---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Messiah, Vol 1"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "MESS1"
dategiven: "14 January 1987 am"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #12"
chaptertitle: "The wine and the winepress"
acode: "8701140"
shorttitle: "MESS112"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "182mins"
displaytitle: "The Messiah, Vol 1: Chapter #12"
---

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.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
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}
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<p class="sutra">BELOVED OSHO,
THEN AN OLD MAN, A KEEPER OF AN INN, SAID, SPEAK TO US OF EATING AND DRINKING.
AND HE SAID:
WOULD THAT YOU COULD LIVE ON THE FRAGRANCE OF THE EARTH, AND LIKE AN AIR PLANT BE SUSTAINED BY THE LIGHT.
BUT SINCE YOU MUST KILL TO EAT, AND ROB THE NEWLY BORN OF ITS MOTHER'S MILK TO QUENCH YOUR THIRST, LET IT THEN BE AN ACT OF WORSHIP,
AND LET YOUR BOARD STAND AN ALTAR ON WHICH THE PURE AND THE INNOCENT OF FOREST AND PLAIN ARE SACRIFICED FOR THAT WHICH IS PURER AND STILL MORE INNOCENT IN MAN.
WHEN YOU KILL A BEAST SAY TO HIM IN YOUR HEART:
BY THE SAME POWER THAT SLAYS YOU, I TOO AM SLAIN; AND I TOO SHALL BE CONSUMED.
FOR THE LAW THAT DELIVERED YOU INTO MY HAND SHALL DELIVER ME INTO A MIGHTIER HAND.
YOUR BLOOD AND MY BLOOD IS NAUGHT BUT THE SAP THAT FEEDS THE TREE OF HEAVEN."
AND WHEN YOU CRUSH AN APPLE WITH YOUR TEETH, SAY TO IT IN YOUR HEART:
YOUR SEEDS SHALL LIVE IN MY BODY, AND THE BUDS OF YOUR TO-MORROW SHALL BLOSSOM IN MY HEART,
AND YOUR FRAGRANCE SHALL BE MY BREATH.
AND TOGETHER WE SHALL REJOICE THROUGH ALL THE SEASONS.
AND IN THE AUTUMN, WHEN YOU GATHER THE GRAPES OF YOUR VINEYARDS FOR THE WINEPRESS, SAY IN YOUR HEART:
I TOO AM A VINEYARD, AND MY FRUIT SHALL BE GATHERED FOR THE WINEPRESS,
AND LIKE NEW WINE I SHALL BE KEPT IN ETERNAL VESSELS.
AND IN WINTER, WHEN YOU DRAW THE WINE, LET THERE BE IN YOUR HEART A SONG FOR EACH CUP;
AND LET THERE BE IN THE SONG A REMEMBRANCE FOR THE AUTUMN DAYS, AND FOR THE VINEYARD, AND FOR THE WINEPRESS.</p>


It is significant that now the question is from an old man. These are metaphors, because Kahlil Gibran is a poet. He has glimpses of mysticism, but he is not a mystic himself. Hence I will not be agreeing on all points that he is giving in reply to the old man.


The old man is representative of the traditional mind, of the orthodox, of the past, of all those who are dead. But still, there was no need to answer him the way he has answered. That shows the difference between a poet and a mystic.


These words are coming from Kahlil Gibran himself. He is no more the hands through which God speaks, the eyes that smile at you but the smile is of God. The window that was opening to the eternal is for a moment closed.


I have talked about the distinction between the poet and the mystic: the mystic is always the same, on the same height, on the same sunlit peaks, but the poet goes on falling back.
<p class="sutra">THEN AN OLD MAN, A KEEPER OF AN INN SAID, SPEAK TO US OF EATING AND DRINKING.
AND HE SAID:
WOULD THAT YOU COULD LIVE ON THE FRAGRANCE OF THE EARTH, AND LIKE AN AIR PLANT BE SUSTAINED BY THE LIGHT....</p>


But now the authority is gone. The words are still beautiful, but something is missing. Up to now he was speaking from the heights; now he is standing amongst the crowd, just one of them.
<p class="sutra">BUT SINCE YOU MUST KILL TO EAT, AND ROB THE NEWLY BORN OF ITS MOTHER'S MILK TO QUENCH YOUR THIRST, LET IT THEN BE AN ACT OF WORSHIP....</p>


This is compromise. And this is one of the reasons why the world was not annoyed with Kahlil Gibran. He reaches to high peaks -- that too, through a fictitious figure, Almustafa -- but he will go on many times falling back and will not have the courage to go against the tradition, the traditional mind, the society, its old, deep-rooted ugly behavior.


It is strange that a man like Kahlil Gibran will agree with killing living animals to eat. He was born in a nonvegetarian society; he has not been able to be completely free of its bondage, its conditioning. Otherwise it would be impossible to say that you can go on killing animals for eating, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst.


Man for thousands of years has been a hunter. And if you are born in a society which eats living animals, you certainly don't have any reverence for life. He is allowing the old man in himself to say these things.


