OSHOMEDITATION - No God But Godliness

No God But Godliness

Bob Fleming

DAVIS ENTERPRISES

DAVIS,

CALIFORNIA

Question

I suppose I am from probably the smallest newspaper ever to interview you. We have very intelligent readers, though. I brought you a small present, a copy of the paper, so you can read all about Davis. Most of what people in my town have heard of you and Rajneeshpuram has been on television and in the newspapers. None of them has been here that I know of and I know the two days that I've been here have been much different than I expected. In fact, when I called my editor to say I had an interview, she wanted to know where I was going to be because she was afraid you guys wouldn't let me come back!

So, anyway, Davis is a very ordinary middle class kind of town, and it seems like people need a structure or framework to understand you. You say you are not a philosophy or religion... Can you state in ordinary american middle class terms what you stand for?

Answer

It is very difficult for me, almost impossible, because I never adjust to speak with you or anybody. I speak, you have to adjust with me to listen. It does not matter whether your readers are middle class, higher class, or lower class. I will say the same thing. If they are middle, they will have to raise their heads up a little to understand, for the simple reason that whatever I am saying, I have brought to its simplest form. To make it more simple is just not possible.

I am not a philosopher. The philosopher thinks about the truth. His approach is rational. Reason is his instrument, and here just the opposite is the case. I am an irrational man. And the people who have gathered around me - around the world - the appeal to them is my irrationality, because reason has failed so utterly. For three thousand years in the West, ten thousand years in the East, philosophers have been struggling to find the truth, and not a single philosopher has been able to find it.

The way of philosophy does not go with truth at all. It is just rational gymnastics.

So one philosopher can argue against another philosopher, and they go on arguing for centuries, but they have not come to agreement on a single point.

Philosophy is the worst wastage of human intelligence that is possible. When I say I am not a philosopher, I simply mean that my approach towards reality is not through the head, it is through the heart.

I also say that I do not preach a religion because religion is something like love - you cannot teach it. There is no way to teach love, and if you teach love and somebody becomes trained under your teachings, he may go to Hollywood and become an actor, but he will never become a lover. Your very teaching, your very discipline will be the barrier. So I say I don't teach religion. Religion is something that passes heart to heart, not head to head. The moment religion passes head to head, it becomes theology. It is no more religion.

I compare it with love because that is the only human experience that comes a little close to the experience of truth. The only difference is that in love, you need somebody else... at least two is a basic necessity. Whom are you going to love?

Who is going to respond to you? So love is a dialogue; religion is a monologue.

You don't have anybody there - God, some messiah, some prophet. There is no one with whom you can have a dialogue. You, in utter silence, feel it. It is simply a state of mind at rest - and the heart throbbing in a deep harmony with existence.

So I cannot call it a religion the way Christianity is, the way other religions are.

They can manage to give you a catechism which the middle class people will understand. For example, middle class people can even understand the atheist who says God does not exist. They may not agree with him, but they can understand what he is saying. They can understand the priest who says God exists. They understand, the statements are simple. My position is a little more delicate.

I say there is no God, but there is godliness. So I destroy God as a person. He becomes more like a fragrance than a flower. I am not a theist because I don't believe in God as a person creating the world. I am not an atheist because I am taking God higher than he has ever been. From a quantity I am transforming him into a quality. But I am not a theist and I am not an atheist. And for people to understand godliness is certainly a little difficult. It is as difficult as if you tell me that you come from a town where everybody is blind, and ask me to say something about light so those people can understand.

What can I say about light to people who are blind, who have never experienced light? There have been preachers around for centuries telling blind people what light looks like, what light is. And there are three hundred religions and three hundred different definitions of light. They all cannot be true, but they all can be false. In the first place to try to make an endeavor explaining light to the blind is stupid. What the blind man needs is not a priest, but a physician, not a teacher, but a surgeon who can give him eyes. It is not a question of giving him the definition of light. The question is to give him eyes. If he can see, he will never ask what light is - he will know. But the priests have been preventing people because they go on supplying definitions of light to the blind.

