Chapter 08

[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:* HELLO, BHAGWAN. I UNDERSTAND YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW JUST A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THIS BROADCAST. IT'S SO NEW THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE AREN'T QUITE SURE. BUT IT'S NOW SYNDICATED ACROSS THE COUNTRY. IT'S A JOINT PROJECT BETWEEN BOTH PARAMOUNT AND CBS. YOU'VE GROWN WEARY OF US ALREADY?

A:* Yes.

Q:* SO WHY DO YOU KEEP PUTTING UP WITH US?

A:* I will continue.

Q:* YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL, WHICH IS WHY YOU DO.

A:* I enjoy.

Q:* YOU DO SEEM VERY SERENE, THOUGH, AND VERY HAPPY FOR A MAN WHO IS IN EFFECT ENDING A RELIGION WHICH HAS BEEN CREATED TOTALLY AROUND HIM.

A:* It has been created around me, but not according to me. I have been always against organized religions. They have exploited humanity. They have kept people in darkness because their whole logic is based on belief. And anybody who believes stops inquiring. Belief is a dead end.

Q:* BUT DO NOT THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME HERE AND WHO SURROUND YOU AND WHO ARE DEVOTED TO YOU BELIEVE IN YOU AND YOUR...?

A:* No. Nobody believes in me and I don't have any system of beliefs, no ideology. They are here because they love me, and love is not a belief. They are here not as my followers, they are here as my friends. I love them.

Q:* BUT THEY DO FOLLOW YOU AND FOLLOW YOUR TEACHINGS.

A:* No. I explain....

Q:* THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU SAY?

A:* No. They do whatsoever their intelligence, their rationality, feels right. I can explain my experience, then it is up to them to do whatsoever they want to do with it. There is no demand on my part that they should believe it.

My only request is: inquire, doubt. Doubt until you come to a point where doubt becomes impossible, where you have stumbled in some indubitable truth. Then there is no question of belief; you know it.

Either you know it or you do not. There is no third alternative.

Belief is a trick. You don't know but yet you behave as if you know.

Q:* WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN AT THIS POINT TO END THIS BELIEF, THIS RELIGION, OF RAJNEESHISM?

A:* Because it has never been there. Just I has been in three and half years silence and isolation. I was completely cut off from my people.

Q:* YOU CHOSE TO CUT YOURSELF OFF.

A:* I have chosen it. For thirty years I have been speaking. I needed a period of rest, not to speak at all.

So for three and half years I was completely silent, not reading any newspaper, not listening to the radio, not seeing the television. And I have given my whole authority to my secretary, Ma Anand Sheela.

I have always respected women more than men, because I feel that they function more through the heart than through the head, because I can see that they can be more loving and caring about people than men can be.

Sheela was perfectly right -- very pragmatic, very practical -- to take care of five thousand people in this desert, to make houses for them, roads for them, create enough food for them: vegetables, fruits, milk products. She made the commune perfectly self-sufficient. This was the good part.

But on the other hand she started feeling -- which is very human, a unconscious desire in everybody -- lust for power. She has been just a waitress in a hotel and suddenly millions of dollars were in her hands. We have put two hundred million dollars in this desert, to create an oasis.

And she was my representative. She had all my authority. And my people love me, so in my name they were ready to do anything.

She started unconsciously taking advantage of the situation. She became addicted with power. Five thousand people following everything that she says because she is always saying it with my name, in my name.

And then she created the whole idea that this is a religion. She collected few of my sentences from here and there -- I have four hundred books -- and she managed to compile a small book: Rajneeshism.

It is not my book. She has made it. I have not even read it.

Q:* BUT IT'S EXCERPTS OF SPEECHES OR TEACHINGS THAT YOU HAVE MADE, IS THAT ACCURATE?

A:* I don't know because even the name is against me. I have been always against isms, ideologies, religions. I want every individual to find his own truth.

Nobody can deliver it to him. It is not a commodity.

No savior can save you, and there are no saviors. All are pretenders. There is no God and there are no messengers of God. This existence is complete in itself and man's intelligence is existence's greatest point of evolution. To destroy it by repressing through some faith, through some belief, is against humanity, against truth, and certainly against me.

Q:* BUT YOU HAVE SAID THAT CHRISTIANITY FAILED BUT THAT RAJNEESHISM WAS THE FIRST RELIGION. AND NOW IT SEEMS THAT IT, TOO, HAS FAILED.

A:* What I had said simply means that language is always a problem. It... you have to use the language that is available. When I was talking to the INS, I insisted that I would like to call my philosophy a religiousness, but they said, "That is difficult because we don't have any category for religiousness. You can apply only under the category religion. We don't have any category for religiousness."

I explained to them that there is a difference. A religion is a fixed dogma, a fixed belief system. A religiousness is just a quality like love. It is not an organized thing. It has no priests, no priestesses. It is rebellion against all that destroys human reason.

But they said, "We cannot accept the application unless You use the word religion."

It was just because of them. I said, "Okay. I will use the word religion just to fulfill to your stupid categories."

That's why I used that word: that all religions have failed; Rajneeshism is the first and the last religion. And I meant really the new kind of religiousness. All old kinds have failed.

But in these three and half years silence, Sheela managed to create it in a more organized, fascist fashion: a religion, a hierarchy.

Q:* SHE CORRUPTED YOUR IDEAS?

A:* She corrupted my ideas, certainly. And she became the high priestess.

