Chapter 3

[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]

A:* Only of blissfulness. The same.

Q:* DO YOU HAVE LEISURELY PURSUITS AT ALL?

A:* Nothing.

Q:* DO YOU BELIEVE IN FIGHTING INJUSTICE?

A:* I don't believe in anything.

Q:* DO YOU THINK THAT ONE SHOULD FIGHT JUSTICE, INJUSTICE?

A:* One should not have shoulds and should nots.

One should simply exist spontaneously. If the moment brings fight, fight -- and fight totally, intensely. But don't fight for a belief. Don't fight for a prejudice. Live in the moment. Be alert. And out of that alertness, whatsoever happens, enjoy it.

So let me explain it exactly because that may help you to understand other questions and answers.

I don't have any belief system. I don't have any creed, dogma. My whole approach is existential.

Right now, you are there, I am here -- and this is enough. You may have prepared your questions. I have not prepared my answers. So you can ask your questions, and I am a crazy man, I may say anything that comes in the moment. I don't care for any consistency, and I don't care for any respectability. My whole responsibility is to this moment. Beyond that there is nothing.

Q:* HOW'S THIS MOMENT GOING FOR YOU?

A:* Beautifully. Your moustache giving me great joy! Only you are missing a beard. It is half-hearted. Just go the full way.

Q:* WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT GROWING ONE.

A:* You do it! A man without a beard and moustache is just like a woman with a moustache and beard!

Q:* ABOUT A YEAR AND A HALF AGO, I HAD A REALLY DARK TIME IN MY LIFE AND SOMEBODY SUGGESTED TO GET INTO MEDITATION, AND I BOUGHT YOUR ORANGE BOOK ON MEDITATION. AND THE ONE THAT CHANGED WHAT WAS HAPPENING FOR ME WAS THE LAUGHTER MEDITATION. AS SOON AS I KNEW I WAS AWAKE, AND I STARTED LAUGHING, THE WHOLE DAY WENT COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN BEFORE. SO I NEED TO THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME THIS MEDITATION.

A:* Just one meditation has done that much for you. If you try few others, you will not find words to thank me.

I have 112 methods of meditation. And if a person can manage even 10 out of those, his life will be a sheer joy with no dark moments, with no frustration, with no tension, no anxiety. Whatsoever happens, he will be able to accept it, without any grudge, without any complaint. His gratitude towards existence will be infinite.

We are very ungrateful to existence. It has given so much to us, and without our asking. And we are such ungrateful creatures, that we don't even bother to look around what existence is continuously doing for us -- the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the birds, the animals, the people. You are living in a tremendously beautiful dream, but you have to be awake about it. Then only a gratefulness arises.

I call that gratefulness, true religion. A man need not be a Christian to be religious, need not be a Hindu to be religious. All that he needs is a deep gratitude towards existence -- he need not believe in God, he need not believe in heaven and hell -- just a simple phenomenon: a deep felt gratitude that this existence would have been missing something without you. That this vast existence needed you, no one else. And your place was empty before you, will be empty after you -- it is irreplaceable. That gives a great contentment.

Man's greatest need is to be needed. And when you feel that the whole existence needs you.... Otherwise you would not have been here!

Q: SOMEBODY TOLD ME THAT THE ONLY DEVILS RUNNING AROUND ARE THE ONES THAT ARE IN OUR OWN HEARTS. DO YOU THINK THAT THAT'S TRUE?

A:* There are no devils. With the God, all devils disappeared. They were shadows of your God. Without God the devil cannot exist.

You will be surprised to know that the word devil and the word divine have the same root. They come from the same root. It is a Sanskrit root. In Sanskrit divine is called deva. From deva comes the English word divine and the devil. In fact the devil and God are two sides of the same coin. There is neither God nor devil.

you are there -- either asleep or awake. If you are asleep then life is misery, suffering, anguish, meaninglessness. If you are awake all dis-ease disappears. For the first time you find yourself surrounded by tremendous beauty, bliss, silence, serenity.

And to experience this, all that is needed is very simple. One should put his prejudices aside. One should not be a Christian; otherwise he cannot come to this moment of luminosity. One should put one's communism aside, just for the moment. I am not saying put it aside forever. I am saying just for the moment put it aside. Because I know once you have put it aside for a single moment, you have put it aside forever.

Q:* WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?

A:* Because the experience will transform you so totally, you need not go to the church. The whole existence becomes your church. You need not read the Bible.

The songs of the birds, the fragrance of the flowers, the sound of the running water will give you all the gospels that you need. And they will be living. They will not be dead words printed in a book. They will be alive, as alive as you are.

And if your heart starts dancing with the living that surrounds you, what is the need to be a Christian, what is the need to be a Mohammedan?

These are for people who are asleep and have never tasted anything of life. These are toys given to children to play with, to remain engaged, to remain busy. Your religions are not for mature people. They are childish.

Q:* DOES SOCIETY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO ITS DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE?

A:* No. None. Society has destroyed people in the first place and then starts talking about responsibility. Each child is being destroyed by the society, distracted from his nature, distracted from what he was going to be, what existence has meant him to be.

First the society distracts him, disturbs him, and when he is disturbed, then these great public servants start coming and saying that the society has responsibility.

This is a very cunning game.

