The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 7

The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 7

Do you believe in astrology? Is it true that an astrologer predicted to your father that you would not survive more than seven years, but if you survived you would become a buddha?

I have survived - that's enough proof that astrology has no truth. Astrology is man's weakness, because he cannot see the future and he wants to see it. He is always afraid to go astray. He wants to be certain that he is on the right path, yet the future is absolutely unknown, nothing can be predicted about it. But there are people who are always ready to exploit man's weaknesses.

In life, only one thing is certain and that is death. Everything else is uncertain, accidental. Man would have loved death to be uncertain and everything else to be certain. Astrology is his effort to make life a certainty.

I am reminded of an old story. A great king dreamt that a black shadow was standing before him. Even in the dream he began trembling out of fear. He asked the shadow, "What is the point of making me so afraid in my sleep?"

The shadow said, "It is for your benefit. I am your death, and tomorrow evening when the sun is setting I will come to meet you again. Just out of compassion I have come to tell you. You have been a good man. This is an exception - I never tell people when they are going to die. So you have twelve hours - if you want to do something, do it! This is your last day."

He became so afraid that he woke up, and the dream disappeared. He was perspiring all over. It was not a dream, it was a nightmare, and there was confusion in his mind whether there was any truth in it or not. In the middle of the night he called all the astrologers of the capital to find out the meaning of the dream. They came with their scriptures, different schools of astrology, and they began to discuss among themselves, fight among themselves.

By the time the sun was rising the old servant of the king, who was almost like his father, because his father had died when he was a child and this old man had taken every care of the boy, protected him, protected his kingdom, enthroned him... The king had great respect for the old man. The old man whispered in his ear, "If you can listen to me, my suggestion is that these fools that you have gathered here will never come to any conclusion till the very end of time. They have been discussing for centuries. Their discussion is refined, their expertise is tremendous, but what you need is not their great scholarship but a certain conclusion, and there is not enough time. My suggestion is: you have the best horse in the world. Take the horse; at least escape from this palace and this capital, as far away as possible."

It appealed to the king. He left the astrologers to discuss and he escaped from the palace. When death is facing you, you don't feel thirsty, you don't feel hungry, you don't feel any need for rest. He wanted to go as far away as possible. He crossed the boundaries of his kingdom - by the time the sun was setting he had reached hundreds of miles away to a beautiful garden. When he was tying the horse to a tree, he thanked the horse, and he said, "I knew that you were the best horse in the whole world, but you have proved it. You have come with the speed of the wind and you have taken me out of all fear. What those astrologers could not do, you have managed to do it."

And at that very moment the sun set and he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back - the old black shadow that he had seen in the dream was standing there, and said, "Your horse is really the best. Not only should you thank him, I also thank him, because I was very much worried. This is the place and this is the time where you have to die and I was worried how you would reach here. Your horse is a wonder: he brought you to the right point, at the right time."

Your whole life you are afraid of death. You keep yourself engaged, you don't want to recognize the fact that death is following like a shadow and nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment. People live in the world as if they are here forever and they know perfectly well that nobody is here forever.

But these fearful people, fearful of death, of disease, of failure, become victims of cunning people.

Astrology is an exploitation. And not only does it exploit you, it gives you a great egoistic idea also - as if millions of light years away stars are interested in you, as if their movements decide and determine your fate. This way, a small man becomes the center of the whole universe. The astrologers satisfy your ego, dispel your fears, but the science is absolutely bogus.

It is better, more courageous and spiritual, to remember that we are very small - as small as a blade of grass. And to recognize the fact that it is good that the future is not determined, otherwise you would not have any freedom.

Astrology is against freedom. If tomorrow is decided, then I am a machine, not a man. Only machines should consult astrologers, not men.

Man's future is open and an open future gives freedom, freedom to create yourself. Astrology does not give you the freedom - it is the greatest slavery.

Every minute detail is written and there is no way to change it - it will happen the way it was determined. It has reduced man to a puppet, a puppet of blind forces.

I absolutely deny the validity of astrology because I am against all slavery. My whole effort is to make you aware of your freedom.

If astrology is right then Gautam Buddha, Kabir, Dadu, do not deserve any respect. It was determined; they had to become what they became. So what is great in it? And murderers do not need to be condemned. Just as Buddha is a puppet, the murderer is a puppet, and both are in the hands of... we know not, we are not aware of those hands.

No, I deny this determination. I want to say to you that the achievement of Buddha or Kabir or Nanak is their own achievement. It is their creation, it is their effort, it is their struggle. And they deserve all respect for it.

And the murderer, the rapist, the criminal - they are also creating themselves.

They could have created themselves as a buddha, but they decided to create themselves as a murderer. The whole responsibility is theirs. Astrology takes away your responsibility. Anything that takes away responsibility from man is dangerous because responsibility is our very soul, responsibility is our very glory. Without responsibility we are just robots. With responsibility arises human freedom.

There is no science of astrology and there can never be. It is against man's spiritual growth, it is against man's freedom, it is against man's humanity.

What about palmistry? What about those lines?

Those lines have nothing to do with the future. We can cut both your hands off - still there will be a future. We can do plastic surgery and remove your whole skin - still there will be a future. Those lines are simply the fold marks of your hand.

But we want to be irresponsible. Deep down we want somebody else to take the responsibility. Some god should take the responsibility and write your fate.

In India you read the hand's lines, but have you ever read the lines of the feet?

Why are you neglecting them? But there are in existence a few aboriginals who don't read the lines of the hand, they read the lines of the feet, and by that they think they are trying to find their future in darkness. These are just stupid consolations. And you can see it happening everywhere - in different ways you can try it.

We make the birth chart and we decide according to the birth chart which man is suitable to marry a certain woman. But all your birth charts have gone wrong, because nobody seems to suit anybody.

I have never come across a husband who is happy with his wife. He may be happy with another's wife, but with the other's wife his birth chart does not suit.

I have never come across a woman who is happy with her own husband. But great astrologers, scholars, palmists have decided...

I used to live in Raipur. Living just in front of me was an astrologer, the best in Raipur. His fees were very high and every day there was a crowd of people asking him about their sons' and daughters' marriages. One day I told him, "You are deciding the future of other people. What about yourself?" Because his wife used to beat him!

