The Last Testament (Vol 3) ~ 12

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event type interview
date & time 2 Oct 1985 pm
location Sanai Grove, Rajneeshpuram
language English
audio Available, duration 1h 35min. Quality: good.
Live music after the interview.
online audio
video Available, duration 1h 37min. Quality: good.
online video
see also
online text find the PDF of this discourse
shorttitle LAST312
notes
synopsis
Interview. Announcements by Ma Prem Hasya : John Mccall from the Seattle Post Intelligence; (inaudible); Pam Abramson from Newsweek
CD-ROM on this chapter: Interviews with John Mccall, the Seattle Post Intelligence (questions 1-44); Jeanine Perrett, the Australian (q.45-87); Pam Abramson, Newsweek Magazine (q.88-117).
Question 1 : John Mccall, the Seattle Post Intelligence
Bhagwan, this is John Mccall from the Seattle Post Intelligence. In the news conference Monday night you said you are not a savior or a prophet or a leader. Do you want the sannyasins to stay with you here at Rajneeshpuram?
Question 2
Sheela has told us in the past that her father raised you for a time before she was born. And this morning you said that you were miffed that she had not even said good-by to you when she left. What type of relationship you had with Sheela?
Question 3
Did you love Sheela?
Question 4
I would find it ironic that you would appoint her your personal secretary when you knew she was not a meditator, when she was a hotel waitress, and that you didn't even like her -- why make her your strongest aide?
Question 5
Did you expect what happened to happen?
Question 6
You said also at the news conference Monday night you blamed religious requirements of celibacy, for instance in Christianity, for creating homosexuality which in turn led to AIDS. You have also said in the past that you have known many women, yet you give us the impression now that you are a celibate man. Are you?
Question 7
At the present?
Question 8
In Seattle I have a wife. I wonder if you have a relationship with a woman.
Question 9
The, the reason that I find it peculiar that you would say you are not celibate is because you have a great deal of health needs in terms of cleanliness, and the temperature of this room for instance. You do not, as we normally do, shake hands when you greet someone. And you've spoken very frequently of the and the danger that AIDS presents to the world. I wonder if you have a fear of infection?
Question 10
The precautions that are taken with sex -- with the condoms and the gloves, the spraying the alcohol on hands and the phones -- these are taken in consideration of your needs?
Question 11
Their needs for your preservation though?
Question 12
I have been told that pregnant women are not encouraged to come here and that sannyasins are not encouraged to have children here.
Question 13
Why is that?
Question 14
I agree with you, but you said also the other night that you were destroying Rajneeshism as a religion....
Question 15
... Because you didn't want a system of beliefs, but you also wanted no leaders or no high priestesses telling sannyasins what a religion was after you were gone.
Question 16
If the commune does not reproduce it'll be like the shaker societies of new England that had no children and vanished in fifty years.
Question 17
You have said that you wanted to return the town of Antelope to its original residents....
Question 18
... If they would buy back the property. They told me that they favor a disincorporation because they fear that even if the town changes its name back to Antelope the sannyasins will outnumber them and will still control the town government.
Question 19
But I thought you implied this morning that you would ask all sannyasins to leave Rajneesh.
Question 20
Only if the properties are purchased then?
Question 21
Is it fair to say that aside from the allegations that you have made against Sheela and her group, that what the commune is experiencing now is sort of a cultural revolution, a whole change in attitudes in work?...
Question 22
... And that if that is true, some would argue that without a hierarchy, without a power structure, that the society would become too anarchistic, that work wouldn't get done, that there would be financial problems.
Question 23
Is the commune in financial difficulties?
Question 24
Even without the forty-three million that's in the Swiss bank account?
Question 25
I'm told you take two ice baths a day. Why?
Question 26
So you like the physical sensation of it?
Question 27
I know that you give the discourse in the morning and you meet the press in the evening. Could you briefly tell me how you spend the rest of your day?
Question 28
Why do you not visit those communes?
Question 29
Tomorrow?
Question 30
I believe after you experienced enlightenment you were silent for some years. Is that correct?