First make a man sick and then run to fulfill your responsibility, service, duty, humanity, compassion, and bring medicine. But why hit the person in the first place?

All children are born so innocent that if you can just leave them alone to be themselves.... If you love them, and love is not a responsibility.... I am reminded of an small anecdote. One Hindu monk was traveling towards the highest Hindu sacred place, Badri* Khedar*, in Himalayas. It is a long journey, tedious. And just in front of him, a small girl, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, was carrying a boy, fat and heavy. The sannyasin was too much tired and just when he was passing the girl, he said to the girl, "My daughter, you must be tired. You are carrying so much weight." The girl was very much angry. She said, "Weight?

You are carrying weight. This is my brother."

Love is not a responsibility. Love is not a duty. Love is your joy. So out of your love do whatever you can do, but not out of your Christianity, not out of your ideology, not out of a sense of responsibility. Otherwise you will never be able to forgive your son, and neither your son will be able to forgive you ever. Duty is a four-letter dirty word. Never do anything for the sake of duty, because you are doing it reluctantly. And whomsoever you are doing, you are humiliating.

Children are there just like flowers. What responsibility you have towards the roses? Yes, to give water, some manure, but that is not responsibility. That is your joy, because your roses will be bigger and more fragrant. What you are doing is nothing in comparison to what you are going to get. You are not doing any compassion on the rosebush. In fact the rosebush is being compassionate towards you.

What you have done? -- just put a little water, manure, taken care. And the rosebush comes with all its thankfulness, with all its flowers, and your whole house becomes fragrant. Suddenly you are no more in an ordinary house; you are in a palace, you are in paradise.

And the same happens with children. They are also flowers. Nourish them, but that is not your responsibility, that is your love. If there is no love, please don't do anything. Otherwise you are going to destroy the child. Love is the only safety. The child is too fragile. Handle it with care. Responsibility is too big a word and too heavy.

Duty is just ugly. Why not rejoice in nourishing the child? Why not enjoy in making him an individual? But you are trying to make him a Christian. You are dragging him to the church. You are forcing him to believe in a God. You are creating fear in him. If you don't believe, you will go to hell. You are creating greed in him. If you follow the church line, you will be rewarded thousandfold in heaven after death. You will destroy his whole life, and you will feel great that you have done your responsibility.

This is not responsibility; this is simply irresponsibility. A response should come only out of your loving heart. If you love the child, then you would like the child to find his own truth. You would not like him to live on a borrowed truth. your child and living on a borrowed truth. What are you doing? -- making him a beggar? You will not like your child to be obedient against his reason, against his will. You will teach the child that obedience is not a virtue. Neither disobedience is a virtue. You have to choose.

We can offer you whatever our understanding is, which is not perfect, which is not infallible. We can place everything that we have experienced in life, and it is up to you to choose or not to choose. You have to be yourself, not just my son.

He has come through you, but he does not belong to you. You have been a passage, but if roads start claiming people who walk on the roads, just think how much more difficult life will become. Once you travel on a road, the road said, "Stop! Now where are you going?"

And what are parents except roads?

Q:* LAST YEAR'S PROGRAM FOR THE HOMELESS, WAS THAT YOUR IDEA?

A:* I don't have any idea.

Q:* WERE YOU HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS?

A:* Perfectly happy with any kind of results, so it does not matter.

Q:* WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS WHEN YOU ARRIVE HERE AT RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* I love every challenge, and that was my first response. Seeing this desert.... I had not come to stay here, but this desert won't let me go.

I have to make it in an oasis. And in four years we have done much. For fifty years the land was lying there for sale. And it is not a small piece of land -- 126 square miles. And the Oregonians have not done anything for this poor land.

My first reaction was that I have to be here now....

I had not come with the intention or in America or in Oregon, but seeing the desert I decided that this desert has to be changed into a lush, green garden.

Q:* ARE WE TALKING FIGURATIVELY OR...?

A:* No, I am talking literally. I don't talk figuratively ever. We are going to change it. We have changed it. Now there are houses for five thousand sannyasins, all centrally air-conditioned. We have our own crops. We are self- sufficient. We have our own vegetables. These grapes are ours; you should taste them. And soon we will be making wine and everything. So go on coming.

Q:* WHAT ARE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY NOW? YOU WERE HERE AND YOU HAD TO MAKE THE ADJUSTMENT WITH THE DESERT. WHAT'S YOUR IMPRESSION?

A:* I enjoyed it. I am enjoying it.

I always enjoy anything which is creative. To paint on a canvas is a small thing, but to change the desert into an oasis is real creativity. And our people are enjoying. They are working twelve hours, fourteen hours every day. Even God tired in six days, and on the seventh day He had to rest, and since then nothing has been heard about the fellow.

That's great (unintelligible). Our people don't have any holiday, because our work is our pleasure. Our work is our worship. And even working twelve, fourteen hours a day, they have enough energy to laugh, to dance, to sing, to love. We are enjoying it immensely. It is really groovy.

Q:* YOU TOLD SOME REPORTER TO TELL THE AUSTRALIANS YOU WERE COMING DOWN THERE. SO DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE TO GO...?

A:* No, not at all.

Yes, I go on creating gossips.

Q:* HOW'S YOUR HEALTH?

A:* Health ... mm, very good.... Because my sickness is such that it just needs to be taken care of. It is not sickness. For example I have allergies. For four years here I have not suffered a single attack of asthma, breathing trouble, because the climate is dry. Humidity is difficult for me.

