The Last Testament (Vol 3) ~ 18

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event type interview
date & time 8 Oct 1985 pm
location Sanai Grove, Rajneeshpuram
language English
audio Available, duration 2h 0min. Quality: good.
Live music after the interview.
online audio
video Available, duration 2h 17min. Quality: good.
online video
see also
online text find the PDF of this discourse
shorttitle LAST318
notes
synopsis
Interview. Announcements by Ma Prem Hasya : Christ Keizer from The Boston Globe.
CD-ROM on this chapter: Interview with Christ Keizer, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA.
Question 1
I was noticing your calligraphy on the wall over there, the one that says the human heart is the most dangerous thing in the world.
Question 2
Why?
Question 3
What is dangerous about the human heart?
Question 4
But dangerous for who?
Question 5
So when you say the most dangerous thing in the world, are you saying dangerous in the sense of threatening the world as it is? Society as it is?
Question 6
You don't follow any particular lineage or any particular tradition, and I wondered what you could say about that, because it seems to me that a lot of things you do are very traditional.
Question 7
What about a lineage of spirituality, a lineage of students and teachers working together from one generation to another, such as your students here? Who knows what it'll carry on to in the next generation? But hopefully if they have some kind of realization, it wouldn't just stop with them.
Question 8
I don't mean explained, I mean transmitted -- by creating this type of a situation, for instance, for people to realize their minds or themselves.
Question 9
What I was speaking of was the fact that enlightened energy or enlightenment can continue from one generation to another....
Question 10
Well, isn't there something about truth that's universal and timeless?
Question 11
So you don't see anything valid in spiritual lineages, then, of people studying with master-disciple relationships?
Question 12
But there can be something that can be emulated.
Question 13
Well then what about your students, if they became enlightened? Wouldn't that have some connection with you?
Question 14
But wouldn't you have had something to do with that as an instigator or a creator of situation?
Question 15
Well then why do you have Rajneeshpuram?
Question 16
Then you are creating a situation, you are connected with them in that way.
Question 17
But do you think that they would have been awakened or they might be awakened if they weren't in this situation, if they were just like somewhere like New York city or something?
Question 18
You didn't study with anyone?
Question 19
But did you study different traditions?
Question 20
But don't you think that there is wisdom contained in the teachings of the Buddha and Lao Tzu and some other... I mean, all over the Ranch here there is....
Question 21
Do you think the Buddha was awakened, was enlightened?
Question 22
Well then why aren't his teachings valid today then? Why aren't the teachings of the Buddha valid?
Question 23
But then why did the Buddha and Christ and all those other teachers go out into the world and teach, then?
Question 24
So what you're saying is that it's valid to have a teacher while the teacher is alive, but that that teacher`s teachings cannot be put into some kind of structure and carried on to another generation.
Question 25
Why do you think that's so?
Question 26
Well, what if you had a major disciple that had a major enlightenment experience? Wouldn't they be in a position to go and teach other people? And what if they had another student the same way?
Question 27
But see, what I'm saying is that becomes tradition.
Question 28
But he got that from you. He might have become enlightened because he was with you.
Question 29
But then why are you teaching?
Question 30
So basically what you're saying is, you're just creating a situation for them to realize themselves?
Question 31
Are you saying this is a lie?
Question 32
So basically what you're saying is, the fact of speaking it makes it a lie, the fact of expressing it.
Question 33
In other words, you can't express....
Question 34
Is that what's going on with your with your departed disciples, the ones that left?
Question 35
Do you still consider Sheela and the other people who left here to be your disciples?
Question 36
Well, how come if they're your disciples you call them fascist?
Question 37
Do you think that your presence in some way is with them now or that they're haunted by you or anything?
Question 38
Do you think they'll have to come back to you in physical form?
Question 39
You think they will come back though?
Question 40
Well, why did you decide to make all this public? Why didn't you just try to take care of it within the community here? Why did you announce it to the press and to the authorities?
Question 41
But you don't feel that any connection between you and them has been broken by all this?
Question 42
Did you have some feeling that things weren't the way they should be with, say, Sheela, for instance?
Question 43
You think that's where they might be headed?
Question 44
You must have seen Sheela day after day while all this was happening. Did you perceive a change in her state of mind?
Question 45
Well, why didn't you sort of depose her, take her away from her position of authority here?
Question 46
You know her very well. Did you think that she was capable of ever doing something like this?
Question 47
So you didn't think she was more capable of that than some other person? I mean, you didn't think she had those particular tendencies...
Question 48
A lot of people have it but would never act on it even if they were....
Question 49
But even if they did have the opportunity....
Question 50
So if somebody else from here was in that same position they could do the same thing all over again?
Question 51
So you won't let that opportunity be given again?
Question 52
