Chapter 14

[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:* I HAVE ABOUT A DOZEN QUESTIONS TO ASK IN ONE HOUR.

MY FIRST QUESTION: WITH THE SHEELA AFFAIR AND THE FBI'S ACTION, IS YOUR PARADISE IN REAL DANGER? YOUR MOVEMENT, IS IT IN DECLINE?

A:* No. The movement is increasing, not declining. The gang that was like a disease to the movement has been surgically removed. Now the movement is far healthier, far more open, available to more people. It is no longer a closed religion, but just a movement of seekers who want to find out the meaning of life, the truth of their being. And this search is individual, it has nothing to do with organization. So we have celebrated the death of the religion; and the death of the religion has saved the individual from dying. Organization is the death of the individual. The more rigid an organization, the less possibility of freedom from the individual. So now the individuals are free. We have taken away everything that outwardly makes them different from humanity. The difference will be only inward, which only they know. That will be their growing silence, awareness, consciousness, serenity, blissfulness, and ultimately the experience of eternal life, that there is no death.

So Sheela's going has been of immense help. It is in no way detrimental to the movement, it is immensely helpful. The commune is far stronger, because now every individual is responsible. There is nobody to take care, so you can just remain asleep and somebody takes care of you, and naturally exploits you. Now there is nobody to take care and nobody to exploit. Every individual is free, responsible for himself and for the people with whom he is living in love, in joy, in all kinds of ways relating to -- in work, in silence, in dancing, in singing. So now this is how a real culture should be: individual-oriented. We are immensely happy. There is no problem for the commune.

Q:* SO FOR YOU IT IS NOT A SORT OF DEFEAT FOR YOUR MOVEMENT?

A:* Not at all -- it is a victory. "Defeat" does not exist in my vocabulary: it is absolute victory. The criminals have escaped without even facing me, and now they are hiding in the Black Forest in Germany and on some island. Their whole life they will carry the guilt and suffer. If they have any dignity and any intelligence, they should come back. Our doors are open; we will accept them, we will never ask them anything. But whatever they have done, they have to face the law. That is their problem. Our respect, our love, remains the same. But for their criminal acts they have to take their responsibility. And it is better that they take it sooner, and they go to the court and confess everything, whatever they have done, and ask the court for whatever punishment is necessary. We can tell the court that these people are not basically criminal, just psychologically sick, and the whole commune will ask that they should not be sent to jail but sent to a psychiatric hospital where they can be cured. That's all we can do for them, and that will be the best for them. As far as we are concerned, we are perfectly victorious.

Q:* ABOUT THE FBI'S ACTION -- THIS MORNING YOU TOLD ABOUT SOME MANIFESTATION AT U.S. EMBASSIES. WILL YOU REALLY USE THIS THREAT AGAINST THE U.S. EMBASSIES IN THE WORLD, OR NOT?

A:* It will depend. I have made it public so that they should be aware before they take any action, because the politicians in Oregon are trying their best to protect the criminals and destroy the commune. This we will not allow. We may be only five thousand here, but around the world we have one million sannyasins and at least two million sympathizers.

Q:* SHEELA SAYS YOU ARE ONLY THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND....

A:* She is lying. And that's the nature of crime. Once you do something wrong, then you have to go on lying more and more. To protect one lie you will have to tell one thousand and one lies; still the lie remains a lie. If the Oregon government wants to see it, how many sannyasins are there, they should take the step: they should protect the criminals, against their own constitution, and we will show our strength around the world.

So my statement was just to make it clear that it is not going to be an easy job.

Just because we are a small minority here it does not mean that you can just bulldoze the commune and there will be nobody around the world protesting. In every country we have our people, and they will protest against all American embassies, against their own government, and force the governments to disconnect their relationship with America. This is not a democracy, it is simply a hypocrisy.

So it is a clear challenge, and I am ready to fight with them in the Supreme Court.

I challenge the attorney general of Oregon: Face me directly in the Supreme court. I am not a legal man, so why be afraid of me? But even law cannot help against truth. I will stand for the constitution of America against the Americans who are prostituting it. And we are really excited -- if they do something like that we will enjoy the whole trip, every inch of it. I don't think they have the guts to do anything. They are such cowards that against a small community they keep the army on alert, as if we have nuclear weapons here. America is the greatest nuclear power. What fear can you have of five thousand meditators? They have put their national guard just close by, in Madras.

These cowards cannot face the Soviet Union. My experience in these four years proves it, that if any confrontation happens, America is going down the drain.