And of course, nobody wants to be ignorant. That's why people believe. It is not coming from their hearts, because it is not their experience. Anything that is your experience is bound to have its roots in your heart. But people cling to beliefs about things which they don't know. They cling for a simple reason: they cannot accept that they are ignorant. And the first step to understand is to accept the fact that, "I do not know."

Those middle class people about whom you are asking, they are all knowers.

You may think they are middle class, but they all know God exists. What kind of God... Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan... They know the holy book.

They know the holy Koran, the holy Gita. And everything is known to them, that's what they think. They know nothing - knowing should be your experience, and they confuse knowledgeability with knowing. And my effort is to prepare the ground for knowing, not for faith, belief. So only the very intelligent people can come to me.

But remember one thing: the greatest intelligent people have come from the middle class. The poor man is so hungry and starving, he has no energy for thinking and inquiring about truth. He is searching for bread and butter. His basic physiological needs are not fulfilled, so no genius has ever come from the poor. It is impossible.

From the rich it is also impossible, for a totally different reason. The rich man has everything that he needs. He misses all the challenges of life. He is too much protected, and if you protect a child too much you will cripple him. What does he need intelligence for?

When I was a student in the university, I met a student who had been in the same master's degree class for ten years continuously! I could not believe it. I asked him and he said, "Who cares about passing? I enjoy being among the students. I have money, I have time, I have a car. I can get the most beautiful girl any time. I don't come here to learn geography and history and psychology. I am not concerned, I am not interested. What can they give me? If I pass and I have a degree, that cannot make me richer. I am already too rich."

Geniuses have never come from the super-rich people, they are born in the middle class. The middle class has been the source of all great scientists, mystics, philosophers, so don't take middle class in a derogatory way.

And what is the reason why the middle class brings intelligence to its climax?

The reason is simple: the middle class is continuously struggling to reach higher.

There is a possibility for the middle class to enter into the richer class. It is just there, a little more effort and he will cross the boundary of being a middle class person. There are only a few rungs on the ladder. It is not impossible for a middle class man to conceive himself becoming super-rich. This is one side, he goes on sharpening his intelligence. On the other side, he is always afraid of falling down among the poor. So he is fighting a double fight. First, not to fall into the poor class, not to become a proletarian; second, he is fighting, competing, because he can see the goal is not far away. Just a few steps more and he has arrived. This gives him a double chance of sharpening his intelligence.

That's why all the geniuses have come from the middle class.

So don't be worried about the middle class in your city. They are fortunate to be in the middle class. To be poor is ugly; to be super-rich makes your life closer to vegetation. The rich man is almost a cabbage, perhaps a cauliflower. The difference is not much: the cauliflower is only a cabbage with a college degree.

I am absolutely certain they will understand what I have to say, but I will not adjust, because I don't compromise on anything. I say the way I feel to say.

Whether anyone understands or not, it is their business. I will not come down and compromise and say things which are appealing to them, which they can understand. What can they understand? Only that which they already know, for which they have been conditioned. They can understand absurd, idiotic things.

Just now, I saw a newspaper cutting that the prophet Mohammed teaches Mohammedans that the woman has only one chance of reaching paradise, no other qualification is needed from her. Only one chance, one simple chance, and that is to make her husband entirely satisfied as far as sex is concerned. Great!

This is the qualification to enter into paradise, just to satisfy the husband sexually. Mohammed says that the woman cannot say no any time the husband wants to make love to her, because her no is a sin. And, you may believe or you may not believe, he says that even if the husband and wife are riding a camel and the husband wants to make love on the camel's back, the wife should not say no.

And these people have been teachers, masters, prophets, God's messengers.

