"And they have a vast investment.

"Now the Catholic Church is the greatest firm, compared to any business firm in the world. Six hundred million people, almost a nation, are under the thumb of a Polack pope. So much money and power and prestige is bestowed on religions, their deities, their temples.

"In India there is a temple in the south which has so much income every day that it runs a whole university. Perhaps that is the only university in the world that a temple runs – all the salaries and everything. And still the temple goes on becoming rich, because the superstition is that if you donate to the deity of the temple, you will get a millionfold in the other world. Now, who is going to miss such a chance?

"And you can see it clearly, that you remember about God and about heaven and hell, and about the Bible and the Koran and the Gita only when you are miserable. Have you ever seen somebody who is happy and rejoicing carrying a Bible? He will carry a bottle of wine; this is not the time for carrying a Bible. And who reads these Bibles, Vedas? Just old people who are coming close to death and are becoming afraid – afraid perhaps there may be a God. Perhaps they are going to encounter God, and if he asks any question…. naturally he will ask a question. It is better to do some homework.

"A man who was a salesman of dictionaries and encyclopedias was telling the woman, standing on her doorstep, 'This is the latest encyclopedia. You and your children, all will be benefited by it.' But she said, 'We have it already. You can see, there in the corner.'

"The man looked in the corner. There was a book of the same thickness. He said, 'That is not an encyclopedia, that is the Holy Bible.' The woman could not believe it – from that far, how could he judge that the book was the Holy Bible? She said, 'That amazes me. You are certainly a man of knowledge. How could you manage to see that that is a Holy Bible?'

"He said, 'Anybody can conclude that, seeing the layer of dust that has gathered on the Bible.'

"Who opens it? People become interested only when they are almost in their graves."