Chapter 10

[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, YOU HAVE READ SHEELA'S INTERVIEW WITH STERN MAGAZINE, AND MY UNDERSTANDING IS ALSO THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY SOME OF THE POINTS.

A:* Yes.

Q:* SHE CLAIMED THAT A DRUG NAMED ECSTASY WAS USED HERE IN THE COMMUNE. DID YOU EVER USE IT OR KNOW THAT IT WAS USED HERE?

A:* She is simply lying. I have never used. I am constantly in ecstasy without any drug. What need I can have of Ecstasy? The drug can only create a hallucination and I have got the real thing.

Q:* SO DO YOU HAVE ANY KNOWLEDGE THAT THIS DRUG WAS USED IN FUND-RAISING?

A:* No, because in this commune drugs are completely prohibited. And if anybody could bring them it was only Sheela and her group, because they were in charge of the commune. I was in silence and isolation, never leaving out my room. I had no idea what is going on outside.

If she knew that they... drugs are being used in the commune, why she did not inform me about it? Why she did not inform the government about it? And I have been consistently insisting that no drugs should enter Rajneeshpuram because every drug is against meditation. It gives an illusion which is dangerous.

One can get addicted to it.

So if she is right, then she is responsible for it.

As far as my people are concerned, nobody is using drugs, no drugs are being allowed in the commune. We have kept a special dog to check everybody entering. If he finds any drug he immediately prevents the person.

So the only way if any drug ever entered, it must have been through Sheela.

And I have seen her pictures on the television. She looks drugged.

She is absolutely lying. And if she is right, then she is responsible because I have left the commune in her hands.

And why she does not gather courage to come and face me? I have never thought that she will prove such a chicken.

Q:* SHE ALSO CLAIMED THAT YOU YOURSELF USE... NOT DRUGS BUT A LOT OF MEDICINE. MAY I ASK YOU IF YOU'RE REALLY USING LAUGHING GAS TWICE A DAY AND A LOT OF VALIUM AND TRANQUILIZERS?

A:* No. I use laughing gas when they are working on my teeth. That is once in six months or once in a year. Otherwise there is no question of using it.

I had used medicines when I was coming from India because my pain in the back was too much and I needed some sleep. Perhaps she is still thinking.... That was the time she was in charge of carrying me from India to here.

But I am perfectly healthy now. Why should I use any drugs or any medicine?

There is no point at all. And what understanding she can have about it? She is not my physician, she is not my nurse. She has no way of knowing that I am using any medicine. On what grounds she can say that?

My physician is here. My nurse is here. My caretaker is here.

Now she is trying to create any kinds of allegations just to cover up all her crimes that she has committed. But these won't help.

Q:* SHE SAID THAT SHE WAS AROUND WHEN YOUR PERSONAL PHYSICIAN, DEVARAJ, SHOWED YOU OR RECOMMENDED TO YOU SOME MEDICINE WHICH IS USED TO COMMIT SUICIDE. DID YOU EVER PLAN TO COMMIT SUICIDE?

A:* That's absolutely absurd. I am a life-affirmative person. My teaching is based on three L's: love, life, laughter. Suicide is for cowards, those who cannot enjoy life. Perhaps she must be thinking now of suicide. Suicide must be in her mind.

And Devaraj is here. He never came in front of her and talked about what she is saying.

Q:* SHE MENTIONS THE SIXTH OF JULY AS THE DAY OF YOUR PLANNED SUICIDE. HOW SHE IS SO PRECISE ABOUT IT?

A:* I have told in the public meeting -- that is not a secret -- that whenever I leave the body it will be sixth of July. That does not mean that I am going to commit suicide. That simply means I know my body and I know what day is the possible day when I will leave the body. It will be the full moon, sixth July, the day of the Master.

Gautam Buddha was born the same day, became enlightened the same day, died on the same day. Do you think he committed suicide? Do you think he managed to be born on that day?

There is a synchronicity. Sixth July I have declared my day, and they have been celebrating the day. So if I ever end, sixth July will be the best day.

And I am capable to leave the body without all medical nonsense that she is talking. I can leave it now, but unfortunately it is not sixth July.

I have promised my people that it will be sixth July.

Q:* SHE IS SAYING THAT YOU IN A CERTAIN WAY BLACKMAILED YOUR PEOPLE, BECAUSE YOU SAID THAT THE SIXTH OF JULY AND YOU COULD LEAVE YOUR BODY ON THIS DAY, SO....

