The Last Testament (Vol 1) ~ 02: Difference between revisions

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txton =  find the [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=The_Last_Testament_Vol_1.pdf '''PDF'''] of this discourse |  
txton =  find the [https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=The_Last_Testament_Vol_1.pdf '''PDF'''] of this interview |  
stitle = LAST102 |
stitle = LAST102 |
notes =  CD-ROM on this chapter: This discourse is published in [[The Last Testament, Vol 1]], chapter 5.
notes =  CD-ROM on this chapter: This discourse is published in [[The Last Testament, Vol 1]], chapter 5.

Revision as of 21:09, 12 August 2019

event type interview
date & time 19 Jul 1985 pm
location Jesus Grove, Rajneeshpuram
language English
audio Available, duration 1h 48min. Quality: good.
Live music after the discourse.
online audio
video Available, duration 1h 51min. Quality: good.
online video
see also
online text find the PDF of this interview
shorttitle LAST102
notes
CD-ROM on this chapter: This discourse is published in The Last Testament, Vol 1, chapter 5.
This interview was made as a film Pressekonferenz mit dem "Spiegel" (1985).
synopsis
Interview. Announcements by Ma Prem Savita : (name inaudible)
CD-ROM on this chapter: Erich Widdeman & Rainer Weber, Der Spiegel, Hamburg, West Germany.
Question 1
Bhagwan, before we start, I'd like to make a couple of things clear. I don't know what Ma Anand Sheela has told you about the way we like these discussions going. We do a complete write-up of what has been said, we edit it, and then send the complete text to you or to your confidants to be reedited. This is not meant to be... If they are good, these interviews are not meant to be much of a question and answer game, but something of a controversial discussion which for you is one of the many opportunities to get rid of a lot of prejudices that may exist against you and your religion.
Also, there will be a couple of questions which have been asked some thousands of times before, but still I apologize for some questions that probably you have answered so many times.
Question 2
That might be one of the reasons you're being judged by the public so controversially, because your answers are not always the same on the same subjects.
Question 3
You say that it is not your answer that changes, it is the reality that changes?
Question 4
Is there anything you are really angry about? Any controversial issue?
Question 5
You're beyond all this controversy?
Question 6
Your followers call you Bhagwan. How should people who do not belong to your group address you?
Question 7
What does Bhagwan mean?
Question 8
What is the difference between the meanings of the blessed one, the enlightened one, and the awakened one?
Question 9
So it's also true that a blessed person is a continuous laughter?
Question 10
And also every enlightened person is a continuous laughter?
Question 11
Would you please for our audience give a brief rundown of your biography and your first enlightenment? What happened? And how?
Question 12
Something that matters, for instance, for the American immigration authorities is whether you were adopted by an Indian gentleman who is an American citizen, for instance. Could you elaborate on that?
Question 13
That means they have not yet accepted the explanation?
Question 14
I understand that your real estate agents have started purchasing property in the Himalayas. Is that true? Do you plan to move?
Question 15
Whatever happens?
Question 16
I see. But you are still buying property in the Himalayas?
Question 17
For their own use?
Question 18
I see. That means whatever happens, you have decided to fight for your staying here.
Question 19
Will it be a hard battle?
Question 20
Will it be a legal battle, or might there be other means involved?
Question 21
That means even by way of armed resistance?
Question 22
But from the side of your sannyasins?
Question 23
But if violence erupts, you are....
Question 24
Tit for tat, ja. Okay, that's a very straightforward question, uh, answer. What do you do all day?
Question 25
And where do you do nothing?
Question 26
And writing books? Did you write all these books that are carrying your name?
Question 27
Ah, that means you have your ghost writers, though?
Question 28
How come just now somebody, whom you may know, has published a thing which is called the rajneesh bible? That's a big title for a book.
Question 29
Well, it also has an allusion towards the founder of a religion. Are you about to found a new religion now?
Question 30
Why is yours true?
Question 31
Would you explore that on Jesus?
Question 32
And they also take an aspirin.
Question 33
Apparently your religion does not have a set of dogmas.
