Es Dhammo Sanantano #5

Is life some pauper’s coat
that every hour is patched with pain?

Is life a beggar’s cloak on which fresh patches of hurt are sewn every moment? Life wanted you to be emperors. Life is not a beggar’s cloak. But life has become a beggar’s cloak—you have made it so. Life gives birth to emperors, and man turns himself into a beggar. Everyone is born like an emperor and dies like a beggar. Every child brings a new kingdom into the world; every old man departs carrying a long tale of sorrow. The final sum of life becomes suffering.

It is not life’s mistake. The mistake lies in the way we live. We never learned the art of living. We lived the wrong way. Where gold could have rained, our hands gathered only ash. Where flowers could have blossomed, we found only thorns. And where the gates of God’s temple could have opened, there we built our own hell.

Your life is in your hands. Life is not a ready-made event, it must be earned. Life isn’t handed to you—you must create it. What is given is a blank slate, a clean sheet of paper. What you write on it is up to you. You can write a saga of sorrow, or you can write a song of bliss.

No, this is wrong—
Is life some pauper’s coat
that every hour is patched with pain?

This is wrong.

Yet, if you look at people, it seems exactly true. Once in a while a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Kabir lives rightly, and his whole life becomes a festival of joy. Kabir has said: With great care I wore it, Kabir; exactly as I received it, I returned this sheet. With care—with great care. How much awareness you bring to living, how painstakingly you live—on that everything depends. If you are miserable, remember: you are not living with care. If your sorrow keeps increasing, remember: you have taken a wrong turn. Do not blame anyone else. No one has ever changed by blaming others. Do not blame anyone else, because to blame another is to ensure that transformation will never happen. If there are tears in your eyes, seek their cause in your own heart.

Who weeps for another’s sake, my friend?
Everyone cries over something of his own.

If there is a smile on your lips, the cause is inside. If there are tears in your eyes, the cause is inside. The one who thinks the cause is outside is irreligious. The one who understands, “Whatever happens in my life is my doing, the result of my awareness and care—or of my unconsciousness and carelessness,” that person becomes religious. Then sorrow cannot linger long around you. Then suddenly you will find a revolution beginning. What until yesterday was a pauper’s coat, a beggar’s rag, begins to turn into an emperor’s golden robe. Where until yesterday there were only stones and pebbles, diamonds and jewels begin to appear.

Buddhas pass through the same places you pass. But the eyes that see are different. The manner of awareness is different.

There are two ways to live. One is to live as if asleep, stupefied, pushed along by the crowd—knowing neither where you are going, nor why you are going, nor who you are. Bumped and jostled, you keep moving. It’s hard to stop, so you go on. “Even if I stop, what will happen? What will I do?” So you go on. There is nothing to do, so you keep doing something. This is the unconscious life.

And there is a life of awareness: each act is deliberate, each act is considered, and behind each act there is a wakefulness—done knowingly, not unknowingly; it does not arise from the unconscious, it does not come out of darkness, it is born from inner awareness.

An act born of stupor is sin. An act born of unconsciousness is sin—even if the world calls it virtue. The nature of an act is determined by where it arises. What people say about it is irrelevant.

On the road you give alms to a beggar. People will say you did a good deed. But if the giving came from stupor, not from awareness, it is not virtue, it is sin. If you gave because others were watching and you wanted praise; if it came not from compassion but from ego—it is sin. If you gave because you’ve formed a habit and cannot refuse; because your prestige is tied to giving and people know you as a donor; your hand slipped into your pocket in a trance and you gave—without really seeing the man’s pain, without sensing his need; like a drunk, dazed, handing something over and in the morning not even remembering—then it was not virtue.

The quality of an act is decided by where within you it arises. If it arises in awareness, even standing and sitting become virtue. If it arises in unconsciousness, even prayer and worship become sin. The origin is the real question: from where does the act come? The act born in stupor—that is sin. The act born in wakefulness—that is virtue.

Buddha says: “In this world he grieves, and in the other world too; the sinner grieves in both. He sees his soiled deeds and grieves; seeing his soiled deeds he is afflicted.”

In this world, and in the next.

