Chapter 22

[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: It was going to happen some day.... It is something to do with how life functions. Life functions through polarities. The opposite poles create the tension for life. Life is a tension, death is a relaxation.

It is just like the positive electricity and negative electricity: if both are not together there will not be any electricity. So in existence, opposites are really not opposites, but complementaries. The same is the case with bioenergy: man and woman are positive and negative poles. Their meeting is the meeting of positive and negative energy. It is creative, of life.

So even before AIDS became known, I was aware that homosexuality is spreading fastly -- sooner or later something very dangerous is going to happen, because homosexuality means there is no tension; man and man are the same poles. They can only create death, not life.

I have always been telling people to move to their natural, biological sex relationships -- man to woman. But about AIDS I became aware just last year, that it has come of which I was always afraid. It was bound to come sooner or later. It is a by-product of homosexuality. And homosexuality is a religious disease: anybody responsible for it are the founders of all the religions. They have committed this crime, perhaps unknowingly, because first they asked people that celibacy is something spiritual, which is sheer nonsense.

Celibacy is impossible. Nobody has ever been a celibate... unless he was impotent. But the most wondering thing is that the impotent people have not contributed anything to human progress, evolution -- they have never been creative. They are just hollow, they have no potency to create.

The religious people were teaching a forced impotency which is against biology.

And whatever your ideology may be, there is no way to convey the ideology to your ideology may be, there is no way to convey the ideology to your physiology, biology, your chemistry -- there is no way. Once you have eaten the food, you cannot tell your stomach what to do with it. And it is good that it is beyond your control. Once you have swallowed it, it is beyond your control.

Your body knows perfectly well what to do with it.

You may take the vow of celibacy, but your biology is not even aware that you are a Christian monk or a Hindu monk or a Buddhist monk; your biology goes on functioning the same way as before. It goes on creating male sperms in you, in millions, because nature depends on your being not a celibate. It is good that Buddha's father was not celibate! It is good that Mohammed's father was not celibate! If these people had been celibate, the world would have missed two very colorful people.

Nature wants you to be alive, hence the basic elements in your life -- for example, breathing -- nature has kept in its own control. It is not on you to breathe or not to breathe, otherwise sometimes you may forget. In sleep you are bound to forget and then in the morning there will be nobody to breathe. So breathing, no one can say, "I am doing it." It is existence that breathes in and out, and you are not in control of it, because breathing is so essential for your life -- it cannot be left in your unconscious hands.

What is breathing to a single individual, is reproduction to the race. Individuals come and go, but humanity has to continue. Life has to continue. It cannot depend on individuals' decision, because they are only temporary. They will be here for a time being; their decisions cannot be of any value.

So celibacy, sexual energy, the power to reproduce, has been kept in the hands of life itself. You cannot do anything about it.

Q: YOU SAID BEFORE THAT THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT HAD TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER.

A: Yes.

Q: WHY NOT IN THE FIFTIES, WHY NOT IN THE SIXTIES OR SEVENTIES?

WHY RIGHT NOW?

A: There are reasons.... First, everything has to reach to a particular climax. You don't ask why the water evaporates at hundred centigrade degrees -- why not at ninety-eight and why not at ninety, and why not at hundred and one? It is simply something that is not in our hands. Everything happens at a certain point, at a certain climax, and there is no reason why, because there is nobody to answer it.

No scientist can answer it, why water evaporates at hundred degrees -- there is no reason! It could have been ninety-nine. And there is nobody to ask about. We have to accept it as a fundamental law of existence.

About homosexuality, why it did not happen in sixties, fifties, is pointless, because if it had happened in sixties, you would have asked the same question then too -- why it did not happen in forties? It is irrelevant.

Whenever it has happened, that means now it has touched the evaporating point.

Q: AND DO YOU FEEL THAT HOMOSEXUALS WERE THE FIRST TO SUFFER BECAUSE THEIR UNNATURAL WAY WOULD LEAVE THEM MOST SUSCEPTIBLE? IS THAT SOMETHING THAT MIGHT NATURALLY OR LOGICALLY FOLLOW?

A: It will logically follow, because what they are doing is absolutely perverted.

And the consequence is going to be something not a disease -- because I don't call AIDS a disease -- it is just a slow death.

A disease is curable. Death is the only phenomenon which is incurable. And now the scientists all over the world have accepted the fact that there is no cure for AIDS. So AIDS is no more a disease; it is death, just slow death.

Q: YOU SAID IN DISCOURSE A FEW DAYS AGO THAT AIDS IS NOT A DISEASE, IT IS DEATH, THAT THE SCIENTISTS SAY THERE WILL NEVER BE A CURE -- DON'T YOU FEEL THIS IS QUITE NEGATIVE STATEMENT OR ACCESSMENT, JUST AS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO PEOPLE SAID THAT MAN WOULD NEVER FLY, LET ALONE SET FOOT ON THE MOON?

