There is no future for Christianity.

 

 

The Christians have been claiming that they have discovered the world. It is just holy shit. Columbus never discovered America, he re-discovered it. It had been discovered many times before, and there are valid evidences for it.

 

In Turkey, there is a map which has been decided by scientists to be seven hundred years old. It is a world map, with America included in it, and it looks so contemporary.

 

Everything we see in the modern maps is available in that map.

 

Not only does it mean that America was known to the man who made the map, it also implies that such a map cannot have been made without a flying machine. Without any airplane, such a map is impossible. You cannot see a bird's-eye view of the whole continent, of the whole world, from every angle ... you cannot make a map of India sitting here. Every nook and corner is drawn so clearly on the map.

 

So it is a propaganda of the Christians that Columbus discovered America. Before him, America was perfectly well known, and not only America, but the whole world as we know it today. The maps have not changed at all.

 

But this was not the first time that a map was made of America, seven hundred years ago.

 

Five thousand years ago, one of the great warriors of India, Arjuna, married a Mexican woman. In Sanskrit the name of Mexico is Makshika. From Makshika, Mexico is derived.

 

One of the most scholarly Buddhist monks, Bhikshu Chimanlal, has written a book that Christians go on ignoring. The name of the book is HINDU AMERICA -- because everywhere in Mexico and other parts, Hindu gods have been found, temples devoted to Hindu gods, statues of Hindu gods. The shape of the temples is the shape of the Hindu temple.

 

But not only has Chimanlal proved definitively that there was a time when the whole of America was converted to Hinduism, he has also found places which Christians will be shocked to know about.

 

There are fields in many forests of South America which have strange signs on them.

 

Those signs can be understood only if you are high above in the sky, from an airplane -- and the fields look exactly like airports. It has been said that those symbols are simply made so the pilots understand that they are above the airport; that there was no other use in making them if there were no airplanes. The signs are so big you cannot make any sense of them, standing on the ground you cannot see the whole sign. And such vast fields, so clean, that even now after thousands of years, it is as if airplanes could use them.

 

In Sanskrit, the airplane is called viman, and there are so many descriptions in so many scriptures that they have to be understood. The airplane is described with great detail in the MAHABHARATA, and perhaps a far better version than we know of yet, because it was not fueled by petrol. It used to have a certain precious stone on top of it, which absorbed the sun's rays, and through those sun rays the airplane was fueled. That was a far more developed version than our airplanes. We are wasting all the petrol on airplanes, on cars.

 

In the MAHABHARATA, which is five thousand years old, it is shown that they had found how to use solar energy. And the Christians go on insisting that "We have civilized the world."

 

Socrates was not civilized? Gautam Buddha was not civilized? Lao Tzu was not civilized? Confucius was not civilized?

 

Even before Jesus Christ was born, three thousand years before, India had discovered the alphabet. China had discovered gunpowder and all kinds of technological devices -- before the birth of Jesus, thousands of years before.

 

In the MAHABHARATA, all kinds of weapons were used which are not available to our intelligence. We thought they were just mythology -- but atomic energy has proved that they were not mythology, they were atomic weapons.

 

Mahavira was five hundred years before Jesus, and he was the twenty-fourth tirthankara of the Jainas. The first tirthankara of the Jainas, Adinatha, is mentioned in the ancientmost book in the world, the RIGVEDA, with such deep respect. That was culture.

 

It was Adinatha who founded Jainism and separated from Hinduism, but the Hindus' most sacred book does not condemn him, does not criticize him. He criticized everything that the Hindus had believed for centuries. He was against the caste system; he was against Manu and his commandments to the Hindus. He was against the brahmin priests, but still ... This was culture.

 

In the RIGVEDA they have very respectfully remembered Adinatha, that he was a unique man, a great man, a man of tremendous understanding: "It does not matter that we don't agree with each other, but we can respect each other."

 

And you say "we" civilized the world! Christians! You don't know about anything before Jesus Christ.

 

China was already a civilized country. India was always, for thousands of years before Jesus, absolutely a civilized country.

 

Christians have to come down from their propaganda machine. What do they know of culture?

 

In India there flourished hundreds of philosophies, and every philosopher criticized others as severely as possible, but with great respect. It was not a question of criticizing the other philosopher, it was a question of finding the truth -- and that is the aim of all thinkers and philosophers and theologians. So you may disagree, but you cannot be disrespectful.

 

Jainism and Buddhism are the most civilized religions of the world. They have not killed anybody, not a single person, in an effort to convert him.

 

And the Christian church calls itself the militant church. Military and church ...?

 

Certainly Christians have killed more people in the world than any other religion. It is a militant church. It used to have great armies, it used to send armies to convert pagans.

 

Pagans were beautiful people, far more beautiful than any Christian.

