Chapter 27

[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 ARE A VERY FUNNY MASTER. WHY DO I KEEP GETTING THE FEELING THAT YOU ARE PLAYING A JOKE ON EVERYONE AND, IF YOU ARE, HOW WOULD I KNOW?

ANSWER:* That is the funniest part of it. A joke can never be explained. Either you get it or you don't get it.

Q:* COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME HELP?

A:* That's the beauty of a joke.

Q:* DOES THAT MEAN THAT IT IS A JOKE?

A:* Everything is a joke, because to me life is not a serious affair. It is playfulness.

It is fun. It is overflowing energy of existence -- for no reason, for no purpose. For no goal, for no end. Just for the sheer joy of it. This whole universe is just a big joke. That's why it cannot be explained.

There have been so many philosophers, theologians, trying to explain it. They have all failed for the simple reason because it is not something that can be explained. Either you get it or you don't get it.

Q:* BHAGWAN, SOMEHOW RAJNEESHPURAM DOESN'T FEEL LIKE A CITY TO ME. IF YOU CAME TO VISIT ME IN SEATTLE, I WOULDN'T SEARCH YOU OR HAVE MY DOG SNIFF YOU. WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR PEOPLE SEARCH ME AND HAVE THE DOG SNIFF ME? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS.

A:* It is a mystery school. It is no ordinary city. It is illegal city. So we have to take care of everything.

Q:* WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY IT'S AN ILLEGAL CITY?

A:* The Oregon attorney general declares it illegal city. And now he wants to prove it, and we have to protect it. And we have to search everybody who comes in because his plan is to plant things inside and to prove that we are doing illegal things. We are not going to be so gullible.

And when I said that it is a mystery school.... If you enter in a special kind of university, academy, you have to fulfill few requirements. For example, I don't allow any drugs inside. In Seattle you must be allowing. The dog is not sniffing you. He is sniffing the drugs, and unless you are carrying drugs you will not feel offended. The dog only sniffs something wrong.

It is perfectly right. He protects the commune from drugs, from bombs, from people carrying poisons. And there have been so many threats every day that they would burn the whole city, that they will kill all the sannyasins. So many phones, so many letters.

We go on giving all those to the police. It is enough to prove that we need some kind of protection. And the government has not provided any. It seems the government is on the side of those people who are giving threats. Perhaps behind those people are the politicians who are in the government.

Then, naturally, everybody has a birthright for self-defense.

And we are not harming anybody. We are just searching in case you are going to plant something inside the commune and tomorrow we are responsible for it. So this is a simple method to avoid it.

Q:* BHAGWAN, IT SEEMS AS THOUGH MOST OF THE BOMBS AND POISON CAME FROM PEOPLE WHO LIVE INSIDE THE COMMUNE, NOT PEOPLE FROM THE OUTSIDE. WHY DON'T THE DOGS SNIFF SANNYASINS TOO?

A:* They sniff everybody. But the problem was, I was in isolation for three and a half years. I was not available to the commune. No information was available to me. This became a great opportunity for people who were holding power posts.

They made a small clique. It is just human.

When you get an opportunity for two hundred million dollars in your hands, five thousand sannyasins to work and to create the commune, absolutely committed and devoted....

Because these twenty people were the heads of all the corporations, they could manage to bring things in. It was absolutely natural that the president of the commune would not be suspected of carrying bombs inside or carrying drugs inside. So she managed it.

And they had a underground passage just under Sheela's bedroom, another room, and from that room another facade of a jacuzzi bathroom, and from the bathroom a long tunnel that opens at the airport.

So from the airport directly you can carry anything. The poor dog will not be even aware what is happening. He will be waiting on the road.

Because the topmost twenty all had committed crimes -- and this is a basic principle of all criminal groups, that everybody should commit a crime. That makes the group completely solid. Nobody can expose it, because to expose it means exposing yourself too. You have also committed. So they managed that everybody commits something.

