Science and religion - two petals of the same rose

Question 1:

The very idea of synthesis already accepts that they are not only two but opposed to each other.

Unless there is an antithesis there is no question of synthesis at all.

For me, science and religion are two sides of the same coin. Science is looking outwards, religion is looking inwards, but both are the same kind of looking, the same kind of search. They may have different names - that does not matter at all.

Science calls it observation, religion calls it awareness.

Science calls it experiment, religion calls it experience.

The difference of words simply signifies that their dimensions are different.

Science is focused on the object; and remember the meaning of the word "object" - that which hinders, objects, prevents.

Religion is focused on the subject. Without the subject there can be no object; without the object there can be no subject.

The subjectivity of man's consciousness and the objectivity of existence are totally interdependent.

But this idiotic idea of synthesis between religion and science has a long history, just as long as foolishness and stupidity. It is part of the same parcel.

Just now, one British marine scientist, eighty-nine-year-old Sir Alistair Hardy, has won the most prestigious British award, the Templeton award. The award has been established to give to people who are trying to create a synthesis between religion and science. So all kinds of idiots are going to get it - Mother Teresa has got it.

Now this other fool, Sir Alistair Hardy, has got it. He must be really senile .... The things for which he has got the award and the things which he has been saying are worth close analysis. He says that he is a follower of Charles Darwin; he strongly believes in the theory of evolution - and he also believes in religion. His whole life he has been trying to create a synthesis between religion and science, to bring them closer together.

He says he does not believe in the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven. That's why I call him an idiot. Why can't you believe in the ascension of Jesus Christ? If you can believe God created the whole world then the ascension to heaven is a very small thing. If God can do all this mess, can create you, Sir Alistair Hardy, then what is the problem in the ascension of Jesus Christ?

Just see the stupid mind: the whole world is created by God, and still he believes in the theory of evolution. That is a miracle far bigger than the ascension of Jesus Christ. Creation and evolution are absolute opposites to each other. You can't believe in both. Creation simply denies any possibility of evolution. That's the meaning of creation: God created man as man.

According to Charles Darwin, God created man never. He created monkeys; man evolved. Man does not owe his creation to God. God must have had some other idea in His mind when He created the monkey; otherwise He would have created man Himself. Why go so indirectly - first create all kinds of monkeys, and then a few monkeys evolve into man?

Charles Darwin's theory is only a hypothesis. And Alistair Hardy certainly is eighty-nine years old: I think for at least fifty years he has not looked into all the research that has completely destroyed the theory of evolution. Now no prominent scientist believes in the theory of evolution, there is so much evidence against it.

Just look at the simple fact: why did only a few monkeys evolve? There are millions of monkeys still waiting to evolve. For thousands of years we have seen man as man, and in these thousands of years no other monkey jumped out of the trees and said, "Here I am, no longer a monkey - I am a man!" For these thousands of years not a single monkey has evolved into man. The whole idea seems to be fictitious.

And why did only monkeys evolve into man? Elephants are there, they have not evolved; crocodiles are there, they have not evolved; tigers are there, they have not evolved - far more intelligent people than monkeys. The elephant is very wise .... And now we know that there are sea animals which perhaps have a better mind than man, far more sensitive, far more fine. They have not evolved.

If you look around the world there are millions of species of animals, birds, insects; nobody has evolved. Elephants are just elephants, as they have always been. Camels are just camels, as they have always been. It just happened to a few monkeys - becoming man? If evolution is a truth then the whole of creation must be evolving: elephants should be evolving into a better being, tigers should be evolving into a better being, perhaps non-vegetarians turning into vegetarians, camels becoming Christians.

Evolution - why only to a few monkeys? If evolution is a fact, a reality, then it should be happening all around. Trees should come out of the ground and start walking, talking. They have been standing there for millions of years - no evolution, no sign of evolution, just the same circle goes on moving.

The Hindus call it the wheel of life and death. The same spokes come up, go down, come up, go down. The elephant creates, reproduces, more elephants; just the way he was produced, he produces. His children will produce elephants.

Charles Darwin's theory has remained only a hypothesis.

In the first place, to give the prize to Alistair Hardy is absolutely wrong because in the last fifty years the theory has been losing ground every day. There are more and more anti-Darwinians - more than Darwinians - because facts and realities don't support Darwin. Secondly, he does not understand at all that creation means once and for all. That's what Christians believe: in six days God completed the creation.

