Chapter 02

[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]

Q: CAN I BEGIN BY ASKING YOU ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW? IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER COMMUNE?

A: It's always difficult for me to say anything about the future. I have lived my whole life moment to moment without any planning, without ever thinking of the morrow. So something must be beginning but I cannot say what it is.

Q: BUT I'VE READ REPORTS BHAGWANJI THAT YOU'RE LOOKING OR DISCIPLES OR YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING (INAUDIBLE).

A: Yes. My friends are looking because they are not living moment to moment.

Nobody listens me.

Q: SEEMS TO ME THAT A GREAT MANY PEOPLE LISTEN TO YOU.

A: No. They hear me but listening is very difficult.

Q: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY THE DIFFERENCE IS?

A: Everybody who has normal ears can hear but listening needs something more than ears. It needs a silent mind behind it.

Listening means you are not interfering in any way, not interpreting, not saying yes, not saying no, neither believing it nor disbelieving it. Simply listening the way mirror reflects. Only out of such listening, understanding arises.

Understanding is not a belief. The person who only hears may start believing in it but believing is not understanding. It is blind.

Q: DOESN'T UNDERSTANDING LEAD TO BELIEF(*)?

A: No. Understanding is yours. You may have listened to me, you may have listened to the sound of the running water, you may have listened to thousands of things, but understanding is yours, belief you simply heard and borrowed it without bothering even to listen what you are believing in.

The world is full of believers but the world is not full of understanding.

Q: WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A MAN WHO HAS BELIEFS?

A: I don't have any belief and I am against all beliefs. Belief as such is poison.

Q: DID YOU HAVE ANY BELIEF IN AMERICA WHEN YOU WENT THERE?

A: No. I have never had any belief in my whole life. I have lived as an agnostic.

Q: THEN WHAT DREW YOU TO AMERICA?

A: America is new, only three hundred years old. The whole world is very old. A country like India is very ancient. It's conditionings have gone very deep, they have become its blood, bones, its very marrow.

I wanted to see how a new mind, unburdened from the past responds to me.

Unfortunately even three hundred years are old enough.

Q: HOW DO YOU MEAN... OLD ENOUGH TO FORM THE SOCIETY WHICH HAS ANTAGONISTIC IDEAS TO YOU?

A: Yes. It has already prejudices. And it was a great revelation that because its beliefs are new, it is more fanatic about them.

Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK AMERICA BELIEVES IN?

A: First, it believes in a rotten Christianity. At least in the old world there are other religions to create doubt. For example, in India there are so many religions that nobody can safely believe. From everywhere there is criticism.

America can believe in Christianity without any criticism and whenever there is no criticism of your belief you started thinking as if this is the truth.

Criticism is absolutely necessary to keep people alert, not falling into the sleep of blindness, unconscious faith.

Even the very intelligent people in America came across and I was surprised, I could not believe that a well educated man, a professor in the university, tells me that Bible is the word of God. I asked him, "Do you know that Hindus believe Vedas are the words of God, Mohammedans believe that the Koran is the word of God, and all the religions have their own holy book. On what criterion you choose which one is right? Because they are all contradicting each other. And on what grounds you can say that Bible is the word of God?"

And his answer was so stupid. He said, "Because it is written in the Bible. " I said, "It is like a man who told to his friends that my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world."

The friend said, "But how you came to know about it?"

He said, "My wife said it to me herself."

Q: SUCH CERTAINTY? WAS THAT A COMMON EXPERIENCE FOR YOU IN AMERICA?

A: Very common. I have not seen very intelligent people.

Q: DO YOU DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ROTTEN CHRISTIANITY AND LESS ROTTEN CHRISTIANITY, OR DO YOU THINK ALL CHRISTIANITY IS ROTTEN?

A: All Christianity is rotten because it is based on very idiotic belief systems. For example, it believes that God created the world four hundred, four thousand four years before Jesus Christ was born.

