Chapter 5

[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]

ANSWER:* Good.

Q:* ... SO IF YOU WOULD BE KIND, KIND OF BE AS BRIEF AS POSSIBLE IN YOUR ANSWERS.

UNFORTUNATELY I HAVEN'T READ ANY OF YOUR BOOKS, AND I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF THEM. SO MAYBE SOME OF MY QUESTIONS, OR ALL OF THEM, ARE UNNECESSARY IN A SENSE. BUT STILL....

A:* It is good that you have not read. And you can ask the same question one thousand times, but my answer will be again and again different. So there is no problem. You start.

Q:* A QUOTE FROM ONE OF YOUR BOOK COVERS IS: "I TEACH A SENSUOUS RELIGION, BEAUTY IS FAR MORE VALUABLE THAN TRUTH.

BEAUTY IS GOD HIMSELF, TRUTH IS JUST AN ASPECT OF BEAUTY." AND I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU THREE QUESTIONS ABOUT THOSE QUOTES.

ARE YOU ACTUALLY TEACHING A RELIGION -- ARE YOUR IDEAS A RELIGION? I HEAR YOU MENTIONING GOD. IS THERE A GOD? DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD, OR MAYBE YOU'RE EVEN SOME KIND OF GOD TO YOUR DISCIPLES YOURSELF.

AND YOU'RE SAYING BEAUTY IS FAR MORE VALUABLE THAN TRUTH. IS THAT WHY -- FROM WHAT I SEE -- MOST OF THE PEOPLE HERE ARE YOUNG, GOOD-LOOKING PEOPLE?

A:* That is my way of disposing God off. When I say beauty is God, I'm saying there is no God but only beauty. And I am making a distinction between truth and beauty, because truth is more a question of the head, it is more logical, philosophical inquiry. Beauty is of the heart, it is not logical, not philosophical; it is more poetic, more aesthetic, you can feel it but you cannot prove it. You can experience it, but you cannot explain it.

Truth, the very word looks dead, a logical conclusion. Beauty is not a conclusion, it is a sudden revelation. When you see a rose, it is not that you go through a logical solecism, that this is a rose and roses are beautiful so this must be beautiful. The moment you see it, the head stops spinning thoughts; on the contrary, your heart starts beating faster. Something totally different from the idea of truth.

Truth is argumentative. Whenever somebody proves a truth, all that he proves is that he is more logically proficient than his opponent. So in the whole history of philosophy, every philosopher has been contradicted. Five thousand years of philosophy and not a single truth on which all the philosophers agree.

Beauty is a totally different phenomenon. It is not a question of proving it. If you see a woman as beautiful, nobody is going to ask why. About beauty the question why is irrelevant. You need not prove, neither you can. In fact, if the other person is idiotic enough and continues to ask that you will have to prove why this woman is beautiful, you will be at a loss, you cannot prove it because it is something of the heart. And proofs are something of the head.

What I am saying in that statement is that the experience of religion is just like the experience of beauty, love; it is of the heart. It is not a theology it is not a philosophy; it is more like a poetry, a painting, a sculpture.

It happened Picasso was painting on the sea beach and a man was watching him, almost for two hours he looked from the painting from every angle. And finally he could not contain his curiosity. He approached Picasso and said, that "Forgive me, I don't want to intrude into your work. For two hours I have been watching, but I cannot figure out what is the meaning of this painting." Picasso looked at the man and said, "Have you ever asked what is the meaning of all the stars in the sky? Have you stopped in a garden and asked what is the meaning of all the flowers? What is the meaning of the songs of the birds? And if nobody is answerable for the beautiful sky and the gardens and the birds, why should you torture a poor painter? I don't know the meaning. I know that what I am doing is tremendously satisfying to me."

Q:* BUT YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING -- THE GOAL OF WHAT....

A:* There is no meaning and no goal. A life is in itself sufficient. A goal is needed only when something is not intrinsically valuable. The train has a goal, the machine has a goal. Without the goal the machine is useless.

But love has no goal. It is enough unto itself. And if anybody's love has goal, remember, there is no love in it; perhaps the man loves the woman because she is rich and old and going to die soon. If there is a motive, any end, it destroys the very phenomenon of love. Love has to be unmotivated, without any goal and without any meaning. When you hug a friend, have you ever asked, "What is the meaning of hugging?" And you will not find the meaning. And if you can find the meaning, then it is not hugging, it is just pressing each other's bones unnecessarily.

There is something which is beyond meaning, which you cannot express through words. That's why you are using a gesture. Your hug is a gesture of something which is inexpressible by words, your hug is simply saying, "I would like you to be just part of me. I would like myself to be part of you. It hurts that there is a separation. It hurts that we are two." Your hug is immensely expressive, but there is no motive in it, no end to it.

Everything that is valuable in life is always a goal unto itself. There is no outside goal. Anything that is valuable cannot be a means to some end. Just thinking of it as means is reducing it, utterly destroying its qualities and values. Your interest is the end; if you can get the end without this means, you will discard the means, you will get the end. You have to go through the means because without the means the end is not available, but your eyes are focussed on the end.

Love, beauty, poetry, painting, dance, music, they don't have any goal, but they have immense blissfulness, a tremendous ecstasy. You can be drowned in it, you can forget the whole world. Time can stop.

Listening to Mozart, if time does not stop that means you are not listening, that simply means you are not capable of listening to Mozart.

Looking the paintings of van Gogh, if you are not forgetting the whole world, then you are not looking at the paintings, or you are only seeing the painting but it has not been a heart-felt experience.

Q:* SO THE POINT IS ENJOYING WHAT YOU DO AT THIS MOMENT....

A:* Every moment, every single moment; enjoy it so totally that you never have to look back, that you have never to repent that that moment was lost. Squeeze the whole juice of it, because the next moment is not certain, this may be the last moment. The past is gone, the future is uncertain; all that is certain is this moment.

And millions of people are losing this moment for a certain goal in the future, certain end to be achieved.

I wanted to say through that statement that religion has no goal, not even God.

Q:* YES, BUT YOU'RE WORKING WITH (INAUDIBLE). YOU COULD CALL IT A RELIGION.

A:* I can. In fact, I call this is the only religion; all other religions are in some way exploitation of man's weakness, helplessness, ignorance. They are not religions.

This is the only religion, because there is no question of exploiting anybody's fear and creating a hell, exploiting anybody's greed and giving a promise of paradise and eternal joys there.

I am not promising anything. There is no judgment, and there is no reward and no punishment. If you live this moment totally, that is its reward; if you miss, you are already punished. There is no need for anything afterwards, there is no need for a judgment today. In the end, when the universe will come to its ultimate death -- there is no need. Each moment is giving you its reward, its punishment; and it is up to you. To me, not to live the moment is enough punishment; you missed a living reality. And to live it fully is paradise.

Paradise or hell are not somewhere else. Each moment both are available to you.

