Chapter 21

[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: There is some text missing during a tape change. Elisabeth Bumiller supplied, from her notes, the missing text. This is given at the end of this transcript.]

INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH BUMILLER, WASHINGTON POST

A: I have lived moment to moment, I have never thought of tomorrow. My life is absolutely unplanned - and that's my philosophy, too, that life should not be planned.

Planning means bondage, and a spontaneous life is the life of freedom. So what happens next moment, I don't know.

Q; ARE YOU GOING TO BUY LAND HERE?

A: I don't know!

Q: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY LAND HERE, IN THE HIMALAYAS?

A: I have never bought anything in my whole life! But I have enough people who love me, who go on buying things for me.

Q: WHY DID YOU SELECT THE ALLEY OF THE GODS?

A: I have not selected it, it has selected me.

Q: IN WHAT SENSE HAS IT SELECTED YOU?

A: Because the whole world is there, and this valley has called me towards itself.

Q: HOW DO YOU LOOK BACK ON YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES?

A: Ordinarily I never look back because nature does not want man to look back - that's why he has not given you eyes on the back.

Q: WELL, AFTER THIS PERIOD OF RECUPERATION, DO YOU THINK YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES WILL CHANGE?

A: First thing: I love the people of America.

They are more sincere and less serious; they are more playful and they are the youngest people in the world. The whole world is old, and with old age many things come - frustration, irritation, grumpiness....

And with old age, future simply dies - because there is only death, nothing else.

America is young, can have a great future, has the energy to create it.

So as far as the nation and the people are concerned, I am in love with them. I certainly hated the politicians and the bureaucracy, because it pretends to be democratic - it is not. It can only be described as "hypocratic." So my experience of America is a lovely experience with the people, with the nation.

And I managed with my own people to create an utopia. The word "utopia"is very significant: it means 'that which cannot be done.' But we almost did it!

Those four and a half years of creating a small commune of five thousand people are of tremendous importance. It was for the first time in the history that five thousand people living together were absolutely myself-sufficient; nobody was poor, nobody was rich, nobody was unemployed.Because we were not using money inside the commune in any way.

There have been philosophers who have thought of a society where money will not be used, but there have never been a society which has really not used it.

And it is so significant - the moment you stop using money, the distance between the rich and the poor immediately disappears. There is no need of bringing a dictatorship of the proletariat, no need of forcing people to depart from their things.

There is no need to force people to be equal. As the money disappears, people are not equal but they all have equal opportunity to be unequal.

Q: HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES CHANGED YOU, IF IT DID?

A: It changed because it created a great jealousy amongst the politicians.

What we had managed to do in four years, they have not been able to manage in three hundred years. We purchased the land which was a desert - for fifty years nobody was buying it - and we changed it in four years in an oasis, all green, with lakes and dams, waterfalls, five thousand people's houses, all centrally air conditioned with all the modern facilities. In those four years, nobody felt in the commune that he needs anything more. Everything was available. They all have five hundred cars, anybody can use; five aeroplanes anybody can use, whatever is the need....

Q: HOW DID THE EXPERIENCE CHANGE YOU, YOURSELF?

A: These experiences cannot change me.

Q: THE UNITED STATES HAD NO EFFECT ON YOU?

A: No. As far as I am concerned...

(THERE IS SOME TEXT MISSING HERE. ELISABETH BUMILLER SUPPLIED, FROM HER NOTES, THE MISSING TEXT. THIS IS GIVEN AT THE END OF THIS TRANSCRIPT.) Q: HAVE YOU LOVED MORE INTENSELY ANYONE ELSE?

A: Certainly.

Q: IS THERE ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN CLOSEST TO?

A: No.

Q: EVERYONE HAS BEEN EQUAL?

A: Everyone is unique, not equal.

Q: BUT THERE ISN'T ONE SPECIAL PERSON THAT YOU HAVE LOVED, MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE?

A: Everybody is so unique that the idea of loving someone more and someone less is ridiculous.

Q: WELL, HAVE THERE BEEN UM, TOP FIVE? HAVE THERE BEEN SPECIAL FEW?

A: No. Nobody is special.

Q: COULD YOU PLEASE JUST COMMENT ON ALL THE ALLEGATIONS OF ORGIES, AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN YOUR COMMUNE, AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES.

