Prabhu Mandir Ke Dwar Par #2

It will be useful to understand a few things. First, when I use the words Paramatma, the Lord, or God, I mean “that which is”—what is. Life is. Existence is. When we were not, existence was. When we will not be, existence will be. Within us too there is existence, there is life. This wholeness, this totality of life, is what I call God. We know nothing of what this life is—not even the life within ourselves.

There was a fakir, Bayazid. Someone knocked at his door, saying, “Open the door.” From inside Bayazid asked, “Whom are you calling? Whom are you seeking? Who should open the door?” If someone knocked at your house, you would ask, “Who is there? Who is calling?” But Bayazid said, “For whom are you calling? Whom are you calling? Who should open the door? Whom are you invoking?” The man said, “Whom would I call? I am calling Bayazid. Bayazid, open the door!” Bayazid replied, “Then forgive me. For years I have been searching: who is this Bayazid? I have not found him yet. I myself do not know who Bayazid is. Who this ‘I’ is—I myself do not know.”

No doubt Bayazid said it playfully; he had already opened the door. But what he said is true. We do not know who we are. We do not know what life is. We do not know what existence is. And until existence is known, until life is known, we only live in name; in truth we are slowly dying. We do not live; and we mistake this long process of dying for life.

When I speak of “the door of the Lord,” know that I am speaking of the door of life. The name of the totality of life is God. God is not some person sitting somewhere whom you will go and interview, have an audience with. God is not a person waiting just inside a door for you to open it and meet him. God means: this infinite expanse of life, the very essence of all life—this is what we call God. To open the door of life is to open the door of God. And we have no idea even of the life within us. We live as strangers to ourselves—unknown to ourselves. Nothing could be more tragic or dark. And if a person does not even know who he is, what else can he truly know? All his knowledge stands upon this fundamental ignorance; hence it becomes dangerous.

Today man has much knowledge—no lack of it—except for one knowledge: who he himself is. All this knowledge stands on the wall of ignorance; therefore it is dangerous. The whole of human civilization, culture, society is in peril—liable to be destroyed at any moment—because upon ignorance we have erected a wall of knowledge. This building of knowledge, standing on ignorance, will collapse and take man with it, unless we break this primal ignorance. Religion is the art of breaking that fundamental ignorance within. And God is not the name of a person; God is the name of the All. How are we to enter the temple of that All? When I speak of God, I do not mean a person who made the world. No one has ever made the world. There is no maker separate from it. God and creation are not two things. Creator and creation are not two.

A singer sings a song; a painter paints a painting. The painting is one thing, the painter another. The painting is finished and stands apart; the painter is separate. God is not like that. Rather, think of a dancer dancing: the dance and the dancer are one, not two. If the one who dances stops, the dance stops; the dance cannot stand apart from the dancer. So God and his world are not two things; creator and creation are not two. The Creator is the creation; the creation is the Creator. Creativity itself—that creative energy—is God.

And therefore you need not go anywhere else to seek God. He is here—here and now. In me, in you, in everyone, everywhere. Whatever is, is That. Then a different vision opens. By putting God away in a corner, we have emptied our vision—of the world, of God. We have seated him somewhere in a temple idol, or somewhere in the sky.

Of course he will be. But the one who insists that he is only in the idol will never find him everywhere. And for the one who does not find him everywhere, he cannot be in the idol either. God is everywhere—certainly he is also in the idol. But the person who says, “He is only in the idol,” for that person he is not everywhere; and for the one for whom he is not everywhere, he cannot be in the idol either. And the one who says, “He is everywhere,” will not go searching for an idol; whatever he encounters will be God. He will not go searching for a temple, because all is his temple. Then he will not say, “This is my idol; I will worship it.” Whom to worship then? When all is that. Every breath is that, every particle is that—so whom to worship? I too am that—who is there to worship, and who is to be worshipped? The one who realizes that he is in everything will not get entangled in talk of idols.

