"Even if the rose wants to become a lotus, the desire is going to be a tremendous frustration, because the potential of the rose is to be a rose. How can it be a lotus?

"But all the religions, in every possible way, have been giving you ideals far above humanity. The only result is that, trying to be superhuman, you miss being human. Rather than reaching the superhuman level, making that stupid effort you fall below the human level itself – you become subhuman.

"It will be significant to remember Friedrich Nietzsche, and his idea of the superman. Adolf Hitler got the idea from Friedrich Nietzsche, and he was trying, in his own way, to create a whole race of supermen. And what he created was just the opposite. He created the lowest kind of human beings – but in the name of the superman. Friedrich Nietzsche is far more responsible than anybody else for bringing humanity to such a crisis. Adolf Hitler and people like him are just pygmies; but Nietzsche is a giant. His whole life he was propagating the idea of the superman.

"He has the support of Charles Darwin, and his logic looks simple, accurate, appealing. He says, 'Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution proves that one day a small bunch of monkeys turned into human beings. The mass of course is still monkeys, but a small group became man.' This must have happened millions of years ago – if it happened at all. There is no certainty about it. Scientists are no longer agreeing with Charles Darwin, because if a few monkeys turned into human beings, why, for millions of years, are other monkeys not turning into human beings? At least a few of them, once in a while, should turn into human beings. But monkeys are monkeys.

"We have found ancient skeletons of monkeys; they are the same as the modern monkey – there is no evolution. The same is true about man. The ancientmost skeletons found in Peking, China, are exactly the same as you are – nothing much has changed. There seems to be no evolution. Perhaps we have more things, more technology, a much more advanced standard of living, but man himself – he may be flying in an airplane or in a rocket – the human being is just the same as he was when he was driving a bullock cart."