"Use it as an opportunity to test your silence. And once you start feeling silent in the crowd, then you will be overjoyed – then you can be certain that this silence is yours; otherwise sometimes one is deceived.

"In the mountains you can be silent, in the deep forest you can be silent, in the middle of the night under the stars you can be silent – but that is not your silence. It is just the outer silence penetrating you. In fact, there is no difference – outer silence penetrating you, or outer noise penetrating you – both are the same; you are under the impact of the outside. Hence I don't give any value to the silence that you feel coming from the outside. This silence will not be much help; when noise comes, you will be overwhelmed by the noise.

"The silence has not to be of the mountains, of the stars, of the silence of the deep night, nor the silence of this commune. Here everybody is silent – at least, trying to be silent! With so many people trying to be silent, one can just become part… But it is the same: you can become part of a commune and feel silent; in the crowd you can become part of the crowd and you will feel noisy. In fact, you are not yet. All your experiences are dependent; you don't exist as an individual. That is the fear; otherwise it does not matter.

"I used to have a friend who was condemned in the whole city – he was a thief, and you can say he was a master thief. For almost six months he would be in jail, and six months outside. Nobody in the city even wanted to talk to him.

"From the jail he used to come directly to my house. He was a very lovable man. And whenever he would come from the jail to my house, naturally everybody in the family was disturbed. My father again and again insisted to me that this friendship was not good. I said, 'Why do you believe in him and not in me? Am I your son, or is he your son?'

"And he said, 'What kind of argument are you giving me?'

"I said, 'I am saying exactly the right thing."