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in a small village where a missionary was managing to demonstrate to the aboriginals who is more powerful, Krishna or Jesus. I was sitting behind the crowd, so he would not recognize anybody from the contemporary world -- and it was a dark night. He had a bonfire, and he set down a bucket of water and said to the people, who were very much excited to know who is more powerful...
He had made two statues, one of Krishna, made of wood.... No, the Jesus statue was made of wood, and Krishna's statue was made of steel! -- but painted, they looked exactly the same. He took both the statues and put them into the bucket of water. Of course, Jesus remained swimming on top, Krishna drowned. People said, "Certainly Jesus seems to be more powerful than Krishna."
He said, "I have been telling you again and again that Jesus will save you, and Krishna will drown you, remember! Be converted to Catholics."
At that point, I could not resist. I stood up, and I said to the crowd, "It has been a very good experiment, but I want to ask you, have you ever heard of any test like a water test?"
They said, "We have never heard about it, but we have heard about the fire test."
So I said, "Now we should check both these fellows in the fire." And I told the people, "Catch hold of the missionary so he cannot escape," and I put both the statues in the bonfire, and Jesus burnt to ashes and Krishna came out.
They said, "My God! This man was deceiving us."
But this is the way they have been converting utterly primitive, poor people. And they want these people to be poor, otherwise they will not be able to convert them.
The Hindus have a difficulty: it is a non-converting religion just like the Jews. These are the two ancientmost religions of the world, and both are non-converting. You are born a Jew, never converted to be a Jew; you are born a Hindu, never converted to be a Hindu. Because these are the ancientmost religions, there was no need to convert anybody. Everybody was Hindu.
And more particularly, the Hindus have a caste system: the brahmins at the head, then the warriors, number two, then the business people, number three, and
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