CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA IS ONE OF THE UGLIEST THINGS IN EXISTENCE



THE UGLY CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA WAS CREATED BY MANU, WHO IS THE FATHER OF HINDU PRIESTHOOD

"I purposely choose the politicians and the priests. There are many other things to be remembered. The priest knows perfectly well that there is no God. In this world the priest is the only person who knows there is no God, but his whole profession depends on this non-existential God. He cannot say the truth because all his vested interests will be lost -- not only his, but for generations to come he will be spoiling the whole game. He knows the rituals are just hocus-pocus, that the mantras carry no power, that his theology is just a cover-up. Nobody else knows it better; he has studied the scriptures and he knows there is no evidence of God anywhere. He interprets the scriptures in such a way that they help his profession. He goes on making commentaries on the ancient scriptures, adding more and more things that are helpful for his profession."

"As times change he has to make new additions. For example, Manu, a five thousand year old thinker, priest, the father of priesthood, in his manusmriti -- the memoirs of Manu which Hindus follow word by word -- he created the caste system, one of the ugliest things in existence. Because of it one fourth of Hindus have suffered a long slavery, exploitation and humiliation. They have been turned almost into subhuman beings -- they are called achhoot, untouchables. They have fallen so much that you cannot touch them; otherwise you have to take a bath immediately. Even their shadow touching you is enough to make you impure. Manu reduced one-fourth of the Hindus to eternal slavery it seems."

"He managed the highest position in the society for the priesthood, but he was really cunning and clever: he has given all the superiority to brahmins, but he has not given them riches, nor material, temporal power. He has divided the castes so there is no conflict. Temporal power he has given to the second highest caste: the warriors, kshatriyas. They are going to be the kings, they are going to be the generals, the soldiers, the fighters, and they will be the second highest class. And money he has given to the third: the businessmen, the vaishyas. To the fourth he has given nothing -- except slavery."

"You can see the cunningness... he divides. He does not give money to brahmins, or temporal power, because then three-fourths of the society will be against them, and it will not be possible to control. And if they have also spiritual power, material power, money, then there will be resentment, anger, violence -- there will be riots. So to brahmins he gives the holy power -- they are the highest, the holiest -- but he does not give anything temporal to them."

"He gives the temporal power to the warriors. It is satisfying, because they are going to be the kings; brahmins cannot be the kings. And who cares about spiritual power? So let them have spiritual power; it is almost like having nothing, just a nominal quality of being superior, so the warriors are not angry about it. On the contrary, they are happy that one-fourth of the society will never be in conflict with them -- they are already higher, they have nothing more to gain. And the warriors are the most powerful people."

"To the third he gives money and all other worldly things. These are the people who cannot fight, who are not warriors -- but they can earn money, they can produce wealth. You will be surprised to know that in India all the kings, before India became a slave country, were indebted to the rich people. From where are they going to get money? -- just by borrowing. They can pay when they invade some other country; otherwise they have to borrow from the business people. And the business people are happy; they have all the material things, money... Not only that, kings are borrowing from them, brahmins have to depend on them for everything -- so let them believe that they are higher... but basically the business people hold the power, they have the money."

"And against these three classes the poor fourth has no power to fight. They are deprived of all education, deprived even of living in the city; they have to live outside the town. They cannot take water from the city well -- they have to make their own wells or carry water from the river. They are completely cut off from the society. They have just to come and serve, and do all the ugliest things that nobody else wants to do. And three powerful sections are there to go on repressing them; they have money, they have power, they have spiritual heights -- they are the representatives of God."

"For five thousand years they have maintained this -- and they have made the fourth, the slaves, believe that you are born slaves because of your evil acts in the past life -- this is the punishment. The brahmin is enjoying his position because of good acts in his past life. And there is no mobility; one cannot move from one caste to another caste."

"Since Manu, the priests in India have remained the most anti-revolutionary element -- naturally, because they will lose their superiority. Kings come to touch their feet, the superrich come to touch their feet -- their ego is fulfilled. And the same is the story around the world -- everywhere the priesthood has maintained its superiority. It is not so clear-cut as in India, but a subtle division is there. The priest is everywhere superior, the warrior is everywhere number two, and the rich man is everywhere number three. The fourth, the slave, the servant, is everywhere the same."

