From Darkness to Light Chapter 5 contd..

Once in a while they go on giving a Nobel prize to a Russian scientist, to some scientist whom they
would like to get out of Russia; his being in Russia is dangerous for them. He is close to finding
something – or he has found it already – in which they are far behind.
Now you see the ways of the politicians? Give the man a Nobel prize – now you create trouble. The
scientist is not capable of resisting the temptation of accepting the Nobel prize, because that is the
world’s greatest honor. It does not happen to everybody; it happens once in a while to one individual
in millions.
Now, a poor scientist, howsoever great a scientist he may be – as a man he is a poor man with
all the desires to be famous, to be well known. Now, the politicians have put him into a dilemma:
if he accepts the Nobel prize he goes against the Russian establishment because the Russian
establishment knows perfectly well – politicians know each other well; nobody knows them as well
as they know each other. They speak the same language, they work the same strategies.
The Russian politicians know why the Nobel prize has been given to this man. By giving the Nobel
prize a rift has been created between the man and the Soviet government. The Soviet pressure will
be: ”Reject the Nobel prize. It comes from the capitalist world; it is not an honor, in fact it is an insult.
Reject it, and if you don’t reject it then you will be in trouble.”
And it has happened with many people: either they have been imprisoned ... that’s what the
politicians of the other side wanted, that they should be imprisoned so their work is spoiled. They


may have been coming close to something which may have made Russia the most powerful nation
in the world. They have disrupted it; they have sabotaged it in a very clever way – without interfering,
without saying a single world.
Or if the man has a world-wide reputation already – which scientists generally don’t have ... perhaps
a literary person, a poet, a novelist may have. If the person has a world-wide reputation, then from
all capitalist countries all the intellectuals, their institutions, academies and societies will start a great
campaign and movement against the Russian government.
Now, the Russian government has only two choices: either to release that man and stop this
campaign .... But they cannot keep this man any longer in the country; he has become an enemy.
And now he is in the hands of the enemies, he can become an informer. He is dangerous – he has
to be expelled. That too is good for the capitalist world. Once the man is expelled he is received
with great honor all over the capitalist world; he is made a hero.
If you look into the ways the politicians go on doing things you will be surprised. But they succeed
only with intellectuals, because intellectuals are really not intelligent people. If they were intelligent
then nobody could manipulate them, neither the communist nor the capitalist; nobody would be
capable of manipulating them. It would be impossible; they would see things clearly.
Intelligence is of the soul.
Intellect is of the mind.
Mind is just garbage. Mind is that which has been given to you by others. The whole collection,
the whole junkyard all kinds of people have been throwing in you – that is your mind. That mind
continuously suffers from an inferiority complex, is bound to suffer: it has nothing of its own, it has
no ground underneath its feet.
The mind wants power, prestige.
It can have power through politics, which is the criminal’s way. If your mind has a criminal tendency
then you will follow the path of politics. Politicians and criminals are not basically different people.
Politicians are successful criminals.
Criminals are unsuccessful politicians.
Criminals are poor, pitiable. They had tried but they failed. Politicians are of the same tribe, with
only one difference: they have succeeded.
And in this world success makes everything right. What you have done, how you have arrived, what
method and means you have used – who bothers about it? When you are successful it is enough
proof that you are a man of tremendous capacity. Your success is the proof.
And when you have failed, your failure is also a proof that you were hankering for the moon; you
were just foolish. Try to walk on the earth, don’t try to fly towards the moon; otherwise you will fall
and get multiple fractures. That’s what poor criminals have got – multiple fractures.


But the mind of the politician and the criminal is the same. Those who are not courageous enough
will go in a way which can lead either to the world of criminals or to the world of politicians. Of
course, of the hundred people who will walk on the path, ninety-nine will go to the world of criminals;
ninety-nine will be in the jails. One percent will also be in jail, but of a different kind: it is called the
White House.
All kinds of black deeds – naturally you have to call the house the ”White House” to hide them.
I have heard: a black man, very old, hair all white, was following a woman, a young girl – must
have been of the age of his grandchildren – with such lustful eyes that another old man, his friend,
stopped him and said, ”This does not suit you. It was okay at one time, but all your hair has become
white, and you are following that girl with such dirty eyes – everybody is shocked.”
Do you know what the man said? He said, ”You will never understand anything. My hair is white, but
that doesn’t mean that my heart has become white: it is still black and it is going to remain black.
Even if I were dead and this girl passed by my side, I would have opened my eyes and looked with
the same lustful eyes. What has hair to do with it? What kind of argument are you giving to me, that
‘your hair is white’? Let my hair be white – I am not!” But white hair helps you to hide black deeds.
I have always wondered why they call this topmost criminal place in the world the White House.
Perhaps unknowingly the idea came from their unconscious that everything inside is going to be
black, but from the outside you have to keep a white face, everything clean.
One person reaches to the White House, ninety-nine to the black houses.
So there are people who are not courageous enough to take this risk – ninety-nine percent possibility
of failing, and only one percent possibility of succeeding. They want far surer ground. Religion
provides that ground: there is no failure in it.
You become religious, you become a great religious leader. If you succeed you become a great
saint; if you don’t succeed, still you are a small saint, you don’t fail. The smallest saint is still a saint
– the lowliest priest is still in the same line as the pope. In religion there is no failure. So, cowardly
people – who are as much interested in gaining power, who are suffering as much from an inferiority
complex, who are on a power trip but don’t have the guts to follow the criminal path – find the path
of righteousness, ascetism, morality, prayer.
By becoming a saint they will also attain to power. Of course, this power cannot be very effective.
They cannot become Alexander the Great, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin; they cannot have millions of
lives in their hands – and now such politicians have the whole of humanity’s life in their hands. Of
course these saints can’t have that much, but in a certain way, from a different aspect, they are more
powerful because the politicians will come to touch their feet, the presidents will come to bow down
in respect to them.
The politician does everything according to a particular strategy. If just before the elections President
Reagan goes to the Vatican to pay respects to the Catholic pope, it is not accidental, it is preplanned.
When Reagan goes to the Vatican and gives his respects to the Catholic pope, all the Catholics of
America are, without much effort, converted to giving him votes: this is the right man.


