He said, “You don’t know me? I am Winston Churchill, prime minister of this country, and you don’t know me?” And that man grabbed Churchill; Churchill said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “Come in, because there are three more Winston Churchills here – this is a madhouse. Now all four of you decide who is the real one.”

Churchill told him, “Listen, I am telling the truth. I am the real one.”

He said, “They all say the same thing. Everybody is the real one. And we don’t know any criteria to judge – they are all fat like you, they all smoke cigars. They have been practicing being Winston Churchill for years. When you see them, you yourself will understand that you are not real; they are real.”

Churchill said, “My God, I have knocked on the wrong door.”

But the man was not going to let him go. He said, “Outside is death, you can wait inside. In the morning we will figure out who is the real one.”

And when he saw the three others, he himself had doubts about whether he was the real one or these fellows were. They had the same kind of clothes, cigars of the same type. He introduced himself – “I am Winston Churchill.”

All three of them laughed. They said, “This is strange, now there are four. This country is going down the drain, all the prime ministers are inside the madhouse. At least one must be real.”

Winston Churchill tried, “Can I phone?”

He was refused. “That’s what they all ask: ‘Can we phone our secretaries, our ministries, cabinet people?’ This is not allowed. Anything that you want to do, you can do in the morning. If you really are Winston Churchill, they will come. Nobody has ever turned up for these three, now we have to wait for you. Just don’t get mixed up.”

No madman is ready to accept that he is mad.

Jean-Luc, what is your fear in becoming a sannyasin? – because I have said that unless a man becomes enlightened he is not truly healthy because he is not truly whole; he is a confusion? I am not talking about ordinary illnesses. I am talking about the fundamental sickness of the soul, that you have forgotten yourself and you have become identified with things which you are not.

A few years ago it happened in America: they celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on a large scale, for one whole year. A special drama was prepared about the life of Abraham Lincoln, and the whole of America was searched to find a man who looked like him. And they did find one man who looked like Abraham Lincoln; he was chosen. For one year he was using exactly the same clothes as Abraham Lincoln, speaking in the same way, walking in the same way. He was trained, because he would be going around the country with the drama for the whole year.