I am the ultimate

Question 1:

Anando, the statement in the UPANISHADS, aham brahmasmi, is perhaps the most fundamental and the most essential experience of all the mystics of the world. The UPANISHADS are the only books which are considered not to belong to any religion, yet they are the very essence of religiousness.

This statement, aham brahmasmi, is a declaration of enlightenment - literally it means, "I am the divine, I am the ultimate, I am the absolute." It is a declaration that, "There is no other God than my own inner being." This does not mean that it is a declaration of a single individual about himself. It is a declaration, of course, by one individual, but it declares the potential of every individual.

It denies God as a separate entity. It denies God as a creator. It denies God as a ruler. It simply denies the existence of God, other than in our own existence. It is the whole search of the Eastern genius. In thousands of years they have discovered only one thing: don't look for God outside your own being. If you can find him you can find him only in one place and that is in you - other than you all the temples and all the mosques and all the synagogues and all the churches are inventions of the priests to exploit you. They are not in the service of God; on the contrary they are exploiting all the potential gods.

Aham brahmasmi is perhaps the boldest statement ever made by any human being in any age in any part of the world, and I don't think it can be improved upon in the future, ever. Its courage is so absolute and perfect that you cannot refine it, you cannot polish it. It is so fundamental that you cannot go deeper than this, neither can you go higher than this.

This simple statement aham brahmasmi, - in Sanskrit, is only three words. In English also it can be translated in these few words: "I am the Ultimate." Beyond me there is nothing; there is no height that is not within me and there is no depth which is not within me. If I can explore myself I have explored the whole mystery of existence.

But, unfortunately, even the people of this country - where this statement was made some five thousand years ago - have forgotten all about the dignity of human beings. This statement is nothing but the ultimate manifesto of man and his dignity. Even in this country, where such individuals existed who reached the ultimate awakening and illumination, there are people who are worshipping stones. There are people who are enslaved by ignorant priests. There are people who are living in the bondage of a certain religion, creed or cult. They have forgotten the golden age of the UPANISHADS.

Perhaps that was the most innocent time that happened in the history of man. At that time the West was almost barbarous, and that barbarousness somehow has remained as an undercurrent in the western consciousness. Otherwise, it cannot be just coincidental that the two great world wars have happened in the West. And preparation for the third is also happening in the West - just within a small span of half a century.

The days of the UPANISHADS in this land were the most glorious. The only search, the only seeking, the only longing, was to know oneself - no other ambition ruled mankind. Riches, success, power, everything was absolutely mundane.

Those who were ambitious, those who were running after riches, those who wanted to be powerful were considered to be psychologically sick. And those who were really healthy psychologically, spiritually healthy, their only search was to know oneself and to be oneself and to declare to the whole universe the innermost secret. That secret is contained in this statement, "Aham brahmasmi."

The people who followed the days of the UPANISHADS in a way have fallen into a dark age.

You will be surprised to know that the idea of involution has not appeared at all in the Western mind, only the idea of evolution, only the idea of progress. But the mystics of the UPANISHADS have a more perfect and more comprehensive approach. Nothing can go on evolving forever. Evolution has been conceived by the UPANISHADS as a circle and, in fact, in existence everything moves in a circle. Stars move in circles, the sun moves in a circle, the earth moves in a circle, the moon moves in a circle, climates move in a circle, life moves in a circle.

The whole existence knows only one way of movement and that is circular. So that which seems to be going up one day will soon be going down. Again it will come up - it is just like a wheel and the spokes of the wheel. The same spoke will come up, will go down, will come up, will go down.

Evolution is incomplete if there is not any complementary idea of involution. Materially man has evolved. Certainly there were no railway trains and there were no atomic weapons and there was no nuclear war material, there was no electricity, there was nothing of the technology that we have become accustomed to living with. Materially, man has certainly evolved, but spiritually, the situation is totally different.

Spiritually, man has not evolved. According to the UPANISHADS, man has gone deeper into darkness. He has lost his innocence and he has lost his blissfulness and he has lost his simple experience of: "I am the mysterious, I am the miraculous; I am the whole cosmos in a miniature form, just as a dewdrop is the whole ocean in a miniature form." The dewdrop can declare, "I am the ocean," and there will not be anything wrong in it. Certainly a particular individual is only a dewdrop, but he can declare, "Aham brahmasmi," and there is nothing wrong in it. He is simply saying the truth.

