My beloved Atman! I would like to begin today’s talk with a small story.
It was one morning. From a great mountain a man was coming down, singing many songs. In his eyes there was the light of having discovered something. In his heart there was the joy of having known a certain truth. In his steps there was the haste to carry that truth to others. He appeared filled with great enthusiasm and great bliss. He was alone on the mountain path, descending toward the plains below. In between he met an old man who was climbing upward toward the mountain. The man asked the old fellow, “Why are you going to the mountain?” The old man said, “In search of Paramatman.” And the man who was descending from the mountain, on hearing this, began to laugh loudly. He said, “Is it possible you have not yet heard the tragic news?” The old man asked, “What news?” The man said, “Do you not yet know that God is dead? Whom are you going to seek? Has this news not yet reached the plains below, that God is dead? I am coming from the mountain. I too had gone to seek God. But on reaching there I did not find God—only God’s corpse. And will the world only believe when it has itself buried him with its own hands? Has this news still not arrived? I am descending with this very message—to go into the plains and tell people that the God who lived on the mountains has died.” But the old man did not believe. Ordinarily, even when a person dies, we do not believe it at once. Who will believe that God has died? The old man thought the youth had gone mad. Without saying anything more, he continued to climb toward the mountain. And the youth thought, “Strange man! The one he is going to search for is already dead, and still he wants to continue the search!” But he kept descending. On the way he met a sadhu who, with closed eyes, was absorbed in someone’s meditation. The youth shook him and asked, “Whom are you contemplating? On whom are you meditating?” He said, “I am remembering Paramatman.” The youth laughed, and said, “It seems I will have to take on the sorrowful task of delivering this news—that the one you are meditating upon died long ago. Now nothing will come of meditating on him. Now nothing will come of remembering him. Now his songs and prayers will bear no fruit. For what can a corpse do? What will a dead God do?” And the youth went further down. And on that same mountain I too had gone, and I too met him. That is what I want to tell you. He also asked me, “Where are you going?” Before I answered, I asked him too, “Where are you going?” He said, “I have a message which I must tell the world.” And he said to me, “God has died—do you know?” I said to that man, “I too have a message, and I too must tell it to the world. And do you know, the ‘God’ who has died was never God at all? A false god has died. Some people are under the illusion that that false god is alive, and others are under the illusion that that false god is dead. But the true God is, and shall forever be.” So I said to him, “You want to tell one news to the world, and I too want to tell one news: that the one who has died was not the true God. For that which can die could never have been truly alive.”
Life has no relationship with death. Where life is, death is not. And where death is, know that the life there was illusory, imagined, false; death alone was true. Only that which is already dead can die. That which is alive—there is no possibility of its dying. Nothing could be more impossible than the death of life itself. And God is the name of total life. That man goes around the corners of the world proclaiming his news. I too am compelled to follow him. Wherever he goes, there I must also go. Surely he must have come to you as well, telling you that God is dead. There are many devices to say this, many paths, many arrangements. By many methods this news surely has reached you too—that God is dead. In these coming four days of our talks I want to say something else to you: the ‘God’ who has died was never alive. Some people had only bestowed upon him a false life. And it is good that he has died. Better still had he never been born. Better if he had died long ago. Therefore, this news is joyful, not sorrowful. People must have told you in many forms that religion has died. That is very good—because the religion that can die should die. There is no need to keep it alive. And as long as the false religion lives and a false god appears to be alive, the search for the true God becomes exceedingly difficult. For between the true God and us nothing else stands except the false god. Between man and Paramatman a false Paramatman stands. Between man and Dharma many false religions stand. Let them fall, let them burn, let them be destroyed—then the eyes of man can rise toward that which is true and is Paramatman.
Which god is a false god? The god who is worshiped in temples is false. He is false because man has made him. Nothing could be more false than that man should manufacture God. It is possible that God created man, but how can man create God! And yet, as many kinds of men as there are, so many kinds of gods have we manufactured. As many types of men, so many types of temples, so many types of mosques, so many types of churches, and who knows what else. All of us together have invented who knows how many kinds of gods. These gods are certainly false. God cannot be invented. No one can construct him out of stone, nor out of words, nor by colors, nor by lines. Whatever we may construct will be cruder than us, more false than us, more momentary than us. Man cannot manufacture God, but he can come upon God. Man cannot invent God, but he can discover God. Not invent, but discover. All the gods that man has invented are false. And because of these very gods, because of these religions, there is nowhere any trace of Dharma in the world. Wherever you go, some god or other will intervene, and some religion or other; and you will have no relationship with Dharma. A Hindu will intervene, a Christian, a Muslim, a Jaina, a Buddhist—someone will intervene, some wall will be erected, some stone will be placed in the way, and the doors will be closed. And these doors not only sever man from Paramatman, they also sever man from man. Who is it that separates human beings? What walls stand between one man and another—not of stone, not of houses; the walls of temples, of mosques, of religions, of shastras, of ideologies—these are the walls that keep one person apart from another. And remember: walls that separate man from man—how will they ever allow man to meet Paramatman? It is impossible. It is impossible! If I am made distant from you, how can the very thing that distances me from you unite me with That which is the name of all? It cannot be. And such gods, such religions, have overshadowed the human mind for thousands of years. This is why, despite five or six thousand years of continuous reflection, contemplation, and meditation, religion has not descended into life. A false religion stands between us and Dharma. It is not the atheists who are obstructing Dharma, nor the scientists, nor the materialists. Those who have invented religions are the ones obstructing it. Then we become bound in the walls of one or another invented religion. We are imprisoned. Our consciousness becomes dependent; we lose that freedom which is the first condition for the search for truth. Such a god has died. He should die. If he has not, then those who love God ought to help him to die. He must be buried. If this cannot happen in time, then it is hard to say what will become of mankind in the absence of true religion—and it is most unfortunate even to make such an announcement. The very imagination of that day makes the heart tremble. Already, what has man become? What is man today? If the animals and birds had awareness, they would surely laugh on seeing man; they would find it hilarious. A few years ago Darwin explained to people that man is the evolution of the monkey. But a monkey has told me that man is the degeneration of the monkey. Darwin could not understand. Monkeys laugh at man and think this is their downfall: some monkeys have gone astray and become men. And Darwin thought it is their evolution. This is only the mistake of man’s ego—a monkey told me that. This condition of man today—what will it be tomorrow? And what is keeping it so? Remember: medicines that are false can become more deadly than diseases. Remember: solutions that are untrue become more dangerous than the problems themselves. For the problem remains on one side, and the solution raises new problems on the other. In these last five thousand years, all that has happened in the name of religion has solved none of life’s problems; rather it has created new ones. And if every solution only breeds further problems, then the time has come to bid farewell to such solutions; it is necessary to let them go. For many useless problems have arisen because of them, and no solution has come at all. How close has man come to God? Temples go on increasing, mosques go on multiplying, churches rise every day anew. And it seems that if this development continues, no dwelling fit for man will be left—God will occupy all the houses. But what happens in these temples, these churches, these mosques? Does any relationship with God arise in the life of man there? Does any revolution occur in man’s life there? Do the sorrow and the darkness of man’s life depart there? Are the violence and hatred in man’s life ended there? Are songs of love and prayer born there in man’s life? Do beauty and flowers of beauty