A: No, it is not so. That was simply ignorance and the people who said it simply said it because it has not happened before.

Q: BUT COULDN'T YOU SAY THE SAME THING ABOUT A CURE FOR AIDS?

A: No. Because if you understand the situation of AIDS, the situation is that it is not any disease that needs any medicine, any operation. It is really the death of will to live. Deep down the person has lost his will to live and there is no medicine which can create will to live.

Q: I HAD HEARD THAT YOU HAD SAID THIS, MOSTLY AS IT PERTAINED TO HOMOSEXUALS, THAT THERE WAS A LOSS OF POLARITY IN THEIR LIVES, BUT HOW ABOUT THOSE WHO ARE UNWITTINGLY INFECTED, FROM HOMOSEXUALS, NORMAL HETEROSEXUAL PEOPLE? I WOULD HATE TO BE INFECTED FROM SOME KIND OF CONTACT WITH A HOMOSEXUAL, BUT I WOULD HAVE THAT WILL TO SURVIVE -- WOULD MY WILL TO WANT TO SURVIVE HELP ME?

A: I don't think, because the will to death is far more powerful than the will to survive. Ordinarily just the opposite is the case: your will to death remains dormant and your will to survive and live remains active. If you become infected from somebody whose will to live has died, and will to die has become the dominant factor, he will provoke your will to die which is very powerful because it has been dormant and never active.

Your will to live is exhausted, tired; you may like to live, but you have been using that will, that energy, that power. You have Your will to live is exhausted, tired; you may like to live, but you have been using that will, that energy, that power. You have never used your will to die. That has remained there dormant, underneath. In fact Sigmund Freud was the first man to discover that man has a wish for death. Before him it was not even a known fact that there is something like will to die.

You can become infected only because your will to die is so powerfully there, ready to explode -- just a small infection is needed to make it creative -- and it will spread fast and your will to life is exhausted, tired, old, spent. It is almost hoping against hope that there will be some way to survive once you are positively an AIDS patient.

What actually it does when the will to live disappears: you become vulnerable to every kind of disease. Ordinarily, whenever a disease attacks you, your body, your will to live, creates antibodies to fight with it. But when the will to live is almost dead or dying or is fighting for its own survival -- and instead of will to live on the throne is will to die -- then any infection is welcome. No antibodies will be created in you.

This is the problem that your body is no more fighting against any infection.

Q: SO THEN THIS COMMUNITY, IT SEEMS, IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT'S GOING OUT OF ITS WAY TO TO AVOID IT?

A: Certainly. It is only the unique community. And we are trying the same methods around the world in our other communes. And anybody who really wants to save himself, our communities will be the shelters.

Q: SO YOU ARE SUGGESTING THAT THE WILL OF THE WORLD IS IN A SENSE LOOKING TO DIE?

A: The whole world in fact is not only through AIDS -- that is only one side of the story. The other side is that the world itself is preparing for a global death. So the attack is double: from the individual, every individual is preparing for death, and the nations and the countries and the politicians, they are preparing for nuclear weapons. We are in a very unique times, pressed from every side for self- destruction.

Unless something helps people to rejoice in life, to dance and sing and love -- which religions have crippled, that's why I say they are the criminals.... They have been all against life, in some way or other, more or less. They want to renounce this life in favor of a future life after death. They don't want you to enjoy, they don't want you to laugh, they don't want you to dance, they don't want you to eat, tastefully, they don't want you to drink -- they don't want you to do anything that gives you joy! They want you to do things which are boring, utterly futile, stupid yoga exercises in which you are just torturing your body unnecessarily -- there is no need, nothing is going to be gained by it. Fasting is religious, feasting is not, and if you can fast long you become a great saint -- and all that you have done is repress your natural hunger.

Everything that makes life worth living has been condemned. Poverty has been praised, comfort has been condemned. For thousands of years these people have been preparing you against life. My effort in the communes is to revive your will to live and to rejoice in it without any guilt.

In Indian religions there are five basic principles. The first is aswath; it means tastelessness -- you should eat but you should not enjoy the taste. If you enjoy the taste, you are committing a sin. Now this type of teaching is going to destroy people in both ways: if they enjoy the taste they feel guilty and that becomes a wound, if they don't enjoy the taste of food much joy of their life is lost.

The second is celibacy, because food and sex are very deeply connected. Food keeps you alive and sex keeps the race alive. So the second is sex -- remain celibate. Now a person who cannot remain celibate -- and nobody can -- is bound to become frustrated, perverted, guilty, feel himself a sinner. Life becomes a sin.