The UPANISHADS talk about four stages of man's fall, not of evolution. The first stage, when the UPANISHADS came into being, is called the "Age of Truth." People were simply truthful, just as small children are simply truthful.

To lie, one needs some experience. Lying is a complicated phenomenon, truth is not. To lie you need a developed memory, you have to remember what kind of thing you have said to one person and what kind of thing you have said to another person. A lying person needs a good memory. A man of truth needs no memory because he is simply saying that which is the case.

The child has no experience other than the truth, other than what he experiences. He cannot lie.

The days of the UPANISHADS are the days of man's childhood, of purity and innocence, of deep love and trust. The first age the UPANISHADS call satyuga, the Age of Truth. Truth was not a long journey. You were not to go anywhere to find it. You were living in it.

The situation was exactly expressed by Kabir in a symbolic parable: A fish in the ocean, who must have had a philosophic bent, started inquiring of other fish, "I have heard so much about the ocean, but I want to know where it is."

The poor fish that she questioned had also heard about the ocean but they were not so curious, so they never bothered about where it was. They said, "We have also heard about the ocean, but where it is we have never bothered to ask, and we don't know the answer."

And the young philosopher fish went on asking everybody, "Where is the ocean?" And they were all stunned. They had heard about it from their forefathers - it had always been known - but as far as an exact description or experience was concerned, nobody was able to explain it to the young fish.

Finally the young fish declared, "You are all stupid. There is no ocean at all." Nobody could answer the fish.

Kabir says the same is the situation of man. Man goes on asking, "Have you seen God? Have you seen the mysterious, the miraculous?" And all he can hear is, "We have heard about it, we have read about it ..." But there was a day when people were so innocent, childlike, that they knew it - that they are surrounded by the ocean, that the ocean is not to be searched for, it is within and without. They are part of it, they are born in it, they live in it, they breathe in it, and they will one day disappear into it. They are part and parcel of the ocean.

But every child has to grow. And just as every child has to grow, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, could not remain forever. It produced the great scriptures called the UPANISHADS - the word is so beautiful:

it simply means 'sitting by the side of the master' - those are recordings from the notes of disciples who were sitting in silence by the side of the master. Once in a while, out of his meditation, he would say something; out of his heart something would be transferred to the disciple, and the disciple would take a note. Those notes are the Upanishads.

Satyuga, the Age of Truth, disappeared - the child grew. The second stage is called treta - it is compared to a table. The first, Satyuga, the Age of Truth, was almost like a table with four legs, absolutely balanced. Treta means three. One leg of the table has disappeared. Now it is no more a table with four legs, with that certainty, with that trust, with that grounding, with that centering, with that great balance ... Now it is only a tripod, three legs.

Certainly something is missing. It is not so certain - some doubt has arisen, trust is no longer complete and perfect, love is no more unpolluted. The disciple's question is not coming from his whole being, just out of his head. But still, there was much yet to happen. The child went on growing. As far as age is concerned it seems a growth, but as far as innocence is concerned it is an involution. Both are going side by side: evolution as far as age and body are concerned, and involution as far as innocence, trust and love are concerned.

After Treta humanity fell still more. The stage after Treta is called dwapar. One leg is lost again - now everything is unbalanced. Standing on two legs, how can a table have trust, certainty, security, safety, balance? Fear became the predominant quality rather than love, rather than trust. Insecurity became more prominent than a tremendous feeling of being at home. But things went on growing in one direction: as far as material growth is concerned, there was evolution; in another direction as far as consciousness is concerned, there was a continuous fall.

After Dwapar, the age of two legs, is the age we are living in. It is called kaliyuga, the Age of Darkness. Even the last leg has disappeared. Man is almost in a state of insanity.

Instead of innocence, insanity has become our normal state. Everybody is in some way or other psychologically sick.

I am talking about these four ages for a particular reason, because the statement that was made in innocence in the days of the UPANISHADS has become absolutely incomprehensible to our people, to our contemporaries. Even the people who are the inheritors of the UPANISHADS are afraid to declare that, "I am God," that, "I am the Absolute" - what to say about others? Others have their own prejudices.