 

Pagans were nature-worshippers. They loved the trees, they loved the rivers, they loved the mountains, they loved the stars, the sun, the moon ... that was their world. There was no God, there was no hell, there was no heaven. This very life was paradise. What Buddha said, pagans would have said. But Christianity has killed them or converted them. Now there are no more pagans. They were the most joyous people, who loved, who lived abundantly, without any fear and greed.

 

But Buddha has made a statement which is certainly a pagan statement. Buddha said, "This very body the buddha, and this very earth, the lotus paradise." That statement contains the whole philosophy of the pagans. But Christians treated pagans as a subhuman race; they were not human beings, so to kill them was just like hunting, killing animals.

 

What Christians have done is exploit the whole world, not discover it.

 

What have they done in Australia?

 

They used to kill the natives just as hunters kill animals. They have almost destroyed the native population of Australia -- killing human beings as a game. And the people who went to Australia were the criminals expelled from England. They had committed murders, they had committed rapes and all kinds of heinous crimes. They needed crucifixion. But rather than crucifying them -- because they were English -- England simply sent them out of the country. And these people became in Australia the president, the prime minister, the super-rich people, the most cultured ... and they were killing human beings like animals.

 

The same has happened in America, not on such a vast scale, but still the same. Criminals went to America, criminals expelled from England. Two states they founded, and of those two states they were the governors. They simply killed people. And when other people came from other European countries, they destroyed the Red Indians, the natives of America. Those who survived have been forced into deep forests. They call them reservations, but it is a sheer change of the word. They are concentration camps with a sophistication that Adolf Hitler was not aware of.

 

Adolf Hitler had to create electric barbed wires around the concentration camps. The people who reached America managed in a far more beautiful way. First they killed most of the natives. Then small pockets of natives were given pensions, so they don't come into the mainstream life of America. They have to remain on the reservations. They are not educated, but they are given good pensions because their land has been taken. On the surface only it looks very civilized; inside the story is totally different.

 

They have been given pensions and no work. Now what will they do with their money?

 

They gamble, they drink, and in their drunkenness their whole life is wasted. And they go on creating more and more children, because each child brings more pension money.

 

They are uneducated, they are not allowed to enter into the mainstream world of America, and they are given so much money -- such a cunning strategy. With so much money what will they do? They will gamble, they will rape, they will have prostitutes, they will drink their whole life away. They don't think at all that America is theirs; they don't have that much consciousness left. That's why they cannot revolt. In fact, revolution will be dangerous to their pension.

 

So this is a far more sophisticated electric barbed wiring around them. They can't even raise their voices for liberation, for freedom, because freedom will mean ... who will give them the pensions without work? So it is better to keep silent and just go on drinking and raping and gambling. That is their whole life.

 

Much land was acquired by killing, but just to show it to the world, a few pieces of land were purchased. You will be surprised: they were purchased with a loaded gun at the chest of the man to whom the land belonged. This way New York was purchased for ninety dollars, the whole city of New York. Ninety dollars? Can you conceive of it? Just three hundred years before ... And most of the land that has been purchased has been purchased the same way as New York. But they had the satisfaction that they were paying for the land.

 

When I was investigated in America, they asked me questions. I had to answer them by other questions. I told the man, the chief of the immigration services, "What do you think about yourself? You are a foreigner, I am a foreigner. You are a little older foreigner -- you came three hundred years ago, I am new -- but don't think that this land belongs to you. And who is to judge? -- you?

 

"You entered this country without any visa and without any entry permit, and you entered this country as invaders. I am entering this country with a visa, with an entry permit as a tourist. If you have any honesty, about which Christians claim so much, you should leave this country immediately! It is not your land, and your hands are covered in blood.

 

"You are deceiving the whole world, and deceiving yourselves! You made the Constitution in somebody else's land, and you talk about freedom? And you talk about freedom of speech, and you talk about respect for the individual: what have you done to the natives? That was respect?

 

"Against your own Constitution you are keeping those people as slaves, and you are occupying their country. And you want me to ask for a permit to be a resident here?

 

Foreigners asking foreigners?

 

"And I have purchased the land! -- and not like you. You have paid ninety dollars for New York. We have paid six million dollars for Rajneeshpuram" -- and we invested in the commune three hundred million dollars -- "and we have not invaded anybody."

 

But the commune which was flourishing ... the whole of America was shaken by the commune. Most shaken were the Christians, who think they are civilized. It was the fundamentalist Christian President Ronald Reagan, acting under the influence and pressure of the church to destroy this commune: "It is dangerous, because it is taking young people from the Christian fold."

 

You go on taking people from the Hindu fold, from the Mohammedan fold, from the Buddhist fold, and that is absolutely alright. And if I had been ... I was not converting anybody into any religion. Only the very intelligent people had come, on their own accord, and they were free to leave any moment.

