A fair was bustling on the seashore. Great scholars had gathered there. And naturally a discussion arose among them: How deep is the ocean? As is man’s habit, they sat on the shore and began to argue about the ocean’s depth. They opened their scriptures. Every book had a great deal to say about depth. Deciding who was right became very difficult. Because the depth of the ocean can be known only by entering the ocean—not in scriptural disputes, not in the net of words. The debate kept growing, and the more it grew, the harder any decision became. In truth, if you want a decision, you must avoid debate. If you want to avoid deciding, no path is easier than to argue.
By mistake, two salt dolls had also wandered into that fair. They said to the disputants, “Wait. We’ll jump in and find out how deep the ocean is.” But the arguers replied, “What need is there to enter the sea when we have scriptures, and the scriptures state the depth? In our scripture, God himself has written it!” And each of them believed their scripture was written by God. Even so, one salt doll jumped. He went into the sea—deeper, and deeper, and deeper. But the deeper he went, a new difficulty began. The depth did begin to reveal itself, but the doll began to dissolve. He was a salt doll; he started melting. He reached the depths, but by then there was no way back. He had melted into water. He was a salt doll; he vanished in the ocean. He knew the ocean’s depth—but how to report it? He not only knew the depth, he became one with the ocean. And until one becomes one, how can one know the depth at all? But how to tell it?
The people on the shore said, “We told you, one should search in the scriptures. Many others have jumped into the ocean before and been lost; no one brings news of the depths. Scriptures are best—no one gets lost. Read the scriptures, argue, decide. We said before, that salt doll was mad.”
They turned again to their quarrel, when the second friend, the other salt doll, said, “Wait a moment. I will go find my friend.” He went to seek his friend. The friend he did not find; he himself was lost. Though in losing himself, he found his friend. A friend is found only when one gathers the courage to lose oneself. Before that, there is no friendship. Friendship itself means the loss of the self. He was lost; he found his friend, he found the ocean, he knew the depth. And I have heard that the two of them began crying out, wave upon wave: “Such is the depth! Such is the depth!”
But the people sitting on the shore were lost again in their scriptures. They were talking of their texts again. Who would listen to the waves! Who would listen to the ocean! In fact, many times the pundits said, “Because of this noisy clamor of the waves, our debate suffers great disturbance. Better we move a little away from the sea and there continue our scriptural disputes. Here the ocean is a big obstacle.” The ocean, which was saying, “This is how deep I am!” The ocean, which was calling, “Come and know!” The pundits said, “Away with this sea; it makes a racket and obstructs our debate.” To discover the ocean’s depth those poor fellows left the shore and went far away. I have heard they are still opening their books and arguing. They will do so forever.
The pundit finishes his life sitting with scriptures open. He never gets any scent of truth. Even sinners reach the truth; the pundit does not. For the sinner at least is humble. He can weep before the divine, he can drown in the divine. He is poor in spirit, helpless; he can plead, he can bend his knees. The pundit’s ego is heavy. The pundit’s ego can challenge, can argue, can fight—but can never reach the divine. Have you ever heard of a pundit arriving at God? And if he ever did arrive, the first thing he would do is challenge God: “You are wrong; our scripture says it otherwise.”
I would like to say to you: if you want to know the divine, beware of the pundit. There is no greater enemy on the path to God. It makes no difference whose pundit he is—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Christian—it makes no difference. A pundit is a pundit. Their books may differ, their words may differ, their doctrines may differ, but the pundit’s mind is always the same. In that there is no difference. He lives by words, lives by doctrines, keeps himself far from truths. Why? Because truth’s first demand is: “Erase yourself—then come.” And the pundit is never ready to erase himself. He says, “What I have is the truth.” But truth demands, “Erase yourself; come to me. Only then can you know me.” The pundit tries to place truth by his side. The one who would know truth must go and stand by truth’s side. You cannot set truth by your side. You cannot grasp truth in your fist. You can make no claim upon truth. Nor is any debate possible for truth, nor any scholastic controversy. In fact, there is no room for logic with truth. But the pundit relies on logic. He says, “We will reason and find truth.”
