Chapter 25

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

Bhagwan: Good evening.

QUESTION: BHAGWAN, THERE ARE MANY QUESTIONS THAT I WANT TO ASK YOU TONIGHT, BUT FIRST I'D LIKE TO CLARIFY ONE POINT. YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE AN ORDINARY MAN, BUT YOU LIVE, YOU ACT, YOU EVEN DRESS AS AN EMPEROR. YOU HAVE PEOPLE WHO WORSHIP YOU, YOU HAVE MONEY, POWER. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS CONTRADICTION?

A: I am an extraordinarily ordinary man.

Q: A SMALL BOOK WAS SUFFICIENT TO SPREAD THE TEACHING OF JESUS OR OF MOHAMMED, AND MANY PEOPLE CONSIDER THEM GOOD AFTER HUNDREDS OF YEARS. BUT THERE ARE MANY TAPES OF YOUR SPEECHES AND STATEMENTS BY THE THOUSANDS. EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU SAY IS RECORDED, INCLUDING THIS INTERVIEW. WOULDN'T YOU CALL THIS A CULT OF PERSONALITY?

A: No.

Q: I WAS AT THE RAJNEESH MANDIR THIS MORNING AND I LISTENED TO YOUR MEDITATIONS. I HAD THE IMPRESSION AT A CERTAIN POINT, WITH ALL RESPECT, THAT YOU WERE OFFERING EASY SOLUTIONS TO IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEMS, LIKE TRANSFERRING PART OF THE POPULATION OF INDIA TO THE SOVIET UNION, WHERE PLENTY OF LAND IS AVAILABLE. DO YOU THINK THAT SUCH IDEAS ARE REALLY PRACTICAL?

A: Everything that seems impossible is possible. One day flying was impossible to every practical man; now it is no more. Anything that is impossible can become possible, all that it needs is talented people to work it out. And every dream in the beginning is a dream, but it can be transformed into a reality.

Q: BHAGWAN, IN YOUR WORDS JESUS WAS A COMMUNIST, THE FIRST COMMUNIST. THEN WHAT WOULD YOU SAY ABOUT HIS REPRESENTATIVE ON EARTH, POPE JOHN PAUL? THE COMMUNISTS TRIED TO KILL HIM, APPARENTLY.

A: I don't know what they would do with Jesus. I know about myself, that America would like to kill me, the Soviet Union would like to kill me; every country in the world would like to kill me, for the simple reason that I don't belong to any tradition, any religion, any ideology. Jesus would not have been crucified by communists. They would have laughed at him, they would have, made a joke out of him. He would have been just a buffoon. They would not have taken the trouble to crucify a simpleton. Jews unnecessarily created the trouble for the whole world.

If Jesus had not been crucified there would have been no Christianity.

Christianity is because of the crucifixion, not because of Jesus. Alive, he had no impact. Only twelve fools -- uneducated, illiterate -- were his apostles. Not a single rabbi, not a single scholar, not a single intellectual was impressed by him.

But the crucifixion made him special, and that crucifixion became the source of Christianity.

I don't think communists are so foolish. They have learned much in these two thousand years; they would not crucify Jesus. And there was no need! He was just wandering on his donkey, talking nonsense; you could have enjoyed it. If you didn't like it, didn't enjoy it, there was no fee to be paid.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU WERE QUOTED AS SAYING THAT YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF THE GURU OF THE RICH. WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO WITH THE POOR?

A: As far as I am concerned, it is not a question of my being the guru of the rich.

Religion itself is possible only for those who have known all the luxuries of life and have found them meaningless. Religion is the last luxury. The poor man cannot afford it. He cannot afford even food, he cannot afford even shelter, he cannot afford a little education for his children; how can he understand Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? It will be beyond his comprehension.

And these people are nothing -- when it comes to religion, it means the ultimate mysteries of life.

The poor neither has the time nor has the appetite nor has the intelligence to take such a flight. So it is not a question of my being the guru of the rich, it is more fundamental. Only the rich can afford religion. The poor can afford communism, but not religion. For the poor, communism is religion and for the rich man even Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism are not satisfying because they are all old rotten. He needs something up to date -- and that's what I am offering.

Hence my saying that I am -- the guru of the rich. So to those who want to be contemporaries in the search for truth, I am available. But I am not available for those who cannot even understand the ABC of mysticism. They have not even started the journey, and I am talking about the end of the journey. Naturally, very few -- those who are surrounded by every luxury and yet find -- a deep hollowness in themselves, a great unfulfillment, a tremendous desire to find something that defies death -- these are the people for whom I am ready, and I have methods for them. But between me and the Ethiopian, the distance is so big that there is no possibility of communication. The Ethiopian needs bread, he does not need meditation; perhaps he needs medicine. So it is a very simple thing.

And the statement is not about me, the statement is about the very nature of religiousness. It blossoms only at the very peak of your growth. For example, if somebody says that sexuality is for those who are young adults, nobody objects; nobody says that this is depriving children of sex. But what can we do? The children are not of age, they are not sexually mature. Let them come of age, and the doors will be open for them too.