 

This is not a religion, it is a caravan of seekers of truth. Nobody is converted, everybody has joined the caravan, the commune, on his own accord. His freedom is intact, his individuality is respected.

 

It has been asked of me, "Before you there have been Hindu monks, Jaina monks, Buddhist monks, but nobody was so much condemned. Why was your commune destroyed by America by force?"

 

The reason is clear.

 

Vivekananda was the first to enter America from India, but he behaved like a politician:

 

he praised Christianity, and he said, "All religions are one" -- and he did not take anybody out of the Christian fold. He never criticized a single Christian dogma, so naturally there was no question. He had no commune, he was just a visitor, praising.

 

People loved him, because their religion was being praised by an outsider.

 

The same was done by Ramateertha, and the same has been done by Maharishi Yogi and other sannyasins of Hinduism. They all praise Christianity, so Christians are happy.

 

I am not going to praise any lies, any poisons, any untruths. I am going to say straightforwardly what is what. That was the problem for them. They could not understand how to argue with me.

 

I was in America for five years, fighting in all the courts. In the end my visa had expired long before, I had no visa, no entry permit -- but they had not the guts even to come into the commune. They surrounded the whole commune -- the commune had one hundred and twenty-six square miles -- they surrounded the whole commune with the National Guard with machine guns, but they did not dare to enter into the commune.

 

And we had nothing -- just thirty semi-automatic guns, which are available in America to any citizen. These belonged to the police force of the commune, which was paid by the American government because the police force was part of the American police force, even though all the people were sannyasins who had taken the police training. So they were afraid that "Although the police force is ours, it is going to fight for the commune, not for us."

 

The greatest power in the world was afraid of thirty semiautomatic guns. They were planning for years and years how to arrest me -- and I don't have even a paperknife!

 

To arrest me is so easy .... There was no need to handcuff me, there was no need to put chains on me. You could just have told me, "You are invited to the presidential guesthouse -- the jail," and I would have gone with them. There was no question about it.

 

But you will be surprised .... They asked the FBI to arrest me, and the head laughed. He said, "A single individual who has not committed any crime, and you ask us to arrest him? We will not." Even the head of the army was asked. He simply laughed: "Have you gone mad? Has the army ever been called to arrest a single individual who has nothing in his hands with which to fight? You will make us a laughingstock all over the world." He refused.

 

All the government agencies refused to arrest me, for the simple reason that they could not show any reason why I should be arrested. They could not say that I didn't have a visa, although my visa had expired long before. They could not say it because I had applied for renewing the visa, and they had not answered. They were afraid that if they said no, I was going to take them to the court, up to the Supreme Court, and it would take twenty years at least to decide the matter. So "No" they could not say; "Yes" they would not say.

 

So they did not tell the army or the government agencies that "The only reason to arrest him is that he has been living in America without any visa." It was their fault, not mine. I had asked them again and again that "Either you say no, or you say yes" -- but they could not say either.

 

They could not say yes because the Christian church was pressuring them that I should be thrown out of the country; once I am thrown out of the country, the commune will disperse. The commune had gathered out of love and gratitude around me, otherwise there was no reason to be in that desert.

 

We transformed the desert into a garden. It was for sale for forty years, and nobody was ready to purchase it -- at any price. What will you do with that desert? But our creative people made houses, made dams, created small rivers. We had enough water in our reservoirs so that even if for five years there was no rain, we had reserves of water. We had planted so many trees that it was not going to be long before the trees would attract the clouds.

 

We were cultivating in the desert enough food for the commune. Five years more and the commune would have been absolutely independent. We had our own cows for milk, we had our own hens laying eggs for people's breakfast. We had our own fields, we had our own greenhouses -- because in the desert the sun is so hot, and unless you make a greenhouse ... We had our own greenhouses for vegetables, for fruits. And this all was happening while we were fighting with the government in every court. They were putting imaginary cases ... but once they put a case against you, you have to fight it.

 

We had the greatest law firm in the whole world. Two of the attorneys are here: Anando, Sangeet, and I think Niren was here just a few days before -- perhaps he may be here. We had four hundred people in the law firm, four hundred people continuously working on every aspect of American law and the Constitution.

 

If they had depended simply on law, there would have been no way to destroy the commune. But they dropped all law, all Constitution, they were simply mad! And that madness is not part of a cultured religion. It is not civilization.

 

We have not thrown out the Christian missionaries from India. They go on converting people to the Catholic fold -- but if people want to be Catholics, it is perfectly okay. It is their choice. The government has no objection; it has given freedom of religion.

 

The American Constitution also makes it clear that the state should not interfere in religious matters -- but they interfered. They crushed and destroyed our commune.