And the whole commune was unaware. The things that they did were such that they could manage within those twenty people. One was a medical expert, one was an electronics expert, one was an electrician, one was a finance expert. So they could manage everything within themselves.

For example, if sannyasins were told to dig ditches for telephone wires, they had no idea that within the telephone wires there are also wires which are going to bug hundreds of houses.

One hundred forty-five rooms of the hotel were bugged. Even my room was bugged. Many other houses, wherever they felt there may be people of independent mind, of free thinking, their houses were bugged.

The sannyasins who managed to work had no idea except those two experts, which were within the group. So the whole commune remained completely unaware of what they are doing.

They were taping all the telephones. They had a very sophisticated mechanism which could tape all the telephone calls from Rajneeshpuram simultaneously.

Even the FBI people were simply surprised. They had never seen such a sophisticated mechanism. And when they found bugging, they said that these people have far exceeded Nixon.

For one bugging the punishment is five years of imprisonment. And these people have bugged so many houses that one thousand years of imprisonment will not be enough. This is from FBI experts. I am simply quoting.

But these things were such that the sannyasins will not be aware. They saw the wires being stretched but they could not think that they are bugging the houses.

They thought it is electricity or telephone.

They had no idea that people are being drugged in the food. The chief of the food department was part of the twenty. Only the chief knew what was going on, that three thousand street people that has been brought here were being drugged for twenty-one days continuously. Every food. They became almost zombies. The idea was that now whatsoever you say they will do. They have lost their own thinking. They are not awake at all, they are almost asleep. But nobody in the restaurant had any idea what is happening except one person: the chief.

Few of these twenty people tried to kill sannyasins, sannyasins who were in any way dangerous to their clique, particularly sannyasins who were available to me in my isolation and silence.

My personal physician used to come for weekly check. Now they were afraid of the man because he may inform me about something that is happening. They tried to poison him four times. And nobody believed the poor doctor, because everybody laughed that, "Why anybody should poison you? There is no reason!"

He insisted. So finally they took him to Bend, and there too the doctor said that, "There is no disease and there is no poison. But we suspect that a certain poison is there which is indetectable."

And that was the poison that my doctor was continuously telling that, "That is the poison that has been given to me in the tea, in the coffee."

And when Sheela left, in her room we found literature on poison, on bombs, on snakes, on black spiders. And on the book about poisons, only that poison is underlinde. The book describes it, that it is indetectable if given in a certain dose.

It does not kill the person immediately. You have to go on giving it at least few times. Within six months the person will go on getting more and more sick, will become more and more available to any infection, and will die almost a natural death. Nobody can suspect that he has been poisoned.

But only one person, the medical person in the group, knew about it. The whole medical corporation was unaware.

So the problem was that the secret was kept within those twenty people, and because they all were in some way or other involved in arson, in murder -- they murdered one man -- in attempts to murder, in taping the telephones, in bugging the houses, in drugging the street people....

Just yesterday one of the women who belonged to the group of the twenty -- she was not here when they left, she was coming from Australia.... If she had come a day earlier they would have taken her with themselves. She was supposed to come a day earlier, but somehow she got late and reached a day after. They had all left.

Yesterday she informed me that, "I wanted many times to come to Your house and to inform Your caretaker, Your doctor or somebody who can take the message to You what is going on within this group of twenty people, what they are doing. But I was afraid they will kill me, immediately they will kill me."

All twenty were afraid that they will be killed. Killing had become for them such a simple matter, very casual, of no importance.

One woman came back from Seattle from the group. She had gone, but she must have a certain conscience. She felt that to go with these people and to remain her whole life a criminal, guilty, hiding, it is better to go back to the commune and confess everything. And if there is a punishment, then it is better to take the punishment. At least that will be more dignified rather than hiding like a criminal in Black Forest in Germany or in Switzerland, in the mountains.