blossom on the heart of man there, are they formed, created there? No; not at all. On the contrary, there hatred is born between man and man. Anger and violence are born. How much strife, war, and bloodshed have taken place till today in the name of temples and images—and in the name of what else? How much slaughter of human beings has been committed over humanly constructed religious places—and because of what else? If we still go on declaring that these places are to be regarded as holy, then be certain—there will be no possibility for the descent of Dharma. A small story comes to my memory; let me tell you. One morning a man knocked at the church door. I call him a man, but those who lived in that church did not consider him a man. For temples have created differences between men and men. He was black-skinned, and the people whose temple it was, whose God it was, were white. The priest of that church said to the black man, “How have you come here?” He said, “I have come in search of God.” The priest looked him up and down. A black man, coming into the temple of the white man’s God! This was beyond comprehension. In the old days he would have drawn his sword and said, “Away! Even your shadow falling here is dangerous!” But times have changed, language has changed. The priest spoke very lovingly: “My brother, what will happen by entering the temple? Until your heart becomes calm and your mind becomes free of defilements, what will you do here? God is available only to those whose hearts are quiet and free of impurities. So go, purify your heart first, then come.” The priest must have thought, “His heart will never be purified, and he will never return.” But he had never said such a thing to the white-skinned. It was merely a device to keep this man away from the temple. The black man went away. After many months, at a crossroads, the priest saw him again—very ecstatic, very blissful, with a certain light shining in his eyes. The priest asked, “You did not come again?” He said, “What could I do? I tried to purify the mind; I did what I could. I became quiet, I sought solitude. And one night, in a dream, God appeared to me and said, ‘Why are you trying to become pure?’ I said, ‘That temple in our village, that church—I want to enter it, and the priest has said that only when I become pure will the doors open.’ God laughed and said, ‘You are utterly mad! Stop trying. For ten years I myself have been trying to enter that church—the priest won’t let me in. I myself have not succeeded and have become hopeless; you too will not be allowed to enter.’” And this is not about one temple, it is about all temples. Not about one priest, but about all priests. Wherever there are temples and wherever there are priests, they have never allowed God to enter, nor will they. Because God and the priest cannot walk together. God is love; the priest is business. What relation does love have with business? Where there is a priest, there is a shop; how can there be a temple? But they have made their shops into temples, and they have filled the customers of those shops with great hatred against the other shops, lest they leave their shop and go to another. Therefore one temple stands opposed to another temple; one temple’s god is opposed to another temple’s god. Is this the condition of religion? And has religion gained life or momentum through this? Religion has become lifeless. That kind of god may die—there could be no more joyous good news. But even if he dies, the priests will not let you know. Because it would be very dangerous if you came to know. Therefore they go on reciting mantras and performing worship around that dead god. Not because they love God very much, but because their very life depends upon that worship. This is their livelihood. Those who made God into a livelihood have been the very ones who devised means to keep man far from God. Wherever God has become a livelihood, know it clearly—God cannot be there. God is love; and love cannot be a business; it cannot be a livelihood. Prayer cannot be sold. Nor can prayer be done on another’s behalf. In love there is no middleman, no broker. Where there is a broker and a mediator, love is impossible. There will be bargaining there, not love. Love is direct. Nothing stands between love. From the day a priest stood between man and God, the entire matter went wrong. Let such a god die—nothing could be more auspicious—because such a god is not alive at all. And through his death our eyes may begin to rise toward the life of that God who is truly life—great life, supreme life. Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist—all such names should bid farewell from the world; then religion can be born in the world.
And in the same way the god of shastras, of words and doctrines, has also died. He too is not the true God. Words, shastras, doctrines are nothing more than the conjectures of man’s mind and intellect. They are like arrows shot in the dark; even if they hit, their hitting has no meaning. Their hitting is purely accidental. Wherever there has been ignorance and darkness in life, man has kept thinking and conjecturing. Many scriptures of conjecture have piled up across the earth. In these conjectures, these imaginations, these beliefs, there is no truth, no God. Because the experience of God begins only where all conjectures, all thoughts, all beliefs fall silent. Where the mind attains silence and no-thought, there one becomes capable of knowing truth. Where all the shastras turn to emptiness, there the unveiling happens of that which is true. Therefore those who have wandered in words, those who have clutched at words, those who have taken shastras as their very soul—such people will have no relationship with truth. Man’s intellect is sharp for conjecture; and we are very clever at covering our ignorance with conjecture. Wherever there is ignorance, we invent some conjecture, some imagination. Slowly we begin to believe that imagination. Why? Because believing it removes the sting of feeling ignorant. We feel, “I know.” One who feels, “I know God,” will never know God. He will never know God! Because his knowing surely depends on his grip on some shastras and doctrines. He must have learned something, he must have understood something, he must have memorized something—and that becomes his knowledge. Not such knowledge, but such un-knowing that I know nothing regarding life’s truth. The realization that I know nothing regarding the truth of life—this clear, utterly clear sense of ignorance, this perception “I do not know,” liberates the mind from the burden of words. And the silence arises that can lead toward knowing. Someone in Athens announced that Socrates is the greatest knower. People went to Socrates and said, “It is declared that you are the greatest knower.” Socrates laughed and said, “Go and tell them: when I was young I was deluded that I knew. As my age increased, my knowledge scattered, melted, and flowed away. Now that I am close to death and have no fear of anyone, I want to say one true thing: I know nothing. Go and tell those people that Socrates says he is utterly ignorant.” They went and told those who were making the announcement, “Socrates says he is utterly ignorant.” They said, “Precisely! That is exactly why we say he has attained supreme knowledge. For one who can say, who can know this truth—that ‘I know nothing’—only in that quiet, silent, innocent state can the doors of knowing open. The one who fancies ‘I have known’—his ego becomes even stronger. There is no greater ego than that of the knowledgeable. Their ‘I,’ their sense that ‘I am something,’ grows more and more powerful. And one who is deluded that ‘I am’ will not meet God. Because the first condition for meeting God is that, as a dewdrop loses itself in the ocean, so too one dissolves one’s ego into the Whole, loses oneself into That which spreads in all directions, that boundless, infinite existence.” Socrates said, “I am utterly ignorant.” Do you too, in some moment, experience that you are utterly ignorant? If you can, then someday Paramatman will bring near that moment when knowledge can be born. But if you go on repeating in your mind, “I know,” remember, this illusion of knowing will never allow true knowing. The scholars’ god has died! The god of those who think they know has died! The pundits’ god has died! Now there will be room in this world for the God of those whose hearts are childlike and simple, who can say, “We do not know”—and who can begin their search from the point of not-knowing, who can travel from the space of not-knowing. The truth is, inquiry—any search at all—begins only when the feeling of not-knowing becomes deep and intense. When the feeling of knowing becomes deep, the search ceases, breaks, ends. But all of us harbor some notion of knowing. If we have memorized the Gita, or the Quran, or the Bible, or some other scripture, and if those words have become thoroughly rote, and whenever life raises problems we can repeat those aphorisms—if such knowledge has arisen for us, then we are in a very ill state, very unfortunate. This knowledge is dangerous. This knowledge will never allow truth to be known, will never allow God to be known. This knowledge, which comes from words and scriptures, is not knowledge at all; it is only a device to hide ignorance. Yes, it may happen that in such ignorance occasionally an arrow hits the right mark: it can happen. Sometimes even a madman gives the right answer. Sometimes, in the dark, even conjecture proves true. But life cannot be built upon such