 

Just now I have received a few pictures. Even after five years in the desert, the trees that we have planted there are so green, they have achieved such great height, and with such beautiful shade underneath. They are still waiting ....

 

But the government has not only deported me for five years, it has also made arrangements for another five years' suspended jail sentence. If I enter America after five years, they can put me in jail on any excuse -- imaginary -- and I will not have any recourse to appeal for five years. So, in fact, they have prevented me for ten years.

 

In ten years those trees won't survive. Those three hundred peacocks in my garden, they have been catching them and selling them. They could get only one hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty have escaped into the mountains. They will not be able to survive.

 

The dam needs continuous care. In ten years it will not be able to contain the overflow of water. We were continually on guard that no water overflows the dam. Once the water starts overflowing, soon the dam will be destroyed -- and all the commune land is below the dam, so it will be flooded with water. That will destroy all the houses that we made for three thousand people to live in, all the roads that we created.

 

And we were not employing any laborers. Doctors, surgeons, professors, teachers -- all kinds of educated people were creating roads, making houses, making gardens, lawns.

 

We had one of the best hotels, with two hundred and forty rooms -- a five-star hotel in the desert. The whole commune was centrally air-conditioned .... Now what will happen to all that?

 

Just a few months ago -- a picture has been sent to me by a sannyasin .... They did not allow me to stay even one day after I was released. They told me that I had to leave immediately. They were afraid that if I stayed even one more day, there was a possibility I might be able to appeal to the high court, to the Supreme Court. Fifteen minutes ... and my jet plane had been kept with the engine running, so that immediately I should be taken to the airport and taken out of America. I could not go back to the commune just to say goodbye to my people.

 

Even when they gave me bail it was prohibited ... they made it absolutely certain that I didn't leave the commune. Every day a phone call would come and I had to answer the phone. I could not use the airplanes -- we had five airplanes in the commune.

 

I wanted to go to the commune to at least tell my people, "Don't be worried. Even if I am not here, you continue, you will feel my presence. And ten years will pass" -- five years have already passed, five more years will pass also -- "I will be back." But they did not allow me even to go back to the commune.

 

And just a few months ago I received a picture. We had -- those who were in the commune will remember -- just in front of the assembly hall, we had the sign of two birds flying, just as you entered from the road towards the assembly hall.

 

A picture has been sent to me: some fanatic Christian has shot those symbolic birds, made twenty holes, with a gun. These are civilized people? And they were only painted birds, not even living birds -- but such anger, such violence!

 

They must have robbed every house, everything that they could carry. They must have destroyed everything that we had managed so beautifully, with so much care and love.

 

People were working ten hours, twelve hours a day. A great dream was about to be realized.

 

And these people call themselves the ones who have civilized the world! They are not themselves civilized. They need civilization.

 

Perhaps, in the whole history of the popes, only one pope was honest. This pope was Pope Leo the Tenth in the sixteenth century. He is reported to have said, "It has served us well, this myth of Christ." I am not saying it, it is a statement from an infallible pope:

 

"This myth of Christ has served us well."

 

Certainly, it has profited you well.

 

They have been talking about truth, but they have been hiding immensely important things. They have changed all the gospels, they have edited everything that was going to be difficult for them to argue for, to defend.

 

In the oldest versions of the gospels, you will be surprised to know, Judas was one of Jesus Christ's brothers. He had two brothers and two sisters -- but to keep Jesus' mother, Mary, without sin, they have dropped those daughters and those brothers completely.

 

Either they would have had to bring the Holy Ghost five times -- that would be too tiring for the Holy Ghost, and it is a remote-control operation -- or they would have had to accept that Mary gave birth from Joseph, her legal husband; that this Holy Ghost is illegal, and that Jesus is an illegitimate child.

 

They have dropped from the gospels the very idea that Jesus had any brothers or any sisters. They had to keep Mariam, or Mary, or Maria, or whatever name you give to Jesus' mother ... Mohammedans call her Mariam, which looks to me the most beautiful.

 

Greeks call her Maria, ordinary Christians call her Mary. But to keep Mary without sin was necessary for a certain reason.

 

Why had God chosen Mary to give birth to his only begotten son? -- because she was without sin. It means that on the whole earth there was no other virgin girl; only Mary was virgin. It is such a condemnation of the whole of humanity.

 

I have heard: in a Christian church the priest was saying that virginity is one of the foundations. There were more women present than men.

 

Men don't go to churches or temples, or any other holy places. It is the women, because that is the only place where they can gossip with each other. They don't have any clubs, they cannot go to the restaurants, to the pubs. They have no social mobility, only the church. So they go out of necessity, because that is the only place where they can show their ornaments, their beautiful clothing, the fur coats, and all kinds of gossips that are boiling within them. They don't go for Jesus Christ, for sure!