Question 34
However, there are some sentences which might, uh, help us to understand the essence of your religion?
Question 35
Well, for example, you teach selfishness.
Question 36
Yes. Lion eats man... So do you teach the survival of the fittest?
Question 37
When you say it happens, you are never concerned with whether it's good or bad, these things?
Question 38
Well, you'll maybe understand it as well, as you occasionally have strong preferences for Hitler.
Question 39
That's why you are a bigger or greater man than him?
Question 40
Last time when we talked to Ma Sheela, I wanted to have some clarification of a sentence in which you said, "Hitler, in the end, failed because he was only a tool in the hands of higher powers."
Question 41
She said, "Ask this question to Bhagwan," which I have now done. Could you explain this sentence to us?
Question 42
Okay. The question is: "Hitler was an instrument in the hands of magical powers. This is why he was victorious only up to a certain point." What does this mean, and who are these magical powers?
Question 43
Apart from military aspects, how would you judge him morally and politically?
Question 44
As Mahatma Gandhi?
Question 45
In what respect?
Question 46
Because he was a vegetarian...?
Question 47
But he was not nonviolent, as Mahatma Gandhi was.
Question 48
May I draw back your attention to Adolf Hitler: Is it true that you have a certain amount of anti-semitism in common with Hitler? There was a joke related by Ma Anand Sheela -- I don't know whether it's true. You are supposed to have told the joke of a tiger who stuck his nose into the ass of another tiger and when he was asked why he did that, he said, "Well I just ate a Jew and I want to get rid of that bad taste." Is that true? Is that properly related, that joke?
Question 49
Did you tell this joke? Is that your joke?
Question 50
Do you like Jews or don't you like Jews?
Question 51
From Israel, or American Jews?
Question 52
That means you don't have any national, any racial prejudices?
Question 53
You said your religion is the first and last religion. So, after you there will be no more need for any religion anywhere?
Question 54
Does that apply to after your death?
Question 55
Because they were religions for the poor?
Question 56
That doesn't mean God doesn't exist, if you can't prove that he exists.
Question 57
So, maybe for an outsider it is somehow correct to put the core of your religion into the sentence: find your own ego, find your own self.
Question 58
Is this why you have said -- and probably have done -- is this why you have said, "I have to destroy all your egos"? -- meaning the egos of your followers.
Question 59
So, the twenty or thirty people sitting right behind my neck have no ego anymore?
Question 60
Well, they don't really look like it, but you're still working on it, aren't you? I mean, if this is your aim, your target... When do you, the teacher, notice that somebody's ego has been crushed, disappeared, vanished, or whatever happens?
Question 61
You sense it?
Question 62
Does your pupil sense it? (To the audience): When did you all realize your egos had been destroyed?
Question 63
Would you agree to call this method of treating people totalitarian?
Question 64
So, how do you make them, make people give up the family, their property, their home...?
Question 65
But you must have an idea why they are coming here. I mean, they give up everything they had before just to be close to you. They give up even their own personality, and what are they getting for it?
Question 66
The vast majority of your followers are coming from Western civilizations -- from the United States, from Western Europe -- but hardly anyone is coming from your own home country, hardly any Indians. Or am I wrong?
Question 67
Mentally or physically?
Question 68
Economically, of course, as well. A country with such a big cultural tradition, you call it mentally dead?
Question 69
What happened to the tax case, by the way? Is there any new development?
Question 70
You have no income?
Question 71
What are you living on then?
Question 72
Just one more question concerning the motivation of people coming to join you, to join ranks with you. I have the feeling that principally frustrated Western youth are coming who seem to be the more obedient kind of customers, who don't ask too many questions. Aren't the Indians, for instance, more practically minded?
Question 73
You find a number of intelligent people in your own home country, too. Why don't you attract any of them?
Question 74
I read a book by Andres Elten and he described exactly the feeling that he was dissatisfied completely with Western civilization, and....
Question 75
But your way is the only way to salvation, you feel?
Question 76
What alternative would you suggest then?
Question 77
Well, you called for the creation of what you new man....
Question 78
But yet, you are trying to form the new man, as you say. That's what you wrote.