It is your choice. People who are thinking of the past are missing; people who are thinking of the future are missing. People who are not thinking of past and future, and are simply living this moment intensively -- burning their life torch from both ends simultaneously -- they are the people who come to know what love is, what beauty is, what truth is.

Q:* SO DO YOU -- WOULD THAT SORT OF DENOUNCE PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE A BETTER FUTURE FOR THEMSELVES AS WELL AS FOR THEIR CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN AND SO FORTH? I'M SPEAKING OF PEOPLE THAT ARE ACTIVE IN TRYING TO MAKE A BETTER ENVIRONMENT, LIKE GREEN PEACE, PEACE MOVEMENTS, PEOPLE THAT ARE WORKING WITH TRYING TO MAKE A BETTER FUTURE IN DIFFERENT WAYS.

A:* I understand. Just think for five thousand years this is what every generation has been doing. The generation that has preceded us was thinking about us and making a better future; our present was their future. What they have done? In five thousand years continuously every generation, every father, every mother, every teacher, every priest, is creating a better future; and the total result seems to be just the opposite. Two things happened: they destroyed their present, they sacrificed, they thought they are martyrs, they thought they are doing great service to humanity. They were doing great disservice because the time that was given to them, a gift of existence, they wasted. And they have not been able to create a better future. Those five thousand years should become a lesson.

My own understanding is: If you are living your present totally, out of this living will be born the next moment. You have taken care of the next moment by living this moment totally. Just think how logic can lead to foolish attitudes. The father is told that he has to sacrifice his life for the children, his father sacrificed his life for him. Neither he could live, nor he can live, nor his children are going to live, because they will be sacrificing their lives to their children. So everybody is sacrificing to somebody else. Strange. Then who is going to live?

So my insistence is live it! And out of your living experience the future will be born. If your living moment is of tremendous beauty and ecstasy, naturally you are creating future without any effort to create it. But if you are sacrificing to your children's future, deep down you will be resentful -- because your life is being destroyed by these children. And these children will be resentful towards you because you were continuously bragging that you sacrificed your life, and you will want that children should feel obliged to you. You would like your children to sacrifice their youth to your old age because you sacrificed. This is so stupid.

Q:* PEOPLE ARE GETTING VERY WORRIED ABOUT THE POLITICAL SITUATION WITH ATOMIC THREATS, NUCLEAR WAR THREATS, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND POLLUTION, THINGS LIKE THAT, WHICH IS NOT THE SAME SACRIFICE FROM FATHER TO SON THAT WE'RE NOW TALKING ABOUT.

A:* I understand. It is just superficially different. Basically it is the same. The question of nuclear weapons should not be thought as a future problem, it is in the present moment.

So I'm not saying that you have to think about future. It is a living reality. We are living surrounded by nuclear weapons. So do whatsoever you want to do right now.

But your pacifists are thinking about the future -- that there should not be a third world war, that nuclear weapons should not be created. Stupid. Again, you are destroying the present moment. And the people who are creating nuclear weapons, their logic is not different from yours: they are also preparing for the future, for the future of their people, for the future of their nation. They don't want to be weak, they want to be stronger, they want to remain in a position so that nobody can invade them. The war mongers are thinking of future, and the pacifists are thinking of the future.

I'm neither a pacifist nor a supporter of war. I'm saying, let these idiots fight with each other and humanity should live this moment as joyously as possible. If we can manage to live in this moment peacefully, joyously, the third world war is not going to happen. We have not done anything about third world war. If people are happy, if people are enjoying, nobody can drag them into a war. War is not a simple phenomenon, it is very complex. People have to be miserable, people have to be in suffering, people have to be sexually repressed. People have to be in every possible way humiliated: by poverty, by hunger; only then you can manage and convince them to destroy each other -- because they have nothing to live for.

Karl Marx has a beautiful statement in his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. I don't agree with his communism. But the sentence with which COMMUNIST MANIFEST ends is tremendously significant: he says,, "Proletariat of the world, unite." Because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, fight; when you don't have anything to lose, fighting becomes easier. In fact, there is a possibility you may win, you may have the whole world. But if people are having a beautiful life, a loving life, you cannot convince them that they have to destroy other countries, other people; you cannot do that, it is impossible.

Secondly, if people are not sexually repressed -- which is the base of all wars....

Every soldier has to be sexually repressed. It is sexual repression which becomes violence. The soldiers and the monks in the monasteries are not in different boats, and both have been calamities to humanity. The monks had been going on crusades, killing in the name of religion, and the soldiers in the name of nation, in the name of culture. But the basic thing is that if they both are allowed to live their sexual life in a relaxed way.... The monks will forget all about the Catholic Church and the Polack Pope; and he will say, "Let them go to hell, I am not going for crusade." He has a girlfriend and every moment is so beautiful. You cannot send my people to fight for anything. They will say no, because they are enjoying every moment so much, why they should disturb their life and other people's life.

Q:* IT SEEMS THAT THEY'RE READY TO FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, THOUGH.

A:* No. They are just pretending. My people are not going to fight anybody.

They are just enjoying toy guns, and....

Q:* ALL RIGHT. I DON'T THINK THAT I CAN AGREE WITH YOU THAT IT TAKES SUFFERING SEXUAL REPRESSION, MAYBE POVERTY AND SO FORTH, TO MAKE PEOPLE GO TO WAR, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T TAKE VERY MANY PEOPLE TO START A WAR BECAUSE THERE'S SO MUCH TECHNOLOGY INVOLVED. PEOPLE THINK THAT THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING DONE NOW. THAT ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT EVERYBODY JUST ENJOY (?) THEMSELVES...

A:* Do something now; that's what I am saying. Dance in the streets, rejoice in front of the White House, have parties before the Kremlin, make love before the White House. Thousands of people making love before the White House, that's what is to be done.

My people are always ready. That is going to embarrass these politicians and bring them to some sense, and they will see that these are not the people you can send to war. Just it has to be proved that people are now fed up with politicians and their continuous hunger for war.

Adolf Hitler, in his autobiography, has something valuable. He says if you want to become a great hero in history, then war is absolutely necessary because only in wartime heroes are born. That is true. In peacetime there are no heroes.

If Ronald Reagan wants to become a world hero, then a war is necessary; otherwise, he will be lost just the same way as Jimmy Carter is lost. Do you know where he is?

Q:* NOT AT THE MOMENT.

A:* Nobody will ever -- people will know only when he will die, then there will be a small news, newspapers, that poor Jimmy has died.

Q:* SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN PERSONALLY?

A:* Every politician is basically a criminal. The criminal and the politician have the same kind of mentality and the same psychology. The criminal is one who could not succeed in being a politician, he's a failure; that's why he becomes revengeful and goes into the direction of crime. The politician is the successful criminal. But nothing succeeds like success. Once he's successful, you forget everything about his criminal mind.

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini....

Q:* RONALD REAGAN.

A:* They are all criminals. Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte. Your whole history is the history of criminals, big criminals. Small criminals die into prisons; big criminals become presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens. But sooner or later, humanity is going to recognize that we have been writing a history of criminals who have done everything.

