Religion Is Just Rubbish

[NOTE: This discourse is published in the book: The Last Testament, Volume 1, as Chapter 12.]

ANSWER: The process of deprogramming is the same; whom you are deprogramming does not matter. He may be American, he may be German, he may be Hindu, he may be Mohammedan. It is just like cleaning the room. What kind of furniture the room has, what kind of pictures are hanging in the room, doesn't matter. You are simply to remove everything from the room and create a space.

And it is a total deprogramming, so there is no question of choice, that something good has to be saved. Then your question will be relevant. But as I see things, whatever good is there is joined with something bad. They are together.

You cannot separate them. For example, if you want to remove prostitution you will have to remove marriage. Without removing marriage there is no way to remove prostitution. That's why for thousands of years every country, every religion has tried that prostitution should be removed. But they could not succeed, for the simple reason that they could not see an intrinsic connection between marriage and prostitution.

If you really want to remove prostitution, you have to remove marriage. And that is the case with everything. So if it was something that American society has, something good which can be saved, German society has something else good which can be saved....

Every society is an organic whole. A woman may be beautiful because she has a beautiful nose, but you cannot save the nose and throw the woman out. It is an intrinsic part of the woman. You will have to accept that the nose will also go with the woman. There may be a few things which appear good, but they are good only in appearance, because they are part of a bigger whole which is not good.

So it is not a question that in deprogramming America anything special is needed. The same process will be applicable to every society, everywhere. You will be throwing different things out of human life, but the throwing is the same.

And the problems of throwing things will be the same. This always will be the problem, that there is something good connected with the bad. It can exist only with the bad part. If you throw the bad part, the good part simply disappears.

There is something good in marriage but you cannot save it. It is intrinsically joined with the whole fabric of marriage.

So we have to be aware that many good things will have to be thrown out. But it is not going to be a loss, because once man is deprogrammed, he is now free to grow according to his nature. Now he will not be American, he will not be Christian, he will not be Catholic, but just a human being, as he was born.

Deprogramming brings him back his second birth.

When he was born he was neither American nor Christian nor Catholic. He had no name. He was just a potentiality to grow -- which has been destroyed by people, society, religion. They have been molding people for their own interests.

And our whole program is never to mold a person, because every molding of the person is destructive to his individuality. It is going to be against his nature. And then he will never be blissful. Against nature there is no joy. Against nature there is no ecstasy. Against nature there is except misery, suffering, agony, nothing else.

One has to follow his own instinct. They have to be understood, these two words: instinct and intuition. Instinct is unconscious nature and intuition is conscious nature. First your instinct has to be freed from all the fetters of principles, dogmas, right and wrong, morality and immorality. Instinct, completely natural, has tremendous beauty. That is the beauty you see in the animals. A deer just jumping, running, has a certain beauty which man has lost.

His jumping and running has a grace that comes from instinct. He is not jumping and running, it is nature jumping and running through him. He is just instrumental. This is the first step towards ultimate freedom, that your instinct should be allowed all growth possible.

And alongside, you should continue to meditate, because meditation is not a program. Meditation is just a method of becoming aware of what is happening to you. No disturbance, no judgment, just watching what is happening in you. If you go on watching your instincts and their growth, a moment comes when your instincts start changing into intuition.

The word is very significant. We are given tuition everywhere. That tuition is to repress your intuition. In the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, you are given tuition. It means something from the outside being forced upon you, and intuition means something coming from your innermost core. If you are unconscious, then it will remain instinct. If you are conscious, then instinct plus awareness is equal to intuition. Then for the first time you have found your Master within yourself Intuition is your Master, your real university. And now you don't need any scripture, you don't need any guide. Your inner light is enough to lead you to the ultimate goal of enlightenment.

So deprogramming is absolutely necessary. That simply means cleaning the person of the past and bringing him back to his innocence of childhood. And it doesn't matter whom you are deprogramming. Of course, you will have to throw different things. If you are deprogramming an Indian, then certainly you cannot throw a TV because there is no TV. If you are deprogramming an American, the TV has to be thrown. Five or six hours he is glued to his TV each day; it is taking up the major part of his life.

This is something that has to be understood. Humanity has been reduced almost into the state of a spectator. You watch television six hours per day. That means six hours you are not living, you are simply seeing other people live, other people playing: a football match, a boxing competition, and you are simply spectator. Then there is the movie -- the same; again you are a spectator. Then there are real matches, and millions of people go mad; and the Olympics -- and you are just reduced to a spectator. Eighteen persons are playing the game and one hundred thousand people are simply spectators.

