He said, “The solution is very simple. All doctors should be paid by the government, and the whole population should pay the government – nothing to do with the doctor. The doctor has not to be paid because he has cured a patient; the doctor has to be paid if his patient has remained healthy. Every month the patient has to report, ‘I am healthy, you can pay my doctor.’ If the patient falls sick, then the doctor cannot be paid: ‘What business are you doing here? If people are falling sick, then what use is your medicine, your knowledge, your experience?’”

So a very strange system…but the emperor was impressed, it was absolutely logical. And in my understanding, one day it is going to be the system in the whole world, because its logic is very clear. The doctor should be paid for health, not for sickness. And if his patients are sick, then his salary should be cut. His interest should be in the health of the patient, not in his disease. And the patient has not to pay him, the patient has to pay to the government a certain fee to be kept healthy. The government pays the doctor to keep people healthy, and if they are not healthy, he misses his salary.

But once the emperor was dead, the system disappeared, the old idea came in again – which is absolutely foolish.

The priest, the religions have learned the strategy perhaps from people suffering from diseases, that they are the most vulnerable sources for exploitation. Just give them hope; all that they need is consolation. This has corrupted the whole human psychology. So when you are sick you think of meditation, when you are suffering you start meditating. But when you are down and confused, to meditate is very difficult; it is going against the current.

So, on the one hand you have chosen a wrong situation in which to meditate. At the most meditation can pull you out, somehow from your downgoing, your suffering, but it cannot give you joy or ecstasy. It is enough if it can take you out of your misery. The real situation is a healthy, happy, joyous state of mind. But at that time you think of playing football, at that time you want to go to the movies, at that time you want to watch television; that is the time to go to a discotheque. In fact that is the time to meditate.

When you are suffering you can go to hell: any discotheque, any restaurant, any game – boyfriend, girlfriend game. When you are suffering, these are the things to do. But when you are happy, feeling good, in tune, surrounded with a certain well-being, don’t waste it in stupid things. This is the right springboard from where you can take a jump into higher realms of consciousness, of blissfulness, of peace and ecstasy. This idea is just an old conditioning, forced upon you by those who were immensely profited by it. You have to understand it and change the situation.

In my childhood it was a constant conflict between me and my father. Whenever I was feeling good, that meant a holiday from school. And he said, “You are a strange fellow. When you are sick, you have fever, you are suffering from a cold, then you go to school. You have an upside down mind!”