He has condemned his senses.

Even the fragrance of a flower he has renounced. The beauty of a sunset he has renounced. The joy of being with friends, eating with friends or just chitchatting with friends he has renounced. He has no friends; he has only people who respect him. And there is a great distance between him and the people who respect him – and the distance is from life.

So the whole past is full of life worshipping death, and life trying to achieve respectability at the cost of losing livingness. This has destroyed all of human nature, its harmony; and it has created a dichotomy between the soul and the body, between this world and that world.

There is only one world: this world.

And when you go deep into it, you find that world hidden in this world. There is no contradiction between this and that. This is the circumference, and that is the center. And to get to that, you have to dive deep into this.

“This” means Zorba.

And “that” means Buddha.

Zorba is the circumference – Buddha is the center. But no circumference is possible without a center, and no point can be called a center without a circumference. We find no difficulty in geometry, but in life’s geometry we have created a contradiction between the center and the circumference.

The mundane life is the circumference. It has to be enjoyed so deeply that you start finding in it the sacred, the divine. The divine is nothing but the depth of diving into this moment, into this world, into this life, into this body.

Perhaps this is the greatest problem that man has to resolve. Without resolving it he can never be healthy, he can never be whole. As a Zorba he is half, just circumference – unaware of the center, not only unaware but almost denying the center.

And the person who reaches to the center is forced to deny the circumference; otherwise he is not respectable. We tend to ask him, “Then what is the difference between us and you?” No buddha has been courageous enough to say, “The difference is in the depth, the difference is not in activities.”

You love – I love. But your love remains superficial, only on the circumference. And my love reaches to the very center.

You taste food – I taste food. But your taste is superficial. When I taste food, it has a depth.

What I am saying, nobody has dared to say.

Against the whole conditioning of humanity, even the buddhas have not been courageous enough to risk their respectability.