Chapter 29

[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]

(Introduction inaudible. This does not appear to be Stern Magazine but another German interviewer.)

ANSWER:* I blame myself not only for Sheela but for Adolf Hitler too, for Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible. I blame for all myself, because I am part of this existence.

Anything that happens here, in some way or other I am connected with it.

And you are wrong that I have not blamed myself.

Q:* HOW DID YOU BLAME YOURSELF? COULD YOU EXPLAIN IT?

A:* No, because just I was silent. Not to be in it is not enough to be innocent. I was not in it, but it would not have happened if I was not silent.

I was silent for my own reason. I was not silent for Sheela and her gang. I was silent for my own reasons. I always wanted to remain silent for a long period. I was not even yet willingly ready to speak again. It was just seeing the situation, I have to come out of silence.

So certainly I blame myself, but not only for Sheela. If my being silent I am responsible for Sheela, then not being born in Germany while Hitler was there, I am responsible. The same logic.

Q:* YOU MEAN THAT SERIOUSLY?

A:* Seriously? Why I was not born in Germany while Hitler was there? Then I am the criminal for the whole criminal history of humanity.

You are making me a god, and I am a simple human being.

Q:* I WOULDN'T AGREE WITH THAT, BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF CULT SURROUNDING YOU AND CULT BASICALLY LEADS ALWAYS TO A CERTAIN KIND OF BLINDNESS.

A:* There is no cult surrounding me. Your eyes must be blind.

Q:* BUT AT LEAST YOUR DISCIPLES....

A:* There are no disciples here. They are my friends. And I am nobody's leader.

So make yourself clear about it.

Q:* IS THE DREAM TO LIVE NOW AND TODAY WITHOUT THINKING OF THE FUTURE GONE? IF YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN THINKING ON THE FUTURE, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN REVEALED WHAT SHEELA DID.

A:* No. Future is not determined as almost all the religions have been preaching and conditioning people's mind. Future is determined, then it can be known. If it is not determined, it cannot be known -- not even the second moment, that what is going to happen.

And I say that future is not determined. There is no God to determine it. And it is good that it is not determined, because that is our basis for freedom. Certainly freedom brings its own responsibilities. You can misuse it. Do you want people to be just robots who will never commit anything wrong?

Just because few people commit wrong, just because few people turn to be Nazi, do you want everybody should be turned into a machine?

Freedom is so valuable that we can risk everything, but we cannot lose freedom.

I have risked God and saved freedom. Both cannot exist together. If there is a God who created man, then man is just a puppet. If there is a God who decides what is to happen, then there is no freedom. Then the sinner is not responsible for his sin, neither the saint is responsible for his holiness. Both are puppets, and puppets are not different.

I completely remove God from the picture of my way of life. There is no God.

Then the whole sky is open. But it has risks.

But to be afraid of risks is not to be a man. At least a German should not think of becoming a mouse. To be a man means to take risks.

It was a risk. And we have come out of it without losing anything. On the contrary, we have learned much.

Q:* WAS IT EVEN A LESSON FOR YOU?

A:* No, not for me. I have learned everything that could be learned. Now there is nothing to be learned for me.

Q:* COULD YOU ELABORATE A LITTLE HOW THEY PLANNED TO KILL YOU, HOW THEY PLANNED TO ASSASSINATE YOU?

A:* First, they were afraid that I may start speaking again. It is understandable because my teaching is never to believe. Doubt is the basis of my philosophy. Go on doubting until you come to a reality which is indubitable. And then the question of belief does not arise. You know.

So I say either you know or you do not. There is no third category. A believer is one who knows not and yet pretends that he knows.

Q:* MAY I INTERRUPT YOU? BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHETHER YOU SEE NOW THE SANNYASINS BEING ALL THE TIME MORE BELIEVERS THAN PEOPLE WHICH DOUBTED?

A:* My s....

Q:*... WHAT YOU TRIED TO TEACH THEM?

A:* Just wait. Let me finish my first thing. Otherwise you will never end and you won't get any answer clearly.

They were afraid that if I start speaking again, then I will create a totally different atmosphere that was there in India. In India nothing like this happened in thirty years. And thousands of people were there.

Just in four years it happened in America. I was silent; Sheela and her gang could make people surrender, believe. That is the criterion. And people have listened it for thousands of years, that that is the basis of all religion. So it was very easy. It was according to their conditioning that they believed her, surrendered themselves totally, blindly.

So they were afraid that once I start speaking people will be in a totally different atmosphere. They will doubt, they will argue, they will want to be convinced.

Just simple surrender will not be possible. And no fascist mind would like that.

She was persuading me not to speak because it may endanger my health. I said, "You don't be worried about my health. I know my health. Now it is being endangered by not doing anything, remaining in isolation. I have recovered perfectly and I would like to speak. And tomorrow you make the arrangements and I speak."

The moment I started speaking, the whole commune was excited, ecstatic, except Sheela and her gang. They were sad because their whole power was gone. Their power was that they were representing me, and whatever they wanted they were telling to people that, "This is what Bhagwan wants." And there was no way for the sannyasins to check it, whether I want it or not.

