"Something irrational is needed. Something beyond reason is needed. Something absurd, something mad – only that can bring you out. All great masters have been devising things – their devices are absurd. If you think about them you will miss. You have to follow their line without any reasoning. That's why philosophy is not of much use. Only religion can be of help – religion is absolute madness.

"Tertullian has said, 'I believe in God because God is absurd.' There is no reason to believe in it – is there any reason to believe in God? Has anyone ever been capable of proving that God exists? There is no reasoning which can support it – hence faith. Faith means the absurd. Faith means no reason to believe and you believe. Faith means no arguments, no proofs to prove, and you put your whole life at stake. Nobody can prove that God is, and you take the jump into the abyss. Anyone who is reasonable will feel that you have gone mad, and that's how all rationalists have always been feeling. A Buddha, a Krishna, a Jesus – they have gone mad, they are talking nonsense.

"There is a whole school in the West which proves that all of religion is nonsense. And I am a religious man and I say they are right – for the wrong reasons they are right. They think that if you prove that religion is nonsense, that you have discounted religion, refuted it. No!

"Religious men have always been saying, 'We are absurd! We belong not to the world which is of sense, we belong to something which is beyond.' And the beyond is bound to be nonsense. What sense can you make out of religion? If you can make any sense out of religion, you have missed. Then you are in the world of theology, philosophy, systems, but you can never touch that purity which is always beyond reason.

"Tertullian is right, he is true. He says, 'I believe because God is absurd.' Belief means belief in the absurd. You need not believe in this world that surrounds you – it is there; nobody needs to believe in it."