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Part VIII : Security at the ranch increases
Following a bomb explosion in the commune-owned Hotel Rajneesh
in Portland, security at the ranch increases.
I was told that I would see armed guards patrolling the streets—I
haven't seen any since I've been here. Do you have armed guards?
I have, because every day we receive phone calls that they are
going to bring a crowd, to create a disturbance; they are going
to burn our houses, they are going to create fire, and every day
threats that they are going to kill me. We go on sending those
reports to the government saying that, "You should inquire
and see who the illegal people are! We have not threatened anybody…."
Those guards are police; they are part of the state of Oregon.
And they are just there so nobody can create any nuisance.
Preventive rather than…?
Absolutely preventive, because for four years they have not done
any harm to anybody.
But they are sannyasins—the policemen are sannyasins?
They are sannyasins. They have taken the training of the police.
And the sannyasins have topped in every training, in every field,
and they have proved their guts there too, and made it clear that
it is not going to be a easy thing, to anything if you are planning
to do against.
We are harmless, we don't want to do harm to anybody; but we will
not let anybody harm us either, because that too is supporting
violence. last220
Just a few days ago, one Swedish magazine has published a big
article against me, the commune, and has almost tried to prove
that this is a military organization. And in the editorial note
it says that nothing like this has been seen since Adolf Hitler.
And all that they have done—they have taken pictures of
sannyasins holding guns, enlarged those pictures, filled the whole
article with guns—looking at the magazine one would think
that there must be thousands of soldiers marching with guns.
The journalist was here but he did not ask for an interview.
Now I call this immensely cowardly. He just took photographs and
only of what he wanted: people holding guns—that is his
main theme—and just spread them, double page spreads of
guns, and small notes like, "This is the most dangerous place
that is growing here. Sooner or later it will become a problem
to the whole world."
And I was giving interviews to journalists. He was here, he
could have asked, he should have asked for an interview. Before
he published anything, he should have inquired of me, but in fact
he completely avoided inquiring of anybody. He simply had come
with a prejudice, and with that prejudice he took the pictures…and
he has made a full article.
Now anybody reading that article cannot imagine that all this
is false. And in a way it is true, because those pictures are
not wrong, just the presentation is cunning. The presentation
is prejudicial. last219
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