Darwin is trying to say He did not complete it. There were possibilities of evolution open that God only began but He never ended. He left it open-ended. But this is nowhere mentioned - not in the Christian BIBLE nor in any other holy book of the world. Wherever God is believed to be the creator, He creates completely, entirely. And He is the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent: whatever is the best He knows and He has done it.

Evolution means that you can improve upon God - that His creation is just a primitive thing, and you have evolved out of it.

I call these people idiots for a specific reason - because they can't see simple contradictions.

Creation and evolution cannot go together.

However hard Mr. Hardy tries he cannot succeed in putting them together. They are simply antagonistic to each other.

Evolution means nothing is complete, nothing will ever be complete; everything is in a process.

Existence is an ongoing phenomenon. It is not that on Monday God started, and on Saturday evening He looked at what He had created and said, "Good" - just the way I say it; even where it is not needed I say it. And at least at that time, when God said it, it was not needed because there was nobody to hear it.

Monkeys cannot understand it, elephants cannot understand it, tigers cannot understand it. And man was yet to come, if Charles Darwin is correct. In fact, even if man was there .... All religions believe that God created man, man is not an evolved animal; God created him - not only did He create him, He created him in His own image.

Now, do you think the monkey is the image of God? That He created the monkey in His own image?

Charles Darwin was also a very orthodox Christian. But he never thought about it, whether God created the monkey and then said, "I create you in my own image," and thanked Himself and said, "Good"; was rejoiced seeing the monkey: "I have succeeded in creating myself." Neither Charles Darwin bothered about that, nor does his follower Alistair Hardy bother at all. They continue to remain Christians and they continue to believe in the theory of evolution. You cannot be a Christian and a believer in the theory of evolution.

Whatever God created must have been something totally different. In all these millions of years everything must have changed, if evolution is true. But they don't see the simple contradiction.

Evolution denies God.

Let me make it absolutely clear:

Evolution denies God because evolution denies creation.

And if there is no creation there is no need of a creator.

These are simple implications. God is a hypothesis to support another hypothesis - the creation.

If there is no creation there is no God, because the whole base of His existence is demolished. If evolution is the thing then one wonders whether God is evolving or not. If monkeys have become men, what has happened to God?

Sometimes such questions harass me very much; why don't these idiots ask, "What happened to God?" Charles Darwin never asked this. If even monkeys evolved, at least God should have evolved.

Nothing has been heard of that guy since that last Saturday. Sunday of course was a holiday, He rested. Then comes Monday again - but He had finished His creation already. He had put "The End" on His film on Saturday.

Now, for God, Monday cannot come. Or if it comes it will be so empty - nothing to do. The calendar will go on moving, Monday, Tuesday, for eternity. What happens to God? Religions created the idea of God and forgot all about the fact that someday somebody is going to ask what happened to Him, whether He died, got lost somewhere .... Religions have no answer to what happened to God.

At least evolution has not happened to God, because no religion can accept the idea of God evolving; God means perfection, absolute perfection. He is the last word - the first and the last, both alpha and omega. There is no way beyond the omega point.

And if evolution is not happening to God there will be a great discrepancy. What He has created is evolving, and God is stuck at that Saturday, four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ.

It must have been the first of January, Monday, I assume - unless it was April Fool's Day; that is another matter. Creation goes on evolving and God is stuck where He was; He remains aboriginal, primitive.

You have gone far, far away from Him. And you can see it in Jewish scriptures; in the TALMUD God says, "I am a very angry God, I am a very jealous God. I am not nice. I am not even your uncle" - speaking exactly in the Jewish style: "I am not your uncle." This God is very primitive - anger?

Buddha seems to be far more evolved even though he is not a God, he is only a human being. But he seems to be far more evolved because he has no anger; he is far more evolved because he has no jealousy. And certainly he is nice. Of course, he is far better than any uncle.

God is stuck - His creation goes on evolving. Charles Darwin never bothered about that.

This man, Alistair Hardy, gets the Templeton award - but all these awards are political! It is a big award, one hundred and sixty thousand pounds; one hundred and sixty thousand pounds is big money. Why is it being given to a man who has no experience of religion at all? - this award is meant for those who will bring religion and science closer.