Religion has a certain delicacy, subtlety. it needs a very refined mind, a very cultured being, to understand it. It is not for the poor. I don't want the poor in the world, for the simple reason that I want religiousness to be available to all. My concern is less with poverty, my concern is more with religiousness. I don't want anybody to be poor in the world, but not because poverty is something destructive. I have lived in India and I have seen the poor people living for centuries in poverty with no discontent. They are satisfied with their fate, they have no complaint against anybody. But still I want some discontent to arise in them, some revolt to arise in them, because just being poor they will never have the most beautiful experience of life.

To me religiousness is an orgasmic experience with existence. I don't have any God, I don't have any belief system: This existence is enough for me. But there are ways in which you can be in tune with existence. When you are absolutely in tune with existence, you have an orgasmic explosion of bliss, ecstasy, joy, eternal life.

Religion is not anything to do with churches and temples and mosques; it is something to do with you, with me, with each individual. It is an inner journey.

And the poor man cannot go on an inner journey, because on an inner journey he cannot find bread and butter. What can I do? -- it does not exist there. And a man who is hungry, starving -- to talk to him about the inner journey is simply humiliating him. I would not like even to talk about religion. What he needs is totally different. He does not need religiousness.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU PROCLAIM THAT WHAT SOME HAVE CALLED RAJNEESHISM IS DEAD AS A RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT. HOW CAN A RELIGION, A SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT, CEASE TO EXIST ONLY BECAUSE ITS LEADER SAYS SO?

A: Because the people who are around me.... It is not an established religion. I had started alone, and then people started coming and became fellow travelers; it became a big caravan. But their love gives me the authority. I don't have any power over them, but their love gives me the authority.

I would not like them to become an organized religion because that is the death of the very search for in which they had come to me. So now it is simply an open movement of religiousness, with no catechism, with no church, with no clergy, with no holy book: an experiment totally new to the whole history of man.

And because they love me, they listen to me. It is still up to them: if they want to organize something they can but not around me. I am absolutely free. If they want to organize something they can go to hell and do whatever they want, but I am not going to allow anything to be organized around me.

Around me there will be a fluid movement, free and open, for all and sundry, with no conditions, with no qualifications, with no unnatural demands that you have to be celibate, that you have to fast once per week, that you have to do this and you have to do that: no that is only a simple understanding that you have come to me to discover yourself.

I can explain how I have discovered myself, and you can find clues from it. You cannot exactly follow my footsteps, you will have to make it on your own path. It is not possible to borrow the truths from anybody, but you can get encouragement.

That's why I don't say that I am your Master, I am just a friend -- on the way you met me. I don't see any superiority in me -- just a small difference. But if it has become awake in me, it can become awake in you: we are all equally human beings. I am not a messiah, a savior, a messenger, I don't proclaim any kind of nonsense. That's why I said that I am an ordinary human being.

Q: BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO SAY THAT RAISING THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION AT THIS VERY MOMENT MAY HELP WITH THE STATE/RELIGION CONTROVERSY AND THE OTHER PROBLEMS THAT YOU ARE APPARENTLY HAVING AT THE MOMENT.

A: I am not having any problem. In my whole life I have never had any problem.

In fact, every problem becomes such a beautiful challenge that I enjoy it.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR STATUS WITH THE IMMIGRATION SERVICE?

A: I am fighting. And those fools for four years have not been able to decide, this way or that. And this is the greatest powerful country, the most educated, the best bureaucracy. And for four years the whole department is engaged in deciding. And they cannot decide for the simple reason because they know that it is not going to be a simple matter. If they say 'yes', then the political pressure is on them. If they say 'no', then I am going to the court.

And I have every valid reason to be here. They are all foreigners. It makes no difference whether you have come few years earlier and I have come few years later. And you are invaders. I am just a visitor. On whose permission these Americans have entered this country? What authority they have got? They are talking of democracy, freedom of the individual, and they are repressing the people to whom the land belongs. And all the people who have become the power are foreigners.

I am going to fight up to the Supreme Court, and the fight is not going to be easy.

I am going to say to the Supreme Court that, "If you have any sense of justice, then the first step should be tell Ronald Reagan to resign. Foreigners should rule this country. The country should go to the Red Indians. And then all foreigners either should move back to their country or they should apply for green card to the Red Indians. You are in the same boat as I am. You cannot decide about me.

Who are you? Just because you came a little earlier. I have been four years here.

You may have been three hundred years. That simply means if I am committing any crime, I have committed the crime only for four years, and you have committed it for three hundred years. You have toured America enough. Now go home! And I am just a latest comer. At least three hundred years I can be here."

It is going to be a beautiful fight so there is no problem. I am waiting. I am asking them "Decide soon."

Q: YOUR FORMER SECRETARY, SHEELA, HAS DENIED ALL YOUR ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HER...