Violence cannot come from the divine. Violence is barbarous. And it is only because the whole humanity is almost asleep that you never question a simple thing: if you are eating living beings, killing living beings for your food, it is not very far away -- you can easily kill human beings too. What is the difference?


Life is one, whether it exists in the singing birds or in the beautiful deer or in the glories of a lion -- they are also our brothers and sisters.
What is the difference between a cannibal and a meat eater?


One of my friends was caught in Africa where there still exist small groups of cannibals who eat human flesh, who kill man just for eating. And because they had nothing else to offer him to eat.... They had enough human meat, so they were not interested in killing him right away; they were preserving him in the same way all meat-eating people preserve their cattle for the right moment when they will be killed.


He was hungry and he wanted to eat something. There was no other way than to share whatever they were eating. And he told me -- he managed to escape in the deep darkness of the night -- a very strange thing. He is a meat eater, but to eat the meat of other human beings was a shock. But, hungry and tired, he managed to eat... and he was surprised: the human meat is the most delicious.


In the beginning of this century, the cannibals in Africa were three thousand. Now they are only three hundred, because when they cannot get anybody else -- and nobody goes into those parts -- then they start eating their own children, their own wives. From three thousand they are reduced to three hundred. All over the world, population is a problem -- the population explosion. And those poor cannibals are shrinking, and are bound to disappear soon.


But I want you to consider the fact that the moment you kill, it does not matter whom you are killing, it is always life that is destroyed. Whether it was in the form of man or in the form of an animal makes no difference. And this stupidity continues without considering the fact that with the new technology we can produce enough, and there is no need to kill any bird, any animal, any human being.


But because Kahlil Gibran was born in a nonvegetarian society, that conditioning is still lingering somewhere in his unconscious. He allows it very lightly: But since you must kill to eat and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship. That is trying to cover it up -- Let it be an act of worship.


Can Kahlil Gibran say the same to the cannibals, that "When you are eating a man, let it be an act of worship"?


I have heard a very beautiful story about the first Christian missionary who dared to go to the cannibals in Africa to teach them Christianity, to convert them to Christianity.


He was caught hold of and he saw a big pot of boiling water on the fire. Fear started coming to him. He had been told by his friends, "Don't go there; it is impossible to convert those people to Christianity. And anyway they are disappearing by themselves. By the end of this century perhaps there will be no cannibals in the world." But the missionary was very adamant. He wanted to be the pioneer, who converted even the cannibals.


While they were putting him into the boiling water, he said, "What are you doing?"
They said, "Soon you will see."
Just as a last resort, he said, "Have you ever tasted Christianity?"


They said, "No, not yet, but soon we are going to taste -- just let the soup be ready."


I don't see any difference between nonvegetarians and cannibals. A man of love, compassion, understanding, can only be a vegetarian.


And the trees are available to give their abundance. There is no need to kill. It is a sheer hangover from the past hunting days, when there was no cultivation.


You will be surprised to know that Jainas, who are the only community in the whole world which is vegetarian... not even the Buddhists are vegetarians, although Buddha preached vegetarianism. Then what happened? How did the whole of Asia, which is Buddhist, become meat eaters? This will show you the cunning mind of man. If he can find some small loophole he is not going to miss the opportunity to remain his old self. He is not going to transform.


The story is that Buddha had absolutely told his disciples not to eat meat. Because it is not only a question of reverence for life; it is also a question that if you are not full of reverence for life, your own heart is going to become hard. Your love is going to be phony, your compassion, just a word.


The concern of Mahavira and Gautam Buddha was that man should eat not only to live; man should eat to grow into purer consciousness. A meat eater remains unconsciousness, tethered to the earth. He cannot fly into the sky of consciousness. Both things cannot exist together, that you are becoming more and more conscious and you are not even aware what you are doing -- and just for taste, which is not impossible without killing. You can have the tastiest food possible. So it is absolutely unnecessary, an old past hangover.


But one day an incident happened -- because this was the teaching of Buddha, that his sannyasins should eat only one time a day, and that is enough. And perhaps science is going to say the same to you, to eat only one time a day. Because it has now been found that if you eat less you live longer. If you eat more, you die sooner.


And the reason is that eating for taste becomes an obsession; you want more and more. Americans eat at least five times a day. That is just the average; I'm not talking about REAL Americans.


When I was in America I felt that Charles Darwin had come a little too early. That happens to all geniuses. He proved as far as what evidence was available at that time, that man has come from the monkeys. Have you seen the monkeys? They are continuously chewing something or other. But he failed to find the missing link, because the monkeys and man... there is a big gap. There must have been a link also, that he worked his whole life to find -- some animal which is part monkey, part man. That would have put his hypothesis on absolutely certain ground.


Seeing the Americans, I felt very sad for Charles Darwin, because these are the missing links! Either they are eating, or if there is no possibility to contain more.... Thirty million Americans are dying because of overeating, and they still continue to eat! It is an obsession.