And if you observe in life, everywhere man has been reduced from being active, participant, into a spectator. Now, this kind of life cannot bring you joy. You are not living, you are avoiding living. It is better to compose your own music. It may not be great, it does not matter. You may not become a famous musician; that does not matter either. What matters is that you were composing it yourself.

You were not a spectator; you were a participant, you were a creator. And if people are deprogrammed, all their energy will move towards creativity.

You go into the church, you listen to the sermon and that is your religion. You have a Holy Bible and you read the Bible, a few pages every day, and that is your religion. You never live religion, nor does your priest live religion -- reading the Holy Bible does not mean living religion. You are again reading something as a spectator.

A deprogrammed person stops being a spectator. He becomes creative on his own. The value is not what he creates, the value is that he creates. Joy comes out of creation. Making any small thing -- just making food for someone you love -- is immense joy. But in America you need not do it. Everything is available, packaged. The whole creativity is in how to open the can. If you know how to open the can, you are a great cook.

And this is happening in every sphere of life. People are being deceived.

Certainly it is easier to open the can, and it is easier for the vested interests who are selling those cans; but you forget completely that there was a joy in cooking, in making something delicious for someone you love, your friends, children, parents. All that is missing.

A deprogrammed person will have to start his life completely from scratch. So our function is not to bother with what is cluttering his mind. American, German, Hindu, Mohammedan does not matter; whatever, we have to throw it out of his mind without any discrimination. The whole mind has to be emptied of all good, bad, whatever he has.

Of course, the poor man will have different things in his mind, the rich man will have different things; but when both minds are cleaned they are equal. They both have only emptiness, innocence, silence. Empty the Christian, empty the Hindu, empty the Buddhist, and you will not find three kinds of emptinesses. Emptiness is only of one kind.

So deprogramming is a process which is going to be similar for everybody in the world. And the process is very simple. We just have to make people aware that, "You are miserable, you are suffering, your life is a pain, an agony. You don't find any meaning in it. You are in despair. Still you go on, you continue on the same lines which are causes of all this despair."

Nobody wants to be miserable. We just have to make him aware that even though he does not want to, he remains miserable because he is attached to something which is the cause of his misery -- the Catholic church, the Hindu religion -- which he thinks is something spiritual, which he thinks is going to give him blissfulness. All they are giving him is misery, but he does not connect them.

The function of the sannyasins is to make the connection clear. Once the connection is clear, nobody wants to be miserable. And if it is the church who is making him miserable, then along with his misery he will throw the church, too.

Once he breathes in pure air, once he is out of the Christian atmosphere, he will be surprised that the misery has disappeared, that there is some dance in his feet, some song in his heart.

One experience will make him go for the whole process, to empty his mind of all conditioning. As he goes on unconditioning himself, his misery goes on disappearing, and at a certain point the pendulum changes. Instead of misery he starts feeling glimpses of joy, and new windows start opening.

Your work is done once you have given the man a clear vision of what causes his misery. He can never get out of misery itself He has to remove the cause. And if he removes the cause, blissfulness is not something that comes from anywhere, it is just his very nature. Let the misery go, throw its cause away, and you will find yourself full of blissfulness for no reason at all.

Bliss has no cause. It is our very nature. All that is needed is emptiness so that our nature can have a space to grow, blossom, spread fragrance.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE SAID YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN THE OUTSIDE, NO INTEREST IN POLITICS. YET YOU OFTEN SPEAK ABOUT POLITICS AND POLITICIANS AND GIVE US MANY INSIGHTS INTO WORLD PROBLEMS. CAN YOU COMMENT?

A: I don't have any interest in the outside world, in politics, but I have immense interest in you. You are living in a world which is ugly, sick, one foot in the grave. And I don't want you to be drowned with this sick world.

That's why I speak against many things. My interest is in you, my sannyasins. I speak against politics because I don't want my sannyasins to remain ignorant of who the real criminals are in this world. That's why I speak against the priests and religions, because I don't want any single loophole for you. You have to be aware who the criminals are. The problem is that those criminals are thought to be great leaders, sages, saints, mahatmas, and they are respected tremendously around the world, so you will never think that they can be criminals. So I have to insist continuously, every day.

