Chapter 10

[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: The philosophy of democracy is totally against the idea of government owning anything: land, schools, libraries, universities. That idea is basically communist, that the government should own everything, that no individual should be the owner. That is a very subtle psychology to destroy the individual. If an individual is taken away all his ownership, he becomes a beggar. At least in America government should not own any land. That is part of a democratic approach. There should be no kind of nationalization, on any level.

All nationalization is communist.

Every individual should be free in every possible way from government rule, government domination. The universities should not be owned, the schools, the colleges should not be owned. The government has no business in interfering into people's life, their development, their intelligence. Each university should have its own individuality. Each school should have its own individuality.

The question of owning in democracy does not arise. Individuals should be the owners of everything that exists. Government is simply a functioning body. It is not the master, it is the servant of the people. It should look that everything is going well, that no individual is being in any way exploited, that no individual is being enslaved, that no individual is being interfered with.

The function in democracy of the government is to protect the individual, his freedom, his ownership, his possibilities of growth, and to help him. The government should not become a partner, a competitor, in business, in land, in factories, in anything. Government is just a functional body like post office. Now, post office should start owning land and factories? Or the board that runs airplanes or railway lines? Government should not own anything because that ownership makes the politician too much powerful.

In Oregon almost half of the land is owned by the federal government. This is simply ugly, undemocratic. They wanted -- particularly the vice-president, Rockefeller, was interested -- to own the whole Oregon. And the federal government is angry with us because they were interested in this land, too. And this is a big land, one hundred twenty-six square miles. But they were trying to give just a little bit of compensation and the owner was not ready. It was for sale for decades, and because we purchased it and gave the right price to it, the state government is angry, the federal government is angry. This is strange. It seems we are not living in America, we are in Soviet Union.

QUESTION: YOUR SENTIMENTS ARE SIMILAR TO SOME OF THE CONSERVATIVE RANCHERS WHO LIVE AROUND HERE IN THE ABSTRACT, SINCE THEY ALSO FEEL THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN'T OWN LAND AND SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE LIVES OF INDIVIDUALS. CONSIDERING THAT AND THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE MADE THIS LAND HERE VERY PRODUCTIVE IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS, WHY IS IT THAT SO MANY PEOPLE DISLIKE YOU?

ANSWER: There are thousand and one reasons. A man like me can only be disliked or liked, but cannot be ignored. Either you have to love me or you have to hate me, there is no third alternative. The people in Oregon, particularly the neighbors close to this land, have reasons to be against me. First, their animal nature. Every animal has a territorial imperative. We are strangers. The ordinary human mind always feels afraid of anything that is strange, unknown, unpredictable. We are not Christians. We don't believe in any religion. We don't believe in any God. We don't believe in any heaven and hell. Our basic approach is that this life can be paradise itself. Why bother about anything else? If there is a heaven, we will enjoy it too. If there is a hell, we will transform it too.

This land was just a desert when we came here. Only one single house, that too dilapidated. We have made it an oasis. We have created dams, we have created lakes, we are creating a small river, we have made it green. Now there are fully scientifically equipped houses for five thousand sannyasins, all centrally air- conditioned. Never before in history there has been such a commune, creative, intelligent, independent. We have our own school, we have our own university, we have our own hospital. Naturally, they are very much jealous.

This land was there lying for fifty years and nobody cared about it, and suddenly we come from outer space and change the whole site. And we live comfortably, we live luxuriously, because I am the first religious man who respects luxury, who respects money. I am not in favor of poverty. I do not want a single individual to be poor. But I am not against capitalism.

I want capitalism to spread so much and create so much wealth that there is no need for anybody to be poor. I don't want to distribute poverty equally. I want so much abundance that there is no need for hoarding.

They have been here for hundreds of years, for generations, and they have not been able to create anything. And within four years we have created a place which can compete with any city. We have created a place just in four years, against all hostility, against every hindrance from the government. We are fighting so many law cases in the courts, but nothing is going to prevent us.

They are jealous, and jealousy turns into anger, turns into hostility. If they were a little intelligent they should have come. They won't come here. They should come and see what we have done. They can also do it. We are available to help them. We will welcome them. Whatever we are doing here, we are sufficient for our food, our vegetables, our fruits, our milk products. They can also be. They have better land than we have.

