Question 5

QUESTIONER: DID KRISHNA HAVE TO PASS THROUGH ATHEISM IN ORDER TO ATTAIN TO THE HIGHEST IN THEISM?

One who is a profound theist is a profound atheist too. It is skin deep theists who fight with skin-deep atheists. Fight always happens on the surface; there is no fight at the deepest levels of life. Foolish theists quarrel with foolish atheists; an understanding and wise theist does not bother about fighting with atheists. Similarly an understanding atheist does not quarrel with the theists.

Understanding, from whatever source it comes, unites. It always leads to the adwait -- the one without the other. What does a theist say? He says God is. But when theism deepens, there is no God but me, I myself become God. A stupid theist, who does not know what theism really is, says God is there somewhere in the heavens. A wise theist says God is here. An atheist claims there is no God. If he is a man of deep understanding he means the same as the theist means. He says, "There is no other God than that which is: what is, is. " And he calls it prakriti, the pre-created, or nature.

There is a saying of Nietzsche's which is significant in this context. Nietzsche is a profound atheist; as an atheist he is as profound as any theist can be as a theist. Nietzsche says, "If there is God I won't be able to tolerate him, because then, where will I stand? What will happen to me?" He means to say if God is, he as a man will be reduced to nothing. Then he has no ground to stand on, and he could not tolerate it. He says, "If God has to be, why not me? Why can't I be that God?" Nietzsche is an atheist, and he says there is no God but existence. That which is, is God. Why think in terms of any additional God? Even a profound theist says the same thing: that which is, is God; there is no other God.

I have never differentiated between penetrating theism and penetrating atheism. In reality, while the theist uses positive terms in his description of reality, the atheist uses negative terms. There is that much difference. That is why positive theists think Buddha and Mahavira to be atheists. But neither Buddha nor Mahavira will agree with this description.

To superficial theists, both sankhya and yoga seem to be atheistic, but they are not. They are not atheistic in the sense they are thought to be. Their fault -- if it is a fault -- is that they use negative terms. Similarly persons like Krishnamurti look like atheists to superficial theists because they too use the negative language. But the difficulty is that there are only two ways of voicing reality the positive and the negative. The theist is using the positive when he says, "That which is, is God." And the atheist is using the negative when he says, "That which is, is not God."

There have been people who use both positive and negative together when they explain reality. The seers of the UPANISHADS have their own special term: neti-neti, which means it is neither this nor that, and that which is cannot be said. According to them both the theist and atheist say half-truths; they want to say the whole, which cannot be said. In fact, truth is inexpressible. And therefore they remain silent after saying neti-neti.

Krishna need not pass through any kind of atheism, because he is not interested in superficial theism. Krishna knows and accepts reality at a depth where names don't matter. Call it God, call it prakriti, or nature, call it non-God, or whatever you like, it makes no difference. What is, is. The trees will continue to grow as ever, the flowers will continue to blossom. The stars will continue to move, life will continue to appear and disappear, waves will continue to rise and fall. Whether God is or not is a debate only fools participate in. That which is, is utterly unconcerned about it all.

I was camping in a village where two old men came to visit me. One of them was a Jaina, the other a Hindu brahmin. They were old friends and neighbors, and their debate was just as old. In fact, all debates are old because there is no end to them. Men come and go, but debates go on. Both friends had passed their sixties. The Jaina said to me, "We come to you with a question which has been troubling us for the last fifty years. I don't believe in God, whereas this gentleman believes in God. What do you say?"

I said to them, "You two have monopolized the whole debate between you. What is there for a third person like me to say? Since you have divided the thing between you on a fifty-fifty basis, where do I come in?" Then I asked them, "You have argued for the last half century; why couldn't you come to a decision?"

The brahmin friend said, "I hold on to my arguments because I like them, and my friend holds on to his because he likes them. And neither of us has been able to convince the other."