 

And a few husbands go there -- not for Jesus Christ, but either to keep an eye on their wife or to keep an eye on somebody else's wife!

 

When the priest asked, "Out of all you women, how many are virgins? Stand up!" nobody stood up. The priest said, "My God! Nobody is a virgin?"

 

Then a woman with a small baby stood up. He said, "You idiot! I am asking about virgins. You already have a baby!"

 

The woman said, "The baby cannot stand, and that is the only virgin in the church. I am not virgin, but this baby is six months old; she is still a virgin, believe me, but she cannot stand on her own!"

 

They say they are defending truth.

 

They are defending lies.

 

They don't mention in the gospels that Judas was Jesus' brother. And one thing is certain:

 

they go on condemning Judas, that he betrayed Jesus for thirty silver pieces -- but in the gospels themselves there is not a single word of condemnation of Judas.

 

My own understanding is that he never betrayed Jesus. It was Jesus himself, in his fanatical hallucination. Judas was trying to convince him, "Don't go at this moment into Jerusalem. It is the Jewish holiday, and this is the time of year when people are crucified.

 

You will be caught, there are rumors all around. It is better not to go to Jerusalem at this moment. Let this festival pass, then you can go."

 

But Jesus was absolutely fanatical. He said, "Don't you trust in God? This is a chance for the Jews to know that I am the only begotten son of God. Let them crucify me, and God will do a miracle!"

 

And you have not been told that Judas was so sad and sorry when Jesus was crucified that the next day he committed suicide, hanging himself from a tree.

 

But Christians will not talk about the truth. They have to throw the responsibility on someone, but without any evidence from ancient scriptures ... It is one of the most poisonous religions.

 

It says that one of the pillars of Christianity is forgiveness. It looks beautiful when you hear the word 'forgiveness', but the implications are very evil.

 

A man rapes a woman. The man will be forgiven by God, but what about the woman?

 

The criminal is forgiven, what about the victim? There is not a single mention that the victim will be rewarded or anything.

 

A man murders, and he simply goes to the priest and confesses, and the priest gives him a simple method, so cheap: "You have murdered a man. Put ten dollars in the charity box and say five Hail Marys, and your sin is forgiven. God is compassionate."

 

But what about the murdered? Nobody has asked the question to the Christians, "What about the murdered? What is God going to do with the murdered, the raped woman, the molested child?"

 

And, strangely enough, the same man will commit another murder, because now he is fresh, clear; the old murder is erased, forgiven for ten dollars and five Hail Marys. Now he can commit another murder, he can commit another rape. All he needs is to go and confess to the priest and give some money, and the priest will give him a prayer to do five or ten times.

 

There is no mention of the person who has been committing crime after crime. He is not being punished, he is being continuously forgiven. And all those people who have suffered from this man's crimes, there is not a single mention of them in the whole Christian religion. It seems God is in favor of criminals, but not in favor of the victims.

 

Now look again at the idea of forgiveness, and you will see that it is ugly.

 

In other religions, Jainism, Buddhism, there is no God -- and it is good that there is no God. Nobody can forgive, so there is no question of forgiveness. These religions are more scientific. Every action will have its reaction, nobody can prevent it. You put your hand in the fire and you will be burnt. No God can prevent it. You rape a woman and you will suffer a deep wound of guilt. You may go mad, but you will have to suffer. Only suffering will cleanse you, not forgiveness.

 

These religions are far more scientific: Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism. These three religions don't have any God, they don't have any hell, any heaven. They are purely scientific: live according to your awareness and there will be nothing like sin committed by you. Live unconsciously and you will suffer.

 

It is unconsciousness that suffers. There is nobody who can forgive you; that forgiveness is in itself a criminal act, because the raped woman is suffering. Perhaps she gets pregnant, she has a child which she cannot love. She hates it. It is out of rape that the child has come to her.

 

There is no discussion at all about the very fundamental problem. Forgiveness is not the right thing.

 

One who commits anything against existence has to suffer. One who helps existence to grow towards more beauty and more consciousness, and more joy and more dance, should be rewarded -- not by any God, but by his own act. In fact, when you do something good out of your awareness, the very action brings such blissfulness to you, such peace, such joy; you are rewarded in the action itself.

 

And if you do evil ... that is only possible if you are not meditative. If you are an unconscious being, in blindness you may commit something which hurts someone -- but then you have to take the responsibility, and you have to suffer the reaction that is produced by your action.

 

Christianity is absolutely unscientific.

 

There is no future for Christianity.

 

They say that they have given a sense of morality to the world. These are their questions they have sent to me.

 

"We have given a sense of morality to the world" -- and they don't read, it seems, even their own Bible.

 

The Old Testament is full of pornography, far worse than any PLAYBOY, PLAYGIRL, or PENTHOUSE. Of course there are no psychedelic colors in the pornography, so you don't see it, you have to read it.