So first they tried to kill... even when I was in silence, three persons who were intimate to me and for whom I was available even in silence -- my physician who used to come to check me, my dentist who was looking after my teeth, and my caretaker who was carrying my food, my tea, my fruit juice -- first they tried to poison these three people. They poisoned my caretaker, but we could not think of it.

Q:* DID HE BECOME SICK?

A:* She became sick. She had just taken a cup of tea in Sheela's house and she came home and her heart started beating so fast. The doctors could not believe.

She is perfectly healthy. There is no disease. There is no reason for her heart to fast... so fast. It took three hours for them to bring her heart to its normal position. But nobody suspected.

It was out of question that anybody will poison her, who has been taking care of my body for fifteen years, even when Sheela was not there. She had been seven years before Sheela.

Then they poisoned my doctor, my physician. In the same way, he took a cup of coffee. But because he is a physician, one of the best mind, having all the best qualifications from England -- the youngest doctor to be accepted in the Royal Society of England -- he immediately suspected poisoning.

He was hospitalized, but the poison that was used was indetectible. Two, three days rest and he came out. But he started becoming weak after that. He has never been sick and never weak like that.

Second time they tried to inject poison while he was in the hospital, because Sheela's nurse who was taking care of Sheela used to go there, and she injected.

Again he suspected that he has been poisoned.

So it started becoming clear that something wrong is going somewhere. And third time he was poisoned while I started speaking. And he was poisoned in a public meeting where fifteen thousand sannyasins were present.

And now we have the witness who saw the woman who injected him. That woman has also escaped with the gang. And he immediately pulled his robe and showed the people around: blood coming out and the spot where the injection was given.

He refused to go to the same medical center, because if they can do it in the middle of fifteen thousand people, in the hospital it is not reliable. So we had to send him to Bend. The doctors there also could not find any disease, but he was sick and there was no disease.

To the wife of the doctor they said -- she is here, Hasya is the wife of my physician -- the doctor said to him that, "All that we can assume is poisoning, because there is no disease, no symptoms of any disease, and he is so sick."

And he gave the other idea, that just one year before exactly the same case has happened with the attorney of Jefferson County: no disease and the same kind of weakness, as if the person is going to die.

And when Hasya told me this, then things became even more connected because our commune's property lies half in Wasco County and half in Jefferson County, and the attorney of Jefferson County was not allowing us to do anything on that land.

Half of the land -- we have one hundred twenty-six square miles land -- half of the land, fifty miles or more, is in Jefferson County and we wanted to make few cottages for farmers there, and farming, gardening.... But he was adamant.

Perhaps the same group was behind the poisoning of that man.

Just yesterday one of the doctors informed that she was poisoned in Sheela's house. Perhaps they were only experimenting, because the poison was such that only her tongue became paralyzed. She could not speak for twenty-four hours.

Perhaps that was their experiment for me.

If I can be poisoned and I cannot speak, that will be great. I am living -- that will help them. I cannot speak -- that will help them.

And then she insisted continuously that she needs a key of my bedroom from the outside for security reasons.

I said, "I don't see what is the point of having a key from the outside for security reasons. Guards are there. Phone is there. You can inform if any problem is there."

And finally we had to take the key from her, because that insistence for key certainly was while I am asleep either to inject me or to do something, one does not know.

Yesterday the man who takes care of the cows informed that he was told to put a certain quantity of poison in my blood every day... in my milk every day, so in a long period it will kill me and nobody will suspect.

And since they have left, so many people have come up with so many amazing facts, and they were all afraid of them because if they can kill me.... And they had already killed one man and just threw his body out of the Rancho Rajneesh. The body was found by the police but they could not find who has done it.

They were immensely afraid, in deep fear. So they followed whatever was told to them.

She had arranged a Share-Home program last year for street people. She said that it is not for voting purposes, but it seems it was for voting purposes, to take over the Wasco County. And I am an absolutely non-political person and I have been teaching my people not to be political. That is a third-rate being, to be in a third-class humanity.

Those who cannot be anything else, let them be politicians. If you can be a singer, be a singer. If you can be a dancer, be a dancer, a painter. Be something creative.

Politics is simply destructive. The whole history is full of politics and destruction.

So I am absolutely apolitical.

So even to me she lied that, "It is not for political purposes. In fact, we have surplus money out of the annual festival and we want to do some humanitarian work."

I said, "If it is humanitarian work, good."

So those three thousand street people were brought in, but to convince them to vote was not a easy thing. So a certain poison in gallons was imported from the outside, and all those people were given that poison in food, in tea, in this, in that, and they were kept drugged, almost in a robot situation, so whatsoever you want them to do they will do.

By mistake they poisoned one man too much. He died. They just threw his body out of the Rancho Rajneesh.

As people started opening their mouths, because now they are not afraid at all, we have come to know that they burned one of the Wasco County planning offices because they wanted to burn all the documents concerning Rajneeshpuram -- and they succeeded. They burned the whole house completely.

