Chapter 18

[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: BHAGWAN, THE QUESTION I WANT TO ASK YOU IS, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR VISIT? WAS IT PRE-PLANNED, OR JUST SPONTANEOUS?

A: My whole life is spontaneous, nothing is pre-planned. My friends have been here, they have been asking for many years for a visit. I have a commune of sannyasins in Nepal, and hundreds other sannyasins. But the moment for me to feel that this is the time to go never came before.

Right now I was without any occupation, just resting in the Himalayas. I thought it will be a perfectly good time to visit these people. So it was simply spontaneous.

Q: YOU WERE DESCRIBED IN A PHRASE AS BEING VERY ANGRY ABOUT AMERICA. IS IT TRUE?

A: For thirty years I have never been angry about anything or anybody. But people may have felt that I am angry, because whatever I have said about America goes against the common illusion about America, that it is a democracy.

My own experience of four and a half years in America is totally different. It is just a mask of democratic principles. Behind it is simply a fascist regime. And it is not being said out of anger. It is simply a fact. But when a fact hurts you, you think I am angry.

I am not angry.

Q: HOW DOES ONE BECOME BLISSFUL? FOLLOWING IN YOUR FOOTSTEPS, OR THERE ARE OTHER WAYS?

A: Nobody can become blissful following anybody's footsteps, including me. The follower always remains a carbon copy. I am against all following. One should find one's own way. That's the only way one can be blissful and one can find the truth.

The people who are with me are not my followers, they are just my friends. And my whole teaching is that they should become more and more independent of any organized religion, of any gurudom, they should be more individual and they should think for themselves. I do not teach faith. On the contrary I teach the reasoning, scepticism, intelligence, because faith has been the failure of whole humanity. The people who believe are going to become blind. Every belief makes you blind. So my whole effort is to destroy all your beliefs, to deprogram you, and to leave you alone to be yourself.

If one can manage to be oneself then there is nothing else to be done. That very phenomenon to be oneself is the beginning of a transformation that makes you a new man; blissful, fulfilled, full of contentment.

Now there is nowhere to go; you have arrived. Just to be oneself is to be at home.

Q: THIS IS MY FINAL QUESTION. AFTER THAT, ARYA(*) PRAKASH(*) YOU ARE BELIEVED TO BE THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL MAN IN THE WORLD, AND YET IT IS NOT CLEAR WHAT IS THE CONTROVERSY. CAN YOU GIVE ANY COMMENTS?

A: It is true that I am the most controversial man in the world, and it is one of the controversies that nobody knows what is the controversy. I myself don't know.

Q: WHAT PART DOES SEX PLAY IN YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE?

A: Nothing. I have spoken on sex because it plays so much significant role in all the religions of the world. They are all against sex. They are all repressive. They teach people to be against sex, against life, to renounce life, to renounce the pleasures of life. Because of them I had to speak that it is all nonsense and it is against nature.

Their whole teaching makes people perverted. A repressed sexually person is a perverted person and ninety percent of psychological insanity is created by sexual perversions. And they have made the whole humanity perverted.

Homosexuals they have created. The homosexuals were created in the monasteries because you forced men to live separately from women, and women to live separately from men. Naturally the women became lesbians, men became homosexuals.

All the religions of the world are responsible for homosexuality and the other perversions. Even because of a repressed mind people have made love to animals. And now the homosexuality has brought the world to the ultimate destructive disease AIDS. And all the religions are responsible for it.

I have spoken against repression because I want sex to be accepted, just as you accept everything else in life naturally -- sleep, eating, clothing, you don't make any fuss about it. But there are religions, for example Jainism believes that clothing is unspiritual. Now if you make clothing unspiritual then you will create trouble for many people. Even the Jainas themselves have never been able to go out of India, for the simple reason that the climate will not allow them to remain naked. And it is stupid, because their five thousand years of teaching and there are only twenty two naked monks in India. It cannot be called a great achievement, in five thousand years only twenty two people; and one dies and is never replaced because even in India in cold climate you need clothes. Perhaps in summer you may be able to live without clothes, but this is stupid. Why torture your body?

