It is a big accident, and naturally – you can guess – Mother Teresa is running from Kolkatta to Bhopal, because these people like Mother Teresa are praying every day to the Lord, “Give us an opportunity to serve.” And the Lord, their Lord, is so compassionate, he goes on giving opportunities to serve. She went to Bhopal, moved around the injured, went to the families whose people have died, and what she said to them is very important. She said, “Don’t take it as a tragedy.”
This is what the religions have been doing for thousands of years: befooling people. This is a tragedy. She told people, “Don’t think of it as a tragedy, it is a great opportunity. Look positively. It has brought the best out in man. So many people are serving others, helping in every way. Look at this side of it: the situation has brought the best out in thousands of people. They may never have done anything good in their life, but they are doing it now.”
But do you understand the implications of it? It means it should happen in every factory! It should happen in every city, because it brings the best out in people. What can be more beautiful than this? A great opportunity to be good, to do good, to serve those who need your service, to help those who are in a helpless condition. This is a God-given opportunity for do-gooders. And nobody objected to her!
Perhaps I am the only person here, on this whole earth, who is objecting that this is befooling people. This is creating a camouflage, a bogus spiritual jargon. If God has any sense, any intelligence at all, he should find some better way to bring the best out in people. This does not seem to be very intelligent. If this is what God is doing then where is the Devil? And what will the Devil do? God has taken his job too; the Devil is unemployed.
And people applauded her; she is a great saint. And what present has she brought to them? – a small statue of Mother Mary. A great help: “Pray to Mother Mary, and don’t take it as a tragedy and don’t complain that it is the fault or carelessness of certain officers concerned; no, that is not good.”
Of course if those people were not careless, and those officers had not allowed this tragedy, then Mother Teresa could not be a saint. Her sainthood depends on these stupid officers, this bureaucracy. Now she is consoling people, giving them the impression that it is a God-given opportunity.
Two thousand people have died, two thousand families are now on the streets; children, wives, old parents will become beggars. One hundred thousand people are seriously injured; many of them will die, and if they don’t die they will live a crippled life: somebody blind, somebody without legs, somebody without hands, somebody deaf, somebody dumb. Mother Teresa is consoling these people, giving them a Madonna, Mother Mary’s statue saying, “Pray to Mother Mary and everything will be okay – and don’t complain against the officers.”