[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. It was previously labelled: The Rajneesh Bible 9 lecture 1, and was intended, but not used, for the book: "The Light on the Path".]
INTERVIEW BY HINDI BHAGWAN MAGAZINE
BELOVED OSHO, MILLIONS OF YOUR LOVERS IN INDIA ARE REJOICING IN YOUR ARRIVAL IN THIS COUNTRY. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO YOU SAID THAT ROOTS OF YOUR RELIGION WILL BE IN INDIA, ITS BRANCHES WILL SPREAD IN ENGLAND, AND BLOSSOM IN AMERICA. IN THE LIGHT OF CURRENT EVENTS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE ANY COMMENTS?
It still remains the same.
What the American government has done, it will have to repent for it. The American people have loved me immensely. It is not the people of America or the land of America that was against me. It was the priests, particularly the Christians and the Jews, and most and particularly the politicians. But all these three are going to die sooner or later. Their time is finished. The time is coming when people will be on the top, as they should have always been. The politicians and the priests call themselves servants of the people but just verbally.
The time has come, they will have to be servants of the people and nothing more. So I stand with my statement. It will be just exactly that way. And what they have done to me, they are not aware that they have created a great wave of sympathy all over America for me. People who have not even heard about me started reading, listening and were puzzled that why such a man should be tortured?
It will take a little time but what crime America has committed against me and my philosophy is going to be more powerful than their all nuclear weapons. The flowers will come in America. I have seen in the eyes of the people, even in the five, six jails that I was continuously transferred -- all the prisoners were happy to see me, they all hailed me -- victory. They all showed me two fingers, without any exception, because even the prisoners could understand because they were seeing the videos, the television, they could not understand that America can do something to a man who had nothing to do with politics, who has only created a beautiful oasis that they are trying to destroy.
Whenever I was leaving any prison, the prisoners will say, "Osho, don't forget us. Whenever we will be out, please let us be part of your commune."
So the people at large unanimously have been turned towards me by the stupidity of the government. The statement remains the same. (inaudible)
YOU SAID, OSHO: WHEN WRITERS AND INTELLECTUALS ARE IMPRISONED IN SOVIET RUSSIA, THE WHOLE INTELLIGENTSIA OF THE WEST, PARTICULARLY AMERICA, MAKES BIG HUE AND CRY. BUT WHEN YOU WERE, YOU -- THE AUTHOR OF MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED BOOKS, WHOSE WORKS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ALL THE MAJOR LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD -- WERE DRAGGED IN CHAINS AND SHACKLES WITHOUT AN ARREST WARRANT, IN FRONT OF AMERICA MEDIA -- NOT A SINGLE INTELLECTUAL RAISED THEIR VOICE OF PROTEST. WHY IS THIS CONDITION?
There is a reason. The so-called intelligentsia are not really intelligent people. They may have written books, but those books are nothing but borrowed from other books. They may have painted but those paints are just borrowed paintings. The so-called intelligentsia has not the genius, and I don't belong to them. I am a category in myself. I have not borrowed from anyone.
In fact, the intellectuals are deep down antagonistic to me because they can see their inferiority. So when I was tortured, they remained silent. Perhaps they were happy. That shows the poverty of their intelligence, and poverty of their heart. They are all egoist people working to get some award, some Nobel prize.
My work is totally different. Whatever I have said I have enjoyed saying it, loved saying it. My reward was in saying it. It was intrinsic. I don't need any Nobel prize. I will not accept it, It will be an insult -- because I have got my price already.
Those people are pygmies. They look like intellectuals compared to the common masses but they are not enlightened people.
When Jesus was crucified, not a single intellectual raised a voice against. And Judea, the land of Jesus was full of great intellectuals. And rabbis are well known for their scholarship. No other religion can be compared as far as the scholarship of the rabbis is concerned, but not a single rabbi was courageous enough to say that this is not right. In fact, they were all happy. In fact, they wanted him to be crucified because he did not belong to their category.
What I want to make clear is -- it is a question of category. Jesus spoke on his own authority the way I speak on my own authority. What I say does not depend on the Vedas , or The Bible or the Koran . What I say if Koran also says it, it is good for Koran. If it does not say it, then to hell with Koran. .
I am not taking anybody's support for me. People who don't have their own experience need support. And it is not new. It has always been so.
Efforts were made to kill Gautam Buddha. No intelligentsia of the country stood against it. Mahavira was tortured but no intelligentsia stood against it. Mansoor was murdered. Socrates was poisoned, but no intelligentsia.
And Athens was full of intellectuals. It was the most intellectual city that has ever existed in the world but not a single intellectual stood in support for Socrates for the simple reason because all those intellectuals were impotent. They did not have any authentic experience of their own. And the existence of Socrates was creating a deep inferiority in them.
This was the only man who was saying things which he knew, and who has guts to say if something he did not know, he was courageous enough to say that, "I do not know."
This man stood far higher than the so-called intellectuals. They all wanted him to be removed. He was a pain in their necks. In the presence of Socrates, they were nobodies. Without Socrates, they were great philosophers, great thinkers.
The same is the situation with me. Thousands of people protested against my arrest -- around the world. Thousands of telegrams, phones, telexes. In every jail where I was, the jailers were utterly tired. They said, "We thought we were torturing you. You are torturing us. The whole day the phone, twenty-four hours from all over the world -- telegrams, telephones, telexes. And the news media continuously around the prison twenty- four hours. Hundreds of cameras, television, newspapers." They said that, "You have put us in such a bad light, and everybody is against us that we are torturing an innocent man." The innocent people raised their voice, but not the intellectuals.
And I don't feel anything bad about it because only the innocent can understand me, not the intellectuals. They are full of garbage. It is good that they did not raise their voice. I don't want to be part in any way with their company.
