The Need for Authenticity

Date Unknown

Question:

I don't talk much about doctrines. I am not very interested in intellectual gymnastics. Reincarnation is a fact, but I don't talk much about it. I may help you to remember your past lives, but I don't make a doctrine out of it. If you can remember them than it is okay. If you don't remember them, that too is okay. But I don't talk about it. It is useless.

Question:

It is true, but I don't believe it. I know it. That's different. Knowledge is not belief.

Belief comes out of ignorance. You don't believe in the sun, but you believe in God. We do not need to believe that we are sitting here; we know it as a fact. But if I say that some ghost is also present, if you cannot see the ghost you will have to either believe what I say or disbelieve it.

Belief comes only when you don't know. When you know, there is no question of belief. What I am saying is not a question of belief. I know it is so; it is 3 fact. I don't insist that you should also believe it as a fact. I only say that you should experiment with it so that you can also come to know it as a fact.

Belief is basically concerned with ignorance. With knowledge, there is no belief. You do not 'believe' in science. What would be the use of it? You don't 'believe' that two plus two make four. Only fictions have to be believed, not facts.

What I am saying is a fact to me, but if I insist that you also believe it as a fact because I am saying it - that kind of belief has become impossible. And it is good that it has become impossible.

Question:

No, no. There are two types of facts: objective and subjective. For example, if I say that I love you, there can be no objective proof. How can I prove it objectively? Can any kind of detection prove that in my heart there is love? If I try to act in a loving way so that you will know that I love you, then I am just acting. How can it be proved objectively that I have love in my heart? But it still is a fact, a subjective fact.

Belief in someone else's subjective fact has become impossible. A St. Francis or a Buddha may say, "I have achieved such and such," but he cannot show you what he has achieved. You can believe it or disbelieve it. Or, you can experiment and achieve the same thing. Then you can believe it.

There is no objectivity possible as far as inner truth is concerned. So don't insist on it. That is what I mean. If I insist that my fact must be your fact, then I am a violent man. And if I say, "Believe it, because I know it is so," that is violence. I simply say what is a fact for me. I can tell you the technique of how it became a fact for me, how I came to realize it. I can tell you the technique. You can try it. If you also come to the same bliss, then it will become a fact for you .

Science is concerned with the objectivity of the fact. Religion is concerned with the subjectivity. A subjective experience cannot be shown. I cannot show you what I have attained; there is no way.

Still, it is a fact for me not a belief.

Question:

Values must be based on your inner illumination. For example, Buddha says that to speak the truth is a value. For him, it is an inner realization. It is not a question of faith, he is not saying that if you speak the truth you will attain heaven. He is not saying that if you speak the truth, God will be pleased with you; he is not giving you any profit motive. He is simply saying that when he speaks the truth he feels good, a well-being comes to him, and when he speaks an untruth he feels degraded inside, he feels suffering, he feels a bondage. This is his fact, subjective. And he says, "Try it." If you also feel the same thing, then it has become a realization to you. But just to believe in it because Buddha has said it is worthless.

This is my insistence: that unless something becomes a realization for you, it is bogus and, for you, it is false. Don't follow phantoms. It is better to experiment and come to an inner truth than to go on following things that someone else had said. Don't be traditional, be individual.

Religion is individual truth. You can be a Christian, you can be a Hindu, a Mohammedan, simply by belief. But that is bogus; you are not authentic. Simply being born in a Christian family or a Hindu family you can be a Christian or a Hindu, but whatsoever you believe is borrowed. It is not authentic; you are not true to it.

So it is better to find out some small fact upon wh:ch you can be authentically based and you can say, "This is my knowing." That will transform your whole being. You may believe in many, many things, but they are not coming from your experience. Then you remain a false entity, a pseudo-man.

When I say, "Make it your experience," I mean: be authentic about it. A single fact that you yourself have realized will be transforming. You will be a different man; your feet will be on solid ground.

That's why I don't insist on doctrines but on techniques Doctrines are others' realizations. They may not be true. Techniques are simple methods: you can simply do them. If the technique works, if it is right, then you will come to the same conclusion.

Buddha was one of the most authentic men who has ever lived. His dying words were, "Don't believe in me." Don't believe something because Buddha has said it, don't believe because others believe it. Unless it becomes a truth for you, don't believe it. That doesn't mean to disbelieve it. There is no need. Remain suspended. That is intellectual honesty: to remain suspended, to remain agnostic.