This was completely a desert, and we are bent upon to make it one of the most lush, green part of the world. They can learn it, but rather than coming here, rather than being friendly, they are in every way trying to destroy us. This is simple animal attitude. It is nothing strange. It is expected. But, they are being defeated in every court, and we are going to fight to the very end.

A very strange situation: we are fighting for the American constitution against the Americans, because all the Americans are doing things which are against the American constitution. And I have always had a respect for American constitution. That is the only constitution in the whole world who has some hope for humanity. And Americans are destroying it in every possible way.

I had come here thinking that I am going in a country which is contemporary. It is not so. In India there was no problem, I knew it is an ancient, rotten, dead country. But America is so new, fresh, young. Just within three hundred years it has gotten rotten? It has forgotten completely for what it stands for?

It is disgusting to see that President Ronald Reagan tries to enforce prayer into schools. Then why you are against communism? Then why not hand over the whole country to Soviet Union? Why take unnecessary troubles? This is against the constitution of America.

Religion should not interfere in the state, the state should not interfere into religion. Trying to introduce prayer in every school, every educational institution, colleges, universities, is a tremendous interference with freedom.

Just few days before I heard, one Boy Scout who was one of the topmost in other Boy Scouts, he has won many rewards, was refused promotion because he said, "I do not believe in God." Now, strange. What Scouts have to do with God? And if an intelligent boy says that, "I do not believe in God," he is being thrown out.

He cannot be a member. That is something absolutely necessary, that you believe in God. This is strange, absolutely strange.

Nobody can prove what God is. Nobody has ever been able to give any proof, any argument which is logical, rational, about God. It is simply a fiction, the greatest lie that man has invented. And you are trying to indoctrinate your children into lies? Just now, I heard that one of the most important Christian fundamentalists, Jerry Falwell, is trying that the Bible should be recognized by the government, by the people, as infallible. And the Bible is such a rotten Book!

If the supreme court is fair, they will put the Bible x-rated. It is pornography, pure pornography. It is simply ugly. You can find everything that is ugly there:

sodomy, people making love to animals, homosexuality, all kinds of perversions.

And he says every single word in the Bible is pure truth. Even Adam and Eve are not fictions, not a story but a historical fact.

Now, in twentieth century, in the most developed, educated, literate, democratic country, such idiots have influence, tremendous influence, over people, over government, over the president, over the senators in the parliament. It hurts. It really gives me great sadness. This man is saying that abortions should be illegal in a world which is already overpopulated, too much overpopulated, where one thousand people are dying every day in Ethiopia, where fifty percent of Indians will be going soon into the same situation, where the third world is all poor, undernourished. These people go on talking that abortion should be illegal.

Pope is doing that in South Africa, where the population rate, the birth rate, is the highest in the world. And, the people are so poor. He is propagating that birth control methods should not be used, they are against God. But a strange kind of God these people have. This man Falwell is saying that homosexuality should be prohibited, the AIDS is a punishment from God for homosexuals. I am amazed. God seems to be for the first time in favor of women. Lesbians are not suffering from AIDS. For the first time God is no more a male chauvinist.

QUESTION: WHY ARE YOU SO CONCERNED ABOUT AIDS?

ANSWER: I am concerned because it is going to destroy whole humanity. It is far more dangerous than your nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons may never be used, for the simple reason because it means global suicide. And nobody wants global suicide. A war is significant only when you can be victorious and somebody can be defeated. If in a war there is nobody who is victorious and nobody who is defeated, the war has lost all meaning.

We are living in a postwar area, a postwar era. The third world war will be continuously talked about, so people can remain frightened and the politicians can go on doing whatever they want to do; but it is not going to happen. What is going to happen is AIDS, which is in fact a religious disease for which your God is responsible, your Pope is responsible, Reverend Jerry Falwell is responsible, Billy Graham is responsible, because these are the people who have perverted human mind.

Homosexuality was born in monasteries, because you are forcing men to live together without a woman entering. There are monasteries where for one thousand years not a single woman has entered. And women have to be kept away in their nunneries, where men cannot enter. Now, you cannot go against nature. Your body does not know that you are a Catholic, that you are a fundamentalist Christian, that you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Your body knows nothing.

The body does not know that you have taken a vow of celibacy. The body goes on producing blood, bones, sex energy. It knows nothing about celibacy. God himself is not celibate. Not only that, he is a criminal. He made poor Virgin Mary pregnant. And the whole company of God -- God, the Holy Ghost, the Son -- all are men. It is a gay company, a gay club. And if anybody has to suffer from AIDS, all those three people must be suffering -- or may have died already.

