I had then very beautiful health and I enjoyed my well-being. And that was my only exercise: running, jogging, swimming. You cannot conceive how healthy I was. I was 190 pounds in 1960, and people used to say that I had a body as if it is made of marble. But then I started traveling around the country spreading my word. And that created slowly deterioration of my health: every day changing food, every day catching trains in the middle of the night, getting down from the trains in the middle of the night.

Everything got disturbed: my routine, my way of life. And that brought…otherwise I was never sick. That started bringing strange things. One was an allergy for dust, perhaps the trains; Indian trains are dirty, dusty. Most of them are still running on coal.

Perfume of any kind started troubling me, and finally all those allergies culminated into asthma attacks. Then humidity started affecting me and I had to stop traveling.

It helped, but not perfectly. I wanted to move to a place which was cool, dry, not humid. And that was the reason for me coming to this desert in Oregon. It has suited me perfectly well.

There’s been some confusion in the press regarding the question of are you or are you not celibate?

I am not celibate, I have never been celibate. Why should there be confusion in the press?

Well, because I think there have been reports that you have been celibate since 21, and then…

No. Nobody can be. It is scientifically impossible. Anybody who is creating that kind of confusion does not know anything about physiology, biology, science. He is simply stupid.

Not only have I never been celibate, there has never been a celibate in the whole history of humanity. There have been pretenders, hypocrites. There have been monks who have been really homosexuals. There have been nuns who have been just lesbians.

That’s why I say all the religions are responsible for this dangerous disease, AIDS. This is their greatest contribution to human growth.

According to me, celibacy should be declared criminal. All monks should be forced do marry the nuns; otherwise, face life imprisonment.

My whole teaching is: be natural, be simple. Don’t go upstream. Just go with the stream, be in a let-go. It is a physical need.

What do you think of all the attention you’ve been getting lately from the press? Have the commune and yourself been portrayed fairly, by and large?