13 August 1985 am in Rajneeshmandir,
chapter "05", Question 2.
Bhagwan, why are so many of your sannyasins German?
The whole credit goes to Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler led the strong German spirit -- particularly the youth -- into such a hell, into such suffering and misery, into such utter failure, that the German mind since then has been searching for somebody who is just the opposite of Adolf Hitler.
They have found the anti-Adolf Hitler in me.
It is not just a coincidence. Nature follows certain laws. If the second world war was a long nightmare, the reason was that the Germans followed a man who was giving them hope, the promise of a better world. And by the end of his life Adolf Hitler started proclaiming himself the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet, Elijah. He was not only a political leader, he was a religious prophet; and Nazism was not only a political creed, but a new religion preparing the way for the superman to come.
You have been cheated, deceived. Now for centuries the spirit of German youth is not going to forget or forgive Adolf Hitler. They want someone who is just the opposite of Adolf Hitler. I am not a prophet. I am not a reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. My foot! I don't care a bit about these Old Testament prophets -- most of them are idiots, fanatics. The German youth finds in me a friend, not a leader. They are fed up with leaders. Adolf Hitler was saying to the German youth, "Sacrifice your present, your youth, your love, your mother, your father, your wife, your beloved, your friends, for a better Germany to be born -- a Germany which will be ruling over the whole world."
German youth is completely finished with all kinds of promises. They are no longer interested in the future, because in the name of the future they have been exploited.
With me, they find a totally different type of man, who gives no hope, no promise, no certainty for tomorrow, but only says, this moment is all that you have got. And never sacrifice this moment for anything, whatsoever it is -- not even for God.
I teach you how to live! Adolf Hitler was teaching you how to die for the fatherland, for Nazism, for the leader, Adolf Hitler, for the future generations who will rule over the world. And I am saying, drop the very idea of future. Future generations will take care of themselves. Don't you stupidly sacrifice yourself for future generations -- future generations will have their own present.
But this foolish idea is very ancient. Your parents sacrificed their love, their life, their joy, their pleasure, their holidays -- everything -- for you. And you are sacrificing everything for your children, and your parents' parents were doing the same.
Do you see the logic of it? Every generation is sacrificing for another generation, and that generation will sacrifice for another generation. Nobody is living. Nobody has lived up to now.
They were all great martyrs. With beautiful phrasing you can hide the reality of a thing. You sacrifice -- it is your duty -- for your children. Don't you want your children to be happy? Don't you want your children to be healthy? Don't you want your children to be cultured? Obviously, you say yes, but you should say, "The same was said to our parents. They sacrificed themselves; they never lived. They sacrificed for us to live and love, and now you are telling us not to live but to sacrifice again."
It is a very tricky game of postponing your life and love and joy and bliss and dance. And for centuries man has done that, with all good intentions. But the way to hell is paved with good intentions.
I am telling you that you are here to enjoy yourself. If you enjoy your children, play with them, teach them, but don't sacrifice for them! Remember, your sacrifice makes you resentful of your children, and your resentfulness creates anger, rebellion in your children against you. No boy can ever forgive his father, no girl can ever forgive her mother. What kind of a society have you created?
Sacrifice is a dirty word. Drop it from your vocabulary.
Yes, if you love your children, and if you enjoy your children, do whatsoever you want to do. It is not a sacrifice, it is not duty; it is love, and out of love you can never feel resentful. And if it is out of love, your children cannot be, deep down, angry against you. These so-called beautiful words -- sacrifice, duty, responsibility to the nation, to the religion, to the culture, to the civilization -- are all ugly.
German youth is more attracted towards me for the simple reason that I am teaching just the opposite of what they have suffered at the hands of Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler has paved the way for me. Nobody can prevent me from taking over Germany.
The German government is doing everything so that I cannot enter Germany. That is enough indication that the paranoia and fear have already reached into the hearts of those who are holding the power.
They have put a few cases against me. I have never been in Germany -- I was really amazed. How can I commit any crime? -- I have never been there. But they have put cases against me for two reasons. They can refuse entry to a man who is under litigation. Or they can let you enter and then imprison you because so many cases are against you; you cannot leave the country until all the litigations are over.
I rejoice at their fear. Whenever a government becomes afraid of me, it brings great joy to my heart. That means my work is happening. The governors, the presidents are somehow trembling within. To hide that trembling they will do all kinds of things.
But whatever you do, your edifice is crumbling. The fear is not coming because of me, the fear is in you.
