"Man consists of three layers: the body – the most visible; the being – the most invisible; and the mind – in between.

"The mind is a good mechanism, but not a good master. It can serve you if you are the master and the mind is the servant. But if the servant becomes the master and starts ruling over you, that is the state of insanity. That's why I say the whole humanity is 'normally insane.'

"What is mind? It is all borrowed, and borrowed from different sources – from the parents, from the neighbors, from the teachers, from the priests, from the libraries. Its hunger is insatiable; it goes on swallowing all kinds of information. That information may be contradictory, that information may create tensions, may create a split – or many splits.

"For example, if you are born a Christian. The Bible says the earth is flat. From your very childhood you have believed in the Bible because your parents believed in it. But in school you learn that the earth is not flat, it is a globe. Both these pieces of information are collected by the mind. Their conflict becomes your anxiety, and this anxiety takes thousands of shapes. And it is impossible for you to decide which way to go; you are pulled apart in all directions.

"If you somehow can maintain your balance, this is normal insanity. Insanity is there, but it is just the same as everybody else's. Unless you come in close proximity to a saner person, you will not be able to think yourself insane.

"The function of the psychotherapist is, whenever somebody goes beyond the boundary of the normal humanity, to bring him back. It is not an easy job. It takes years, and only the very rich can afford it. Then, too, success is not certain, because the person who is treating him is himself repressing his own insanity.

"I have heard about one psychotherapist. He was treating a patient who had this insane idea that thousands of flies, which nobody could see, were sitting all over his body – on his face, on his hands – and he was continuously brushing them off."