A: Her denial is bogus. If she feels that her denial has any validity, she should come back here, and before the court. Because we have given every valid proof to the police, to the Federal Government, so her denial means nothing. Why she should escape from this country? Why she should get married to a Swiss person while she is already married to an American? She is committing bigamy.

Q: SHE ALSO SAID, AND I QUOTE: "I FEAR FOR MY LIFE. I KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT HIM" -- THAT IS YOU.

A: She need not be afraid from me. But she should be afraid about all the crimes she has committed. "Even one thousand years imprisonment will not be enough."

-- That is not my statement. That is what experts, when they saw how many houses she has bugged. They said that Nixon is left far behind. For each bugging five years imprisonment, and if this woman has bugged so many houses, even one thousand years imprisonment will not be enough. She need not be afraid from me. I have not killed in my life, even an ant. And she is such a dirty bitch that I will not touch her. Killing is far away.

But she should come here. And I guarantee her every protection in the Commune. She should come back and fight in the court. Making allegations there, fictions and lies, does not make sense. We have given facts of everything.

One person has been killed by her. Three thousand people have been drugged continuously for twenty-one days, to take over the county. One judge of the county has been poisoned. Another attorney of the other county, Jefferson County, has been poisoned. Three of the sannyasins here have been poisoned.

Eye witnesses are there, before whom injections were given to my own personal physician. Every fact has been given to the authorities. Now making allegations and lies won't help. Just come back and face the facts in the court.

Q: BHAGWAN, ACCORDING TO YOUR STATEMENTS AND WHAT EVERYBODY SAYS HERE IN THE COMMUNE, IT SEEMS THAT SHEELA WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE TIMES, ALL THE MISHAPS, WHATEVER WENT WRONG IN THE COMMUNITY WAS HER FAULT. HOW CAN IT BE THAT SHE COULD DO WHATEVER SHE WANTED FOR YEARS WITHOUT YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE REALIZING IT, TRYING TO STOP IT.

A: Because I was in isolation for three years, three and a half years, in silence.

And I was not meeting any sannyasin, not coming into the Commune. I did not want anybody to disturb me. I did not read any newspaper, any book, any radio, any television. I did not want to do with any information. I simply wanted to remain with myself. That was my own individual phenomenon. It has nothing to do with the Commune.

This gave her an opportunity. She removed all those people who have been close to me from power posts, and placed puppets of her own, made a small group of twenty people, who were doing everything. The Commune was not aware.

For example, how the Commune can be aware that the house are bugged. The two persons, who were doing it, were part of the group of twenty people. They were electricians, electronic engineers. And in the name of electricity they were putting one wire more. Now nobody who does not know about electronics can be able to figure out that these people are not putting just electric wires, but they are mixing a wire into it, which is for bugging. Only those two people knew about it. And those two people have escaped.

All the twenty people who knew everything, except one who has turned back.

Half the way she went with them, and then she felt that this is not right. First she has been part of a criminal group. Second she has deceived the respect and love of the Commune. Thirdly now she is escaping to remain a criminal for her whole life. It is better to go back to the Commune and confess everything. So only one woman is left who had certain spiritual courage. And she has given every detail of all the crimes of all the twenty people. Her testimony has been going on for seven days continuously from morning to evening. Because they committed so many things.

But it was impossible to know, because the Commune people who are working making road, make road. People who are making food, make food. People who are doing other jobs, do their jobs.

One doctor was part of a group, now she is functioning in creating poisons, what poisons to be used, how they can be injected. And there are poisons which cannot be detected. So you can be injected, but later on there is no way to detect it. So when my own physician was injected he SAID, but everybody laughed at him. Other doctors laughed. They said, "You must be going crazy. This is paranoia. Because there is no indication." He said, "Indication is not necessary.

There is a poison, I am aware, which leaves no indication."

And when Sheela left, we found in her room, books on poison, books on scorpions, books on black spiders, books 'How to Make Bombs', 'How to Murder People'. And the book on the poisons has the same poison, that my personal physician was insisting, underlined. That is the only poison that is underlined in the whole book.

No other person was inside the group. And because they all had committed sin -- and this is a simple strategy of any criminal group: Let everybody commit something so he cannot get out of it. Because if he gets out of it, then his crime will be exposed. So all twenty criminals are bound to keep secret, and try to defend each other. They all had done something. They burned the Planning Office in the Wasco County. They stole significant papers from government offices. Files disappeared from governor's offices.

These people did everything that you can conceive of. They were taping every phone going out from the Commune. They had all mechanism, which has been handed over to the police. Now what allegations she can make? What all this mechanism was doing in her house? For taping telephones, twenty-six telephones can be taped together. So what purpose this mechanism was serving there?

In her house there is discovered an underground air-conditioned room. What they were doing in that room? Because when the dog, which was a very expert dog to detect drugs or gunpowder and things like that, simply got crazy.