Nobody has seen them for long.

And this man Falwell is saying that AIDS is a punishment for homosexuality.

And homosexuality is created by religions, all over the world. They are responsible for AIDS. The idea of celibacy is something that should be made criminal, because only impotence can be celibate. So let them be celibate. A man who is really alive, how can he be celibate? In graves you can be celibate. Be celibate! Nobody is bothering you. But living man, full of energy....

Sex is part of life. To cut sex means to destroy life from the very roots, and to stop people from love, to separate man and woman, is against nature. AIDS is not a punishment from God, it is the responsibility of the religions and their priests.

And all those people should be behind the bars immediately, because they are continuously trying to do the same. Still they are preaching celibacy, and nobody can prove medically that celibacy is possible. Never there has been anybody who was celibate. They were all hypocrites.

You cannot go against nature. If you try, then there will be perversions. And AIDS is the ultimate outcome of all kinds of perversions.

QUESTION: WOULDN'T CELIBACY BE ONE WAY OF AVOIDING AIDS?

ANSWER: Celibacy cannot avoid AIDS, it has brought it in. What you are going to do with your sex? Then the churches should start propagating masturbation.

That seems to be the only safe method to get rid of sex energy. If celibacy is going to be the safeguard, then you will turn the whole humanity into perverted people.

Then I will suggest to women that, "Turn into lesbians. Let men be celibate, let men be whatever he wants -- homosexual, sodomist. Women should become -- all women -- lesbians." At least they should be protected from AIDS, one thing.

And every hospital should start collecting semen from men who are yet free of AIDS, so lesbians can be injected -- artificial insemination for the future of humanity. Because these men who are celibate and perverts and Christian monks, these are all going down the drain.

QUESTION: THIS IS OSTENSIBLY A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY. I WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW WHY YOU CHOSE AMERICA AND WHY YOU CHOSE THE AMERICAN WEST?

ANSWER: I have not chosen anything in my life. It is America who has chosen me. It is this wild west who has chosen me. America needs me, I don't need America. And I am going to fight against all these idiots. I give them a public challenge, to discuss with me. They go on talking nonsense to idiots and retarded Christians. They cannot prove God, they cannot prove that homosexuality is not the product of their monasteries, they cannot prove that Jesus was the son of a virgin woman, they cannot prove....

This man Falwell is saying that each single word, even the miracles described in the Bible -- Jesus walking on water, raising dead back to life -- are historical facts.

If this man was able to turn water into wine, why not turn the whole ocean? You know the secret. Why turn a bottle into wine? And in fact a man who turns water into wine is a criminal. He is creating drugs. The real miracle will be that he should turn wine into water. That could be understandable. He is raising dead, but in his life there must have been many dead people. He raised only one person who was his personal friend. It seems to be all tricks, befooling people.

That man was not dead. He was pretending to be dead.

Just think of the fact that not a single contemporary Jewish scripture even mentions the name of Jesus Christ. Do you think that a man who walks on water, a man who cures all kinds of diseases by touch -- the blind start seeing, the lame start running, the dead becomes alive -- do you think such a man will remain without reported? If he is not news, then what can be news? Not a single reference in any Jewish book.

And he was a Jew. He was never a Christian, that you have to remember. He was born a Jew, he lived a Jew, he died a Jew. He had never heard the word Christ or Christian. Their boy was doing such great things, and they crucified him! Does not make sense. They should have raised him, they should have accepted him as their awaited messiah. That's what he was trying to prove. But, not a single rabbi became his disciple. Strange.

All those twelve fools who became his apostles are illiterate, uneducated, poor men, fishermen, woodcutters, carpenters. Not a single rabbi who could manage, who was doing such great things! Even in twentieth century, if anybody walks on water and raises dead, all the presidents and all the prime ministers and all the queens and kings will be falling in his feet. He has proved that he belongs directly to God, that he is the only begotten son of God.

But Jews crucified him, because he was just a pretender. And all these stories are invented. And what he has said that seems to be so significant? All that is available in Jewish scriptures. He was simply repeating them. Not a single word is his own. And whatever he is saying is against humanity. Perhaps he himself was a homosexual. What he was doing with all these twelve fools hanging around him? Not a single woman! It is strange, really strange.