As I started speaking again, she became very much afraid and very much sad because I declared that this is not any organized religion and this is not going to be just like Christianity, having popes representing Jesus and Jesus representing God. All that nonsense is not going to be repeated here.

Before I leave my body, I will destroy every possibility that can give an opportunity to another Sheela to make a religiousness, a freedom, into an imprisonment.

That's why I have chosen this moment. She has fled from here out of fear, and whatsoever she has done in three and half years, I have to undo it.

Q:* AND REMOVING THE RELIGION WILL UNDO IT?

A:* Yes. Yes.

Q:* WILL THERE BE SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES HERE AS A RESULT OF IT?

OR IS THIS MERELY A SEMANTICS GAME TOO? AS YOU SAID, LANGUAGE IS A PROBLEM.

A:* No, everything. And now I am going to fight against INS also. They will have to create a new category. Man is not for law, law is for man. And if we are creating a new kind of religiousness, then they have to create a new category.

Otherwise we will fight up to the Supreme Court.

(interruption to change film) Q: DO YOU REALLY FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH THIS TEMPERATURE?

A:* I am comfortable.

Q:* IS ANYONE FROM THE OUTSIDE GOING TO BE ABLE TO SEE ANY CHANGES HERE? IS THERE SOMETHING TANGIBLE ABOUT THIS?

A:* Yes, everything....

Q:* PERCEPTIBLE TO AN OUTSIDER?

A:* Yes. It will be perceptible to the outsiders too. For example, now there will be no uniform for sannyasins.

Q:* WHY NOT?

A:* Because that makes them separate from the whole humanity.

Q:* DID YOU NOT CHOOSE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

A:* I have chosen. It was needed at that time. It was necessary.

Q:* WHY WAS IT NECESSARY THEN AND IT'S NO LONGER?

A:* It was necessary for them. They were Hindus, they were Christians, they were Mohammedans, they were Buddhists, and they wanted to declare that they are no more belonging to any old religions. They wanted to declare it twenty- four hours with their dresses.

Now there are one million sannyasins around the earth and they are already made the point that they are no more part of any old, rotten system of thought.

They are individuals and they are seekers on their own. They don't believe in anyone, they don't hope that any savior is going to save them. They have taken their life in their own hands. And they are perfectly contented, joyous.

Q:* BUT ALSO HAVING DIFFICULTIES THROWING OFF THOSE ROBES AND THE SYMBOLS THAT ARE A PART OF IT, AREN'T THEY?

A:* There will be a little difficulty, because you become identified. But I am here to make you free of all identifications. Unless you are free of all identifications, you are not free. You are clinging to something, thinking yourself special. And I want my sannyasins to be just ordinary human beings, not the chosen few of God like Jews, not the chosen few Nordic Aryans like Adolf Hitler.

Every religion believes that they are the chosen people of God and everybody else is lower. They somehow tolerate you. I want my people to be absolutely ordinary. There is no question of being chosen and special. In fact, all those ideas are egoistic and against man's growth.

So it is going to be difficult for them, but every growth is difficult. And inner growth is the most difficult thing because you have to leave many things out as you move in. Finally everything is left: the body, the mind, the heart. Then only you come to the center of the cyclone. Then you come to know yourself. And that realization to me is religiousness.

It does not make you a Christian, it does not make you a Hindu, but it gives you a certain quality which I call religiousness.

I can call it godliness.

Q:* GODLINESS?

A:* Yes. There is no God, but godliness is possible.

Q:* IF THERE IS NO MORE RAJNEESHISM... NO MORE RELIGION, WILL THERE CONTINUE TO BE A RAJNEESH AND A RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* Rajneeshpuram is just the name of the city. It will continue.

Q:* YOU'LL KEEP THE NAME EVEN THOUGH...

A:* Yes.

Q:*... TAKEN FROM A RELIGION THAT NO LONGER EXISTS?

A:* No, it is not taken from the religion. It is the people who love me who has given it the name. And it does not have anything to do with religion. Otherwise you will have to change San Francisco. Then many of your names you will have to change because they belong to some religion.

This is just their love. They love me and they want to call their place.

Q:* BUT THEY CAN NO LONGER IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS RAJNEESHEES, IS THAT ACCURATE?

A:* They are no more Rajneeshees.

Q:* BUT THERE IS A RAJNEESH.

A:* There... I am a Rajneesh! But I am not a Rajneeshee. They can love me, they can call their city if they feel calling it. They want to change it they can change it.

I have already told my people in City of Rajneesh that, "Change the name back to Antelope."

Q:* AND WILL THEY?

A:* They are. They will. "Because it is not your city. Why hurt other peoples?"

Q:* WHEN WILL THEY CHANGE IT BACK?

A:* Soon. Whenever their council meets they will change.

Q:* HAVE YOU ALSO OFFERED TO SELL SOME OF THE PROPERTY BACK TO...?

A:* All the properties. I have offered that....

Q:* ALL OF THE PROPERTIES?

A:* All the properties that we own. And we own two-third of the properties in Antelope. We have offered they should purchase them. And we will vacate because we have enough property here: one hundred twenty-six square miles.

What do we need to hurt people unnecessarily?

There are only twelve old residents and one hundred sannyasins. If they don't purchase the properties, we have also offered: "You can sell your properties. We will purchase your properties."

This way or that, but finish it.

But the city will be called Antelope. It has its own name, there is no need to change it.

Q:* IS THIS KIND OF A PEACE OFFERING TO THE COMMUNITY ON YOUR PART?

A:* Certainly.