Now that is sheer nonsense. That means the world is only six thousand years old and we have proofs in the pyramids that they are far older than the world of the Christians.

We have proof in the Rig Veda that it is far older than the world of the Christians. We have proof in the cities like Harrapur and Mohanjodro in Pakistan that they are at least seven thousand years old. And now we know that there are skeletons found which are thousands of year old and Christianity still goes on believing that the world was created four hundred, four thousand four years before Jesus Christ -- they have not changed it.

Q: I THINK VERY FEW CHRISTIANS NOW HOLD THAT BELIEF. I MEAN POSSIBLY FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS IN OREGON DID BUT I THINK THAT CHRISTIANS (INAUDIBLE) A: No, very few Christians know what Christianity is. That also shows a very unintelligent state. You call yourself Christian and you don't know what is means.

Q: BUT IS THIS, IS THIS THE REASON THAT YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE UNITED STATES? DO YOU BELIEVE IT WAS SOME KIND OF CHRISTIAN PLOT TO MAKE YOU LEAVE?

A: That was one of the reasons. There was a Christian pressure because people who were coming to me cannot remain Christians, cannot remain Jews, cannot remain Hindus.

I am not telling them to drop anything, I am simply making them aware that anything that you have not discovered on your own cannot be a truth that liberates, it can only be a lie that binds you and makes you a mental slave.

My whole approach is of deprogramming people and I don't have any programme of my own. So I simply deprogramme -- whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan, it doesn't matter. You may be a communist or a fascist. I simply deprogramme you and leave you clean and innocent as you were born.

Q: BUT CAN YOU DEPROGRAMME AN AGNOSTIC OR AN ATHEIST?

A: The atheist can be deprogrammed certainly but the agnostic cannot be deprogrammed because he has no programme.

Q: SO IF AN AGNOSTIC CAME TO YOU, AS BHAGWAN, WOULD THAT BE A WASTE OF HIS TIME?

A: No. He has come to me from where the real search begins. The unnecessary work of cleansing him is no more needed. We can start searching for truth.

Q: BUT ISN'T THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH A PROGRAMME?

A: No, it is not a programme....

Q: AND IF YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING CALLED TRUTH, THAT'S THE BEGINNING OF A PROGRAMME?

A: It is not a programme. If you believe in certain things as true then it is a programme. But if you simply seek and search and explore into your own consciousness, you become more aware and more alert to whatever is the case.

You discover the truth by becoming more aware. The truth was not part of the programme.

Q: BUT YOU BELIEVE IN SOMETHING CALLED TRUTH?

A: I do not believe, I know. Belief is for those who do not know.

Q: SO YOU KNOW TRUTH?

A: Certainly.

Q: TO GO BACK TO AMERICA AGAIN, APART FROM THE CHRISTIAN PRESSURE ON YOU, WHAT OTHER PRESSURES DO YOU THINK WERE ON YOU?

A: The political pressure was there because I had created a commune which was really a far more superior form of communism that exists anywhere else in the world because there was no dictatorship, no government at all, yet five thousand people were living, working, meditating.

These five thousand people transformed a desert into an oasis, made it capable of feeding all the people, made the houses for all the people -- beautiful houses with all modern facilities. The whole city was centrally airconditioned, perhaps the only city in the whole world.

Five thousand people were eating into one restaurant, one kitchen for all. There was no use of money in the society and that was my basic idea: to drop poverty, richness, without any dictatorship, without any enforcement.

Everything that you needed was provided by the commune. Money could not be used. You can donate to the commune but you cannot purchase anything by money. Money was just useless.

People started to come to see because this land has been lying dead for almost fifty years. Nobody was ready to purchase it. And it was not a small piece, it was one hundred twenty-six square miles. It was almost a small country.