Let us understand the sinner’s life a little, because for the most part it is our life. Sin means stupefaction, unconsciousness. When you act in that stupor, nothing real is obtained. How could anything be received in unconsciousness? It is like someone passing through a garden in a faint. The flowers spread their fragrance, but he does not receive it. The sunbeams dance, but the dance may as well not exist for him. The garden’s fragrance, its cool breezes surround and touch him—yet he is not awake. Whoever is not in the present will be deprived of the feast. And whoever is not aware cannot be in the present. To be in the present and to be aware are two ways of saying the same thing.

So the sinner never really lives. He only makes plans to live. Or he preserves the memory of a life he never actually lived. Or he imagines a life he will never live, spinning dreams. But he never lives—because living happens here and now. Thus the sinner is deprived of life itself.

Note, Buddha is not saying—as ordinary preachers do—that the sinner suffers because he sinned and God will punish him. Buddha does not bring God into it. Buddha says the sinner is deprived of joy in this world and in the next. To be deprived of joy is suffering. To be deprived of bliss is pain. To be deprived of the great festival is to fall into the great hell. No one throws you into hell, no one is punishing you, no one is keeping accounts of your deeds. But the sinner’s way of living is such that he misses. And one who misses here will miss there too—because missing hardens into a habit.

Consider it a little. Are you ever in the present? You are eating, but your mind is elsewhere. You are praying, but your mind is elsewhere. Your head bows in the temple, but you are not there. Even if God comes looking for you, He won’t find you at home. You are never at home. Even if He hears your prayer—and I know He has heard your prayer many times, every time—whenever He comes He does not find you at home. You are somewhere else. You yourself don’t know where you are. You have no address—where should He look? You are like a host who invites a guest, and when the guest arrives he finds the host is never home. You search for life; life is searching for you.

Understand this clearly.

You are searching for life, and life is searching for you. And you are wasting your life in searching. There is no need to seek; life is already given. It has surrounded you from all sides. It is raining down on you from every pore, in every breath—the thrill and dance of life. Where are you going to search? Wherever you go, you will go wrong. Going is wrong. Being is right. In going you miss the present. You say, “Tomorrow—tomorrow I will be happy.” Yesterday never arrived; the tomorrow that is coming will never arrive, because tomorrow never comes. It seems to be coming—forever “about to arrive”—but it never does. What comes is today. What comes is now. Do not postpone this moment for tomorrow. Whoever leaves today to be lived tomorrow—that is the sinner. Then the mind starts reminiscing about the past.

And the strange thing is: the things you remember now are things you were not present for then either. Those too are only your imaginings. When they were happening, you were elsewhere.

I once went to the Taj Mahal with a friend. We were there three or four hours. It was a full-moon night. But he could not see the Taj Mahal at all, because he had to take photographs. I told him, “You could have bought pictures back home; you didn’t need to come so far. And the photos in the market are far better, taken by great photographers. You’re a dabbler. What is the point of your pictures?” He said, “No, I’ll see it peacefully at home.” The Taj Mahal was right there, and he was taking pictures! He would see it peacefully at home! And he never saw it. Perhaps the camera saw it. He wasn’t there. He was making an album.

Have you noticed how you keep looking back: “How lovely childhood was!” But were you really there in your childhood? Or did you only take snapshots of it? No child is there in childhood. He’s dreaming of youth. He longs to be grown up. He wants to grow up fast because it seems to him adults are enjoying great pleasures. Adults have power, capacity. “I have nothing.” He is in a hurry—he wants to be big quickly.

Little children climb up on chairs and say to their fathers, “Now I’m taller than you!” The desire to be big has sunk deep. Little boys start smoking, simply because cigarettes are symbols of adulthood. Grownups smoke; it is a sign of being powerful. Children smoke to feel that swagger: “We’ve grown up.”

I was staying in a village. Early one morning I went for a walk. A small boy came along. So early, and such a tiny fellow—maybe six or seven—and his manner was such that I couldn’t help but stare. A stick in his hand, walking like an old man, and he had stuck on a little mustache. When I looked closely, he ran and hid behind a tree. I went after him. He slipped into his house. I followed him in. He quickly pulled off his mustache and stuffed it into his pocket.

I asked, “What’s going on? What are you doing?” He had no answer. Perhaps he himself didn’t know. He was pretending to be grown. The longing to be big had awakened. There is pain in being small. Everyone wants to be bigger.