They tried one of our pilots to take bombs, petrol and other things in the plane and crash the plane with the Wasco County office, and before crashing it jump in a parachute, to destroy the whole county office and perhaps few other houses surrounding. The man refused. Because he refused, he was immediately sent to Germany in a small commune there so that he does not say it to anybody else.

As he heard that those people have left, he immediately phoned, that, "I want to come and I have a story to say." He is back.

Now, this gang was completely murderous, inhuman. And why it happened: I was unavailable to the commune. I was silent. I did not want to be interfered -- no phone. For five years I have not read any newspaper, have not seen any television.

(There is an interruption by the camera crew.) This whole group was not basically bad. This is my understanding, that nobody is basically bad, but every body carries in his unconscious many potentialities.

He can become a god, he can become a devil. It is only a question of opportunity.

Simply they got the opportunity: five thousand people ready to trust without questioning, and they were trusting because of me. They were not trusting Sheela. Their minds were saying that this is not the right thing, but if Bhagwan wants it, then there must be something right.

These people are innocent, and they saw the opportunity and their unconscious desire to be powerful, to take over Antelope, to take over Wasco County, became bigger and bigger. the people were not basically wrong.

When I had chosen Sheela as my secretary she was a simple woman, in every way a beautiful person. but everybody's unconscious -- and below the unconscious is the collective unconscious -- is full of animality, because it comes from animal heritage. Nothing can be said about it, at what point, in what opportunity it will start asserting.

But the moment I became aware that something is going wrong, and this was the chance....

They created a home, a complex of homes, in Antelope and they wanted to make it an AIDS home just to create nuisance for Oregonians, because it will become a danger to everybody around. Hospitals are refusing, families are refusing, people are committing suicide. So from all over America AIDS people will start moving to Antelope.

And to me they said they are making a beautiful housing colony for sannyasins, particularly for festival purposes.

I said, "That's okay."

Only the last day when they were going to inaugurate it, they wanted me to be present. I inquired what exactly it is. Then they told me that, "We are going to make a AIDS home."

I refused and I said, "This cannot be done. You are not only risking Oregonians, you are risking your own commune too. Your doctors will have to go there, your nurses will have to go there. And those people, if they want to come to listen to me, you cannot prevent. You are risking your own people. This I will not allow.

So cancel the press conference."

That day it became clear to me, looking at Sheela's eyes, that the bridge between us is broken.

And since that time she started remaining more and more out of America -- in Europe, in Australia -- finding any excuse that there is work. We have communes everywhere and the work was always there. But after that day the work was so much that she could not come back here even for the ceremony.

She came three days before. There was no need, because she came from Switzerland here. And in Switzerland she did again another crime. She was married to an American and she got married to a Swiss man, because she was planning now. Here there is no possibility for her ego trip, but in Europe I am not there but my communes are there; she can still have the ego trip.

So she got married to the chief of the commune in Zurich -- without getting divorced. And when she was told by her husband that, "This is stupid. I will also be a criminal with you," so she ran away to Nepal, because in Nepal -- it is such a poor country that you can bribe any magistrate and can get a divorce backdated - - so she got a backdated divorces from Nepal.

And then she came here just to pack up things, particularly those things that may prove dangerous to her. She was collecting all kinds of poison, she was collecting materials to make bombs.

And in those three days she didn't come to see me. And there is very simple reason not to see me, that you have a cold, because I am allergic. So she said that she has cold; when her cold is okay she will come and see to me.

And without seeing me -- just she wrote a note that she is leaving, and leaving forever, and she is resigning from the post and leaving all legal papers for resignation etcetera with the proper people. And by the time I received her note, she has left.

She collected the people, those who want to come with her -- and she threatened them, because, "You will be found criminal if you don't come with me." So twenty people who were afraid now that if they are left behind and things are exposed they will be in trouble went with her -- unwillingly.

One woman returned from Seattle back. She said whatever happens, but she is not going to leave the commune. Another person has phoned that he wants to come back. And soon they all will be in difficulty, because they are hiding in Black Forest in Germany like criminals. And how long you can hide? And where you can hide?

We have informed American government, Swiss government, Swiss police, German police, and we have our own sannyasins everywhere. We are getting report where they are every day.

Q:* DO YOUR SANNYASINS CHASE HER?

A:* No. There is no need. There is no need. But twenty persons moving anywhere -- and Sheela is well known in Germany -- anybody will recognize.

Anybody will inform other sannyasins that they have seen Sheela with twelve other people... twenty other people.

So no harm on a big scale has happened, but they were preparing. And we have found after they have gone, in their house, literature how to make bombs, chemicals and other things -- poisons, books on poisons, a particular page underlined with the same poison that my physician was thinking has been given to him because that is not detectable. And it does not kill you immediately, it simply weakens you. Just you have to go on giving over a period of time: it will kill you but you will die almost like a natural death.

And we have found -- just Hasya has moved, now she is the president of the foundation -- in her room they have found that under the room, underneath, they have rooms and a tunnel which goes far away to get out. In any case if police is going to arrest her, takes the whole house, surrounded, she can still escape. And those rooms, perhaps for some people who are rebellious to put them there, to drug them there or kill them there-we don't know what was the purpose of having those rooms underneath.