It is for two reasons that you must become aware that these are the criminals. In fact, criminals have not done any harm to the world. Somebody murders a man, somebody steals something, it is nothing. A single Adolf Hitler kills ten million people. Now, that man has so much criminality in him that ten million criminals are needed to make one Hitler.

So I have to expose all these people because they are the causes. For example, it is easier to understand that perhaps politicians are the causes of many problems:

wars, murders, massacres, burning people. It is even more difficult when it comes to religious leaders, because nobody has raised his hand against them.

They have remained respectable for centuries, and as time goes on their respectability goes on growing. The most difficult job for me is to make you aware that these people -- knowingly or unknowingly, that does not matter -- have created this world.

Now, in the whole world they will be talking about AIDS, but this is the only place where I am saying that this is a religious disease. Nowhere else will it be said. On the contrary, the priests are saying that this is a punishment from God.

And people will believe them, that it is punishment for homosexuality. But nobody will ask how homosexuality came into being, or who is responsible for homosexuality.

And people don't have intelligence enough to connect things. They cannot connect the simple fact that it is the religions who have been teaching people to remain celibate. They are the root cause of all perversions about sex. So if anybody has to be punished it is not the homosexuals. If anybody has to be punished it is those religious leaders who have preached celibacy.

Homosexuality is just a by-product of the teaching of celibacy.

The journalists get shocked because they were not thinking that I would put the blame on religion for AIDS. They don't see. They think they are worlds apart.

They are not. And unless you see the real cause, you cannot fight with the problem that has arisen.

Now, the first thing needed is that every government makes celibacy illegal, criminal. Rather than that, they are doing just the opposite -- making homosexuality illegal. Homosexuality is a symptom, it is not the cause. If you make homosexuality illegal, then these people will start making love to animals, which is not illegal. And there are people who make love to animals. It is not something new, it is as ancient as man. If they cannot find a woman, if they cannot find a man, the poor animal is available. If you make homosexuality criminal, illegal, the homosexual will go into another perversion which perhaps may bring a bigger disease than AIDS. One never knows what will be the outcome of that.

People should be made aware that you cannot go against nature, and anybody who teaches you to go against nature is the enemy of the people.

I have no interest in any religion because it is all just rubbish; no interest in politics because I have no ambition of any kind. It is for you, for two reasons that I criticize them. One is so that you become aware of the real causes, so that you are not deluded in the same way the whole world is deluded. Whenever something against the traditional mind is said, it shocks.

For example, I was thinking, women making love to other women are not suffering from AIDS. In fact, no problem arises out of it. That gives a clear clue that the female energy is a receptive energy. The female genitalia are receptive.

The male energy is the donor; in other words, it is positive and the female energy is negative. Two negative energies cannot do any harm because both are receptors; they cannot transpire anything to each other. That's why I call it just a silly game you can play, there is no problem in it. No harm is possible. And if you are enjoying and no harm is possible, then why not enjoy?

But two males making love, both are donors. That is the difficulty. Their biology has no way to receive sexual energy, and both are donating energy to each other.

Both are naturally incapable of receiving energy. Now they are playing with fire.

This energy is going to destroy their very natural structure. There is no place for this energy.

I was thinking that these people who have become homosexuals have become addicted to it, and making it illegal, a crime, is not going to change them. They will simply go underground, which is more dangerous. Then you don't know who is homosexual. Right now they have been moving in society as if they are avant garde intellectuals, more liberated than heterosexuals. Heterosexuals are just still living in the animal world of biology, and they have broken out of the prison, and they have found something better. So they were not afraid to accept that they are homosexuals. In fact, they were bragging about it. They were looking on heterosexuals as something lower. So it was very easy to catch hold of them, give them the test, find the people who have AIDS and find measures to prevent it.

Now, making it illegal will make it spread fast. And what they have done in Texas is going to be done everywhere -- in America and in other countries -- because governments are so idiotic. They simply start fighting with the symptoms and nobody wonders what are the causes.

And in fact they don't want to look at the causes because the causes are such that they are beyond their capacity. If they start looking for the causes, perhaps they may also prove part of the causes themselves. The priests may be part of the causes, the pope may be part of the causes, Jesus Christ may be the foundation stone. It is better not to go into it. Just catch hold of the symptom and start fighting with the symptom. Repress the symptom.