This same child will one day grow up and talk about childhood: “Childhood was paradise.” He has only kept the pictures of that paradise; he never lived it. When you’re old, you will flip through the album of your youth. But you never really lived your youth either. When you were there, you weren’t there. This very disease is what I call sin.

People have told you many other definitions of sin. Perhaps no one told you this one. They say, “Doing wrong is sin.” I do not say that. I say doing wrong arises from being wrong—that is secondary. Wrong being is sin, not wrong doing. And when one becomes right within, sin departs from his life.

So the real question is not to set things right, but to be right. Remember this distinction—it is fundamental. If you get busy trying to correct the wrong while remaining wrong within, you will spend lifetimes fixing the wrong and it will never be fixed, because you are wrong, and from there further wrong will keep arising.

It is like a drunk who does not stop drinking but tries to walk carefully. Every drunkard does this. If you have ever been drunk you know: no one tries harder to walk carefully than a drunk—though he keeps stumbling. One who is sober does not try to walk carefully; he simply walks carefully. It takes no trying. From one who is aware, virtue happens of itself; it is not something he “does.” Even a “done” virtue is worth two pennies. The very doing brings in the ego.

From the aware, virtue happens as—Buddha says—the wheel-tracks follow the moving cart, the shadow follows the man. From the unaware, sin happens likewise—as the wheel-tracks follow the cart. The cart passes and grooves appear on the road—happening by themselves. Do not waste yourself wiping away the grooves while the cart keeps rolling. Do not fight with the shadow; until you yourself disappear, how will the shadow disappear? When you are gone, the shadow is gone.

Old stories say that the enlightened cast no shadow. It does not mean that in the sunlight their bodies cast no shade. It means that one who has attained knowledge leaves no trace of action; only pure being remains. His being becomes so majestic that it leaves no line behind—not even a line of merit. Because whatever leaves a line is already sin. No deed crystallizes at all. Karma ceases to be. This is what Krishna says in the Gita: when you abandon the desire for fruits, your action becomes non-action—as if it never happened. Like drawing a line on water: it is drawn and erased in the same instant.

Sin means living in such a way that wherever you are, you are not there—elsewhere, elsewhere, always elsewhere. When you are old you think of youth; when you are young you think of childhood. When you are surrounded by the final hour, lying on the bed of death, then you will remember life.

It sounds paradoxical, but it is deeply true. Many people only when dying realize that they were alive. In life they never knew it. Only when they are dying do they experience, “Ah! I was alive.” Many people become aware only when things slip from their hands, “Ah! It was in my hands and now it’s gone.” Strange! When nothing had yet come into their hands, they were longing; when it was in their hands, their very doors of life were shut; and when it slips away, they remember. This is sin.

Buddha says: “In this world he grieves, and in the other world too; the sinner grieves in both.”

He is missing here, and he will miss there as well—because the practice of missing is deepening every day. Do not imagine that you can obtain heaven. If it could be obtained later, it could be obtained now. Do not imagine that heaven will come tomorrow or after death. Heaven is all around you—here and now. This very moment heaven is raining on you from all sides. Heaven surrounds you, but you are not present. And if you are not present today, how will you be present after death? You have no practice of being present. After death you will be what you are now.

This is what is meant by saying you will be born again and again. Rebirth means you will become again what you already are; you will repeat yourself. There will be no revolution in your life, only repetition. Each day will not bring the new; only the old ash will go on piling up. Your life will not be a live coal; it will be a heap of ash. You will keep doing what you have always done.

If today your eyes were blindfolded and you were carried into heaven and left there, do you think you would become happy? Consider it well. You would not be happy even in heaven. You would find hell there too—because you do not know how to see what is. Otherwise you have already been set down in heaven. I am not imagining this—you have already been set down in heaven. And your eyes are not even blindfolded.

Once more, look at the sun. Once more, look at the flowers. Once more, listen to the birds as if you had never heard them before. Once more, fresh and new, touch life. Once more, right now, plunge into celebration. Suddenly you will find—it was heaven. We did not miss because heaven was far away. We missed because we were in heaven but did not know the art of being present.

“In this world he grieves, and in the other world too; the sinner grieves in both. He sees his soiled deeds and grieves; he is afflicted.”

Looking back, he sees nothing but soiled deeds. One who slept can only do soiled deeds. His whole story, his whole history, is of dirty acts—like a picture painted in sleep. Look at it—nothing makes sense. A senseless puzzle, blotches of ink, colors thrown at random—as if painted by a madman. Though madmen will be found to praise it too—because others are asleep as well. People will praise your life because they are just like you.

