When Edmund Hillary reached to the highest peak of the Himalayas, Gourishankar, he was simply amazed, he could not believe it. He had made so many arrangements and he had put his and his friend’s life at risk. He was going to be the first man to reach Gourishankar, but what he saw there shocked him. A Hindu monk was just squatting on top of Gourishankar. Edmund Hillary could not believe how he managed to reach there. But perhaps some spiritual power…That could be the only explanation.

He fell at his feet to pay his respects. The old man opened his eyes and what he said was even more shocking. He looked at the beautiful wristwatch that Edmund Hillary had and asked, “How much for this watch?”

Man cannot cut himself in two absolutely.

I was in the hills of Parasnath and I came to know a strange thing. Two Jaina monks lived there naked. Naturally, they could not manage to have money with them – where would they keep it? How would they avoid people knowing about it? But man is really inventive; his ingenuity is superb. They would never have been caught, because the naked Jaina monk only carries a small bamboo with a piece of wool attached so that when he sits anywhere he can clean the place with the wool so that no ants or small insects are killed, the wool is so soft.

Those two monks were traveling together for years. In the morning, when they went outside to their toilet, there was a fight – they hit each other with those bamboos. Somebody brought them to the police station. When I heard the news, I immediately went to the police station to inquire what could be the cause between two naked people! People fight for greed, people fight for a thousand and one things, but these people had nothing to fight about.

In the police station I came to know that inside the bamboos they had hidden one hundred rupee notes – the bamboos are hollow – and one was the master and the other was the disciple.

The fight was because the disciple had more rupees than the master, and this was intolerable. The master was saying, “You simply give half of your money to me, otherwise leave me.”

Two persons who had left their families, who had left their houses, all the comforts of life, who were living naked in hot and cold…were still fighting for money…!

That’s why I say it is impossible to cut yourself absolutely in two separate parts. You will have to make some compromise. All over the world all the religious people have made compromises. That is one of the reasons you see so many religions, but you don’t see so many religious people. You see so many monks, missionaries, sadhus, saints, but if you look deep into their lives you will be surprised – it is hypocrisy. Deep inside there is continuously a compromise. I cannot condemn – let me repeat, I cannot condemn them. I condemn those religious doctrines which have been forcing them to do something unnatural, something impossible.

Riding in two boats, or riding on two horses, you are going to get into trouble. Everything is condemned.