“Zen is the only revolutionary religion in the world. All the other religions are traditional, orthodox, superstitious, fundamentally based on belief. Any religion that is based on belief is a fiction, because belief simply means a repressed doubt.

“Zen is an exception: it does not believe in anything – not even in the scriptures, not even in the sutras of Gautam Buddha. Belief, as such, is denied completely. I agree with it, without any condition. That has been my own whole approach.

“Truth has to be experienced, not believed. Once you believe in it you will never experience it. Truth has to be searched for. Out of necessity, you have to doubt all the theories and ideologies propounded by the scriptures and others. If you don’t doubt them, you will be in a sheer confusion. If you believe in them you will stop there, at your belief. Your God will be a belief, not a truth. Your very own self will be just a belief, not something that you have lived, not something that you have danced, not something that you have touched. All beliefs take you away from yourself. To find out the truth you have to learn the art of disbelief.

“Hence Zen has a very special position. Atheists also disbelieve, but they stop at their disbelief, just as theists stop at their belief. The atheist’s disbelief is just negative belief; it is nothing different. But when Zen talks of disbelief or doubt, it simply means a challenge to explore, not something to settle at, but to begin from there. You have discarded and eliminated all beliefs, all disbeliefs. Then your pure consciousness asserts itself on its own accord. And the beauty of spontaneous flowering is the only beauty in the world.”