You cannot behave like monkeys the whole day long while you are awake, but you can at least chew chewing gum -- just a substitute so your mouth continues to feel you are eating. Even in your sleep you can go on crushing your teeth together, and there are people -- I know them personally -- who are eating the whole day, in between chewing gum, smoking cigarettes. In the night you cannot drop the whole day's practice just because you are asleep. They must be dreaming of delicious food; that's why they are crushing their teeth.


It is a strange coincidence: In America, thirty million people are dying because they don't have anything to eat. They are called in America, "street people." Most of them -- almost all of them -- are black. They don't have any shelter, they don't have anything to eat. And exactly the same number of people, thirty million other Americans -- they are all white, without exception -- are dying of overeating. The question can be solved for sixty million people within minutes, with just a little understanding. And America goes on sending its missionaries to poor countries.


The logic is clear. They come here and to other poor countries to give food, shelter, clothes, because these poor people can be converted. Those thirty million Americans are already Christians, so there is no need to bother about them. The whole question seems to be how to increase the number, because in the final count the number decides who is powerful.


Another thing -- he talks about the newly born being robbed of their mother's milk. I was speaking in a Jaina conference, which is the only vegetarian community in the whole world. And I said to them, "If you want to be really and totally vegetarian, you have to stop drinking milk and eating milk products also." Because a cow gives birth to a kid, the milk belongs to the kid. The cow is not giving milk for you.


And have you observed? All other animals, after a short time, stop drinking milk and move to solid food. It is only man who goes on drinking milk to the very end of his life. It must have physiological and psychological consequences; they cannot be avoided.


First, the milk was for the cow's child and the cow's child was going to become a bull; hence the milk has all the chemicals and elements necessary to make a strong bull. And if man drinks the same milk, he is going to become more like a bull than like a man! And on top of it, monogamy, celibacy... bulls are not known for celibacy. In fact, one bull is enough for hundreds of cows.


The blindness is such that Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, all think that milk is the purest food. It is not. And these are the people who worship somebody who simply remains on milk.


I used to live in a city and there was a big ashram... I inquired, "What is the attraction? because I have seen the man -- he looks to me like just an average idiot."


They said, "No, he is a great saint. He lives only on milk. He is called Dundadari Baba -- the milk-drinking saint."


I said, "If he has been drinking only milk, he should be called a dangerous bull!"


And finally it was found that he was a dangerous bull -- because the milk was not from a human mother, and milk is an animal product. It comes from the animal's body, just as the blood does. Those who pretend to be vegetarians should stop all milk products. Otherwise, it is a substitute, at the cost of those animals' small kids. That milk is for them, not for you.


The Jainas were very much angry with me, but they had no argument against it.


Buddhists became meat eaters because of a small incident. Buddha's teaching was that one should not ask when he goes to beg. Every sannyasin had to go every day for begging -- one should not ask; otherwise, sannyasins will become a burden on people. Whatever is given, accept it with thankfulness. But one day, a monk came and asked, "I am in difficulty," because the other rule was that whatever is given to you in the begging bowl, you have to eat it all. It is not much, because you are eating one time in twenty-four hours. No chewing gum, no cigarettes.... And for another reason too -- that food is scarce; people are giving to you out of reverence for you. You should not throw their food. Nothing should be thrown from the begging bowl.


This sannyasin came with his begging bowl and he said, "I am in a dilemma. As I was coming home, a bird flying over dropped a piece of meat into my begging bowl. So what do you suggest to me? Should I throw it out? That goes against your teaching that nothing should be thrown out or left uneaten. There should be a respect for food, because it is your very life. Or should I eat this piece of meat? That too is against your teaching that we should not eat meat."


Even Gautam Buddha had to close his eyes and to think what to say to this man. Both the alternatives were dangerous. If he says you can throw it, that will become an example for others to come. Whatever they don't like they can throw. If he says eat it, he is allowing the person to eat meat. He weighed all the pros and cons, and then he thought: This kind of accident is not going to happen every day. In my eighty years' life, this is the first instance. So it is better to let him eat.


He allowed him to eat, and that became the loophole. When Buddhism spread all over Asia... they would not ask directly, but indirectly they would indicate to their friends, intimate disciples, sympathizers... and all over Asia all the Buddhists are eating meat because of that one stupid bird. They have followed the bird, not the Buddha.


But Gautam Buddha and Mahavira tried their best to make human beings so full of reverence for life that no animal is killed.


Man can produce vegetables and other vegetarian varieties of fruits, and with the modern technology miracles are possible. In the Soviet Union they have fruits which man has never heard of. They are cross-breeding. Once in a while you also eat something which was not produced by nature, but you are not aware that it is from cross-breeding. You all eat oranges -- they are not natural fruits. They are a cross-breed between lemons and mossambis. And the proof of whether any fruit is a cross-breed is very simple: its seeds are useless. You cannot produce it just by sowing its seeds; it has always to be brought into existence by cross-breeding. The oranges are like Anglo-Indians!


