"It is all over the place. It is everywhere – in your breathing, in your heartbeat. But you are not here.

"Truth has not gone away: you have gone away from it.

"You have to understand this. For example, in the night you sleep and you dream – you dream you have gone to the moon. You are here, but the dream has taken you far away. In the morning when you awake, you will not find yourself on the moon – you will be here in Pune. But in the dream you were far away from your reality. You have to come back from your dreams…and the journey is arduous because you have invested so much in those dreams, and you are hoping to gain so much from those dreams, and you have lived in those dreams for so long that they have become reality, your reality.

"The East calls this dreaming state of mind maya – illusion. And then you can go on searching for truth in your illusions and you will not find it. You have to awake. And to be awake is arduous because a thousand and one dreams will be shattered. And in those dreams all your joys, all your so-called successes, ambitions, are involved. Your whole ego is involved. The ego will be shattered.

"You are here, but the ego has gone to the moon – and the ego can only live through dreams, it can only live through illusions. It is nourished by illusions. The more illusions you have, the more grandiose an ego you have. The greater your illusions, the bigger your ego. It is very difficult to renounce those dreams.

"In the East this is called sannyas: to renounce those dreams. When it is said, 'Renounce the world,' it is not meant the actual world – the wife, the husband, the children, the house, the marketplace. No, not at all. What is really meant is this dream-world in which you go on constantly moving away from yourself and away from reality. Renounce the dreams! And that is arduous.

"Now, let me read your question again: 'Today you said that the way to enlightenment is long and arduous' – it is – 'and also that it is here and now' – it is."