Chapter 15

[NOTE: This discourse will be in the book "India Coming Back Home", which has not been published, as of August 1992.]

DO YOU THINK THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA IS CREATING A SITUATION WHERE YOU WOULD BE FORCED TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY?

IS THIS PART OF AN INTERNATIONAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST YOUR ORGANIZATION, AND WHAT STEPS DO YOU PROPOSE TO TAKE TO MOBILIZE PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST IT?

India is my mother country, and a mother may be bad or good, alive or dead, but she is still the mother.

The Indian government should not force me to leave this country, for the simple reason that wherever I am in the world I am going to be a problem for the Indian government. The safest thing for the Indian government is that I should be here, and I have not seen any indications that they are trying to force me out.

Yes, I have seen that there is an international conspiracy to keep me as far away from my disciples as possible. For that, it's a good idea to keep me in India and refuse visas to all foreign disciples of mine. That's what is being done.

An international conspiracy cannot destroy my organization because there is no such thing in existence. It is simply a movement. I am against organizations. But the conspiracy is there because my movement of sannyas is for the freedom of the individual, freedom of expression, freedom of movement around the world, because it is one world and we should not be debarred by political lines.

My movement is basically a process of deprogramming. Hence, all the religions are against it because the Christian or the Hindu or the Mohammedan entering my movement just becomes a human being. And as far as mobilizing the masses to fight against such a conspiracy, my movement is not a movement of the masses; it consists only of the intelligentsia. Why should I drag the masses into it? And I don't want it to be in any way violent or political. If anything has to be done against this conspiracy, it is just to expose it, and the exposure will be the end of it. Conspiracies cannot live in the light; they need darkness WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA DO SO THAT THE INDIAN PEOPLE CAN BENEFIT FROM YOUR TEACHINGS?.

The first thing is that if the government of India really wants the people to be benefited by my teachings, they should make every effort that I should not have to leave the country.

Secondly, in case I have to go out of the country, they should make me available on all the news media to reach the masses in India. Right now it is not very democratic because eighty percent of the people cannot read. Only newspapers are in private hands, so that means that only twenty percent of the country has the benefit of freedom of expression.

The radio is the government's, and one hundred percent of people can hear; the television is the government's, and one hundred percent of people can see. If the government thinks really democratically then television and radio should not be under government control. The news media are such a force to protect the rights of the people that the government should not keep it under its own control. It needs guts, but a government has enough control and enough power already, so why should it be afraid? In fact, it should learn to give freedom to all methods of news in the hands of the people. It will be benefited by how people are thinking, what they are thinking, how many viewpoints there can be about one thing. The government will be benefited and the people will be immensely protected.

So I would like them to make the news media available to me as it is available throughout the world.

COULD YOU PLEASE CLARIFY FOR US YOUR CONCEPT OF NEO- SANNYAS, AS COMPARED TO THE TRADITIONAL CONCEPT OF SANNYAS WHICH IS PREVALENT IN THIS COUNTRY?

The old sannyas means renunciation of life. It is anti-life. It is because of this anti- life attitude that India has remained a slave for two thousand years, has suffered all kinds of indignities, has remained the poorest nation in the world.

I blame all your religions for keeping India in such a miserable state because the moment you start thinking of renouncing life, you stop being creative. That's why, although we were the first in the world to invent mathematics, we could not produce an Albert Einstein. We should have produced an Albert Einstein nearly three thousand years ago, but this anti-life attitude that all is illusory, matter is illusory, the world is illusory, naturally created a climate in the country that was very uncreative.

We were the first in the whole world to discover the science of astronomy, but the "anti" attitude stopped it. What is the point of learning about the stars? -- it is all illusory. We were the first to develop surgery and invent surgical instruments, and yet we could not develop a medical science. Naturally, the body is something you have to be against. So on the one hand it destroyed India's intelligence; on the other hand it created a false kind of contentment in every misery, every suffering, poverty, disease, sickness, old age, death. That's why we have suffered so much but have not been able to go through a real authentic revolution.