And they were all thinking that we are going to fail, we cannot make that land to produce anything. And we produced everything. Food, vegetables, fruits, milk products... and our people lived with such comfort and luxury that it became necessarily a target for jealousy of the neighbors. They have been working in their ranches which were better lands, for generations and they could not manage to have such luxury. And the government became aware that we don't have any power, we don't have much money, and yet we have been able to manage a society for four years without any crime, without a single beggar. No rape, no murder, no suicide, nobody going mad.

The politicians certainly became aware that soon this will become a comparison:

`What you are doing?'

And we had invited the president, the governor, the attorney-general -- all the people concerned, to come and be our guest and see what we have done. And we are ready to teach the other ranchers in Oregon whatever we have done.

But not a single politician dared to come. On the contrary they started hundreds of legal cases against us, unbased because we won almost in all the cases but it was sheer wastage of energy. Four hundred sannyasins were continuously engaged in legal battles with the government and soon they became aware that legally they cannot defeat us. Then they started being illegal, and arresting me was absolutely illegal.

They had no warrant, they could not show me any reason why they are arresting me and they arrested me with twelve guns surrounding me, a man who has nothing but a robe on his body, and in the court for three days they could not prove anything against me. The U.S. attorney accepted on the last day that "We failed to prove anything, but still we will not give bail to Bhagwan here, we would like him to appear in Oregon's court... the bail will be decided there."

Now this was very strange because six of my companions were given bail. To me they will not give bail and they have not proved any crime.

Q: HAS ALL THIS MADE YOU FEEL VERY BITTER (INAUDIBLE)?

A: No. Just it gave me a good experience which I may have missed.

I loved those twelve days in jail. They prolonged it, it was only eight hour journey to reach to Oregon and that's what the court has promised, that they will not give bail to me, they will send me immediately to Oregon and then they started moving me from one jail to another jail trying indirectly to harass me in every possible way. They knew that I have allergies so I was put with inmates who were continuously smoking and that gives me tears in the eyes, coughing, and finally asthma attacks. They will put me just between two television sets and those television sets will start six in the morning and will go on full speed, loudly till the middle of the night so that I cannot even sleep for a single moment.

And after the television sets will stop they must have managed that the cell mates will start talking cell to cell loudly, and this will continue the whole night.

Twelve nights I had no sleep.

Q: WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WERE IN JAIL WITH YOU?

A: They were very beautiful people. Better than the bureaucracy, better than the politicians. And I was really surprised that the criminals are far better than the people who think they are maintaining justice.

They were more human, more loving. They took care of me in every way.

Whatever they could bring: soap, toothpaste, or a toothbrush... and they will say that it is absolutely new, we have not touched it, we have not used it. And I will ask the authority's for the same things, I will ask and after twenty-four hours, toothpaste will appear, then there will be no toothbrush. And I will ask them, that "What kind of stupidity is this? What I will do with this toothpaste? Where is the brush?" Then again twenty-four hours I have to wait for the brush to appear.

I will ask for vegetarian food -- it is not available. I will ask for fruits -- they are not available.

And the inmates in the jail will bring fruits for me and they will say, "They are available for us, but for you they are not available. So we can give you our share because we can eat everything else, you cannot eat anything else." And I saw a very human, loving heart in the prisoners.

One thing more I was surprised to know. They took me in five jails in twelve days. I could not come across a single white prisoner, all were black.

Q: HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

A: That simply means that those jails are not really to prevent crime and those black people are rebellious people and they are a threat to the government and they are in jail six month, eight month, nine months, without any trial.

And they all ask me that "Tell to the press that they don't give us any trial. They don't show us what crime we have committed except that we are black, we are not aware of any other crime."

So it seems that all those jails are maintained to prevent the blacks becoming a power.

Q: COULD IT NOT BE THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE POORER THAN THE WHITE PEOPLE? POOR PEOPLE ARE MORE CRIMINAL THAN RICHER PEOPLE.

A: They are poor but even a poor man cannot be kept in jail for nine months without trial. And to keep a person nine months without trial means you are afraid that he has not committed crime, and by the court he will be released.

And you are punishing him already without proving the crime.

