But with Gautam Buddha, things took a different turn – a turn which is enormous. The West needs a Gautam Buddha; otherwise the idea of meaninglessness, anxiety, anguish, is bound to create the idea of suicide as the way out. Gautam Buddha accepts everything that existentialism says, but he says life is meaningless and full of anxiety because you have not gone deep enough into your being. On the surface it is all turmoil, just as you see in the ocean: on the surface there is so much turmoil but in the depths there is absolute silence.

The deeper you go into the ocean, the more silent…absolute silence. And attaining the absolute silence you start looking at things with different eyes. The same things are there, the world is the same, but because you now have different eyes, you start seeing in a different way. The same roseflower becomes so beautiful that there is no need for it to have any purpose; just its beauty is enough unto itself. The song of a cuckoo may not have any meaning but it has a beauty, a grandeur which penetrates to the very heart. And if the heart is emptied by meditation, it gives you a glimpse of authentic music, spontaneous music. Everything around you starts taking a different shape, a different context. The only change that is needed is that you go from the surface to the center of your being.

Now this point is very important to understand, because a few have escaped the surface by renouncing the world. They think it is the world that is creating a disturbance, it is the world that is responsible for our anxieties. That has been the traditional attitude of the sannyasin, of the monk. Just leave this world, hide behind a monastery or behind a mountain, just to attain a little peace.

But I know that even hiding behind a mountain, your mind will be the same as it was in the marketplace. It will create troubles and anxieties there, too. Perhaps more than ever, because the cold winter will come and you don’t have enough clothes, the hot summer will come and you don’t have a roof, a shelter. And from where are you going to get your food? Again you will have to come by the back door, as a beggar, to the same marketplace that you have renounced.

All these so-called saints who have renounced the world have simply become dependent on the world, parasites, but they have not attained any new vision. So the way that takes you away from the turmoil is not the right way. The right way is to go as deep into the turmoil as possible, because in the depths there are no waves, there is no turmoil.

My sannyasin is not to renounce anything in the world. Everything is beautiful. If it does not appeal to you, something is wrong with you. Go inside. First seek and search the source of your being, of your life. Once you have caught the roots of your being, then come out and open your eyes and you will see the same world but with a new color, with a new intensity, with a new love, with a new beauty. The same world is no more the same because you are no more the same. By transforming yourself you have transformed the whole world.

It is absolutely right when Gautam Buddha says, “The moment I became enlightened the whole world became enlightened. Everything appeared to me to be a buddha, either awake or asleep. I could see, even in the flowers or grasses or stones, buddhas fast asleep.”