A:* This is not blackmail. This is simply making my people aware that you cannot depend on me forever. It is an effort to make them independent. It is an effort to give them a push towards meditation. They cannot take me granted.

They have to stand on their own feet and they have to realize the truth as soon as possible.

It is not blackmail. For what I will blackmail them?

Q:* TO BUY YOU NEW THINGS LIKE DIAMOND WATCHES AND ROLLS ROYCES?

A:* I don't have a single diamond watch or a single Rolls Royce. I don't own anything. Everything is owned by the commune, its corporations, trusts. I am not a owner of anything.

And do you see the diamond watch? This is not diamond watch. These are just poor proletarian stones. This is the cheapest and the best watch you can have, and my own people have made it.

Mostly I use watches that my own people have made. And when stones can do the work of diamonds, it is sheer stupidity. From Piaget's it is half a million dollars. And my people can manage it in hundred dollars. And far better, more accurate.

From my shoe up to my cap, everything is made by my people. And it belongs to my commune. I am as without possessions as I had come into the world, utterly naked. That's the way I have been for thirty years, and that's the way I will leave the world.

I don't have anything. Those ninety Rolls Royces belong to a corporation and I have persuaded the corporation that it is absolutely unnecessary to keep ninety Rolls Royces. I use only one; that too only for one and a half hour every day.

Distribute them to the commune.

But the commune is not ready in the first place, because commune has its own hundreds of cars, one hundred buses, five airplanes -- and nowhere to go. And they said, what they will do with ninety Rolls Royces? There is no use for them.

And my sannyasins refuse to take them because I have used them. To them they have become something of special significance. They want them to keep as memorials.

And the trustees themselves refused. They will not sell them at any price, and they will not distribute them at any price. And there is no need in the first place.

What can I do? Because I don't own. If I had owned, I would have immediately distributed. Neither I own any watch -- they are owned by another trust, and that trust has given hundreds of watches to the sannyasins. I use not more than one watch every day, and that too only when I am speaking in the morning or giving an interview. Otherwise I don't have any need of it.

I live in a timeless eternity.

So she is simply being foolish.

Q:* BUT WHY YOUR PEOPLE OR YOUR TRUSTEES OR YOUR COMMUNE DO FEEL THIS URGE OR DO FEEL THAT THEY HAVE TO BUY YOU NEW ROLLS ROYCES ON AND ON?

A:* You have never loved. You are real German. If you love someone you want to offer something, knowing perfectly well that love cannot be expressed -- not by a roseflower, not by a Rolls Royce. But still the heart yearns to offer something to the person you love.

Now my people know that the only two things I use, one is a watch, another is a car. And because of my back only a particular car suits me.

So anybody who feels like giving something to me, I have to say to the person that I cannot accept it because I cannot own anything. But you can donate it to the commune. And if commune feels fit, they can allow me to use it.

I have never gone to the garage where ninety Rolls Royces are. They bring any car to me -- and they are all same: the same model, the same car. It makes no difference at all, because the seat...

I sit only this kind of chair. My physicians and my carpenters have made it perfectly to suit my back. A slight different angle and I start having strain on my back.

I have tried many other cars. It was just a coincidence. First they had brought the most precious Rolls Royce, Cornice*. It didn't suit. Then number two, Carmargue*. It did not suit. Then the third, Silver Spur -- and it is just coincidence, its seat suited me.

So all the ninety cars are nothing but one model: Silver Spur. And if my people want to give something to me, of course they will want to give something that I will use.

I don't write; they cannot offer me fountain pens, diamond fountain pens. They used to offer me. But now I don't....

They used to offer me hundreds of books, but I don't read any more.

So it is simple, that love always wants to give. Whatever I can give to them, I give. Whatever they feel like giving, they give. Why it should be a problem to anybody else?

And in fact all my gifts are bound to be property, assets, to the commune.

Q:* SHEELA MENTIONED THAT YOU WANT TO BE THE MAN IN THE WORLD WITH THE MOST ROLLS ROYCES.

A:* I am already, so what is the point?

Q:* IF THAT'S TRUE, WHAT IS THE POINT TO BUY THE NEW ONE FOR FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS THAT SHE TOLD US ABOUT YESTERDAY?

A:* There is no point because the man is so far behind me that in many lives he will not reach ninety Rolls Royces. The second man has only thirty-three Rolls Royces. I have already ninety. Now what is the point? Whether I have ninety or ninety-one makes no difference. She is being simply silly.