Nothing was found but it seems the smell was still there. There have been chemicals which have been removed. And that underground room still opens in a secret tunnel that goes to the airport. It goes underneath, because the house is wired from all around, it goes under the wires, so even if the police is around the house, it will be inside the wires. If somebody wants to escape, just a plane has to be ready outside.

For what purpose? And they are not in my house. What can be the purpose of all this? She should come here. Just LYING is easy there because the people to whom she is lying know no facts.

They were having two labs in which they were keeping black spiders, poisonous spiders, which can kill people. They were keeping snakes which can kill people.

And you will not be guilty at all. They were culturing all kinds of viruses, even AIDS virus they were culturing. I don't think any criminal in the whole world is doing that, culturing AIDS virus. And they did.

Two persons who disobeyed them for something they wanted them to do, their blood was sent immediately for testing. It turned out to be positive AIDS and they were isolated from the Commune, put with the AIDS people we are keeping far away. And when Sheela left, because we were looking into everything that she has done, we checked those two people's blood again. It came negative. They were not AIDS people. So what happened. It seems while sending their blood, AIDS virus was mixed in them. Those two people would have died. Just the idea of having AIDS and only two years, AND then living with other AIDS people, ten other AIDS people, they were bound to become AIDS patients sooner or later.

She should come here. She is LYING. I have been listening to news. She is lying HUNDRED PERCENT. Not a single fact is in her favour. But the decision can be made only on the spot. She should come and show, why this tunnel. There must be some idea of escape, some possibility. What is the need of culturing AIDS virus? Perhaps the mind, thinking that if I am going to lose power, I may destroy the whole Commune. Mix virus in the food, and the person who was in charge of the food was one of those twenty. That's why she could manage for those three thousand street people to keep them drugged, through the in-charge of the food.

It is inhuman; it is not simply criminal. And it is not one crime. It is crime and crime on every step.

She killed her husband. I have never believed it in India because it was just a rumor and a hearsay. I never thought that she could do that. But now I can think that perhaps she did it, if she can do all these things. Retrospectively, I am absolutely certain that she killed him. He was a cancer patient, and she was in love with somebody else, and he was a barrier, a continuous fighting. So finally she decided to finish him. And it was so easy to finish him. He was having an attack and she simply removed the oxygen, in the middle of the night.

Q: WELL, WHAT WAS THE FINANCIAL LOSS THAT THE MOVEMENT SUFFERED BECAUSE OF SHEELA'S MISHAPS?

A: The Commune... she has not taken anything from here. But she has prevented forty-three million dollars which were coming to Commune, in the middle, in Switzerland, on her own name. So in our books we cannot show that she has taken anything. The money was coming from German communes as a donation.

And from there much money has come for the Commune. So slowly, slowly, during these four years she went on gathering money in a bank account in Switzerland.

Her secretary, who left two years before because of cancer -- for treatment she went to California. She had come to inform that when she left, it was forty-three million. Now in these two years, how much more she may have gathered? It is difficult to imagine, but it is certainly... it must be near about one hundred thousand million. That money she has given the bank number, the bank's name.

But in Switzerland that is not according to bank's policies. We phoned; they will not accept that Sheela has any account there.

Q: SHEELA ALSO SAID, AND I QUOTE AGAIN, THAT "IF THERE ARE ANY FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, YOU EXPENSIVE TASTES ARE IN PART RESPONSIBLE".

A: There is no financial problems. The Commune is perfectly okay. One hundred million dollars, that she has taken, has not been taken from the Commune.

Commune has no financial problem, but if those one hundred million had come to the Commune it would have expanded in many ways, which we were planning: to have bigger lakes, more forests, and make it a beautiful resort place, which will take a little time. We will get one hundred million again. That is not much of a trouble. Two hundred million we have put in this desert already.

And as far as the cars are concerned, they are not my property. They belong to the Commune. The Commune can sell them any moment, do whatsoever they want. I have no power on any thing. NOTHING to belongs to me. Not a single cent. Everything is loaned by the Commune to me. And even if those cars are counted, they are not more than ninety million... nine million.

Q: BHAGWAN, I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY ROLLS ROYCES YOU...

A: Ninety I have got.

Q: NINETY. BUT WHAT I WANT TO ASK YOU IS THIS: WHEN YOU STARTED COLLECTING THEM, OR SOMEBODY SUGGESTED THE IDEA...

A: No, nobody.

Q: ... WAS THAT FOR THE SAKE OF PUBLICITY, TO IMPRESS PEOPLE, TO INDUCE THE MEDIA TO TALK ABOUT YOU...?

A: I am enough for all publicity, to impress any kind of media. I don't need any Rolls Royce or anything. Even if I stand naked, that will be worldwide publicity.

So there is no problem, I can manage it alone -- even without clothes. It was my people... In India I had Rolls Royces -- I was the only person given permission by the Indian government, because the Rolls Royce is banned: In India after 1965 Rolls Royce cannot be brought in. If you want to bring it in, the tax is three hundred sixty five percent. That makes it impossible to bring in.

Q: DID YOU PAY THOSE TAXES?