He said, "It is all business. I don't know what these lines mean, they don't mean anything at all. My whole life I have been matching - but nothing matches."

A deep desire not to take responsibility is behind the whole game, and the man who is not ready to take responsibility has refused to be a man - he has fallen from human dignity.

Once another astrologer was very much interested in reading my hands, my birth chart. I said, "I don't have any birth chart, but hands you can read. But before you read my hands look carefully at your hands."

He said, "Why?"

I said, "That will be decided later on." He worked hard, consulted his scriptures and then he said many things. I said, "Thank you."

He said, "What about my fees?"

I said, "I told you that before reading my hands you should look at your own hands. You should have seen that this man is not going to give you the fees. If you cannot predict such a small thing, and so urgent, then everything else must be meaningless."

Man is born as a tabula rasa - plain unwritten freedom. And this is his glory. A dog can only be a dog and nothing else - that is determined. A dog has a fate, all your astrologers should move towards dogs, cats and all kinds of animals; they have a determined nature. If you study a buffalo you will see that she will not eat any kind of grass, only a particular grass.

Man has risen above the animals, and the basic evolution in man is that he has freed himself from all fetters that blind him. He is totally free to create himself, whatever he wants to be. Every opportunity is available. He can reach to the highest peak of consciousness, he can fall to the lowest depth of darkness. He carries both heaven and hell within him. But except himself, nobody else can decide it and nobody else can predict it.

In Bombay, a few friends brought a great and famous astrologer. I said to the astrologer, "You can predict only for one year from today, and I will tell you in writing that whatever you predict I will do absolutely the opposite. Even to the point that if you say that I will live a long life, I will die. But I will not support any slavery."

The man looked around at the people who had brought him and said, "Where have you brought me? This man is dangerous. If he commits suicide, I will be caught. Why did you tell him that he would live long, when he has said that he will do exactly the opposite?"

I said, "Just for a small experiment you can say that I will not hit you and I will hit you right now. That will be decisive."

He was very angry. I said, "That does not matter. What matters is that my actions are my actions and I take the whole responsibility of my actions. Good or bad, but I do not want to throw them on the shoulders of God, fate, kismet, all that nonsense. It is time that we should get rid of it. It has kept this country poor because what can you do? - your poverty is written in the stars. You cannot stop the growing population. What can you do? - children are sent by God. You don't take any responsibility for anything. Without responsibility there is no freedom, and without responsibility you fall down to the level of animals, not man.

Astrology is for animals, not for man.

Your views are always changing, not constant. So as of today what are your views on mahavir and krishna, on mohammed and christ?

Life is not static. In existence there is only one thing that never changes and that is change.

I am not a stone. I move, I change - these are the symptoms of being alive. But I always change for the better. I love these people - Buddha, Krishna, Mahavir - but my love is not blind. I can see that these people reached great heights of consciousness, but they have committed very grave mistakes too. And when a small man commits a mistake, the mistake is bound to be small. When a man of the height of Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Krishna commits a mistake, the mistake is also as great as the man. And the mistake goes on for thousands of years.

I love them because they made a great effort, a tremendous effort to come out of darkness, of unconsciousness, to reach to the light. But on the way they also committed a few mistakes.

The trouble is that the millions of people that have come after them cannot rise to the heights of their consciousness, but can easily fall victim to their mistakes.

Because to fall is easy, to rise is very difficult - it is a uphill task.

People have a mind that says a man is either good or bad. People think in terms of either/or; that's not right. A bad man may have something which is beautiful and great, and a good man may have something which is ugly and to be condemned. But that does not make any difference. So first let me make it clear to you that I don't think in the way of either/or. I take the whole person.

Whatever is good I praise - but that does not mean that I become blind to things which are not good.

Naturally, mind moves like a pendulum from one extreme to another extreme. I am not an extremist. I praise Gautam Buddha, I praise Mahavira, but not their extremism. First Krishna created a destructiveness in the country, then they created a kind of impotence in the name of nonviolence. For two thousand years you have been slaves - who is responsible?

Such a big country, yet small tribes came and ruled over you because nonviolence became your cherished goal.

The man of wisdom remains in the middle. He does not do violence to anybody - - but he does not allow anybody to do violence to him either. Because in both ways he is supporting violence.

Seeing this happening, Sikhism was born, which is exactly in the middle. There is no question of violence as a goal, or nonviolence as a goal; but giving man an insight that to be destructive is bad, to destroy life is bad, yet to allow anybody to destroy you is the same. So don't be violent with others; but if somebody is going to be violent with you then your sword should be with you.

Sikhism made it a point that five things make a Sikh - the sword is one of them.

The sword is not to kill anybody but it is just to make everybody aware that, "We are not vegetables - if you go on cutting us we will respond."

I appreciate Mahavira, a man perhaps never equaled in his struggle to find himself, a man of tremendous power. But he went to the extreme again.

It is good not to have many possessions because all your possessions become your anxieties and there is no end to it. You can go on and on and the mind goes on asking for more and more.

Mahavira was the son of a king, was going to be enthroned, was going to be the successor. He renounced the kingdom. I do not object to it - but don't take things to extremes. Renouncing the kingdom is perfectly good if you don't want to be worried - and a kingdom is a constant worry and tension and anguish - if you want peace and silence and you want to devote your energies towards inner growth.

But I cannot support being naked. Clothes are not such a worry. I have been using clothes, you have been using clothes, and they have never worried me. So I don't think they are stopping your spiritual growth. In fact if it is cold and you are not wearing clothes, that will stop your spiritual growth, that will create tension in you.

But he went to such an extreme point that he would not use any instrument, even a razor to shave his beard or his hair. Now a razor is not an atom bomb. He started pulling out his hair - that is stupid. And I want to maintain that even a genius can have a part in him which is idiotic. Every year he would pull out his hair with his hands because he could not use any instrument. I don't see any spirituality in it.

Wherever I see something that goes to help the evolution of consciousness, I am for it. It does not matter whether it comes from Mohammed or Moses or Mahavir. Men are unimportant; what is important is the evolution of consciousness. But there should be a balance, otherwise the pendulum naturally moves to the other extreme.

