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as children are concerned but which is stupid, silly as far as silly as far as a grown-up person is concerned.
It is good to take small children to Disneyland, but when the Dalai Lama goes and visits it, then it looks silly, just stupid. But I can see the reason: the Dalai Lama also lives in a very childish religious attitude. He was deeply interested, he enjoyed it very much. There seems to be a certain affinity between the childish mind and the old religious mind.
To me religion should start not with a belief in god; a grown-up's religion cannot start by any belief -- it can only start in scientific experimen-tation. One has to become the scientific lab oneself. Of course the experimentation is inner and subjective, but it is as scientific as any objective experiment. In fact one has to be more alert because one will be dealing with more subtle phenomena. And one has to look for god, one has to look for bliss, because bliss is a natural desire; god almost seems to be something imposed upon us.
Religions can be without god; there are religions -- Buddhism, Jainism. They are without god. God doesn't seem to be a necessary hypothesis at all. But without bliss there can be no religion because then there is no need for any religion. Religion means the science of bliss. How to transform our energies from a state of misery into a state of bliss -- that should be the whole of religion.
And this is my experience, that when it happens a great gratitude arises. In that gratitude, for the first time you feel the presence of something divine. You can call it god, you can call it truth, you can call it tao -- it doesn't matter what you call it -- or you may not call it anything; you may remain completely silent about it because it is something inexpressible. But certainly it happens when you are blissful. Then you start feeling a deep thankfulness towards existence. That is praise of the lord.
Find bliss and you will have found prayer as a consequence of it. But for centuries you have been told: pray and then you will find bliss. I am saying just the opposite: become blissful and prayer will come of its own accord. And then prayer has a beauty
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