"His wisdom is quite a separate reality, so is his foolishness. He is wise because he knows, and he is a fool because he knows that the mystery of life is such that it cannot be known. He is wise because his journey is finished and he is a fool because he now knows for the first time that there is nothing to know and there is no possibility of knowing, that ignorance is ultimate. He has come to know that ignorance is ultimate. There is no way to demystify existence.

"We call a man who has got the answer, wise, but the real wise man has not got the answer. His questions have disappeared and so have all the answers – he is in a tremendous emptiness. And he does not know in the sense of knowledge.

"We call a man foolish because he lacks knowledge; we call a man knowledgeable, wise, because he is full of knowledge. But the really wise man has come to see that there is no way to know the real. The real is there you can live it, you can be it, but there is no way to know it. Knowledge presupposes division – the division between the knower and the known; knowledge presupposes distinction; knowledge is based on duality.

"A really wise man has come to the point where he is no longer separate, where he is no longer an island, where he has disappeared into the whole. He pulsates with the whole, he vibrates with the whole, he is no more. Only God is. This is the meaning of the Upanishadic seer when he declares 'Aham Brahmasmi – I am God.' This is the meaning when Christ goes on saying 'I and my father are one.'

"When you look at existence as an object you remain separate, but when you participate with existence, when you become a participant, when you look at an object and it becomes your very subjectivity – then there is no knowledge and then there is no ignorance. When there is no knowledge, how can there be ignorance? Ignorance and knowledge are aspects of the same coin and the wise man has thrown both."