And it was not that women were not interested in him. In fact, when he was crucified all the disciples had escaped, those great apostles all had escaped, fearing that they may be caught. Only one was there, he also denied him. He said, "I don't know him, who he is. I am a man from far away, and I have just come to visit the city. I don't know him." And when he was brought down from the cross, there were only three women. Not a single apostle was there. His mother was there. A prostitute, Mary Magdalene, was there. And another woman named Mary was there. These three women, whom he condemns badly.

In Christian trinity he could have made a place. What is the need for this Holy Ghost? What function, what purpose he fulfills? It would have been perfectly right: father, mother, son. It would have looked more natural. But the woman cannot be raised so high, to become part of trinity.

These people -- Jerry Falwell, pope the polack, mother Teresa the Terrible -- they are all against humanity. They want abortion to be illegal, they want birth control methods to be illegal, they want the pill to be illegal, and the pill is the greatest revolution that man has known. The pill is the only thing that can make the woman free from man's slavery. But Falwell is saying that the woman should follow the Bible, which says the husband is the master and woman's only function is to produce children. In twentieth century America!

You tolerate these people. Can't you make a cross? These people go on hanging golden crosses around their neck, why not give them a real cross? I am really surprised, because I had a tremendous respect for the democratic values of America. But I don't see that they are being practiced.

QUESTION: YOU HAVE LIVED IN THE WEST NOW FOR SEVERAL YEARS.

WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN WEST MEAN TO YOU?

ANSWER: I have not gone even out. My paradise is enough. I don't bother about anything. It does not mean anything to me. I have my people, I don't want to et mixed with sad, miserable, suffering. Jesus says, "Blessed those who mourn, because they shall be comforted." I say to my people, "You will never be comforted, remember, because you are not the people who mourn. You are rejoicing. So forget one thing at least: you will never be comforted. But you don't need."

My people are rejoicing, dancing, singing, enjoying every moment to its fullest.

And that is my approach, that: squeeze the juice of every moment, so that you have never to repent that that moment went away unlived. Don't bother about the past and don't bother about the future. The present is all there is, so live it totally. And they are living. I do not go out to see those long faces of Oregonians.

I love my people, I love their laughter. This is my world.

QUESTION: HOW IMPORTANT DO YOU THINK THE USE OF THE LAND IS IN GENERAL, IN TERMS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN SPIRITUALITY OR SOCIETY? IS IT AN IMPORTANT VALUE?

ANSWER: It has tremendous importance. It is our mother, the earth. We may not see, but we also have roots in the earth. We are walking trees. The earth supplies everything to us. I am against a God who is far away in the heaven, but I am not against the mother earth. We should make it enriched, we should not disturb the balance of nature, which we have been doing for centuries. I am absolutely in favor of nature, its balance. We should not do anything that goes against it, because finally that goes against us.

We are part of this earth. So land should be used respectfully, lovingly. Hence in my commune work is called worship. We have dropped the word work. We use the word worship. Working with the earth -- farming, gardening -- you are doing real religious work, enriching the earth, helping the earth to regain its lost resources. I am absolutely in favor with environmentalists, those who want to save the environment, against the rape that man has done with his own mother.

The earth has been raped badly everywhere, and something has to be done urgently because the earth is dying. And your religious leaders never talk about the real problems of life. Mahatma Gandhi in India was against any scientific developments that can help the land to regain its youth again. No, he was in favor of the traditional methods. I cannot think that an intelligent person will talk sheer nonsense, but all these people are really not religious, they are political.

They are saying what the masses want to listen.

The masses want to listen that their tradition is right, that their past is golden. It is not so. Neither the past was golden nor their traditional are right. Not their ideas about land, manure, production, creativity -- nothing is right. And this whole humanity is a proof that all your conventions and all your traditions have failed. And man is suffering because of your stupidity, that you go on clinging with those ideas.

You will be surprised to know Gandhi was against things, simple things like telephone, railway train, motorcar. After the spinning wheel, anything that has been invented, he was against it. Spinning wheel must have been invented some twenty thousand or thirty thousand years before. In fact, everything valuable has happened afterwards. Before the spinning wheel only one thing is conceivable, that is bullock cart. Those two things are the greatest inventions for Mahatma Gandhi.

And it was perfectly okay when the whole population of the world in Buddha's time, just twenty-five centuries back, was only two hundred million people -- the whole earth. Now just in India without Pakistan, without Bangladesh, is eight hundred thousand million. These people cannot live just on spinning wheel. The spinning wheel you have to spin eight hours just to provide enough clothes for yourself. What about your wife? What about your children? What about your old mother? What about your sick father? And can man live by clothes alone?

