My words are only indicators towards silence

Question 1:

Humanity has lived only under the illusion of freedom. But there is no such thing as freedom as far as the history of man up to now is concerned. Slaveries have changed; new forms of slavery have taken their place, but freedom has not happened. Freedom is still a dream. There was a time that man was being sold in the markets just like any other thing. We thought that was slavery, and it took thousands of years to get rid of it - but we could only get rid of the form. The content remained.

Now you don't purchase a man for his whole life, you purchase him as a servant for five hours a day or six hours a day. And it seems that it is freedom - in fact it has been useful to the owners. To purchase a man completely... you cannot use him twenty-four hours a day, he will be working only for those five to six hours. The remaining time you have paid for unnecessarily; sometimes he will be sick, and some day he will become old. And he can die in an accident and your whole investment is lost.

So the change of slavery has not helped humanity, but has helped only the owners - the slaves are still slaves, part-time slaves.

There used to be political dependence all over the world. Those empires have collapsed and that has given a great illusion to nations, that now they have freedom. And whenever some illusion is beautiful you want it to be true, you want to believe in it; but whether you believe in it or not, an illusion is an illusion - it makes no difference.

I have seen in this world tour that great nations which are proud of their independence are simply living an illusion - and they are not deceiving anybody but themselves.

I have never been in Germany. I have done no harm to anybody. I have not broken any law of Germany - and their government decides that I cannot enter Germany.

The pressure is American. After the second world war half of Germany remained with the Soviet Union; it was under the armies of the Soviet Union, and they never left it. So it looks like half of Germany has remained dependent while the other half, which was under the American forces, has been given - on the surface - political freedom, democracy; but Germany remains the biggest military base of America in Europe.

Billions of dollars are being poured into nations, which they can never repay; and America never wants them to be able to repay it, so that they remain burdened, under economic pressure. And America has promised them billions of dollars more in the coming years. Their whole economy is now in the hands of America. And this is a far more dangerous slavery than political slavery used to be.

In fact, in a country like India... Winston Churchill was not in favor of giving independence to India; India was the biggest treasure in the British empire - to lose it was dangerous. And Winston Churchill was right: once you give freedom to India your whole empire will collapse, because then others will start asking for freedom, and there is no reason to say no to them.

But after Winston Churchill, Attlee came into power, and he was a far more economically minded person than Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill was past-oriented; his mind was still Victorian, he was an orthodox man.

Attlee could see the stupidity - that Britain was carrying such an economic burden. Nations like India were going to explode in tremendous overpopulation, and the whole blame of their poverty, starvation, death, would be on the shoulders of Britain. It was absolutely unwise and inadvisable to keep these countries under the British empire.

But you can create a different kind of thing so that you remain the master in a secret way. There are two great advantages: one, because there is no political dependence, there is no question of any revolution against you. Secondly, you can keep these countries still dependent by controlling their economy.

His plan was solid. You will be surprised that Mountbatten was sent to India by Attlee, as viceroy, with the message: "Be as quick as possible to get out of India. We don't want to be blamed for India's poverty - and it is going to be of uncontrollable proportions."

At that time India had only four hundred million people. Now India has nine hundred million people - it has doubled - and by the end of the century it will go beyond one billion people. For the first time it will become the largest country in the world as far as population is concerned. Up to now China has been leading, but China has proved more sane by introducing birth control, because it is no longer under any religious superstitions.

But India still lives under so many religious superstitions - which all agree that birth control is against God. By the end of the century almost five hundred million people in India will be dying of starvation.

And there seems to be no way to help them.

Attlee was right to get out of it as quickly as possible; otherwise the whole responsibility would be Britain's. Attlee had decided that 1948 was to be the deadline. But Mountbatten, seeing India, thought that Attlee's calculations were just theoretical; it was already dying. He hurried, and rather than waiting for 1948 he gave India freedom in 1947.

India thinks it has become free, and it is totally wrong. Now it is more unfree than ever. Now it is dependent on the Soviet Union for its technology. Now it is dependent on America for its financial help. Now it is even getting dependent on nations like Japan. And the facade of freedom continues.