"These priests go on preaching to every child a certain kind of mind that keeps the society running -- or stuck. The politicians are in a deep conspiracy with the priests. The politicians are full of lust for power, and if they want power, they want blessings from the priests, because the priests have a spiritual hold over humanity. And if a politician goes and touches the feet of a priest, the followers of the priest are going to vote for the politician. There is a conspiracy: the politician goes on praising the priest, his religion, his ideology, and the priests go on blessing the politician and his ideology. And between these two powerful groups the whole society is crushed, sucked."

(Beyond Psychology # 26)

CASTE STRUGGLE AND CLASS STRUGGLE IN INDIA: CANCER OF INDIAN SOCIETY

Excerpts from the discourse dated 24th December, 1984

"In India there is a struggle between castes, a double struggle: class struggle and caste struggle."

"Hindus have divided their society into four major varnas. The word "varna" is significant; it means color. Perhaps in the beginning the division was done by color. The whitest were the Aryans, whom Adolf Hitler claimed to be the Germans, the Nordic Germans, the purest Aryans. He used the word "aryans" for Germans, and he used the Aryan symbol of the swastika for his flag. That is a Hindu symbol, an ancient Aryan symbol. They were the highest, and as your color became darker, you became lower and lower and lower."

"South India is almost black. If you cut Africa and India from a map and put them side by side, you will be surprised – they fit absolutely. It is a very recent finding that once South Africa and India were connected, then slowly they drifted away. So South India is really of Negro blood. And it is strange in many ways that the color of the South Indians is black and their languages are the only languages in India which are not Sanskrit-oriented, while all the European languages are Sanskrit-oriented."

"So perhaps in the beginning just on the basis of color... that's why they call them the four varnas; but later on, slowly the color got mixed. When you live with people... even in America, you will find a person who is half Negro and half Caucasian, half Negro, half Italian, half Negro, half English. When people live together they go on mixing. It is very difficult to keep blood separate. So slowly the varnas got mixed, the colors got mixed, but the castes remained."

"There is a certain struggle between the brahmin and the sudra. The brahmins is the highest caste, and the sudra is the lowest caste. There is a struggle, a five-thousand-year-old struggle. Thousands of sudras have been killed, murdered, butchered, burned alive; even today that continues for small excuses."

"For example, in a small Indian village you will find two wells. One well is for the higher castes, the three higher castes: the brahmins, the priest class; the chhatriyas, the warrior class; and the wanikas, the business class. And the sudras, the untouchables, have a second well. Untouchables are not allowed to take water from the same well as the three higher classes."

"And sometimes it happens that those poor people cannot manage to have a deep enough well and they are the poorest of the poor. In summer their wells dry up, so they have to go miles to a river or to a lake to bring water, but they cannot go to the well in the city. If they are found.... Sometimes it happens in the night, when somebody is thirsty. The river is so far away, everybody is asleep, and nobody will come to know.... He goes silently and tries to take a bucket of water – and he is caught. That is enough. That well has become impure, and that will create a riot."

"These poor untouchables, the sudras, live outside the town. They don't live inside the town, hence their other name is antyaja. Antyaja means "those who live outside the town". And they have the poorest huts made of grass and bamboo. You can go with just one burning torch in your hand and set fire to the whole of their village. Just a single man within five minutes can set the whole untouchables' village on fire."

"Their children will be burned, their animals will be burned, their old men who cannot escape in time will be burned. And if a whole village is trying to burn the sudras, then with torches, burning torches, they will not allow anybody to escape; they will force them back into their burning huts. This happens even today on any small excuse."

"A rumor that a high-caste girl is being seduced by an untouchable young man – just a rumor is enough! It may not be true; most probably it is not true, because in an Indian village it is very difficult to have any love affair, it is such a close-knit society."