He has no religious experience, and as far as science is concerned he is fifty years behind; he is no longer worthy to be called a scientist. Perhaps half a century before he was, but within these fifty years he became stuck, just like his God.

The theory of evolution has almost gone down the drain. No scientist worth the name is in support of it, for the simple reason that existence seems to be certainly changing, moving, but not evolving; otherwise, in thousands of years a few men must have evolved into supermen.

The idea of supermen arose because of this theory of evolution: if monkeys can become men, then certainly a few men are going to become supermen. Who are the supermen? Adolf Hitler? Benito Mussolini? Joseph Stalin? Who is the superman?

As far as I can see, existence remains exactly the same.

Consciousness evolves, not bodies.

Consciousness moves to higher peaks, bodies simply go on doing their routine job. But consciousness is not in any way bound by the body and its program. Consciousness is something in you which is utterly free. So to me there is no contradiction. Existence is as it has always been, as far as the physical aspect is concerned - but consciousness has evolved immensely. But Darwin is not concerned with consciousness, neither is Alistair Hardy interested in consciousness.

Consciousness is a totally different dimension. I said to you, it is subjectivity. The objects will remain the same but the subject, the seer in you, the watcher in you, the witness in you, can have immense levels of height; it can go on rising higher and higher.

Even when a buddha is there his body is not different from yours. His body follows the same routine biological program as your body. All religions have been trying to prove that the bodies of their prophets, messiahs, incarnations of God, don't follow the ordinary routine biology. That is just an effort to prove that their bodies have evolved. That's why Christians talk of the "ascension of Jesus Christ." He does not die like you, or like me. He simply ascends towards heaven, fully in his body.

His body is not left behind, he takes it with him. Mohammed did even better: he ascended to heaven with his horse too! Now, sitting on that horse - naturally the horse must have evolved. So why is Alistair Hardy so much disturbed about Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is not doing very great; even Mohammed's horse did it, it is not something very special. But he never says anything about Jesus' virgin birth.

These people who are trying to synthesize science and religion are very afraid of bringing things in which may create conflict. It will be difficult scientifically to prove the virgin birth, the Holy Ghost. He does not talk about it. But without it you cannot be a Christian. These are the fundamental beliefs of a Christian; these are the test of whether you are a man of faith or a doubter.

If you doubt the virgin birth of Jesus Christ you are not a religious person. And I know this man Hardy: if he cannot believe in the ascension of Jesus' body, how can he believe in the descension of the Holy Ghost and his raping a poor girl?

It is a simple case of rape - and still you go on calling him the HOLY Ghost. Rape seems to be something holy? At least after the rape he should have been called the unholy ghost. Before that he may have been the Holy Ghost but this was enough proof that this man is not holy. But Hardy does not ask, because he must be afraid: if he asks these questions, then how to bring religion and science together?

Anybody who tries to bring them together is going to be in great difficulty.

In India Mahatma Gandhi was trying hard to bring all the religions together. Of course it was politically motivated but he tried his whole life - a tremendous dedication - to bring all the religions together. But how was he doing it?

I was too small; I saw him when I was very small, met him, talked with him, but it was not time for me to discuss. I was not even aware of what he was doing. But I discussed with his son, Ramdas, I discussed with his chief religious follower, Vinoba Bhave, and I have discussed with many of his disciples who had lived with him very closely. None of them has any answer .... And they are not ordinary people.

Acharya J. B. Kripalani, who must be ninety-five years old, was a professor before he became committed to Mahatma Gandhi's programs - a learned man. I asked him, "Can't you see that Gandhi chooses from the KORAN only those sentences which are almost exactly the same as the BHAGAVAD GITA, the Hindu holy scripture? He leaves out everything that can create problems. He chooses from THE BIBLE - again the criterion is the GITA. The GITA is the ultimate truth. He will not say it but his action shows it, that the GITA is the criterion.

Anything that is in the GITA, wherever it exists, is true. So he picks up fragments from the KORAN, from the BIBLE, from the DHAMMAPADA, from the TAO TE CHING, from all religious books of the world. But what actually is he saying? He is saying that the GITA is the only truth. Yes, other holy books have also a few fragments here and there, reflecting the truth. The GITA is true as a whole; the KORAN, only in fragments; the BIBLE, only in fragments. And those fragments are to coincide with the GITA; that is the only criterion.

