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]

[Transcriber's note: This was not a complete tape. Side A and B do not match up, and the end of the side B ends abruptly.]

INTERVIEW BY HINDUSTAN SAMACHAR & VIR PRATAP

A: I have always been interested in the individual, never in the society.

To me, society does not exist; it is only a name.

One who exists it the individual.

I will continue to communicate with the individuals without creating any organization. It will be a heart-to-heart talk.

A: I am not trying to find any place here.

My people are looking for a place all over the world, so there is not a question of Himachal Pradesh or India. To me, the whole earth is one.

And I am not any more interested in Himachal government or Indian government, and I don't care whether they invite me or not.

Q: DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE STATES AS A NIGHTMARE, OR HAVE THEY SHAKEN YOU DEEPLY? HAS IT NOT IMPAIRED YOUR IMAGE AND CREDIBILITY AS A SPIRITUAL LEADER?

A: No.

If Jesus being crucified does not lose his credibility, how can I lose my credibility just being for twelve days in jail? It has increased it.

And it has not been a nightmare to me. It has not shaken me.

It has been a great experience. I have come to know the real face of the so-called democratic governments - they are not democratic, only the mask is democratic.

Inside they are all fascist.

A: Absolutely satisfied.

A: In the first place I have never taught free sex.

What I have been teaching is the sacredness of sex. I have been teaching that the sex should not be degraded from the status of love to the status of law. The moment you have to love to your woman because she is your wife - not that you love her, it is prostitution, legalized prostitution.

I have been against prostitution, whether it has been legalized or illegalized.

I believe in love. If two persons love each other they can live as long as they love.

The moment love is gone, they should gratefully separate.

I have never taught anything concerning free sex. This is the idiotic Indian yellow journalism that has made my whole philosophy confined to two words. I have written four hundred books. Only one book is concerned about sex, three hundred ninety-nine books nobody bothers; only one book that is concerned about sex, and that too is not for sex, that too is how to transform sex energy into spiritual energy. It is really anti-sex.

I will continue the same. It does not matter whether Indian people, or any people, or the whole world believes in it or not. They don't have any argument against me. Their belief is not an argument. They have to prove what they say. I have proved what I am saying, and I will continue to say it.

What they have been doing all along is misinforming people and condemning that misinformation. They have never represented me fairly; otherwise, I don't think India is so unintelligent.

A country which has produced the philosophy of tantra, a country which has made temples like Khajuraho, Konarak, cannot be so stupid that it will not understand what I am saying. Khajuraho is my proof. All the literature of tantra is my proof.

And this is the only country where something like tantra has existed.

Nowhere in the world any effort has been made to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy.

And that's what I was doing, but the journalists are not interested in reality; they are interested in sensationalism.

I have been misinformed.

But that is not my philosophy.

A: First, the idea that because I preach the philosophy of prosperity poor people should be attracted more is psychologically wrong.

Poor people are attracted to more - to people who preach that poverty is something spiritual, that to be poor is just because of your past lives' bad karmas.

Jesus says, "Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven." Jesus attracts poor people. It is not a wonder that the whole poverty in the world has become the feeding ground for Christian missionaries and churches.

Not a single rich man - Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Jaina - has ever been converted to Christianity, only the beggars, orphans, aboriginals.

Christianity attracts the poor because Christianity gives them hope and consolation in the future life, about which nobody knows nothing. There exists no witness.

The poor people need some hope.

I am against poverty, and I don't say that it is spiritual - I say that it is criminal, it is the source of all crimes.

How do you think poor people will be attracted to me? I'm telling that poverty is the source of all crimes, and I am saying that the poor people are responsible for their poverty - not their past life. They are poor because they are clinging to concepts and ideas which keep them poor.

For example, they think their poverty is simplicity. It is not.

They think that to be poor is to be humble. It is not.

They think to be poor and to be contented is spiritual. It is not.

It is their own concepts which are keeping them poor, and I am against all those concepts.