But people look for arguments even to support their foolishness. The truth is, people search for arguments only to support their foolishness—and they go on strengthening it. A person wants to worship an idol, so he says, “If he is in everything, then he is also in the idol.” But have you ever seen him in everything? And if someone were breaking the idol, would you also see him in the one who is breaking it? If someone kicks the idol, would you see him in the one who is kicking it? You will not; the idol-worshipper will grab the kicker by the neck. Then it becomes difficult for him to see. He says, “He is in everyone.” He says it—but does a Hindu see him in a Muslim, does a Muslim see him in a Hindu? He says “He is in everyone,” but where does he actually see him in everyone? These arguments become dangerous; they begin to serve one’s own convenience. “If he is in everything, then he is also in the idol.” Then why are you going to worship the idol early in the morning? Where are you going, leaving everyone and everything behind—where are you rushing off to? If he is everywhere, you will have to drop the notion of “somewhere.” If someone says “He is everywhere,” then the very idea of “somewhere” has to be dropped. When he is everywhere, the question of his being somewhere no longer arises. No question remains, no purpose remains. But what do we do? We use great, lofty words to justify very small, petty things—and by clinging to those petty things we murder the great ones.

I am not saying that he is not in the idol. And when I say “He is not in the idol,” I only mean this much: the person to whom he appears only in the idol is seeing wrongly. See him everywhere—then he is in the idol too.

I have heard: a fakir spent a night in a temple. It was a cold, dark night. He was shivering from the cold. He went inside; the priest was asleep. There were three statues of Lord Buddha—wooden statues. The fakir picked up one and lit a fire, warming himself at it. Seeing the flames, the temple priest rushed in and found the statue of the Lord burning while the fakir warmed his hands. The priest cried, “Are you mad? What are you doing? What catastrophe have you caused—burning God’s statue?” The fakir listened quietly and said, “God’s statue? Well said.” He picked up a stick and began to rake through the ashes of the burned statue. The priest asked, “What are you looking for?” The fakir said, “I’m looking for the Lord’s bones.” The priest exclaimed, “You are utterly mad! How would a wooden statue have bones?” The fakir laughed: “The night is long and the cold is severe. Two more statues are inside—bring them out; we’ll burn them too and keep warm.” The priest woke other priests, and they threw the fakir out. The fakir went out laughing. Perhaps those priests never understood that laughter.

Morning came. When the sun rose, they were amazed to see the fakir sitting by the roadside with folded hands. He sat with folded hands for everyone passing by. A stone lay before him; he folded his hands to it as well. The sun rose above; he folded his hands to the sun. The priests went and said, “Madman, what are you doing now?” He said, “I am worshipping.” “Whom are you worshipping?” “I am worshipping God,” he replied. “Where is God?” “All that is spread around—what else is it?” they said, “At night you burned the statue, fool! And now you are worshipping where there is no statue?” He said, “I burned the statue so your delusion might burn. What have I to do with a statue! I burned it so you might consider whether you were worshipping mere wood. Has God been revealed to you? If he were seen in wood, he would be seen everywhere—but he is not seen anywhere. In the wood you were only assuming. And when I began to look for bones, you laughed and called me mad.”

Do not assume that those who worship idols actually see God. And if I speak against idols, do not assume that I speak against God. I speak out of love for God. And if God is to be brought here, then the follies practiced in his name must be stopped at once. Many times enemies appear like friends and friends appear like enemies. Today those who stand by God’s idols appear to be his friends. The truth is that no one is doing greater enmity to God than they. For in God’s name the pretenses, the hypocrisies being erected, the business and trade being run—who knows how many people they are turning away from God. Seeing the temples and the pilgrimages, no intelligent person can muster the courage to move in the direction of God. He will say, “If this is what is happening in God’s name, then excuse me.” In God’s name, all kinds of exploitation are being justified; all kinds of poverty are being preserved; all kinds of dishonesty are being protected; the whole disturbance caused by wealth is being safeguarded—in God’s name!

So anyone who sees this web will be startled and say, “All this talk of God is opium. We need freedom from it.” But that person too is making a mistake; he is being hasty. He is taking religion’s enemies to be its friends, and by taking them as friends he becomes an enemy of religion.

My position has become very strange. I love religion, and I despise the hypocrisy that goes on in the name of religion. Then it seems as if I am speaking against religion, as if I am irreligious, as if I want to wipe religion from the earth. I want religion to come into the world—but the business erected in its name will not let it come. Its net is so vast, its sayings so ancient, its tradition so deep and sunk into our roots that we have forgotten where it has mingled with our very blood. Without awakening from all this, the earth cannot become religious. To this day the earth has not become religious. If it were religious, would all this be happening that is happening? If the earth were religious, would we need socialism? Would we need communism?