For example, when Christians started translating the UPANISHADS they were shocked. They could not believe that there are in existence scriptures so tremendously poetic, beautiful, but what they are saying goes against Christianity, against Judaism, against Mohammedanism, even against today's Hinduism. Even the Hindu is not capable today of declaring, "I am God." He has also become impressed and influenced by Christianity to such an extent.

Christian missionaries started condemning the UPANISHADS because if the UPANISHADS are right, then what to do with the BIBLE? The BIBLE absolutely declares, just as the KORAN declares, that there is only one God. If the UPANISHADS are right then there are as many gods as there are living beings. Some may have come to manifestation, some may be on the way, some may not have started the journey yet but will start finally.

How long can you delay? You can miss one train, you can miss another train, but every moment the train is coming. How long can you go on sitting in the waiting room? And people go on becoming buddhas, and people go on becoming seers and sages, and you are still waiting in the waiting room with your suitcases. How long can you do that? There is a limit when you see that so many people have left already - the whole platform is empty - you will take courage that perhaps it is time to move.

For Christianity the problem was that everybody cannot be God. They cannot even accept everybody to be the son of God, what to say about God? Only Jesus is the son of God.

You are only puppets made of earth. God made man with mud and breathed life into it. It is just a manufactured thing, and if a puppet starts declaring, "Aham brahmasmi" - "I am God" - the puppeteer will laugh, saying, "Idiots! You are just puppets and your strings are in my hands. When I want you to dance you dance, when I want you to lie down you lie down, when I want you to breathe you breathe, when I want you not to breathe you can't do anything."

For Christianity it was a tremendous challenge, and they started finding arguments against it. Their first argument was that the person, the seer, the sage - whoever he may be, because even the name is not mentioned in the UPANISHADS - who declared for the first time, "Aham brahmasmi,"

the Christian missionaries started saying that he was a megalomaniac, that he was suffering from a big ego. They were full of prejudice. They could not see the simple fact that it was not the ego that was declaring - because the UPANISHADS say it clearly: unless your ego disappears, you cannot even understand the meaning of "I am the Ultimate."

It is not the declaration of ego. This declaration is possible only on the death of ego. That is a clear-cut statement in the UPANISHADS. But Christian missionaries went on misinterpreting the UPANISHADS to the West, distorting and commenting that these people were almost mad.

Obviously, to a Mohammedan or to a Christian, the idea that somebody says, "I am God," is very shocking.

I have told you about the story - it happened in Baghdad in the days of Khalif Omar. He is the most famous Khalif of the Mohammedans, and he is thought to be a very understanding and very moderate, liberal man. But you will see his liberality in the story.

A man is brought to him who has been declaring in the marketplace, "God has sent me as his prophet just as he sent Hazrat Mohammed as his prophet a thousand years ago. But now things have changed, questions have changed, new answers are needed. Now I bring the latest dissemination, the latest edition of God's message to the world. I accept Mohammed was a prophet, I accept that Jesus was a prophet."

Mohammedans don't accept Jesus as a son of God. They accept Jesus as a prophet of God, because to accept Jesus as a son of God will mean their prophet, Hazrat Mohammed, becomes secondary. He is just a prophet, not a son, not even a son-in-law. Religions continuously are interpreting each other with their prejudice. This has been a contention between Mohammedans and Christians. Mohammedans are willing to accept that he was a prophet, a great prophet, there is no doubt about it - but don't say that he was the son of God!

This man in Baghdad declared, "I have come with the latest message," but Mohammedans have closed the door with Hazrat Mohammed, as Jainas have closed the door with Mahavira, as Buddhists have closed the door with Buddha. Every religion is a closed religion. It does not allow anybody else to improve upon it. The fear that somebody someday will declare, "I am bringing the latest message"

- then even the holy KORAN will become just like the newspaper of yesterday. What can you do with it?

To avoid this humiliation Mohammed declared, "This is the last message given by God to the world; now there will be no more prophets. Before me there have been prophets, but now they are all out of date. I bring the last message."

Jainas are not ready to accept another after Mahavira - the twenty-fourth tirthankara, the twenty- fourth prophet of the Jainas - they don't accept the twenty-fifth. Because the twenty-fifth may turn things upside down. And after twenty-five centuries things have to be turned upside down, because everything has changed.

