Because you have been so grateful, the other side of your mind, which knows nothing of gratitude but only ungratefulness, will take over. You have loved me, now you will hate me with the same strength.

Knowing the games of the mind, I have always been saying that your gratitude should be towards existence. I am no more than a stranger you have met on the way. We talked a little while, just to pass the time. We can depart in a friendly way; there is no need to justify yourself.

When you are in love, it hurts to hear me saying to you that you need not be even grateful to me. But, Patipada, I am going to say it again and again so you don’t forget it, because I don’t want you to lie someday, to say things against me which you know perfectly well are wrong.

For example, Shiva was never my bodyguard; it simply happened as a coincidence. An Indian sannyasin attacked Laxmi and almost destroyed her nose. Laxmi is a small woman, so when I came to know about it I told Shiva, “You should be a bodyguard to Laxmi; wherever Laxmi goes you have to follow her.” In evening initiation meetings Laxmi used to sit by my side to give me information about the person, and I had told Shiva, “Wherever Laxmi is, you have to be there,” so he started sitting on the other side. He was not my bodyguard.

Now he is writing that he was my bodyguard and he knows every secret. He has never entered my room, not even once; there was no need. Someday he will repent what he has done, but then it will be too late; the people who are reading his book will be convinced of whatever he is saying. This can happen to anybody. And I don’t want it to happen to anybody.

Teertha was hoping…. He was the first therapist to join the ashram; naturally, because he was the first, he became the chief therapist without any formalities. Nobody had told him that he was the chief therapist. It was just by coincidence, because he was here before anybody else – the other therapists came later on – that he managed to become the chief. And there was no harm in it; somebody had to take care of all the therapy groups.

When the commune dispersed he saw clearly that I cannot be in America – for fifteen years I cannot enter America. And in India the American government is pressurizing the Indian government that no foreign sannyasins should be allowed in.

Seeing the situation, he thought it was better to open an institute of his own in Italy. There was no harm in opening the institute in Italy. I had to tell my therapists that wherever they were they should continue to create institutes, communes, because all European countries have banned me. I cannot enter into Europe, I cannot go to America, and foreign sannyasins cannot come into India.