Osho, are you a communist?
If the world were religious, there would be no need at all for communism. And so long as the world is irreligious, communism will be needed. If the world were truly religious, poverty would long ago have disappeared, because a religious person cannot tolerate such poverty, such ugliness. But the saints and mahatmas are tolerating it quite comfortably. Not only do they tolerate it, they rationalize poverty: “It exists because of your sinful actions in a past life—hence you are poor.” To protect poverty, buffers are being used. You’ve seen trains: between two carriages there are buffers, shock absorbers. However much the train jolts, the passengers inside hardly feel it because the shock absorbers take the impact. Under a car there are springs; however many potholes the road has, the passengers feel little—the springs swallow the jolts.

In India the so‑called religious have invented doctrines that work like shock absorbers. However ugly and filthy life becomes, the shock absorber swallows it all. The doctrine of karma, as commonly preached, is one such dangerous shock absorber: it says, “You sinned in a past life; therefore you are poor.” The truth is that society is sinning now—that is why so many are poor. Not because of someone’s past-life sins, but because of the collective sins of society. Had religion spoken plainly and truthfully, and had the saints and mahatmas not, knowingly or unknowingly, protected vested interests, there would never have been any need for communism. The need for communism arises because the earth has not become religious—and religion is in the hands of irreligious custodians. Even today, such people hold religion by the throat across the land. The notion that each person suffers only the fruits of his own actions has proved exceedingly dangerous. We are all reaping the fruits of our collective actions.

I have heard a story. A fakir was passing beneath a mosque. The mullah had climbed the mosque’s tower to give the azan and fell. It was a tall minaret. The fakir was passing below. The mullah fell onto his neck. The one who fell—the mullah—was saved; the fakir’s neck broke. He was admitted to the hospital. His disciples went to see him. And they knew their master, the fakir, would investigate even the smallest incident very deeply. So they asked, “We have come to ask: have you discovered any secret, any mystery, even in your broken neck?” He said, “I certainly have. It has been proved that someone may fall—and someone else’s neck may break. Until now I believed the one who falls is the one whose neck breaks. Now I accept that one person can fall and another’s neck can break.” We have not fallen—yet our neck has broken. Someone else is committing the sin; someone else is bearing the fruit. That idea is false—that you sinned and you alone are suffering the consequences. The notion of individuality, of the ego—that each person lives separately—is fundamentally untrue. The lives of all individuals are interlinked, interrelated. We suffer together in sin and together in virtue.

Religion has told people thousands of times that the ego is false, and yet, knowingly or unknowingly, it has gone on strengthening the ego: “You are reaping your fruits; I am reaping mine.” If everyone is only reaping his own fruits, in such a worldview the very conception of society cannot be born. There is no meaning to society—only a crowd of individuals, not a society. Religion has turned the earth into a crowd of individuals, not a society. It becomes a society only when we recognize our interrelatedness—when we see that we live and suffer together.

In this country the stark selfishness you see everywhere lies behind the teachings of the so‑called religious. Each person absorbed in his own little worries, with no concern for anyone else. Behind this are not the hands of “bad” people but of the so‑called good, for they teach: each individual should seek his own liberation, cancel his own sins, accumulate his own merits. There is no such thing as society; we are not connected; we are all traveling separately. This notion has turned India’s social life into a madhouse, an ugliness—a very filthy pit—because everyone is busy with his own worry. His own worry.

The day Jesus was crucified—perhaps you don’t know—there was a man in the same village with a toothache. Jesus is being crucified—the most loving of men is about to be hung on the cross—and a man has had a toothache since the night before. From morning he keeps telling whoever comes by—people say, “Have you heard? Mary’s son Jesus is going to be crucified.” He says, “Yes, I’ve heard. I couldn’t sleep all night; my tooth hurts terribly. I applied such-and-such medicine; it didn’t help.” People say, “Alright, it’s a tooth; it will get better. But Mary’s son is being crucified.” He replies, “Maybe so, but my tooth aches a lot.” Whoever comes tells him, “Mary’s son is being crucified.” And he says, “Yes, yes, I’ve heard—but my tooth has been hurting badly since last night.” People are amazed: “Fine, it’s a tooth; it will heal.” He says, “It’s great trouble. I tossed and turned all night; I couldn’t sleep. My tooth is in great pain.” In the village Jesus is being crucified; a man has a toothache—and he sees nothing but his tooth.

