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the crowd: whatsoever they believe is virtuous, you are doing. And because you follow their idea of virtue they make you a saint. And if you want to become a great saint, you have to go to the very extreme of their idea of virtue.
For example, in India, the Jaina monks never take baths. That is a virtue -- because they are so averse to their bodies that they don't care that the body should be clean. Who cares? If the body is just matter, and if a little more matter gathers on it... no harm; you are gaining a little weight. They don't brush their teeth, because all that is considered to be showing that you still believe in the body. To talk with them is so difficult, because their breath is so foul, their body stinks. Every year they pluck their hair with their own hands -- they cannot use any mechanical device. Strange, a safety razor is thought to be great technology.
They are against all machines, all technology; naturally they have to pluck their hair with their own hands. Thousands of devotees gather to see it. And I have seen people standing there, well shaved -- perhaps they shave twice a day -- with tears flowing from their eyes: "What a great saint!" They cannot follow it -- they are sinners -- but he is following the scriptures.
There are many monks, Jaina and Hindu, who live naked, in all the seasons. It is torturing the body, but because they torture the body their followers believe they are attaining to self-realization. The body no longer matters. Whether it is cold or hot summer, it makes no difference to them; they have attained to a state of balance. To them success and failure are the same, heat and cold are the same. They are not the same, because I have seen the monks shivering with cold; they cannot sleep the whole night.
They are following it because in return they have been respected by millions of people. Just to be naked is not a virtue -- all the animals are naked, all the birds are naked. If to be naked is a virtue that leads to heaven, then only man is going to be in difficulty. And I have become worried about tailors... and particularly my seamstress, Gayan. What will happen to these people who are making clothes,
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