So I am absolutely against the old idea of sannyas. My vision of sannyas is just the opposite of the old. The old is renunciation of life; my sannyas is rejoicing in life, but rejoicing in such a way that you still remain aloof -- dancing, but deep down inside you there is a center, unmoving. In other words, you should be in the world but the world should not be in you.

There is a certain relationship between the ancient tradition of tantra and my philosophy. Tantra is perhaps the only tradition in the whole universe which accepts man in his totality, which does not condemn anything but, on the contrary, tries to transform everything to higher levels of being.

Man is born of sex: his every cell is full of sexual energy. The more sexual a man, the greater the possibility of him being creative. For example, you cannot find in the whole history of man a single impotent man becoming self-realized or becoming a great painter or musician or dancer or scientist or poet. It is strange that we have ignored the question of why the impotent man has never been creative. Certainly he is missing creative energy. And the whole credit for answering the question goes to tantra. Almost five thousand years ago it recognized sex as the basic energy of man and it discovered almost everything about sexual energy.

If it moves downwards -- that is, if it is moving with instincts and biology -- then it reproduces life. It is not committing a sin, it produces children. Otherwise we would not be here. It is good that our forefathers did not listen to the idiots who were teaching against sex. Otherwise none of us would have had any possibility of being here. But they did not listen to them, so life continues.

Those who have listened to them have become monks, nuns -- they have created all kinds of perversions. Homosexuality was born in monasteries -- Buddhist, Christian, Jaina, Hindu -- because you cannot change something natural just by taking a vow of celibacy. Your biology does not listen to your vow; it does not know that you have become a celibate. It goes on producing sexual energy and that sexual energy needs expression. And all the religions took people away from life, closed them in monasteries, separated man from woman, and naturally created the situation where sooner or later women will become lesbians, men will become homosexuals.

And now the ultimate result has come -- AIDS. I call all the religions responsible for it. And all the governments are responsible for it because they have not created a law against celibacy. Celibacy should be a crime! Anything against nature should be a crime.

Tantra says that energy moving downwards is reproductive of children -- nothing is wrong in it; but the same energy can do much more, it can move upwards too. And there are simple meditations in which the sexual energy starts turning upwards. There is recent research that our sexual center is not in the genitals, it is in the mind. So if the energy starts turning towards the mind it again creates something, it creates a new man out of you, it makes you luminous, it makes you tremendously blissful and, ultimately, it brings you to the point where you can experience the meaning of life.

I am simply astounded that five thousand years before there were people in this country of such tremendously revolutionary minds. If I am condemned even now, what must have happened to those people? And tantra is not my only teaching, it is just a drop in the ocean. Tantra was their whole teaching. But it seems that before Buddha and Mahavira, India had a respect for exploration, for the unknown, for people who bring new facts of life to light. Before Buddha and Mahavira sannyas was exactly what I am making it now, it was life affirmative.

The seers and the rishis of the UPANISHADS were all married people, they had children, they were not celibates and they had not renounced life. They had all the comforts in the GURUKULAS for themselves, for their students.

But Buddha and Mahavira created a tremendous calamity for the country. These two persons I respect in many ways but I cannot forgive them for giving the idea of a sannyas which is anti-life.

And as these two people gave the anti-life idea of sannyas, Hindus followed suit because their sannyasins started looking poor. In comparison to a Buddhist monk or a Jaina monk, the Hindu sannyasins started questionning having a wife and children and a house -- so what is the difference between him and another ordinary household man? Those other people are real saints. So that gave a turn to the Hindu mind also, that the Hindu sannyasin had to become a celibate; and Shankaracharya is responsible for it.

These three names I cannot forgive: Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Shankaracharya.

These three people, unknowingly, have proven the greatest enemies of this country. My whole effort is to restore a beautiful idea of sannyas that was alive in the days of Upanishads, in the days of VEDAS. But so much time has passed that whatever I say looks as if it is new. In fact, truth is never new, never old, it is always the same. It has to be discovered again and again -- if you lose track of it, it has to be discovered again.