In India every man has a toothache, and the whole of India is being crucified. Everyone keeps talking about his own tooth. And a nation is not crucified in a day or two. An individual is put on the cross in a day; a country hangs on crosses for thousands of years. India has been hanging on the cross for millennia, yet everyone goes on about his tooth: let the crucifixion happen—our tooth hurts; something must be done about it. Everyone keeps talking about his own tooth. The so‑called religious have taught this. All the truly great people this land has known—a Buddha, a Mahavira—were, in one sense, communists. No good man can avoid being a communist. Only those escape being communists who have made themselves utterly blind, or are busy being dishonest and deceptive on all sides.

How can anyone escape the demand that every human being be given equal opportunity? How can anyone evade that each person should have the same opportunity for growth? How can anyone avoid the truth that the value of one human being equals that of another? How can anyone dodge the fact that human society should not be divided into classes? No intelligent, thoughtful, or truly moral person can avoid being a communist.

But by being a communist I do not mean becoming a blind follower of Marx. I do not mean becoming a fanatic of Mao. I do not mean marching blindly behind Stalin or Trotsky. Those who march blindly like that have very little to do with communism; they are the old type of believers who have simply found new gurus. Once they held on to Rama and Krishna; in anger they dropped Rama and Krishna—but their way of clinging remains the same. Now they clutch Marx, now they hold on to Mao. Earlier they grasped the Gita or the Bible; now they clutch Capital and the Communist Manifesto. The style of clinging is the same. The way a Muslim clings to the Quran, the so‑called communist clings to Capital. His mind is the same: “What our book says is the truth. What we say is right. We have given the complete scientific explanation of history; nothing else is possible.”

If you call such blind people communists, then I am not a communist at all. If by “communist” you mean those who think a small minority can, by force—by holding a knife to society’s chest—rearrange human affairs and social life over the majority, then I am not a communist. I hold that no minority ever has the right—even in the name of the majority’s good—to coerce the majority. Till now, in this world, minorities have always coerced majorities.

A Muslim may think, quite sincerely, that if everyone became a Muslim it would be for their own good—otherwise these poor people will be deprived of heaven; they’ll land in hell. So he raises the sword and climbs onto your chest: “Become a Muslim, or you will go to hell. I say this for your own good: you should become a Muslim. If you won’t agree, I will make you a Muslim by force.” The very thing he does is what those communists do who want to bring equality to society’s chest through compulsion and violence.

Equality cannot come through violence, because violence is, in its very nature, the foundation of inequality. The one who commits violence rises above; the one on whom violence is done is pushed below. Two classes immediately appear. The violent becomes the master; the violated becomes again impoverished, meek, suppressed. There was revolution in Russia, in China—but these revolutions cannot bring the communism I long for. They are mad attempts to change the disease of capitalism. These revolutions will break the class divisions of capitalism, only to erect new class divisions. In Russia that new division has been firmly established. He who was the owner yesterday is now the manager; he who was the worker remains a worker. The gap between them has narrowed—wage differences have shrunk—but in prestige, in the distinctions of status, there has been no change.

And remember, people accumulate wealth primarily because wealth brings prestige. If other ways of gaining prestige are found, people will stop hoarding wealth. In Russia the prestige a member of the Communist Party enjoys is not available to a non-communist. And to muster the courage to be a non-communist is very difficult.

I have heard a joke: When Khrushchev came to power, he was denouncing Stalin in a gathering of the top leaders of the Communist Party—hurling abuse, saying, “Stalin did this wrong, that wrong.” Someone from the back asked, “You lived with Stalin all your life. Why are you saying these things now that he is dead? Why didn’t you say them while he was alive?” Khrushchev fell silent for a second, then said, “Will the gentleman who asked this please stand up and tell us his name?” No one stood up. No one gave his name. Khrushchev said, “You understand now: for the very reason you won’t stand and give your name—I too had to remain silent.”

