Chapter 06

[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]

QUESTION:* BHAGWAN, I WONDER WHETHER YOU HAVE CONSIDERED THE EVENTS OF THE LAST FEW WEEKS IN LIGHT OF THE BIBLICAL STORY OF THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN -- DO YOU BELIEVE THAT A SERPENT CAME INTO YOUR GARDEN, AND MIGHT IT HAVE THE SAME RESULTS?

A:* Perhaps you do not know my interpretation of the story. God is the criminal in the story. In the first place, to prohibit Adam and Eve from eating the trees of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. He provoked the desire in them. This is simple psychology. Otherwise in that garden of Eden there must have been millions of trees -- Adam and Eve would not have found even up to now -- which is the tree of knowledge and which is the tree of eternal life. Indicating the trees, prohibiting the children, is simply giving them a challenge. And nobody who has any integrity is going to obey such a thing. More emphatically, when the order is absolutely ugly and against humanity, what is the fear if Adam and Eve become wise, if they attain to eternal life? The God must be jealous, because then they will be exactly of the same status as himself -- and he does not want to do that. He wants them to remain naked animals.

So according to me, the serpent is the first revolutionary and the first who brought humanity into existence. The whole progress, evolution, all science, all knowledge, everything is indebted to serpent, not to God.

Q:* MY QUESTION MEANT TO GET AT THE TEMPTATION TO POWER THAT ADAM AND EVE WERE PRESENTED WITH.

A:* It was not a question of temptation for power. To be wise never makes anybody tempted towards power. Only idiots are tempted towards power. The wise simply laugh at the whole race that goes on for power, and somebody who has tasted the fruit of eternal life, what more is there to gain by power? The serpent was not tempting them for power; the serpent was simply telling them the truth -- that God is afraid, he does not want anybody equal to himself. He remains to be in power.

So to me the story has a totally different meaning: the serpent should be worshipped in every church, every synagogue, and God should be put behind the bars in every prison.... He was against all that has happened, because of the serpent. The serpent in the story is nobody but devil himself, taking the form of a serpent.

I want to emphasize the fact, because devil and divine come from the same Sanskrit root; they both mean God. Looking into this light, whom you are thinking as God must be something very ungodly, and whom you are thinking as devil is certainly divine. We need more serpents and less gods.

So now you ask me -- this is my interpretation of the story.

Q:* SO YOUR POSITION IS THAT THE TEMPTATIONS TO POWER WILL NOT OR HAVE NOT CORRUPTED AND UNDERMINED YOUR MOVEMENT AS THEY HISTORICALLY HAVE DAMAGED OTHER MOVEMENTS?

A:* Every mind carries in the unconscious the lust for power. Unless you become totally conscious, awakened, you are bound to have in the darkness of your mind, the lust for power. All that is needed to bring it up is an opportunity.

I was in silence, in isolation -- that became the opportunity for Sheela and her group to exploit the commune. I was not at all connected with the world for three and half years -- no newspaper, no television, no radio -- and I have told everybody not to bring me any information; I want to be completely silent. Only Sheela was given the duty, if commune needs something urgent that she cannot decide, she can come and ask me. So what she was doing: anything that was non- essential, she was asking me, and anything that was essential, she was deciding herself. She was informing me only nice things that she is doing and she was keeping me in dark about every criminal act that was going on. But there is a limit to everything.

Finally she became afraid that sooner or later I will come to know about it. So she tried to kill three persons who were also capable of approaching me -- my physician, my dentist, my caretaker -- that these three people are dangerous.

They can inform me about things which she is hiding. And she tried to poison my caretaker, my physician. My physician she tried three times and just because he is a physician, he immediately became aware that something poisonous has been given to him, either in tea or in coffee, and then finally, I was made aware of it.

The moment I knew that this is happening, it was certain, then many more things must be happening. These things are never isolated. If you need to kill three people, particularly those who are close to me, that means there is much which you want to hide from me. I started speaking.

Q:* COULD YOU TELL US WHAT MOMENT WAS THAT? DESCRIBE THE MOMENT WHEN YOU FIRST BECAME AWARE OF SHEELA'S ACTIVITIES.

A:* About dates and days I am absolutely useless. To me time simply does not exist. I use the watch only when I am giving an interview or giving a discourse in the morning, just so that I don't waste your time or other peoples' time. Without the watch I will not know how many hours have passed or how many days. I don't have any idea of days, I don't know what date today is, what month. I live in a timeless state. And I don't need to know about, but it must have been something -- seven, eight months before, when I became aware that it is time that I will have to come out of silence and start speaking again so that I am available to the commune and people can open their mouth.

As I started speaking, she was the only one who was miserable. The whole commune was dancing and happy that I am again speaking, because they were thinking perhaps I am not going to speak again ever. She was trying hard convincing me, "Don't speak, because it may destroy your health again.

Somehow you have recovered." I said, "What I will do with the health? Let it be destroyed." But now I see, something is happening that I had to be in the open.

