"One very learned American rabbi, Joshua Liebman, has written a book, Peace Of Mind. It is one of the best-sellers: Liebman is a good writer, and the book is well presented.

"I wrote him a letter, asking, 'Have you ever considered that peace of mind has never existed? Peace of mind is intrinsically impossible. Peace happens only when mind is not. It is not peace of mind; it is peace beyond mind.'

"It is almost like a lotus flower: it grows in mud and water; it is a miracle of nature that out of dirty mud and water it brings out one of the most beautiful flowers in existence. But mud and water are not the lotus flower. The lotus flower blossoms only when the lotus plant has gone beyond the mud, beyond the water, has transcended both – then it opens up to the sun, to the sky, and releases its fragrance to the wind. Although it comes from the mud, it is not mud anymore. It is transcendence.

"The same is true about peace. Mind is muddy; all kinds of relevant and irrelevant thoughts are jumbled there. It is a crowd, with so many fragments fighting with each other that you can call it a battleground. Mind cannot be at peace. But you can go beyond mind because you are not the mind. You can transcend and become a lotus flower. And then there is peace, there is beauty, there is bliss, and all that you have always dreamt about but have had no experience of.

"I will read your question: 'There is a confusion in me that keeps coming again and again.' Unless you resolve it, it does not have to come, it is always there. It is only that whenever you are unoccupied, it surfaces. It does not go and come, it is embedded in your mind.

"'The message I have got from you more and more is to relax with myself, to watch and wait.' The message remains the same, because that is the only way to transcend the mind. The watcher is always above the mind. The watcher is never part of the mind.

"The mind is just like a TV screen on which thoughts, dreams, imaginations, projections, desires, and a thousand and one things go on passing."