Granted, capitalism has a grave flaw: there is a gap between rich and poor—and it must end. But if a new gap is erected, we have only changed the disease; we have done nothing. A new gap has arisen in Russia; it has arisen in China as well. They made a courageous experiment, and for that courage all the applause in the world is too little—but the experiment failed; communism did not arrive. It will take more time—much more. Communism can come only when the communist vision of life penetrates the very breath of each individual. And that can happen only when each person realizes: “I am not to be small, nor to be big.” As long as the inner ambition to be big does not dissolve, bring communism by any amount of effort—once the effort slackens, capitalism will begin to return.

As long as the ambition within man is not destroyed, communism cannot be established. And I hold that only religion is a science that attempts to destroy ambition within a human being. Therefore I say: when religion truly dawns on the earth, only then can communism come—never before.

And remember: until the religious person becomes a communist, communism will remain in the hands of false communists. And false communists will prove as dangerous as capitalists and feudal lords have proved. True communism—and true communists—must be born.

Therefore I hold that those who love God, seek the divine, who glimpse the divine in each person—until they become communists there is no auspicious opportunity for communism. I am a communist—but understand what I mean. I maintain that no truly religious person can be anything but a communist. Christ is a communist; so are Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, and Shankara. All the thoughtful people of the world have been communists—whether or not the word “communism” existed then. Whoever has aspired and prayed for the welfare of all; whoever has desired that all be equal; whoever has dreamed of a time when no one is high and no one low; whoever has realized that the same divinity resides in everyone—such people are communists.

But the people we usually call communists have nothing to do with God, or with the soul—and, if you look deeply, nothing to do with the equality of man either. For whoever believes in violence believes in inequality; whoever believes in coercion does not trust the free intelligence within human beings. That kind of communist I am not—and I will go on fighting such communists. Thus my struggle becomes very difficult: to fight for communism and to fight against the communists; to fight for religion and against the religious; to fight for theism and against the theists. Then it becomes very difficult indeed.

It’s really amusing. When did I ever say that on the doorway of small, everyday tasks there should be a sign saying “No belief”? When did I say that? That friend asks: to drive a car you have to trust that the engine will run. By all means, drive the car happily, and trust happily. But don’t mistake going toward God for driving a car.

They have written: when we go to a shop and buy something, we have to trust that the shopkeeper is telling us correctly. You are absolutely right—absolutely, trust. Although in this country the conditions are hardly such that one can trust a shopkeeper! Still, do it; otherwise getting things done will become difficult. But God is not an item sold in a shop that you go to buy and place your trust in a priest. I spoke about God—and they are talking about trusting when buying things at a shop.

If you have to accept that the father is the father, then you already have doubt. Where has certainty happened? In America a young man is running a movement—you may not know; he must be a courageous fellow. He says he will not fill in the father’s name on any school or college form—only the mother’s—because the father’s name is not reliable. He is right. In this country too, if boys become sensible they will say, “We will write the mother’s name; we cannot write the father’s.” The father, really, is nonessential—additional. He is not very essential to the matter. The real one is the mother. But because woman has not been honored, the father’s name is written everywhere. It is the mother’s name that should be written; that alone is known with certainty. The father’s is not known exactly. Yet fathers have seized hold over women. Even a woman’s identity is known by the husband’s name; a son’s identity by the father’s name. This exploitation by fathers has gone on too long. In a better world the father will disappear. Fathers should be warned: they are not going to last long ahead. The mother will remain; the mother will have honor. The mother should be preserved—that is the truth, and rightly so.

So your question is apt. But just to keep life running smoothly, don’t get into a tangle; go on accepting the father. However, seeking God is not a falsehood like accepting a father. God has to be found, not believed in. Some foolish people have given God the face of a father. They say, “God the Father.” This is the limit! The father is dangerous enough, and you want to make even God into a father? But since society is male-dominated, men have created God in their own image. They say God is the Father. This father-God stands on the same basis of belief on which the human father stands.

