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are right in tune with existence or not, this will destroy their whole superstructure. The saints will look like sinners and the sinners will look like saints.
But this is my criterion because I don't care about the scriptures, I don't care about the prophets, I don't care about the past -- that was their business and their problem. I have my own eyes to see, why should I depend on anybody else's eyes? And I have my own consciousness to be aware, why should I be dependent on Gautam Buddha, or Bodhidharma, or Jesus Christ? They were not dependent on me. Obviously, there is no spoken or unspoken agreement. They lived their lives according to their own understanding and insight; I am to live my life according to my understanding and my insight.
My effort here to speak to you is to give you a chance to see that you are as capable of becoming a no-mind as any Gautam Buddha -- that it is not a special quality given to a few people, that it is not a talent. Everybody cannot be a painter, and everybody cannot be a poet -- those are talents. Everybody cannot be a genius -- those are given qualities from birth. But everybody can be enlightened -- that is the only thing about which communism is right. And strangely enough, that is the only thing communism denies.
Enlightenment is the only thing, the only experience where everybody is equal -- equally capable. And it does not depend on your acts, it does not depend on your prayers, it does not depend on whether you believe in God or not. It depends only on one thing and that is a little taste, and suddenly you become confident that you are capable of it. My speaking is just to give you confidence. So I can tell a story, I can tell a joke -- absolutely unrelated!
Every intellectual will condemn me, saying, "What kind of speech is this?" But he has not understood my purpose; it is not a speech, it is not a lecture. It is simply a device to bring confidence to you and to your heart that you can be silent. The more you become confident, the more you will be able. Without my speaking you will start finding devices yourself. For example, you can go on listening to the birds, and they suddenly stop, and
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