What matters to me is that in his book he tries to prove that he has attained the status of “superman,” for which man has been preparing for thousands of years. And Hitler’s party, the Nazis, and his race, the Nordic Aryans were going to be the “rulers of the world,” and this rule was going to last for one thousand years! Just a madman talking – but a very powerful madman. When he spoke you had to listen, even to his nonsense. He thought he was the only real Aryan, and the Nordics were the only pure-blooded race. But he was seeing a dream.

Man has rarely become a superman, and the word super has nothing to do with “higher.” The true superman is one who is conscious of all his acts, thoughts and feelings, of all that he is made of – of love, of life, of death.

A great dialogue started with my father on that day, and it continued on and off, and ended only when he became a sannyasin. After that there was no question of any argument, he had surrendered. The day he took sannyas, he was crying and holding my feet. I was standing, and can you believe it…like a flash, the old school, the “Elephant Gate,” the small child resisting, not ready to go in, and my father pulling him – it all flashed by. I smiled.

My father asked, “Why are you smiling?”

I said, “I am just happy that a conflict has ended at last.”

But that is what was happening. My father dragged me. I never went to school willingly.

Devageet, moisten my lips….

I am happy that I was dragged in, that I never went on my own, willingly. The school was really ugly – all schools are ugly. In fact, it is good to create a situation where children learn, but it is not good to educate them. Education is bound to be ugly.

And what did I see as the first thing in the school? The first thing was an encounter with the teacher of my first class. I have seen beautiful people and ugly people, but I have never seen something like that again! – and underline “something.” I cannot call that something “someone.” He did not look like a man. I looked at my father and said, “This is what you have dragged me into?”

My father said, “Shut up!” Very quietly, so that the “thing” did not hear. He was the master, and he was going to teach me.

I could not even look at the man. God must have created his face in a tremendous hurry. Perhaps his bladder was full, and just to finish the job he did this man and then rushed to the bathroom. What a man he created! He had only one eye, and a crooked nose. That one eye was enough! But the crooked nose really added great ugliness to the face. And he was huge! – seven feet in height – and he must have weighed at least four hundred pounds, not less than that.

Devaraj, how do these people defy medical research? Four hundred pounds, and he was always healthy. He never took a single day off, he never went to a doctor. All over the town it was said that this man was made of steel. Perhaps he was, but not very good steel, more like barbed wire! He was so ugly that I don’t want to say anything about him, although I will have to say a few things, but at least not about him directly.