Jesus says man cannot live by bread alone. Can he live without bread? The other part is not bothered about at all. I accept the idea that man should have better values, higher values, not just eating, drinking. It is good: man cannot live by bread alone. But don't forget that without bread man cannot live at all.

Man can live without everything, but not without bread. He can live without music, without spirituality, without poetry, without painting, but he cannot live without bread. And if eight hours he is just spinning clothes for himself, when he is going to earn bread? When he is going to earn enough money for the old father, his medicine? When he is going to earn money to make a shelter to live in? He cannot live under the spinning wheel. But Gandhi had a tremendous appeal, because he supported....

He was against birth control. He was against abortion. Strangely, all the religion who differ in their ideologies, in their philosophies, are in a subtle unconscious conspiracy as far as humanity, its growth, its future, is concerned. Ayatollah Khomeini, Mahatma Gandhi, pope, Falwell -- they may differ in their theology -- they differ! But they don't differ about fundamental things which can make human life rich, which can make human life comfortable, which can make humanity rich, affluent.

We have the resources now. Science has discovered so much; but, we are forcing the scientists in the service of death rather in the service of life. The same energy, and it is not a small part -- almost seventy-five percent income of all the nations - - goes into creating more weapons, armies and other necessary things for war.

People are living only on twenty-five percent of their productivity.

There is no need for war. There is no need for any nuclear weapons. You already have more -- seven hundred times more -- than are needed to destroy this earth.

Now this is sheer madness. You go on piling up. For what? These people have to be stopped, and these religious people have to be brought to their senses.

QUESTION: BUT ARE YOU IN FAVOR OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY? YOU SEEM TO BE.

ANSWER: I am. I am in favor of technology, but in a technology which does not go against life, does not go against humanity, does not go against environment.

Technology is in our hands. It can destroy, it can create. Technology itself has no value system. We provide the values. I am not against technology. It is like a sword. You can kill a person or you can save a woman from being raped, the same sword. It is neutral. All power is neutral.

So the question is not of technology, the question is of people who are going to decide the value system. Now, people like Ronald Reagan who belong to the fundamentalist Christian stupidity cannot be the right person to decide. Falwell cannot be the right person to decide. To decide exactly what technology should do, t should be not in the hands of the politicians, who are in their turn in the hands of the religious priests, because they have the power of people, their votes.

So it is simply a conspiracy between the politicians and the priests to keep humanity starved, hungry, to keep humanity in such a state that it cannot rebel against the vested interests.

QUESTION: DO YOU WORRY ABOUT THE STATEMENTS THAT YOU MAKE ABOUT AMERICAN POLITICIANS AND ABOUT THE LOCAL CONTROVERSIES REGARDING LAND USE AND OTHER THINGS AS ENDANGERING THE RANCH HERE?

ANSWER: Those people who are talking about land use laws, we have invited them that, "You come here. For fifty years the land was lying dead. You never raised the question that one hundred twenty-six square miles land is lying dead."

Not a single politician bothered about it. Those one thousand enemies of Oregon, they did not bother. We have made it productive. We have been inviting the governor, the attorney general, and these people seem such cowards. They won't come here. Just come and see how we have used the land. If it goes against your laws, then change the laws, because man is not made for laws. Laws are made for man. Just see if we have misused the land in any way.

We are ready to correct. We are willing in every way to change. But they don't come.

Just few days before -- that incident will help you to understand the situation -- we had a festival, and we created new kinds of tents, winterized so that people don't have to suffer in cold. Immediately the attorney general imposed a fine of six hundred thousand dollars because we have not taken permission, and "Your tents are not tents but permanent structures." We asked them to come and see:

are they permanent structures? Nobody ever came to see. They already decided that we have to pay that much money as punishment. We had to go to the court.

I said to my people, "Take a tent. There, inside the court. Within ten minutes we put up the tent. Without ten minutes we unfold it and put in the truck. And just tell the judge that, `Is that not enough proof that it is not a permanent structure?

We don't want to argue anything. The tent is itself the argument.'" And the judge was certainly intelligent man. He immediately dismissed the whole punishment and declared that these are tents, you cannot make permanent structures in ten minutes!

And the attorney general has no shame, even. He should have resigned immediately. Just a shameless fellow with no indignity. He cannot understand what indignity he has suffered. He should just go and jump into the ocean.