accidents. I have heard, in a village an inspector came to examine a school. News had already arrived that the inspector had lost his mind. But it was official business—as all official business is—so even after receiving the news that his mind was gone, arrangements for his treatment would take time, or to retire him would take time. He had gone mad—but he kept his work going, in fact with even greater zeal. The mad become very industrious; whatever they do, they do with full force. He began inspecting with even more vigor. He never sat at home; he roamed village to village inspecting. And in every school’s register he ruined the record, because the questions he asked were impossible to answer. He came to the village I’m speaking of. The teacher was afraid, the headmaster was afraid, the children were afraid—what would happen! He came. In the highest class he asked a few questions. First he said, “The question I am asking—no one till now has been able to answer it. If any one of you children answers it, I will not ask a second question. For to test one grain of rice is enough; you know the rest are cooked. If you cannot answer this, then I will ask other questions—but they are even more difficult.” He asked his question: “From Delhi an airplane flew toward Calcutta; it travels two hundred miles in an hour—can you calculate and tell me how old I am?” All the children were terrified. Even the old would have been terrified. There was no connection at all. The question was utterly irrelevant. What relation had a plane going from Delhi to Calcutta at some speed with his age? But a strange thing happened: one child raised his hand to answer. The teacher and the headmaster were even more astonished. The question was madness—but a child was ready to answer. When he raised his hand, the inspector became very pleased and said, “This is the first time I have found such an intelligent child who has raised a hand to answer. Stand up and answer.” The child said, “Only I can answer this. Even had you traveled the whole land, you would not have found this answer. Just as your question could only be asked by you, this answer can only be given by me.” He said, “So how old am I?” The boy said, “You are forty-four years old.” The inspector was astonished—his age indeed was forty-four! He asked, “By what method did you solve this arithmetic?” The boy said, “Very easy. My elder brother is half-mad—he is twenty-two; so it’s a simple question—you must be forty-four!” The questions asked about God, about souls, about the other world, heaven and hell, and moksha—these are even more irrelevant than the madman’s question. And yet those who answer them are also found. How absurd that we should ask, “What is God like? Where is he? Where does he live?” We, who don’t even know ourselves—we ask questions about God! We, who don’t even know where we are, who we are, what we are—ask what God is, what he is like! Utterly irrelevant. But though our questions are irrelevant, there are people ready with answers telling where God is. They have even drawn maps; they have printed books; all the addresses are given there. In olden times there were no phone numbers, so they didn’t write them. If they bring out new editions now, they will include phone numbers too. Then you won’t even need to go—you can call from home. They have given the distances. Roads to heaven and to hell are mapped. And the maps hang in temples. And naturally, among the mapmakers there is conflict—because it is difficult to decide whose map is correct. And about God’s face—what it is like—how naturally there must be quarrel between Chinese and Indians. For a Chinese will make a face like a Chinese man, and an Indian will make a face like an Indian. A Negro cannot draw thin lips for God; his hair will be curly, face dark, and lips like those of a Negro. So naturally there is quarrel—what are God’s lips like? The Indian’s answer will be one, the Negro’s another, the Chinese another. And the only way left to settle such quarrels is to see who can swing the sword harder, who can kill more people. Whoever can kill more and win in slaughter—his answer is correct. So do not laugh at the school inspector—laugh at the history of the whole world; laugh at the pundits. What is the proof of an answer being right? The proof is that we are six hundred million and you are two hundred million! The proof is that if you fight, we will kill you—you cannot kill us—therefore we are right. That is why all the world’s religions are mad to increase their numbers. Because numbers are power. And in the testimony of truth, apart from numbers, what other power is there? Therefore priests all over the world have been crazy to initiate kings into their religions—because the king has power. And whichever religion the king is initiated into becomes true. And who could be more mad than those who want to decide by fighting whether the Quran is right, or the Bible, or the Gita? Fighting—to decide what is true! Is battle any proof of truth? Is victory any proof of truth? And these answers naturally differ, for they are born from human imagination, not from personal experience. If you ask Tibetans what hell is like, they will say, “Hell is very cold—utterly frigid.” For Tibet is tormented by cold. So it is natural to send sinners to a colder place. This is based on experience: send them to an even colder place. But if you ask Indians what their hell is like, there flames leap; cauldrons boil; and people are thrown into those boiling pots. For we are tormented by heat; the sun scorches us, so our hell is hot. This is very natural. We cannot send our sinners to a cold place. Cold places we send our ministers to. We shift our capitals to cool places. If we sent sinners to cool places, there would be great confusion! We send sinners to hot places. Our desire to send them into the heat, to torment them, constructs our hell; our hell becomes hot. This is our conjecture. From this conjecture you cannot learn whether hell is hot or cold—or whether it exists at all. You can learn only one thing: what kind of people imagined it. Thus our scriptures do not tell what truth is like; they tell what the people who made them were like. Our imaginations about truth do not reveal truth’s nature; they reveal the state and the mood of those who imagined. And then we fight over these things—these conjectures. The whole world stands divided over these conjectures and scriptures. For these airy notions we have shed each other’s blood. And yet we have been persuading people, “Die, don’t worry—whoever dies for religion goes to heaven.” And then it is not difficult to find such fools eager to go to heaven who are ready to ruin the earth. Such madmen are plenty—who take great joy in becoming martyrs. And this entire history of ours is constructed around such false gods—around words and conjectures. It is not near truth. No organization can stand around truth. Organizations can stand only near falsity. No organization can arise around truth. It cannot—because the experience of truth is utterly individual. It has nothing to do with groups. Ten people sitting together cannot experience truth. It has no relationship with crowds. One person, in his solitude, his aloneness, dives within, becomes quiet, becomes silent, and knows. Persons, and only persons, know truth—not groups, not society. You cannot know truth collectively. Collectively you can build an organization, but collectively you cannot find religion. The god of organizations has died! He must die! But the God of religion—that is another matter altogether. That alone is life. That alone is life! Apart from That, all is dead. Apart from That, there is nothing. To know That, one must go not into organization but into sadhana. Sadhana is the affair of the solitary; organization is of the crowd and the group. And all of us have till now understood religion as a matter of group and organization. We think that becoming a Hindu is becoming religious; becoming a Muslim or a Parsi is becoming religious. What madness! By becoming a part of an organization, does one become religious? The very meaning of becoming religious is the reverse. No one becomes religious by becoming a part of an organization; one becomes religious by becoming free of organizations. No one becomes religious by belonging to society; only one whose mind becomes utterly independent of society becomes religious. We gather in society and organization for other reasons—for some fear, for some security, for some hatred, to fight someone. Out of fear that I am weak alone, I join ten people. A fakir—Mansoor—was being hanged. People were cutting off his hands. Hundreds of thousands had gathered and were throwing stones. They were behaving as so-called religious people always behave with God’s man. His eyes were gouged out, his legs were cut off; they kept stoning him. Yet he was smiling and praying to God. Then a fakir too—standing in the crowd—picked up a clod of earth and threw it at him. Until then Mansoor had been smiling. His eyes had been gouged, blood flowing. His legs had been cut off. He was nearing death. Stones were being thrown, reducing his body to shreds. But he was laughing. And in his eyes, on his lips, in his heart, amid all this pain and sorrow, there was prayer and love. But when a lump of earth thrown by a fakir struck him, Mansoor began to weep. People were astonished. “You were tortured so much and did not weep—and a small lump of earth made you cry?” He said, “I considered all the others ignorant; therefore I was praying to God for them—I felt no sorrow. But one man