A: In Oregon there was none, so anything about Oregon is absolutely false as far as orgies and violence is concerned.

Q: WHAT ABOUT POONA?

A: In Poona there were few groups, and I was deciding people, which group they should go and in what sequence. These groups were therapies; so first silent therapies were given, meditative therapies were given. Those who could not succeed in them, then more active therapies were given to them. If even that was not enough, then therapies were given to them in which they can beat the pillows, shout, scream... but not to touch anybody. Mostly this was enough.

Rarely there was a person who still needed something more, was yet not cleansed. Then for these there were therapies where they were allowed to have physical pushing. But there was a therapist to take care that nothing harms anybody. And these people were to fill the form that they are accepting certain therapy on their own - if they don't want, they need not. It was their individual choice. And these therapies helped these people immensely. And all these therapies whatever they were doing, they had constantly to remember witnessing - that was part which has not been known to the world - that even if they are hitting somebody they are just like a puppet, inside there was a watcher.

And after hitting they will hug each other and they will cry and weep and great compassion will come out.

In sexual therapies, I asked the men, the women that "What is your experience?

What you have gained out of it?" And it was again surprising. That one woman told me that she had always dreamt that she is being raped. And she woke up in the middle of the night afraid, trembling, perspiring. And it was a constantly recurring dream. But after this therapy the dream has disappeared and the sleep has become silent and quiet.

Q: WAS SHE RAPED?

A: Not raped, but in a sexual therapy she was a participant. It was all playful, nobody was being raped. Nobody was forced against his or her will. And if anybody wanted to get out of it at any moment, he was free to get out of it.

Q: DID YOU EVER PARTICIPATE?

A: No, because I was not leading the groups, my therapists were leading the groups.

Q: WHY DID YOU STOP THESE KINDS OF GROUPS IN OREGON?

A: For the simple reason because the people who had come to Oregon were all my old sannyasins, who had passed through all these therapies and all these groups. And Oregon was a new phase. They have dropped their destructiveness in the therapies; now they have to be creative, they have to make houses, they have to make lakes, they have to make gardens. They have to make roads, airports - and there was so much to do that in the morning they will start with meditation, one hour meditation, and then the whole day there was work. And in the night they will sing and dance and play their guitars....

It looks almost a dream has come true. And this was the reason that politicians became afraid, that if - and people started coming to see, "What is happening?

Why these people are so happy? They work so hard and yet they have energy enough in the night to dance and sing - what has happened to them?" And they have started asking the politicians. We had invited the politicians to come - the president, the governor, the attorney general, to come - and be our guests and just see what is happening. And what is happening can happen everywhere, because these are the same human beings as everywhere are. Nobody turned up.

Q: ON ANOTHER SUBJECT; CAN YOU EXPLAIN BRIEFLY THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALITY, AS YOU SEE IT?

A: In fact I do not divide them. The moment you divide them it becomes impossible to join them. For example, your body and soul are already functioning in absolute synchronicity; there is no division. The existence and life are absolutely one. So to me, matter is the outside of spirit and spirit is the innermost core of matter - I do not divide them. It is all one.

Q: WELL, I GUESS WHAT I WANT YOU TO TALK ABOUT IS, UM, IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF AFFLUENCE, AND WHY DO THE PRESS SAY THAT YOU DISLIKE THE POOR.

A: If a doctor dislikes the disease, nobody condemns him. Do you think a doctor should praise and worship a disease? I hate poverty, but not the poor man - I want the poor man not to be poor. But I am bound to be misunderstood because there are people like Jesus who say, "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." I cannot say that. This is a very cunning solace to the poor, to remain poor and to wait after death for the reward.

I am against poverty in all its dimensions. Existence believes in affluence - so many birds; what is the necessity? So many flowers; what is the necessity? So many stars; what is the necessity? So many trees; what is the necessity? Existence goes on growing, expanding. It is a clearcut indication that whoever truly lives will expand in all dimensions. He will have the highest quality of consciousness and the highest quality of consciousness depends on the best quality of food, on the best quality of clothes, on the best quality of housing. I do not take these things separate. They are all together. I am against poverty, Mahatma Gandhi is not. He says poor are the children of God. If that is true then we should increase poverty more, because children of God should not be decreased, they should be increased. And if blessed are the poor, then the rich should also be forced to be poor; otherwise they won't enter into the kingdom of God.

