You can look at the great theological treatises of the Christians, at great works of religion by Hindus, Jews – very scholarly, very difficult to understand. The more difficult they are, the more they are respected. When people cannot understand something they think it is something great, mysterious, something far above their comprehension. And naturally it becomes respectable.

The Hindus use a language for their religious treatises, Sanskrit, which has never been a living language. It has never been spoken by the people in the marketplace; it has been a language of the experts. But they have continuously resisted that Hindu scriptures should be translated.

I was always wondering, why this resistance? In fact they should be happy that their scriptures are being translated and their message is being spread to all corners of the earth. But when I studied their scriptures, I understood the reason.

The reason was that those scriptures have nothing. Just the language is so difficult and people don’t understand it, so they go on paying respect to it. Once it is translated into the language of the people it loses all glory, all spirituality. It becomes so ordinary because it is no longer difficult.

The same is true about others – for example the Jews. The rabbis will still prefer Hebrew. Now it is not a living language, why go on insisting on it? But it gives the mind the impression of something mysterious, impenetrable, holy, far beyond, so that all that you can do is bow down. Once it is translated, it has nothing. And specially, it has nothing that you need.

None of these scriptures teach about love, its implications, its different dimensions. None of these scriptures teach about freedom. None of these scriptures teach about you, your life, and how it can be transformed into a celebration. They talk about God! I have never come across a single man who has any problem with God – it is so irrelevant. Is God anybody’s problem? Is the Holy Ghost anybody’s problem? – things which are absolutely irrelevant to human existence.

The mind has been filled with all kinds of unnecessary luggage. No space is left in the mind for the realities that you have to live. So even your greatest theologian is as foolish about love as you are, has no understanding of freedom, has never inquired into the distinction between personality and individuality.

I had one professor who was teaching religion. After listening for a few days I stood up and told him, “I think you are talking about irrelevant things. I don’t see a single student here for whom God is a problem, and I don’t see that God is a problem to you either” – because I used to live just in front of his house, and his wife was the problem.

I told him, “Your wife is the real problem; that you can discuss. God is absolutely abstract. I have never seen you thinking about God in your house. And all that you are teaching about God has nothing of your experience in it, it has not been your quest. You are filling the minds of these innocent people with ideas which are of no use. Talk about love!”

He was very angry. He said, “You have to come with me to the principal.”

I said, “I can come even to God. You cannot threaten me.”