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of tremendous importance: a master is absolutely absent as far as his individuality is concerned; he is absolutely present as far as his cosmic experience is concerned. And you need to have some intelligence, some heart, to understand it.
A haiku by Basho....
MAD WITH POETRY,
I STRIDE LIKE CHIKUSAI
INTO THE WIND.
"Mad with poetry..." If you are not mad, your poetry will be very poor. Poetry which is sane will be ordinary, prosaic, just a composition of words without any essential meaning running through it. To be a poet is in a certain sense to be mad.
MAD WITH POETRY,
I STRIDE LIKE CHIKUSAI
INTO THE WIND.
It has not been recognized by the religions of the world. I want to make it an absolute discontinuity with the past in the sense that I don't consider the older saints to be authentically religious. They can be divided in two categories -- either they are masochists who enjoy torturing themselves, or they are sadists who enjoy teaching people to torture themselves, who enjoy others torturing. And it is possible that one man may be both -- he may enjoy torturing himself and he may enjoy torturing others.
Most of the saints belong to the psychologically sick people, and the real religious people have not been taken in account. They are the poets, the dancers, the painters, the musicians, the sculptors. All kinds of creative people are the truly religious people, but no religion accepts them as religious because these people are functioning according to their nature, not according to any scripture. These people are almost part of the universe.
One very rich woman asked Picasso, a great painter of our times, "You have never done portrait. You have done so many beautiful paintings, but no portrait. My only desire is to have a portrait of myself made by you. And don't think about money. You say it and it will be given." The woman was super rich.
Picasso wanted to tolerate her but he could not tolerate the money. He was in immense need of money. Just for his paintings he needed money, but he did not want to make a portrait, knowing perfectly well that when he started painting he forgot
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