If the Soviet Union pulls itself out of India, India will collapse this very moment.

The same is the situation everywhere, even here in this small, beautiful country consisting of a very nice group of nonviolent people. They believe in democracy, they think they have a democracy; but the reality is something different.

Just five days ago all the three parties that make the coalition government, and the president, agreed on my permanent stay here. And as the American ambassador heard about it, immediately he enquired of America, "What has to be done?"

He phoned the president here and said, "It is up to you to choose - you are free, you have a democracy; we cannot force anything upon you - but this is the message from the White House, that if this man is given a permanent stay here in Uruguay, then all the loans that we were going to give you" - which are billions of dollars in the coming year and the year after - "will be stopped.

"Secondly we will demand that you return the billions of dollars that we have given to you in the past.

If you cannot return them, then we are going to increase the rate of interest. You can choose - you are free."

Now a poor country, a small country, even though they wanted me to be here, cannot afford it: the country will die if all this help stops and they have to pay back old loans, which they have no means to do. Immediately we were informed that it would not be possible, and the White House was informed that the blackmail worked.

It is sheer blackmail. But I am going to expose it to the whole world. It has been done in such a way that nobody will know: the people of Uruguay will not know, even the people in the government will not know. Only the president knows that he has been blackmailed, threatened.

And when the message was received by Washington that they have changed their mind... just the next day they were rewarded, rewarded with an immediate loan of one hundred and fifty million dollars - which was not on the budget, which was a sudden surprise. And a two hundred million dollar loan from the past has been dropped, erased; it will not be asked for again. So in all, the reward is three hundred and fifty million dollars extra. And the loans that have been decided on before will continue, but these three hundred million dollars...

If the president has any sense of honor, he should give me my commission! Without me, he would not have got these three hundred million dollars. And if this is going to happen, I can move from one country to another country; I have got a good business.

But this is not democracy, and this is not freedom.

In fact, going around the world I have come to the conclusion that there are only two countries in the world: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. All other countries are just puppets.

They have been given a little rope and they call it "freedom," but the rope is either in Soviet hands or in American hands.

You must have seen a puppet show - when puppets dance, hug each other, do all kinds of things, and just behind the curtain is the puppeteer who goes on pulling their strings. If those puppets had souls they would have thought, "My God, this girl looks beautiful; I'm falling in love" - but the puppeteer is doing the whole thing. Neither you are falling in love nor the girl is falling in love, but to the public and to yourself too... The puppeteer is managing the show, so you are hugging the girl and kissing the girl, and even saying to her, "I love you and I will love you forever."

In India there has been a long tradition which believes that we are all puppets; God is the puppeteer.

He pulls strings - we dance, we sing, we rejoice, we weep, we cry, we are miserable, we are happy.

Everything is in his hands.

I am against the whole idea, because if there is a puppeteer then man does not exist; then man has no freedom, only a facade. But this seems to be the situation in many fields. And they manage it very beautifully - silently, underground - while on the surface everything is calm and quiet.

Uruguay will never know that a stranger was here, that he had loved the country and the people and he wanted to stay here. And he was absolutely harmless.

But in America's eyes I am the most dangerous man. That's what the American ambassador told the president: "He is the most dangerous man because he is extremely intelligent, and he is anarchist.

And he is powerful enough to change the minds of men. So don't take on this danger unnecessarily.

Even we could not afford this danger - you are a small country; you will repent."

I am not a terrorist. I don't make bombs, and I don't teach violence.

I teach love.

I teach meditation.

I teach silence.

But for the people who are in power these are more dangerous than nuclear weapons because if people start meditating, they will not remain mediocre - as they are. They will become intelligent enough to see that idiots are ruling them, and that those idiots have immense power of destruction in their hands.

If people are silent, peaceful and loving, they will throw out all these politicians - who are nothing but warmongers.

This is the "danger." But I think we need such dangerous people in the world, because only these dangerous people can save the world from being destroyed in a third world war.

