The Last Testament (Vol 2) ~ 05
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| event type | interview |
| date & time | 25 Aug 1985 pm |
| location | Jesus Grove, Rajneeshpuram |
| language | English |
| audio | Available, duration 2h 30min. Quality: good. |
| online audio | |
| video | Available, duration 2h 48min. Quality: good. |
| online video |
|
| see also |
|
| online text | find the PDF of this discourse |
| shorttitle | LAST205 |
- notes
- synopsis
- Interview. Announcements by Ma Anand Sheela : Lars Mogensen, Norres Kane, Sweden.
- CD-ROM on this chapter: Interview with Norres Kane, Hässleholm, Sweden.
- Question 1
- My name is Lawrence Morgenson(sic), and I work for a newspaper in Southern Sweden. It's a smaller newspaper. And I've got quite a lot of questions....
- ... So if you would be kind, kind of be as brief as possible in your answers.
- Unfortunately I haven't read any of your books, and I know there's a lot of them. So maybe some of my questions, or all of them, are unnecessary in a sense. But still....
- Question 2
- A quote from one of your book covers is: "I teach a sensuous religion, beauty is far more valuable than truth. Beauty is God himself, truth is just an aspect of beauty." And I'd like to ask you three questions about those quotes.
- Are you actually teaching a religion -- are your ideas a religion? I hear you mentioning God. Is there a God? Do you believe in God, or maybe you're even some kind of god to your disciples yourself.
- And you're saying beauty is far more valuable than truth. Is that why -- from what I see -- most of the people here are young, good-looking people?
- Question 3
- But you don't know the meaning -- the goal of what....
- Question 4
- So the point is enjoying what you do at this moment....
- Question 5
- Yes, but you're working with (inaudible). You could call it a religion.
- Question 6
-
- So do you -- would that sort of denounce people who are trying to make a better future for themselves as well as for their children and their children and so forth? I'm speaking of people that are active in trying to make a better environment, like Green Peace, peace movements, people that are working with trying to make a better future in different ways.
- Question 7
- People are getting very worried about the political situation with atomic threats, nuclear war threats, the environment, and pollution, things like that, which is not the same sacrifice from father to son that we're now talking about.
- Question 8
- It seems that they're ready to fight for your life, though.
- Question 9
- All right. I don't think that I can agree with you that it takes suffering sexual repression, maybe poverty and so forth, to make people go to war, because it doesn't take very many people to start a war because there's so much technology involved. People think that there should be something done now. That are you suggesting that everybody just enjoy themselves...
- Question 10
- So what do you think of your president Ronald Reagan personally?
- Question 11
- That takes away the whole idea of democracy, doesn't it?
- Question 12
- Anarchy?
- Question 13
- Do you consider your commune, your town of Rajneeshpuram, a democracy?
- Question 14
- But all the different individuals here are all working together for the same purpose, creating or making your ideas and your thoughts of how you're supposed to live real.
- Question 15
- You keep telling them to doubt everything you say and make inquiries about everything. But it seems to me that the only thing they really don't doubt is you as a person. I mean they keep giving you gifts, cars, their work, their money.
- Question 16
- This morning you were sort of making fun of the Moslems have their Mecca and their Black rock there, the communists have their Kremlin, Christians have Jerusalem. But what's the difference between them and these Rajneeshees, the town here, the temples and you?
- Question 17
- But, isn't this still a place where people come from all over the world, sort of like pilgrims go to Jerusalem, or....
- Question 18
- That has been the wish of every religion so far, hasn't it?
- Question 19
- Why, then, do the Christians send out missionaries and the Moslems talk about holy war, and so forth?
- Question 20
- Is there any way to make a sin in this kind of society?
- Question 21
- If I steal one of your cars, or if I rape your wife?
- Question 22
- What if she's not?
- Question 23
- It sounds like a very macho and male way of looking at it.
- Question 24
- Why do you think that there are more women here than men -- because that's a fact, isn't it?
- Question 25
- Why is it so, do you think? Do you have an explanation?
- Question 26
- Reliable in what way?
- Question 27
- So instead he's interested in other men?
- Question 28
- What's the trouble with being interested in other men?
- Question 29
- So what about all the left-over women that don't have any men?
- Question 30
- Do you believe in that?
- Question 31
- How do you personally feel about living in luxury at the same time as millions of children are dying every day from starvation in this world. Aren't you a little concentrated just to yourself?
- Question 32
- When was that?
- Question 33
- The problem is that there are too many people, not that the resources are....
- Question 34
- What do you think will happen when the time comes that you die? Will these people that are now with you, continue your ideas and your thoughts? Is there anybody who's going to take over your position of the one that comes up ideas? I mean, your books are useless because they're all contradicting each other.
- Question 35
- Can you call it intelligensia to kill fifty percent of the population of India?
- Question 36
- So do you think it's better to have one-fourth of the earth's population living in luxury than having the total population living fairly well?
- Question 37
- I'm not sure about Ethiopia, but I'm sure out of lots of the countries that are now starving have come natural resources (inaudible).
- Question 38
- I've been told that you have made a lot of different statements about people from different nationalities, making fun of them in different ways. It would be interesting to hear what you've said about Swedish people, and maybe especially about the Swedish sannyasins that you've met.
- Question 39
- It is backward?
- Question 40
- I'm sure there are a lot of people that would like to meet you. In what sense is it backwards, as of being sannyasins?
- Question 41
- But what makes Sweden more backwards than Germany, for instance, where you have a lot of....
- Question 42
- Isn't that Karl Marx?
- Question 43
- Do you consider your own movement a revolution?
- Question 44
- So your movement could never turn Sweden around, so to speak?
- Question 45
- Don't you think you scare some of the German young people here when you're talking about it would be good for the world -- for India, for instance -- with an Adolf Hitler-type person to clean out -- to help the situation.
- Question 46
- This morning you said something about that believing is just carrying on knowledge from somebody else. But isn't that exactly what these sannyasins are doing?
- Question 47
- They're taking your knowledge to themselves.
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