We are making it available -- everything -- to the police. And we are making available all kinds of witnesses, for everything that they have done.

They bugged houses, they bugged my own room.

Q:* WHAT IS ACTUALLY YOUR FEELING NOW TOWARDS SHEELA AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF SHE WOULD COME BACK?

A:* I will take her back. We have a university here, and we have all kinds of therapies here. She needs some psychotherapy, a long treatment.

I have all compassion for her, and the same love and the same trust, because my love is unconditional. What she has done makes no difference to it. In fact, I am worried about her because she must be unnecessarily suffering. There was no need to go anywhere. She could have simply come to me and told to me that these are the things that she has done.

And we would have entered her into the therapies and all her colleagues into the therapies and treated them.

This is my attitude about all criminals, not only her. I am against punishment because punishment has not transformed anybody in the whole history. Still we go on doing the same thing all over the world. We are barbarious.

A man kills somebody and you kill the man, give him a death sentence or a lifelong imprisonment, which is even worse. His act was crime and your act is justice. Both the acts are same. Just he is a poor single individual and you have power of the society, of the state, of the military, of the government.

But you are doing the same thing. It is revenge, it is not justice.

And if the man committed suicide or murder, he has still a future. His murder was in the past, and murderers have been known to become saints. Now, to kill that man is to deprive him from a future. He may have turned into a saint. And what right you have got? All that you can do is that... that man has something wrong with his psychology, that her hormones are not harmonious. Something chemically wrong.

And that's what has happened with Sheela. She was raped when she was only sixteen, and raped by a man who was her father's friend, old. And she had always respected the man as her uncle. He used to stay in their house. The father and the mother had gone out and only the uncle was in the house, and he raped her. She became pregnant. In those days in India abortion was not legal, so she had to go through that indignity of an illegal abortion.

I think that scar is deep in her being. She hates Indians, one thing. And something in her wants to take revenge with the whole society.

She is not conscious of all that, but it is there.

So I will not do anything else than be more loving to her than I have ever been to her, because these are the moments when a person needs more love, more respect, more acceptance. And I will give her to the university to treat her, to bring all her unconscious out. It is just a question of vomiting the unconscious out. And once you are clean such a thing cannot happen again.

And this is my general attitude about the whole idea of jurisprudence, criminology. Strange it is: a person tries to commit suicide and fails, and then the court gives him death sentence because he was trying to commit suicide and failed. Now they help him to succeed. Great minds are creating our laws and our courts.

A man steals something very small and he is sent to jail. He is just amateur and perhaps in his situation anybody would have stolen. Perhaps he was hungry, he needed medicine, his mother was dying, he needed medicine. And you imprison him for two years in the jail where he meets great experts, criminals, master thiefs. And in those two years he graduates. He had come as an amateur, now he comes out as a professional thief.

Because it is a simple idea amongst all criminals that to commit crime is not crime, but to be caught is crime. So just you have to be very careful, intelligent, aware, that you are not caught. Then do whatsoever you want to do. Doing is not a problem at all, just don't get caught.

Punishment helps only to create more criminals. Your imprisoned people, which are in millions around the earth, are just getting training. Your jails are universities for criminology. And your courts serve the crime, not the culture.

So that will be my attitude of all those people. If they come back they will receive not only my love but my whole commune's love. Whatever they did, perhaps they were unconsciously doing it, not knowing what they are doing.

We can clean their unconscious, we can make them more aware, we can clean them, we can give them a new birth.

Okay?

INTERVIEW WITH ERIC FALWELL(?) FROM STERN MAGAZINE, GERMANY Q:* I THINK THAT YOU ONCE SAID IN POONA, "IT MAY NOT LOOK LIKE, BUT I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING ON IN MY COMMUNE." WHAT IS YOUR EXPLANATION THAT YOU OBVIOUSLY DID NOT KNOW ANYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON HERE IN THIS COMMUNE?

A:* What I have said in Poona was a totally different situation.

I was available to the commune every morning for discourse two hours, every evening two hours. The secretary was coming twice a day -- one hour in the morning, one hour in the night -- to inform me about every detail. And the whole day I was available.

Whenever there was any need, it should be informed to me. If they have to take any action which is out of the way, they have to ask me. That's why I had said that, "Whatever happens here, I know about it."

Here the situation was totally different. I was in silence and in isolation, and my instruction was that only Sheela will come every evening for one hour; that too only when she has urgent work that she cannot handle. And she should inform me only things which are absolutely necessary and have to be informed. So for three and half year I was completely out of the world: not a single newspaper, no book, no television, no radio, no information what is going on, what is not going on.

When in Poona I had said that I know everything, people thought that it is something esoteric. To me all esoterics is bullshit. It was not anything esoteric. It was simply my availability.

And I was living... and Poona was a very concentrated place: only six acres in which two thousand sannyasins were living who were working. And eight thousand sannyasins were living outside the commune for which we were not responsible in any way.