When you repress the symptom in one place, it will erupt from somewhere else, and it will be going farther away from nature. The first perversion was going away from nature; the second perversion is now farther away, and a third perversion will be even farther away. And the man will become so miserable because he cannot find the way back. Things have become too complex for ordinary people to come back to nature again. So I want you to be aware never to fight with the symptoms.

Now we have a world of our own, and if we act intelligently we can save our sannyasins from the destruction that is going to come to the other world. Right now you are minority. Tomorrow you can be the majority for the simple reason that you will be protected and the outside world is absolutely unprotected. They will be dying like dogs. They are dying like dogs.

In Los Angeles one person is dying of AIDS every day, and nobody seems to know what to do. In fact the outside world is such that it is very difficult for them to do anything. And who will tie the bell on the cat's neck? That's the problem. We can do it. There is not much trouble. You know the old story, that the cat was eating the mice of the house every day and finally the mice had a meeting and decided something had to be done. A young mouse, not experienced in the ways of the world, said, "This is simple. Just tie a bell around the neck of the cat, so wherever she goes we will know immediately. Before she comes to us we can move into our holes. She will not be able to find us." A perfect solution.

But a problem arose: who was going to tie the bell?

I have told the story again, and I said, "The young mouse who said, 'Tie the bell' said, 'I will do it, don't you worry.' They were surprised. They said,'But since ancient days the story is going on. Here it stops. Whoever said, "Tie the bell" is going against the tradition, against the whole history. This is the point where the full stop comes. The story is finished.' "The young mouse said,'No more, because I go to the medical store every day. Just by the side is the medical store. All that is needed are a few sleeping pills that I can bring and put in the milk of the cat.

You give me the bell and I can manage.' And he managed! Just a few sleeping pills and the whole story changes. After drinking the milk, the cat fell fast asleep, snoring, and the young mouse did his work perfectly well."

But this is my addition to the story. It is not anywhere, and I want to do the same as far as humanity is concerned. We can tie the bell around the neck of the cat.

We have nothing to lose, so we have to shout loudly from every roof in the world that homosexuals are victims, that religious leaders are the causes, that to make homosexuality illegal simply means making people go away from nature. The best way is to first make celibacy illegal. That means all the religions will be disturbed immediately, because that is their whole base. Make celibacy illegal.

The second thing -- the same way I am not joking -- if things are coming to such a bad end, then it is better to find some scientific methods. For women there are electric vibrators -- more hygienic, more scientific, more patient, not in a hurry, not afraid of anybody -- and their button is in your hand. So take as long as you want, and only an electric vibrator can give a woman complete satisfaction. Now, this will shock people, what can I do about it.

This is true, because the woman has suffered for centuries without orgasm and that's why she is so ugly in her behavior. There is no problem. You use everything scientific for everything else, so what is the problem? If a woman can have orgasmic joy through an electric vibrator, let her enjoy it. And something similar should be made for men. Rather than driving homosexuals underground, why not give them plastic ladies -- or plastic men if they prefer? If they don't like ladies at all, they can have plastic men. Plastic has no grudge against being a man or any preference, priority, to be a woman. Plastic is plastic.

And in fact it can be more satisfying to men, too, because the wife is nagging, fighting, angry. To make love to a woman whom you hate from your guts, what kind of love is this? It is simply a way of masturbating, and an ugly way. So what is the need to force this woman unnecessarily?

Make it clear, because the world is not clear even though medical science is absolutely clear. Even doctors in India I have found idiotic. I asked them "You tell me the medical viewpoint, I am not asking your Hindu viewpoint." Hindus think -- and perhaps other religions all over the world also think -- that masturbation leads people to madness. That is just an idea to prevent masturbation. Nobody wants to be mad, and when from childhood on you hear again and again that masturbation leads to madness, naturally you become afraid that this is not good. Medical science is absolutely clear that masturbation cannot lead anybody to madness, for one thing. The second thing, the religions go on repeating that too much masturbation will destroy all your intelligence.

You will die sooner.

Now, nobody can masturbate too much; that is sheer impossibility. You can masturbate only so much -- you have a certain quantity of semen in your body, you can release that much semen -- more than that is beyond you. Whatever you do, you cannot suddenly produce semen. It will take time. So there is a natural prevention against doing it too much, and if the monks of all the religions listen to me, I will tell them, "Masturbate and meditate."