When there was this case about Watergate against Nixon, Mao Zedong made a statement. He was simply puzzled. He said, "Why so much fuss is being made about it? Every politician does it. That poor Nixon is simply caught red-handed, that's all. It is not a question of doing." Mao Zedong's statement is that every politician does it, has always been doing it, just Nixon got caught. He's saying about himself too, because he's a president of a country and he has done every kind of crime that a man is capable of. But he's successful.

So my attitude towards politicians is that they should be treated as criminals, they should be watched as criminals, and a climate should be created around the earth that the moment somebody starts becoming political he should be hospitalized immediately.

Q:* THAT TAKES AWAY THE WHOLE IDEA OF DEMOCRACY, DOESN'T IT?

A:* Democracy will be possible only when there are no politicians.

Q:* ANARCHY?

A:* No. I'm not anarchist. This democracy is bogus, it is simply a rotary club of dictators -- four years, five years, one dictator; then five years another dictator.

This democracy depends on two political parties at least, and those two political parties are basically the same. The psychology is that one party rules. Naturally it cannot fulfill the promises it has given to humanity, to its nation, to the people; nobody can fulfill them, because to fulfill them will need such a radical change into everything, that these politicians cannot do that. But in five years' time, people become fed up with them and the other party starts getting support. The other party says, "We are going to fulfill all these promises." And the memory of people is not very long, psychologically it is not more than three years. That's why every election in every country is more than three years, four years, five years -- not before three years. It is a psychological standpoint: people forget about what the other party did five years before when it was in power. People's memories are just nothing. They see this party, which is in power, and they want to drag it out of power; and the other party is ready. In five years' time, they will be disillusioned about the other party, but by that time the first party will be ready to fulfill. This is a very cunning strategy. This is not democracy. This is politicians dividing themselves into two groups, with a subtle conspiracy -- unconscious, that, "You rule five years. Five years we rule." It is just a rotating dictatorship.

Democracy, according to me, will be possibly only when there are no political parties at all, and each individual decides on his own. Somebody can stand for the president of the country, but no party is there to support him. Individuals he can approach the country, the people, he can explain what he wants to do, and if people feel intelligently that this man has some guts and can do something, they can support him. Otherwise there is no question.

Political parties become investments. Political line becomes your commitment.

You are a Democrat. Somebody is a Republican. They become almost like religions. You cannot do anything against the political line. You have to support the president that your party has chosen. This is not democracy.

Democracy will be partyless, without politicians, and then there is a hope that we may find people who are not interested in dominating, in dictating, who are really interested in making people more happy, more rejoicing, more richer.

But this is not democracy.

Q:* DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR COMMUNE, YOUR TOWN OF RAJNEESHPURAM, A DEMOCRACY?

A:* This is a democracy because there is no political party.

Q:* BUT ALL THE DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS HERE ARE ALL WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE SAME PURPOSE, CREATING OR MAKING YOUR IDEAS AND YOUR THOUGHTS OF HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LIVE REAL.

A:* No. My whole insistence is that never try to follow me. I am not a reliable person. Don't believe in me. Don't believe in my words. Whatever I say, think over it. Unless it becomes your own idea and you can say that, "Now this is my idea", work it out. Nobody here is working my idea; they are working their ideas.

Q:* WHICH THEY HAVE ALL GOTTEN FROM YOU TO START WITH.

A:* I have not enforced them. I have not indoctrinated them. I have simply explained my vision. And my whole effort is to teach them how to doubt, how to be skeptical, how to argue, so that they can argue against me, they can be skeptical against me, they can doubt me. And if, after all this doubting, skepticism, rationality, if they find that something is true, it has already become theirs. I don't have any monopoly on it. I may have triggered the process, but I have no monopoly on it.

This commune is being run by people themselves. I'm not even a member of the commune. I have never gone to their commune meetings. I don't know where their offices are. Anybody who comes for few hours will know more about the commune than I have known in four years, because I never go out of my room.

In the morning I come to the meeting place, where I say whatsoever spontaneously I feel like saying. I may contradict everything that I have said up to now. Nobody can say to me, that, "You are contradicting yourself" because I have never promised anybody that I will not contradict. Nobody can blame that I am inconsistent, because I have always said that I am a growing person, continuously growing, and I have to deny every yesterday each day. How they can create a belief system?

Jesus has few sentences which he repeated his whole life -- consistent. Naturally it can become a catechism. People can follow direct guidance about everything with full details. Moses gives ten commandments, you have just to follow, you have to have faith.

Here, doubt is the climate. Faith is not the place here. I am explaining to them what I have experienced in my life, and leaving it up to them. And I never inquire whether anybody is following my ideas or not. I'm not interested in that at all. My whole interest is that my people should be intelligent, and then their intelligence will take care; then whatsoever they do is right, even if it goes against me, but it should not go against their intelligence.

I respect individuals, I respect their intelligence, I respect their sensitivity -- so much that I will be the last person in any way to give them beliefs, dogmas, creeds, DAS KAPITAL, HOLY BIBLE, no.

Q:* YOU KEEP TELLING THEM TO DOUBT EVERYTHING YOU SAY AND MAKE INQUIRIES ABOUT EVERYTHING. BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE ONLY THING THEY REALLY DON'T DOUBT IS YOU AS A PERSON. I MEAN THEY KEEP GIVING YOU GIFTS, CARS, THEIR WORK, THEIR MONEY.

A:* It is true, they cannot doubt me as a person because they have lived with me and they have doubted enough, and they have found their doubts are meaningless as far as my being is concerned -- not my thoughts. As far as a person, they have known me, they have experienced my love, they have known that my trust in them is immense.

Even in those sannyasins who have left, I still love them the same way, I still trust in them the same way. If they come back, nobody is going to ask them, "Why you have been missing for so many years."

Few sannyasins who have left even have made negative statements about me, and journalists have asked me, that, "Some ex-sannyasins has made this statement." And I say, "If he has been a sannyasin once, then he must be right." I respect the person. If he says that I am dishonest, then he must have found some dishonesty in me. I cannot distrust him.

Q:* THIS MORNING YOU WERE SORT OF MAKING FUN OF: THE MOSLEMS HAVE THEIR MECCA AND THEIR BLACK ROCK THERE, THE COMMUNISTS HAVE THEIR KREMLIN, CHRISTIANS HAVE JERUSALEM.

BUT WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM AND THESE RAJNEESHEES, THE TOWN HERE, THE TEMPLES AND YOU?

A:* The difference is immense. I have communes all over the world, and I am going to create more and more communes in countries where they are not.

Rajneeshpuram has no prerogative over another commune, all communes are equal. And my effort is that all the communes around the world will make the whole earth holy -- not Jerusalem, not Moscow, not Mecca, but the whole earth.

Less than that, I cannot be satisfied.

Q:* BUT, ISN'T THIS STILL A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE COME FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, SORT OF LIKE PILGRIMS GO TO JERUSALEM, OR....

