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we have the Vedas which are at least ten thousand years old, according to the very scientific approach. According to the Hindus they are ninety thousand years old, because in the Vedas there is a mention of a certain state of the stars which happened ninety thousand years ago. Now, how can that be described in the Vedas if they are not ninety thousand years old?
But what has the last pope said? He said, "God created the world with all these things. Everything is possible for him; he created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus, with animal bodies looking millions of years old." Everything is possible for 'God'. One fiction, then you have to support it with another fiction, and you can go to the point of absurdity. And why? Again and again man has asked this question.
A simple, very simple argument has been behind it. You see an earthen pot. You know it cannot be created by itself; there must have been a potter. This has been the simple argument of all these religions: that if even a single earthen pot cannot be created by itself and needs a potter to create it, this vast universe needs a creator. And it has satisfied the simple human mind. But it cannot satisfy a sophisticated, rational mind.
If you say the universe needs a God to create it, then the question is bound to arise, "Who created God?" And then you fall into a regress absurdum. Then God one is created by God two, and God two is created by God three, and God three by God four, and then there can be no end. I don't want to be absurd like that. It is better to stop the first fiction; otherwise you are sowing the seeds for other fictions.
I say existence itself is enough, it needs no creator. It is creativity itself.
So rather than asking me do I believe in a creator, you should ask me what is my substitute for God, the creator. My substitute is the existential energy of creativity.
And to me, to be creative is the most important religious quality.
If you create a song, if you create music, if you create a garden, you are being religious. Going to the church is foolish, but creating a garden is tremendously religious. That's why here in my commune,
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