... he had accepted, the way I accept, "Yes, I corrupt, because there is no other way to make them innocent again. You have corrupted them, you have poisoned them, you have distorted them. Now if I remove your distortions, your poisons, your corruptions, naturally to you it looks as if I am corrupting. But you have spoiled them; I am putting things right." But it is natural; a person who...

... my time on old people whose one foot is in the grave and the other is going to follow soon - do you want me to corrupt them? I am reminded: three great Russian novelists, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gorky were great friends. They were sitting in Leo Tolstoy's garden discussing. And when men gather together you know what they discuss: women. When women gather together you know what they discuss: men...

... faiths, beliefs. Of course I do not corrupt old people unless old people themselves come to me to be corrupted. That is their business, that simply means they are not yet old; their spirits are still young and rebellious. Their bodies may be old but they are not old. I don't go after anybody to corrupt him. People come from all over the world to be corrupted by me. What can I do? They are in such a...

... children who have a consciousness which is not related to their physical age. There are old people who have a youthful consciousness which is not related to their age either. In fact, consciousness has no age. It is always youth, always spring. It is always rebellious. I simply help you to uncover your rebelliousness, because to me to be a rebel is to be religious. Yes, I corrupt people. And I am going...

... to corrupt people. And my people are going to spread all over the world the same corruption. I am not going to be poisoned as easily as Socrates. In these twenty-five centuries people like me have learned much. I am not going to be crucified as easily as Jesus. They told him to carry his cross, and the poor man carried it. My cross will go on my Rolls Royce. And one hundred Rolls Royces will follow...

... good opportunity, so that the whole responsibility goes on others. Or, if I had chosen not to go out, I would have become silent in Athens; silence makes no difference. For three years I have been silent here, still corrupting the youth and their mind - in silence. If you know how to corrupt, you can corrupt even in silence. It is a skill. You know perfectly well that for three years I was silent...

... have to allow me to corrupt as long as I want to corrupt, and as long as people want to be corrupted by me. But make it clear to these people, say, "To you it looks like corruption; to us it is a purification of the soul. It is a bath, we are rejuvenated by it. And if you have any doubts, come to our place; don't be afraid." They are so afraid of even listening to the truth, what to say of...

... your houses and he will corrupt you." My friend told me, "This is what the principal has said, and he wants you not to be entertained anymore in the campus. And we are poor professors, we cannot antagonize him." I said, "You don't be worried. I will go and see him myself." I went to Principal Mackwan, who was the chief of Leonard Theological College, and I told him, "You...

... the campus - I can corrupt them, and those ten thousand people cannot corrupt me? And you are included in those ten thousand people. "I am here and I am going to come every day - not in the campus anymore, to your office, just to be corrupted by you." He looked shocked. He said, "To be corrupted by me?" I said, "Yes, you corrupt me, or I will corrupt you. It is an open...

... challenge. You are the head of this institute. Ten thousand people follow you, they think you are some great sage. Corrupt me, make me a Christian; I am ready to be converted. But if you fail, then be ready to be converted to my way, which has no name." He said, "I don't want to create any conflict, any controversy." I said, "There is no controversy, no conflict. I will simply sit here...

... silently; you corrupt me. Or, you sit silently, I will corrupt you. Nobody will ever even hear what is going on." He said, "Let me think about it." The next day I was there again. I said, "Principal Mackwan, have you thought about it? Have you asked your wife?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "That's what thinking means. When a husband says, 'I will think...

... chance to corrupt you too. In fact in my whole life I have not met a single man whom I have not corrupted; whether he knows it or not, that is a different matter. I know if perfectly, that he is corrupted; he will never be the same again. Even those who have left me for this reason or that reason, do you know their situation? They cannot mix in society. I have corrupted them so much they cannot mix in...

... created a society in which corruption has become necessary because its very base is corrupt. Unless you change the very foundation of society there is bound to be corruption; there has always been corruption. Forms have changed, but the corruption has remained because we have not yet created a society in which corruption is impossible. This situation is our creation; God is not involved in it at all. It...

... upon which we have built all of society's structures is not scientific, it is bound to be corrupt. It is a human problem. We can change it or we can prolong it - it depends on us. For example, our whole education is ambition-oriented. Our whole society is ambitious and an ambitious society can never be anything but corrupt. If you create ambition in everyone, not everyone will be able to fulfill it...

