The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 6
I have seen the questions for today and they make me feel
ashamed - ashamed that Indian genius has fallen so low. It cannot even ask
significant questions; to find significant answers is absolutely impossible.
All the questions that have been shown to me are simply rubbish: yellow
journalism fulfilling the demands of the third class humanity in which I am not
interested.
This is a country of tremendous intelligence. This country
reached to the highest peak in the history of mankind, the Himalayan peaks of
consciousness. And now it seems we have fallen so low that unless a question is
concerned with something inhuman, ugly, nobody is interested in the answer.
I am not a politician, so whoever dares to ask me a question
should remember that I am not here to console you or to give you answers which
you want. You may get hammered on the head. Because I don't have anything to
get from you in response.
My whole effort is to create a little flame of intelligence,
a little scent of humanness, so before you ask your questions, be aware! I am
not only answering your questions, I am answering the whole mind of a certain
continuity. This continuity is of Gautam Buddha, Kabir, Nanak - and your
questions belong to the gutter. You should ask these questions to the
politicians, don't waste my time.
This is just to indicate to you that if you don't want to be
hammered badly then be alert. The questioner in the introduction says that he
is my old lover; he has been writing against me for years. I can understand -
old lovers are dangerous - love can change into hate very easily. And what kind
of love did you have? You have not written a single word for me, you have been
exploiting me and my name, and in such ugly ways that I feel it below myself
even to answer you. So remember it, and ask your questions.
Most humbly, my first
question: we were all excited about your experiment in rajneeshpuram.
Unfortunately, that failed. Keeping aside the u.s. government and christian
blackmail who is responsible for this failure?
You, and your kind.
First, the experiment never failed. The experiment has been
absolutely successful. That was the problem, that it was successful.
Who cares about experiments which should have failed? Why
should the American government or Christianity or anybody be interested in an
experiment which has failed? It was absolutely successful, beyond their
comprehension. Its success was the problem, so please drop that word `failure';
it does not exist in my vocabulary.
Whatever we wanted to do, we did it! A small commune of five
thousand people against the greatest world power in history survived for five
years and created the commune. And the commune was created in a desert which
had never been cultivated, had never seen flowers, had never seen birds.
Within five years it became an oasis; we made houses for
five thousand people with every modern comfort. We made roads which are better
than any government's, America included.
The desert blossomed, it became green. We cultivated it, we
made dams, created lakes; thousands of birds started coming. It was a miracle
to see that thousands of deer from all over Oregon assembled in that desert of
one hundred and twenty-six square miles.
That said everything, because anywhere except Rajneeshpuram
their life was in danger, they were going to be hunted. In America, for ten
days each year, people are given total freedom to kill deer. In Rajneeshpuram
they were standing on the road; you could go on honking your horn and they
would not move. They knew you, that you were not going to harm them; you would
have to come down and push them to the side.
Swans appeared, in a desert. There were three hundred
peacocks from all over America. It seems that birds and animals are more
intelligent than journalists.
There was a tremendous harmony between the animals, the
birds, the trees, the flowers. We created an ecological system.
We were self-sufficient and we never begged a single dollar
from America. We never asked for any help from America.
You cannot live as a country without American help. You are
a failure, you are beggars. Your country was at one time a golden bird and you
have brought it to this condition.
American politicians were tremendously hurt that their help
was not needed, because that is their way to create slavery. Help is simply a
cover-up. If you take help in money you become enslaved, without knowing. We
never asked for anything.
This was hurting the American politicians - the success. And
each year there was a world festival; twenty thousand sannyasins were coming
from all over the world. That time was a golden dream come true: twenty
thousand people meditating, singing, playing on their musical instruments,
dancing, rejoicing.
Twenty thousand people had one kitchen! Just conceive of
twenty thousand people eating together, while there was dancing, singing, rejoicing,
because that is my basic message: not renunciation, but rejoicing.
Sannyas became degraded because it became associated with
renunciation. It was not so in the beginning. In the days of Upanishad, the
days of Vedas, sannyas was not a renunciation. All your seers had their
communes in forests, rich communes. Poverty has never been praised in the Vedas
or in the Upanishads.
And renunciation is against God. The Sanskrit word for god
is `ishwar', and ishwar means richness, abundance.