Great messages God is sending: make love on the back of a camel. Just to sit on the back of a camel is so difficult! Lovemaking itself is such gymnastics, and to do those gymnastics on the camel's back... It will be really a scene! And these are the messages that are being sent, and these are the messengers. He is simply a male chauvinist, just trying to make women into complete slaves. But Mohammedans have never questioned it. Mohammed himself married nine women. Nobody told him that the quantity of men and women on the earth is equal, almost equal, that to marry nine women means you are depriving eight men of having wives. And these eight men are not just going to be sitting and waiting. They will do something. They will become homosexuals.

You may not know that in Mohammedan countries homosexuality is thought the biggest crime. And for homosexuality, the only punishment is the death sentence. Now, I cannot see the logic. On the one hand, Mohammed allows every Mohammedan at least four wives. Of course, he is a prophet, so he has nine, but his followers, because they are his followers, are entitled to have only four wives.

This is so unscientific, unbiological, that the remaining men are bound to become homosexuals, perverts.

But nobody, not a single Mohammedan in the fourteen centuries since Mohammed, has even bothered. Christians can understand perfectly well any absurdity that is Christian. They can accept that Jesus was born out of a virgin mother. They know perfectly well it is not the way of nature. The whole story that the holy ghost makes her pregnant is a cover-up. Who is this fellow, the holy ghost? And why did he stop making other virgins pregnant? He has done a great job, giving Jesus to the world. He should be continuously making virgins pregnant. The more Jesuses, the better. But he did it only once - never before, never after - just a single act and the holy ghost has disappeared. Nobody bothers to ask. If he is a Christian, he will accept the virgin birth. He will accept the resurrection of Jesus after death.

People understand easily what they have been conditioned for. And my work is unconditioning people, deprogramming people. There are other deprogrammers, but they are not really deprogrammers, they are reprogrammers. If some Christian starts becoming a Hindu, they will deprogram the person and reprogram him back into Christianity. I simply deprogram, and then leave you alone. I have no program to give you. I want you to be totally alone, fresh, without any borrowed knowledge. Because only then there is a possibility of experiencing the beauty of this existence, the ecstasy of being alive, the meaning, the truth.

If anybody really wants to understand, he should come here. For a seeker, an inquirer, Rajneeshpuram is not far away. People are coming here from all over the world. If a person is here for a certain period of time, experiencing the people who are here, the way they relate, the climate of love, the serenity of the place, the silent communication between me and my people - if they can come and dance, sing, and be part of us - then perhaps they will get something, a taste that you cannot describe. Nobody has been able to describe what sweetness is. The only way is to drink a Coca-Cola.

I am a drunkard. I am drunk twenty-four hours. The source of my drugs is inside me, so no government can catch me. There is no way to find out from where I am getting my champagne. And my people slowly, slowly start getting drunk. So it is a question of taste. If you can simply provoke those people that there is something worth tasting, that they should not miss it, then it will be possible for them to understand whatever I am saying. I use simple language, I have no jargon. I am not an expert about anything. To understand me is very easy.

The problem arises that you cannot understand me just through words. And it is not a new problem, it has always been so. The person who experiences something in his innermost core finds it difficult to translate it into language, because language is created for mundane affairs. What can lovers say to each other? At the most, "I love you." And if, unfortunately, the woman has a philosophical mind and asks, "What is love, what is it that you are proposing?" explain that first you have to understand what love is, only then can you understand whether to take it or not.

Fortunately women are not philosophers. They don't ask what love is. In fact, they know more of love than men. It is men who have created all kinds of violence on the earth, and are preparing to destroy the whole life on earth. It is absolutely men's responsibility. Women have not been participants in it. But if a woman has a philosophical mind, then no lover can explain. Then the only way is, rather than saying, "I love you," he starts making gestures of love, holding her hand, dancing with her, looking into her eyes, singing with her, listening to the music, or just sitting silently together looking at the night, the stars. Perhaps just being together something will transpire.

