And to say in the twentieth century: To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands – everybody knows how to fill his hands; it seems he is talking to idiots. But where are the fruits, and where are the trees?

He is making a statement which is simply nonsense.

It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied…

This too is not true. The earth has been giving to you for millions of years and you have not returned anything to nourish it.

Hindus go on burning dead bodies – it is against nature. Bodies should be returned to nature, because what are your bodies? Nature has given you food, the sun has given you life, the air has been giving you continuous nourishment. When you die, your body should go back to the original sources – the earth to the earth. You should become manure for future generations.

We have exploited the earth so much that it has lost its abundant treasures. We are now technologically capable to return all the chemicals back to the earth. But man’s mind dwells in the dead past. He goes on doing the same stupid thing without seeing that he is killing himself.

I was visiting a city, and one of the most respected Hindu monks, Karpatri – his only quality is that he eats his food from his hands… That is the meaning of the word karpatri – kar means hands and patri means a cup, a bowl. Except for that, I don’t see anything in that man. But just because he goes on begging and eating from his hands he has become one of the most respected saints of the Hindus.

He was delivering a religious discourse. I told my friend to stop the car, as I would like to listen to a few words. Sitting in the car I listened to his discourse, and I was amazed: in an educated city, with its own university, a medical college, its own agriculture college – and nobody was saying anything to that idiot.

The government had just made a huge reservoir, because the land was barren and the rains had become uncertain. So they had made the reservoir to produce electricity for thousands of villages, for all kinds of scientific technological uses, and water enough to irrigate all the land that was slowly, slowly becoming a desert. It was ready, and it was just waiting for the president of India to come and inaugurate it – because, in India, the president and the prime minister have no business other than inaugurating bridges, reservoirs, even movie houses, restaurants! Unfortunate is this country, to have all kinds of idiots dominating it.