"The ego would like things made of solid rock. So the ego condemns this world and starts a journey towards the eternal. But the eternal has its own conditions, and this is the first condition: if you don't drop the ego you cannot enter the gate.

"Religion basically is the understanding that all the trips of the ego are materialistic. Even the trip towards God is materialistic. It is not a question of what you seek, it is a question of who the seeker is. If the ego is the seeker then whatsoever you seek is material, is of this world. You may call it God, you may call it moksha, you may call it anything you like: the truth, the absolute, the Brahman – it doesn't matter. If the ego is the seeker, then whatsoever you seek is of this world. When the ego is not the seeker then everything, everything, I say, is of that world.

"Even if you chop wood, even if you are a small shopkeeper, a clerk, a sweeper, nobody in particular, just ordinary – nobody knows about you, nobody ever thinks that you are a chosen one, nobody will ever hear about you – that doesn't matter. If the ego has dropped within, whatsoever you do is divine. Otherwise the ego poisons everything, and whatsoever you do is of the devil and not of the divine.

"Zen is just being ordinary. And Zen is the essence of all religion, just to be ordinary. Realizing the fact that ego creates a hell around it, that ego is the source of all hell, that it has all the seeds of misery, anguish, one simply drops it without a second thought. Once one simply realizes the fact that one is suffering because of the ego, one simply drops it – but not in search of something.

"You can drop the ego in search of something. Then you have not really dropped it, you are bargaining. Realizing the fact that ego is ugly, the source of all misery and illness, you simply drop it. You don't ask, 'What will I gain out of it if I drop my ego?' – because all gain is the subtle search of the ego."