"The word god is not God. How long can you go on playing with the word? The word food is not food. How long can you go on carrying the word food and remain hungry? One day or other you will become aware that what you are carrying is only a word – it cannot nourish you, it cannot give you life, and it cannot give you peace, and it cannot give you anything. Of course it promises all, that is how philosophy becomes so important – because of its promises. But all those promises are empty; they are never fulfilled. Philosophy has never helped anybody to realize truth. This great moment of realization has come into of Tzu Kung. He was the chief disciple of Confucius.

Tzu Kung grew weary of study…

"To look is one thing, to study is diametrically opposite. If I say to you 'Go and see the roseflowers in the garden,' and rather than going to the garden you go to the library and you study about the roseflowers – that is study. About and about, around and around it moves; it never touches the real point.

Tzu Kung grew weary of study…

"Enough of the words. Enough of the theories, dogmas. Enough of the doctrines. And this I call a great moment in the life of an inquirer. Everybody has to pass through words because we have been trained for words. Everybody has to pass through theories; we have been given theories from our very childhood. We have been brought up according to prejudices, doctrines, churches, schools. Somebody is a Christian and somebody is a Mohammedan and somebody is a Hindu, and we have been brought up, conditioned. So the moment you start asking 'What is truth?' your mind starts supplying words; it knows the answers. Those answers are all false, those answers are all borrowed, but it gives you beautiful answers. They satisfy you for a while, and if your inquiry is not great, they may satisfy you forever. Only a great inquirer sees the point that words are meaningless.

"Language is not the door towards reality, but silence. The inner talk must cease, only then will you have clarity."