Mohammed gave the name Islam to his religion. Islam means peace, and Islam has created more turmoil in the world than any other religion. Certainly Mohammed must be responsible for it. On his sword he has written "Peace is my message." "Peace is my message" is not to be written on a sword, because the sword is not a message of peace.

My approach towards all great people who have lived on the earth is to sort out what is relevant to us and what is not relevant to us. Mohammedanism was born in a country which was not very sophisticated. It knew only one logic, the logic of the sword. And the sword is not a logic. Mohammedanism has remained exactly where it was left by Mohammed because he said - and I condemn it - "I am the last prophet of God. The Koran is the last amendment in God's previous messages. Now there will be no other prophets and no other changes."

Now this is fanatical and whoever said it - it does not matter who - is wrong.

Life will go on growing and man will need new messages and new people to work out new problems. And the Koran is not a great religious treatise either - it has not the flights of Upanishads, it has not the insights of Gautam Buddha. It was natural because Mohammed was teaching uneducated people, but those uneducated people are still carrying the same sword in one hand and the Koran in another. Either accept the Koran or the sword.

All the Mohammedans that exist in India, all the Mohammedans who have created Pakistan, are not convinced intellectually that Mohammedanism is a better religion than the religion they left behind. They have been forced into Mohammedanism. And religion is one thing that cannot be forced, should not be forced. Everybody should be allowed to express his vision and everybody should be allowed either to accept it or not to accept it. Not accepting it is not insulting.

Religion grows only in a climate of freedom. Mohammedanism has not even given that to Mohammedans.

People are puzzled because what I have said yesterday I may not say today, and what I am saying today I may not say tomorrow. I am a living being, I am not dead.

Only when I am dead you can be at ease with me, otherwise you cannot be at ease with me. You want to quickly cling to anything that comes into your hands and then you don't want to change it. Fear... but life is a Ganges, it goes on flowing.

The real man is always a river. Only dead people are ponds, their water evaporates, they become more and more muddy, and they are dead because there is no flow.

Whatever I am saying today is not going to be contradictory tomorrow, it will be something higher and better. But to understand the better and higher you will have to rise to that height, otherwise it will look contradictory.

I am a simple man, I don't have any dogma, any creed. I simply have a clarity. I have eyes to see, and when I see that changes are needed I don't care what the consequences will be for me - that's why I have been unnecessarily condemned by the whole world. Because if I say anything against Jesus, Christians are angry.

You will be surprised - when I spoke on Jesus a few years ago, many Christian publishers in Europe and America were eager to publish it. One Christian publisher in England published ten books and just a few days ago I received a letter, "We cannot publish what you are saying now."

I said, "You have never published anything that I have said. You were simply publishing because I appreciated the light part of Jesus Christ. Now I am making the picture complete, the other side has to be shown too. And you don't have the courage to see the other side."

In my criticism there is no condemnation of anybody. It is a question of whether it comes close to truth or not, and no man has the monopoly on truth. Truth is so vast and we are so small. Truth has so many facets; at one time we can see only one side. When you see the other side, if you are a coward you will remain quiet because people will say that you are now changing your attitude. I am not addicted to any attitude, any creed. Whatsoever comes to my vision I would like to share with you.

I don't want you to agree with me, I don't want you to disagree with me, I simply want you to be open, available, ready to listen. If there is some truth in it, it will reach to your heart. If there is not any truth in it, it will drop on its own accord, it will not reach to your heart.

You were a professor in a college, and even today you are a teacher, a master. What sort of education should be in our schools and colleges?

I have been a teacher, and I left being a teacher in the university because I cannot do anything against my conscience. And your whole education is not to help man but to cripple him. Your educational system is to support the vested interests. I was unable to do it. I refused to do it.

A real education will be rebellious because its eyes will be on the future, not on the past. Nature has not given you eyes behind your head. If nature wanted you to go on looking at the back it was useless to give you eyes to look ahead.

The Indian educational system is still the same as the British government had imposed on India's mind. Their purpose was to create clerks, slaves, and the same educational system continues; because now those who are in power also want clerks, slaves. Nobody wants the truth to be spoken, nobody wants the future to be created, but only the past to be exploited.

I would like to see an educational system that is not devoted to the government, not devoted to this rotten society, but devoted to the man, the growing child.

Man has a body but your education does nothing for the man's body. We know that man's body can be trained to remain healthy, strong, young; but nobody bothers about the body. In education there is no programme.

Man has a mind, but education is only concerned to condition the mind according to those who are in power so it becomes servile. This is against humanity. Mind should be made clean, sharp, intelligent; but nobody wants an intelligent mind, nobody wants a sharp consciousness. They are dangerous because these people will not say yes to any nonsense. Education has to be rebellious in the sense that a man becomes capable of saying yes or no, on his own accord.

If too much intelligence is dangerous then every government, every country wants people to be retarded. Retarded people are obedient.

I have heard that after the first world war psychologists for the first time tried to measure man's intelligence. The army was a good place and they were shocked to see that thirteen years was the average mental age in the army. The man may have been seventy years old but his mind had stopped growing after thirteen years. But in the army they don't want intelligent people.

In the second world war, a professor was recruited to the army because there was a shortage of soldiers. The professor said again and again, "I am absolutely incapable of being a soldier." But nobody listened to him.

The first day he was put on the ground and the orders came from the captain, "Left turn, right turn, turn to the back"... but the man simply stood where he was standing. The captain was amazed; he knew this man was a famous professor.

After the exercise of right turn, left turn, turn back, go forward a few yards, come back again... when the line was again back in the original position, he came to the professor who was standing all the time in his place. He said, "What is the matter with you. Can't you hear my orders?"

He said, "I can hear your orders but what is the point? These idiots went right, went left, went this way, went that way... and finally ended up in the same position in which I have been standing all the time. And when you say, `right turn' I cannot simply turn right. I have to convince myself - why? Why turn right, why not left? Without a rational support I cannot turn right or left - you cannot make me act like a fool. What is the point of turning right?"

Nobody had ever asked this of the captain. He said, "This is strange. I will have to ask the higher authorities what to do with this man. If he cannot turn right and has to have everything rationally explained... and what reason can I give? This is just an exercise."

The professor said, "Exercise I can do at my home. There is no need to come here in this cold and to do stupid things."