OSHO, THE AVERAGE LIFE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMMUNES IN AMERICA AND ELSEWHERE ALSO HAS BEEN THREE TO FIVE YEARS; AND USUALLY THEY GET DISINTEGRATED EITHER DUE TO EXTERNAL FORCES OR INTERNAL CONFLICTS OR CONSPIRACY. THE SAME CALAMITY IS HAPPENING TO OUR UNIQUE EXPERIENCE IN RAJNEESHPURAM. WHY IT IS SO AND WHAT COULD BE DONE TO AVOID IT?
The reason is almost natural. First they had no knowledge of me. They allowed to purchase the land. They allowed to build the city. They recognized the City legally. For two years things went perfectly well. They were supporting with funds, state and federal both.
Two reasons were there. One, they were not aware what I stand for. Secondly, I was silent, and in isolation; so I was not speaking. Otherwise the news media would have reached to them.
And politicians don't read books. They don't have time. They knew, read only newspaper cuttings that too given by their secretaries whatever is relevant to them.
So my being silent helped. My being in isolation helped, but slowly slowly they became aware first that I am not a Christian. The people surrounding me are mostly Christian but they have dropped the idea of Christianity.
The first thing was raised by the Christian missionaries, bishops, cardinals and others that I am silently converting Christians into my own religion. And Christianity has a great control in America where all the votes are Christians, few votes are Jewish.
Jews were also against me. And after three and half years when I started speaking, then the politicians became afraid. Because I am accustomed to say only that which seems absolutely true to me. And I am ready to fight for it, argue for it. Unless I am refuted I will continue to insist for it. And it is a strange phenomenon that in my whole life nobody has argued against me.
So after three and half years, when I started speaking, then things became tense. Then the government became afraid that it is not just a small commune. It is going to have world-wide impact. That it is better to destroy it before it becomes too strong.
And it is hilarious that a country which is thought to be the greatest power in the world was afraid of a single man and five thousand friends. But the fear was substantial. We had managed communism without dictatorship, without any government. In the commune there was no use of currency notes or money.
Everybody was well fed, had good clothes, had good houses. And we have made everything with our own hands -- we had not hired any labor from outside. Five thousand peoples were living in centrally air-conditioned homes made by themselves, beautifully. They had made a dam in a desert which was a miracle. They were cultivating their food, their vegetables, their fruits, their milk products. There was no beggar, no poor, no rich.
That became a danger to the American politician -- that inside America I have managed to bring communism and in a far superior way than it exists in Soviet Russia or anywhere else. There it exists by force. Here it exists by love. So it was natural that they should try to destroy it. But existence functions in a very mysterious way. By destroying it, they have proved one thing -- that the greatest nuclear power in the world cannot tolerate a small commune of five thousand people. And the reason for not tolerating is because there is no beggar, no poor, no rich, no classes. Soon America and the whole world will become aware why I have been treated in this way.
I turned a desert into an oasis. Even the richest country, America, has thirty million street people who don't have a place to live, don't have any food for tomorrow. And we invited that if any street people want to come and join us, we are open. Two hundred people joined us and they were as happy as they never had been. They had houses, they had plenty food, they had clothes, medical facilities and a dignity of human being.
So it is not easy to erase it. They will repent for it. What they have done, they will suffer for it. It has made clear many points.
One, that Soviet Union was under wrong impression. They were persecuting our sannyasins in Soviet Union thinking that they are American agents. Now that fallacy can be dropped. Now Soviet Union should be more respectful of the sannyasins who are in Soviet Russia and if it has guts it should invite us to make the commune in Soviet Russia to show to the whole world that what America cannot do we can do.
My approach is that I will go on condemning American government 'til it becomes absolutely clear that if there is going to be any third world war it will not be between America and Russia, it will be between America and the whole world -- not only the whole world, it will be the American fascist government, the whole world and the American people.
They don't know what is in the seed, what they have done will grow. They have cut their throat themselves.
And I feel it is a significant phenomenon that has happened. Just a little time and you will see that America loses all its hypocrisy of being democratic, even in the eyes of American people.
In each jail where I was, the authorities became friendly with me. They themselves said that, "This is absurd harassment. We don't see any point in it -- except that they want to force you to leave the country. You have not committed any crime, that is so clear."
If the government authorities feel like that, and everywhere when they took me from one jail to another jail, people on the roads were greeting me and wishing me victory.
I was a foreigner to them, unknown to them, but they could see what is happening.
Those twelve days in America's jails has helped me and my thinking tremendously. It has become now a world-wide phenomenon. Everybody, every house, knows about it. And they cannot do the same to another commune in another country any more. They will have to learn something from this experience.
And the American sannyasins are not willing to move from the commune. The commune will continue and will go on spreading my thoughts. So they have not achieved anything except condemnation. And as far as I am concerned, I enjoyed the whole experience.
I could see double faces, same person you meet outside -- the sheriff or the marshal, and he is so nice and when he takes you into the jail he becomes almost animal. The change was so dramatic.
Secondly, I could see that the people who are inside the jail -- thousands of people are inside the jails, none of them is white, all are black. And that shows completely that as if crimes are committed only by blacks and most of these people are being kept into jail, pretrial, six months, eight months.
One man told me that for nine months he has been in jail waiting for the trial. He does not know what crime he has committed. Nobody tells him. They simply say, "Wait. When your time comes, you will go to the court." They have already punished him nine months without proving his guilt.
The basic foundation of justice is that unless guilt is proved a man is innocent. Innocence needs no proof. Guilt needs proof.
And to keep people without proving their guilt is so ugly and so fascist, so inhuman.
And all the people, I was surprised, were black. So it seems the jail is simply a facade to put the blacks inside who are rebellious and who want their rights -- for any simple reason, just put them and keep them tortured for months together, because in the trial they will be released.
The third thing I came to know: that the law enforcement authorities, the government, the police, the jailers, are not so human as the criminals inside the jail. I was simply amazed at their humanity.