Forget all about it. We were inviting him here, we would have been saved from this indignity. Now he has put a case against the city, that it is illegal, because religion and the government, and the state, is mixed here. Strange people. They don't come. They should come and show us where religion is mixing with state.

Your president is trying to mix state and religion. Your courts are mixing state and religion: why Bibles are provided to take oath? Why a Scout has been thrown out because he does not believe in God? And now this man, Jerry Falwell, he is saying that Bible should become a national government-approved scripture. Each single word is true. And he has immense power over politicians.

He is a friend of Ronald Reagan. He is going to see him. And they both belong to the same company.

And this city is under litigation. This is a unique city in the whole world -- illegal city. Either there is a city or there is no city, but illegal city is a rare phenomenon.

And that too when in four years time, while we have been here, not a single crime has happened, no rape has happened, no theft has happened, no murder has happened, no suicide has happened. And we are the illegal city.

You should declare New York, San Francisco, illegal cities, because everything illegal is happening every moment. Such a innocent city, where nobody is doing any harm to anybody, is illegal. And the people who decide it don't come here, because they know they cannot encounter and face the reality. But we are going to prove that the whole America may be illegal but this city is not.

QUESTION: WHAT WOULD YOU EVENTUALLY LIKE TO CREATE HERE?

ANSWER: We would like to create as big an oasis as possible, a model for the whole world. We would like to know people that crimes are not needed, rapes are not needed, prostitution is not needed, politicians are not needed. We are living with so psychological health. If somebody commits a mistake -- which is human, it is not a sin -- he should be encouraged to learn from his mistake. If he goes on committing the same mistake, then we have all kinds of therapies in the university. We send the person to the university, that now it is the world of the psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists to change this man's conditioning.

No, we don't have any jail here. Our police we call Peace Force, and they have no work. They must be getting bored holding their guns the whole day for four years. Nothing happens. Their guns are not needed, and I don't think they will ever be needed. We would like to create a model. I don't believe in arguments, I believe in existential proofs. Rather than convincing by arguing, I would like...

and this is not the only commune. We have hundreds of communes around the world on the same pattern. And we are trying in every way to prove that people can live so happily, so blissfully, so lovingly, there is no need for anybody to murder, to commit suicide, to become homosexual, to suffer from this ugly disease AIDS.

All my sannyasins around the world had gone through the test. I said, "Immediately go all through the test." In this commune we have found two persons having AIDS. That does not mean they have lost our respect. They have gained more respect and more love, because they are victims of the whole past of religions. We have made the best houses available for them, the best scenic place.

And because they are going not to live more than two years at the most, we are providing them everything that we can: all our love, all our respect. They are not reduced the way they will be reduced in the outside world.

In the outside world a person does not want to go through the test, because if it is found that he has AIDS even his family -- his wife who was ready to die for him, his father, his mother, even his children -- will close the door and tell him, "Get lost. You don't belong to us." His friends will become enemies. He will lose his job. He cannot live. If once it is known that he has AIDS, the only way out for him will be suicide.

But in my commune they are living more beautifully than any other sannyasin, and we have given them meditations, they can meditate, they can study, they can paint -- whatever they want to do. Whatever they always wanted to do but never could get time, now they have two years time, complete two years time. This is too much! Do everything that you wanted to do and meditate as deeply as possible, because if your death comes, and you are able to meditate while death is coming, that is the greatest experience in the world. Because death comes to the body, to the brain, but not to you. You can go on watching death step by step.

It has taken your body, it has taken your brain, it has taken your heart, but you are still the same. At the very center of your being is something which is eternal.

And the time of two years.... They are fortunate. AIDS has come in disguise as a fortune, otherwise how to get two years time just to meditate and do nothing?

I have every certainty they will die a beautiful death. The other religions have given them the disease; we are going to give them a rejoicing even in death. And nobody can spread here, because nobody can be part of the commune unless he goes through the test. And the disease is really such that very drastic steps have to be taken.

For example, kissing can give it to you, tears can give it to you. So I have told my people, "Stop kissing." Anyway, it is a very unhygienic procedure. I don't see that it has something to do with love. Just mixing your saliva and tongues playing into each other's mouth -- it is simply insane. And we can find better, more scientific, more hygienic methods.

Eskimos have never kissed, so it is nothing natural. I know in India there are aboriginal tribes who have never kissed. In fact, when they first found Christian missionaries kissing, they could not believe. These idiots, what they are doing?