Don't say yes or no until you come to know.

Believers are false, pseudo, inauthentic. That's why I say that faith has become impossible. To be authentic is to be religious - even if you have to say, "I don't know God, I don't know Christ, I don't know the Holy Ghost. I don't know anything. And because I don't know, I cannot believe. Unless I know, I will not believe." Only this kind of attitude will create a situation for you to grow.

Question:

A hypothesis is not a belief. You need not believe in it; it is just a temporary thing. It may be true, it may not be true. There is no need to believe in it; the experiment will show whether ii is true or not.

You play with the hypothesis: without belief, without disbelief.

As far as objective facts are concerned, an experiment can only lead to a certain probability. You can never know any objective fact in its totality. Something else may be discovered which can change the whole thing. So with scientific facts, your knowing always remains relative. You cannot be absolutely certain because the fact, any fact, is just a part of the great world, the infinite. In that, infinity, whatsoever you know is always probable; it is never certain.

Science can never be certain. It will always be probable, because something new can always be discovered. You may destroy the whole hypothesis, or change it. So science will remain probable.

That is the very nature of it.

But religion can be certain because inner truths are not fragments. They are absolute in a sense.

Once you know them, you can be certain about them. There is no need to be certain, but you are certain. That feeling comes. It is just like when you fall in love. You never say, "I am probably in love."

When you are angry, you never say that you are probably feeling, anger. When anger happens to you, you are certain of it, when love happens to you, you are certain of it. If you say that you are probably in love, then you are not in love. With love, the certainty comes automatically. The more you move inside, the more certain you become. The more outer you move, the more probable.

The further a thing is from you, the more probable it will be. And the nearer to you, the more certain.

When you come to the very center, it is absolutely certain. That's why Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha are so certain. They're absolutely certain. And Einstein or any other scientist is absolutely uncertain. It is bound to be so. It is the very nature of the thing. The further removed something is from you, the less certain you will be about it.

When something happens to you at the very center of your being, there is no possibility of any uncertainty. You are absolutely certain that it is so. There is not even any need to be so certain, but you are.

Certainty is inner truth; probability is outer truth. Science will never be certain and religion will always be certain. That's why religion appears to be very dogmatic.

It is bound to be. But don't try to enforce your certainty on others. That is irreligious.

An inner truth need not be believed. It only needs to be discovered. It is there already, you are it.

And your inner truth is the only thing that can be truly known. Everything else will always remain probable.

If you allow me to say it, I will say that science is belief because it is always probable and religion is knowledge because it is always certain. The only thing you can be certain about is your own self.

If you cannot be certain even about yourself, you cannot be certain about anything else. If I am not certain that I am sitting here in this chair, then how can I be certain that you are here? You are removed from me; you may be just a dream. If I am uncertain that I myself am here then I cannot be certain about you.

All certainty starts with me: that I am here. It is possible that I may be dreaming that I am here and I am not really here, but even to dream I have to be. That one thing is certain. You may be a dream, but I cannot be a dream because a dreamer is needed. The further you are removed from me, the more uncertain you will be. I cannot be certain about you; I can only be certain about myself. That is the only thing - what Descartes calls the indivisible truth.

Science is belief. Religion is knowledge.

Question:

Whatever Buddha or Jesus have said is not what they mean. To know the inner is one thing, but to put it in words changes it completely. Jesus uses a different language than Buddha; it is bound to be so. Buddha uses a different language because he is living in a different culture, a different world.

But whatsoever they know is the same. You can compare Buddha's words with Jesus'. They are different, the language is absolutely different. Jesus uses Jewish symbology. Buddha uses Hindu symbology - they are different.

But if you have the same experience, then you can look beyond symbols and see that the experiences of Buddha and Jesus are the same. If you don't have that inner experience, then the languages will look different, contradictory.

A Christian scholar and a Buddhist scholar will never agree that the experiences of Jesus and Buddha are the same. But the problem is semantic, one of language. Eckhart will agree that the inner experience of the two is the same Jakob Bohme will agree, because they themselves have achieved the same thing. Because they have achieved it, they can see beyond language. Language communicates, but it also becomes a barrier.