All the bishops, all the cardinals in America will now tell their congregations that Reagan is our man.
Now, to persuade so many Catholics in America ... if he had to go from home to home it would have
taken eternity. And how many stupid things politicians have to do! They have to go on kissing all
kinds of children – their noses are running and they are kissing them .... The politician has to do it.
This is easier, to go to the pope – just kiss his hand and millions of Catholics are on your side.
And the pope blesses you: that way he feels far superior to the presidents, prime ministers, kings,
queens. Of course his power is only airy-fairy, but you enjoy it. It has nothing substantial in it, it is
hollow inside. But it does not matter, because when the presidents and the prime ministers come,
the whole media is there, all the newspapers, all the television stations of the world, all the radio
stations are talking about the pope – you can feel a certain gratification. But the gratification is of
the same desire – the will-to-power.
That’s why I go on talking about the political leaders and the religious leaders without making any
distinction – because there is no distinction at all, only a superficial distinction. Their psyches are
functioning in the same way.
Neither the religious leader nor the politician is interested in the people whom they pretend to lead.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 5

Successful criminals and cowardly politicians




Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
HOW COME YOU SPEAK ABOUT POLITICAL LEADERS AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN THE
SAME TONE – IS THERE NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM?
Fundamentally there is no difference at all. Superficially of course there are differences.
The basic desire to be a leader arises in people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. It does
not matter whether they move into the political world or into the religious world; the will-to-power is
an absolute indication that the man feels himself inferior to others and he wants to prove to the world
that it is not so.
It is not only a question of proving to the world; through the world he wants to prove it to himself too,
that he is not inferior to anybody. The only way mind can manage it is to make everybody inferior to
you.
Mind is not your intelligence.
It may sound strange but this is a truth, that mind is not your intelligence. Mind can be intellectual,
which is a very poor substitute for intelligence. Intellectuality is mechanical. You can become a great
scholar, a great professor, a great philosopher – just playing with words which are all borrowed,
arranging and rearranging thoughts, none of which are your own.


The intellect is absolutely bankrupt.
It has nothing of its own, all is borrowed.
And that’s the difference between intelligence and intellect.
Intelligence has an eyesight of its own, a capacity to see into things, into problems.
Intelligence is your born quality.
It cannot be learned, it cannot be nurtured. Everybody is born with intelligence, but the society is in
favor of intellect, because the intellectual person is not a real individual, he is phony. He has nothing
of his own; he is a beggar, and beggars are not supposed to be emperors, are not supposed to be
masters. They are destined to remain slaves.
So your so-called greatest scholars are continuously proving their slavery to the establishment.
None of them is a rebel. They are hankering for the prizes and awards the establishment can
bestow upon them: respectability, honor. They are all desiring to be Nobel laureates, but to get
the Nobel prize you have to sell your soul. You have to accept a thousand and one things that no
intelligent person can accept.
You have to support the status quo, the people who are in power, who have the money. You are
just a puppet to them. Yes, it is a very mutual conspiracy: they give you the Nobel prize, they give
you honorary doctorates, they make you world famous; in return you support their exploitation, their
oppression, and whatever nonsense they are doing. You have to become a protecting wall.
And of course the world is going to listen to you because you are a Nobel prize winner, honored by
Oxford, by Cambridge, by Harvard. The ordinary people, the common masses are bound to listen
to you.
If you are supporting the society then naturally there is nothing wrong with the society; there is no
need to change it. The problems are not created by the society but by the ”anti-social” elements.
And who are the anti-social elements? All the rebels are anti-social elements. It is these people
who provoke the masses, steal their souls, make them aware that they also are human beings, not
cattle. These are anti-social elements; they have to be destroyed.
Either they have to be purchased in some way ... give them a Nobel prize, and purchase them; give
them honorary doctorates and purchase them. If they refuse to be purchased then society has all
the ways to condemn them.
Their books will not be published by the great publishers, because those great publications are
owned by the vested interests. Their names will disappear from the newspapers, from the
magazines, from the media. They will live almost as if they are not, as if they don’t exist.
This is a far superior way to destroy somebody than crucifying. At least when you crucify a person
you give him immense publicity. Two thousand years have passed: Jesus is still hanging on the
cross. He has become almost an eternal advertisement. Wherever you go you will see the cross –
on the graveyard, on the churches, on the vehicles of the Red Cross Society.


