Christians say you have been punished because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. It is impossible for me to conceive that Adam and Eve’s disobedience is still keeping you miserable. And what had they done? It was sheer curiosity. And they did well. Instead of worshipping God and Jesus Christ in your churches, worship the serpent. Adam and Eve, they are the right people; they disobeyed. It was needed; otherwise there would have been no humanity. There would have been no Albert Einstein, no Bertrand Russell, no Gautam Buddha. There was no possibility. You would have been still animals, naked in the Garden of Eden.

And God immediately drove them out of the garden. I sometimes wonder what model of car he used to drive them out. It must have been a Ford, because “blessed are the poor.” And strange: four-wheelers, Fords, are going in and out of God’s garden, his gate, but a rich man cannot enter. Ford himself cannot enter.

If you teach people to be poor, and you bribe them to remain poor…. And the bribe is bogus – it is after death that you will have all the pleasure of life…. But if in God’s garden all the pleasures of life are available, one thing is certain, that pleasures are not condemned.

If you look at the Mohammedan concept of paradise – your word paradise comes from a Mohammedan word, firdaus – all kinds of pleasures are available. Beautiful women stuck at the age of sixteen for eternity, they don’t grow up; rivers of wine – bottles are not enough…. Drink, swim, have a deep plunge into the wine; enjoy it as much as you can – and all free. This is the arrangement for the religious people.

But I cannot see how the contradiction can be resolved. Here wine is a sin. Here, to have many beautiful women is a sin, and there it becomes a virtue. Virtues are rewarded by sins – strange logic! But it was needed to keep the poor, poor.

In India I have never seen a single rich man converting to Christianity. I have seen only poor, starving, orphans being converted to Christianity. Christianity thrives on poverty, because only the poor need the consolation. Only the poor need motivation to drag their life up to the grave – beyond the grave everything is just as it should be.

When I say celebrate – because this life is a gift of existence to you…. You have not asked for it, you have not paid for it. You, in fact, don’t deserve it. Still, existence is overflowing towards you, sharing all its joys. But you turn out to be such an idiot that when the sun is rising and the sky is full of colors – a time to dance, to sing – you are sitting in a dark church, gloomy, before a cross.

My people worship, but not in a church.

They worship the beauty of existence.

A bird flying, a cloud wandering in the sky, the moon, the stars…Outside you can see the whole existence is in celebration, but you have closed your eyes to it. With closed eyes you are saying, “Ave Maria, Ave Maria,” and you go on saying it.

Yes, all the religions are against me because I teach celebration, because I teach joy, because I teach comfort, I teach luxury, I teach richness.