It is true that poor people are more prone to commit crimes than the rich because the rich have already committed all the crimes and they have been successful.

To commit crime is not criminal, it is to be caught that is criminal. And to catch the rich person is difficult. To catch the poor is always easy.

Q: TALKING OF CRIMINALS OR PEOPLE WHO ARE ACCUSED CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE BEHAVIOR OF ONE OF YOUR FORMER DISCIPLES, SHEELA. WHAT'S YOUR EXPLANATION ON THAT?

A: It is really human. To commit crime is human. The way the society is managed, the way we create ambition through our education, promotes crime.

We create the desire in people for power, for riches, which they cannot fulfill by direct means. Then there are only two alternatives. Either to remain your whole life suffering with inferiority complex, or to go criminal -- find some shortcut to become rich and be powerful. And that's what happened to Sheela.

And particularly because she was a woman, it is even more obvious. Because women have been kept out of power, out of positions for centuries.

In the commune my effort was that this should not be the case. The women should be given equal opportunity. In fact, more opportunity than men to compensate. And for three and half years I was in silence, in isolation, and she had all the power, so it is very human.

She was from a poor family, she was just a waitress in a hotel when she had come to me. She had never seen so much money -- three hundred million dollars suddenly can make anybody mad.

Q: SO IT WAS JUST TOO BIG A TEMPTATION?

A: Yes, it was too big a temptation and she could not tolerate. She could not manage.

So I am not angry at her at all. I simply feel compassion.

Q: WOULD YOU WELCOME HER BACK IF SHE CAME....?

A: Certainly, if she comes she is welcome. Because I can understand human weakness and human weaknesses should not be punished. They should be understood and they should be helped to be cured.

And she had immense power because five thousand sannyasins were there under her and one million sannyasins around the world were under her because I was in isolation and she was my secretary and she was the only communication between me and the sannyasins.

Seeing so many people under her power she got suddenly an unconscious urge to remain in this power forever.

Now the only problem for her was if I start speaking again that will be the end of her whole power trip. So she was afraid, she wanted to kill my personal physician for the simple reason so she can plant her own personal physician for me, who can keep me alive but not healthy enough to be active again in the commune -- a simple logical thing.

She was persuading me that I should not start speaking because it will endanger my health.

I said to her, that "I have always lived spontaneously... the moment I wanted not to speak I stopped speaking. Now I want to speak. Tomorrow morning I will start speaking. I never think of the consequences."

And the day I started speaking the whole commune was dancing out of joy in the streets except Sheela, she was very sad and after that I have not seen her happy, joyous, smiling... in fact she started disappearing from the commune for long trips to other communes in Europe, in Australia, in Japan.

And as she was away people started opening their mouth that what she has been doing in these three and half years.

I had no idea that she could even bug my own room. But I can understand the fear that perhaps I am thinking to make somebody else my secretary, or something, so she must be aware.

She bugged almost two hundred houses in the commune. She far exceeded Nixon -- that was the comment of the F.B.I. people when they came to find out all the bugging and she had used far more sophisticated instruments. She was taping all the telephones that were going out of the commune, just out of fear that somebody may be speaking against her. And as she became aware that I am becoming aware of all these things she escaped.

(Tape side B) And I invited all law enforcementing authorities, state police, federal/government police, F.B.I., and for one month we gave them places to live, they were our guests, and we helped them to find out everything that she has done.

And this is where I am surprised: we helped them to find all the crimes that she has done and the people, a small clique of her... who have all escaped. And in the court they started throwing all those crimes on me.

It was really surprising that the politicians can be more criminal minded than anybody else.

Q: BUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO SURROUND YOU OR WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS, AND YOU YOURSELF, ARE CONCERNED WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. BUT ISN'T IT VERY SAD AND VERY IRONIC THE REASON THAT YOU'RE SO FAMOUS NOW IN THE WORLD HAS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. IT'S GOT TO DO WITH COURT CASES, SECRETARIES WHO TRIED TO POISON, THE NUMBER OF ROLLS ROYCES YOU HAVE -- HASN'T SOMETHING GONE TERRIBLY WRONG....