Now this is free publicity for two thousand years! Isabel, you should learn something! Not a single
cent has been wasted. Jesus was certainly a Jew, not only by birth but by his very spirit. He
managed his own crucifixion, and created publicity which goes on increasing.
It is a very essential thing to understand, that the establishment first tries to persuade you, to bribe
you. When it fails in purchasing and bribing you, then it comes into its true color: then it starts
destroying you. And it has learned through the centuries that poisoning a Socrates is not good. You
killed the man, but you made him immortal; you imprinted his message on the very soul of humanity.
You proved foolish – it was not the right way.
Crucifying Jesus was not the way to destroy him. You have saved him.
Now the modern status quo, establishment, vested interests, are far more clever. If Jesus comes
back he should not be afraid that he is going to be crucified again. No, this time it is going to be
worse: he will be ignored. To be crucified does not take your dignity, but to be ignored .... Nobody
bothers about you, nobody pays any attention, nobody is for or against you. This is real humiliation
that is being done.
But intellectuals are not capable of resisting; they don’t have the guts, they can’t have, because all
that they have is borrowed. They are easily purchasable, cheap. But they become a very significant
protective wall around the establishment. People look towards them with respect. People think that
if a Nobel prize winner is saying something it must be right – as if by winning the Nobel prize one
attains to enlightenment, nirvana!
It is a political game. It is all politics.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

What are you seeing in a movie? I don’t think you are seeing a movie, you become part of it, you

become identified with some character in it. When he falls in love, you fall in love; when he kisses

his girlfriend, you are kissing his girlfriend. This is sheer nonsense, but you cannot expect anything

more from the humanity that you have got around.

So those spectators in Great Britain, what were they doing? They were so involved in watching

that there were pickpockets all around, cutting their pockets. It was brought to the notice of the

parliament: ”What kind of lesson are you teaching, because exactly there, where the crowd has

gathered to learn the lesson, there are people who are cutting others’ pockets.” And it is easy

because those people are so involved they have completely forgotten themselves and their pockets.

And that man is being beaten almost to death, and those pickpockets ....

Your whole reasoning is wrong. You cannot teach by punishment.

That’s what your jurists, legal experts, politicians, have been saying down the ages: ”If we don’t

punish people, then how are we going to teach them? Then everybody will start committing crime,

so we have to go on punishing so people remain afraid.”

They think that fear is the only way to teach – and fear is not the way to teach them at all. What

punishment teaches is, it makes people acquainted with fear, so the original shock is no longer

there. They know what can happen: ”At the most you can beat me. And if one person can take it, I

can also take it. And out of a hundred thieves you can catch only one or two persons.”

Now, if you are not ready even to take that much risk – ninety-eight percent success, two percent

failure – then what kind of man are you?

Nobody learns from any punishment. The very person who is being punished, he also does not learn

what you want him to learn. Yes, he learns something else: he learns how to become a thick-skin.

Once a person goes into prison, prison becomes his home, because there he finds people of a like

mind. There he finds his real society. Outside he was a foreigner; there he is in his own world.

They all understand the same language, and there are experts. You may be just an amateur, an

apprentice; it may be your first term.

I have heard: one man enters a prison; in the dark cell he sees an old man, resting. The old man

asks him, ”For how long are you going to be here?”

He says, ”For ten years.”

The old man says, ”Then you can stay close to the door. Just ten years! You seem to be new. I am

going to be here for fifty years. You just remain close to the door. Soon the years will be gone and

you will be out.”

But when you are with experts for ten years, of course you learn all their techniques, strategies,

methods, their experience. You will find your jail almost a certain kind of university where crime

is taught at government expense. You will find professors of crime, deans of the crime faculty,

vice-chancellors, chancellors – all kinds of people who have done every kind of crime that you can

imagine; certainly the newcomer starts learning. And one thing is in the air of every prison .... I have

been to many prisons.

It happened that in Madhya Pradesh when I was a professor there, one old man, Mangaldas

Pakvasa, was governor of Madhya Pradesh. He was very much interested in me, so much so

that although I went on telling him, ”Kaka” – he was known to everybody as kaka, uncle – ”I don’t

believe in God,” he said, ”Whether you believe it or not, just when you reach, tell God something

for this Mangaldas Pakvasa, because I am an old sinner. Being in politics, you know, I have done

everything that I should not have done. Now I am getting old.”

”But,” I said, ”you will be dying first, Kaka. Can’t you see a simple thing: you will be reaching first.

So if you want, you can help me, but I cannot help you; I am not going that early!”

”But,” he said, ”I suspect that I will never be going to heaven. Governors and prime ministers and

presidents – I don’t think any of them are going there. This whole company is going to hell!”

He was a very simple and good man. Because he was governor, I had immense dimensions open

for me. I asked him, ”You give me a general permission: if I want to visit any jail I should be allowed.”

He said, ”That is no problem.” And the biggest jail was in Jabalpur itself; it was the central jail of

the whole state – three thousand diehard criminals. So I used to go almost every Sunday; while he

remained governor I continued to go there. And what I saw – this was the climate, and in other jails

also. I went in smaller jails also but the climate was essentially the same.

The climate was that it is not crime that brings you to jail, it is being caught, so if you know right

ways to do wrong things .... It is not a question of doing right things; the question is doing wrong

things in a right way. And every prisoner learns the right way of doing wrong things in jail. In fact I

have talked with prisoners and they said, ”We are eager to get out.”

