A Nobel Prize does not necessarily prove that somebody has achieved the highest consciousness. J. Krishnamurti did not receive it; Raman Maharishi did not receive it. Meher Baba did not get it. And these were people who reached to the highest peak; they belong to the same category as Gautam Buddha.

Even if Gautam Buddha was alive, he would not receive the Nobel Prize because the Nobel Prize is a political game. It is not decided by the height of your intelligence; you need some political reasons. Even politicians like Kissinger have received the Nobel Prize, yet J. Krishnamurti’s name was never even mentioned.

One of my sannyasins works on the Nobel Prize committee. He is a member who chooses who is going to be the Nobel Prize winner for certain subjects; He is the expert for economics on the committee. And because he is my sannyasin, he just mentioned my name to the president of the Nobel Prize committee, and wanted to introduce my books to the members.

The president said, “This should be the first and the last time that I hear this name! And if you want to keep your post, you should never mention this man’s name again. He is dangerous.”

He informed me, saying, “I was shocked. They were not even ready to read books. They were not even ready to consider….”

“It is not a question of giving, I was not insisting,” he said, “that my master should be given the Nobel Prize. Seeing that the committee is giving the Nobel Prize to politicians, to people who do not deserve it, I simply mentioned your name. And I was threatened that, I would be thrown out of the committee and would lose a good job. They said if I went on working silently, perhaps I might get the Nobel Prize for being a great economist, but I was never to mention the name of my master.”

I don’t have any political support. On the contrary, I have all the political antagonism from all over the world. Every politician, and it does not matter to what country he belongs, is going to oppose me.

Just today I was seeing a press cutting about an address of Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister of India, saying that there should be an open discussion all over the country about one very significant subject. The subject suggested by him is: “Religion should not interfere with politics”.

I said, “ This is perfectly good, but if it is an open discussion, then the other side should also be allowed: ‘Politics should not interfere with religion,’ and there should be an absolute freedom of expression.”

They have created laws so there are a few things you cannot even say. The moment you say them, you will be thrown into jail without any trial. Then how you can conceive of an open discussion? And do you think politics is a higher value than religion? The higher should not interfere with the higher; the higher should interfere with the lower.