Here the situation is different. It is eighty-four thousand acres. Just think: six acres and eighty-four thousand acres. It is almost impossible for me to know everything what is happening, where it is happening. There are five thousand sannyasins living here, separated by hills in different places. Nobody knows what they are doing in their rooms. And I am not a peeping Tom.

Q:* BHAGWAN, YOU SAID YOU ARE A LOVER NOT A LEADER....

A:* Yes.

Q:*... YOU ARE NOT THE RULER IN THIS COMMUNE AND THERE ARE NO RULED.

A:* Yes.

Q:* BUT SOME SANNYASINS OBVIOUSLY ARE PREPARED TO DO EVERYTHING WHEN THEY ARE TOLD THAT IT IS YOUR WISH. THEY MAY EVEN KILL FOR YOU. DOES THIS FRIGHTEN YOU?

A:* No. This does not frighten me. This just makes me aware of a human paradox.

I am telling my people, "I am not your leader." I am telling my people, "I am not your Master, not a messiah, not a prophet, not a savior. I am just a human being like you -- with a very little difference, that my eyes are open and your eyes are closed, which is not much of a difference. You can open your eyes any moment you want.

"So there is no need to put me on a high pedestal. And there is no need to sacrifice for me. I have never sacrificed for anyone, and I will not want anybody to sacrifice for me."

But this is what I am saying is the paradox: the more I say this the more they love me.

Now the only alternative is that I should start teaching them that, "Die for me.

Whenever there is need, immediately jump into the lake and die." But then I will be condemned that I am teaching them....

And there is no third alternative. These are the only two alternatives.

Q:* DOES IT MAKE YOU SAD THAT YOU ARE SO OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD AND OBVIOUSLY BY YOUR OWN....

A:* No. Not sad, not sad because I understand the situation of the human mind.

It is expected. You feel sad when you come across unexpected things. I have nothing which is unexpected, so nothing makes me sad, nothing disappoints me, nothing makes me frustrated because I don't have any expectation. Whatever happens, I take it for granted that it was to happen.

Q:* BHAGWAN, YOU TELL YOUR SANNYASINS THAT THE COMMUNE IS NOT A VOTING CLUB, THAT THEIR OPINION DOES NOT COUNT MUCH BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED. DOES THIS NOT MAKE THEM MORE DEPENDENT ON YOU?

A:* No. My emphasis is that they should become enlightened! Then only whatever they say has some value. Right now they are talking in their sleep. It has no value.

For example, Germany is one of the most intelligent country in the world but it voted Hitler. What you can make of it? Such a intelligent group of people -- people like Martin Heidegger, one of the best minds in the whole history of man -- were in favor of Adolf Hitler. The reason is, intelligence makes no difference.

Unless you are enlightened, your opinions are going to be wrong and anybody can exploit them.

So my emphasis is not that you remain sleeping and I will do the work; you depend on me. My emphasis is that, how long I can be here? So be quick and be awake. Next time, next morning, I may be gone.

Q:* WHEN NOBODY IS DICTATING, THEN YOUR SANNYASINS, I THINK THIS WAS IN YOUR OWN WORDS: "COULD BECOME LAZY. THE COMMUNE COULD FALL APART." DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR SANNYASINS NEED A WHIP? I MEAN, THE SAME PEOPLE YOU CALL PROBABLY THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF EVOLUTION?

A:* They are the highest peak of evolution. But still they are human beings and not enlightened. Only the enlightened person needs no whip. Otherwise you need some kind of whip -- maybe made of very soft material.

Q:* SO YOU SAID THE WHOLE FAULT FOR THIS TRAGIC AFFAIR HERE WAS YOURS. YOU WILL NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN. WHAT KIND OF SAFEGUARDS ARE YOU PLANNING AND WHAT KIND OF...

COULD THERE BE?

A:* One is that I will be available. I am not going into silence as long as I am alive, and perhaps even afterwards.

Q:* WAS IT A REAL THREAT THAT WHEN YOU SAID THAT YOU MIGHT NOT DO ANYTHING AGAINST A SECOND SHEELA IF THERE IS A SECOND SHEELA HERE IN THE COMMUNE COMING UP?

A:* If the people do not take the responsibility and it seems that they need a Sheela, that they cannot work without her, that they cannot exist without her, then to stop the second Sheela will be harming these people. This time I had to stop because I felt Sheela is harming them. To prevent that harm, I stopped Sheela. But if I see that preventing Sheela is more harmful to these people, then what is the point of preventing Sheela? It is a question of relativity.

Q:* YOU TOLD THIS MORNING THAT SOME OF YOUR PEOPLE ARE FORCING THEIR WAY TO YOUR HOUSE. DOES THAT MEAN THAT THESE PEOPLE BECOME A NUISANCE TO YOU, A BURDEN THE COMMUNE MAYBE, OR THE COMMUNE A BURDEN TO YOU?

A:* No, it is just one or two week, just a period of transmission when Sheela and her group has gone. It happens everywhere whenever one structure changes and another structure takes its place. There is bound to be a gap, which is more or less chaotic. So it is not going to be a permanent thing. Just two hours they will harass me and then they will be okay. That is not a problem.