A: No, because of my back. I tried all cars -- even Rolls Royces have models. Only one model, the Silver Spur, was suitable for my back. Any other car...

I sit only in this kind of chair, which has been made by my own sannyasin. He has a Ph.D. in engineering, but he works just for my things, small things, anything that is needed for my body. He has worked hard and managed to make many chairs exactly the same, so wherever I go the same chair is available.

That car has exactly the same slope, otherwise my back is such a trouble. In any chair it starts hurting. And then it takes weeks for it to settle back. Then no traction, no massage, nothing helps. Then it settles by itself. So it is better... Even the best experts from England came and they said, "You have to live with it, so better just take care. Every care should be taken."

So that car suited me, and my sannyasins are all over the world. I don't use anything else, so they started presenting those cars to me. I said, "I cannot have them, because I don't possess anything, so you can give them to the commune."

So the commune has a trust. They possess the cars -- they can sell the cars, it has nothing to do with me. And it is an asset to the commune, it is not in any way a loss to the commune. The people who have given those cars were not going to give the money to the commune.

These were personal friends around the world who have sent those cars, and they are still sending. It is their love. And the commune is benefited by it, the commune is not a loser. Nine million dollars in cars it has got, and anything else that comes -- because only two things are used, either a watch or a car.

Q: BHAGWAN, I DON'T WANT TO BE IRREVERENT, BUT DON'T YOU THINK ONE ROLLS ROYCE WOULD BE ENOUGH EVEN FOR YOUR BACK?

A: It is enough, but those people don't listen! I have told; I have told the trustees that 'either sell those cars or distribute them to the sannyasins'. Neither the trustees are ready to sell those cars because I have used them they said, "They have become sacred for us. We cannot sell them." And neither the sannyasins are ready to accept them. They say they have enough cars already. Our Commune is a rich commune. We have enough cars, enough buses, enough airplanes, and nowhere to go. So what they are going to do with those cars?

Even I just use for coming to the evening interview, morning discourse, and one and a half hour I go for my own drive into the mountains. That is my personal use: one and a half hour. One car can do that. But my people are...

Q: BHAGWAN, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH IS THE MOVEMENT WORTH AT THE MOMENT? WHAT IS THE PATRIMONY* OF THE MOVEMENT? HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU HAVE -- I MEAN NOT YOU, THE MOVEMENT -- HOW MUCH MONEY HAS IT?

A: No, we don't have any money, because I don't believe in having money. I believe in spending.

Q: HOW MUCH MONEY...?

A: I always spend before I get. Just the idea that some money is coming, and I tell my people: Spend. Because who knows about tomorrow? Spend today. We don't have any money, but we are perfectly sufficient. Nothing is missing, everything is perfectly okay. And money goes on coming. I have lived thirty-five years without any money. It has always been coming. Somebody somewhere feels to send, and it comes. And now I have started believing that existence takes care, even of an expensive man like me.

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU SAY THAT LOVE IS A LIBERATION. BUT YOUR ENEMIES AND CRITICS MAINTAIN THAT SOME OF THE PRACTICES THAT THE MOVEMENT IS ENCOURAGING SEEM TO BE INSPIRED MORE THAN - - MR. HEFNER OF PLAYBOY THAN BY A SPIRITUAL LEADER. WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THIS?

A: I am a spiritual playboy. Is there something wrong? I call myself Zorba the Buddha and that's my whole life effort: to bring Zorba and Buddha closer. I don't want the dichotomy of the spiritual and the material. I want the spiritual and the material as one whole -- they are. The division creates a schizophrenic state in humanity. And all the religions are criminals in that sense. They have created a split in man: your body is separate, your soul is separate. You have to fight with the body, you have to remain celibate. You have to fast, you have to torture the body. The more you torture it, the more spiritual you are.

To me this is simply garbage, just nonsense. There is no need to torture the body, because the body and the soul are not two things. Existence is one. The body is the visible soul, and the soul is the invisible body -- it is one mystery. Don't divide it, and don't make a conflict between them.

So when I say "spiritual playboy," I am not just joking. That's my basic standpoint towards life. What is wrong if Buddha is dancing in a disco? It looks so beautiful -- a beautiful girl... and why should Buddha be afraid? Is not his meditation strong enough, he will be pulled towards carnal lust? Is he afraid of falling back from his enlightenment? Then he is not enlightened at all, because there is no way to fall back. Once you attain, you cannot fall back. It is your own inner being. Where you are going to fall back to? Once you know it, you know it!

Then whatever you do, that knowledge is always there. Whatever you do, that fragrance follows you.

And there is no act which is unspiritual; even lovemaking is not unspiritual. In fact, if lovemaking is unspiritual, then every other act will be unspiritual.