I will ask the jail authorities that, "I need toothpaste. I need a brush. I need a comb." "It will be coming."
It will take two days, three days, and then toothbrush will come and paste will not come, or the paste will come and brush will not come. And by the time it has come, I am removed to another jail. I cannot take those things. They have to be left there.
But I was amazed. As I asked these authorities, the inmates in the other cells will start bringing things to me. That, "Osho, I have not used it. It's absolutely new. And don't depend on those people. They will torture you. They will not give you. This is the soap."
Somebody will come with a paste. Somebody will come with a brush. Somebody will come with a comb. Somebody will come with an extra pillow. Somebody will give a better blanket.
They put me in one jail with a confirmed high-risk herpes patient whose cell has remained without any other inmate -- it has place for two -- for six months, because anybody can catch herpes very easily and once you have it you have to live your whole life with it, there is no cure for it. And they put me there. And immediately the inmate by the side, who was a man from Cuba -- he did not know much English, but still he tried to write. And said, "Osho, that they have knowingly put you in that cell. The man has confirmed herpes and they want you to suffer with herpes your whole life."
I called the jailer and showed him the piece. And I said to him, "It seems that criminals are more human than you. In fact, the criminals should run the jail and you should be the prisoners." He immediately changed.
I said, "Did not you know it before? Six months you have kept that man alone."
They were afraid of only one thing. And they were informing whenever they will take me from one jail to another jail, they will whisper to the man that, "Be careful. He is a world celebrity, and the whole news media is around him. If anything goes wrong and he utters a single word, you are condemned." So the news media was my only protection.
They were afraid that I will say everything to news media and they will spread the whole thing around the world.
And it is very natural that in such circumstances everybody turns sympathetic.
The whole American news media was absolutely sympathetic. And they kept watch continuously for twelve days where I am, where I am going to be moved. Their helicopters and their cars and their cameras were always ready everywhere. So they could not keep me in a place where nobody knows. They tried their hard, but they could not manage it.
I must appreciate the American press media. It is something that should be followed around the world.
For example, television in many countries is government controlled. So it is just a propagation machine for the politicians. In many governments radio is controlled.
And in few governments even newspapers are controlled. No private newspapers. I think this is very ugly and very dangerous.
In America, all news media is free -- television, radio, newspaper. No government hold on it. Then it becomes a force against any injustice, any government is afraid of it because it creates the opinion of the people.
I would like in India also that radio and television are no more government controlled. That should be part of democracy. Otherwise what the people have? If they want to express their opinion, they don't have anything. The newspapers are controlled by super rich people who cannot go against government. Radio is government. Television is government.
If the same situation was in America, they could have killed me and nobody would have known even. They would have kept me for years.
For the first time I became aware that news media should be absolutely free from government control. Then it is a check on the bureaucracy and the government -- that they cannot do anything wrong. And they should be given more freedom of expression. I praise American news media.
OSHO, VIVEKANAND SAID IF HE COULD GET A HUNDRED PEOPLE HE WILL TRANSFORM THE WHOLE WORLD. YOU COMMENTED THAT VIVEKANAND DIED DISAPPOINTED. BUT YOU WILL MOVE AROUND, LOOK INTO THE EVERY EYE AND PULL OUT THE POTENTIAL SOUL WHO CAN BECOME THE LIGHT. HOW FAR HAVE YOU SUCCEEDED?
I am almost succeeded.
I have found one million sannyasins around the world, and at least five million people who are sympathetic. And for them I have opened the door by dropping red clothes and mala, they can become sannyasins without any fear of losing job or wife or parents. I have found those people. And I am absolutely certain that we are going to change the world. I am not going to die disappointed. I have lived without any disappointment. How can I die with disappoint-ment?
Everything is going perfectly right as it should go. Even if governments start torturing sannyasins, it is perfectly right. That's how steel is created out of man, and that's how their potential gets the challenge. So we are in a better condition after this American experience.
And we are going to change the world because there is nobody else to do it. Either the world will die or we will change it. These are the only two alternatives the world can choose. And I don't think anybody will choose to die.
IN THE SAME CONTEXT, OSHO, WOULD YOU THINK THAT IF TWO HUNDRED ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE ARE PLACED AROUND THE WORLD, THE THIRD WORLD WAR COULD BE AVOIDED?
He is right. And I am working on the same number, two hundred is perfect. And we are coming closer. But soon we will be able to declare that two hundred people are enlightened. Even declaration is not needed. Their presence will change the world.
What Gurdjieff could not do, we can do -- because Gurdjieff had a very small following.
Secondly, the third world war was too far away. People don't think of far away things. Their vision has a limitation.
But now the third war is coming closer and closer and closer, and the decision has to be taken.
Our people are preparing for two hundred enlightened people. It is the right moment. The world is coming closer and the two hundred people becoming enlightened -- that moment is coming closer.
It was not possible in Gurdjieff's time. Even if he had made two hundred people enlightened, the third world war was far away. He died in 1950.
The third world war will happen somewhere near 1999. There is time and we can put a stop to it. In the same context you answered one question that, "I am doing the same work as Shri Kuri Baba(*) -- what he wanted to do in Nepal and that time, the time was not ripe; but time is ripe, and I will do this."
WHAT IS -- WHAT WAS THAT WORK THAT HE WANTED TO DO AND HE COULDN'T DO?
All the enlightened people are doing the same work. The work is that man has come from animals.
Charles Darwin may not be literally true, but essentially he is true -- that man carries much of animality in him. And the only way to drop that animality is to create something higher in man which can see the animality. Man as such cannot see it. He is engulfed by it.
So all the enlightened people have been doing the same thing -- to create a point of witnessing so that a man can become aware how much is animal in him. And the miracle is, the moment you become aware of it it disappears. Awareness is enough for its disappearance.