I can even give a title to a book: MEDITATION THROUGH MASTURBATION. If superconsciousness is possible through sex, then why is meditation not possible through masturbation? And certainly it is possible. People just have to look at things with new eyes.

As a person who is masturbating starts feeling he is coming to an orgasmic state, his thoughts disappear. He is in the same orgasmic state as while he is making love to a woman. There is no difference. His biology knows no difference.

Whether the semen is released in some mechanism, in some body or somewhere else, it does not matter. It is just bringing your sexual tension to its ultimate, which is more easily possible in masturbation because with a woman the other is also there. In masturbation you are a master. You can go slow, you can go fast, you can bring the orgasmic state very slowly. And that orgasmic state is meditation, be aware. It will be easier, because there is nobody else to disturb.

You are alone.

So make it known to the whole world that masturbation does not lead to madness; celibacy can lead to madness but not masturbation. And if homosexuals are not interested in women, then perhaps masturbation will be closer to nature than homosexuality. And masturbation can be joined with meditation.

So I am saying all these things for your benefit, because you will have to face these problems and you should not commit the same mistakes. If a child is found masturbating, then don't do the same stupidity that is being done all over the world. Just tell him, "This is perfectly good. You meditate with it also and you will get more juice out of it. And there is nothing wrong in it, so you don't need to hide." But man is such a coward. He is not ready to face any reality.

And secondly, I am saying these things so that you don't start behaving in the same way. I will not be here with you forever. The moment I am not with you, you can start behaving politically, you can start making a bureaucracy, a hierarchy. You can start making small groups and fighting with each other and doing the whole thing, on a smaller scale, of course.

Because you also carry them in your mind, you can start having the same stupid ideas when your children are masturbating -- and they will masturbate. What do you expect when nature makes the child fully capable of making love at the age of fourteen? Will you are prevent him for ten, twelve years? Has he to be celibate until the time he is out of the university with a master's degree or Ph.D.? You are just asking nonsense.

It is better to teach him how to tackle his sexual energy, and if perhaps girls are available for these times, then keep the girls and boys in the same hostel. Make them aware of birth control methods. Teach them, "Go on changing your partners each month so you don't become addicted and you don't feel jealous, because this is the time of your experiencing. Experience as many men, as many women as possible before you decide."

When people go to purchase the cheapest thing in the market -- a mud pot -- they tap even that all over to check that it is without any crack. What about marriage?

They want two persons, both inexperienced.... In fact, the girl's qualification is that she should be virgin. What do you mean by virgin? She should be inexperienced -- a strange qualification for any job. This is not right. That girl is inexperienced and the same is expected of the boy, that he will not be experienced. He should really be a bachelor, celibate. Two inexperienced people put together, and you think that there is going to be a beautiful life out of this meeting? They are going to spoil everything because they don't have any experience.

So for our children in the commune, girls and boys should be staying in the same hostel. And it is the duty of the superintendent to see that their partners are changed each month so there is no question of jealousy. In ten years' time they will have changed so many partners that being jealous will simply drop from their minds. If their wife changes the partner, or if they want to change, it will be simply easy. They both have changed so many times and they are so much experienced that even your ninety-year-old man is not so much experienced.

And experience is always good. It brings wisdom to you.

These children should be taught that their love should be joined with meditation.

If they masturbate, there is no harm in it. Medically it is healthy, hygienic, more hygienic than making love to a girl, more natural than making love to a man.

You can join meditation with it very easily and it is the greatest joy. If meditation becomes associated with your great joy, then your whole life will be a different life.

All the religions have done just the opposite. They have destroyed your joy and they have been teaching you meditation -- so the meditation does not succeed. It can succeed only if it is a joyous experience, so why not join it with a biological joy which is available? But because I have been saying such things people want to kill me, assassinate me, even though I am simply stating absolutely scientific facts.

So this is the second reason: that you become aware that in this society no priesthood arises, no politics arises. Even while I am here the same stupidities are arising once in a while. Just the other day Sheela has written a letter to me that now when she comes back here she does not feel as excited as she used to be. She feels happier working outside, in Europe, in Australia, in Japan or anywhere else. Perhaps she is not conscious -- and this is the situation for all -- she does not know why she does not feel excited here any more. It is because I am speaking and she is no longer the central focus. She is no longer a celebrity.

