"But you can be enchanted, thrilled. You can fall in love. You can see the beauty of the colors, you can see the harmony. It can leave a tremendously deep impact on you, but there is no meaning. If somebody asks you what this painting means you will not be able to answer – because even Picasso is not able to answer it.

"He has written to a friend, 'I am very angry at people who ask the meaning of my paintings because they make me feel embarrassed. Nobody asks the roses: What is your meaning? Nobody asks the sunset: What is your meaning? Nobody asks the sky full of stars: What is your meaning? Why is everybody asking poor Picasso the meaning of his paintings? Existence has no meaning. As far as reason is concerned, there is no rationality in existence; it is irrational.'

"In my words, it is mystical.

"The world is not progressing towards more rationality. Rationality is already out of date. The genius has already transcended it.

"In poetry… You cannot ask Ezra Pound, 'What is the meaning?' Ezra Pound will say, 'It is poetry, and what does poetry have to do with meaning?' Poetry is something that triggers joy in you, ecstasy, silence, peace – for no reason at all.

"The words of the poetry are not the poetry – the poetry is somewhere between the words, between the lines. So those who only read words never come to know what poetry is; they remain hung up with prose. Prose is rational, poetry is irrational – that is the difference. Prose has a logic. Poetry has a mystery.

"Looking at a dance, you don't ask the meaning. The dance certainly affects you, certainly reaches you – the greater the dancer the greater is his penetration within you – but there is no reason. His movements somehow create a situation in which your consciousness starts moving. There is a synchronicity, something within you starts dancing. But there is no meaning.

"And it is true of all dimensions of creativity, even about science. Physics has crossed the limits of reason, has entered into the irrational. Mathematics has crossed the line of reason."