CAPITALISM IS CAUSE OF CORRUPTION AND BLACK MARKETING

Capitalism is not the cause of black markets and corruption. Scarcity of capital is the cause. When there is a shortage of wealth we cannot prevent corruption. Where the population is large and wealth scarce, people find ways and means to own wealth; they care little for the right ways and means. If you want to do away with corruption, then stop worrying about corruption, because corruption is a byproduct. We have nothing to do with it. But all the politicians, all the saints, are busy fighting corruption. They say, "We are determined to end corruption." But the real problem is different -- it is lack of wealth. Corruption is the natural consequence of poverty. If there are a thousand persons here and there is food enough only for ten, do you think there will be no attempts at procuring food through stealing? Dr. Frankel has written a small book of his memoirs. Dr. Frankel was a psychologist who was thrown into one of Hitler's concentration camps. Mind you, Hitler was a socialist. Dr. Frankel says in his memoirs that it was in that prison camp that he came to see the real face of man. The prisoners were given only one meal in twenty-four hours, and that too was very meager. They were almost being starved. Dr. Frankel says that he saw people known as great poets, writers, physicians and engineers, stealing pieces of bread from the bags of their fellow prisoners during the nighttime. Among them were men highly respected for their character and moral values, men who held high offices like that of the mayor of a city, and they were seen begging for a cigarette on bended knees -- and unashamedly. And none of them thought that he was doing anything wrong. Writing about himself, the famous psychologist says that the bread he was given was so little that it never satiated his hunger; he was always in a state a semi-starvation. So he broke the bread into a number of small pieces to be eaten at small intervals of time so they would last for twenty-four hours. And he found that day in and day out he only thought of bread and nothing else. He forgot all about God and soul, consciousness and unconsciousness, analysis and psychology, and the rest of it -- which had been the most significant things of his life. In Hitler's concentration camp he realized that bread was everything and nothing else mattered. Frankel also admits that he was not sure that if given the opportunity he would not have stolen another's bread. Bribery, corruption and black marketing only prove the fact that there are too many people and too little goods. We refuse to understand this simple fact. Corruption is not a disease, it is just a symptom of a disease which is deep-rooted. When a man has a fever, it is said that he is "down with fever". Fever itself is taken for the disease. But in reality fever is a symptom, an indication of some deep disorder in the physiology of the man who is running a temperature. Similarly, corruption is a symptom of a social disease -- poverty. But the politician and the priest believe that corruption can be ended without caring for production and population control. They say that God is sending more and more men to this earth. If God is responsible for our increasing population, then he is the most corrupting factor today, because corruption grows with the growing population. We have to restrict, even to stop this ever-flowing gift of God. We have to tell him, "Enough is enough; we don't need more men. And if you send more, then give to each one of them ten acres of land and a factory to work with." People are not immoral, as the priests and politicians would have us believe. It is the situation that is immoral. No man is immoral. Really, man is neither moral nor immoral, but the situation is immoral. And a person can be moral in an immoral situation if he strives hard, but then his whole life will be wasted in the very effort. He will not be able to do anything else. He will somehow save himself from being immoral. He will, with tremendous effort, suppress the temptation to steal; that is all he will achieve. So it is a question of changing the situation, because really the situation is immoral. No amount of anti-corruption campaigns are going to succeed if the situation is not changed. But if production grows and wealth is plentiful, corruption will go by itself. Nobody will steal if there is an abundance of wealth in the society.