And my people love me so much that they will not wear any perfume. They will not come close to me when they have been working for twelve hours and perspiring, because any smell can disturb me. So this small oasis is taking every care. My sickness is not something which needs any medicine. My problem is born with me. Nothing can be done about it. You can only take precautions.

It was difficult to take precautions in the ordinary world. Now how can I prevent a neighbor not to use * perfume, not to burn incense, and particularly in India....

Every house has a god. Every house is burning incense, and they were giving me asthma attacks. I had to find a place where at least for twenty miles there is no neighbor.

Jesus said*, "Love your enemies" and later on he adds, "Love your neighbors too" which is more difficult.

I don't have any neighbors; this is almost an island. And my people are aware of my difficulties, so they take care. That's why I am perfectly healthy. Otherwise I can be immediately sick. That is not a question of time. Just you open a bottle of French perfume here, and I will be sick. And I will not be able to sleep the whole night. My breathing gets so disturbed.

So that was one of the reasons I had told Sheela to look some place big enough that we are far away from neighbors. Because I don't want to interfere in their life. And if they enjoy perfume then who am I to prevent them from enjoying it?

And she has found the perfect place for me.

Q:* WHAT HAPPENS TO RAJNEESH AND RAJNEESHPURAM WHEN YOU DIE? IT CONTINUES ON AS IT IS?

A:* I cannot say anything, simply because I hate to dominate people. Even now what is happening is none of my concern. I am just a guest. It is their place. I am not even a sannyasin -- you can see. You are a little sannyasin ... almost half. I am not a sannyasin at all. They love me, so they tolerate me.

Q:* YOU MUST ADMIT THAT YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE RELIGION OF RAJNEESHISM?

A:* Nothing.

Q:* NOTHING?

A:* Nothing. I enjoy talking. And out of those talks if somebody creates any ism, that is their business.

Q:* NOW YOU NOW ADVOCATE NONVIOLENCE....

A:* No. I don't advocate. I simply share my experiences of life. And it is up to my people to decide for themselves. I am not going to decide for anybody. They cannot dump any responsibility on me....

And this thing that Christians used violence, they killed people, they burnt people, they did everything seems to be going against Jesus Christ. It is not so.

Because Jesus himself in his behavior is very violent. He talks about love; he talks, but he behaved just the opposite. He threw away the money changers from the temple with a whip in his hand. Is that nonviolence?

He cursed a fig tree because he and his followers were hungry and the tree did not welcome them with fruits. And it was not the season for figs to appear on the tree. Now he is not only violent, he is idiotically violent, cursing a poor tree which has nothing to do.... When the season comes, the figs come. This man you think is nonviolent?

Q:* I'D BEEN LED TO BELIEVE THAT FOR A WHILE.

A:* Yes. Every Christian has been led to believe that.

Christ himself was not a Christian. He was a Jew. He never heard the word Christ or Christian, because in Hebrew these words are not there. He was known as the messiah, which is equivalent to the Greek Christ. His whole life -- and it was not a long life, only thirty-three years -- is full of incidences in which he proves himself arrogant, aggressive, violent, egoistic. And if his followers turn out to be the same on a larger scale, he is responsible for all that. No sane person can say, "I am the only begotten son of God."

Just think, anybody in Madras declaring, "I am the only begotten son of God" -- what you will think? That this man should be informed to the police, should be sent to a mental institute. He is a crackpot. And that's what Jews thought of Jesus. In fact they never crucified a messiah; they crucified only a crackpot.

And Christians have proved perfectly well that Jews were right to crucify this man, retroactively. The two thousand years of Christianity give evidence that that man was worth crucifixion. Jews were right: that man was dangerous. He was himself insane and he was creating insanity in other people.

In fact they delayed. He should have been crucified three years before. Because he started teaching only when he was thirty. If I would have been there, I would have suggested crucify him right now. Don't wait. In three years he will be able to collect few fools, few idiots, which are everywhere. And then it will become difficult. And then crucifying it will be wrong, because crucifixion will become the beginning of a new religion.

So whatever Christians have done, they have followed Jesus Christ step by step.

And until Christianity disappears from the world it is very difficult to live peacefully. It is Christianity which has been making every effort to prevent science from progressing.

Science would have been in these three hundred years developed immensely, but the Christians on every step from Copernicus to Galileo to Columbus.... The America is discovered against the Christians, against the pope, and still I am amazed when the pope comes you welcome him.

Q:* YOU WERE IN INDIA AT THE TIME THAT INDIA GAINED HER INDEPENDENCE FROM BRITAIN. YOU WERE TEN, BETWEEN TEN AND TWENTY AT THAT TIME; IS THAT CORRECT? WHAT KIND OF AN AFFECT DID THAT HAVE ON YOU AFTER WHAT WAS GOING ON BEFORE...

LIVING UNDER THE BRITISH RULE, AND THEN NOT TO HAVE THEM ANYMORE. IT MUST HAVE BEEN RATHER TRAUMATIC FOR MOST INDIANS. WAS IT?

A:* I am a little eccentric. I was more pro-British than pro-Indian. Because everything that has happened in India -- technology, science, education, colleges, universities, railway lines, roads, cars, airplanes -- everything has happened because of the British rule. If there was no British rule, India would have been the same as Ethiopia.

