The Last Testament (Vol 1) ~ 30

event type	interview
date & time	20 Aug 1985 pm
location	Jesus Grove, Rajneeshpuram
language	English
audio	Available, duration 1h 42min. Quality: good.
online audio	free download from OshoWorld purchase from Osho.com
video	Available, duration 1h 59min. Quality: good.
online video
see also	timeline : Osho Timeline 1985 first edition : The Last Testament (Vol 1) (1994 on CD-ROM) other editions, translations and links
online text	find the PDF of this discourse
shorttitle	LAST130

notes

Published in book form in The Man of Truth, ch.6 (in 2008).

synopsis

Interview. Announcements by Ma Anand Sheela : Fred Bruning, Newsday, Long Island, New York.

Question 1

Bhagwan, how do you stay warm in such a cold room?

Question 2

Have you always felt better in cold surroundings, even as a child?

Question 3

I would like to ask a question that is asked in meditation: Who are you?

Question 4

How would you describe yourself?

Question 5

Is it possible for you to describe others, other individuals?

Question 6

Do you ever have doubts about your work, about your role?

Question 7

Things couldn't be better?

Question 8

I don't understand exactly what you are saying.

Question 9

Maybe you can help me understand?

Question 10

And you are good at it?

Question 11

You have to know how things are for me before you can determine whether things could be better or worse.

Question 12

I am asleep as well.

Question 13

Is everyone in the room alseep, as far as you are concerned?

Question 14

Is Sheela asleep?

Question 15

How will you awaken her?

Question 16

Do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice? Do you ever feel 'enough'?

Question 17

Is marital fidelity worth anything?

Question 18

You don't think it might be good for some, not good for others?

Question 19

Have you ever considered marriage?

Question 20

Do you have children?

Question 21

Why do you say: "How could I have children?" Of course you could have children.

Question 22

Who do you consider history's most admirable figures and most despicable?

Question 23

You have read widely?

Question 24

Despite the flaws in history, who do you consider to be admirable individuals?

Question 25

You have expressed yourself in the past on certain individuals, though?

Question 26

Jesus for instance?

Question 27

Why do you admire absurdity?

Question 28

You seem to delight in contradictions. I think that is part of what you are saying?

Question 29

But in the end, what will be left but a series of contradictions?

Question 30

How do you want to be remembered?

Question 31

But you will be!

Question 32

What do you want set on your tombstone?

Question 33

Can you tell me a little bit about your day to day life; what do you do?

Question 34

Who wakes you?

Question 35

One and a half hours?

Question 36

What goes on?

Question 37

I saw the interview about the very elegant bathroom and your invitation.

Question 38

What kind of emergency?

Question 39

Maybe he had trouble getting out.

Question 40

So you are ready for the day after?

Question 41

And then after... Do you do any robust work, any kind of exercises?

Question 42

Also in the bathroom...

Question 43

And then is there a period of study?

Question 44

Do you have any interest in the outside world?

Question 45

If I asked you what was happening in Nicaragua or El Salvador, would you know?

Question 46

Is there anything in current history?

Question 47

It is my understanding that in September you will invite some victims of AIDS to the commune for care. Is that true?

Question 48

How do you think the sannyasins would respond?

Question 49

Do you think AIDS represents some cosmic punishment for what's gone wrong somehow?

Question 50

So AIDS has no significance beyond itself? It exists, it kills and it means nothing more than that?

Question 51

What do you think about those things: homosexuality and drug abuse?

Question 52

But you see that as an unnatural act?

Question 53

What for you is sexual perversion?

Question 54

I don't think Catholics or Buddhists or Hindus are any more likely to be homosexuals than anyone else.

Question 55

But that doesn't effect necessarily the masses of people.

Question 56

But these seem isolated incidents...

Question 57

How do you know?

Question 58

You personally know a homosexual United States senator?

Question 59

Who is the person?

Question 60

How did you come upon this information?

Question 61

When you say everybody know, who is everybody?

Question 62

But people say things about you that may not be true.

Question 63

There may be something that you are unable to speak of.

Question 64

People on the outside...

Question 65

They say that you have developed this organization for your own benefit, that you are a liar, that you are a cheat, that you treat people unfairly, that you have been coarse and unkind in your dealings with Oregon and of Antelope for very particular selfish reasons.

Question 66

How have you been too liberal, too lenient?

Question 67

I think people feel that you have been doing that for some time.

Question 68

The point was that things can be said about public people without there being any truth to what is being said.

Question 69

I might ask you how much money you have in the bank, and you may tell me that you have nothing in the bank. I can't tell whether that is true or not.

Question 70

Your being willing to answer questions doesn't settle the argument.

Question 71

Your bank account is more easily dealt with though...

Question 72

That has to do with matters of faith. What is your notion of faith?

Question 73

But people say they have faith in you.

Question 74

I talked to many people here who say...

Question 75

... Who say they trust you.

Question 76

It seems to me, that makes you more appealing to people.

Question 77

Exactly right, yes. You encourage questioning, but is there any format set up for you to be questioned by the people?

Question 78

A sannyasin my feel that perhaps the money should be used differently. How would that person make it known to you that he has reservations about the way money is spent?

Question 79

Have you no influence in the way money is spent?

Question 80

I think when you say that, people on the outside simply don't believe it.

Question 81

Would you describe yourself as a capitalist?

Question 82

You are in a very fortunate position.

Question 83

Have you ever wondered why you have come into such good luck?

Question 84

Did you foresee anything like this years ago?

Question 85

What were your hopes then?

Question 86

Never had hopes for yourself? Never dreams as a young man?

Question 87

What were your dreams then?