His trust is like what I have heard about a Baul fakir. He was passing through a small village, strumming his ektara. He would say to people, “Love is God.” He would say, “If you would reach God, drown in love.”
A Vaishnava pundit came to him and asked, “Do you know how many kinds of love there are?”
The Baul said, “Listen, what a joke! Are there kinds of love? Either there is love or there is not. Does love have categories?”
But the pundit said, “Ignorant man, then you have not read the scriptures. In our scripture five kinds are listed. Listen, I will read them to you.” He opened his page and read out that there are five kinds of love. He gave all the arguments and proofs: so many kinds of love, and so many more. When he had expounded all his arguments, he closed the book and asked the fakir, “How did that seem to you?”
The fakir began to dance again, playing his ektara. He said, “It seemed like this—” and he sang a song. It was a marvelous song. In it he said, “It seemed to me just as it once did to a gardener who invited his goldsmith friend to see the flowers. Roses, jasmine, champa had burst into bloom in the gardener’s plot. He said, ‘Come sometime, the flowers are open.’ The friend came—but he brought along his touchstone for testing gold. He began to test the flowers against the stone. One by one he rubbed them and tossed them aside. ‘All fake,’ he said, ‘none genuine; none meets the test.’” The fakir said, “Just as that gardener felt that day—so I feel today, seeing you rub love against the categories of logic. Flowers on a touchstone for gold! That is how it felt.”
Logic has nothing to do with the divine. The intellect does not go there. It is the heart that goes there; it is love that goes there. And how will you decide love by argument? How will you conclude love? Love can only be known, only lived, only drowned in. God too can be found—but no claim can be laid upon God. Claiming is the work of the intellect; finding is the work of the heart.
This must be understood rightly. Understood very rightly. We see with the eyes; we do not see with the ears. If the ears had to decide whether there is light, what would they do? They would be in great difficulty. They would say, “No, there is no proof; I have never heard light make a sound. Let it ring, then I will know.” Because the ears can know only sounds.
If the eyes were ever asked to know sound, and the ears asked the eyes, “Have you ever seen sound? Have you ever seen a sitar?” The eyes would say, “What untruth you speak! I have never seen music. And until I see, how can I believe?” The eyes would refuse.
The eye has its own world of knowing; the ear has its own world of knowing. In the same way, the intellect has its world of knowing, and the heart has its world of knowing. There is no connection between the heart’s world and the intellect’s world.
But people offer arguments to prove God. There are two kinds of atheists in this world. One kind says, “God is; we will prove it”—as if God’s being depended on their proof, as if, if they failed, poor God would cease to be. As if his existence depended on their logic! One group says, “We will prove that God is.” In response to them, the other atheist was born: “We will prove that God is not.” In truth, the one who sets out to prove God will never find God—whether he proves for or against. Because proving is the work of the intellect, and experience is the work of the heart. Nothing is ever proved by the heart.
Therefore those who have known the divine are not the ones who say, “We will prove it.” Those who have not known are the ones busy saying, “We will prove it.” And these simpletons—the pundits who try to prove God—have produced the atheists. Otherwise atheists would never have been born. Remember: whenever someone loudly declares, “God is,” and sets out to prove it, all kinds of arguments can be refuted. There is no argument that cannot be cut down. Logic is a double-edged sword: it cuts both ways at once. It makes no difference; a skillful person can use logic to prove anything. And whatever logic proves, logic can unprove.
I have heard of a great logician in Greece. He had opened a school where he taught people how to argue. He was so skillful a teacher that he took half the fee on the first day, and the other half he said to pay only the day you win a debate with someone. His confidence was such that his students always won, so he collected the other half later.