It is sheer stupidity that you go on following someone who had answered questions which were relevant twenty-five centuries before. Now those questions are not relevant. New questions have arisen, new doubts have arisen, they have to be satisfied and you cannot satisfy them with your old ... That's why every new generation finds itself slipping out of the hands of the old generation; because the new generation can see the irrelevance. Their questions are different and you are answering something which they have not asked in the first place. But every religion has been the same in the sense that they all close the doors - no more improvement.

That man was caught immediately and brought to the court of Omar. This is the most heinous crime in a Mohammedan country because Mohammed has said, "There is only one God - the God that I preach - and there is only one holy book - the book that I preach - and there is only one prophet who is the final statement, and I am that. After me everything will remain the same, no changes will be acceptable."

When the man was brought to Omar's court, Omar told him, "Take back your statement that you are a prophet."

That man laughed. He said, "It is not in my hands. I have been chosen by God to be the prophet.

Only he can take it back."

Mohammed's follower and representative - his pope, that's what Omar was - said, "Remember you are playing with fire. Except death, there is no other punishment. I give you seven days to consider."

And he told his soldiers, "Take this man to the jail, strip him naked, bind him to a pillar and beat him continuously for seven days - no food, no water, no sleep. And after the seventh day I will come to the jail to inquire whether he has changed his mind or not." And this is a liberal, moderate, considerate, very understanding Mohammedan! What to say about the fanatic? Just don't talk about the fanatic.

And the soldiers did what they were told. After seven days Omar arrived. The man was just wounds and more wounds - blood and nothing else. He was almost dying and Omar asked him, "Have you changed your mind or not?"

The man said, "When I was coming from heaven, God told me, 'Remember, to be a prophet is not an easy profession. You will be stoned, you will be condemned, you will be punished, you may be put into jail, you may even be sentenced to death. Be prepared. To be a prophet of God is a very dangerous thing.' You have proved that God was right - I am his prophet."

Even Omar was stunned: this man seems to be utterly mad. And just then he heard from another pillar another naked man who was caught one month before because he was declaring, "I am God myself." Now Mohammedans cannot tolerate that - from a prophet perhaps.

If a Mohammedan is very literate, very cultured, non-fanatic, he may say "perhaps," because if Mohammed can be a prophet, if Jesus can be a prophet, if Buddha can be a prophet, if Moses can be a prophet - all these have been accepted by Hazrat Mohammed - then what is the problem?

Why cannot this poor fellow be a prophet? First listen to him - what message he has brought.

Nobody is listening to his message, and people are trying to kill him even before he has delivered his message. Maybe there is something in his message. If there is nothing in his message there is no harm. Let him think himself a prophet. But if he has some essential message then it will be very wrong on our part.

But if somebody says, "I am God," the way the UPANISHADS are saying it, this is simply, absolutely unacceptable. And that man had been caught one month before and Omar had completely forgotten that he had been put into jail to consider ... That man shouted, "Omar, remember, this man is lying because I have never sent him as my prophet. After Mohammed I have never sent anybody as my prophet. I am God, Mohammed is the prophet, and the holy KORAN is the message. This man is absolutely mad." This is a historical fact. Omar could not believe it. What to do now?

When Christians - particularly the learned, scholarly missionaries - started translating the UPANISHADS, they distorted it in every way and they made comments, saying, "This is a statement of somebody who is utterly insane, whose ego is too big. And he is not religious at all, because a religious man should be humble. How can a religious man declare, 'I am God'?"

This is very strange about religions. They can see the faults of each other but they cannot see their own faults. When Jesus declares, "I am the only begotten son of God," they don't see any ego - it is humbleness.

The UPANISHADS are not egoistic. They are not saying that the one sage who declares, "I am God," is saying something only about himself. He is saying that you are also God - just as I am God, you are God. We are all part of a godliness. We are all part of the same ocean. This fish and that fish are not different; they are all born out of the same ocean and they will all disappear into the same ocean.

The UPANISHADS' statement is not egoistic at all, but religions which are God-centered cannot accept it easily. Even Hindus, whose forefathers made this statement, have become so cowardly that now they do not dare to make such a statement. They themselves think that it is egoistic.

Christianity and Mohammedanism have both impressed too much - even on the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind is no longer pure Hindu.

You will be surprised to know that even the greatest Hindu of this century, Mahatma Gandhi, three times in his life was almost on the verge of becoming a Christian - he was ready to be converted into a Christian. I have tried to figure out Mahatma Gandhi ... He is ninety percent Christian, nine percent Jaina and one percent Hindu.

