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of saying it are different -- Kabir is just blunt, Ramakrishna is polite.
Just look at the stupidity of human mind. For thousands of years it has believed that by going to a holy pool, to a river or to a pond, all will be good. And in the same way others have believed other things -- going to sacred cities, Jerusalem, or the Weeping Wall, or going to Kaaba. They are all the same stupid attitudes. You want to find cheap ways to get rid of all that you have been doing, you don't want to take its responsibility on yourself. You don't want to transform yourself, that's why you find these cheap ways. You remain the same.
Man has not changed -- because of these things. And these things became a great consolation. A murderer goes to the river, a holy river, and takes a dip in the river and feels perfectly good. The same is being done by the Christians when they go to confess. You go to the priest and you confess, and you think it is finished just by confessing it. And next day you are ready to do it again. And you know that there is not much of a problem, you can do it again and go and confess again. You can go every year to the Ganges, take a dip, and the whole year is clean and you have earned great virtue.
When you think over it, it looks so stupid. But that's how man has lived up to now. In the name of religion, man has just been postponing his transformation. And the real religion should be a transforming force. But the so-called religion has not been a transforming force; on the contrary, it has been a hindrance. It has been the greatest obstacle in man's change.
So religious people go on moving in a circle. They go on doing certain things, hoping that everything will be okay, and they remain the same. They God year in, year out, to the temple. They go on playing with their beads, they go on repeating sacred names, and they remain the same -- not even a slight change. Nothing ever changes. In fact their beliefs are their ways to protect themselves from change; their beliefs are their defenses, their beliefs are the arm our around themselves. They want to remain the same. They still want to have that pleasure also, that they are religious,
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