Priests & Politicians : The Old Conspiracy

The politicians and the priests are certainly not coming from outer space; they are growing amongst us. We also have the same lust for power, the same ambition to be holier than others. They are the most successful people as far as these ambitions and desires are concerned.
Certainly we are responsible, but it is a vicious circle; we are not the only ones who are responsible. The successful politicians and priests go on conditioning the new generations for the same ambitions; they make the society, they cultivate its mind and conditioning. They are also responsible -- and they are more responsible than the common people, because the common people are victims of all kinds of programs that are being imposed upon them.
The child comes into the world without any ambition, without any lust for power, without any idea that he is higher, holier, superior. Certainly he cannot be responsible. Those who bring him up -- the parents, the society, the educational system, the politicians, the priests -- the same gang goes on spoiling every child. Of course in his own turn, he will spoil... but it is a vicious circle. From where to break it?
I insist on condemning the priests and the politicians, because that is the place from where it can be broken. Condemning the small children coming into the world is not going to help. Condemning the common masses is also not going to help, because they have been already conditioned -- they are being exploited. They are suffering, they are miserable. But nothing wakes them up -- they are fast asleep. The only point where our condemnations should be concentrated is on those who have the power, because they have the power to contaminate the future generations. If they can be stopped we can have a new man.
I know that everybody is responsible. Whatever happens, in some way or other, everybody has his own part in it. But to me what is important is whom to hit, so that for the new generation of children the vicious circle can be avoided. Humanity has been revolving in it for centuries. That's why I don't condemn the common masses, I don't condemn you. I condemn those who are now in a position that if they just relax a little bit as far as their vested interests are concerned, and look at the miserable mass of humanity, a transformation is possible -- the circle can be broken.
I purposely choose the politicians and the priests. There are many other things to be remembered. The priest knows perfectly well that there is no God. In this world the priest is the only person who knows there is no God, but his whole profession depends on this non-existential God. He cannot say the truth because all his vested interests will be lost -- not only his, but for generations to come he will be spoiling the whole game. He knows the rituals are just hocus-pocus, that the mantras carry no power, that his theology is just a cover-up. Nobody else knows it better; he has studied the scriptures and he knows there is no evidence of God anywhere. He interprets the scriptures in such a way that they help his profession. He goes on making commentaries on the ancient scriptures, adding more and more things that are helpful for his profession.
As times change he has to make new additions. For example, Manu, a five thousand year old thinker, priest, the father of priesthood, in his manusmriti -- the memoirs of Manu which Hindus follow word by word -- he created the caste system, one of the ugliest things in existence.
Because of it one fourth of Hindus have suffered a long slavery, exploitation and humiliation. They have been turned almost into subhuman beings -- they are called achhoot, untouchables. They have fallen so much that you cannot touch them; otherwise you have to take a bath immediately. Even their shadow touching you is enough to make you impure. Manu reduced one-fourth of the Hindus to eternal slavery it seems.
He managed the highest position in the society for the priesthood, but he was really cunning and clever: he has given all the superiority to brahmins, but he has not given them riches, nor material, temporal power. He has divided the castes so there is no conflict. Temporal power he has given to the second highest caste: the warriors, kshatriyas. They are going to be the kings, they are going to be the generals, the soldiers, the fighters, and they will be the second highest class. And money he has given to the third: the businessmen, the vaishyas. To the fourth he has given nothing -- except slavery.
You can see the cunningness... he divides. He does not give money to brahmins, or temporal power, because then three-fourths of the society will be against them, and it will not be possible to control. And if they have also spiritual power, material power, money, then there will be resentment, anger, violence -- there will be riots. So to brahmins he gives the holy power -- they are the highest, the holiest -- but he does not give anything temporal to them.
He gives the temporal power to the warriors. It is satisfying, because they are going to be the kings; brahmins cannot be the kings. And who cares about spiritual power? So let them have spiritual power; it is almost like having nothing, just a nominal quality of being superior, so the warriors are not angry about it. On the contrary, they are happy that one-fourth of the society will never be in conflict with them -- they are already higher, they have nothing more to gain. And the warriors are the most powerful people.
To the third he gives money and all other worldly things. These are the people who cannot fight, who are not warriors -- but they can earn money, they can produce wealth.
You will be surprised to know that in India all the kings, before India became a slave country, were indebted to the rich people. From where are they going to get money? -- just by borrowing. They can pay when they invade some other country; otherwise they have to borrow from the business people. And the business people are happy; they have all the material things, money... Not only that, kings are borrowing from them, brahmins have to depend on them for everything -- so let them believe that they are higher... but basically the business people hold the power, they have the money.
And against these three classes the poor fourth has no power to fight. They are deprived of all education, deprived even of living in the city; they have to live outside the town. They cannot take water from the city well -- they have to make their own wells or carry water from the river. They are completely cut off from the society. They have just to come and serve, and do all the ugliest things that nobody else wants to do. And three powerful sections are there to go on repressing them; they have money, they have power, they have spiritual heights -- they are the representatives of God.
For five thousand years they have maintained this -- and they have made the fourth, the slaves, believe that you are born slaves because of your evil acts in the past life -- this is the punishment. The brahmin is enjoying his position because of good acts in his past life. And there is no mobility; one cannot move from one caste to another caste.
Since Manu, the priests in India have remained the most anti-revolutionary element -- naturally, because they will lose their superiority. Kings come to touch their feet, the superrich come to touch their feet -- their ego is fulfilled. And the same is the story around the world -- everywhere the priesthood has maintained its superiority. It is not so clear-cut as in India, but a subtle division is there. The priest is everywhere superior, the warrior is everywhere number two, and the rich man is everywhere number three. The fourth, the slave, the servant, is everywhere the same.
These priests go on preaching to every child a certain kind of mind that keeps the society running -- or stuck. The politicians are in a deep conspiracy with the priests. The politicians are full of lust for power, and if they want power, they want blessings from the priests, because the priests have a spiritual hold over humanity. And if a politician goes and touches the feet of a priest, the followers of the priest are going to vote for the politician. There is a conspiracy: the politician goes on praising the priest, his religion, his ideology, and the priests go on blessing the politician and his ideology. And between these two powerful groups the whole society is crushed, sucked.
I know everybody is responsible, but not everybody is powerful enough to break the circle; hence I am hitting constantly on the priests and the politicians. And now they have become afraid of me -- perhaps they have never been afraid of a single man before. All over the world they don't want me to enter into their countries. The priests are behind the politicians who are making rules and laws that I should be prohibited.
The commune in America was destroyed by the politicians, but behind the politicians were the fundamentalist Christians, the most orthodox group of Christian priests. They were in conspiracy together to destroy the commune.
Just the other day I received the news that now they are making a memorial in The Dalles; bishops and politicians and all kinds of leading, prominent citizens are contributing money -- a big memorial, a memorial that they have become victorious, that they have thrown away the evil forces who had created the commune. They have thrown me out, destroyed my work, and they are not satisfied with that; they want to create a memorial so that the future generations will know.
And both the priests and the politicians are very vulnerable; they have no ground beneath their feet. Just a good hit is needed and they will be finished. And once they are finished, society will have a taste of freedom.
We can bring up children in a more human way, unconditioned, intelligent, looking at the whole earth as one -- not Christians, not Hindus, not Mohammedans, not Indians, not Chinese, not Americans. Nations and religions are creations of the priests and the politicians. Once they are finished, religions and nations are also finished.
And a world free of religions, free of nations, will be a human world -- without wars, without unnecessarily fighting for things which nobody has seen....
It is so stupid that for thousands of years people have been killing each other in the name of God. None of them has seen, none of them has any proof, none of them has any evidence. And they don't even feel embarrassed, because nobody has, looking directly into their eyes, asked the question.... And they are going on crusades, jihads, religious wars, destroying all those who do not believe in their dogma, because their dogma is divine and every other dogma is the devil's creation.
They are trying to serve humanity by killing people. Their intention is to free those people from the clutches of the devil. But the strangest thing is that every religion thinks that the other religion is created by the devil. So the fight continues. Politicians are fighting war after war -- for what? I don't see the point. The earth has no lines; then why make these maps and draw lines?
One of my teachers was a very intelligent man. One day he brought a few pieces of cardboard; he had cut the whole world map into small pieces, put them on the desk and asked, "Can anybody come and arrange them in the right order?" Many tried and failed. Just one boy, seeing that everybody was failing and they were not making the world map by putting the pieces together, he looked at one piece on the reverse side. Then he turned all the pieces over and he found the picture of a man. He arranged the picture of the man, which was very easy, and that was the key. On one side the man was arranged, and on the other side, the world map was arranged.
Perhaps the same is true about the real world... if we can arrange man, the world will be arranged. If we can make man silent, peaceful, loving, nations will disappear, wars will disappear, all dirty politics will disappear. And remember, all politics is dirty; there is no other kind.
But we have to hit on those who have the power. Hitting the poor common man will not help, because he has no power, he is a victim. Even if we can change him, it won't be a great change. But if we can abolish the conspiracy between religion and politics, priests and the politicians, it will be really a great change, a revolution -- the only revolution that is needed and that has not happened yet.

COMPASSION :- BEYOND SYMPATHY

Choosing the company of those who are hurting requires courage. Even professionals trained to assist those in pain or grief instinctively want to pull away. In volunteers or friends, our self doubt brings up feelings of inadequacy, to the point of being afraid we’ll say or do things that make people feel worse. Currently healthy and with our loved ones safe, what do we have to offer those who are ill or must face life without their parent, child, or partner?

There is nothing anyone can say to take away pain and fear. There is no magic incantation that reduces suffering. What you can do is to listen without judging, and offer your time with no expectation it will make a difference. Your willingness to be genuine and kind is all you have to offer. This is the starting point for acting from compassion.

UNDERSTANDING SYMPATHY AND COMPASSION

Although sympathy is a form of caring, it implies pity. We express concern and ask what we can do, yet are grateful their problems are not ours. This perpetuates the fear that we couldn’t bear the same situation, and keeps us wanting to avoid the truth of their experience. While it is natural to feel sympathy when someone is hurting, there is little sense of what to offer as meaningful support.

Compassion is a hard-won state of being. Much more than a feeling, compassion is a choice to view suffering is a universal experience. This means viewing illness, loss, and even death as human experiences that are bearable with support. This helps us remain calm and keep our hearts open, and we become able to sit with someone in great physical or emotional pain. Compassion bridges the distance between people often created by suffering. This is not comfortable to do, as we must acknowledge their problems might reflect our own future.

PUTTING DOWN THE SHIELD OF SYMPATHY

Separating from someone’s pain protects against feeling overwhelmed and helpless. We are born tenderhearted. The presence of pain or problems engenders the impulse to make things better. This is a child’s view of how to be helpful. Our job is to make suffering into an enemy and rail against it. The adult perspective embraces the truth that the best gift we have is a willingness to share in their experience without the defense of sympathy.