Question 31
And you were silent for three and a half years until last year?
Question 32
Would you anticipate another block of silence in your life?
Question 33
You will speak from now until your....
Question 34
Some critics say that you are destroying your charisma by speaking too much. Would you comment on that?
Question 35
Other critics say that sannyasins for the most part are people of the sixties generation who are looking for spiritual answers, and that spiritual remedies do not have an appeal for seventies -- people born in the seventies or the fifties, and that therefore you're speaking to a very small and select audience. Do you believe that to be true?
Question 36
So you would like to reach a wider audience? You would like all Oregonians to become sannyasins?
Question 37
Tell me, if you would, the meaning of the Rolls Royces?
Question 38
Maybe he agrees with you about wealth?
Question 39
Do you believe in reincarnation?
Question 40
You know that you will live in some form beyond this life?
Question 41
Eternally?
Question 42
Will you have consciousness beyond death?
Question 43
Will you have identity beyond death?
Question 44
You didn't know what was happening because of your period of silence; how can you be sure that there are not problems, similar things, going on in other communes around the world?
Question 45 : Jeanine Perrett, the Australian
You say you don't think so, but you can't really be sure, can you?
Question 46
But that's in conflict with what your mayor said this afternoon, who said that the investigation is actually concentrating on immigration questions about yourself rather than on catching the criminals.
Question 47
By the time they catch up with Sheela that could be the case?
Question 48
Then you're happy with the way the investigation is going at the moment then?
Question 49
Then these reports in your newspaper about you being worried that they didn't want to interview you -- that's not correct? You're not worried that they put off those appointments?
Question 50
This is why they put out seven search warrants today, then, you think?
Question 51
That indicates you're not quite happy with the way things are going?
Question 52
Do you think perhaps you've created something of a monster, bringing them in here now?
Question 53
You don't mind them smashing windows, breaking down doors, taking whatever... investigating, taking files. You don't mind how far it goes, what they find?
Question 54
You're sure you're happy with the way the investigation's going?
Question 55
What was the reason for the three years of silence, Bhagwan?
Question 56
Well, you're now giving three interviews a night and speaking each morning -- how's that affecting your health?
Question 57
That's the nature of your illness -- allergies, is it?
Question 58
What did not speaking do for allergies?
Question 59
You've conceded that your three and a half year silence was one of the reasons Sheela was able to get away with what she did. You said again....
Question 60
Do you now regret that three and a half year silence?
Question 61
Was it worth the forty-three million they supposedly took with them?
Question 62
What's the ultimate purpose of the money? You said you don't want anything to carry on when you've left. Where will the money go?
Question 63
This is after your death as well?
Question 64
So then what happens on your death when you don't want people to follow your footsteps?
Question 65
Yes, but they don't have a lot of money to worry about when they die.
Question 66
You said earlier that you were destroying everything, you didn't want anybody to follow in your footsteps. Is that why the press conference earlier this week to announce that the end of the clothes, the word Rajneesh? Is that the start of the dismantling of...?
Question 67
What brought it on now? Was it purely Sheela or have you decided the time has come to start dismantling the...?
Question 68
Why this week are they big enough? Why wasn't it a month ago or six months ago? What's prompted this?
Question 69
Your concern about AIDS, Bhagwan. How did Sheela and you get so out of step on the AIDS question if she was the only person you were consulting with each day for three years?
Question 70
Were you one of them?
Question 71
When you say she is obsessed with sex, there are some people who look at your commune and would say the same thing about yourself and your followers.
Question 72
What about the AIDS question? If you were in a period of silence... for three years.... I am not obsessed with sex!
Question 73
If you would like to continue talking about it, I'm quite willing to. Is there anything you feel you can add?
Question 74
If you were silent for three and a half years and you only communicated with Sheela, where did your knowledge about the fact that AIDS was going to come down and destroy the world come from?
Question 75
So it was Sheela who gave you the impression that AIDS was a problem, yet it was the same Sheela who also wanted to move AIDS victims into this commune?
