whole* world. And they were overjoyed that they had got a prophetic leader, charismatic leader. And for five years continuously he was winning, which made Germany feel that now there is no doubt at all. The man goes on being victorious, so more and more support to Adolf Hitler. But finally, all ambitious projects fail -- existence cannot support any idiotic thing -- sooner or later. Five years does not mean anything in existence, not even five seconds.

So just a little dream that Germany saw, and the glory, and then the tremendous fall. Almost as if Hitler had taken Germany to the Everest, and from the Everest, the fall.

It has created two things in Germany -- that's why it becomes my country. One, now no Adolf Hitler can deceive them. Enough is enough; no prophet, no messiah can deceive them. They have suffered too much. They know perfectly well that nobody is special. Neither German, nor Italian, nor English -- nobody is special. The suffering that they have gone through and the suffering they created for the whole world, at least proves one thing: that nobody is meant to rule over the world. And purity of blood is simply nonsense. You cannot tell whether a certain blood is German, English, Chinese, Hindu, Mohammedan -- impossible.

There are blood types, but they are not German, Italian English ... blood is simply blood. There is no pure blood or impure blood.

So on the one hand, a tremendous frustration with Adolf Hitler and what he did to the country, and on the second hand, a guilt that they were also part of this stupid game. Now they want to get rid of all messiahs, and they want to get rid of the guilt, too, that they are carrying within themselves.

They have no other alternative than me, because every religion will create guilt.

They cannot be freed from guilt; all religions are based on guilt.I am the only person who frees you from all guilt. There is no thing as sin -- there are mistakes, and to err is human. And, in fact, that is the only way to learn; there is no other way to learn. So, I say to my people, commit as many mistakes as possible, just don't commit the same mistake again. That is stupid, not sin. Committing the same mistake again simply means you are not watching what you are doing, you are not being intelligent. And because of your mistakes you are not going to suffer in hell, you will suffer into your mistakes themselves.

If you don't commit a mistake, the reward is there. There is no need for a God and a paradise where all those people who did not commit mistakes will be rewarded. There is no need. Each act brings its punishment or its reward. And there is no need to feel guilt because there is no idea of sin in my approach to life.

Sin is the opposite polarity of guilt. If you have any idea of sin, then the idea of guilt is bound to be there.

No religion of the world can free the German youth from a tremendous burden of guilt. In fact, they will exploit it. And no religion of the world can make the German youth independent, free from all these saviors, prophets, messiahs, because they are dependent on these people themselves. It is a strange thing that I am the only person who can free you from messiahs and who can free you from guilt.

Naturally, Germany needs me, and I need Germany. Soon you will see it: whole Germany will be my commune. Adolf Hitler has made the ground for me, that's why I have a certain love for that man. Without him, my work in Germany would have been impossible. It is difficult in America because there has been no Adolf Hitler -- just a poor Nixon!

A:* Just tell her that if she hates enough, she is already in love with me. She cannot escape. She can delay, but hate is already a relationship, and who wants to remain in a relationship of hate? Because it is not bothering me, it is bothering her. I don't know about her, but her hatred will torture her. She will have to change it into love. Only then she will be free of that torture. One thing.

Second thing: Bhagwan does not mean God or personal God. In fact, the problem has arisen because in India there are three religions. And three religions have three different languages. Hinduism has Sanskrit as its language; Buddhism has Pali as its language; Jainism has Prakrit* as its language.

Hinduism believes in a personal God. So when in Hindu scriptures the word Bhagwan is used, it means a personal God Buddhism and Jainism don't believe in any God; they are Godless religions. So when in Buddhist and Jainist scriptures Bhagwan is used, it simply means "the blessed one." That is actually the meaning of the word: the blessed one. it has nothing to do with God.

I am reminded of H.G. Wells and his famous statement about Gautam Buddha.

He does not believe in God, but he is known to his disciples as Bhagwan Gautam Buddha. H.G. Wells was very much puzzled when he was writing a world history, so he inquired what is the matter? Gautam Buddha denies God, and his followers are calling him God. Then he came to know that in Pali, Bhagwan means the blessed one, it has nothing to do with God.

For God in English there is only one word; in India there are many. The Buddhist, to deny God -- they don't believe in God -- but to deny you have to use a word. The word that is used is Ishwara. The Jainas also deny God, so naturally you have to use a word; they use the word PParamatma. Bhagwan is not used by both of the religions for God; it is used for the enlightened person. And it simply means one who has come to a fulfillment so deep that there is nothing missing any more.

