I told Mike, if you think as a courtesy you want to show the film to them, that's fine. But don't think you will be able to placate them. They are not very intelligent people. If they are offended by the trailer, they are going to be really offended by the movie. But this works to our advantage.
Look what they are doing to the artist M F Husain. This shows the primitive, tribal nature of our Hindu fanatics. Unfortunately, they are becoming very popular in India. They are militant and have done so much harm. Hindu fundamentalists are as violent as other fundamentalists; the only difference is that they are vegetarian. After seeing the film, they will be worse.
Parody can be taken as lightly as possible and you can laugh at yourself. If you can laugh at yourself, that is the true sign of spirituality; then your ego is out of the way. But if you can't laugh at yourself, you are faking your spirituality. Your seriousness and your militancy is a mask of your ego. There is no spirituality there.
I would take them to task and ask: Tell me: what is so spiritual about being offended? What is so spiritual about your militancy? Is your faith so weak that you need to attack other people?
You said earlier that you have performed with Mike Myers in New York...
(Laughs) When Mike and I performed in Greenwich Village, we had everybody laughing and some of the jokes were about death. I said to the people, you are laughing at the greatest mystery of our existence. Most people fear it and you are laughing. That shows you are comfortable with it.
Humour is a very good vehicle to introduce spirituality; unfortunately, we take spirituality so seriously that it becomes a mask for our ego. Therefore, I always say, if somebody is too serious, beware.
I believe you counselled filmmaker Anthony Mingella (the Oscar-winning director of The English Patient) as he was dying from cancer a few weeks ago. What kind of advice would you give to people in such situations, especially some one who is in his forties or fifties...
At that stage, there is so much fear that people will listen to anything you say to them. At that stage, you only want to give them solace, tell them that the real you will never die, but the transient you is dying. Remind them that our lives are impermanent.
Birth and death are opposites. Not life and death. Life is the continuum of birth. Birth and death are what we call interruptions in our journey. The sad thing is that we have to do this in moments of crisis because people will listen out of fear and want to believe.
It is important to remember we are dying constantly from the time we are born. You were a child -- that chapter is dead; you were a teenager -- that teenager is dead. True faith comes from dying everyday. The Dalai Lama meditates on his death. I do. I meditate on my death every day.
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