The moment I started speaking she started traveling around the world into other communes. Mostly she was in Europe or in Australia or in Singapore or in India or in Japan, she will come for one or two day, and then she will go again. And the whole reason was: she did not want to face me and slowly, slowly, people started coming and telling what things had been happening.

That a man has been killed, that the people who has been brought here in the name of Share-a-Home program were not really brought for Share-a-Home program, but for taking over of the Wasco county. And they were kept completely drugged. Gallons of drugs were imported from outside. They were not purchased from America, because then there will be a suspicion -- for what gallons of drugs are needed? And all those poor people were kept drugged, so that whatever is told to them, they will do.

One man was drugged, accidentally -- perhaps a bigger dose than he needed -- and he died on the spot. They simply threw his body out of Rancho Rajneesh. It is so inhuman.

Then I became aware that they are taping every phone that comes to the Ranch or goes out from the Ranch -- all phone calls are being taped. This is against human rights. It is interfering into peoples' privacy.

Then I became aware that not only they are taping; they have bugged, not... the whole hotel, so nobody who is staying in the hotel -- officers were coming, journalists were coming and they were all aware what they are talking, what they are thinking.

My own room was bugged. The same fear: that anybody out of the three persons may say something to me -- they will know it immediately. My caretaker's room was bugged. President Hasya's whole house was bugged, because she was most afraid of Hasya. Because I was in silence, most of the intelligent and more educated people she simply by and by forced them to leave the commune, harassed them. The chancellor of the university escaped, the vice-chancellor of the university escaped, psychologists, psychotherapists, doctors -- anybody who had some sense of dignity -- simply escaped.

So she has made it absolutely clear that people, only who are subordinate to her, totally surrendered to her -- in my name -- can remain here. These people all who have left, are now calling that they want to come back, because they have always loved me and they have not left the commune because their love for me has changed, but it became impossible to keep oneself free, individual, to save one's self-respect.

Just yesterday I became aware that the mayor of the Rajneeshpuram was punished by Sheela because he will not do something that she wanted him to do which was criminal. So he refused and he was punished. Now, to punish a mayor of the city, to dig trenches for many days -- now anybody who has any self-respect will feel like leaving. He left. He has informed from California that, "I would like to come back. It was Sheela who forced me. There is a limit of patience."

Hasya came very late, and she came with a project. She and her husband have made one of the best movies -- GODFATHER. She wanted to make a movie on the commune, on my movement, on my thoughts, so naturally I allowed her to see me. And I told her that she is absolutely welcome; she can come with her crew and be here. Because I have allowed her, Sheela could not do anything and she became aware of her intelligence, creativity; she saw certainly that she is going to be her rival. When her all crimes are exposed -- and the moment all her crimes were slowly being exposed, she escaped from here with twenty criminals who were part of the gang. She has placed all her people on all the power posts in the commune. So they are all hiding in the Black Forest in Germany.

This was simply an opportunity -- it would have happened to anybody. And particularly to a woman, because women have not tasted power for millions of years. They are having really repressed desire to have power.

Secondly, she was just an uneducated person -- a waitress in a restaurant. Lower a person is, more is his feeling of inferiority complex, and the greater is the problem somehow, to prove to oneself and to others that, "I am not inferior. That I am superior -- superior than everybody."

INTERVIEW WITH JIM GORDON, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY MAGAZINE, AND THE WASHINGTON POST.

Q:* I'VE BEEN WAITING MANY YEARS TO SIT HERE.

A:* I have also been waiting. It is never one-sided.

Q:* I FIRST SAW YOUR PICTURE ABOUT TWELVE YEARS AGO WHEN SHYAM SINGH WAS WEARING A MALA AROUND HIS NECK. I'VE BEEN KNOWING ABOUT YOU FOR ALL THOSE YEARS AND DOING MEDITATIONS....

A:* Good!

Q:*... READING BOOKS. AND I'VE BEEN IN POONA... AND YOU'VE TOUCHED ME A GREAT DEAL OVER THE YEARS IN MANY WAYS.

A:* That I can see.

Q:* I'M HERE TONIGHT AS A JOURNALIST.

A:* Don't be bothered about journalist. Just be a friend. Journalism is something...

you can take care of it. It is far below than friendship and love and intimacy. You can explore more easily as a human being... than as a journalist. Journalism is not yet risen to the status of an art, because it has to feed the masses, it has to be sensational. It cannot be truthful, it cannot make good the news. It has to make everything in some way bad.

Q:* THAT BADNESS OR THAT NEGATIVITY HAS ALSO BEEN IN MY MIND.

IT'S NOT EVEN BAD -- THERE ARE DOUBTS THAT I'VE HAD.

A:* Doubt is not bad. Negativity is a totally different thing. Negativity means you have already taken a position -- against. Doubt means you don't have any position; you are ready to inquire, with open mind. Doubt is the best point form where to begin. Doubt simply means a quest, a question; negativity means you have already a prejudice, you are bigoted. You have already decided. Now all that you have to do is somehow to prove your prejudice right, so you can choose from whatever I say and prove your prejudice right.

Doubt is immensely spiritual. Negativity is something sick. So I love doubt.

Q:* I HAVE A LOT OF DOUBTS TO BRING UP.