So tell that woman that I myself don't believe in any God, personal or impersonal. And I am not a God. And she need not be worried about that. But I insist that I am certainly the blessed one. That I cannot deny, because that would be a lie. And my whole function is to make you also the blessed one. If I am myself are not in that space, how I can lead you into that space? Ask that woman, "Do you want to be the blessed one? Then there is no other way than falling in love with someone who is already the blessed one. Or if you want to be a miserable one, you can go to Vatican -- the polack pope is there -- and be miserable as much as you want. So make it clear that it has something to do with self-realization; it has nothing to do with God.

A:* It is true. The Marxists have to be more afraid than anybody else, because the others are really fading out on their own accord. The real conflict and the decisive conflict is going to be between my red colors and the communist red flag. There is nobody else in the field. And their fear is natural because they cannot condemn me on all these points. So everything that Karl Marx wanted -- a classless society, a nationless world, and everybody according to his need -- I am in perfect agreement. What I am not in agreement is that Karl Marx thought that consciousness is only a by-product of material things: chemistry, physics. About that he is absolutely wrong.

He had no right even to say that, because he has never meditated. He had never sat in silence even for one hour in his whole life to look in what he is talking about. And on what grounds? -- because he pretends to be a scientific thinker. He calls his philosophy "scientific communism." Now that pretension won't stand. If he is scientific, on what grounds he says that consciousness is a by-product? He has to prove in a scientific lab, mixing all the chemicals and things that a man is made of. And if consciousness arises, he has proved his point, but he never entered any scientific lab in his whole life. He was sitting in the British Museum reading books on economics, politics, but he never knew anything about the Eastern ways of finding oneself. All that he knew about religion was Christian religion and Jewish religion. He was a Jew. Jews have contributed such great people to the world: Jesus, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud. And they all have given as much insanity to the world as possible. These three people -- this is the real trinity of the whole insanity of humanity. And the whole credit goes to the Jews.

All three were Jews.

Karl Marx knew only about Judaism and Christianity. And both are third rate religions. there is nothing, they don't have any philosophic ground. Their arguments are childish. Compared to the Eastern religions, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, they are simply in the kindergarten school. To condemn them is very easy; it does not need a great mind to condemn Judaism or Christianity. It is so simple a job. But to condemn Gautam Buddha is not a simple job. You will have to face the basic thing -- meditation, because on meditation his whole structure is based. And meditation is not a belief. You have to experience it. So that is the trouble for the Marxist.

In India, they were constantly coming in contact with me. They have written books against me, because I seem to be more dangerous to them than anybody, because nobody in the whole world -- no religion -- is capable of giving a counter-argument. They cannot prove the existence of God. They cannot prove that Jesus was born of a virgin girl. They cannot prove that Moses really saw God or simply got mad in the hot desert roaming for forty years -- anybody can go, it is nothing special to Moses. Forty years wandering hungry, thirsty, people dying, and he was responsible for all this, because he has promised the people to take them to the holy land and there was no sign. People were dying. Forty years is a long time. The original people who had started the pilgrimage had all gone. By the time he declared that we have arrived to the holy land.... I can say with certainty that it was not the holy land he has arrived, it was simply despair that now people cannot be deceived any more -- this is the holy land.

Israel is not worth anything! If he had stopped a little earlier, Jews would have all the oil of the world. Every Jew knows that he cannot forgive this fellow Moses. They passed all the oil fields, and reached in a place where is nothing.

And that was holy land! And Moses was God's representative. And what kind of God wouldn't say, "Moses stop! This is the place." (laughter) I don't think he saw God. In a desert heat, forty years can drive anybody mad with so much responsibility. And everybody was torturing him. Where is the Holy Land? People were dying, he was not able to arrange for their food and water. This man is in the foundation of Judaism. He had no time to meditate. He had no time to create a scientific methodology about meditation. He has never heard the word meditation. All that he knew was prayer.

Prayer presupposes God. Communists are not worried with Jews. All their religious doctrines can be very easily finished, there is nothing in it. And Jesus is just an offshoot of Judaism; he does not bring anything new to the world. He simply repeating Jewish ideology. And even Jews got fed up with this man. He has nothing to offer. All that he say repeats scriptures, so any rabbi can do in a better way.