A:* No. They come here not as a pilgrimage. For example, in Mohammedanism it is a necessity that Mohammedan at least one time in his life should go to Mecca, that is one of the fundamentals; otherwise, he cannot enter paradise.

You will be surprised. In India Mohammedans are very poor people for the simple reason because Mohammed taught them something which has become absolutely outdated and irrelevant in the modern economy. He taught them that interest on money is sin. That has made all the Mohammedans in the world poor, because without getting money on interest you cannot make industries, you cannot create businesses. And who is going to give you money without interest?

For what? You cannot pay interest to anybody, and you cannot take interest from anybody. So Mohammedans basically have remained poor for this simple, stupid idea.

Money has to move faster. That's why it is called currency. The faster it moves, the richer the society becomes. If I have one dollar and I go holding to that one dollar, then in this room there is only one dollar. But if that dollar goes on moving fast, from one person to another person, then there are fifty persons here, fifty dollars in a single round, fifty persons have used one dollar. And if there are many more rounds, that much. But why people should give money if they are not going to gain anything out of it.

So Mohammedans are very poor, but still they go to Mecca. They sell their houses, they sell their land, because it is something of tremendous importance -- before they die, at least once they should go to Mecca. Without going Mecca, there is no paradise for them.

Now there is no motivation here. I'm not promising anything to people that if they don't come here they are committing some sin. They come here just to rejoice, to meet the same kind of people who are here; and it is not one-way. I'm sending people from here to every commune so it is a constant exchange. Now many sannyasins from here are in Germany, many in Australia, many in Italy.

And we exchange: if twenty people we send to one commune, then we take twenty people of that commune -- three months they will be there, three months those people will be here.

We want to create almost one commune around the earth, and we want the whole earth to be thought as holy, not a single small town or a small place to be holy.

Q:* THAT HAS BEEN THE WISH OF EVERY RELIGION SO FAR, HASN'T IT?

A:* No, never. Never it has been the idea of any religion that the whole earth should be holy, no.

Q:* WHY, THEN, DO THE CHRISTIANS SEND OUT MISSIONARIES AND THE MOSLEMS TALK ABOUT HOLY WAR, AND SO FORTH?

A:* Yes, they are sending these people to create more Mohammedans, more Catholics, so Vatican becomes more powerful. It is the politics of numbers. But Vatican is not saying that Christians in India have a holy land.

You will be surprised that Indian Christians have been constantly asking the Pope that there should be an Indian church, just as there are churches in each country. India has no church, only Christians; the church is Vatican. All the Catholic churches in India are owned by the Pope in Vatican, they are not properties of Indian Christians. The Pope is interested in increasing more and more Catholics.

Mohammedans are interested -- Only two religions, Jews and Hindus, because they are the oldest religion in the world. And naturally, because they are the oldest religion, they never thought of conversion, there was no need. A Jew is born. A Hindu is born.

New religions came into existence -- Christianity, Buddhism. Naturally, they have to convert; otherwise, from where they are going to have their numbers?

Hindus and Jews both have resisted the idea of conversion for hundreds of years, but finally they had to relax. Now Hindus are converting and trying to make people Hindus because their numbers are shrinking. Catholics are growing, Christians are growing.

No religion has ever tried that the whole earth is holy. For example, Hinduism believes that except India there is no holy country, and one who is born in India is blessed; all others are condemned and cursed. The whole world is full of sinners, all the saints are born in India; that is their attitude.

And then in India they have their religious capitol, Varanasi.

Q:* IS THERE ANY WAY TO MAKE A SIN IN THIS KIND OF SOCIETY?

A:* No. In my commune you can commit a mistake but you cannot commit a sin.

Sin, as such, does not exist.

Q:* IF I STEAL ONE OF YOUR CARS, OR IF I RAPE YOUR WIFE?

A:* That is just a mistake. It is not a sin. And if my wife is willing to go with you, it is not even a mistake.

Q:* WHAT IF SHE'S NOT?

A:* If she is not and you force her, then you are committing a mistake against humanity -- not against God. There is no God, and because there is no God you cannot commit a sin. Sin needs necessarily a God, a supreme person to judge. We are not judges.

If you felt like escaping with my wife, it is perfectly human if you loved her, if you wanted her; but if she is not willing, then it is something that you are doing inhuman, a mistake of interfering into somebody's life and that is not going to give you any joy. A woman that has come with you unwillingly will become a pain in your neck; no hell is needed, she will give you hell.

So I don't prescribe any rewards. I don't judge that people will fall into hell. To err is human. And I can understand that one can fall in love with somebody's wife, and if the wife is willing it is perfectly right; but if she is not willing, then you are doing something barbarious (sic). For that, you need not be punished; for that, you have to be psychiatrically treated. That's what we do: if somebody commits a mistake, it shows that something is wrong in his psychology. We have therapies of all kinds available. We send him to therapies that his mind should be put right, that he should be made more alert what he is doing, that he should be made understanding that there is a certain territory around every individual you should not trespass it. That's the only way to live peacefully, lovingly.

Everybody trespassing everybody else is what is happening around the whole world. Here, nobody is trespassing anybody. And it is not that wives are not moving and husbands are not changing, that is happening so fast here as it is not happening anywhere else. Because freedom, if it is not available even for love, then what kind of freedom you have? And nobody fighting over the question -- here you will not find a triangle, that two persons fighting for one woman. You cannot make a film story here.

Q:* I'M SURE I COULD.

A:* Yes. It is difficult to make a film story or write a novel. It will be simply flat, because if somebody falls in love with my wife I tell him, "Take her, take her.

There are other women who are waiting for me. So be quick and take all her luggage so she will not come back! And I have lived with her enough, and she has lived with me enough, and we are grateful for all those beautiful moments; now, you enjoy." Nobody has a monopoly on anybody. Each individual is a monarch, and nobody is a slave.

Q:* IT SOUNDS LIKE A VERY MACHO AND MALE WAY OF LOOKING AT IT.

A:* No. This is the place where all machos have been destroyed. This place is ruled by women. If any macho comes here, just within few days women will be chasing him and he will be escaping; that is happening every day.

Q:* WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THERE ARE MORE WOMEN HERE THAN MEN -- BECAUSE THAT'S A FACT, ISN'T IT?

A:* Certainly.

Q:* WHY IS IT SO, DO YOU THINK? DO YOU HAVE AN EXPLANATION?

A:* I'm a man, and it is natural for women to fall in love with a man. And my whole religion is religion of love. Naturally more women have understood me immediately, directly.

There are men, but if you look deep down in those people you will be surprised:

they also are in love with me, and they have grown their repressed feminine side -- because each man is half man and half woman, and each woman is half man and half woman.

We are born between two polarities: the mother and the father. They both contribute to your being. And this is one of the greatest contributions of Carl Gustav Jung to modern age, that...

Q:* I DIDN'T GET THAT?

A:* Carl Gustav Jung.

Q:* I DON'T KNOW HIM.

A:* You don't know?

Q:* NO.