Q:* DO YOU THINK THEY'LL ACCEPT IT?

A:* That is their business. We offer. If they don't accept it, that is their problem.

We don't have any hostility against anybody. But if they have hostility then they will suffer. Their hostility will burn their heart.

We are not at all in any trouble, in any fear. And we are offering: whatever Sheela has done against them, we are changing everything.

We have offered to the governor that, "We will withdraw all our cases against the state, but you have to be understandable that you withdraw all the cases that you have put against the city of Rajneeshpuram. You have put the cases first, so it will be gentlemanly to withdraw first. The moment you withdraw all your cases, we withdraw all our cases. But if you want to fight, then it is perfectly good. We will fight to the very end."

Q:* YOU SAID EARLIER THAT YOU REALLY WANT YOUR SANNYASINS TO DOUBT, TO BE SKEPTICAL...

A:* Right.

Q:* ... AND MANY SUSPECT THAT PERHAPS THIS SERIES OF BOMBSHELLS THAT HAVE BEEN DROPPED, AS A RESULT OF SHEELA'S ACTIVITIES, MIGHT BE PART OF A HIDDEN AGENDA THAT YOU HAVE AND THAT PERHAPS YOU TOO INTEND TO LEAVE?

A:* No. I will not leave America.

Q:* WHAT IF YOU LOSE THE DEPORTATION HEARING?

A:* I will fight, because on every grounds I have the right. You all are foreigners here. And foreigners pretending to be owners of a country which belongs to red Indians. On what grounds you can deport me? First deport Ronald Reagan.

And these people -- your forefathers, all Americans -- have come into this country as invaders. And you should feel the guilt. You belong to the invaders.

We have not come here as invaders. We have purchased the property and we have paid more money than needed.

All your ancestors from Columbus onwards entered America without any visa, without any green card. So what right these people have to decide about me?

Q:* YOU HAVE (UNCLEAR) THAT YOU'D LIKE TO SEE THIS GROUP, THE RAJNEESHEES, BECOME AN INTRINSIC PART OF THE STATE OF OREGON, BUT HAVEN'T THE ANTAGONISMS REALLY IN THIS LOCAL AREA GONE SO FAR THAT IS THAT APPROACHABLE? IS THAT ACHIEVABLE?

A:* We don't care.

Q:* DID YOU NOT SAY YOU'D LIKE TO BE?

A:* We, on our part, are offering peace, friendship. If they want to remain hostile, we don't care. Whatever we can do to be peaceful, we will do. But if they understand only the language of hostility, we are not worried about it.

America is the country of freedom, democracy. We can fight through the courts for our rights.

I respect American constitution more than holy Bible. And American constitution is in our favor on each and every point.

And this will be a historical event, that we will be fighting for the American constitution against Americans who are corrupting it.

Q:* I'D LIKE TO JUST GO BACK FOR A MOMENT....

A:* You can go anywhere you want.

Q:* ... TO YOUR DECISION NOW TO END THE RELIGION: FIRST OF ALL, RELIGION WAS NOT FOR YOU, BUT IT HAD BEEN CORRUPTED BY SHEELA. WAS THAT SOLELY THE CATALYST FOR THE DECISION TO END THE RELIGION OR WERE THERE OTHER ELEMENTS THAT CAME INTO PLAY?

A:* No other element.

Q:*... NOT REPORTS OF DWINDLING FOLLOWERS, NOT THE LEGAL BATTLES....

A:* No. Nobody is dwindling. More followers are coming. Sheela has thrown many people. While I was in silence she threw all those people who were most intimate to me, of which, naturally, she was afraid. She threw all the intelligent people who were far more capable than herself. She is uneducated.

Q:* WHAT DID SHE DO WITH THEM?

A:* The vice chancellor of the university, the chancellor of the university, she threw them out by and by, harassed them, just for the simple reason because they can take her place any moment. And the commune would have supported them because they had been with me long before Sheela came to me. They understood me far more better than Sheela understands me.

Q:* DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW AN ENLIGHTENED MAN SUCH AS YOURSELF, HOW ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE EVOLVED WITHOUT YOUR KNOWING, WITH YOUR RIGHT-HAND PERSON? IT IS EXTRAORDINARILY CONFUSING FOR MANY.

A:* It is extraordinarily confusing because you don't understand the nature of enlightenment. You think the enlightened person is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. You think that the enlightened person is a godman. That is all bullshit.

Q:* I DON'T KNOW IF WE CAN USE THAT ON TV....

A:* If you are honest you have to use it. And bullshit is nothing unspiritual. It is a simple word with tremendous meaning.

Q:* VERY GRAPHIC.

A:* Yes. So please use it.

The enlightened man only knows himself and nothing else. Everything else is just projected by the followers.

For example, I don't think Jesus ever walked on water or he ever turned water into wine or that he raised dead back to life. Any man doing these things would have become a national hero in Judea.

(Interruption for cameraman) A:* Is anybody a Jew amongst you?

Q:* HOW MUCH IN DEBT IS THE COMMUNE?

A:* Not at all.

Q:* SO SHE DIDN'T RUN OFF WITH ANY...?

A:* No, she managed the money that was to come to the commune during these three years slowly slowly from European communes, donations, small parts she started accumulating in a Swiss bank.

Q:* HOW MUCH...?

A:* In her own name. Forty-three million dollars.

Q:* YOU CAN PROVE THAT THROUGH THE BOOKS, THAT IT IS INDEED FORTY-THREE MILLION...?