All the religions have been teaching about fasting. I am against. Either there are people who are teaching 'Eat, drink and be merry.'

There are thirty million Americans who are dying because of over-eating. Now these are idiots. And there are people who are teaching for fasting, 'Don't eat.

The longer you fast the more spiritual you are.' I cannot conceive that to be hungry can in any way be synonymous with spirituality. If this is so then the whole world should be hungry. And it is good to be poor, and there is no need to destroy poverty, it is a spiritual phenomenon.

I have spoken against these things because all these religions have been teaching unnatural, inhuman, unpsychological principles to be lived by people. But as far as my philosophy is concerned, there is no question to be specially concerned with sex. It is a simple fact of life; there is nothing special in it. At the most it is fun. And after the pill it is nothing but fun. Before the pill it was a dangerous game because you may have produced children and those children will prove a burden to you because they will make you poor. Now after the pill even that burden is removed. Before the pill the woman was a loser, because the women around the world were living simply as reproductive factories continuously producing children. Their whole life was wasted in producing children, bringing them up. They could not get educated, they could not get cultured, they could not understand literature, they could not understand great music or great philosophies. Nothing was available to them. Their only work was just to go on producing children.

The pill has changed the whole thing. It is the greatest revolution that has happened in the world. Now the woman is equal to man. What no other revolution could do the pill has done; it has made the woman equal to man. Now she is not in the danger of being pregnant unless she wants it. So sex is no more just a biological thing for reproducing children. It is simply a beautiful, loving game. If you don't like it, don't play it, but don't try to teach people that it is something unspiritual. It is neither spiritual nor unspiritual. It is just like any other game -- football or volley ball, or playing cards. It is just like that, nothing of any importance.

So in my philosophy of life I do not give any importance to such things.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) A: I will get negative response everywhere. Even I go to another planet, so what is the reason, what is the point. Coming to Nepal I will get the negative response.

So it makes no difference to me whether I am in America, or in India or in Nepal.

Wherever I am, I am going to get the negative response because I am going to speak against people's traditions, against their superstitions, against their religions, against their philosophies, against their whole past. So they are not responsible for being negative. I am responsible, because I have decided to say the truth, whatsoever the cost. And I am ready to pay the cost, and I am paying it.

So there is no problem. Wherever I want to make people negative, I go there. I have come to Nepal, now I will make people negative here. Then I will go somewhere else, where people are still not negative. Unless I have made the whole world negative, I cannot go to another planet, that's the difficulty.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) SEE THE POINT THAT CONTROVERSY (INAUDIBLE) A: It is nothing new. Everything that I say is going to be controversial. For the simple reason, because unless I see that something is wrong, I will not speak.

There is no reason. If everything is right I will remain silent. I will speak only when I see something is wrong. And the moment I see that something is wrong in your tradition, in your belief system, immediately there is controversy.

Because you cling to your conditioning, you think it is your ego. It is not your ego. And because you cannot contradict my argument, otherwise there will be no controversy, either convince me when I am with you there is no controversy, or be convinced by me and be with me, and then there is no controversy.

You cannot contradict my argument, hence the controversy remains. No religion has dared on any point which I have criticized to give the counter argument. I am willing. If you say is reasonable, understandable, I am ready to be convinced, and accept it...

(gap in tape to a259) ... as the mother. Otherwise the bull should be the father. And on what grounds you accept the cow as your mother because it gives the milk? Then there are camels who give milk, goats who give milk, in different countries different animals are used for milk, so they all should be mothers. This is simply stupid.

And in fact calling the cow your mother, and then exploiting it in every possible way; the milk is not for you, it is for the kids of the cow. And you are not giving that milk to the kids of the cow. The milk goes to you. You are exploiting your own mother, depriving your own brothers and sisters. And then the cow becomes old, it automatically reaches to the butcher. Who sells it to the butcher?