"And the women are not free to move outside the house. They don't go to the school, they don't go to the college, they don't go to the university; there is almost nowhere they can go. The only places they go are the water well... the second place they go is the temple. In both places, the a sudra is not allowed. So where will a high-caste girl meet an untouchable? To fall in love you have at least to be introduced. And the sudras are so impure, so dirty in the minds of the higher classes that even their shadow is dirty. Great imagination! Now, a shadow has no existence. A shadow is simply there because you are standing in the way of the sun rays so the sun rays cannot pass you; hence you create a shadow. There is nothing like a shadow. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot put it in a bag and take it home; you cannot escape from it, it will follow you. It does not exist; it is just an absence of rays because you are blocking them."

"But Hindus have condemned those poor people so much that even if their shadow passes over you – you are sitting and a sudra passes by, not touching you but his shadow touches you – it is enough to create a riot! A few people may be murdered, because..."Why was he so arrogant? He should be more careful."

"In the old days, and in very remote corners even today, as the sudra walks along, he first has to declare, "I am a sudra and I am coming; so please, if anybody is on the road, move away." In the past a sudra used to have to do two things.... There were streets which were not open for him, he could not go on them. But for certain purposes it was impossible not to, so at certain hours he was allowed."

"For example, he was to clean the latrines of the higher classes, so at certain hours, early in the morning before anybody gets up, he would come and quickly clean the latrines. But even then – perhaps somebody may have gone for a morning walk – he had to go on doing two things. He had to shout, "I am coming – I am a sudra. Please move away if you are somewhere on the way."

"And the second thing – you will be surprised – he had to keep something like a brush made of a certain kind of grass that is used in India for cleaning the floors. That brush, that grass brush, used to hang behind him just like a tail; he had to keep it tied to his waist. That was to clean the path behind him. As he was moving, automatically the brush was cleaning the path after him, his shadow, any dirt that he is leaving behind – so nobody becomes impure. This is a caste struggle."
(From Ignorance to Innocence # 25)



THE IDEA OF LOWER CASTE AND HIGHER CASTE IS NOTHING BUT A FALSE BELIEF PERPERTUATED FOR FIVE THOUSAND YEARS. THERE HAVE BEEN VERY IDIOTIC BRAHMINS AND THERE HAVE ALSO BEEN INTELLIGENT SUDRAS

"Adolf Hitler in his autobiography says,"If you go on telling a lie continuously, emphatically, with authority, soon it will become a truth." And he proved it. He started saying to people that the whole misery of the German nation, its defeat in the First World War, its economical depression... all its suffering was because of the Jews."

"At first people laughed, just the way you would laugh at bicycles... But Hitler did not bother about their laughter. He went on speaking – and he was not a speaker like me who is just talking heart to heart to you. He would beat the table and he would shout and he would do every kind of action – he was half mad! But he impressed people, because if a person speaks with such authority he must know something. And he and his followers continued to say that it was the Jews, because the Nordics, Germans, are the purest blood, the purest Aryan blood in the world, and Jews have "contaminated" it: "These Jews should be destroyed. Once we are finished with Jews, Germany will come up and rule the whole world."

"Slowly, slowly people started believing him. It just takes time. And all that you believe is nothing but a lie repeated for thousands of years."

"How do you know that somebody is a Brahmin? How do you know that somebody is a Sudra? How do you know that somebody is a vaishya or somebody is a Kshatriya? And the Sudra cannot move upwards, and the brahmin is at the top... what makes you think that? I have seen very idiotic Brahmins, and I have seen very intelligent sudras."

"Doctor Ambedkar was a sudra, and he wrote the constitution of India. They could not find a Brahmin who was more intelligent, who knew all the constitutions of the world. He was the best man to do the job, but he was a Sudra."

"It was just an accident that somebody found that the boy was intelligent and he helped him to go to England and to study there. Here, at that time, it was not possible for a sudra to go to a school or to a university. And when Ambedkar came back, he was almost an international figure as far as law is concerned. His expertise was perfect."

"He was not a Gandhian; he was against Gandhi. The people who were in power were Gandhians. They were all high-class Hindus. Jawaharlal Nehru was a brahmin. Still, they chose an anti- Gandhian, a sudra, Doctor Ambedkar, to write India's constitution."