Q: WELL, WHAT IS YOUR PRINCIPAL OBJECTION TO MOTHER TERESA?

A: Simply the same that is against all religions. These people - the pope, or Teresa, or Mahatma Gandhi - they are all against birth control, against the pill, against abortion. And this is their strategy of creating more poverty. And all religions need poor people, because only poor people can be converted. Now, Mother Teresa on the surface seems to be serving the orphans but basically it is transforming, converting the orphans into Catholic religion.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO WORLD POVERTY?

A: My solution is very simple. These are not solutions at all. These people are creating poverty, in the name of God. I was talking to a cardinal who told me that it is against God to use birth control methods. I said to him that, "Your definition of God is that He is omnipotent, all-powerful. If He can make the whole existence out of nothing, can't He make the small pill disappear?"

Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO ABOUT ALL THESE POOR PEOPLE, FIVE HUNDRED MILLION POOR PEOPLE?

A: It is very simple, my idea is very simple.

One thing is population for twenty to thirty years completely be stopped from growing. People who are above seventy-five and are feeling absolutely useless, don't want to live, they should not be forced to live. Every hospital should produce facilities for these people to die peacefully, silently, happily. All kinds of birth control methods should be used - I have heard now they have a pill for men also, so there is no problem that just the woman has to use the pill; man can also use it.

Secondly, the poverty is there because most of the nations' wealth - every nation's wealth - goes to the war. Nuclear weapons, atomic weapons - they are the cause of poverty. So my second thing is that all nations should stop war manufacturing machines. If they really want the poverty to disappear, then every scientific effort should be for creativity, productivity, not for destruction and death. And it is so simple: seventy-five percent of the income of the nations is going into war. And you want people to be rich! Even the richest country like America has thirty million street people, beggars. If America cannot afford to provide for thirty million people food and shelter and clothes, what about a country like India?

And still, Ronald Reagan is going on piling up nuclear weapons - in fact, almost against the whole world. He has put many billions of dollars in a project to protect America by certain latest developments that can divert any nuclear weapon that is coming towards America. So now America is surrounded by a network which you will not see, nobody will see - but any nuclear weapon coming towards America will be immediately thrown back. Now, it may fall anywhere.

Now, this is something against the whole world. Now America is treating itself aloof and alone against the whole world. It is not fighting against Soviet Union, it is fighting against the whole world.

Q: ON ANOTHER SUBJECT, ON SHEELA... WHAT WENT WRONG? WHERE IT BEGAN TO GO WRONG WITH SHEELA AND YOU, AND WHAT WAS THE BASIS OF IT?

A: No, nothing went wrong. It is just human.

For three and a half years I was silent and in isolation. I gave her all power, and power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. For three and a half years she had all the power; she was the only person to see me, I was not meeting sannyasins. I was not talking to anybody else.

When I decided to speak again she was against it. Her excuse was that it will...

my health is now good and again if I start speaking, my health will be ruined.

I said to her, that "Even if I live five years longer, without speaking it will be meaningless. Whether I die today or after twenty years it does not matter. What matters is that my philosophy is incomplete and I want to complete it before I leave the body. So I would rather like to die five years before, but I am going to speak from tomorrow morning."

The whole commune was happy, they were dancing in the streets. Because they were thinking that I was never going to speak again. Only Sheela and her small gang of people that has become powerful in these three and a half years, they were sad.

First, the reason of their sadness was that for three and half years she was my representative to the television, to the radio, to the newspapers; and she has become a celebrity. And it is very difficult - almost impossible - to descend from celebrity and to become just an ordinary sannyasin like everybody else.

That was one of the most wounding thing to her.

She started going to Europe, on any excuse, that "Communes need me there..." or Australia, or India or Nepal - wherever we have communes she will find some excuse, that "they need me there." As I started speaking she was almost absent in America.

And finally when she came, she wrote me a note that "I don't feel anymore excitement here as I feel in Europe, as I feel in Australia." I said, "It is understandable - but you had not come to me to feel excitement, you had come to me to feel ecstasy. You have forgotten completely that excitement is not the thing."

Q: ON AMERICAN TELEVISION, YOU SAID THAT THE REASON... ONE OF THE REASONS THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH SHEELA WAS BECAUSE SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU, BUT YOU...