The higher authorities said, "He is a famous professor. He cannot do anything without an intelligent, rational support. You send him to me, I will give him some other work."

He took him to the army's mess, gave him a big pile of green peas and told him, "You sit down. Put the big peas on one side, on the other side the small peas, and after one hour I will come and see what you have done." After one hour when he came the professor was sitting and the pile of peas was sitting exactly as he had left it, not even a single pea was removed. He said, "You have not done anything."

He said, "There have been so many problems and so many implications."

He said, "Such a simple job! What problems?"

He said, "The first problem is there are big peas, there are small peas, but there are also peas which are in between - where to put them? And what is the point of all this nonsense. All these peas are going to be in one pot, big and small, so why bother?" He was released, he was of no use.

Every army, in the morning, in the evening, goes on training people. You think it is training, it is not training! It is simply destroying their intelligence. It is a preparation so that when the order comes to shoot they don't think why, they simply shoot. They don't think, "This man has not done anything to me, why should I shoot him?" The why has disappeared in the discipline. There is a reason for the discipline, but it is not only in the army, it is all over the society.

If you ask your parents about God they have no answer because their parents never gave any answer to them. They say, "Wait, when you are bigger you will know."

One of the friends of my father was thought to be the wisest man in the town and when I used to ask him he would say, "On each point, just wait. When you are mature, bigger, you will understand."

This went on and on. I came from the university, I had been top in the whole university. I said to him, "Now it is time. I have been top in the whole university, so what about my questions?"

He said, "You wait."

I said, "Now this is going to be too much. I have waited too long. Be honest, do you know the answers or not?"

He was an honest man. He said, "To tell the truth, I don't know. This was just a strategy that has been used for centuries. With you the difficulty is that you go on asking. Most people as they grow up become involved in other things and no longer care about these questions, they forget. And mostly they get married, their children start asking them, so they start saying, `Wait. When you become bigger you will get the answer.' The difficulty with you is that you are unmarried."

I said, "This is strange. Do you think marriage will solve the problems? I cannot see that by getting married I will know what God is, otherwise all those who are married would know. You have been thrice married, you must have known all the mysteries."

He said, "I don't know anything. But this is how to get rid of children, otherwise they will torture you."

But this does not help their intelligence. It would have been better if they had said, "We don't know. We ourselves are searching ." That would have been honest, that would have been religious. This is cunning, this is not religious.

The whole society is living in hypocrisy. You don't know God, still you worship.

You don't know anything, still you are ready to answer because those answers have been given to you. So you are simply repeating them like parrots.

I would like an educational system which does not give you answers but makes your questions sharper, makes your intelligence keener, and gives you an integrity.

Your body should be taken care of, your mind should have a clarity, and your soul - which is completely neglected, nobody mentions it... You should be allowed to meditate, you should be taught how to be silent. And silence is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian, silence is just silence. You should be helped to become a deep silence inside so that you can understand your own self.

That will make you a religious individual, without teaching you about God, without teaching you about things which even idiots will doubt. You will not be made into a Mohammedan, you will not be made into a Christian or a Jaina or a Sikh, but you will be made into an integrated, healthy, conscious, intelligent, centered, well-rooted individual. But that goes against all the powers because they cannot then enslave you.

All other things that are being taught can be taught, but these things should be added. An education that does not create individuality is not education at all, it is miseducation.

Is there any religion or spirituality in having ninety-three rolls-royces, diamonds, and all such things? And is there any spirituality or religion in women undressing in the company of men? Is it really necessary?

There is only spirituality, there is no religion. Religion is only another name for it. It is better to call it spirituality because it is less contaminated. The word `religion' has become contaminated. The moment you say religion the idea arises of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity - that is the contamination. The word is beautiful but it has been polluted.

Spirituality is still unpolluted. When you hear the word `spirituality' it has no adjective to it, although the basic experience is the same. Spirituality means that you know that you are not only the body, that you are not only the mind; that body and mind will die because they were born. You were before your birth and you will be after your death - and this experience comes while you are alive if you can enter into yourself in silence, in meditation.

Spirituality is not a renunciation. It is not renouncing the world, it is transforming the world. Spirituality does not mean poverty, spirituality means you are inwardly rich and every effort should be made so that you are outwardly also rich, because there is no contradiction.

There is no need to go to the Himalayas and sit in a cave to meditate when in your house you can make a small air-conditioned cabin, soundproof, which will be far better than any cave in the Himalayas. In the old days there was no other way to find a place where there was no noise, but now you can make it in your home. Every home should have a small meditation cell - it should be soundproof, it should be air-conditioned, so you can sit at ease.

Spirituality does not mean torturing yourself - standing on your head, distorting your body. Leave all that to the magicians.

Spirituality simply means tranquility - so deep that you come in contact with the universal silence that is running within you. And there is no reason why you should not be rich. In fact, a spiritual person has more intelligence, more creativity, more understanding - he can be the richest person in the world. And his richness will have two dimensions, the inner and the outer.

My contribution is that I want it to be clearly understood that outer richness does not destroy your inner spirituality, neither does outer poverty help it. A hungry man cannot sit silently. A naked man shivering in the cold cannot sit silently.

And even if you are not hungry, you are not cold, but you are surrounded by beggars , then too you cannot sit silently. You have a heart...

I would like this world to be rich in both ways. And when we can have the world rich in both ways why choose one? Up to now, this has been the case - the West has chosen outer riches, and the East has chosen inner riches. In other words, the East has chosen outer poverty and the West has chosen inner poverty. Both are in difficulty, they have everything and nothing.

You have the whole art and science of becoming inwardly rich. But you are so poor that it is difficult in your poverty even to think of the inner.

Rudyard Kipling, one of the English poets, has written, "East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet." And I want to say to you that he is absolutely wrong. Neither West is West, nor East is East - it is one earth and the meeting is going to happen, not geographically but spiritually. If we can accept that inner richness and outer richness are supportive to each other - and they are - then there is no reason for any conflict between East and West.

I have heard about an American billionaire who got tired of having all his billions and billions of dollars but no peace. In search of peace he traveled all over the world, but he could not find a master. Somebody said, "High on the Himalayas there is a man, perhaps only he can help you."