And she says in her interview that if they don't buy a Rolls Royce for me I am going to commit suicide -- a man who has ninety Rolls Royces. For one Rolls Royce he is going to commit suicide!

And I am already having three times more than the second man in the world, so what is the point? Let him come up to ninety, then we will see.

Q:* SHEELA ADMITS THAT SHE BUILT OR HAD BUILT THIS HIDING PLACE, THIS TUNNEL, THIS WAY TO ESCAPE. BUT SHE CLAIMS THAT IT WAS YOUR IDEA AND IT WAS FOR YOU.

A:* That's absolutely wrong. I never knew about it. I was never told about it. It was only discovered when she left from here.

She can also say that it was my idea to have all kinds of literature on poison, on murder, on arson. It was my idea to burn the planning office in Wasco County. It was my idea to kill my own physician, my own caretaker, my own dentist. It was my idea to poison my own milk!

Q:* ABOUT THE BOOKS SHE SAYS -- ABOUT THE BOOKS ON WEAPONS AND POISON -- SHE NEEDED THAT BECAUSE IT WAS NECESSARY TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THESE TECHNIQUES, NECESSARY TO PROTECT YOU. AND SHE SAYS, "AS A MURDERESS, WOULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID TO LEAVE THEM BEHIND?" THAT DOES MAKE SOME SENSE TO ME.

A:* No, because she has to leave behind because everything was checked. They could not take them with them. They were criminals already, and none of them could take anything with them. That's why they had to leave.

Q:* BUT KNOWING THEY WERE CRIMINALS, WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP THEM?

A:* There was no solid proof. It was just rumors. Only when they left people started opening their mouth, because they were afraid that these people can kill them. They have already killed. They have already burned houses. They have already poisoned people. So everybody was afraid to open his mouth. And if anybody disobeyed them, they simply sent the person to other commune far away in Europe. So people were simply keeping quiet.

The moment she left, immediately -- almost like an explosion -- people started coming will all kinds of stories.

Now there is a office here for FBI, state police, Wasco County police, city police, which is taking their statements. I have given it to the government that they should look into the whole matter.

And why they could escape in the first place? Only criminals escape. If they were clean, there was no need to leave America. If they did not want to live in the commune, they could have left the commune, but why leave America?

If I am the criminal, then I should have left. If my sannyasins are criminals, they should have left.

And now they are hiding in the Black Forest, absolutely like criminals, and all their allegations are utterly false. And if she has any dignity of human being, you can bring her here. I promise no harm will be done from our side. We will not even inform the government or the police that she is here.

You take the interview with her with me, and take her with yourself. Then things will be clear.

Q:* I'D LIKE TO DO THAT VERY MUCH. SHE SAYS SHE DIDN'T TAKE ANY MONEY, SHE RETURNED EVERYTHING TO YOU.

A:* That's true. She did not take any money from here. But she has stolen forty- three million dollars on the way, which were coming here.

In my silent period she was whole and sole*. So any money that was coming from European communes, particularly Germany, she started accumulating slowly parts of that money into Swiss bank in her own name.

Two hundred million dollars we have put in making this desert an oasis, and it needs more because it is a big desert. To make it all lush green, one hundred twenty-six square miles, immense money will be needed. It will be coming.

So she has not stolen from here, she has stolen from German communes. The money that was to come here never reached here.

So you cannot find here anything missing in the books. It never reached to the books. Forty-three million she has accumulated in some bank. Last day her second person in charge, who looked after the finances, she told me that, "Yes, we have a bank account. It is for you."

Everything was for me -- poison to protect me, how to kill people to protect me, burning offices to protect me, trying to kill my own physician to protect me. This too was to protect me, that, "We have saved money in Switzerland in case You have to leave America."

I said, "There is no question of my leaving America. And without asking me, you have some nerve to accumulate money for me. In whose name it is?"

It is in the name of Sheela and Savita. Savita was the second.

I asked, "What is the bank? And what is the account number? And how much money you have got there?"

She said, "I don't remember."

Nobody forgets forty-three million dollars.

And she said, "Tomorrow morning I will be bringing the whole detail." And she promised to President Prem Hasya that she will give every detail and authorization, because the money belongs to the commune, but next day morning she escaped without giving any information. So we don't know the bank, we don't know the number.

All that we know is from Sheela's old secretary, who is dying from cancer in California. And it almost always happens, when a person is dying he wants to unburden anything that is heavy on the heart. She wrote a letter that Sheela has forty-three million dollars and she is trying to reach here before she dies to give us all the details that she can remember: what is the bank and what is the number and how much money exactly is there.

