Just by the way, I would like to tell you a very beautiful case of a great evangelist who had millions of listeners on the radio, and watchers on the television. In America, a new phenomenon is growing: TV evangelism. What is the need to go to the people? You just give the sermon in the television studio and it reaches to millions of homes.

 

This man, television evangelist Jim Bakker, has returned to American TV again. Where had he gone and why? He had admitted to having sexual intercourse with his secretary and homosexual relations with a male preacher.

 

This happened a few months ago. Then he went into seclusion just to avoid the public — because he was a great preacher, and they thought that God speaks through him. But when they found that he was having intercourse with his secretary, and is not only heterosexual, he is perverted — he was having a relationship with a male preacher… And on the television he was talking to everybody about the greatness of celibacy. These are the people who really destroy humanity and its trust.

 

Now he is coming back. What excuse has he found? — a great excuse, but it won’t do as far as I am concerned. Now he is saying that the devil made him do it. He was a representative of God, and God even did not care to interfere. And it was not only one time, but for years the devil was telling him to do it, to make love to the secretary, to have homosexual relations with the preacher; it was the devil.

 

What was God doing? If he cannot save his own preachers, do you think he will save you? The devil seems to be more powerful. He said, “The devil was jealous because I was forming a new church.”

 

But what about God? You were making a new church for God…. God seems to be absolutely impotent; the devil was directing you for years. And you had been preaching about celibacy…. You could not say to the people, “The devil has been forcing me to do things which I don’t want to do.” You were found red-handed making love to the secretary, and there was no devil present who was forcing you, on the point of a gun, to make love. You could have at least reported to the police station.

 

It is not a coincidence that devil-worship is growing all over the world, particularly in Christian countries. In England, there are now thousands and thousands of people who worship the devil. In Australia, thousands of people worship the devil. And these devilworshippers are Christians who have seen that God is impotent; the devil is a far more powerful being. Obviously, everybody wants to be on the side of the victorious.

 

These Christians are throwing stones at churches, throwing stones at Christian preachers, saying “You are misleading people. You are telling people that God will save you. God cannot do anything! The devil is more powerful.”

 

It was the devil to whom Adam and Eve listened, not to God. God behaved like a selfstyled, cultured Poona-ite. Rather than persuading them, or going with them, the way the devil had argued, God had told Adam and Eve that they should not eat the fruits from two trees: one was the tree of wisdom, and the other was the tree of eternal life.

 

I cannot in any way… I have tried in thousands of ways somehow to see the point. A father is preventing his own creation from being wise, from having eternal life? What kind of father…? He must be counted as the greatest enemy, the archenemy of humanity. It was the devil who argued with Eve. He said, “Do you understand why God has prevented you from eating from these two trees? It is because he is very jealous. He is afraid if you eat from these two trees you will be a god yourself. He does not want you to be a god, he wants you to live naked like animals in the forest.” And he said, “If you don’t believe me, you just eat and see.”

 

Eve could see the argument clearly. If the father loved you, he would have insisted, “Eat more of the tree of wisdom and of the tree of eternal life, so that you will soon be grown up, so that you will soon realize your godliness.” That would have been compassion, love. This is simply cruelty, violence, evil.

 

The devil was the first revolutionary friend of humanity. And when Eve ate the fruit, her eyes opened. She saw a totally different world. She ran to Adam and told him to eat the fruit. They were caught red-handed by God. Rather than giving any argument against the devil, he behaved just like an idiot. He drove them away, out of paradise.

 

In a small school a teacher was telling the story, and she asked, “Can you say something about the story?”

 

One small boy, Albert, stood up, and he said, “As far as I can understand, he must have driven them in an old Ford car.” Driving them out of paradise… what kind of car was he using? It must have been a Model-T Ford car, the oldest, the ancientmost.

 

The teacher was aghast. She said, “I had never mentioned a car.”

 

Albert said, “You said he drove them out…”

 

This is ugly behavior on the part of God.

 

Telling them, “You have committed the greatest sin…”

 

Wisdom is sin? — then ignorance must be a virtue. Searching for eternal life is sin? Then committing suicide must be a virtue. Adam and Eve could not reach to the other tree. Since then man has been searching for eternal life. Have you ever realized what you are searching for? You are searching for more wisdom — enlightenment. You are searching for eternal life — a force which has no beginning and no end.

 

I cannot say anything against the devil worshippers. They are doing the right thing. It is perfectly good if devil worshippers and god worshippers fight and destroy each other. It will be a great blessing to humanity. Whoever remains out of it will have all the joys of this planet, and all the possibilities of growing in his potentiality to ultimate wisdom and to eternal life.

 

Those two trees have to be found! If God comes in between, throw him away. Adam and Eve were very poor, naked — only two! Now humanity is big enough. Rather than being driven by God, it can drive God out of paradise. He has lived in paradise long enough. Now just get lost!

 

- Osho, “One Seed Makes the Whole Earth Green, #2”