"By its very nature it is either in the past or in the future.

"Because the mind has no experience – and cannot have any experience – of the present, don't listen to it when it comes with any judgment concerning the present moment. And silence is of the present, and joy is of the present, and ecstasy is of the present.

"Mind can only do one thing: it can create doubt. It cannot say directly, 'What you are experiencing is wrong,' because that much is beyond it, but it can say, 'You are escaping from the reality that is past, or the reality that is going to come; that is, future.' It can condemn you as an escapist: 'You are afraid of life, that life is big enough; the present moment is too small. Life is vast. Don't escape from life just to enjoy a momentary silence and joy and peace.' And it looks logical on the surface.

"Life consists only of moments; there is no past life, there is no future life. Whenever life is, it is always in the present.

"And this is the dichotomy: life is herenow, and mind is never herenow. This is one of the most important discoveries of the East, that mind is absolutely impotent as far as your subjectivity is concerned, as far as your being is concerned.

"Mind is perfectly right with the objects, but the moment it comes close to life, it starts doubting even the existence of life. It starts creating philosophies that life is only a byproduct.

"Materialism is an old philosophy, but one of the most dull and dead. From the charvakas in India, five thousand years past, to Karl Marx, it has repeatedly said the same thing in different languages – that life is a byproduct, it has no existence of itself. Man is just a machine, pure matter. Just a certain combination of matter creates the illusion of life and consciousness – they are epiphenomena.

"Materialism, to me, seems to be the most unprogressive ideology in the world, because in five thousand years it has not produced a single new argument – the same old rut. But mind feels very happy with it, because then there is no need to bother about meditation – which is a deep fear for the mind, because it is committing suicide as far as the mind is concerned."