These cowards don't have any guts. If for a five-thousand minority you have to keep your army alert, and the national guard you have to keep close by -- and we have only three dozen ordinary guns, not even automatic! And the governor and the attorney general are behaving like mice, not like men. We have been inviting them for four years, "Come here and see with your own eyes, and then decide."

They don't have even that much courage, to come and see.

So that was simply to make them alert that "before you decide to do any harm, remember you will lose all your honor around the world; you will lose what you have been talking about: democracy, individuality, freedom, freedom of expression. We are not going to lose anything. You will be losing so much that I want you simply to think and count how much you will be losing. And your case against the city is absolutely bogus when we are saying that we don't have any religion.

Their whole case was that religion is being mixed with state. We don't have any religion, so how can we mix religion with state? And all these people are religions -- and religion is not something that when you become governor or president you put it aside and you become impartial. If you are a fundamentalist Christian, you remain one, if you are a Mohammedan, you remain a Mohammedan. Being religious is something that you are twenty-four hours a day. Even in your sleep you are a Christian or a Hindu. So these people who are all Christians of different brands are mixing religion everywhere with state; otherwise what is the need of THE BIBLE in every court for taking the oath?

Certainly the court believes in THE BIBLE; it accepts that THE BIBLE is a holy book. All the BIBLES from the courts should be thrown out. For the oath you can keep the constitution of America which is far cleaner. At least it is not Christian, not Hindu, not Mohammedan, not Jewish. And that rotten book, THE HOLY BIBLE, not even well written -- for what reason do you go on keeping it in the court? Even in the Supreme Court you have to take oath on THE BIBLE.

Here we don't have any religion, any church, any priest, no ritual, no congregation, nothing that you can point to as religious. I have been telling them, "Come and see. Watch for two or three days: see if you find any religion being mixed with the state -- and then go to the court." But they will not come here, and they have gone to the court. We will fight in the court; and we are absolutely certain of winning because there is no question: all my people are religionless.

We don't believe in any god, we don't believe in any heaven and hell. We don't believe in believing. We are scientific seekers. And they are not my followers, they are just my friends. They love me.

Q:* ARE YOU NOT A SORT OF STATE IN A STATE?

A:* No, not at all, because the state followers exactly the laws and the constitution of the state. Not on a single point can they show that the city has gone against the law of the state. The police of the city follow the state police; they are part of the police of Oregon. So they have to be factual -- just creating fictions won't help. On no point, not a single point, have we gone against the law or the state or the federal government or the constitution. They have gone against them on so many points, betrayed their own constitution just to harass us. For two years they accepted the incorporation of the city as legal. For two years they themselves accepted the city as legal, they supported the city with finances; the federal government supported the city with finances. And suddenly one day the city becomes illegal because the Christian pressure is too much. Who is mixing religion?

We have to see in the court how suddenly one day it becomes illegal. What have we done on that day that made us illegal? For two years it was legal, and your judges incorporated it. And if it was incorporated in any illegal way, does it take two years for an intelligent man to see that a city is incorporated illegally? If the attorney general takes two years to find that the city is incorporated illegally, he is disqualified already. He is not worth being even an ordinary attorney in a county. But we will say that we are ready to fight on every point.

Q:* COULD YOU IMAGINE THAT YOU MUST PERHAPS LEAVE OREGON?

AND WHERE WOULD YOU GO?

A:* No. We are not going anywhere. America can go anywhere it wants; we are going to be here.

Q:* A BIG PART OF YOUR MONEY IS IN OUR BANK IN SWITZERLAND, SOME FORTY-THREE MILLION DOLLARS. WILL YOU OPEN AN ACTION IN MY COUNTRY AGAINST THE BANK, OR AGAINST THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE MONEY?

A:* Yes, we are working on how to find out... because we don't know which bank it is in, what the account number is. But we are working and finding out, and we are keeping our sannyasins on guard on each bank in Zurich so they cannot take the money out from anywhere; they cannot even enter any bank. We will not leave them this easy. If they had told us, "We want to create a small commune in Switzerland and these forty-three million dollars are there," we would have willingly given it to them -- there is no problem, because it belongs to sannyasins. Whether it is used here or it is used in Switzerland does not matter to us, we are world citizens. And the money was coming from Germany. But rather than doing that, they have stolen the money. We will not leave them so easily.

