"She had asked a question this morning. I had looked all around – she was not here. Although I knew why she was not here, I have also inquired. And the reason she has given is that she woke up with a stiff neck. That need not prevent you from coming here. You have a stiff neck anyway! Then she has not turned up to work the whole day, and her boyfriend has been saying that she is very upset.

"First you ask a question, without ever thinking that you are putting me into a situation: either I have to lie just to console you, just to inflate your ego…but that way I am not your friend; that way I am your greatest enemy. That is what all the priests, all the religions, all your leaders have been doing for thousands of years, and I don't want to do it. But I can see why they were doing it: you were very happy with them. They were giving you more and more doses of opium to keep you fast asleep and consoled.

"Because I have to say the truth, it is bound to hurt you, sometimes very deeply. And I can understand; the pain that has been repressed suddenly uncoils within you. But if rather than bringing understanding it brings an upset, then it was better you had not asked the question. You cannot expect from me that I am going to nourish your ego, protect your wounds, console you in your misery, suffering, insincerity, helping you to be a beautiful hypocrite.

"She is again not here; I have looked around…. And it is not that she is not hearing what I am saying; her room is just close by. She has heard in the morning – the stiff neck came later on – and she is hearing right now.

"But you cannot understand my difficulty. If I don't care about you, then I can simply say things which console you but don't transform you. If I love you, then I have to be a surgeon and I have sometimes to operate on you.

"You laugh so beautifully when you hear of Zen masters hitting their disciples, and if Veena goes on like this she will have unnecessarily forced me to carry a staff too."