A:* That's perfectly good! You start!

Q:* WHEN I WAS IN POONA, THERE WERE YOUNG GIRLS, WHO IN A KIND OF GROUP MIND... THERE WAS LIKE OF A CHEERLEADER SAYING TO THEM, "GO GET STERILIZED." AND THAT MADE ME VERY SAD. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THIRTY-FIVE YEAR OLD WOMEN, BUT YOUNG, YOUNG PEOPLE -- SIXTEEN, EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD -- SOME OF WHOM LATER DECIDED, WHOM I SAW, BECAUSE I'M A DOCTOR ALSO, WHO WANTED TO HAVE BABIES.

I FELT LIKE AT TIMES THERE WAS A GROUP MIND AT WORK, EVEN THERE, IN POONA, AND THERE WAS A PRESSURE ON PEOPLE, AND I WONDERED WHY YOU DIDN'T STOP IT.

A:* No. I was in favor of it, and I am still in favor of it, because the world is already overpopulated. And only an inhuman being, who has no respect for children, can give birth to a child, for two reasons: he will be giving his child this world, which is in a mess, which can end up in a, in a third world war any moment and you want your child to be burned into nuclear weapons -- one thing; secondly, the world is so much overpopulated that in Ethiopia thousands of people have died out of starvation -- one hundred person per day for almost the whole year -- and the same is the situation in other third world countries.

In India, fifty percent of people are undernourished. Even in America, which is the richest country in the world, thirty million people are undernourished. Do you want your child to be a pauper, a beggar? And that is what is going to happen, because you are not the only one who want the child. Just in India, after the British left India, it has doubled its population -- from four-hundred-million, now it is eight-hundred-million -- Pakistan not included, Bangladesh not included. In forty-four-hundred million they were included. If you include those two also, it has passed one thousand million already.

The country is dying and it is not only a question of people starving; when they are not nourished well, first their brain dies -- their intelligence stops growing, they become retarded. Because intelligence is a luxury: a man can live without it, cannot live without the heart, cannot live without the blood, but can live without the brain -- there is no problem.

So when it is a question of undernourishment, the first victim is the brain. Would you like your child to live a life without a brain, without able to think, without becoming conscious of beauty, music, literature, of all that is valuable, all that for thousands of years we have created. It is not for the poor man. The poor man has not the intelligence to understand Mozart or Picasso or Bertrand Russell. It is impossible.

Fourthly, if the third world war does not happen, then man -- because of the lunatic influence of all the religions -- has created a disease, AIDS. In fact now politicians can relax: there is no need to go on piling up nuclear weapons -- AIDS can kill the whole humanity without any difficulty. And there seems to be no way to prevent it. There is no cure for it.

Would you like your child to be born in this world? I am still against my sannyasins having children. If you want children, adopt. Why be so fixated that it has to be your semen. Adopt! Why be so fixated that it has to be your semen?

And can you recognize your semen? If ten samples are placed before you -- you cannot -- so what is the point? If you cannot recognize your child in its beginning, what difference does it make? It is better to adopt a child -- there are so many orphans in the world.

I am still for absolute birth control, at least for twenty years, so that the population decreases. We can live happily on the earth only if we can decrease the population to one-fourth of what it is today, then there is no need of any communism to create a classless society. We can create a super-capitalist world, and yet classless. We can have abundance of everything so there is no point of hoarding it. People hoard things only when there is scarcity. Now money, wealth, everything is so scarce, that people hoard it.

In Russia, communism has failed. It is enough proof that the whole philosophy is absurd. They have succeeded only distributing poverty. They have distributed equally, but they have made the whole country poor. I would not like the world to be equally poor; I would like people to be abundantly rich so that there is nobody poor. Still I don't want that anybody should force them to be equal, because that is against human freedom and that is against human rights.

Create abundant of wealth, keep the population in control -- there will be nobody who is poor, all his needs will be fulfilled, and those who are more creative, more intelligent, and can create more wealth, of course, they should create more wealth. So there is no need for equality. Richness is needed. Equality is unpsychological.

Q:* BUT UP TO NOW RICHNESS HAS NOT BROUGHT EQUALITY.

A:* It has not been, because of these stupid religions who have been teaching against abortion, against birth control, against sterilization, against the pill -- these stupid religions are the cause of all poverty.

Q:* DON'T YOU THERE'S ENOUGH TO GO AROUND IN THIS COUNTRY ITSELF?

A:* No. There are reasons why this country still have poor people, because seventy-five percent of your national income is going into war. That's why people are poor. Your politicians are responsible for it.

Ronald Reagan should be brought before the supreme court -- he is responsible for all the street people, for all the poor people. And this is not your country, not my country -- except the red Indians, everybody is a foreigner here. Just become somebody has a green card does not make any sense. I can have many green cards -- that makes no difference. Green or blue or yellow, any color, but everybody is a foreigner here. And the people to whom the country belongs, you have cheated them, you have deprived them of their land, you have deprived them of their property, of their self-respect. All Americans are parasites. And what you are doing with those red people? You are giving them pensions -- that is a very psychological way to avoid any revolt -- because those people need not work so what they will do with the money?

