"The question is superficial; the real problem is deep down in the heart of one who has asked.

Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, Speak to us of Pleasure.

"Does it not look very strange that a hermit should ask about pleasure? It appears so, but in truth the hermit has renounced pleasure and is tortured by his own renunciation. He cannot forget the possibility that perhaps those who are living the life of pleasure are the right ones, perhaps by renouncing life and its pleasures he has simply gone wrong.

"And the feeling is not just a superficial thought, it is deep in his very being because since he has renounced pleasure, he has lost all zest for life, all will even to breathe. Even to wake up in the morning – for what? Since he has renounced he has died a kind of death; he is no longer a living being, although he breathes, eats, walks, speaks. But I say unto you: his life is only posthumous. He is like a ghost who has died long before. The moment he renounced existence he renounced life also; he committed a spiritual suicide.

"But all the religions have been teaching nothing but spiritual suicide. They are all anti-life – and if you are anti-life, naturally the only way for you is to go on repressing your natural desires, longings.

"The hermit, who has been praised down the ages as saint, as holy, is nothing but a repressed soul who has not allowed himself to live, who has not allowed himself to dance, to love. He is like a tree which has renounced its own foliage, which has renounced its own flowers, and its own fruits. Dry and juiceless the tree stands, just a faded memory.

"All this has been done because there are vested interests in the world which want you to be just alive, but not to live; just to survive, but not in your fullness – only at the minimum, not at the maximum. They have turned every human being into a summertime river. They don't allow you to be flooded with rain and to have a taste of something widening, expanding – some dream of a future meeting with the ocean."