Question 88

Your dreams did not have any kind of material element in them?

Question 89

How do you account for that? Is it your upbringing, your parents?

Question 90

When did you begin saying things like that to your parents and what did they say to you in return?

Question 91

What happened when you disobeyed; were you punished?

Question 92

How?

Question 93

You were hit? You would be hit by your father?

Question 94

With his hand?

Question 95

Should children defy their parents?

Question 96

When should children obey their parents?

Question 97

But is a child prepared to do that?

Question 98

So if a child chooses to walk into what an adult...

Question 99

But that would terrify parents.

Question 100

But you've not been a parent. Isn't that too easy for you to say?

Question 101

If you saw a child putting himself or herself in danger, you would not reach out to that child?

Question 102

You would not physically restrain a child who insisted on walking on the railroad tracks?

Question 103

But that's only the freedom to destroy yourself.

Question 104

In the case of the child.

Question 105

But is that any meaningful limit on a child's freedom -- to protect the child from danger?

Question 106

And if people say that you are too detached from the world, you are making no sense except yourself; what you say really doesn't apply to the broad population?

Question 107

Your statements about service to the poor: you've said a few things that are not necessarily consistent?

Question 108

Should you be helping the poor? Are we not obliged as human beings to help those in lesser situations?

Question 109

The poor people are responsible for their own dilemma?

Question 110

Would you say that to someone who lived in the ghettos of New York or Chicago?

Question 111

And were you saying those kinds of things?

Question 112

I don't think that is what the poor of the United States believe, Bhagwan.

Question 113

So should the poor be punished for that?

Question 114

When you speak this way you sound so unsympathetic.

Question 115

You are unsympathetic to the poor?

Question 116

Could the poor save themselves by listening to you?

Question 117

How would that work, though?

Question 118

But even if they were to begin practicing birth control, that would not pay their food bill for the next month. How can they save themselves now by listening to you?

Question 119

But what about the poor tonight; the person who is hungry tonight, the person who has no money to pay his electric bill tonight; what can he do?

Question 120

You speak with so much disdain for Jesus, although we are in part of the commune called Jesus grove, and in the past you have spoken rather fondly, it seems to me, of Jesus as a... figure. Have you changed your mind?

Question 121

People say you are the guru of the rich, the yuppies' guru?

Question 122

He has more immediate needs though, Bhagwan.

Question 123

But is it a worthy way to spend a lifetime, ministering to the rich?

Question 124

Well, your job is easier though, isn't it?

Question 125

What would be the first thing you would do if you were the Pope?

Question 126

Do you have any use for prostestantism?

Question 127

You don't think of Martin Luther as a substantial individual?

Question 128

What is your idea of a German mind?

Question 129

What kind of mind scores higher?

Question 130

There should be no more children?

Question 131

How could that ever work?

Question 132

Do you have a vision of the future that includes a third world war?

Question 133

You or world war III?

Question 134

What's your advice to Ronald Reagan in regard to nuclear weapons?

Question 135

Do you fear the Soviet Union?

Question 136

In this country there is a term people despise: 'Better dead than red'.

Question 137

You've said some harsh things recently about America. You said that violence is the religion of America...

Question 138

You've said that "I believe that violence is the religion of America, that America has mistreated many groups: red Indians, black people..."

Question 139

Why, then, do you remain here if you find so much evil in the United States?

Question 140

What are you doing about, say, racial discrimination?

Question 141

How will that work?

Question 142

This is what the Evangelicals say. Realistically, do you think that will happen?

Question 143

Like Billy Graham, for instance?

Question 144

Which ideas of his do you find most offensive?

Question 145

What do you think of reverend moon?

Question 146

Are you distressed that sometimes people put you and reverend moon in the same category?

Question 147

What's the difference between the two of you?

Question 148

And yet, in your community there is a sense of order and authority here.

Question 149

But those people say they draw their energy from you.

Question 150

I spoke to a young woman today who once said that, while she thought there was not chance that you would ever do this, that if you did as Jim Jones did, suggest a mass suicide, that she would hope that she would do that. When you hear that, what do you feel? What do you think?

Question 151

Would you consider that a fanatical kind of response?

Question 152

Why not?

Question 153

Isn't that a dangerous kind of love?

Question 154

When you heard about the Jonestown incident, what did you think?

Question 155

Your followers have been called fools as well.

Question 156

Do you tell them that?

Question 157

They just don't listen though?

Question 158

You once lived a very simple kind of life; now you live a very opulent kind of life. What happened?

Question 159

Is there a possibility that one day you will give all this up?

Question 160

If you gave all this up, what would you do?

Question 161

Permanently, or for the evening?

Question 162

What should happen to all this after you are dead?

Question 163

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Question 164

What were your past lives?

Question 165

But how many lives have you had in the past?

Question 166

Could you give me some example of how it happened in the past?

Question 167

What about funeral preparations? Have you made some arrangements?

Question 168

Would you want to be cremated in the new crematorium?

Question 169

Do you think you will be in Oregon for the rest of your life?

Question 170

You've got the people in Australia worried now, I understand?

Question 171

The last thing, Bhagwan: Do you have a message for the people of America?

Question 172

If you were an American citizen and you chose to vote; would you be a republican or a democrat?

Question 173

Ronald Reagan thinks he presides over a democracy. Is he incorrect?

Question 174

Is he a deluded man?

Question 175

He's too old to be president?

Question 176

You like movies, isn't that right?

Question 177

I read somewhere that you liked "Patton" and "the Ten commandments."

Question 178

You didn't like the book!

Question 179

Do you spend much time looking at videos?

Question 180

And you're not reading anything any more?

(source:CD-ROM)

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