"Even in hell, if you accept it, the hell disappears because the hell can remain only through your rejection. The hell disappears and heaven appears. Whatsoever you accept becomes heavenly and whatsoever you reject becomes the hell.

"It is said that a saint cannot be thrown into hell because he knows the alchemy – how to transform it. You have heard that sinners go to hell and saints to heaven, but you have heard the wrong thing. Just the other way around is the case. Wherever sinners go they create hell and wherever saints go there is heaven. Saints are not sent to heaven – there is nobody to send and manage all this, there is nobody – but wherever they go, this is the way they are: they create their heaven, they carry their heaven with them, within them. And sinners? – you can send them to heaven, they will create hell; they cannot do otherwise.

"So what is the definition of a saint, or a sinner?

"My definition is: A saint is one who has come to know the alchemical secret of transforming everything into heaven, and a sinner is one who does not know the secret of transforming things into beautiful existences. Rather on the contrary, he goes on making things ugly. Whatsoever you are will be reflected around you, so don't try to be anything else and don't try to be some other place.

"That is the disease called man: always to become somebody, to be some place. Always reject that which is and always hanker for that which is not – this is the disease called man.

"Be alert! Do you see it?

"It is a simple fact to be seen. I am not theorizing about it, I am not a theoretician. I am simply indicating a bare, naked fact, that if you can live in this moment wherever you are and forget about the future – goals, the idea of becoming something else – immediately, the whole world around you is transformed. You have become a transforming force.

"Acceptance – deep, total acceptance – is what religion is all about.

"A wants to become B, B wants to become C; then the fever of becoming is created."