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can have religion only as a substitute for economic wealth. Its prayer is not authentic because its prayer tries to demand, to get something.
America is going to become very important and meaningful as far as religion is concerned -- America and all the countries that are becoming richer and richer each day. In the coming days communism will be significant in poor countries and religion will be significant in rich countries. There is no future for religion in poor countries. Within the next twenty years they are all going to turn to communism.
China was a religious country; Russia was a religious country, as religious as any country. And they could wipe out religion in just ten years! China was a Buddhist country -- both Taoism and Buddhism were deeply rooted there.
Question 4
BUT THERE, THE GOVERNMENTS WERE AGAINST RELIGION. THAT IS NOT LIKELY TO HAPPEN IN INDIA.
That's not the point. Religion, whether the government discourages or encourages it, is not the issue. The situation in India is such that religion cannot become meaningful. In a poor country, no matter what shape it takes -- you may call it socialism or anything else -- communism is going to be the religion. But in Russia religion will again become meaningful in twenty years time. Russia is not a poor country now and the moment a society becomes rich, you cannot escape religion. It is impossible.
Question 5
IS IT RIGHT TO DELEGATE RELIGION ONLY TO THE RICH?
It is not a question of right and wrong for me, it is a question of what the correct situation is. A person who is ill will go to the hospital and a person who is not ill will not go. So a poor country is bound to be attracted by communism. That is just the flow of history -- in a way it is inevitable. In the same way a rich country is bound to be attracted by religion.
In Russia, things have changed within the last ten or fifteen years. Now they have the greatest number of research scientists working on research projects in parapsychology in the whole world. And their findings are miraculous!
So it is not a question of right and wrong, it is just the way that history moves. In
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