And that is love. It is a transfer of some invisible energy, and exactly the same thing is religion. One who has known his own being is capable of sharing his being with you, and in that sharing, something will be triggered in you. And the moment you know the truth, it will not be the truth of the Master, it will be your own. He has never given you truth. He has never talked about it. He has not said a single word about it, because nothing can be said about truth.

All words are futile as far as truth is concerned. No word has the potentiality to express values like truth, joy, blissfulness, ecstasy. There is no way. But one thing you can do. You can give them a challenge: if there is something worth experiencing, at least don't condemn it before you have experienced it. And I know that anybody who comes here open and ready to learn puts his conditioning aside and forgets that he is a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan.

It is a very simple and natural phenomenon. It starts happening to you. It is happening, and that's the purpose of creating communes around the world. So that anywhere there is a group of a thousand or two thousand people vibrating with their meditative energy, dancing to abandon, singing madly, ecstatic for nothing, a man is going to get drunk just being in an open contact with the commune. There have been teachers, great masters, but what they were doing was theology, not religion. Religion needs a human lab, and that's what the commune is; because religion is the highest human engineering.

It is said - and perhaps it is true... In India, music is a very ancient tradition, and Indian music has qualities of its own, its beauty, its silence. It is not sexual the way jazz is sexual or the Beatles are sexual. It is something totally different.

Listening to the classical music you will feel something coming from a different world. In the history of Indian music it is said, and perhaps it is true, that if in a silent room a master sitar player plays the sitar and you keep a few other sitars in the room, soon those other sitars start vibrating. Nobody is playing on them, but they start getting in tune with the master player. And I see every possibility that it is not just a story, because vibrations can hit those sitars; just a master player, a maestro is needed.

In Indian music there are ragas. A raga is a certain type of music for a certain period of time. For example, for the morning, one raga; for the evening, another; for the middle of the night, another. Around the clock those ragas are played, but each has its own time. And it is really strange, that if you play the raga that is meant to be played in the early morning, in the evening, it does not create the same climax within you. The same man is playing, but something is missing.

It is just like at sunrise when the birds start singing and the flowers open up. At sunset the birds stop singing, the flowers start closing. Existence is going into rest, so there is a different music for this moment which will be in tune with the whole existence. There is a different tune for the morning Because the sun is rising, your music should be harmonious with the rising energy, the wakening energy of existence.

I am not a musician, but I have meditated around the clock, and I was surprised that a certain method functions at a certain period, perhaps in the morning.

Another method opens the doors in the evening, and you cannot use the same method for the morning.

In a commune where five thousand meditators are living, working, being, you will get drunk. It is bound to happen. So the people were really right when they told you, "Don't go there, we are afraid you may not come back again." It has happened to many, and I can see the possibility that it can happen to you.

Because who would like to leave this beautiful commune for that ugly world that exists outside with all the politicians, with all the rapes and murders, and everybody trying to cut everybody else's throat? Who wants to live there? Here there is no competition, no struggle, no crime. People don't have time. Either they are meditating or they are working or they are loving. There is no time to do anything stupid.

I have no philosophy, I have no religion; yet, I inspire people for a different kind of life which is religiousness, divineness, godliness. But my emphasis is that all nouns are wrong, only verbs are right. When you say, "Look at this tree," when you say, "This is a tree," you are not stating exactly that the tree is not a noun, and cannot be a noun, because it is growing. It is treeing. In existence there are no nouns at all. The river is rivering, the tree is treeing. Each moment you are somebody else. Each moment you are growing.

The growth never stops, and if you are consciously helping the growth, then you will not only grow old, you will also grow up into wisdom - which brings peace to the heart and which brings the light which reveals to you the immortality of your being. And at the same time it reveals the immortality of everything in existence. Things go on changing their form, but nobody dies.

Death is illusory, it has never happened; only consciousness is transmigrating into other bodies. And I don't want people to believe me, I don't teach transmigration of the soul. I simply help them to come to that space where they will be able to know it on their own. If a person can see his past lives, which is very simple, if he can see his thousands of past lives stretching to eternity, the logical conclusion is that he is going to continue in the future also to eternity.