No—God is not a father. God is neither father, nor son, nor mother. God is the totality of existence. That existence has to be discovered; it does not have to be believed. When I say, “Do not believe,” it is not so that you miss God, but so that you can reach him. As long as we sit believing, that belief is only our notion—nothing more. In line with our temperament we believe whatever has been preached to us. Why do you believe in God? From childhood it has been propagated and explained: he is. In sickness, in pleasure and pain, your hands were folded—“he is.” In exams, in fear and dread, you were told—“he is.” It settled inside; propaganda lodged within and gripped your imagination. Then you say, “I believe in God.” Only propaganda is speaking from within you. If you were born in Russia, there the propaganda says there is no God; in that child’s mind it settles that God does not exist. He too is a believer, and you too are believers. And no believer ever gains entry into the temple of the Lord. An atheist is a believer; a theist is a believer. A believer never reaches there. Those who reach are the ones who think, who inquire, who seek. But why do we so quickly start believing? There must be some reason. How do we believe in God without seeing, without knowing? There is a reason.

And the reason is this: we lack enough self-trust to seek. Lack of self-trust turns into trust in others. The less a person trusts himself, the more he trusts others. And I say: trust yourself—because who but you will seek, and how? I will have to seek; I will have to know. Trusting oneself makes sense; trusting another does not. It may happen that by trusting yourself you lose the way, you fall into a ditch—but no harm. A seeker is not afraid of falling into a ditch, nor of going astray, nor of making mistakes. One who does not err, does not wander, does not fall, cannot really walk; he cannot reach anywhere. A seeker shows the courage to err, the courage to wander. But the seeker says: please do not take me by the hand and lead me. Even if you drag me there holding my hand, I will still never truly arrive. My arriving can only happen by passing through the process myself; only thus will I be refined. Therefore the seeker inquires. Seeker does not mean disbeliever.

I shall teach disbelief. One who does not even teach belief will naturally teach disbelief.

I knew a friend, a great lawyer. He was arguing a case before the Privy Council. Very busy man. The night before he was entangled, preoccupied; he didn’t get to look at the case file. He arrived in court without having read it, stood up to argue—and forgot whether he was for the plaintiff or the defense. So he began arguing against the very party he was supposed to support. His client panicked—hands and feet trembling: “What is happening? My own lawyer is making the case against me! If my lawyer demolishes me, I am finished; the opposing counsel will demolish me anyway. What defense is left?” The clerk tugged at his coat, gently at first; but the lawyer, absorbed, shook him off. Finally the clerk gave a strong yank and whispered in his ear, “What are you doing? You’re arguing against your own side.” He said, “Ah! Why didn’t you say so earlier? Now it’s gone on too long. But no harm.” He turned to the bench: “My Lord,” he said to the magistrate, “up to now I have presented the arguments my opponent would present; now I begin the rebuttal.”

These are two faces of the same coin. Refutation and affirmation are not two different things. There isn’t much difference; the coin can be flipped either way. That is why, delightfully, neither atheists nor theists ever win—each holds only half the coin. No one can win; no one has the whole coin. Theists have not won to this day. How many arguments have been offered for God? None has ever won! The truth is: whoever argues for God does not know God. Whoever gives reasons for God has no clue of God. Argument tries to prove; proof is attempted only for what is not self-evident. God is supremely self-evident, self-proved, because he is the All. There is no need to prove him.

Whoever sets out to prove God tacitly assumes that God needs proving—and also assumes that if he doesn’t prove God, the poor God will remain unproven. Thus the prover becomes greater than God. And because of this prover, the disprover of God inevitably appears—his reaction, the other side of the same coin.

In a village there was a fakir. He began to speak such topsy-turvy things that the village council grew concerned. “We must call him,” they said, “understand his arguments, and prove to him that what he is saying is wrong.” The fakir received an invitation to appear before the council that evening. He set off on his donkey—but sat facing backward, toward the donkey’s tail. When he arrived, the councilors were shocked. “Has he gone mad? He’s riding a donkey backward!” They surrounded him: “Are you out of your mind?” He said, “First be clear about why you say that. On what basis?” They said, “You’re sitting backward on the donkey.” He said, “Then fine—you are also of the donkey’s kind.” “Meaning?” they asked. The fakir said, “The truth is, the donkey is standing the wrong way; I am sitting straight. And the donkey too thinks I’m backward. That is why I say to you all”—he glanced at the council—“you people are of the donkey’s tribe. The donkey is in error; he imagines I’m backward. The fact is: the donkey is turned the wrong way.” The councilors said, “It’s useless to talk to this man.” The fakir said, “Exactly—that’s why I brought this up first. It’s the same thing with two faces. Whatever you say, its opposite can be said. Neither can be proved—the against cannot be proved, nor can the for.”