I learned this early in my career as a social worker volunteering with hospice. Protected by a great deal of study in maintaining professional distance, I offered practical guidance about end of life issues and choices. During my first year I was sent into many homes and hospital rooms, fortified with pamphlets and sympathetic intentions.

A hospice referral gave me only that the patient was “Caroline,” barely thirty and with only days left due to widespread cancer. Her family requested support from hospice and I was assigned to assess their needs. When I walked into the room, Caroline was in intense pain because her morphine line had become kinked. Her sister and husband were stunned into helplessness. I failed to find helpful words. I leaned against the doorway, feeling panicked and inadequate. My clinical detachment faded and I couldn’t stop the tears. Minutes stretched while the nurse re-opened the IV line and we watched Caroline’s slow release from pain.

Once I was able to reclaim my breath, I touched the hand of the sleeping woman. No words could give comfort and no advice was warranted. The only gift I could offer was the willingness to stay and be open to whatever the family wanted to say. Looking at the two who were losing her in this difficult way, I said, “This is so sad. Tell me about Caroline and what you have been going through.”

The sharing of that single moment created a bond of trust between the family and me. This allowed them to openly discuss conflicts and decisions the family struggling with. They were grateful to have an advocate who listened to their feelings without judgment. I was honored by their honesty. It’s been twenty years and whenever I see Caroline’s sister in town, I remember the compassion from our shared vulnerability.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SYMPATHY AND COMPASSION
Read an item on the left list and breathe. Read the companion statement on the right and breathe again. Notice the differences between how you feel after reading each phrase.

Sympathy ...	Compassion ...
exhausts both giver and receiver.	nourishes and soothes.
defines suffering as helplessness.	recognizes suffering as a passage.
wears a fixed mask, tries to mind-read.	is authentic and open-minded.
counts the minutes, wants to escape.	is timeless, refuses to be hurried.
asks yes/no and rhetorical questions.	asks open-ended, genuine questions.
holds breath, afraid of being inadequate.	breathes and ignores critical self-talk.
fills the quiet spaces with the “right” words.	knows silence is valid communication.
compels others to hug, and stops crying by touch.	touches with permission, only to connect.
creates a boundary to separate from their pain.	develops heart connection to share the pain.

HOW CLIENTS EXPERIENCE SYMPATHY vs COMPASSION

Sympathy brings the weight of sorrow into the room. Suffering is viewed as a tragedy beyond bearing. Sometimes it is denied or minimized. “My uncle had this problem and he’s just fine now.” Or, “God never gives people more than they can handle.” Advice about how to think about their situation is given freely. These efforts prevent the giver from entering into a shared state.

There is a terrible cost to the relationship in keeping separate. We cannot distance our self from others’ pain and still maintain a heart connection. Receivers feel compelled to dilute what they say to avoid adding to the burden their suffering causes others. They are often angry and exhausted after such a visit.

Compassion on the part of the giver keeps both heart and mind open in the presence of another’s suffering. Compassion accepts every element of the human story and never implies what is happening is unbearable. We also consciously avoid judgment of how emotions are expressed or the choices they are making. This opens us to the perspective of seeing someone going through a very human experience and not faced with an unendurable situation.

INCREASE YOUR EXPRESSION OF COMPASSION

Whether friend, volunteer, or health professional, you can shift from sympathy to compassion by employing simple actions. Compassion springs from the profound sense of being human and acknowledging the truth of another’s experience without pity or fear. Compassion frees us to be courageous and loving, even while sitting with someone who is suffering. When we accept we are not immune from the same fate, we become more skillful and available. Compassion offers a bridge of trust and potential for honesty. use the following tools to help you be grounded in compassion and acceptance.

w Use breath to increase your compassion and reduce stress. Breathing to release your own tension also brings calm to those around you. Practice conscious breathing by internally counting each exhale as you breathe up to five deliberate breaths, then count your breaths back down to one again. This process quiets internal chatter and increases your ability to be patient and tolerate silence. You enhance the ability to listen beyond intellect and with your whole being.

w Be empty of expectation. It’s natural to question your usefulness when meeting with people in pain. Prepare for each meeting or telephone call by pausing before you engage with them. As you prepare to dial their number or while standing in front of their door, fill yourself with breath and calm. Empty your thoughts about what you think they need or how they are doing. Detach from the idea to feel important or useful and be open to receiving whatever they have to give.

w Avoid thinking of clients as helpless. Most of us prefer to do things at our own pace rather than being treated as needy. Imagine you are in a similar circumstance; ask yourself how you would want to be perceived. To increase rapport and trust, ask the patient and family what they would like more of and need less during your visits. It is often easier to give than receive. To accept the time and energy of others, especially volunteers, takes humility and self-esteem. When the giver brings pity, the exchange depletes precious energy.

w Move and talk calmly, never be in a hurry. Each meeting is an opportunity for a heart connection, even while doing a simple task. Increase your patience by slowing your normal energetic pace. Whatever else in your day has come before or will come after this moment with them has no place in this visit. Adapt to the patients’ voice tone and volume. Pace their rhythm for at least three breaths. This is especially important if you want to touch them, offer a massage, or assist them in moving. Begin by gently touching a non-injured area before starting any process. Ask if there any way you can make this easier or gentler for them. Let them know you want to hear suggestions or requests at any time.

w Listen without offering solutions: People in need of medical and volunteer assistance are inundated with suggestions from professionals and well-meaning friends. They may feel incapable of discussion or making decisions about what they will do after the death. Just listening lets them feel the freedom to speak from the heart. Practice the counted breathing to help you be patient during long silences or when there are interruptions in your visit. If they ask your opinion, offer one idea at a time, gently and without ego. Don’t try to predict or influence the outcome. If you are asked to assist in making decisions, ask open-ended questions to guide rather than require instant answers. Allow plenty of silence for them to think over their options. Avoid judgment about what they should be doing.

• Don’t take chaos personally or try to fix it: Even when you are in pure compassion, it’s natural to ask if you’re needed or in the way when:
  

* Patient or family forget you are coming, even if written on the calendar.

* Staff or volunteers arrive at the same time as your visit.

* Close friends and family supplant your role for that day, and expect you to understand.

* Family or friends act inappropriately and you feel powerless to intervene.