Eternity to eternity.

With that experience, all fear disappears, because all fear is somehow rooted in death which is coming closer every day. We try to deceive ourselves and others in every possible way. We make our graveyards outside the city so that we are not reminded of death again and again. Whenever you pass by the graveyard, the thought is bound to come that sooner or later you will also be lying down in some grave. Perhaps the next grave that is being dug is for you. Nobody knows.

It is certainly for someone, and that someone can be you. We have tried to deceive ourselves with the belief that the soul will not die. But that is a belief, and belief is just useless. It won't help you to any transformation. You are believing it because it is helpful. You can keep your eyes closed to death, although you know that this is only a belief, that life is eternal.

So I don't teach any belief I teach methods of how to enter into different spaces which are available inside you. So those who are interested, bring them. Perhaps what they have not found in their whole life they may find here in this small oasis in the desert of Oregon. And don't think at all that those middle class people will not understand me.

Q: I appreciate the thoroughness of your answer. I don't remember my question, but I'm sure you answered it.

A: That's good.

Q: Since Americans, and especially oregonians, pride themselves as having the land of the free - we hear that all the time at grade schools, national anthems and so on - why do you think so many people are so opposed - I mean not just opposed, but really ardently opposed - to what you're trying to do?

A: I'm not surprised by it. If I was not opposed then certainly I would have been surprised.

It is just a natural phenomenon. If you have been miserable your whole life, if you have lived in a society where everybody is miserable - they all have their styles of being miserable, different colors, different shades, but basically everybody is miserable - then you don't see people just laughing for no reason, or just dancing because the moon is full tonight. Your society condemns such people as crazy. So when they have to encounter a commune like this, their first reaction is that if such blissfulness has not happened to them, these people and their existence prove to them that they have missed the train.

It will be good that these people are removed, destroyed, because they become a question mark. It hurts that there are people who are happy: Why am i not happy? If others have been able to manage it, then what is wrong with me that I cannot manage it?

A great inferiority complex arises. And whenever you are under the impact of feeling inferior, there are only two ways to think: either think that these people are mad, perhaps hypnotized, or that something is wrong with them. But this explanation cannot stand long, because these people are doing everything so intelligently, they cannot be mad. They are so conscious and alert, they cannot be just moving like robots, hypnotized. They are not sleepwalkers. So condemn them, that they are immoral, that they are against God, that they are not religious.

Just condemn them so you can feel a certain guarantee that you have not missed life. Whatever life has, you have: television, a car, a good job, a wife, children.

This is what life gives, so you have got it. But these people have got something else, and that hurts. Condemn them. Find out bogus, false charges against them. I invite these people just to come close and see, but they are afraid to come close, because deep down they know they will be infected by these people, and they will be left in a limbo.

All their investments are there in the world. Here, they will be coming into a strange space where they have no idea even what is happening, where these people are going. And there is the conflict in the mind of leaving the old world, where you had all your acquaintances and friends and family. They also were all miserable, so there was a certain affinity, a family feeling, a certain equality; there you cannot risk. Those who come here only come if they have the guts to risk.

You mentioned that they can tolerate Olympics, they can tolerate boxing, they can tolerate every other thing, and asked, "Why are they against you?" The reason is clear. The boxing does not make them feel inferior. In fact, the boxing helps them to release their violence. California University has been studying why, after a boxing match, violence increases immediately fourteen percent.

They have studied only violence. They should also study other things after boxing - how many more rapes happen, how many more murders happen, how many more suicides happen - and you will find they are all increased.

The society is so violent, so full of violence that just a football match, and people are ready to kill each other. A boxing match is simply ugly, barbarous. People enjoying two persons hitting each other like animals, breaking their noses, hurting their eyes, bringing blood... and people are clapping and shouting and enjoying. They get in some way identified with one of the fighters. Everybody in the stadium is identified with one wrestler, boxer. His victory is their victory.

