They are interested in being leaders – and of course the leader cannot be without the led, so it
is a necessity to go on promising the people things. Politicians promise them things of this world;
religious leaders promise them things of the other world. But do you see any difference in what they
are doing? Both are promising so that you go on following them, afraid to get lost somewhere else,
because if you lose the path then you will miss the promise.
The promise keeps you with the crowd – and promises don’t cost anything. You can promise
anything. Promises are always for tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. And you are not going to
live here forever.
Just look at past history. All politicians have been promising people things which have not
materialized in thousands of years. Thousands of political leaders have been promising the same
things. How blind humanity must be!
The promises have not changed – that means certainly nothing has been achieved. The same
promises are being given to you and you go on following, hoping.
Hope is the greatest drug that man has invented.
Strange, that religious people are against drugs; politicians are also against drugs. Politicians make
laws against drugs, religious people create hell and punishment against drugs.
Why are they so afraid of drugs?
It needs a deep search, investigation. They are afraid of drugs because drugs are competitors to
them. LSD can give you hallucinations of heaven. That’s the trouble. No religion can afford to allow
people to use LSD. LSD is not dangerous; taken in the right proportions, under medical care, it can
be tremendously helpful in religious growth.
But religions are not ready to allow it for the simple reason that if LSD can give you a beautiful
experience – hallucinatory, but still it is an experience and tremendously satisfying, fulfilling – then
just promises will look like dry bones without any juice in them. Only idiots perhaps may continue to
chew the dry bones.
Dogs do that. They chew dry bones and enjoy very much, not knowing what is happening. When
they chew dry bones those dry bones hurt their mouths and their mouths start bleeding. The more
they chew, the more bleeding happens. And blood goes through their throat and they think – logically
enough – that the blood is coming from the bone. Now, how to explain to a dog that, ”it is your own
blood; the bone is absolutely dry.”
So perhaps a few idiots may still continue to go to the churches, but intelligent people will stop.
Rather, when they feel the urge to have a beautiful hallucination, whenever they want to live in
another world, they will not wait for death to come: they will go to a medical clinic and have a two,
three-day session with LSD, and enjoy everything that their religious leaders have been telling them
that they will get after death.
Drugs are dangerous to religions for the simple reason that they are their greatest competitors. And
even better drugs can be invented, but religions continuously cripple the research.
Politicians are against drugs, because if people start taking drugs then who cares about your fiveyear
plans? Who cares about the classless society that will come in the future to your grandchildren?
Who cares about the revolution, democracy, freedom of speech?
You don’t have even the freedom to hallucinate!
This is absolutely innocent because only you are doing it, nobody else is involved. No, you don’t
have the freedom to hallucinate. Reduced to the basics, that’s what drug prohibition means, that you
don’t have the freedom to hallucinate. The government is in control of your dreams. Drugs can give
you dreams, and properly used, can help you to see many things in yourself which in psychoanalysis
will take three years, four years; then too it is not certain that you will be able to see.
It is a well-known fact that scientists have discovered something like truth serum, but it is prevented
from being used, because if something like truth serum is possible .... You take an injection of truth
serum and then suddenly you can see all your falsities, your hypocrisies, your bogus personality ...
and certainly if anything can make you aware of truth, it is bound to make you aware of all that is
false: that is going to happen simultaneously. The moment you see the truth you see the false too.
Now, the whole of politics depends on falsities.
Communism goes on talking about equality of people – an utter untruth.
People are not equal, people are unique.
Once you see the truth, that people are unique, how can they be equal? That does not mean that
somebody is inferior to you and somebody is superior to you. You are not equal, you are not unequal
either. You are simply different.
You don’t compare things that are different. You don’t say that the house and the tree are equal.
If you say that, you will be thought insane, because a house is a house and a tree is a tree; they
have different functions. Their individualities are different. You don’t compare them. You cannot say
that the house is superior to the tree, or the tree is superior to the house. In fact, the category of
comparison is inapplicable.
Each individual is so unique. When you know the truth of it you cannot be a communist.
Communism will never allow anything that makes you aware of the truth.
In the non-communist countries, there are different lies, different falsities. For example, freedom of
expression: it exists nowhere; it is only written in constitutions.
Once I was in a court in Ahmedabad in India, for absolutely ungrounded complaints against me – I
was talking to a big rally of at least twenty thousand people who had gathered to listen to me – for
the simple reason that Morarji Desai was the chief minister of Gujarat at that time, and he wanted
me to be prohibited from entering Gujarat.
