These brahmins are the most egoistic. And it was not a coincidence that Adolf Hitler chose the name that the brahmins gave to the Hindus, the Aryans. Hitler chose that name for his own people – the Aryans; “Aryan” means the noblest, the best. So brahmins are the source of all fascism in the world; Adolf Hitler is just a by-product, an offshoot. Adolf Hitler’s master, Friedrich Nietzsche, praised the brahmins very much. And the greatest brahmin, and the most mad of course, completely neurotic, was Manu. He gave the code, the hierarchy and the division of the society to the Hindus. Friedrich Nietzsche praised Manu, and he said Manu is the greatest thinker ever born in the world. And he was one of the most mad – he was the source of all fascism.

So it was very difficult for Buddha to teach people not to be special – it was almost impossible. Buddha was surrounded by brahmins. The idea of being special is so ordinary that it is in everybody’s blood, and the brahmins are very very mad about their egos; they wouldn’t think of being ordinary. One cannot imagine that a brahmin would be ready to do something manual. It is dirty, and the people who do it are dirty; they are untouchable, sudras, they cannot be touched. Not only can those people not be touched, even their shadows are untouchable.

Even now, in this twentieth century, there are villages in India where, whenever a sweeper or a shoemaker passes through the street, he has to declare loudly, “I am a sudra, an untouchable – I am passing through this street.” So that if some brahmin is ready to go out of his house or something, he can stop, because an untouchable is passing through the street. The whole street is dirty at that moment. And if an untouchable passes and his shadow falls on a brahmin, it is a crime against him. He can be punished for it – punished! Even sentenced to death! They have killed many people in the past. The crime was only that a brahmin would be sitting and an untouchable would pass and his shadow – not he, just his shadow – would touch, would pass over.

It was almost impossible for Buddha to make people realize the beauty of being ordinary. He was born amidst people who were absolute egoists. That’s why Buddhism couldn’t survive in India. It was because of Buddha’s influence, his personality, his force, his being, that it survived a little. But the moment Buddha disappeared…soon everything disappeared. Hence, Bodhidharma had to go to China. But why to China? – he could have gone to Burma, he could have gone to Ceylon, he could have gone to Afghanistan, he could have gone anywhere in the world. Why China particularly?

There was a particular reason: China had the right soil at that moment. Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu had made the soil there. They had created a particular atmosphere, a milieu, because they lived like ordinary people. If you had come across Chuang Tzu you would not have been able to recognize him unless you had a very deep understanding, unless you had passed through a satori, a glimpse of the eternal. Only then would you have been able to realize that a Chuang Tzu or a Lao Tzu was there, otherwise not. They didn’t have any outward show.

You can recognize a pope; he has the outward paraphernalia all around him. Nothing inside, everything outward. If a pope comes into a room in ordinary dress, nobody will be able to recognize him. If a Chuang Tzu comes, only the few people who have a certain depth of understanding will be able to recognize him. Chuang Tzu moves just like an ordinary man: fishing, cutting wood, doing this and that. Whatsoever life needs, he will do it. He is nobody special.