ATHEISM

A great atheist had written in his sitting room, on the wall, in capital letters: GOD IS NOWHERE. Of course, everybody who came to see him had to read it; it was in such big letters, just in front of their eyes. His first child was born, and one day he was playing with the child. The child was learning language slowly, so he started reading the sentence on the wall. He could read, “God is nowhere,” but “nowhere” was such a big word, the child could not manage to read it in one go. He cut it in two. He read, “GOD IS NOW HERE.” The word ‘nowhere’ he cut into two pieces. For the first time the father looked at the sentence, and he said, “My God! This child has made me aware. Now I can never read that sentence completely; I will always remember “Now Here.”

It was a moment of transformation for the atheist. For the first time he started thinking, “Do I know really that God is nowhere? Have I explored the whole space? Have I explored my inner being?” Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers. The only right person is an agnostic, who is neither theist nor atheist, who is simply in search of the truth. He has no belief system, no prejudice, no ideology already programmed. I don’t see much difference between the atheism of a communist and the theism of the Vatican. The theism of the Vatican is based on a belief. Das Kapital is the bible for the communist – because Marx says there is no God, it becomes a program for every child in a communist country.

In India every child believes there is God. Both are beliefs: one is positive belief, one is negative belief, but belief is belief. Neither the communist knows, nor the Vatican. The people who do know say it is impossible to say anything about the ultimate reality. It cannot be brought into language; it remains mysterious. You can enter into it, but you cannot say anything about it. You can enjoy it, you can rejoice it, you can dance it, but language is too poor. This is the real poverty of philosophy, that it cannot express the ultimate experience of meditators. Only the agnostic can be a meditator. He puts aside all programming, whether the programming is from the theist or from the atheist does not matter. All programming, the whole mind, has to be put aside, and you have to enter into a space of no-mind. In that no-mind there is no time, just the present moment and utter silence, and great clarity, and you are a luminous being, Now, here.