Before the British rule, for thousands of years they were burning women alive if their husbands died. Husbands were never burned when their wives died. I don't see ... a simple arithmetic that this is a male chauvinist society. The husband is trying to control even after his death. The wife was forced in such a ugly way that if you visualize the whole scene you could not believe it. And these are the Hindus who talk about great spirituality.

It is obvious that to push a living person into a funeral pyre, the person is bound to escape. So what they used to do: first, they will make the funeral pyre, put the dead body of the husband, then put the living body of the wife and tie her with the woods, put many more logs on top of her, and then pour as much purified butter, so when fire comes up there is great smoke. You cannot see what is happening there. Surrounding one hundred priests will be chanting mantras.

In the second circle musicians will be playing drums and all kinds of noise, so nobody hears the screams of a living woman dying and burning there. And this was all religious ritual.

For thousands of years they have done that. The whole credit goes to British empire that they prevented it. They made it criminal. It was criminal.

For thousands of years India has been poor. It is said in Hindu scriptures that people never used locks on their houses. Even if they were going for few months' pilgrimage they will not use locks, because there was no fear of anybody stealing. This is absolutely wrong.

My understanding is that they had nothing to be stolen, first. Second locks were not yet invented.

Indians are so lousy. They will not try to do anything. They would like rather to starve, but they will not make any effort how you can be rich. The country is tremendously capable of being rich, but the people's mind are not able to use the opportunity.

These poor people, before Britain came into India's history, were giving birth to ten children -- only one will survive and nine will die. There was no medicine, no medical care. Now it is just the opposite because of Britain, that out of ten children only one dies, nine live. And that one also dies because of Indian stupidity.

Because Mahatma Gandhi was against vaccination. He was against allopathy. He was against everything that has been invented after the spinning wheel. And nobody knows when the spinning wheel was invented, perhaps ten thousand years. After that everything is evil.

It seems God made the spinning wheel on the sixth day and after that anything:

railway trains, telegraph, post offices -- he was against all these things -- telephones, radios, televisions, he will not agree. You will be surprised. I was a guest in his son's house, who was my friend, and there were* so many mosquitoes in his ashram, and there were bound to be, because he was keeping many cows there, which are worshipped like mothers, and so much cow dung everywhere. I have never seen a dirtier place in my life, but it was all in the name of spirituality.

In the day somehow I managed, but in the night I told the friend, that "I will have to go to the nearby station, which was nine miles from there, and I will sleep there. Because how you can sleep with so many mosquitoes?" He said, "No, we sleep." I said, "I don't see any mosquito net." He said, "My father will never allow the luxury of sleeping in a mosquito net." So* I said, "What substitute he has given?" And he had given a substitute: kerosene oil. You paint your face, your hands, your legs, anything that is open with kerosene oil and go to sleep.

Now even the mosquitoes are intelligent enough not to come near to you. But how you can sleep, with kerosene oil? And I said, "I suffer from allergies; I cannot even try it. And this is my first and last visit to you. Any time you want to come you can come to me; I'm not going to come her. This is sheer stupidity."

Britain introduced much sanity. I am against slavery. I am against Britain dominating India, but I am not a fanatic in any way. I condemn Britain for whatsoever wrong they have done, but they have done so many beautiful things, I have to appreciate them.

So when India became independent in 1947 my whole family was involved in the freedom movement. Almost every member of the family had gone to jail, has suffered. But I was absolutely against, against my family, my father, my uncles.

And I told them, that "What you are doing you don't know. Britain has maintained peace for the first time in the whole history of India. Before Britain there was continuous civil war. In Gautam Buddha's time India was divided in two thousands* independent kingdoms. India had* never been one country before Britain. It was Britain's contribution that India became one."

And as Britain was leaving India starting falling apart. Pakistan became separate.

Bangladesh became separate. Now the Sikhs want their own country separate.

Soon the Bengalis, the Assamese.... They have always been separate; it was under the British force that they remained one.

I used to tell my father, that "You don't understand the enormity of what can happen if Britain simply leaves the country. There will be violence and millions of people will be killed." And that's what happened.

My father wept before me, and he said, "You were right. We were thinking that you are always arguing against anything; any unpopular thing and you are for it.

And this was so much*: that you were protecting and arguing for the British government." * I said, "Now you look. Britain has left; the country is divided.

Trains are burning, houses are burning, children are being mutilated, women are being raped. This is your independence. This is for what you had gone to jail and suffered."

And after Britain left, in these forty years India's situation has been becoming worse and worse. The population goes on growing. Birth control, the pill, abortion, all are against the religions, against spirituality.

When Britain left India, the whole India -- including Pakistan, Bangladesh -- was only four hundred million. Now, India -- without Pakistan, without Bangladesh - - is eight hundred million. It has doubled in forty years' time. Its soil is completely prostituted.

Q:* IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO SAVE INDIA, DO YOU THINK?

A:* I don't think that anything can be done. Perhaps it is time for India to die.

And there is a time to born, there is a time to live, and there is a time to die. It is impossible, because thirty years I have been trying just that hopeless job in India:

touring all around the country continuously, telling people what you are doing is going to destroy you. And my reward? They will be throwing shoes at me. They will be throwing stones at me. They poisoned my food twice, and before I left they made their last attempt on my life by throwing a knife.