So she came back and she has given the testimony. Her testimony has lasted for seven days continuously, because these people have committed so many crimes that it took seven days for her to describe all these four years, how they did what they did, how they had been stealing files from government offices. She was the woman who drove two of the group to Wasco County office to burn the planning office building. And they burned it. She drove them and she brought them back.

She is the only eyewitness.

Now, the day they left, immediately many others who had small informations....

For example, in one of my morning discourses where ten thousand sannyasins were present, in the crowd one of the twenty injected the poison into my physician's body. He looked back, he could see the woman. He took his robe off, he showed to people. They saw the blood , they saw the mark of the needle. And one man said that he has seen the woman push the needle, and that was the woman the doctor himself has seen. But only when these people left, then that man gave his testimony that he was an eyewitness, not before that.

They were afraid, because if they can kill my personal physician they can kill any sannyasin. They created a very great fear. They drove away, harassed, people who were more intelligent than themselves, more educated. The chancellor of the university, the vice-chancellor of the university, many professors of the university, who had been with me for many more longer years than Sheela and her group, they harassed them, they tried in every way to insult them. Finally they had to leave. So they managed to drive people out, whoever was suspected can create a trouble for them.

Now we are receiving every day letters and telephones from all over the world.

All those people want to come because they have never left me, they have never left the commune. They have left because of this fascist group.

And I was in isolation and in silence. I was not reading any book, any newspaper, television orradio. My only information was through Sheela, and my only message to the commune was through her. So she managed.

Whatsoever she wanted to say to the commune, she said it in my name. Now I am discovering that this was never my message. And whatever she wanted to tell me she told me. Whether it was true or untrue did not matter because I was not going out. So it was really great opportunity for her to betray the commune, to betray a great trust, to betray love.

And what she has gained? What those twenty people's gang has gained? They have become criminals for their whole life.

We have not lost anything. They have stolen money, but money does not matter much. I have millions of friends around the earth who can again give the money, that is not a problem.

Forty-three million dollars she has put in her own name in Switzerland, in some bank account. But it will not be easy to take it out, because how she is going to show that money anywhere in any way? She does not come from a rich family.

She was just a hotel waitress. And she will end into being a hotel waitress again.

I had made her almost a queen of a vast empire around the world. But she misused, took advantage. And not only that she misused the trust that I had given to her, she has insulted whole womanhood.

I had so much respect for women, and I had given all power to women in the commune for the simple reason because man has been running the society for thousands of years and has not succeeded to make it yet civilized, yet cultured, yet human. But Sheela and her gang has proved beyond doubt -- because all those women who are with her -- that it does not make any difference whether man rules the society or women rule the society. Power corrupts in the same way. That power makes no distinction between men and women.

So she has not only lost her own dignity, she has lost a friend of womankind. I have fought my whole life for women's liberation. I have fought for my all the years that the woman should be given more power than man because she is more motherly, more loving. Perhaps she will not be so easily corrupted as man is corrupted, because man has not that love, that heart.

Man is hard, functions more from the head. I used to think that if women had been in power we would not have produced people like Genghis Khan, Tamurlane, Nadir Shah*, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse Tung. But now I cannot say it with the same certainty. I think we would have created all these people. They would have been women, but there would have been no difference at all.

So Sheela and her group has been tremendously important to me, to my people.

It has given a great insight and understanding. Now I am no more interested that women should have power. It is better wherever they are, because she proved far more cruel. Perhaps I can see it now, why....

Because I had seen only the woman's love. I forgot her jealousy. I had only seen her compassion, kindness, but I had forgotten that she has in the same quantity hatred, anger, violence. And perhaps she has more than man, because man has been using it, is almost spent, and she has been accumulating it for thousands of years. She is full of it. Just a small opportunity and there will be an Adolf Hitler, a Josef Stalin, without delay.

These women in Sheela's group were just ordinary human beings with no indication that they will prove murderous. Very loving, very nice, very polite, but behind that facade of lovingness there must have been something boiling for centuries that exploded.