They will gamble, they will drink, they will use all kinds of drugs, so they are rowdy, drugged -- and who bothers about the country? And they will produce more children, because each children brings more pension. So you are helping to create the population become bigger of the red Indians. And here, seventy-five percent of your income is going into a very stupid kind of enmity with Soviet Russia.

Q:* SO WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST TO DO HERE, NOW?

A:* America should be the first, because I respect the American constitution the most in the whole world. There is no constitution which has so many human values. It can become the constitution for the whole world, but it creates great responsibility on the people of America.

Their first responsibility is that, "Now we are in a state where third world war means simply global suicide. Nothing can survive. Soviet Russia has enough, you have enough -- both the powers have so much destructive energy that they can destroy every man seven hundred times. And you are not Jesus Christ, neither I am, so resurrection is impossible. And seven hundred times -- even Jesus Christ will not be able to maintain, even he could not maintain one!

Q:* BUT WE'VE BEEN TRYING OVER THE YEARS, TO STOP THE NUCLEAR WAR, AND I DON'T SEE THAT OUR EFFORTS ARE DOING MUCH GOOD.

A:* No. Your effort are not sincere, neither Russians efforts are sincere. The first sincere effort will be: create a world academy of sciences and release all the scientists from government services. And appeal to the Russian scientists to come and join the world academy. And there are scientists in Russia who would like to join, because they can see what they are being forced to do. Their best scientists who receive Nobel prizes have been thrown into Siberia.

So just try to invite them and offer all your scientists -- make them available to the world academy. And give all your nuclear weapons and everything to the world academy of sciences, which is no more under your control.

Q:* I'M SUSPICIOUS, BECAUSE SCIENTISTS HAVE CREATED A TECHNOLOGY THAT'S TOTALLY GOTTEN OUT OF HAND.

A:* They have created technology... but the problem is they can also use the same technology which is destructive in a creative way. Every energy is always neutral. It can create, it can destroy -- the same energy. But because they are all employed by the governments, who are interested only in wars, and who are ordered to create only war material.... And now science has come to a stage where nobody can make anything individually. Those days of Galileo and Copernicus are gone, when you could have a small lab of your own in the house and do experiments -- those days are gone.

Now science has developed so much, it needs billions of dollars for any new experiment. So individuals cannot afford it. Give to the world academy of sciences all the power, all the money that you can afford, and all your weapons, and invite Soviet Russia also -- but you take the initiative first!

Q:* HOW... WHAT ROLE DO YOU SEE YOUR MOVEMENT -- YOU AND YOUR SANNYASINS -- PLAYING IN THIS KIND OF....?

A:* We can give our land -- the whole land to the world academy -- and my sannyasins can serve in every other way to the world academy. They will need cleaners, they will need food, they will need doctors, they will need restaurant, disco -- everything they will need -- and we will give our land free. There is no question of it, because it is going into the service of humanity.

I would like this place to become the capital for the whole world. I am ready to offer it... and my people will help them. And we have a university for meditation which will be available to all the scientists, which can change their minds, can make them more calm, more quiet, more serene. And out of that calmness, serenity, destruction is impossible. They cannot serve death; they can only serve love, life, laughter. And they can see my people, that they are living so joyfully, so ecstatically -- this is infectious. We will make them dance!

And all the scientists need to dance, to play music, to sing, because then they cannot create destructive things. Their music, their dance, their song, will be preventive, will be a transformation of their being. And if they can meditate also, we are opening a totally new era in scientific investigation.

This can be done by UNO; American government can help UNO. Take over all war material. Somebody has to take the initiative and somebody has to take the risk!

Q:* AS I THINK ABOUT IT, MY MIND GOES IN TWO DIRECTIONS. ONE IS, IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND THE OTHER IS, IT SOUNDS LIKE A PIPE DREAM.

A:* It is a dream... but it can become a reality. And a time has come: if you don't make it a reality, then either dream or death -- you have to chose. It is better to choose the dream and give it a try.

The world needs one government. Nations of Leagues proved impotent, UNO is proving impotent, for the simple reason because they don't have any power.

They are just debating clubs!

Q:* I'M WRITING A BOOK ON NEW RELIGIONS AND I'VE SPENT TIME WITH DIFFERENT GROUPS, AND A NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE, WHO ARE LEADING GROUPS, HAVE THE SAME IDEA AND ARE TRYING TO APPROACH IT IN THEIR OWN WAY. THE MAHARISHI IS TRYING TO APPROACH IT IN HIS WAY. EVEN REVEREND MOON HAS SPENT MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON BRINGING SCIENTISTS TOGETHER. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE DIFFERENCE IS BETWEEN THE WAY YOU'RE APPROACHING IT AND THE WAY THEY'RE APPROACHING IT?

A:* The difference is that I don't consider their meditation at all a meditation.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi I know perfectly well -- his meditation is simply chanting, and that is a method of auto-hypnosis. It is not harmful, it is perfectly good if you are doing it just for rest, relaxation -- after twenty minutes you will feel good, better -- but it is not meditation. It is just repeating a certain name -- you can repeat your own name, so fast, that it does not allow any other thought to have any space in the mind. And your mind becomes focussed only on one thought.

