"Thinking is a private world; it belongs to you. Then you are enclosed, encapsulated, imprisoned within yourself. Nonthinking, you are no more, you are enclosed no more. Nonthinking, you open, you become porous; existence flows in you and you flow into existence.

"But the tendency of the mind is to interpret. Before you see something you have already interpreted it. You hear me: even before I have said anything you are already thinking about it. That's how listening becomes impossible. You will have to learn to listen. Listening means you are open, vulnerable, receptive, but you are not in any way thinking. Thinking is a positive action. Listening is passivity: you become like a valley and receive; you become like a womb and you receive. If you can listen, then nature speaks – but it is not a language. Nature doesn't use words. Then what does nature use? Says Heraclitus, it uses signs. A flower is there: what is the sign in it? It is not saying anything, but can you say it is not saying anything really? It is saying much, but it is not using any words – a wordless message.

"To hear the wordless you will have to become wordless, because only the same can hear the same, only the same can relate to the same.

"Sitting by a flower, don't be a man, be a flower. Sitting by the tree, don't be a man, be a tree. Taking a bath in a river, don't be a man, be a river. And then millions of signs are given to you. And it is not a communication – it is a communion. Then nature speaks, speaks in thousands of tongues, but not in language. It speaks through millions of directions, but you cannot consult a dictionary about it and you cannot ask a philosopher what it means. The moment you start thinking what it means you are already on the path of going astray.

"Somebody who had come to visit Picasso, a very learned man, a critic, he looked at Picasso's paintings and then he said, 'They look beautiful, but what do they mean? For example this painting' – the painting just before which they were standing – 'what does it mean?'

"Picasso shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Look outside the window – what does this tree mean? And that bird who is singing? And what is the meaning of the sun rising? And if this whole exists without meaning anything, why can't my painting exist without any meaning?'

"Why do you ask what it means? You want to interpret it."