You have to drop all your defenses, only then is intimacy possible. We are all hiding a thousand and on things, not only from others but from ourselves.

Because all the societies, all the nations, all the cultures, have taken it for granted that the individuals exist for them, not vice-versa. To me, just the opposite is the case: the society exists for the individual, the culture exists for the individual, the nation exists for the individual. Everything can be sacrificed, but the individual cannot be sacrificed for anything. Individuality is the very flowering of existence - nothing is higher than it. But no culture, no society, no civilization is ready to accept a simple truth.

Sannyas is only a declaration. The work is meditation. In one single word, my religion is complete, and that is meditation.

Individuality is that which you bring into the world.

The essential religion is taking the whole responsibility for whatsoever you are. And immediately an insight arises: 'If I am responsible for my suffering, then it is simple, I can drop it. It is my choice. I will not choose it any more.'

There is nothing in existence available without payment. If you want to know yourself, you will have to drop all false identities. They are your investments, they are your power, they are your prestige, they are your religion, they are your qualifications. It is difficult to drop them; it feels like death.

People have a very limited idea of what being creative is - playing the guitar or the flute or writing poetry - so people go on writing rubbish in the name of poetry. You have to find out what you can do and what you cannot do. Everybody cannot do everything. You have to search and find your destiny. You have to grope in the dark, I know. It is not very clear-cut what your destiny is, but that's how life is. And it is good that one has to search for it - in the very search, something grows.