Tired, tattered, somehow he reached to the highest peak and it was true, an old man was sitting there. Before he could say anything the old man said, "Have you got a cigarette on you? It has been too long... nobody comes here. And being a spiritual man, I cannot go down to get a cigarette. First things first - have you got a cigarette? Then you can ask your spiritual questions. Let me enjoy the cigarette, then you can enjoy the philosophy."

The man was shocked. He has gone around the world in search of peace and finally he is ending up with this old idiot who is in search of a cigarette.

He took his packet of cigarettes, gave the whole packet. The old man said, "Great.

Now what is your problem?"

He said, "My problem is I want peace of soul."

He said, "That's easy. Go home, there is no need to come here. You can see me, how I have been caught here. You have everything. Let that everything be there, enjoy it. But don't take the weight of it on your head. I was also rich but stupid saints preached to me, `Renounce everything.' I renounced, and now I am begging for a cigarette.

"Don't renounce! Go back! You have everything outside, this is the time that you can relax; now there is nothing else to achieve in the outside world. All ambitions fulfilled, now relax, sit silently. And you have the time, you can afford it. Just remember, when you come next time bring a few more packets because here cigarettes are absolutely not available. And don't ask about peace of mind because I don't think about anything else except cigarettes! That old habit... I have left everything but how to leave an old habit?"

Just be intelligent in life. Whatever you have got, use it to create an atmosphere for yourself so that you can relax. Have a good house, have all that is beautiful - paintings, music, art. They don't prevent you from being spiritual. And surrounded with all this beauty, art, paintings, find time just to sit silently.

You are capable of finding it now. In other words, outer richness should not be taught as a blocking stone but as a stepping stone. So whatever you have got, if it is enough for your needs then don't bother for more. You have come to the point from where a new journey starts.

The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 6

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.

The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 5

The Last Testament Volume 6 - Chapter 5

Bản kinh cuối cùng Tập 6 - Chương 5 (Read in Vietnamese)

Q: What did you learn on your just completed world tour?

A: With great pain in my heart I have to convey to you that man, as he is today, is not worth fighting for.

I have come home with dreams broken, fictions destroyed, hopes shattered.

What I have seen is the reality, and what I had been thinking all my life about man was only his mask.

I will give you a few examples because the whole world tour would take almost a month to relate to you. So I will give only a few significant points which can indicate... Before me, from the East, Vivekananda, Ramateertha, Krishnamurti and hundreds of others have gone around the world, but no one was once condemned by the whole world the way I have been condemned - because they all behaved politically.

In a Christian country they would praise Christianity, in a Mohammedan country they would praise Mohammedanism. Naturally, in a Christian country if a man from the East, who is not Christian, praises Jesus Christ as highly as he praises Gautam Buddha, naturally Christians are happy, immensely happy. And none of these people have converted any Christians from the West to the Eastern vision of things, the Eastern way of life.

Meanwhile, the West has been sending its missionaries and converting millions of Eastern people to Christianity. Perhaps I was the first person who has converted thousands of young, educated, intelligent people into the Eastern way of thinking and living. And that shocked the religious vested interests in the West, the political vested interests in the West to such an extent that it was unbelievable. I would not have believed it myself if I had not gone on the world tour.

The whole of Europe has a parliament and that parliament has decided that my plane cannot land on any airport in Europe. The question of my entering their country does not arise - I cannot even land my plane for refueling on their airport. And the reason has been given that I am a dangerous man. I cannot see the logic - refueling my airplane, what danger can I do to a country in fifteen minutes?

In England, I arrived at eleven in the night. The pilot's flying time was finished and he had to rest for twelve hours, and they wouldn't allow me to rest in the airport. I told them, "In the airport, special facilities are made for transit passengers who will be staying for a few hours and will leave. I am not entering England."

But they said, "We are sorry. Orders from above are that "this man is dangerous, he can destroy your religion, he can destroy your morality, he should not be allowed in the country."

I said, "I am not entering the country. The airport is not the country. And in taking five, six hours of sleep at the airport I cannot conceive how I can destroy your morality and your religion and your tradition. And if it is possible that a man, just by sleeping in the first class lounge at the airport for six hours, can destroy a religion and morality which has been preached for two thousand years, then it is worth destroying."

On the second day, in the British parliament, the question was asked, "Why was he prevented?"

And the same answer was given: that I am dangerous to morality, to religion, to tradition. The strange thing is that in the whole parliament not a single member asked, "What can a man do in the middle of the night, tired, sleeping, and leaving again at six o'clock in the morning? In what way can he destroy your Christianity which you have been preaching - conditioning each child from his very childhood - for two thousand years? If your two thousand years of teaching can be destroyed in six hours, then there must be something wrong with your teaching."

Even countries where I was not going, their parliaments decided that I should not be allowed into the country.

One small country, Uruguay, allowed me to enter because the president had been reading my writings, listening to my tapes - a young man, intelligent. He gave me a six months' visa to stay, he wanted to see me. But the moment I entered Uruguay, American pressure became tremendously hot and the American president told the Uruguayan president that if I was not thrown out of Uruguay within thirty-six hours then all the loans that had been given to Uruguay in the past, billions of dollars, would have to be paid back immediately.

If they could not be paid, then the rate of interest would be doubled from tomorrow.

Secondly, America said,"All the agreements that are being made for the coming five years" - which again amounted to billions of dollars of loans to Uruguay - "are cancelled. You can choose, you are free. You can have this man or you can have our support."

You will be surprised, it was reported that the president, with tears in his eyes, said, "Rajneesh's coming to Uruguay has at least given me one insight: that we are not independent."

I had to leave within thirty-six hours, because a poor country like Uruguay cannot manage to pay the billions of dollars they owe from the past, nor to be cut off from future loans. I told the president of Uruguay, "You need not be worried, I can understand the condition. You will feel bad if you deport me. I am leaving on my own so you will not feel bad." And as I left, the president of Uruguay received an invitation from Washington to meet President Ronald Reagan. He was given a great welcome and a three hundred and sixty million dollar immediate loan, for which there was no agreement made before - a reward.

The old slavery has disappeared it seems; politically, humanity seems to be no longer a slave. But a far deeper slavery, economic slavery, has entered in.

I moved around almost the whole world and in every country the same situation was repeated, again and again. I would reach the country, and before me, an American plane would arrive to contact the president or the prime minister and inform him of the danger.