And he does the same with Jesus Christ, Hazrat Mohammed, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna - the same. He has the Hindu ideal of the perfect man, the man of God; then he goes on choosing.

But a Christian cannot choose from Jesus Christ's life: either he accepts it whole, or he rejects it whole.

What about Jesus Christ drinking alcohol? Now, Mahatma Gandhi is in trouble. In his ashram even tea was not allowed, what to say about alcohol?

I asked his son,"Your father continued his whole life talking about Jesus Christ, even sometimes he expressed the desire to become a Christian. But what about Jesus Christ eating meat, drinking alcohol, mixing with prostitutes? Can Gandhi accept this man as a man of God? No, he ignores all these facts.

The same is being done by all the people who try to synthesize. Now there are hundreds of facts in religion - the so-called religions - which go against science. How are you going to reconcile them.

Either you have to deny them or you have to deny science.

THE BIBLE believes in a flat earth. And you cannot edit THE BIBLE, you cannot change anything in THE BIBLE; it is God's book. You are just a human being. This will be outrageous, to change it.

Now what are you going to do?

It is an accepted fact now that the earth is round, it is a globe, it is not flat. Either THE BIBLE is wrong or science is wrong. Hardy has not the courage to say that THE BIBLE is wrong, nor has he the courage to say that science is wrong.

So these people go on playing games with words: "We want to create a synthesis" - but how can you create a synthesis? And when they talk about religion they forget completely that there are three hundred religions in the world. First, create the synthesis among three hundred religions so that you can have something called religion.

That is absolutely impossible in the first place because there are religions that believe in God; there are religions that believe in an eternal soul, there are religions that don't believe in an eternal soul.

There are religions that believe in one consciousness; in all of us only one consciousness exists. And there are religions that believe that each consciousness is individual and remains for ever individual; there are millions of souls.

Jainism is that religion which believes that there are infinitely infinite souls in existence. Not only one infinite soul in existence. Not only one infinite, they use double - not only in one direction, not only horizontally infinite, vertically too; so there are infinitely infinite souls in existence. And there is Hinduism which believes there is only one consciousness, the brahma, and all consciousnesses simply are part of it. It is one light shining in so many people; but it is the same source.

How are you going to ...? And these religions have existed for thousands of years quarreling with each other, arguing with each other. They have not come to any single conclusion.

In Jainism it is almost a sin to breath because when you breathe, hot air comes from your nostrils and kills small living cells in the air. And it is true. You know that a doctor doing surgery keeps his nose covered. For what reason? He is afraid of infection - infecting the patient, or getting infected himself. So there is a continuity of infectious cells living bodies, through the air.

Just the other day I read the news that AIDS can be caught even by sneezing! Now, it is beyond the board, now you can simply forget all about it; you cannot save yourself. You can prevent people kissing, you can prevent people making love. You can prevent people doing this, doing that - but how can you prevent people sneezing? And a sneeze never comes knocking on your door saying, "Get ready, have your gloves on!" It simply comes.

But a sneeze certainly throws out many infections. They say now it can infect you with AIDS, so it seems that you are a goner. You should rather accept it simply, that you have AIDS, rather than going through any test or anything. There is no point.

So Jainas are not wrong. Their monks, just like surgeons, keep their mouth and nose covered. it is so difficult to talk to them because you cannot hear what they are saying. They are simply mumbling.

When I used to see them I used to tell them, "You please write. Or, I am going to close the door - you remove all this nonsense because ...." So those who were intelligent would allow me to close the door and would remove their paraphernalia. And I would say, "Just be like a human being; otherwise it looks like you are from somewhere else. And when you talk it is difficult to figure out what you are saying - and I have to answer it."

But then I became worried about another thing - because they stink. Their breath stinks because Jaina monks are not allowed to do mouth-washing, use toothpaste, teethcleaning, no - because you may be killing so many germs - and each germ is as valuable as a human being. There is no question of any categories; all souls are equal.

Jainism is perhaps the only communist religion, truly communist. Even the germs which will give you AIDS are equal to your soul. They are living beings.

Now how are you going to reconcile Mohammedanism with Jainism, because the KORAN says, "God created animals, birds, for man to eat" - a simple statement without any philosophical hogwash. You cannot manage .... The KORAN is simple in that way because Mohammed was uneducated. He could not write complicated philosophical treatises. He could not write, he could only talk. And the KORAN was not written in one sitting, it was written over many years. In Mohammed's whole life, once in a while he would manage to say some sentences, and they were written down.

