The commune was destroyed absolutely illegally. I was arrested absolutely illegally – without any arrest warrant – because they had no reason for the arrest. After the arrest, I was not allowed to contact my attorney – which is everybody’s right. The first thing any attorney would have demanded on arrival is to see the arrest warrant and to know the basis for the arrest.

I was arrested at the point of twelve loaded guns. There was no reason for any arrest, only twelve loaded guns! And I was produced in the court. This same attorney general was unable to prove anything, and he accepted this in the court after three days of continuous argument.

Five other sannyasins were arrested along with me. All five were released on bail, but the attorney general insisted that I could not be granted bail. And he himself accepted in the court that he was unable to prove a reason why I should not be granted bail, “Yet I request the judge, on behalf of the American government, that bail is not granted.” And the judge did not grant bail.

Even the jailer who brought me back to the jail was puzzled, because he could not conceive that I would have to be taken back to jail. He had brought all my clothes and my other possessions to the court with him, thinking that I am sure to receive bail. These people had neither an arrest warrant nor any reason for the arrest, so there was no reason for the bail not to be granted.

The jailer said to me, “I am puzzled and bewildered. I have never seen a case like this in my whole life. Firstly, the arrest is wrong. The arrest has no substance to it. The government attorney could not produce any evidence and he has even accepted this fact – but the insistence from the government is that this man should not be granted bail.” And the jailer told me that the cause behind not granting bail is that the magistrate who was a woman, had been informed that in order to be promoted to the post of federal judge she must not allow me bail, and if she did, she would remain a district judge for the rest of her career; she would never become a federal judge. And certainly she became a federal judge within three days.

Bribing the law and that too being done by governments!

And the place where I was arrested – North Carolina – was only a six hour flight from Oregon. We were ready to provide our own plane to bring us to Oregon where the actual judgment was to take place – in our own plane flown by their pilots, under the supervision of police officers. But no, I could only be taken in a government plane.

And you will be amazed to know that the government plane took twelve days to complete a journey of six hours. This is why it was necessary to be taken in the government plane, because the government plane would break the journey at every airport it landed at. Six jails in twelve days – without any reason. They couldn’t do too much to me because somehow the attention of the whole world was on this matter. Still, they tried in every possible way to harm me.