The nature of the mind is to be constantly changing. If you focus it on anything, then the second alternative mind knows is to go to sleep. That is auto-hypnosis.

It can be done by looking at the light, it can be done by any concentration method. So Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation is just a joke; it is not meditation, it should be accepted what it is. It is good, it does no harm to anybody, so I am not against it.

But I want to make it clear that it is not meditation and nobody can come to realize oneself through it. Nobody can reach to the deathless within you. And where is the source of life, bliss and ecstasy, well-being is just an ordinary thing - - just a good sleep will do that, a good shower will do that. It is not much.

And Reverend Moon is just another Christian, and what he can offer is prayer, not meditation, because in Christianity there is no place for meditation. Any religion which believes in God has no place for meditation. Only religions which don't believe in God have place for meditation. This is a simple division.

Jainism and Buddhism are the two religions which don't believe in God. That's why their whole emphasis is on meditation; prayer, to whom? -- there is no God.

All that you can do is to go deeper and deeper into yourself. And India for thousands of years have been experimenting and they have almost exhausted every method -- there are one hundred twelve methods and I don't think that anything can be added. They have exhausted all possibilities. Ten thousand years effort of thousands of people, they have developed the science to its completion.

Reverend Moon can offer only prayer.

Q:* I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, BUT FROM THE OUTSIDE IT LOOKS SIMILAR.

A:* From the outside many things look similar.

Q:* SO HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET ACROSS THE INTERNAL CHANGE THAT'S POSSIBLE?

A:* I am making it clear to the press, to you.... My method is totally different. It is a method of witnessing. It is not hypnosis. It does not lead you into sleep. It leads you into more awareness, more alertness. You have just to witness three steps.

First, all actions of your body; second, all actions of your mind -- thoughts, imaginations, dreams; third, all actions of your heart -- moods, happiness, sadness, and when you become completely capable of watching all these three, the fourth happens on its own accord. Two miracles happen: one, the more you become aware, in the same proportion, thoughts and feelings start becoming lesser. Ten percent awareness and there are ninety percent thoughts; ninety percent awareness and there are ten percent thoughts; hundred percent awareness and there is zero, no thought. You are simply alert, looking at nothing.

When it happens totally, that on all the three steps you are simply alert -- there is no mood, no thought, no action -- a quantum jump happens. It is not within you; it happens as a reward of your witnessing. Suddenly you find yourself at the center of the cyclone. Suddenly you are in a space you have never been, which gives you immense insight into everything, which gives you twenty-four hours a tremendous blissfulness. Whatever happens outside you makes no difference to your center; it remains the same.

Q:*... IS WHY YOU DIDN'T ACT WITH SHEELA. WHY YOU LET HER BECOME YOUR SECRETARY? -- SOMEBODY WITH VERY OBVIOUS LIMITATIONS AS WELL AS STRENGTHS.

A:* It is my own insight that is decisive. It is not a question of thinking pros and cons. It is my insight and Sheela served her purpose perfectly well. Now she was going beyond it.

Q:* WHY NOT STOP HER BEFORE SHE GOES BEYOND IT?

A:* I stopped it. I stopped her in the right time.

Q:* BUT SHE'S HALF-BERSERK. OR MORE THAN HALF.

A:* No. Nothing. She was needed at that time. Hasya or anybody else would not have tackled the problems that she managed to tackle. She was continuously in the courts, continuously fighting with the politicians, continuously fighting with the Oregonians, continuously facing all the hostility -- and she managed it perfectly well.

Q:* BUT SHE PROVOKED A LOT OF IT TO.

A:* It is not really the case -- provocation came from the other side. No minority ever provokes, but every minority is always condemned. Such a small minority of five thousand people -- do you think any logic in it to provoke hostility? We wanted all friendship, but it was natural on the part of Oregonians to be hostile.

Everybody is hostile to the newcomers, to the strangers -- and we are certainly very much strangers.

And somebody like Sheela was absolutely needed. So I did not stop her; I let her do till I saw that the commune is established -- now there is no need for anybody to fight. I have changed the whole group. I have put all the Americans in all the higher posts, while with Sheela there were all non-Americans on the higher posts. Now this is a second phase for the commune, because four years is enough -- Oregonians have understood one thing, that we are going to be here.

In the beginning they were hoping that they will throw us out; at that time Sheela was absolutely essential and she did well, and the commune will always be grateful for it. And everything illegal that she did, Oregon state government, Wasco county, attorney general -- everybody provoked her, because they were doing illegal acts against us.

It is a very natural thing: you cannot fight when people are doing who have power and who have majority, and they are doing illegal acts against you.... And they have courts in their hands. Then she started being illegal. That's how she turned more and more into a politician. That was a natural course. It was to happen.

If you deal with politicians you cannot remain non-political. You have to learn in the same ways same language, same strategies -- and she learned and she did exactly what they were doing.

Q:* SOMETIMES SHE DID A BIT MORE THAN WHAT THEY WERE DOING.