When he hits the enemy they are hitting the enemy. It is unconscious, but it is a release.

Those who have too much violence, when just the identification won't help, they raise the percentage of actual violence after the match is over. For four days the percentage remains higher and then slowly it goes down. The same is true about football matches, about Olympics. They fit perfectly in their violent society. Even war fits perfectly. Nuclear weapons fit perfectly.

I am nonviolent and I stand for love, not for war. And I don't see that there is any need... things like boxing should be absolutely prohibited. They are ugly and barbarous. People can go there, thousands go, and millions of people are sitting glued to their chairs before the TV. It is strange that violence is so much appreciated, enjoyed. These people must be all carrying some violence in them, otherwise I don't see it, I cannot enjoy boxing. It is disgusting.

The phenomenon of the commune is just the opposite, and that's why it is so troublesome to them. If we were also boxers here, eating meat, doing all kinds of crime, they would have been perfectly happy to accept us. We are strangers to them. It hurts their egos. We are creating civilization. Up to now it has been only a word.

The Romans thought they had come to the peak of their civilization, and at the peak, what were they enjoying? Throwing Christians to hungry lions. I think they must have been very compassionate people. They could see lions hungry, and they provided the best food they could find. Why were they against Christians? The same reason: in the beginning Christianity was a stranger.

Now nobody is against Christians because Christians have compromised with the society. They are only nominally Christians. Sunday morning religion is their whole religion, and their church is nothing but a club where they go to gossip.

And nobody listens to the priest. There is nothing to listen to. That man has been repeating the same sermon again and again, but he can repeat the same sermon because nobody is listening.

I have heard that a Christian minister was very much disturbed by one old man who was the richest man of his congregation. Of course, he used to sit just in front of the priest, but he was old and he had heard these sermons so many times that they were like sleeping pills for him. The moment the priest would start he would fall asleep. That was not a problem; the problem was he snored. But he was the richest man, the richest donor. In everything, he was helpful to the church. In fact, he was the only man who was keeping the minister paid, otherwise the congregation would disappear. So the minister could not say anything to the man; but complaints started coming to him from other people.

They were saying, "We are not against his sleeping, he can go to sleep for good.

What troubles us is that he disturbs our sleep by snoring. And just a beautiful Sunday morning and one feels so good to have a little nap. But this old man..."

The old man used to come with his great-grandson. The boy enjoyed sitting there by the side of the old man. The priest took him away from the old man and told him, "I will give you one dollar every Sunday if you keep hitting the old man with your elbow so that he does not fall asleep. That is your work." The boy said,

"Done! There is no problem. I will not let him sleep a single moment, but I don't believe in priests and I don't trust them. Pay me in advance."

The priest gave him one dollar, and the next Sunday morning the boy continued pushing the old man with his elbow. The old man was very angry, and looked at the boy again and again, but he could not say anything. The priest was there, the whole congregation was there, but he did not allow him to sleep.

Outside, the old man was enraged. He said, "You stupid. What happened to you?

Why did you go on hitting me with your elbow and waking me up? I'm old, in the nights I don't have any sleep. This is the only place where at least for one hour, one and a half hours, I can have a good time. Doctors have failed. In fact, doctors have suggested, 'Why don't you start going to Sunday sermon? When we fail to give sleep to any patient we send him to the church, and it always succeeds without exception.'

"So, you rascal," he said to the boy, "you disturbed my whole joy; now I will have to wait one week again. But what went wrong, why were you doing this? You were always sitting silently." The boy said, "It is something concerning business."

The old man said, "What business? What business have you started doing?" He showed him the dollar. "The priest is paying me one dollar to keep you awake."

The old man said, "Then you should have told me before. I will give you two dollars every week. Don't disturb me." The boy said, "So far, so good. The business is going good. Two dollars, in advance."

