"Its success is of profound interest for the coming new man.

"The new man will not think of Christianity as a religion, or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any other religion, because they are all carrying a dead past. Life has escaped from them long before. They have not laughed for centuries; they have not been in tune with the universal music. They have forgotten the language of dance.

"Zen alone seems a possibility for the future man. It will survive – when all other religions are gone, Zen will be the only religion around the earth. In fact, all other religions are already dead. Just because of old habit, old conditioning, we go on carrying them, but they have not contributed anything to human consciousness. Rather than contributing they have destroyed much. They have enslaved man, they have oppressed man, they have put man against man; they have created immense violence, war, massacre.

"Zen is a religion of flowers, is a religion of songs, is a religion of ecstasy. It has nothing in it which in any way tries to avoid life in any form. It lives life in its totality – and the miracle is that by living totally, each moment becomes so precious…there is no way to measure the beauty of the moment when a person is total, herenow.

"These two anecdotes are very small, but great is their significance. The first will look very strange unless you understand that in each activity, a Zen master almost disappears in the action itself. His totality is so great that you can almost say that only the dance remains; the dancer disappears.

"Once the great dancer Nijinsky was asked, 'What are the greatest moments in your life?'

"Nijinsky said, 'The greatest moments in my life are those moments when only the dance remains and the dancer disappears.'

"The same answer was given by Picasso. While he was painting, somebody asked him. He said, 'Don't ask me anything right now. While I am painting I am just a painter; I am not that great Picasso you have heard about. And when the deepest moments come, then even this painter disappears. Only the painting remains.'

"If you can see this point, then the first anecdote will become clear to you, because it is a little out-of-the-way…."