... is not really good. The moment he becomes stronger he will become bad; give him power and power will corrupt him immediately. This happened in this country: Gandhi had a great following, but it seems that the goodness of his followers came out of weakness. They were good when they were not in power, but when they came to power, when they became the rulers of this country, then the power corrupted...

... them immediately. Can power corrupt a powerful man? Never, because he is already powerful. If power could corrupt him, power would have corrupted him already! Power corrupts only if you are weak and your goodness comes out of weakness. Lord Acton has said, "Power corrupts and corrupts absolutely!" But I would like to make it conditional; this statement is not unconditional, not categorical...

..., it cannot be. Power corrupts if goodness comes out of weakness; if goodness comes out of strength, no power can corrupt. How can power corrupt if you know it already, when it is there already? But it is very difficult to find from where your goodness comes. If you are not a thief because you are afraid of being caught, the day you become certain that now nobody can catch you, you will become a...

... courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection. It squirms in the jaws of darkness and thus is the better able to clutch the reins of government, secure enactment of the legislation favorable to corrupt business, violate the law with impunity, smother the press and reach into the courts. To depart from mere generalizations, let say that at the head of this octopus are the...

... resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as well be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business. They connive at centralization of government on the theory that a small group of hand-picked, privately controlled individuals in power can be more easily handled than a larger group among whom there will most likely be men sincerely interested in public...

... welfare. These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government." (Former New York City Mayor John Haylan speaking in...

... enemy as being all "Jews" and not merely their Corrupt leaders.. Thus these leaders would use IaHUeH's people as a shield to further their wicked ends. When attacked, the people tend to stick closer together... According to what they are told to believe for a non-jew to confront a Jew is like Blasphemy... this makes it harder to Isolate the very Serious problem! It turns into a vicious cycle of...

... permitted on the Sabbath. Lit., 'was healed'. Which shows that the text may be corrupt. and so the same may apply to the present quotation. Will you apply the same argument to all? You cannot assume that the text is corrupt here too. This is explained in the Gemara. If one forgot to buy an animal before the Sabbath, he leaves his cloak as a pledge with a vendor on the Sabbath, and takes an animal, but...

... immediately drove them out of the garden. I sometimes wonder what model of car he used to drive them out. It must have been a Ford, because "blessed are the poor." And strange: four-wheelers, Fords, are going in and out of God's garden, his gate, but a rich man cannot enter. Ford himself cannot enter. If you teach people to be poor, and you bribe them to remain poor.... And the bribe is bogus - it...

.... The officials took her first into the front part of the building. They were very sweet - just the way communists are in Russia. They tried to bribe her. They said to her, "We will give you a green card without any difficulty, we will help you in every way. And if you help us and whatsoever we say you support, we will replace Bhagwan's secretary and put you in power." When she refused, when...

... short cuts because then you can move to the source without growing. You bribe, you don't grow. From hunger you can jump - that means without knowing the whole complexity of life, the life of sex, love, aesthetic activity. You remain impoverished. What I am saying is a fact - you can go and look at Jaina monks; they are pure people, but stupid. Nobody can say anything against their purity. Pure they...

... are, sincere they are, serious they are, but they have chosen a short cut. They have been trying to bribe existence and reach home before their time. One can reach, but one will reach without growing, without maturity. A certain type of childishness you will find in them. Purity, but not enlightenment. The fourth is physical activity. You can move from the fourth again - from any point you can move...

... difficult, they live so ordinarily; they are lost deep in the woods of the world, you may not be knowing them. There is a story in the Bible, a beautiful parable. There was a town called Sodom. From that town comes the word sodomy. The people had become very corrupt. All sorts of sexual perversion were prevalent. People were homosexual, people were making love to animals - the whole town was perverted...

... what they are doing. They are as if drunkards. I am the only one who knows what is happening, and if I go, then who will save them? I am responsible for them. So it is said the good man was persuaded in a very cunning way. He was told: There is another town, Gomorrah, where people are even more corrupt. You please go there. So when the man was going to Gomorrah, Gomorrah and Sodom were both destroyed...

... recognized it. They caught hold of him when he came back from Nigeria, and there was a case against him, alleging that he had taken a bribe from us. And what was the bribe? He had fifty cows. When he was going to Nigeria, after the city was recognized, he wanted to put those fifty cows somewhere and we were purchasing cows, hens, all kinds of things for the commune. And he was ready to sell them as cheap...

... fifty cows, where will he take them? And where to find a purchaser so quickly? Because he was told, "Immediately move to Nigeria." He thought that we were in need of them - and we were in need. They took revenge on him. They removed him from his post; he lost his job and then he was condemned for taking a bribe. I came to know about the Mormons because of this judge, when I heard that God...

... to be initiated, Buddha could not refuse. Reluctantly he initiated her; but then the door was opened. If you initiate one woman, you cannot refuse another woman. And what he said at that moment is worth remembering. He said, "My religion was going to last for twenty-five centuries. Now it will last only five centuries, because the women will corrupt everything." This is strange. Why...

... should women corrupt? It can happen only if your male sannyasins are corruptible, if they are ready to be corrupted. And if they are ready to be corrupted, I don't think his religion was going to last for twenty- five centuries. People who want to be corrupted have thousands of ways to be corrupted. Woman is not an absolute necessity. They can become homosexuals, in all the monasteries they have become...

... these politicians go on talking about justice and democracy, and under these beautiful names everything corrupt and inhuman goes on, beautifully. Not a single intellectual, or a single freedom lover, nor a single man who would like equal justice for all, has raised any protest. Ram Jethmalani, as a final effort, approached the World Court. The World Court said, "Put us in contact with the...

... are an old fellow, you might not like the idea." He said, "I like the idea immensely, but I cannot come dancing in the rain - even my family will think, 'My God! That young man has corrupted our father, our husband.'" I said, "This is my whole business, to corrupt. This was the business of Socrates, to corrupt - this is my business also." SUN SHOWER MIRRORED IN A GLOBE OF...

... corrupting man. My fight with him is that it is man who is retarded, that he is not capable of using the technology rightly. How can technology corrupt man? Do you think if Mahavira comes and sees a gun, the gun will corrupt Mahavira and he will start firing here and there, this way and that, because the gun corrupted him? Technology cannot corrupt anybody. Technology is just a means in your hands, and...

... comes your way, just be a witness to it and pass on. Don't linger for a single moment because even that pause, that standing near it, will prove fatal. It corrupts. Power corrupts not because it is bad in itself but because we are after it. The saying is: "... and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Outer power cannot corrupt as much as inner power can. It is much more absolute in a sense...

... is power; rather, it is the seeking, longing ego which corrupts. If we are corrupt, then when power comes our corruption will be exposed. Before that it remains hidden. To be corrupt we need power. So one must beware of inner psychic forces. They exist, but do not look at them. Just pass them by, just be a witness to them. They will be with you, they will work in you, but they will be like shadows...