The president of Uruguay told me that it would be better for me to stop my world tour, because he was concerned about my life. What he had heard in the White House is that they have a contract with a professional assassinator for half a million dollars, if he can kill me. A single man without any arms, and the biggest, most powerful country in the world is so afraid?

The attorney general of America told the press that he does not want to hear my name, does not want to see my face in any newspaper, in any news magazine; he does not want to know whether I am still alive or dead. I should be completely erased. And what crime have I committed? Just to think is the greatest crime; and to show people that they are wrong is the greatest crime.

I was in Greece at the invitation of the president of Greece. I accepted the invitation because I wanted to see who the people are who killed a man like Socrates.

In the East we have worshipped Gautam Buddha - they were contemporaries.

Both Budddha and Socrates have the same qualities of tremendous intelligence, both have the consciousness to raise man to higher planes of being. We worshipped Gautam Buddha and Greece poisoned Socrates. I wanted to see what kind of people these are.

A one month visa was given to me, and within fifteen days the archbishop of Greece declared that if I was not turned out of Greece that very moment, then he was going to burn me alive with all my friends in the house where I was a guest.

I was asleep at the time when the police arrived. Just two weeks - only two more weeks I was going to be there. My secretary in Greece told the police, "You sit in the waiting room and I will wake him up, let him wash his face and change his clothes."

They would not wait for five minutes. They said, "We will burn the house. We have brought dynamite," and they showed dynamite.

And they threw the girl who was my secretary from a high platform to the gravel road, dragged her to the police car without any arrest warrant, without any reason. Her only fault was that she had said to the police, "Please wait five minutes so I can wake him up."

I woke suddenly, I could not believe what was happening - because I don't have nightmares. It seemed as if bombs were exploding, because the police had started throwing stones at doors, at windows; they threw rocks in to the house. I rushed down, I inquired, "What is the matter?"

And they said, "You have to leave this very moment because the archbishop of the Orthodox Christian church does not want you to be here."

I said, "There is no problem. I did not come on my own, I have been invited. This is an insult to the president of Greece, and to me it is a confirmation that you are the people who must have killed Socrates. Because I have been here only two weeks and have never left my house. Socrates had been here his whole life. In twenty-five centuries you have not changed, you are still brutes."

I went around the world, there was experience after experience of the same kind.

All democracy is fake, all ideology about freedom, freedom of speech, is fake; All hope that someday man will become human seems to be a far away utopia.

I have always believed in non-violence, believed in peace, but after this world tour I have to confess to you that I cannot believe in peace and non-violence any more. I have been against the third world war, but with great pain I have to tell you that perhaps the third world war is needed. This humanity is so rotten that it should be destroyed, at least the world should be cleaned of ugly human beings.

Existence must find some other way to evolve human consciousness.

Scientists say that there are fifty thousand planets in the universe where life exists. So if on this tiny earth life disappears, there is no harm. This kind of life is not the life of man. Darwin was absolutely wrong that man has evolved out of monkeys - man is still a monkey. Perhaps he has fallen from the trees, that's all.

Not evolved, but fallen.

My effort from today will be just to work for those few individuals who want to grow into meditation, into peace, into silence; and I drop all hope for humanity and all hope for this planet. It is in ugly hands and it is impossible to change those people because they have all the power.

Even in my own country... just yesterday as I entered I saw, written at the airport, "Welcome to India." I had no luggage, I had nothing to declare except myself, and still I had to wait for three hours. And I asked again and again, "What kind of welcome are you giving to an Indian? I am not a tourist."

This ugly bureaucracy, these ugly governments, these ugly religions, have spoiled a beautiful planet. I have called you simply to say that I am utterly disappointed, disillusioned. I will live only for those people who are individually interested to evolve.

As a humanity, there is no hope. Only one thing I can hope - the sooner the third world war happens the better. Let us be finished with all this garbage.

Q: Do you plan to settle in india?

A: Yes.

Q: Why did you leave in the first place?

A: Because of you.

Q: Can you clarify that, please?

A: I had been working in India for thirty years, and thousands of Westerners started coming to India to listen to me; they invited me to their countries. I thought this was a good opportunity for the East, because the West has always dominated the East; it has made it a slave materialistically, politically, for hundreds of years. The only answer from the East can be a spiritual conquest of the West - that's why I went there.

They can give us bread, we can give them soul. They can give us shelters, we can give them life.

They are hollow, there is nothing inside them. We may be poor but spiritually we are rich. Their effort is to make us more and more poor because only poor people can be converted to Christianity. And they became my enemies, as a whole, because I was appealing not to the poor, not to the orphans, not to the beggars; but to the professors, the surgeons, the scientists, the painters, the musicians - to their genius, their very cream.

It is a deep humiliation to them. Otherwise it has never happened in history that the whole world should be against a single man. I am fortunate in that way.

Q: The hare krishna movement has not been expelled from the west. Other indian spiritual leaders have not been denounced in the west. Why are you the only one to suffer this persecution?

A: For the simple reason that the Hare Krishna movement has never said a single word against Christ.

On the contrary, the Hare Krishna movement has been telling the West that Christ is only another name of Krishna. Naturally, people are happy, there is no problem. Krishnamurti never condemned, never criticized, any religion by name.

This was pure politics.

Vivekananda praised Christianity as much as he praised anything else, so why should they be against him?. But I simply say the truth, I am not saying what you want to hear. I am saying what is the reality. I cannot say that Jesus Christ walked on water - that is nonsense. If it is true, then the pope should at least walk on a swimming pool - being the representative of Jesus Christ.

They say Jesus Christ is born out of a virgin girl. This they call morality. Just the other day I was reading a joke: A young girl, seventeen years old, became pregnant. The mother was shocked. She took her to the doctor, the doctor examined the girl. The girl asked the doctor, "I have never met any man. No man has ever touched me, never kissed me - how can I be pregnant?"

The doctor went to the window, opened the window, and looked at the stars; a few minutes passed. The mother said, "What is the matter? What are you doing there?"

He said, "This has happened only once, when Jesus Christ was born, but then a star appeared. I am looking for the star again. Without a man, how can this girl become pregnant? And I don't see any star, I don't see any three wise men from the East coming to worship."