A young man joined the school, paid half the fee, and told his master, “Take note: I will never pay the other half.” The master said, “The day you win an argument anywhere, you will have to pay it. And you cannot help but win, because I am teaching you such art.” The student said, “I won’t argue with anyone at all—but I will not pay the other half.” The master said, “Don’t worry. A teacher this adept at argument will get his fee from you.”
Years passed; the second half never came. Because the young man never argued at all. Even if someone said at midday, “It is night,” he would reply, “It is.” Who wants the hassle? If he said “It is day” and an argument arose, and he won, he would have to pay the fee! The master too became troubled, because the student simply refused to dispute. Whatever anyone said to him, he would say, “I fully agree; that’s exactly how it is, not an inch of difference.” At last the master sued him in court. In the suit he said, “This boy has not paid my other half of the fee. I want it back.” The master thought, “If the court declares I am not entitled to the fee because my student has not yet won a debate, then I will demand it from him on the spot: ‘You have just now won your first case against me—give me the fee.’ If I lose, I will still take the fee. And if I win, I will ask the court to order the payment. And if I lose, I will tell the student, ‘You have won your first case—give me my fee.’”
But he didn’t realize the student had learned from him. The student said, “Let’s proceed. If I win, I will tell the court, ‘Now I cannot pay; please protect me.’ And if I lose, I will say, ‘I have lost my very first case—what fee?’ I lost my first battle!”
Logic is a double-edged sword; it works both ways. Therefore in this world nothing is proved by logic, nor disproved by logic. Logic is only a game, a gymnastics. People with nothing to do can sit and play mind-games. It is a house of cards: build it and blow it down. That is why no religion has ever won by logic—neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Jain nor Buddhist. No logic can ever win—because the opposite logic can always be given.
God is not a game of logic. God is a different direction altogether.
People come to me—just arrived two days now—and say, “Please sign and certify whether God is or not; what do you believe?”
I tell them, “Who am I to give God a certificate? Will my yes make him exist? Will my no make him not exist? Then he is very weak indeed. A God who needs my testimony is no God at all. And who am I to say yes or no for him?” And about God, whoever knows will never be able to say a simple “is.” Why? Because we can say “is” only of that which could also “not be.” We can say “The table is,” because tomorrow the table might not be. We can say “The man is,” because yesterday the man was not, and tomorrow he might not be. Whatever “is,” has the possibility of not being. Therefore God can never be spoken of as “is,” because there is no possibility of his not being. He can never “not be,” so saying “is” is very dangerous. In saying “is,” the seed of “is not” is hidden. Whoever loudly says “is” sends an invitation to “is not.” Someone will certainly say, “is not.” If the theist drops his foolishness, the atheist’s foolishness will drop today.
But the theist keeps repeating his foolishness. He says, “We will prove it.” Then he arouses zeal in the atheist: “We will prove it is not.” And no theist has ever been able to prove to an atheist that God is—and he never will.
There is a reason. The “is” is irrelevant in relation to God. In relation to God, “is” cannot be said; it is incongruous. Why? Because “is” is not a predicate of God. “Is” and “God” mean the same; they are synonyms. To say “God is” is tautology. That which is—its name is God. “God is”—both say the same thing. “Is” means God, and God means “is.” Therefore “God is” can never rightly be said; it is repetition.
So people come to me and say, “Write it out for us: God is, or is not.” If they insist too much—“is” cannot be said at all. But to break their insistence, one can certainly say “is not.” There are reasons for that.
I have heard: one day Buddha entered a village. At the very gate, a man asked, “Is there a God? I am a theist. What do you say?”
Buddha said, “Absolutely not. Who told you there is? Are you mad? What God? Have you ever seen him?”
The man was shaken. Buddha moved on. At noon another man came and said, “I am an atheist; I hold that there is no God. What do you think?”
Buddha said, “No God? Have you gone mad? There is nothing but God; only God is. Who told you there isn’t? Other than him, nothing is. Whatever is, is he.”
