This is the point of transcendence. This is the point where you disappear completely and, at the same time, you become total. This is why Buddha will not say yes to God, will not say no to God. If you ask him, “Is there God?” he will smile at the most. That smile shows his transcendence. He will not say yes, he will not say no, because he knows both are stages on the path but not the goal – and both are childish. In fact anything becomes childish when you cling to it. Only a child clings. A grown-up man leaves all clinging: real maturity is nonclinging – not even to yes.

Buddha is so godlike and so godless. All people who have really attained go beyond yes and no.

Remember this. Sartre is hanging somewhere at the very border of no. That’s why he goes on talking about sadness, depression, anxiety, anguish. All negatives. He has written a great book, his magnum opus, Being and Nothingness. In that book he tries to prove that being is nothingness – the total negation. But he clings to it.

But he is an authentic man. His no is true. He has earned it. It is not just a denial of God he has lived that denial. He has suffered for it; he has sacrificed for it. It is an authentic no.

So there are two types of atheists – as there are always two types in every direction the authentic and the inauthentic. You can become an atheist for wrong reasons. A communist is an atheist but he is not authentic. His reasons are false: his reasons are superficial. He has not lived his no.

To live the no is to sacrifice oneself at the altar of negativity, to suffer tremendously, to move in the world of desperation, to move in the darkness, to move in the hopeless state of mind where darkness prevails ultimately, endlessly, and there is no hope for any morning – to move into the meaningless and to not in any way create any illusion; because the temptation is great. When you are in a dark night the temptation is great at least to dream about the morning, to think about the morning, to create an illusion around you, to hope for it. And whenever you start hoping you start trying to believe in it, because you cannot hope without belief. You can hope if you believe. Belief is inauthentic: disbelief is also inauthentic.

Sartre’s no is really true. He has lived it; he has suffered for it. He won’t cling to any belief. Whatsoever the temptation, he will not dream. Whatsoever the allurement and the fascination of hope and future, of God and heaven no – he will not be tempted. He will stick, He will remain fixed with the fact The fact is that there is no meaning. The fact is that there seems to be no God, the sky seems to be empty. The fact is there seems to be no justice. The fact is the whole existence seems to be accidental – not a cosmos but a chaos.