Reason is a very fragile realm. I am not saying, “Cling to belief.” The believer says, “We have reasons, arguments.” The disbeliever also says, “We have reasons, arguments. We say there is no God, no soul.” I am not speaking for either. I am speaking of something third altogether, which in these three days will gradually become clear. I say: do not be bound by belief, and do not be bound by disbelief. Why? Because the person who outwardly binds himself to belief harbors disbelief within; its other face will remain inside. In the conscious mind he will be a believer; in the unconscious a disbeliever. Consciously a theist; unconsciously an atheist. And the one who is consciously an atheist will have a believer hidden within; the reverse face will be pressed down below. There is no atheist in whose depths a theist is not sitting, and no theist in whom an atheist is not sitting. When the theist fights, with whom is he fighting? Not with you—he is fighting his own inner atheist. And when the atheist fights, he is fighting his own inner theist. It is an inner battle. Religious is the one who throws away both theism and atheism and says, “I do not know whether God is; I do not know whether God is not. I will search. I do not know. I set out on the inquiry. Whatever is, I will discover and decide. I will not decide beforehand.” To decide before setting out is a great misfortune.

A friend in Jaipur, Dr. Banerjee—you may have heard the name—collects stories to prove reincarnation. He looks for cases. We met in Bombay. Some friends very much wished that we meet. I’m always ready—so I went. He began, “I want to prove scientifically that reincarnation is.” I said, “You want to prove.” He said, “Yes, I want to prove reincarnation.” I said, “Then you are not a scientist, because you have already assumed that reincarnation is, and now you want to prove it. The scientific mind says: I want to find out whether reincarnation is or is not. I have assumed nothing.” Whoever has assumed it beforehand will manage to prove what he has assumed—but then the inquiry is no longer scientific. To be scientific means: I do not assume what is; I walk with open eyes, and whatever I find I will say ‘is’; whatever I do not find I will say ‘is not.’

The unscientific—the believers, disbelievers, theists, atheists, the partisans—say, “We begin by assuming that God is.” Another says, “We assume there is no God, and now we will prove it, we will investigate.” What investigation will you do after you have assumed? Whatever you have assumed, you will find arguments for it. And the world is so vast that arguments and angles are available for anything at all.

A man in America wrote a book arguing that the number thirteen is inauspicious. He wrote such a “scientific” book that you too would say, “Yes, thoroughly scientific.” He assumed at the outset that the thirteenth is unlucky; now it had to be proved. He collected how many people fell from thirteenth floors, when and where. In many American buildings there is no thirteenth floor at all—no one is willing to live on it. After the twelfth comes the fourteenth; the thirteenth simply isn’t there, because renting it out is difficult. He compiled every case of someone falling from a thirteenth floor, every accident on the thirteenth, every fire on the thirteenth, which ships sank on the thirteenth, which planes crashed on the thirteenth, which marriages performed on the thirteenth broke up, how many babies born on the thirteenth died. He gathered it all. Now the thirteenth becomes a grand event; everything happens on the thirteenth! So many examples and statistics that it seems certain the thirteenth is inauspicious. But if someone wishes, he can gather the same for the twelfth—or the eleventh—whichever you like. Life is a huge happening; endless events are occurring. Life is a great mystery with infinite facets. If someone goes in with a prior bias, he will find arguments for his side, collect them, and then imagine he has done research. That is not research.

Research means: I am impartial. That is the first condition. And what I said to you this morning—about being free of belief—means nothing else; it means being impartial. The believer is full of bias—Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist—these are believers. Theists and atheists are believers. Socialists, communists, Congressmen, Gandhians—these are believers. Therefore none of them sees the truth; each sees only what he wants to see.

In Russia the revolution happened in 1917. There was a small village with a school—one teacher and one student. Remote, isolated place. After 1917, a report about that school was published: tremendous progress in education after the revolution—double progress, double the students! Newspapers everywhere printed it. And the whole matter was simply that where there had been one student, there were now two. Education doubled! Is it false to say the students doubled? Where there were a hundred, now two hundred—what’s wrong? But the fact was merely that one had become two. The eye that saw it was the communist eye—intent on magnifying revolution. He wasn’t necessarily dishonest; he simply saw it that way. That is why official statistics are always false—they are seen through the government’s eyes. If seen through the eyes of the poor, the figures would be entirely different; the situation would look different. Let that same official lose the election and look again—the scene changes. The spectacles change; the side changes; everything changes.

