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a slight chance of your being saved. If the discussion is about the soul, then I will say that you have never been born at all. Then you are unborn and immortal; the question of death does not arise. These two statements are complete in themselves; they do not cancel each other. Their dimensions are different, so this always creates difficulties.
The difficulty becomes even more confusing because all my statements are spoken and not written. In statements that are written down there is a sort of indifference. They are not addressed to anyone. The listener or the reader is not sitting opposite while it is written down. The listener or the reader is out of the picture. But when something is spoken, the listener is present and he is also taken into consideration. Thus, whenever I speak about something, I alone am not responsible for the statements. The listener is also responsible.
Responsibility, therefore, is shared. I am definitely responsible for the statements, but the listener is also responsible for creating a situation that called for the statements being made in a particular manner. If another listener had been there, my statements might have been different; in the presence of a third one, they might have again been different; if my statements were unaddressed to anyone, they might have been different again.
All my statements are addressed, and all spoken words are more alive. They receive life from the speaker as well as the listener. When there is no listener, then the speaker is making a sort of bridge toward something that is not there. There is no other bank for the bridge to reach across to. But how can there be a bridge without two banks? There cannot be. A bridge standing on one bank is bound to fall.
Therefore, in this world, all the significant statements about truth are spoken and not written. If I write anything, I write letters, because a letter is as good as something that is spoken. It is addressed. I have not written anything except letters, because to me they are a manner of speaking. The other is always there before me when I write a letter.
Thus, when I speak before thousands of people at a time, then the
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