But a monk with Buddha heard both answers. He had heard in the morning “There is not,” and at noon “There is.” He was very troubled. He said, “This is a mess. What kind of man is this Buddha! I will ask in the evening when the crowd thins.”
But by evening his trouble had not decreased; it had increased. A third man came and said, “I don’t know at all whether God is or not. What do you think?”
Buddha remained silent. He said, “I have no opinion.”
At night when they were about to sleep, the monk said, “Listen, don’t fall asleep yet. I won’t be able to sleep all night. You have put me in difficulty. In the morning you say ‘is not.’ At noon you say ‘is.’ In the evening you say nothing, you fall silent. Do you want to take my life? I have heard all three answers; which is right?”
Buddha said, “Not one of those answers was given to you. Why did you listen? The answers were for those men. Why did you come in between? Why did you listen?”
He said, “But I have ears; I was present; I heard. Now I am in great difficulty. What is right?”
Buddha said, “Only one thing is right. In the morning, the man who came was full of theism. He was full of belief that God is. He did not know; otherwise he would not have asked me. Only one who does not know asks.
“Those who come asking whether God is or not—poor fellows—they do not know. They wander seeking certificates, testimonies. They themselves know nothing. Had they known, I would go to them to ask; why would they come to me?
“The man in the morning knew nothing. He only wanted my testimony. His faith was blind; he had assumed that God is. He wanted Buddha to say ‘is’ so that his boldness would increase, his blindness grow deeper. I could not deepen his blindness. I said, ‘No,’ because I want to break a man’s blindness. At noon, the man had assumed without knowing that God is not. He wanted my testimony—Buddha too should say ‘is not’—so his stubbornness would be fixed. I wanted to break his stubbornness too, so I said, ‘Is.’ In the evening, the man had no fixation yet. He truly did not know whether God is or not. So I told him nothing; I fell silent. And I tell you also: fall utterly silent, and you will know—whether there is or not.”
My friends too find it difficult with me; they do not understand what I am saying. Their difficulty is that they are seeking witnesses for their blind beliefs, seeking support for their blind assumptions. They want me to bear witness for them, to endorse their egos. They want me to say, “What you believe is absolutely right.”
I am the last person on earth to tell anyone, “What you believe is right.” In truth, believing is never right. Belief itself is wrong. Understand this. There is no such thing as right belief and wrong belief. Belief itself is wrong. Knowing is right; believing is wrong. Belief means we are blind—we have assumed. One who has eyes does not believe the sun; he knows it. The blind man believes “it must be there.” The blind man does not know.
We behave toward God like the blind, not like those with eyes. We sit believing he is. Someone else sits believing he is not. There is no difference between the two. There is a difference only in their blindness; in believing there is no difference. The theist is blind; the atheist is blind.
A religious man is neither theist nor atheist. The religious man is not blind. The religious man opens his eyes and sees. And when he sees, what he finds is so vast that it fits neither into yes nor into no. It is so vast that he can neither affirm as a theist nor deny as an atheist. It is so vast that all the religions of the world may shout, but even its edge cannot be found. It is so vast that a man searches from all sides, and searching and searching he loses himself; he cannot bind it in full. The one who knows, therefore, falls silent beyond both yes and no.
Someone asks me, “Is there or is there not?”
Do not ask me. Open your eyes in life and look. If there is, you will surely find. If there is not, you will discover that it is not. But we are strange people. We are blind devotees of printed letters. We will not look at life; we will look at the book and believe.
Ramakrishna used to say: A man lived next door to him. One night a house in the neighborhood caught fire. In the morning that man came to see Ramakrishna, and Ramakrishna asked, “I heard last night there was a fire near your house?” He replied, “I don’t know; I checked the newspaper this morning—there was no news.”
Ramakrishna would say, “What a funny man! A fire blazed next door, and he checked the morning paper to see whether it happened. He could not go next door to see the fire; he checked the newspaper. If it were printed there, then he would know whether it happened or not.”
