Sometimes you are one person and sometimes you are another. Whenever energy moves into one direction, you are one. When energy moves into another direction, you are another. Now a synthesis is needed, a unification, a yoga. Union is needed… and the inner union becomes easily possible if you are moving in some outer union also. Then the outer union become just a milieu in which the inner milieu can happen. The inner can also happen without the outer, but it is going to be a very hard way – and there is no need. That is the way of the monk, who tries to create an inner synthesis without creating any outer harmony around him.
He lives in a desert as far as the outside is concerned, and inside he creates an oasis. But it is difficult to protect an oasis in a desert. It is easier to protect an oasis in green and wild scenery, because the whole scene will help you.