Question 79
There have been many explications by Lenin, by Marx, even by Adolf Hitler, but no one ever managed to really create the new man....
Question 80
What's the difference between your new man and Nietzsche's superman?
Question 81
What happens if Bhagwan dies? Will there be a successor?
Question 82
Will they (your followers) vote for one? Will there be an election?
Question 83
How will he be chosen?
Question 84
So you have no responsibility whatsoever for your church?
Question 85
Once you said when you go, "many of you will go with me." What did that mean in particular? What do you mean by that?
Question 86
Oh, I don't know when you said it, but I read it from one of your scripts. It was... "if I go many of you will go with me." Does that mean that if you decease that others will have to follow you?
Question 87
That's a very interesting question because it keeps cropping up in the Bible, as well. You are strongly for what you call death control -- euthanasia, isn't that the English word? -- death control. A man has the right to go to the medical board to be freed from his body, this sort of thing.
Question 88
So that's why I'd like to keep to this topic. Also, your first enlightenment started with a....
Question 89
What's truthful about death control then?
Question 90
I think I have the very point here. The Rajneesh Times quoted you just recently, saying, "I teach you to realize suicide so that you can go forever." What does that mean? Does that mean you are teaching suicide as part of your religion? Is it desirable?
Question 91
Will you commit suicide also, under a certain condition?
Question 92
And will you encourage someone else to follow you?
Question 93
You are a great admirer of Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch painter, the one with the ear. You said something like, "He committed suicide for the simple reason that he had painted everything he had wanted to paint. So to the whole world it seems suicide, not to me. To me it simply seems a natural end. The painting is completed, life is fulfilled."
Question 94
By the way, would you like to own a painting by Van Gogh, in addition to your ninety Rolls Royces?
Question 95
But who is there to decide whether this euthanasia should be done? It's an important question -- maybe not for you -- but if death control is exerted, who should do it? A committee of doctors? A lawyer? A politician?
Question 96
You keep saying you have no influence at all, and you're not trying to influence people, but you keep writing thick books. And you're holding interviews.
Question 97
But can't you understand that people are afraid of what you do...? Mr. Teertha said in an interview, "If Bhagwan told me to commit suicide, I would immediately take a gun and kill myself." Is that a real evil kind of influence?
Question 98
There is a book written by you. The title is Dying for enlightenment....
Question 99
Ja, but don't you think that people might feel encouraged by such a title, and what it contains?
Question 100
So, if he is freed, if somebody is completely freed of conscience, he might go around and do really harmful things.
Question 101
Isn't it conscience that refrains people from going round hurting other people?
Question 102
Is Mother Teresa a woman of conscience? I am just mentioning the name because I have a quote....
Question 103
Do you think that's the right way of calling someone who dedicates his life to helping the miserable in the world?
Question 104
You wouldn't approve good heartedness as...?
Question 105
Who is "we" -- mankind, or the Rajneeshees?
Question 106
He may kill?
Question 107
Did I really understand you correctly? Anybody who has reached consciousness may kill if he feels like it?
Question 108
Unregarding of the effect on the community...?
Question 109
That means, in practical terms, if it comes to the worst, and the Oregon police sends I don't know how many policemen to send you out from here because of some legal reasons, you would resist by means of arms and even on the risk of killing people?
Question 110
But if it happens, you would be prepared to kill people?
Question 111
The American society is not democratic?
Question 112
I see. That means you wouldn't approve of an independent judgment of an Oregonian judge if he decides to expel you...?
Question 113
That means you wouldn't approve if they decide to expel you, you would resist?
Question 114
By any means available?
Question 115
Even on the risk of creating bloodshed -- like Jonestown?
Question 116
So, if you lose there (the Supreme Court of America)?
Question 117
With the arms you are collecting already?
Question 118
So what are the arms for? They say you have arms for -- I read the quote somewhere, i think it was from a senator -- he said "They have arms for a combat regiment, like a combat regiment in Vietnam." What are the arms for?
Question 119
You are such a loving community, why does your police force need arms?
Question 120
Just in case a crime would happen, do you have the judicial means to deal with them?