A:* No, not in our books, because it never reached here. We know the figure from Sheela's secretary....

Q:*... WHO IS STILL HERE?

A:*... who is dying by cancer in California. We have sent our man, because she has all the documents and all the proofs and she is willing.... Sometimes it happens when death is close one wants to unburden any lie, any deception. She herself wrote that these forty-three millions are very heavy on her and she wants to give us the whole details.

Q:* SHE'S GOT FACTS, FIGURES, PAPERS...?

A:* Yes, everything. But commune has not missing anything, because though that money never reached commune, so it is not in commune's papers. So commune is not in debt.

But Sheela has stolen that much money on the way, and she has done many kinds of crime which slowly are sannyasins bringing it up.

Q:* SHEELA HAS BEEN QUOTED RECENTLY AS SAYING THAT THE ACCUSATIONS THAT YOU'VE MADE AGAINST HER ARE "ABSOLUTE NONSENSE" AND THAT SHE HAD TOLD YOU THAT YOUR PENCHANT FOR EXPENSIVE THINGS -- WATCHES, AUTOMOBILES -- WERE GETTING EVERYONE INTO TROUBLE.

A:* If she is correct, then we will pay her the ticket to come here and face me.

Q:* YOU DENY THAT?

A:* I deny it completely, because neither the watches belong to me nor the cars belong to me. And they both belong to the commune. They are commune property. And even if I have those ninety Rolls Royces, they don't make up for forty-three million dollars.

Q:* THE PEOPLE HERE ADORE YOU. I MEAN, YOU ARE THEIR WORLD.

THIS HAS BEEN AN HORRENDOUS PERIOD FOR ALL OF THEM, INDIVIDUALLY, AND CERTAINLY FOR YOU. BUT DO YOU ALMOST FEEL AS IF YOU, BY HAVING TAKEN THAT VOW OF SILENCE, THAT WAS THE CATALYST THAT BROUGHT THIS ON EVERYONE, ALL OF YOU?

(Tape side B) A:* No. It helped. You see only one side. You don't see the other side. And everything has two sides.

My being silent helped the commune to settle, because I am an unpredictable man. Every day I can say something which can disturb the politicians, which can disturb the state, the government. The commune will never be settled if I had continued to speak.

Now the commune is settled, I can start speaking again. So this is the other side of it. My silence helped the commune. Now I will be speaking everything the way I have always spoken. Whatsoever is truth to me, I cannot compromise on it.

For example, just this morning I told them that the holy Bible is the most pornographic book. And I am going to take out all the pornographic portions, which are nearabout five hundred pages, and we are going to publish colored pictures of pornography, glossy with Bible quotations, and prove to everybody that "This is your holy book. And your courts are carrying it for taking oath. The Playboy is far more sensible."

So it was good. My silence helped the commune to settle. My silence certainly helped Sheela to have a power trip.

Q:* BUT YOU HAVE NO REGRETS.

A:* But what harm she has done? She has simply destroyed herself and her whole gang. Now they are hiding in Black Forest in Germany like criminals.

Q:* WHAT ABOUT THE ACCUSATIONS OF THE HOBO WHO HAD BEEN KILLED, AND I UNDERSTAND NOW THAT THERE WAS A LABORATORY FOUND WHERE THERE WERE BOMBS BEING MADE....

A:* So everything we are delivering to the police. Any criminal should be punished, should be brought to the court. We are helping. The police is here, FBI is here, state police is here. Our police is working, and we are discovering everything that she did.

And this could happen because of my silence. This is the other side.

But one has to remember that you cannot make me responsible for Adolf Hitler, because why I was not born in Germany at that time? Otherwise I should have fought against him. You cannot make me responsible for Josef Stalin. Why I was not born in Russia at that time?

You cannot blame me for my silence. It is my birthright to speak or not to speak.

And I had come to America in silence. I did not begin it here. I began it in India. I had no idea of coming to America when I began silence. I came into silence.

But both the things happen, the good things happened, the bad things happened.

And both will have their effects.

Whoever is responsible for bad things will be sooner or later caught, and whoever is responsible for all the good things will be rewarded. Existence is very fair.

As far as my silence is concerned, it is absolutely out of both. Neither it has done good nor it has done bad. I was simply silent and absent and in isolation.

And I have the right.

When I am asleep, if something happens you cannot make me responsible for it, that, "If You had not been asleep then this murder would not have happened."

My silence has done good for me. My health was bad. Thirty year continuously in India traveling from one place to another place, talking to millions of people, fighting against every dogma and every stupidity. And India is so full of it that no other country can be compared with it. Naturally I lost my health.

I was never sick. I was so healthy that people used to say that my body seems to be made of marble. And then slowly slowly these thirty years of continuous traveling and continuous fighting destroyed it.

I needed a rest, and those three years have immensely helped me. Now whatsoever crimes she has done, she will be punished for them. And in America, where twenty percent presidents are killed, you think one hobo is killed is much of a crime?

Q:* DO YOU?

A:* Just I am asking you. Where twenty percent presidents are killed who have all kinds of security, the most sophisticated security in the whole world. If a hobo is killed, I don't think there is much to brag about it. She should be punished for it. She tried to poison three other people but fortunately they have survived. She has bugged hundreds of houses. My own room she has bugged.

Q:* WILL NORMALCY EVER RETURN TO RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* It has returned.

INTERVIEW WITH BILL HARLAN OF THE DENVER POST NEWSPAPER.