We are utterly mad for printed letters. God is present all around, but we require the printed page to tell us whether he is or not. One book says “He is not”; another says “He is.” Now it is a great mess. Books are making men fight. Dead books are making living men fight. Lifeless pages are having living men killed. Things that have no value—sold for pennies in the market—over them, hundreds of thousands of living people can die. Astonishing!
Osho's Commentary
By mistake, two salt dolls had also wandered into that fair. They said to the disputants, “Wait. We’ll jump in and find out how deep the ocean is.” But the arguers replied, “What need is there to enter the sea when we have scriptures, and the scriptures state the depth? In our scripture, God himself has written it!” And each of them believed their scripture was written by God. Even so, one salt doll jumped. He went into the sea—deeper, and deeper, and deeper. But the deeper he went, a new difficulty began. The depth did begin to reveal itself, but the doll began to dissolve. He was a salt doll; he started melting. He reached the depths, but by then there was no way back. He had melted into water. He was a salt doll; he vanished in the ocean. He knew the ocean’s depth—but how to report it? He not only knew the depth, he became one with the ocean. And until one becomes one, how can one know the depth at all? But how to tell it?
The people on the shore said, “We told you, one should search in the scriptures. Many others have jumped into the ocean before and been lost; no one brings news of the depths. Scriptures are best—no one gets lost. Read the scriptures, argue, decide. We said before, that salt doll was mad.”
They turned again to their quarrel, when the second friend, the other salt doll, said, “Wait a moment. I will go find my friend.” He went to seek his friend. The friend he did not find; he himself was lost. Though in losing himself, he found his friend. A friend is found only when one gathers the courage to lose oneself. Before that, there is no friendship. Friendship itself means the loss of the self. He was lost; he found his friend, he found the ocean, he knew the depth. And I have heard that the two of them began crying out, wave upon wave: “Such is the depth! Such is the depth!”
But the people sitting on the shore were lost again in their scriptures. They were talking of their texts again. Who would listen to the waves! Who would listen to the ocean! In fact, many times the pundits said, “Because of this noisy clamor of the waves, our debate suffers great disturbance. Better we move a little away from the sea and there continue our scriptural disputes. Here the ocean is a big obstacle.” The ocean, which was saying, “This is how deep I am!” The ocean, which was calling, “Come and know!” The pundits said, “Away with this sea; it makes a racket and obstructs our debate.” To discover the ocean’s depth those poor fellows left the shore and went far away. I have heard they are still opening their books and arguing. They will do so forever.
The pundit finishes his life sitting with scriptures open. He never gets any scent of truth. Even sinners reach the truth; the pundit does not. For the sinner at least is humble. He can weep before the divine, he can drown in the divine. He is poor in spirit, helpless; he can plead, he can bend his knees. The pundit’s ego is heavy. The pundit’s ego can challenge, can argue, can fight—but can never reach the divine. Have you ever heard of a pundit arriving at God? And if he ever did arrive, the first thing he would do is challenge God: “You are wrong; our scripture says it otherwise.”
I would like to say to you: if you want to know the divine, beware of the pundit. There is no greater enemy on the path to God. It makes no difference whose pundit he is—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Christian—it makes no difference. A pundit is a pundit. Their books may differ, their words may differ, their doctrines may differ, but the pundit’s mind is always the same. In that there is no difference. He lives by words, lives by doctrines, keeps himself far from truths. Why? Because truth’s first demand is: “Erase yourself—then come.” And the pundit is never ready to erase himself. He says, “What I have is the truth.” But truth demands, “Erase yourself; come to me. Only then can you know me.” The pundit tries to place truth by his side. The one who would know truth must go and stand by truth’s side. You cannot set truth by your side. You cannot grasp truth in your fist. You can make no claim upon truth. Nor is any debate possible for truth, nor any scholastic controversy. In fact, there is no room for logic with truth. But the pundit relies on logic. He says, “We will reason and find truth.”
His trust is like what I have heard about a Baul fakir. He was passing through a small village, strumming his ektara. He would say to people, “Love is God.” He would say, “If you would reach God, drown in love.”