I said, ”For what?”

They said, ”You are a friend, and we don’t hide anything from you: we want to get out as soon as

possible because we have learned so much, we want to practice. Just the practicals were missing,

it was all theoretical knowledge. For practicals you need the society.”

Once a person becomes a jailbird, then nowhere will he find himself at ease; sooner or later he will

be coming back to jail. And slowly slowly jail becomes his alternative society.

It is more comfortable, he feels more at home; nobody looks down on him, nobody thinks that he is

superior and you are inferior. Everybody is a criminal. Nobody is a priest and nobody is a sage and

nobody is a holy man: all are poor human beings with all the weaknesses and frailties.

Outside he finds that he is rejected, abandoned.

In my town there was a permanent jail-goer. He was a very beautiful man; his name was Barkat

Mian. He was a Mohammedan. Mian is a Mohammedan respectful word exactly like ”sir” or the

Indian, Hindu, ji. If you simply say, ”Gandhi” it will not look respectful; you have to say ”Gandhiji.” For

Mohammedans mian is simply equivalent to ji or ”sir”.

It was strange that Barkat Mian was a permanent jail-goer, almost nine months in jail, three months

outside; and in those three months also, every week he had to go to report to the police station to

show that everything was okay and he was here.

But I had a great friendship with that man. My family was very angry; they said, ”Why do you keep

company with Barkat?” My family used to say to me, ”A man is known by his company.”

I said, ”I understand you: that means Barkat will be known by me, and to give a man a little

respectability is not anything bad.”

They said, ”When will you see things in the right way?”

I said, ”I am seeing it exactly the right way. Rather than Barkat degrading me, I am upgrading Barkat.

You think his evil is more powerful than my goodness? You don’t trust my integrity; you trust Barkat’s

integrity.” I said, ”Whatever your opinion, I trust myself. Barkat cannot do any harm to me. If any

harm is going to be done it will be done to Barkat by me.”

He was really a beautiful man, nice, and he used to tell me, ”You should not be around me. If you

want to meet me and talk to me, we can manage to meet somewhere outside the town, by the

riverbank.”

He himself lived near the Mohammedan cemetery where nobody goes unless one dies: one goes

only once. He was not allowed to live in the town. In the town nobody was ready to give him a house

to rent. Whatsoever rent he was ready to pay, nobody was ready to take it, nobody was going to

take him in.

There on the Mohammedan cemetery was a house – nothing but a shelter for the rainy season,

summer. People die in all kinds of climates, not bothering about anybody – that it is raining and they

could wait a little, there is no hurry. But people are people: if they can harass you, they will harass

you. They will die when it is raining dogs and cats, or is it cats and dogs? But it makes no difference;

when it is raining who is first and who is second does not matter.

So that shelter was just for certain times; people could sit there. But in a small place people don’t

die every day, only once in a while; so Barkat used to live in that shelter. He said, ”You always are

welcome in my house” – that shelter he used to call his house. And of course there was no fear

because nobody could steal anything from Barkat. Nobody could even dare to go in the night near

Barkat Mian because he was a dangerous man.

Just by the side of my father’s store was a big shop, a kind of general store, having all kinds of things.

He stole from that. One night he told me, ”Tonight I am coming to Mody’s shop” – that was the name

of the shop. And he came and he did a good job: he took out all the ornaments and everything, and

managed to escape but finally was caught. Not that day – after two months, in another robbery he

was caught, and there it was found that one watch he was wearing was from Mody’s store.

So it was worked out and he was forced to confess from where the watch had come to him. And

he confessed that it was from Mody’s store because that was the only store in the town that had

watches to sell. From where else could it come? Everybody’s watch came from Mody’s store!

But other things were also found in his home, in that shelter where he used to keep his suitcase and

things; and a few things he had sold – so he was sentenced to six months. After six months – this

I call a real gentleman – after six months, when he was released from the jail .... The jail was in a

district which was nearabout sixty miles away. He came in a taxi, stopped the taxi before Mody’s

store and went in.

Mody stood up, afraid that now there was going to be trouble; this man has been released. Barkat

said, ”Pay the taxi – I don’t have any money. And you know for six months you have kept me

unemployed, so, some money for my pocket.”

I was just present there because Mody’s store was just next to my father’s shop. Mody had to pay

the taxi and give Barkat a few rupees. He told Barkat, ”Don’t come every day,” and Barkat said, ”Till

I manage something I will have to come, because six months you kept me unemployed. You are

responsible.”

He continued to come every day, and I said to Mody, ”Modyji, you go on giving money to Barkat.”

He said, ”What to do? He can cut my throat – he is a dangerous man! You don’t see: when he

comes inside the shop, he shows me a knife. Nobody sees it from the outside because of so many

things in the shop. With one hand he asks for the money, with the other hand he shows me a knife,

so everybody thinks I am giving the money happily. You think I am giving it happily?”

I said, ”No, I know about the knife because Barkat Mian is my friend and he tells me everything.”

I asked Barkat, ”How did you become a thief?”

He said, ”The first time I was jailed I was absolutely innocent, but I was poor, I could not hire an

advocate; and the people who wanted me to be forced into jail had some vested interest.