In every way the experiment has been rich, and we are far more healthier.

They had to go. They knew it, because she was asking me again and again, "Will You ever start speaking?"

I said, "Are you worried? I can start any day. I am just waiting for the right time."

She was very insistent that it will be bad for my health, and "Everything is going perfectly well. Why You should unnecessarily trouble Your body? You rest."

But when I saw my own physician being given poison, my own caretaker being given poison, then I said, "It is time that I should come out of my isolation."

And the moment I started speaking the whole commune was joyous, dancing in the streets, except those twenty people. They were really very sad and shocked, because once I started speaking Sheela had no power.

All her power was because she was representing me. Now there was no need for any mediator. No representative was needed. I was in direct communion with the sannyasins.

Since I started speaking she started finding any excuse to go away, to Europe, to Australia, to India, to Singapore, to Japan -- any excuse, that, "Their commune needs me very much." And I could see the reason is not....

The reason is she cannot come down from the ego that she has gathered in these three and a half years. Now, with me, she is just an ordinary sannyasin again.

She has become the high priestess.

I have been in my whole life teaching that organized religion is an enemy of man.

And in three and a half years she managed to create an organized religion out of sannyasins.

She wrote a book collecting my sayings, mixing it with her own interpretations, and managing it like a Christian catechism, calling it Rajneeshism.

I have been always against all isms because they all become prisons sooner or later. I wanted my people to be free from any ism, individuals not cogs in a wheel, not part of any organization but just lovingly living together not because they are ideologically believe in the same God, in the same philosophy, no, but simply because they are all seekers of truth. And everybody is searching his own truth in his own way.

So I had called this a school of seekers, searchers. But I never wanted it to be an organized religion.

She managed to make it an organized religion. She became the high priestess.

She even made a dress like a high priestess should have, like the pope. She was going even to the assembly of Oregon when it starts its session and all religions can pray. She was going to pray there. She was praying there.

I don't have any prayer because I don't have any God. Whom you can pray? And we are not a religion.

So she did everything that was against me and now she was afraid to face me. So for the last three, four months she has not faced me. She used to come for one or two day and she will send the message that, "I cannot come because I have cold."

And because I am allergic to many things -- cold, perfume, dust, smoke -- so that is a good excuse.

For four months whenever she came back she has cold. Even the last time she left here she has informed me that, "I have cold so I will stay three, four more days.

When the cold is over, then I will come to You and explain my situation, how my mind is going." But that was simply a lie. She did not want me to know when she is leaving, because if I had known that she is going to leave tomorrow, then I would have informed people that all their luggage should be searched.

They are no more president, secretaries. All of them have resigned. But they did not tell to the commune. They simply informed me just the night before that they have resigned. Then they don't have any right to use the airplanes of the commune or the vehicles of the commune. And their xluggage should be searched, because they must be carrying bombs, they must be carrying weapons, they must be carrying that particular poison that they were giving to so many people.

So she wanted to avoid me to know when she is leaving. And she had chosen the right time. I go for a ride in the mountains between two and four. Exact at four she left. And because the commune was unaware, they thought just the way they always come and go she is going. So their luggage was not searched, their persons were not searched, the airplane was not searched. How much money they have carried with them was not searched. They certainly must have carried a lot of money. Just for twenty persons traveling to Europe, living in Switzerland, they will need money.

When I came back from the mountains I saw the airplane leaving. Then I inquired that, "This is not for the plane to leave." And I was told that Sheela and twenty other peoples have gone for a trip to Europe. And I was told that Sheela and twenty other peoples have gone for a trip to Europe.

She has teken with herself all the tapes of telephones, all the bugging tapes. And she must have carried money. She must have carried everything that could have proved dangerous. And if they were caught right now, here, things would have been far simpler.

