Read Book

« < 1 2 3 4 5 > »

Chapter 2: Spread the Message

In fact, the government has to take action against these two organizations.

Gautam Buddha is an escapist, and it is Gautam Buddha who is responsible for the poverty of this country. If so many thousands of people renounce the world, they become parasites on the society.

I don’t want you to renounce the world. My whole teaching is: Rejoice in the world. What comparison can there be between me and Gautam Buddha?

Gautam Buddha is twenty-five centuries behind me. And as far as the allegation is concerned, that I have compared myself, it is an absolute lie!

These organizations should understand that if even a little bit of Buddha’s experience had been their experience, then this revengeful resolution asking the government to take action against me does not show compassion, does not show meditation.

I want the government not to take any action against these two organizations. I, with all my friends, forgive them. The blind need forgiveness, the ignorant need compassion.

One thing should be understood definitively: I am a buddha in my own self - and the word buddha is not the monopoly of anybody. It simply means the awakened one. It was not Gautam Buddha’s name; his name was Gautama Siddhartha. When he became awakened, those who understood his enlightenment started calling him Gautam Buddha.


Everybody has the birthright to become a buddha.

These poor Buddhists don’t understand at all the message of Gautam Buddha. How can they understand me? I have gone far beyond Gautam Buddha.

I have been teaching you all to be buddhas, but nobody has to be a Buddhist. To be a Buddhist is again falling into another prison. They have escaped from the Hindu fold, and now they have fallen into another fold. The names of the prisons are different, but you are all the same a prisoner. You were a Hindu, you were a prisoner; you can be a Christian.. The prison will change, but not your slavery, not your consciousness.

People go on changing their prisons. That does not help any transformation in your being. You don’t achieve freedom by changing prisons.

I teach my people freedom as the ultimate value. You should not belong to any organization, to any organized religion. It does not matter whether it is Buddhism, or Christianity, or Hinduism - these are different names. Perhaps the architecture of the prisons is different, but you will be all the same a prisoner.

Hence, I want my people to remember it absolutely: not to belong to any organization. All organizations are against individual freedom.

« < 1 2 3 4 5 > »