"It is one of the most significant problems, almost perennial. In every time, in every country, in every mystery school, the meditators have faced it.

"If one becomes ecstatic, blissful, one loses silence, because ecstasy, after all, is a beautiful kind of excitement. It is a disturbance – lovely, but a disturbance all the same.

"Blissfulness brings its own chaos, its own turmoil, its laughter, its tears, its creativity, its song. And one is bound to get tired of it – it is exhausting. You cannot be ecstatic all the time. Sooner or later you would like to move to the other polarity: silence.

"Ecstasy is the logical end of all that is beautiful, passionate, intense, but because it is such a peak of passion and intensity you cannot remain on that peak for long. You have to go back into the deep, dark valleys of silence to rest, to sleep, to get nourished, to be rejuvenated.

"Hence the desire for silence arises, a tremendous desire for silence, and of course it feels as if you are going to lose all your creativity, all your joy. And from the peak of ecstasy, silence naturally looks empty and the very idea of moving into silence seems to be suicidal – alluring, enchanting, seducing, but suicidal too, because you will lose your song, your dance, and a sadness arises. But even if the sadness arises one has to go to silence; one has to move to the dark valleys which look empty, which look like death. Hence the fear, the scary feeling.

"Those who have tried to live on the peak of ecstasy have remained only poets; they have not been able to become mystics. A few people have tried, but then they have to find a certain kind of relaxation on the peak. Hence all the poets, all the creators – painters, dancers, singers – sooner or later become attracted towards intoxicating drugs, because the excitement is too much. One has to forget it all. Either you move to the silent valley, or you can remain on the peak but fall into deep oblivion.

"It is not just an accident that since the very ancient days of the Rig Veda the poets have always been interested in some kind of psychedelic drugs. In the Rig Veda it was soma, now it is LSD or marijuana; all kinds of drugs have been used by creative people."