Just look at Ram without Sita and you will see something is
missing, something tremendously important is missing. Perhaps the heart is
missing, only the dead corpse of Ram is there. Just think of Krishna without
those beautiful girls dancing around him. His flute will lose its song.
I was trying, in the commune, to bring back the original
sannyas. Not of renouncing the world, but living the world as a gift of god; it
is a gift.
This became a problem because American spectators, American
television, American news media started coming every day - planes started
coming to see the commune, to see what is happening. And the whole of America
was agog to see that these people have turned the desert into a paradise.
We were not politicians. There was no political party, no
political ideology. We were neither communists nor capitalists, and yet we were
living the best life possible - of love, of friendship.
We became a wound to the American politician. The only way
was to destroy the commune, so that the very question would be removed and
there would be no need to answer. The commune was destroyed by the American
government and fanatic Christians because it was the first time that Christians
had moved out of their fold without getting into another fold.
A Hindu becomes a Christian: he leaves one prison and enters
another. A Christian becomes a Hindu: he leaves one bondage and accepts
another. For the first time they saw that you can leave the prison and there is
no need to enter another prison. You can be a free man.
A sannyasin is religious but has no religion. A sannyasin is
a spiritualist but he is not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan, not a Christian. And by
coincidence the American president, Ronald Reagan, is both a third-rate
politician and a fundamentalist Christian.
They tried every means to destroy us. Poor Sheela had
nothing to do with it. She certainly became a victim; I have all compassion for
her. It has to be understood how you can become entangled. All the telephones
from the commune were taped. I was in isolation and silence; Sheela was my
secretary and the president of the foundation. Seeing that all the telephones
were taped , she started taping the incoming calls to find that the government,
F.B.I., C.I.A.,and other government agencies, had their agents in the commune
hiding as sannyasins, who went on giving information.
Sheela was not a criminal. When I chose her as my secretary
she was an innocent woman of great intelligence, but the American politicians
destroyed her innocence. Whatever they were doing, she had to do as a counterattack,
as a defence. All her crimes are basically the crimes of American politicians
which she repeated - just to save the commune.
I have nothing but compassion and sadness for her. She is
not a criminal and whatever she did, there was no bad intention in it. She even
bugged my own room; she bugged two hundred houses. Naturally, logically, it
seems that she was even trying to find out what I do in my privacy, what I say
in my privacy.
That is not true. The truth is that she wanted to be alert
because I lived in a house alone. If in the night anybody opened the doors,
which were of glass, her bugging would inform her immediately and she could
reach there. It was for my protection, not against me. She never did anything
against me or against the commune.
I know she would have died for me, she loved me - not the
kind of love that you have shown me. Your love is simply cunning. You say you
are my lover, old lover, but all these years you have been writing articles so
ugly and obscene that you should be behind the bars, not asking questions to
me.
So drop the idea of failure. We succeeded - it was the first
commune in the whole history of man which succeeded. And remember one thing
about human jealousy: it is never jealous of failure. Have you seen anybody jealous
of failure?
Jealousy is always of success. Seeing a beggar on the
street, do you feel jealous?
But seeing a rich man's skyscraper you feel jealous.
It is a strange mind, undeveloped, retarded. If the same
building catches fire you will feel sympathetic, you will say to the man,
"We all have sympathy for you. It was bad, it should not have
happened." And all the time, when the building was there, every day you
had thoughts against the building and against the man who had made it.
Who is jealous of India? I have been around the world, I
have not found anybody jealous of India. But I have found people who are
jealous of Gautam Buddha, who are jealous of Krishna, who are jealous of Nanak,
who are jealous of Kabir.
Because these diamonds that we created, their countries have
not been able to produce, even to imitate. In all the languages of the world
there are not words which can be compared to Nanak or Kabir. There are not
scriptures which can be compared to Dhammapada and Gita.
If the commune was a failure it would have been still alive,
but it became a success and nobody can tolerate a success.
In the press
conference yesterday you said you are disillusioned and you want the third
world war. But some people like you and me and millions of others are not evildoers.
We want to survive. What is the way? What is the sort of new creation you
envisage?
First, you hear only what you want to hear. You don't hear
me. I have not even used the word 'evildoers'. I have not used the word `evil'
at all. How have you heard it?