But it is easy to create fear. And they did it all the way along: all over Europe, in each country I reached they created the idea that, "This man is dangerous" - so dangerous that England wouldn't allow me even to have an overnight stay in the first-class lounge of the airport.

Fear seems to be infinite.

What could I have done? I reached there in the middle of the night and I was going to leave the next morning. Just sleeping in the lounge of the airport I would have destroyed England's morality, England's church, England's government? I was "a dangerous man."

That's what was told to the British parliament - because the next day the question was asked: "Why was he not allowed to stay in the lounge?" And the answer given was, "He is a dangerous man." And nobody bothered to enquire, "What are the implications of ?a dangerous man'? What do you mean by ?a dangerous man'?"

And the same government allowed Ronald Reagan to use England as a base to bombard a poor and small country, Libya - which was absolutely innocent. And the bombardment was done in the night in a civilian area. To England that was not dangerous. But the reality is, England is under America's economic empire as much as Germany.

The fall of Adolf Hitler and his regime was not the victory of England, was not the victory of France, was not the victory of anybody else than America. With the disappearance of Adolf Hitler, the whole of Europe's freedom disappeared: they all became economically dependent on America.

I have been in Ireland. Perhaps the man at the airport had drunk too much beer so he simply... we simply wanted one day's stay to give a rest to the pilots - he gave us seven days. He did not bother who we were, what the purpose was. He must have been really drunk.

We reached a hotel, and in the morning the police came, asked for the passports, and canceled those seven days.

And we said, "We will make an immediate exposure to the world news media. You have given us seven days, and you have canceled them without giving any reason. None of our people has gone out of the hotel; they have not committed any crime. You cannot do this."

They were afraid, because they were caught in a dilemma. They had given seven days; now they had canceled them, and they didn't have any reason to show why. So they said, "You can stay as long as you want, but don't go outside the hotel."

"But," I said, "that will be illegal because we will not have any visa."

They said, "Nobody will be bothered by it; you just remain in the hotel." We remained there for fifteen days because we needed some time. Our people were working in Spain and the Spanish government was willing to give me permanent residence.

And what happened in Uruguay happened in Spain, exactly the same pattern: they agreed, and immediately, within one hour, they said, "No, it is not possible." We never came to know exactly what happened - but now we know.

Here in Uruguay, because it is a small country, everybody knows everybody else; and we had made contact with all the political parties, all the ministers - who were all favorable except one man, the foreign minister. Seeing that everybody was favorable, he also voted in favor.

He was functioning as an American agent - to create a situation that I should not be given permanent residence - so that America could appear to have nothing to do with it. He had his own price, and the price was to be that America was going to choose him as secretary-general of the U.N. That was the price. I'm sorry for the poor man. He lost his reward because he voted for me - seeing that everybody was favorable.

Now we know what would have happened in Spain: the same story. For one month they were continuously saying, "Everything is ready, just a signature has to happen." So we just wanted time: if Spain was ready we could move from Ireland to Spain. We stayed in Ireland for fifteen days without any visa.

We left Ireland; and the day we left, in the parliament of Ireland the minister concerned, the minister of the interior, informed the members that we had never been in Ireland.

One can see how politicians can be hypocrites, how they can manage ugly lies. And this is such a lie - because we can prove that we were in the hotel. When we were leaving the hotel the press was present and photographers were present. They took photographs of us in front of the hotel and they took my statement. And the hotel is fifteen miles away from the airport.

But the minister deceived the parliament and deceived the country. And perhaps... he must have forced the journalists not to publish my statement and not to publish the pictures; otherwise I don't see how he could have managed it. And these are all civilized countries, cultured people, educated people - and flatly lying, that I had never been in Ireland. And he knew, his government knew, the chief of police knew.

I am thinking that once I get settled somewhere then I will start... one by one each country has to be dragged into court for their lies, for calling me "dangerous," for saying yes and then refusing after one hour. I am going to expose it to the world for the simple understanding that there is no democracy anywhere.

Just yesterday I received an invitation from the prime minister of Mauritius, that he would like me to be in Mauritius. I told my secretary to contact him and make him aware of all the situations that he will have to face, because again one month... He will go through all the procedures, and then finally will come the American hand. "So make him aware that we have gone through this process in Spain, in Uruguay, and this has happened."