He was uneducated, illiterate. Any rabbi would have been far more philosophical, intellectual. And this carpenter's son is declaring himself the only begotten son of the Jewish God. Remember: it is the JEWISH God. He has nothing to do with Hindu God; he has never heard about Hindu God. He has nothing to do with any other God; his God is the Jewish God. Now Jews are angry, naturally. God giving birth to his only begotten son into a poor carpenter's house. He was born in a stable. God could not manage a better place for the fellow? Whole of his life he was riding on a donkey. God could not even manage a Rolls Royce for him. And the things that he was saying were nothing but old scripture. And he had to repeat that scripture because he wanted to prove that he is the promised messiah of the Jews, that he has come to save the Jews.

Jews could not accept; this was simply insulting. This man is their messiah! And all his following consisted of twelve fools! Those fools are called apostles. When he was crucified, they all had escaped. Only one remained there, and that one also denied that he knows Jesus, because people looked at him and found that he seems to be a stranger here. He does not belong to Jerusalem. They insistently asked, "Who are you?" He said, "I have come to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage, and I have nothing to do with this man. I don't know even anything about this man you are crucifying." Eleven escaped, one denied: these were the followers.

So it was very easy for Karl Marx to criticize Christianity and Judaism, but facing me, Karl Marx will be in difficulty, because I have the whole heritage of thousand of years of inner experimentation in the East. He will not be able to argue that consciousness is a by-product. He will have to prove it, because he says he is a scientific thinker. Then why, on what grounds you are accepting this as a belief -- calling consciousness a by-product of matter? In fact, modern physicists* proved just the otherwise: matter does not exist any more.

Karl Marx is simply out of date -- absolutely out of date -- because he was thinking only matter exists and consciousness is a by-product. Now physics has come to the conclusion that matter does not exist. Then what exists? Except consciousness, there is no other alternative left. Something certainly exists.

I was arguing with communists and they were in difficulty. I was proving that Marx is unscientific; he is simply an atheist believer. And the man who is not even scientific about the most important thing -- consciousness -- how can you rely on this man about other matter? In fact, in all other matters, he has proved wrong. He had never thought that revolution would happen in Russia. If somebody had suggested that revolution would happen in Russia, he would have simply laughed. That revolution would happen in China, he would not have conceived. Revolution was going to happen in a capitalist country like America, where it has not happened and there are no signs at all that it is going to happen. Communist party in America is the weakest party in the whole world.

In any other country, communist party is far more stronger. In America what communist party? what revolution. Here it should happen, because here the rich are super rich and the poor are super poor. The distinction is vast than anywhere else. Marx's predictions have not proved right. In a poor country like Russia and China, revolutions happened. And whatever he was thinking about the revolution and its after effects, nothing of them has proved right. He was thinking once the revolution has happened, the country will not have any classes. It will take maybe five years, ten years, but seventy years have passed and in Russia, the classes still exist. Their names have changed. The poor is still poor; in fact, more poor than in America. And the communists who are in power are more powerful than any rich man has ever been in power. So there is a new class division: the powerful and the powerless. In America there is a possibility -- I say only a possibility -- because at least one is free to express -- in Russia there is no possibility for revolution. Marx cannot be born in Russia. There is no way for anybody to say anything different from the government policy. Classes are there and there is no sign of their disappearing, they are becoming more consolidated. Marx thought that those who were in power soon will decentralize power, but they go on centralizing power.

When Stalin died -- and perhaps no man had that much power for that long time, for almost forty years he was omnipotent. At least in Russia, he was God, had all the qualities. His detectives made him omniscient. He was looking at everyone, watching at everyone. People could not even talk to their spouses, because one never knew that the woman may be a detective or the husband may be a detective. People cold not talk to their kids, because those kids belonged to the children's communist party, and to prove themselves as loyal to the country and to communism, they were speaking to their leaders everything that was happening in the family: what the father said, what the mother said. Wives had their own communist party; husbands had their own communist party.

Everybody, for the first time in history, was completely surrounded. For the first time, walls were hearing you.

Such slavery, and Marx wanted that great freedom would happen. Marx was thinking that once rich people are no more there, immense riches will suddenly fall from the sky. That has not happened. The Russian people are very poor people. So communists are worried with me because I say they have only distributed poverty. And that is not my way. I also want a classless society, but not enforced by a dictatorship. A classless society because people have so much money that nobody wants to hoard it.