Never question your usefulness or compare what you have to offer. Simply be ready to serve and meet everyone with compassion. Stay as flexible as you can. Leave gracefully, taking the initiative to reconnect later. Be honest if you can’t “come back a little later.” If the situation feels constantly chaotic, ask for guidance or support from a hospice nurse or the coordinator.

w Allow others to cry or be silent without interruption: Patting someone who is crying is universally perceived as a signal to stop, and the sadness and hurt are making you uncomfortable. Consciously relax. If you say anything, try, “Don’t bite back the tears. It’s good to let them out.” If you feel your eyes well up, let the tears roll. You are showing your compassion and shared experience. This is true for professionals and volunteers as well as friends. Few are comfortable crying in front of others, or expressing strong feelings in front of them. Practice counted breathing, and relax your body. Everyone deserves to have at least one person who allows free expression of fear, tears, and anger without being reminded he or she is supposed to be strong enough to handle what is happening.

w Expect to feel upset at times. It’s normal to occasionally feel numb or confused. You are connecting with people facing the hardest time of their lives. They might be dying or terrified of losing someone. It’s natural to feel guilty at your fortune, or wonder if you could handle their situation with grace. Compassion means accepting the reality of what is happening in the moment. We all need times of peace and joy. Plan for significant breaks and give yourself places to be self-nurturing. Reflect with kindness on your feelings to sense if you to need to step aside for a time.

w Compassion with yourself and other caregivers helps avoid burnout: Spending time with people in acute pain and grief asks you to be at your best and highest self. The good days, when you feel you’ve been helpful, make the effort worthwhile. If you make repeated mistakes, or are unable to relieve your mental or physical stress, you are moving into burnout. Burnout can be defined as using up one aspect of your personality. Seek guidance and training whenever you doubt your abilities. Acknowledge others when you observe their good work, kindness, and compassion. Offer to give, and ask for, neck rubs and walking breaks. This makes it safer for others to be vulnerable and admit their needs. We give more when we learn to share in the loving kindness this effort deserves.

COMPASSION THRIVES ON LOVE & TRUST

Professionals are often cautioned they will diminish their technical skills and clinical usefulness by caring too much. Objectivity can bring mental clarity needed for moments in emergency and when making critical decisions There are times when we need to step back, and briefly see a “case” rather than a person. Without tapping into our own self-trust and loving-kindness, spending significant time with those in deep grief or pain can leave us feeling hollow.

Ultimately, the bond of trust we build with patients and other caregivers strengthens self-confidence and encourages us to improve our skills. We do our best work when we consciously think of and speak to patients as fellow human beings with rich life experiences, and not as tragic victims of circumstance. You’ll build trust by appreciating the ways each patient and family tolerates their unique experiences.

Reaching out is your gift, reminding others they are loved and important to you even when they need more time and attention than they can give. You offer hope that they can make it through this dark time simply by asking to be with them. Sit with your fears, acknowledge how helpless you feel, then let your compassionate heart show you how to give love.

The Greatest Synthesis:

SCIENCE WILL BE for making life more comfortable, more luxurious, more beautiful; and meditation will become an absolute part of education all over the world. And the balance between the two will create the whole man. Without meditation you cannot have the clarity, and a grounding within yourself, and a vision which is simple and innocent. I want our place slowly to develop into a world academy of sciences for creativity. This will be perhaps the greatest synthesis ever. The search for religious truth in no way hinders the search for the objective reality, because both areas are absolutely separate. They don't overlap: you can be a scientist and a meditator. In fact, the deeper you go into meditation, the more clarity, the more intelligence, the more genius you will find flowering in you. This can create a totally new science. According to me, the new science will be only one science which has two dimensions: one dimension working in the outside world, the other dimension working in the inside world -- and just one word is enough. The word "science" is a beautiful word; it means knowing. Science uses observation as its method. Religiousness also uses observation as its method, but calls it meditation. It is observation of your own subjectivity. Science calls its work "experiment" and religiousness calls its work "experience." They both start from the same point but they move in the opposite directions: Science goes outwards and religiousness goes inwards. I am utterly uninterested in anything that is not rooted in reason, in logic, in experiment, in experience. The old science was created as a reaction against religion. The new science I am talking about is not a reaction against anything, but an overflowing energy, intelligence, creativity. Politics corrupted science because its own interest was only in war. Religions could not accept science because they were all superstitious, and science was going to demolish all their gods and all their superstitions. Science has passed these three hundred years in a very difficult situation – on the one hand fighting with religion, and on the other hand unconsciously becoming a slave to the politicians. I want this place to grow and I am making arrangements for a world academy of sciences and arts, totally devoted to life-affirmative goals. The science that can create Hiroshima and Nagasaki and destroy thousands of people, birds, trees without any reason -- just because the politicians wanted to see whether atomic energy works or not -- that same science can create more food, more life, better health, more intelligence in all fields of life. But it has to be taken out of the hands of politicians. And it should not bother about religions. Scientists bothered about religions in the past because they themselves were conditioned by the same religions. I have been in contact with scientists, Nobel Prize winners, who have been fighting for my rights in other countries. These Nobel Prize winners, eminent scientists, artists of different dimensions, will constitute the academy, and they will make efforts to change science's whole trend of being destructive. Our sannyasins -- and there are many who are scientists, artists, physicians -- will help the academy. We will arrange scholarships, and people from all over the world can come and study a new way of science, a new way of art that affirms life, that creates more love in humanity and that prepares for the ultimate revolution of a single world government. And the World Academy of Creative Science, Arts and Consciousness will be the first step, because if the scientists from all over the world slowly get out of the grip of the politicians, all the politician's power will be finished. They are not powerful; the scientist is the power behind them. And the scientist is in a difficulty, because there is no institute in the world which will give the scientist enough of the materials, instruments, machines that he needs to work with. The academy will have support from all over the world, from all the scientists without exception, because now everybody is seeing that they are serving death, not life. We can have the greatest library for scientific research and we can have sannyasins working, studying. The synthesis will be that everybody who is working in the institute will also be meditating, because unless meditation goes deep in you, your love sources remain dormant. Your blissfulness, your joy remain unblossomed. Man is not for science, science is for man. But science can be of tremendous help if all the scientists of the world who are creating destructive power are removed from their positions. They want to move, but they have no place to move to. We have to create a place for them. They are all feeling guilty.... Albert Einstein died feeling utterly guilty because he had helped to create atomic bombs and those bombs were surrendered to President Roosevelt of America. Once those bombs were in the hands of the politicians, Albert Einstein went on writing letters saying: "These should not be used; they should be reserved as a last resort." But nobody bothered about those letters – who cares? And the bombs were used without rhyme or reason. Scientists are in a difficulty. They cannot work individually; they have to work under a government. The government's interest is war. And no religion is going to support the scientists because their findings go on destroying religious superstitions. There is an immense vacuum which I want to fill by creating a World Academy of Creative Science, Arts and Consciousness, absolutely devoted to life, love, laughter – absolutely devoted to creating a better humanity, a better and more pure, healthy atmosphere, to restoring the disturbed ecology. The most important thing for the academy will be to create pure science, just the way I am making every effort to create pure religiousness. Man can have inside him a pure religiousness -- that means love, that means silence, that means meditation -- and also a sense of pure science, so that no branches of science go on doing work unnecessarily which is destructive to other parts. The second great thing the academy has to do.... Up to now science has developed accidentally. There has been no sense of direction; people just went on discovering anything without any idea for what. Even moving accidentally, they have created much, but it is in the service of destruction. Pure science will give a sense of direction and a unity to all the sciences, so that science works as a whole, not as different branches. As it exists now, every science has become so specialized that no science knows anything about another science. This is a dangerous situation, but this can be avoided. It has not been possible to avoid it just by using human intelligence. Even to know all the information about one branch of science is an impossible task, but to know about all the sciences and their details -- mind is certainly not capable of it. But the computer opens a new door. Through the computer all the sciences can be accumulated into one science as such. And the computer can even sort out what is contradictory in different branches of science. It can help to make the whole of science organic, so that some branches do not go against other branches. There are so many things that the world academy has to do. It has to spread around the world the idea that misery is unnatural, that sadness is sickness, that the lust for power needs psychiatric treatment, that a man who goes on gathering money is mad. And once we make the whole of humanity aware of the dangers of our past ways of life and where the whole past is leading us -- to a global suicide -- it will not be difficult to convince the intelligent, the young, to drop the past and to accept the greatest challenge of creating a golden future. The world academy, devoted in every sphere to creativity, is going to happen. This world is not going to be finished by idiotic politicians. All over the world that's all they are doing -- preparing the funeral pyre for the whole of humanity. We are going to stop it. And if they insist, we will tell them: "Jump into the funeral pyre yourself!" Once we can get rid of the priests and the politicians, the whole earth will become so full of peace, silence, love...so many flowers and so many rainbows. We have been in the wrong hands; the world academy has to create an atmosphere so that these wrong hands are no longer powerful. The world academy is a conscious effort to do everything perfectly aware of what the consequences will be. Small experiments can be done which will give us the idea of the consequences. Right now there are thousands of inventions of scientists which have been purchased by the vested interests and are lying down in their basements; they have never been brought into the market for the people to use. Because we are behaving so insanely -- exploiting, polluting the earth -- any invention is bound to change many things. Perhaps many industries will be closed because a better product, more life-affirmative, is available. Now those industrialists will try to purchase the rights and keep those scientific discoveries hidden from humanity. I want our place to be the first synthesis between religiousness and a scientific approach to life. This will fulfill my dream that the inner and the outer of man are not separate. And it is absolutely possible, there is no difficulty in it. I have found the right sources, so you can rejoice in the fact that soon this place is going to become the world capital of science and religion. And once governments see their scientists disappearing, the world government will become a possibility. Science should not be the monopoly of any one nation, any country. The whole idea is stupid. How can science be monopolized? And every country is trying to monopolize the scientists, keep their inventions secret. This is against humanity, against nature, against existence. Whatsoever a genius discovers should be in the service of the whole. It will be a great revolution in the history of man. The whole power will be in the hands of the scientists, who have never done any harm to anybody. And once all the power is in the hands of the scientists, politicians will fade away of their own accord. They have been exploiting scientists for their own purposes, and to be exploited by anybody is not an act of dignity. The scientists should recognize their dignity, they should recognize their individuality. They should recognize that they have been exploited down the ages by the priests and the politicians. Now it is time to declare that science is going to stand on its own feet. Scientists have to be courageous enough and declare that they don't belong to any nation, to any religion, and that whatsoever they will be doing will be for the whole humanity. This will be a great freedom -- and I don't see that there is anything impossible in it.