Christians say, "You are born in sin. You need not do anything. You are already born in sin because Adam and Eve committed the original sin and you are their generations and you are still carrying the same sin." Very strange! We don't know when Adam and Eve were there, whether they were there ever or not, whether it is just a myth or a reality. And in fact, what they committed I cannot see there was any sin in it.

To try to know... to become wise is a sin! -- then what is virtue? Those poor fellows, just ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge -- that is a sin -- and they were going to eat the fruit of eternal life, but prevented and thrown out of heaven.

What is sin in being eternally alive? The biblical story is significant: religions don't want people to be wise, they don't want people to live. There is somewhere, deep down, a support for your will for death, from God himself, from the biblical story.

If life is sin and it has been told continuously for thousands of years, slowly, slowly, it has penetrated your unconscious -- one thing. Second thing, all the religions have forced people, if you cannot be a celibate, then get married and monogamy has been the rule. Now it is something unnatural. One gets fed up of everything if every day you have to eat the same food, every day three times the same food -- how long you can remain unbored? Soon you will be bored. With the woman you are tied, you cannot say if you are bored, but in every action, in every word, in every reaction, it will be there. And so is the case with the woman: she is bored with you but she is dependent -- financially dependent -- she had been prevented from education, she has children to look after.... So you are tied. Naturally, this is not... marriage is not a natural institution. It is a forced institution.

Man would love to change women, women would love to change men. And then they will be more rejoicing, more loving, and more wanting to live as long as possible.

Marriage has killed their sexual joy, celibacy has made them perverted, homosexuals. Marriage also has played some part in making people homosexuals, because their woman will not tolerate them even to look at another woman -- but as far as boys are concerned, they can go together, there is no problem. The woman is not aware that they will be doing the same nasty things!

Religion created marriage, religion created celibacy, and both created perverted sexuality. In my commune marriage is just a legal game, because idiots are holding the power, so okay -- just play according to their rules, but remember that it is unnatural.

Q: I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE ENCOURAGING MARRIAGE AMONGST PEOPLE TOO.

A: No.

Q: ESPECIALLY IN THE LIGHT OF THE, THE PROBLEM WITH AIDS AND SO FORTH, THAT PEOPLE BECOME CLOSER AND WITH ONE PERSON? NO.

A: I don't encourage marriage because marriage means boredom.

Q: SO IT'S A LEGAL GAME?

A: So just legally they can be married, but spiritually they should be free, and they should be moving. And the basic religious teaching should be: drop jealousy and allow freedom -- to anybody you love. It is your duty to make him happy and joyous. If he is becoming bored, it is good for both of you to be free.

Remain legally married -- no harm. If fools are making rules and they are in power, nothing can be done about it, but we can find out a way. Any intelligent person is able to find out a way.

In my commune marriage is just a game, otherwise whomsoever wants, whomsoever, they are free... and no prevention, that's why they are so joyous, because they are not bored -- every day a new dish! If they learn Chinese, Japanese.... Every day a new restaurant! And in fact, it is human! If the husband is happy, if the wife is happy, perhaps once in a week they can be again in a deep love without being bored. It is better to have one time once a week authentic love than to have seven days just boredom and no love at all. And the person who is keeping you bored, you are bound to hate and you are bound to hate yourself also, that you are such a coward that you cannot get out of this imprisonment.

So marriage has helped homosexuality, because the women won't suspect it.

Celibacy has created homosexuality in the monasteries -- in Buddhists in Christians, in Jainas, in Hindus -- everywhere. And all this has come to a point because anything that is unnatural can never give you contentment. That can be taken as a fundamental law: anything unnatural cannot give you contentment; it will only give you frustration.

So man moved into homosexuality, naturally women followed, because they are now for equality, into lesbianism. Both are frustrated, but women are less frustrated for the simple reason because this freedom of lesbianism is a very new thing. Only very few women in the past has been lesbians -- only nuns -- but now it is widespread. Every intelligent woman once in a while tried it, and I don't think that there is any harm once in a while to try something new. It simply shows you are an intelligent being. Only retarded people can remain contented with the same thing their whole life.

The more intelligent you are, the more freedom you need, otherwise you will become frustrated. But anything that is unnatural is going to create frustration also. Natural courses have been condemned and poisoned by religions, unnatural perversions lead nowhere -- you lose the desire to live. That's the reason why in Europe a school of philosophy -- existentialism -- arose.

Existentialism is a philosophical analysis of this whole human situation: that there is no meaning in life, that there is only anxiety, boredom, anguish, despair, and suicide is the only way out. According to existentialism, suicide becomes the only way out of this nightmare that you call life. That was a philosophical expression; AIDS is a biological expression of the same thing.