And those sentences are simple: "God created everything for man." So there is no violence - in fact this is the whole purpose of all the animals, birds, trees. And if you don't kill them you are going against God; you have to eat them. Now how are you going to reconcile these two religions? And there are three hundred versions. On each single point you will find them different. So what religion do you want to be synthesized with science?

Only what I call religiousness can be an intrinsic part of science. But that is not a synthesis because there is not antithesis.

To me religion is really one aspect of science.

Science has two hands. Now nobody tries to synthesize my right and left hand. They are synthesized, they are continuously synthesized without anybody synthesizing them; they are always in tune. While you are walking do you synthesize your left and right leg, keeping alert so that you do not commit some mistake?

I have heard that in an army regiment a captain was training the new recruits and he was saying, "Left turn, right turn, march." And then he said, "All of you raise your left leg." Everybody raised his left leg. Only one man by mistake raised his right leg, so his right leg and the left leg of the person by his side, both were raised close together. And the captain said, "Who is that fool who is raising both his legs?" You cannot do that; even by mistake you cannot do that. Your whole body continues in an organic harmony.

Science and religion to me are just like my two hands, dancing in tune, in synchronicity. There is no question of synthesis, there can never be a synthesis. There can only be oneness. And remember, oneness and synthesis are not the same.

Synthesis is a very poor thing: somehow managing, trying hard, making the corners less corny, giving them a little rounder shape .... I am not saying horny, I am saying corny. Or do both the words mean the same? There is no possibility of any synthesis and there is no need either.

In the first place, why can't we accept different dimensions having their own uniqueness? Today you are synthesizing science with religion, tomorrow you will synthesize science and religion and music, and then art, and dance - but why? And you will create a hodgepodge.

Now, synthesizing music with mathematics you will destroy both. The mathematician will be dancing, and the dancers will be doing arithmetic. But what is the need? They are perfectly okay as they are, doing their work in their own dimension. Just one thing has to be understood - that life is multidimensional.

A painter has no need to synthesize himself with science or with religion or with music. All that he has to be is a committed, involved artist, a true painter, so that while he is painting the painter disappears and only painting remains.

Let me repeat: when a true painter is there, painting, there is no painter at all; there is only the process of painting, there is nobody doing it. It is happening. Yes, from the outside you can see a man with his brush and paints and canvas, working. That is an outsider's outlook. But as far as the inside of the painter is concerned there is nobody. There is only a vision of the painting, and that vision is translating itself onto the canvas. All that is needed of the painter is not to interfere, not to come in the way of this transference.

When a dancer is dancing, there is no dancer, only dance.

All these different dimensions meet at one point, which I call religiousness.

There is no need to mix up all these dimensions with each other. Then they have to make an effort to be friendly and to be adjusting, and not to hurt anybody's feeling: the mathematician has to look whether the musician is happy with his mathematics or not, the chemist has to be worried about the physicist. You will make a madhouse - there is no need.

All that is needed is that the physicist disappears when he is doing his work, the musician disappears when he is doing his work.

This disappearance is religiousness.

I cannot give it that third-class name, synthesis.

It is oneness.

It is just like the rose opening in many petals - all the petals are separate but joined at the center, getting juice from the same source. Every scientist, every artist, every mystic - they are all petals of the same rose, getting juice from the same roots, but totally unique in themselves, totally separate from the others.

Don't try to synthesize. And you cannot succeed anyway.

Alistair Hardy, just try to be a little religious, and in your being religious you will understand that there is no need for any dimension of life to have an outer combination, synthesis, cooperation; no, they are already joined at the center.

I declare that they are already one.

But for thousands of years the effort has continued. In India there was a great philosopher, Doctor Bhagwandas. His whole life he wrote volumes upon volumes; synthesis was his theme, the synthesis of all religions. He was very old when I went to see him.

I said, "I don't feel like harassing you in your old age but all that you have written is just nonsense.

You talk of synthesis and you are still a Hindu! If you were really interested in synthesis at least you should have declared, 'I belong to all religions, and all religions are mine.' But no, you are still a Hindu. I can see the mark of Hinduism on your forehead.