All the cows that are owned by Hindus when they become old how they reach to the butcher? You sell them. You sell your own mothers. And to the butcher. And then you go on making movements that cow slaughter should be stopped.

Every slaughter should be stopped, why only cow slaughter. Why there should be this preference? Life should be respected, not only in the cow but in every animal, in everywhere. Reverence for life I accept; but when you start choosing just one certain animal, then you yourself create a controversy, and you don't have any argument for it. Otherwise there is no controversy.

I am willing to accept any reasonable argument, but you are not willing to accept any reasonable arguments, so the controversy remains. You have made me a controversial figure, and I enjoy it. I don't see there is any harm in it. I am doing something that I love, to destroy in every way anything that is ugly, irrational, insane, insensitive. Perhaps you may not accept it today, but tomorrow or day after tomorrow. You will have to accept it. No truth can remain unaccepted forever, and no lie can remain accepted forever.

The BIBLE says that the sun goes round the earth. It is a lie. Galileos proved that the earth goes around the sun. It is a truth. But Galileo was controversial, because the whole Christianity was against him. He was dragged to the court of the Pope and Pope told him that either you will be killed because you are destroying the faith of our people; and Galileo was simply amazed. He said, "In what way? If the earth goes around the sun, why it should affect your faith, your religion? Just because it is written in the BIBLE and you are afraid that if one statement is proved wrong in the BIBLE, then you cannot say it that it is the word of God.

God cannot commit a mistake.

Just because this statement proves wrong, there arises the suspicion, what about other statements? Perhaps they are also wrong? And they are wrong. But Galileo was an old man, almost on the death bed, and he was forced, and he was a man very sensible, and had an immense sense of humor. When the Pope asked him that "You will have to change the statement in your book," he said, "I will change it. But just remember, my changing the statement will not make any difference.

The earth will still go around the sun." And he changed the statement, and in the footnote he wrote that "My changing the statement makes no difference, because the earth does not listen, does not read, neither the sun bothers about Galileo."

But sooner or later the whole Christianity has to accept it. Nobody talks about it, no priest has the courage to say that the BIBLE is right. It is ignored. It is not talked about. But the sentence is there, it is not removed yet. If the Christians had courage, they should have removed it.

After each new invention, new discovery, new revelation of truth, all religions should go for new editions of their religious books. They should keep them up to date. They are not keeping, they are five thousand years old, two thousand years old; and naturally they are carrying thousands of mistakes, for the simple reason because five thousand years before it was not known. Whatever was known was collected. But now we know so much. In five thousand years man has discovered so many things, that every religion has become absolutely irrelevant and I am simply bringing whatever the latest truths and the latest story, either by science or by people who are deep meditators. My own experience I trust more than anybody else.

Q: (INAUDIBLE) THE COW GETS OLD, SHE DIES IN THE HOME (INAUDIBLE) HOW CAN YOU JUSTIFY IT?

A: That simply means why you are poor. You will remain poor. It is uneconomical. To keep a cow that is no more giving milk, no more giving goods for your fields. It is uneconomical, it is (inaudible) poor.

Q: AREN'T YOU CUTTING THE WHOLE POINT?(*) A: No.

Q: YOU SAID THAT 'WHY DO YOU SAVE THE COW AFTER IT STOPS TO GIVE MILK TO THE PERSON,' AND NOW YOU SAY, 'WHY DON'T YOU SELL, IT IS UNECONOMICAL'?

A: Yes, I say it because both the points are true. I would like the cow to be still used for some economic purpose. Just keeping it in a home, feeding it, and letting it die, and you are starving yourself. You cannot feed your cow well, there should be something better which can be managed. For example, there can be a government production where you give your cow. And the government takes care of all cows. When you take thousands of cows together it will be far more economical, and less a burden on the poor people. Rather than the king having so many palaces, it is better to have a great field where old cows can be kept if you want to preserve them and not to kill them. And I love to respect life but you should see that it does not make you so poor that you yourself start dying in the name of religion.