The work is the same -- Buddha, Shri Kuri(*) Baba or Gurdjieff -- the work is the same.
But we are in a better position than all of them because the third world war is going to destroy the whole humanity. The humanity has to think of some way that its animal instincts drop because those are the instincts that create war and anger and violence.
There is no other way except meditation -- to find something higher in you, bigger than you, more luminous, so that the darkness disappears. So we are in the most opportune moment in the whole history of man.
And if we fail, the whole humanity and all its efforts fail with us. And it is not a simple failure -- it is not only our failure. This whole universe is dead except this small earth. If this earth also dies, the whole universe loses life and consciousness -- which takes millions of years again to produce life and then consciousness, then a buddha.
So much is at risk that I don't think humanity will decide to commit suicide. Just we have to spread meditation as far as possible.
That's why I have dissolved any religious connotation, so that a Mohammedan can meditate and still remain Mohammedan -- so Mohammedans don't feel any fear from us; a Hindu can remain a Hindu and still meditate -- to make meditation available to all without any condition, whether he is Hindu, Jew, Christian.
I had dropped the idea that we are a new religion. Out of compassion, I have dropped the whole idea. We are only a meditation movement. Anybody can participate.
And the beauty is that if somebody meditates, sooner or later his Mohammedanism will disappear, his Hinduism will disappear. They cannot remain with meditation. So why bother about their Hinduism and Mohammedanism when we have a secret which will automatically disperse all darkness in their minds.
And I want meditation to become almost universal. And it can become universal only if it is not attached to any religion, to any politics, to any ideology -- and it is not. It is a simple method. Even an atheist can do it -- there is no problem. We don't ask him to believe in God, we don't ask him to believe in anything. We simply ask him that, "Here is a method you can try. Hypothetically if you find something, good. If you don't find, you drop it." And anybody who has tried meditation has never come empty-handed back.
OSHO, IN WOODLANDS YOU WERE SPEAKING TO A SMALL GROUP OF SEEKERS AND YOU GAVE THE RARE BOOKS LIKE (INAUDIBLE -- TITLE IN HINDI), THE BOOK OF THE SACRED (INAUDIBLE -- TITLE IN HINDI) "YOGA, THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA" TO TRANSFORM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL. LATER ON, TALKING TO THE COMPARATIVELY BIG MASSES, YOU WERE GIVING YOUR INSIGHT MORE ON SOCIAL, ECONOMICAL, POLITICAL, MORE AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES. RECENTLY, YOU DECLARED THAT YOU WILL LIVE WITH A SMALL GROUP OF SANNYASINS ONLY. WILL YOU TAKE US INTO THE SUBTLE AND SIGNIFICANT DIMENSION OF INNER TRANSFORMATION?
Certainly, because now I will not be creating a big commune -- because that takes much of the effort.
I will be living with a small group of fifty, sixty people. People can come and go, stay and go; but will never be more than hundred people. So I can talk to them on more subtler grounds, on deeper layers of being. And all that will be available to all the communes and all the world.
But my difficulty is as it has always been the difficulty of my type of people -- I cannot write, for the simple reason it is as if writing a letter to no one. What you can write to no one? I can only talk. Because there is a responsive heart.
So these fifty people will be the closest group with absolute openness, receptive, responsive. So I can say anything that masses won't understand immediately, and then these things can be spread to the communes by tapes, by books, and then to the wider masses.
But I feel it now more to go into the secrets. And that is possible only with people who are willing to go with me. So these fifty people will not be fifty in fact; it will almost be one consciousness with whom I will be in communion. I don't think there will be a big commune around me.
Big communes will be around the world everywhere, but around me will only be a chosen few -- because bigger the commune then you have to talk to those people also who are not so receptive, not so open.
Now I want just a small group which is utterly open so I can pour my being totally without any hindrance, and this will be the peak of my work.
OSHO, MANY QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED ON (INAUDIBLE-TITLE IN HINDI). "BOOK OF THE SECRETS", WILL YOU START TAKING THOSE QUESTIONS WHEN YOU ARE FREE?
Yes, When I am starting, I will take.
OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE FOR THE SANNYASINS AND LOVERS AROUND THE WORLD WHO ARE THIRSTY OF YOUR DARSHAN AND YOUR GUIDANCE?
Soon it will be settled.
Once I settle somewhere, then people can come in groups, can remain few days with me and then go back to their commune.
And my message will be reaching to them everyday. If we can get a really big land, we may have an annual festival so all people can come and be with me for three weeks, they will make arrangements. They will not remain thirsty.
Mohammed has said -- and I have quoted him many times, that the thirsty has to come to the well, the well cannot go to the thirsty.
At this moment I would like to say something more deeper. It is good if the thirsty can come to the well. If he cannot come, then for the first time I am opening a new door -- the well will go to the thirsty.
If it is needed, then I will move around the world visiting every commune for few days. That will be easier than thousands of people coming and wasting money. I can move around the world. That is not much of a problem. And each commune can have a place for me so that remains my symbolic presence there. I will be staying there once or twice a year. They can meditate there. In Mohammed's time it was difficult for wells to travel. Now it is possible.
WILL YOU TAKE ONE MORE QUESTION? OSHO, THIS BEAUTIFUL VALLEY IS CALLED THE "VALLEY OF GODS." DID PEOPLE KNOW IN THEIR COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS THAT POSSIBILITY OF A GODMAN LIKE YOU WILL COME HERE AND MAKE THIS NAME MATERIALIZE?
The valley is so beautiful and the people are so innocent, and when it was called the "Valley of the Gods" it was far more beautiful, far more green.
It is possible that the unconscious of the country may have called it a "Valley of Gods" because if I remain here then I am going to create two hundred gods -- that's what two hundred enlightened people mean. And for the first time the valley will have not only a name but a reality.
