One day do one thing: run the bath and then switch the light on and off. When there is darkness you will hear the water falling more clearly, the sound will be sharp. When the light is on, the sound will be not so sharp. What happens in darkness? In darkness, everything else disappears because you cannot see. Only the sound and you are there. That’s why, in all good restaurants, light is avoided; sharp light is avoided. They are candlelit. Whenever a restaurant is candlelit, taste is deeper…you eat well and you taste more. The fragrance surrounds you. If there is very bright light the taste is no longer there. The eyes make everything public.

In the very first sentence of his Metaphysics, Aristotle says that sight is the highest sense of man. It is not. In fact, sight has become too domineering. It has monopolized the whole self and it has destroyed all the other senses. His master – Aristotle’s master, Plato – says that there is a hierarchy in the senses: sight at the top, touch at the bottom. He is absolutely wrong. There is no hierarchy.

All senses are on the same level and there should not be any hierarchy. But you live through the eyes: eighty percent of your life is eye-oriented. This should not be so; a balance has to be restored. You should touch also, because touch has something which eyes cannot give. But try: try to touch the woman you love or the man you love in bright light and then touch in darkness. In darkness the body reveals itself, in bright light it hides.

Have you seen Renoir’s paintings of feminine bodies? They have something miraculous in them. Many painters have painted the feminine body, but there is no comparison with Renoir. What is the difference? All other painters have painted the feminine body as it looks to the eyes. Renoir has painted it as it feels to the hands, so the painting has a warmth and a closeness, an aliveness.

When you touch, something happens very close. When you see, something is far away. In darkness, in secrecy, in privacy, something is revealed which cannot be revealed in openness, in the marketplace. Others are seeing and observing; something deep within you shrinks, it cannot flower. It is just as if you put seeds down on the open ground for everybody to look at. They will never sprout. They need to be thrown deep into the womb of the earth, in deep darkness where nobody can see them. There they start sprouting and a great tree is born. Just like seeds need darkness and privacy in the earth, all relationships which are deep and intimate remain of the inner. They need privacy, they need a place where only two exist. There comes a moment when even the two dissolve and only one exists. Two lovers deeply in tune with each other dissolve. Only one exists. They breathe together, they are together; a togetherness exists. This would not be possible if there were observers. They would never be able to let go if others were watching. The very eyes of others would become the barrier. So all that is beautiful, all that is deep, happens in darkness.

In ordinary human relationships, privacy is needed. And when you ask about the relationship of a master and disciple, even more privacy is needed because it is a transmission of the highest energy possible to man. It is the highest peak of love, where one man pours himself into another and the other becomes a receptive womb. Even a slight disturbance – somebody watching – will be enough of a barrier.