Nothing is wrong in it. And in Russia they have created thousands of fruits, through the same process. Then you can make them as delicious, as potent as possible. So now there exists no necessity at all for anyone to be a cannibal, because to me anybody who eats meat is a cannibal. We are all children of the same nature -- why should you confine it to, and condemn, the cannibals and not condemn yourselves?


But Kahlil Gibran has fallen into the old trap of tradition, conditioning, upbringing. That's why I cannot count him in the category of the enlightened ones. He has come very close, but has not entered the temple yet. A great man, full of tremendous insights, but he remained only on the steps of the temple.


And he says, let it be an act of worship. My feeling is that he himself could have seen what he was saying. So just to cover up -- let it be an act of worship. But all the barbarians in the world in the past have been sacrificing human beings -- and because it was "an act of worship" they were never thought to be cannibals. Even today, in the great temple of Calcutta, the temple of Mother Goddess Kali, every day animals are sacrificed -- as "an act of worship." And once they are sacrificed they are distributed amongst the worshippers as the prasad, the gift of God.


When I went in I could not believe my eyes -- how cunning the man can be! He wants to eat meat, so he has made it "an act of worship." I asked the high priest of the great temple of Kali in Calcutta: "Do you really believe that it is an act of worship? What happens to the animal's soul?"


He said, "The animal who is sacrificed is blessed, because he goes directly to paradise."


I said, "Then why don't you sacrifice your father, your mother, your children, and send them directly to paradise?"


It is a simple fact:YOU are not sacrificing. Why have you not sacrificed yourself? If you have found such a shortcut, then why sacrifice an animal? -- who has not asked to go to paradise, and there are millions of people who are continuously thinking of how to reach paradise and enjoy all the pleasures there. Sacrifice them!


In Bengal, the main food of people is rice and fish. Even a man like Ramakrishna could not get out of the old conditioning. Just like Kahlil Gibran, but again the same cunningness. They don't call a fish a fish. They call it jaldandi, a plant, a flower of the water. Just by changing words, do you think you can deceive existence?


I went to Ramakrishna's temple where he used to live, and where many sannyasins lived who followed Ramakrishna. They have a Ramakrishna order of sannyasins. I said, "What is the point of changing the word? Do you think that by calling a fish a water plant, or a water flower, it will change anything?" But it all goes on happening in unconsciousness.
<p class="sutra">AND LET YOUR BOW STAND AN ALTAR ON WHICH THE PURE AND THE INNOCENT OF THE FOREST AND PLAIN ARE SACRIFICED FOR THAT WHICH IS PURER AND STILL MORE INNOCENT IN MAN.</p>


I absolutely condemn these statements. He is saying: The animals from the wild are innocent -- sacrifice them for a greater innocence, which is in you. As I see it, the reverse may be true. The animals are far more innocent than man. Have you heard of any animal creating a world war? Any animal becoming Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler? Have you heard about animals being money-minded, collecting currency notes? Have you heard of any animal stealing in the darkness of the night? Have you heard about any animal being a rapist? Has any animal knocked on any psychoanalyst's door, saying that "I am going crazy"?


No animal commits murders, suicides. No animal in the wild ever becomes sexually perverted, because there are no priests -- they are absolutely needed to make people sexually perverted. Again, with a very sophisticated philosophical strategies: they teach celibacy, and celibacy is against nature. On the one hand they say God made man in his own image -- if he wanted to make men and women celibate, who was preventing him? And at least now after so many many thousands of years... but the priests are teaching celibacy, and they are the people who have created all kinds of perversions, homosexuality....


And homosexuality has brought AIDS, which is the most dangerous disease man has ever encountered, because it seems we will not be able to find any medicine for it. But nobody has the courage to say that celibacy should be made a crime, because AIDS is a by-product of celibacy. It was born -- homosexuality was born -- in monasteries, where they prevented any woman from entering, in nunneries where they prevented any man from entering.


In the oldest monastery in Europe -- it is one thousand years old; the most strict monastery in the world -- its basic rule is that you enter into it but you cannot get out of it unless you die. Second, not even a six-month-old baby girl can be allowed inside the monastery. For one thousand years, no woman has entered the monastery. Now, what are these monks going to do?


To teach celibacy is as stupid as to teach that to urinate is irreligious -- stop urinating, only then God will be happy with you. And I say unto you, you will find stupid people who will be ready even to do that. But then they will have a double personality. To the world they will show they don't urinate, and inside the monastery where nobody can enter, they will urinate -- how can a man live without urination? If he really wants not to urinate he will have to stop drinking water.


If a man wants to be celibate he will have to stop all nourishment from food, from water, from air... in other words, he will have to commit suicide. Only dead people are celibate. The more alive you are, the more energy you have, and the energy needs to be shared because every day you are creating more and more energy from nourishment.