here, a fakir, wearing the garments of God, he too threw a stone—so I was astonished. Tears came to my eyes. If even a fakir stones, what will become of the world?” But fakirs have been stoning for a long time. That is why the world has become what it is. The crowd dispersed. That man—Mansoor—died; his fragrance flew. Some other fakirs asked the fakir who had thrown the stone, “Why did you throw it?” He said, “To be with the crowd. If I had not sided with them, people would think—who knows—perhaps he too approves of Mansoor.” Those fakirs said, “Madman! If you had to side with someone, it should have been the one who was alone. You sided with those who were many!” They told him, “Give up the robes of fakirhood—for one who fears the crowd can never be religious.” One who fears the crowd can never be religious! Because if the crowd were religious, where would irreligion be? If the crowd were religious—then where would irreligion be? The crowd is irreligious. Therefore whoever fears the crowd and remains a part of it will never be religious. The mind must be free of the crowd. By this I do not mean that I am telling you to leave the crowd and run to the jungles. The earth is too small; if everyone goes to the jungles, there too cities will arise. It will make no difference. I am not saying leave the village and go to the forest. Some people have made this mistake too—that when told, “Be free of the crowd,” they run away from the crowd. One who runs away is never free. The runner is also afraid. If you are to be free, remain in the midst and be free. That will be the proof of fearlessness. There are two kinds of people. Those who, when they live in the crowd, live crushed and fearful. The same frightened people, when the idea arises to become free, run to the jungle, because there the crowd will not be and who will frighten them then? The point is not that there be no one to frighten you; the point is that you cease to be one who can be frightened. Therefore going to the jungle does nothing. Those who run to the jungle are frightened, timid. A religion that runs away from life cannot be true religion. Amid life itself, where life is on every side—there, right there, liberation is possible. Liberation does not mean any external, physical release. Liberation means inner freedom. Liberation means breaking the mental slavery. Liberation means to become free of the beliefs the crowd has given you. To become free of the things the crowd has thrust into your hands—“Be a Hindu! Be a Muslim! This temple is holy; that one is not!”—free of these handed-down words and doctrines. And, having attained that freedom of mind, to begin one’s own intimate, personal search for truth. One who accepts borrowed truths from others and falls silent—his search is not for truth. Because truth can never be borrowed—it can never be transferred. Whatever can be borrowed belongs to the world. That which can never be borrowed can only belong to Paramatman. Paramatman cannot be borrowed. Paramatman is not something transferable—“I give it to you; you pass it on to someone else.” Whatever is supreme in life, whatever is true, whatever is beautiful, whatever is Shiv—none of it can be passed from one hand to another. It has to be attained directly, oneself—by one’s own search, by the movement of one’s own life-energy, by the prayers of one’s own heart, by the thirst of one’s own being. It is a private, personal quest. The god of the group has died! Let him die. Give support that he may die. The God of the person—of each single unit, each individual—that alone can be the true God. The god of organization has gone! Let him go—do not stop him. Do not be afraid that with his going religion will disappear from the world. Because of his being, religion could not come into the world. Let him go. And long for that God, yearn for that God, fill with prayer and love for that God who belongs to the person, the individual—not to the group or organization. Let Hindu, Muslim die away; let Jaina, Buddhist depart from the world. There is no need. We have to give birth to the God of each individual, to the religion of each individual. There is great convenience in the god of the group. Without searching you get the taste of being religious. Without knowing, the pleasure of knowing. Without being religious, the ego of being religious is gratified. You get up every morning, go to some temple, and walk with a swagger, “I am religious.” Every morning you pick up some book and read—and you believe you are religious. If those who read books every morning are religious, if those who go daily to temples are religious, then why is there so much irreligion in the world? From where does this irreligion arise? The truth is, one who has read the same book every day for fifty years—I say to you, he has not read that book even once. Because had he read it, there would be no need to repeat it again. If he had known, there would be no question of “again.” But he repeats every day—like a machine, like a mechanism. The first day he may have understood something; after fifty years of reading, he understands nothing, because now he has become capable of repeating like a mechanism. Now he does not even need the book; he has gathered the words within and can recite them. Our religion has been reduced to a religion of words and organizations. With such a religion, man has no future. Let such religion go. So I told that man on the mountain: surely God has died—but this is no cause for worry; it is a moment for rejoicing, an event worthy of welcome. Because thereby the possibility arises that perhaps we may seek that God who truly is. Perhaps we may know that religion—perhaps our life-energy may move toward that religion—which transforms life, by which life fills with love and bliss and light; then we will say, “This is religion.” And by which life is not filled with these things, and darkness remains as it is, and religious rites and prayers go on on one side while the wretchedness and poverty and sorrow and misfortune of the world remain unchanged, and man remains just as he was thousands of years ago—what will we do with such a religion? What is the point of keeping such a religion alive? A fakir, one morning, was passing by a mosque. He was blind—had no eyes. At the doorway of the mosque he stretched out his hands and said, “May I receive something.” A passerby said, “You madman! This is a mosque—what will you get here? This is the house of God. Beg somewhere else.” That fakir must have been strange. He said, “If nothing is to be received from God’s house, from where else will it be received?” He sat down there, that blind man. He said, “Now I will depart from here only when something is received. For this is the last house—beyond this, what house is there? If nothing is to be received here, then there is no point in stretching out my hands. Where shall I go further? This is the final house. After this, what other house?” He remained there. His eyes must have been blind, but there was more capacity to see than in us. He raised his hands. For one year he did not move from that door. Days came and went, nights came and went; rains came and passed; seasons came and went; the moon rose and set. People were astonished—the fakir sat there, sat there. If anyone gave him food, he ate; if anyone offered water, he drank. But he did not shift from that doorway. And at the completion of the year, one morning people saw him dancing, and in his blind eyes a wondrous, wondrous beauty was flashing, and into his withered face some new life had come. He had thrown away his stick; he was dancing, singing some songs, speaking words of gratitude. People asked, “What has happened?” He said, “Do not ask me now. Now see me, and understand. Do not ask me, ‘What has happened?’ Now see me, and understand. In these blind eyes vision has appeared. Now I am seeing—not you, but That which is within you. Now I am seeing That which was the search. Now I see that there is no death anywhere. Now I see there is no sorrow anywhere. I see that I have vanished, and yet in vanishing I have found something—far more precious than what I lost. I lost nothing—and found all. But do not ask me.” And people saw there was no need to ask. His bliss was saying it; his music was saying it; his song was saying it; his dance was saying it. If there will be religion in the world, people’s bliss will speak, people’s love will speak, their songs will speak. Right now people have nothing but tears; in their hearts there is nothing but darkness; their minds are acquainted with nothing but entanglement, strain, and restlessness. This is the condition of the people of the earth. In such a condition, how can there be religion! Therefore, the religions that are—these cannot be religion. People’s tears are the proof; their darkness is the proof. So if that god of tears and darkness has died—good! How the God of light can be born—that I will speak to you about in the coming talks. But let me say one thing: by my words he cannot be born. My words cannot become knowledge for him. Others you may go to hear—they may give you knowledge; in these three days I will try to rob you of all your knowledge—so that you may become ignorant. May Paramatman so bless it—that all your knowledge be taken away, and you stand in the simplicity of ignorance. Then, perhaps, perhaps you may know That which is truth. You have listened to my words with such love and quietness—I am immensely obliged. And, lastly, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
I would like to begin today’s talk with a small story.