A Vaishnava pundit came to him and asked, “Do you know how many kinds of love there are?”
The Baul said, “Listen, what a joke! Are there kinds of love? Either there is love or there is not. Does love have categories?”
But the pundit said, “Ignorant man, then you have not read the scriptures. In our scripture five kinds are listed. Listen, I will read them to you.” He opened his page and read out that there are five kinds of love. He gave all the arguments and proofs: so many kinds of love, and so many more. When he had expounded all his arguments, he closed the book and asked the fakir, “How did that seem to you?”
The fakir began to dance again, playing his ektara. He said, “It seemed like this—” and he sang a song. It was a marvelous song. In it he said, “It seemed to me just as it once did to a gardener who invited his goldsmith friend to see the flowers. Roses, jasmine, champa had burst into bloom in the gardener’s plot. He said, ‘Come sometime, the flowers are open.’ The friend came—but he brought along his touchstone for testing gold. He began to test the flowers against the stone. One by one he rubbed them and tossed them aside. ‘All fake,’ he said, ‘none genuine; none meets the test.’” The fakir said, “Just as that gardener felt that day—so I feel today, seeing you rub love against the categories of logic. Flowers on a touchstone for gold! That is how it felt.”
Logic has nothing to do with the divine. The intellect does not go there. It is the heart that goes there; it is love that goes there. And how will you decide love by argument? How will you conclude love? Love can only be known, only lived, only drowned in. God too can be found—but no claim can be laid upon God. Claiming is the work of the intellect; finding is the work of the heart.
This must be understood rightly. Understood very rightly. We see with the eyes; we do not see with the ears. If the ears had to decide whether there is light, what would they do? They would be in great difficulty. They would say, “No, there is no proof; I have never heard light make a sound. Let it ring, then I will know.” Because the ears can know only sounds.
If the eyes were ever asked to know sound, and the ears asked the eyes, “Have you ever seen sound? Have you ever seen a sitar?” The eyes would say, “What untruth you speak! I have never seen music. And until I see, how can I believe?” The eyes would refuse.
The eye has its own world of knowing; the ear has its own world of knowing. In the same way, the intellect has its world of knowing, and the heart has its world of knowing. There is no connection between the heart’s world and the intellect’s world.
But people offer arguments to prove God. There are two kinds of atheists in this world. One kind says, “God is; we will prove it”—as if God’s being depended on their proof, as if, if they failed, poor God would cease to be. As if his existence depended on their logic! One group says, “We will prove that God is.” In response to them, the other atheist was born: “We will prove that God is not.” In truth, the one who sets out to prove God will never find God—whether he proves for or against. Because proving is the work of the intellect, and experience is the work of the heart. Nothing is ever proved by the heart.
Therefore those who have known the divine are not the ones who say, “We will prove it.” Those who have not known are the ones busy saying, “We will prove it.” And these simpletons—the pundits who try to prove God—have produced the atheists. Otherwise atheists would never have been born. Remember: whenever someone loudly declares, “God is,” and sets out to prove it, all kinds of arguments can be refuted. There is no argument that cannot be cut down. Logic is a double-edged sword: it cuts both ways at once. It makes no difference; a skillful person can use logic to prove anything. And whatever logic proves, logic can unprove.
I have heard of a great logician in Greece. He had opened a school where he taught people how to argue. He was so skillful a teacher that he took half the fee on the first day, and the other half he said to pay only the day you win a debate with someone. His confidence was such that his students always won, so he collected the other half later.
A young man joined the school, paid half the fee, and told his master, “Take note: I will never pay the other half.” The master said, “The day you win an argument anywhere, you will have to pay it. And you cannot help but win, because I am teaching you such art.” The student said, “I won’t argue with anyone at all—but I will not pay the other half.” The master said, “Don’t worry. A teacher this adept at argument will get his fee from you.”