 

There are three hundred and eighty-eight pages of pornography in the Old Testament.

 

This is the biggest pornographic holy scripture. One of my friends, Ben Akerley, has pulled out those three hundred and eighty-eight pages and created a book called THE X- RATED BIBLE. Now Christians all around the world are trying to ban the book, but it has already gone underground, it is circulating. I have it; I would not say anything for which I don't have the right evidence!

 

Just one instance of the pornography ... Three hundred and eighty-eight pages will be too long, it will make the record!

 

According to the book of Samuel, King David -- no ordinary person, but very much respected in the Old Testament -- King David saw Bathsheba bathing from the roof of the palace -- a great king! -- and thought she was beautiful, so he had her brought to him so that he could sleep with her.

 

When she became pregnant, David called her husband back from the war -- he was a soldier in David's army -- so that the husband could sleep with her, and believe the child was his.

 

But the husband did not sleep with her, so David had the husband, Uriah, sent to the front of the hottest battle, so that he was killed. Then he married Bathsheba.

 

As a punishment for this, the Lord threatened that he would take David's wives from him and give them to his neighbor who would sleep with them in public view.

 

A great punishment! God also seems to be pornographic.

 

This is the old jungle law: an eye for an eye. You have slept with somebody else's wife; all your wives, not just one -- David had many wives, he was a great king -- all your wives will be taken away from you, and in public view they will have to make love to your neighbors.

 

This is forgiveness? And what is the justification? David has slept with only one wife; now all his wives ...? And what have the wives done? They have not slept with the soldier, why are they being punished?

 

It is strange: David commits the sin, his wives will suffer the punishment. Great justice.

 

Even an idiot can understand that this God is retarded.

 

The Christian monks have asked me, "We have given the sense of morality to the world ...." Then what was Gautam Buddha doing five hundred years before Christ? What was Mahavira doing? What were the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas doing? What were Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu doing? They were all before Jesus Christ.

 

And, in fact, Jesus Christ had come to India, hearing about Gautam Buddha. Although Gautam Buddha was dead, he had left enlightened people, "and there may be some few still who are enlightened."

 

Enlightened Buddhists had created two great universities, Nalanda and Takshashila.

 

Those were the first universities in the world. Oxford is only one thousand years old, and Oxford has only ten thousand students. Nalanda had fifty thousand students; Takshashila had one hundred thousand students.

 

They were not ordinary students, they were sannyasins, and they were not learning scriptures, they were learning meditation. They were learning how to enter into past lives and to find out what they had done in the past lives. Those were great universities which were destroyed by the Hindus.

 

But Jesus came at the right time. He could meet enlightened masters in Nalanda, in Takshashila. He went to both the universities, it is on record. And far away in Ladakh, in the Himalayas, there is a Buddhist monastery which has a record of all the visitors. One of the visitors to the monastery in Ladakh was Jesus.

 

One hundred and fifty years ago a Russian explorer reached to Ladakh, and he has copied the whole page that was written about Jesus: "A man who was a Jew, a young man, came and remained in the monastery. He was tremendously beautiful and he tried to learn everything of what Buddha had been teaching. He has visited Takshashila and he has visited Nalanda, and he has seen enlightened people and learned many things from them."

 

These are the seventeen years that are missing from the Bible. Seventeen years he was here in India, in Ladakh, in Tibet, so whatever he was teaching was borrowed from the East.

 

You have not given a moral sense to humanity; even Christ has borrowed it from the East. There is great similarity between his statements and Gautam Buddha's, but Gautam Buddha's statements have an authority which Jesus' do not have.

 

For example, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is an ancient Buddhist proverb, but Christians brag about it very much. As far as I am concerned, whether it is Buddhist or Christian does not matter. It is wrong. It is wrong on psychological grounds.

 

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." If everybody were equal, similar, had the same desires, then perhaps this principle would have been right. But everybody is different, your taste may not be the same as mine. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" -- that's perfectly okay, but others' tastes may be different. Everybody has a unique personality, so I may do something which I like, but you may not return it.

 

Your taste, your personality may be different.

 

For example, take a masochist who loves to be tortured. That is his greatest joy: to be tortured. He reads this statement, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," and what will happen? He will start torturing you, hoping that you will, in return, torture him. But it is not necessarily so. You may be a weaker person, or perhaps you may be yourself a masochist, enjoying his torture and not doing anything.

 

It is said that the best couple, the most perfect couple in the world, is one in which one partner is a sadist and the other partner is a masochist. They fit. But it is very difficult to find such a perfect couple, where one loves to be tortured, and the other loves to torture ....

 

So if by chance it happens that you meet a sadist and you are a masochist, then this principle on that rare occasion will be right. Otherwise, it is not the rule. It looks beautiful, but it is unpsychological. It does not touch the depth of human psychology.