When I am speaking to you, she is no longer needed as a mediator to inform you of what I am thinking. Now that I am speaking to the press and to the radio and TV journalists, she has fallen into shadow. And for three-and-a-half years she was in the limelight because I was silent.

It may not be clear to her why she does not feel excited coming here and feels happy in Europe. She is still a celebrity in Europe -- interviews, television shows, radio interviews, newspapers -- but here all that has disappeared from her life. If you can behave in such foolish unconscious ways even while I am here, the moment I am gone you will be creating all kinds of politics, fight. Then what is the difference between you and the outside world? Then my whole effort has been a failure. I want you to behave really as a new man.

I have given Sheela the message that this is the reason: "So think it over and tell me. If you want me to stop speaking just for your excitement, I can stop speaking."

To me there is no problem in it. In fact, it is a trouble. For five hours a day I am speaking to you, and it is creating unhappiness in her mind. So let her do her show business. I can move into silence. But that indicates that deep down those who have power will not like me to be here alive, because while I am here nobody can have any power trip. They may not be conscious about it; only situations reveal your power trip. And I can make it, show it to her. If she denies it, I can go to Europe and show her whether she feels happy in Europe or not, or wherever she wants to check about her happiness. But deep down this means that you would like me to die.

If you would like me to be silent, not to speak, so that you are in the forefront, then deep down that means... why just silent? Silent men can start speaking any moment; make him silent completely.

These are not conscious thoughts in anybody's mind, but this is how the unconscious mind functions. And I want you to be aware of everything. Before I leave you I want you to be aware so that you don't fall into the same pitfalls every society, every civilization, has fallen into.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE CALLED THIS COMMUNITY YOUR CIRCUS, YOUR CARNIVAL. IS THIS CARNIVAL HAPPENING WITH ANY PURPOSE OR IS IT JUST FOR FUN?

A: It is just for fun. Purpose is a business word, where everything is done for some end, where every act is divided in two parts, the means and the end. The end is always in the future, so in every purposive activity you have to sacrifice the present for the future. And my whole teaching is not to sacrifice the present for anything.

So against purpose, my work is pure fun. The word fun is not very respected, but we have to make it the most respected word. Purpose is ugly. Purpose means you always act with greed. Fun means there is no greed. Fun means there is no need for you to be victorious. You are playing cards -- just fun; nobody takes it seriously whether you are defeated or victorious. After the game is over, all victories and all defeats are over too.

That's how life should be taken. Live each moment totally, but don't carry the idea of purpose; otherwise you cannot live totally, your mind is somewhere in the future looking at the purpose, arrowed at the purpose. You can't be total in the activity. Your action is half-hearted. You are doing it mechanically. But if there is no purpose, you can be total in the moment.

My work is fun, but out of this fun there is much flowering. I am not saying that nothing will come out of it. So remember the distinction: the man who is working for some purpose perhaps may not attain it, because he is never wholeheartedly in the action. The man who is functioning only as fun is so totally in it that he may attain to many things which the purposive man can never dream of. So just thinking "Act out of fun" does not mean that you are a loser. You are a gainer in every way just because of your totality. Your action is going to bring more fruits, more flowers, although you were not working for fruits and flowers. You enjoyed the moment, its action, and out of that enjoyment and out of that totality many things are going to happen. But they were not your concern. When they happen, you will be surprised.

A sannyasin is surprised every moment because he was not hoping that anything was going to happen. He had not even given a thought to it. He was so involved in his action that there was no space for anything. But when the moment and the action are finished, he is surprised that something great and beautiful has arisen out of it.

My sannyasin will never feel miserable, never feel disappointed. The man who works with the idea of purpose in mind is always miserable.

The proverb is significant: Man proposes, God disposes. God may not exist, but the proverb has a truth in it. The truth is, the more you propose, the more you will feel disappointment. You can dump that on the head of God -- who does not exist so he cannot deny it: "I have not disposed of anything. You yourself messed things, because you were not total in your action. You have missed the target."

My people are living as fun. That's why I call it a circus, a carnival. It is not a marketplace. It is just a commune of people who have decided to enjoy life to its fullest, materially, spiritually, in every dimension.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU HAVE SAID THAT IF THERE ARE ONLY TWO HUNDRED ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD A THIRD WORLD WAR IS NOT POSSIBLE. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN, HOW THESE TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE AMONG THE BILLIONS OF UNCONSCIOUS PEOPLE?