.... You may say that anyone can be president, but only one person can be president at any one time. When you teach that everyone can be president, ambition is created: if everyone can be president then why shouldn't you be? But since only one person can be president, a mad rush begins. Every means will be used - even evil means will be used. Ambition corrupts, the ambitious mind is bound to be corrupt...

.... Ambition is the seed of insanity. Yet our whole education is ambition-oriented. Your father says, "Become someone!" and the fever is created - you become diseased. Only one person can be president, and thousands of people who will be unsuccessful are aflame with the same ambition. Then you cannot be sane - you become insane. Because so much tension is created you become corrupt: you will use...

... any means to achieve your goal. It is infectious. If you see that someone else is using corrupt means you know that if you don't use them you will be left behind. So you have to use equally corrupt means. Then someone else sees you being unscrupulous, so he has to be unscrupulous. It becomes a question of survival. Nothing else is possible within this framework, this structure. If you look to the...

... very roots of society you will see that corruption is a natural outgrowth of our conditioning, our education, our cultivation. The complexity of our social structure is such that those who succeed can hide their corruption. Corruption is seen only when someone fails. If you succeed no one will know that you have been corrupt; success will hide everything. You have only to succeed and you will become...

... one ever sees that there is no qualitative difference between the two, that it is only a quantitative difference. No one will call Alexander the Great a great thief because the measure of your goodness is success: the more successful you are, the more good. Means are only questioned if you are a failure; then you will be called both corrupt and a fool. If this is the attitude, how is it possible to...

... create an uncorrupt society? To ask a person to be moral in this immoral situation is to ask something absurd. An individual cannot be moral in an immoral society. If he tries to be moral, his morality will only make him egoistic and ego is as immoral and corrupt as anything else. This situation is a human creation. We have created a society with a mad rush for wealth, power, politics; we go on...

... capitalist weapons. If you say, "I am better than others, I am more saintly than others," then the object may be different, but you will be on the same ambitious track. Criminals and sinners are not the only ones who are corrupt; the so-called good people, the "saints," are also corrupt - in a more subtle way. Our whole society is corrupt. It creates sinners with ambition and saints...

... objection Surely could be raised]. It was already specifically stated elsewhere in Scripture, Thou shalt not wrest judgement.36  Consequently it must be concluded that even [where the intention is] to acquit the innocent or to condemn the guilty the Torah laid down, And thou shalt take no gift?37  — This37  applies only where [the judge] takes [the gift] as a bribe,38  but Karna...

...; and for this he was paid a fee.48  This is similar to the case49  of R. Huna. When a lawsuit was brought to him, he used to say to the [litigants]. 'Provide me with a man who will draw the water50  in my place51  and I will pronounce judgment for you'. Said R. Abbahu: Come and see how blind are the eyes of those who take a bribe. If a man has pain in his eyes he pays away money...

... demand compensation for his loss. Lit., 'like that'. 'For the irrigation of my land'. [H], cf. supra p. 364. n. 4 The smallest coin, v.Glos. Ex. XXIII, 8. Deut. XVI, 19. Obviously not; how then is it likely that anyone would offer them any bribe Lit., 'blindness of heart'. Tractate List / Glossary / / Bible Reference Kethuboth 105b even one who is righteous in every respect and takes bribes will not...

... and if I am hated they must all hate me. Our Rabbis taught: And thou shalt take no gift;23  there was no need to speak of [the prohibition of] a gift of money, but [this was meant:] Even a bribe of words24  is also forbidden, for Scripture does not write, And thou shalt take no gain.25  What is to be understood by 'a bribe of words'?24  — As the bribe offered to Samuel.26...

... nothing against it'. Lit., 'Is it really so?' His borrowing was of no benefit to himself. Lit., 'to cause them to be important'. For a similar reason Rabbah levied a contribution for charity on the orphans of the house of Bar Merion (cf. B.B. 8a). Upon a judge. Even where the judge intended to act justly. Lit., 'his mind draws near to him'. Lit., 'guilt'. [H], 'gift', 'bribe'. [H], 'that he (the...

... recipient) is one (with the giver)'. This is not intended as etymology but as a word play. Lit., 'one who has caught fire by (association with) Rabbis'. Lit., 'of heaven'. V. supra p. 319, n. 9' In that town. Who would lose their lawsuits. In whose favour judgment would be given. Lit., 'who is made guilty'. Lit., 'now'. Ex. XXIII, 8. Or 'acts'. [H] which would have meant a monetary bribe. Lit., 'as that...