Lovemaking should be the most spiritual act. It is so delicate, so soft. But the religions have created the division, and created on the one hand saints which are just dry bones, and the other, sinners. If I have to choose -- I don't want to choose -- if I have to choose I would rather be with the sinners than with the saints -- they stink. Sinners at least are colorful people. If all sinners go to hell, then hell must be the most beautiful place in the world. And heaven must be the most ugly, because all those dead dry bones, long faces, will be sitting there eternally doing nothing: no entertainment, no dance, no music, not even football match -- no Olympics; saints don't participate in such things. They can't drink, they can't smoke. What they can do? Just go on praying and nagging God. They must have killed that poor fellow long before.

But in hell I can see all the beautiful people of the world. Lao-Tzu will be there.

Chuang-Tzu will be there, Gautam Buddha will be there -- because he did not believe in God, he was an atheist. Bertrand Russell will be there, Socrates will be there, Plato and Heraclitus, all great painters -- Van Gogh, Picasso -- all great thinkers -- Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers*. Hell will be a real company, and very colorful. Omar Khayyam will be there, and all kinds of juicy people -- the whole of Hollywood. All actors, all actresses, all great showmen, all carnivals, circuses - - hell must be from end to end a tremendous rejoicing.

But I don't want to choose, I want them to mix. I want only one place where saints can become again alive, can start breathing, can start dancing, can start loving, can become spiritual playboys. Certainly people must be getting offended, but what can I do? This is how I feel. This is my truth, and I have to say it exactly as it is. I am not at all concerned whether it shocks somebody, makes somebody worried. If it is true, then sooner or later they will have to understand it. And as far as I can see, for thirty years I have tried to look from every angle and I have always found it to be something very fundamental, categorically true, that man has come to the point where all schizophrenia has to be dropped. We are no more going to live like split personalities, fighting with ourselves. I don't see any problem, why I cannot meditate sitting in my Rolls Royce. Do you think meditation is possible only under a bodhi tree? Has a bodhi tree something spiritual in it? I think a more comfortable place will help you to meditate better.

Rather than sitting in the hot sun, an air-conditioned room will be more helpful to meditation. There is no dichotomy between the two. Comfort, luxury, spiritually -- all are together. So I teach richness and I teach religiousness. I teach materialism and I teach spiritualism. For the first time somebody is doing it.

Naturally, people will be shocked. They are always shocked with anything new and strange.

Q: BHAGWAN, WHAT IS MORE DANGEROUS FOR HUMANITY: AIDS, NUCLEAR ARMAMENT, OR POVERTY AND HUNGER IN THE THIRD WORLD?

A: The most dangerous is AIDS.

Q: WHY? HOW CAN YOU BE SO SURE, AS YOU SAY THAT AIDS WILL KILL TWO-THIRDS OF HUMANITY?

A: Two-thirds is underestimate. It will kill more.

Q: BUT DON'T YOU THINK THAT SCIENCE, MEDICINE, CAN FIND A REMEDY FOR IT?

A: There seems to be no possibility. All the scientists are agreed on one point.

That there seems to be no possibility. Because it is not a possibility; because it is not a disease. If it was a disease, some day some cure would have been possible.

It is not disease. It is simply the whole metabolism losing the desire to live. Every cell of the body becomes vulnerable to all kinds of infections. And the metabolism of the body does not create antibodies to fight with them. It simply wants to die.

Now if the very will to live has somewhere disappeared in the body, then there is no medicine to create will to live. You can help a patient; he has a sickness but he has also a will to live. You can help him. But if he has lost the will to live, then no cure is possible. And it is not a question of his mind; it is his metabolism, his body itself has lost the desire; every cell of it is simply waiting to die; will not create any resistence; will not fight with any infection.

And I call it the most dangerous because as far as nuclear weapons are concerned... ordinarily people will think that should be the most dangerous. I don't see it that way. The nuclear weapons have come to a point where nobody wants to use them, because that means destruction of all. War has meaning only when somebody becomes victorious and somebody is defeated. With the nuclear weapons the war is finished. The whole meaning of the war is gone. Who starts does not matter, within ten minutes the other party will be ready to fight; and within twenty-four hours the whole earth will be just a funeral pyre. And already Soviet Union and Russia (America?) together have enough nuclear weapons that they can destroy this earth planet seven hundred times. Nobody is going to use it. They will threaten. They will talk about it but they will not use it because it is pointless. So I don't count it as the most dangerous. It is the least dangerous.

Population I don't count as the most dangerous because nature has its own way to cutting it down. It is cutting it down. Listen to the priests and the pope and Ayatollah Khomeini, and all other idiots. Listen that birth control is against God, and abortion is against God, but look what God is doing in Ethiopia. Abortion would have been better; birth control even more better.

So there is no problem about population. Population will die out on its own accord. You cannot help. By the end of this century, the population will be five billion people. And that is the end of population. More than that: millions of people will be dying every day around the earth. So population will be cut to its right size by nature itself. And the right size will be just one billion people, one fourth of what it is today. So I don't consider that a great problem.

The only problem that remains is AIDS, because homosexuality is on the increase. It is created by the religions. Its whole credit goes to the religions. They created celibacy, which is unnatural. They forced monks to be celibate. And the natural perversion was bound to happen. They became homosexuals.