Q:* LET'S COME BACK TO THE CRIMES SHEELA AND HER GANG HAVE COMMITTED. SOME PEOPLE WILL SAY THAT THERE ARE NO REAL CRIMES, THAT IT IS JUST KIND OF A POWER STRUGGLE AND THAT YOU USED SHEELA AS A SCAPEGOAT BECAUSE SHE CREATED THAT KIND OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND THE OREGONIANS ESPECIALLY. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT ON THAT?

A:* They are just being stupid, just being Oregonians, nothing else.

Q:* WILL THERE BE MORE HARD EVIDENCE COMING UP FOR THESE CRIMES?

A:* Yes, it seems. And that will prove that they are wrong. it has nothing to do with them. Sheela has done real harm, but it will take time to find out everything. After second world war, how many years it took to find out all real harms that Adolf Hitler and his gang did? And you have not been found everything. Even you have not been able to find Adolf Hitler's body.

So it takes a little time. And this is more or less a small Germany.

Q:* ARE YOU ACTUALLY COMPARING THE CRIMES SHEELA AND THE GANG HAVE COMMITTED WITH HITLER'S?

A:* Yes, it's exactly the same beginning. It is the same type of....

Q:* BUT SHEELA WAS STOPPED EARLIER.

A:* Yes.

Q:* FOR SOMEONE HAVING COMMITTED ALL THESE TERRIBLE CRIMES, PLANNED ALL THESE CRIMES, I FEEL HER RETREAT WAS QUITE ORDERLY. SHE SENT YOU THIS LETTER, AND SOME OF HER GANG OR SOME OF THE PEOPLE LEFT ONE DAY LATER. IS THAT CORRECT AND HOW COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT, THAT THEY WERE NOT ALL RUNNING AWAY, OBVIOUSLY, IN THE SAME MOMENT?

A:* No, not in the same moment. She sent me this letter and I sent her the message that, what is her problem? "And just rest two, three days. When your cold is okay, you come to me and we figure out that what way things should move." And she promised that she will wait two, three days. As her cold gets better she will come.

But next day she simply left with the whole gang, even with the person who had brought the message to me, Savita, whom Sheela has suggested that, "If you feel right, then Savita will be perfectly able while I am gone to take my position, because she has been working with me all along and she knows everything and all the complexities and all the cases and litigations."

And I told Savita, "That's perfectly okay. If Sheela wants to go let her go, but only after she has seen me. Perhaps she may change her mind. And you can take her place. There is no harm. Somebody has to take her place and you are perfectly okay."

And she was going to bring next day all the papers so that I can sign my attorney authority, that she is my secretary. Next day she also escaped with them.

Q:* GIVEN THE CHANCE TO SPEAK TO SHEELA NOW, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL HER?

A:* Just I would like to tell her that she behaved in a very coward way. She had me let down. I don't care what she has done but she should have faced before she left. And she should have told me that what all* she has done and what is my approach towards it?

And in fact I would have been a shelter to her. I would have given all her illegal acts to the government, but I would have provided legal advisors also to protect her, because whether she did right or wrong, her intention I know was not wrong. Even if she wanted to kill me, then too I feel her intention was not wrong.

Perhaps she felt that my speaking is a danger to the commune.

So the first thing I have to say to her if she had come that, "You behaved in a very cowardly way. You did not prove your mettle."

Q:* DID SHE TAKE HER MALA WITH HER?

A:* She has taken.

Q:* AS FAR AS I KNOW, YOU ARE NOT SURE YET IF SHE HAS STOLEN SOME MONEY OR PUT SOME MONEY IN A SWISS BANK ACCOUNT. BUT YOU MENTIONED THIS DEBT OF FIFTY-FIVE MILLION U.S. DOLLARS.

COULD YOU COMMENT ON THAT?

A:* It will take a little time, but certainly she must have taken money -- because from where she can get money for twenty people to travel, to stay in Switzerland or in Germany -- all their expenses?

She must have been siphoning money for at least two, three months. It was a well planned thing, it was not just a quick decision, because just yesterday I was told that they were looking for Puja, her assistant in all these crimes and the most criminal person in the whole gang. She is a medical person, so she knows more about poisons and this and that.

She was looking for Puja to be married with a Swiss sannyasin for two months.

That means for two months they were preparing the ground. Otherwise there is no reason for Puja to be married to a Swiss sannyasin. There was no need at all.

So for at least two months they were in preparation. In these two months they must have siphoned money. Our money expert will be here who will be looking into... because we have several corporations. Here we have several corporations, in Europe we have several corporations. We have a international service corporation.

So from what corporation she has managed money.... Right now they have looked only in the Foundation copies, but it says only expenses. But they may not be expenses. They may have been simply sent to Switzerland and they may not have been authentically expenses.

But it is certain she cannot survive without money, and she has no money. And the remaining others don't have money either. They had, certainly, a bank account in Switzerland and they were telling me that it is for me. In case I have to leave America I will need some money, and Switzerland will be the best place.

But the bank account was in Sheela and Savita's name.

Q:* AND THEY HAVE NOT RESIGNED FROM THAT?