Ten thousand sannyasins were present when they threw the knife at me. And the police somehow got from their agents, so twenty police officers were present there before the knife was thrown at me. It seems almost impossible that ten thousand witnesses -- perhaps you can say they are all sannyasins, maybe lying; but your twenty police officers, high-ranking, they are witnesses -- still the man was released from the court with respect. He has not done anything. The knife has never been thrown. And the knife was presented there by the police itself. It was lying down on the table of the magistrate. And the magistrate informed me from a friend, that "Forgive me, I know, but I am a man with a family, so many children. My promotion is due. I am being pressurized by the politicians and by the religious leaders that, `If that man is not freed completely, then you will be in trouble.' And I don't want to be in trouble."

Now that man belonged to a fanatic Hindu organization. That organization, sooner or later, is going to overrule India, because Hindus are the majority. And every stupidity that was there three hundred years before will be brought back, because that is Hindu tradition, Hindu religion. Suttee tradition -- burning the widow -- will be back!

Britain introduced divorce. Its days are finished. The moment India is controlled by Hindus, and it is not far away, divorce cannot remain legal. In Hindu religion there is no place for divorce. Marriage is forever.

They are interested in strange things. For example, cow slaughter should be stopped. Not that abortion should be legalized; no, that is not the problem at all.

That birth control should be promulgated, helped in every possible way; no, that is not the problem. The problem is cows should not be killed.

Such a country, which cannot even see the priority of things.... I am not saying that kill the cows, but I am saying first save humanity. Otherwise who is going to save the cows? They will be killed by themselves.

My feeling is Britain has done two things wrong: in the first place it imposed slavery on the country; in the second place, like cowards it escaped from its responsibility. Britain should have remained there till he had educated people not to be violent, not to be superstitious, not to be against each other -- Hindus against Mohammedans, Mohammedans against Buddhists, Buddhists against Jainas, and there are so many sects and subsects, and everybody is against everybody else. And the country is spiritual, and nonviolence is its ideology.

This is all nonsense; this is just hypocrisy.

Britain has done a very lousy job. I was certainly angry with Lord Mountbatten.

He was the wrong person to send to India to make India free. He had no experience of politics. In fact he was just a playboy, his whole life. And just to keep him away from England -- because he belonged to the royalty, and if a person belonging to the royalty is a playboy, then everybody's wife is in danger, and everybody is in danger -- so they kept him continuously out, sending him out. But you cannot send him out just like that -- he was a royal person, he could have been the king. Just it was a chance that he was not the eldest son.

First they sent him to Burma. As he came back from Burma, immediately he was told, "Pack your luggage and go to India, and you have to do a great work: make India independent."

Just think, the sheer immensity of the work. When you make a country slave for hundreds of years you have to fight, and within a day you can make it independent. I don't see the logic. Even when I was only seventeen, I could not see the logic of it. I had written a letter to Lord Mountbatten that this is not the right time for this country to be independent. If everything is peaceful, it is simply cold war. Once the pressure of British control is gone then....

Q:* DID THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDIA HAVE ANY BEARING ON YOUR OUTLOOK IN LIFE?

A:* No, because I am not interested in nations. I am interested in one world.

Because my understanding is that unless the world is one, we cannot stop wars.

We cannot stop politicians cheating people. There is no way for humanity, except to commit suicide in a third world war.

Q:* IT'S A BIG JOB TO TRY TO BRING THE WORLD TOGETHER IN ONE?

A:* It is a big job, but nuclear weapons have made it easy. On both the sides, in America and Soviet Union, now they have piled up so much nuclear weapons that they can destroy the earth seven hundred times. Now neither America wants to get into a nuclear war nor Soviet Russia wants, but nobody can say it.

Both will go on saying that we are ready, and both are piling up. Now it is absolutely absurd. For what you are piling up? You have seven hundred times more than is needed to destroy this poor humanity and life on this small planet.

Because of the nuclear weapons third world war has become almost an impossibility. They will go on talking about it, because that keeps them in power.

People are afraid. People don't know the whole information, what is going on.

The Americans are afraid of Russians. Russians are absolutely in darkness, and they think Americans are monsters or something. The Soviet clique that rules can rule only if it can maintain the idea that the third war is just on the horizon.

I have a certain respect for Richard Nixon for one thing: that if the man wanted not to get out of the White House, he should have simply started the third world war. That was the simple way out of Watergate. Any cunning politician like Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse-tung or Mussolini or Adolf Hitler would have done the same. Nixon in that way is not a student of Machiavelli. He should read The Prince, but it is too late.

The only way politicians know to dominate people is either keep the threat of war continuously alive through newspapers, televisions, radio, speeches.... Keep people frightened, so they need your direction, your leadership. Adolf Hitler in his autobiography writes that a nation can become strong, great, only under two conditions: either you go on creating a threatening atmosphere that you are going to be destroyed or you start the war.

Q:* DO YOU THINK THAT GOVERNMENTS WILL KEEP ESCALATING UNTIL THEY FORGET WHAT WAR IS LIKE, AND THEN BLOW 'EM ALL UP?

A:* They cannot forget, and particularly at this time when they have accumulated so much weapons. It is dangerous to forget. They can backfire. They can destroy you if you don't destroy them before time. Either you have to use them in war or you have to throw them in the Pacific. You have to get rid of them. It is not a time to forget, and who can forget?