He was born in Gujarat, which is still the area most significantly under the impression of Jainism.

So from his very childhood, although he was born a Hindu, he was impressed by Jainism. All his nonviolence is not a Hindu idea. It is a Jaina idea. All his five great principles that were to be followed by his ashramites are five great principles of the Jainas - nothing of the Hindus, although he used to read the BHAGAVADGITA every morning, every evening before his twenty, twenty-five disciples.

His ashram was not like this place. It looked just like any slum, where twenty percent lived without even mosquito nets. Instead of mosquito nets, kerosene oil was delivered to them. For what? To put on their faces, on their hands. Anything that was exposed on the body - rub it with the kerosene oil. Even mosquitoes don't come close to you. How can you sleep? The smell is such a stink - even mosquitoes remain away and you have to sleep.

I remained only for one day, and before the evening - when I heard that this is going to happen - I said, "I am going. This is not the place for me." From where did he learn this kind of stupidity? Not from the BHAGAVADGITA, although to convince the Hindus that he is the Mahatma of the Hindus he read the BHAGAVADGITA every morning, every evening ... And the BHAGAVADGITA is one of the most significant philosophies of violence, not of nonviolence. It was perfectly in tune with Adolf Hitler, with Benito Mussolini, with Joseph Stalin, with Mao Tse-tung, but not with any religious person. And it is such a strange thing that not a single man ever asked Mahatma Gandhi in his long life, "Why do you go on calling that BHAGAVADGITA 'my mother'?" It was just a political stunt so the Hindus would remain behind him.

But the whole philosophy of the BHAGAVADGITA is of violence. Krishna is teaching war. He is convincing one through the whole BHAGAVADGITA, from the first sentence to the last - of only one single thing, and that is war. He is speaking to Arjuna, his disciple, who wants to escape from war.

In fact, Arjuna seems to be more of a Jaina than Krishna, because while Krishna goes on trying to convince him, Arjuna goes on arguing against war, against violence.

Finally he says, "I don't see the point. Millions of people will be killed, just for my ambition to sit on the golden throne. I don't think that I will feel happy when I see millions of corpses around me, including my brothers, my relatives, my friends, my colleagues, my elders, my teachers .... Killing all these people just to become a king - I don't see the point." He said, "I will feel so embarrassed, so repentant, I may commit suicide. It is better I should move towards the Himalayas. I am finished with the world if this is the way the world has to run. I am no more part of it. I want to become a sannyasin."

But Krishna prevented him and prevented him in a very cunning way. He said to him, "It is God's intention that you should fight; going away from the war is denying God's intention." Because Arjuna believed that Krishna was a prophet of God, he had to submit unwillingly, reluctantly.

This was the book he was reading day and night. He even made a commentary on it, and naturally he was in a difficulty - how to make any sense of nonviolence in a book which is completely based on violence? So he says it is only a metaphor, that the war never did happen. That is the strategy that he takes in his commentary of BHAGAVADGITA: the war never happened. This is the first time in five thousand years that anybody has said that this war never happened. It denies five thousand years of conviction that the war happened.

And the war not only happened, it destroyed the whole of India - its spine was broken. The war was so great and the impact of it was so big that it made the whole of India cowardly. It was because of this war that Krishna preached that India became a slave country for two thousand years. It lost its nerve, it lost its dignity, it became so nervous about war because it saw what happened in this war - almost half the country was killed.

Every family was in mourning; somebody was massacred from every family. There was not a single family which remained outside the war. That war's nightmare has followed India for five thousand years. It has created such a fear. It is almost like the people who have seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If you talk about war with them, what do you think their reaction, their response will be? Certainly they don't want war anymore - they have seen the worst.

But Mahatma Gandhi, in a very cunning and political way, in the very beginning says that this whole episode of war is just a metaphor: it is war between the good and the bad, it is war between the right and the wrong, it is war between the light and the darkness. It is not a historical thing, hence there is no question of violence. A war between light and darkness is certainly not going to be a bloodshed - neither light nor darkness has any blood.

This man, Mahatma Gandhi, admits that three times he was on the verge of becoming a Christian, but just the politics of India prevented him. Because if he was going to become a Christian, then he would not be the leader of the Hindus. He would be hated by the Hindus, and they are the majority of the country.