In my commune I am trying in every possible way to introduce my people again to the natural flow of life, with no condemnation, no idea of sin, no punishment in hell, no reward in heaven, no God in existence, and they have to decide their life. There are no ultimate laws about marriage or about anything. They are all just convenient ways: if you find it convenient, good; if you don't find it convenient, don't stay a single moment in the bondage.... And we are teaching them something which the whole humanity needs: meditation.

Meditation leads you to your innermost core of life. You are alive, you may have lost even the will to live, but still you are alive, and there is a small flame of life still in you. If you can reach to that small flame, it can flare up again. If you can become consciously aware of that flame, things can change, totally change.

Q: MY FEELING IS THAT SANNYASINS DON'T FEAR DEATH, SO WHY FEAR AIDS AND ARE YOU NOT...?

A: We are not fearing AIDS. There is no question of any fear. When you are going on the way and you find a rock, and you bypass it, does it mean you fear the rock -- you have to stumble on it to prove that you don't fear? We are not fearing AIDS -- just we see it on the way and people are stumbling on it -- and we are making our people not to stumble. There is nothing to be afraid of it.

There is no reason for my people to be afraid of it.

Q: HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THE QUALITY OF LIFE HERE?... I HAVE A FEELING THE QUALITY OF LIFE IS NOT QUITE THE SAME, NOW, THAT THERE IS THIS AVOIDANCE OF DEATH.

A: No. The quality is better. It is not the same -- that's true. The quality is better because people are more responsible, and people are not only responsible towards their own life; they are also responsible not to affect anybody's life. Their life quality is enhanced -- and when the whole world will be in the ditch of death and they will be still dancing and laughing -- and they will see that if they had not been able to take all those precautions, this laughter would not have been possible.

You cannot find people anywhere who are more joyous and more laughing and dancing and happy, and more hard working at the same time. Even God got tired by the sixth day. My people work seven days!

Q: I THOUGHT GOD DIDN'T EXIST?

A: He does not exist, but as far as the story goes, he got tired.... So whenever I want to make a joke of him, I accept the story -- I don't accept the God!...

I can make use of any story without any difficulty.

Q: OKAY. YOU'VE ALSO SAID IN DISCOURSE THAT NO CHILDREN HAVE BEEN BORN HERE IN FOUR YEARS. AND THAT THE WORLD IS NOW NOT A GOOD PLACE TO BRING A CHILD INTO. ISN'T THE CHILD AN OPPORTUNITY TO REEDUCATE, RENEW AND REPLACE THE OLD WAYS....

IN A COMMUNE SUCH AS THIS, WHERE YOU ARE GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS TO FILTER OUT THE SICK THROUGH AWARENESS, THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY EXISTS TO BRING IN NEW GENERATIONS OF PHYSICALLY HEALTHY AND SPIRITUALLY PURE INDIVIDUALS.

A: We will do that, but the time is not right yet. I have to prepare my people.

Once my people are ready -- they have all the comforts, they have all the educational systems, they have everything that the children will need -- because in my commune the children will be of the commune; there is no family fixation.

Father and mother can be loving to their child, but the child will be part of the commune, not a separate family from others.

So all male will be his uncles and all females will be her, his aunts, and he will be welcome in every place and every home, and wherever he wants he can move, wherever he wants to live he can live, with whomsoever he wants to live he can live. I have to prepare my people first, and once my people are ready, you are right: I am not going to repair rotten bones; I will create my own people.

And I am heading towards that, but my ways of creating the people are going to be different. They are not going to be the old way. The old way has failed. It was accidental. My people are going to be more scientific about it.

For example, no couple is free to bring an accidental child into the commune. He has to get the permission of the medical board, and if the, when the medical board suggests that their child will not be something unique -- will be just ordinary, mediocre mortal the whole world is full of -- then the best way will be that the woman gets artificial insemination. So, he can find the best male sperm in the commune and introduce. And in fact, it is easier; the natural way is really a strange way.

I had been a competitor only in one race and that was when I met my mother's egg! That was the only race in which I was a participant -- but the race was tremendous! One million participants, and if you compare with my size, the small passage that they had to move was two miles. They are so small -- male sperms -- and one million male sperms rushing towards the female egg.... And I am a lazy person! I decided once for all that put your whole energy and reach the egg somehow, because then your whole life you can rest and relax!

So I have done every competition, every race -- even before my birth I was finished with competition and race. Out of one million sperms, who is going to be who? -- is very difficult. But now, methods are possible which can decide: in these one million people there may be few Albert Einsteins, few Rabindranath Tagores, few Mozarts, few Hegels, Kants -- one million is a big quantity.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF USING YOUR SPERM?