Just the other day I saw the petition of fifty scientists who are responsible of creating the nuclear plants in America urging the president and the Supreme Court that we were not aware what we are doing, and now it is beyond our capacity to conceive that if war happens, what is going to happen. Nothing like it has ever happened before. So it is time to stop.

Those fifty -- the most important American physicists, nuclear experts -- they are urging that it is time. Not much time is left. You stop creating more and somehow destroy these weapons or use this energy into some creative way. Find out a way that the energy can be used to produce electricity, to run factories; that can be done. But the politicians they want to be on top. And both go on, America and Russia, threatening each other.

Smaller countries like India is trying to create a nuclear plant. Fifty percent of India's population is on the verge of starvation, and India is exporting its wheat to outside countries.

Rajiv Gandhi is my friend, but I would like him to be assassinated just like his mother. What he is doing to the country is simply inconceivable. And what you are going to do by creating a nuclear plant? You can never become a great nuclear power. It will take three hundred years for India to become a power like America or Russia. And for three hundred years, if you are going to create nuclear weapons, not a single Indian will be alive. This is simple madhouse.

So I say that this is the time we can make people aware that drop all the boundaries, if you want to drop wars. And I am not appealing to the politicians.

My appeal is to the intelligent people of the world, to the young people of the world.

These fifty scientists should * join hands with the Russian scientists and should declare that we are not going to produce any more nuclear weapons.

I want that there should be a world academy of scientists. I can give them the place in my commune. We have enough space.

Q:* HAVE YOU LET THEM KNOW?

A:* Yes. That's what you have to do. Let them be aware that I am inviting them.

The scientists of the whole world, if they refuse ... and this is the time to refuse....

And if all the scientists of the world can refuse and all the poets and all the painters and all the people who are not political, but creative, the masses can be convinced. Then Ronald Reagan cannot deceive.

If the whole intelligentsia of America appeals to the masses that we withdraw our boundaries, that now there will be no visa for entry, and now there will be no passport. Burn all the passports. Burn all the green cards. We are one world, and there is no need for anything. Movement from one country to another country should be a birthright to every human being.

This is the time that under the pressure.... There are two pressures humanity is under: one is the nuclear world war, the other is the disease AIDS which is spreading like a wildfire and which has no cure. Not even a single medical person in the whole world hopes that there will be a cure sometime in the future -- no possibility. The disease is a category in itself. It is not to be put in the same category of other diseases: cancer and tuberculosis and all that. They are now nothing. You should not call them disease.

AIDS has no cure, and it is so contagious that you need not be sexually involved with somebody; even kissing and you can get it.

Q:* I HEARD LAST WEEK THEY, THEY FOUND AIDS VIRUSES IN TEARS ALSO.

A:* Tears also. Soon they will find in perspiration. Any liquid coming out of your body will carry the virus. This is going to be even a bigger danger than nuclear weapons. And anybody who has AIDS would not like anybody else to know about it, because he will be condemned.

Governments are repressing the information how many people have AIDS.

Q:* THE GOVERNMENT IS REPRESSING THAT?

A:* All over the world, because any government accepting that there are so many people suffering from AIDS, then two things are clear: that that government is declaring that its people are sexually perverts, homosexuals; secondly, to accept that AIDS is there, then the responsibility of the government, what you are doing about it?

And there seems to be nothing that can be done. So the only way is suppress the information. Don't let it surface. But this is more dangerous. Every AIDS person should be stamped, the way you stamp your cattle, just on the forehead. Because he is a walking nuclear weapon, and he can infect anybody. Kissing should be prohibited, not drugs. Drugs will do, but kissing won't.

People should be made aware what precautions should be taken. No government is trying to do. In fact if you declare somebody that it seems he has symptoms, no hospital accepts him.

We have two sannyasins here who have AIDS. We have made a special place for them -- the most scenic place. We are giving them every facility that is possible, because those people are going to live only few months, at the most two years.

That is maximum. Most probably within six months they will be gone. We are trying to make their six months as comfortable, and as beautiful, and as relaxed as we can. But in the outside world there are people freely moving who have AIDS, confirmed. But they can bribe the physicians to keep it secret, and that is part of the physician's oath, that he will not make the disease of the person known. This is very dangerous.

They are not allowed in the hospitals because they may spread in the hospitals.

Soon their families, the moment they come to know, then all love and all sacrifice and all responsibility will disappear. Then your own wife will not be ready to live with you. Your own father will suggest, "Get lost." Your friends will turn your ... their backs on you. Nobody would like even to see at you.

This was the situation in the middle ages of lepers, but lepers are not dangerous.

In fact there are many kinds of leprosy which are not infectious. This disease is the ultimate outcome of homosexuality. It has to be dissected, analyzed, and given the whole perspective. I call AIDS a religious disease, because homosexuality was born in monasteries. Keeping men together, not allowing any women to enter in the monastery, not allowing the monks to go outside and mix with people, keeping nuns in their nunneries, not allowing any men to enter inside -- what do you expect?

All the religions have been preaching celibacy. Now celibacy should be made illegal. Anybody saying that he is celibate should be imprisoned immediately.

All the monasteries should be closed, because those monks are dangerous. They have been all homosexuals. And it is not their fault.