Years passed; the second half never came. Because the young man never argued at all. Even if someone said at midday, “It is night,” he would reply, “It is.” Who wants the hassle? If he said “It is day” and an argument arose, and he won, he would have to pay the fee! The master too became troubled, because the student simply refused to dispute. Whatever anyone said to him, he would say, “I fully agree; that’s exactly how it is, not an inch of difference.” At last the master sued him in court. In the suit he said, “This boy has not paid my other half of the fee. I want it back.” The master thought, “If the court declares I am not entitled to the fee because my student has not yet won a debate, then I will demand it from him on the spot: ‘You have just now won your first case against me—give me the fee.’ If I lose, I will still take the fee. And if I win, I will ask the court to order the payment. And if I lose, I will tell the student, ‘You have won your first case—give me my fee.’”
But he didn’t realize the student had learned from him. The student said, “Let’s proceed. If I win, I will tell the court, ‘Now I cannot pay; please protect me.’ And if I lose, I will say, ‘I have lost my very first case—what fee?’ I lost my first battle!”
Logic is a double-edged sword; it works both ways. Therefore in this world nothing is proved by logic, nor disproved by logic. Logic is only a game, a gymnastics. People with nothing to do can sit and play mind-games. It is a house of cards: build it and blow it down. That is why no religion has ever won by logic—neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Jain nor Buddhist. No logic can ever win—because the opposite logic can always be given.
God is not a game of logic. God is a different direction altogether.
People come to me—just arrived two days now—and say, “Please sign and certify whether God is or not; what do you believe?”
I tell them, “Who am I to give God a certificate? Will my yes make him exist? Will my no make him not exist? Then he is very weak indeed. A God who needs my testimony is no God at all. And who am I to say yes or no for him?” And about God, whoever knows will never be able to say a simple “is.” Why? Because we can say “is” only of that which could also “not be.” We can say “The table is,” because tomorrow the table might not be. We can say “The man is,” because yesterday the man was not, and tomorrow he might not be. Whatever “is,” has the possibility of not being. Therefore God can never be spoken of as “is,” because there is no possibility of his not being. He can never “not be,” so saying “is” is very dangerous. In saying “is,” the seed of “is not” is hidden. Whoever loudly says “is” sends an invitation to “is not.” Someone will certainly say, “is not.” If the theist drops his foolishness, the atheist’s foolishness will drop today.
But the theist keeps repeating his foolishness. He says, “We will prove it.” Then he arouses zeal in the atheist: “We will prove it is not.” And no theist has ever been able to prove to an atheist that God is—and he never will.
There is a reason. The “is” is irrelevant in relation to God. In relation to God, “is” cannot be said; it is incongruous. Why? Because “is” is not a predicate of God. “Is” and “God” mean the same; they are synonyms. To say “God is” is tautology. That which is—its name is God. “God is”—both say the same thing. “Is” means God, and God means “is.” Therefore “God is” can never rightly be said; it is repetition.
So people come to me and say, “Write it out for us: God is, or is not.” If they insist too much—“is” cannot be said at all. But to break their insistence, one can certainly say “is not.” There are reasons for that.
I have heard: one day Buddha entered a village. At the very gate, a man asked, “Is there a God? I am a theist. What do you say?”
Buddha said, “Absolutely not. Who told you there is? Are you mad? What God? Have you ever seen him?”
The man was shaken. Buddha moved on. At noon another man came and said, “I am an atheist; I hold that there is no God. What do you think?”
Buddha said, “No God? Have you gone mad? There is nothing but God; only God is. Who told you there isn’t? Other than him, nothing is. Whatever is, is he.”
But a monk with Buddha heard both answers. He had heard in the morning “There is not,” and at noon “There is.” He was very troubled. He said, “This is a mess. What kind of man is this Buddha! I will ask in the evening when the crowd thins.”
But by evening his trouble had not decreased; it had increased. A third man came and said, “I don’t know at all whether God is or not. What do you think?”