Question 121
How in your community is "deviation" treated? Well, if somebody does something the rest of the community doesn't feel right, what happens?
Question 122
Against his will?
Question 123
You do perform your own birth... Well, your own marriage and death ceremonies. Would you please describe them to us?
Question 124
What I'm trying to say is it seems somehow simply stylish and very coquette to say, "I have nothing to do with this community."
Question 125
Yeah. You said once, "It is dangerous to be a part of my commune, you are taking a risk." What kind of risk does everybody take who joins you?
Question 126
Now let's come back to one more practical term. Two days ago you were asked whether you were trying to spread your power, or your influence, over the whole of Oregon. You said you want to try to spread it over all of the United States. Was that misunderstood?
Question 127
But what would be your honest reply to that stupid question?
Question 128
But there is at least a certain risk for the Oregonians. I mean, not that you'd take over the whole of Oregon....
Question 129
But they feel it's a risk.
Question 130
But you brought in truckloads of displaced persons and drunkards and what not just to increase your voting power. Can't you understand that people are a little bit afraid of your tactics?
Question 131
But why did you bring in all these people?
Question 132
Ja, but they were not sannyasins... Are they?
Question 133
Or it just so happens that this coincided with the election date?
Question 134
So it was the same kind of coincidence when you discovered that you were adopted... When it just came in handy for the immigration authorities?
Question 135
We have still two, three more important conflicts. You predicted world war three for some time, for some undisclosed year between 1984, I think, and 1999. Have you got any more precise idea now? I mean, could you predict exactly when it will happen?
Question 136
Or your feeling?
Question 137
A vision.... How...?
Question 138
But how real is the vision? Could we rely on it, or is it just an idea?
Question 139
A conclusion of what? Of political events of the recent years?
Question 140
Have you got anything particular in mind: SDI, or Amex or pershing, or whatever it is?
Question 141
Ja, but you couldn't say who is more responsible, and who is not so responsible...?
Question 142
You got some advice for the politicians?
Question 143
In that context you have said you were going to save the elite of the world by creating underground shelters. Furthermore, that only sannyasins will survive that war, and that all the rest of mankind will perish or commit suicide or will degenerate into monkeys. So, are these the prospects of what the world will look like after that war?
Question 144
And the sannyasins will survive, you said? Are you preparing for it? Are you constructing shelter, a nuclear-proof shelter?
Question 145
Well, I mean, are you building bunkers for...?
Question 146
Nuclear-proof bunkers?
Question 147
But, I mean, are you taking practical steps?
Question 148
No, practical steps against dying in a holocaust -- not against surviving in Rajneeshpuram, against being expelled from Rajneeshpuram. Are you part of the peace movement, this sort of thing?
Question 149
Is it true when the Rajneesh Times wrote "everyone who dies in Rajneeshpuram or within twenty-four miles of its boundaries will be enlightened"?
Question 150
Is it true? What is exactly meant by twenty-four miles? Why not twenty-two?
Question 151
When did that happen before? When Buddha died, or...?
Question 152
What about Jesus?
Question 153
Mohammed?
Question 154
Other religious leaders?
Question 155
This is a very important question -- not a very philosophical one, but a question that interests large crowds of people and readers in Europe. In Poona you favored unlimited sex as a kind of birthright. And so, as it looks, it was exercised. Now, as it looks to us, and as I understand from what I read, it seems to be rather the contrary. You say sex is only allowed with rubber gloves and even kissing is forbidden. What made you change your mind so much?
Question 156
But you'd rather see that they turn it into consciousness, you said.
Question 157
Like the Christian monks in the monasteries...?
Question 158
They are not turning it into consciousness?
Question 159
Is it a matter of age or is it a matter of stage of consciousness or what would you say? I mean, you say you are not opposing it directly, but you wouldn't favor it the same way as you did in Poona. Is that right?
Question 160
How is your own sex life? Are you still active?
Question 161
You were active before in Poona?
Question 162
You're not a very healthy man these days, are you?
Question 163
Will you have to undergo another operation, or...?