A:* Perhaps. It will be revealed soon, when Sheela is exposed with her, all the politicians and all the people who provoked her will also be exposed. That is my fear, that politicians, the police, FBI, CBI, they may like to make a deal with Sheela that, "We will protect you and we give you immunity. And you just dump all the crimes on innocent sannyasins." So they can destroy the commune.

For four times they had appointments with me and for four times they canceled.

In fact they should have asked for an appointment with me, in the very beginning -- that was the first thing to do, because I have announced all the crimes against Sheela.

But they did not want to face me. And four times they accepted and they went on, at the last moment they will cancel. Then I told them, "Then I am going to call a press conference and make it clear that you cannot make a deal with the criminals."

The reason is that these are the peoples who did provoke Sheela to do things, because they were doing the same things, our phones were tapped by INS -- Sheela learned the same strategy from them: she started tapping the phones here.

So when Sheela is exposed, INS is going to be exposed with her. From where she learned and why? -- it was just a self-defense measure.

In Antelope we had the majority; still we were not interested in making the government. We have no interest in politics, but for small permits they will not give. Knowing perfectly well that you are a minority and you are refusing legal permits which are absolutely justified, to the majority, you are provoking the majority.

Q:* BUT CAN'T YOU SEE WHY THEY WOULD BE NERVOUS, PARTICULARLY ABOUT SO MANY STRANGE PEOPLE COMING IN, AND ABOUT PEOPLE MOVING SO FAST, WHEN THEY'RE COMING HERE TO BE BY THEMSELVES?

A:* If they are nervous, they should consult some psychoanalyst! That does not mean that they should not give the permit! They can give it nervously, but they should give it!

So when it became clear that they are going to hinder everything, then Sheela had to take the step and take over -- that became a hostility, but who created it?

Q:* ON THE LEVEL OF ANTELOPE, SANNYASINS WERE IN A MAJORITY -- THEY HAD MUCH MORE POWER, MUCH MORE UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD, MUCH MORE ABILITY TO DEAL WITH THINGS, AND THAT WAS A TIME TO SHOW COMPASSION...

A:* For what?

Q:* FOR THOSE PEOPLE... WHO ARE IN THE TOWN.

A:* We have been showing compassion in every way. We have been showing compassion to them in every way. We have not harmed anybody. We have not refused any permit to anybody. They cannot make any complaint that we have done to them.

Q:* IT'S LIKE A, IF YOU'RE GOING INTO AN AREA WHERE THERE'S A PRIMITIVE TRIBE AND WHERE YOU'RE INFRINGING ON THEIR CUSTOMS...

A:* Whatever their customs, how you manage to take the whole country from red Indians?

Q:* IT'S... NOT MY IDEA.

A:* Whose idea?

Q:* IT WAS BASICALLY ARROGANT CHRISTIANS WHO THOUGHT THEY HAD A RIGHT TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY.

A:* So these people must have been your forefathers.

Q:* NOT MINE. I'M A JEW FROM RUSSIA.

A:* That is good! That's why you can understand a little humor. To be a Jew is really great!

They should think that they have taken the whole country from other people, forcibly, and we have purchased the properties from themselves; they should not have sold! We were not forcing ourselves on them. They were selling their properties, we purchased. At that very time they should have understood, that they are selling properties to these red people.... Two-third properties belonged to us -- they should have stopped selling!

It is such a simple understanding: if you don't want these people, don't sell your properties. Once you sell your properties, then you have to give as much facilities these people want, otherwise they will take the government and have all the facilities that they wanted -- and that's what happened: we had to take the government and have all the permission that we wanted.

But I have told, since Sheela left -- because this all happened when I was in silence -- I have told that change the name from City of Rajneesh back to Antelope, because it is not right, unnecessarily to hurt anybody. And I have invited them to purchase their properties back.

Q:* THEY'RE NOT GOING TO DO THAT.

A:* If they cannot do that then they can sell their remaining properties also -- we can do that. We are absolutely fair, this way or that. If you don't feel like living under sannyasins government, just sell your properties -- and more people are not there, only twelve, not more than twelve -- so what is the problem? We have one hundred sannyasins there -- the problem is for us. To remove one hundred sannyasins and sell all those properties -- their problem is small. And we are ready purchasers -- they need not find anywhere. Just the market value and we will purchase them.

So either they should purchase... and the whole Oregon was in their favor, so they should ask the Oregonians -- if they cannot purchase, Oregonians can purchase!

Q:* MAKE A MUSEUM.

A:* They can make a museum or anything! My own idea was this, that if they sell their properties, those properties are so rotten that I don't want my people to live in those properties. We have made a new housing complex for five hundred people, so we will demolish all the properties and change the zone and make beautiful gardens, lawns, public park or farming and finish with Antelope completely. If they sell their properties, we can make it a beautiful spot for everybody to visit. Or they can purchase and do whatsoever they want: they can make a museum or they can a zoo... which will be far better, because all those twelve look like persons who should be in a zoo!

Q:* THAT'S NOT VERY NICE!

A:* It is right! Nice or not.