A: That was just a joke...

Q: NONE OF THAT WAS TRUE?

A: No.

Q: ARE YOU SORRY YOU SAID THAT?

A: No, I'm never sorry about anything.

Q: YOU ALSO COMPARED HER TO ADOLF HITLER AND CALLED HER A BITCH AND EVERYTHING.... DO YOU STILL FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT HER?

A: She proved.... She proved a bitch.

Q: WHY DIDN'T YOU SEE THIS EARLIER?

A: Because I was not seeing anything.

Q: RIGHT. SHE ALSO ALLEGED THAT THERE WAS A LOT OF DRUG USE ON THE RANCH AND THAT YOU WERE ON DRUGS.

A: That's absolutely nonsense. Now she is trying to say as many lies she can say.

But if she had guts she should not have escaped, and faced me. I had called her to come to me and say it. She did not come to me, she escaped without facing me.

Q: DO YOU THINK SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH YOU? OR WAS SHE A MAN- HATER AS YOU SAID ON THE TELEVISION?

A: I think she is a man-hater. She was raped when she was fourteen, and raped by a man who was his father's friend, of the age of her father. And she got pregnant - and at that time in India abortion was illegal, so abortion was to be done in a very secret way, illegal way. And that whole thing remained in her mind. She tried hard to get out of it, but the image of man became difficult to her.

And she was almost encircled by homosexuals, never by men, but homosexuals.

Q: MALE HOMOSEXUALS...

A: Male homosexuals, because they were not a threat to her in any way.

And when I started speaking, then many more informations came to me, which she has been doing, illegally. And the day she left, hundreds of informations came to me - because people were afraid of her, she was throwing people, she tried to kill people. She tried to kill Devaraj, my personal physician. She tried to kill Vivek, my caretaker.

Q: THERE WAS AN ARTICLE IN A MAGAZINE CALLED THIS WEEK, AN INDIAN MAGAZINE WHICH SAID SHE HAD VIDEOTAPED PEOPLE AT THE RANCH IN LOVEMAKING AND THE OTHER THING WAS THAT SHE HAD BEEN SPREADING AIDS TRYING TO SPREAD AIDS.

A: Yes, that is true, because she was trying to cultivate the virus. That's why a called her a bitch, because slowly slowly she started getting into very fascist actions.

For example, she tried to poison a whole city reservoir, she burned the planning office of Wasco County. She tried to poison the attorney of Jefferson County, she tried to poison on of the judges of Wasco County. She tried to kill even sannyasins - whoever was in her way. "Finish the person" was her attitude.

And when I became aware of all these things, there was no other way for her to escape silently; otherwise I will give her to the police. I would have given her to the police. And immediately I called the police - state police, federal police, FBI - - and told them to explore the whole commune, what else she has done.

She has bugged the whole hotel, one forty-five rooms. She has bugged my own room, she has bugged Hasya's whole house. She has bugged many people's house - whomsoever she was afraid that they may be competitor in some way, or more intelligent than her, can run the commune in a better way - she has bugged all those houses. She was taping all the phones.

For four weeks all the police - state, federal and FBI - they were our guests and we allowed them to find out everything. In her own house, she has made underneath her room another room and a tunnel which opened near the airport; you can keep the aeroplane there. Even if the police is surrounding your house, you can get out.

When I said her a bitch, I really meant it. It was not a joke. She has stolen money from the commune, nearabout fifty million dollars...

Q: SHE TOOK FIFTY MILLION WITH HER TO GERMANY?

A: Those fifty million are somewhere in Switzerland, in her name. And she went and married a Swiss sannyasin - that too, a homosexual. She was married to an American. Without divorcing him, she married a Swiss sannyasin just to get the Swiss passport and Swiss citizenship to legalize her all money that she has managed to put in Swiss banks.

She went to Nepal with a false man to get the divorce, the false man pretending to be her American husband. Just we came to know from our sannyasins from Nepal that what Sheela is doing. So we sent her real husband there to prevent the whole process!

Q: WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COLOR RED?

A: No significance.

Q: WHY DO THEY ALL WEAR IT?

A: It was choosen for a particular purpose: I wanted to make to the world known that these people have dropped all conditions of the past; religions, nations. They are no more part of any crowd, they are individuals. It was just to indicate that.