And it is a strange experience.... For example, here in Oregon we are such a small commune, but we are not afraid of the Oregonians. We are not frightened by the vast numbers of them-and they are trembling with fear, trying in every way to prepare themselves. They have kept their army on alert. For this small commune you need the army to be on alert? They have told their army that any moment they might be ordered to reach Rajneeshpuram within three hours.
We have not done any harm to anybody. In the four years we have been here, we have done great service to this desert, to Oregon. We have made Oregon's name world-famous. Otherwise, I myself had never heard the name. But now, all around the world Oregon has become the focus; they should be grateful to us. And we have converted their desert into an oasis, full of laughter, love, dance, song, music. No desert is so fortunate as this desert we have turned into an oasis! They should be grateful.
For fifty years this land was for sale and there was nobody to purchase it. Who purchases deserts? And what are you going to do with a desert? And not a small one -- one hundred and twenty-six square miles! Just to put a fence around it means thousands of dollars.
They are frightened. The fear comes from the fact that if the people of Oregon become acquainted with us, they will forget the idea, "It is better to be dead than red." They will change it to the idea, "It is better to be red than dead." This is the fear.
Why is the German government afraid of me? Why does the German parliament continuously argue about me? I am nobody -- not a politician, no power in my hands. Why should I be discussed in the parliaments of Holland, Germany, England, America? It seems to be simply strange.
But when one is in paranoia, afraid.... The greatest fear comes when your youth starts moving in another direction; that means you are losing your grip on the future. The youth are the future, and if the youth are moving in some direction, certainly their children will move with their parents, and the old generation will be left behind in their graveyards. It is a real fear. The youth are the life of a land, and when life is slipping out of your hands, great fear arises.
But nothing can prevent existence from following its fundamental laws. After Adolf Hitler, I am absolutely needed in Germany! The wound that Adolf Hitler has left behind, nobody else can heal. My love, my people and their love, can heal the wound very easily.
In Germany we have many communes, and those are the only places where you will see people laughing, enjoying, dancing, singing. Every day, thousands of non-sannyasins are coming to our German discos. It became a problem to accommodate so many people. People are waiting outside the discos in line, so when the first group leaves they can enter.
No church can claim that there is a line outside waiting! Naturally the church is afraid, the government is afraid. What is going to happen to these people? And they cannot understand either your way of life or your freedom, or your thoughts, or your spontaneity. You are the strangest people they have come across.
Yes, Germans are one of the biggest groups among my sannyasins, and every day more and more Germans are turning towards me. I can give you the guarantee that Germany cannot remain anything other than a land of sannyasins -- and that will be the absolutely certain prevention of any other Adolf Hitler happening.
They have suffered so much, they need a little relaxation. They have been in such a mental torture, they need some peace of mind. Their political leaders cannot give it to them. Their religious leaders cannot give it to them. Naturally, they have started seeking, and they have found me. I can give them everything that Adolf Hitler has destroyed in the German spirit.
The German spirit is in ruins. We can again make it a beautiful home where you can live, love, dance, sing. And Germans are capable people, strong people. If they could stand alone, against the whole world and maintain that stand for five years, continuously victorious, they can do the same for our vision of the world. Their energy, their strength can be used for creative purposes.
Adolf Hitler took advantage of their strength. That's why, fed up with the politicians and the priests of their land, they have joined hands with me. And I am only a friend. I do not claim any superiority over you, and that's what the German spirit needs.
It needs love, it needs friendship, it needs meditation, it needs silence. It needs to understand poetry, painting, architecture. It needs to understand jokes.
It is said that if you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice: first, when you tell it, out of politeness, not to be rude to you; and second, in the middle of the night when he gets the point. The German laughs only once. He never comes to understand the point. He laughs because others are laughing, so there must be something in it.
And never tell a joke to a Jew, because he will not laugh; on the contrary, he will say, "This is an old joke, and moreover you are telling it all wrong!"
Perhaps for the first time in their history, Germans who have been sannyasins have been able to understand a joke. And I am going to fill the whole of Germany with beautiful jokes. Such a powerful nation needs some dimension of creativity to put its power, its intelligence into. It does not deserve Adolf Hitlers.
There will be many Germans here. Remember, to prevent Germany again falling into the same ditch... it fell into one in the first world war, it fell into it again in the second world war. And Germany still has American soldiers and American missiles; they can be forced into another ditch, and that will be the end of the whole of humanity.
Throw out the Bibles and read joke books. Tell the Americans to leave with all their missiles. Tell them, "We are not going to need them, and we are not going to sacrifice ourselves for any nonsense, any fatherland."
