"On the path, to be utterly hopeless, so hopeless that you stop hopingsuddenly you are in – without taking a single step.

"Hope is a kind of opium; it keeps you intoxicated. To tolerate the miserable present, your eyes remain fixed on a faraway star: your hope. Millions of people live without finding themselves – not because of any sin that Adam and Eve committed, or that they committed in some of their past lives. The sin is that people go on looking in the future and the present goes on passing by. And the present is the only reality; the future is a dream, and howsoever sweet, dreams never come true.

"Self-realization is not a dream. It is a realization in the present moment of your own being. So don't be worried; you are on the right path, Prem Indivar – becoming hopeless. Go on more and more, exhaust hopelessness. Come to the optimum hopelessness. Then hope disappears automatically.

"And when there is no hope, you are.

"When there is no hope, the present is.

"An old spinster died, and her two old friends went to a stone mason to have a gravestone made. 'And what message would you like to have on the stone?' asked the mason. 'Well,' said one of the old maids, 'It's quite simple really. We would like 'She came a virgin, she lived a virgin, and she died a virgin.''

"The mason replied, 'You know, you ladies could save a lot of money by just saying, 'Returned unopened.''

"Most of the people return unopened, and nobody is responsible except themselves.

"You are asking, 'It feels so hopeless.' Not yet; otherwise even this question would not have arisen. There is still hope. You say, 'I feel ashamed to have been a sannyasin for ten years, and still be in this state.' That is your ego feeling hurt; otherwise you would feel humble, not ashamed. What is there to be ashamed of?

"Life is not a small thing. It is so vast, and we are so small. The ocean is so big, and we have to swim in it just with our own small hands. Only those people who never start swimming and go on standing on the bank looking at others, should feel ashamed."