Hence religion is possible only in a civilized, cultured, sophisticated society. The more educated the society is, cultured, civilized, the higher the religion that is possible. The primitive people also have religion, but their religion is not yet religion; it is magic, it is ritual. Hence they have not produced buddhas. They are good people, simple, beautiful, innocent….

You can go around India; there are many tribes still, aboriginals, very beautiful people. I have been to them, I have lived with them, I have enjoyed their beauty and their innocence. But they have never created a buddha in their whole history; at the most they create magicians. Their religion consists only of rituals, formalities; it never attains to the heights of prayerfulness and meditation; it never reaches to the heights of a Patanjali or a Lao Tzu or a Mohammed. They have not produced any Koran, Upanishads, Bible; they cannot. They are people who have not yet said no, they are people who have not yet disobeyed. They have not eaten the fruit of knowledge, they are simply ignorant.

Eat the fruit of knowledge. Become knowledgeable, and one day renounce your knowledge. Then wisdom is born. Wisdom is not ignorance; wisdom is renunciation of knowledge – but first the knowledge is required.

Before you can become a christ you will have to become a disobedient Adam and Eve, otherwise Christ is not possible. Christ is the higher stage of Adam. Adam says no, creates a personality; Christ says yes, drops the old personality and attains to a new individuality which is eternal. By saying no Adam becomes a mortal; by saying yes Christ becomes an immortal. By saying no Adam becomes only apparently a god; by saying yes Christ really becomes a god.

The process is paradoxical, hence the question. I can understand your question: “What will happen to our individuality, freedom and spine?”

The spine, the individuality, the freedom that is created by no is only a transitory process. You have to go beyond it; it is a boat that has to be left behind. When you have reached the roof you leave the ladder; it is a bridge to be crossed.

Now learn how to say yes. No you know perfectly well. In fact, Nitin has come from Africa to be here with me forever – against his parents. This was your ultimate no. Those who come to me, they have to come against their parents, because parents are Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Buddhists, Jainas…. I am nobody! Coming to me, a Christian will become a non-Christian and a Hindu will become a non-Hindu and a Mohammedan will become a non-Mohammedan.

I am not creating a new religion here, but a new man, a new consciousness. I am not creating a new philosophy or theology, but a new vision, a new humanity. You have to come out of your old, rotten ideologies. Hence parents are bound to be against you; they will not like you to be here. I can understand them – they are worried about you, they care for you. Their worry is utterly wrong, but still it shows their care and their love. They would like you to remain in the fold in which they and their forefathers have always lived. They are worried you may go astray – they have not attained to anything by being in the fold, but still they would like you to be in the fold. It is safer, familiar, more secure.