Q: DO YOU FEEL BADLY ABOUT YOUR DISCIPLES OUT AT THE RANCH IN OREGON, THAT THEY'RE ALL LEAVING NOW?

A: No, there is no question of feeling bad, because I never feel bad about anything. If they feel good leaving, that's perfectly right. And what they will do without me? - they were there for me, not for the ranch.

Q: WELL, DO YOU FEEL BAD THAT YOU HAVE ABANDONED THEM?

A: No, I have not abandoned anybody. They have told me to leave the country as soon as possible, because they were worried that I may be tortured more - and torturing me, they could torture thousands of my people.

Q: DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR RELIGION, YOUR PHILOSOPHY IS GOING TO DIE OUT NOW BECAUSE THE RANCH HAS CLOSED DOWN?

A: No, nothing. It is going to become stronger. In every challenge things become stronger. Now my people feel more closer to me. And the people who were just sympathizers are no more sympathizers, they want to become sannyasins. And they can see that I have been mistreated because I was not a Christian, and because I was in a position to put the whole American government to shame.

Q: DO YOU FEEL THAT JESUS WAS ENLIGHTENED?

A: No.

Q: WHY NOT?

A: For the simple reason that he was talking nonsense. No enlightened person can talk such nonsense, that "I am the only begotten son of God." Can you say that?

Q: NO... YOU HAVE SAID BEFORE THAT YOU WERE A GOD AND NOW YOU SAY YOU'RE NOT A GOD...

A: No, I have never said. I have never said that I am a god. Just I was asking can you say, "I am the only begotten daughter of God"? No, even if a normal person cannot say that, and if a person says that, seems to be crackpot!

And he was saying to people that "Those who have faith in me will be saved, and those who don't have faith in me will fall into eternal hell." Even a man like Bertrand Russell had to write a book, Why I Am Not a Christian . And one of the things that he said in it is, that the idea of eternal hell is so irrational... because Christianity believes only in one life. In one life how many sins you can commit to deserve eternal hell? If you go on committing sins day and night, every moment, seventy years, then too eternal hell will not be justified.

And he says, "Those who believe in me..." He does not give people understanding, he gives them only blind belief - "You have just to believe in me and you will be saved."

Every enlightened person in the world has tried to make you aware of the reality, of the truth. He is not your savior, he can at the best be your friend. And to call himself "the shepherd" and to call you all "the sheep" is simply ugly. I cannot call myself the shepherd and you a sheep; this seems to be inhuman. I am just a human being, as you are. Just I have known something which you also are getting within you, but you have not looked for it. As far as our richness is concerned it is exactly the same - I know about it, you don't know about it. You can know it any moment. I can show you the method how to know it.

Q: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE NOW? HOW MUCH MONEY IS LEFT?

A: No. I never had any money.

Q: YES, BUT THERE WAS MONEY... YOUR ORGANIZATION DID...

A: Neither it is my organization, because I am not a member of any organization.

Q: SO YOU KNOW THAT SHEELA TOOK FIFTY MILLION, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH IS LEFT AFTER WHAT SHE TOOK.

A: No, the ranch is two hundred fifty million worth, but who is going to purchase it in that desert? Nobody is going to purchase it, it is worth nothing.

But five years of creating and five years of rejoicing in creation, I don't feel that there has been any loss. Who cares about money? Two hundred fifty million or three hundred million - we enjoyed those five years immensely.

And I enjoyed those twelve days also in the jail of America, you should not forget that. I really enjoyed it! I enjoyed it so much that the first sheriff in whose county jail I was, was with tears when I left. He said, "Never such a man has been in our jail!"

Q: DID YOU TRY TO CONVERT ANYBODY OR TALK TO ANYBODY ABOUT..."

A: No, no. I talked to the sheriff, I talked to the nurses, to the doctors. I talked to the deputy sheriff. And they were so much interested in me that they allowed a press conference in the jail! And I talked to all the tv channels and newspapers and magazines... the nurses, the doctor, the sheriff, the deputy sheriff, they were all had tears.

And I said, "Why you are feeling so sad?" They said, "We will never see you again." I said, "That's not difficult - with this dirty government in the power, I can enter any moment in America and they will catch me and I will enter in Carolina so I will end up in your jail, you don't be worried about it. That is very simple to manage."