A:* Just they have never even told me how much money. I asked again and again, "The account is for me, but at least I should be told how much money is in that account -- because it is in your two persons' name. I cannot take a single dollar out of it. You can take the whole account, and I don't even know how much has been taken."

And they said, "We will tell you. We will find out." And this and that. But never.

In these four years they were collecting money in that account, which may be millions.

Q:* IF THE COMMUNE IS IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE....

A:* No, there is no trouble.

Q:* IN CASE THERE HAVE TO BE MADE SOME SACRIFICES WOULD YOU SUGGEST THAT SOME OF THE ROLLS ROYCES ARE SOLD?

A:* That seems to be impossible, because I wanted. I had even declared in the press conference that I would like.... Ninety Rolls Royces are simply sitting there.

I use only one.

So they should be distributed to different groups in the commune, and they should be made available to all the sannyasins. But they don't belong to me, so I cannot distribute. I am not the owner. They belong to a trust, and the trustees are not willing. They say to them they are sacred because I have used them. They will become a memorial. They cannot be used by anybody else.

Now, I am legally out of it, because I cannot do anything.

Q:* IF YOU WOULD CALL THEM NOT SACRED, WOULD THAT HELP MAYBE?

A:* It is very difficult. They won't allow anybody to sit on this chair. The president of the car account must be here. John?

He is there. Come here. So listen from the horse' mouth itself.

JOHN:* We have met, the trustees, and we have decided that the cars are not for sale, not to be given, because they are sacred to us and we want them just where they are.

A:* Now they have (inaudible)* Q:* WOULD YOU AGREE THAT THERE WAS SECURITY PARANOIA HERE IN THE COMMUNE WHICH ALLOWED SHEELA TO ESTABLISH MUCH MORE WEAPONS THAN REALLY WERE NEEDED, TO STOCKPILE THESE WEAPONS?

A:* No.

Q:* IF THAT'S CORRECT, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THESE GUNS NOW?

A:* They will be delivered to the police department. What we will do with them?

Q:* SO YOU AGREE THEY WERE TOO....

A:* No, I don't agree. This is what the German mind does. I am saying if they are more than needed they will be delivered to the police. And we have a police department here. We need not go to deliver them to White House. But I don't think there are more than needed.

Q:* LAST TIME WHEN YOU CHOSE SHEELA AS YOUR SECRETARY YOU SAID IN YOUR LECTURE THAT YOU DIDN'T NEED AN INTELLECTUAL, YOU JUST NEEDED A PARROT.

A:* Right.

Q:* AS WHAT, IF I MAY ASK, DO YOU SEE YOUR NEW SECRETARY?

A:* Because the parrot failed, this time it is a real woman.

Q:* MANY PEOPLE I INTERVIEWED IN THE LAST DAYS WOULD LIKE TO SEE RAJNEESHPURAM TO BECOME A KIND OF A HOLIDAY RESORT.

A:* I would also like it.

Q:* DO YOU SEE ANY PROBLEMS? I MEAN, DOES IT GO TOGETHER WITH THIS STRONG FEELING OF BELONGING TOGETHER, OF TIGHTLY KNIT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY?

A:* No. No. I would like it to become a holiday resort, but the attorney general of Oregon seems to be a crackpot.

We have been in every way financially helpful to the economy of Oregon.

Already at least thirty thousand people per year are coming as visitors, particularly in festivals. If it becomes a holiday resort it can attract hundred times more people from all over the world, from America, and it will give Oregon an immense support economically.

It is a bankrupt state. Half of the land of Oregon has been sold to the federal government just to pay debts. Still there are more than two hundred million to be paid, and they don't know how to pay it. And I don't think they have any way to pay it.

But we can make this place really paying. Already we have put two hundred million dollars here, in this desert, to change it into a small oasis. But only a small part has been changed.

And we have resources all over the world which are ready to transform this whole desert into a lush green place.

Q:* DOES IT MEAN YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY SOME MORE LAND HERE IN OREGON?

A:* No, no. This land is too much. We don't want to buy any more land. All that we want, that government should stop harassing us, should stop hindering us.

We don't want them to be in some way favorable to us, no -- just fair, legally fair.

They are being illegally inimical. And they are harming themselves.

Q:* OBVIOUSLY SOME OF THE OREGONIANS, OR AMERICANS, AT ALL DID NOT LIKE THE KIND OF LANGUAGE SHEELA WAS USING. WOULD YOU SAY THERE IS A NEW APPROACH NOW?

A:* We will see. We will see, because what they don't like, they should stop using it also. It is not one-sided.

It is a small commune. And the language they use, they should be aware of it, that we are not Christians that we will turn the other cheek. We believe in tit for tat. We will hit their both cheek.

Q:* DO YOU SEE YOUR RENAMING OF ANTELOPE AS A KIND OF A PEACE GESTURE OR...?

A:* No, not as a peace gesture. Just because we don't want. There is no reason. I am not a political person. What we have to do with unnecessary burden?