A: I will not allow it... for the simple reason because even if you become enlightened, your sperms don't become enlightened! And I am not going to give birth to an unenlightened child!

Q: WELL, WOULD THERE BE THE POSSIBILITY OF A HIGHER LIKELIHOOD THAT YOUR OFFSPRING...?

A: No. The biologist's(?) biology remains completely unaffected by your enlightenment.

Q: WELL, WHAT ABOUT THEN, JUST YOUR INTELLIGENCE? YOU HAVE AN INTELLIGENCE LEVEL THAT IS QUITE HIGH....

A: No. It's another thing to be an enlightened master....

Q: BUT YOU SPOKE BEFORE OF, OF HAVING A NEW GENERATION HERE, THAT YOU'RE PLANNING FOR THAT, YOU SPEAK OF OTHER GREAT MEN, THEN AGAIN, WHY NOT YOUR OWN?

A: I am planning for that and I have intelligence enough to find more intelligent people than me. But I am an ordinary man with no special talent.... If we need a physicist, then Albert Einstein will be better or Sakharov will be better. If we need a painter then Picasso will be better or van Gogh will be better. So, include me out!

Q: DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WILL BE DISAPPOINTED?

A: No. They will not be disappointed. They will be disappointed if I give birth to a child and he proves an idiot! They will be happy that I don't leave any trace which is below me. And there is no way to make the sperms enlightened before their birth! So it is better not to take the risk.

Q: WHAT KIND OF PROTECTIVE MEASURES HAS THE COMMUNITY INSTITUTED TO CURB THE AIDS THREAT? AND SHOULD THE PROBLEM BECOME LARGER, WHAT FUTURE MEASURES MAY BE TAKEN?

A: Very simple. The first is that the commune members should be respectful, loving, compassionate, to anybody who is found to be suffering from AIDS. That has to be their basic attitude, because that is what will be the problem in the outside world: once a person is known as having AIDS, he will be a condemned person -- by his own family, children, parents, wife, friends -- everywhere he will be an outcast.

So people are keeping the information repressed. Many more people are suffering from AIDS than are known, but it is human, because the moment people come to know, you are condemned in everybody's eyes. So this is the first thing that I am teaching to my people that he is simply a victim -- victim of religious neurotic ideologies, victim of unnatural social institutions like marriage, prostitution. So he is a sufferer and close to death; now don't make him suffer more.

So help him, respect him, don't let him die in indignity. And teach him meditation -- and I am telling my people that he is fortunate in a way, that if he is going to live for two years, now for two years even the richest man cannot afford that much time for meditation: he is one of the richest people in the world. And we will manage his food, his clothes, the best we can, and he should meditate, listen to best music, see films, read novels -- whatever he always wanted to do, let him do. And let him feel that he is loved and respected and there is no discrimination.

There are two persons from the commune and four more have arrived from outside, because in the outside there is no space for them. Even hospitals avoid them, even doctors are afraid. Families don't want them any more. Their jobs are finished. But we have accepted them -- that's perfectly good. We can take care, there is no problem. They can help in their own way. They can edit, they can paint, they can sculpt, or whatsoever they are capable of, they can do. We have managed the most scenic place for them to live.

And as far as sex is concerned, those who have AIDS, they can have sex amongst themselves. It is their responsibility towards the commune who is taking care, giving all respect and love, that they should not in any way affect anybody's life in the commune. And certainly, with such respect and love, it is impossible for them to interfere into anybody's life here. They come to the discourses, they are allowed to move in the commune -- just they have been told not to have any physical contact. And the commune has to take every care that accidentally anything may provoke the thing -- tears can infect you, saliva can infect you, perhaps any liquid coming out of the body of an AIDS victim carries the virus -- so just keep clean, make everything sterilized.

So even in small things -- in the restaurant, everybody who comes to eat there first has to clean his hands with alcohol and anything that has been used in eating is sterilized after eating. Even a person making a phone call, by chance his saliva may fall on the phone -- so after every phone call, the phone is sprayed with alcohol. In this way we are taking every precaution, that no infection spreads.

Q: DID YOU HELP MAKE THESE DECISIONS, TO IMPLEMENT THESE MEASURES?

A: No, no.

Q: OR THE MEDICAL PEOPLE HERE ONLY....?

A: We have medical people here....

Q: AND DID THEY CONSULT WITH.... BECAUSE CERTAINLY THESE AFFECT THE QUALITY OF LIFE HERE, THESE NEW MEASURES, AND I SHOULD THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULD ULTIMATELY HAVE A SAY OVER.

