Religion creates a problem for it, because religion has given the world its highest peaks of consciousness – a Gautam Buddha, a Jesus, a Chuang Tzu, a Nanak, a Kabir. These are the very salt of the earth. What has politics given to the world? Genghis Khan? Tamerlane? Nadir Shah? Alexander? Napoleon? Ivan the Terrible? Josef Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Benito Mussolini? Mao Zedong? Ronald Reagan? – these are all criminals. Rather than being in power, they should be behind bars; they are inhuman.
And they are spiritually sick people. The will to power and to dominate arises only in the sick mind. It arises out of the inferiority complex. People who are not suffering from an inferiority complex do not care about power; their whole endeavor is for peace, because the meaning of life can be known only in peace – power is not the way. Peace, silence, gratitude, meditation – these are the basic constituents of religion.
Religion cannot be allowed to be dominated by stupid politicians. The situation is as if sick people are trying to dominate the physicians, directing what they should do and what they should not do. Accept it – the sick people are in the majority, but that does not mean that the physician should be dominated by the majority. The physician can heal the wounds, can cure the sicknesses of humanity. Religion is the physician.
Politicians have done enough harm, and they are leading the whole of humanity towards a global suicide. And still Rajiv Gandhi has the nerve to say that religion should not interfere – when the whole of life on this planet is in danger! Not only man, but the innocent birds and their songs, the silent trees and their flowers – everything that is alive.
Politicians have managed to create enough destructive power to destroy life from the earth; and they are continuously piling up more and more nuclear weapons. In fact, three years ago there were enough nuclear weapons to destroy every man seven times, to destroy this whole earth seven times, or to destroy seven earths. A man dies only once; there is no need to accumulate so much destructive power.
The whole of politics depends on lies.
Just the other day – I could not believe that any man who is sane can make such a statement – Ronald Reagan made a statement. He was denying before the Senate, continually, that any weapons were being given to a few countries. And now investigation has shown that he was lying – lying for two years continually. Destructive weapons have been given to poor countries – and not in a small measure, a great lot. Now the facts are there and Ronald Reagan had to make a statement, and the statement he has made, made me laugh – so ridiculous.
He said, “In my heart, I still know that whatever I said was the truth. But the facts that have been discovered say that it was a lie. I still believe in my heart that I have been speaking the truth.” He is accepting the facts, and still, simultaneously, saying, “I still believe in my heart that whatever I was saying was true, although the facts are proving it wrong.”