I have heard that at an exhibition of Picasso’s paintings in Paris, there was a big crowd before one canvas. People were showering praise. Then Picasso arrived and straightened the picture: it had been hung upside down by mistake. People had been praising it, and no one noticed it was upside down. With Picasso’s paintings it is hard to tell which way is up. How did Picasso himself decide? Who knows! As if a madman had splashed colors.

It is said an American millionaire once asked Picasso for two paintings and was ready to pay any price. He had built a new house and needed two canvases. Picasso had only one painting ready. He went inside, took a pair of scissors, cut it in two, brought them out and handed over two “paintings”—and took the price for two.

Hard to be sure. Picasso could have made four and no one would have noticed.

In Picasso’s paintings the mind’s madness is fully revealed. If they were so celebrated, it’s because they mirror exactly the state of the human mind today. If you gaze at Picasso’s paintings for a while, you begin to feel uneasy. Look a little longer, and you start to panic. Stare at one all night, and by morning you’ll have gone mad. As if someone in stupor had flung colors. But that is your life.

Buddha says: “The sinner grieves seeing his soiled deeds.”

Looking back, he sees nothing but darkness. In the dark he hears only his own deranged cries. In the dark he sees his own footprints; they do not look like someone danced there, but like a prisoner in chains passed by. Looking at those deeds, you don’t feel that flowers blossomed in a life. You feel that a life drowned unblossomed. You feel as if morning never happened, and evening has come; the sun never rose, and has set; the bud never opened, and has withered. Looking back he grieves—and keeps himself alive by hope for the hereafter.

The hereafter is the sinner’s hope. There is no hereafter. What is, is here, now. Everything is here, now. The hereafter is the sinner’s hope; the future is the sinner’s fantasy. The present is the saint’s life. The future desire arises only when the present is barren. When nothing is happening now, a person looks ahead—because without hope how will he go on? Right now there is nothing.

If you look truthfully at yourself today, you will feel like committing suicide—there is nothing at all. You say, “No worry. Nothing has happened so far—tomorrow it will.” Courage returns. Your head lifts again, your legs regain strength. “Everything has been futile till today—no problem. Tomorrow is coming. With tomorrow all hopes will be fulfilled; every seed will sprout; every bud will bloom.” Tomorrow is coming. And tomorrow never comes. Each day you keep pushing tomorrow ahead. And one day you die.

The hereafter is the sinner’s hope. This may surprise you. The virtuous do not talk of the hereafter. The virtuous say, “It is here, it is now.” The virtuous do not say that God sits somewhere in the sky. The virtuous say, “God surrounds us from all sides—He enters in each breath and leaves in each breath.” The sinner says, “God sits in the sky.” The virtuous look into you and find God. The sinner looks around and sees only enemies. He imagines God—“He must be sitting in the sky”—because it is hard to live among so many enemies; he needs a crutch. The sinner seeks crutches in imagination. In truth there is no crutch for him, because he has not learned how to be in truth. He never learned such care.

Lost in the tune, “Paradise will be mine after death,”
O cleric, you never learned the art of living.

He never learned the art of living; the knack never came; the style of living never came. He kept hoping that when he dies, then heaven—then paradise—will arrive. The one who did not find heaven here will never find it anywhere. The one who lost it here will lose it everywhere.

“In this world and in the other, the sinner grieves.”

“In this world he blossoms, and in the other too; the virtuous blossoms in both.”

These words of Buddha are very beautiful. In this world he blossoms, he dances, he rejoices.

“In this world he blossoms, and in the other too.”

For the “other” is an extension of this. The hereafter is the offspring of the here. It arises from here, from this moment—as a sprout arises from a seed; as a son is born from the mother’s womb—so the future is born from the present. The next moment is coming out of this moment; it is hidden in this moment. As the tree is hidden in the seed, so the future is hidden in the present. The hereafter is hidden in the here. God is hidden in matter.

“In this world he blossoms, and in the other too; the virtuous blossoms in both.”