But that was the only jail, in Carolina, which was human. After that I had in four other jails - which much have been pressurized by the politicians; that sheriff was a man not to be pressurized. He told me, that "There is great pressure, and I am afraid they may remove you from this jail. Particularly the press conference in the jail... they have all freaked out."

And that's what happened. They went on lying to me, that "We are taking you to the airport for Oregon." And they will take me to another jail. And they tried their best to harass me, of course indirectly - because directly they could not do anything because the whole world media was watching. Every jail was surrounded by cameras and newspaper people and they knew that if anything happens to me they will be condemned, the whole America will be condemned.

And thousands of telegrams to every jail, the whole day thousands of phones and thousands of flowers - the jailers started asking me, "What we should do with these flowers? We don't have space!" And I said, "Go on sending them to the schools, small childrens, from me. To all the institutions you send them, from me."

In the second jail the forced me to write my name as "David Washington."

Q: WHY DID THEY DO THAT?

A: That's what I asked the U.S. Marshall, that "What are you intending to do?

You want me to force under a... to sign under a false name so that you can tell to the press people and to the world that I am not here and then you can even kill me, and no trace will be found, because I have never been to your jail."

I told him that "You are the law enforcing authority; under what law it comes that a man should be forced to sign under some other name which is not his name? And I don't think you are retarded, you are perfectly intelligent, educated.

On your coat is written 'Department of Justice.' At least take this coat off before you ask me to sign under a false name. And I will not write with my own handwriting, you write." He could not follow my strategy. I made him write "David Washington" and every information; I said, "I will only sign it." I signed in Hindi so he could not understand what I am writing. And I told him that "Tomorrow morning you will see on the tv and on all newspapers that I have been forced illegally to sign under David Washington."

Because one girl was being released... I just made her a sign and she understood.

She went out and released to the press. Tomorrow morning it was all over the world that I have been forced, so if anybody wants me - phone David Washington, inquire about David Washington, send flowers to David Washington.

Twelve days simply they came, forced me to move from one jail to another. It was absolutely unnecessary, because the place from Carolina to Oregon was not more than eight hours flight, or six hours flight. For six hours flight it took twelve days - even the pilot of the aeroplane told me that "We feel sad; it has never happened before. It is happening before because of you. They suddenly change the route so that you have to stay in a jail, when again the plane comes."

I said, "How long they can do it? They are just foolish, it does not matter." They are trying everything, because I am allergic - they are putting me with people who are continuously smoking, my eyes are full of tears. They are putting me by two television sets; from six they start them up to twelve o' night... and when the televisions stop then the inmates they must have been putting, they start talking loudly from cell to cell. They did not allow me for twelve days to sleep.

But I enjoyed it in a way, that although they did everything I was not affected at all. It was really a great experience - I am obliged to them - that my clarity, my light, my integrity remained the same. My weight went down, my body was in trouble, my back was hurting, my throat was choking with the smoke, but I was a witness only. So I think no enlightened person has ever before been in such a beautiful experience in then United States of America.

And what you were asking.... I am absolutely innocent. I have not committed any crime. But the problem was that the Oregon government and the politicians who were behind the whole scene were ready for my bail only if I accept that I am guilty. Then the case can be dropped, then the fine can be put immediately.

And my people and my attorneys' concern was that "If you say that you are not guilty - and we know you are not guilty, and that's what you want to say, that you are not guilty and you want to fight - but the fight will become a harassment to all your people - because they will keep you in jail. You will win finally, but it may take four years, five years; they will postpone, they will do everything to prolong it. You will win, but they would have punished you already."

And looking at my people - who were fasting for twelve days, not eating - and seeing all the letters and telegrams from all over the world, I felt that for compassion's sake, if I speak one lie in my life I don't think it is going to be a problem. So I accepted, I said "Okay, I am guilty."

They were not thinking that I will say that, knowing me. So really they are in a shock because now I am out of their reach. And the judge has made it even more clear - the judge was really a nice and fair man - he has made it even more difficult for them. Five years I cannot enter America - that is for my safety; I could see in his eyes that it is for my safety. So now even if the government wants, I cannot enter America.

So I accepted to be guilty just for the compassion of all my people; otherwise they will be for five years unnecessarily tortured. And just for a single thing....

Q: SO YOU ACCEPTED THE IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS AND THE...

A: They had a list, all kinds of violations. I had not even listened because when I am going to say I am guilty what does it matter how many things you read?

