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did not arise. Could anyone ever move in darkness and in the unknown? Nobody asks this question about the opposite of religion; but about religion there will hardly be anybody who does not ask it. Nobody ever thinks or makes a search about irreligion. That has to be lived while religion has to be searched. Probably this so-called search is a way to live in the opposite of religion and avoid living in religion itself.
Nobody ever told the king about it. The learned, the saints and the philosophers of different religions used to come to him. They quarrelled with one another. They used to show one another's faults. They used to prove that the others were in ignorance. The king used to be pleased with it. In this way, religion itself was an illusion and ignorance in his eyes and he could find support for living in the opposite of it. It was difficult to win over that king on the side of religion. Because whoever took sides were themselves not in favour of religion. Groups, sects and religious institutions are always on their own sides. They have nothing to do with religion. They could not have. Only he who gives up all sides can belong to religion. Without giving up sides it is difficult to belong to religion. Religious sects are ultimately enemies of religion and friends of its opposite.
But the king did not stop his research. It had become a play for him; and even the Opposite of religion began to bring to him pain, cares and misery. As death started approaching and the harvest time of life came near, he became restless. But he was not prepared to accept anything except the highest, internally faultless and the complete religion. He was adamant; and until perfect religion was clear to him he was determined not to move even one step of life towards it. Years after years went by, and on his own he was getting himself deeper in the mud. At last, his death came close at doors.
One day a young beggar came to his door and asked for alms, and finding the king extremely worried, depressed and perturbed, asked him the reason. The king told him: "What could you do even after knowing it? The big, big scholars, saints and mendicants have not been able to
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