EVEN PHILOSOPHERS LIKE ADI SHANKRACHARYA ALSO BELIEVED INTHIS UGLY INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM

"So it is simply just an idea that has been perpetuated for five thousand years that society is divided into four castes. The caste is by birth, not by action! But the whole of India believes in it, even people like the great philosopher Adi Shankara, who founded an order of sannyasins. He is the most influential man Hindus have ever produced."

"He was in Varanasi, and while he was taking a bath, coming up the steps, a sudra touched him. He asked him, "Who are you?"

He said, "Forgive me, I am a sudra."

"And Shankara, who was teaching peace and love and compassion, forgot all philosophy and all the Vedanta – which was teaching that the same God is in everyone. He forgot all about that. He was very angry and told the sudra, "You will fall into the seventh hell. You have disturbed me. And don't you know who I am? Be careful never to disturb any Brahmin. Now I will have to take another bath."

"The sudra said,"Wait a minute before you take the bath. I want to know one thing: is my body sudra or my soul too?"

"Shankara had never thought that a sudra could discuss such philosophical matters. But when he had raised the question it had to be answered. And Shankara was in a difficulty – he had never been in such a difficulty. He had encountered all the great masters and teachers and had been victorious in thousands of debates all over India, but he was defeated by a sudra on the steps near the Ganges in Varanasi. Nobody talks about it, but he thought for a moment about what to say."

"Bodies – everybody's body is made of the same elements. What specialty has the brahmin's body? The sudra was asking very significant questions. And what is the difference between the body of a sudra and a brahmin? So it must be the soul that is Sudra...."

"So you tell me, who has touched you, my soul or my body? And if the soul is sudra then what happened about your Brahma, the absolute, who is in everybody else – all over the world, in animals, in trees, in stones. You can accept it in stones and you cannot accept it in a living human being.

Who has touched you?

"If my inside is also part of Brahma, part of God, part of divineness, then there is no need to have another bath. And if you think my body is untouchable, then please prove to me what specialty you have got in your body."

"This was the first time Shankara had to accept that he was wrong to get angry.

The sudra said, "Then simply go on your way, you cannot take another bath."

"Nobody is lower, nobody is higher, but if for thousands of years... Manu has been the cause of the whole calamity. He preached these four castes, and they are still being followed. And even the sudra believes in them, it is not only the brahmin who believes in them."



VERY STRANGELY EVEN SUDRAS HAVE BEEN CONVINCED THAT THEY BELONG TO INFERIOR CASTE

"I have been trying to convince sudras who used to come to see me: "You can come and sit on a chair."

They would say,"No."

"They would sit just by the door, outside on the steps: "We are sudras, we cannot come in."

Even they have become convinced. If the Brahmin is convinced one can understand, because he is gaining superiority by the conviction. But what is the Sudra gaining?"

"In one place they were celebrating the birthday of a great saint, Raidas, who was a shoemaker. I was just visiting there, so I said, "I will also be coming."

"But they said, "No, how can you come there? Only sudras will be there."

"But I insisted. The family I was staying with said, "It is creating trouble for us. If you go we have to go with you. You are our guest and we cannot let you go alone. We don't want to go there because if somebody sees that we are mixing with sudras; our whole life will be ruined!"

"I said, "You don't need to come with me. I am going there."

But you will be surprised; the sudras wouldn't allow me to enter the area. They said, "No. We are Sudras and we cannot commit this sin of bringing you down amongst ourselves. No, God will never forgive us."

I said, "This is strange."

"They are so convinced. It is a lie, because in the whole world there is no caste system except in the Hindu world. So it is not something natural."



"MY FATHER WAS A PERFACT SHOE-MAKER AND I AM NOT GOING TO BE THAT PERFACT A PRESIDENT": ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"Abraham Lincoln was a son of a shoemaker, and he could become the president of America – one of the greatest presidents ever. When he gave his first address in the American parliament, just to insult him somebody stood up – a very rich man – and said, "Don't forget that your father used to make shoes for our family."

