"He knows only life, and life in its totality is beautiful.

"God is also ugly because it is a part, not the whole. The Devil is also ugly because that too is again a part and not the whole. God is not alive, the Devil is also dead, because life exists as a rhythm between the two – the good and the bad, God and the Devil. Life exists between these two poles. Life cannot exist with one polarity. These are the two banks between which the river of life flows.

"An enlightened person has come to know this. He is neither against anything nor for anything. He responds moment to moment, without any judgment on his part. That's why it is very difficult. An enlightened person always appears more or less like a madman. So the first thing to be understood is: don't evaluate an enlightened person through your values – very difficult, because what else can you do?

"I have heard that once a very great painter asked a doctor friend to come and look at one of the paintings he had just finished. The painter was thinking that this was the greatest creation he had ever attempted, this was the peak of his whole art. So, naturally, he wanted his doctor friend to come and look at it.

"The doctor observed very minutely, looked from this side and that. Ten minutes passed. The artist became a little apprehensive, then he asked the doctor, 'What is the matter? What do you think about this painting?'

"The doctor said, 'It appears to me double pneumonia!'

"This is happening to everybody, because a doctor has his own attitudes, ways of looking at things. He looked at the painting – he cannot look at anything except in his own fixed ways; without them he cannot look – he diagnosed. The painting doesn't need any diagnosis; he missed. The beautiful thing turned into pneumonia.

"This is how mind functions. When you look at a thing, you bring in your mind to color it. Don't do that with an enlightened person, because that is not going to make any difference to the enlightened person, but you will miss the opportunity to see the beauty of it."