When you take the vow of celibacy, your body, your chemistry, your physiology, your biology have no idea what celibacy is. And there is no way to communicate the idea to your body and biology. It remains just hung up in your head, and your body goes on functioning in the same way. It goes on creating semen, it goes on creating sexuality. Now what you have to do with it?

People have been known in lonely places to make love to animals, because even man was not available. If you make the woman unavailable, he becomes a homosexual. If you make even man unavailable, he becomes a victim of sodomy.

He starts making love to animals.

Love is such a natural phenomenon that preventing it has caused the whole problem. Politics has brought you to the nuclear third world war. And your religions have brought you to even a better chance to commit suicide. That is AIDS.

This is the time of such pressure, if we bring the whole pressure in the public's eye, there is a possibility to change the whole situation. It is always in danger then* people take drastic steps. Otherwise who risks? And when life is at risk of everybody, who bothers whether you are American or Indian or Russian or Chinese. This is the time that we should stop calling ourselves Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Germans. And the people who have some kind of world fame, they should appeal to the whole world, that "Destroy your identity cards, destroy your visas, destroy your maps, and remember that the whole earth is ours."

The war will disappear. There will be no need for war. In fact just as monasteries are responsible for homosexuality, wars are also responsible for it, because you don't allow soldiers to take their girlfriends with them. So what the soldiers are going to do?

Q:* THEY'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE LOVE TO THEIR GUNS. THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE LOVE TO SOMETHING ELSE.

A:* They can make love even to guns. If you are left only with a gun and nothing else, you are intelligent enough to make an effort.

Q:* MY RIGHT HAND'S BETTER THAN A GUN.

A:* Gun is perfectly good. This pressure of AIDS and nuclear weapons to me is a great opportunity and challenge, and I hope that something good is going to happen soon. That we will not be so idiotic to die and destroy this beautiful planet. We are going to do something.

Q:* DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THAT IS?

A:* I have. And soon you will know.... Just few days more.... My people are preparing.

Q:* WE OBVIOUSLY HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO ON OUR PLANET HERE.

A:* Right.

Q:* DO YOU THINK THAT WE SHOULD CONTINUE TO EXPLORE OFF OF OUR PLANET?

A:* No. Right now there is no time. This is sheer stupidity to waste money and time going to the moon and to the mars, because the nearest planets don't have life. There is a possibility of life, but those planets will take a lifelong journey.

They are millions of light-years away. As far as we know in our solar system we are the only living people. In other solar systems scientists guess that there may be at least fifty thousand planets who have some kind of life. But this is not the time to discover their life; this is the time to save our life. And if the world becomes one, which I don't see that it is such an impossible thing.... If Oregon and California can be one nation, I don't see why Canada can also be not part of it. Why other nations can also be not part of it?

Q:* DOESN'T THAT START WITH OURSELVES THOUGH? WE HAVE TO START HERE?

A:* I have started. In my people you will find people from all religions, people from all nations, even Russians. You will find of all races -- white, black, yellow.

Q:* IF IT'S POSSIBLE FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA TO BE SIDE BY SIDE AND BE PART OF ONE NATION, IS IT NOT POSSIBLE FOR SANNYASINS AND THE REST OF OREGON TO LIVE SIDE BY SIDE AND BE PART OF ONE NATION?

A:* We are absolutely ready. For us there is no problem. Even if from some other planet somebody descends here in Rajneeshpuram, he will be received with celebration. We have no problem; all the problems are on their side. We have no hostility.

Q:* ARE YOU PUTTING THE RESPONSIBILITY ON THEM THEN?

A:* No, I'm not putting responsibility, just stating a fact. We are a minority, such a small minority that it is simply idiotic for Oregonians to be afraid of us. We should be afraid of them; we are not afraid. It is really a hilarious situation.

Q:* I'VE BEEN OUT THERE. THERE ARE PEOPLE TO BE AFRAID OF. YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID OF SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE OUT THERE.

A:* No, we are not. We are not afraid of anybody. And that is making them more afraid, more hostile. And we went on inviting them. We invited the governor, we invited the attorney general, that before you start anything saying about us, please come and see. And then whatsoever you want to say, you say. But they don't have even guts to come here. You have such impotent people in your governor, in your attorney general, that I am simply surprised why their wives don't divorce them. We are not going to kill them; we have not killed anybody.

We are asking them to come, but they won't come. On the contrary they have made their army alert that within three hours' notice you have to reach Rajneeshpuram any day. Strange we invite the governor; he is inviting the army.

He should have told us; we should have invited the army ourselves. Why go such roundabout ways? We are straightforward people. We can invite the army, just the way we had invited the street people. We can have a project: three months, share-a-home* with the army.

Q:* THERE'S NO IMMEDIATE PLANS FOR THAT RIGHT NOW, IS THERE?

GREAT. ARE THERE ANY PLANS IN THE FUTURE THAT WOULD BE SIMILAR TO THE STREET PEOPLE INVITATION?

A:* No, I never repeat anything. Always something bigger. Something bigger is going to come next month.

Q:* I WOULD BE HAPPY TO HOLD IT UNTIL NEXT MONTH IF YOU WANTED TO TELL ME NOW?.

A:* You will be there. You will be an eyewitness to it.