"So what nonsense have you been talking about? I have read your books, and this is simply befooling people, trying to say that Krishna and Mahavira are giving the same message to the world. It is so easy because Krishna has spoken so much. You can find one sentence in which he says, ahimsa paramo dharma non-violence is the greatest religion.' You pick it out, that's enough. Mahavira's whole message is: Non-violence is the greatest religion. Synthesis is accomplished."

I asked him, "And what happened about the mahabharat war in which millions of people were killed, butchered? And Krishna is responsible for it." Arjuna, his disciple, wanted to renounce the kingdom and to renounce the war because the war for the kingdom was being fought between cousin-brothers.

Seeing that so much bloodshed was going to be there, Arjuna said to Krishna, who was functioning as his charioteer, "Move me towards the Himalayas - I simply want to drop out of this bloodshed.

"Even if we win, which is not certain because the forces are almost balanced, but suppose ... even if we win, it will be by killing so many people of the other side, who are also related to us because the other side are our cousin-brothers. Their friends are our friends, their relatives are our relatives; our relatives are their relatives, our friends are their friends. We have grown up together in one house, in one family.

"We have studied under one guru, one teacher. Now both sides are friends, brothers. And it has been such a hard time for everybody, how to decide with whom to be? Everybody has been invited by both the parties and they had to decide with whom to fight, for whom to fight."

Dronacharya, the teacher who had taught them archery, who had made Arjuna the master archer of India, was fighting on the other side. Now, the master is on the other side, and the disciple is on this side .... It was a difficult thing for Dronacharya also to decide with whom to be. Finally he decided, because on that side there were a hundred brothers, and on this side only five brothers.

But those hundred brothers were the sons of a blind father. So Dronacharya just felt compassionate; "The father is blind, it is better I should be with these people" - whom he had never liked, who were all rascals. His love was for Arjuna and those five brothers who were really great warriors, but when the blind father asked him, "Because I am blind I cannot come; you be there, you be their father."

Their grandfather was grandfather to both, and their grandfather was one of the most famous men of Indian history, Bhishma. He was a rare man. It was difficult for him also because he loved these five brothers. They were sons of one of his sons, but the other son was blind, and he had those hundred rascals who were really cunning politicians. He had never liked any of them, he wanted them to be defeated. But that blind son was also his son, and now to be against the blind son's sons would not look right. So he was also there.

Arjuna said, "It looks so weird to fight against my own grandfather, who wants me to win yet has to fight against me. It is just inconceivable to fight against my own master who has made me a world- famous archer. It is better you take me away. Even if we win, all our people, from both sides, will be gone. I will be sitting on the golden throne on top of millions of corpses - for whom? There will be nobody to rejoice, to celebrate even. It is better that I become a sannyasin and let my brothers rule the kingdom."

If Arjuna had been listened to by Krishna there would have been no war. And Krishna says, "Non- violence is the greatest religion." He is a politician. In some other reference, maybe defining religion and talking to religious people, he may have said that. But here, what he says to Arjuna is, "You are a warrior, and the religion of a warrior is to fight. Escaping from the fight is cowardice."

But Arjuna goes on arguing, "Let me be a coward. The world will call me a coward, okay - what does it matter? But I don't want to color my hands with millions of people's blood."

But Krishna goes on insisting to Arjuna "It is not you, it is God's will."

God is very handy. When you cannot manage anything, bring God in: "It is God's will. Those rascals have to be eradicated. God wants you to destroy the immoral people and establish the rule of the righteous." Now, when you bring God in, man becomes silent. What can he say now? And Krishna says, "If God wants, then you should simply surrender, surrender to His will."

Finally he convinces Arjuna, and takes him into the war - and millions of people are killed. This happened nearabout five thousand years ago; it is called the Mahabharat war - the great Indian war. After that, India never became the same again. It lost its nerve, it lost its spine. The war was so destructive that it destroyed India for five thousand years.

"Now, how are you going," I asked Doctor Bhagwandas, "to synthesize Mahavira and Krishna?

Just by hanging the pictures of Krishna and Mahavira in your room you think synthesis is going to happen? This man is responsible for one of the greatest wars in history; and not only that, he supported the war in the name of God. He made it a religious war, a holy war. I know that Arjuna, somehow in his unconscious, must have been ready. He was a warrior, he was a fighter; so deep down, although he was arguing to leave .... If I were in his place I don't see Krishna convincing me.

