Every religion tries to prove that their scriptures are the oldest. It is strange that they want to prove that. And they glorify in their ancientness. In fact, the more ancient they are, the more useless they are, because they have lost touch with reality completely. The man of consciousness and wisdom, alive, actually responds to the situation. Otherwise all answers fall short and life becomes more and more a mess.

So there is no need to be worried about it, if you are losing your memory and you see that you don’t feel any parallel upsurge of intelligence. You will not feel it. Intelligence is so subtle that you will not hear the sound of its footsteps. But slowly, slowly it will transform your whole being and then suddenly, when the work is complete, you will awake from a deep sleep and you will see yourself as a new being, reborn.

So as far as I see, everything is going perfectly well. And I am watching you every day – because Anando is one of my secretaries, so I see her every day. She is growing, becoming more and more silent, joyous, humorous, sharp. But man has energy…. If you start becoming more sharp, more intelligent, from where will you get the energy? The energy that is involved and invested in memories has to be taken out, and there is no harm in it. In the ordinary marketplace, perhaps, not to have a good memory can be dangerous. But if you look at the geniuses of the world, you will be surprised that one of the most common points amongst all those geniuses is their lapse of memory.

Edison is going for a lecture tour to a few universities. He is saying good-bye to his wife and the maidservant is also standing there. He kisses the maidservant, thinking that she is his wife and waves to his wife, thinking that she is the maidservant. The driver of the car who was taking him cannot believe what is happening.

He said, “Sir, you have forgotten, you have got mixed up. The woman whom you are waving to is your wife and the other woman is your servant.”

He said, “My God. There is no harm, I can get out of the car and put things right.” He kissed his wife, waved to the maidservant and he said, “It often happens that I forget very essential things.” He had discovered more inventions than anybody else before or after him – one thousand inventions. Such a genius…but while he was working on a certain invention, his wife had to remember and take notes, because in the middle of working on the invention he would forget what he was doing. At first he used to keep notes on paper, loose papers. Then it became a problem because thousands of loose papers in his study…and he was rushing like mad, looking for the loose papers, “Where are those notes?” The wife said, “It is better you write down your notes in a diary. I don’t understand science, how can I help you?”