In Russia there was a cult, a Christian cult, whose fundamental ritual was to cut off their sexual organs. Thousands of people used to do it. The women would cut off their breasts; the men would cut off their genital organs. And each year there was a particular day when they would gather by the thousands, and it would be done in mass madness. One person would do it, another would follow, and then there would be a frenzy. Thousands would start cutting off their sexual organs and the blood would be all over the place. They were just mad people, but they were worshipped.

Now there was a problem for the cult: how to increase their numbers. So they would purchase or steal children. That was the only way; otherwise they would never have a great religion with millions of followers. No religion wants to use birth control methods for the simple reason that it reduces their numbers. Catholics are against it, Mohammedans are against it, Hindus are against it. Everybody is against birth control for the simple reason that it will reduce their numbers, and numbers are power. The more people follow your church, the more powerful you are. This is part of politics, power politics. They are not concerned about the future of humanity, they are not concerned with the misery of people, they are not concerned with poverty.

To give birth to a child now is almost a crime, because the world is already overpopulated. Half of humanity is starving, and by the end of this century starvation is going to be so acute, so intolerable, that the earth is going to become a mad planet. Either suicide or murder will be the only possible ways for people to exist, and both are wrong.

The Catholic pope and the Hindu shankaracharya and the Hindu priests will be the responsible persons, because they are all against birth control. They talk beautifully, they rationalize beautifully, that they are against birth control because birth control is against nature. If birth control is against nature then the pope of the Vatican should be against medicine, because that too is against nature. If a person is dying of cancer, let him die, don’t give him medicine. On that point the pope is absolutely silent. In fact, Christians go on opening new hospitals.

If birth is natural, then death is natural. If you have disturbed the balance by preventing people from dying, then you have to accept the other part to it also. Allow people to die naturally; then let them give birth to as many children as they can. Then there will be no imbalance; nature balances itself.

In India just fifty years ago, nine out of ten children were going to die within two years, only one was going to survive. Now just the opposite is the case: nine are going to survive and only one is going to die. How has this happened within fifty years’? Modern medicine has done a miracle; it has changed the whole balance. If you accept medicine and if you accept the hospitals and if you accept that people have to be saved from cancer and tuberculosis, then you have to use birth control. Otherwise how can the population be kept within normal, bearable limits?

Those Russian sects were always in difficulty to get new people. It was difficult to get converts because of their practices, so the only way was to purchase children from poor people or steal them. Both were practiced, stealing and purchasing human beings.