Now the trouble is the attorney general of Oregon is really a creep. We have given every testimony, witnesses, evidences of all the crimes, but he is not taking any action. They should be immediately caught while they are in Switzerland or in Germany, which are in treaty with America that their criminals should be exchanged if any case arises. But there are countries America has no treaty. They are all just living near East Berlin. They can enter East Berlin and they are beyond America's reach.

And I have been telling to these people that, "When you have got every evidence...." Their police, FBI experts, state police officers, county police officers, all topmost officers have been here for three weeks working. They have collected every material. But no step is being taken.

From the very government sources I have been informed that attorney general is not interested in catching the criminals. They have already left. His interest is to give one of the criminals immunity and dump all the crimes on innocent sannyasins. And his idea is that at least one thousand sannyasins should be imprisoned so that the commune can be destroyed.

The idea is great, but it is not going to be so easy. We are going to fight up to the Supreme Court, and if soon steps are not taken against the criminals, then we are going to take steps against attorney general. Then he seems to be the real criminal. Perhaps he was behind all those criminals. Otherwise why he is protecting them?

So either he catches the criminals or he has to face us in the Supreme Court and prove why the criminals are not being caught. And what more evidence do you want? Machines you have got which were used for taping. You have found hundreds of houses bugged. Your police has taken photographs, taken all the wires, all the bugging mechanisms. Your police has found all the books on poison, bombs, how bombs are to be made, how people should be murdered.

Your police has entered into the underground tunnel and seen the whole strategy of it. What more evidence these people want?

They had not only poisoned sannyasins, they poisoned the attorney of Jefferson County one year before. The same doctors in Bend treated him. They said, "This is a very similar case, exactly the same. We could not find any poison, any disease, but the symptoms were the same as are the symptoms now."

One of the judges of Wasco County who had come here to visit, and one of the persons of the twenty -- the medical one, which is very rare, because it is not her work to offer him a glass of water.... That is not a work of a medical person. That can be done by restaurant people, hotel people. But why she should do it? And immediately after drinking it he started feeling strange. And by the time he reached home he was sick, badly sick -- and the same symptoms: no sickness, no poison in the blood, but his whole mind was as if splitting. And this splitting of the mind has been in all the cases the same.

All these proofs are there.

And now there are people who are ready, who have testified that they know that these people have been given poison, and who had given them they are ready to identify, because it was decided between the twenty people's inner group who eill do it, how it will be done.

They went on denying that, "We are not bringing the three thousand street people for election. We are bringing them here because we have surplus money, three million dollars, and we want to do some humanitarian work." That's what she told me.

I asked her that, "I don't understand why you are bringing these street people here. I myself am not interested in mixing my people with that kind of people, who have been brought up in crime, in rape, in murder, in theft, addicted to all kinds of drugs. I don't want them for three months to be here amongst my people. If you want them to help, you can help them anywhere else. You can give them money if you have surplus money. But don't bring them to this place. All of my sannyasins are of a different class. Most of them are graduates, have masters'

degrees, have Ph.D. degrees. There are D.Litts.

"Now these people you are mixing with street people. It will not do any good to them, but it may do certain harm to these people. These people not accustomed to rape. In four years time no rape has happened. Anybody can move at any time in the night, there is no problem.

"Nobody has been murdered, nobody has committed suicide. These people should not be exposed to a criminal class."

But she said, "Now they are already here, and it will be dad, it will look bad, to send them back."

Only when I came out of my silence I became aware that that was a lie. These people were brought to overtake the Wasco County just the way they had overtaken Antelope. They wanted to take the whole county.

Lust for power knows no limits.

Now I have to do everything to destroy whatever they have done. I have advised my people in Antelope that, "Bring the name back." They have changed the name of Antelope to City of Rajneesh. "Put it back. It is Antelope and it belongs to the people who live there." And I have offered that people of Antelope should purchase their properties as they have sold to us, and we will vacate the town and they can have their government back.

