My sannyasins have to accept all the challenges of life

• The path of action is very paradoxical. The paradox is that you have to act and yet deep down you have to remain absolutely inactive; at the centre absolute stillness, no action, not even a wave, not even a ripple,

• and on the circumference much action.

• The path of action is being in the world and yet not being of it, remaining in the world and yet surpassing it, transcending it. Krishna has called it action without action. Zen people in Japan call it effortless effort, actionless action. Doing is there but the doer is not there. One simply becomes the centre of the cyclone but the cyclone remains only one’s circumference.

• One becomes more like an actor; action becomes more like acting. It is as if you are just playing a role: you are doing it as perfectly as possible but it is still a role, a game; you are not really involved in it. You are doing it perfectly well and yet you are not getting involved in it, so whatsoever the result, it is none of your business — if you succeed, if you fail, it is all the same.

• It is one of the most beautiful paths to follow. And my sannyasins have to understand it very deeply because I am not telling them to renounce the world, to escape to the mountains, to the deserts, to the monasteries. I am telling them to remain in the world. I am not taking them out of the world, because that is escapist and that is cowardly, and one cannot be religious through cowardliness.

• My sannyasins have to accept all the challenges of life but with absolute unconcern, not being worried at all about the result, about the outcome, living moment to moment totally, doing whatsoever life gives you to do, and then moving on, not even looking back, not even through the rear-view mirror. There is no point, because in life there is no reverse gear, you cannot go back. God has completely forgotten about the reverse gear.