A: No. This is the decision of the medical people in the commune, and we have the best medical experts, surgeons, who are capable, and they should take the decisions. And only in the beginning it will look a little odd that your hands have to be sprayed with alcohol, but finally you will find it more hygienic in every way. Even if AIDS disappears, these arrangements are not going to disappear, because they will prevent other infections too.

So these measurements, when they are new, will seem to affect the life, but the effect will be for the betterment. And not a single sannyasin has complained that he is not feeling good with these things. In fact, every sannyasin is excited that his commune is taking every care -- outside there is nobody to take care of you.

This simply shows the carefulness, lovingness, and the commune is an organic unity.

So in every possible way -- people making love should use gloves, should use condoms. In the beginning it looks that this is an unnecessary complication.

When you are making love to a woman, in that moment to think of condoms and gloves -- it destroys the whole joy, it seems -- but it is not true. In fact it is better:

slower you are, better is the possibility of having an orgasm. It is good that the man is slower -- he has to put the condom, he has to put the gloves. It is good.

And it will increase peoples' sensitivity.

When you touch a woman with a gloves on, naturally there is a barrier in the beginning -- the plastic, the rubber, or anything the glove is made of comes in between -- but soon you become accustomed of it and your sensitivity, because you love the woman, spreads out of the glove.

Now it is a well established fact by a Russian scientist who was working with photography and human energy, Kirlian, that each person has a two inch aura or energy around his body. So if you are using a glove, don't be worried -- beyond the glove, two inches aura of your energy is there. It can be photographed and it will be a good chance to feel that aura, otherwise who cares?

Just it is simple a question; just if you come to an aboriginal tribe in India and see naked people, they cannot believe that why you are having coat and suit and all these things and missing life -- the wind, the sun and the contact, direct contact -- but you have never thought about it that you are missing direct contact with existence because of your coat, because of your shoes.

Your contact with existence has taken new dimensions. For example, your contact with existence is ninety, eighty to ninety percent from your eyes. The remaining is from your hands. In fact the whole body sensitivity has become concentrated into certain places: your eyes, your hands, your face. It has not been in any way a loss to humanity, because hands have become immensely powerful.

The eyes have become immensely capable of seeing beauty. Your tongue has become capable of tasting, otherwise buffaloes only eat one kind of grass and they go on chewing the same grass their whole life -- no question of change. Even if you give them another kind of grass they will not eat. They are not bored.

Their tongues don't have the taste buds. Your tongue has taste buds and because the whole body is covered, the uncovered part -- your face, your hands, your ears, your eyes, your nose, your mouth -- they all have become concentratedly sensitive.

So you can see more beauty than a naked man. You can hear music, its subtle nuances, than a naked man. You can taste better, more fine qualities of taste than a naked man. He simply swallows things -- there is no question of taste -- but in the beginning it would have been difficult. So that's simply the beginning. Once they become accustomed, they will be able to have sensitivity even through the gloves.

In fact you are already having gloves of the leather of your own. Who is there? -- you are in the head, the part, the center that feels it is in the head and then there are bones and nerves and it is a complicated system. In that complicated system, just a little bit of plastic more, I don't think it is going to create any trouble. If your mind can manage through all this complicated system, to feel the woman's body, it will be able to feel through the plastic glove.

Soon you will find that it is more hygienic, because your hand will not be touching the woman's perspiration which can be dangerous.... I have suggested to my people: stop kissing and start rubbing your noses. And don't feel that you are losing something -- it is only a question of thinking. You are gaining a new ground. You have never understood that noses are one of the most erotic points.

Eskimos for centuries have been doing that; they never kiss, because they always think that kissing is unhygienic, ugly. If they see a Frenchman kissing, they will start vomiting -- what this man is doing?

Q: SHOULD I THINK THAT I AM DOING WELL BECAUSE I HAVE A BIG NOSE?

A: Big nose will be better, certainly. A Jew is better in every way!

Q: DOES IT SHOW?

A: I am a Jew -- just born in a wrong country!

Q: I'VE HEARD RUMORS THAT YOU'RE POSSIBLY PLANNING A PROGRAM SIMILAR TO THE SHARE-A-HOME PROGRAM, BUT WITH AIDS VICTIMS, AND I'M WONDERING IF THERE'S ANY TRUTH TO THOSE RUMORS.

A: No. It is just a rumor. And my people are very creative in... making rumors go around. And we enjoy! Nothing to be worried.

Q: THE MAGAZINE IS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE DUTCH SANNYASIN POPULATION IS ONE OF THE LARGEST, PERCENTAGE-WISE, IN RELATION TO THE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE NETHERLANDS. IF THAT'S SO, WHATDO YOU THINK COULD BE A EXPLANATION FOR THAT?