Scientifically, it is so absurd. I have even challenged the pope that I am ready to argue with him in the Vatican amongst his people. He cannot prove a single thing about Christ. His whole religion stands on superstition: Jesus touches people and they are healed, he makes dead people come alive. Just think of a person today who makes dead people alive, touches people and they are healed, walks on water... will he not be the topmost news? But in the contemporary literature of that time Jesus' name is not even mentioned - except in the Christian BIBLE. No other writing even mentions his name, such a man who turns water into wine; although that is not a miracle, it is a crime.

Krishnamurti or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or Yogananda or Vivekananda... none of them touched these sore spots, that's why they have not been condemned.

And this is the whole of Christianity. We have known higher religions, we don't depend on Jesus walking on water to be religious. Otherwise, what would have happened to Gautam Buddha? He never walked on water. - What would have happened to Krishna? He never walked on water. These people never raised dead people back to life. If Jesus is the criterion of religion then all religions are meaningless. But Jesus is not the criterion.

He is claiming that he is the only begotten son of God. As far as I am concerned, I have been telling the West that Jesus is a crackpot. Naturally they are offended.

Why should God create only one son? Since eternity he has been trying and he has been able to create only one son? and here even Indian beggars go on creating sons every year. And the way he creates his son is not moral, it is absolutely immoral. Somebody else's wife... you just try to make her pregnant and you will know whether it is morality or it is immorality.

In the Christian trinity there is no space for a woman. There is God the father, God the son, and the Holy Ghost. Who is this Holy Ghost guy, man or woman? It seems he functions both ways - perhaps he is a bisexual.

To see things as they are is one thing. I am not interested in convincing anybody, I am simply interested in bringing the truth to people, and truth hurts. Lies are very sweet. They can be made sweeter, because you create them.

Who are the three wise men who came to Jerusalem from the East to celebrate Jesus? Their names are not mentioned, because even today no truly wise man will accept Christianity as a religion.

I have heard about one famous Japanese sage, Rinzai. A high Christian priest went to Rinzai with the BIBLE to convert him. He opened it to the Sermon on the Mount, which is the only beautiful chapter in the BIBLE, otherwise the BIBLE is one of the most pornographic books in the whole word. Five hundred solid pages of pornography. If it is called the HOLY BIBLE, then what is unholy?

He opened it to the Sermon on the Mount, he read two lines; Rinzai said, "Stop.

Sometime in the future this man will become a buddha, but not now."

The first two lines were, "Blessed are the poor because they shall inherit the kingdom of God," and "A camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven."

At this point Rinzai said, "Stop."

If poverty is a blessing then we should spread poverty. Then the more poor the world is, the more blessed. Then more people will be in heaven. If richness is such a sin that, `the camel can pass through the eye of a needle but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of heaven', then all rich people should distribute their riches and become poor beggars.

This is not religion, this is sheer politics - a consolation for the poor, "Don't be worried, it is only a question of a few years and you will be in the presence of God." And an effort to prevent revolution - "Don't be angry about the rich men.

They are going to suffer in eternal hell."

Remember the phrase `eternal hell'. No other religion of the world believes in eternal hell. How many sins can you commit in one life? Christianity believes in only one life. How many sins can you commit? Even if you start committing from the very first day you are born, and until the last breath you go on committing sins: don't eat, don't sleep, don't do anything, only commit sin. Even then eternal punishment will not be the right judgment.

One of the most important philosophers of this age, Bertrand Russell, born a Christian, wrote a book called, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. One of his reasons was, "I have committed sins and I have dreamt of committing sins. If they both are joined together, the hardest judge cannot sentence me to more than four and a half years of jail. But eternal hell? no exit? Once you go into hell you will remain there forever?" These are stupid things with no logic behind them.

I have been condemned because I believe there are two types of people in the world; one which wants that the truth should always be behind him, and the other which wants that he should always be behind the truth. I belong to the second category. The names that you have mentioned belong to the first category. And that is the difference between a mystic and a politician.

It hurts, because from the very childhood you have been brought up with a certain way of thinking. Jesus is crucified - just think - a man who brings people alive after four days of death! And killed by his own people... because he was a Jew, remember, he never was a Christian, he never heard the word 'Christian'.

He was never known as Christ in his own times because the word 'Christ' is a Greek word. Hebrew has no word like 'Christ' or 'Christian'. And Jesus was absolutely uneducated, he had no knowledge even of Hebrew. He spoke a small local dialect - Aramaic. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew.

The boy was doing great because he died when he was only thirty-three. Jews would have hailed him as God. If you can hail a Satya Sai Baba just because he can produce stupid things, Swiss watches or a holy ass, and you can worship him as God... then Jesus has really done miracles - if he actually did them.

Jews would have respected him forever. But they crucified him. Not only did they crucify him, but on that day, three persons were condemned to be crucified.

And it was the convention that every year, before the Jewish holidays began, the crucifixion would happen and the Jews were then given a chance to pardon one of these three condemmed persons.

Judea was under the rule of Rome. The viceroy of Judea was a Roman, Pontius Pilate. He hoped that they would ask to pardon Jesus because he was innocent, he had never done any harm to anybody. He talks nonsense, he looks like a clown, he talks like a madman saying that he is the only begotten son of God, but this is not harmful and these are not crimes. At the most, he needs some psychiatric treatment, but not crucifixion. Pontius was thinking that the Jews would ask for Jesus because the other two persons were confirmed criminals; but the Jews said that Barabbas should be released. Barabbas had murdered seven people and had committed every crime that is possible to man.

Pontius Pilate could not believe that they were asking for Barabbas, and not for Jesus. Can you believe? A man who has done only good, healed people, raised the dead, had never even been charged for speeding because he was only riding on a donkey his whole life!.

I cannot conceive that the miracles claimed about Jesus are true; they are all false and fictitious and created. And now, even Christianity and the great Christian theologians are having conferences all over the world that, "If we can get rid of these miracles it will be good, because for the future intelligent people these miracles will be barriers. In the past they proved him to be a god, but in the future they will prove him to be, at most, a magician." But if you take away all the miracles of Jesus then nothing is left.