"All Krishna's arguments are so stupid. If he said to me, 'It is God's will; you should surrender,' I would say, 'Okay, I surrender: God is telling me to go to the Himalayas. That's why I am going to the Himalayas - I am surrendering. He does not want me to fight.'

"It was so simple, no other argument was needed. But somehow, deep down, Arjuna was ready for war. They had gathered to fight. They were standing in front of each other just waiting for the signal to happen, then they would rush into each other and kill millions of people.

"Up to now Arjuna had never even bothered what war means. And he had fought many other small wars and battles, and killed many people, without ever thinking of non-violence and other things, so unconsciously he was ready. Only consciously he became a little troubled, and that trouble was also not about violence.

"That trouble was about his master, his grandfather, his brothers, his blind uncle, all his friends. It was really attachment, not the question of violence or non-violence. Deep down it was an attachment to all these people. Relationships, that was troubling him: How to kill our own people?

"If they had been somebody else he would have killed them without thinking even a single moment.

So unconsciously he must have been ready. But for convincing him, for bringing his unconscious over his conscious, the responsibility goes to Krishna.

"One of Krishna's cousin-brothers, Neminath, was a Jaina tirthankara. Neminath is the twenty- second Jaina tirthankara. The twenty-third is Parshvanath, the twenty-fourth is Mahavira. Mahavira came after Krishna, nearabout five or seven hundred years afterwards. But in Krishna's time, Krishna's own cousin-brother, Neminath, was one of the Jaina masters.

"Krishna never even went to listen to Neminath because Neminath had become a follower of a different tradition, the Jaina tradition: he was no longer a Hindu. Although Neminath was a cousin- brother, elder brother, and so much respected by the Jainas that he was declared to be their ultimate master, Krishna would not go. Even though many times he passed by the side of the town where Neminath was delivering his talks, he would not go to see him. Jaina sources say that Krishna always considered Neminath to be a man who had betrayed Hindus.

You are trying to synthesize these people who think in terms of betrayal? If Neminath feels it right to be a Jaina, it is his birthright to be a Jaina. Who can prevent him? It is not a betrayal. He had not come into the world as a Hindu, you forced Hinduism on him. Now, when he becomes mature, thinks over things, finds that this is not the right religion for me, moves into another religion .... He has the right. To say that he has betrayed is ugly.

And you are trying to synthesize these people? No, you cannot synthesize three hundred religions.

It is impossible. On each single point you will find them differing. And then the question arises of synthesizing religion with science.

"Each religious scripture if full of unscientific facts. Either you will have to drop those unscientific superstitions - the religious people will not allow that - or you will have to compromise and you will have to say the earth is both flat and global. To synthesize, what else to do but say that sometimes it is flat, sometimes it is global? Or when a religious person looks at it, it is flat, when a scientific person looks at it, it is global? Some kind of compromise you will have to find. I don't think it is possible, and I don't see the need either."

Let religion grow in its own way. Let science grow in its own way. And whenever religion will be authentic .... The past religions have rarely been authentic; once in a while there is an authentic individual - but not communities. Whenever there is an authentic religious person you will not find him in any conflict with science, art, music, dance. You will not find him in any conflict for the simple reason that he will have such wide perceptivity, such tremendous sensitivity, such a great insight, that in his perceptivity all different dimensions will merge.

He will be able to see the original source of all different dimensions of human research. And it is good that they remain different; it is good they remain true to themselves. And it is difficult to find a man .... This whole Templeton award should be dissolved, this is useless!

It is difficult to find a person who knows even all the sciences. You cannot find a physicist who knows how much evolution has happened in chemistry, in biology, in other sciences; you cannot find one person. The world has moved far away from Aristotle. Aristotle wrote one book about all the sciences, all the religions, all the philosophies. In those days it was possible.

In fact he devoted one chapter to each and that was enough. Philosophy was called metaphysics for two thousand years for the simple reason that the chapter on philosophy comes after physics. In Greek, metaphysics means "after physics". The chapter had no name so it became metaphysics - the chapter coming after the chapter "physics".

It was possible then. But now, when every science has taken such a flight and has divided itself into so many divisions, which themselves have become independent sciences .... For example, chemistry has developed into organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry; now they are two different sciences. Organic chemistry has a division, bio-chemistry, which is a totally different world - so vast that it is not possible for a single person to know everything that is happening in bio-chemistry, what to say about organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry? It is not possible.