Celibacy is one of the ugliest things that religions have preached to man. They have a certain point behind it. Once they convince you -- and they have convinced the whole of humanity that celibacy is great -- they have done two things. Those who are not celibate have been made to feel guilty, weak, that "We are not strong enough." On the other hand, those who have taken to the life of celibacy have been turned into a sort of schizophrenia. Half of them wants to remain celibate and half of them -- which is more powerful, because it is more natural -- will have to find some way for the energy to be released. But he will also feel guilty, that he is going against his own promise.


All the religions of the world have done one thing: they have made every person feel guilty. This is a great strategy to enslave man, to destroy his dignity, to destroy his individuality and unnecessarily make him perverted.


In England they continually pray -- in every public meeting, in the movies, wherever people gather, the first thing is: "God save the Queen." I was always thinking, "From whom do they want to save the queen?" Just now I have come to know they want to save the queen from the king, Prince Phillip, because he is gay. And who knows? he may be suffering from AIDS. Naturally, God has to interfere.


But this is just a rumor that he is gay. I don't have any guarantee about it. But the rumor is all over England.


The pope before this pope was a world-famous homosexual. Before becoming a pope, he was the cardinal in Milan, and this was the talk of the city because he was always moving with a young, beautiful man. Slowly slowly it became known that he was gay. But he was senior, powerful -- he was elected as pope. The moment he became pope, his boyfriend from Milan was immediately called, and became his secretary.


People keep beautiful secretaries -- girls -- just for a change from the old rotten wife. But he was keeping his boyfriend as a secretary and everybody knew it, and nobody objected to it.


These are the reasons why all religions are annoyed with me, but I am determined. I don't care who is annoyed, irritated, becomes my enemy, but I am going to say the truth. I don't have any hangover from the past. I have dropped it all.


Perhaps I am the first new man, the beginning of a new humanity which will be natural, sincere and truthful.


In these statements, Kahlil Gibran has certainly proved my point that he is not yet a mystic and fully enlightened person, although he comes very close. But it doesn't matter whether you are close to the temple or far away from the temple. If you are not in the temple what difference does it make how many yards or miles or light years away you are, or how close?
<p class="sutra">WHEN YOU KILL A BEAST, SAY TO HIM IN YOUR HEART:
BY THE SAME POWER THAT SLAYS YOU I AM SLAIN; AND I TOO SHALL BE CONSUMED.
FOR THE LAW THAT DELIVERED YOU INTO MY HAND SHALL DELIVER ME INTO A MIGHTIER HAND.
YOUR BLOOD AND MY BLOOD IS NAUGHT BUT THE SAP THAT FEEDS THE TREE OF HEAVEN.</p>


These are words... if he had avoided them, his book would be totally free from all dirt. When you kill a beast -- but why should you kill a beast? It is strange: when you kill a beast it is a game, hunting, and when the beast kills you nobody says it is a game, it is hunting. Then it is a calamity. Double standards are always of the cunning mind -- although he is trying to put them in such a way that they can deceive anybody, particularly those who are nonvegetarians. They will feel immensely happy that Kahlil Gibran, a man like Kahlil Gibran, is supporting their ugliest act in life.
<p class="sutra">AND WHEN YOU CRUSH AN APPLE WITH YOUR TEETH, SAY TO IT IN YOUR HEART:
YOUR SEED SHALL LIVE IN MY BODY...</p>


It is very strange: why should you not go to a lion and say, "Eat me please, my seeds will live in your body"?
<p class="sutra">... AND THE BUDS OF YOUR TO-MORROW SHALL BLOSSOM IN MY HEART...</p>


When are you going to blossom into a lion's heart?
<p class="sutra">... AND YOUR FRAGRANCE SHALL BE MY BREATH...</p>


But just for a change, once in a while, let your fragrance be in the breath of a beautiful lion! If he had added that too, I would not have said of him that he has fallen from the heights.
<p class="sutra">... AND TOGETHER WE SHALL REJOICE THROUGH ALL THE SEASONS.</p>


Perfectly good! Get eaten by the beast and enjoy together all the seasons. In fact, the beast will be enjoying more than a man can enjoy.
<p class="sutra">AND IN THE AUTUMN WHEN YOU GATHER THE GRAPES OF YOUR VINEYARDS FOR THE WINEPRESS, SAY IN YOUR HEART:
I TOO AM A VINEYARD...</p>


But when are you going to be put in a winepress?
<p class="sutra">... AND MY FRUIT SHALL BE GATHERED FOR THE WINEPRESS,
AND LIKE NEW WINE I SHALL BE KEPT IN ETERNAL VESSELS.</p>


These are empty words. He should have proved it by going to the vineyard, mixing himself in the mud, becoming manure so the vineyard becomes richer. And the grapes will be your life, and if those grapes become wine you will be in the wine. But why this one-sided thing, that the GRAPES should think so? This is sheer exploitation, decorated in beautiful words.
I deny this part completely.


And in winter when you draw the wine -- but it is always you who are either killing the beast or drawing the wine -- let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
This is easy -- too easy.
<p class="sutra">AND LET THERE BE IN THE SONG A REMEMBRANCE FOR THE AUTUMN DAYS, AND FOR THE VINEYARD, AND FOR THE WINEPRESS.</p>


But first go through the winepress! This is not only about this particular subject. Anywhere when you find double standards you are facing a hypocrite.