Do you think that now, with Sheela and the other people gone who were negative influences, that Rajneeshpuram will grow and more people will come here?
Question 53
Why do you have your disciples wear a picture of you around their neck?
Question 54
But doesn't that encourage some sense of worship?
Question 55
Could you tell me about your method of meditation?
Question 56
Are they ones that you've borrowed from other traditions or ones that you've created all yourself?
Question 57
If somebody doesn't stick with one thing and they go from one to the next to the next, how do they ever get a chance to really discover what one in...?
Question 58
What is witnessing?
Question 59
Does that mean some kind of detachment?
Question 60
But doesn't that have a tendency to develop some kind of super-ego, a watcher, a watcher, a watcher?
Question 61
So do you think that a particular formal meditation is necessary for this, or do you encourage people more to just do it in their everyday life?
Question 62
Do you yourself believe in non-violence?
Question 63
Well, in that case, why do you think that it's necessary to have guns to protect you?
Question 64
Isn't non-violence something that, say, in Mahatma Gandhi's case...?
Question 65
You mean violent in his own personal life?
Question 66
Do you think that India has a lot of problems now because of him?
Question 67
This is cause of the partition and all that?
Question 68
What do you think now is happening with the situation with the Sikhs in India?
Question 69
Do you feel that they're being persecuted by that same type of brahmanic cult, the brahmin class of, say, first Indira Gandhi, now her son -- the same type of thing that hierarchy....
Question 70
I know, but the brahmins do.
Question 71
But do you feel that the government now is punishing them for revolting against...?
Question 72
What the government's doing now, talking about unity and national unity and clamping down on all the minorities. What is that about?
Question 73
Do you think India right now is worse off than it was under the British?
Question 74
What do you think's the future for India, then?
Question 75
You think it's going to fall apart?
Question 76
Do you think India is under the Soviet influence?
Question 77
So it's all just a big mess.
Question 78
So does that mean you're not going back there?
Question 79
But knowing how corrupt political life is in India, even more so than in this country maybe, do you think that'll happen without tremendous amount of bloodshed?
Question 80
Well, what about all your disciples in India? Do you feel they should get out or stay there?
Question 81
How many sannyasins do you have in India?
Question 82
All over the country?
Question 83
How are they treated? I mean, how do people respond to them?
Question 84
What do you think is the most basic issue, basic question, in promoting world peace?
Question 85
But given the fact that nations are super super super egos, super... based on territoriality and so forth, that's not going to happen anywhere in the near future.
Question 86
Which do you think is going to happen? Do you think that life is going to continue or do you think we're going to commit global suicide?
Question 87
You're for redistributing the resources....
Question 88
How do we go about changing things to make things more balanced, more equitable?
Question 89
But a lot of people would say you were a utopian or a idealist or something like that.
Question 90
But what I meant is that the powers that have control right now are in much more entrenched than Sheela was, for instance.
Question 91
So do you feel optimistic about the chances of the world for survival and...?
Question 92
But that's completely different from the way society has always been.
Question 93
Do you see this happening anytime in the next century, for instance?
Question 94
I know you said you don't believe in particular religious traditions, but what about cause and effect, karma?
Question 95
To keep them enslaved in their condition?
Question 96
Well, how does that carry over, then, to what you were saying about the need for world government, one world government? Since... you know, I mean it's great to say that that's what we need, but considering the way nations are and the way -- France, for instance, blows up some green peace ship to keep... wants to keep them from doing just a test -- that there's that level of aggression in the world. Do you think it's feasible to say that we really will...?
Question 97
But what about the politicians?
Question 98
So what would you suggest that we do about all this?
Question 99
So you don't see... Well, I think a lot of people would think that a commune such as Rajneeshpuram, which is somewhat removed from the rest of the world, is reclusive or so forth, but you don't promote that type of a lifestyle?
Question 100
I mean, you're not telling your disciples to not get involved in the world.
Question 101
Unfortunately, it's the editors who make those decisions.
Question 102
So do you see the commune as some kind of model for greater society?
Question 103
Is that part of the reason why you were so outsp -- well, so....
Question 104
I tried to find the right word, I mean in terms of this incident with Sheela and the other people. It seemed like you invited everybody to take part in it, almost. Like the whole....
Question 105
I mean, you invited the whole world press out here to.... And you invited the law enforcement officers and so forth.
Question 106
You asked everyone to....
Question 107
But... Okay, like... I guess what I was trying to say is, you somehow made a public proclamation over what has gone on here with those people, and... But that also at the same time has opened the door to people who would like to see you out of here, such as the attorney general, to exploit the situation.
Question 108
I guess what I was trying to ask is, do you feel that there's a danger in what you're doing being misunderstood by the general public?


(source:CD-ROM)


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