All the sciences have gone so far away from each other that there is not a single person who can manage to know all these sciences. So even to use the word "science" is as wrong as to use the word "religion". There are three hundred religions; perhaps there are going to be more sciences than that. If there are not now, there will be. The whole effort will be meaningless. What is significant is very simple: science is the search into the outside world, and religion is the search in the inside world. Both are searchers, enquiries about the same truth, because it is the same truth that exists outside and that exists within. Within and without are not different, so from wherever you arrive to the truth you arrive to the same truth.

There is no need to go on comparing small details. You may have followed a different route, and on your route there may have been no trees; you may have come through a desert, and I may be coming through a jungle where there are hug, ancient trees, but if we reach to the same point ....

Then I go on arguing that a person only reaches here who comes through huge, ancient trees, and you go on arguing that it is impossible to reach here unless one passes through a desert. But we both have reached, that's enough proof.

So what I suggest is that a simple meditativeness should become a part of all sciences, religions, arts, all departments of human research - a simple meditativeness of becoming silent, thoughtlessly silent.

In that silence is the experience of oneness.

It is not going to be done by Mother Teresa, who knows nothing of religion. It is not going to be done by Sir Alistair Hardy; he knows only Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution, which is no longer valid.

One thing you should remember: it almost always happens that scientists have a very uncommon intelligence - but they lose common sense, they don't have common sense. Perhaps they can't have; if they have too much common sense then they cannot be scientific. To be scientific many things have to be sacrificed; common sense is one of them. If you listen to common sense then you will cling to the tradition, the old, the conventional.

When the Wright brothers were trying to make the first airplane, it was absolutely absurd to any man with common sense. Their father was an owner of a bicycle shop. In their basement he used to collect all kinds of junk - old bicycles, their parts - and that basement was the science lab of the Wright brothers, these two young boys; one was nineteen, the other was twenty-one. And with rejected cycle parts they were trying to make a flying machine. Of course it was not called an airplane at the time, it was called a flying machine.

They had to work in the night when the whole family was asleep because everybody thought they were crazy. Who had even heard of a flying machine? And out of cycle parts! But they managed.

They must have been very uncommon, they did not listen to anybody. Their teachers were laughing, their friends, their family was saying, "You will go crazy. You stop this nonsense!"

But they continued, and one day they managed it. But they were afraid. They wanted to test it alone because if it falls flat on the ground then everybody will say, "We have been telling you, but you will not listen. You wasted you lives, so many years."

First they tried in a lonely faraway place. And for sixty seconds, just for sixty seconds, their plane remained in the air - but that was enough. Next day they declared that the whole village should come. Nobody was willing; they said, "It is all nonsense, why waste our time? These are idiots.

They have gone completely mad now. Up to now they were saying, 'We are making it'; now they say they have made it. The have gone crazy."

But the brothers said, "Think us mad but just be kind enough to come there for a single minute because our flying machine will remain in the air only for one minute. We will not take much of your time."

So people came, just getting bored by these brothers they were harassing their teachers and the principal and their family. So all the people came, and they could not believe their eyes. The second day, the whole world knew about the Wright brothers, that they had made the first airplane. Only sixty seconds it used to stay in the air, but that was enough for a beginning.

One needs uncommon sense, but one loses common sense. These people like Alistair Hardy have lost common sense completely. That's why they are saying that he is trying to bring together religion and science: the theory of creation and the theory of evolution.

I am just a common-sense man. I am not a scientist I am not a religious prophet. I am just a common-sense man, but I have tried to sharpen my common sense to its utmost.

I have only one capacity, to see clearly; not in the sense of my eye doctor - he is sitting here. he is trying to force glasses on me. I am talking about his eyes. About my eyes I will listen to him.

I am very much a man of common sense. When it comes to my physical eyes, I listen to my eye doctor. When it comes to my body, I listen to Devaraj. When it comes to anything concerning the ordinary details of life, I listen to Vivek. Then I don't go into details about these things. If these people are doing the work, and if they are doing their homework properly, then it is perfectly okay.

When I say that I have only one capacity and that is of seeing clearly, I mean some insight.

And in my insight, religion and science are two names of one phenomenon.