Because we have to keep police there, we have to keep sannyasins there, we have to keep the councilors there, and they are all needed here. Work is here. And our place is here, and we have so much to do that why we should bother for anybody else?

It is Antelope people's problems. They should solve. We are not interested.

It is not that... but I have just seen one video, news video, and the ex-mayor of Antelope is not willing that land or houses will be purchased from Rajneesh Foundation. If this is their attitude, then the name of Antelope will not be changed. It will remain City of Rajneesh. And if they are not going to purchase our land and houses, then we are going to purchase their land and their houses.

This way or that, but it will have to be settled.

We already have two, three... two-third houses and lands in Oregon... in Antelope....

Q:* NOT YET.

A:*... and one-third are left only with them. And only not more than one dozen people are living there. And if they are... the language the ex-mayor used, that she does not trust us.... What is the question of trust?

We are saying, "You purchase your lands and we are giving you at the same price as we had purchased it from you four years before. In four years the prices have gone high. We have renovated your houses, we have put money in your lands. We have made your dirty village in a beautiful place. And we are ready to give it in the same price as we purchased."

And even if she says that she does not trust, so what she wants? How she will trust? We should donate all this to the Antelope people? We don't believe in donations. We have never asked anybody for donations.

Q:* BUT YOU ACCEPT.

A:* We accept but we never ask.

So it has to be. So remember for my people that the name has not to be changed.

Till they are ready to purchase all the land and all the houses, the name is not going to be changed. It is going to remain City of Rajneesh.

And purchase all other houses which are available to be purchased -- immediately. And finish that village completely.

Q:* BUT ALL IN ALL I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO STAY IN THE UNITED STATES, YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES.

A:* Yes. I would like to stay here.

Q:* DO YOU SEE ANY DANGER THAT YOU COULD BE EXTRADITED OR WHATEVER?

A:* That can happen anywhere.

Q:* I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY SOME OTHER PEOPLE SAW THIS DANGER, BECAUSE YOUR SWISS BANK ACCOUNT.

A:* It can happen anywhere. A person like me lives with death every moment. So there is no problem.

In America twenty percent presidents have been assassinated. This is the most criminal country in that way.

So if twenty percent presidents can be assassinated, if they can assassinate a man like Abraham Lincoln, it is really good to join with Abraham Lincoln and his company. There is no harm.

But it will not be so easy. That's why they are feeling so upset and so uneasy.

Otherwise a country which has nuclear weapons to destroy the whole world is afraid of two, three dozen guns which are not even automatic? It seems silly.

And we are not afraid of their nuclear weapons. They can make a Hiroshima, they can make another Nagasaki. What our two, three dozen guns are going to do?

But they know one thing certainly, that if they do anything wrong to us they will be exposing their hypocrisy before the whole world.

It is not a democratic country. Only the constitution is democratic, but the politicians are not.

And we are going to fight for the American constitution against the Americans.

I would have gone. I had not come here to stay. I had come just for my health reasons. I would have gone, but it became a challenge. They will not give me the green card when I have every reason that the green card should be given to me.

They have six categories; I have applied on five categories, and if they want I can apply on the sixth too: that is marriage. I can marry as many women as they want.

Now it is a question of challenge. Unless I get the green card I cannot move out of this country. If I get the green card I may leave immediately. I have not much interest.

Q:* YOU WILL FIGHT WITH ALL YOUR LEGAL MEANS OR WOULD YOU ALSO, I QUOTE, "SHEELA, PAINT THE BULLDOZERS WITH YOUR BLOOD"?

A:* No, I am just fighting with legal means. There is no need for any illegal means. They are doing everything illegal but my people have enough intelligence to fight with them with legal means. And we will fight.

In fact, on those five grounds we are moving on each ground separately. Each ground will take twenty years to reach to the Supreme Court to some decision. If it is no, we start the second. If it is no again, we start the third. In one hundred years neither any of the NSI* officers -- and many presidents and many governors and many attorney generals -- and I myself will be gone.

So there is no problem. We can manage it. And they have understood, because what they are doing for four years? If they want to say no, four year is enough time. But they are afraid. If they say no, we move to the court. Yes they cannot say; no, immediately we go to the court. And going to the court, the problem is out of their hands. And courts are still fair.

Q:* IN CASE YOU GET YOUR GREEN CARD TOMORROW, WHICH COUNTRY WOULD YOU PREFER TO...?

A:* Germany... because my next fight has to be in Germany. I have to see how much intelligent politicians you have got.

But this is certain. If I get the green card, immediately I am coming to Germany.

So pray God for my green card.

Q:* I GIVE YOU TWO QUOTES OF SHEELA. WHICH ONE WOULD YOU THINK IS THE REAL ONE?

"I'M STILL IN LOVE WITH BHAGWAN" OR "BHAGWAN IS THE MOST CORRUPT ON EARTH."

A:* Both must be hers, because love can become hate any moment. They are two sides of the same coin.

She had loved me now she hates me. But my love is different. Once I love, I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love.

Both the quotes are from Sheela. Without knowing I can be categorically certain both quotes are from Sheela. Okay?

Q:* THANK YOU VERY MUCH.