That's what is happening in India. And Nepal is even more poorer than India and it will become more and more poor. You should use machines for milking the cow; you should use more scientific methods for keeping the cow healthy. In the developed countries of the west one cow gives as much milk as forty cows give in Nepal. And you call the cow your mother? And they don't call the cow their mother, but they take care scientifically, and they make it a point that cow helps you economy. Not that it becomes a burden on you. It is just a superstition that you are keeping the old cow. It is not reverence for life. Because as far as reverence for life is concerned, there is nothing -- what about other animals?

What about a dog that is old and is of no use? In India or in Nepal only you will find dogs on the streets, not in developed countries. We don't have any respect for life. You are keeping simply a superstition and sacrificing for it.

And man comes first. Man cannot be sacrificed for anything else. If we can preserve life without harming man and his life, good. But man should not suffer for any superstition. Now this is simply making humanity suffer for superstitions.

In India I am more acquainted. For example it happened that there is a temple in Lucknow, it is Rama's temple, and many monkeys are being fed there; that is thought to be religious just because monkeys are Hanuman. Rama's devotees. So Hindus go to the temple, give food to the monkeys. So many monkeys have gathered near the temple, on the trees, and suddenly one monkey must have got mad, and he started attacking people; and when he started attacking people -- all are not Hindus, and particularly in Lucknow there are many Mohammedans who would not tolerate it. They started hitting those monkeys with stones and sticks, and other monkeys started getting mad, and then it became a great problem. That the road had to be blocked, because nobody could pass from that road. Nobody could reach to the temple. The monkeys will kill him. The parliament has to think, what to do. You cannot kill because the Hindus will be angry, and you cannot leave the situation as it is because it is dangerous to humanity.

Now just a superstition -- monkeys are not gods; and when they start destruction towards human beings then certainly something has to be done. Even if human beings become destructive towards other human beings, you put them in jail. But these monkeys cannot be put in jail because the whole India will go mad. Their gods are being put in jail.

There was a situation that in some parts, of Himalayas perhaps in Nepal also, you have that animal neel gai.

It is not a cow, but it looks like a cow. It is bluish, so it is called neel gai. But just because it is called cow.... It's population became too much, it started coming down to the plains and destroying crops. And the government was worried what to do, because Hindus were absolutely against to kill, because it is a cow. The name is cow only.

(Long gap between Tape sides A and B) A: Be scientific in your reasoning and your behavior. Don't be dominated by your superstitions. That is my basic point. Whatever you do, do it with intelligence, not because your forefathers were doing it. Whether it is intelligent or not does not matter. No, you have to decide that it should be rational and reasonable and you should go with time. So naturally I come in conflict with every kind of people, whether they are Christians, or Hindus or Mohammedans, because my basic point is not to oppose any religion, my basic point is to pull out people from their superstitious background into the light of intelligence and reason. Only then we can live more comfortably, more happily, more naturally, and this earth can become a paradise. But it cannot, because of our superstitions are such.

In America, I was presented by the U.S. marshall himself, a BIBLE telling me that "This is the word of God."

I asked him, "Have you ever read it, from the beginning to the end?"

He was a little hesitant. He said, "No, I have not read it completely. Just few portions which our priest speaks on, then I read it."

Then I said, "You don't know, and you don't have any authority to say that it is the word of God. Five hundred pages in your BIBLE are pornographic, and I don't think God will write pornography."

He was shocked. I said , "You can just open any page and I will show you the pieces which are pornographic. And just now a group of atheists have published all those five hundred pages together...

Q: IS IT ILLUSTRATED?

A: No it is not illustrated. But I am going to publish it illustrated. Because pornography has to be seen, then only you can understand it. Reading you cannot understand it.

The president of that atheist group has written to me that we are making an effort, perhaps it will be banned, but we hope that we have your blessings. I said, I send my blessings. I would love that it is illustrated. They said it will be too costly and beyond our capacity, 500 pages with so much pornography the book will become ten thousand pages if we illustrate it.