Question 76
Isn't there a conflict there?
Question 77
So you don't think there's a problem with ADIS or there's any chance of AIDS creeping into this commune here?
Question 78
And they're here in Oregon?
Question 79
And do you expect the number to increase?
Question 80
And you don't think AIDS can increase in...?
Question 81
So I suppose you think if most other people followed the example set here, ADIS wouldn't be as big a problem?
Question 82
That's a more conciliatory turn for you on AIDS, isn't it? You've been quite outspoken....
Question 83
You said before that you couldn't travel to your other communes around the world because of your health. People in your commune have said that the reason you don't travel to your other areas of the world is because you're not going to leave the country until you get a green card. But once you get the green card, you're quite willing to travel.
Question 84
Would Australia be one of those communes? It's often been mentioned that perhaps you might go out there if you couldn't stay in America any longer.
Question 85
Sheela's not sort of setting up the way for you, is she? Sheela's not there sort of setting up the communes and helping...?
Question 86
Has anybody offered to make a movie of the last few months' events here? Have you had any approaches from Hollywood?
Question 87
I've spent about a week here last year and came away truly feeling the buddhafield, and my publication ended up writing a rather negative piece about the commune anyway. And, as it turns out, our negative piece sort of made this place look like romper room compared with what was really going on here.
I just don't know why we should believe what you're saying right now, not necessarily about Sheela but about your not knowing what was going on. After all you're the enlightened one.
Question 88 : Pam Abramson, Newsweek Magazine
Well, people are laughing, but what does that mean? Does that mean that what you're saying is...?
Question 89
Well, in what way am I nuts?
Question 90
I mean, what we had to say about the place turned out to be nothing compared to what you're saying now.
Question 91
Do you say the same thing to your sannyasins? Do you want them to believe?
Question 92
Well, how about responsibility? I mean, do you feel in any way...?
Question 93
How about the people that were being poisoned? How about Hasya? How about her husband? How about the man who died?
Question 94
Do you not feel any responsibility at all for the goings-on over the last...?
Question 95
So you feel responsible for not knowing?
Question 96
People are here because of you, not because of me. Because of you.
Question 97
So out of love shouldn't you have been more on top of what was going on around here? What did you talk to Sheela about?
Question 98
Some of these questions aren't even mine. They're what your sannyasins are asking.
Question 99
You've declared an end to Rajneeshism. What does that mean? How will things be different? What changes are in store?
Question 100
How are you going to be able to convey to the IRS that this commune shouldn't pay taxes the same way that it didn't when it was a religion?
Question 101
Because there are religious people here?
Question 102
You seem to hint tonight that you were, indeed, ready to fire Sheela anyway. Is that true?
Question 103
So this would have happened anyway regardless? I mean, she would have lost her job as your private secretary sooner or later?
Question 104
Why did it take so long? You've been talking for a year, right?
Question 105
Had you told her that?
Question 106
Why didn't you just let her go and be gone? She could have been gone and forgotten and, it could have been business as usual.
Question 107
Do you think that would ever happen?
Question 108
You've already said she's not a spiritual person, though.
Question 109
A very lovely sannyasin asked me to ask you. A lot has been said in your name. She wanted to know if you really wanted all the sannyasins from California to move here, or was that Sheela talking? And she really wanted to know if you banned kissing.
Question 110
That was your idea?
Question 111
I think her question was, "Did you ask all sannyasins in California to come up to the Ranch or was that Sheela?"
Question 112
Just the ones from Hollywood?
Question 113
Okay. So the bit about the earthquake and it was coming and they should all be here because it was safe, that was Sheela and not you?
Question 114
Well, I like Hasya a lot and feel the same thing about her that you do.
Question 115
Hey, it's not me! It's the rest of the world that has a hard time believing and not... not snickering and wondering whether you're doing it maybe for publicity, which we know you like.
Question 116
That you love publicity?
Question 117
Well, then, can't you see how some of us might be wondering if all of this isn't just to get...?


(source:CD-ROM)


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