All are not kings; all are not super-rich. This is how India’s intelligence has been distracted. People did not see the implication, that these people were coming from royal families, every one. Buddha, Mahavira, Rama, Krishna, all were coming from royal families.

It was because of their luxurious lives – many women, wine, continuous music, dance and nothing else to do – that they got frustrated. But remember, the background is the most important thing. They renounced the world. And because they renounced the world, they started teaching everybody, “Renounce the world.”

Everybody was poor, utterly poor, there was nothing to renounce. But the whole national intelligence got caught into it.

These people taught India that everything outside you is illusory. It is not the case. The objective reality has its own existence, its own reality, just as the subjective, the inner, has its own reality.

What is needed is not to discard materialism; what is needed is to bring materialism and spirituality into a meeting. They are already meeting in your body: your soul and your body are continuously in deep consonance, in a deep harmony. They are already meeting in the whole universe. Everywhere life is in tune with nature.

It is just a mental projection that, “Outside is unreal, so discard it.” If it is unreal, then what is the point of discarding it? If it is not there, why are you escaping from it? Nobody escapes from nothing. You know very well it is there! – but you have lived for centuries as escapists.

I know that just a few days ago he was talking about “one earth, one world.” What happened to that one earth and one world? Now he is talking about an “alien” influence from the West – now the world has become two, it is no longer one – and discarding the influence.

Do you see the implications?

Discarding science and technology you will not be able to survive at all.

But I understand the politician. The politician does not say the truth, he says what appeals to the masses, what appeals to the ego of the masses.

Poor India has nothing else to brag about. The only thing it can brag about is spirituality, which nobody can see.

But I want to tell Mr. Rajiv Gandhi that the masses are the greatest enemies of themselves. They live in superstitions. Child marriage continues although it is banned by the law, by the constitution; but no action is taken against child marriage.

Women are still burned in the funeral pyres, worshipped because they have jumped into the funeral pyre. Temples are raised to them. And the government simply watches.

And if you drop all birth control methods this country will become such a huge burden. You will not be able to feed them, you will not be able to give them clothes, you will not be able to give them shelter. It will be simply chaos and death.