There is no need to convert anybody; every conversion is ugly. When you come across somebody who knows, you simply fall in love. It is not a conversion – you cannot do anything else. In spite of you, something goes on pulling you into a new direction, into a new dimension.

Basically I am for freedom of the individual for seeking the truth. Unfortunately, because of this, I have to be against organized religions. But that is not my joy – just the dirty work I have to do.

Don’t you think that your aversion to, and criticism of the pope will cause you a lot of trouble?

My whole life I have enjoyed troubles. And I will love every trouble that can be caused by my opposition to organized religions and the so-called bogus leaders.

But I know Italians more intimately than the Polack pope. They will be the last to cause any trouble for me. They are such loving people, so nice. I like everything about them except their spaghetti; that I hate. But I don’t think people are going to create trouble for me just because I hate spaghetti.

You wanted to challenge the pope to a public debate during his last travel to India, but it didn’t happen. Why?
Particularly on which points did you want to contest with the pope?

Not only had I challenged him for a public discussion on fundamental questions of religiousness, I had opposed the Hindu chauvinistic people who were opposing him. I was the only one in the whole of India who raised his voice to say that the pope should not be opposed in such a way, that this is ugly.

The better and more human way is to invite him respectfully to public debates, wherever he goes. India has thousands of years’ experience in argumentation. There is no problem in arguing about fundamental questions, but throwing stones, shouting, screaming, protesting…All these are ugly things. I hope the pope will remember, when I come to Italy, that I was the only one who was opposing the people who were opposing him in these inhuman ways.

The fundamental questions I want to discuss publicly – amongst his own people, in his own citadel, in the Vatican – are very simple. The fundamental questions of religions are God…I want to discuss God, and I want to discuss the devil. Just today I have been informed that he has proclaimed that the devil is not a fiction but a reality. I would like to see the reality.