In the East we have known Gautam Buddha, we have known Mahavira, we have known the seers of the UPANISHADS who have taken flights - ultimate flights, into human consciousness. But the names you are talking about have been trying to put Upanishadic seers, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, in the same category as Jesus. Jesus belongs to the category of Satya Sai Baba - not more than that; both are fake.

And there has never been any resurrection. I have seen the grave of Jesus in Kashmir. He never died on the cross, it was a conspiracy.

The Crucifixion was on a Friday; starting on Saturday for three days Jews would stop all work for Passover. So Friday was chosen by Pontius Pilate, and he delayed the crucifixion as long as he possibly could. And you should remember a scientific fact: that the Jewish crucifixion takes at least forty-eight hours for a person to die because he is not hung by the neck, he is nailed to the cross by the hands and the feet, so drop by drop the blood goes out. It takes a healthy man forty-eight hours to die, and Jesus was only thirty-three - perfectly healthy. He could not have died in six hours, nobody has ever died that way in six hours. But because Friday's sun was setting, he had to be brought down and for three days all work had to stop. This was the conspiracy.

He was taken from the cave, he escaped, and he lived in India in Kashmir. What you see in Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru's nose, Indhira Gandhi's nose is not very strange - they are Jewish. Moses died in Kashmir, Jesus also died in Kashmir after living a long life of one hundred and twelve years. I have been to his grave and it is still being taken care of by a Jewish family. That is the only grave in Kashmir which does not face towards Mecca; all the other graves are Mohammedan. Mohammedan graves are made so that the head is directed towards Mecca.

And the inscription on the grave, in Hebrew, is clear. The name you have been accustomed to, Jesus, was not his name; that is his name in Greek. His name was Joshua and it is written still on the grave that "Joshua, a great teacher of religion, travelled from Judea, lived here, died at the age of one hundred and twelve years, and lies here".

But it is strange, I have talked all over the West, but not a single Western Christian is ready to come to see the grave, because that will spoil their whole theory of resurrection. I have asked them, "If he was resurrected, then when did he die? You have to prove that." If after the crucifixion he was resurrected, then he must either have died or he must still be around. - They don't have any description of his death.

I was condemned because I was simply saying what is absolutely logical, scientific, rational. The people you are talking about were not interested in truth, they were interested in saying things to please others. To me that is how the politician's mind is.

From the very beginning, as soon as the child is born, he becomes a politician. He does not want to smile at his mother but he smiles. There is no smile in his heart but he knows that a smile pays. He smiles at the father, although he has no proof that he is his father. From that moment a man starts learning politics - do what people like. It is a very strange world... here leaders are followers of their own followers.

I am not a leader, I am simply a thinker. And I will live as a thinker to the very last moment of my life.

I have informed Ronald Reagan not to waste half a million dollars on killing me - - just give half a million dollars to my work and I will leave my body myself. I have not paid a single rupee for my body and one day I will die and nobody will pay a single rupee for it. Half a million dollars is a perfectly good price. But why give it to somebody else and put him into trouble? I am ready to die, just give half a million dollars to my work; and it is negotiable!

Q: When you were in Delhi and Kulu last time there were reports that the indian government does not want you to set up an ashram in India. Was there any truth in those reports? Do you have any problems with the government?

A: I don't have problems with anybody but everybody has problems with me.

The American government has been pressuring the Indian government that I should be kept in India and I should not be allowed to go out of India. Also no foreigners, particularly news media people, should be allowed to reach me.

Those were the two conditions.

I cannot accept it; I never accept any conditions. I am a free man and I would like to die a free man. Even if it is by a bullet, it doesn't matter. But I cannot become a slave of such conditions. What is the point of living if I am living under such conditions that I should remain in India and no foreign disciples should be allowed to reach me? That is almost killing me; that will be a living death.

They were going to take my passport because I wanted to move around all the Christian countries. That's why I left India before - to make them aware that they can kill me, but they cannot kill my spirit.

Now I am in India again and I will fight the Indian government if any conditions are imposed on me. Foreign devotees will be coming to me and I will be going out of India in spite of the Indian government. I have made my own arrangements.

And do you think this bogus Indian government can prevent me? They should count their days - just the next election and they will be gone.

Politicians don't have long lives. And this politician who has exploited his own mother's assassination will have to face reality in the next election. He doesn't know anything; just because the mother was assassinated, the son is made the prime minister of the country. Other than that there is no quality, no integrity, no incentive - that man is no more than a pilot and should not try to be more. That is his training and he should follow his own line and leave the country to people who are wiser, who can change this country back to its golden age. What has he done?

Just thirty years ago, when I started speaking Publicly, I spoke out against the population growth. I was stoned, I was poisoned, a knife was thrown, attempts on my life were made by people who thought that I was trying to prevent the growth of Hinduism.

At that time the population of the country was four hundred million. If they had listened to me we would have been one of the most comfortable countries in the world today, but now the population is nine hundred million. Just in thirty years there has been an increase of five hundred million people; and your politicians don't have the guts to say to the people, "Stop! No more children."

Otherwise by the end of this century we will have passed beyond one billion. For the first time in history we will be ahead of China; up to now China has been ahead.

We will be the poorest country in the world. Fifty percent of the population will be dying all around. Just think... if fifty percent of the people are going to die around you. In this room... one hundred people are present, if fifty people die...

what about the fifty who will be living with fifty ghosts?... their life will not be much of a life.

You don't have a government, you don't have the politicians, you don't have wise enough people who can change the fate of this country. And this country is in immense need.

This country has the longest heritage in the world, and the greatest heritage. We have something to give to the world, and they want to prevent me from going out to it. Nobody can prevent me from going out, and nobody can prevent people coming to me.

Q: Do you really think this government should be changed in the next election?

A: Certainly. It is a bogus government and it should be driven out. Only immature people make up government. And just think, for forty years even the mature politicians could not do anything and these are immature people - they cannot do anything but harm.

You have to start looking for people of merit. And there are people of merit in the country. It is a big country but the problem is that the man of merit, the man who is wise, the man who can help, will not beg for votes. You will have to beg him, "Please help the country. Come out."

These politicians are all beggars for votes. You are being dominated by beggars and I am not in support of it.

Q: What do you have to say about Ma Sheela and Deeksha?

A: No. Dead is dead, and finished is finished. I don't deal with ghosts.