Revenge or Understanding: The Rule of Law or of Love

ALL LEGAL SYSTEMS are nothing but the revenge of society -- against those who don't fit in with the system. According to me, law is not for protection of the just, it is for protection of the crowd mind -- whether it is just or unjust does not matter. Law is against the individual and for the crowd. It is an effort to reduce the individual and his freedom, and his possibility of being himself. The latest scientific researches are very revealing -- perhaps ten percent of the people who are termed criminals are not responsible for their crimes; their crimes are genetic, they inherit them. Just as a blind man is not responsible for his blindness, a murderer is not responsible for his murderousness. Both inherit the tendency -- one of blindness, another of committing murder. Now it is an established scientific fact that punishing anybody for any crime is simply idiotic. It is almost like punishing somebody because he has tuberculosis -- sending him to jail because he is suffering from cancer. All criminals are sick, psychologically and spiritually both. In my vision of a commune, the courts will not consist of law experts, they will consist of people who understand genetics and how crimes are inherited from generation to generation. They have to decide not for any punishment, because every punishment is wrong -- not only wrong, every punishment is criminal. The man who has committed anything wrong has to be sent to the right institution -- a psychiatric institution, or a psychoanalytic school, or maybe a hospital, to be operated on. He needs our sympathy, our love, our help. Instead of giving him our sympathy and love, for centuries we have been giving him punishment. Man has committed so much cruelty behind such beautiful names as order, law, justice. The new man will not have any jails and will not have any judges and will not have any legal experts. These are absolutely unnecessary, cancerous growths on the body of society. There will certainly have to be sympathetic scientists, meditative, compassionate beings to work out why it happened that a certain man committed rape: is he really responsible? According to me, on no account is he responsible. Either he has committed rape because of the priests and the religions teaching celibacy, repression for thousands of years -- this is the outcome of a repressive morality -- or biologically he has hormones which compel him to commit rape. Although you are living in a modern society, most of you are not contemporaries because you are not aware of the reality that science goes on discovering. Your educational system prevents you from knowing it, your religions prevent you from knowing it, your governments prevent you from knowing it. The man who is committing rape perhaps has more hormones than those moral people who manage to live with one woman for their whole life, thinking that they are moral. A man with more hormones will need more women; so will be the case with a woman. It is not a question of morality, it is a question of biology. A man who commits rape needs all our sympathy, needs a certain operation in which his extra hormones are removed, and he will cool down, calm down. To punish him is simply an exercise in stupidity. By punishing, you cannot change his hormones. Throwing him in jail, you will create a homosexual, some kind of pervert. In American jails they have done a survey: thirty percent of the inmates are homosexuals. That is according to their confession; we don't know how many have not confessed. Thirty percent is not a small number. In monasteries the number is bigger -- fifty percent, sixty percent. But the responsibility lies with our idiotic clinging to religions which are out of date, which are not supported and nourished by scientific research. The new commune of man will be based on science, not on superstition. If somebody does something which is harmful to the commune as such, then his body has to be looked into; perhaps he needs some physiological change or biological change. His mind has to be looked into -- perhaps he needs some psychoanalysis. The deepest possibility is that neither the body nor the mind are of much help; that means he needs a deep spiritual regeneration, a deep meditative cleansing. Instead of courts, we should have meditative centers of different kinds, so every unique individual can find his own way. Instead of law experts, who are simply irrelevant -- they are parasites sucking our blood -- we will have scientific people of different persuasions, because somebody may have a chemical defect, somebody may have a biological defect, somebody may have a physiological defect. We need all these kinds of experts, of all persuasions and schools of psychology, all types of meditators, and we can transform the poor people who have been victims of unknown forces -- and have been punished by us. They have suffered in a double sense. First, they are suffering from an unknown biological force. Secondly, they are suffering at the hands of your judges -- who are nothing but butchers, henchmen -- your advocates, all kinds of your law experts, your jailers. It is simply so insane that future human beings will not be able to believe it. It is almost the same as in the past: mad people were beaten to cure their madness; people who were schizophrenic, who were thought to be possessed by ghosts, were beaten almost to death -- this was thought to be the treatment. Millions of people have died because of your great treatments. Now we can simply say that those people were barbarous, ignorant, primitive. The same will be said about us. I am already saying it: that your courts are barbarous, your laws are barbarous. The very idea of punishment is unscientific. There is nobody in the world who is a criminal; everybody is sick, and needs sympathy and a scientific cure, and most of your crimes will disappear. But first private property has to disappear: private property creates thieves, dacoits, pickpockets, priests, politicians. Politics is a disease. Man has suffered from many diseases and he has not even been aware that they are diseases. He has been punishing small criminals and he has been worshipping great criminals. Who is Alexander the Great? A great criminal; he murdered people on a mass scale. Adolf Hitler alone killed millions of people, but he will be remembered in history as a great leader of men. Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible, Nadirshah, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane are all mass-scale criminals. But their crimes are so big, that perhaps you cannot conceive.... They have killed millions of people, burned millions of people alive, but they are not thought of as criminals. And a small pickpocket, who takes away a one-dollar note from your pocket will be punished by the court. Once private property disappears.... And in a commune there is going to be no private property, everything belongs to all; naturally, stealing will disappear. You don't steal water and accumulate it, you don't steal air. A commune has to create everything in such abundance that even a retarded person cannot think of accumulating it. What is the point? It is always available, fresh. Money has to disappear from society. A commune does not need money. Your needs should be fulfilled by the commune. All have to produce, and all have to make the commune richer, affluent, accepting the fact that a few people will be lazy. But there is no harm in it. In every family you will find somebody lazy. Somebody is a poet, somebody is a painter, somebody simply goes on playing on his flute – but you love the person. A certain percentage of lazy people will be respectfully allowed. In fact a commune that does not have lazy people will be a little less rich than other communes which have a few lazy people who do nothing but meditate, who do nothing but go on playing on their guitar while others are toiling in the fields. A little more human outlook is needed; these people are not useless. They may not seem to be productive of commodities, but they are producing a certain joyful, cheerful atmosphere. Their contribution is meaningful and significant. With the disappearance of money as a means of exchange, many crimes will disappear. As religions disappear, with their repressive superstitions and moralities, crimes like rape, perversions like homosexuality, diseases like AIDS will become unheard of. And when from the very beginning every child is brought up with a reverence for life -- reverence for the trees because they are alive, reverence for animals, reverence for birds -- do you think such a child one day can be a murderer? It will be almost inconceivable. And if life is joyous, full of songs and dances, do you think somebody will desire to commit suicide? Ninety percent of crimes will disappear automatically; only ten percent of crimes may remain, which are genetic, which need hospitalization – but not jails, prisons, not people to be sentenced to death. This is all so ugly, so inhuman, so insane. The new commune, the new man, can live without any law, without any order. Love will be his law, understanding will be his order. Science will be, in every difficult situation, his last resort.