Osho's Commentary
INTERVIEW BY HINDI BHAGWAN MAGAZINE
BELOVED OSHO, MILLIONS OF YOUR LOVERS IN INDIA ARE REJOICING IN YOUR ARRIVAL IN THIS COUNTRY.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO YOU SAID THAT ROOTS OF YOUR RELIGION WILL BE IN INDIA, ITS BRANCHES WILL SPREAD IN ENGLAND, AND BLOSSOM IN AMERICA. IN THE LIGHT OF CURRENT EVENTS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE ANY COMMENTS?
It still remains the same.
What the American government has done, it will have to repent for it. The American people have loved me immensely. It is not the people of America or the land of America that was against me. It was the priests, particularly the Christians and the Jews, and most and particularly the politicians. But all these three are going to die sooner or later. Their time is finished. The time is coming when people will be on the top, as they should have always been. The politicians and the priests call themselves servants of the people but just verbally.
The time has come, they will have to be servants of the people and nothing more. So I stand with my statement. It will be just exactly that way. And what they have done to me, they are not aware that they have created a great wave of sympathy all over America for me. People who have not even heard about me started reading, listening and were puzzled that why such a man should be tortured?
It will take a little time but what crime America has committed against me and my philosophy is going to be more powerful than their all nuclear weapons. The flowers will come in America. I have seen in the eyes of the people, even in the five, six jails that I was continuously transferred -- all the prisoners were happy to see me, they all hailed me -- victory. They all showed me two fingers, without any exception, because even the prisoners could understand because they were seeing the videos, the television, they could not understand that America can do something to a man who had nothing to do with politics, who has only created a beautiful oasis that they are trying to destroy.
Whenever I was leaving any prison, the prisoners will say, "Osho, don't forget us. Whenever we will be out, please let us be part of your commune."
So the people at large unanimously have been turned towards me by the stupidity of the government.
The statement remains the same. (inaudible)
YOU SAID, OSHO: WHEN WRITERS AND INTELLECTUALS ARE IMPRISONED IN SOVIET RUSSIA, THE WHOLE INTELLIGENTSIA OF THE WEST, PARTICULARLY AMERICA, MAKES BIG HUE AND CRY. BUT WHEN YOU WERE, YOU -- THE AUTHOR OF MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED BOOKS, WHOSE WORKS HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO ALL THE MAJOR LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD -- WERE DRAGGED IN CHAINS AND SHACKLES WITHOUT AN ARREST WARRANT, IN FRONT OF AMERICA MEDIA -- NOT A SINGLE INTELLECTUAL RAISED THEIR VOICE OF PROTEST.
WHY IS THIS CONDITION?
There is a reason. The so-called intelligentsia are not really intelligent people. They may have written books, but those books are nothing but borrowed from other books. They may have painted but those paints are just borrowed paintings.
The so-called intelligentsia has not the genius, and I don't belong to them.
I am a category in myself. I have not borrowed from anyone.
In fact, the intellectuals are deep down antagonistic to me because they can see their inferiority. So when I was tortured, they remained silent. Perhaps they were happy. That shows the poverty of their intelligence, and poverty of their heart.
They are all egoist people working to get some award, some Nobel prize.
My work is totally different. Whatever I have said I have enjoyed saying it, loved saying it. My reward was in saying it. It was intrinsic. I don't need any Nobel prize. I will not accept it, It will be an insult -- because I have got my price already.
Those people are pygmies. They look like intellectuals compared to the common masses but they are not enlightened people.
When Jesus was crucified, not a single intellectual raised a voice against. And Judea, the land of Jesus was full of great intellectuals. And rabbis are well known for their scholarship. No other religion can be compared as far as the scholarship of the rabbis is concerned, but not a single rabbi was courageous enough to say that this is not right. In fact, they were all happy. In fact, they wanted him to be crucified because he did not belong to their category.
What I want to make clear is -- it is a question of category. Jesus spoke on his own authority the way I speak on my own authority. What I say does not depend on the Vedas , or The Bible or the Koran . What I say if Koran also says it, it is good for Koran. If it does not say it, then to hell with Koran. .
I am not taking anybody's support for me. People who don't have their own experience need support.
And it is not new. It has always been so.
Efforts were made to kill Gautam Buddha. No intelligentsia of the country stood against it.
Mahavira was tortured but no intelligentsia stood against it.
Mansoor was murdered.
Socrates was poisoned, but no intelligentsia.
And Athens was full of intellectuals. It was the most intellectual city that has ever existed in the world but not a single intellectual stood in support for Socrates for the simple reason because all those intellectuals were impotent. They did not have any authentic experience of their own.
And the existence of Socrates was creating a deep inferiority in them.
This was the only man who was saying things which he knew, and who has guts to say if something he did not know, he was courageous enough to say that, "I do not know."
This man stood far higher than the so-called intellectuals. They all wanted him to be removed. He was a pain in their necks. In the presence of Socrates, they were nobodies. Without Socrates, they were great philosophers, great thinkers.
The same is the situation with me. Thousands of people protested against my arrest -- around the world. Thousands of telegrams, phones, telexes. In every jail where I was, the jailers were utterly tired. They said, "We thought we were torturing you. You are torturing us. The whole day the phone, twenty-four hours from all over the world -- telegrams, telephones, telexes. And the news media continuously around the prison twenty- four hours. Hundreds of cameras, television, newspapers." They said that, "You have put us in such a bad light, and everybody is against us that we are torturing an innocent man." The innocent people raised their voice, but not the intellectuals.
And I don't feel anything bad about it because only the innocent can understand me, not the intellectuals. They are full of garbage. It is good that they did not raise their voice. I don't want to be part in any way with their company.