Naturally they cannot be attracted towards me. I want to destroy poverty completely from the world; hence, all Christian missionaries are against me, all Hindu priests are against me, all Mohammedan, all Jaina, all Buddhist monks are against me - because that is their whole business. Only the poor is interested in them, only the poor gets converted to Catholicism, to Mohammedanism, to this and to that.

I am saying that the poverty can be destroyed - we have the technology now, but we are using the technology for war. We are using our energy to destroy in the service of death rather than in the service of life. A simple turn. If we decide that no more wars and poverty disappears - because all that energy that is involved in the war efforts can be made creative. It can be simply transformed into the prosperity.

I am against poverty, and I would like that there is nobody who is poor.

And I don't think that it is spiritual, and I don't give any consolation - because those consolations are keeping them poor. It was because of these consolations that Karl Marx declared that all religions are opium for the people - because they go on giving them consolation. "In the future life.... It is just a question of few years and you will be in the kingdom of God where rich people cannot enter." This consolation, this hope, keeps them poor.

I want to destroy this consolation, this hope. That's why poor also are against me.

You destroy anybody's hope and he will be against you, because he was somehow clinging to the hope - whether it is true or not, that is not the point.

Somehow it was helping him to drag on. And I am destroying all their hope, all their consolations; and that is absolutely necessary.

Unless those hopes are destroyed, the poor person cannot be turned toward technology, science, modern means of production - it is impossible.

A: I have created communes all over the world where no poverty exists, nobody is unemployed, nobody is poor, no money is used inside the commune, everybody gets whatsoever he needs. Hospitals are there, schools are there; they have their own buses, their own cars, their own airplanes.

This was the reason that America became antagonistic to me - because we had made five thousand peoples commune so beautiful and so rich that the politicians became immediately aware that this is going to become a problem sooner or later. People are coming far away to see and visit, and they go and spread the news that this is a strange thing, there is no dictatorship, there is no democracy, there is no government at all; but people are living so joyously and so happily and no poverty.

Even in America there are thirty million beggars on the streets. People think that it is a rich country, and thirty million people are without clothes, without food, without shelter. And exactly thirty million people in America are dying of overfeeding, and they cannot stop eating more because they have so much - so they go on eating. And this seems to be stupid, the exact number - thirty million people dying because of starvation, thirty million people are dying because of too much eating.

In my commune there was nobody who was starved, and there was nobody who was over-eating. We were self-sufficient. We turned the desert into an oasis. We made our own lakes, we made our own ponds. We produced enough for our people - vegetables, fruit, milk products. We were absolutely independent. We made our own houses - beautiful houses in the hills, and the whole city - perhaps the only city in the world - was centrally air- conditioned.

This became the trouble for them.

And I have such communes all over the world - six in Germany. Now German government is boiling up and they are becoming afraid.

Even I have never been in Germany. They have put cases against me so that I cannot enter Germany.

We have a beautiful commune in Zurich in Switzerland, but they won't allow me in.

England has a beautiful commune.

Japan has a commune.

Australia has a commune.

Commune is my answer. We want to create models - because I have been talking. The best way is to produce existentially that this is the way people can live. And if one town can live in this way, why not other towns can live in this way?

We had one kitchen for five thousand people. And it was a joy to eat with five thousand people, and it was very economical.

Nobody wanted - we had five hundred cars. Nobody wanted private car because we had one hundred buses continuously moving, every five minute you can get a bus, so who bothers for a private car. Then parking is the problem, then taking care is the problem; just ride the bus and get out wherever you want. And every five minute from any point you can get the bus.

So that's my answer.

My commune are materializing what I have been saying, and now the question is whether politicians will let them survive or destroy - as they have tried to destroy the commune in America.

It was the most successful commune, because I was there. It was unbelievable for people that such a thing is possible. It was something far superior than communism, because communism has a drawback of dictatorship - which was not there. Everything was absolute freedom. Anybody can join. Anybody any moment wants to go away can go away.

So it will be decided by the people.

