But as far as I am concerned, I know that the moment they start hating, they have already fallen in love. Their hate is superficial; it will not last long. That’s why I say I influence people and create enemies. Once they are my enemies they are my people. Sooner or later their hate is going to be dropped because it cannot stand against the truth. Their hate is going to become a nightmare for them because deep down they know what they are doing. It is not that they don’t know – they would like not to know, but there is no way. They know perfectly well what they are doing. They are rejecting a reality just because they are cowards, because accepting the reality of this place means a tremendous revolution in your life – in all the values of your life.

Perhaps you are living with your wife and there is no love anymore, but you are simply living with her because it is respectable. You are part of a society which respects monogamy, which respects that marriage should last for the whole life. And you have also promised this woman many times, “We are made for each other,” and now you find that, “We are not made for each other.” Nobody is.

So all husbands and wives are simply coexisting. It is not relationship but tolerating, avoiding conflict. They don’t open their mouths because the moment they open their mouths, soon there will be argument. It is better to keep silent. The husband goes on reading the same newspaper again and again just to avoid the wife, because if he stops reading it the wife is there. And it is not rare that wives throw away the newspapers, magazines, books, because they know they are just barriers. They want to talk. The whole day they have been burning hot, and in the evening you come and you start reading your newspaper!

Why are they in such anger? – because you have both given each other great promises, great hopes, and neither you have been able to fulfill them nor she has been able to fulfill them. You had promised paradise and you have given hell to each other.

If you come here with an open mind, and you see that to live with a woman you no longer love is a crime – it is sin, it is ugly, inhuman. It is better to depart with friendship, with gratitude for all those beautiful moments that you lived together. The breeze that had come into the room has now gone out by the other door; there is no point in pretending. But everybody is pretending.

I am simply taking one example. I know doctors who don’t want to be doctors – but what else to do? They have a wife, they have children, they have parents…

Why not?

They are afraid to just play guitar on the street and become a hippy! They have been raised with all these responsibilities. Their conditioning is that you have duty towards your parents, duty towards your children, duty to your wife. Even if they dare to go, they will feel guilty, they will feel they have betrayed the culture, the civilization, the religion; they have betrayed their parents, their children, their wives. They will not feel at ease at all.

In my commune, nobody has any responsibility towards anybody else. He is responsible only for himself. Hence there is no question of any guilt and there is no question of any repentance.