Q:* YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THEM ALL. SOME OF THEM ARE NOT SO BAD LOOKING.

A:* No. I have seen their pictures on the television. Most of them look retarded.

And the remaining will make a really good zoo. If they want, we can make it!

But we are ready, for everything! We are ready to vacate, we are not interested in their property, in their town, in their houses -- nothing. We simply want to move out of it, but they should cooperate in moving out.

Q:* WHY ARE YOU SO SNOBBISH?

A:* I am a simple person. I am not snobbish.

Q:* IT FEELS TO ME LIKE YOU ARE, BECAUSE....

A:* It feels because you are a Jew! It is a Jewish attitude, to feel anybody snobbish, because all Jews are snobbish. Their snobbishness is just on their nose!

I am not snobbish; I am simply being straightforward.

Q:* BUT THEY'RE JUST COUNTRY PEOPLE. I MEAN THEY'RE SIMPLE PEOPLE.

A:* I'm not concerned with them. They may be Gods. They should purchase the properties or they should sell their properties, so we are finished with them. I am not a bit interested in those people. So there is no problem, but if they don't purchase the properties then we are going to keep our people there, our police there.

Q:* A WHILE AGO WHEN WE WERE TALKING, I COULD FEEL VERY MUCH YOUR INTEREST AND CONCERN FOR PEOPLE IN ETHIOPIA, IN INDIA, WHO WERE STARVING BECAUSE OF LACK OF BIRTH CONTROL -- WHY ARE YOU NOT CONCERNED WITH THE PEOPLE IN ANTELOPE?

A:* Because they have been very hostile, inimical, showing guns at my people, shouting that they will kill me.... Still we have not done any harm to them. They are not worthy of any compassion. They look criminal people and we have to keep the police there simply for those people, because they all having their guns and my sannyasins are not having guns -- what is the purpose of their having guns and moving with guns?

Q:* IT'S THE AMERICAN WEST -- EVERYBODY HERE HAS GUNS.

A:* Then my people will have too guns!

If it is America, then we are in twenty-first century. That way they will not get their city back. Certainly what we can do without any problem to change their name, that we are going to do. Then we will wait -- we have invited them. If it doesn't happen, we will change the name again!

And it is the majority to whom the city belongs. It doesn't matter who is the majority. But we are not in any way preventing them, having their city. We want to help them in every possible way. And they should appeal Oregonians who can purchase those properties -- they are not many -- and we will vacate. And then they can have their own council, their own town and whatever they want to do.

We have raised taxes four times -- about that they are making much fuss continuously, but they don't understand that one hundred sannyasins are paying four times more and only twelve Antelope people are paying four times more!

But if we want to develop that city, make the roads better, the water supply better, the fire brigade up to date, then money is needed. But we can give them certainty, that if they purchase all our properties before moving, we will make the city tax-free; then it is up to them -- no tax at all.

Q:* ON THE RANCH, WHAT DEVELOPED HERE WAS A SURRENDER OF PEOPLE, TO PEOPLE ABOVE THEM IN THE HIERARCHY. COULDN'T HAVE DONE SOMETHING...?

A:* No. I was not aware of anything. Now I am doing everything. And there is going to be no hierarchy, there is going to be no surrender, submission. In fact, I am changing their clothes and I have told them they can use any color, so they are not discriminated against, and just be as everybody else is, so you can mix with people and there is no barrier unnecessarily.

I don't want any hostility for the simple reason that we are not here to fight and waste time in fighting; we want our people to meditate, to rejoice, we want to be left alone, but they are unnecessarily poking their nose....

If we do any harm to anybody, certainly we should be prevented, but we are not doing any harm to anybody.

Q:* IN MY MEETING SHEELA, CERTAINLY ONE COULD SEE HER INTELLIGENCE, AT LEAST IN VERY PRACTICAL MATTERS, IN HER CLEVERNESS ABOUT THINGS, BUT YOU COULD ALSO SEE THE VERY OPPRESSIVE SIDE, THE VERY MEAN-SPIRITED SIDE AS WELL. YOU MUST HAVE SEEN THAT BEING IN CONTACT WITH HER EVERY DAY?

A:* I know! But it was needed. For all those mean politicians all around, I could not give the commune in the hands of some innocent people -- they would have destroyed it.

Q:* BUT YOU DIDN'T SEE WHAT SHE WAS DOING ON THE RANCH ITSELF?

A:* No. Because I was never coming out and never meeting anybody....

Q:* DO YOU THINK IT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE TO HAVE OTHER PEOPLE COMING TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

A:* No. Nobody was allowed.

Q:* BUT WHY NOT?

A:* I am decisive about myself -- if I want to remain silent, it is nobody's business to disturb me.

Q:* BUT IF YOU'RE CREATING SUCH A BIG EXPERIMENT, DON'T YOU THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL TO HAVE HAD AT LEAST ONE OTHER PERSON COMING TO TALK TO YOU?

A:* No. The experiment means nothing before my silence. I am teaching everybody to be an individual and depend on his own insight. And if he feels that he is being forced to do something that he does not want to do, he is perfectly capable of revolting against it. There is no need to submit and many had left.