 

People's tastes differ.

 

They have asked what I want to say about this: "Sanctify the Lord, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread."

 

On the one hand they go on talking about his forgiveness, his compassion, his love, and in this statement they are saying, "Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." This is sheer exploitation of man's fear and dread, to terrify him, to make him tremble.

 

It is a well-known documented fact that in the Middle Ages there used to be Christian missionaries .... They created such fearful scenes of hellfire -- eternal fire, the devil torturing everybody in every possible way, and it is never going to end -- and they shouted and they beat the table, and they slammed the Bible on the table. They created such fear amongst the women that after their sermon, the measure of their success was to count how many women had fallen unconscious, foaming, in a coma. The whole picture was so colorfully painted that the women started trembling, because they all knew they had committed sin. They have loved a man -- that is the greatest sin. They have not only loved their man, they have even desired other men.

 

Because the Bible says, "Even your dreams will be counted." If in a dream you make love to your neighbor's wife, don't think God is not watching! He is the perfect witness of everything that is happening in the world. He is looking through every keyhole. He is looking even in your dreams, you are not even free to dream. You are not doing anything, just dreaming, but even your dreams will be counted on the day of judgment as sins.

 

There is no difference, it is equal. Whether you have actually committed a sin or you have just dreamt about it, imagined about it, the punishment is equal.

 

The whole of Christianity lives on fear and greed. Those are human weaknesses. Man is afraid of death, man is afraid what is going to happen beyond death. Man is afraid of his own desires, his tendency to love. Christianity exploits them, and all other religions also exploit them in a minor way.

 

Make people afraid and they will fall down on their knees, foaming at the mouth and raising their hands to God: "Forgive us ...." They will "sanctify the Lord" out of their fear and dread.

 

And create greed in them: "If you don't commit the sins, if you are afraid of God, all the pleasures that you can dream about will be yours in paradise."

 

So on the one hand there is fear, which is one of the basic paranoias of man, and on the other hand, greed. Fear is for hell, greed is for paradise.

 

The word 'paradise' comes from Persian. In Persian it is firdaus, and firdaus means a walled garden where kings used to enjoy hundreds of women, wine -- a pleasure garden.

 

Paradise is nothing but a changed form of firdaus: a walled garden of pleasure.

 

So give people a carrot, hanging far away beyond death, so they go on moving. Nobody knows whether that carrot exists or not, because nobody has returned from paradise to inform you what is true and what is untrue. And nobody has returned from hell either -- so both are fictions, with not a single witness.

 

But by creating more fear, more dread, more greed, you can manipulate humanity into slavery. This is not morality, this is sheer slavery. You are taking the dignity of human beings and you are destroying their beauty, their joy, their life, and filling it with all kinds of rubbish, poisons. They have poisoned almost the whole of humanity.

 

Even Mahatma Gandhi ... I have looked deeply into his life and his actions. Perhaps not even his followers have gone so deep into his mind. He was one percent Hindu, he was born a Hindu, and he was nine percent Jaina, because he was born in Gujarat which is under the impact of Jainism -- even Hindus are under the impact of Jainism -- and he was ninety percent Christian. At least three times in his life he wanted to become a Christian but was persuaded by his friends, "That would destroy our whole political fight for freedom. If you become a Christian, Hindus will not be with you, and neither will Mohammedans participate under your guidance. So please don't do this."

 

But what was the reason? Why did he want to become a Christian? In his prayers he continually says, "I am not afraid of anything except God."

 

That is a Christian idea that has become conditioned in his mind. He was educated in England for his law degree, and then he was in constant companionship with the Christians in South Africa. He came back to India when he was forty years old, almost completely programmed by the Christians. And here in India a great Christian missionary, C.F. Andrews, was continually nagging him to become a Christian. "Without being a Christian you cannot reach paradise" -- and who would not like to reach paradise?

 

Jesus says, "Anybody who goes to paradise goes through me. There is no other way.

 

There is no other alternative."

 

I had one of Mahatma Gandhi's sons, Ramdas, as my friend, and I used to talk to Ramdas whenever I went to Wardha to deliver lectures. I asked him, "Did not your father ever think about what Jesus says? -- that God is love. How can you be afraid of love? You can be afraid of everybody EXCEPT God. Jesus was saying just the opposite."

 

But Christians are doing the same. Gandhi was just repeating Christian theology like a parrot. On the one hand God is love; on the other hand, "Fear God and feel the dread."

 

Then God is not love.

 

Love dispels fear. Love dispels dread. Love is the only thing in the whole world which destroys all fear, all death. Love is the only alchemy that transforms you into an authentic religious person, not fear. Fear creates only slaves.