"Abraham Lincoln's answer is worth remembering. He said, "I will never forget, and I am grateful that you reminded me because I want to declare to the whole nation, through the parliament, that my father was a perfect shoemaker, and I am not going to be that perfect a president. It is a question of perfection. I know my father and I want to ask you, do you have any complaint against my father's shoes? Then I can come and repair them, because I have learned from my father the art of making shoes."

"Lincoln was not offended. Instead, the man looked foolish. On the contrary, Abraham Lincoln was very proud that his father was a perfect shoemaker: "While he was alive there was nobody else who could compete with him. Whatever he made, he made so perfect. He used to ask us, 'Can you find anything wrong?' We were never able to find anything wrong with his shoes. I am afraid that I will not be that perfect a president. My father still remains higher than me, and I don't feel that I will ever be able to surpass him."

"The whole world is without a caste system, so it is simply a conditioning. You have just to see that you have been misguided, and in that very seeing, things start slipping away."
(The Sword and the Lotus # 19)



EVEN CHRISTIANS DO NOT GIVE SAME TREATMENT TO CHRISTIAN-CONVERTED-SUDRAS

"Just now the pope has been here. In his first day's speech in New Delhi he was very much disappointed."

"In that meeting he remarked in a very subtle, diplomatic, indirect way against the Hindu caste system, that all human beings should be treated equally. He is not aware or he is lying, because the sudras, the untouchables who have become Catholic Christians, they are not being allowed to worship with all the other Christians – they are segregated. They have been given different small churches to worship separately. Now the man had some nerve to condemn Hindus."

"And the sudras who became converted to Christianity became converted only on the grounds that they were promised that they would be treated equally. And they are not treated equally – they cannot even worship in the other churches, with the other Christians."

"So they are Christian sudras; there is no change at all. It has not been a gain in any way. It has been a loss, because when they were Hindu sudras the Indian constitution was giving them special privileges. In jobs there were limited quotas for them. Whether they were more proficient or not, those limited places were given to them. In universities, in colleges, they were given special scholarships. Whether they deserved them or not, that was not the question. They have suffered for centuries, and now some compensation has to be made. By becoming Christians they have lost all those privileges, because they are no longer Hindus. And as far as their being sudras is concerned, they are still sudras. So they have been cheated badly."

"And the pope had not the guts to say directly to the Hindus, "Your caste system is inhuman." He did not mention Hinduism. A criticism has to be direct and clear, honest and sincere. Why was he afraid of making a direct criticism? He was afraid because he was going to move around India, then everywhere he would be condemned and protested against because the caste system is the very corner stone of Hinduism. It is ugly, it should not be there, but even critics are such cowards."
(The Sword and the Lotus # 21)



THERE WAS LEFT NO SCOPE FOR THE LOWER CASTE OR FOR THOSE WHO WANTED TO ADOPT HINDUISM, TO CLAIME HIGHER CASTES

"What Manu did five thousand years ago, communists have done in Russia now. Manu made Hindu society into four classes. There is no mobility. You are born a brahmin; that is the only way to be a brahmin. And that is the highest society, the topmost class. Then number two is the warriors, the kings – the chhatriyas. But you are born in that caste, it is not a question that you can move. Then third is the class of the vaishyas, the business people; you are born in it. And the fourth is the sudras, the untouchables."

"All are born into their caste. That's why, until Christianity started converting so many Hindus, particularly the sudras, who were ready, very willing to become Christians, because at least they would be touchable.... Amongst Hindus sudras are untouchable, and there is no way to get out of the structure."

"For your whole life you have to remain the same as your forefathers remained for five thousand years. For five thousand years there has been a stratified society. If somebody is a shoemaker, his family has been making shoes for five thousand years. He cannot do any other work, he cannot enter into any other profession. That is not allowed."

"Hindus were not a converting religion, because the great question was, if you convert somebody, in what class are you going to put the person? Christianity is a converting religion because it has no classification; you simply become a Christian. If Catholics convert you, you become a Catholic; if Protestants convert you, you become a Protestant."

"But in Hinduism you cannot be converted, for the simple reason: Where will you be put? Brahmins won't allow you, and you would not like to be put with the sudras, the untouchables. So then what is the point of coming to a religion where you will not be even touched? Even your shadow will be untouchable. And a brahmin has to take a bath if the shadow of a sudra falls on him. The sudra has not touched him, but his shadow is also untouchable."

