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Part VII : Osho comments on the Jonestown Massacre
In December 1978, Osho speaks about the recent Jonestown massacre.
American Christians, Reverend Jim Jones and his followers in Jonestown,
Guyana, committed suicide or were massacred*.
*Note: Later a book implicates the CIA, as Jones' group was
in the process of defecting from the USA to the USSR
Reverend Jones was able to kill nine hundred people, innocent
people, for a simple reason: he was training them for death. You
will be surprised to know that in Jonestown, lovemaking among
the members of the sect was not allowed. Celibacy was enforced.
There were hard strict rules: the people were not allowed to go
outside the commune, no contact with outsiders was allowed. They
were living in isolation, they were all ascetics.
And it is because of this asceticism that they were ready to
commit suicide. Now people are searching for the causes. Somebody
thinks that he hypnotized people, somebody thinks something else—a
thousand and one reasons are being found. The simple reason is,
he diverted their eros—that's all. And eros can be diverted
very easily….
I am against ascetic attitudes, because they are ill attitudes,
unhealthy, unwholesome. I am all for eros, I am all for life—because
life is the temple of God, the only temple. And eros is the only
way God is expressed in the world.
If you move totally into eros, into love of life, into life-affirmation,
into rejoicing, you will find, deep down hidden in life, God himself.
Life is his manifestation; he is the hidden source of it. Don't
go away from life—going away is going away from God. Hence
my sannyasins are not to renounce but to rejoice.
Now people have asked me a few questions: "Can the same
thing happen here as happened in Reverend Jones' commune?"
This will be the last place in the world where it could happen,
because I teach you love, I teach you life. My whole effort is
to make your energy move through life totally—nothing is
left. And if you move totally through life, death disappears.
Even when you die, you will not see that death is happening to
you—you will see only that you are changing your abode,
you are changing your garments. You are on an eternal pilgrimage.
I teach you life, I teach you abundant life. This cannot happen
here—I am not teaching you suicide. It can happen in any
ascetic society, in any ascetic commune. But my commune is not
ascetic at all. That's why Christians are against it, and Hindus
are against it, and Jainas are against it, and Mohammedans are
against it, and everybody is against it—because they are
all death-oriented. And my love is unconditionally for life.
I teach you to love and to live. Death is impossible here—what
to say of suicide? Even death is impossible here. If you die the
way I am teaching you, if you live the way I am teaching you,
you will never know death. Even dying, you will know that the
flame goes on burning forever. unio202
Just the other day I received a letter from Canada saying that
the Canadian government is becoming concerned, very much concerned,
about my sannyasins and the people coming to me from Canada. And
they are seriously inquiring into the whole phenomenon, because
they are afraid that my commune may turn into another Jonestown.
Now, I feel happy, because when governments become concerned that
means something is happening. When a faraway country becomes so
much concerned that they are thinking of sending a team to investigate
the whole phenomenon, that mean things are on the way, that I
am becoming some kind of disturbance to them. I must be popping
up in their dreams.
And on what grounds are they becoming so much afraid? Because
one American sannyasin committed suicide, another American sannyasin
went mad. These two instances are enough…. Now, Americans
are all mad! And have you seen an American who has never pondered
the possibility of committing suicide? The psychologists say that
every American, at least four times in his life, thinks of committing
suicide. The greatest rate of suicide is in America.
Out of one hundred thousand sannyasins, one sannyasin commits
suicide—that is enough! And that too an American sannyasin.
What else were you expecting from an American sannyasin? Another
American goes mad…it is absolutely normal! But the negative
catches our attention immediately. How many Americans have gone
sane, nobody bothers. And how many Americans have been prevented
from committing suicide, nobody counts. They will never be counted.
dh0102
Now my sannyasins are in great trouble all over the world. Just
a few days ago many letters have come that in Australia, the school,
college, university authorities are very much disturbed by my
orange-people, because many teachers, many professors, have become
sannyasins. And a problem is being created by the parents and
their leagues. The problem is being created that these orange
people and their presence may corrupt their children, so the parents
are against them. The Catholic priest comes in his robe; he is
accepted, he does not corrupt. But my sannyasins, just because
they are coming in orange robes, can be a dangerous influence.
Anybody who is not behaving like you, not living like you, is
hated. This is your experience in Poona too. The people are not
really in any way harmed by you—my sannyasins are the most
harmless people you can find anywhere—but people are against
you just because you look different. bestil10
One woman from America has written to Morarji Desai that her
daughter is caught by an Indian Master, hypnotized. 'Save my daughter,
send her back to me.' The papers have not said who this man is
who has hypnotized her, the possibility is that it must be me.
And the daughter must be here. Where else?
Now parents are forming associations, societies, groups, to protect
their children from getting into any Eastern trip. They are more
afraid of meditation than drugs. In America there now exists an
organization of parents to kidnap their children if they become
meditators. And then those children have to be given to deprogrammers,
to psychoanalysts, to deprogramme them—a kind of mindwash.
This is illegal. And one psychoanalyst has been sent to jail in
California for deprogramming, because he was too enthusiastic.
At first parents were giving him the authority to kidnap their
children, then he started on his own. Not even a parent has the
authority to kidnap the child—once the child is of age no
parent has the authority. But maybe they can manage it. They have
lobbies in the parliament. They can manage it, because the judge
is also a parent, a father, and the police and the lawyers—all
are parents; they can manage, they can enforce it.
But the psychoanalyst became a missionary on his own; he started
kidnapping. He had an organization of kidnappers and he started
mindwashing programmes—he called them 'de-programming'—so
that a person becomes anti-meditation, anti-East, and falls back
into the old fold. If he is a Catholic, then he becomes a Catholic
and goes to the church; if he is a Protestant, then he becomes
a Protestant and reads the Bible.
These people are afraid—not only now, they have always been
afraid. Buddha's story is just a logical extreme. Parents are
afraid their children may renounce the world, that is the eternal
truth in it. sos116
It is not only that the Indian government is afraid of me. It
is so absurd that other governments of other countries are becoming
afraid. Now here are German agents from the German government,
watching what is happening. Now the Indian government is afraid
of why German spies are here! Now Indian spies are following the
German spies: there must be something, otherwise why should Germany
be interested in me? And soon other spies will be coming!
And this is a place where nothing is happening for anybody.
They're all fools! German, Indian, et cetera, they're all fools.
They are unnecessarily wasting their time.
But I am not saying don't send your spies. Go on sending. A
few of them are bound to become sannyasins! A few of them have
already become!
Just the other day I received a letter from a very well-known
professor in Germany just to inform me that the Protestant Church
of Germany has sent spies here. Now they are becoming afraid because
Christians are becoming sannyasins. That is dangerous.
You will soon see all kinds of spies here. Be very loving to
them, and help them to know as much as they can know about me.
A few of them are bound to become sannyasins, and that will shock
their governments and their churches very much.
From a very reliable source in New Delhi, I have just received
information that Eva Renzi was here as a German government spy.
Now, this is what Indian spies have discovered! You see the paranoia?
You ask me, "Why do politicians go on misunderstanding you?"
To understand me, a little intelligence is also needed. secret20
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