"As if this moment is all! But look into the mind of man and you will find a maniac. And not one but a crowd, not one but the whole madhouse inside. So many madmen shouting, desiring, asking and asking. And the desires are contradictory. If you fulfill one, necessarily the other becomes impossible to fulfill. If you fulfill the other, then something else becomes the problem.

"You cannot satisfy man! There is no communication between his parts. One hand wants to do one thing, another hand may want to destroy it. A part of you is constantly hankering for the past that is lost; another part is striving to reach to the future. How can you be at ease? How can you be at home?

"Listen sometimes to what goes on inside your mind.

"Just the other night I was reading a passage from Ionesco's play, The Bald Soprano:

"Two couples – the Smiths and the Martins – sit in a room engaging in small talk which does not communicate. A weird clock on the wall which strikes at any time does not communicate either.

"At one point in the play, the four characters angrily shout meaningless insults at each other: 'Cockatoos, cockatoos, cockatoos…. Such coca, such coca, such coca…. Such cascades of cacao, such cascades of cacao, such cascades of cacao….'

"When the Martins fall into bored slumber, the maid addresses the audience: 'Elizabeth is not Elizabeth, Donald is not Donald. It is in vain that he thinks he is Donald. It is in vain that she thinks she is Elizabeth. But who is the true Donald? and who is the true Elizabeth? Who has any interest in prolonging the confusion?'

"Ionesco is telling us in this play that loss of self is the loss of communication, and the loss of communication is the loss of self.

"Have you watched inside yourself what goes on? No communication! between one fragment of your being and another fragment of your being. What to say about communion? There is no communication even. You are not one: you are a multiplicity. And you are a multiplicity because of the multiplicity of desires. You want to become so many things."