Buddha remained silent. He said, “I have no opinion.”
At night when they were about to sleep, the monk said, “Listen, don’t fall asleep yet. I won’t be able to sleep all night. You have put me in difficulty. In the morning you say ‘is not.’ At noon you say ‘is.’ In the evening you say nothing, you fall silent. Do you want to take my life? I have heard all three answers; which is right?”
Buddha said, “Not one of those answers was given to you. Why did you listen? The answers were for those men. Why did you come in between? Why did you listen?”
He said, “But I have ears; I was present; I heard. Now I am in great difficulty. What is right?”
Buddha said, “Only one thing is right. In the morning, the man who came was full of theism. He was full of belief that God is. He did not know; otherwise he would not have asked me. Only one who does not know asks.
“Those who come asking whether God is or not—poor fellows—they do not know. They wander seeking certificates, testimonies. They themselves know nothing. Had they known, I would go to them to ask; why would they come to me?
“The man in the morning knew nothing. He only wanted my testimony. His faith was blind; he had assumed that God is. He wanted Buddha to say ‘is’ so that his boldness would increase, his blindness grow deeper. I could not deepen his blindness. I said, ‘No,’ because I want to break a man’s blindness. At noon, the man had assumed without knowing that God is not. He wanted my testimony—Buddha too should say ‘is not’—so his stubbornness would be fixed. I wanted to break his stubbornness too, so I said, ‘Is.’ In the evening, the man had no fixation yet. He truly did not know whether God is or not. So I told him nothing; I fell silent. And I tell you also: fall utterly silent, and you will know—whether there is or not.”
My friends too find it difficult with me; they do not understand what I am saying. Their difficulty is that they are seeking witnesses for their blind beliefs, seeking support for their blind assumptions. They want me to bear witness for them, to endorse their egos. They want me to say, “What you believe is absolutely right.”
I am the last person on earth to tell anyone, “What you believe is right.” In truth, believing is never right. Belief itself is wrong. Understand this. There is no such thing as right belief and wrong belief. Belief itself is wrong. Knowing is right; believing is wrong. Belief means we are blind—we have assumed. One who has eyes does not believe the sun; he knows it. The blind man believes “it must be there.” The blind man does not know.
We behave toward God like the blind, not like those with eyes. We sit believing he is. Someone else sits believing he is not. There is no difference between the two. There is a difference only in their blindness; in believing there is no difference. The theist is blind; the atheist is blind.
A religious man is neither theist nor atheist. The religious man is not blind. The religious man opens his eyes and sees. And when he sees, what he finds is so vast that it fits neither into yes nor into no. It is so vast that he can neither affirm as a theist nor deny as an atheist. It is so vast that all the religions of the world may shout, but even its edge cannot be found. It is so vast that a man searches from all sides, and searching and searching he loses himself; he cannot bind it in full. The one who knows, therefore, falls silent beyond both yes and no.
Someone asks me, “Is there or is there not?”
Do not ask me. Open your eyes in life and look. If there is, you will surely find. If there is not, you will discover that it is not. But we are strange people. We are blind devotees of printed letters. We will not look at life; we will look at the book and believe.
Ramakrishna used to say: A man lived next door to him. One night a house in the neighborhood caught fire. In the morning that man came to see Ramakrishna, and Ramakrishna asked, “I heard last night there was a fire near your house?” He replied, “I don’t know; I checked the newspaper this morning—there was no news.”
Ramakrishna would say, “What a funny man! A fire blazed next door, and he checked the morning paper to see whether it happened. He could not go next door to see the fire; he checked the newspaper. If it were printed there, then he would know whether it happened or not.”
We are utterly mad for printed letters. God is present all around, but we require the printed page to tell us whether he is or not. One book says “He is not”; another says “He is.” Now it is a great mess. Books are making men fight. Dead books are making living men fight. Lifeless pages are having living men killed. Things that have no value—sold for pennies in the market—over them, hundreds of thousands of living people can die. Astonishing!