America has become aware torturing me for twelve days they have lost much. I have not lost anything. Even Americans became aware that why I am being tortured.

Even their jailers, their marshals, who were torturing me, they said that, "This is absolutely inhuman, and the reason is that you have created a place which makes them feel inferior and they want to destroy the place so there is no comparison exists."

I am not interested here to create a commune because if the government is unwilling, if the people are unwilling, then I don't want to be impose myself upon unwilling people. I can start a commune here only if the government and the people invite me and support me - because it is for their sake I am doing it. I don't need it. They need it. And they should give me a chance to show them that this can be done. You can also do it on a vaster scale.

It will be sheer stupidity on their part not to invite me, to miss this chance.

I was not going to come here. It is just for a holiday.

Because I had to leave America. Somewhere I had to go for few days; meanwhile my people search around the world, someplace where I am invited - and soon, within a week or two, they will find a place and I will move. There is no question of my being here.

A: No. Unless the government invites me and promises me in writing that all support will be given to me, I don't intend.

A: Poona has the commune, and the government is torturing them, continuous finding anything - small thing and making it a big. So rather than working for the commune, they are standing in the courts being arrested, being released.

This - I don't feel like the government really wants the country to progress.

If some people are ready to experiment, the government should be generous enough. Don't go beyond the law, just according to the law at least support them.

If you cannot support, at least don't create hindrances.

But the problem is the same, whether it is America or India. The mind of the politician is the same. He wants to prove that only he can do. And for thousands of years he has been a failure, he has not delivered any goods that he has been promising, and he does not want to give chance to somebody who is not a politician.

I am not a politician. My people are not politicians. We don't want to fight elections and votes and all that. We simply want to make a model that people can come and see, we can make that model a kind of university where people can come and learn three or six-month courses how to develop their own village on the same lines. I can send my people to their villages to help them to set up things the way I have set up them. Within twenty years we can change the whole face of the country.

But those politicians won't like it. That means power goes from their hands.

A: No. Politicians only talk about, but they are not really interested in destroying poverty - because they live on it, just as the religious organizations live on it.

You cannot purchase a rich man's vote. You can purchase a poor man's vote, it is so easy; just two rupees may do.

If the whole country is rich and educated then it is impossible for idiots to become chief ministers and cabinet ministers. A person who is not himself medically educated becomes health minister, a person who has no knowledge of education cannot be accepted even as a primary school teacher becomes the education minister - this is possible only if the poverty remains, uneducated people remain.

Politicians are the worst people as far as man is concerned because they suffer psychologically from inferiority complex. They want to prove that they are something big, Alexander the Great.

A person who does not suffer from inferiority does not want to prove that he is big or great. He is simple and humble, and he is what he is; there is no question of proving.

In a world well-educated, psychologically well-balanced (Tape side 2 - see note at top of transcript, doesn't appear to match up with side #1), politics is going to disappear - because who would like to become a politician?

For what?

So these politicians talk about removing poverty because that helps them to get votes. And even if they take measures - for example, now they are taking few measures, bringing new technology, but that will create only a super-rich class, it will not remove poverty; and this class will help them in an election with money, because they have helped with technology with this class. And the poor will remain poor; it will become even more poorer.

My effort is totally non-political. That is the difficulty. They cannot allow any non-political person to show them that things that you say can really be done.

In my commune there was no political party. There is no need. Every person is intelligent and thinks on his own. Why he should tow the line of a political ideology in which there may be many things on which he does not agree, but because he belongs to the party he has to say "yes" - against his own conscience.

I don't believe that political parties are needed. They destroy people's intelligence. They destroy their thinking capacity.

In my commune there were no political party. There was no question of politics.

People are concerned with their food, with their clothes, with their life, with their love, with their children, with a good house, with a silent peaceful life with some spiritual growth, some serenity within. Where politics comes in? I don't think anybody who is interested in politics really.

A: Then do away with democracy if you cannot do without political parties.

My own idea is far superior than democracy. Democracy may look good in comparison with dictatorship.