... is right and what is wrong. Your courts and your constitutions and your legalities are all futile. The right man knows exactly what is right. The law exists for the wrong man, not for the right man. And because this whole world lives in a wrong psychology, whenever a right man appears, he seems to be such a stranger, an outsider that people start thinking he is going to corrupt us. The charge...

... against Socrates was, "He is going to corrupt people because he teaches a lawlessness, a freedom." The same was the crime of Jesus - that he was a right man. The same was the case about Al-Hillaj Mansoor - that he was a right man. Al-Hillaj Mansoor was the disciple of a great master, Junnaid. He realized his own spirituality and divinity, his own luminosity - which has been realized in the...

... minister and the president and the home ministry. And he would give interviews to television and to the newspapers saying, "This man's staying in Greece is dangerous. His influence is going to be corruptive. He will corrupt our tradition, our morality." And I wondered how a morality that has been established for twenty centuries can be corrupted by a man who is only a tourist for four weeks? In...

... fact, that morality is trembling inside and afraid because it is based on the wrong man and the wrong man's perception. The right man is not worried. I have been around the world. Twenty-one countries have stopped me from entering into their lands because my influence is going to corrupt their younger generation. Not a single one, any archbishop, any shankaracharya, any imam or any pope has been able...

... to say exactly what it is that I am going to corrupt. But this is enough; the very word 'corruption' is enough. To help people to enter into their own being seems to be the greatest sin in the world. They have behaved more brutally with Socrates and Jesus and Al-Hillaj and others than they have ever behaved with criminals. For the right man, the man who is centered in himself, a man who is...

... conscious of his being, that very consciousness is enough. Whatever he will do, will be right. He does not need any law imposed upon him from outside, and imposed by people who are utterly rotten. Gutter politicians making laws - and they themselves are absolutely corrupt according to their own laws.... But whenever they are in power, you cannot say that you are against the law. They will change the law...

... consciousness to unknown heights. You are asking who is the right man? If you cannot recognize me, you will not recognize the right man anywhere. I am the most corrupt man in the eyes of all those who are blind. My only crime is that I am trying to sell glasses to the blind. Naturally, they don't want. I persuade them, but they don't want.... And finally you ask, "And what does it mean 'there is no law...

... flowering, their own genius. The Greeks never could reach higher than Socrates -- in intelligence -- yet they condemned him. And the reason: they were afraid that his influence can corrupt their children. Socrates' influence can corrupt their children. Their stupidity cannot corrupt their children but really what they call corruption is Socrates can expose and that's my function too. I can expose all lies...

... that you have been telling to your children. That is your fear. You are afraid of truth: and you call that truth can corrupt. Yes, truth can corrupt lies. I bring a medicine and you are sick. Medicine can destroy your sickness. So whoever is upset is invited. Either I will upset him completely and he will be a sannyasin, or I am ready to be upset completely and be a follower to him. This is how human...

... life, which will end up worth nothing. With fear we shall rule Already 85% of the continental shelf of the Arctic Ocean ended up in our hands For the purpose of deceit we will declare the Armenian republic in the Kuban, and then, chasing away the Cossacks, we will turn it into Khazaria - Israel And all remaining - we will bribe and corrupt. And those who do not succumb to - we will destroy We will...

... religions, keeping in mind their faith of Judaism. And all remaining - we will bribe and corrupt. And those who do not succumb to - we will destroy The rest of them we will bribe. And those who do not succumb to it we will destroy. Russians no longer have any more or less organized structures, and cattle and can not unite and establish them, because Russian cattle already became drunkards and degraded...

... development of science in these countries Corrupt the youth and make them perverts - and you win the nation We will strike at the family, destroying it, we will reduce childbearing We will create better life conditions for criminals than for working cattle, from the prisons we will be releasing criminals to increase the number murders, robberies and instability We will sow fear among people. Fear for their...

... workers and teachers. We will create for them such conditions of survival (no jobs, high rent, price for utilities, transportation) that they will run by themselves as Russian are now fleeing from the CIS countries, to the far away villages on the north, where they would think it would be easier to live better, which in reality will also be a hoax. Corrupt the youth and make them perverts - and you win...

... the nation Corrupt the youth and make them perverts - and you win the nation, this is our motto. We will deprive your community of young people, degrading it with sex, rock music, violence, alcohol, smoking, drugs, that is, deprive your society of the future. We will strike at the family, destroying it, we will reduce childbearing We will strike at the family, destroying it, we will reduce...