A: It is true.... Holland is almost mine! Just the way Germany is mine.... The same is the reason for both the countries to become interested in me: both are people with guts and cowards cannot be interested in me. German and Dutch, both have guts and know how to take risks and go for adventure.

French people are just intellectuals. I don't have any impact on France, for the simple reason that intellectuals are interested only in talking and thinking, but never doing anything.

The English are grumpy, long faces, so depressed and depressive to others that they cannot believe it is possible to laugh and rejoice and dance. They have lost all hope -- with their empire gone, they are almost a graveyard. England is no more a living country, and those who are alive have come to me.

The Italians are here in a large number -- Italians have been to me -- but they are as slippery as their spaghetti. You cannot rely on them. Just a national characteristic: they are not reliable. What they can do? They are not doing it knowingly... So many have come, many have gone, many go on coming and going, but they are slippery people.

Germans and Dutch, from these two countries, any people who have come to me have remained with me. With every phase they know the joy of trusting, they also know a certain decisiveness which Italians miss. They are not decisive; they are always to be or not to be -- either, or. The German or Dutch, either he will not become part of my world movement -- that is clear, it is not indecisiveness; he has taken a decision -- or he will become part and that is not wishy washy. Now he is going to stay with his commitment.

Every country has developed a certain character. Down the centuries, different geography, different history, different religious ideologies, different (seems to be a gap between tape sides B & C) is one of the cleanest city in the world, but when they come to the commune they understand that they can be defeated. And our vision is absolutely clear. It is not foggy, it is not based on beliefs; it is absolutely rational, scientific, and we are all for peace and we want there should be no world war -- no war ever. The last war has happened. They are coming more and more, in more numbers....

It is a little bit difficult to characterize people, but people have different characters. For example, Indians are so much in misery, suffering, poverty, but still they go on holding the idea that they are the holiest people in the world.

Now what is the need for them to become sannyasins? They are the holiest people already! Just to be born in India is to be holy, so why they should bother about...? And they are afraid of me, because I don't accept their holiness, I don't accept their religion, I don't accept their tradition -- I am against every tradition, every religion, every ideology.

I want man to be deprogrammed, completely deprogrammed, so he is clean and clear, unburdened of the past and free to fly into the future. But that is most difficult for an Indian. He is so burdened with a long tradition of ten thousand years, and for ten thousand years he has been believing that he is the only religious community in the world, and the highest. It is difficult for them. They have lost all sense of humor, because holy persons don't laugh. They have lost all sense of respect because they have become accustomed to be respected; they have forgotten that they have to respect also in response.

There was a world Hindu conference. The secretary was interested in me and somehow managed an invitation for me. The president was the shankaracharya, the head of the Hindus, and we have been quarreling and fighting for almost two decades. If he had known that the invitation has gone to me, it would have been immediately prevented, but without his knowledge the invitation came to me and my friend's letter that, "The Shankaracharya does not know about it, but you have to come, because your presence will make a difference; otherwise, all those Hindu leaders will talk the same nonsense."

I was to inaugurate the conference and Shankaracharya was to preside it, but the moment he saw me, he lost all gentlemanliness, completely a nervous breakdown. He jumped and took over the mike and inaugurated the conference.

Seeing that I have been invited to inaugurate it, the people were shocked and could not believe that this should be done. Even if Shankaracharya is doing it, this is wrong, because on their cards they have received my name was to inaugurate the conference and Shankaracharya was just to preside.

And while inaugurating the conference he told that he cannot sit on the same platform with me, and he is not going to allow me to speak. I went close to him and I said, "I will not take more than two minutes -- just one question I have to ask to the people," and not bothering about him, I took the mike and asked the people, "What do you want? Do you want me to speak or not? If you want me to speak raise both of your hands," and there were at least one hundred thousand people, two hundred thousand hands. And I said to Shankaracharya, "Look at these hands -- you are no more president here. You are cancelled by the audience itself; now go home and rest!"

I spoke and argued against everything that he has said. He was becoming red and trembling with anger, and these are the people who think themselves holy....

Since that conference it was made a point that in no Hindu conference I should be invited. Since that conference I have not been in any Hindu conference to speak. And the fear is that what they are saying is absolutely wrong, and they are keeping the people still befooled. And those one hundred thousand people were absolutely in my favor, because on each point I completely demolished him, and they clapped and they appreciated it, and the more they appreciated it, the more he was out of his mind completely. In fact, while getting down he fell from the stage. He was in such a state....

Hindus have a idiotic idea of being the holiest people -- naturally, they can't come to me, because I will take their holiness away and make them simple human beings. My whole effort is to make simple human beings, natural human beings.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE AMERICANS?