In Germany they did not allow my entry - even a tourist visa.

In Greece they allowed me for four weeks, and just after fifteen days suddenly I was arrested without being told any reason. And they threatened - because I was asleep - they threatened my people, "We will put the house on fire." And they showed them dynamite, saying, "We will use dynamite if you don't just give Osho to us. Immediately he should leave this country."

John ran to me. He woke me up, and he said, "This is the situation. What should we do?" While he was saying this to me, the police started throwing big rocks at the windows, at the doors, breaking the house. It seemed almost as if bombs were exploding.

I came down, and I told those people, "You are just being unnecessarily inhuman. If I am asleep they have to wake me up; I have to dress and come down to you. Couldn't you have waited for five minutes? And what is the reason for cutting my visa short? I have been here fifteen days, and I have not left the house."

And he said it was because the archbishop felt that I was dangerous. I could destroy the morality of people, I could destroy their tradition, I could destroy their church; and because he was the head of the church, the government had to listen to him. And the president decided.

I said, "That's perfectly okay that you listen to him, but the president should have asked the archbishop: ?Two thousand years you have been teaching people morality and he will be able to destroy it in two weeks?' Then your morality is not worth anything. And what kind of church have you created in two thousand years which is afraid of a single man who has not left the house, who has not talked to anybody of your country, who has been talking only to his own people? Why should you be worried?"

And the archbishop, who may be sermonizing in the churches, "Love your enemy as yourself," was threatening in the church that if I didn't leave the country I would be burned alive. On the one hand, "Love your enemy" - and I am not even an enemy, just a tourist. But certainly because in their BIBLE there is no saying, "Love the tourist," naturally it does not contradict their religion; they can burn the tourist.

And he was saying that I had been sent from hell directly as a messenger to destroy the Greek Orthodox church. I said, "I am not that special, I am just a human being. To be a special messenger of hell then I would not need any tourist visa. And your government or you would not be able to prevent me either, because for eternity your God has not been able to destroy the devil.

"Your God is omnipotent, he is all-powerful, and the poor devil is not omnipotent and he is not in any way comparable to God; but even God has not been able throughout eternity to destroy the devil.

We don't think he will ever be able to destroy him in the future either, because neither God exists nor the devil exists; neither heaven exists nor hell exists." These are all lies perpetuated for centuries to dominate the mind of man. I call this spiritual slavery.

So there are so many kinds of slaveries, and the deepest is spiritual slavery - of which you are not aware. If you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jew... You will never think that your being a Jew is a slavery, you will think this is your heritage. You will think being a Hindu is a great pride, that you are part of the oldest religion in the world. It simply means you are the oldest slave in the world; you have been in slavery for ten thousand years and still you are not aware that you are a slave.

Spiritual slavery is the most dangerous because it is not from outside. Your hands are not handcuffed. The chains are not visible, they are deep in your mind; and they have been perpetually enforced from the very childhood.

As far as I am concerned, I don't see there is any freedom anywhere. And freedom is the greatest value and the greatest achievement in life. Everyone should be free from all kinds of fetters - political, economic, psychological, spiritual.

Unless we can create a world which is really free, we are living only in an illusion of freedom.

Question 2:

It points to a truth which has to be understood, because my talking to you is basically different from anybody else's talking.

When people talk, they want to convert you to their opinion: it is trying to spread a subtle empire.

When people talk they want to indoctrinate you - because everybody who has a doctrine is deep down afraid about whether it is true or not. The only way that he can feel that it is true is if he can indoctrinate many people and can see in their eyes conviction, conversion. Then he feels at ease, because the arithmetic is: "If so many people are finding so much solace in what I am saying to them, then there must be something true in it."

People are talking to others so that they can believe in what they are talking.

My situation is totally different. I am talking to you not to give you an ideology but to destroy all ideologies that you have. My function is basically negative: it is to empty your mind - not to fill it with new ideas but just to empty it of all old rubbish and junk, to give your mind a space in which you can be yourself.

