I have just received the news from England that a rabbi has been expelled by the managing committee of Jews in England because he told a dirty joke in his sermon. He must be reading my books. But I was curious to know what the joke was – it must have been a serious affair: he has been expelled. He is no longer a rabbi, he cannot preach in the synagogue; so what was the dirty joke? And I feel sorry to tell you that r when I heard the joke I could not believe that this was a dirty joke. The joke was not even much of a joke. It is very simple and very short

The rabbi was initiating a boy and he told the boy, “When you grow older, you will be learning a bit of this, a bit of that, and a bit of the other….” That; was the joke! A dirty joke? – “a bit of the other”? These are the religious people – will they allow you to laugh? To rejoice? And I wondered then, what are my jokes; this is a dirty joke then certainly my jokes are not dirty. If this is the criterion of a dirty joke, then I have never told a single dirty joke; it is absolutely proved, if this kind of joke is dirty. And for this joke a rabbi has been expelled! – poor fellow.

And the very idea of telling a joke must have come to him by reading my books, because all the rabbis, all the priests, all the monks are reading my books. They cannot, in any way, remain out of my influence. They will be trying to hide it in the Bible, in the Gita, in the Talmud. They may not be reading it directly, but they are all reading it.

There was some other news today. One man, a very famous tax expert, Nani Palkhiwala – in India he is the topmost tax expert, and he was an ambassador in America. He has always been against me – so much so that he will not take any of the cases concerned with me, or my people or the Foundation. That’s absolutely absurd. You may be against my philosophy, but that does not mean that you cannot fight a case; that is your professional job. It was not only that he was not willing to take any of my cases, he was telling other top legal people not to take any of my cases. Now he has been defeated in the election, and he has given a statement which certainly has come from my books, because I am the only person who has been using this word.

I have said many times that I am against democracy because democracy is nothing but a mobocracy.

I am in favor of a higher system, which I call a meritocracy – people of merit. And I call that system, meritocracy.

Now Nani Palkhiwala has been defeated, his statement is: “I am in favor of a meritocracy – we have been dominated by mediocre people long enough.” Now, he was one of the mediocre people who were in power! He has completely forgotten about whom he is talking. He was in power, and now that he is defeated he is saying, “So the people who were in power, or who are in power now, are all mediocre. A meritocracy is needed.”