A World of Communes

MY VISION OF a new world, the world of communes, means no nations, no big cities, no families, but millions of small communes spread all over the earth in thick forests, lush green forests, in mountains, on islands. The smallest commune manageable can be of five thousand people, and the biggest commune can be of fifty thousand people. From five thousand to fifty thousand -- more than that will become unmanageable; then again comes the question of order and law, and the police, and the court, and all the old criminals have to be brought back. A commune is a declaration of a non-ambitious life, of equal opportunity for all. But remember my differences with Karl Marx: I am not in favor of imposing equality on people, because that is a psychologically impossible task -- and whenever you do something against nature, it becomes destructive and poisonous. No two men are equal. But I can be misunderstood very easily, so try to understand my standpoint very clearly. I am not in favor of equality, but I am not in favor of inequality either! I'm in favor of creating equal opportunities for everybody to be himself. In other words: In my vision, each individual is equally unique. The question of equality or inequality does not arise, because two individuals are not the same. They cannot be compared. A real commune, a real communism, will create equal opportunities for growth, but accept the uniqueness of each individual. A commune means that we have pooled all our energies, all our money -- everything into a single pool which will be taking care of all the people. There should be absolute freedom of expression in words or in creativity. Each individual should be respected as he is, not according to any ideal. His basic needs should be fulfilled by the commune, and as the commune becomes richer, every individual should be provided with more comfort, with more luxury --because I am not against luxury or comfort. I am not a sadist, and I don't want people to be tortured in any beautiful name. In the name of religion or in the name of socialism nobody should be sacrificed; no kind of self torture should be supported. Man is here to rejoice, to live a life as beautifully, as peacefully, as comfortably as possible. I am absolutely for those progressive inventions which can make man happier, live longer, be younger, healthier, and which make his life more of a play, fun, and less of a torturous journey from the cradle to the grave. I am all for richness -- but the richness will be of the commune. As the commune becomes richer, every individual will become richer. I am against poverty, I am not a worshiper of poverty. I don't see anything spiritual in being poor; it is sheer stupidity. Neither poverty is spiritual, nor sickness is spiritual, nor hunger is spiritual. A commune should live in such a way that it becomes richer and richer, in such a way that it does not produce too many children, that it does not overproduce people, because overproduction of people is bound to create beggars, is bound to create orphans. And once there are orphans there are Mother Teresas to convert them into Catholicism. All the communes should be interdependent, but they will not exchange money. Money should be dissolved. It has done tremendous harm to humanity -- now it is time to say good-bye to it, because money can be accumulated. And if one commune becomes richer than the other communes, then comes from the back door the poverty and the richness and the whole nightmare of capitalism, and the classes of the poor and the rich, and the desire to dominate. Because you are rich, you can enslave other communes. Money is one of the enemies of man. Communes will be exchanging. They will be broadcasting on their radio stations that such and such a product is available from them. Anybody who has certain other products that they need can contact them, and things can be exchanged in a friendly way; there is no haggling, there is no exploitation. But the commune should not become too big, because bigness is also dangerous. A commune's criterion of bigness should be that everybody knows everybody else; that should be the limit. Once that limit is crossed, the commune should divide itself into two. Just as two brothers separate, when a commune becomes big enough it divides itself into two communes, two sister communes. And there will be a deep interdependence, sharing ideas and skills, without any of the attitudes that grow out of possessiveness -- like nationalism and fanaticism. There will be nothing to be fanatic about. There will be no reason for a nation. A small group of people can enjoy life more easily, because to have so many friends, so many acquaintances, is a joy unto itself. My idea of a commune is, living in small groups, which gives you enough space, and yet living in a close, loving, relationship. Your children are taken care of by the commune, your needs are taken care of by the commune, your medical care is taken care of by the commune. The commune becomes an authentic family without any diseases that families have created in the past. It is a loose family and a constant movement. There is no question of any marriage and no question of any divorce. If two persons want to be together, they can be together, and if one day they don't want to be together, that is perfectly good. It was their decision to be together; now they can choose other friends. In fact, in one life why not live many lives? Why not make it richer? Why should a man cling to a woman, or a woman cling to a man unless they enjoy each other so much that they want to be together for their whole life. But looking at the world, the situation is clear: people would like to be independent from their families; children want to be independent from their families. But in a commune, there is no need to make any fuss. You can say good-bye any moment, and you can still remain friends. It will be a richer life; you will have known many men and many women. Each man has his own uniqueness, and each woman has her own uniqueness. In a commune the older people will be loved and respected for their experiences. The older people will become the teachers, the guides. Old age will not be thought of as something ugly, but as something immensely graceful. One has gone beyond all childish and all youthful foolishness; one has come to be very centered and silent after a life-long meditation. They will teach you how to die -- because when they die, they will die with such grace and joy. That will be their last gift to the commune. The whole world should be one humanity, only divided by small communes on a practical basis. No fanaticism, no racism, no nationalism -- then, for the first time, we can drop the idea of wars. We can make life with honesty, worth living, worth enjoying -- playful, meditative, creative -- and give every man and every woman equal opportunity to grow and bring their potential to flowering.