I am not trying to give you any ideas that you have to become this or that. I am simply trying to help you to see that you are already that which you need to be. Just drop all longing, all desire, all ambition to be someone else, so that you can be just whatever you are.

I don't want to distract you from your being.

I want you to come closer and closer to your being so finally only you are left within yourself.

And my talking to you is also a device. While I am talking to you your mind is engaged, and when your mind is engaged my heart can have a communion with your heart. The mind cannot disturb; it is too much engaged. So my talking is more a technique, a device, rather than a message. Whatever I say to you has multidimensional purposes, but none of them is to make you a slave.

All purposes tend to one goal: to give you total freedom because freedom is your flowering, your lotus opening in the morning sun. And unless that happens you cannot find contentment, fulfillment, a peace that one feels when one comes home.

And everybody is carrying his home within him.

You are not to go anywhere:

You have to stop going, so that you can remain where you are, so that you can remain what you are.

Just be.

And in that utter silence of being are hidden all the mysteries of existence.

Question 3:

I am not a thinker. I am not a philosopher. I am not a man of words. Although I have used words more than anybody else ever in the history of man, still, I am not a man of words.

My words are only indicators towards silence.

I speak so that you can learn how not to speak.

I say things to you so that you can be able to be silent.

It is a very contradictory job.

But I have enjoyed it, I have loved it, and I have found people who have understood the basic contradiction but are not bothered by the contradiction. They have thrown away words and taken the content deep within themselves.

The words are only containers.

The content is silence.

You are right, these words uttered in Uruguay will help millions of people, will reach millions of hearts.

It is unfortunate that Uruguay is going to miss me. It will repent one day.

But it always happens. Judas sold Jesus Christ for thirty silver coins. To him, thirty silver coins must have looked more valuable than Jesus.

But Christians don't tell people the whole story. When Jesus was crucified, the next day - within twenty-four hours - Judas hanged himself from a tree out of repentance, realizing what he had done just for thirty silver pieces. It doesn't matter whether those are thirty silver pieces or three hundred and fifty thousand or three hundred and fifty million dollars - the quantity does not matter.

Uruguay would not have been poorer if it had refused America, because to be blackmailed is to lose your spiritual strength. And if it had refused America, it would have taught America a lesson and it would have proved before other nations, great nations - Germany, Greece, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal - that, "Although I am a small country, I have a bigger heart. You may be big countries, stronger countries, but you don't have any heart."

But it is certain that it will repent one day. Today it has decided in favor of money. But money is not something which can give you spiritual strength, integrity.

My presence here would have brought thousands of sannyasins here. Uruguay would have become a place for holy pilgrimage. It would have strengthened tremendously its spiritual forces. This small country would have blossomed with beautiful people, with new and young and fresh and intelligent people from all over the world. It missed the opportunity.

With those dollars you cannot buy peace, you cannot buy love, you cannot buy silence, you cannot buy compassion, you cannot buy anything valuable. In fact, accepting those dollars you have sold yourself.

And it is better to be poor than to be sold in a marketplace and be a slave.

I want these words to reach to the president of Uruguay, to all the ministers, and to all the people of this beautiful country. Some day they will understand.

That is the only hope for which people of awakened consciousness go on working. In spite of constant failure, in spite of man's ignorance, persistent retardedness, they continue. Their hope is infinite and their patience knows no limits.

I may not be here, but the words that I have spoken here will reach to the far corners of the earth.

And people who have never heard the name of Uruguay will hear the name of Uruguay for the first time. And Uruguay will hear these words, ashamed of itself.

It could have been otherwise. It could have been a pride that where great nations and powerful nations proved to be phony, a small poor country proved to have a soul of its own.

I don't understand the language of the country, but I have seen the people and I feel perhaps there is no other country which is so peaceful, people so at ease. I would have loved to make it my mystery school. But if the host is unwilling, I am not one of those guests who will go on forcing themselves on the host.

If my being here is a trouble to the country in any sense, if it becomes tortured by American fascism...

the president of the country need not have said no to me, I would have left it myself. I would not like any people to suffer because of me.