”My father and mother died when I was very young, fourteen or fifteen, and my other relatives wanted

to capture the whole family’s possessions – house, land – and they wanted to remove me out of their

way. They simply managed it. They put something into my bag in my house. And there was no way

to get out of it: the thing was found in my bag, and I was sent to jail.

”When I came back, my land was gone, my house was sold, my relatives had managed to disperse

everything and distribute everything. I was just on the streets.

”So, first, I was innocent when I went in, but when I came out I was not innocent, because I had come

with a certain graduation. I told everybody in jail what had happened to me – I was only seventeen.

They said ‘Don’t be worried, these nine months will be soon finished, but in nine months we will also

give you the finishing touches. And you will be able to take revenge on everybody.’

”And I started to take revenge on all the relatives – this was simply tit for tat. They had forced me to

become a thief, and I proved that, okay, now I am a thief. I destroyed this whole gang of my relatives;

I stole everything that they had. But by and by I became more and more involved.

”You can have ten cases in which you are saved but in the eleventh you are caught. As you grow

older and more efficient, you are caught less. But now there is no problem; in fact imprisonment

proves a relaxing place, a holiday from work and worry and all kinds of things.

”A few months in jail are good for health – a disciplined life: an exact time to get up, to go to work,

an exact time to go to sleep. Just enough food to keep you alive; more than that makes you sick.”

He said, ”I am never sick in jail, unless I pretend and want to be in hospital to escape; otherwise I

am never sick. Outside I fall sick, but never inside. And outside is a foreign world and everybody is

superior and I am inferior. Only in jail I feel a freedom.”

Strange! When he said that, I said, ”You say in jail you feel freedom?”

He said, ”Yes, only in jail I feel freedom.”

What kind of society is this, in which people in jail feel freedom, and outside they feel imprisoned?

And this is almost the story of every criminal. A small thing in the beginning – maybe he was hungry,

maybe he was cold, needed a blanket and just stole a blanket – small necessities which should be

fulfilled: otherwise the society should not produce these people. Nobody asks it to produce them.

On the one hand you go on producing people more and more and more, and there are not enough

things for them, neither food nor clothes nor shelter. Then what do you want? You are putting people

in a situation where they are bound to become criminals.

The world population has to be cut to one third – if you want crime to disappear.

But nobody wants crime to disappear because the disappearance of crime means the

disappearance of your judges, of your advocates, of your law experts, of your parliaments, of your

policemen, of your jailers. It will create a big unemployment problem; nobody wants anything to

change for the better.

Everybody says things should change for the better, but everybody goes on making things worse,

because the worse things are, the more people are employed. The worse things are, the more

chances you have to feel good. Criminals are needed for you to feel that you are such a moral,

respectable person.

Sinners are needed for saints to feel that they are saints. Without sinners, who will be the saint?

If the whole society consisted of good people, do you think you will remember Jesus Christ for two

thousand years? For what? It is the criminal society that remembers Jesus Christ for two thousand

years.

It is a simple thing to understand. Why do you remember Gautam Buddha? If there were millions

of buddhas, awakened people in the world ... what speciality did Gautam Buddha have? He would

have been lost in the crowd. But twenty-five centuries have passed and he stands like a pillar, a

mountain peak far above you and your heads.

In fact Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, are not giants – you are pygmies.

And every giant has an investment in your remaining a pygmy; otherwise he won’t be a giant.

This is a great conspiracy.

I am against this whole conspiracy. I am neither a giant nor a pygmy; I have no vested interest at all.

I am just myself.

I don’t compare myself with anybody, so nobody is lower than me and nobody is higher than me.

Because of this simple fact I can see directly; there is no vested interest creating diversions to my

vision. And this is my immediate response to the question: the death penalty is simply a proof that

man still needs to be civilized, needs to be cultured, needs to know human values.

In this world nobody is a criminal, never has been. Yes, there are people ... they need compassion,

not imprisonment, not punishment. All prisons should be transformed into psychological nursing

homes.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

Nobody needs the death penalty, nobody deserves it. In fact, not only the death penalty, no other

kind of punishment is right, because punishment never cures the person.

Every day the number of criminals goes on growing; every day you build more prisons. This is

strange. It should not be so. Just the opposite should be the case, because with so many courts

and so many punishments and so many prisons, crimes should be less, criminals should be less,

slowly, slowly prisons should be less, courts should be less. But that is not happening.

I am reminded that in Great Britain, just one hundred years ago, corporal punishment for stealing

was the common thing. And the punishment had to be given in a public square so people could see

what happens when you steal – just to teach them. It would be a lesson to them, that if you steal

this happens: a public humiliation. The person had to be naked and lashed till blood started oozing

from his body.

But what happened – just one hundred years ago – was that the punishment had to be dropped

because it was found that when the crowd was there ... and thousands gathered to see – it was

not a good sign. When thousands of people come to see such an ugly scene it shows something

in them is wrong. Perhaps they also want to beat someone naked, but they don’t have the guts; at

least they can see it being done.

That’s what you are doing everywhere. You love football: you don’t play – there are professional

players – you watch. You become identified with a certain team of football players and you are so

excited, as if you are participants. Just look at the crowd in a stadium: thousands of people so

excited, as if their life and death is in question – shouting, screaming, throwing their caps, their hats,

fighting with each other because the person by their side is giving encouragement to the party they

oppose.