But I have the idea of meritocracy - which is higher than democracy, because democracy is bound to be on the same level as the mass. It is a mobocracy.

Calling it "democracy" is not right. And the mobs' standard of thinking is not much higher. The politician has to follow] the mob. On the surface it looks that the leader is ahead and the masses are following him. Actuality is the leader is behind, he is always looking where the masses are going and he jumps ahead to keep himself ahead - to show to the masses that, "I am your leader."

I believe in meritocracy. Then there is no need for a party.

For example, if there is an election you choose directly the health minister. Let all the physicians of the land contest, let the best physician be chosen and let each individual choose. There is no question of any politics.

You need an education minister. Let all the vice-chancellors contest, and have the best education minister in the world.

Why bother about all this nonsense?

There is no need for provincial governments. There is no need for all these parliaments and all these assemblies. Choose the best people, and you can transform the country very quickly.

So my idea is totally different. My idea is: Give the right in the right hands. And that can be given by individuals. There is no need for any party. Because party can always give power to wrong hands. In fact, it would like to give it to wrong hands because the party wants to control its leaders too; it needs weak leaders.

When Jawaharlal died, nobody had ever thought that Lalbahadur Shastri will be the prime minister of India, but he was the weakest person in the party - and that was his qualification that he was chosen.

When he died, then again Indira was chosen - at that time she was not the Indira when she was assassinated; she was just looking after Jawaharlal, she was not a politician. She was a simple woman. The politicians thought that that will be better.

On both the occasion, Morarji was the contestant. On both the occasions congress denied Morarji because they knew that he is a stubborn man, adamant, and once he is in power he will not care about anybody.

Political parties function in such a way that the weakest person comes to the top, and those persons cannot change the fate of a country like India. Such a vast country needs geniuses.

So my proposal is for a meritocracy. And what is wrong in it? We have so many great physicians, great educationists, great agriculturists - who have proved their merit. Now let them come up and let them fight - if they want to fight, and let the country choose; and each individual chooses on his own, no political affiliation. And you will have the best government in the world. And these people know culture, and these people know education, and these people know how to be gentle and civilized. The politicians that you choose - I was surprised.

I was a student, and Dwarika Prasad Mishra who was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.... Because Nehru was angry with him, he was thrown out. But something has to be given to him; otherwise, he may create trouble, he is a powerful person. So he was made vice-chancellor of the Sagar University. I was surprised that Dwarika Prashad Mishra won the election against a vice- chancellor who was a world-known historian, who has been a head of the department of history in Oxford university. He could not get more than ten votes out of three hundred, and Dwarika Prasad - who has nothing to do with education - got two hundred and ninety votes.

And afterwards I saw Dwarika Prasad mixing with all the gundas of the Sagar - all his friends were gundas, not professors. I could not believe my eyes that this man, what he can do for the university? Not a single professor goes to him. He has no friendship with professors. They are far below him, but gundas are his friends - because they are the people who will manage votes for him, who has been managing votes for him always.

It was a strange situation, that gundas will come into the vice-chancellor's office and sit there and smoke and talk rubbish, vulgar language, obscene.

I told to Dwarika Prasad Mishra that, "This is sacrilege. You should resign or you should resign these people."

They will chew the pan and spit the pan in the vice-chancellor's room. And it was so ugly, and they will use vulgar language and they will put their hands on the vice-chancellor's shoulder and they will come out of the room great friends.

Politics, if it remains divided into parties, is bound to satisfy the lowest denominator of the society, and when you satisfy the lowest denominator how can you raise the society to the highest level of living?

So I am not for democracy.

I am for meritocracy, and meritocracy can exist without political parties.

A: There are so many small countries all over the world, so why you should be afraid?

And out of fear if you do anything, it is not going to be good.

Only do something out of love.

And you cannot keep people imprisoned forever.

The same was the argument of the British government - that why not the whole British empire should remain united? It is a bigger force - against any enemy.

(The tape ended abruptly)