There can be more money because she has not been Sheela's secretary for long. If in her time it was forty-three millions, now it must be double the amount.

We have informed, and once she comes she can give her affidavit to the police.

Now it is their work. We don't want to take law into our own hands. It is their work to find out and inquire.

But she has not taken anything from here.

Q:* WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL SHE DO WITH THE MONEY? WILL SHE TRY TO OPEN UP OR TO BUILD A NEW COMMUNE, AND WOULD YOU SEE THAT AS A COMPETITION?

A:* What she knows about opening up a commune? She was a waitress when she came to me and she will end up as a waitress in some third-rate restaurant in Switzerland. She cannot open up a casino that she desires, because if she opens it, then immediately she will be caught: from where she got the money?

She comes from a family who has not forty-three million dollars. She is uneducated. She has not earned any money. So she cannot use that money suddenly. Otherwise, immediately she will be in the public eye. So she will have to start as a waitress. That's where she belongs.

Q:* SHE SAID THAT THERE ARE ONLY THIRTY THOUSAND SANNYASINS ALL OVER THE WORLD.

A:* She is lying about everything. There are one million sannyasins, and now there will be five million sannyasins within six months because now I have opened the doors for sannyasins. Now anybody who is interested in meditation can become a sannyasin. Now there is no barrier.

We have buried the religion. We have buried anybody to be my successor. We have buried the high priestess of the religion. We are finished with it. Now sannyas is a more open experience. Anybody can be a sannyasin. You can be a sannyasin and nobody will ever know. Sannyas has gone underground.

Q:* THERE ARE A LOT OF RUMORS HERE IN THE COMMUNE. IF I MAY ASK, DO YOU HAVE ANY INDICATION THAT YOU WILL BE ARRESTED OR SOME OTHER PEOPLE WILL BE ARRESTED IN THE NEXT FORTY-EIGHT HOURS?

A:* There are rumors and I am excited. If I am arrested that will be the best thing, because that will prove absolutely that America is not a democracy but a hypocrisy. To arrest a man who has been in isolation.... What he could have done as a crime?

I never go anywhere. I never meet sannyasins. I never go out of this oasis. I have no contacts anywhere. I don't have even a phone. I don't write letters. I don't receive any letters. Such a man, if he can be arrested, will be enough of a proof that there is no basic difference between Soviet Union and America. The difference is just superficial.

And I will fight, because I love the American constitution because it has all human values and respect for individual, for freedom, for expression. So I will fight for the constitution against the dirty politicians who are prostituting it.

So I will certainly want that the rumor is true. I want them to arrest me (gap in tape between end of Side A and beginning of Side B) to the whole world my handcuffed by democracy, that innocence is a crime.

Crime is being protected and innocence is being arrested.

And all of my sannyasins are going for voluntary arrest. If they arrest me, then they will have to arrest five thousand sannyasins too.

Q:* HOW CAN YOU FORCE THESE PEOPLE TO ARREST ALL THE OTHERS?

A:* Voluntary arrest. Everybody has the right. They want to be with me and they offer themselves to be arrested.

British government was doing it in India. Even in Russia when Zakarov was sent to Siberia, his wife offered voluntary expulsion from the country to Siberia, and they accepted it.

If it can happen in Soviet Russia, why it cannot happen in a democracy?

Q:* SO YOUR REACTION WOULD BE KIND OF A PASSIVE, PEACEFUL RESISTANCE IN A....

A:* Certainly.

Q:*... IN A GANDHIAN WAY?

A:* Not in a Gandhian way. In my own way.

Q:* WHAT CAN YOU DO TO AVOID A CONFRONTATION?

A:* No, I don't want to avoid the confrontation.

Q:* IS THERE NOT A CERTAIN RISK THAT SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN...?

A:* I have always taken risks, and every risk has proved a blessing. So my whole experience of life is for taking the risk.

And this will not happen only in America. My sannyasins will be offering themselves for voluntary arrest all over the world, in Germany too, that either they expel the American embassy from the land or arrest all the sannyasins. They are ready. But we cannot tolerate an embassy of a criminal government.

And this is going to be all over the world. In India fifty thousand sannyasins are going to march to New Delhi before the American embassy, that either no harm should happen to me -- otherwise they are offering to be arrested.

One million people have to be arrested. Perhaps more, because my sympathizers are more, my friends are more, my lovers are more than my sannyasins, and they will all feel that this is going to be a decisive moment.