Q:* BHAGWAN, A SANNYASIN FRIEND SAID TO ME, "I BET THAT BHAGWAN WILL GET RID OF THE BULLETS." AND I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU INTEND TO DO THAT.

A:* I am ready right now to get rid of them, but who is going to take the responsibility of the commune? If anything happens to the commune, then who is going to be responsible? Because we receive every day threats from Christian fanatics, from Hell's Angels, that they will come and destroy the city and burn the city. So what do you want?

I can get rid this very moment. But certainly you cannot take the responsibility.

Ask the governor if he is ready to take the responsibility, or the president. If he is ready to take the responsibility, we will be more than happy.

We are not people who want to fight with anybody. We are not fanatics about anything. And we have nothing to defend. There is no reason. In fact, we are simply wasting our energy and our people in carrying guns. Just ask the governor, the state government, the federal government -- anybody should take the responsibility that nothing happens to the commune, and if anything happens to the commune then they will be responsible for it.

Q:* BHAGWAN, THE GREATEST THREAT RIGHT NOW SEEMS TO BE FROM THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF, FROM THE INS OR FROM OREGON AUTHORITIES. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THESE WEAPONS WOULD BE USED AGAINST THE LEGAL AUTHORITIES OF THE STATE?

A:* No, because with legal authorities what these toy guns can do?

Q:* IN THIS MORNING'S DISCOURSE I HEARD YOU SAY THAT YOU'RE NOBODY'S MASTER, THAT YOU HAVE NO DISCIPLES. YET -- AND IT WAS VERY IMPRESSIVE, YOUR ENTRY INTO THE MANDIR, YOUR VERY BEAUTIFUL ROBES, YOUR CHAIR WHICH IS ALMOST THRONELIKE -- THESE SEEMED TO BE THE ACCOUTREMENTS OF A MASTER. WHY ALL THE TRAPPINGS?

A:* Because of my health, my sannyasins have made everything. Whatever you see -- my chair is made by my sannyasins according to my physician for my back, and it has proved right. My robes are made by sannyasins. Everything from my shoe to my head is made by my sannyasins. Even my watch is made by my sannyasins.

What do you think about the watch?

Q:* IT'S MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN MINE.

A:* Yes, but it is much cheaper.

Q:* CHEAPER?

A:* Yes. Because these are not diamonds. These are simple proletariat stones.

And if my people lovingly bring simple things to me, I cannot refuse.

Q:* I HEARD YOU SAY THIS MORNING THAT LOVE IS A STATE OF BEING AND THAT IN A RELATIONSHIP LOVE CANNOT EXIST, THAT A RELATIONSHIP WILL KILL LOVE. YET IT SEEMS IN WATCHING YOUR SANNYASINS WITH YOU, AND YOU WITH THEM, THAT THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE RELATIONSHIP.

A:* No. There is no relationship. You are an outsider, that's why it seems so. It is a state of being so overwhelming that they all become part of one state, that my being and their being is one, that their heartbeat starts beating in the same rhythm as my heart.

It is not a relationship. It is just what Karl Gustav Jung calls synchronicity, just as when the sun rises and the flowers open up. Do you call it a relationship? It is synchronicity. The sun goes down, the flowers close. Do you call it relationship?

Q:* BHAGWAN, AGAIN AS AN OUTSIDE OBSERVER, TO COME TO RAJNEESHPURAM AND SEE SANNYASINS WORKING QUITE HARD, AND ALBEIT THEY'RE ENJOYING IT, THEY LOOK HAPPY AT THEIR WORK, BUT THEY'RE WORKING QUITE HARD, LONG HOURS, STAYING IN FAIRLY SIMPLE ACCOMMODATIONS. AND THEN ON THE OTHER HAND TO SEE YOU DRIVE BY IN THE VERY BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW-COLORED ROLLS ROYCE, AND I ASSUME THAT YOU HAVE VERY NICE ACCOMMODATIONS... IT LOOKS AS IF THE IMMEDIATE CONCLUSION TO BE DRAWN IS THAT THERE'S SOME KIND OF EXPLOITATION GOING ON HERE.

A:* Yes, that's what the outsider will come to the conclusion.

Q:* WELL, HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT, OR WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?

A:* They have made the house. I have never... my house is made by my sannyasins themselves. No outside worker has been called for anything. They have made the roads, they have made the houses, they have made a house for me. They love me.

They have made a beautiful garden because they know I love trees and they feel sad that I have to live in a desert. They don't want me to see the desert. They have surrounded my whole house with so thick trees that I cannot see the desert at all from anywhere.

They have brought peacocks -- three hundred peacocks in my garden. When they all dance, then it is really something worth seeing.

Q:* WHY? WHY DO THEY DO THAT?

A:* Just they love me! And love needs no why. Whenever you ask why, that simply means you don't understand love.

Q:* GETTING BACK TO ANOTHER THING, I JUST REMEMBERED....

A:* No, just finish first it. Otherwise you may have to come back. First finish it. If this question is finished....

Q:* YES, I THINK THIS QUESTION IS FINISHED.

A:*... then move.

Q:* ON DEATH, I BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT THE MAN WHO UNDERSTANDS LIFE DOES NOT FEAR DEATH.

A:* Right.

Q:* AND YET I SEE WARNINGS THAT TWO-THIRDS OF THE POPULATION WILL DIE FROM AIDS, AND ALCOHOL BEING USED AROUND THE COMMUNE, AND THE SECURITY, AND THAT LOOKS, IF NOT PARANOID, AT LEAST EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS. AND THERE SEEMS TO BE A CONTRADICTION THERE.

