"Mind is actually a mechanism; it is good as a beautiful device of nature, but the moment the servant becomes the master there is danger, great danger. Then your life is bound to be a mess, a chaos…the servant is blind, unintelligent, unaware. To live according to the mind is not to live at all, it is sheer stupidity. Mind is never original, never intelligent; it is always repetitive, it is always borrowed, it is always mechanical – hence stupid, hence unintelligent.

"Sannyas is a tremendous jump into reality, an escape to reality from the unreal.

"There have been societies whose golden age was in the past, for example Indian society; its golden age has passed. It believes that the future is going to be darker and darker every day…there is no hope. Hence the Indian society lives in a state of depression, hopelessness, with no possibility of any change for the better. It lives in misery, poverty, sickness. But because of the idea that the golden age has already passed long before, thousands of years ago – and we are falling by and by, every day – it does not believe in evolution, it believes in involution, it believes in regression. It is a regressive philosophy, not progressive.

"The West lives in the future; its golden age has yet to come: the classless society, the crescendo of communism, the world of equality and freedom, the stateless state. Those golden days are ahead, far away.

"In a way, both are the same. If one has to choose between the two then I will suggest: choose a progressive stupidity rather than a regressive one – if that is the only choice! At least with the progressive stupidity you have some hope, you will have some thrill, you will have some excitement, you will work for a better future. It is never going to come, but at least you will be occupied with beautiful dreams. It has never been there before, it is not going to be there ever in the future. It is now! It is already the case.

"Adam and Eve have never been expelled from the Garden of Eden! That is my declaration, my message."