"Science is objective, and any assertion, any statement, can be verified in experiments in the laboratories.

"With religion everything is inner, subjective, mysterious, and the path is not on a plain. It is a hilly track. There are many ups and many downs, and the path moves like a spiral. Again and again you come to the same place, maybe a little higher. And whatsoever you say cannot be verified, there is no criterion of verification. Because it is inner, no experiment can prove or disprove it; because it is mysterious, no logical argumentation can decide this way or that. That's why science is one, but there exist almost three thousand religions in the world. You cannot prove any religion false. Neither can you prove any other religion to be true or authentic. That is not possible, because no empirical test is possible.

"A Buddha says that there is no self inside. How to prove this, or how to disprove this? If somebody says, 'I have seen God,' and he sounds sincere, what to do? He may be deluded lunatic, he may have seen a hallucination, or he may really have seen the reality of existence. But how to prove, or disprove? He cannot share his experience with anybody, it is inner. It is not like an object you can place in the middle and everybody can watch it, and everybody can experiment and dissect it. You have to take it in faith. He may sound absolutely sincere, and may be deluded: he may not be cheating you, trying to cheat you, he may be himself deceived. He may be a very true person but he has seen a dream and thinks it is real sometimes dreams have the quality that they look more real than the reality itself. Then dreams look like visions. He has heard the voice of God and he is so filled with it, so thrilled. But what to do? How to prove that he has not gone mad, that he has not projected his own mind and idea? There is no possibility.

"If there is one genuine religious man, there are ninety-nine others all around him. A few of them are deluded: poor, simple fellows, good at heart, not trying to harm anybody, but still they harm."