... for fueling, because my presence can create immorality, anti-traditional revolution, unorthodox ideas. In short, every country's parliament has said that I can corrupt the young people of their country; hence, as a precaution, the law was passed -- unanimously. Have I corrupted you? Have I destroyed your consciousness? Have I destroyed your love? Have I destroyed your gratitude towards existence...

... intelligent. In fact, it is absolutely wrong that I can corrupt people. It is a well known fact that power corrupts people -- and I don't have any power. They have all the power. The people in all these parliaments are already corrupted, and they are going beyond the limits of any conceivable intelligence. How can I corrupt just in fifteen minutes re-fueling my airplane on their so-called international...

... airports? These are not international airports...! And if I can corrupt their country sitting in my airplane, I can corrupt from here perfectly well! And I will do everything I can to corrupt, because my corruption is against all that is ugly, all that is brutal, all that is violent, all that is oriented towards war. I will corrupt these people, and their minds. I would like them to be more loving, to be...

... ascribed his28  descent to Manasseh, [so] also here29  [it may be said that], because he acted [wickedly] as Manasseh who descended from Judah, the Scriptural text ascribed his28  descent to Judah.30  R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: From here [one may infer] that corruption is ascribed28  to the corrupt.31  R. Jose b. Hanina said: [This32  may be...

... reality, he may have belonged to the tribe of Levi. Hence, in either ease, Judg. XVII, 7, cannot be adduced as proof that the mother's family is regarded as the proper family. Micah's priest who ministered to idolatry is described as a descendant of the corrupt king Manasseh. That corruption is ascribed to the corrupt. Adonijah. I Kings I, 6. V. p. 453. n. 7. Lit., 'cling to'. The priest of Midian, an...

.... Whenever you have means to go wrong you will go wrong. It happens every day. Lord Acton's famous saying is: Power corrupts and corrupts absolutely. I don't agree with him. Power cannot corrupt. Power corrupts because corrupted people desire power. They may not have the means right now to do wrong things, but when they gain power they will have means. Then they try to fulfil their wrong desires, their...

... corrupted desires. No, power does not corrupt; on the contrary, beings who are corrupted but have not yet had opportunities are always ambitious about power. Before they attain power they will be saints, but once they attain the power they drop all pretensions, because that saintliness was only to deceive. Their real desire was to gain power. Then they drop all the masks, then they come to their authentic...

... reality and then you say that the power has corrupted them. No, power never corrupts. How can power corrupt a man? How can riches corrupt a man? You are already corrupted but you don't have the means to fulfil it. You have always wanted to go to a prostitute, but as a poor man, how can you go? You don't have that much money and even if you have the money you will be caught because you will have to cut...

... journalist can be purchased, there is no problem about it. No, every man has mad desires, but not the opportunities. Once you get the opportunity - riches, power - then your reality starts bubbling up, your reality surfaces. In fact, instead of Lord Acton's famous saying, I would like to say: Power reveals and reveals absolutely. It does not corrupt, it simply reveals. You never know a man unless he is in...

... power. If you want to know Jayaprakash, force him to become prime minister; otherwise you will never know - you never knew Indira. You never know anybody unless you force the man to be in power, and without exception they all prove corrupt. Why does it happen? Because to me, on the first hand, from the very beginning, only a man who is basically corrupt is ambitious for power, otherwise he is not...

... this has been happening always. So, factually, Lord Acton is right, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But Lord Acton himself was a politician. He cannot go very deep into the psychology of the matter. Power does not corrupt; it simply gives you an opportunity to bring all your unconscious into the conscious. You always wanted to do these things, but there was no opportunity...

.... So you had repressed all those desires, because they were making you miserable. But any desire repressed remains alive and, whenever there is an opportunity, the desire rises to the conscious mind. Power does not corrupt you; you are already corrupted. Power gives you an opportunity to realize whatever your desires are. In fact, the people who have been in power are themselves amazed. They had...

... will be in the university, he is in every way repressed. In the unconscious he will find all these repressions. But if he remains just a witness, those repressions will surface to the conscious and disappear. That is the miracle of witnessing. When the whole unconscious is empty, then ordinary power cannot corrupt you. The third step has to be taken now: to enter into the collective unconscious. And...

... consciousness with witnessing, disappears. And if you can clean, give a spring-cleaning to your whole consciousness, to the very bottom, then no power can corrupt you - not even absolute power can corrupt you. In fact, on the contrary, power will make you more humble, more creative. Absolute power will make you a great servant of humanity, a great blessing to existence. This is the only way. You cannot...