In India we have found cities which were lying hidden underneath the earth, seven thousand years old – and not ordinary cities. I have been to Harrapur, Mohanjodro – both are in Pakistan now – and it is something to see. Seven thousand is a very orthodox idea; there are scholars who say they must be more than fifteen thousand years old. But even if they are only seven thousand years old, there must have been a long past to those cities, because that kind of city cannot be created instantly.

They have bigger roads than New York. Now, a city seven thousand years old, having a wider road than New York…it means they must have had vehicles, traffic, otherwise why create such a road? They had beautiful bathrooms, they had a system of running water. Even if they were seven thousand years old, they must have been developed for thousands of years to come to such technology, to such plumbing, that they can have running water in their bathrooms, in their houses. They had swimming pools….

In China we have found human bodies, frozen in ice, ninety thousand years old. Now, when all these facts came to the Christian theologians, there was great turmoil: What to do? – because God created the world six thousand years ago. I am giving you this example of how a desperate believer functions.

One theologian came up with the idea, which became accepted by the whole Christianity, that God created the world exactly as it is said in the Bible, six thousand years ago, with cities under the earth, with bathrooms, with plumbing, with wide roads, with ninety-thousand-year-old bodies…just to test your faith! “God can do anything. If he can create the world, do you think he cannot create a body that looks ninety thousand years old to all scientific investigation? But the world was created six thousand years ago.” A desperate effort to cling to superstitions!

There comes a point where all your superstitions are proved to be superstitions. Then this situation arises that you start saying, “They are all superstitions, and we can drop them and still we can save Christianity.”

You cannot. Those superstitions have been the very backbone of your Christianity. Without those superstitions your Christianity will lose all its life. And it will be more absurd to believe in a Christianity devoid of all superstitions, miracles, God – even of religion.

Now they are saying it is only ethics, not doctrine. But ethics need not be Christian – ethics has nothing to do with Christianity. Ethics is a science in itself. I have been a teacher of ethics, and I had never thought that ethics can be Christian. Ethics thinks about what is truth, what is good, what is bad. It has nothing to do with religion; it has something to do with your actions. And it is the same for everybody. Whether you are in Tibet or China or in America, it does not make any difference, the ethical standard will be the same. Ethics is a science completely in itself.

Now, finding nothing in their doctrines, they are falling back on ethics, saying that the essential thing is not doctrine because all their doctrines have been proved wrong. Up to now it was doctrine; now because all doctrines are proved wrong, or at least questionable, and they have not been able substantially to support their doctrines and their truth….