"Its victory is absolutely certain because what it is seeking is already there within you. It is everybody's life source. Combined, it becomes the life source of the whole universe. We are just small branches coming out of the universal source.

"The moment you realize your universality, all your anxieties appear to be so trivial, so tinyjust the very realization of your eternity makes them disappear, they become shadows. The moment you realize your life source, they lose their reality. In other words your anxieties, your problems and your anguish are real if you don't know yourself. That is your life, if you don't know your life source.

"What has come to be known as existentialism in the West must have preceded Gautam Buddha in the East. Existentialism says life is nothing but anguish, anxiety, angst; it has no meaning. There is only failure; that is your destiny. It gives a very dark color, a very negative approach, to existence. Listening to the modern existentialists one can only feel that perhaps suicide is the only way out. Life in every possible way is going to be full of anxiety.

"My own understanding is that before the time of Gautam Buddha there must have been the same kind of feeling in the East, that life is meaningless. I know the names of at least three people who were very famous in those days, but all their literature has been destroyed because their whole point of view was against life. One was Sanjay Belattiputta, another was Ajit Keshkambal, and the third was Gosal. These three people were as intelligent as any Gautam Buddha. But they preached that life is meaningless; all the meaning that you give to it is your imagination. It is just a hope that keeps you going on, through all the sufferings, through all the meaningless incidents. And from the cradle to the grave, you will not find a single place where you can rest. It is just restlessness.

"But with Gautam Buddha, things took a different turn – a turn which is enormous. The West needs a Gautam Buddha; otherwise the idea of meaninglessness, anxiety, anguish, is bound to create the idea of suicide as the way out."