"The name 'God' is not very defensible because it is given by man and there is no evidence, no proof, no argument for it. It remains more or less an empty word. It means whatever you want it to mean.

"'Existence' is better. All the great thinkers of this century are existentialists. They have dropped the word God completely. Existence in itself is enough for them.

"But to me, just as God is one extreme, so is existence another extreme, because in the word existence there is no indication that it may be alive – it may be dead. There is no indication that it is intelligent – there may be no intelligence. There is no indication that it is conscious – it may not have any consciousness.

"Hence, my choice is 'life'. Life contains everything that is needed; moreover, it needs no proof. You are life. You are the proof. You are the argument. You cannot deny life; hence in the whole history of man, there has not been a single thinker who has denied life.

"Millions have denied God, but how can you deny life? It is beating in your heart, it is in your breathing, it is showing in your eyes. It is expressing in your love. It is celebrating in a thousand and one ways – in the trees, in the birds, in the mountains, in the rivers.

"Life is the aim of everything. Hence, life cannot have an aim other than itself. To say it in other words: life's aim is intrinsic. It has it within itself to grow, to expand, to celebrate, to dance, to love, to enjoy – these are all aspects of life.

"But up to now, no religion has accepted life as the aim of all our efforts, of all our endeavors. On the contrary, religions have been denying life and supporting a hypothetical God. But life is so real that thousands of years of all the religions have not been able even to make a dent in it, although they have all been anti-life. Their God was not the innermost center of life, their God was to be found only in renouncing life. It has been a very great calamity humanity has passed through: the very idea of renouncing life means respecting death."