But her desire was to take over the whole Wasco County. And she was ready to do anything to take Wasco County. For that purpose the planning office was burned so that all the papers concerning it, all the comprehensive plans, should be burned, so when she takes over the county everything can be started afresh according to her idea.

The one judge who has been poisoned was very much against us, so she wanted another judge who was favorable to us to be chosen. Two other judges were just sitting on the fence. It depends on the third judge. If he was in favor of us, those two were in favor of us. If he was against of us, those two were against of us.

They were just on the fence. So that one person was most significant.

She asked one of our pilots that, "Put bombs in a big airplane and other explosives and crash the plane against the Wasco County office. And before crashing it, you jump in a parachute so you can save yourself."

He said, "But so many bombs and so much explosives, they will not only destroy the Wasco County office, they will destroy half the town. The fire will be almost uncontrollable. I am not going to do such a thing."

He was immediately sent away to Germany, that, "You are needed there very urgently." Because they were afraid that.... He was not within the twenty-one.

Those twenty, they did not have a pilot amongst them. That was the trouble. So they had to ask a pilot who was outside the gang. He refused. He said, "Bhagwan cannot say anything like that. He will not think even of killing an ant. And to destroy the office, kill all the people and kill many innocent people by the side of the office.... I cannot believe that Bhagwan has said it."

And she told him that, "It is from Bhagwan."

But he said, "Whatever you say, I know Him longer than you have known Him."

He was immediately sent. He was not allowed even few minutes to stay here, so that he cannot convey the message to anybody that it reaches to me. And where he was sent to Germany there was no airport in the commune, no airplane in the commune. And he wondered what urgent purpose is there for him.

It was simply punishment.

For six months he was there. He asked many times to come back. He was refused.

The day she left he immediately phoned. And I called him and asked, "What is the matter? Why you were sent?" And he said, "This is the story."

Now he is testifying. He has testified before the FBI. Now he will be testifying before the court.

What proofs these people want? They should say. If there is any possibility, we will provide. But they should act, and act as quickly as possible. If they don't act, that simply means their intentions are not gentlemanly.

(Tape side C) Q:* BHAGWAN, YOU SAY, "DON'T TRUST AUTHORITY" AND YOUR SANNYASINS CONTINUE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SAY AND PUT YOUR PICTURE EVERYWHERE. DOESN'T THIS FRIGHTEN YOU SOMEHOW, THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU TELL THEM NOT TO MAKE YOU A POPE THAT SOMEHOW THEY WILL?

A:* This is one of the dilemmas of human psychology. Nothing can be done about it. I can say only two things. I can say, "Don't believe in me, believe in yourself." But the more I insist on it the more they feel love towards me.

And this is natural and understandable. I am not imposing myself on them. I am saying them not to put me on any high pedestal. "At the most I am your friend, just like you, amongst you." But this creates more trust.

The problem is, I can say to them, "Believe in me. Whatever I say is the word of God." That will do the same.

And there is no third way.

So at least to my own contentment I will continue to say the first and leave them whatever they want to do. Because in fact I am saying them that, "You are absolutely free."

But in that freedom, naturally, trusting in me is included.

So when I say, "Don't believe in me, don't believe my words, trust in yourself," it creates a deep love and trust towards me. But this is their freedom. I am not asking it. And I cannot prevent. I am doing everything on my part that I do not create it, but if it is the nature of things, then one is helpless. There are many mysteries like that.

Q:* PERHAPS YOU COULD MAKE SOME MISTAKES. OR DO ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES?

A:* I make as many as possible. But that makes me more human. And it is easier to love a human being than to love the only begotten son of God.

Q:* BHAGWAN, YOUR SANNYASINS WORK VERY HARD TO BUILD THE COMMUNE AND TO GIVE YOU THINGS AND THE PRIVACY AND THE PLACE YOU LIVE IN. WHAT DO YOU GIVE THEM?

A:* Nothing. I don't have anything to give. I have given myself to them.