 

Fear and dread are the reasons for all psychopaths; the whole pathology that psychiatrists and psychoanalysts are treating is created by some kind of fear. But from the very beginning the children are told, "Be afraid of God. He sees everyone."

 

I have heard about a Christian nun who used to take her bath in a closed bathroom, keeping her clothes on. When the other nuns found out, they said, "Are you mad? The doors are closed and there are only nuns around here; there is no man in the monastery.

 

Why do you take your bath keeping your clothes on?"

 

The nun said, "God is omnipresent. He is in the bathroom too; so I am afraid."

 

Such conditioning is bound to create pathology.

 

I have told you about militant Christianity. It is said, "Fight the good fight! Onward Christian soldiers!" Is it a religion or an army? But it has been killing millions of people - - and Christians call them religious wars, holy wars, crusades. Mohammedans call their holy wars jihads, wars for God. Does God require that millions of people should be killed? Does this statement come from God or from Jesus Christ, who talks continuously of love? But now it is militant Christianity: "Fight the good fight" -- because it is a fight for God. "Onward Christian soldiers!"

 

Christianity does not create sannyasins, it creates soldiers, and these are the polar opposites.

 

The monks who had come here belong to a certain sect of Christianity, Jesuits. They say to every parent, "Give us a boy of seven" ... not a girl. That's why you saw twenty-one soldiers, all male, and not a single woman soldier.

 

"Give us a boy of seven years and we will turn him into a good soldier of Christ."

 

On the one hand they go on saying that Christ is the pacifier, that he came to make the world at ease and in peace, and on the other hand they are asking for seven-year-old children. Why? -- because after seven years you can start conditioning and programming perfectly. The boy will be able to understand it, and by the age of twenty-one the programming will be complete.

 

The time between seven and twenty-one is the most vulnerable time, because after seven, sexuality starts in a very small way. By the age of fourteen it is ripe. And as sexuality is your life energy, when it is beginning, that is the right time to fill your life energy with certain programs. Your mind is growing with your sex.

 

It is not a coincidence that millions of people around the world have the mental age of only seven. From there they have been filled with beliefs -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan -- and they lost their intelligence. There is no need of intelligence. They are given everything as a belief, they don't have to explore, so they lose their growth of intelligence.

 

In America, I called Oregonians -- where our commune was -- retarded people. The attorney general, Frohnmeyer, became very angry when he heard my statement, but the University of Oregon became interested in whether there was some truth in what I had said. When I returned to India, the results of their research and their survey came. They had done the survey of the commune while I was there, and then they surveyed all cross- sections of Oregon society.

 

They were absolutely puzzled how I came to say it. The Oregonians' average mental age was seven and the commune's mental age was double -- fourteen. Those idiots destroyed an intelligent commune.

 

This fourteen years is also because you are coming from conditioned families. I go on sharpening your intelligence, but you are already conditioned. That conditioning takes a little time.

 

A man is capable of growing hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder -- his physical age and his mental age together. When he is fourteen his mental age is fourteen, when he is twenty-one his mental age is twenty-one, when he is seventy his mental age is seventy.

 

That will be the right growth program.

 

But no religion wants people of such intelligence, because then they will see all the contradictions and all the superstitions and all the stupidities of your religion.

 

And why are they asking for seven-year-old children? -- because after seven years of age it is possible to program the child easily. He becomes vulnerable. He is growing in his sexual life. He becomes open. You feed him, can fill him with any kind of nonsense and he will accept it. It will become his bones, it will become his blood, it will become his marrow, it will become his mind -- and he will never grow beyond the age of seven.

 

They are ready to return the child by the age of twenty-one, because at that time ... Sexual energy comes to the highest peak when you are seventeen and a half; that is when you have the greatest power. After seventeen and a half you are on the decline, and by twenty-one you have become too ripe. Now to change you is very difficult. So they are ready to return the children by twenty-one; now nobody can change them, they have prepared them into good soldiers of Christ.

 

But the very word 'soldiers of Christ' is so ugly. I teach you to be sannyasins -- and not my sannyasins. It is your sannyas, it is your investigation into truth. To be a soldier needs your mind to be stopped at the age of seven.

 

Only retarded people can be soldiers -- good soldiers. They won't ask any questions, they will simply follow the orders. Every religion wants people who don't ask awkward questions, embarrassing questions which they cannot answer.

 

I am here to answer all of your questions. You can find from any nook and corner of the world any question, and I am ready to answer, because I have no investment in you and I have no investment in any fold, any cult, any creed, any religion.

 

My only love is to share the truth, the beauty, the godliness that I have found. It is overflowing.

 

All I need is just a silent receptivity, a silent listening, and you will not be turned into soldiers of anybody. You will be an individual on your own feet -- a sannyasin in your own right.

 

-Osho, "Christianity The Deadliest Poison, #6"