A: Certainly. They will make tremendous difference. When the whole room is dark, just a small candle makes so much difference. In such a big room a small candle, lighted... the whole darkness disappears.

An enlightened person is a tremendous light -- very subtle but for miles around him many people's lives will be touched. And if two hundred people are enlightened, which has never happened in history.... At the most, ten people have been enlightened at the same time, in Gautam Buddha's days. That is the only moment, and India remembers that moment as the Golden Age because the country felt something strange for which there were no words. It was mysterious, but the country felt unburdened, and an immense sense of joy, centering, nonviolence, understanding.

But that was only ten people, and they were not all living their whole lives simultaneously. Just at one point Mahavira was old, Buddha was young.

Goshalak was just between the age of the two. Ajit Keshkambal, Sanjay Vilethiputta and the remaining ones all were of different ages. But there was a time when all the ten were alive. It did not last long, because few were very old and they started dying. By the time Buddha died, he was alone. All others had died before him.

So only at a certain point, perhaps for a few years, ten people have been at the same time enlightened, and they raised the consciousness of the whole country.

Now, two hundred people around the world can create an aura of energy which will be a very subtle force, like x-rays. You don't see them.

Both Soviet Russia and America are trying to find death rays -- just like x-rays -- which will be far better than nuclear bombs, because nuclear bombs can be seen.

America has made arrangements. Many billions of dollars have been spent by Ronald Reagan. Thirty million Americans are hungry and on the streets, and many billions have been spent on a secret plan. They are keeping certain of the latest developed instruments on submarines, so that if from the Soviet Union any missile carrying a nuclear weapon comes towards America, it will be able only to move seven miles. This much time those submarines and the machines will take.

And they have arrangements to hit the missile directly to change its direction back towards Soviet Union itself.

So before the missile leaves the Soviet Union it will be directed back. All around America they now have submarines waiting. If any attack is made, then they can redirect the nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union. In fact, they will never allow them to leave Soviet territory. We don't know what arrangements the Soviet Union has, but they must be having some other arrangement.

Both countries are searching for death rays, and perhaps the Soviet Union has found them, that's why they are not worried about this arrangement. Perhaps they will not use nuclear weapons, which will be visible; they will use death rays, which will be invisible, and cannot be redirected.

And with the death rays one thing is very strange: it will kill only the living beings. Houses will remain intact. Everything -- furniture, cars, roads -- everything will remain intact. The death rays will go on showering on living people, passing from one living person to another. Wherever life is, they will be moving towards that point. So trees will die, animals will die, man will die.

Early in this century, there were a few painters who painted pictures with houses, furniture, roads -- everything is in the pictures -- but not a single living thing. They could not explain why this idea was so much in their minds. Even seeing their pictures, you feel a great sadness arising in you.

It has been happening many times that poets, painters, get glimpses of things which may be going to happen someday. Now those pictures are predictive. If death rays come, they will simply hit living beings and go on killing them. There will be no bloodshed. The person dying will not know when he was alive, the death will be so quick. You never know when you stand before an x-ray machine that the x-ray has taken the photograph. You don't feel it. The same way with the death ray; you will not feel it, you will be simply gone. And the death ray will not end with you. It will go on jumping, it will have its range.

Two hundred enlightened people can create just the opposite situation. If they are together in a certain arrangement, they can create life rays which will protect people from death rays, which even may help somebody who has died through a death ray to come alive again. But those two hundred enlightened people have to be in a certain communication. Then they can create a circle around the world.

My own idea is that we can create two hundred enlightened people amongst our sannyasins. They are already connected and they are not alone, they are supported by the commune. Their energy can be enhanced, multiplied, by other sannyasins who may not be enlightened but are in search of it, on the way.

I mean what I have said. And if we can make a net of life rays around the earth, it can prevent even nuclear weapons from being destructive. But that is a totally different science and never experimented upon. But a few glimpses have happened in the past, and there is no harm in experimenting with it. Anyway, there is no other hope.

Our communes have to be ready for it. And they should not think of trivia, of small fights, egos. They should understand their responsibility is so great as it has never been of any human being before. And I hope that we will be able to do something. There is still time, and my people are working hard. Now it is a question whether we can manage within the time or not.

But I have a certainty that we have almost created a Noah's Ark of consciousness for the coming flood of death to the whole of humanity.