We cannot let American politicians -- just pygmies -- destroy a constitution which has all the aspirations of humanity. We cannot allow them to betray Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Emerson, Henry Thoreau. We will fight it -- in our own way.

And why they want to arrest me? Just last night I had an encounter on television with the attorney general. And he could not answer a simple thing. He has declared the city illegal because religion and state are mixed, and that is against American law. So I asked, "Now we have buried the religion. There is no religion any more. Your case is baseless. Now we don't have anything to mix with the state. So your case has gone down the drain. Withdraw it." And he had nothing to say.

So this is the answer. They understand it, that if I am here then they cannot destroy this commune. But they don't understand my ways of working.

If they try to arrest me they will make this commune stronger and they will have to face my sannyasins all over the world. And they will destroy America's image.

So let them. They are taking risk. I am not taking risk.

I am really excited, because that is the only experience that I have not had in my life. And this is my last life, so I want to have everything.

Q:* WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN THEY ARREST ONLY THE OTHER PEOPLE, OR SOME FIFTY OR A HUNDRED PEOPLE BUT NOT YOU? WILL YOU MAKE THE SAME OFFER YOURSELF? ASK THEM TO ARREST YOU?

A:* No. There is no need. I will fight for those hundred people. There is no need for me to offer for arrest. I will fight for those hundred people because they are all innocent.

These people are so coward. I really am amazed; how they are going to face Soviet Union in a confrontation? They cannot face a small commune of five thousand people, harmless, without any nuclear weapons. It would have been absolutely right for them first to interview me, because I was the one who made all the allegations public.

Now the police is here, FBI is here, all their topmost people are here. We have become their host and we are giving them all hospitality, but they have not asked me. On the contrary, I asked them that, "First you should take my interview. That will help you to find out the real criminals."

Four times they made the appointment and four times they cancelled. Fourth time I told them that, "If you cancel the appointment, then I am going to call a press conference and declare that these people have something else in their mind."

And this is what is in their mind: they want now to make a deal with Sheela and the criminal group to give them immunity so that they can dump all the crimes on innocent people who have nothing to do with it. And this way they can destroy the commune.

But they don't know. It is not so easy.

I am going to fight to the very end, and I am asking my attorneys, my advocates, to have a special permission for me that I will be fighting the case myself, directly. I don't want anybody else to fight on my accord. He can assist me, but I will be facing the judges myself.

Q:* WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOUR IMMIGRATION STATUS THAT YOU DON'T SEE YOURSELF AS A RELIGIOUS LEADER ANY MORE? OR DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AS A RELIGIOUS LEADER WITHOUT A RELIGION?

A:* It makes no difference, because I had told the immigration officers in the very beginning -- and we have the tape, they have the tape -- that this is not an ordinary religion like other religions. It is a kind of religiousness.

It is not Christianity, it is not Judaism, it is not something fixed, dead, defined. It is an open and growing experience. It has no belief systems. It gives every individual total freedom, no bondage. So it is difficult for me to call it religion.

But they said, "This is difficult. We have only the category for religion."

So I said, "Then you can put it as a religionless religion."

This is their problem. We are people -- meditative, having all the qualities which religiousness should have except an organized and dead system of beliefs. So we cannot call ourselves religion but we can call ourselves a way of life, a way of religiousness. And if they don't have a category they have to make a category for it, because the law exists for man, man does not exist for law.

We will fight on every issue for every inch. And I enjoy fighting. I have been my whole life a fighter.

When my fight is over here, then I am coming to Germany. You can tell your people there: Get ready.

Q:* DO YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION WHEN THESE ARRESTS ARE PLANNED?

A:* No, just rumors. I don't think that those cowards have guts to arrest me, because they will have to think what it will mean. They will have to weigh every pro and con. Arresting a person without any crime, without any illegal activity, they will have to think over that whether to take the risk or not.

It is up to them. I don't know. But looking at them and their cowardliness, I can say they cannot have the courage to arrest me. Otherwise they will find a worldwide turmoil against America. It will be peaceful, but it will be turmoil and it will damage their image.

Anyway, they don't have a very good image. Whatsoever is left will be gone with this.

And many of my sannyasins are Americans.

Q:* BUT ACTUALLY, UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES -- THEM BEING COWARDS AND ALL THESE KIND OF THINGS -- YOU WOULD PREFER TO BE ARRESTED?

A:* I will enjoy.

Q:* THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

A:* Good.