A: No, nothing has gone wrong. It simply shows the mind of the world. The world is not interested in truth, the world is interested in something sensational.

Truth is not sensational. The world is not interested in enlightenment, the world is more interested in Rolls Royces.

It simply shows the mind and the psychology of the world, and I don't own a single Rolls Royce.

Q: BUT YOUR COMMUNE IN OREGON CERTAINLY (INAUDIBLE) A: My commune owned ninety-three Rolls Royces. And I want to know the world that if five thousand people together can manage ninety-three Rolls Royces, five hundred other cars, one hundred airconditioned buses, five airplanes, and they can live in perfect luxury, there is no need for anybody to be poor....

Q: WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN TITILLATION AND SENSATION, SPECIALLY THE WORLD'S NEWSPAPERS AND WORLD'S TELEVISION STATIONS, ISN'T IT IN WAY PERVERSE TO HAVE NINETY-THREE ROLLS ROYCES KNOWING THAT THAT WHAT'S THE WORLD WILL BE INTERESTED IN?

A: No. In fact I wanted the world to know that we have ninety-three Rolls Royces because that is the only way to make any bridge to the world. And then I can talk about truth and enlightenment too, by the side.

Without Rolls Royces there is no communication at all.

I know my business perfectly well.

Q: SO YOU WOULD ARGUE THAT THE ROLLS ROYCES WERE A KIND OF GIMIC WHICH WOULD INTEREST PEOPLE.

A: Yes. Certainly everything I did and I do is concerned with the people's psychology, in what they are interested. And then I can turn them in what I am interested, but first let me have their hand in my hand.

You just see they are interested in diamond watches but this is not a diamond watch, these are just stones, ordinary stones. But it is enough to befool them.

It has no value at all, it has been made by my own sannyasins and they have done it, such a beautiful job, that it is almost half a million worth watch if it is made in real diamonds.... But it can defeat real diamonds. And my purpose is served.

Q: BECAUSE THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE A WATCH....

A: Yes, my purpose is served. Once they get interested into anything with me, they are caught in my net.

Q: THIS SEEMS TO BE THE OPPOSITE OF THE TRADITIONAL INDIAN SWAMI....

A: It is, it is.

Q: .... RENOUNCE THIS WATCH.

A: It is because I am absolutely opposite the Indian ancient tradition, I am against it and I want it to be completely dead. It has destroyed the country.

Those people who renounce the world are the people who have kept the country poor because in their renunciation the country could not develop science, technology. It is such a vast country, small countries have been invading it and defeating it.

For two thousand years it has remained a slave to anybody.

Who is responsible for this slavery, this poverty? If you make people's mind against the world you are making their mind against all progress.

Q: SO YOU WOULD HAVE NO TIME FOR PEOPLE LIKE GANDHI, OR....

A: No place.

Q: HOW ABOUT SWAMI VIVEKANAND?

A: No.

Q: RABINDRANATH TAGORE?

A: Rabindranath Tagore is a different person. I love him. And he was never in agreement with Mahatma Gandhi.

Q: SO WHAT WOULD YOU BLAME, HINDUISM, FEUDALISM?

A: All the religions, all the religions in India, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Mohammedism, Christianity... they all have done simply destructive acts against this land and its people and they are still doing it.

Q: BECAUSE THEY TEACH PASSIVITY AND RENUNCIATION, THAT YOU ARE PLACID AND RENOUNCE THE MATERIAL WORLD?

A: First they are all against materialism, that creates an schizophrenic mind because you are not just spirit. You are as much matter as you are spirit. To me matter and spirit are not two things. Matter is visible, spirit is, spirit is invisible matter.

We have to drop that dichotomy between matter and spirit. All dualities are dangerous because then either you become a spiritualist against materialism or you become a materialist against spiritualism -- in both the ways you remain half.