A:* There is no contradiction at all. As far as I am concerned, there is no fear of death. If you want to experiment, you can shoot me here, right now, and you can see whether there is any fear or not.

But these people are not in the same state where they know that there is no death. They are moving to that point, but they have not reached.

For their security I have to take every precaution. The security is needed, then they will need security and it will be given to them.

If I see the danger of AIDS which the outsiders are almost blind -- and they are being kept blind by their government, by their church, by their religious leaders, political leaders, by their doctors even. They are kept blind of all the dangers that are looming on the horizon.

Doctors don't want to do anything with AIDS because to admit a patient is dangerous to the doctor's health themselves, because AIDS is not only infectious when you make a sexual contact. Just the saliva of the AIDS patient carries the virus. His tear carry the virus. His mucus from the nose carries the virus.

So no hospital is willing to take the AIDS patient. The best way is not to diagnose the patient, that he has AIDS, and leave him in the society. Now, this is crime, because that man will be spreading AIDS in thousands of ways. Eating in a restaurant he can cause it, by anything he can cause it.

I am fully aware of its dangers, and I don't want my people to die an ugly death.

I would like them to die in glory. But to reach to that glory they have to flower into their meditation.

So every precaution is being taken. There is no paranoia about it. It is simple understanding.

When you see a snake on the road and you stop, is it paranoia or simply intelligence?

They have been told to use gloves, they have been told to use condoms while making love, they have been told that homosexuality is unnatural and they should try, go through psychotherapeutic groups so they can become heterosexual and natural. All six thousand people in the commune have gone through tests.

I don't think there is any city in the whole world which has gone through the test so totally.

They are fast asleep about the danger.

And when we went through this test we found two persons had it. But we have not condemned them as they will be condemned outside.

So people outside are afraid going for a test. Who knows? If it turns out that they have AIDS, then even their wife, their children, their parents, will throw them out of the house. Their job will be gone. Their friends will turn their backs on them.

But I have told my sannyasins that anybody who has AIDS is a victim, he is not a criminal. He is a victim of religious lunatic ideology about celibacy.

AIDS is a religious disease. It has been created by monasteries and nunneries where you put only man in one place and women in another place and you don't allow them to meet with each other and force them to remain celibate.

Naturally, it is absolutely unscientific to be celibate. You cannot be, because your body has its own program and it does not listen to your ideology. It does not know you are a Christian monk or a Hindu monk. It does not know that you are taken the vow of celibacy. It goes on creating male sperms in your body, so what you are going to do with those male sperms? And they are in a hurry to get out, because their life is not long.

Q:* BHAGWAN, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TWO PEOPLE WHO WERE DIAGNOSED AS...?

A:* Yes. We have respect for them, love for them. We have made them the best houses available. The most scenic place we have given to them.

Q:* HERE ON THE RANCH?

A:* Here on the ranch, but far away from the commune. They come to the discourses, and seeing the respect and love of the whole commune they are also careful not to be in any physical contact with anybody.

And they... I have told them that, "You should use these two years -- perhaps you may live at the most two years -- you use these two years for meditation. Make a curse into a blessing. Even the richest man has not the guts to have a two-year- long weekend. Now you have for two year complete freedom from all anxiety -- even from death because it is now certain, so there is no question about it. It is going to happen. You can meditate without bothering about tomorrows. And the commune will take care of you."

So we are taking care of them. Our physicians are going to visit them. And we are keeping them engaged so they don't get bored. They are making beautiful gardens around their houses. Whatever they can do -- typing discourses, writing books, poetry, listening to music, seeing films -- we have made every arrangement for them so that these two lives... two years life is a beautiful experience.

And if they can meditate -- they are meditating -- perhaps they may die enlightened.

And the AIDS will not affect at all to their inner glory. It cannot reach to your innermost core.

So it is absolutely stupid of outsiders to think that we have any paranoia. In fact, what we are doing they will be doing soon. If they don't do it, they will see AIDS spreading like wildfire.

Every day one man in L.A. is dying from AIDS. This is only L.A. Around the world how many people are dying every day? Nobody knows, because governments are repressing information. They are afraid for their prestige. No government wants that they have so many people suffering from AIDS.

It is a strange situation. Everybody is hiding it. From the person himself to the medical profession, the government, everybody is trying that there is no problem.

This is really idiotic.

It is better to face the problem and to see its danger. There is no fear, no paranoia.

Q:* A SANNYASIN TOLD ME THAT THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO BE AT RAJNEESHPURAM, THAT THINGS ARE GOING TO BE HAPPENING. I THINK THE WORD HE USED WAS JUICY.

A:* Right. Really it is juicy, what is happening. A fascist regime has ended.

People are feeling immense freedom, sense of relief. A great burden has moved away from their heads. Now they can say whatsoever they want to say. Nobody is bugging their houses, nobody is taping their phones, nobody is calling them like Gestapo and inquiring them about what they had said to their girlfriend in the night, what they said on the phone to their parents.

So there was an atmosphere of great fear, which has suddenly disappeared as Sheela and her gang escaped from here. All black clouds disappeared. The sky is open and sunny.

And it is juicy also because I am destroying everything that can repeat the history. I don't want it to be repeated again.

I cannot remain always here. One day I will have to die, but then it can be repeated again. Before that I am going to destroy all possibilities so it cannot happen again.

Q:* WELL, WHAT WILL IT MEAN TO BE A SANNYASIN IN THE FUTURE, FROM THIS DAY FORWARD?

