This is a very strange situation man finds himself in, and this is everybody’s situation. And because we start thinking about life, life’s problems, life’s mysteries, we get trapped in scriptures, doctrines, theories – because from where else are you going to get the answer? If you ask, “Who created the world?” now how are you going to find the answer to who created the world? You were not present there when the world was created – if it ever was created. How are you going to find the answer to who created the world? One thing is certain – nobody could have been present, because if somebody had been present then the world would have already been there. Nobody could have been present, so nobody could have been a witness. And once you ask such a stupid question, which looks very, very intelligent: who created the world? – almost every religious person goes on asking this – then you are bound to fall into a trap. Then those cunning and calculating people who can answer it – and all their answers are false because nobody can be a witness to it, and all their answers are contradictory to each other…

Mahavira says the world was never created. Now how to believe whether he was right or not? Christians say the world was created exactly four thousand four years before Jesus Christ was born…on the first of January, on Monday, in the early morning, at six o’clock. Now this is patently stupid, because now we know, enough proofs are there, that the world has existed – at least this earth has existed – for millions of years. If the world was created four thousand four years before Jesus, that means the world has existed for only six thousand years. But the ruins of Harappa are seven thousand years old; it is scientifically proved. And we have found bones of animals which are millions of years old. But you will be surprised at what Christians say.

There was one Christian thinker who said that God can do that – he made the world exactly four thousand four years before Jesus; but God is omnipotent – he made bones that look millions of years old. And why did he make these bones? – just to test your trust. Those who are really trusting, they will trust, and those who doubt will fall into hell. Cunning people can always go on finding explanations.

To ask a question means you are ready to receive some answer from somebody. And whenever you receive some answer from somebody you are falling more and more away from the truth, because truth can never be borrowed. Neither can the Vedas give it to you, nor the Koran, nor the Bible. Neither can Buddha give it to you, nor Mohammed, nor I. Nobody can give it to you.

Truth has to be discovered by everybody in his own being. You are truth! “Ana’l haq!” Mansoor, the great Sufi, declared “I am truth!” But how can you declare this unless you have reached to the very core of your being? Because we ask such questions, we are supplied with answers.

There is one economic law: wherever there is a demand there will be a supply. Ask a stupid question and you will get a thousand and one stupid answers. And because you have asked the question, the question creates irritation; you cannot be satisfied unless you receive some answer. The question goes on haunting you, so you are bound to fall into the trap of some dogma, doctrine, scripture, priest, philosopher. You are bound to fall into somebody’s trap, and it is because of a wrong question.

The only right and religious question is one: that is, who am I? Because nobody can answer it, that’s why it is the only valid question – only you can answer it. Nobody can say who you are, only you; and you too only when you go deep into yourself, beyond all the labels that are sticking on your surface: that “I am a doctor”, that “I am an engineer”, that “I am a businessman”, that “I am a professor”; that “I am a Christian”, that “I am a Hindu”, that “I am a Catholic” or a communist, socialist; that “I am Indian”, or German or Japanese.