Would you please say something about AIDS?

"I do not know anything about even the first aids, and you are asking me about the last AIDS! But it seems I will have to say something about it. And in a world where people who know nothing about themselves can talk about God, people who know nothing about the geography of the earth can talk about heaven and hell, it is not inconceivable for me to say something about AIDS, although I am not a physician. But neither is the disease now called AIDS just a disease. It is something more, something beyond the limitation of the medical profession. 

"As I see it, it is not a disease in the same category as other diseases; hence the danger of it. Perhaps it will kill at least two-thirds of humanity. It is, basically, the incapability to resist diseases. One slowly, slowly finds oneself vulnerable to all kinds of infections, and one has no inner resistance to fight those infections. 

"To me it means humanity is losing the will to live.

"To me it is very significant. It has nothing to do with either heterosexuality or with homosexuality. It has certainly something to do with sex. And why has it something to do with sex? – Because the will to live is rooted in sex. If the will to live disappears, then sex will be the most vulnerable area of life to invite death. 

"Remember perfectly well that I am not a medical man, and whatever I am saying is from a totally different point of view. But there is much more possibility of what I am saying being true than what these so-called researchers are saying, because their research is superficial. They think only of cases; they collect data, facts. That is not my way – I am not a fact-collector. 

"My work is not of research but of insight. I try to see into every problem as deeply as possible. I simply ignore the superficial, which is the area of the researchers.

"I try to penetrate deeply, and I see clearly that sex is the phenomenon most related to the will to live. If the will to live declines, sex will be vulnerable; then it is not a question of heterosexuality or homosexuality.   

"Hence, when I say that the richest man is the poorest, you can understand what I mean by saying it. The richest man comes to know the unsolvable problems of life, and he is stuck; there is nowhere to go. The poor man has so much to do, so much to achieve, so much to become. Who cares about philosophy, theology, art? They are too big for him; he is interested in very mundane things, very small things. And it is impossible for him to turn his consciousness upon himself and start thinking and brooding about existence, being – just impossible. 

"California is, unfortunately, one of the most fortunate parts of the world, in every way: it has the most beautiful people, beautiful land, and it has come to the highest peak of luxury. And there, the question arises. You have done everything; now what else is there to do? That's the point where perversion begins. 

"You have known many women and you have come to understand that it is all the same. Once you put the light off, every woman is just the same. When the light is off, if the woman goes into the other room and your wife comes in – and you are not aware – you may even make love to your wife, giving her beautiful dialogues, not knowing that she is your wife. What are you doing? If anyone comes to know about it, that you speak these beautiful dialogues – learned from Hollywood movies – to your own wife, they certainly will think that you have gone crazy. These are meant for other people's wives, not for your wife. But in the darkness there is no difference.

"Once a man knows many women, a woman knows many men, one thing becomes certain – that it is the same, a repetition. The differences are superficial, and as far as the sexual contact is concerned, they make no difference. A little longer nose, or a little blonder hair, a whiter face or a little suntanned – what difference does it make when you come to make love to a woman? Yes, before making love to a woman all these things make a difference. And it continues to make a difference in countries where monogamy is still the rule.

"My own experience is that the poor man never thinks of committing suicide. I have come across thousands of poor people; they never think of committing suicide. They want to live, because they have not lived yet; how can they think of suicide? 

"Life has so many things to give, and they see that everybody is enjoying all kinds of things and they have not lived yet. There is a great urge, force, to live. Much has to be done, much has to be achieved. There is the whole sky of ambition open, and they have not even begun to scratch the ground. No beggar ever thinks of committing suicide. Logically it should be just the other way: every beggar should think of committing suicide, but no beggar ever thinks of it – even a beggar who has no eyes, is blind, is paralyzed, crippled.... 

"In poor countries nobody thinks of suicide, in poor countries the question of meaning has not been raised. It is a Western question. What is the meaning of life? In the East nobody asks that. The West has come to a saturation point where everything you could live for you have already lived. Now what? If you are courageous enough, you commit suicide – or murder.... 

"I told him, "These children will go on dying slowly." 

"He said, "You are telling me? I have been running this orphanage for twelve years; hundreds have died. We have tried every possible way to keep them alive, but nothing seems to work. They go on shrinking and one day simply they are no longer there." If there was a disease the doctor could help, but there was no disease; simply, the child had no desire to live. When I said this to him it became clear to him. He immediately, that very day, gave the orphanage to the government, and he said, "I have been trying to help these children for twelve years; now I know it is not possible. What they need I cannot give, so it is better that the government takes it over." He said to me, "I had come to this point many times, but I am not an articulate man so I could not figure out what it was. But in a vague way I was feeling that something was missing and that goes on killing them." 

"AIDS is the same phenomenon at the other end. The orphan child shrinks and dies because his will to live never sprouts, never springs up, never becomes a flowing current. AIDS is at the other end: You suddenly feel you are an existential orphan.  This existential feeling of being an orphan causes your will to live to disappear.

"And when the will to live disappears, sex will be the first thing to be affected because your life starts with sex; it is a by-product of sex. 

"Just being fully alive is such a power that not only can you live, you can make others aflame, afire.

"This has been a well-known fact. When there are great epidemics have you not wondered why the doctors and nurses and others don't get infected? They are human beings just like you, and they are overworked, more vulnerable to infection because they are continually tired. When there is an epidemic you cannot insist on a five-hour day or six-hour day, and a five-day week. An epidemic is an epidemic; it does not bother about your holidays and your overtime. You have to work – people work sixteen hours, eighteen hours, every day, for months. Still, the doctors, the nurses, the Red Cross people, they don't get infected.

"What is the problem? Why are others getting infected? These are similar kinds of people. If just having a Red Cross on your shirt...then put the Red Cross on everybody's shirt; on every house the Red Cross. If the Red Cross is preventing infection it would be so easy – but that is not the thing.