Q:* WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

A:* That means I am here for them. My presence is for them. And that can mean everything to one who has eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to feel.

I don't have anything except myself, and I have given myself totally to them. I am available in every possible way.

I don't have any secret. My hands are not closed but completely open, and my people understand it.

In fact, they don't feel that they are giving anything to me in comparison to what they have received. What they can give? They can bring all the material things of the world, which are only toys to me, nothing more. And even then when they give them to me I simply give them back to the commune.

I don't possess anything. Everything that comes to me as a gift from all over the world becomes part of the assets of the commune.

So I have given myself to them, and whatsoever comes to me also comes to them.

It is a very deep love affair.

(Tape side D) Q:* WHY DON'T THE SANNYASINS DRIVE THE ROLLS ROYCES THEN? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT.

A:* There are sannyasins who drive.

Q:* THE ROLLS ROYCES THAT THEY BOUGHT.

A:* Yes. The Rolls Royces that I drive, no sannyasin is ready to drive it. It has become sacred to them. I had told the Trust that maintains those ninety Rolls Royces that they are unnecessarily standing there. I have never gone even for once in the garage, and the garage is just in front of my house, within the compound of my house. I have never gone in to even see. So what is the point? I just drive one.

And I don't like any other car. Because of my back, only that particular model, Silver Spur, suits me and my back. So all those ninety cars are just one model.

One or ninety makes no difference, it is the same model. And when I am inside I can't even see the color. So what is the use?

I told him that, "You give to all the corporations -- we have nine corporations -- give ten cars to each corporation. Make a pool so every sannyasin who wants can take the car.

But there are so many problems.

First, no corporation is ready to take because they already have too many cars. I don't believe in poverty, I believe in abundance -- of everything. So my sannyasins have enough cars. They have one hundred buses. They have five airplanes. So no corporation is willing to have ten white elephants on their heads.

That will be simply a financial burden to the corporation.

And secondly no sannyasin is ready to drive it.

Thirdly, the trustees are not willing to distribute the cars. They want the cars to remain as a memorial. I have used them.

Whatever I have used they have been collecting. All my dresses they have collected, all my shoes, all my hats that I have used they have collected.

Anything that I have used they have collected. They don't want to give those Rolls Royces. They are going to make a beautiful memorial.

So I canot do, because I am not the owner of anything. It is up to them. Whenever they decide they can sell them, they can keep them.

Four cars have been sold because those were not of the same model. They were Rolls Royce; they were better model than the one that I use. They were Carmargue: two-door Rolls Royces. They were far more costlier.

First I was using Corniche, which is the costliest Rolls Royce: one hundred sixty thousand dollars. But the seat did not suit me. My back is really a trouble. I liked the Cornice* but my back was not willing.

Then the second best was Carmargue, so I was using Carmargue. It was better than Corniche. It is one hundred fifty thousand dollars. But then I thought that if this seat is better than the other, I should try their third model also, the Silver Spur. And when I tried it I was simply amazed -- as if it was just made for me!

In '89 they are going to change the model, and because I am their greatest customer in the whole world I have told the president of Rolls Royce that, "Do everything but don't change the seat. Otherwise you lose your best customer."

I just need one car, nothing much. But my sannyasins around the world are intending to make it a memorial with three hundred sixty-five Rolls cars. And they will make it!

Q:* YOU'VE DISCOURAGED PEOPLE FROM HAVING CHILDREN. WHY IS THAT?

A:* There are many reasons. First, the world is already overpopulated. No intelligent person would like to increase the population more. It is already four billion. By the end of the century it will be five billion, and when it becomes five billion, fifty percent of the population will be dying of starvation.

If you love your child whom you want to bring in the world, this is not the world. To leave him in this world, where two and half billion people will be dying out of starvation, what will be the shape? It will be just death all around.

Secondly, the nuclear weapons are going bigger and bigger. Already Soviet Union and America together have enough nuclear weapons to destroy this earth seven hundred times.

