Religion is not a formless concept. Religion is a concrete activity. It is not a thought, it is an experience. Living your life so that whatever causes you misery should not befall others, is religion.

I dreamed the Day of Judgment had come. Everyone rose from his grave to be questioned. The inquiry was conducted by God himself. Standing next to me was a pundit, a scholar I knew quite well. He had a very carefree attitude. He knew the Gita, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the whole lot. He felt he could pass any examination in religion. But as God moved down the line he became less and less sure of himself and more and more anxious. He turned to me and cried, “This is too unjust. Nothing whatsoever is being asked about the scriptures. God is only asking about life! But I know what I’ll do. You know what I’ll say? I shall say I know nothing but the scriptures, that I have spent my whole life trying to know them.”

Scriptures and dogmas are like dry leaves, there is no sap in them. Nor can there ever be. Only the tree of the self produces green leaves and blossoms that are full of life.

On my search I found no greater scripture than silence. When I had dug through all the scriptures I realized how futile they all were and that silence was the only thing that had any point to it whatsoever.

If the truth is not known to you, the knowledge of the scriptures is useless. If the truth is known to you, the knowledge of the scriptures is also useless.

It is completely ridiculous to delve into the scriptures in the hope of realizing truth. The scriptures may well have grown out of truth, but they have never been known to generate the experience of truth in anyone. People are so silly – they shelter the blackest ignorance in a living heart and dig among dead words trying to unearth the truth.