A:* You must know, because he's one of the persons who has really contributed significant ideas after Sigmund Freud. This is one of his greatest contributions -- although it is not new.... In India for five thousand years, that idea has been in existence. On my dining table, somebody has sent me a statute. That statute is ancient, half man, half woman, and that has been the idea; but in the West Jung introduced it.

The man who are here are not here because they are men, but somehow I have managed their woman to surface. Because my whole approach is of the heart, it is difficult for man -- more difficult for man to be in communion with me, because in the beginning they have to start with the head. But slowly, slowly, I persuade them to get deeper towards the heart -- and the distance is not much, few inches. And once they get to the heart.... The heart is always feminine, the head is always macho.

So women are certainly -- more women here than anywhere else. You will not find so juicy women in the world. Because their womanhood has become, for the first time, respected. For the first time liberated, for the first time they are not thought to be second-category citizens; on the contrary, they are running the whole commune. It is more a matriarchy than a patriarchy. And they are doing so well that it is a proof that if we had allowed women all along the history to participate in all the affairs of man, the world would have been immensely richer.

Half of humanity has been crippled. They could not produce painters, singers, musicians, they could not produce scientists, they could not produce mystics.

Not a single woman has founded a religion.

In fact, even people like Jesus -- who talk about love -- did not allow a single woman into his twelve apostles, and all those twelve apostles escaped when he was crucified. When his body was brought down, there were three women -- not a single man. Those three women brought down the body. But they are not accepted even as saints.

The Christian trinity has no woman in it. What I am saying is that if women were allowed, the way they are allowed in this commune, their contribution would have been tremendous. The heart can do few things which the head cannot do, and all the great values belong to the heart -- compassion, love, beauty, kindness, sympathy. All great values belong to the heart. The head is simply a computer; it is good at mathematics, it is good in a scientific lab.

So many women are here, and they have been more reliable than man.

Q:* RELIABLE IN WHAT WAY?

A:* In every way. They will not leave me for any reason because they have not joined me for any reason at all. A man first joins me because he feels convinced that I am intellectually right. The woman feels me as a person who can be trusted. She has nothing to do with intellectual conviction.

Now, if tomorrow I change my ideas, the person who was convinced yesterday will leave because he was convinced with an idea and the idea has changed. The woman is convinced with my being, which is still there the same and will remain always the same. She has no need to change.

For example, I went into silence for three and a-half years. Few men dropped out because they had become addicted to my words. But I was silent and perhaps I will never speak again, so what is the point of hanging here. They escaped. But the women were perfectly the same, whether I was speaking or not; their love remained the same because it was not based on any intellectual ground. It was a heart-to-heart feeling.

One thing more I would like you to remember: that the man who are here are almost feminine for the simple reason, because I have changed their approach toward life. It is no more reason, it is not more logic, it is love, it is feeling.

Unknowingly, their woman, which have been repressed, has surfaced. That has also created few problems. It has solved few complexities, but it has created some new problems. For example, if a man's repressed woman inside surfaces, he is no more interested in other women because that will be lesbianism. He's man.

Q:* SO INSTEAD HE'S INTERESTED IN OTHER MEN?

A:* Yes. So that is the trouble. But the other man is also.

Q:* WHAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH BEING INTERESTED IN OTHER MEN?

A:* Because that other man is also feminine.

Q:* OH, BUT EVERYBODY HERE IS FEMININE.

A:* Yes, that's what I am saying.

Q:* SO THEY GOT EACH OTHER.

A:* That's what I am saying, that this is really the gay society.

Q:* SO WHAT ABOUT ALL THE LEFT-OVER WOMEN THAT DON'T HAVE ANY MEN?

A:* Nobody is left over.

Q:* THAT'S NOT THE RIGHT WORD TO USE, MAYBE; BUT SINCE A LOT OF THE MEN ARE GAY....

A:* No, no, nobody is gay. Nobody is gay.

I mean everybody is so blissed out that it does not matter. People are loving each other, but their love and its qualities have become more feminine. It is not a macho man loving a repressed woman who is almost a slave, no. A man is loving a woman, but his love also has become more delicate, more softer, more human.

For example, in India a certain ethics has been followed for ten thousand years.

Manu must have been a great thinker, wrote all the laws that have to be followed by Hindus. In those laws, one law is that once in a while the husband must beat the wife. Strange. When I came across that law, I could not believe what he's talking about, but when I came to understand women I immediately understood he's right. A woman loses interest in you if you are not macho.

Q:* DO YOU BELIEVE IN THAT?

A:* No, I don't believe in that. That's how it has been happening down the centuries. Include my commune out. I'm talking about the whole humanity that's what has been happening. The woman wants the man to be strong, just as the man wants the woman to be beautiful. The woman wants the man to be strong, a hero, and she wants him to prove. A woman immediately loses interest in a hen- pecked husband, he's not worth.

It is a very complex situation. Every woman tries to reduce the husband into a hen-pecked husband because it is a conflict of power, politics -- who is dominating. So unknowingly, she tries to reduce the man into a hen-pecked husband. And it is not difficult, it is very easy for a woman to make any strong person -- maybe Mohammed Ali the Great, or anybody, because her ways are such -- screaming, crying, weeping, throwing things -- the man comes house, whole day working, tired, and here he faces this scene. He may be right, but he apologizes, he may ask to be forgiven. He says, "I am sorry, I was wrong."

Otherwise, the whole night he is not going to be allowed to sleep. And tomorrow morning he will not get the tea, and what about the lunch. The woman in the house has all the power. So the situation is: every husband finally finds himself in the house just a mouse. Outside he may be a lion, but inside the house immediately a great transformation comes in.

Here in my commune the feminine qualities of man have come to the surface.

The feminine qualities of the woman have received respect and dignity. Both have become in a certain way whole. As the woman receives respect and dignity, her inner side -- the other side, the male side, also comes to the surface. She shows strength. She's no more weak, she's no more fair sex. She's not just a lady.

Here you will find woman and man; no gentleman, no ladies -- those words are prohibited. Just raw people without any hypocrisy. And because everybody is trying to understand himself, in that very effort he understands others too, and understanding each other gives freedom to each other, destroys jealousies, destroys clingings.

Understanding is psychological health, and my people are psychologically healthy. They can accept anything that appeals to their understanding. There is no problem in it. If the woman wants to go with somebody else, she need not escape in the darkness of the night. She can talk to her husband, they have that intimacy, she knows that he will understand. There is no need to escape. And the man will feel grateful that the woman trusted him, even in such a moment when she is dropping him. She still respects him, still trusts him, and their friendship continues.

So here you will find many people have changed their wives and husbands, but their friendship remains just the same. And you can fall again in love with the same woman, there is no problem.

Q:* HOW DO YOU PERSONALLY FEEL ABOUT LIVING IN LUXURY AT THE SAME TIME AS MILLIONS OF CHILDREN ARE DYING EVERY DAY FROM STARVATION IN THIS WORLD. AREN'T YOU A LITTLE CONCENTRATED JUST TO YOURSELF?

