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for its nourishment. And I am also against the so-called spiritualists, because I cannot deny the reality of matter. It is so evidently there, all around us, that only people who can close their eyes, their reasoning, their understanding, their intelligence, can believe that this is all illusion, that it does not really exist.
Just try. When you go out, go through the wall, not through the gate -- and you will know whether it is illusion or reality. Even a Shankaracharya will go through the gate, not through the wall -- and his whole life he will try to prove that the wall is an illusion, that it only appears to be, but it is not there.
There is a beautiful incident. One fine morning Shankaracharya -- THE Shankaracharya, the first Shankaracharya -- after taking his bath in the Ganges in Varanasi, is coming up the steps and a man is coming down the steps. It is still dark. The sun has not risen yet, and the man touches Shankaracharya. And the moment he touches him he says, "My God, please forgive me. I am a SUDRA."
And Shankaracharya is very much angry. A man who says that everything outer is illusory, even for him the body of a sudra is not illusory. He says, "You wasted my time. Now I have to take another bath."
The sudra said, "Before you take the bath, please answer my few questions. If you don't answer, you can take the bath but I will touch you again -- and that will be a real waste of time."
He has put Shankaracharya into such a corner... and there is nobody around, so Shankaracharya agrees to answer his questions: "You seem to be such a stubborn man. First you touch me, then you declare that you are a sudra. And now you are forcing me to answer your questions. What are your questions?"
The sudra said, "My questions are very simple. I want to know whether my body is sudra, untouchable. Is there any difference between my body and your body? Is there any difference between my blood and your blood, my bones and your bones? Would it be possible, if we both died, for anybody to decide which body was a brahmin's body and which body was a sudra's body? Our skeletons will be the same, so please tell me: is my body untouchable?
"If
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