OSHO, THE AVERAGE LIFE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMMUNES IN AMERICA AND ELSEWHERE ALSO HAS BEEN THREE TO FIVE YEARS; AND USUALLY THEY GET DISINTEGRATED EITHER DUE TO EXTERNAL FORCES OR INTERNAL CONFLICTS OR CONSPIRACY. THE SAME CALAMITY IS HAPPENING TO OUR UNIQUE EXPERIENCE IN RAJNEESHPURAM. WHY IT IS SO AND WHAT COULD BE DONE TO AVOID IT?
The reason is almost natural. First they had no knowledge of me. They allowed to purchase the land. They allowed to build the city. They recognized the City legally. For two years things went perfectly well. They were supporting with funds, state and federal both.
Two reasons were there. One, they were not aware what I stand for. Secondly, I was silent, and in isolation; so I was not speaking. Otherwise the news media would have reached to them.
And politicians don't read books. They don't have time. They knew, read only newspaper cuttings that too given by their secretaries whatever is relevant to them.
So my being silent helped. My being in isolation helped, but slowly slowly they became aware first that I am not a Christian. The people surrounding me are mostly Christian but they have dropped the idea of Christianity.
The first thing was raised by the Christian missionaries, bishops, cardinals and others that I am silently converting Christians into my own religion. And Christianity has a great control in America where all the votes are Christians, few votes are Jewish.
Jews were also against me. And after three and half years when I started speaking, then the politicians became afraid. Because I am accustomed to say only that which seems absolutely true to me. And I am ready to fight for it, argue for it. Unless I am refuted I will continue to insist for it. And it is a strange phenomenon that in my whole life nobody has argued against me.
So after three and half years, when I started speaking, then things became tense. Then the government became afraid that it is not just a small commune. It is going to have world-wide impact. That it is better to destroy it before it becomes too strong.
And it is hilarious that a country which is thought to be the greatest power in the world was afraid of a single man and five thousand friends. But the fear was substantial.
We had managed communism without dictatorship, without any government.
In the commune there was no use of currency notes or money.
Everybody was well fed, had good clothes, had good houses. And we have made everything with our own hands -- we had not hired any labor from outside. Five thousand peoples were living in centrally air-conditioned homes made by themselves, beautifully. They had made a dam in a desert which was a miracle. They were cultivating their food, their vegetables, their fruits, their milk products. There was no beggar, no poor, no rich.
That became a danger to the American politician -- that inside America I have managed to bring communism and in a far superior way than it exists in Soviet Russia or anywhere else. There it exists by force. Here it exists by love. So it was natural that they should try to destroy it. But existence functions in a very mysterious way. By destroying it, they have proved one thing -- that the greatest nuclear power in the world cannot tolerate a small commune of five thousand people. And the reason for not tolerating is because there is no beggar, no poor, no rich, no classes. Soon America and the whole world will become aware why I have been treated in this way.
I turned a desert into an oasis. Even the richest country, America, has thirty million street people who don't have a place to live, don't have any food for tomorrow. And we invited that if any street people want to come and join us, we are open. Two hundred people joined us and they were as happy as they never had been. They had houses, they had plenty food, they had clothes, medical facilities and a dignity of human being.
So it is not easy to erase it. They will repent for it. What they have done, they will suffer for it. It has made clear many points.
One, that Soviet Union was under wrong impression. They were persecuting our sannyasins in Soviet Union thinking that they are American agents. Now that fallacy can be dropped. Now Soviet Union should be more respectful of the sannyasins who are in Soviet Russia and if it has guts it should invite us to make the commune in Soviet Russia to show to the whole world that what America cannot do we can do.
My approach is that I will go on condemning American government 'til it becomes absolutely clear that if there is going to be any third world war it will not be between America and Russia, it will be between America and the whole world -- not only the whole world, it will be the American fascist government, the whole world and the American people.
They don't know what is in the seed, what they have done will grow. They have cut their throat themselves.
And I feel it is a significant phenomenon that has happened. Just a little time and you will see that America loses all its hypocrisy of being democratic, even in the eyes of American people.
In each jail where I was, the authorities became friendly with me. They themselves said that, "This is absurd harassment. We don't see any point in it -- except that they want to force you to leave the country. You have not committed any crime, that is so clear."
If the government authorities feel like that, and everywhere when they took me from one jail to another jail, people on the roads were greeting me and wishing me victory.
I was a foreigner to them, unknown to them, but they could see what is happening.
Those twelve days in America's jails has helped me and my thinking tremendously. It has become now a world-wide phenomenon. Everybody, every house, knows about it. And they cannot do the same to another commune in another country any more. They will have to learn something from this experience.
And the American sannyasins are not willing to move from the commune. The commune will continue and will go on spreading my thoughts.
So they have not achieved anything except condemnation.
And as far as I am concerned, I enjoyed the whole experience.
I could see double faces, same person you meet outside -- the sheriff or the marshal, and he is so nice and when he takes you into the jail he becomes almost animal. The change was so dramatic.
Secondly, I could see that the people who are inside the jail -- thousands of people are inside the jails, none of them is white, all are black. And that shows completely that as if crimes are committed only by blacks and most of these people are being kept into jail, pretrial, six months, eight months.
One man told me that for nine months he has been in jail waiting for the trial. He does not know what crime he has committed. Nobody tells him. They simply say, "Wait. When your time comes, you will go to the court." They have already punished him nine months without proving his guilt.
The basic foundation of justice is that unless guilt is proved a man is innocent.
Innocence needs no proof.
Guilt needs proof.
And to keep people without proving their guilt is so ugly and so fascist, so inhuman.
And all the people, I was surprised, were black. So it seems the jail is simply a facade to put the blacks inside who are rebellious and who want their rights -- for any simple reason, just put them and keep them tortured for months together, because in the trial they will be released.
The third thing I came to know: that the law enforcement authorities, the government, the police, the jailers, are not so human as the criminals inside the jail. I was simply amazed at their humanity.
