You will not believe it…. One of the Jaina sects, Terapanth, whose head is Acharya Tulsi, has seventeen hundred monks and three times more nuns. It is one of the very strongest folds; very rich, super-rich people belong to that sect.

The original man who created the sect separate from mainstream Jainism, his basic point was that if somebody is drowning you should not interfere. That is the logical consequence of believing in the past life and evil acts and their punishment. If somebody is hungry, you should not interfere. If somebody is thirsty, you should not even tell him the way to the river.

And, moreover, interfering in nature’s course will create bad karmas for you. For example, if you pull a man out from the well, and tomorrow he commits a murder, do you think you are also responsible for it or not?

Logically, it seems to be perfectly right. If you had not saved the man, he would not have committed the murder. You are fifty percent responsible: you saved him, he committed the murder. Now you will have to suffer for saving the man. Whatsoever he does from now onwards, you will be responsible – for his whole life. You have unnecessarily disturbed his finishing of the punishment, and you have created on the other hand evil acts for which you will suffer in your future life.

The statement, the philosophy, is logical, but absolutely against life. Is logic more important than life?

And as far as I am concerned, every act brings its punishment just as a shadow. You don’t have to suffer in your future life. Right now you murder; why should nature wait that long for punishment? You put your hand in the fire….

I have told this to Acharya Tulsi – and he has been angry with me since then, speaking every kind of lie against me. The reason is personal, because I told him, before fifty thousand people, “Your whole philosophy is absolutely ugly and obscene. You put your hand into the fire right now, and let us see whether your hand burns now or in the future life!”

He had nothing to say. And his own people – those fifty thousand were his own people – they laughed and they clapped. That hurt him very much.

Action brings its reaction immediately, it follows without any gap. Why should there be such a long gap? But the reason is…. You see right now all kinds of mean people being successful. How do you explain it? – all kinds of cunning people being prime ministers, becoming presidents, becoming super-rich right now, just by sheer squeezing people’s blood! How do you explain it?

The religions have been saving the vested interests. They had to find some way, and this was a good strategy: nobody is making you poor, you are suffering from your past life’s acts, evil acts. And the rich? – they are enjoying their past life’s good acts, virtuous acts.

Do you see the cunningness of the argument? Neither do you know anything about your past life, nor do you know anything about your future life. Your real problem is dissolved into smoke, so thick a smoke that you cannot see beyond it.