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land, I have not been there; I have not even asked them. They could have refused the visa; there was no need to make any law, but to be on the safe side...
I am taking a trip around the world, not to convert anybody -- I have never converted anybody in my life; it is the ugliest thing to do.
You have to understand the inner reality of converting a person. First you accept that you are right and the other is wrong, and he has to be put on the right path -- by any means. Nobody has any right to decide that. Any effort to convert somebody is against the basic right of human beings. It is interfering in their freedom, thinking; it is trying to enslave them.
You can express whatever ideology you have and then leave it to people. If it is better than their own, they may accept; if it is not better, they may reject. But whether they accept it or reject it is not your concern.
Conversion is a beautiful name for spiritual enslavement.
I have never converted anybody.
The people who have become sannyasins have become sannyasins on their own. It was their decision. They felt something, they recognized something, they experienced something.
Truth has its own fragrance.
Love has its own power.
Silence has its own impact. But there is no question of converting anybody. Sannyas is not a conversion. You are not moving from one ideology to another ideology -- from Hinduism to Christianity, from Christianity to Buddhism. That is simply changing prisons. Perhaps the other prison may be a little better, but a prison is a prison after all, and a better prison may be more imprisoning.
Sannyas is getting rid of all ideologies, of all prisons. It is not a new ideology that you have chosen -- you have chosen freedom from all ideologies. I don't have any ideology to preach to you. I have no doctrine to give to you, no catechism, no religion.
I can simply tell you that I was imprisoned in the same way you are. And there are ways -- just as I have come out of prisons, you can also. Nobody can prevent you, because your prison exists only through your agreement.
If you are a Christian it is your agreement; if
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