For example, in a desert, if you have an oasis, you hoard it. You keep people on guard that nobody takes the water. The water is scarce. But when water is enough available, there is no question of hoarding it. You don't hoard water for tomorrow, because tomorrow the tap will be available. Money can be created, and to me just as there are people who are born poets, born painters, born scientists, there are people who are born wealth creators. Everybody is not Henry Ford, and cannot be. Everybody cannot be a Rockefeller, and if you destroy Henry Ford, Rockefeller, Morgan and other people who continuously create wealth, the poor people will not become rich. They will be poorer than before because the creators of wealth are gone.

I would like money to be respected in the same way that any other art is respected. Wealth should not be condemned; in fact, we should encourage people to become wealthier. I would like a classless society which is totally rich.

Marx's classless society is totally poor. I want it on the highest peak to be equal, and he wants people crawling on the earth to be equal.

My commune is working in that way. Secondly, I respect the individual: Marx has no respect for the individual. Marx is utterly a socialist. Society is important, all individuals can be sacrificed for the society. To me that is not the case, on the contrary, every individual is so unique and valuable that he cannot be sacrificed for nation, for society, for ideology, no.

So my commune will be rich. It will have all affluence, abundance, but still individuals will be free. They will not be forced to be of equal size. Somebody prefers a Ferrari and somebody prefers a Mercedes. I don't think that everybody should have a Ferrari whether he likes it or not. Individuals should be free. Not only about expressing their words, because all these things make your individuality. Your car is also part of you, your expression. Your dress is also part of you, your expression. Everything should be allowed to individuals, but things should be in such abundance. For example, in this small commune there are only one thousand five hundred people are permanent residents. We have hundreds of cars, hundreds of buses, five aeroplanes, the whole commune is centrally air-conditioned. Everybody, whatsoever his need, the commune tries to provide it.

Still, they are not cut equally -- that your size should be equal -- that everybody has to be six feet, then those who are six and five, five inches have to be cut. And those who are five inches less, they have to be given traction and lengthened.

This is stupid.

To me, classless society simply means that we give everybody an opportunity, an equal opportunity to be himself. If somebody wants to live naked, in my society he will be allowed. In Russia, no. In China, no. In China he has to use a certain dress determined by the government. Nobody can even have the freedom to be naked. This kind of inhuman society is not my vision.

My vision is people having so much that they can have anything they want.

There is no need to hoard, because everything is always available, you can get it any moment you want. And still there will be differences. Somebody does not want to use car at all, likes walking. Now you cannot force car on him, that you have to go in a car because it is an equal society and everybody has to be in a car.

People should be allowed their differences. All should be equally allowed to be themselves, and at the highest peak. that is why communists are very much against me.

In fact, all the religions are against me. The communists are against me, the fascists are against me, the capitalists are against me. It seems only I am for myself, nobody else in the whole world.

A:* Take the challenge and accept the trouble of it. Don't choose the easier way.

The easier will be, live outside with your wife, with your children, because that is where you are, nothing has to be changed. Moving into a commune will bring many problems, many of which you are not yet aware. Your wife may fall in love with another sannyasin, most probably, she will do. You may fall in love with some sannyasin, in fact, you have already been thinking! So troubles are going to be there.

But my suggestion is choose the way where troubles are, because one grows through them, facing them, encountering them. In the outside world, you will remain more safe, more secure -- a salary, a job, a position, a house -- in the commune you have nothing. All that you have you pour into the commune's pool. It is risky, but to take risks is one of the basic devices for growth.

Many kinds of new dimensions will open to you. For example, you think you have a very loving wife. Give it a chance -- whether it is just an idea, or a reality.

If she is a very loving wife, she will soon fall in love with somebody.

A:* They will be part of the commune. That's my approach toward children, that children should not be possessed by the parents. It is creating thousand and one psychological difficulties for the children.

Humanity has not yet been aware that family is one of the most criminal institutions in history, because it gives the child a very limited area of growth.

The husband, the wife, the child -- a very small area. And the child learns to depend on the father, on the mother; he learns their habits, learns their religion, learns everything from them. His learning is very linear. He is not rich in his learning. If the child is a boy, he loves his mother and hates his father. If the child is a girl, she loves the father and hates the mother: the mother is almost a competitor. You can see small girls flirting with their fathers, not knowing; it is simply the way of nature. That is the only man available. If the family moves into the commune and dissolves itself into the commune, the children have a tremendously vast scope. Hundreds of uncles, hundreds of aunts, and every woman is different, every man is different. And the child will have the opportunity to learn from everybody.