The football players are playing their games, and the thousands of spectators – what are they doing?

They are also, in a psychological way, participants – perhaps more excited than the real players. The

real players are professionals, that is their business, and these idiots are unnecessarily becoming

so hot.

And this is not the whole crowd; the real crowd is sitting by their television sets, millions of them –

listening to commentaries on their radios.

I had a friend in the university; he was a professor, but a fan of hockey matches – in India, football

is not so hot. One day I was sitting in his room and he was listening to the commentary on his small

transistor that he used to carry continuously, keeping it close to his ear so he did not miss anything.

I was sitting there and I told him, ”I have come to say something to you.”

He just told me, ”Keep quiet!” and went back to his commentary. And then something happened: he

threw the transistor and it broke into pieces.

I said, ”What happened?”

He said, ”My team, they failed me! I had so much hope for them.”

”But,” I said, ”if your team failed, why did you destroy the transistor?”

He said, ”You won’t understand. I was in such anger that you should feel fortunate that I did not hit

you with the transistor.”

”But this would have been too much! First you destroyed the transistor, and I am just sitting waiting

here for you to get finished with your transistor, and you wanted to hit me with it,” I said.

”Yes, I was so angry,” he said, ”I could have hit you. For a moment I was just going to and then I

changed my mind.”

I said, ”This is good – next time I will never be around anyone listening to the commentary on hockey

matches. This is dangerous, even to be around.”

Now this man is so much involved .... The whole world has become a world of spectators.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

Mad people need methods of meditation so that they can come out of their madness.

The criminals need psychological help, spiritual support.

They are really deep-down sick, and you are punishing sick people. It is not their fault. If somebody

murders, that means he has carried a tendency to murder in him for a long time. It is not that

somewhere, out of nowhere, suddenly you murder somebody.

In one of the existential novels there is a story: a man is caught – in fact it is not right to say ”caught”

because he never tried to escape. He killed a stranger who was sitting on the beach. He came from

behind and killed him with a dagger; the man died on the spot. The man was absolutely a stranger;

the murderer had never seen his face even, because he killed him from the back. Even after the

murder he had not seen his face; he had no idea whom he had murdered.

It was a very strange case – existentialism has been of great help in bringing strange cases to light.

The court asked the man, ”We cannot understand why you murdered the man.”

He said, ”It is not a question of ‘why’ – I simply wanted to. There are people who try to find excuses

to do something that they want to do. I am a simple person: why bother about an excuse? – just do

it if you want to do it.”

Now he is saying a truth of tremendous importance. People try to find an excuse: for example, they

are angry with you – they think they are angry with you; that is not true.

They were carrying that anger – it was boiling within them, they were sitting on a volcano. They

were just waiting for somebody to give them an excuse: you gave the excuse, and they exploded.

It seems you are responsible for the explosion. No, you are only an accidental excuse, you are

not responsible. Somebody else would have done if you had not. It is just coincidence that you

happened to pass by; otherwise, somebody else ....

This murderer says to the court, ”I am a simple man; I don’t bother about rationalizations and

excuses – I simply wanted to kill. And it was really an exciting experience. When I forced the dagger

into the back of that man whom I don’t know, who has not done any wrong to me, when the blood

dashed out from his back I had the greatest, the most exciting experience in my life.

”I am perfectly happy: you can give me any punishment that you want. I am not going to say that I

have not done it, I have done it. I wanted to do it for a long time, and it is good that I did it.”

Now, what do you want to do with this man? Is he a murderer, or a psychiatric case who has been

prevented from having any excitement in his life? Perhaps he has never known love, because if you

ask Sigmund Freud, he will say that the dagger is nothing but a symbol of the male’s sexual organ,

and dashing it into the back of the man is just an effort – perverted, but an effort – to have some

entry into another body. That’s what people are doing all over the world. Making love is entering

another’s body.

This man is certainly not in the right shape, things are upside down, but what he is doing is simply a

sexual act; it has nothing to do with murder. The murder happened; that is just a by-product.

And why does a man want to enter the body of a woman? – because every implication has its own

implications. It is because the man is born out of woman’s body. He has come out of the woman’s

body, and he has never been so comfortable again, and he wants to be back in the womb of the

mother.

Every man is searching for his mother’s womb. These murderers are also searching for the mother’s

womb – of course in a wrong way, unnatural, but they are not responsible for it: your society is

responsible for it. If a murder happens then the society should be punished, then the whole society

should have to pay the penalty.

Why did it happen in this society? What have you done with the man that he had to commit a murder?

Why did he become destructive? – because nature gives everybody energy which is creative. It

becomes destructive only when it is obstructed, when no natural flow is allowed. Whenever energy

goes towards the natural it is prevented by society, it is crippled; it is directed into some other

direction.

Soon the man is in a confusion. He does not know what is what. He does not know what he is

doing, why he is doing it. The original reasons are left far behind. He has taken so many turns that

he has become a jigsaw puzzle.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

Killing certainly is a crime.

The death penalty is a crime committed by the society against a single individual, who is helpless.

I cannot call it a penalty, it is a crime.