Q:* DO YOU THINK IT'S TRUE THAT THE MORE LIGHT* YOU HAVE THE BETTER YOU CAN SEE WHAT IS TRIVIAL AND OUTMODED IN YOUR CONDITIONING?

A:* Right. The more comfortable you are, the more luxurious you live, the more richness in all the dimensions of life, more is the possibility for you to become aware of one thing: that you have everything, but you don't have yourself. That you are surrounded by all the luxuries -- there is nothing more to be added to it - - but who are you? Living in a palace, but what the hell you are doing here? The question is bound to happen.

The poor man cannot ask it. He is looking for bread, he is looking for his children's medicine, he has no house. You think he will start inquiring about his interiority, about truth, about the meaning of life?

Q:* (UNINTELLIGIBLE, BHAGWAN ALSO TALKING).

A:* It is impossible for a poor man to be religious. That's why I say I am the rich man's guru. It has nothing to do with me. Only the rich man has the opportunity to inquire beyond the mundane things. The poor man -- I feel sorry for him, but I cannot think that I should go to Ethiopia and teach meditation there. They will kill me. And I am not suicidal.

The world has enough technology now. If its old prejudices and stupidities can be dropped, we can make the whole world a paradise. Nothing is lacking. If we can reach to the moon, if we can create so much destructive power, why we cannot create creative power. The same power can be transferred into creativity, because power is always neutral. You can burn your cigar by the lighter, you can burn your house too. Cigar does not... your lighter does not give you any instructions what to do.

Science has made available all the energies. You are using them in the service of death. Use them in the service of life. It seems all the politicians in the world are followers of Reverend Jim Jones, because they are trying to turn the world in a Jonestown, except Rajneeshpuram. And sooner they realize it, the better.

Q:* YOU SAID YOU FELT SORRY FOR THE POOR MAN BECAUSE HE ....

A:* I feel sorry, not for his hunger; I feel sorry that he cannot move into higher realms of experience. I don't feel sorry for his hunger. I don't feel sorry for his death. I feel sorry that he could not afford the greatest experience of life, of the eternal flame in himself.

Pope may be sorry also, but he is sorry because these people don't have food, don't have clothes, don't have hospitals. Because I know those who have clothes, and have hospitals, and have schools, they are also in tremendous misery, suffering. They may not be starving, but they are not rejoicing either.

I would like the whole world to live so luxuriously that people start becoming bored with luxury. You should ask me how I am bored with Rolls Royces.

Q:* HOW ARE YOU BORED WITH ROLLS ROYCES?

A:* Ninety Rolls Royces, anybody will be bored. And my people are going to try to have three hundred sixty-five. They are bent upon to bore me. What you can do?

And the whole earth is capable for the first time to be so luxurious that you don't feel any material need. All material needs are fulfilled, then what you are going to do?

There is nothing else than meditation. That is the only door that is left still open.

All other doors you have knocked and seen there is nothing. Only one door is still open, inviting. And whoever has entered that door has never come frustrated, disappointed -- not a single case in the whole history of humanity that anybody who has reached the center of his being was disappointed, felt meaningless, was miserable, committed suicide -- not a single exception. That's why I say meditation is a scientific thing. That's how science works: if you can find something without any exception it becomes rule. Meditation is a scientific method, because in the whole history nobody has denied that it does not lead you to the ultimate blissfulness. But what can I do? It is just a simple question.

I feel sorry for the poor man because he cannot understand Mozart. I feel sorry for him because he cannot understand the dance of a Nijinsky. He cannot understand the flute of Pannalal Ghose* or the sitar of Ravi Shankar. My being sorry and sad is for totally different reasons.

I would like him to enjoy the best music of the world, the best poetry, the best painting, the best dance. I would like him to reach to his highest peak of intelligence, but his poverty is preventing him. And the politicians and the religious leaders are responsible for his poverty.

This is such a strange phenomenon that these politicians go on sympathizing with the poor people, with the starving people, with the dying people, and the same politicians go on throwing food into the sea. Ethiopia is dying, and Europe has thrown thousands of tons of fresh oranges into the ocean.

And the political leaders go on talking about sympathy, compassion. The religious leaders go on talking about sympathy, and they are against birth control. They are against abortion: it should not be legalized. Strange, they are responsible for creating more population; that means more poverty. The politicians are putting seventy-five percent of their nation's income into war, army, nuclear weapons, and people are dying -- even their own people.

Thirty million people in America itself are on the streets. And you are creating nuclear weapons, and you are making efforts to reach to the mars or to the moon.

You must have gone nuts!

And because I simply say the fact they are angry at me. They don't have any answer. I am ready for an open discussion with Ronald Reagan or Governor Atiyeh or anybody! And I would like to face me: that what you are doing and what you are saying are totally contradictory things.

On the one hand you are responsible for poverty; on the other hand you are showing so much great sympathy because these poor people are going to vote you. You are against birth control methods, because if birth control is applied, where Mother Teresa is going to find the orphans? It is such a complicated vested interest. Mother Teresa will die if there are no orphans. What she will do?

And who is going to give her a Nobel prize? Orphans are needed, urgently needed, more the better.

It is a very simple thing, just the people of the world has to be made aware of it, and that is your work.

Q:* THAT'S WHY*, THAT'S WHAT I WILL TRY AND DO.

A:* Good. So come back again... And next time with a little beard.