"For example, scientifically nobody can be celibate, and they were all pretending to be celibate. They were fulfilling your desire that they should be superhuman – and nobody is superhuman. A distance was needed so you would never come to know their reality.

"Mahavira sits on a high, very high – pedestal. You cannot reach him. Of course you will never know whether he perspires or not. To keep the story going that tirthankaras – the prophets of Jainas – do not perspire, it is certainly necessary to keep a certain distance.

"When I am sitting here, I don't know whether you perspire or not. But when I came to your disco I was really surprised. The smoke of the cigarettesI never feel it here. And, my God, the way you perspire! I was thinking that my disciples had stopped perspiring!

"Of course, I myself rarely perspire, because moving from one air-conditioned place to another air-conditioned place in an air-conditioned limousine, there is no chance for me to perspire. But once in a while the electricity fails, the compressor in the car stops functioning – then I know certainly that I am not a prophet. I perspire just like you, and I am fortunate that I perspire just like every human being, because I don't want to be made of plastic. My skin is as real as yours. If Mahavira did not perspire, the only possibility is that he had a plastic body without any pores.

"Perspiration is absolutely natural. It helps you to keep your temperature always the same. When it is hot, your perspiration glands of which there are seven million, all over your body, start releasing small drops of water. The heat evaporates that water; it becomes engaged in evaporating the water and leaves you alone. It keeps your temperature the same; otherwise, without perspiration your temperature would be the same as the temperature outside. Soon you would burst – any moment.

"For centuries it has been a good contract – not made knowingly, but made certainly by your unconscious mind, and your prophets and messiahs and tirthankaras, avatars – that a distance is needed. So your prophet is always something so far away from you, you need not be afraid."