And this is only one bank account. Who knows? -- they may be having other bank accounts. One of Sheela's colleagues -- in India she was a friend of Sheela's, when Sheela was nobody... this Italian girl, Deeksha, was an important figure in the Indian commune, and she had lived for years in Geneva, she had connections in Switzerland. Now she has informed us that Sheela was doing business in smuggling heroin and gold; and she must have earned millions, which must be in some other account. And the strange fact is, since that information we have been searching for Deeksha for ten days. her mother knows not where she is. All her friends we have contacted, nobody knows where she is. Either she has been killed by this gang, doped, drugged, kept a prisoner... but we are sending Swiss sannyasins to look in all possible places in Geneva to find out what happened to her. Just after her phone call -- because she had phoned, "I am coming tomorrow" -- she simply disappeared. but Sheela's other secretary, who used to work in India as her secretary, reached here yesterday: she had all the information. Forty- three million -- that is her information. And she has much more to reveal. We said, "You just rest" -- because she is suffering from cancer. "Rest one day, and then by and by recollect everything, so you can give it to the police."

We will not leave them. We can leave them very easily if they come and confess; then they can become part again of the commune, and we will stand with them in the court and tell the court that they were just psychologically sick. Because they have done so much good work... the whole commune is their creation, they made this desert change into an oasis. So the whole credit goes to them, in spite of all the crimes that they committed. Those crimes are a very small part of their actions. And I am not angry with them, I understand human nature much more than that. It is very easy to be tempted when you have millions of dollars which you have never seen before. Sheela was only a waitress in an ordinary restaurant.

Now having millions of dollars pouring in every day -- two hundred million dollars we have put into the commune here.... It is how the ordinary human mind thinks, and particularly the mind of a woman, to put some money here, some money there. It is not much.

And then the pressure of the hostile forces around also has fifty percent of the responsibility for all the crimes that they committed. Ordinarily we think that a criminal has one hundred percent responsibility. That is never true. The Oregonians were behaving in a very hostile way, full of hatred; every day threatening messages that they would kill, they would destroy the whole commune, they would burn the whole commune. Naturally the people who were in power would start thinking how to protect the commune, what to do. And when you think about dealing with criminals, you start thinking in the same way, because that is the only language that criminals will understand. They started behaving like politicians and criminals -- which are of the same category:

if you are successful, you are a politician, if you are not successful you are a criminal.

These politicians were harassing Sheela dn her group in every possible way; she started learning their tactics. It is not good, because this is being manipulated unconsciously -- but you need a better consciousness, a higher state of consciousness, not to be manipulated by a lower type of people. Because they were threatening that they would destroy Rajneeshpuram, Sheela's group started purchasing properties in Antelope just as a counterattack. And when sannyasins were in the majority, she took over Antelope. She proved to them that she is a far better politician than they are: they have not been able to destroy this commune, but she had taken over Antelope. And then her ambition became bigger and bigger.

And because I was in silence and isolation, unaware of anything... nor did I want to know anything. This was my instruction before I entered into silence, "Don't disturb me about unnecessary things; if there is an urgent emergency you tell me; otherwise don't bother me." she started thinking to take over the whole county, and to take the whole county she needed three thousand more votes. she brought in three thousand street people, made a program, the Share-A-Home program, for street people to live in the commune for three months, in the commune's houses with sannyasins, and have a taste of being treated with dignity, with respect as human beings, not as dogs on the street. There was nothing wrong, it was not against the law of Oregon. The Oregon law is that anybody who lives twenty-one days here is capable of voting, so she started bringing people twenty-one days before. But then one thing leads to another.

Sheela had no idea that these street people are not easy people. They have been born in crime, they have been brought up in crime, they are rowdy, gamblers, drunkards, drug addicts -- all kinds of people -- murderers, thieves; they are not just poor people.

When she had brought them in, then she found that these people are difficult to deal with. They started stealing things here, spoiling things here, fighting, and they had to be kept here for twenty-one days now. And in those twenty-one days they would create such a havoc... so Sheela and her company brought gallons of a certain drug to mix into their food, just to keep them silent and pacified. That is a crime, but the situation was such that there was no other way. What to do with these people? They will rape women, they can do anything. That's what they have been doing all their life. So they were kept drugged for twenty-one days.

They became almost zombies. Now whatever you said, they would do, so if you said, "Vote for us," they would vote for you.