Yesterday I talked about a few statements made by the prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Something more has come to me through another press cutting. He said, "Man's instinct for violence was reflected in acts of terrorism, the concept of power blocs, the arms race, and the practice of apartheid. We have exchanged the primitive club for nuclear missiles; we have not changed in our thinking."


The instinct of violence, he says, "was reflected in acts of terrorism." And what is reflected in your armies? And why does a poor country like India go on wasting seventy-five percent of its total income on growing armies? And only twenty-five percent remains for nine hundred million people. Which instinct is showing there?


And India has been asking America for almost five years continuously: "Give us more uranium, because we also want to make nuclear weapons." And Rajiv Gandhi himself has gone to America for the same purpose. But strange... people say something and do something else. India is already an atomic power -- for what? Fifty percent of Indians are undernourished. In the coming two or three years they will be dying of starvation. Will you give them your atomic weapons to eat, your atomic bombs?


And this was my message, sent to him, that there is no point at all in creating atom bombs and nuclear weapons, because whatever you do you cannot become a world power comparable to America or the Soviet Union. They are too far ahead. It will take three hundred years for India to become a great world power, but do you think those great world powers will wait for you? In three hundred years they will have again gone at least six hundred years ahead of you.


Now small nations should simply forget all about atomic weapons, nuclear missiles. And for what are you keeping a big army, and feeding and preparing those people to kill or to be killed? And remember: your basic need is food for the country, clothes for people. I have known people who have eaten grass, roots of trees. I have known people... they are so hungry that they sleep with a brick tied on their stomachs so they don't feel the hunger. And this country wants to create nuclear weapons.


But when I had sent the message, he was really annoyed. Now is the time  -- he should offer an apology.


He is saying that man's violence is reflected in terrorism -- but who creates terrorism? Our experience is that the Indian government is forcing us to be terrorists. My whole philosophy is based on love and nonviolence, but it is not the nonviolence of a coward. If the police commissioner is not removed from this place to a faraway Nagaland with all those police officers who entered into my room, forcibly, violently... who is responsible for creating terrorism?


And if Rajiv Gandhi goes on doing such stupid acts... because this police commissioner cannot do anything; they all know me, and unless they have an indication from New Delhi they will not put their necks out and get into unnecessary trouble. And if this police commissioner comes to the ashram with firearms and asks us not to have any firearms -- we don't have -- do you want us just to be oppressed, humiliated? killed? butchered?


I love my people. And I am not a man with whom you can behave in this way. We are silently doing our meditations; there is no question of any police officers being here. But if you force it, I have many terrorists whom I have transformed into peaceful meditators. If I am forced, I will not hesitate at all. Then this country will see another struggle for freedom, because the old struggle for freedom has failed. In the name of freedom we have not got anything. We are in a far worse condition than we have ever been before.


Terrorism doesn't drop suddenly from the sky. What can individuals do when governments having all the power start destroying their individuality, their freedom, their freedom of expression. They are forcing silent, simple people who have no business with violence, who are not politicians... but if forced too much... there is a limit.


In the name of freedom one family has been ruling for forty years. And Rajiv says, "the concept of power blocs..." And your ambassadors are preventing my people from coming here to meditate and just listen to me. You are discriminating. You are talking of power blocs and still you go on saying why foreigners should be allowed here. What is the idea of "foreigners"? It is creating discrimination and power blocs.


In America they did everything to destroy my commune, which we had created with tremendous labor. People worked twelve hours, fourteen hours a day to create an oasis in the desert. The desert was for sale for almost half a century, and there was not a single buyer... because who would buy that desert?


We found a letter from one of the most prominent real estate dealers, which was sent before the purchase of that desert. A real estate agent praises the property you are interested in, because he is going to get his commission of two percent. And it was not small, because we were purchasing that desert for six million dollars. But the man must have had some human heart. He had written a letter, saying "Please don't purchase this parcel; although it is big, eighty-four thousand acres, it is absolutely barren and you will have to put in millions of dollars to make it livable."
That letter was never shown to me; otherwise I would have refused.


We transformed the desert. All the Americans around were laughing, saying that it was impossible: "You will go on pouring money into it, labor into it, and still a desert is a desert." They were not worried in the beginning. They became worried only when we succeeded, because we poured in almost three hundred million dollars. From all over the world sannyasins were sending their hard-earned money, and we made it an oasis. Five thousand sannyasins were living there and at festival times, four times a year, the population used to increase to twenty thousand people.


We had every arrangement for twenty thousand people. There was a hall where twenty thousand people could sit and listen to me, and we created special tents which could be air conditioned, which could be heated, which could be used all year 'round without any trouble. Because for twenty thousand people we wanted to give the best we could. They were coming from far away; otherwise who has ever heard of anybody going to America in search of truth ?