I will ask the jail authorities that, "I need toothpaste. I need a brush. I need a comb."
"It will be coming."
It will take two days, three days, and then toothbrush will come and paste will not come, or the paste will come and brush will not come. And by the time it has come, I am removed to another jail.
I cannot take those things. They have to be left there.
But I was amazed. As I asked these authorities, the inmates in the other cells will start bringing things to me. That, "Osho, I have not used it. It's absolutely new. And don't depend on those people. They will torture you. They will not give you. This is the soap."
Somebody will come with a paste. Somebody will come with a brush. Somebody will come with a comb. Somebody will come with an extra pillow.
Somebody will give a better blanket.
They put me in one jail with a confirmed high-risk herpes patient whose cell has remained without any other inmate -- it has place for two -- for six months, because anybody can catch herpes very easily and once you have it you have to live your whole life with it, there is no cure for it. And they put me there. And immediately the inmate by the side, who was a man from Cuba -- he did not know much English, but still he tried to write. And said, "Osho, that they have knowingly put you in that cell. The man has confirmed herpes and they want you to suffer with herpes your whole life."
I called the jailer and showed him the piece. And I said to him, "It seems that criminals are more human than you. In fact, the criminals should run the jail and you should be the prisoners."
He immediately changed.
I said, "Did not you know it before? Six months you have kept that man alone."
They were afraid of only one thing. And they were informing whenever they will take me from one jail to another jail, they will whisper to the man that, "Be careful. He is a world celebrity, and the whole news media is around him. If anything goes wrong and he utters a single word, you are condemned."
So the news media was my only protection.
They were afraid that I will say everything to news media and they will spread the whole thing around the world.
And it is very natural that in such circumstances everybody turns sympathetic.
The whole American news media was absolutely sympathetic. And they kept watch continuously for twelve days where I am, where I am going to be moved. Their helicopters and their cars and their cameras were always ready everywhere. So they could not keep me in a place where nobody knows. They tried their hard, but they could not manage it.
I must appreciate the American press media. It is something that should be followed around the world.
For example, television in many countries is government controlled. So it is just a propagation machine for the politicians.
In many governments radio is controlled.
And in few governments even newspapers are controlled. No private newspapers.
I think this is very ugly and very dangerous.
In America, all news media is free -- television, radio, newspaper. No government hold on it. Then it becomes a force against any injustice, any government is afraid of it because it creates the opinion of the people.
I would like in India also that radio and television are no more government controlled. That should be part of democracy. Otherwise what the people have? If they want to express their opinion, they don't have anything. The newspapers are controlled by super rich people who cannot go against government. Radio is government. Television is government.
If the same situation was in America, they could have killed me and nobody would have known even. They would have kept me for years.
For the first time I became aware that news media should be absolutely free from government control. Then it is a check on the bureaucracy and the government -- that they cannot do anything wrong.
And they should be given more freedom of expression.
I praise American news media.
OSHO, VIVEKANAND SAID IF HE COULD GET A HUNDRED PEOPLE HE WILL TRANSFORM THE WHOLE WORLD.
YOU COMMENTED THAT VIVEKANAND DIED DISAPPOINTED. BUT YOU WILL MOVE AROUND, LOOK INTO THE EVERY EYE AND PULL OUT THE POTENTIAL SOUL WHO CAN BECOME THE LIGHT.
HOW FAR HAVE YOU SUCCEEDED?
I am almost succeeded.
I have found one million sannyasins around the world, and at least five million people who are sympathetic. And for them I have opened the door by dropping red clothes and mala, they can become sannyasins without any fear of losing job or wife or parents. I have found those people.
And I am absolutely certain that we are going to change the world.
I am not going to die disappointed.
I have lived without any disappointment. How can I die with disappoint-ment?
Everything is going perfectly right as it should go. Even if governments start torturing sannyasins, it is perfectly right. That's how steel is created out of man, and that's how their potential gets the challenge.
So we are in a better condition after this American experience.
And we are going to change the world because there is nobody else to do it. Either the world will die or we will change it. These are the only two alternatives the world can choose.
And I don't think anybody will choose to die.
IN THE SAME CONTEXT, OSHO, WOULD YOU THINK THAT IF TWO HUNDRED ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE ARE PLACED AROUND THE WORLD, THE THIRD WORLD WAR COULD BE AVOIDED?
He is right.
And I am working on the same number, two hundred is perfect.
And we are coming closer.
But soon we will be able to declare that two hundred people are enlightened.
Even declaration is not needed. Their presence will change the world.
What Gurdjieff could not do, we can do -- because Gurdjieff had a very small following.
Secondly, the third world war was too far away. People don't think of far away things. Their vision has a limitation.
But now the third war is coming closer and closer and closer, and the decision has to be taken.
Our people are preparing for two hundred enlightened people. It is the right moment. The world is coming closer and the two hundred people becoming enlightened -- that moment is coming closer.
It was not possible in Gurdjieff's time. Even if he had made two hundred people enlightened, the third world war was far away. He died in 1950.
The third world war will happen somewhere near 1999. There is time and we can put a stop to it. In the same context you answered one question that, "I am doing the same work as Shri Kuri Baba(*) -- what he wanted to do in Nepal and that time, the time was not ripe; but time is ripe, and I will do this."
WHAT IS -- WHAT WAS THAT WORK THAT HE WANTED TO DO AND HE COULDN'T DO?
All the enlightened people are doing the same work.
The work is that man has come from animals.
Charles Darwin may not be literally true, but essentially he is true -- that man carries much of animality in him. And the only way to drop that animality is to create something higher in man which can see the animality. Man as such cannot see it. He is engulfed by it.
So all the enlightened people have been doing the same thing -- to create a point of witnessing so that a man can become aware how much is animal in him. And the miracle is, the moment you become aware of it it disappears. Awareness is enough for its disappearance.