Germany is the only country which calls itself "fatherland." What a male chauvinist mind! All countries of the world are called "motherland," but Germans could not call their country motherland -- it looks as if you are calling your country by the name of the weaker sex. Fatherland seems to be right.
Please, start dropping the idea of fatherland. Make Germany a motherland. Give it more feminine qualities, take away its male chauvinistic ideas. And my sannyasins are capable of doing it. Don't just be satisfied with yourself that you are happy, celebrating, for the simple reason that the more you spread your celebration, the more you rejoice. The more you shower blessings on others, the more blessed you become.
I am not giving you any promises for the future. My insistence is on the present. This moment live, love, laugh, but don't wait for tomorrow.
Adolf Hitler was saying to the German youth, "Sacrifice your present, your youth, your love, your mother, your father, your wife, your beloved, your friends, for a better Germany to be born -- a Germany which will be ruling over the whole world."
German youth is completely finished with all kinds of promises. They are no longer interested in the future, because in the name of the future they have been exploited.
With me, they find a totally different type of man, who gives no hope, no promise, no certainty for tomorrow, but only says, this moment is all that you have got. And never sacrifice this moment for anything, whatsoever it is -- not even for God.
I teach you how to live! Adolf Hitler was teaching you how to die for the fatherland, for Nazism, for the leader, Adolf Hitler, for the future generations who will rule over the world. And I am saying, drop the very idea of future. Future generations will take care of themselves. Don't you stupidly sacrifice yourself for future generations -- future generations will have their own present.
But this foolish idea is very ancient. Your parents sacrificed their love, their life, their joy, their pleasure, their holidays -- everything -- for you. And you are sacrificing everything for your children, and your parents' parents were doing the same.
Do you see the logic of it? Every generation is sacrificing for another generation, and that generation will sacrifice for another generation. Nobody is living. Nobody has lived up to now.
They were all great martyrs. With beautiful phrasing you can hide the reality of a thing. You sacrifice -- it is your duty -- for your children. Don't you want your children to be happy? Don't you want your children to be healthy? Don't you want your children to be cultured? Obviously, you say yes, but you should say, "The same was said to our parents. They sacrificed themselves; they never lived. They sacrificed for us to live and love, and now you are telling us not to live but to sacrifice again."
It is a very tricky game of postponing your life and love and joy and bliss and dance. And for centuries man has done that, with all good intentions. But the way to hell is paved with good intentions.
I am telling you that you are here to enjoy yourself. If you enjoy your children, play with them, teach them, but don't sacrifice for them! Remember, your sacrifice makes you resentful of your children, and your resentfulness creates anger, rebellion in your children against you. No boy can ever forgive his father, no girl can ever forgive her mother. What kind of a society have you created?
Sacrifice is a dirty word. Drop it from your vocabulary.
Yes, if you love your children, and if you enjoy your children, do whatsoever you want to do. It is not a sacrifice, it is not duty; it is love, and out of love you can never feel resentful. And if it is out of love, your children cannot be, deep down, angry against you. These so-called beautiful words -- sacrifice, duty, responsibility to the nation, to the religion, to the culture, to the civilization -- are all ugly.
German youth is more attracted towards me for the simple reason that I am teaching just the opposite of what they have suffered at the hands of Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler has paved the way for me. Nobody can prevent me from taking over Germany.
The German government is doing everything so that I cannot enter Germany. That is enough indication that the paranoia and fear have already reached into the hearts of those who are holding the power.
They have put a few cases against me. I have never been in Germany -- I was really amazed. How can I commit any crime? -- I have never been there. But they have put cases against me for two reasons. They can refuse entry to a man who is under litigation. Or they can let you enter and then imprison you because so many cases are against you; you cannot leave the country until all the litigations are over.
I rejoice at their fear. Whenever a government becomes afraid of me, it brings great joy to my heart. That means my work is happening. The governors, the presidents are somehow trembling within. To hide that trembling they will do all kinds of things.
But whatever you do, your edifice is crumbling. The fear is not coming because of me, the fear is in you.
And it is a strange experience.... For example, here in Oregon we are such a small commune, but we are not afraid of the Oregonians. We are not frightened by the vast numbers of them-and they are trembling with fear, trying in every way to prepare themselves. They have kept their army on alert. For this small commune you need the army to be on alert? They have told their army that any moment they might be ordered to reach Rajneeshpuram within three hours.
We have not done any harm to anybody. In the four years we have been here, we have done great service to this desert, to Oregon. We have made Oregon's name world-famous. Otherwise, I myself had never heard the name. But now, all around the world Oregon has become the focus; they should be grateful to us. And we have converted their desert into an oasis, full of laughter, love, dance, song, music. No desert is so fortunate as this desert we have turned into an oasis! They should be grateful.