Now, we must be living in a mad world. Now, what is the point of creating more nuclear weapons? But nobody can stop it because the other party is doing it. And the same is the question from the other party. They cannot stop it. And nobody has the guts to take the initiative.

Any day this world can be in flames of nuclear explosions. Would you like your child to be in those flames? My people don't like.

Thirdly there is AIDS, which is as dangerous as nuclear weapons, perhaps more dangerous, because nuclear weapons may not be used. Politicians may chicken out, seeing the situation that it will destroy everybody. There will be no victorious, nobody will be defeated.

The whole point of war is lost when all are going to be dead. There is not going to be somebody left even to write the history of it. It has lost its very value. War has value only when there is a possibility of your being victorious.

But AIDS is a totally different matter. It is not within anybody's hands. And it is spreading fast. And it is invisible.

Just in Texas few days before, they have made a law against homosexuality. Now homosexuality in Texas is a crime. One million homosexuals protested against it.

Nobody would have ever imagined that Texas has one million homosexuals.

Now what about California?

And making a law against homosexuality has simply driven it underground.

Now nobody will say, "I am a homosexual."

But your law has never changed anybody. No criminal has been changed by your law, by your courts, by your jails. And you are just being stupid rather than asking the whole population to go through tests to find out how many people have AIDS so they can be isolated.

Every state should make a special city to isolate AIDS people so it does not spread any more. But no state, no nation, is taking any steps. In fact, nobody wants even to accept the fact that AIDS is spreading like wildfire.

In L.A. every day one person is dying of AIDS. One does not know how many people are dying of AIDS every day all over the world. And if one person is dying of AIDS every day, how many people in L.A. are suffering from AIDS?

The number must be very high.

And AIDS spreads not only by sexual contact. Even by kissing. Saliva is a carrier of virus. Unknowingly you may get it or you may give it to somebody. Kissing should be prohibited, not homosexuality.

Even through tears its virus is transferable. And now there are children born with AIDS already, so even if a child is crying and weeping and you just out of compassion try to wipe the tears, you may get AIDS as a reward.

Any liquid coming out of the body can carry the virus, and there seems to be no cure. And all the scientists are absolutely in agreement that there is no hope in the future either, because the very nature of AIDS is totally different from other diseases. The cure is not possible.

It is not a disease but a slow kind of death. Just as there is no cure for disease called death, there is no cure for disease called AIDS. It is slow death.

I don't want my people to bring children into this ugly, insane... on the very verge of a global suicide. This world is not right to bring children.

So in four years not a single baby has been born in the commune. And I would like that the whole humanity follows the pattern.

If for thirty years no children are born anywhere, if the birth control is total for thirty years, then we can reduce the population to one-fourth of what it is now.

One billion people can live on this earth really comfortably, richly. And there is no need for communism, there is no need for any revolution, there is no need for any classless society. People will be having so much that there is no need to hoard.

Rather than making life just hell, a small effort for thirty years and we can make it a paradise. And then it will be worth bringing children in a fresh world.

But right now is not the time.

Q:* HARLEY SOLTISS*, OUR PHOTOGRAPHER, WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT TIME WE COULD COME TO YOUR HOUSE TOMORROW TO TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU SWIMMING.

A:* Unfortunately, I am not swimming right now. I had some trouble with my ear and my doctors have stopped my swimming. So my swimming pool is empty, there is no water. If you want, I can swim, but the water is not there.

I am reminded of a story.

One rich man has made a very beautiful house, and he has made three swimming pools. And he used to take every visitor to show. And every visitor was surprised.

He said, "I can understand. One is for hot water, one is for cold water. But what is the third swimming pool?"

He said, "It is for those who cannot swim. There is no water in it*. But I have made arrangement for every guest who comes here."

So the third type of swimming pool is there right now. But next time when you come. Okay?

Q:* THANK YOU, BHAGWAN.