The Right to Die : euthanasia

I ALSO SUGGEST euthanasia. Just as we are putting limits on birth -- birth control -- let me give you another word: death control. But no nation is ready for death control. Even if, after a certain age, a person wants to die and has lived life fully and has no responsibility -- rather he is a burden on himself -- he is forced to live, because the law is against suicide.

I suggest, if you accept seventy as the average age to die, or eighty or ninety as the average, a man should be free to ask the medical board: "I want to be freed from my body." He has every right to do that, if he does not want to live any more because he has lived enough. He has done everything that he wanted to do, and now he wants not to die of cancer, or tuberculosis; he simply wants a relaxed death.

Every hospital should have a special place for people, with a special staff, where people can come, get relaxed and be helped to die beautifully, without any disease, supported by the medical profession.

If the medical board feels that the person is valuable, if the medical board feels that the person is of immense importance, then he can be asked to live a little longer. Only a few people should be asked to be here a little longer, because they can be of so much help to humanity, so much help to others. But if even those people don't want to live, that is their birthright. You can ask, request, and if they accept it, good; but if they say: "No, we are not interested any more," then certainly they have every right to die.

One can understand trying to save a child, but why are you saving old people who have lived, lived enough, suffered, enjoyed, done all kinds of things, good and bad? Now it is time -- let them go.

But the doctors cannot let them go because it is illegal.

They cannot take them off oxygen and other life-support systems, so you go on saving the dying or almost-dead people.

No pope issues a commandment that these people should be allowed freedom from their bodies. And what is left of their bodies? Somebody's legs are missing; somebody's hands are missing; somebody's heart is not working so a battery is working instead of a heart; somebody's kidneys are not working so machines are doing the work of the kidneys. But what is the purpose of these people? What will they do even if you continue to keep them going this way?

Yes, at the most they keep a few people employed; that's all. But what kind of a creative life are they going to have? And what joy can they have in all that is being done to them? Continual injections are being given to them. They cannot sleep, then sleeping pills are given to them. They cannot wake up, then activators are forced into their blood so they have to wake up. But for what reason -- the Hippocratic oath? Let Hippocrates go to hell! He had no idea what his oath was going to bring about.

Instead of medicines, a meditator should be there to teach the dying man how to meditate, because now medicine is not needed, meditation is needed -- how to relax and peacefully disappear from the body.

Every hospital needs meditators -- they are essential -- just as it needs doctors.

Up to now meditators were not needed because there was only one function: to save life. Now the function is doubled: to help people die. Every university should have a department where meditation is taught so that people themselves are ready. When the time comes to die, they are fully ready to die -- with joy, with celebration.

But suicide is a crime. This will be considered suicide, and I will be considered to be teaching people illegal things.

My concern is with truth, not with law.

The truth is that you have unbalanced life, nature. Please give back its balance.

I suggest a movement so that when people have lived enough and they desire to be freed from their bodies, then hospitals should provide a convenient, pleasant death. It is absolutely sane that every hospital should have a special ward with all facilities so that death becomes a pleasant experience, enjoyable.

Meritocracy - Power in the Hands of the Intelligentsia

ONE THING IS absolutely certain: The days of the politicians are over. They have done too well their job of being destructive, violent. Nothing is favorable to the politician; and as each day passes his death comes closer. He himself is responsible. He improved the weapons, which can bring death to the whole world, to such a point that there is no way of going back. Either there will be an ultimate war -- which means death to all and everything -- or a total change of the whole structure in the human society. I am calling that change "meritocracy." One thing -- we have to drop the idea that every man, just because he is twenty-one, is capable of choosing who is the right person to decide the fate of nations. Age cannot be a decisive factor. We have to change the decisive factor; that is changing the very foundation. My suggestion is that only a person who is at least a matriculate, a high school graduate, will be able to vote. His age does not matter. For the local government, matriculation will be the qualification for the voters. And graduation from a university, at least a bachelor's degree, should be a necessary qualification for anybody running for election, for the candidates. A master's degree should be a minimum qualification for the one who is running for mayor. For the state elections, graduation with a bachelor's degree should be the minimum qualification for the voters. A master's degree in science, the arts, commerce, should be the necessary degree for the candidates. For the cabinet ministers an M.A. with highest honors should be the minimum necessary qualification; more will be, of course, more appreciated. And anybody trying to become a cabinet minister will have to know something about the subject. His qualification should correspond to the subject matter that he is going to deal with in his term of office. So if somebody is going to be an education minister, then his qualifications should make him capable of being an education minister. He should have at least a master's degree in education with highest honors; with less than highest honors nobody should be a minister on the state level. Yes, if he has better degrees -- doctor of education, Ph.D. in education -- that is good, that will make him more qualified. The attorney general should have at least a doctorate in law, an LL.D.-- not less than that, because he is going to defend the law of the state, the rights of the citizens. He should have the best degree possible so he knows everything about it. The governor should have the best of all the degrees possible for him: M.A. with highest honors, Ph.D. -- his Ph.D. should be in political science -- and at least one honorary degree, a D.Litt. or LL.D. For the federal government, a master's degree will be the voter's minimum qualification. A master's degree with highest honors and a Ph.D. should be the minimum for the candidates running for election. And the ministers should all have the highest degrees in the subjects for which they are going to be ministers. If it is education then the highest degrees in education available in the country; if it is going to be health, then the highest degrees in health available in the country. The president should have at least two Ph.D.s and one honorary D.Litt. or LL.D.; and the same for the vice-president because he can become president any day. In this way mobocracy is destroyed. Then just because you are twenty-one it does not mean you are capable of choosing the government. Choosing the government should be a very skillful, intelligent job. Just by being twenty-one you may be able to reproduce children -- it needs no skill, no education, biology sends you well prepared. But to choose the government, to choose people who are going to have all the powers over you and everybody, and who are going to decide the destiny of the country and the world, just to be twenty-one is certainly not enough...the way we have been choosing them is simply idiotic. I would like all the universities -- within each state -- to call a convention of all the vice-chancellors and the eminent professors; of the eminent intelligentsia who may not be part of the university: painters, artists, poets, writers, novelists, dancers, actors, musicians. It would include all dimensions of talents, all kinds of people who have shown their caliber -- excluding politicians completely. All the Nobel Prize winners should be invited -- excluding the politicians again, because within these past few years a few politicians have been given Nobel Prizes, and this has degraded the value of the Nobel Prize. So from each state a delegation should be chosen for the national convention, which goes into details of how the meritocracy can work. From the national candidates there should be an international convention of all the universities of the world and the intelligentsia. This would be the first of its kind because never has the whole intelligentsia of the world come together to decide the fate of humanity. They should write the first constitution of the world. It will not be American, it will not be Indian, it will not be Chinese -- it is going to be simply the constitution of the whole of humanity. There is no need for different kinds of laws. There is no need -- all human beings need the same kind of laws. And a world constitution will be a declaration that nations are no longer significant. They can exist as functional units but they are no longer independent powers. And if the whole intelligentsia of the world is behind this convention it will not be very difficult to convince the generals of the world to move away from the politicians. And what power do politicians have? All the power that they have we have given to them. We can take it back. It is not their power, it is our power. We just have to find a way to take it back -- because giving is very easy, taking is a little difficult. They will not be so simple and innocent when you take the power back as they were when they were asking it from you. It is our power, but they will go on having it if the mob remains there to give it to them; the mob can be convinced about anything. It is the function of the intelligentsia.... I would like to say that now, if anything happens to humanity, the whole condemnation will go to the intelligentsia: "What were you doing? If those idiots were ready to kill humanity, what were you doing? You simply went on grumbling, being grumpy, but you did nothing else." And the time is running short. Once we decide that the voting power is not the birthright of every human being but is a right which you will have to earn by your intelligence.... You have to see the distinction: Everybody is given the opportunity to earn it, there is equal opportunity for all to earn it, but it is nothing birth-given; you have to prove it. Once we move the power from the mob into the hands of intelligent people, people who know what they are doing, we can create something beautiful. If a man who has devoted his whole life to thinking about education and its problems, has done all that was possible to do to find out every detail, every fundamental of education, all the possible philosophies of education -- if he becomes an education minister, there is a possibility that he will do something. I suggest to shift completely from the mob to the chosen few. I am not against the people. In fact, in the hands of these politicians, the people are against themselves. I am all for the people, and what I am saying can be said to be exactly what has been said about democracy: for the people, by the people, of the people -- just "by the people" I will have to change. This intelligentsia will be for the people, of the people. It will be serving the masses. It is so simple a thing. You don't elect a doctor, and just anybody can stand, because it is a birthright and people can vote...two persons fighting to be the doctor or to be the surgeon. What is wrong in it? The people choose for themselves: for the people, by the people, of the people. They choose one person -- to be the surgeon -- because he speaks better, he looks good on the television and he makes great promises. But he is not even a butcher, and he is going to become a surgeon! A butcher would have been better; at least he would have known how to cut -- but you don't choose a surgeon by election. How can you choose a president by election? How can you choose a governor by election? For one post so many people are hankering, desiring. Those who are most sick with ambitiousness will fight the most, they will kill -- they will do anything. You are giving so much power to power-hungry people; with your own hands you are helping them to hang you! This is not democracy. In the name of democracy these people have been exploiting the masses. So politicians and priests both have to be dropped out of their long, long-standing establishment, and a totally new kind of management has to be developed. Just to make a distinction I am calling my system "meritocracy." But merit for what? The merit is to serve and share. And once you have decided to shift the power from the politicians to the intelligentsia, everything is possible -- everything becomes simple. Meritocracy is a whole program of transforming the structure of society, the structure of the government, the structure of education. It is a difficult job, arduous but not impossible -- particularly in such a situation when death is the only alternative.