One man died because he got overdosed with the drug. This is how things happen in life -- one thing leads to another. Now, one man died; this was murder, so they had to throw his body outside Rancho Rajneesh. The police found the body, but they could not figure out from where the man came. He may have come from New York or from anywhere around America. He had no identity, he had no address; and there was no possible way to know how he died, who killed him. So the file was closed. But now sannyasins have started opening up, as Sheela's company went away. All these crimes, by and by....

People who saw what she can do were afraid: if she can just kill a person and throw the body without any feeling... sannyasins became afraid.

She tried to poison people here -- anybody whom she felt was a danger, who could open up his mouth or say something which may bring the crime out. She started thinking of poisoning those people, killing those people. She could not succeed. When she left we found in her room literature on all kinds of poisons, literature on how to murder people, literature on how to poison people very slowly so that they don't die suddenly but die a "natural" death, slowly slowly, so you can never think that the person has been killed; literature on poisons which are undetectable so you can inject the person but there is no way to detect it through the blood. And they were using that poison; they used it against my own personal physician, my own dental surgeon, my own caretaker, because they were afraid: these three people were capable of approaching me, perhaps they might say something.

Out of the fear that they may say something, Sheela bugged my room. She bugged all the rooms where she felt people may be talking about the commune.

She bugged the whole hotel, one hundred and forty-five rooms -- because journalists were staying there, officers were staying there, visitors were staying there, all kinds of tourists were staying there, and she wanted to know each of them, what kind of people they were. Now this is just paranoia. She started tapping phones -- any phone call going out of Rajneeshpuram, any phone call coming in. They developed very sophisticated machines. Even the FBI people were surprised when they saw the bugging devices, they could not believe it.

They said, "These people have outsmarted Nixon," But this is how people become criminal.

And this gives me an idea that perhaps either they have killed Deeksha -- because Sheela was perfectly aware that Deeksha would contact us immediately, the moment she felt safe... because Deeksha was thrown out from here. In the beginning she had come here, but she was a very powerful and strong person, and she was more powerful in India. Sheela was nobody in India, and she did not want anybody here who thought that he was more powerful in any way. She threw Deeksha out. Sheela must have suspected that as Deeksha came to know that she had to leave Rajneeshpuram, she would contact the ranch. And Deeksha knows things about heroin, about gold, about Sheela's bank balances, so there is every possibility.... So we are looking -- otherwise we are going to inform the police that they should look, perhaps she has been killed.

But this is the nature of crime. It goes on leading you from one thing to another, and there is no end to it. Truth does not give birth to children; it is always a bachelor. Lies go on giving birth to children, because after each lie you have to lie again to protect it, to hide it. That's why truth has a beauty -- you need not even remember it. Lies you have to remember: what lies you have been telling, to whom you have been telling, to whom you have not been telling. It needs a certain capacity of memory. Truth is simple. Even if you don't have a good memory, it does not matter; you can be truthful.

But as far as we are concerned, I can understand the human mind and its workings. Hence I cannot feel angry, I only feel compassion. And if Sheela comes back, whatever we can do to save her we will do. We cannot guarantee it, because things will be in the hands of the law, but we will try to save her as far as possible. But if she goes on hiding here and there, then it is impossible. The police are here, the FBI are here; they are looking for all proof of the crimes and we have to give them all the proof. We are not to hide anything from them -- and we are not, nobody is hiding anything. And we have to see whether there is still any sincerity left in politicians or not. On our side we are absolutely honest and sincere, telling everything as it is without any consideration of consequences. If they are still human, then they will not take this opportunity as an advantage to leave the criminals who have left, and start catching hold of innocent people and force the crime on these people. But that's what is in the attorney general's mind:

somehow to give the criminals immunity so they can throw and dump all their crimes on innocent people. His idea is that at least one thousand sannyasins should be sent to jail. But if he does it, he will be doing immense harm to America, its prestige, its integrity; and he will be helping the Soviet Union immensely. He will be unconsciously becoming an agent of the KGB. Perhaps he is already an agent of the KGB.

Q:* I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE SUBJECT. YOU PROFESS A CAPITALISM SORT OF...

A:* Yes.

Q:*... BUT YOUR SANNYASINS LIVE NOT AS CAPITALIST PEOPLE, BUT AS SORT OF COMMUNIST PEOPLE, NO?