He got the advance, and the next Sunday morning he was sitting silently. The priest made many hints, but the child would not look at him at all. He would look here, there, everywhere else. The priest said, "What has happened to this boy? Last Sunday was so peaceful." After the service, the priest caught hold of the boy and said, "You are cheating me. I am giving you one dollar per sermon.

Why have you stopped hitting the old man?" The boy said, "He is giving me two dollars for not hitting him. Now if you want, the price has gone up. If you give me three dollars I will keep him awake."

The priest said, "I cannot compete with your old man. He is so rich he can give you any amount of money. I am a poor priest. Three dollars per sermon, I will go bankrupt."

These people who go to the churches are no disturbance to the society. It is their society. Jesus was a disturbance, hence they crucified him. After Jesus, his apostles started compromising with the society, and what a coincidence. He was crucified by the order of the emperor of Rome, and later on Rome became the capital of world Christianity.

Existence works in strange ways. These people who are against me, hostile towards me and my people, one day you will find them in red clothes. I just have to manage to be assassinated. Then everything will be good, then I will gain their sympathy. Right now I am such a disturbance. They have never conceived such a religious man, one who has ninety Rolls Royces, hundreds of diamond watches, and a 126-square-mile ranch, three times bigger than New York. Naturally they should be offended. I am responsible for their being offended. And I am trying to introduce a totally new religious phenomenon which goes against their morality, their etiquette.

Everything that they have, my commune goes against it. Because I have seen one thing clearly: every society is an organic whole. If there is rape, murder, theft, and all kinds of crimes and perversions, then whatever good is there is so interconnected with the bad that we stand even against those things that appear good. We can see the interconnection between the good and the bad. They are two sides of the same coin, and we have renounced both. We are amoral people.

We are not immoral, we are not moral.

We are amoral people. This is their problem. They can deal with moral people, they can deal with immoral people, but they don't know how to deal with us. It is so new to them, they are puzzled and confused. But this is really the shock of the beginning of a new man. These are the birth pangs. The society is going, but we are going to continue to grow - not in spite of them, but because of them. If they are hostile and they hate us, we are already connected. We have a certain relationship already. Sometimes friendship is not so deep as enmity.

Just the other day I received a letter from a sannyasin: "I love you. My wife likes you but does not love you. I love my wife. I want to move to a commune, and now I am in great difficulty. My wife likes you but she is not ready to move to the commune. She does not love you that much. I love you so much I want to move, but what will happen to my wife and children? I am in a dilemma." When I heard the letter I said, "This man is going to be in great difficulty." If the wife hated me, things would have been simple, but she likes me. Like never changes into love. Hate has the capacity to change into love. In fact, it is love standing on its head.

I am really happy that people are hostile. How long can they remain hostile?

And they are unnecessarily wasting their time and energy, and having nightmares, and we don't care a bit. We are not bothered. We are enjoying the time that is available to us. Tomorrow is uncertain, so we are not going to sacrifice today for any tomorrow. We are existential people. Just this moment is so much, who cares whether the next moment we survive or not?

But they will have to change their attitude. You cannot carry hostility long. It starts disturbing your stomach, raises your pulse beat, and gives you heart attacks. We have not done any harm to anybody. They are doing it on their own.

They are creating it for their own death. If they understand just a little psychology, before becoming hostile, please come and become acquainted. I am not a missionary and I don't convert anybody.

If a person wants to be converted, wants to become a sannyasin, that is his responsibility. We are not making any effort to change any man, because I think that is trespassing, and I respect the individual as one of the highest values in the world.

Q: I've only got about thirty or forty more questions. Maybe we go to a true/false format.

A: Next time. Next time, and till all your questions are finished, go on coming.

And when all questions are finished, then what are you going to do? Be careful.

Q: Thank you, thank you very much.

Excerpted from 'The Last Testament, Volume 1', as Chapter 22 by Osho