"Not knowing yourself, you know nothing. And if you don't know even yourself, what else can you know? All that you think you know is only inferences – not knowledge, not authentic knowledge but only guesswork.

"All your knowledge depends on guessing. Sometimes it works only by coincidence, sometimes it does not work. When it works you think you are very intelligent, when it does not work you think fate is against you. But you never realize the fact that you have no eyes yet to see into things.

"Two men were riding on a train for the first time. One of them had a bunch of bananas. He offered one to his friend and began to peel one for himself. Just then, the train entered a tunnel.

"'Have you tasted your banana yet?' asked the first man, very alarmed.

"'No, I haven't,' replied his friend.

"'Well, for heaven's sake don't!' said the first man. 'I took one bite and went blind.'

"This is what your knowledge is – just inferences from coincidences.

"Just the other day I told you a joke about a Polack who had come to New York to earn name, fame, money, power, prestige. He heard a voice coming from far away in the sky, 'Climb up to success!' A little hesitant, a little scared, he tried; he started climbing the ladder, a fifty-story-high ladder, rung by rung. He reached the very end and there he found a young man who said, 'Hi there, my name is Cess!' And would you believe that last night the young man came to take sannyas! In my whole life this is the first time a man with the name of Cess has come to take sannyas! I must have given sannyas to more then one hundred thousand people; thousands of Johns and Peters have turned up, but Cess for the first time! And I think it may be the last time too.

"Life is full of coincidences; there is nothing esoteric about it. And he looked exactly like the description! But he was an intelligent man – he wanted to change his name.

"You go on inferring. Inference is not knowing, inference is just guesswork."