A:* From this date forward a sannyasin will simply mean that he is initiated into the meditation techniques here, and he makes a commitment to himself that he will follow the path.

But it is going to be individual, alone. He will be responsible himself. It is not going to be a collectivity, a congregation.

Q:* WILL THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE COMMUNE CHANGE? WILL THE SYSTEM OF VOLUNTEER WORK CHANGE? THE COMMON MEALS?

A:* Many things will change. For example.... It will take a little time for few things to change. Work hours should be reduced. Sheela was taking twelve hours, fourteen hours, in the name of devotion, in the name of surrender. But it is ugly.

People did it joyfully because they were doing it for me. They were doing it as part of their love, but if you work fourteen hours, then when you are going to rest? When you are going to love somebody? When you are going to go for a morning walk? When you are going to dance in the disco? When you are going to sit in the restaurant and gossip? It is not right.

Six hours is perfectly okay, more than that is too much.

So it will take a little time, because the work that she has left has to be completed before the winter. Once it is completed we will start reducing.

Q:* A SANNYASIN SAID TO ME ALONG THOSE LINES THAT -- WITH A LAUGH, AND ALMOST WITH GLEE -- "NOW WE CAN BE NEGATIVE."

A:* That's right.

Q:* HAVE YOU NOTICED THIS?

A:* Yes.

Q:* IS THE QUALITY OF INFORMATION YOU RECEIVE FROM SANNYASINS DIFFERENT?

A:* I am receiving everything, and I have allowed every corporation head -- because there are many corporations.... Only Sheela was coming to me. She was head of one corporation, the biggest corporation, Foundation. But there are many corporations, almost nine or ten. So I have allowed all the heads of the corporations to come whenever they feel like their people want to say something to me.

Or they can write letters and they can receive the answers. They can write questions. I am every morning answering their questions if they are useful for all.

Otherwise they will receive individual answers.

It is true. They can be whatever they want to be.

A forced positivity is not positivity. If it comes out of one's own responsibility and freedom, it is beautiful. If it comes out of fear, it is ugly. Then negativity is far better.

Q:* I THINK THERE ARE SOME LEGAL CLOUDS HANGING OVER THE....

A:* They are nothing. (unintelligible word) Those clouds I have been fighting for thirty years and have almost become accustomed. Without them sometimes I think, "What I will do?"

Q:* IF THE DECISION AT THE INS GOES AGAINST YOU AND THE SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST YOU ALSO, THEN WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE OF RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* It is impossible. You should understand my strategy. They have six categories. I have applied on five categories. I am capable to receive the green card.

Sixth is the marriage, which I can do any moment.

Q:* WOULD YOU DO IT?

A:* I can marry anybody and apply for the sixth category also. Perhaps in the whole history of America nobody would have applied on six categories.

And I will fight on each category separately, because I have applied separately on each category. If they refuse me on one category, I will fight for that category up to the Supreme Court. It will take at least twenty years. If the Supreme Court says yes, okay. Otherwise I start on the second category. Again from the lowest court it will take twenty years.

(Tape side C) Six categories will take one hundred twenty years. My followers, my lovers, my friends -- whatsoever people call them -- will have to fight, because I would have gone. And by this time all INS officers would have gone, all judges would have gone, many presidents would have gone. One hundred twenty years is a long time.

That's why they are not.... In four years they have not been able to decide on a single category to say anything. Their problem is if they say yes, which they cannot say because the political pressure is on them.... They cannot say yes, they cannot say no either, because the moment they say no I move to the courts. Then the case is beyond their jurisdiction. I will fight in the courts.

And they have no reason to say no on any category.

So I will see. There is no problem. I will enjoy it. It will be such an excitement.

But I am going to be here. If they want me once in a while to go out of America, they should issue the green card as quickly as possible. Then I can make tours around the world and maybe off their neck for awhile. Otherwise I am going to be here.

Q:* IT SEEMS THAT YOU'VE ANGERED LOCAL PEOPLE THROUGH SOME OF YOUR STATEMENTS, AND I KNOW YOU HAVE A TENDENCY TO MAKE THE OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT. WOULD IT BE MORE POLITIC TO, PERHAPS, NOT MENTION MOTHER TERESA IN THE SAME BREATH AS HITLER...?

A:* I am not a political person. I am not a politician. I simply call a spade just a fucking spade.

Q:* WHAT'S THE PURPOSE OF ALL THIS, THE RELIGIOUSNESS, THE COMMUNE, THE STATE OF BEING WITH YOUR FOLLOWERS?

A:* What is the purpose of your life? Is there any purpose of your life? To take my interview is your purpose of life?

There are things which have no purpose. Life has no purpose. Love has no purpose. Beauty has no purpose. Blissfulness has no purpose.

Things which are in the category of purpose are mundane. Machines have purpose. Man has no purpose.

What is the purpose of dancing and rejoicing and singing and painting and writing poetry? What is the purpose of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci or Picasso?

Once somebody asked Picasso while he was painting that, "I have been watching for two years... two hours but I can't see what is the purpose of your painting."

Picasso said, "I was going to ask you, because you have been watching for two hours. Perhaps you may have figured it out by now."

And he said something really significant: "Nobody goes to a roseflower and asks, `What is the purpose? Why you are?' And if the roseflower can dance in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, and nobody bothers him about purpose, then why people bother me? I am enjoying painting, that's enough. More than that is not needed."

A purposive life is the life of a slave.