And you can understand why it is committed: it is a revenge. Society is taking revenge because

the man did not follow the rules of the society; the society is ready to kill him. But nobody bothers

that when somebody murders, it shows that man is psychologically sick. Rather than sending him to

imprisonment or to be executed, he should be sent into a nursing home where he can be taken care

of – physically, psychologically, spiritually. He is sick. He needs all the compassion of the society;

there is no question of penalty, punishment.

Yes, it is true, one man is murdered; but we cannot do anything about it. By murdering this man do

you think the other will come back to life? If that were possible, I would be all in support of this man

being removed – he is not worth being part of the society – and the other should be revived.

But that does not happen. The other is gone forever; there is no way to revive him. Yes, you can do

one thing, you can kill this man too. You are trying to wash blood with blood, mud with mud. You are

not aware of what has happened in history in many cases.

Three hundred years ago, in many cultures the madman was thought to be pretending. In many

other cultures he was thought to be possessed by ghosts. In other cultures he was thought to be

mad, but treatable by punishment. And these were the three ways mad people were taken care of.

They were treated by beatings – strange treatment! – and by taking their blood out. Now you give

blood transfusions; they used to do just the opposite – they used to take the blood out of the man. It

was thought that he had too much energy. Naturally when his blood was taken out he became weak;

he started showing signs of weakness because so much blood was taken out, and it was thought

they had cured him of his madness.

By beating a man, naturally once in a while it used to happen that the man came to his senses. It is

almost as if a man is asleep and you start beating him and he wakes up. A madman has fallen out

of his conscious mind. If you beat him too hard, once in a while it may happen that he wakes up into

his consciousness again. That became a proof that beating is the right treatment. But is used to

happen only once in a while; ninety-nine percent of the cases were unnecessarily beaten. But that

one exception was the rule.

It was thought that he was possessed by spirits, ghosts; then too beat him, because if he is

possessed by ghosts the beating will reach the ghost, not him. You are not beating him, you are

really beating the ghosts who are possessing him, and because of the beating they will escape. And

once in a while, but just once in a while, that is one percent, no more than that ....

I have been in one place – it was very famous for mad people. Hundreds of mad people were

brought to that place. It was on the bank of a river, a temple, and the priest must have been a

butcher for at least a few hundred lives. He looked like a butcher and he gave a good beating. The

mad people were chained, given a good beating, no food, and very strong laxatives. And I have

seen that once in a while a person came to his senses.

Strong laxatives for a few days with no food cleaned his inner system. Beatings brought him back a

little consciousness. No food, hunger – a hungry man cannot afford to be mad because his body is

in such torture. To be mad you need a little bit of comfort in your life situation.

You can see it: the more comfortable a society, the more luxurious, affluent a culture, the more

people go mad. The more poor a society – starving, hungry – the less people go mad. Madness

needs, in the first place, a mind. But a hungry person has no nourishment for the mind. He is

undernourished: his mind is not in a situation to go nuts. For that the mind needs more energy than

ordinarily is involved in life.

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

Madness is a rich man’s disease. The poor man cannot afford it.

So when you keep a person hungry and give him laxatives, it cleanses his inner system, makes him

so hungry that he becomes bodily-oriented. He forgets the mind, the question is the body. He is no

longer interested in mind and mind games.

Madness is a mind game.

So once in a while I have seen people being cured there, but that one percent cured would spread

the rumor all around, and hundreds of people were coming there. The temple became very rich. I

had gone there many times to see it but only once did I meet a man who had been cured; others

went back to their homes just beaten, hungry, starved, more sick, more weak. Many died through

that priest’s treatment.

But in India if the treatment is being given in a temple, a sacred place, by the priest, it is not a crime

if you die; in fact you are fortunate that you are dying in a sacred place. You will be born on a higher

level of consciousness; so it is not a crime.

But I spoke against the man wherever I went and I said, ”This is absolutely criminal. What authority

has he or what medical qualifications has he? Is he a psychiatrist, physiologist? – he is only a

priest.” But priests have been treating mad people for centuries, in the same way, all over the world.

Now we know that a mad person cannot be treated this way. Mad people were put into prison, in

isolated cells. Still that is happening around the world because we don’t know what to do. Just to

hide our ignorance we put the mad person into jail, so we can forget about him; at least we can go

on ignoring that he exists.

In my town one of my friends’ uncles was mad. They were rich people. I used to go in their house

often, but even I became aware only after years that one of his uncles was kept in an underground

basement, chained.

I said, ”Why?”

They said, ”He is mad. There were only two ways: either we keep him in our own house, chained

.... And of course we cannot keep him chained in the house; otherwise people will be coming and

everybody will feel worried and concerned. And his children, his wife, watching their father, their

husband .... And it is against our family’s reputation to send him to prison, so we found this way: we

have imprisoned him underground. His food is being taken to him by a servant; otherwise nobody

goes to see him, nobody goes to meet him.”

I persuaded my friend, ”I would like to meet your uncle.”

He said, ”But I cannot come with you – he is a dangerous man, he is mad! Although he is chained

he can do anything.”

I said, ”He can at the most kill me. You just remain behind me so if I am killed you escape, but I

would like to go.”

Because I insisted, he managed to get the key from the servant who used to take the food. In thirty

years I was the first person from the outside world, other than the servant, who had met him; and

that man may have been mad – I cannot say – but now he was not mad. But nobody was ready to

listen to him because all mad people say, ”We are not mad.”