A:* Yes. Those people are dying because of their stupidity. And I'm not responsible for it. The Pope is responsible for it, because those Christian leaders, Jewish rabbis, Hindu leaders, Mohammedan imams, they are all preaching against birth control, against abortion. They are the people who are creating a ugly, poor world; they are responsible for it.

In four years time, not a single child has been born in this commune, and nobody is prohibited. Just simple understanding, the world is so much over-populated. If you have any understanding, you will not increase the population; you will do every effort that the population drops down.

But all religious leaders around the world, without exception, are trying to increase the population. They want more poor people because poor people can be converted.

In India I tried to find, but I could not find a single rich man who has been converted to Christianity, only beggars. Christianity needs beggars, only orphans. Mother Teresa needs orphans. Mother Teresa is against birth control, abortion; she has to be, otherwise from where this supply of orphans is going to come. These people are responsible. Thousands of people are dying, but I don't feel any responsibility. In fact, for thirty years in India I've been teaching birth control, abortion, and people were throwing stones at me, shoes at me, knives at me. They have made attempts to kill me because I'm destroying their morality. If this is their morality then they are responsible, so die for your morality.

Whatever, as an individual, I could do I have done it and found that there are only wars. Nobody is going to listen, it is simply absurd. These people are going to be hungry, and these people are going to die, and that's how it is going to be.

I've dropped that idea completely.

And then I started the movement of sannyas.

Q:* WHEN WAS THAT?

A:* It was in 1970. When I became completely fed up with these idiots who don't understand, and are not ready even for a dialogue. I had challenged all Hindu leaders, Buddhist leaders, Jaina leaders, that I want an open dialogue; nobody is ready to discuss because they know what they are saying is simply illogical, it is meaningless. And they are going to create a country of poor people. Fifty percent of Indians are right now ready to become another Ethiopia any day.

But I don't feel responsible because for thirty years I have been talking to these people, talking to their leaders, talking to their religious leaders.

Indira Gandhi was in touch with me and she was convinced whatever I was saying, and she told me, that, "You are right, but we cannot do anything because if we do anything then the Hindu votes are gone out of our hands, Mohammedan votes are gone out of hands, Christian votes are gone out of our hands. I will be finished." She asked me, "Do you want me to be finished?" I said, "If I was in your place, either I will do something or I will simply resign because there is no point. If I cannot do what is right, then what is the need for me to remain as a prime minister of the country? Then let somebody else who can do."

Q:* THEY'RE ALL CRIMINALS.

A:* Perhaps some criminal may be able to do it. Perhaps India needs an Adolf Hitler who can do it.

The question is how to reduce the population.

I will appreciate if a Hitler takes over India for at least twenty years and creates concentration camps and gas chambers and finishes at least half of the population. That will be a great blessing to the country, and that man I will not consider a criminal. I will call him a saint.

Q:* THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE, NOT THAT THE RESOURCES ARE....

A:* Resources are almost nil.

And there is no way that they won't allow the resources to be again nourished.

Strange ideas religious people have. For example, they will not use manure in India in which bone powder is mixed because bones... that is violence.

You will be surprised to know that in twentieth century one of the Hindu leaders, the most respected Hindu leader, Swami Karpatri, was teaching. I was present in the meeting, and I had to contradict him and create thousands of enemies because of that. A new dam was getting ready just few miles away, and this place was going to be the most beneficially of the dam because their lands were dry and the rains were not certain, and they will be getting as much water as they wanted. And what the man was saying to them, he was saying that, "Don't accept that water because before giving you the water they take the electricity out of it." Now, to electric people he was saying that that water is impotent, its whole potential has been taken out. "It is dangerous for you to take that water; refuse." And the people looked convinced because without education they don't understand electricity is not something you take out of the water, it is not something like sexual potentiality that you can take out of a man and he becomes impotent. But this simile convinced them, and they were raising their hands. I had to stand up and I asked him, "Do you understand what you are saying, and what do you understand about electricity? What do you understand when the electricity is produced by a hydro-electric plant?" And I told the people, that, "The only argument against this man will be that, `This year you accept the water and you see your crops, and those crops will prove this man your enemy.' There is no other way. If crops don't come, if you drink the water and the thirst does not go then of course he is right." He was very angry; he was so angry he wrote a whole book against me about everything.

These people are responsible for poverty, for dying children; and all the religions of the world, in their whole history, have been preaching in some way or other poverty.

I want to change this whole approach. I'm all for comforts, luxury, richness, wealth, technology, science. I'm not for renunciation. I'm for rejoicing. And I want people to live in all dimensions as richly as possible. And my communes are going to be just models, to prove to the world that it is possible. These are the same people, just they need the right attitude; and they can create wealth.

When we came here, this land was lying down for fifty years, useless. And just see the stupid mind of the politicians. Nobody ever bothers -- such a big land, one hundred twenty-six square miles, just lying dead. And it was for sale; nobody was ready to purchase it because it was a desert. We got it. There was only one house when we got it; now there are houses for five thousand people, all fully air-conditioned. We made all the roads. We have made a beautiful hospital, a beautiful school. We grow our food, we are self-sufficient, we grow our vegetables, we are self-sufficient. We have our own cows, our own milk, our own butter. Everything we are trying. And the Oregon government is creating every kind of hindrance. According to their land use laws, one simply things, "Is this a mad house where we are living?" We have used the land. For fifty years nobody bothers that the land is not used. It was according to the land use laws.

We have used it, we have made it productive, and we have committed a crime -- because it is not according to land use laws. It seems as if man exists for laws, not laws for man.

I have invited the Governor, the Attorney General, that you come and see, and you tell us that this is misuse of land. We don't bother about laws. The question is that we had made a desert an oasis, and rather than appreciating it you are putting cases upon cases in the courts. And none of them had come here; they don't have even guts, because they know that what we have done is right. And if they have any reasonability they should change their laws; if their laws don't fit, they have to be changed.

But they want to change us, not their laws. And these people will say that we are responsible for poverty in the world. We can make the whole world an oasis.

Wherever you want, you give us land and I will send my people. I have one million sannyasins around the world, and we will change nay kind of place into a beautiful oasis.

I had told Indira that you give me all the powers, you simply retire. Within ten years I can change this whole country. But who wants to give power?

Q:* WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE TIME COMES THAT YOU DIE? WILL THESE PEOPLE THAT ARE NOW WITH YOU, CONTINUE YOUR IDEAS AND YOUR THOUGHTS? IS THERE ANYBODY WHO'S GOING TO TAKE OVER YOUR POSITION OF THE ONE THAT COMES UP IDEAS? I MEAN, YOUR BOOKS ARE USELESS BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL CONTRADICTING EACH OTHER.

A:* They are. That's why I have been contradicting, that they should not remain useful in any way -- because if they are useful they will become holy bibles. They have to be contradictory. I'm making every arrangement that nobody can derive any theology, philosophy out of them; one can enjoy them, just the way one enjoys a flower, a cloud, a sunrise, one can enjoy them as a painting. But one cannot worship them.