It was one morning. From a great mountain a man was coming down, singing many songs. In his eyes there was the light of having discovered something. In his heart there was the joy of having known a certain truth. In his steps there was the haste to carry that truth to others. He appeared filled with great enthusiasm and great bliss. He was alone on the mountain path, descending toward the plains below. In between he met an old man who was climbing upward toward the mountain. The man asked the old fellow, “Why are you going to the mountain?”
The old man said, “In search of Paramatman.”
And the man who was descending from the mountain, on hearing this, began to laugh loudly. He said, “Is it possible you have not yet heard the tragic news?”
The old man asked, “What news?”
The man said, “Do you not yet know that God is dead? Whom are you going to seek? Has this news not yet reached the plains below, that God is dead? I am coming from the mountain. I too had gone to seek God. But on reaching there I did not find God—only God’s corpse. And will the world only believe when it has itself buried him with its own hands? Has this news still not arrived? I am descending with this very message—to go into the plains and tell people that the God who lived on the mountains has died.” But the old man did not believe.
Ordinarily, even when a person dies, we do not believe it at once. Who will believe that God has died? The old man thought the youth had gone mad. Without saying anything more, he continued to climb toward the mountain. And the youth thought, “Strange man! The one he is going to search for is already dead, and still he wants to continue the search!” But he kept descending.
On the way he met a sadhu who, with closed eyes, was absorbed in someone’s meditation. The youth shook him and asked, “Whom are you contemplating? On whom are you meditating?”
He said, “I am remembering Paramatman.”
The youth laughed, and said, “It seems I will have to take on the sorrowful task of delivering this news—that the one you are meditating upon died long ago. Now nothing will come of meditating on him. Now nothing will come of remembering him. Now his songs and prayers will bear no fruit. For what can a corpse do? What will a dead God do?”
And the youth went further down. And on that same mountain I too had gone, and I too met him. That is what I want to tell you.
He also asked me, “Where are you going?” Before I answered, I asked him too, “Where are you going?”
He said, “I have a message which I must tell the world.” And he said to me, “God has died—do you know?”
I said to that man, “I too have a message, and I too must tell it to the world. And do you know, the ‘God’ who has died was never God at all? A false god has died. Some people are under the illusion that that false god is alive, and others are under the illusion that that false god is dead. But the true God is, and shall forever be.” So I said to him, “You want to tell one news to the world, and I too want to tell one news: that the one who has died was not the true God. For that which can die could never have been truly alive.”
Life has no relationship with death. Where life is, death is not. And where death is, know that the life there was illusory, imagined, false; death alone was true. Only that which is already dead can die. That which is alive—there is no possibility of its dying. Nothing could be more impossible than the death of life itself. And God is the name of total life.
That man goes around the corners of the world proclaiming his news. I too am compelled to follow him. Wherever he goes, there I must also go. Surely he must have come to you as well, telling you that God is dead. There are many devices to say this, many paths, many arrangements. By many methods this news surely has reached you too—that God is dead.
In these coming four days of our talks I want to say something else to you: the ‘God’ who has died was never alive. Some people had only bestowed upon him a false life. And it is good that he has died. Better still had he never been born. Better if he had died long ago. Therefore, this news is joyful, not sorrowful.
People must have told you in many forms that religion has died. That is very good—because the religion that can die should die. There is no need to keep it alive. And as long as the false religion lives and a false god appears to be alive, the search for the true God becomes exceedingly difficult. For between the true God and us nothing else stands except the false god. Between man and Paramatman a false Paramatman stands. Between man and Dharma many false religions stand. Let them fall, let them burn, let them be destroyed—then the eyes of man can rise toward that which is true and is Paramatman.
Which god is a false god?
The god who is worshiped in temples is false. He is false because man has made him. Nothing could be more false than that man should manufacture God. It is possible that God created man, but how can man create God! And yet, as many kinds of men as there are, so many kinds of gods have we manufactured. As many types of men, so many types of temples, so many types of mosques, so many types of churches, and who knows what else. All of us together have invented who knows how many kinds of gods. These gods are certainly false.
God cannot be invented. No one can construct him out of stone, nor out of words, nor by colors, nor by lines. Whatever we may construct will be cruder than us, more false than us, more momentary than us.
Man cannot manufacture God, but he can come upon God.
Man cannot invent God, but he can discover God. Not invent, but discover.
All the gods that man has invented are false. And because of these very gods, because of these religions, there is nowhere any trace of Dharma in the world. Wherever you go, some god or other will intervene, and some religion or other; and you will have no relationship with Dharma. A Hindu will intervene, a Christian, a Muslim, a Jaina, a Buddhist—someone will intervene, some wall will be erected, some stone will be placed in the way, and the doors will be closed. And these doors not only sever man from Paramatman, they also sever man from man.
Who is it that separates human beings? What walls stand between one man and another—not of stone, not of houses; the walls of temples, of mosques, of religions, of shastras, of ideologies—these are the walls that keep one person apart from another. And remember: walls that separate man from man—how will they ever allow man to meet Paramatman? It is impossible. It is impossible! If I am made distant from you, how can the very thing that distances me from you unite me with That which is the name of all? It cannot be.
And such gods, such religions, have overshadowed the human mind for thousands of years. This is why, despite five or six thousand years of continuous reflection, contemplation, and meditation, religion has not descended into life. A false religion stands between us and Dharma.
It is not the atheists who are obstructing Dharma, nor the scientists, nor the materialists. Those who have invented religions are the ones obstructing it. Then we become bound in the walls of one or another invented religion. We are imprisoned. Our consciousness becomes dependent; we lose that freedom which is the first condition for the search for truth.
Such a god has died. He should die. If he has not, then those who love God ought to help him to die. He must be buried. If this cannot happen in time, then it is hard to say what will become of mankind in the absence of true religion—and it is most unfortunate even to make such an announcement. The very imagination of that day makes the heart tremble.
Already, what has man become? What is man today? If the animals and birds had awareness, they would surely laugh on seeing man; they would find it hilarious. A few years ago Darwin explained to people that man is the evolution of the monkey. But a monkey has told me that man is the degeneration of the monkey. Darwin could not understand. Monkeys laugh at man and think this is their downfall: some monkeys have gone astray and become men. And Darwin thought it is their evolution. This is only the mistake of man’s ego—a monkey told me that. This condition of man today—what will it be tomorrow? And what is keeping it so?
Remember: medicines that are false can become more deadly than diseases. Remember: solutions that are untrue become more dangerous than the problems themselves. For the problem remains on one side, and the solution raises new problems on the other. In these last five thousand years, all that has happened in the name of religion has solved none of life’s problems; rather it has created new ones. And if every solution only breeds further problems, then the time has come to bid farewell to such solutions; it is necessary to let them go. For many useless problems have arisen because of them, and no solution has come at all.
How close has man come to God? Temples go on increasing, mosques go on multiplying, churches rise every day anew. And it seems that if this development continues, no dwelling fit for man will be left—God will occupy all the houses. But what happens in these temples, these churches, these mosques? Does any relationship with God arise in the life of man there? Does any revolution occur in man’s life there? Do the sorrow and the darkness of man’s life depart there? Are the violence and hatred in man’s life ended there? Are songs of love and prayer born there in man’s life? Do beauty and flowers of beauty blossom on the heart of man there, are they formed, created there?
No; not at all. On the contrary, there hatred is born between man and man. Anger and violence are born. How much strife, war, and bloodshed have taken place till today in the name of temples and images—and in the name of what else? How much slaughter of human beings has been committed over humanly constructed religious places—and because of what else? If we still go on declaring that these places are to be regarded as holy, then be certain—there will be no possibility for the descent of Dharma.
