I am life-affirmative; your so-called godmen are life-negative. And because life basically cannot be negated – you are life, how can you negate it? – they create hypocrisy. It is bound to happen. Your so-called godmen down the ages have created hypocrisy. They don’t allow you to be authentic. They don’t allow you to be natural – how can they allow you to be authentic? They create a division in you.

They are the root cause of all schizophrenia, and the whole of humanity suffers from schizophrenia. The differences between one person’s schizophrenia and another’s are only of degrees. You are split. Who has done this wrong to you? – your so-called godmen, the so-called saints, the so-called mahatmas. They are at the very root of all your misery because their very teaching is “Deny nature! Fight with nature! Go against the stream; push the river.” And you are part of nature, just a wave in the river – how can you fight with nature? Fighting, you will be defeated. If you are a sincere person, you will go mad; if you are not yet mad, that will simply show that you are not a sincere person. You say one thing and you do another.

I have heard…

A sodomist was given a room in a hotel with another man, who, the room clerk assured him, was not averse to a bout, but that for form’s sake he might put up a struggle. “But don’t pay any attention to him. Go ahead – he likes it.”

Next morning, the sodomist came down and the clerk asked him how he had fared. “It was quite easy,” he answered. “He put up no struggle at all.”

“My God!” said the clerk, “I put you in the wrong room. That was the archbishop!”

It is bound to happen. Hypocrisy is a natural by-product of all your pseudo godmen. And they can only be pseudo. If someone has realized godliness, he is not a godman – he is simply God. Why “godman”? And he knows that not only is he God but everybody is God. When he says “I am God,” he is not using the word in a comparative sense. He is not saying, “I am holier than thou.” He is simply saying, “I am what you are, but I am aware and you are not aware yet.” The difference is not in our qualities, in our beings, but only in our consciousness. You have the same treasure that I have, but I have stumbled upon it and you are still seeking and groping. Sooner or later you will find it. If you go on seeking, it is bound to be found – because it is there. How long can you go on missing? Even in the deepest darkness, if you search for it you are bound to find it.

When I say I am godliness, I am simply declaring that the whole of humanity is divine. I am simply declaring that all human beings are divine; I am simply declaring that all that exists is divine. A godman, a so-called godman, declares that he is God and you are sinners. He creates a new kind of superiority, a new hierarchy. And his whole trade secret is to make you feel guilty. And the more guilty you feel, the more you are in his grip.