Even aboriginals who are five thousand back, they could not believe that these idiots, they have come to teach us, and they don't know what they are doing.

Eskimos rather than kissing will rub their noses, which is far more hygienic. In India the ancientmost book on sexology prescribes playing with each other's earlobes. They are very erotic. So we can find ways. There is no problem. Just a little intelligence is needed.

Never wipe anybody's tear. In fact, in my commune it doesn't happen. Nobody is crying and weeping and screaming, the whole scene that is happening in every family. It is not a family. But even if somebody is crying, perhaps out of joy tears may come, don't allow those tears to be touched by anybody.

QUESTION: SEX IS ALSO UNHYGIENIC?

ANSWER: It is. But it can be made hygienic. We have made it. I don't believe in theories. If anything I see is right, I tell my people to do it. While making love they should use condoms, while making love they should use gloves. And they are freely available to everybody. And this is simple intelligence. Why do unnecessary harm to the person you love?

QUESTION: YOU'RE A SENSUAL MAN?

ANSWER: Certainly.

QUESTION: RUBBER GLOVES AND CONDOMS DETRACT FROM SENSUALITY.

ANSWER: No. They do not. If you are really sensuous, they also become sensuous. Otherwise your skin will destroy your sensuality. What is your skin? It is just a rubber glove! Do you want the woman to be really naked? All skin taken away? Then you will make love? If you can make love through the skin, what is wrong with a plastic or rubber over your hand? It is just new, and in fact everything new is an adventure. I am a sensuous man, and I appreciate sensuality. But my understanding is a sensuous man can touch anything and make it sensuous. A non-sensuous man or anti-sensuous man....

And you may have observed, sometimes you shake hands with a man and you feel as if you are shaking hands with a dead branch of a tree. That man is not there. He is simply fulfilling a mannerism. There is no warmth coming from him.

In fact, you will feel sucked. By being with this man you will feel tired. You will feel as if that man was somehow a parasite on your energy. So it is not a question.

You can make anything sensuous. And when life is in danger, you have to find out a way, because what you will do if life disappears? Then where will be your sensuality? And where will be your sexuality? It is simple matter of intelligence.

QUESTION: WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THIS COMMUNITY WHEN YOU ARE GONE?

ANSWER: I never think about the future, because my idea is that anybody who tries to make arrangements when he is gone is a criminal, because he wants to rule even when he is dead. Jesus says, "I am the only begotten son of God, so don't listen to anybody else. Only I am the savior. Nobody else can save you." So even when he is dead he is dominating half the humanity. Dead people controlling, dominating living beings, intelligent beings!

Manu wrote for Hindus five thousand years away their moral code. They are still following it. In five thousand years everything has changed. That code is absolutely rotten. It should be burned, but it has been followed. Older a scripture, more valuable it becomes. Every religion tries to prove that their scripture, because more ancient it is, more worthless it is. Is man evolving or falling down? We have evolved in every way, and we should use every method....

Of course, Manu cannot be aware of it. Neither Jesus can be aware of it, nor Buddha can be aware of it. Still they have tried to dominate the future. I find it disgusting. I don't want to dominate even now, when I am alive. I simply express myself and leave to my people to decide on their own. I never go to the commune's office, I never go to the commune's meeting. I am not even a member. It is up to them. I share heart to heart what I feel in a certain situation, then they are free. Then I never ask even whether you have done anything about it or not. That is not my business. Who am I? Why should I dominate anybody?

That is degrading the other person, reducing his humanity.

And you are asking me after my death? I am not going to have any successor, because popes have done so much harm in two thousand years. I am not going to create another line of popes, no. I am sharing my awareness to my people.

That awareness will take care.

My whole effort is to make them more alert, more intelligent, and live through their intelligence. So in the future they will be able.... They are right now, without me, functioning. I don't know even the roads of the commune. I have only my own road, where I go for driving. Twenty-three hours it remains in meditation.

Only for one hour I disturb it, otherwise no traffic.

My people are living already on their own, and my idea is before I leave them I should become almost absent. So there will be no problem at all. My death will not create a problem to them. I was already absent for many years before death, and they were managing perfectly well. They will manage perfectly well.

For three and a half years I was silent, I was not speaking. They managed perfectly well, everything went absolutely right. It was tremendously joyful to me to see that I am silent, they cannot get any instruction from me, they have whole responsibility on themselves, they cannot dump responsibility on me, and they did so beautifully.

