Chapter 19

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only.]

A: I am not a madman so I cannot be a prophet or a messiah or a savior. All these peoples who have claimed to be prophets, messiahs, saviors are simply crackpots.

For the simple reason I don't belong to their category because there is no God, and without a God you cannot be a prophet, you cannot be a messenger...

messenger who?

And you cannot be a messiah... representing whom?

I am simply a human being and the people who think that I am a rascal raise a very significant question.

There are people who think I am a communist, there are people who think I am a capitalist, there are people who think I am a Hindu and there are people who think I am a Christian. There are people who think that I am a fascist and there are people who think I am an anarchist.

So it is so amusing that I started thinking "Who am I?"

And I found that I am only a mirror, so whoever looks into me finds his own face in me.

If a monkey looks into me he thinks I am a monkey.

Question asked in Italian and translator says as follows:

Q: WHO ARE YOUR FOLLOWERS AND WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS?

A: They are my friends. The very idea of somebody being a follower is humiliating and I cannot humiliate anybody.

To me, each individual has a dignity of his own and all the leaders are criminals because they have reduced people into followers.

And a follower can at the best be a good carbon copy. He can never be his original self.

Only a friend can help you to attain to your dignity, respectability, integrities, individuality....

I don't have any followers. I have millions of friends and millions of enemies. I love both, because both belong to me. In some way or other I am helping both.

Interviewer says Thank you.