A small story comes to my memory; let me tell you.
One morning a man knocked at the church door. I call him a man, but those who lived in that church did not consider him a man. For temples have created differences between men and men. He was black-skinned, and the people whose temple it was, whose God it was, were white. The priest of that church said to the black man, “How have you come here?”
He said, “I have come in search of God.”
The priest looked him up and down. A black man, coming into the temple of the white man’s God! This was beyond comprehension. In the old days he would have drawn his sword and said, “Away! Even your shadow falling here is dangerous!” But times have changed, language has changed. The priest spoke very lovingly: “My brother, what will happen by entering the temple? Until your heart becomes calm and your mind becomes free of defilements, what will you do here? God is available only to those whose hearts are quiet and free of impurities. So go, purify your heart first, then come.”
The priest must have thought, “His heart will never be purified, and he will never return.” But he had never said such a thing to the white-skinned. It was merely a device to keep this man away from the temple.
The black man went away. After many months, at a crossroads, the priest saw him again—very ecstatic, very blissful, with a certain light shining in his eyes. The priest asked, “You did not come again?”
He said, “What could I do? I tried to purify the mind; I did what I could. I became quiet, I sought solitude. And one night, in a dream, God appeared to me and said, ‘Why are you trying to become pure?’ I said, ‘That temple in our village, that church—I want to enter it, and the priest has said that only when I become pure will the doors open.’ God laughed and said, ‘You are utterly mad! Stop trying. For ten years I myself have been trying to enter that church—the priest won’t let me in. I myself have not succeeded and have become hopeless; you too will not be allowed to enter.’”
And this is not about one temple, it is about all temples. Not about one priest, but about all priests. Wherever there are temples and wherever there are priests, they have never allowed God to enter, nor will they. Because God and the priest cannot walk together. God is love; the priest is business. What relation does love have with business? Where there is a priest, there is a shop; how can there be a temple? But they have made their shops into temples, and they have filled the customers of those shops with great hatred against the other shops, lest they leave their shop and go to another. Therefore one temple stands opposed to another temple; one temple’s god is opposed to another temple’s god.
Is this the condition of religion? And has religion gained life or momentum through this?
Religion has become lifeless.
That kind of god may die—there could be no more joyous good news. But even if he dies, the priests will not let you know. Because it would be very dangerous if you came to know. Therefore they go on reciting mantras and performing worship around that dead god. Not because they love God very much, but because their very life depends upon that worship. This is their livelihood.
Those who made God into a livelihood have been the very ones who devised means to keep man far from God. Wherever God has become a livelihood, know it clearly—God cannot be there. God is love; and love cannot be a business; it cannot be a livelihood. Prayer cannot be sold. Nor can prayer be done on another’s behalf. In love there is no middleman, no broker. Where there is a broker and a mediator, love is impossible. There will be bargaining there, not love. Love is direct. Nothing stands between love. From the day a priest stood between man and God, the entire matter went wrong.
Let such a god die—nothing could be more auspicious—because such a god is not alive at all. And through his death our eyes may begin to rise toward the life of that God who is truly life—great life, supreme life.
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist—all such names should bid farewell from the world; then religion can be born in the world.
And in the same way the god of shastras, of words and doctrines, has also died. He too is not the true God. Words, shastras, doctrines are nothing more than the conjectures of man’s mind and intellect. They are like arrows shot in the dark; even if they hit, their hitting has no meaning. Their hitting is purely accidental.
Wherever there has been ignorance and darkness in life, man has kept thinking and conjecturing. Many scriptures of conjecture have piled up across the earth. In these conjectures, these imaginations, these beliefs, there is no truth, no God. Because the experience of God begins only where all conjectures, all thoughts, all beliefs fall silent. Where the mind attains silence and no-thought, there one becomes capable of knowing truth. Where all the shastras turn to emptiness, there the unveiling happens of that which is true.
Therefore those who have wandered in words, those who have clutched at words, those who have taken shastras as their very soul—such people will have no relationship with truth. Man’s intellect is sharp for conjecture; and we are very clever at covering our ignorance with conjecture.
Wherever there is ignorance, we invent some conjecture, some imagination. Slowly we begin to believe that imagination. Why? Because believing it removes the sting of feeling ignorant. We feel, “I know.” One who feels, “I know God,” will never know God. He will never know God! Because his knowing surely depends on his grip on some shastras and doctrines. He must have learned something, he must have understood something, he must have memorized something—and that becomes his knowledge.
Not such knowledge, but such un-knowing that I know nothing regarding life’s truth. The realization that I know nothing regarding the truth of life—this clear, utterly clear sense of ignorance, this perception “I do not know,” liberates the mind from the burden of words. And the silence arises that can lead toward knowing.
Someone in Athens announced that Socrates is the greatest knower. People went to Socrates and said, “It is declared that you are the greatest knower.” Socrates laughed and said, “Go and tell them: when I was young I was deluded that I knew. As my age increased, my knowledge scattered, melted, and flowed away. Now that I am close to death and have no fear of anyone, I want to say one true thing: I know nothing. Go and tell those people that Socrates says he is utterly ignorant.”
They went and told those who were making the announcement, “Socrates says he is utterly ignorant.”
They said, “Precisely! That is exactly why we say he has attained supreme knowledge. For one who can say, who can know this truth—that ‘I know nothing’—only in that quiet, silent, innocent state can the doors of knowing open. The one who fancies ‘I have known’—his ego becomes even stronger. There is no greater ego than that of the knowledgeable. Their ‘I,’ their sense that ‘I am something,’ grows more and more powerful. And one who is deluded that ‘I am’ will not meet God. Because the first condition for meeting God is that, as a dewdrop loses itself in the ocean, so too one dissolves one’s ego into the Whole, loses oneself into That which spreads in all directions, that boundless, infinite existence.”
Socrates said, “I am utterly ignorant.” Do you too, in some moment, experience that you are utterly ignorant? If you can, then someday Paramatman will bring near that moment when knowledge can be born. But if you go on repeating in your mind, “I know,” remember, this illusion of knowing will never allow true knowing.
The scholars’ god has died! The god of those who think they know has died! The pundits’ god has died! Now there will be room in this world for the God of those whose hearts are childlike and simple, who can say, “We do not know”—and who can begin their search from the point of not-knowing, who can travel from the space of not-knowing. The truth is, inquiry—any search at all—begins only when the feeling of not-knowing becomes deep and intense. When the feeling of knowing becomes deep, the search ceases, breaks, ends.
But all of us harbor some notion of knowing. If we have memorized the Gita, or the Quran, or the Bible, or some other scripture, and if those words have become thoroughly rote, and whenever life raises problems we can repeat those aphorisms—if such knowledge has arisen for us, then we are in a very ill state, very unfortunate. This knowledge is dangerous. This knowledge will never allow truth to be known, will never allow God to be known. This knowledge, which comes from words and scriptures, is not knowledge at all; it is only a device to hide ignorance. Yes, it may happen that in such ignorance occasionally an arrow hits the right mark: it can happen. Sometimes even a madman gives the right answer. Sometimes, in the dark, even conjecture proves true. But life cannot be built upon such accidents.