It is just because in my silence they did beautifully that I started speaking again.

Now there is no problem. They are not dependent on my speaking or not speaking. They will not be dependent even my presence. My absence or presence will not make any difference. The people who appoint their successors, who give instructions, who make Ten Commandments, are really not the right kind of people. They are trying to dominate humanity through their grave. I am not interested in dominating a single individual. My whole effort is to make every individual totally responsible for himself.

QUESTION: WHY DO YOU LIKE ROLLS ROYCES SO MUCH?

ANSWER: I have tried all kinds of cars. Even Rolls Royce has many types, I have tried them too. Their best is their Cornice, but it didn't suit with me. It is a question with my back. I need a certain kind of chair. I use only this chair, it has been made by my sannyasins exactly to give support to my back, because doctors said they cannot do anything.

Experts from England were called to India, they tried hard, and they said, "It is impossible. You will have to live with it." It was just a coincidence that one of the models of Rolls Royce, Silver Spur, suited me. That chair of the driver in that car perfectly fits, gives me no trouble. Naturally, my people love....

They don't belong to me, those cars. Nothing belongs to me. I am the poorest man in the whole world, living the richest life possible. My people love me. They want to do something for me. All those cars belong to the commune. They made them available to me for one hour. I don't know what care they are bringing, but one thing is certain, that I can be comfortable only in Silver Spur. And they love me so much they are trying to have three hundred sixty-five Rolls Royces, one for every day. And I say, "Why not? Just a great idea!"

They make everything for me: this chair, my shoes, my dresses, my hat, even my watch. Everything they make for me. And because they make with so much love, so much feeling, that I can feel the robe is not just the cloth. That's why I sad I am certainly a sensuous man. Wearing this robe I can feel my sannyasins, their love for me. Wearing this watch I can feel the person who worked hard on it, because they did not know how to make watches. He went to Switzerland to learn, and now two of my sannyasins can defeat any watchmaker in the world.

This is from Piaget, the same watch, exactly the same watch, is quarter million dollars. My sannyasins have made it not with diamonds but with real authentic stones. In that way it has no price, it is just the cheapest watch possible. In other way it is valueless. If somebody offers me one billion dollars for it, I am not going to give it. Love is never for sale.

They have arranged ninety Rolls Royces, and I know they will be able to manage three hundred sixty-five.

QUESTION: IF YOU SOLD TWO OR THREE ROLLS ROYCES, YOU COULD BUILD ANOTHER LAKE WITH THE MONEY.

ANSWER: They will make the lake too. There is no need to sell the Rolls Royces.

They will never sell, even when I am gone those Rolls Royces are not going to be sold. I have used them. They will feel my presence in them. They will not want anybody else to sit in those cars. Those cars are not saleable. And as far as lakes are concerned, whatever is needed they are doing it.

We have made a great lake, and now we are thinking to double it. Two and a half million dollars worth lake, and we are now planning to make it double. Already it is great, but when it enters deeper into mountains it will be more scenic for boats, for people to go deep in the mountains. We are making everything. As far as money is concerned, it is not a problem. We can create.

All my communes around the world are living richly. Here you can see it, not only that I have ninety Rolls Royces, my other sannyasins have Rolls Royces.

They have Mercedes Benz. There are hundreds of cars. There are only fifteen hundred permanent residents here, and I don't think any city in the whole world can compete as far as cars are concerned. Fifteen hundred people have one hundred busses. Fifteen hundred people have five airplanes and their own airport. And everybody is capable to have anytime any kind of vehicle he wants, because we have made pools of vehicles.

For example, this Jesus Grove where we are sitting, they have a pool of hundreds of cars. Anybody can take any car. Everything belongs to all. They will not take my cars, just out of their love. Nobody has prohibited them. I have not prohibited them. Just out of love, out of gratitude, they will not take. Otherwise those ninety cars are always available, they can take. What I can do with ninety Rolls Royces? I do only for one hour drive, I cannot drive ninety cars in one hour.

They also know it, but they feel how much love I have given to them.

I have given my whole heart to them. So they want to do something. Anything that they can do, they try. It is not a duty on them, nobody has asked them, nobody is forcing them. It is out of sheer joy they go on doing things. And that's the way it should be.

I don't even say that I am your leader or your Master. I simply say I am just a friend. If my experience can be of any help to you, I am ready to share. Okay?

QUESTION: THANK YOU.

ANSWER: Thank you.