"Being the ancientmost religion, still Hinduism has not been spreading; it has been shrinking. Buddhism spread all over Asia, and it is only twenty-five centuries old. Hinduism is at least ten thousand years old, or more, but it could not spread, for the simple reason that birth is decisive. You can be a Hindu only by birth, just as you can be a Jew only by birth – and these are the two most ancient religions. These are really the two basic religions."

"But it was a strange thing that although these two religions got out of the Hindu fold, only Buddhism could spread all over Asia. Jainism could not spread out of India. Buddhism managed to spread out of India: from India it disappeared, but it took over the whole of Asia. And the reason was that it was through Gautam Buddha's very compassionate mind that he allowed anybody to enter into Buddhism."

"Jainas, although they had also rebelled against the brahmins, remained of the same mind – that they are higher than the other two classes. They wanted to be higher than brahmins too, but they never started converting anybody, because who would they convert? Brahmins will not be ready to be converted – they are already higher than everybody. Only sudras can be converted because they will be raised on the evaluation scale. But Jainas – Mahavira and his group – were not so compassionate as to take them in."

"So Jainism is not a complete culture – it has to depend on Hinduism for everything – it has remained only a philosophy. No Jaina can make shoes – some Hindu sudra has to make the shoes. No Jaina can clean the toilets – some sudra has to do that work."

"Although they rebelled against brahmins, their rebellion was just against the superiority of the brahmins, and they wanted themselves to be higher than the brahmins. But they were also not in favor of the lower classes being taken higher."

"And the ultimate result was that Jainas have remained a very small religion, confined in numbers."

"And because they left Hinduism, rather than rising higher than brahmins, they even fell from the second category. Because they left Hinduism, they were no longer chhatriyas. They were no longer considered to be warriors, and they could not be because of their nonviolence. They had to drop the idea of fighting, so the only way was to become business people."

"Lower you can go – nobody prevents you – so they had to go from the second class to the third class, and they all became business people. So the rebellion failed very badly. Jainas wanted to become higher than the first class; the outcome of their revolution was that they went from the second class to the third class."

"And they are absolutely dependent on Hindus. For their manual work they need workers – they cannot work. And because they became business people, slowly, slowly the Hindu vaishyas, the Hindu business people, and the Jaina business people came closer. Even marriages started happening between them."

"By and by they even had to ask brahmins to do their worship work – and they had money to pay for it. So brahmins worshipped for the Jainas – who are against Brahmanism, against Hinduism; but they had to use Hindus for everything. Their shoes are made by the sudras; their toilets are cleaned by the sudras. Their properties have to be protected by the chhatriyas, because they cannot take the sword in their hands. They cannot kill, so they cannot fight, they cannot go to war; they have their security force in the warrior race. And finally their priests – the brahmins came in from the back door as their priests."

"Manu tried this immobile society – which is still the same – five thousand years ago. That too was a kind of utopia, because he was thinking in terms of there being no class struggle this way. The class struggle can be dropped in two ways. Either there should be no classes; then there will be no class struggle.... That's what communism is doing, but it has failed because a new class has appeared. The other way is that the classes should be so stratified that there is no question of one person moving into another class. No struggle will be there, so there will be no competition."

"The Brahmin will remain a brahmin. He will remain on the top; whether he is poor or rich does not matter. The businessman will remain a businessman. Just because he is rich he cannot become a brahmin, he cannot purchase the caste. He cannot rise; he will remain third class, however rich he is. The sudras will remain sudras: they have to do all the dirty work and they cannot move from there."

"This was also a utopia. The idea was that if the classes are completely static, there is not going to be any struggle, competition. In a way Manu succeeded more than Marx, because for five thousand years his idea has remained in practice, and in India the Hindu society has never been in a class struggle."

"The poor are there, the rich are there, but that is not the real problem for the Hindu. His real problem is those four classes, which are absolutely static. But that is very dangerous because you prevent people from moving in a direction where they can find their potential fulfilled. A sudra may prove to be a great warrior, but he will never be allowed. A brahmin may prove a great industrialist, but he cannot lower himself."

