And he does not know that a master can have thousands of disciples. He may not know even their names, he may not have even met them – it does not matter. He works in a totally different way than things are done in the ordinary world. He simply creates an atmosphere, he does not work with “A” and “B” and “C”.

Then naturally, according to Dogen, a man’s life is very short; if he becomes enlightened – as Gautam Buddha became enlightened – at the age of forty…. He lived up to eighty-two. In forty-two years, if he had worked day and night without sleeping, without eating…even then, how many people would he have been able to bring to the consciousness that he had achieved?

And that is a very foolish way, there is no need. The very mastery, the art of being a master is to create an atmosphere in which things start happening on their own. What are we doing here? I don’t know many of you, I don’t know your names, I don’t meet you personally. I simply create an atmosphere in which you can drown, in which you can drink the very juice of life. There is no need for me to work on individuals – that is a very poor and primitive way. I work by creating an atmosphere, an energy field, and every day that energy field becomes more and more powerful. Every one of you contributes to it. You are not just on the side of taking; you are also a giver.

Here your presence, your consciousness, certainly creates a chain reaction. Just the man sitting by your side…you may not know him at all, but in your silence you meet with him. When everybody becomes silent there is simply a lake of buddhahood – one consciousness, one existence, one dance. You are not in tune with existence, you are it.

So, for his first mistake, he thinks that life is too short and a master cannot work on many people. That is absolutely wrong. A single master can work on the whole world. And he need not go out of his room; he can radiate enough energy, invisible rays, to surround the whole globe.

Many times it has been reported to me that some sannyasin has come from New Zealand or some sannyasin has come even from the Soviet Union, for the reason that he simply saw my picture. A friend had my picture, and seeing the picture a tremendous longing arose in him somehow to reach me – irrational, but life is irrational.

Somebody has read a few words in a book and those words become a magnetic force so that he has to come here. Somebody has heard how I have been condemned, criticized, and thinks, “If so many people and so many magazines and so many politicians are against this man, there must be something to him.”

Nobody is opposed on such a vast scale. I cannot enter twenty-one countries, their parliaments have passed laws.

Just today I received a beautiful note from Vimal, who has gone to England. He had taken his girlfriend, who is an Indian, to the British High Commissioner’s office in Bombay. They would not give a visa to the Indian woman. They interrogated her for hours and finally refused.