So the East remains poor as far as materialism is concerned and the West remains poor as far as spiritualism is concerned. But both are poor. While both could have been rich. Just the division has to be dropped.

So the first thing: renunciation of the world is simply nonsense.

I teach the art of living.

Not of renouncing, but of rejoicing.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF THIS YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

A: No.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF YOUR PROVINCE(*) YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

A: No.

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT THIS ASSEMBLY THAT NOW SURROUNDS YOU WITH BARE FEET, SITTING CROSSLEGGED, OWES SOMETHING TO HINDUISM?

A: No, nothing, nothing.

Q: HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF THEY ALL SAT ON CHAIRS?

A: They can. Nobody is preventing.

Q: BUT NONETHELESS, YOU ARE THE GURU AND THEY ARE DISCIPLES.

A: No. I am not the guru and they are not the disciples. I am just a friend and they are my fellow travellers. And it is not expected from my side that they should be grateful to me.

But if being with me they feel love, they feel gratitude, that's a totally different story. It is not expected, it is simply a happening.

Q: HAS ALL THIS SURPRISED YOU, THE FACT THAT YOU'VE BECOME VERY FAMOUS, INTERNATIONAL FAME, AS A BOY FROM MADHYA PRADESH?

A: It just appears to me a misfortune. It was far more beautiful not to be known at all. It had more freedom, more silence.

Q: I THINK IN MANALI SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO YOU SPOKE. WAS THAT ONE OF YOUR FIRST MEETINGS?

A: Not my first meetings but the first time I started the movement of sannyas.

And it seems we have come round the whole circle.

Q: IS THAT WHAT DREW YOU BACK TO THIS PLACE?

A: Ya, I love this place.

Q: DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS AN INDIAN?

A: No. I never think in terms of any division: of nation, of religion, of caste, of color... no. I belong to this earth and the whole earth belongs to me.

Q: AND YOUR FAMILY, YOUR MOTHER AND (INAUDIBLE). THEY ARE YOUR SANNYASINS (INAUDIBLE). HAS THAT BEEN CONFUSING; THE FACT THAT YOUR MOTHER IS A DISCIPLE OF YOURS AS WELL AS YOUR OWN MOTHER?

A: No, not at all. Because to be a mother is nothing special. Every woman is doing it and all the animals are doing it. But to be a mother and yet to have courage enough to listen to one's own son is something special and rare and in that way my family is rare. My father was a disciple, my mother, my all brothers, my uncles -- my whole family.

It needs guts. They have taken a great step.

Q: YOUR MOTHER IS A LADY OF WHAT, SEVENTY-FIVE OR EIGHTY?

A: Must be seventy-five.

Q: AND YOUR FATHER WAS A CLOTH MERCHANT?

A: He was a cloth merchant.

Q: DID HE WISH THAT YOU WENT INTO THE FAMILY BUSINESS?

A: In my childhood certainly and the ...(inaudible). From my very childhood I was a problem to him and to my family because whatever I wanted to do I will only do that; whatever the cost and whatever the consequence. It took few years for them to understand me but finally they realized that it is better to let me go on my way and not to interfere but just to help me whatever I want to become, let me become.

And before my father died he had tears in his eyes and he said, "Please forgive me if I have been rude to you in your childhood and sometimes tried to force you to do things that you never wanted to do. Just forgive me, because I was not aware what you can become and it was out of simple ignorance that I was trying to force things on you and I am sorry for that"... just before he died.

Q: YOU SAID IN AN INTERVIEW LAST WEEK OR THE WEEK BEFORE THAT WHEN YOU DIE YOU WANTED TO BE FORGOTTEN AS AN (INAUDIBLE).

DID YOU REALLY SAY THAT?

A: That's true.

Q: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

A: That simply means my whole approach to life is that the past should not be a burden on the present.

The past is like dust covering a mirror. It distorts the vision and it becomes heavier and heavier and does not allow you to live in freedom in the present and the same is true about the future.