Priests and Politicians -- the Ancient Conspiracy

THAT SAME U.N. report, "Our Common Future," fails to deal with the real roots of the problems because that would go against our own governments and religions. For instance, it says the economy and ecology are connected, but what about religion and politics? You have to be made aware who the real criminals are. The problem is that those criminals are thought to be great leaders, great symbols of holiness and respectability. So I have to expose all these people because they are the causes. For example, it is easier to understand that perhaps politicians are the causes of many problems -- wars, murders, massacres -- but it is more difficult when it comes to religious leaders, because nobody has raised his hand against them. They have remained respectable for centuries, and as time goes on their respectability goes on growing. The most difficult job for me is to make you aware that these people -- knowingly or unknowingly, that does not matter -- have created this world. The politicians and the priests have been constantly in conspiracy, working together, hand in hand. The politician has the political power; the priest has the religious power. The politician protects the priest, the priest blesses the politician -- and the masses are exploited, their blood is sucked by both. Religions have made man's mind retarded by creating beliefs out of fictions. And politicians have destroyed man by creating as undignified a life as possible -- because their power depends on your slavery. These barriers should be removed. Rather, science should be employed not in the service of death and destruction, but in the service of life and love, affirmation, celebration. We are in such a situation today that either we will let these rotten politicians and priests destroy the whole of humanity and the earth, or we will have to take the power from their hands and decentralize it into humanity. For example, every religion goes on teaching against birth control, and no government is courageous enough to tell these religions that they are creating a situation in which the whole earth is in tremendous suffering. In forty of the poorest countries in the world today, one fifth of all children die before the age of five. The politicians are afraid to say to the people anything in favor of birth control, in favor of abortion, because their whole interest is not whether the country survives or dies, their interest is that nobody should be offended. People have their prejudices, but the politicians don't want to touch their prejudices because they need their votes. If they hurt their prejudices, these people are not going to give them their votes. The population explosion is the problem. All the religions are teaching: "Serve the poor," but not a single religion is ready to say: "Accept birth control so that the population is reduced." The pope is continually interfering. He will not allow birth control: it is a sin, a sin against God. And what kind of God is this, who can't see that the earth is overburdened with the population? Politics is a game of numbers. How many Christians you have in the world -- that is your power. The more Christians there are, the more power is in the hands of Christian priests, the priesthood. Nobody is interested in saving anybody, but just in increasing the population. What Christianity has been doing is to continually issue orders from the Vatican against birth control, saying it is a sin to use birth control methods, that it is a sin to believe in abortion or to encourage abortion or to make it legal. Do you think they are interested in the unborn children? They are not interested; they have nothing to do with those unborn children. They pursue their interest knowing perfectly well that if abortion is not practiced, if birth control methods are not practiced, this whole humanity is going to commit a global suicide. And it is not so far away that you cannot see the situation. If things don't change, just within twelve years the world population will be such that it will be impossible to survive. Just now, just recently, the Vatican has come out with a long message to humanity -- one hundred and thirty-nine pages: "Abortion is sin; birth control is a sin." Now, nowhere in the bible is abortion a sin. Nowhere in the bible is birth control a sin, because no birth control was needed. Out of ten children, nine were going to die. That was the proportion, and that was the proportion in India just thirty or forty years ago: out of ten children, only one would survive. Then the population was not too great, not too heavy on the resources of the earth. Now, even in India -- not to say anything about developed countries -- even in India, out of ten children, only one dies. So medical science goes on helping people to survive. And Christianity goes on opening hospitals and distributing medicines, while at the same time condemning birth control and preaching stupid ideas like: "children are God-sent," and Mother Teresa is there to praise and the pope is going to bless you.... They are even worried about Russia. There is, in America, a Christian association called Underground Evangelism, which works in communist countries to distribute the bible freely, and to distribute these stupid ideas that abortion is sin and birth control is sin. Somehow Russia is not starving; they are not rich but they are not starving. Please, at least leave them alone. And it is because of birth control that they are not starving. If birth control is prohibited, if abortion is prohibited, Russia will be in the same position as Ethiopia. Then Mother Teresa and the pope will be very happy. The underground evangelists will come overground -- a great opportunity to convert people to Christianity. If some day this whole earth dies because of this explosion of population, then these people will be responsible for it -- they are against birth control and abortion. Now, without birth control, without abortion, there is no possibility for this earth to be rich.