I have not said that I am not an evildoer and certainly I
have not said that you are not an evildoer! You must be! This idea is arising
out of your own heart. I had said that I would like meditators, sannyasins,
people who are interested in raising their consciousness, to work hard before
the world disappears in nuclear destruction. I said that you are not only a
body; your body will be destroyed but your being will be transplanted to
another planet. There are fifty thousand planets in the whole span of the
universe where life exists. This tiny earth is nothing. But you never heard
this; you have made the question out of your own mind.
As far as the second part of your question is concerned:
when you were not born were you worried about the world? Were you worried about
what is happening in the world, whether people are living peacefully, lovingly?
If before your birth you were not concerned with the world, after your death
you will not be concerned. Where were you before your birth? - you must have been
somewhere because nothing is destructible. So even if this whole earth is
destroyed you will be somewhere. I am not concerned about that. My concern is
that while you are here use this time - which is very short - perhaps five
years, ten years, at the most fifteen years.
This world cannot be saved, but you can be saved. And that
is a totally different thing. If you can achieve a realization of your
consciousness, then your being is saved. Then wherever you are you are in
bliss, whatever the planet.
This is the experience of centuries, that a man who becomes
enlightened like Buddha, Mahavira, Bodhidharma is not born again anywhere.
Their soul becomes part of the universal soul. You can call it God, you can
call it Brahma, you can call it the Absolute, the Ultimate. This has been the
search of this country, its intensive search for almost ninety thousand years:
how not to be imprisoned into a body again, because the body is a prison, a
very strange prison - it moves with you. Wherever you go you take your prison
with you.
Our whole religious development is how to get rid of this
prison and how to be in a state of splendor, universality, how to become one
with existence. That is the real aim of life.
So what I had said was, I am going to work for those who are
really concerned with their being. I am not going to waste my breath on the
dead, blind, unconscious humanity which is simply preparing its own suicide.
Let them succeed - they will be born on some planet, in some form. They cannot
be worse than they are right now. Can you think of anything worse than
yourself?
A rosebush is far better than you - at least it has its
perfume. A bird on the wing is far better than you - at least it has the
freedom of the whole sky, needs no passport, no entry visa. It does not belong
to any church; is not Christian, is not Hindu. Wherever you will be you cannot
fall below where you have already fallen.
What I had said was totally different. I had said that
looking around the world, seeing the real faces of people, not their masks, I
am no more interested in humanity and I am no more interested in this planet
earth. I am interested only in those few individuals who want to achieve to
universal consciousness.
Where the body disappears you are simply a consciousness, a
pure consciousness, satchitanand, you are truth, you are consciousness, you are
bliss.
I said to you that for ninety thousand years this country
has been persistently searching for only one goal. It is Christianity that has
given the wrong idea to the educated people of the country. The uneducated
people of course don't have any idea, but the educated people have been told
that your Vedas are only five thousand years old. This is a great lie.
Christianity believes that God created the world only six thousand years ago,
so they have to fix the whole evolution within a six thousand year framework.
That is absolute stupidity.
In the Rigveda we have evidence that there were certain
stars in the sky ninety thousand years ago. They are described in detail. Since
then, they have disappeared. Now science accepts that these stars were there
ninety thousand years ago. Now how can a man five thousand years ago, without
any scientific instruments, write about these stars in such detail unless they
were seen?
RIGVEDA is at least ninety thousand years old, perhaps more.
And for these ninety thousand years our only search has been how to get out of
this prison.
What are you in your body? - just go to a medical college to
see the bones that you are hiding under the skin. The skin is only a cover,
under the skin there are only bones. Even a doctor, a friend of mine, was
afraid to keep the whole inner structure of bones in his clinic. He said,
"It makes people afraid to come." So he was hiding it at his house.
That created another trouble, his wife was against it.
But I told him, "Whether you keep it in the house or
not, you are keeping it within yourself, your wife is keeping it, everybody is
keeping it."
We have never been interested in that, our interest is
totally different. Our interest is in finding who is hidden behind these bones
- the intelligence, the consciousness. So if the world disappears into the
smoke of a nuclear war nothing is lost, just skin and bones - which are going
to be lost anyway.