And as far as I'm concerned, I never think of tomorrow. So the question what will happen after my death does not concern me at all. My concern is that this moment I can help my people to be as much intelligent as possible, and their intelligence will take care.

I'm not concerned, and I'm not going to give them detailed ideas and plans. My approach is.... For example, a blind man asks me, "Where is the door? Then whether I have to turn right or left to find the road, and where then I have to move to reach to the post office?" My approach is not to give him all these details; my approach is to take him to the hospital if it is possible to cure his eyes.

Then he will be able to find the post office or anything that he wants.

I'm not giving to my people any detailed program or any idea what they have to do when I am not here. In fact, even when I am here they are doing things on their own. I'm not, so they will not miss me as far as work is concerned; they are already doing it without me.

I have never entered -- neither in India nor here -- in their office. I have never looked what they are doing. I simply trust in human intelligence. And my effort is to sharpen it as much as possible. And that certainly I cannot do after my death, so I have to do it before my death.

Q:* CAN YOU CALL IT INTELLIGENSIA TO KILL FIFTY PERCENT OF THE POPULATION OF INDIA?

A:* Certainly. Not fifty percent, fifty percent for India. Seventy-five percent for the whole world.

Only one-fourth population can live on this earth peacefully, comfortably, luxuriously; and I don't want that you should kill these people by throwing bombs. I don't want to create Hiroshima, the Nagasaki's -- which you will have to, if you don't listen to me. I would like every government to help the starving people to die peacefully; give them deep sleeping doses so they go into deep sleep and the sleep turns into death. Give them at least a beautiful death. You could not give them a beautiful life, but you can give them a beautiful death with music and flowers, good food, at least once in a life give them the best they always wanted and let them depart. And once this population comes to a balance, then keep the balance, then don't allow each and everybody to go on producing like animals. Then they have to take the permission from the medical board, and unless the medical board supports that that child will be healthy, intelligent, they cannot have it; and no couple can be allowed to have more than two children, to replace them.

We can make this world, within ten years, totally different; just you will have to drop your ideas about morality, religion, death, sin. If you carry all those ideas, then wait for the nuclear weapons, they will do the work and they will not ask about your morality and they will not bother to give you a beautiful death either.

They will give you the worst death that is possible. So why wait for that?

And I'm not being inhuman when I say that. It is out of absolute compassion that I am saying that. It is simply ugly to keep hungry people somehow alive, because they never come up the survival level; at the most you can manage them below the survival level.

Q:* SO DO YOU THINK IT'S BETTER TO HAVE ONE-FOURTH OF THE EARTH'S POPULATION LIVING IN LUXURY THAN HAVING THE TOTAL POPULATION LIVING FAIRLY WELL?

A:* Not fairly well. It is not possible. That is not the alternative: the alternative is twenty-five percent human beings living with absolute comfort and luxury, or the whole world living in misery, poverty, war, death, and finally a global suicide. These are the alternatives.

And it seems that we accept things which we are not doing -- whether they are moral or immoral. For example, if a world war starts nobody will bother about morality or immorality. It will not kill seventy-five percent people, it will kill hundred percent life -- trees, birds, animals, who have not done any wrong to you, who are not part of your politics, who are not Americans and who are not Russians. Those poor people will be unnecessarily destroyed, and nobody will think whether it is moral or immoral.

I'm suggesting a very compassionate idea, that if a country cannot manage to live, then it is better for that country to silently die. Why cling to life? For what?

Without Ethiopia, the world will not be losing anything, because what has come out of Ethiopia? Except hunger, poverty, continuous rape, murder, crime, what has come out of Ethiopia?

Q:* I'M NOT SURE ABOUT ETHIOPIA, BUT I'M SURE OUT OF LOTS OF THE COUNTRIES THAT ARE NOW STARVING HAVE COME NATURAL RESOURCES (INAUDIBLE).

A:* That, too, came only when the population was balanced; not now. India has given too much to the whole world, but the population was so small. In Buddha's time -- and that was the peak of India's glory -- the whole population consisted of two hundred million people, and India included Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim. It was almost double than it is now. And the whole population was two hundred million. Now, just India's population is eight hundred million.

Pakistan is not included, Bangladesh is not included, Bhutan*, Nepal is not included; if you include them, too, then it will go beyond hundred.

It was possible in Buddha's time to contribute to the world, and India contributed much. It contributed philosophy, it contributed musician, it contributed poetry, literature, sculpture -- everything, but the population was small and the resources were so much that people had to do something creative.

Life was comfortable. People could paint, people could make statutes.

It is so surprising to see an ancient temple like Khajuraho. In Khajuraho, there were one hundred twenty temples; only thirty have survived, others are ruins.

But even to create one temple like that seems to be impossible. It is such a work.

It must have taken thousands of artists and craftsmen of first grade, because each inch of the temple is carved. There are millions of statutes in a single temple. All the walls are made of statutes. And what statutes? Nowhere else such beautiful statutes have been created. Those people must have been very comfortable, no worry about food, no worry about anything else, and they could concentrate; and they made one hundred and twenty temples. And all over India there are thousands of temples like that, but that happened when the country was in a situation where the soldiers resources were more, riches were more; just by little effort enough was produced. But now what India can contribute? It is a bankrupt country. It can only suck and exploit sympathy of the whole world; that's what it has been doing for forty years after independence. Its bank loans go on increasing, everybody knows they cannot be returned, there is no way to return them. It goes on begging from every country for support, knows perfectly well there is no way to pay it. How long this is going to happen. The best way is to take some measures there. For example, for twenty years make it absolutely illegal to have children. Just for twenty years. In twenty years if there are no children born, and in twenty years millions of old people will die, the situation will change. It is not necessarily that you have to kill them, just be a little more scientific and little less superstitious. I don't see there is any problem in the world which is insolvable. All the problems are made by us, and because we go on clinging to our old ideas those problems go on standing there, and they go becoming bigger and bigger. And there is every possibility that by the end of the century perhaps we will not be able to live at all. And this is going to be a real calamity because in the whole universe this is the only place where life has reached to consciousness. This is the only place. The whole universe is in a way dead. This small planet is something special, not only life but consciousness, not only consciousness but ultimate peaks of enlightenment have happened on this earth and these idiots are going to destroy this. This is not only against the earth, this is against the whole existence and the whole universe, because once the life disappears from earth the whole universe will be just a big graveyard, infinite.

All those stars are dead.

We are certainly privileged. And to miss this opportunity because of small stupid things -- communism, democracy, Christianity, Judaism, just small things.... We can drop all those things. My solution is one world, one government, no political parties, and we would have solved everything without any difficulty.

Q:* I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT YOU HAVE MADE A LOT OF DIFFERENT STATEMENTS ABOUT PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES, MAKING FUN OF THEM IN DIFFERENT WAYS. IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO HEAR WHAT YOU'VE SAID ABOUT SWEDISH PEOPLE, AND MAYBE ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE SWEDISH SANNYASINS THAT YOU'VE MET.