Question 164
Has it become worse from the time you came here, or has it improved?
Question 165
How are you medically treated?
Question 166
Do they do massage, or what do they do?
Question 167
So you are not opposed to pharmaceutical products?
Question 168
May I please jump back in discussion to a point we had some time ago: We were talking about doctors and you said they should be freed of the oath of Hippocrates, in favor of science. Now, if doctors are not bound by the Hippocratic oath they can do human experiments, can't they? It's perfectly all right to experiment with human beings?
Question 169
Experiments with human beings often are brought about against their own will. So, for science one should sacrifice human beings?
Question 170
Should they be forced to be sterilized if populationwise, it's necessary, like it happened in India?
Question 171
You are for it (to vote for absolute birth control)?
Question 172
Would you favor sterilization...?
Question 173
Not against his will but, for instance, would you try to persuade somebody here in Rajneeshpuram because the family and children do not fit into the framework of this community?
Question 174
Do they exercise sterilization here?
Question 175
Due to sterilization of women here, or is it...?
Question 176
Is sterilization a very widespread kind here?
Question 177
And in Rajneeshpuram?
Question 178
Not many women are sterilized because of the not wanted consequences?
Question 179
Is that the way your relation towards the community works? You explain the situation, and then somebody else draws the consequences and does the dirty work?
Question 180
And you call that not having influence on the community?
Question 181
If you are not responsible for what your community does, it works the other way round, too, because basically your commune isn't responsible either. So nobody in this valley is responsible for anything.
Question 182
Tell me one more question: How can a community survive without the family, without children?
Question 183
For a certain period, yes, but....
Question 184
You won't have finished your atomic bunker....
Question 185
That would be a very good final sentence, but finally we have to draw your attention to some material questions. Probably, as you said, it's a question you have been asked a hundred times before, but concerning your Rolls Royces.... We understand that you are preaching some kind of, well, at least not materialistic ideology, but yet you are enjoying a luxury life....
Question 186
But being materialistic at the expense of others is what others have described as exploitation. Wouldn't you approve for that?
Question 187
Who owns them?
Question 188
You go every day and say, "may I please...?"
Question 189
Is it original diamonds, or is it...?
Question 190
Is it imitation? I'm not an expert on jewelry, but it looks rather genuine. Is it?
Question 191
Do you know how many companies, how many Rajneesh enterprises there are in the world?
Question 192
But nevertheless, I mean, you enjoy a kind of luxury. Would you agree to that?
Question 193
But wouldn't it be better to let your people enjoy the fruits of their work a little bit more?
Question 194
And a Mercedes wouldn't be good enough?
Question 195
But you would not, for instance, in special regard to our German readers, recommend a Mercedes for wealthy people with backaches?
Question 196
And were they also the most frustrated ones before they came here?
Question 197
We're trying to build a bridge towards current German civilization. You have the impression that frustration -- that's what Andres Elten wrote -- frustration with civilization drove them to you?
Question 198
So Germany is first in intelligence, but only second in making cars?
Question 199
Do you know who decides who comes comparatively close to you, who surrounds you in your study, in your everyday life? Obviously, not five thousand or two thousand people can be around.
Question 200
Do you happen to know why the people sitting here have the privilege of seeing you tonight?
Question 201
In your Bible you told a very nice and very moving little story about a billionaire -- an old man of sixty-four or so -- who tried to join the movement or to join the commune, and then he had to struggle with his family, and this sort of thing. This was in December, 1984. Has he joined now?
Question 202
Yes. Why is it you have only women in your inner circle, in your inner power circle? Are you convinced that they are more intelligent, or that women are generally more intelligent than men, as Sheela put it? Or is there any other reason for it?
Question 203
Clever?
Question 204
But not in the real sense of the word.
Question 205
You said once that death would be a new door opening with the whole life condensed, a new dimension opening. On the other hand, you attack very sharply any Christian or any other belief of life after death. What's the difference between a new dimension opening after death, and life after death?
Question 206
Which past lives do you remember, and which ones do you like best now?
Question 207
And which ones do you remember?


(source:CD-ROM)


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