The old requirement – the requirement that one should have faith – is really a trick. It is just to distinguish between the old ones and the new ones. With the new ones, faith is impossible – only doubt is possible. Only with the old ones is faith possible – and doubt is impossible.

So faith is just a technique – a trick – to choose between them, and to know on whom more work can be done in less time. It is not that those who have faith are in any way different than those who have doubts. It is only that those who have faith have already worked somewhere. So intellectual curiosity is not there – it has been fulfilled. They have passed. They are not just entering the school; they have passed the entrance.

So, to ask for faith is to ask, “Have you worked in your past lives?” If you have worked, only then can you have faith, otherwise you cannot. And in today’s world, doubt seems much more prominent – easier. Faith is very difficult. The reason is not that the human mind has changed. The reason is only that the old traditions are becoming narrow.

Really, since Nanak there have been no new traditions. Now, all the religions are old: they have been continuing – the river is narrowing every day. With every new day, the tradition has fewer persons with it. There are now twenty-five centuries since Buddha – the tradition is so old that almost all who were connected with the living master are liberated. And all those persons who have remained are really very third rate. They have had twenty-five centuries of continuous work.

All the traditions and their continuity are, in a way, now so old. That is why faith is less. There were so many living traditions and so many persons who have worked in their past lives. Faith was the root for each one – doubt was very difficult.

If you ask me, I am doing many things. One is working for those who have been in any way connected with me – and there are many. Another is to create a new continuity in which we will be living in the coming days – because no old thinking is now of use.

And I would not like to change someone from his own continuity – because if we cannot liberate a man in a long tradition of twenty-five centuries, it is useless to change him now. It is better to let him go deep into his own tradition. It is better not to change him, but make his own tradition a living one. He can go deep into it. He will be another continuity with the old.

But previously I was working for the new ones, so my emphasis was on doubt. I will always be concerned with doubt – because only through doubt can you attract the new one, never through faith. Faith attracts the old one. He has been doing something in his past lives. My emphasis has been on doubt only because I should work for a new tradition which will be living.