Homosexuality is something very spiritual. It is happening in every monastery of the world: Tibetan, Chinese, Indian, Italian. Even the last pope was a homosexual.

The Christian Trinity itself is subject to suspicion. Because there is no woman.

God the Father, Holy Ghost and the Son. Now how this son comes, from where?

Where is the mother? In the Trinity there is no woman. Unless Holy Ghost functions both the ways, is a bisexual. The Trinity is gay.

Jesus lived with twelve Apostles. He had few very devoted women but they were not accepted as apostles. When he was crucified, all the Apostles have fled away. Only three women who are not accepted as apostles remained there to the very end. When he was brought down, it was three women who took his body down. But he lived his whole life with those twelve uneducated, illiterate boys. It was a gay company.

And to me, celibacy is impossible. It is unnatural.

Just two days before, one monk in Vatican itself died, died really a glorious death. He had invented a machine for masturbation. And just to give it a try, he killed himself. Some accident, short circuit, happened. God should not do such things, at least to his own monks. And he was trying, poor man, to find a device, so homosexuality can be avoided. Otherwise all monks will be suffering from AIDS. He was doing a great humanitarian job. But you get rewards for humanitarian job, and the man is dead.

AIDS is spreading and its ways of spreading are such that it need not be through sexual intercourse -- kissing a person -- saliva is carrier of the virus. Even tears are carrier of the virus. Somebody is crying and you just, out of compassion, wipe the tears with your hand, and you get AIDS. There are children born with AIDS now. So even to kiss a child is dangerous. Any liquid coming out of the body, perhaps may be carrying virus. And now there are these religions, Christians on their holy days will share drink from the same cup. It should be banned. It is dangerous. A single person having AIDS will spread it to the whole company.

And there are many places where homosexuality is the only way: army, navy, air forces. You don't allow women there. So in the barracks there are only men.

Hostels of many countries don't allow men and women to live together -- in the universities, in the colleges.

And one thing which Women's Liberation is going to discover very soon. Why they have not discovered it yet and are not talking about it is strange. That lesbianism does not create AIDS. That is the safest thing. So the only solution -- which you will say is again very impossible, impossible or not but that is the only solution. The only solution is all women turn lesbians! And all men start looking for devices the poor monk died with!

And if you want children, go to the hospital, get checked. If you don't have any virus, then your semen can be collected. There can be banks of male sperms in every hospital. So any woman who wants to be a mother, can go to the hospital, get injected. But man's function is finished!

This is the only way to save. Otherwise, even heterosexual couples will sooner or later get it. If the man has homosexual connections, then the woman can get it. If the woman has with some other man's connections, then her husband can get it.

And it is not necessary that you should have sexual relationships. You can eat in the same plate, which is a very loving way for centuries around the world: to eat in the same plate. Mohammedans do it: eat in the same plate, drink from the same cup. Christians do it. That is dangerous, very dangerous!

People are sitting in tubs, hot bath tubs, half a dozen people are sitting, talking, chit-chatting. Their saliva can go into the water. It can reach to all the other people.

So many precautions have to be taken that it seems almost impossible task. But in a Commune like this it it possible. We are taking every precaution. Six thousand sannyasins have gone through the test.

No city in the world has gone through the test. No city wants to go! Because no city wants to know that it has AIDS people. No city wants to know how many people are homosexual. Because that will disrupt the whole structure of the society.

Nobody wants to know whether he has AIDS or not.

The government wants to repress the information.

The hospitals don't want any AIDS patients. It is a very strange situation. The hospitals will try that you don't have it, even if they know that you have it, because it is better to get rid of you. Otherwise you can create trouble to other patients. You can create trouble to doctors, to nurses. It is better to get rid of you:

"You don't have it, you are perfectly okay". But you are dangerous. You are left in the society as perfectly okay.

You also don't want, if you have it, then you don't want anybody else to know about it. Because what your wife will do? What your children will say? How your parents will react? How your parents, wife, children, will allow you to live in the same house. How your friends are going to be remaining your friends?

You will not be acceptable in any restaurant, in any hotel; in any place where there is possibility of infecting people. You will become a very undignified, inhuman being. And that is awkward, not knowing what to do, except suicide.

But only in a Commune like this, it can be managed. Six thousand people went through the test. We have found only two persons. And I have asked my people that: "Don't condemn them, they are simply victims of religious stupidity. Don't destroy their dignity as human beings. Be loving towards them more than ever, because they are going to live only two years more."

So we have given them the best scenic place in the whole campus, the most beautiful houses, which we had made for special guests. But we had no idea that these people will be our special guests!

Eight other people from outside, sannyasins, who had not come to the Commune when they were known as healthy. Then, they wanted to live in the world. Now that world has rejected them. Now they have come here. We have accepted them.