I have heard, in a village an inspector came to examine a school. News had already arrived that the inspector had lost his mind. But it was official business—as all official business is—so even after receiving the news that his mind was gone, arrangements for his treatment would take time, or to retire him would take time. He had gone mad—but he kept his work going, in fact with even greater zeal. The mad become very industrious; whatever they do, they do with full force. He began inspecting with even more vigor. He never sat at home; he roamed village to village inspecting. And in every school’s register he ruined the record, because the questions he asked were impossible to answer.
He came to the village I’m speaking of. The teacher was afraid, the headmaster was afraid, the children were afraid—what would happen! He came. In the highest class he asked a few questions. First he said, “The question I am asking—no one till now has been able to answer it. If any one of you children answers it, I will not ask a second question. For to test one grain of rice is enough; you know the rest are cooked. If you cannot answer this, then I will ask other questions—but they are even more difficult.” He asked his question: “From Delhi an airplane flew toward Calcutta; it travels two hundred miles in an hour—can you calculate and tell me how old I am?”
All the children were terrified. Even the old would have been terrified. There was no connection at all. The question was utterly irrelevant. What relation had a plane going from Delhi to Calcutta at some speed with his age? But a strange thing happened: one child raised his hand to answer. The teacher and the headmaster were even more astonished. The question was madness—but a child was ready to answer. When he raised his hand, the inspector became very pleased and said, “This is the first time I have found such an intelligent child who has raised a hand to answer. Stand up and answer.”
The child said, “Only I can answer this. Even had you traveled the whole land, you would not have found this answer. Just as your question could only be asked by you, this answer can only be given by me.”
He said, “So how old am I?”
The boy said, “You are forty-four years old.”
The inspector was astonished—his age indeed was forty-four! He asked, “By what method did you solve this arithmetic?”
The boy said, “Very easy. My elder brother is half-mad—he is twenty-two; so it’s a simple question—you must be forty-four!”
The questions asked about God, about souls, about the other world, heaven and hell, and moksha—these are even more irrelevant than the madman’s question. And yet those who answer them are also found. How absurd that we should ask, “What is God like? Where is he? Where does he live?” We, who don’t even know ourselves—we ask questions about God! We, who don’t even know where we are, who we are, what we are—ask what God is, what he is like! Utterly irrelevant.
But though our questions are irrelevant, there are people ready with answers telling where God is. They have even drawn maps; they have printed books; all the addresses are given there. In olden times there were no phone numbers, so they didn’t write them. If they bring out new editions now, they will include phone numbers too. Then you won’t even need to go—you can call from home. They have given the distances. Roads to heaven and to hell are mapped. And the maps hang in temples. And naturally, among the mapmakers there is conflict—because it is difficult to decide whose map is correct.
And about God’s face—what it is like—how naturally there must be quarrel between Chinese and Indians. For a Chinese will make a face like a Chinese man, and an Indian will make a face like an Indian. A Negro cannot draw thin lips for God; his hair will be curly, face dark, and lips like those of a Negro. So naturally there is quarrel—what are God’s lips like? The Indian’s answer will be one, the Negro’s another, the Chinese another. And the only way left to settle such quarrels is to see who can swing the sword harder, who can kill more people. Whoever can kill more and win in slaughter—his answer is correct.
So do not laugh at the school inspector—laugh at the history of the whole world; laugh at the pundits. What is the proof of an answer being right? The proof is that we are six hundred million and you are two hundred million! The proof is that if you fight, we will kill you—you cannot kill us—therefore we are right. That is why all the world’s religions are mad to increase their numbers. Because numbers are power. And in the testimony of truth, apart from numbers, what other power is there? Therefore priests all over the world have been crazy to initiate kings into their religions—because the king has power. And whichever religion the king is initiated into becomes true.
And who could be more mad than those who want to decide by fighting whether the Quran is right, or the Bible, or the Gita? Fighting—to decide what is true! Is battle any proof of truth? Is victory any proof of truth?
And these answers naturally differ, for they are born from human imagination, not from personal experience.
If you ask Tibetans what hell is like, they will say, “Hell is very cold—utterly frigid.” For Tibet is tormented by cold. So it is natural to send sinners to a colder place. This is based on experience: send them to an even colder place.
But if you ask Indians what their hell is like, there flames leap; cauldrons boil; and people are thrown into those boiling pots. For we are tormented by heat; the sun scorches us, so our hell is hot. This is very natural. We cannot send our sinners to a cold place. Cold places we send our ministers to. We shift our capitals to cool places. If we sent sinners to cool places, there would be great confusion! We send sinners to hot places. Our desire to send them into the heat, to torment them, constructs our hell; our hell becomes hot. This is our conjecture. From this conjecture you cannot learn whether hell is hot or cold—or whether it exists at all. You can learn only one thing: what kind of people imagined it.
Thus our scriptures do not tell what truth is like; they tell what the people who made them were like. Our imaginations about truth do not reveal truth’s nature; they reveal the state and the mood of those who imagined. And then we fight over these things—these conjectures. The whole world stands divided over these conjectures and scriptures. For these airy notions we have shed each other’s blood. And yet we have been persuading people, “Die, don’t worry—whoever dies for religion goes to heaven.” And then it is not difficult to find such fools eager to go to heaven who are ready to ruin the earth. Such madmen are plenty—who take great joy in becoming martyrs.
And this entire history of ours is constructed around such false gods—around words and conjectures. It is not near truth. No organization can stand around truth. Organizations can stand only near falsity.
No organization can arise around truth. It cannot—because the experience of truth is utterly individual. It has nothing to do with groups. Ten people sitting together cannot experience truth. It has no relationship with crowds. One person, in his solitude, his aloneness, dives within, becomes quiet, becomes silent, and knows. Persons, and only persons, know truth—not groups, not society. You cannot know truth collectively. Collectively you can build an organization, but collectively you cannot find religion.
The god of organizations has died! He must die! But the God of religion—that is another matter altogether. That alone is life. That alone is life! Apart from That, all is dead. Apart from That, there is nothing. To know That, one must go not into organization but into sadhana. Sadhana is the affair of the solitary; organization is of the crowd and the group. And all of us have till now understood religion as a matter of group and organization. We think that becoming a Hindu is becoming religious; becoming a Muslim or a Parsi is becoming religious. What madness! By becoming a part of an organization, does one become religious?
The very meaning of becoming religious is the reverse. No one becomes religious by becoming a part of an organization; one becomes religious by becoming free of organizations. No one becomes religious by belonging to society; only one whose mind becomes utterly independent of society becomes religious. We gather in society and organization for other reasons—for some fear, for some security, for some hatred, to fight someone. Out of fear that I am weak alone, I join ten people.
A fakir—Mansoor—was being hanged. People were cutting off his hands. Hundreds of thousands had gathered and were throwing stones. They were behaving as so-called religious people always behave with God’s man. His eyes were gouged out, his legs were cut off; they kept stoning him. Yet he was smiling and praying to God. Then a fakir too—standing in the crowd—picked up a clod of earth and threw it at him. Until then Mansoor had been smiling. His eyes had been gouged, blood flowing. His legs had been cut off. He was nearing death. Stones were being thrown, reducing his body to shreds. But he was laughing. And in his eyes, on his lips, in his heart, amid all this pain and sorrow, there was prayer and love. But when a lump of earth thrown by a fakir struck him, Mansoor began to weep.
People were astonished. “You were tortured so much and did not weep—and a small lump of earth made you cry?”