We do not see—we live enveloped in prejudice. The search for truth is not for the partisan. The temple of the divine opens to those who are impartial, with an unprejudiced mind. Their minds are open; they will see what is. They do not demand that reality conform to their terms, do not insist it be a certain way. The insistent person cannot be a seeker of truth. That is why I say again and again: the word satyagraha—“insistence on truth”—is dangerous. Truth has no insistence. All insistence belongs to sides. Truth is always non-insistence. Truth is without demand, without party. The hard austerity of the search is to drop our insistences.

I have heard: a man wanted a lion tattooed on his arm. Many people harbor a coward within and try to soothe themselves by having a lion tattooed. Most who get tattoos are like this, whatever the image. A man writes “Ram-Ram” across his skull—dangerous man! Surely a Ravana is sitting inside; otherwise he’d never hang up a board of Ram. He is afraid of his Ravana within, afraid others might see it—so he puts up the board of Ram. We all know: to sell fake ghee you need the sign “pure ghee.” Where the sign says “pure ghee,” you can be sure the ghee is fake. Now even fake ghee is becoming rare—new inventions have arrived! The signboard is always the opposite, because it is meant to hide what is inside. The face that displays “humility” is the face of arrogance; such a person drapes himself in humility.

This man was very timid. He feared the dark. He said, “I’ll have a lion tattooed on my arm.” He recited poems of bravery—weak people always do. In our country, let a war come and see: the whole nation turns into poets of heroism. “We are lions! Do not provoke us!” Have you ever seen a real lion reciting such poems? Provoke him and you’ll know. When there is no lion within, there are poems: “We are lions—don’t provoke us!” Hit him and he’ll say, “Don’t hit us—we are lions—we’ll take revenge!” Keep hitting; he’ll keep reciting. Where have all those lions gone now? The land which China provoked and occupied by the hundreds of thousands of miles—where are those poets now? Until each poet is conscripted into the military, the poetry in this land will not stop. Send them: “Now you have been truly provoked; rise!” They’ll say, “No, that’s not our work—we only compose poems.”

This timid man wanted a lion. He went to a tattooist. “Tattoo a magnificent lion on my arm—one that frightens people.” “I will,” said the tattooist. He lifted his needle and began. It hurts. After a little while the man said, “Wait, wait! Which part are you tattooing?” “The tail,” the tattooist said. “Forget the tail,” said the man. “Do it without a tail.” The needle resumed. Soon he cried out again, “Wait! Will you kill me? Which part now?” “Now the face,” said the tattooist. “Do it without a face,” said the man. The tattooist said, “Then forgive me. I’ve never seen a lion without a tail and without a face.”

The one who is being tattooed is the exact opposite inside. What is he having tattooed? A lion. But he hasn’t the courage to be tattooed!

Man wants to search for God, but lacks the courage to search; so he becomes a believer. Belief is something carved on the surface—no more valuable than that. He wants to find truth, but wants to avoid the labor, the austerity, the sadhana of seeking. So he says, “All right, just tattoo it on the surface.” And when the needle rises to carve, he says, “Let that go too! I can’t bear so much pain!” Better to keep one’s belief—no need to do anything, go anywhere, become anything. Quietly wear belief and consider yourself to have attained God. We all consider ourselves to have attained—by draping ourselves in belief.

But no one ever reaches truth by wearing belief.

That is why I said this morning: gather the courage to drop belief if you want to know. Gather the courage to stop being blind if you want eyes. Gather the courage to pass through a little thought if it is needed to enter his gate. Otherwise, drop the whole concern. Say, “We have no use for God, for truth.” At least one thing will become clear: we will know who truly cares for truth and who does not. Right now it isn’t clear who is a lion and who is a tattooed lion—and the tattooed lions are so many that seeing them, people imagine that being tattooed is to become a lion.

Becoming a theist is not like that. Becoming religious in the direction of God is not like that. That is why I said it this morning. Tomorrow morning I will speak on the next sutra. The remaining questions I will take up tomorrow evening.

You have listened to me with such love and peace; I am grateful. And in the end, I bow to the God dwelling in each of you. Please accept my pranam.