He could not convince his own assembly and cabinet that by preventing a person ... they said, ”You
will be creating trouble for yourself and for the cabinet. What reasons have you got? What has
he done against Gujarat? What crime has he committed that you can prevent him from coming to
Gujarat? And it goes against the constitution, because the Indian constitution declares it as one
of the basic rights that in India, every citizen of India has the right of movement. Now, you are
preventing him from moving into Gujarat: you have to give some solid reasons; otherwise you will
be in trouble.”
And the moment I heard I said, ”Let their parliament decide – I will be there already in Gujarat.” So I
was addressing the people, and while addressing them I mentioned a small story.
In Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram they used to read the story of Rama, the Hindu incarnation of God,
every day. Each evening Acharya Vinoba Bhave would read the story of Rama, and Gandhi and all
the followers – and there were not many, just twenty, thirty people – would listen to the story.
There comes a moment when Rama’s wife, Sita, is stolen by his enemy, Ramana. She is in difficulty:
How to make Rama know by what path Ramana has taken her? She must have been an intelligent
woman; she tried one strategy – she started dropping her ornaments. And Indian women, and
particularly a queen, have so many ornaments; they weigh much more than she herself does.
She started dropping her ornaments one by one on the path so Rama would know exactly where
she
had been taken. And Rama found them but he could not recognize whether they were Sita’s
ornaments or somebody else’s.
His brother, Lakshmana, was with him. Lakshmana said, ”You seem to be puzzled. What is the
matter?”
He said, ”I cannot recognize them because I loved her so much that whenever she was with me I
looked at her, I never looked at her ornaments. I cannot recognize them – perhaps you can. Just
look at the ornaments: if they are hers then we are on the right path.”
Lakshmana said, ”Forgive me, because I can only recognize the ornaments that she used to wear
on her feet.” Indian women wear ornaments on their feet, even on their toes. He recognized them.
He said, ”These are her ornaments.”
At this point of the story Mahatma gandhi said, ”This is strange! I can understand Rama loved the
woman so much he did not recognize her ornaments. But what about Lakshmana? – he was living
with them for years. Ahead was Rama – because they had been expelled from their kingdom for
fourteen years to live in the forest .... so ahead was Rama, in the middle was Sita, behind was
Lakshmana, just to guard. It is strange that he could not recognize any other ornament.”
Vinoba, who was a celibate for his whole life – now he is dead – gave an explanation which appealed
to Gandhi very much, so much so that just before this explanation, Vinoba was known only as Vinoba
Bhave; but because of this explanation Gandhi gave him the title of acharya, a master.
The explanation was that Lakshmana never looked at any other part of Sita’s body. He was a celibate
and to look at anybody’s wife is not right for a celibate. But because he used to touch her feet every
morning, he had to see the ornaments on her feet, just out of necessity. What could he do? – he
had to touch her feet every morning. The elder brother’s wife is just like a mother. She has to be
respected, and the first thing in the morning was to touch her feet; so that’s why he could recognize
the ornaments of the feet only.
This is an outlandish explanation, nowhere ever given before. The story is five thousand years old,
and there have been so many commentaries on it, but nobody had even asked the question and
nobody had answered it. Gandhi was immensely impressed, and said, ”Vinoba is an acharya – just
this simple explanation shows his insight into human psychology.”
Talking to the masses in the rally I said, ”This explanation does not show anything about Lakshmana,
it shows something about Vinoba Bhave. It is not Lakshmana’s explanation; obviously, it is Vinoba
Bhave’s explanation, and it shows his mind. He is afraid to look at women’s faces, or the other parts
of their bodies. It is his fear that he is projecting on Lakshmana.
”And if his explanation is true then Lakshmana falls in my eyes completely. If Sita was just like a
mother to him, still was he afraid to look at her face? One has to be afraid of looking at one’s own
mother? That means he must have been dreaming sexual dreams about Sita, fantasizing about her.
”This explanation is insulting to Lakshmana, and I reject it as an explanation. My feeling is that Sita
was so beautiful – if she was so beautiful for her husband, what to say about others? If the husband
himself was so hypnotized by her beauty that he never saw her ornaments, what to say of poor
Lakshmana? He must have been hypnotized even more!