The work is the same -- Buddha, Shri Kuri(*) Baba or Gurdjieff -- the work is the same.
But we are in a better position than all of them because the third world war is going to destroy the whole humanity. The humanity has to think of some way that its animal instincts drop because those are the instincts that create war and anger and violence.
There is no other way except meditation -- to find something higher in you, bigger than you, more luminous, so that the darkness disappears.
So we are in the most opportune moment in the whole history of man.
And if we fail, the whole humanity and all its efforts fail with us. And it is not a simple failure -- it is not only our failure. This whole universe is dead except this small earth. If this earth also dies, the whole universe loses life and consciousness -- which takes millions of years again to produce life and then consciousness, then a buddha.
So much is at risk that I don't think humanity will decide to commit suicide. Just we have to spread meditation as far as possible.
That's why I have dissolved any religious connotation, so that a Mohammedan can meditate and still remain Mohammedan -- so Mohammedans don't feel any fear from us; a Hindu can remain a Hindu and still meditate -- to make meditation available to all without any condition, whether he is Hindu, Jew, Christian.
I had dropped the idea that we are a new religion. Out of compassion, I have dropped the whole idea.
We are only a meditation movement.
Anybody can participate.
And the beauty is that if somebody meditates, sooner or later his Mohammedanism will disappear, his Hinduism will disappear. They cannot remain with meditation. So why bother about their Hinduism and Mohammedanism when we have a secret which will automatically disperse all darkness in their minds.
And I want meditation to become almost universal. And it can become universal only if it is not attached to any religion, to any politics, to any ideology -- and it is not. It is a simple method. Even an atheist can do it -- there is no problem. We don't ask him to believe in God, we don't ask him to believe in anything. We simply ask him that, "Here is a method you can try. Hypothetically if you find something, good. If you don't find, you drop it." And anybody who has tried meditation has never come empty-handed back.
OSHO, IN WOODLANDS YOU WERE SPEAKING TO A SMALL GROUP OF SEEKERS AND YOU GAVE THE RARE BOOKS LIKE (INAUDIBLE -- TITLE IN HINDI), THE BOOK OF THE SACRED (INAUDIBLE -- TITLE IN HINDI) "YOGA, THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA" TO TRANSFORM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL. LATER ON, TALKING TO THE COMPARATIVELY BIG MASSES, YOU WERE GIVING YOUR INSIGHT MORE ON SOCIAL, ECONOMICAL, POLITICAL, MORE AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES. RECENTLY, YOU DECLARED THAT YOU WILL LIVE WITH A SMALL GROUP OF SANNYASINS ONLY. WILL YOU TAKE US INTO THE SUBTLE AND SIGNIFICANT DIMENSION OF INNER TRANSFORMATION?
Certainly, because now I will not be creating a big commune -- because that takes much of the effort.
I will be living with a small group of fifty, sixty people. People can come and go, stay and go; but will never be more than hundred people. So I can talk to them on more subtler grounds, on deeper layers of being.
And all that will be available to all the communes and all the world.
But my difficulty is as it has always been the difficulty of my type of people -- I cannot write, for the simple reason it is as if writing a letter to no one. What you can write to no one? I can only talk. Because there is a responsive heart.
So these fifty people will be the closest group with absolute openness, receptive, responsive. So I can say anything that masses won't understand immediately, and then these things can be spread to the communes by tapes, by books, and then to the wider masses.
But I feel it now more to go into the secrets. And that is possible only with people who are willing to go with me. So these fifty people will not be fifty in fact; it will almost be one consciousness with whom I will be in communion.
I don't think there will be a big commune around me.
Big communes will be around the world everywhere, but around me will only be a chosen few -- because bigger the commune then you have to talk to those people also who are not so receptive, not so open.
Now I want just a small group which is utterly open so I can pour my being totally without any hindrance, and this will be the peak of my work.
OSHO, MANY QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED ON (INAUDIBLE-TITLE IN HINDI). "BOOK OF THE SECRETS", WILL YOU START TAKING THOSE QUESTIONS WHEN YOU ARE FREE?
Yes, When I am starting, I will take.
OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE FOR THE SANNYASINS AND LOVERS AROUND THE WORLD WHO ARE THIRSTY OF YOUR DARSHAN AND YOUR GUIDANCE?
Soon it will be settled.
Once I settle somewhere, then people can come in groups, can remain few days with me and then go back to their commune.
And my message will be reaching to them everyday. If we can get a really big land, we may have an annual festival so all people can come and be with me for three weeks, they will make arrangements. They will not remain thirsty.
Mohammed has said -- and I have quoted him many times, that the thirsty has to come to the well, the well cannot go to the thirsty.
At this moment I would like to say something more deeper. It is good if the thirsty can come to the well. If he cannot come, then for the first time I am opening a new door -- the well will go to the thirsty.
If it is needed, then I will move around the world visiting every commune for few days. That will be easier than thousands of people coming and wasting money. I can move around the world. That is not much of a problem. And each commune can have a place for me so that remains my symbolic presence there. I will be staying there once or twice a year. They can meditate there.
In Mohammed's time it was difficult for wells to travel. Now it is possible.
WILL YOU TAKE ONE MORE QUESTION? OSHO, THIS BEAUTIFUL VALLEY IS CALLED THE "VALLEY OF GODS." DID PEOPLE KNOW IN THEIR COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS THAT POSSIBILITY OF A GODMAN LIKE YOU WILL COME HERE AND MAKE THIS NAME MATERIALIZE?
The valley is so beautiful and the people are so innocent, and when it was called the "Valley of the Gods" it was far more beautiful, far more green.
It is possible that the unconscious of the country may have called it a "Valley of Gods" because if I remain here then I am going to create two hundred gods -- that's what two hundred enlightened people mean.
And for the first time the valley will have not only a name but a reality.
Okay.