I said, "You have carried on this debate for fifty years, but do you know how long mankind has been debating over it? From time immemorial man has been arguing over it. Up to now, however, no theist has been able to convert an atheist to his point of view. Similarly no atheist has convinced a theist. And the dispute goes on unabated. It shows that each side has a half truth with it; that is they cling to it so tenaciously. If you have one end of reality in your hands, how can you believe there is another end to it?"

I told them, "I can be of help to you only if I completely keep out of the dispute. If I get involved, all I can do is to take up one of the two positions that you hold, but it will make no difference whatsoever So I say to you, give up arguing and try to see the other side of the coin, if there is some truth in what the other person says. You don't insist on your own truth. I concede that there is some truth in what you say. From now on try to see the other side of reality. Give up believing that what the other says is all wrong; try to find out if there is some truth with him. That will be much more helpful."

Then I asked the Hindu gentleman, "What will you do if it is proved with certainty that God is?"

He answered, "There is nothing to be done." His Jaina friend said the same thing when I con, fronted him with the question; What will you do if it is proved that God is not?

I said to both, "Then why are you entangled in this useless controversy? You breathe when God is and you breathe when he is not. You love when God is, and you love when he is not. God does not expel you from the world even if you don't believe in him; he accepts you. And he does not seat you on a king's throne if you believe in him, he does not care for you more than he cares for others. Then of what value is this debate?"

No, we are victims of a linguistic error in regard to the question of God and no-God, theism and atheism. Most of what we call philosophy is nothing more than offshoots of philological errors. And when we accept these philological errors as truth, we are in a mess. Suppose there is a dumb person who is a believer and another dumb person is a non-believer. How will they argue their viewpoints? What will they do to say what and why they hold their beliefs?

Think of a day when all languages, all forms of speech suddenly disappear from the earth for twenty four hours. What will happen to our philosophical debates? If only your languages -- not your religions and beliefs -- are taken away from you, what will you do to assert your convictions? In the absence of language. will you be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian? Will you then be a believer or a non-believer? But surely you will be there even without your languages, your beliefs and non-beliefs. And I say this: you who will be without any ideas and beliefs and dogmas will be a truly religious person.

I would like to close my talk with an anecdote. Mark Twain is the author of this joke.

Once the people of this world decided to carry out an experiment. They hit upon the idea that if all the people of the world agree on a time to shout with one voice, the noise will reach the moon. And if there are people living on the moon, they will hear our shout. And if they make a similar effort we can hear their answering shout from the moon. Man has always been fascinated by the moon, and his desire to relate with that planet is as old as the earth. That is why every child on coming into the world begins to ask for the moon. So a decision was taken and a time appointed when all the inhabitants would speak together to the moon in one voice. They were sure their call would reach the moon, and if the moon is also inhabited by people like us, they will answer in the same way.

"Hoo Hoo" was chosen as the form of their shout.

The appointed time came. With a tremendous sense of anticipation the people all over the earth gathered on housetops, on raised platforms, on hills and mountains. But as the clock struck twelve, strangely enough an immense silence descended on the earth. Not even a whisper was heard. The reason was that everyone, being anxious to hear that rare and united "Hoo-Hoo" of all mankind, decided on his part to keep silent. He thought a single person's non, participation would not make any difference when the whole world was going to speak with one voice. Why should one miss such an opportunity? Consequently, the silence that prevailed on the earth in that particular moment was unprecedented. Never before had the world experienced such a moment of penetrating silence.

If ever you come upon such utter silence, when words, concepts, and languages disappear from your mind, you will know the truth, the reality, or whatever you call it. It is only in utter silence that reality comes into being.

One half of truth lies with the theists and the other half with the atheists. And a half-truth is worse than a lie -- it is always so. It is so because you can easily give up a lie, but it is tremendously difficult to give up a half truth. A half truth looks like truth itself. How can you give it up? And remember truth is indivisible; it can never be fragmented. And if you have a half truth with you, you can make it into a great doctrine. But a doctrine can be refuted; there is no way to refute and dismantle truth. Neither the theist is right nor the atheist; they cling to fragmentary truths and fight for them endlessly.