We created the first holy place in America. We created a new Kaaba, a new Kashi. It is ten times more expensive there. And the American government did everything illegal, criminal, to destroy the commune. They had never thought that we would succeed so they waited. But when we succeeded, then they were shocked.


And just a few weeks ago, the United States attorney in a press conference told the truth, because one journalist asked him, "Why have you not put Osho into jail? Why have you deported him? If he committed any crime he should be in jail."


He said, "There were three reasons: one, our priority was to destroy the commune; second, we did not want Osho to be put in jail because 0we did not want him to become a martyr; and thirdly, it was impossible to put him in jail because he had not committed any crime, he had not done anything against the law. We had no proof at all, no evidence against him."


And this is the same man... in the court he brought thirty-six charges against me. Who creates terrorists?


I was ordered to leave America within fifteen minutes, because they were afraid that if I went back to the commune, five thousand sannyasins were there and it would not be easy to arrest me again. Those five thousand sannyasins were not going to take it easily.


Those five thousand sannyasins are now all over the world, with a wound in their hearts. Rajiv Gandhi should behave himself: Remove this police commissioner from here, and don't interfere in our right of freedom, freedom of expression, our right to seek the truth, our right to meditate. We are not harming anybody. But I think all these politicians are blind.


And Rajiv Gandhi is talking against the arms race, and he is doing the same thing in India -- even though I have warned that India can never become a world power, we are too late. For two thousand years we have been under slavery. Those countries which are now great powers have lived in freedom. They have created immense capacity to destroy.


And it is simple to know: in his own grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru's time, China attacked India and Jawaharlal was furious, thinking that his armies would be able to throw out the enemy at least from our land. But no, thousands of miles of beautiful Himalaya is still in China's power. And these people have accepted it. Now nobody talks about it, that they have been defeated, and if China wants it can come and take even more, the whole Himalayan range.


For forty years continuously, Indian armies have been standing on alert in Kashmir, because just after independence, Pakistan attacked Kashmir and has taken a big portion -- one of the most unique portions in the world. Just like Caucasus, that part of Kashmir has the longest life span for people: one hundred and fifty years is very common; one hundred and eighty, two hundred years you can also find here and there. And still those people who are one hundred and eighty years old are working in the fields, they are still young.


And you have taken the defeat by Pakistan without any shame, and Pakistan is a smaller country than your country. It is so stupid to keep a great army in Kashmir.


Politicians want people never to be left in peace. That's why I said that within ten years I can destroy all the problems, because I am not a politician. Kashmir is a simple thing: ninety percent of Kashmir is Mohammedan, and they want to go to Pakistan. The fear is not of Pakistan, the fear is of ninety percent Mohammedans living in Kashmir. So you are really imprisoning Kashmir for forty years. A simple thing would be a vote under neutral observers from the U.N., on where Kashmir wants to live. If Kashmiris want to live in India, they can live there. There is no need to create a wall of armies. But the fear is that the voting will go in favor of Pakistan.


But if Kashmiris want to live in Pakistan, who are you to prevent them? Let them go to Pakistan, there is no need of any fight. All over India there are continuous riots everywhere. One day it is Ahmedabad, another day it is somewhere else. In Punjab it is continuing... even the news media has been prevented from publishing anything about what is happening in Punjab. We don't know exactly what the Indian armies are doing in Punjab.


And this man is not even ashamed of stating these facts. India is continuously expanding its arms race, and he is talking as if the whole world is doing these things and we are not doing these things. But politicians are the ugliest people in the world.


Mahatma Gandhi, who is responsible for giving the India to Rajiv Gandhi's family... and just a few facts and you will understand why I say he was the most cunning politician the world has ever known. One American writer who was working on a biography of Mahatma Gandhi asked him: "You are against arms, armies. If the country becomes independent, what will you do with all the armies you have and all the arms you have?"


And he said, without blinking an eye, "Armies will be dispersed. They should go to the fields to work, to the factories to produce. And arms will be thrown into the ocean. We are nonviolent people."


And then independence came and Pakistan attacked Kashmir, and Mahatma Gandhi was the first one -- because he was thought to be the father of the nation -- he blessed three airplanes flying over his house. It should not be called "house," it is a palace. India's richest man of that time, Jugal Kishore Birla, lived in that palace; it was his palace, and Mahatma Gandhi was staying there. He came out in the garden to bless the airplanes because they were going ahead, followed by other airplanes, to attack Pakistan.


He had forgotten all about nonviolence. And he never again mentioned a single word about throwing the arms in the ocean, dispersing the armies, letting these people go to the fields to produce... because this unproductive mass of armies that they have created consumes seventy-five percent of the income of the land. They are simply parasites.
And Rajiv Gandhi is saying man has to become wise.


And just because I had said in one of my statements that the Indian parliament has members who are almost retarded, immediately a notice was served to me: "You have insulted the country's greatest institution." I have never heard that; I have been hearing from my childhood that these are public servants and the parliament is for the people, and people are not for the parliament.