"So it saved the society from class struggle, but it destroyed the individual and his potential completely. The genius was ruined. In just the same way it is happening in communism: the individual is destroyed, his genius is ruined. He cannot move upwards even if he has the capacity."
(Light on the Path # 30)



NO HINDU SAGES HAVE DENIED OR CONDEMNED THE UGLY INSTITUTION OF THE CAST SYSTEM

For example, no Hindu sage has denied or condemned the ugly institution of the caste system. It is impossible even to conceive that a man of clarity and enlightenment could not see that the caste system is a special way of exploiting the poor and the oppressed. Man has behaved so inhumanly with these poor and oppressed people; it has not happened anywhere else in the world. And this was happening in this country, which has created the greatest number of sages.

They talked beautifully about God, they sang beautifully about the other world, they lived a life prescribed by the society, absolutely according to the rules. The society was happy that they were so obedient, and they were happy because the society fulfilled their subtle egos – they were thought to be almost incarnations of God. So there was a mutual conspiracy between the so-called old sages and the social structures in which they were born.

The ancientmost scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas, prescribes rituals in which not only animals have to be sacrificed to satisfy the gods, but even human beings have to be sacrificed – to satisfy a god that nobody has ever seen. But no sage of those days raised his voice to say that this is absolutely ridiculous, utterly irreligious, unspiritual. They all went hand in hand with the society, supporting whatever the society's beliefs were by their writings and by their living.

Their only satisfaction was that they were worshipped. But to be worshipped is a tremendous nourishment for the ego. If the society wanted them to live naked, they lived naked; if the society wanted them to live in utter poverty, they lived in utter poverty. In a single word, the old sage was just the opposite of the new rebel. The old sage was the obedient, ego-fulfilling, repressed being. According to me, he was sick – spiritually sick.
(The Rebel # 7)



IT IS BECAUSE OF MANU THAT ONE FOURTH OF INDIA HAS REMAINED UNTOUCHABLE

Manu has for five thousand years ruled over India, particularly its morality, its caste system, and the harm that he has done to this country is incalculable. Millions of women have burned themselves alive because of Manu, because he prescribes that every wife who is sincerely faithful to her husband should jump in the funeral pyre when her husband dies; she has no right to live anymore. Because of him millions of women down five thousand years have burned themselves alive. This is so ugly.

It is because of Manu that one fourth of India has remained untouchable. They are called the sudras; they are not accepted as human beings... subhuman beings. Even their shadow is thought to be untouchable. If a sudra passes by you and his shadow falls on you, you have to immediately take a bath to purify yourself.

These sudras have been killed for any small reason: if they have entered into a street which is prohibited to them, if they have heard even words of Hindu scriptures, the VEDAS. They were killed because it is prohibited that they should be educated and they should know anything about the VEDAS; because the VEDAS would become dirty if these poor people know anything about them.

These sudras have not been accepted in society. They cannot live inside the city; they have to live outside the city. They have remained utterly poor, and they have been doing all the dirty work of the society. They don't have any dignity, any respect. They are not accepted in any way to be human beings. You don't see them. They live outside the city in their small bamboo huts, which any time -- and this has been happening even today, any day... Hindus, high-caste Hindus, go to their villages, burn their bamboo cottages, burn living beings, rape their women and kill all of them. And it is because of Manu.

And if I have put Manu and Krishna and Adolf Hitler in the same category, then anybody who says I am wrong I am ready to accept the challenge. Rather than writing to that newspaper editor -- and that coward editor immediately has written an editorial asking for forgiveness, that it was his fault that he published my statement. It is not his fault. My statement is my statement, and I stand by it. And anybody who thinks that I am wrong I am ready for any public discussion on the point.

But just conditionings, nobody is ready to look at the actual facts. No Christian will be hurt by this because it is not his conditioning. No Mohammedan will be hurt by this because it is not his conditioning.

Your only problem in life is the religion in which you were born, the society in which you were born, the family in which you were born. But it is unfortunate there is no other way, at least up to now; this is the only way.
(The Invitation # 30)



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