So when he said this to the servant, ”Tell my family that I am not mad,” the servant simply laughed.

He even told the family but nobody took any note of it.

When I saw the man, I sat with him, I talked with him. He was as sane as anybody else in the world

– perhaps a little more, because he said one thing to me: ”Being here for thirty years has been a

tremendous experience. In fact I feel fortunate that I am out of your mad world. They think I am mad

– let them think that, there is no harm – but in fact I am fortunate that I am out of your mad world.

What do you think?” he said to me.

I said, ”You are absolutely right. The world outside is far madder than when you left it thirty years

before. In thirty years there has been great evolution in everything – in madness too. You stop

saying to people that you are not mad; otherwise they will take you out. You are living a perfectly

beautiful life. You have enough space to walk ....”

He said, ”That’s the only exercise I can do here – walking.”

And I started to teach him vipassana. I said, ”You are in such perfect conditions to become a buddha:

no worries, no botherations, no disturbances. You are really blessed.”

And he started practicing vipassana. I told him, ”You can practice it sitting, you can practice it

walking” – and he was my first disciple as far as vipassana is concerned. And you will be surprised

that he died a sannyasin – died in the basement.

But the last time I had gone to my village, I went to see him. He said, ”I’m ready; now you initiate

me. My days are numbered, and I would like to die as your sannyasin. I’m your disciple; for twenty

years you have been my master and whatever you had promised is fulfilled.”

And you could see from his face, from his eyes, that he was not the same person – a total

transformation, a mutation ....

From Darkness to Light Chapter 4 contd..

A strange thing all over the world is that unless you are proved innocent, you are guilty. This goes

against all humanitarian ideals, democracy, freedom, respect for individuality; it goes against all.

The rule should be: unless you are proved guilty you are innocent. Yes, it is said in words, but in

reality the case is just the opposite.

For example, this city, Rajneeshpuram, is, in the opinion of the attorney general of Oregon, illegal. It

is just an opinion. He is not a judge; he has to go before the court to prove it. Unless he proves that

the city is guilty of being illegal, the city is legal, we are innocent. Until guilt is proved, innocence

needs no proof. But this is not the case.

Although America goes on claiming to be the greatest democracy in the world, it is sheer bullshit.

The Supreme Court of America goes on declaring that unless a person is proved guilty, he is

innocent. Innocence needs no proof; otherwise it would be impossible for anybody to live. If

everybody has to prove his innocence; otherwise he is a guilty man and he should be thrown into

jail because he cannot prove his innocence ....

How do you prove your innocence? Innocence is not an act, it leaves no traces behind, no evidence.

So the Supreme Court says, ”This is our standpoint: Unless a man is proved guilty, he is innocent.”

But this is only said, because our city is already being regarded by the state government, by the

federal government, as illegal – without it having been proved before a court.

The case is still in the court. The court is theirs, but they cannot wait even for the court to decide.

The federal government has stopped giving the money that was due to the city; not only that, the

federal government has asked that the money that they have given for the past two years should be

returned. For two years the city was legal. And what support have they given? – two hundred and

sixty-five dollars!

I would like the mayor of your city to return the money with interest. Such a poor government, giving

such a great support to the city, certainly needs at least bank-rate interest on the great sum of two

hundred and sixty-five dollars.

These nuts think they are democratic.

The state government has stopped giving their share. The attorney general has been forcing the

police authorities to declare our city’s police also illegal. This is strange. You have not proved us

guilty, you cannot prove us guilty; in fact your own court has incorporated the city with all legalities

fulfilled. For two years your governments – state and federal both – have been accepting the city,

training the police, having its police department in the city. You arrange the elections for the mayor,

for the council.

Everything proves that the city is legal. Just one man who wants to rise in political power, who wants

to become the next governor, is in need of us. Without our support in Oregon nobody can become

the governor. But our support is a strange kind of support: anybody who wants to win an election

has to be against us. Just being against us is enough to gain the support of all the bigots, of all

the Christians, of all the orthodox, conventional people, of all those who think that Oregon is their

property. Just to be against us ....

Without proving in a court – and even if you prove in one court that does not mean that you have

proved it. We can appeal. The case will not be decided for at least twenty to thirty years – not before

that. It will have to go up to the Supreme Court of the United States.

We are not going to be humiliated in any way. And when the law is in our favor, the whole democratic

concept is behind us, all the values that democracy cherishes are in our support, there is no reason

at all .... But they have started accepting us as illegal.

This is how man goes on saying one thing and goes on doing just its opposite. He talks about being

civilized, cultured – he is not civilized, not cultured. The death penalty is a proof enough.

This is the rule of a barbarous society: An eye for an eye, and a head for a head. If somebody cuts

off one of your hands, then in a barbarous society, this is a simple law: one of his hands should be

cut off.

The same has been carried down the ages. The death penalty is exactly the same law: An eye for

an eye. If a man is thought to have murdered somebody, then he should be murdered. But it is

strange: if killing somebody is a crime, then how can you remove crime from society by committing

the same crime again? There was one man murdered; now there are two men murdered. And it is

not certain that this man murdered that man, because to prove a murder is not an easy thing.

If murder is wrong, then whether it is committed by the man or by the society and its court, makes

no difference.