Why? Because the one who has learned to blossom here has learned to blossom everywhere. The real question is not of worlds, but of the art of rejoicing. The one who has learned to laugh, to dance; who has caught life’s rhythm; who has learned to be in tune with life’s song; whose feet have begun to fall with the dance; whose heart has been touched by life’s flute—he blossoms everywhere. You cannot throw him into hell.

The scriptures say: the virtuous go to heaven, the sinners go to hell. The truth is quite different. The sinner cannot go anywhere else. It is not that he is “sent” to hell. Wherever you send him, he finds hell. It is not that the virtuous are “sent” to heaven. Who is sitting to keep all these accounts? Who has the time to manage such a system? Send a virtuous one anywhere—he turns up in heaven.

I read a story. Edmund Burke, a great European thinker, used to go hear a priest. One day the priest said in church, “Those who are virtuous and trust in God go to heaven.” Burke stood up: “I have a question. You said two things—those who are virtuous, and trust in God, go to heaven. I ask: those who are virtuous but do not trust in God—where do they go? And those who trust in God but are not virtuous—where do they go?”

It was an authentic query. The priest was at a loss. What could he say? If he said, “Those who are virtuous but do not trust in God also go to heaven,” Burke would say, “Then what need is there for trust? Virtue is enough.” And if he said, “Those who are virtuous but do not trust do not go to heaven,” Burke would say, “Then why bother with virtue? Trust alone is enough.” The priest said, “You have placed me in a dilemma. Give me time till tomorrow.”

He could not sleep all night—an honest man, not clever, but intelligent. He thought and thought, but the knot did not open. Near dawn he fell asleep and dreamed he was in a train. He asked, “Where is this train going?” They said, “To heaven.” “Good,” he thought, “this is exactly what I wanted. I’ll see with my own eyes.” He had prepared names in his mind—Socrates, who did not believe in God but was a virtuous man; Buddha, the very embodiment of virtue, yet he did not preach belief in God. “If I meet Socrates and Buddha in heaven, the answer is clear: trust is not necessary. If I do not meet them, then too the answer is clear: virtue is useless; only trust matters.”

He got off at heaven’s station—strange! The station was desolate, as if decades of dust had settled and no one had cleaned. He was puzzled. He checked the sign—it did say “Heaven.” He entered the town—dull and drab. No flowers seemed to bloom. From no house did the sound of a lute rise. No one was dancing. He met only the pious—priests, monks—but there was no sparkle. As if corpses were walking. No festival anywhere. Life there seemed a burden. He asked many, “Socrates? Gautam Buddha?” People said, “Never heard of them. Not here. Try the other place—hell.”

He ran back to the station. “The train to hell?” By fortune it was standing, just about to leave. He got on. When he reached hell, he was amazed—as if entering a festival. The station was spotless. Life pulsed. Flowers were blooming, music was playing, people walked with spring in their step—color, variety, a rainbow of life. He was baffled, “Something’s wrong. They must have mixed up the signs. This should be heaven.” He asked, “Socrates and Buddha?” “Yes,” they said, “they’re here. And there is no mistake in the name. Because of their coming, this hell has become heaven.”

He woke with a start. Morning had come. In church he said, “I can’t say much, but I can tell you a dream I had. How true it is I cannot say, I’m not competent to decide. This much I saw: wherever the virtuous arrive, there is heaven. Wherever the sinner arrives, there is hell. Sinners don’t ‘go’ to hell—they carry their hell with them. The virtuous don’t ‘go’ to heaven—they carry their heaven with them. Throw them anywhere.”

And that rings true to me—not a dream, but truth. Even if you cast Buddha into hell, you will fail. It’s impossible. He will raise heaven there. Buddha carries his heaven with him—it is the climate of his life, the weather that moves around him. You cannot take it from him. Hell will change; Buddha will not. You cannot make Buddha miserable—then how can you throw him into hell? Your so-called holy men you cannot make happy—then how will you send them to heaven?

Lost in the tune, “Paradise will be mine after death,”
O cleric, you never learned the art of living.

O preacher, you never learned the art of living. You kept hoping heaven would come after death. The one who did not find heaven while alive—how will he find it when dead? If you missed while living, how will you attain when you are a corpse? If heaven is, it is linked to life, not to death. If heaven is, it arises from life—how will it arise from death? Heaven is not in cremation grounds. Heaven is where life dances in a thousand colors. Heaven is where life’s melody plays in a thousand notes. Heaven is where you become profoundly alive.