A:* It is a little bit complex. My idea of capitalism is not similar to the idea of American capitalism. My idea of capitalism is that we are in a position, scientifically, technologically, that if we stop this stupid idea of a third world war there will be so much wealth, so much comfort and luxury available, that there will be no need for anybody to hoard it. Out of that abundance there will arise a communism -- but out of abundance. That will be the highest peak of capitalism - - not against capitalism, but an evolution of capitalism to its ultimate state, where there is so much richness that there is no point in anybody accumulating it, hoarding it. And everybody is rich. It does not mean that everybody is equally rich -- because I am against equality. It is psychologically wrong. People are neither of equal height nor are people of equal intelligence, nor are people of equal health, nor are people equally creative, nor are people equally capable of painting or sculpture or music or poetry. Everybody is unique, so the question of equality does not arise. The question of inferiority or superiority does not arise, because each individual is unique. There is no other like him with whom he can be compared as superior or inferior. So people will be unique, but nobody will be poor.

Karl Marx and his communism are out of date. And in Russia they have only been capable of distributing poverty equally; it has not become a rich country.

People are equal, but people are poor. And because everybody is equally poor, nobody feels jealous of the rich people, because there are no rich people. But this is not the right kind of society. And it is forced, this equality is not natural; it is almost a big concentration camp. Just give freedom for two weeks and you will see all equality gone: people are again different, unequal.

The idea of a classless society has not happened. Only the names of the classes have changed in Russia. Instead of the bourgeois and the proletariat, now there is the ruler and the ruled -- because in a capitalist country the poor have the capacity, theoretically at least, to move upwards, and a few poor people do move. A few middle class people move, and can reach and become super-rich; many super-rich people go bankrupt and go down. So there is movement. In a Russian context there is no movement, society has come to a static stage. The rulers, the same group, have been for sixty to seventy years in power, and there is no possibility of any revolution and no possibility for the ruled people to become rulers. The movement has stopped.

So I am against the communism preached by Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. I have my own idea of communism, that's why I call my place a commune. The word "communism" basically comes from "commune," so it is "commune-ism" but from a totally different angle. I want wealth in such abundance -- which is possible. Seventy-five percent of the national income of every country is going into war, into destruction; people are living only on twenty-five percent. If we can simply drop this idiotic idea of a third world war -- which is not a necessity - - and seventy-five percent of our energy, science, technology, becomes available to people, becomes creative rather than destructive.... Right now it is in the service of death. If it comes into the service of life, we can have such an opulence, such an affluence, that there is no need for anybody to think of a classless society.

Poverty can disappear, and people can have more than enough; everybody can live in comfort and luxury.

There is no need to force people to be equal -- that is a kind of monotonous society. I would like a more colorful, unique people, with different talents -- the whole society becomes rich through them. So my commune is not poor. I am against poverty, I am all for riches. And there is no need to be poor. If we are poor, we are responsible for it. For example, for four years in my commune not a single child has been born. Now, this is simple intelligence. The world is overpopulated and becoming every day more and more poor. Don't overpopulate it any more. At least this much contribution you can make: don't produce children. If you cannot do any other service, you can do at least this much.

Q:* BUT THE SOCIETY THAT HAS NO CHILDREN IS A SOCIETY THAT DIES.

A:* No. I want for twenty to thirty years total birth control, so the society comes to one-fourth of what it is today, and then there is no need for birth control. But there will be a need, certainly, to say that unless the medical board gives you permission to have a child, you cannot. We don't want blind children, we don't want crippled children, we don't want children who will remain sick their whole life. We don't want retarded children. Why unnecessarily create misery in the world when we can manage very easily to produce geniuses? We can have more Albert Einsteins, more Yehudi Menuhins, more Ravi Shankars. Then why create these street people and Share-A-Home programs? So for thirty years complete total birth control, to let the old disappear.

Right now there are four billion people on the earth. One billion is the right number which can live really in a paradise. Man also needs space. Man also needs gardens around his house, miles of greenery, birds, animals. By the end of this century if the same production rate continues, there will be five billion people. There will not be even elbow room, everywhere you be in a congregation. This is something stupid which has to be stopped, and this is the time to stop it. It is already late, but still not too late. Thousands of people are dying of hunger, and the real reason is that there are more people than the earth can support. So rather than having five billion people hungry, starving, sick, dying, why not have one billion people healthy, living for one hundred and fifty years, two hundred years, never becoming old, dying young and dying only when they want to die. Otherwise they can continue to live and still be productive, creative. Why not have a society which has space, greenery, rivers?

And all this pollution and all this disturbance in ecology will disappear. One billion people is the right number for this small planet. Okay?

INTERVIEW WITH MA VIREN FROM PLAYMAN MAGAZINE IN ITALY.

