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the atman, whatsoever one may name it -- Krishna emphasises surrendering, Buddha emphasises no-self, Mahavira emphasises egolessness, Jesus, the kingdom of God, the bliss. He talks about the bliss, ananda, the kingdom... and the poverty in which we live....
SECOND QUESTIONER: WHAT WAS....?
A: Ananda -- happiness. Happiness unbounded, happiness unlimited, happiness infinite.
Whosoever may have realized, whosoever may have reached, the question is not that one says this and the other says that -- this and that mean the same thing. If one has realized and the other has not realized, then even this and that cannot mean the same.
This is to be understood: A person who has realized, he may say whatsoever he likes. He cannot say against it... anyone who has realized. But a person who has not realized may say, "this is what I mean, this is what you are saying, I am totally convinced of it." But he cannot mean the same, because the same has not been experienced.
Words cannot convey the experience. But anti-words can convey.... If the person is a person of knowing, anti-words can convey. Mahavira says, "Self is the only thing. To know the Self is the aim, to realize the Self is all." Buddha says quite the contrary: "To know the self is ignorance."
These two statements quite contradictory, quite opposite to one another, mean the same thing. But if someone says, God is, and another, too, says God is, and if the persons concerned are persons who do not know what God means, these two statements -- similiar, exactly similiar: GOD IS -- these two statements cannot mean the same. The two persons and their experience and their ignorance and their definitions, are different. They have not come to the point where individuality dissolves.
Unless individuality is dissolved, we cannot come to the same experience, because the difference is not in the experience, it is in our personality, our individuality: I. My I gives meaning to my words, your I gives meaning to your words, and your I and my I are two different things, they can't mean the same thing. But a Buddha has no I, a Mahavira has no I, a Jesus has no I. So they cannot mean different
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