Slowly, but only slowly, there is some kind of understanding that perhaps politicians are not the most intelligent people to handle planet Earth and our future, and that perhaps they are a very real danger to our survival.
“I have been saying for years that it is time that the politicians should be watched, and they should be looked after by psychiatrists, psychoanalysts.
“Since nuclear weapons have come into existence, the politicians have become immensely powerful. Power certainly corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It not only corrupts, it gives you a megalomania. And every politician is a split personality; he has to be. He says one thing, he does another. He always has a mask to show to the people, and his real face is always hidden. The longer he remains in power, the more possibility of his going neurotic, schizophrenic.
“It was okay in the past, because all these politicians could not do much harm, but today it is absolutely different. A single politician who is mentally, psychologically sick, can destroy the whole beautiful planet.
“I have been waiting for psychoanalysts and psychiatrists themselves to declare this situation, and the declaration has come today.
“It would be a good sign if every president, not only the American president, but every prime minister – whoever has the power to destroy this world – had a personal psychiatrist looking after him. But that is not enough. Man is body – the personal physician can look after it. Man is mind – the psychiatrist can look after it. But man is something more too. So what these two psychiatrists, Hershman and Lieb, are suggesting is an incomplete cure.
“Every president, every prime minister, every king around the world, should also have a master of meditation. Only then we can be safe, and this planet can be safe.
“Psychiatry can only help to keep the mind normal, at the most, but its limit is the mind. But man’s existence is far bigger, it is beyond the mind. That beyond has to be understood also, and that beyond only can create right sanity. That beyond can make you peaceful and silent, creative, celebrating. Once you know something of the beyond, you are no more suicidal, and you are no more murderous.
“Nuclear weapons will disappear from the world if we can make the politicians understand the absolute necessity. Just as they are not feeling embarrassed by having a personal physician, they should not be embarrassed by having a personal psychiatrist, and they should not be embarrassed by having a personal master of meditation. These have become absolute necessities.
“If we want the world to survive, the politicians have to be kept under control by intelligent people, by people who know the secrets of life, of eternity, and the people who can impart that energy, that understanding, that experience of the innermost being. This is the only possibility, otherwise there is no hope for humanity, and no hope for life – no hope for Gautam Buddhas, people rising to the highest peak of consciousness, to the deepest depth of consciousness.
“And this planet is special. It is a very small planet, but it is absolutely unique because it has life, consciousness, and the opportunity for evolving into Gautam Buddhas. It should be saved at any cost. We cannot afford a global suicide.
“I thank Dr. Hershman and Dr. Lieb for their suggestions, but I would like them to know that their suggestions are incomplete, because more psychiatrists go mad than any other profession – four times more. More psychiatrists commit suicide than any other profession. More psychiatrists are vulnerable to all kinds of mind sicknesses, because the psychiatrist is not a meditator. This is our whole inner poverty.
“The psychiatrist knows about the mind, but mind is not in itself the eternal source of life. It can slip at any moment into neurosis. At any moment it can become megalomaniac. A little power….
“I am also worried about the psychiatrists who will be looking after the presidents and the prime ministers. They themselves may turn out to be megalomaniacs because they now have great power!
“So their suggestion is good, but it has to be supported by a master of meditation who can look after the president or prime minister, and also can look after the psychiatrist. Do you understand what I mean?