"The word God in itself is beautiful, the word God in itself is innocent.

"The same has been done in the name of religion, the same has been done in the name of love. If you look at the history of the word love, millions of people have been killed. Christians have been killing in the name of love, Mohammedans have been killing in the name of religion, God, brotherhood. And the same has been the case all over the world.

"Now the same is happening in the name of communism. The word is beautiful, it comes from 'commune.' The same is happening in the name of democracy; the word is beautiful.

"So one thing has to be understood: words in themselves are innocent; it depends on what you do with them. And if you have used the word God wrongly, who can prevent you from using the word love in the same way? Brotherhood, democracy, communism, humanity, peace? In the name of peace only war happens…and preparation for war. Then one has to understand one thing: one need not become too conditioned for or against words; words are neutral.

"The word God itself has tremendous beauty. It comes from a Greek root in which 'g' stands for 'that,' 'o' stands for 'which,' 'd' stands for 'is.' God is a code word; it means 'that which is.' Now it contains all – the trees and the birds and the clouds and the sun, you and me – all that has happened, all that is happening, all that will ever happen.

"God does not mean a person. Yes, it has been used in that way, but what does that have to do with the poor word God? The word cannot prevent people from wrongly using it. It has been used as if there is an old man, very ancient, sitting in heaven, dominating, controlling – a great engineer who has created the world. The word itself does not have any meaning of that kind. It simply means the whole, the total.

"And the whole is; nobody can deny it, not even the atheist. The atheist can deny God as a person, but there is no God as a person so the atheist is fighting with a shadow – just like the theist who is worshipping a shadow."