The values should change. But people cling to the past, and cling so blindly that you cannot believe…. In India, they have worshipped the cow for centuries. Nothing is wrong, it is just an innocent stupidity. But once you move in a direction of stupid ideas, there is no end to where you will stop.
The Hindus, on special occasions, drink what they call panchamrit, “five nectars.” They have given a beautiful name to it, but if you hear what the five nectars are, you will be shocked. Those five nectars are five things coming out of the cow’s body: cow dung, urine, milk, curd, butter. They will mix them all – and it has become a holy drink. Nobody even asks the question, “What is holy in it?” – not even a man of the caliber of Mahatma Gandhi.
One of his disciples…and the disciple was not an ordinary man, he had renounced his post as a professor in a university to be with Mahatma Gandhi; his name was Professor Bhansali. He defeated all the holy men in India. He became the holiest man, and by a very simple strategy: for six months he lived only on cow dung and cow urine, and even Mahatma Gandhi praised him as one of the great saints.
This man is utterly insane. He should be sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than worshipped. What contribution has he given to the world? What is great in eating cow dung and drinking cow urine? Just all that you need is a retarded mind. All that you need is a solidly idiotic approach towards life. But because other followers of Mahatma Gandhi could not do this, he became unique.
Just look around at your values, which make you pious, which make you religious, which make you holy, which make you virtuous. Have they any validity, any rationality, any intuitiveness, any support for your consciousness? Or is it just that the rotten scriptures of the past – written by uneducated, uncultured, uncivilized people – are dominating you through them?
A table of values hangs over every people. Behold, it is the table of its overcomings; behold, it is the voice of its will to power.
And all these values that a certain society accepts, are nothing but will to power. Now Professor Bhansali has not done anything that can be called spiritual. It has not given him any awakening, any enlightenment, it has not given him any realization of his own self; but it has given him great power. In Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram there were two great men; one was Mahatma Gandhi, the other was Professor Bhansali. The visitor first will go to Mahatma Gandhi to touch his feet, and then they will go to Bhansali, to touch his feet.
People can be persuaded to do anything, meaningful or meaningless, if they see that their instinct for will to power is satisfied. They can do anything – almost unbelievable.