A:* Good!

Q:* PLAYMAN MAGAZINE IS A KIND OF PLAYBOY BUT PRETENDING TO BE FOR MORE INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE. THE INTERVIEW WILL COME UP IN NOVEMBER, SO IF YOU AGREE I WILL MOVE FROM THIS CRIME STORY TO A LOVE STORY.

A:* Um hmm! You can move anywhere!

Q:* YOU SAID YOU ARE ALL FOR HETEROSEXUALITY. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF A MATURE MAN AND OF A MATURE WOMAN?

A:* The first thing for both man and woman to be mature is to have as many sexual experiences as possible between the ages of fourteen to twenty-one. And that is the age at which children are taught by every society to repress sexuality.

And this is something of immense importance: if sexuality is repressed, intelligence is repressed automatically. They grow together. You will be surprised to know that in the fist world war for the first time the mental age of soldiers was checked, and it was a surprising fact that in every nation the average mental age of a soldier was thirteen years, although his physical age might be thirty. What happened at thirteen years? That is the time, between thirteen and fourteen somewhere, that a man becomes sexually mature. If you repress his sexuality, you also repress his intelligence.

The second thing to remember is that at the age of eighteen the man and the woman are both at the prime of their sexual power. They can have the best orgasmic experience as they will never experience afterwards. And every culture and society goes on forcing their children -- up to twenty-five, you have to remain celibate. That is very destructive. On the one hand, it keeps the mind at the age of only thirteen, stuck, retarded. Secondly, the man who has not had an orgasmic experience at the age of eighteen will never experience it. Whatever he does is of no use. And to miss that experience is to miss something immensely valuable, the most pleasant, the most blissful, the most ecstatic possibility that biology makes available. People are miserable, suffering, tense, in anguish, searching for the meaning of life, but they never find it. They have lost something which would have helped them to find the meaning of life.

Q:* SO THERE IS NO CHANCE AFTER EIGHTEEN? I MEAN, IF SOMEBODY DOESN'T HAVE THIS EXPERIENCE WHEN HE IS EIGHTEEN, THEN IT IS LOST FOREVER?

A:* No, there is a possibility, but then it will not be just through nature; he will have to do something. That's where meditation comes in. If he had it biologically, it was natural. He was not doing anything, it happened on its own. If it happened naturally, then meditation is very easy, because he knows the experience already. He need not believe in meditation, he knows that there is such an experience. It was attained through sex -- in meditation it is attained, achieved, alone, through some method. But the man knows the experience, and as he starts any meditative experimentation he starts feeling he is coming close to that experience, the fragrance of it, the freshness of it; he knows that he is moving in the right direction. He can see the flame is there, just a little more and he will be there. But even if somebody has missed -- and most of the people have missed -- meditation can give them that experience. But it is a little bit difficult, difficult only because they don't have any past experience to support them.

That's why I have created communes around the world where so many people are meditating. Somebody is ahead of you, somebody is behind you, somebody is far ahead. That gives you a tremendous encouragement, that there is no need to be worried: people are going, people are reaching to the point. And if you happen to have a guide who has arrived, then just his presence, his love, will keep you encouraged. There will be moment when you will think that it is futile, but he will go on encouraging you, "Don't be worried, just a little more."

There is a beautiful story in Buddha's life. He is coming to a village -- they are very tired, the whole day they have been walking. His disciple, Anand, asks a villager who is working in his field, "How far is the village?" The village says, "Not very far, just two miles and you will have reached." They gather courage again and they start moving. "Only two miles? Okay." The whole day they have been walking -- two miles is nothing. they can do it. But two miles have passed and the village is not yet there.

They meet another villager, who is taking his cows to the field, and they ask him, "How far is the village?" He says, "Very close, just two miles." Ananda says to Buddha, "These villagers seem to be very strange! The other one was saying two miles, and two miles we have walked. This man is also saying two miles; but now I don't believe that we will reach the village." Now Buddha says, "Two miles will do." Two miles they walk and again there is no village.

They meet an old woman sitting by the side of the road, and they ask her. She says, "It is very close. I am just resting, but I will be coming -- you go ahead. It is just two miles." Ananda says, "This village seems to be completely full of lying people. Six miles we have walked, and it is still two miles!"