For fifty years this land was for sale and there was nobody to purchase it. Who purchases deserts? And what are you going to do with a desert? And not a small one -- one hundred and twenty-six square miles! Just to put a fence around it means thousands of dollars.
They are frightened. The fear comes from the fact that if the people of Oregon become acquainted with us, they will forget the idea, "It is better to be dead than red." They will change it to the idea, "It is better to be red than dead." This is the fear.
Why is the German government afraid of me? Why does the German parliament continuously argue about me? I am nobody -- not a politician, no power in my hands. Why should I be discussed in the parliaments of Holland, Germany, England, America? It seems to be simply strange.
But when one is in paranoia, afraid.... The greatest fear comes when your youth starts moving in another direction; that means you are losing your grip on the future. The youth are the future, and if the youth are moving in some direction, certainly their children will move with their parents, and the old generation will be left behind in their graveyards. It is a real fear. The youth are the life of a land, and when life is slipping out of your hands, great fear arises.
But nothing can prevent existence from following its fundamental laws. After Adolf Hitler, I am absolutely needed in Germany! The wound that Adolf Hitler has left behind, nobody else can heal. My love, my people and their love, can heal the wound very easily.
In Germany we have many communes, and those are the only places where you will see people laughing, enjoying, dancing, singing. Every day, thousands of non-sannyasins are coming to our German discos. It became a problem to accommodate so many people. People are waiting outside the discos in line, so when the first group leaves they can enter.
No church can claim that there is a line outside waiting! Naturally the church is afraid, the government is afraid. What is going to happen to these people? And they cannot understand either your way of life or your freedom, or your thoughts, or your spontaneity. You are the strangest people they have come across.
Yes, Germans are one of the biggest groups among my sannyasins, and every day more and more Germans are turning towards me. I can give you the guarantee that Germany cannot remain anything other than a land of sannyasins -- and that will be the absolutely certain prevention of any other Adolf Hitler happening.
They have suffered so much, they need a little relaxation. They have been in such a mental torture, they need some peace of mind. Their political leaders cannot give it to them. Their religious leaders cannot give it to them. Naturally, they have started seeking, and they have found me. I can give them everything that Adolf Hitler has destroyed in the German spirit.
The German spirit is in ruins. We can again make it a beautiful home where you can live, love, dance, sing. And Germans are capable people, strong people. If they could stand alone, against the whole world and maintain that stand for five years, continuously victorious, they can do the same for our vision of the world. Their energy, their strength can be used for creative purposes.
Adolf Hitler took advantage of their strength. That's why, fed up with the politicians and the priests of their land, they have joined hands with me. And I am only a friend. I do not claim any superiority over you, and that's what the German spirit needs.
It needs love, it needs friendship, it needs meditation, it needs silence. It needs to understand poetry, painting, architecture. It needs to understand jokes.
It is said that if you tell a joke to an Englishman, he laughs twice: first, when you tell it, out of politeness, not to be rude to you; and second, in the middle of the night when he gets the point. The German laughs only once. He never comes to understand the point. He laughs because others are laughing, so there must be something in it.
And never tell a joke to a Jew, because he will not laugh; on the contrary, he will say, "This is an old joke, and moreover you are telling it all wrong!"
Perhaps for the first time in their history, Germans who have been sannyasins have been able to understand a joke. And I am going to fill the whole of Germany with beautiful jokes. Such a powerful nation needs some dimension of creativity to put its power, its intelligence into. It does not deserve Adolf Hitlers.
There will be many Germans here. Remember, to prevent Germany again falling into the same ditch... it fell into one in the first world war, it fell into it again in the second world war. And Germany still has American soldiers and American missiles; they can be forced into another ditch, and that will be the end of the whole of humanity.
Throw out the Bibles and read joke books. Tell the Americans to leave with all their missiles. Tell them, "We are not going to need them, and we are not going to sacrifice ourselves for any nonsense, any fatherland."
Germany is the only country which calls itself "fatherland." What a male chauvinist mind! All countries of the world are called "motherland," but Germans could not call their country motherland -- it looks as if you are calling your country by the name of the weaker sex. Fatherland seems to be right.
Please, start dropping the idea of fatherland. Make Germany a motherland. Give it more feminine qualities, take away its male chauvinistic ideas. And my sannyasins are capable of doing it. Don't just be satisfied with yourself that you are happy, celebrating, for the simple reason that the more you spread your celebration, the more you rejoice. The more you shower blessings on others, the more blessed you become.