A: Americans are phony! Plastic. Nothing much.

Q: HOW IS THAT MANIFEST MOST OBVIOUSLY?

A: They used to come to me in India -- while I was there they used to come, many Americans -- every year to visit me and they will remain there for two, three hours... months, do the meditations and everything and then they will disappear, come back to America.

Since I have been in America, I have not seen those people at all, because now it needs guts to be here! I am fighting the Oregon government, fighting the Federal government, and those people have simply chickened out.

Q: IS THAT A PROBLEM FOR YOU IN THAT THE AMERICANS ARE CHICKEN, AND THAT YOU'RE NOT ROBBING AMERICA OF ITS SONS AND DAUGHTERS, WHICH IS ALWAYS WHAT PEOPLE ARE ASSUMING?

A: Not at all. For all the money that....

Q: WHICH WOULD CREATE MORE CONTROVERSY, IF MORE PEOPLE WERE SAYING, "I'M LOSING MY SON AND DAUGHTER TO THIS COMMUNE," SINCE THAT'S USUALLY THE WAY THE MEDIA REPORTS IT - - AND THAT'S THE HYSTERIA THAT'S REPORTED IN MANY NEWSPAPERS.

A: That is a possibility, but one thing you should remember: I have not used American dollar in creating this commune at all. All the money has come from different countries. American dollar I have not used yet. I will use it... I cannot leave them just like that. Even they, they are chickens, I will... I have a chicken house here!

Q: IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THIS ISN'T SO ATTRACTIVE TO AMERICANS POSSIBLY BECAUSE THEY HAVE SUCH A SUPERIOR ATTITUDE?

A: No. They have been coming -- not only they, but their leaders were coming.

Erhard, the founder of EST was coming to me. Dick, the founder of Esalen Institute was coming to me. Here I know where the problem is: the problem is the people who had been coming to India and becoming sannyasins there were simply dishonest. They will wear red clothes there and the moment they left India they closed their red clothes in the suitcases and became Americans. So here, no problem was about them.

Now to come here means to get into trouble with the society, with the parents, with the wife, with the husband, and those who have come, they had to face all that trouble.

In India they were coming, they were not afraid that their dollar is in any risk; here it is. We have poured here almost two hundred million dollars in this desert and if we want to make this whole desert a lush, green place, it will need a billion dollar or two billion dollars more. And certainly we are going to get them from the Americans. How far they can escape? They cannot escape, but they will try. That's why I am saying they have chickened out.

Seeing the enormousity of the commune, seeing that there is going to be a fight with the government -- and we are fighting in so many courts and we are winning in every court.... And I have made it a point that the whole American politicians are doing things which are against American constitution, and in our sannyasins there are four hundred legal experts. We have the biggest legal firm in the whole world and they are working day, night, to fight the government on their own grounds. And we are winning!

Q: DO YOU HAVE FUN WITH THAT?

A: I am going to have immense fun. I am really excited. I was sick... I became healthy! I have not become healthy by any medicine, but just the excitement has proved of tremendous help.

Q: IN THE RECENT DER SPIEGEL INTERVIEW YOU CALLED HITLER A TRUE AND GREAT LEADER -- DO YOU STAND BY THIS OR WERE PERHAPS YOU QUOTED OUT OF CONTEXT?

A: He was certainly a great leader, but he was a crackpot! There is no contradiction in it. In fact, only crackpots can be leaders, otherwise who bothers to be leader?

Q: I'VE BEEN AT THE RANCH NOW SEVEN TIMES. THE NEWS PEG OR REASON OR HEADLINE FOR EACH OF MY VISITS WOULD BE SOMETHING LIKE THIS: THE FIRST VISIT -- INDIA'S SEX GURU COMES TO AMERICA; MY SECOND VISIT WAS INDIA'S SEX GURU SWALLOWS SMALL TOWN; MY THIRD VISIT, I CAME HERE FOR THE FIRST FESTIVAL, WELCOMING SANNYASINS TO THE NEW RANCH AND THE SMALL, SWALLOWED TOWN; THE FOURTH VISIT I MADE WAS FOR THE SECOND FESTIVAL AND PHOTOGRAPHING THE PROGRESS OF THE NEW CITY; THE FIFTH TIME WAS FOR GUNS, GAMBLING AND BECAUSE A VERY WEALTHY GERMAN BLUE BLOOD SHOWED UP HERE; THE SIXTH TIME WAS FOR WELCOMING THE HOMELESS; AND NOW I'M HERE DOING A STORY ON AIDS. WHAT DO YOU THINK MIGHT BE THE REASON FOR MY NEXT VISIT?

A: Just that the red people swallowed America....