"So the more science grows, the more philosophy is pushed ahead. The field that becomes known becomes science, and philosophy is the link between science and religion. So as science progresses, philosophy has to be pushed ahead – because it can only be concerned with the unknown. But the more philosophy proceeds ahead, the more religion is pushed ahead – because religion is basically concerned with the unknowable.

"The Upanishads begin with the unknown; they end with the unknowable. That's how misunderstanding arises. Professor M. G. Ranade has written a very deep book on the philosophy of the Upanishads, but it remains only a beginning, it cannot penetrate the deeper valleys of the Upanishadic mystery because it remains philosophical. The Upanishads begin with philosophy, but that is only a beginning. They end in religion, in the unknowable. When I say 'unknowable,' I mean that which cannot be known.

"Whatsoever the effort may be, howsoever we may try, the moment we know something it becomes part of science, the moment we feel something as unknown it is part of philosophy, the moment we encounter the unknowable – only then is it religion. When I say the unknowable, I mean that which cannot be known but which can be encountered; it can be felt, it can even be lived. You can be face to face with it. It can be encountered, but still it remains unknowable. Only this much is felt – that now we are deep in a mystery which cannot be solved. So before we enter this mystery some points have to be understood, otherwise there will be no entrance.

"One is: how to listen, because there are different dimensions of listening. You can listen with your intellect, with your reason, mm? – that is one way of listening to a thing: the most common, the most ordinary and the most shallow, because with reason you are always either in defense or in attack. You are always fighting with reason, so whenever someone tries to understand something through reason he is fighting with the thing. At the most a very rudimentary understanding is possible, just an acquaintance is possible. The deeper meaning is bound to be missed because the deeper meaning needs a very sympathetic listening."