But I am thinking to make it the illustrated real holy Bible. But then it hurts. But I am not responsible, you are responsible. You should have taken those pages long before. Why you are keeping those pages? Still there is time. You should take those pages out. The reasonable thing is that those pages are ugly, and because those of pages, I appeal to all the governments of the world to ban the holy BIBLE of the Christians. It should not be allowed in public to be sold, or in a public library, or in any church. But nobody looks into it, even the priests.

I had asked one bishop that can you deliver a sermon on any of the pages out of these five hundred in the church. You have been delivering sermons every Sunday and you choose certain passages. These are BIBLE passages. You can choose, and I am giving you five hundred pages to choose any page. He looked for one week and he said, "I cannot speak on these pages. Those people will kill me, and at least I will lose my bishophood."

But I said, "These are biblical passages."

He said, "I understand that they are biblical passages, but they are so ugly and so obscene that how I will make them spiritual? I cannot, there seems to be no way.

I have thought every possible way somehow to rationalize, but I don't see any way, so please forgive me."

Then I said, "Then it should be rational that you should appeal to your pope, to your high priests, and you have a conference to remove these five hundred pages and make BIBLE pure. And if you cannot do it, then naturally the controversy will remain, I will go on saying it and you cannot defend yourself. Otherwise I am simply stating whatsoever is reasonable." But it becomes controversial because the other party is not ready even to listen. And they don't have any argument. They have forgotten even to argue.

Q: JUST YOU SAID ABOUT ECONOMIC: ALL THE THINGS OF LIFE SHOULD BE SEEN ECONOMICALLY (INAUDIBLE)?

A: They can be. Just you have to be alert, aware of all the findings. For example, we have disturbed the ecology of the earth, and because we have disturbed the ecology of the earth, everything has become disturbing. The earth cannot yield as much as it was possible, the rivers have become dangerous. Bangladesh is flooded just because in Nepal and in India we have cut so many trees that the rivers are reaching to Bangladesh with such a speed in that the ocean cannot absorb with water with such speed. With the trees, the water was slowed down and it was coming with a speed that the ocean was absorbing it. Now it comes with such speed that the ocean throws it back.

Bangladesh has been suffering every year with floods. Poverty has been increasing with every flood, their crops are destroyed.

Now it is simple and human that in Nepal and in India trees should not be cut.

You are killing a whole country, their crops you are destroying. It does not matter that it is not your country. Yesterday it was your country, it was part of India, but now you are no more concerned with those people. They were always poor, now they are more poor than ever. Just simple methods that we can plant trees which is not a big thing. If you cannot plant trees, at least you can put rocks in the river, so that their flow is slowed down and the current is not so great that the ocean cannot absorb. Perhaps trees will take a little time to grow, but rocks are available around every river. You have just to put them in the river and you can save millions of people from poverty and you can show a great respect and love for humanity. It is not your country so it is not an urgent concern for you.

And it will be economical in the sense that if you can help Bangladesh for its crops, that no floods come there, that water reaches only as much as Bangladesh needs, not less not more, Bangladesh will be ready and certainly willing to help you in some way or other. And they can help.

The whole world is living unnecessarily divided into nations. We should start thinking more of the whole globe as one. For example, I just told you that thirty million people in America are dying because of over-eating, and exactly thirty million people in America are dying because they have no food. Now what a simple solution. These thirty million people should be just a little bit human and reasonable. If they are not compassionate on themselves at least they should think that they are killing thirty million people without food, and they are killing themselves also by eating those thirty million people's food. Just a small understanding, just a little reasoning, and sixty million people are saved.

Otherwise sixty million people are going to die. And this seems to be absolutely stupid. I don't see any reason there that it should happen. But it is happening.

And if you say, as I was saying to Americans, they are hurt.

It seems strange. You suggest anything reasonable and people are hurt, because they think they are rational, very rational, very intelligent, nothing more can be rational and nothing more can be intelligent, and if you suggest them something which is more intelligent, they feel hurt. Their egos are hurt.