Right now you lose them individually. Politicians, out of
compassion, are preparing a collective death. Why bother to die individually
when we can die altogether?
There are already so many nuclear weapons that every man can
be killed seventy times, and they are going on piling them up. Sooner or later
it is all going to explode, it cannot be avoided.
I have been trying my whole life that it should be avoided,
but seeing the politicians around the world I have changed my position. I say
it should not be avoided, it is better to get through it once and for all, to
be finished with it.
Those who can experience their inner self will dissolve into
the universal self; those who cannot, will find in fifty thousand planets some
other cage, some other imprisonment - but I don't see that there is any
trouble.
Jail is a terrible
thing. You have never spoken on the psychology of the jails. In the jails did
you feel better mentally, or miserable?
Every person is in a jail, not only in one jail but many
jails. First your body is a jail, then your ideology is a jail, your politics
is a jail, your church is a jail. Chains upon chains; it does not matter that a
few more chains are added.
In my twelve days in American jails, one day in an English
jail, one day in a Greek jail, I loved it. I loved it for the simple reason
that it was not affecting me at all. I was as blissful as ever; that gave me a
tremendous confirmation that my bliss cannot be taken away from me.
If an American jail cannot take it away from me, then no
hell can take it from me - that's what I said to the American jailer in whose
jail I was for the first three days. He was surprised that I was not worried;
in fact I had never had such a time - twenty-four hours of meditation, no
disturbance.
I said, "Why should I be disturbed? Just because chains
are on my hands, chains are on my legs, chains are on my waist - why should I
be disturbed? My body is a jail, on that jail you have put a few more
ornaments. I am perfectly happy." My bliss was absolutely confirmed,
because an American jail is the most refined way of torturing people.
I said, "You have freed me from the idea that if I fall
into hell there will be a problem. If I can manage an American jail there is no
reason why I cannot manage an old, out-of-date bullock cart type hell where no
improvement has happened since the beginning. I would love to visit it."
I was perfectly happy, but I was certainly not happy about
millions of people who are in jail and suffering for no reason except that they
are black.
Now the difference between a black man and a white man is so
small. In the old days the difference used to be near about four anas. Now
prices have gone high - - it may be a difference of one rupee. And remember,
that difference is in favor of the black man. The black man has a pigment of
color which makes him worth one rupee more than the white man. That black
pigment of color protects him from the sun, the white man is unprotected. God
seems to be more concerned to protect the black man than the white. The white
man's body is weaker, the black man's body is stronger.
It was a surprise to me, whenever I entered a jail in
America there were black people behind bars who had seen me on the television,
because in every jail there are televisions. And they were showing me the two
fingers of victory. They were talking in their own languages which I don't
understand, but this language I can understand. They were saying,"Your
victory is our victory and we are going to be victorious," because all the
sins are on the white man. He has tortured the whole human earth for three
hundred years, sucked its blood, has been a parasite. He should understand it,
confess his guilt, be humble and help these people whom he has made poor.
These black people in American jails filled me with tears;
those tears were for their freedom. We have done enough harm to them, it is
time they should be compensated.
But as far as I am concerned I was absolutely blissful; just
as I am blissful here, I was blissful there. Space makes no difference in your
state of being, nor does time make any difference, nor life, nor death.
There has been so much
disappointment with so many spiritual leaders over so many years. We have still
hope in you. What is your solution to this thing?
Worship creativity, worship those who are making this world
a little more beautiful, worship those who are filling the world with a little
more music, a little more song, a little more dance.
I want to change the definition of sannyas from renunciation
to rejoicing. We have forgotten even to laugh, because no saint laughs - have
you seen any statue of Jesus laughing? Mahavira laughing? No. Saints are not
allowed to laugh. The whole country has become sad.
I preach life, I preach love, I preach laughter and I preach
creativity. I am against renunciation of anything except stupidities,
superstitions.
I teach one humanity - together we can make this country its
old self again. We have to make it! Otherwise, by the end of this century fifty
percent of your people will be dying and hungry all around you. You will be in
a graveyard, not in a country. And just think: if fifty percent of the people
are dying around you, what kind of life can you have?
Solutions are simple. Just your minds are old, they are not
contemporary. So I end my answer: I want you to become contemporary.
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