But we have made it clear that: "You have not helped the Commune in its creation. At that time you wanted to live in the world, to earn, to have your own life. And now when the world has rejected you, you have come to the same Commune. But we will not take revenge. We will give you the same respect and love. You can be our guests because you are going only to be two years here. So live here. Listen to the best music, look to the television, look to the movies, read the books, meditate. Do something manual that you can do. Create a garden around yourself. And whatever you feel like doing, which you always wanted to do but had not time to do: paint, compose music, play on the guitar."

They come to the discourses. They are allowed to come to the meetings. They have been told that: "You have to be careful. When the Commune is giving you so much respect, and so much love, and so much health. At least you should be careful on your part not to touch anybody physically." And they have kept the promise.

This is the only way. But I don't think, in the wide world, cities will be able to do it.

So I say this is the most dangerous thing that is facing humanity.

Q: BHAGWAN, CHRISTIANITY IS OFTEN THE OBJECT OF YOUR SARCASM AND CRITICISM.

A: Um hmm.

Q: WHY NOT ISLAM, WHICH SEEMS TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE AT THIS MOMENT?

A: For the simple reason that in India Hinduism was my object of criticism, Christianity was not. If it happens that I move to a Mohammedan country, then Mohammedanism will be my object of criticism. But here it is pointless -- nobody is a Mohammedan. So I am going to hit Christianity as much as I can.

Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KHOMEINI?

A: Khomeini is a Khomaniac, the worst man alive.

Q: BHAGWAN, IN A FEW WEEKS TIME, REAGAN AND GORBACHEV* WILL MEET IN GENEVA. WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST TO THEM?

A: I will suggest to them to have a good wrestling match; whoever wins is declared the winner -- and there is no need for a third world war! And stop nuclear weapons, decide simply; just a wrestling match, nothing else is needed.

Whenever two countries get the urge to fight, then their presidents or prime ministers should have a wrestling match and decide it. That is a more cultured and sophisticated way. And everybody can watch on the television and enjoy what is happening to Reagan -- because nothing else is going to come out of it.

These kinds of meetings have continued all through history, and they never contribute anything. If they really mean it, then let the UNO be the world government, and surrender all your nuclear weapons, all your armies, to the UNO.

Q: IF THE POLITICIANS CANNOT PRESERVE THE PEACE AND SAVE THE WORLD, WHO COULD DO IT?

A: There is no fear, because politicians are not in a state to fight. They are trembling inside; they are sitting on a volcano. There is no fear of a third world war, so I don't take any note of it. Nuclear weapons have ended wars forever.

Q: DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A REVOLUTIONARY?

A: No, because there have been so many revolutionaries. I am a rebel.

Q: YOU DON'T SEEM TO VERY POPULAR IN THIS AREA OF THE COUNTRY, THIS PART OF THE COUNTY...

A: I never wanted to be popular. I wanted always to be unpopular.

Q: DO YOU FEAR FOR YOUR LIFE?

A: No, not at all.

Q: I'VE SEEN MANY ARMED PEOPLE IN THIS COMMUNE.

A: Yeah, there are. But they are not to kill anybody, just to keep the idiots away.

Q: AND IF SOMEBODY TRIED TO KILL YOU...?

A: I have no objection. I am completely fulfilled, there is nothing for me in tomorrow. And I think your interview is also complete! There is no problem -- anybody can assassinate me and that will be a good end! And I had always loved being unpopular and I am unpopular, and there is nobody who can compete with me in unpopularity. I have made my point, whatever I wanted to make; for every unpopular cause I have been fighting. You just show me anything that will make me more unpopular, and I will go do it!

Q: HOW DID YOU FIRST GET YOUR INSPIRATION FOR YOUR PHILOSOPHY, YOUR APPROACH TO RELIGION AND LIFE? WHEN WAS IT THAT YOU FIRST STARTED THINKING ABOUT IT, AND HOW?

A: Very difficult to answer, because from my very childhood, as long as I remember, I have been arguing, fighting. Of course, a child will fight and argue in a child's way, but from my very childhood I have never been ready to accept anything without being rationally convinced about it. And I found very soon, very early in life, that all these people with very big heads -- professors, heads of the departments, deans, vice-chancellors -- are just hollow. You just a scratch a little bit, you find nothing inside. They don't have any argument for what they have been thinking is their own philosophy. They have borrowed it, they have never discovered it on their own. So I have been continuously fighting, and in this fighting I have been sharpening my own argument. I don't have a philosophy of my own. my whole function is deprogramming, so whatever you say, I will destroy it. And I never say anything, so I never give any chance to anybody to destroy it. My purpose is to deprogram you, to clean you, to uncondition you and leave you fresh, young, innocent. And from there you can grow into a real, authentic individual -- otherwise you are just a personality, not an individuality. A personality is borrowed, it is a mask. And my whole effort is how to help a person to be authentic, to be himself, naked. My sannyasins are neither Hindus nor Mohammedans nor Christians nor communists; they are simply human beings. It really takes guts to drop all the rubbish of the ages.

Okay? Good.

Q: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

A: Come again.