It was just politics that prevented him from becoming Christian, otherwise he himself would not have accepted this Upanishadic saying. He never talked about the UPANISHADS. He must have been afraid to talk about the UPANISHADS because what will he make of the statement "Aham brahmasmi"? It cannot be said that it is a metaphor. It is an actual, realized fact.

And you are asking, Anando, what is the connection between this great statement - it is actually called mahavakya: 'the great statement' - with another statement of the same significance, sachchidanand. Sachchidanand consists of three words, as I have told you: Sat - truth; Chit - consciousness; Anand - bliss. These three experiences make one capable of asserting the great statement, "Aham brahmasmi." They are deeply connected. In fact, if sachchidanand is the flower, then "Aham brahmasmi" is the fragrance, so deep is the connection between the two.

Certainly, "I am the Ultimate" is the very conclusion of the whole search of the East - of all the Buddhas, of all the mystics. A single sentence can be called the conclusion of the whole of India.

But God-centered religions will not be ready to accept it. That simply shows that their understanding is not of truth, not of consciousness, not of bliss.

Their understanding is of a very low order: it is not an experience, but only a belief. One is a Christian only by belief; a Jew only by belief; a Mohammedan only by belief. What the UPANISHADS are saying is not any belief - it is direct, immediate experience. And they are so poetic, so mystic, that there is no comparison in the whole world's literature.

But this final flowering and fragrance is possible only if you start with meditation and not with prayer.

These two ways will take you to different conclusions: prayer will take you more and more into fiction and meditation will take you more and more into truth. Meditation is to go withinwards, and prayer is to look upwards, into the empty sky, with all your desires and greed and demands, with all your fears and insecurities. God is to you, if you are on the path of prayer, a consolation and nothing more, but if you are on the path of meditation, God will become one day your very own self, your very own existence.

One day a meek little man is kneeling in church praying. "Please, God," he mumbles, "please make my boss give me a raise so that I can keep up the payments on my house, and so that my children don't go hungry ..."

Just then the church door bursts open and a big black guy in sunglasses strolls in whistling a tune.

He goes up to the altar, raises his hands and says, "Hey, man. You up there, God! I really dig you, man. Give me a beautiful new woman, a big new car, and a huge new mansion to live in. And I want it fast."

He then turns around and walks out. The little man is shocked and continues to pray.

Next week the little man is back, still praying for the same things, when he is startled by a screech of brakes outside the church. In walks the big black guy with a gorgeous woman by his side. He strides up to the altar and says, "Hey, God! Thanks, man, for the car and the girl. And hey, man!

The house is superb!"

After the black guy has gone, the little man goes up to the altar and says, "Dear God, you answered his prayers. Why don't you answer mine?"

A voice booms out from behind the altar, "Sorry, man, I just don't dig you!"

If you want fictions, prayer is the path. All the religions that are based on prayer are not authentic religions.

But meditation is a totally different route. It takes you inwards; it takes you away from the world towards your own being. It is not a demand, it is not a desire, it is not greed, it is not asking or requesting anything. It is simply being silent, utterly silent, moving deeper and deeper into silence ...

And a moment comes of sublime silence, and then a sudden explosion of light and you will feel yourself saying, "Aham brahmasmi." Not outwards, because you are not saying it to anybody in particular - it will be just a feeling in the deepest core of your being. No language is needed, just an experience that, "I am the whole, I am the all. And just as I am the whole, everybody else is," so there is no question of any ego or megalomania.

The Christian missionaries who interpreted the UPANISHADS were absolutely prejudiced and had no understanding about meditation and no understanding about the higher qualities of a true religion.

They knew only an organized church. In comparison to the UPANISHADS, every religion of the world looks so 'pygmy', so childish.

Those organized religions don't give you freedom. On the contrary, they give you deeper and deeper bondage and slavery. In the name of God you have to surrender, in the name of God you have to become a sheep and allow a Jesus or a Mohammed to be a shepherd. It is so disgusting, the very idea is so self-disrespectful that I cannot call it even pseudo-religious. It is simply irreligious.

The UPANISHADS are the highest flights of consciousness. They don't belong to any religion. The people who made these great statements have not even mentioned their names. They don't belong to any nation, they don't belong to any religion, they don't belong to those who are in search of some mundane thing.

They belong to the authentic seekers of truth.

They belong to you.

They belong to my people.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.