But Buddha was not so unintelligent as to provide proofs for light. He said, “You have brought him to the wrong man. He does not need a philosopher, he needs a physician. I have got a physician with me, my personal physician; take him to him. Light is not the question; the question is, if he can get his eyes cured he will not need any other argument.”
It took six months for the physician to cure his eyes, and when he saw light, he said, “My God, I have been proving all those poor villagers wrong and I was providing all kinds of arguments which appeared to me perfectly right. But light is not to be proved or disproved by an argument: either you see it, or you don’t see it.”
Buddha had moved to another village in those six months. The man went to the other village, dancing – because a man who is blind misses almost all that is beautiful: the flowers, the colors, the sun rays passing through the trees, the greenery. He misses almost eighty percent of life; that’s why you feel so much compassion toward a blind man.
You don’t feel so much compassion toward a deaf man – he is also missing a sense. And you don’t bother at all if somebody cannot smell – there are people who don’t have the capacity to smell. Neither are you worried about a man who cannot taste. But whenever you see a blind man, a strange compassion arises in you. You may not be aware, but the fact is that the blind man is living only twenty percent of his life. Eighty percent of life comes through the eyes.
He was dancing in the sun, he touched Buddha’s feet and he told him, “If you had not met me I would have never seen the light, because they were always taking me to great philosophers, scholars, quoting scriptures, but that did not help. You were the first man who simply refused to say anything about light. Now I know at that time I had felt a little shocked, ‘People say Buddha is very compassionate, but it does not seem to be true. He has refused even to talk with me.’ But now I know your compassion. Only a physician was needed, medicine was needed, so that my eyes were cured. Once my eyes were cured, I could see light is.”
The same is the situation about God or godliness – it cannot be proved by arguments. Atheists have always been the winners as far as arguments are concerned; no theist has been able to answer all their questions, and whatever arguments they have produced have been destroyed by atheists very easily. The reason is that God is the ultimate light, and for it you need clarity of vision, you need eyes moving inward. You either know God or you don’t know – there is no in between, no space to stand in between.
And the whole humanity is trying to stand in between. They do not know God, yet they believe that God is; they are blind, yet they believe light is – their belief is going to prevent the curing of their eyes. Hence I am against all beliefs; all belief systems have been destructive and poisonous.