Q: SO YOU PLED GUILTY TO ALL OF THEM...

A: I simply said, "You go on reading it. When you have finished, I can give my statement." And I said, "I am guilty." I don't remember what... eighteen or twenty things they had on me, none of which is true.

But the situation was such that if I had to fight, I could. But my people would have suffered.

NOTES FROM ELIZABETH MILLER ON MISSING SECTION, BEGINNING WITH QUESTION: HOW DID THE EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES CHANGE YOU, YOURSELF?

A: It created a great jealousy among the politicians. What we had managed to do in four years they had not been able to manage in three hundred years. As far as I am concerned, I am beyond being changed. I was only a witness of all this.

Q: DESCRIBING THE EXPERIENCE OF MARCH 21, 1953 A: It is the most difficult thing to describe. I had been meditating for years. My whole interest had been to know myself. I tried all the methods that are available in the scriptures; and when all the efforts and all the methods were finished - there are one hundred twelve methods of meditation - a moment came that I dropped all methods, all efforts, just out of sheer exhaustion. And that was the night that it happened because I was for the first time totally relaxed. I had nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. I was for the first time in the moment, unmotivated, and it had happened out of nowhere. I became full of light inside; a great silence and a tremendous dignity and a light that has remained with me since then, every moment of my life.

That light has given me a clarity; now I do not live by any rules.

Wherever it leads....

Q: I ASKED WHERE HE WAS WHEN IT HAPPENED. He said he was under a tree in a garden at night, leaning his back against a tree to rest. The tree was a mulshree tree.

Q: HOW IS YOUR EXPERIENCE SIMILAR TO BUDDHA'S EXPERIENCE?

A: It is exactly the same. His experience cannot be different because you disappear and the universe takes you over. The experience of Buddha may be different, his language may be different. My experience may be different, it has to be different. Twenty-five centuries have not gone in vain. But the experience is the same.

Q: "HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE CLOSE TO ENLIGHTENMENT AMONG YOUR DISCIPLES?"

A: Two hundred people are very close to enlightenment, all over the world.

"WHEN WILL THAT HAPPEN?"

A: It can happen any moment.

"ARE THERE ANY DISCIPLES HERE WHO ARE VERY CLOSE, IN THIS GROUP?"

A: Two are close, but it can happen anywhere.

Q: I ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN HOW HIS SEXUAL PHILOSOPHY WAS SIMILAR TO TANTRIC PHILOSOPHY...

A: All the religions have exploited humanity by teaching the repression of sex.

The strategy is simple: religions condemn sex as sin, and you cannot drop it; you try and you fail. But the more you fail, the more guilt arises in you, and to make a man guilty is the basic strategy of the priesthood, because the guilty person is bound to come to the priest. Just as the patient goes to the doctor, the guilty goes to the priest.

And the most simple process of creating guilt is to put you against some energy which is your own. Sex is the only energy you have; you are born of sex, your every cell is made of sexual energy.

Tantra is the only philosophy which has been very humanistic; it did not create guilt, on the contrary, it created a deep acceptance of your sexual energy.

Because only through your acceptance is there a possibility of transformation, and tantra succeeded in transforming my people's lives.

Q: BUT IN TANTRIC PHILOSOPHY THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN ORGASM... IF YOU HAVE ORGASM YOU HAVE FAILED IN THE GOAL OF ULTIMATE UNION AND SPIRITUALITY.

A: Tantra has two traditions: the right tradition and the left tradition. And unfortunately, I am always a leftist. The right tradition is against orgasm; that means it has compromised with the traditions of the religions.

Again the guilt has been created....

The leftist tradition is not even mentioned, but it has lived. But it has produced eighty-four siddhas. It is not against orgasm. On the contrary, it is being in an orgasm, but being a witness to it: "Don't be lost in it, rise above it, it is happening in your body. It is still something."

My approach is similar to the leftist school of tantra, which is a rejected, unpopular philosophy. Again, unfortunately I am always standing for unpopular causes.

Q: YOU HAVE SAID THAT YOU HAVE LOVED MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE...

A: I have loved much and have been loved much.

Q: HAS THERE BEEN ANYONE THAT YOU HAVE LOVED MORE INTENSELY?

A: Everybody is so unique...

(Rest exists on first part of transcript.)