"You are obedient.

"That word is very central in creating the ego. Obedience means that whatever your parents are saying you have to listen, to follow; you are not to listen to any voice that is coming from your own being. In the beginning that voice is there; till the ego is strong enough you continue listening to your inner voice.

"Obedience is the method to kill your inner voice. Hence all the societies, all educational systems, all religions praise obedience.

"The biblical story in this reference has to be remembered: Adam and Eve are not punished because they have eaten the fruit of a tree; they are punished because they have disobeyed. They did not listen to God, they listened to some other voice. This is their great sin, the only sin. And they are thrown back out of the garden of Eden for a simple thing – that they have disobeyed. It seems that people have not paid enough attention to how all the religions depend on obedience.

"They may call it different names – belief, surrender, trust, faith – but look into all these words: they are simply saying one thing, that you have to follow the dictates which God has given. And they have the holy book and they have the messiah and they have the prophet; now you need not listen to any voice – particularly your inner voice. That will be again committing the same sin.

"The story uses the serpent to persuade Eve, but that is just a metaphorical way of saying it. The reality is that because God has prohibited them from eating from the tree of knowledge, he has already created a great curiosity in Adam and Eve. He could have created it in any children – there was no need of any serpent.

"And this is the religious condemnation of woman. They never forget that the woman should be condemned. In every story, in every holy scripture, it is the woman who hears it – the serpent talks to the woman. But to me it has a great psychological significance: the woman can hear the inner voice more easily than the man, for the simple reason that she is not too hung up in her head."