"The real becomes distorted. There may be a full moon in the sky, but now the lake is not capable of reflecting it. The moon will still be reflected, but in a distorted way. It will be reflected in thousands of fragments. It will not be any unity; it will not be collected, integrated. It will not be one. The real is one. But now the lake will reflect many millions of moons; the whole surface of the lake may be filled with silver. Everywhere, moons and moons – but this is not true. The truth is one: when the mind reflects it, it becomes many; when consciousness reflects it, it is one.

"Consciousness is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. If you are a Hindu you are still in the mind, distorted. If you are a Mohammedan you are still in the mind, distorted. Once the mind has settled and the waves are no longer there, you are simply a consciousness – with no adjective attached to it, with no conditioning attached to it. And then truth is one. In fact, even to say that truth is one is not right – because one is meaningful only in the context of many. Truth is so one that in the East we have never called it one; we call it nondual – not two.

"Why have we chosen a roundabout way in calling it not two? We want to say that it is difficult to say it is one, because one implies two, three, four. We simply say, not two. We don't say what it is, we simply say what it is not. There is no 'manyness' in it – that's all. We have to express it via negativa, by saying that it is not two. It is so one and it is so alone; only it exists and nothing else. But that is reflected in consciousness when the mind is no longer there. When I say 'the mind is no longer there,' remember, I am not talking about mind as a faculty. Mind is not a faculty. It is simply a disturbed state: consciousness waving, shaking, trembling, not at home.

"What winds blow on the consciousness that disturb it? Buddha says: The name of that wind is passion, desire."