Because now there will be a totally different atmosphere. But whatever happened, although it was not good, but looking at the world only bad people could have managed it; good people could not.

Q:* IT FEELS TO ME LIKE YOU MAY HAVE USED THOSE PEOPLE.

A:* No. I have not abused anybody.

Q:* OVER THE LAST YEAR I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, WHEN IS HE EITHER GOING TO GET RID OF SHEELA OR TURN THINGS AROUND? AND IT FELT LIKE MAYBE YOU WERE JUST LETTING HER GO AND DO SOMETHING.

A:* No. I will do only when I feel; when I saw the point to do something, I did it.

Q:* HOW DID YOU KNOW THE POINT TO DO SOMETHING?

A:* When she poisoned my physician, that was the point when I started inquiring from my physician, from my caretaker, about the things and then I declared that I am going to speak and meet people. And then information started coming by and by and I started exposing her. Then I informed the government, the police, the FBI -- they are all here.

But doing almost nothing and we have given them every proof and they go on talking that we don't have any solid proof. I don't understand what solid proof they want -- do they want Sheela murdering somebody, caught red-handed?

Q:* THIS IS AMERICA.

A:* Whatsoever it is, but what solid proof they had against Nixon?

Q:* NOTHING HAPPENED TO NIXON....

A:* Nixon had to leave his presidentship.... Otherwise he was going to be thrown out.

Q:* SAME WITH SHEELA.

A:* No. But she has gone herself, and she has done more criminal acts than Nixon. Nixon has not killed anybody. Has not poisoned people to kill them. She was even putting poison in my milk.

Q:* WHY DID YOU WAIT NINE MONTHS OR SO?

A:* It was needed, because she was fighting so many cases -- I did not want to disturb in the middle. I wanted to things, to come to a conclusion from where a new group can start. And this was the time, when many cases are finished and the new cases will start almost eight months afterwards, so these people within eight months will be perfectly prepared to take over and they will be able to fight -- there is no problem.

Q:* YOU PLAY A VERY RISKY GAME.

A:* Certainly! I am a risky person. And it is a game.... And I know the right timings. I am just a referee -- nothing....

Q:* OVER THE YEARS THERE HAVE BEEN A NUMBER OF VERY POWERFUL PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN WITH YOU -- YOUR SANNYASINS - - A NUMBER OF WHOM HAVE LEFT, OR HAVE BEEN KICKED OUT, LIKE SHYAM. WHY DO YOU THINK, THAT HAPPENS?

A:* No. Shyam has been kicked by me myself. Because he was a pain in the neck!

And I don't want him here at all then. I am allergic to perfume -- he will not take a bath, he will insist to meet me, and his perfume will create asthma for me -- for two, three days I will suffer attacks of asthma. And I had told him that, "If you come to see me, then you have to follow, you have to wash completely -- you cannot come in the room with all this perfume. But he never listened; always he will come and he will insist and force that, "I am coming from England and just to see Bhagwan," and he was making sick. Every time he came, he made me sick.

And I never wanted any advice from him about my health, because he is a quack; he is not a physician or a doctor or anything.

One day sitting just by my side he took my feet in his hand and started massaging. I said, "You don't do that." He said, "This is an acupuncture point....

And massaging it is very good for allergy." I said, "I never consider you a physician and I don't consider acupuncture of any importance. You simply leave my leg." But no -- out of love he will have to massage and the only thing that happened, the whole night I had to cough and could not sleep a single moment, and next day I said that, "This is what you did, because sitting so close to me...."

So... and he was deceptive, deceiving, and exploiting sannyasins.

He had a center in London, but he was exploiting the sannyasins for his own work and I told him that, "There is no need. If you don't want to wear the mala and the orange, then simply don't wear them. You simply come as Shyam Singh - - there is no need to come as a sannyasin." When he will come to me, he will be in orange and in mala, and he was seen all over the world, from every place I received letters that, "Shyam Singh is neither wearing mala nor orange."

I asked him that, "This kind of lying and deception is not good. You simply give up the mala and just be straightforward. If you don't have the courage to move in those clothes, then why just coming to meet me you change the dress and the moment you go to the airport, you change the dress again. Nobody knows that you are a sannyasin -- this is not good."

Just now his telegram has come as he heard about Sheela that, "Can I come and I can help the medical center if there is any need?" I have told him, "No, and forever no, because medical center is a part -- you will simply start treating me that I don't want. I'm tired of your treatment." So it was simply, he was a harassment to me. So nobody else has kicked him; I myself has kicked him.

And if he wants to come back, he has to learn, because my sannyasins are taking every care, that's why for four years I have not had a single attack. Every sannyasin is careful about perfume, cigarettes, they come to see me then they take bath that no smell is there, that they are not perspiring -- that's how they have been keeping me in health -- otherwise just a slight smoke, dust, perfume, and I am in a danger.

So Shyam Singh is, to me, almost like a disease: I don't want him. You can tell him.

Q:* YES.

A:* Yes. He is... I love him, he is always welcome if he behaves.