But when new Indians come they are Indians, very much Indians. And what egos they carry! When I pass around the Buddha Hall with my hands joined together, with my head bowed down to them in love, in prayer, in salutation, they can’t even respond. They sit like stones. Not even a formal gesture they can show. They look so silly, so stupid, and I feel so sorry! How to help them? These people seem to be beyond help, beyond approach. And they see the whole ocean of sannyasins with their hands joined together joyously bowing, responding in love, communing, but they can’t do it. They just sit there like dead rocks. Strange…but not so strange because deep down they think they already know. Deep down they think they are great inheritors of a spiritual tradition. They know the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads.

I watch them, I watch their spirituality. They don’t look at me – they look at my Rolls Royce! That’s why I have asked my secretary to bring a Rolls Royce: at least for Indians there must be something to see! They are more interested in the car – and they are spiritual people, not materialists! When they come to the ashram, the first question they ask the guides here is, “Where is the Rolls?” They are not interested in seeing meditations, they are not interested in seeing Sufi dancers, they are not interested in seeing vipassana, they are not interested in anything. “Where is the Rolls?” Their whole mind is materialistic, but they go on pretending to be spiritual. And you can always invent something or other.

The country is poor so they cannot brag about richness. The country is uneducated, they cannot brag about education. The country is technologically backward, they cannot brag about technology. So they have fallen upon something invisible: spirituality. You can always brag about spirituality. Nobody can disprove it. Of course, you cannot prove it either, but one thing good about spirituality is that it cannot be disproved. So you can go on talking about your spirituality – which exists nowhere, which has never existed.

Individuals have been spiritual beings, societies have never been. We have still to wait for that great day when there will be so many individuals awakened that the society will start having the color of spirituality. Up to now, it has not happened. Hitherto it has not been happening; it has only been a hope. But every religion believes that they are religious. Just believing in certain ideas gives you a false feeling of being religious. And whenever you come across a real religious person you shrink back, you become afraid.

Hence they are against me – they are bound to be against me. I am shattering all their structures. I am shattering their whole egoistic patterns. I am trying to bring them down to the earth, to the reality – and it hurts.

India has never been against anybody as India is against me, for the simple reason that nobody has ever shattered their egos. I am making every possible effort to shatter their egos because that is the only hope. If India loses its ego, there is a possibility of a rebirth. The country can be reborn. It has great potential. It has the same potential as when you don’t use a field for many, many years, you don’t grow any crop, and the field becomes more and more potential every year.

For centuries India has not grown any creativity. It has become the most potential country in the world. If it explodes into creativity it is really going to be something great, something of great consequence to the whole earth. But before it can ever happen the shell of the seed has to be shattered, has to be broken.