Heaven is not contraction; it is expansion. That is why Hindus have called the ultimate truth Brahman—ever-expanding. Brahman means the Vast, the Expansive—the one that goes on spreading, whose bounds never appear.

Have you noticed? Sorrow contracts; joy expands. Sorrow’s nature is contraction. When you are sad, you want to bolt the doors and sit alone. No visitors, no talking, no market. You want to shut yourself in, curl up in bed. If sorrow becomes very heavy, a man tries to die. He wants to sink into the grave so that no one will ever meet him again—utterly alone. That is why the sorrowful commit suicide. But when happiness fills you, when great bliss descends, when you are dancing and someone says, “Stay home,” you say, “No—I must go, I must share, I must spread.”

You see it: when Mahavira and Buddha were in sorrow, they fled to the forests. But when nectar poured into their lives, they returned to the marketplace. The scriptures tell long tales about how they renounced everything and went to the forests. But the scriptures say nothing about the even more important event—one day they left the forest and came back to the town.

That second event is more significant. Because when bliss descends, compassion is born. With joy comes a longing to share and to scatter blessings. What you have received—give it to others. Joy has this nature: share it, it increases; hoard it, it diminishes. Scatter it, it grows; hide it, it dies.

We named the ultimate truth Brahman. Sat-chit-ananda—and Brahman. Brahman means the one that ever expands—never shrinks, only spreads. When your life blossoms, it opens like a flower; fragrance flows. When in sorrow you wither, you close, you contract, you become inert. The flow stops.

Keep this in mind—
“In this world he blossoms.”

The word mudit is very important. It comes from the world of flowers—pramudit. Mudit means to blossom, to flower, to open and spread.

“In this world he blossoms.”

Even the sound of mudit carries the sense of blooming.

“And in the other world too.”

Because the “other” isn’t somewhere else. It grows from this world. It is the next link of this chain. It is this world’s next step. Your spiritual life is simply the next step of your worldly life. Your temple is the next step of your home. A temple that is against the home is no temple. A spirituality that is against the world is not spirituality. A tomorrow set against today is false. A hereafter opposed to the here exists only in your desires and dreams, not in truth—because in truth all is connected. Your home and your temple are two halts of one journey. The world and God are two steps of a single pilgrimage.

“In this world he blossoms, and in the other too; the virtuous blossoms in both. Seeing the purity of his deeds, he rejoices, he blossoms.”

And when you look back—if there has been light in your way of living, if you have lived with care, if you have walked in awareness—then looking back you see a journey full of light, jewels set in every step. You do not see the drunkard’s staggering—you see the steadiness of awareness. And the journey does not feel like mere travel; it feels like a pilgrimage.

The virtuous rejoices looking back as well. Behind him was heaven, ahead of him is heaven—because right now is heaven. One whose heaven is now will find heaven stretching on both sides. One whose heaven is not now will find hell spread on both sides. Everything hinges on this moment. This moment is decisive.

“In this world he is tormented, and in the other too; the sinner is tormented in both. ‘I have sinned,’ he keeps lamenting; fallen into misfortune, he is tormented again.”

“Even if someone memorizes many scriptures, yet out of heedlessness does not live them, he is like a cowherd who counts others’ cows—he is not fit for monkhood.”

Even if one memorizes the entire Veda, the whole canon, if he does not live it—however knowledgeable he becomes—he will live in sin. Knowing has no connection with virtue. Living does.

Where, O cleric, is the intoxication of life in dry talk?
The joy that belongs to drinking is found only by drinking.

You can memorize endless talk about drinking, every formula of wine; you can memorize everything said about God, every scripture by heart—but the joy that belongs to drinking is found only by drinking.

Where in dry words…?
The joy that belongs to drinking is found only by drinking.

So Buddha says: until what you have known becomes your life; until your living and your knowing are one, you will wander. When your knowing is your living, and your living is your knowing—when there is no gap between your being and your awareness; when the canon is not in your throat but in your heart; when the Veda is not an itch of the mind but the feeling of the heart—then even if words are forgotten and doctrines fade, you will be a living proof; you will be the doctrine. You may have no argument to prove God, but you yourself will be the argument. Your very presence will be the evidence.

That is why Buddha does not talk about God. He himself is God’s proof. One who does not find trust arising on seeing him—how will arguments ever give him trust?