If you think too much of the future while you are thinking of the future the present is slipping by from your hands which is the only reality.

If this is my approach about others, that the past should be forgotten, I don't want to be a burden for anybody in the future, because then I will be a past. I would like to be forgotten completely as if I had never been here. Just the way a bird flies in the sky and leaves no footprints in the sky, I would like to disappear like those footprints. So that I am no more a burden on anybody.

This is simply part of my philosophy and the very logical conclusion of it.

Q: BUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE GATHERED WITH YOU HERE OBVIOUSLY TEND NOT TO BELIEVE THAT....

A: That is up to them. That is their freedom.

Q: DO YOU TRY TO DISSUADE THEM FROM THE IDEA THAT YOU WILL SOMEHOW LIVE ON IN SOME KIND OF PHILOSOPHY OR RELIGION.

A: No. I will try to do what I am doing, that: be here with me while I am here with your totality, don't think of the future and when I am gone, I am gone.

And if you have lived with me you would know how to say goodbye. One has to learn to say goodbye too.

Even if with tears you have to say, but you have to say goodbye.

If Gautam Buddha has taught that there would have been no Buddhism. If Jesus has taught that there would have been no Christianity. These people are responsible for all that has happened in the history -- bloodshed, wars, unnecessary tortures... people were burnt alive.

The best thing will be that we learn from these people, we live from these people and then when they are gone, they are gone. We are again free, we are again alive and the future is there which is always growing. There will be always people who can be your friends. Why I should prevent you from having fresh friends, why should you carry my corpse on your shoulders?

Q: BUT THEN BHAGWAN WHY BOTHER TO WRITE BOOKS?

A: I have not written a single book.

Q: THEN MANY BOOKS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN YOUR NAME.

A: They are just my talks, my discourses. I have not written anything.

Q: DO YOU BELIEVE IN ANY KIND OF LIFE AFTER DEATH?

A: I don't believe, I know.

Q: DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING?

A: With me belief word is non-existent. Either I know or I don't know. When I know, I know.

There is life before birth, there is life after death. In existence nothing dies.

In existence everything continues, moves, in new forms but there is no end to anything.

Q: BUT DO YOU THINK THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF YOURSELF CAN EXIST AFTER YOU HAVE DIED, SOMEWHERE. DO YOU BELIEVE IN TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS OR (INAUDIBLE)?

A: Yes, it can exist because your mind has a certain capacity. If it has a motivation, a certain intensity of desire at the time of death then your consciousness will move in that direction and you will be born into a form that is your desire.

But if you die without any desire, without any motivation, then you are not born anywhere; you are simply dropping like a dewdrop into the ocean, becoming one with the whole.

And that is the goal.

Q: THAT IS YOUR GOAL?

A: Yes.

Q: IS IT DISAPPEARING? TO DISAPPEAR, TO DIE.

A: Yes. And this time I am going to disappear.

Q: BUT NOT FOR SOME TIME YET.

A: No, not for some time now.

Q: WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT END UP? I MEAN, IN THIS WORLD. DO YOU THINK YOU'LL END UP IN (INAUDIBLE) OR SOME PART OF INDIA? DO YOU THINK YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF HERE IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS?

A: Difficult to say because I have my people around the world. They have beautiful communes everywhere and they are all inviting me, so anything is possible. But there are idiotic politicians everywhere, you cannot think to what limit they can be stupid.

The German parliament has passed a law. This seems giving me too much importance... that I cannot enter Germany.

I enjoyed it. I had never thought that Germans are so cowards. I am going to inquire whether I can fly over Germany.

Q: BUT INDIA IS NOT A PROBLEM?

A: Right now it is not but it can be any moment. It all depends on me.

Q: IF YOU KEEP QUIET IT WILL BE OKAY?

A: Yes, if I keep quiet. (laughter) Come again whenever you feel.

Q: THANK YOU.