Buddha says, "Ananda, you don't know. I know, because this is all that I have been doing my whole life. Whenever any of my disciples ask, `How far?' I say, `Just two miles!'" Q:* NOW THERE IS A JOKE GOING AROUND IN EUROPE: "BHAGWAN, HOW FAR ARE WE FROM AMERICA? BHAGWAN, HOW FAR ARE WE FROM AMERICA?" "BE PATIENT AND SWIM."

A:* Hmm-mm, that's good! Just tell them it is only two miles!

Q:* SO WHAT ABOUT THE QUALITIES OF A MATURE MAN AND OF A MATURE WOMAN?

A:* The orgasmic experience is the basic quality of maturity. That's why there are very few mature men and women on the earth.

Q:* JUST A SIMPLE METHOD OF MEDITATION TO SUGGEST TO LATIN LOVERS, SO THEY MAY FIND THEIR WAY?

A:* The simplest method for lovers is, while they are making love they should make it a sacred experience.

All the religions have destroyed the sacredness of love. They have condemned it as sin. And the conditioning has gone so deep in the human mind that people are making love in such a hurry, as if they want to finish it as quickly as possible.

Naturally, if it is a sin it is better finished soon. Their hearts are guilt-ridden, their minds completely full of sin. If lovers want to make love a meditative experience, then the first thing is to drop the idea that it is sin, that it is something wrong. It is something immensely beautiful, a tremendous gift of nature, of existence, for which you should not be guilty, you should be grateful!

And to show your gratefulness you have to make a special place for it.

Every house and every couple which can afford it should have a separate room just for love: no other vibe there -- no fight, no argument, no throwing of pillows.

They should enter the room after taking a bath, as if they are going into a temple.

The room should be full of beautiful burning incense; there should not be glaring lights -- just candles, dim light.

And they should not be in a hurry, because the foreplay is immensely important, for the simple reason that the woman's whole body is erotic. Man's whole body is not erotic; his sexuality is local, just limited to his genitalia. But the woman's whole body is erotic, and unless her whole body starts throbbing with joy, with ecstasy, she will not have any orgasmic experience. If the man plays enough with the woman's body, the woman plays enough with the man's body... and the meditation technique is: while you are playing with each other's body, remain a witness, don't get identified. So there are four persons, not two: the woman and the witness inside, the man and the witness inside. The witness is simply watching what the man is doing to the woman, what the woman is doing to the man. The witness has no judgment of good and bad; it is simply like a mirror, showing what is happening. This witnessing is nothing but awareness, alertness, consciousness. And particularly in the foreplay, if you are conscious, alert, then there is a possibility you both will know the exact time when your bodies are ready to make love. You will feel the bio-electricity of each other's body.

When you start making love, don't be in a hurry. Let the woman be always on top. The missionary posture is the worst posture in the whole world. In the East nobody knew before the Christians reached there that the man can be on top of the woman. It is so brutal, it is so ugly. The woman is delicate, and a huge animal is doing pushups over her! In India it is called the missionary posture, because it was known only when missionaries came to India. They made India aware that this too is possible; otherwise, the woman is always to be on top. And scientifically it is right that the woman should be on top, because then she can be more active and the man can be less active. If the man is on the top, the woman cannot be more active, the man is more active. If he is more active, he comes to his ejaculation very soon, and the woman has not yet come to the point where she can have an orgasm. If the woman is on top and she is active, and the man remains inactive, there is ever possibility that by the time the woman comes to orgasm the man will be coming to orgasm. And if both come to orgasm at the same time, then there is a tremendous meeting and merging, as if bodies disappear and two souls are no longer two souls, two beings are no longer two beings. And the witnessing continues. That is your inner work of meditation that goes on: you are witnessing.

After your orgasm has settled, slowly slowly disappearing, watch it. Watch as it is coming up, watch as it explodes, watch as it starts settling back again to the normal state of your bodies. Then don't be in a hurry to separate from each other; remain together for awhile. In tantra that is called valley orgasm. That is not known to millions of people. The first orgasm was peak orgasm. You had met together on a peak of your energy, now the peak has disappeared. But every peak has a valley by its side; without a valley there can be no peak. So if you can remain silently watching together, you will be amazed: there is another orgasm with a totally different beauty, a different depth, a different joy -- the valley orgasm. Until the valley orgasm disappears and you come back again to normal, don't separate. Meanwhile, all the time the witnessing continues. When you separate, don't just start going to sleep. Something very essential is still there, and that is the afterplay. You have made such a turmoil in the whole energy of each other's bodies, minds, that it is needed. You massage each other's bodies, play with each other's body, and have beautiful incense, flowers, candlelight, music... if you feel like dancing, you dance. But the witnessing continues.