I replied to them... it has been almost two months that I have been waiting, because I said, "I am ready to come to the parliament and repeat whatever I said, with more strength. And it is not an insult to the parliament. If you feel it is an insult I can bring my therapists, my psychologists, or you can bring your therapists and psychologists and let each and every parliament member be checked to see whether he is retarded or not. Without checking it, you cannot say that I have insulted you." To call a spade a spade is not an insult to the spade.


But these politicians are the same all over the world. I want you to understand one thing: that I am not going to leave America either. They owe more than three hundred million dollars to my sannyasins. And if they have any sense of dignity, the money should be returned to the people who had put it there, to the people who worked for five years continuously.


Just a little time more... because the Italian Radical Party has said that they will be very happy if I accept the presidency of their party, and I have said I am absolutely ready. Once I am the president of Italian Radical Party, then I will see who prevents me from entering Italy. And then I am going to take the suit to the world court that America owes three hundred million dollars to us; it should be returned immediately.


And do you know, they destroyed the commune and now they have said that their priority was to destroy the commune. But why? The commune was not doing any harm to them. The commune was twenty miles away from any American town, and nobody bothered even to go those towns. We were self-sufficient, we were producing our own food, we were producing our own milk products, we were producing everything we needed. And we were not using any money for exchange. If you needed something, the commune would provide it. Money you could donate, but you could not purchase anything. Money would be needed if the commune wanted to purchase something from outside. It was a unique commune, of its own kind.


Everybody was equal, for the simple reason that you could not use your money. You may have millions of dollars and somebody may be without a single dollar, but you were both equal as far as being inside the commune was concerned. This was the highest form of communism that has ever happened in the world, and it was not only simple communism. It was also an impossible miracle, it was anarchism. Nobody was governing.


You can see it here: nobody is forcing you to do something. It is your love; if you want to do something, do it. Whatever you want to do, choose it. It was a great synthesis between two opposing philosophies of communism and anarchism.


And as the commune became more and more successful, America became more and more threatened. President Ronald Reagan is a fundamentalist Christian, which is another name for a fanatic Christian. So all the fanatic Christians and Ronald Reagan together destroyed the commune. Who creates terrorism?


Because I was not a citizen of America, I remained silent. But I am a citizen of India; I will not remain silent. I will give a new freedom struggle to the whole nation. I have no interest in politics, but if I see that they go on interfering with my work, then one thing is certain: Rajiv Gandhi cannot be the prime minister again. I will follow him in his election campaign everywhere -- not as a candidate against him, because I don't care to be the prime minister of India, but to expose him and to make people aware that this has again become slavery. A single family goes on and on for forty years ruling the country and doing nothing.


Perhaps we need another revolution in this country. The revolution that we fought and the freedom that came proved fake, bogus.


In America -- you can see the stupidity -- they have raised a marble monument in The Dalles, the county seat where our commune existed, a memorial saying that "We have succeeded in throwing out the enemies; we have succeeded in destroying the commune which was a danger to the nation." I have asked somebody to send me the exact words and the picture, because we are also going to make a monument here, that America owes three hundred million dollars to us, "In the sacred memory of Rajneeshpuram" so that history remembers. I am not going to leave Ronald Reagan so easily. He has to pay all the money, and he has to apologize too. Because his own attorney is saying that "our priority was to destroy the commune."


But why? And he himself is accepting that I had not committed any crime and there was no evidence. And still I have been fined four hundred thousand dollars -- that is nearabout sixty lakh rupees. And I don't have a single rupee. But as I have been telling you again and again, I have trusted existence. I have loved people. Within ten minutes they managed to collect four hundred thousand dollars -- sixty lakh rupees. Even the magistrate was surprised, because they were thinking that neither would we be able to produce that money nor could I get out of the prison.


That money has also to be returned, because your attorney has accepted publicly that there is no proof against me. Then for what am I punished? And the punishment also states that for five years I cannot enter America. But if I have not committed any crime, then this judge should be punished. Your judicial process is as corrupted as any.


Not only that for five years I should not enter America, but a fifteen year suspended jail sentence. That means that if I enter America there will be no need of any trial -- I will be simply put in jail for fifteen years.


And this is being done to a man whom the attorney general of America.... He is a close bosom friend of Ronald Reagan. They have been educated together, they have been in the Hollywood cowboy third-class films together. And as Ronald Reagan became the president, immediately this man was appointed as the highest law authority, the attorney general of America. And if the office of the highest law authority of America says they don't have any evidence that I have committed any crime, then for what am I punished?


But I have to wait. Once I am the president of the Radical Party of Italy, I am going to sue Ronald Reagan, the judge, and ask the U.N. to interfere in the matter. And Italy has its best and most intelligent people in the Radical Party.


I have many Italian sannyasins -- who used to be terrorists. I have persuaded them to drop it. Just a single moment's indication and all over India and all over the world, the Indian government will have to face me. They should not think I am alone. I also have my friends, I also have my lovers, I also have my sympathizers -- in millions.

Okay, Vimal?
Yes, Osho.
			

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