He said, “I considered all the others ignorant; therefore I was praying to God for them—I felt no sorrow. But one man here, a fakir, wearing the garments of God, he too threw a stone—so I was astonished. Tears came to my eyes. If even a fakir stones, what will become of the world?”
But fakirs have been stoning for a long time. That is why the world has become what it is. The crowd dispersed. That man—Mansoor—died; his fragrance flew. Some other fakirs asked the fakir who had thrown the stone, “Why did you throw it?” He said, “To be with the crowd. If I had not sided with them, people would think—who knows—perhaps he too approves of Mansoor.” Those fakirs said, “Madman! If you had to side with someone, it should have been the one who was alone. You sided with those who were many!” They told him, “Give up the robes of fakirhood—for one who fears the crowd can never be religious.”
One who fears the crowd can never be religious! Because if the crowd were religious, where would irreligion be? If the crowd were religious—then where would irreligion be? The crowd is irreligious. Therefore whoever fears the crowd and remains a part of it will never be religious. The mind must be free of the crowd. By this I do not mean that I am telling you to leave the crowd and run to the jungles. The earth is too small; if everyone goes to the jungles, there too cities will arise. It will make no difference. I am not saying leave the village and go to the forest. Some people have made this mistake too—that when told, “Be free of the crowd,” they run away from the crowd.
One who runs away is never free. The runner is also afraid. If you are to be free, remain in the midst and be free. That will be the proof of fearlessness.
There are two kinds of people. Those who, when they live in the crowd, live crushed and fearful. The same frightened people, when the idea arises to become free, run to the jungle, because there the crowd will not be and who will frighten them then?
The point is not that there be no one to frighten you; the point is that you cease to be one who can be frightened. Therefore going to the jungle does nothing. Those who run to the jungle are frightened, timid.
A religion that runs away from life cannot be true religion.
Amid life itself, where life is on every side—there, right there, liberation is possible.
Liberation does not mean any external, physical release. Liberation means inner freedom. Liberation means breaking the mental slavery. Liberation means to become free of the beliefs the crowd has given you. To become free of the things the crowd has thrust into your hands—“Be a Hindu! Be a Muslim! This temple is holy; that one is not!”—free of these handed-down words and doctrines. And, having attained that freedom of mind, to begin one’s own intimate, personal search for truth.
One who accepts borrowed truths from others and falls silent—his search is not for truth. Because truth can never be borrowed—it can never be transferred. Whatever can be borrowed belongs to the world. That which can never be borrowed can only belong to Paramatman. Paramatman cannot be borrowed. Paramatman is not something transferable—“I give it to you; you pass it on to someone else.”
Whatever is supreme in life, whatever is true, whatever is beautiful, whatever is Shiv—none of it can be passed from one hand to another. It has to be attained directly, oneself—by one’s own search, by the movement of one’s own life-energy, by the prayers of one’s own heart, by the thirst of one’s own being. It is a private, personal quest.
The god of the group has died! Let him die. Give support that he may die.
The God of the person—of each single unit, each individual—that alone can be the true God.
The god of organization has gone! Let him go—do not stop him. Do not be afraid that with his going religion will disappear from the world. Because of his being, religion could not come into the world. Let him go.
And long for that God, yearn for that God, fill with prayer and love for that God who belongs to the person, the individual—not to the group or organization. Let Hindu, Muslim die away; let Jaina, Buddhist depart from the world. There is no need. We have to give birth to the God of each individual, to the religion of each individual.
There is great convenience in the god of the group. Without searching you get the taste of being religious. Without knowing, the pleasure of knowing. Without being religious, the ego of being religious is gratified. You get up every morning, go to some temple, and walk with a swagger, “I am religious.” Every morning you pick up some book and read—and you believe you are religious. If those who read books every morning are religious, if those who go daily to temples are religious, then why is there so much irreligion in the world? From where does this irreligion arise?
The truth is, one who has read the same book every day for fifty years—I say to you, he has not read that book even once. Because had he read it, there would be no need to repeat it again. If he had known, there would be no question of “again.” But he repeats every day—like a machine, like a mechanism. The first day he may have understood something; after fifty years of reading, he understands nothing, because now he has become capable of repeating like a mechanism. Now he does not even need the book; he has gathered the words within and can recite them.
Our religion has been reduced to a religion of words and organizations. With such a religion, man has no future. Let such religion go.
So I told that man on the mountain: surely God has died—but this is no cause for worry; it is a moment for rejoicing, an event worthy of welcome. Because thereby the possibility arises that perhaps we may seek that God who truly is. Perhaps we may know that religion—perhaps our life-energy may move toward that religion—which transforms life, by which life fills with love and bliss and light; then we will say, “This is religion.” And by which life is not filled with these things, and darkness remains as it is, and religious rites and prayers go on on one side while the wretchedness and poverty and sorrow and misfortune of the world remain unchanged, and man remains just as he was thousands of years ago—what will we do with such a religion? What is the point of keeping such a religion alive?
A fakir, one morning, was passing by a mosque. He was blind—had no eyes. At the doorway of the mosque he stretched out his hands and said, “May I receive something.” A passerby said, “You madman! This is a mosque—what will you get here? This is the house of God. Beg somewhere else.”
That fakir must have been strange. He said, “If nothing is to be received from God’s house, from where else will it be received?” He sat down there, that blind man. He said, “Now I will depart from here only when something is received. For this is the last house—beyond this, what house is there? If nothing is to be received here, then there is no point in stretching out my hands. Where shall I go further? This is the final house. After this, what other house?”
He remained there. His eyes must have been blind, but there was more capacity to see than in us. He raised his hands. For one year he did not move from that door. Days came and went, nights came and went; rains came and passed; seasons came and went; the moon rose and set. People were astonished—the fakir sat there, sat there. If anyone gave him food, he ate; if anyone offered water, he drank. But he did not shift from that doorway. And at the completion of the year, one morning people saw him dancing, and in his blind eyes a wondrous, wondrous beauty was flashing, and into his withered face some new life had come. He had thrown away his stick; he was dancing, singing some songs, speaking words of gratitude.
People asked, “What has happened?”
He said, “Do not ask me now. Now see me, and understand. Do not ask me, ‘What has happened?’ Now see me, and understand. In these blind eyes vision has appeared. Now I am seeing—not you, but That which is within you. Now I am seeing That which was the search. Now I see that there is no death anywhere. Now I see there is no sorrow anywhere. I see that I have vanished, and yet in vanishing I have found something—far more precious than what I lost. I lost nothing—and found all. But do not ask me.” And people saw there was no need to ask. His bliss was saying it; his music was saying it; his song was saying it; his dance was saying it.
If there will be religion in the world, people’s bliss will speak, people’s love will speak, their songs will speak. Right now people have nothing but tears; in their hearts there is nothing but darkness; their minds are acquainted with nothing but entanglement, strain, and restlessness. This is the condition of the people of the earth. In such a condition, how can there be religion!
Therefore, the religions that are—these cannot be religion. People’s tears are the proof; their darkness is the proof. So if that god of tears and darkness has died—good!
How the God of light can be born—that I will speak to you about in the coming talks.
But let me say one thing: by my words he cannot be born. My words cannot become knowledge for him. Others you may go to hear—they may give you knowledge; in these three days I will try to rob you of all your knowledge—so that you may become ignorant.
May Paramatman so bless it—that all your knowledge be taken away, and you stand in the simplicity of ignorance. Then, perhaps, perhaps you may know That which is truth.
You have listened to my words with such love and quietness—I am immensely obliged. And, lastly, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.