Why am I insisting that witnessing continues? I am emphasizing it because if you do it many times, then one day you can try just(ROM witnessing, without your man, without your woman -- alone. In the same room, in the same atmosphere, with the same incense which creates the same memories, the same light, the same milieu, you start simply witnessing, sitting there. And you are in for a great surprise. All that has been happening with the woman starts happening just inside you, without the woman or without the man. You start moving slowly to the peak orgasm -- the same experience with no physical, no biological expression -- and you reach to the valley orgasm, the same experience. You have learned meditation through love, and you have also learned love through meditation; they will go on enriching each other.

This will bring maturity to both the persons, and the maturity will release their repressed intelligence, awareness, lovingness, compassion. And it will destroy jealously, anger, hatred. it will bring tremendous changes in you. Those changes will be the proof that you are on the right track.

Q:* IT IS REPORTED YOU KNOW REINCARNATION AS A TRUTH. IS THERE A WAY TO RECOGNIZE A PAST-LIFE LOVER?

A:* It is very difficult. It is difficult to recognize a this-life lover! If the lights are put off and twenty naked women are there, it is difficult for the man to find his own woman amongst twenty. So ordinarily it is very difficult, but it is not impossible.

If you can remember your past life -- which is possible.... There are methods to go backwards: first into your childhood, then into your birth process, then into your memories of the womb, then your memories of the death before you entered this womb. The methods are there, you can enter into your past life, and you can recognize from your past life who was your lover. But to find that person in this life still remains a difficult job: the big world is there. And what ordinarily is that if you are a woman in this life, then in my experience, experimenting with many friends who have been on the path for many years, if you are a woman in this life then it is almost certain you were a man in the past life. It is really through your being a man in the past life that the desire to be a woman has brought you in the form of a woman; and the man must have been a woman in his past life. The opposite is always attractive, and at one's dying moment, the opposite remains in the mind, and that becomes the seed that drives you into a new womb.

So the difficult is complex. For example, if you were a man in the past life, then a woman must have been your lover. Now you are a woman and you will seek in the man... but there you will not find, because the form has changed. Your form has changed; your woman or your man's form has changed. But if you insist on finding your lover, then you have to go again and again back into the past life, so that the memory of the person you loved -- the qualities, the characteristics, the gestures, the eyes, the way the person walked, the way the person talked, the way he reacted in certain situations -- all slowly slowly become clear. The same will be still with the person, whether he is man or woman. So if you are aware and if you are searching, perhaps somewhere you may find the man or the woman who has the same pattern of behavior, structure of reactions, and there is a possibility of recognition from both the sides -- immediately. It is not a question of calculation then; then it is not whether this is the person or not -- no. If you have come across the person, then it is something immediate, and on both sides.

You both will recognize it immediately, not a single moment will be lost. But it is a very rare thing.

Q:* WHEN YOU SAY -- THIS IS THE LAST ONE -- IN THIS COMMUNE THERE ARE MANY GENIUSES, ARE YOU REFERRING TO PAST-LIFE ONES, TOO?

A:* In fact, if a person is a genius, he must have been something of a genius in the past life too, because the quality of being a genius is a growth of many lives. It does not die with death. Talent is one thing -- talent dies. And that is the difference between a talented man and a genius. A talented man may look almost like a genius, but he has simply learned a skill; he does not have an insight into its workings. When he dies, he will be born again without the talent.

That talent belonged to the body and the brain which has died. Genius belongs to your very soul, which moves from one form to another. For example, Albert Einstein will continue t be a genius wherever he is born.

So when I refer to geniuses, certainly I am referring to this life, but in this life they can be a genius only if they have been preparing for many lives for this flowering. It is not one life's effort, one life is too short to create a genius: it can create talent. It can create skill -- it cannot create genius.

Q:* YOU DIDN'T WANT TO ANSWER THIS ONE. THE QUESTION WAS: YOU SAID IN THIS COMMUNE, RAJNEESHPURAM, THERE ARE MANY GENIUSES. SO THEY WERE GENIUSES BEFORE, RIGHT?

A:* Yes.

Q:* CAN YOU RECOGNIZE THAT SAY, MOZART IS HERE, LEONARDO DA VINCI IS HERE, BACK HERE IS EINSTEIN?

A* Yes.

Q:* CAN YOU TELL ME A FEW NAMES?

A:* That is not nice of you! Okay?