You can give your love, but you should not possess the child. You should give him freedom to move, relate with as many people as possible. It is one of the greatest problems for psychologists that no man ever finds a women who is totally satisfying; neither a woman ever finds a man who is just tailored for herself. It is always either the coat is loose, or it is too tight, because it is not tailored for you. The boy raised in a family unconsciously gets continuously conditioned by the mother. In his unconscious, an image of the mother becomes impressed, so deeply that his whole life he will try to find a woman who is exactly his mother. But that is impossible -- existence never repeats. So whenever he falls in love, it is only part of the woman that resembles his mother, but it is always part. So when you are just having a love affair, everything goes good, because something in you resembles father of the girl, something in the girl resembles your mother. It is good -- on the beach, in the garden -- you both are at your best. But when you get married and you have to live twenty-four hours, then it becomes troublesome because you cannot pretend that the whole is only that part with which you were in love. The whole is far bigger, and when the whole starts showing it -- and it happens from both the side -- the woman wonders that she never knew this man, she could not have conceived that this man will be such. The man cannot conceive that this women will throw every night tantrums and pillows and scream, and neighbors will come, and even if you are right you have to apologize, otherwise she goes on screaming and crying. You have never thought about this; on the beach she had never behaved like this. (laughter) No couple in the whole world is absolutely fitting, and the reason is the family. If a child is raised by the commune, then he will not have a fixed image. He has known so many women, one day he sleeps with one aunt, another day with another aunt. Once in a while he sees his mother, too, once in a while his father.

Otherwise, there are so many uncles and everybody is loving to him. He never gets impregnated with one idea; he has a very vague sense of womanhood, not of a particular woman. The same is true about the girl. She has a certain idea of what it means to be a man, but she has no fixed picture. There will be no disappointment in their life because they will be more flexible, they will be more adjusting, and they will be able to cope with new realities that may be coming, because they have seen so many people they know that people are different. And they don't have some picture to compare with. They can love more; they can accept even difficult parts of the other person, and they will never be angry with their parents. otherwise every boy remains angry with his father because he was the person who was making love to his mother. He was the hindrance, otherwise, he would have been the lover. That's what he wanted, but the father was always there, and he was stronger and bigger and powerful, so he had to repress himself.

No girl ever forgives the mother, because she was always there around. And as the girl grows, comes of age, the mother is continuously watching whether the father is taking too much interest in the girl, or the girl is taking too much interest in the father. And she is continuously cutting and creating a barriers between them. The girl can understand; she cannot going to be forgiving. She will always be angry.

In a commune, the child will not have any anger against the father or the mother.

In fact, his experience of richness will be so vast because a commune is already a world. For a child, five thousand people are enough an experience. With this experience he will enter into the world. He will not need God the Father. He will not need the priest, the father. He will be independent enough, because he was never dependent on the father or the mother; he was not dependent on anyone.

To belong to the commune means he was independent; he was not dependent on anybody. so he has been nourished and nurtured into freedom.

And that should be the new man.

So my suggestion is you take the risk and help other sannyasins also who are outside the commune to move to the commune, because only in a commune you will have a real experience of sannyas. Outside, you cannot have; the world is rotten, simply a graveyard. Drop all security of the world, safety of the world, and take the risk.

And don't be afraid. Just look at me. Not a single cent. When I resigned from the university, my father started crying. He said, "What are you doing?" I said, "from this moment, I want to live totally with existence. If existence wants me to be hungry, I will be hungry and thankful." He said, "You have always been difficult.

Now you have taken the most dangerous step." I have given my whole property to other children, because I had told him that "I don't want any inheritance because when I refused your religion -- which was my inheritance, when I refused your party politics -- which was my inheritance, how can I accept your money, your house, your lands, your garden? That will be very insincere of me.

So I cannot receive, because I have rejected everything and I receive only the money, I don't receive anything from you. Your love, your blessing is enough."

So he had distributed the whole money. He said, "You should have told few days before. I would have kept a part for you reserved any time you are in difficulty."

I said, "I will never be in difficulty; nowhere I will be in difficulty. For the simple reason because I know how to love. And that's enough; I can take any risk. I can jump into any challenge, because I know how to love. I know how to trust. And it is such a tremendous joy to discover every day that you are still here, with not a single cent. I must be the poorest man in the whole world.

A:* I live like an emperor, because what a poor man can lose? I live like an emperor -- even an emperor is worried about losing land, money, this and that -- I don't have anything, so I can live as no emperor has ever lived -- without any anxiety. But the fact is that I am the poorest man in the world. Even beggars have their account.

So don't be worried. Just take a jump. And next time when you come here, bring your loving wife!