Holy joke
Sir: If anyone ever betrayed themselves with their own words it was Richard Ingrams when he attacked the ITV programme Credo for adopting what he describes as an 'anything goes' approach to new religious movements (30 May). Ingrams berates Credo for daring to take these new religious movements `to some extent at their own word' and for 'not setting out with the simple determination to expose'. This statement appears to encapsulate Ingrams's whole philosophy of life: never trust anything, never examine anything with an open mind; simply expose it, satirise it, condemn It.
Of course, this attitude contains a certain amount of security. For one thing, you will never make a mistake; you will never fall into the wrong hands; you will never be exploited by a false guru. But it also has one major drawback: you will never find the real thing either; you will never know the joy of meditation, you will never discover truth. Scepticism protects you from exploitation, but it also debars you from innocence, and — as Jesus Christ pointed out two thousand years ago — unless you can become as innocent as a small child you will not be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Ingrams describes Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's utterances as worthless, and cites as an example Bhagwan's statement: 'The idea of perfection is the root cause of all neurosis'. But is it not so? Have we not created a psychological hell-on-earth for ourselves through the idea of perfection? Are not our children crippled with this notion — which is drummed into them from birth — that they are not allowed to be free, natural, joyful human beings, but must instead struggle to attain some ideal of perfection that is arbitrarily prescribed by the parents and society?
And are we not all driving ourselves crazy in our own lives, chasing after the perfect lover, the perfect wife, the perfect husband, the perfect house, the perfect car, the perfect job? Are we not sacrificing all that is unique and beautiful and wild in us on the altar of idealised perfection?
As for Ingrams's observation that Bhagwan cannot possibly be holy simply because he tells jokes with the word 'fuck' in them, this is a very childish attitude. Does God have to be so serious — so Christian? Can't he take a joke? If not, I for one would rather keep company with the Devil.
Ma Prem Leela Rajneesh Foundation, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, 17 Koregaon Park, Pune, Maharashtra, India
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