We should think about everything on a global scale, and now that science has given us so much energy that if we can avoid a third world war, which is in our hands, which is absolutely meaningless; a war is meaningful if somebody wins, somebody is defeated. In a third world war, nobody will be the winner and nobody will be defeated. All will be destroyed, equally destroyed. It has lost meaning, it is no more a game.

So if we can simply make them understand that the third world war is the end of wars, now there is no possibility of war. If you have a little bit of intelligence, and they all have gathered so much nuclear energy that they can destroy humanity seven hundred times, all that energy can be used for creative purposes.

If all that energy is released for creative purposes there will be nobody poor.

There is no need for anybody to be poor, uncomfortable, sick, without medicine, without hospital.

So much energy is ready, but it is kept ready for war, to kill; not to help people to live longer, to live better, to live more comfortably. Scientists have come to a conclusion that every human being can live at least three hundred years. The body has the potentiality to renew itself for three hundred years. And we have been dying so early just because we don't know how to provide the right food for the body so that it can continue for three hundred years, and just think, if an Albert Einstein can live for three hundred years, how much he can contribute to human progress. Because his intelligence will go on growing. If in seventy or eighty years time a scientist can give you so much, in three hundred years it is almost incalculable what will be his contribution. And not only one scientist; all the scientists can live that long. Old age is not necessary. It is just because of our ways of eating are not scientific. We have not chosen them according to any science.

For example, no vegetarian has yet received a single Nobel prize. And I have asked the vegetarians that "Have you any answer? Only non-vegetarians are receiving Nobel prizes. In fact, vegetarians should be receiving more because they are eating purer food, and they are more spiritual as they say. But the reality is that their food lacks certain proteins which make your intelligence. Their food is not sufficient for mind. It is sufficient for the body, so vegetarians remain vegetable. And a simple thing, a non-fertilized egg has to be added to the vegetarian food. And it has all the proteins which the non-vegetarian is getting from meat and other ugly things.

But just the word 'egg' is enough to make them angry with me. All the vegetarians in India are angry with me because I am teaching people to eat eggs; and I am telling them that I am teaching non-fertilized eggs, which are not life, they don't have any life, they are just pure protein.

My feeling is that we are living according to the past, without thinking of all the present discoveries, the present knowledge, and that's why we are poor, unnecessarily live in sickness, in old age, die so soon. Now in Soviet Russia there are people who have reached one hundred eighty years of age; and not one person, hundreds. There are more people who have reached one hundred fifty, and just it is a question of their food, what they are eating. And for centuries they have lived like that, and they have lived long. It is not a new thing, it has nothing to do with communism or Soviet Russia. Just it is a small part where people have always lived long, and they have never had old age. And nobody bothers to look at those people, what they eat, how they exercise, what is the reason that they can live one hundred eighty years, and the man is still young, and still working in the fields like any young man? And you cannot believe that he is one hundred eighty years old.

It has been found that their main diet is yoghurt and it is now a proved fact that yoghurt can give a longer life span. And yoghurt is a simple food. It can be made available to whole humanity, there is no question. Now the fact is known for ten years, but no effort is being made in any country to promote yoghurt. It is just a different kind of curd, which can be available to everybody -- cheap, simple, but it seems we just go on living the way we have become accustomed. Any change seems to be difficult.

And my whole effort is that every change should be the easiest thing in life. We should be ready to change as quickly as knowledge changes. We should keep pace with knowledge; we should not lag behind, and we are really lagging far behind, so I cannot say that every man is contemporary. They are only few men, perhaps a dozen men in the whole world, who can be called contemporaries.

Others, somebody is living five thousand years back, somebody is living two thousand years back, without even bothering that where you have stopped.

And the gap can be filled so quickly, just the young generation has to understand. So my whole approach is to the young generation, and my whole hope is with the young generation. The old are too old to change.

Okay.