Man is seeking for phenomena, he wants wonder-working, communication with ghosts or spirits, he is looking for something complex; and yet the simplest thing, and the most valuable thing in life is to find one's true self. Now in America, to my great disappointment, I found this one great drawback. It seems that thousands and thousands of people are every day after the spiritual pursuit. One day they go to one thing, another day to another thing. Just as one goes to one of the many theaters, so they go to a great many discussions on subjects, to anything new and sensational.

Therefore even the spirituality has become sensational, it is a diffusive of the whole thing. It is a kind of stage that they are going through, that they really do not know what they are seeking. After hearing a hundred lectures and after having read five hundred books they really do not know which is which.

Now there is a book which is very popular, on the Masters of the East, written by a man who never went to the East. Everybody has read it; everybody asked me, 'Have you read this book? It is such a wonderful book,' and some people think, 'Is it not a good thing that some people get interested in these things?' Really speaking, this book has helped me very much, because wherever people had read this book they came to hear me. It helped me very much in advertising; at the same time how many people are deluded by it. And anything that you further by falsehood, it leads to falsehood. Besides, the success of falsehood is false. He has made a very nice novel; the book is like a novel. It tells about the Mahatmas, Masters, sitting in the caves of the mountains of the Himalayas, it describes the scenery from imagination. He is a good play-producer. He has made a beautiful play out of it, made a book of it. This book is read by hundreds and thousands of people. But then, when something impresses them, do you think they will leave him alone? No, they will follow him, they pursue him and pull him to pieces. He never even went to India once. Suppose fifty, hundred persons have found it. And tens of thousands have read his book, they all believe in him. It is a state of chaos.

Now there is so much spiritualism going on in the United States. And then there is a man, whose name is Houdini. He does magic performances, something like a juggler; he has a great name. Now he is after spiritualists, he wants to see every spiritualist in every town. I think one thing is that people are interested in spiritualism, another thing is that people are interested in Houdini.

I thought, 'What interest has Houdini in it?' The whole interest Houdini has in it is to make a sensation and make his performance known, also a monetary interest. The man who is after Truth does not pursue after falsehood, a man who is after Truth has no interest in it. He is doubting if he can find Truth in the garden of falsehood somewhere. People say, "Is he a Fakir?" It is a false Fakir. Would you think that a true Fakir is so little evolved as to disbelieve in the hereafter and the soul? Houdini disbelieves; he has no belief. He is in the pursuit and wants to find belief somewhere, if he can; at the same time material gain because it makes him known.