And, in India, there are two types of coconuts – coconuts which people eat, and coconuts which
people use religiously. They offer it to gods, to temples, to gurus. Those coconuts for centuries have
the same price, their price has not changed. For one rupee you can get three – because they are
the same coconuts! For centuries ....
In my village, just in front of my house there was a temple of Krishna, and by the side of the temple,
a coconut shop. A coconut shop is always very close. If you find a temple, you can believe without
any trouble that within a five-minute radius there must be a coconut shop; mostly it is just by the side
of the temple.
You go on offering to the god, and the same coconuts go on getting back to the side shop. So the
price remains the same because ... and they are all rotten. The coconut shell is so hard that what is
inside nobody knows. These are religious coconuts. Nobody will purchase coconuts from a religious
coconut shop for eating, or for anything, because inside you will find nothing. Their function is just
to move from the shop to the temple, and from the back door again to the shop. In the morning they
are again for sale – and this round goes on and on.
And the coconut is a strange fruit. You can work with it for centuries. Its consciousness remains the
same, no change. In India it is so cheap – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may not have been able to raise
the consciousness of the people but he has raised the price of transcendental meditation from one
coconut to two hundred and fifty dollars. I don’t know how many coconuts that will be ... because for
one rupee you can get three coconuts – religious coconuts, don’t forget that. For one rupee, three
religious coconuts; for one dollar you can have at least sixty religious coconuts; for two hundred and
fifty dollars ... now you can work it out.
And now he is not only trying to raise the consciousness of people. He has been doing that for
almost thirty years, and now people are fed up because nothing is raised. Simply their pocket
becomes lighter, and nothing is raised. They are getting fed up. And how long can you cheat
people?
So now these people have to go on inventing something new. His new thing is even more idiotic:
now he is trying to levitate people. First he was trying to levitate their consciousness, now he is
trying to levitate people. The fees have also gone higher – of course, because he is raising your
body too. Now he says he has found the secret. Joined with transcendental meditation your body
will rise, float in the air; your head will touch the roof. And there are fools in the world who are ready
to pay for this kind of nonsense.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has been asked again and again, ”Give a public demonstration, at least one
person.” That he is not doing, because it is such a secret thing that you cannot do it in public. It
can be done only in private. But strangely, if it is done only in privacy, how are the photographs
appearing in his magazines? At least the photographers must be there. It is public; the person is
not isolated.
The whole thing is, it is a simple photographic trick. It is not much of a thing; any person who
understands a little photography can manage it. He just has to mix two negatives; in one negative
you are sitting on the floor, and in the other negative it has to be managed that you are touching the
roof. You can be put on a tall stool, with the same mattress on which you were sitting on the floor, in the same room. And there is no problem – you just have to arrange these two photographs together
to show that this man’s body has levitated.
Time is short, and people are trying to levitate bodies. For what purpose? Even if, for argument’s
sake, we accept that people can learn to levitate their bodies, and their heads start touching their
roofs, how is it going to make humanity better?
If just touching the roof with your head is the thing, then simpler methods can be used. Just make a
tall stool – ask Asheesh; he can make you a beautiful tall stool so your head touches the roof. A stool
can be adjustable, so if you are short or tall the stool can be adjusted. You can adjust it yourself, so
your head touches the roof. If that makes you a superman, then why bother about meditation and
such long procedures? Time is very short.
But I am not interested either in raising people’s consciousness, or in raising their bodies. In fact
for decades I have not been interested in doing anything for the world, for humanity, because to me
these are bogus words. I am interested only in a few chosen people.
The whole mass of humanity – whether it lives or disappears makes no difference.
I may look hard to you, but I am simply being factual. Just look at the past. Millions of people have
lived and died – what does it matter? Where does it lead? Millions of people are living today – in
what way are they enriching life? Just breathing, just vegetating; is that enough?
Just today I have received a news item: in Miami, a man’s situation has become really terrible. He
had a brain cancer, and to remove that cancer they had to use, for the first time, some poison without
which it was not removable. That poison entered into his brain by mistake. The cancer was removed
but the poison entered into his brain and killed his brain. Now the man is alive, the brain is dead.
He can live for years, there is no problem; you just have to take care of him. His brain is completely
dead, so everything that his brain was doing, you will have to do. And it was your mistake.
But the doctor can also not be condemned. That poison was used for the first time, so there is no
way to say that he used it wrongly because there is no precedent. He tried his best – just an unlucky
man.
Now, between this man, I thought as I was reading the news, and the millions of masses, is there
any difference? That was the question that came to me. Their brains are not dead, but their souls
are dead – which is far worse. And nobody else is responsible – they themselves are responsible.
They are living, but do you call it life?
What is the point of their living?
What have they found out about it, what have they experienced?
Where have they arrived?
If they were not born, would you have missed them?
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