Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering…from the past…arches that span the summits of the mind?

This is why I say Kahlil Gibran could not get rid of his Christian upbringing, because he is talking about summits of the mind. Mind knows no summits. It knows only the darkest valleys possible. The mind is absolutely unaware of beauty, of silence, of peace, of joy. All that it knows is nothing but madness.

One of the great Jewish philosophers, Joshua Learman, has written a book: Peace of Mind. And I don’t think anybody will object to the title. It has been sold all over the world, in many languages, in many editions. But when it came into my hands I wrote a letter to Joshua Learman, returning the book and telling him: “I cannot start reading the book because your title essentially indicates that the book is written by a man who knows nothing beyond mind.”

Peace of Mind – in fact there is peace when there is no mind. Therefore, peace of mind is not possible.

Mind is the problem. Mind is your anxiety, mind is your anguish. Yes, you can have a normal kind of madness. It will not be noted by anybody, because they belong to the same category. Just don’t cross the boundary of the normally insane. The moment you cross the boundary you are declared mad.

The difference between the mad and those who are not mad is only of degrees, not of quality. And a difference of degrees is not of much value. You are always on the borderline; a small thing can push you beyond the normal. Your business fails, you go bankrupt, your wife escapes with somebody else… And the stupidity of the mind is such: for years you were hoping, “If this woman who is torturing me somehow dies…” But now she has escaped with somebody else and you are miserable!

Do you think this is sanity? You should rejoice! You should celebrate, and you should pray for the poor fellow who is now in the hands of your wife. The sane person is going to do exactly that.

I have heard… A man entered a post office and asked the postmaster, with tears in his eyes, “Please write it down – I am reporting that my wife has been missing for seven days.”

The postmaster said, “I have all sympathy for you, but I am sorry, I cannot help you. This is a post office, not a police station. The police station is just on the opposite side of the street.”

The man said, “I cannot go there!”

The postmaster said, “You are strange – reporting a crime in the post office, and you cannot go just a few yards and report it to the police?”