A life without any purpose is playful. It has immense joy, moment to moment but it has no tomorrow, no end. It is not going anywhere. It is simply being now and here.

I am enjoying myself. My people are enjoying with me. What more is needed?

The people who ask these questions, the outsiders, are not aware why they are asking it. Their life has no joy, no song, no flowering, no fragrance. They are just dragging their life, so naturally the question arises in their mind: "What is the purpose?"

A healthy person never asks, "What is the purpose of health?|" A healthy person never goes to the doctor to inquire, just find out, "Why I am healthy?" Only the sick goes to inquire the cause of sickness.

Health is natural. Sickness is unnatural.

To live joyfully is natural. There is no purpose and no end. It is intrinsically valuable.

Q:* BHAGWAN, OBVIOUSLY YOU'RE SURROUNDED BY HAPPY PEOPLE.

A:* That's true.

Q:*I UNDERSTOOD YOU TO SAY THAT NONE OF YOUR SANNYASINS ARE ENLIGHTENED. DID I UNDERSTAND THAT CORRECTLY?

A:* They are on the way.

Q:* IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A SANNYASIN TO BE ENLIGHTENED...?

A:* Yes, certainly.

Q:*... AND REMAIN A SANNYASIN?

A:* That is up to him. I never interfere into anything.

Q:* IN THIS UNUSUAL ENVIRONMENT THAT YOU'VE CREATED JUST HERE IN OREGON BUT STARTING BACK IN INDIA, ONE WOULD THINK THAT IN ALL THAT TIME THAT PERHAPS AT LEAST ONE OR TWO SANNYASINS MIGHT HAVE ACHIEVED THAT.

A:* Yes, few sannyasins have achieved.

Q:* ARE THEY HERE?

A:* Their names cannot be told for the simple reason that will create unnecessary seriousness in them, jealousy in others. And I don't want that. It is perfectly good that they are enlightened and they are enjoying it. To make them serious is to make them sick. And to make them others' objects of jealousy is also not good.

So I am not going to declare anybody to be enlightened unless I am just joking about some idiot. That's another thing.

Q:* BHAGWAN, YOU MENTIONED IN DISCOURSE THAT THERE HAVE BEEN NO CHILDREN BORN IN RAJNEESHPURAM IN FOUR YEARS.

A:* No.

Q:* WHY SO FEW CHILDREN IN RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* You can understand. It is simple. The whole world is overpopulated. People are dying of starvation, thousands of people every day. And soon more will be dying because nobody is taking care. Everybody is interested in creating nuclear weapons.

Even a country like India where fifty percent people are undernourished is selling its wheat to countries from where it can purchase nuclear plants, engineers, experts. Half the country is going to die in the coming years and they are not concerned about it. They are concerned about nuclear weapons.

I have sent a message to Rajiv Gandhi. Their family has been intimate to me. One of his friends was here few days before and he asked me that, "Rajiv has inquired, is there any message for him?"

And I said, "Just tell him, `Don't be stupid. You don't need nuclear weapon. And even if you can create nuclear weapons, it will take three hundred years for you to be as big a power as Soviet Union or America. In three hundred years your whole country will die in starvation.

`And in these three hundred years, Soviet Union and America are not going to wait for you, that, "Let us India also come and become a big nuclear power, then we start ahead." In three hundred years they will be three thousand years ahead of you.

`So you just don't go into this race. It is not for a poor country. It is not even good for a rich country. Even in America there are thirty million people who are poor, hungry, on the streets. So don't sell your wheat. Give it to the poor people.

They produce it and they die hungry."'

And you are asking me why no more children? I have simply told my people that, "You have to see. The whole earth is so overpopulated -- four billion people already. By the end of this century there will be five billion people. There will not be even elbow room to stand. You need not go to any church, any meeting; you will be always in the church, in the meeting, in the congregation -- always in the crowd.

"And crime will increase and disease will increase. This is not the world to bring your child in.

"AIDS is spreading, which will take two thirds of humanity in its grip. There are cases where even children are born with AIDS. So what you are going to give to your child as inheritance? This ugly world full of AIDS, hunger, starvation, nuclear weapons, the third world war always hanging on the horizon? This world you are going to give as a gift to your child?

"If you love, you cannot do this. This is not possible."

And they understood it, that that's certainly true. And not a single child has born in four years.

And this should be the case all over the world. For twenty years no child. So for...

within twenty years we can reduce the population at least to its half. One fourth will be the best, so everybody can live comfortably, peacefully, intelligently.

This small planet has a certain capacity.

Q:* I'M SORRY, DID YOU SAY REDUCE THE TOTAL POPULATION BY ONE HALF OR...?

A:* One fourth.

Q:* ONE FOURTH. SO ONE FOURTH OF THE PEOPLE, IN OTHER WORDS, ONE BILLION INSTEAD OF FOUR BILLION.

A:* Yes. One billion is enough.

Q:* HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL COME TO RAJNEESHPURAM?

A:* It is difficult to say, but we have enough land: three times than New York. So at least one hundred thousand sannyasins will be here.

Q:* HOW SOON MIGHT THAT NUMBER BE REACHED?

A:* That depends on your stupid politicians; how long they go on being stupid I cannot predict.

Q:* BHAGWAN, WHAT I'VE HEARD YOU SAY IS THAT YOU'RE NOT A PROPHET. IS THAT ACCURATE?

A:* I am not a prophet.

Q:* ARE YOU A HOLY MAN?

A:* No. I am simply a human being. Holy man is simply holy shit. Okay?