A:* I have to come there, because Sweden is one of the countries which is the most backward as far as sannyas is concerned.

Q:* IT IS BACKWARD?

A:* As far as sannyas is concerned, it is the most backward. We have very few sannyasins there, so I'm thinking to come.

Q:* I'M SURE THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU. IN WHAT SENSE IS IT BACKWARDS, AS OF BEING SANNYASINS?

A:* Yes, only in that sense, and I'm interested only in that.

Q:* BUT WHAT MAKES SWEDEN MORE BACKWARDS THAN GERMANY, FOR INSTANCE, WHERE YOU HAVE A LOT OF....

A:* In Germany I have the biggest communes, and the reason is Adolf Hitler.

Sweden has missed any Adolf Hitler. In Germany he has made way for me, not knowingly that he is making way for a strange man.

The German youth is fed up with the politicians because they have to suffer three world wars, and all these politicians were promising them that they are people special, they are born to rule the world. And they got exploited by these promises.

Adolf Hitler was not only a political leader, he was even trying to be a prophet.

He was declaring himself reincarnation of an old testament prophet Elijah. The German youth is totally frustrated with prophets, messiahs, political leaders; and that's how they become immediately interested in me -- because I am against religions, against prophets, against messiahs, against the whole past. And Germany's past in these three wars has been so terribly of suffering that they are more open to receive me.

Sweden has not suffered, is not yet frustrated, is still comfortably satisfied the way things are. That's the problem, and that's where they will remain backward.

Countries like Sweden, who are in a certain way comfortably well -- not hungry and dying like Ethiopia, neither rich -- super-rich like America, but just a middle class.... The middle class is the least revolutionary class in the world. They cannot do anything rebellious because the psychology of the middle class is they can always hope to reach to higher rungs, can become richer, can become more richer. There is hope to become rich for the middle class.

Q:* ISN'T THAT KARL MARX?

A:* No. Karl Marx never bothered about the middle class; that's why he missed completely everything in his philosophy, otherwise he would have been the right person. But because he never bothered about middle class, he thought of the poor, the proletariat, he thought of the capitalist, the bourgeois; and his idea was that sooner or later middle class will disappear -- few will become rich, more will become poor. The middle class he never thought that it is going to stay, it is a shifting class; so he never bothered about it. And that is where he missed completely.

Middle class has not disappeared. On the contrary, middle class is growing. Few poor people join it, few rich people join it -- because few rich people are falling down, few poor people are rising up. The middle class is becoming bigger and bigger. In fact, the rich are just one pole, the poor another pole; that's why in America revolution is not possible.

Marx used to think that America will be the first to go through revolution. He had never dreamt that a poor country like Russia will do the revolution. It was just out of his imagination -- because it was so poor and there was no rich class, so class struggle was not possible. But he could not see this point: that if middle class, instead of disappearing -- few becoming rich and the remaining becoming poor, and there is a gap.... He could not think that the otherwise is also possible, that few from the poor become middle class, few from the rich become middle class, and middle class goes on becoming bigger and bigger. And middle class never disturbs any status quo.

Sweden is a middle-class country. It cannot be revolutionary.

Q:* DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR OWN MOVEMENT A REVOLUTION?

A:* My movement is absolute revolution.

Q:* SO YOUR MOVEMENT COULD NEVER TURN SWEDEN AROUND, SO TO SPEAK?

A:* No, we will try. We will do our best. Because it is only a question of creating a longing that life can be lived more intensely. And I'm not telling them that in future, but now. My appeal is difficult for the poor; I cannot convert the poor into a sannyasin, that's very difficult -- because to tell him to live in the moment is to tell him to live in hunger. To him I can only say die in the moment because for living you have nothing.

But for middle class people, I have tremendous possibilities. Once they start understanding me, they can see the point very easily.

The super rich are also out of my gang. Marx' whole ideology was dependent on the poor and the rich, and my whole approach is dependent on the middle class.

Just the question is that in different countries a different past; Germany proved good because Adolf Hitler has done so much harm and has left such a space in the soul of American youth, so it was easy. I have never been to Germany.

Germany has been coming to me. But Sweden I will come.

Q:* DON'T YOU THINK YOU SCARE SOME OF THE GERMAN YOUNG PEOPLE HERE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR THE WORLD -- FOR INDIA, FOR INSTANCE -- WITH AN ADOLF HITLER- TYPE PERSON TO CLEAN OUT -- TO HELP THE SITUATION.

A:* I don't care. My whole life has been disturbing people, shocking people, and these people particularly are immune. They have gone through so many shocks that now they go on sleeping soundly well without any disturbance.

Q:* THIS MORNING YOU SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THAT BELIEVING IS JUST CARRYING ON KNOWLEDGE FROM SOMEBODY ELSE. BUT ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT THESE SANNYASINS ARE DOING?

A:* No.

Q:* THEY'RE TAKING YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO THEMSELVES.

A:* No. They are not. They are experimenting, they are meditating; and unless they experience, they are not allowed to spread anything. It is none of their business. I'm alone enough. I have my ways, just sitting here in this chair I can flood the whole world with my ideas. What is the need for them. They have to experience first. Unless it becomes their own, they are not to become missionaries. I hate the word missionary. Each sannyasin should speak on his own authority, then there is strength.

I have seen very famous missionaries, but without any strength. In India, a world-famous man was living, Stanley Jones. Perhaps he was the most cultured missionary, very philosophical, rational, compared to these idiots like Billy Graham. He was certainly a man worth considering. I used to go -- because he had an ashram in the Himalayas, so whenever I used to pass that site I will go.

And he loved me, and he always wanted me to come there and be there. One day I was sitting in the garden with him just taking the breakfast, and I asked him, that, "This is something that perhaps will disturb you, but whatever you teach and whatever you preach -- I have gone through your books, I have listened to your talks -- but it is not your experience. It is all accumulated knowledge, borrowed. You have done well. You are a great scholar. Whatever you say is perfectly in tune with the scriptures. But you don't have any experience of it. The Bible was always sitting on the table by his side, always. So I took his hand and put it on the Bible, and I said, "Take an oath." He was nervous, but he was a honest man. He said, "You are right. It is not my experience."

Now, if it is not your experience, from where you are going to have strength?

Books and knowledge derived from books cannot be your strength. I want my people to be strong, that if somebody does the same thing as I did to Stanley Jones they need not say, that "It is not our experience, we have believed in a master and we are repeating like parrots." No, that will be ugly. I would not like these people to say that. It is better to say, "I don't know."

Unless you know, don't bother to say anything to anybody. When you know, you will have to say -- because then you become just like a rain cloud, which is so full of water that it has to rain somewhere or other.

The moment you know you become a rain cloud, and then it is something totally different. You are not a missionary; you are not changing anybody and trying to convert him to your faith. You don't have any faith, you have a certain experience and out of sheer love you are sharing it. If that sharing transforms the man that is a different thing; it is not conversion, it is transformation.