Prem Nadi Ke Teera #12

No. I ask because, in fact, any such event only tells us this: what life is, how it unfolds, and how it comes to an end. We do not know it, nor do we seem to have any ultimate authority over it — that is all the event reveals. Only this much — so negative.

It tells you only something negative. Not that “someone” has ultimate authority—that God, some power, some Providence is running everything. That positive we are adding from our side. The event only shows that we do not know how life moves and how it ends. We are not the total planners. Some acts remain unfinished; something else overturns everything and our arrangements go to waste. Life is a mystery whose ends do not come into our grasp. Only this much—this negative—becomes clear. The positive—there is fate, there is destiny, there is God, there is some power—that we are adding. It does not come from the event.

And I ask: why are we adding it? It is absolutely unnecessary. What is necessary is only what I am saying; nothing more comes from the event itself. Why add more? Because the moment we add it, we again start thinking we know why the event happened. We fall back into the same illusion. The mystery that the event had revealed, we wipe it away. We declare, “God did it,” and we become the knowers again: “We know—there is a great power doing it all.” The very mistake the event could have saved us from, we reintroduce. Before the event we were in the error of knowing; after the event, again the same error.

The event had created a situation in which our whole ego should have shattered—the ego that says “I know.” It did not shatter; we erected a new ego: “I know that God is doing it, fate is doing it, the law is doing it.” We started “knowing” again. So the event was missed; it could have taken us somewhere. It could have changed our whole stance toward life.

I am not saying “a tragedy happened.” Whether it was a tragedy or not—we do not know. The tragedy is the second thing we do: the conclusion we draw. Was it a tragedy that two persons survived, or that they died? Hard to decide. Had they survived, would they have suffered more pain than by dying? Or by dying, did they go into peace? Who can decide this? No one can. That is very hard to determine. The real tragedy is that we miss the hint the event was giving us.

It was pointing toward something vast; we missed it. We rushed to reclaim our “knowing.” The event had given a jolt and made us feel our ignorance, but we dusted off our clothes and stood back up. “We know—some power is at work.” We returned to the very spot from which the jolt had dislodged us. And it could have been that we remained dislodged forever.

Had you remained dislodged, your life would have become entirely different. All the planning you were doing until yesterday—“I will arrange this and then that”—you would see: “I will act, yes, but I will not worry about the fruit; nothing is fixed.” You would act, but not in the illusion that “this will produce exactly what I want.” A certain humility would come into life.

If such events are seen clearly, a simple humility arises: we have no power, no real capacity. But that humility does not arise. The mind’s trick starts working again: “Oh, Hastimal-ji, yes—there is a power that runs everything.” And then we have nothing to do with that power in actuality; Hastimal-ji is back in his old position, at ease, and tomorrow he will continue doing what he was doing—no real change.

That is why I asked: the second thing—the extra addition—is utterly unnecessary. If we take from life only what is essential, our life keeps opening on new levels day by day. Wonders begin to appear that otherwise we never see—because our “knowledge” blinds us.

For example, we simply label it a “tragedy.” We don’t even inquire. Two young people, married seven days, die—we assume, “What a tragedy.” But have we asked why? Who can say they loved deeply for seven days, and if they had lived seventy years they would not have died after seventy years of quarrel? Who can say? Maybe they died in love; their last moment was full of love. Seventy years later they might have been full only of anger, hatred, resentment—who can say? Who can say that the measure of love present in those seven days would have been present after seventy years? Over seventy years, distances grow, cracks appear, fights erupt, enmity hardens—who can say? To die in love is a wondrous experience; to live in hatred is a distorted one.

How is it that we so quickly conclude that what has happened is “sad” or “happy”? The conclusions are ready-made; events merely get fitted to them. And then the humility that should arise, does not. Life is so mysterious that we have, in truth, no right to be decisive about it at all—no right at all.

Before the events of life there is only one way: stand in silence. Let us stand quietly and simply see what has happened. What are the judgments we pass? “A tragedy”—we say, and the judgment is done. We assume that living is pleasant under all circumstances and dying is sad under all circumstances. This is a dangerous decision. Look at those who are living—does it at all appear that their living is pleasant? We do not know about the dead, but nothing in the living shows that living, as such, is blissful. Our decision that death is sad stands only on the assumption that living is joy; and that assumption itself appears utterly false.

Consider: the child remains in the mother’s womb for nine months. If the womb—its cords, tissues, ribs—were conscious, the child’s birth would seem to them like a loss: “He is gone—dead.” The child has vanished from their world. If the nine-month organization of the womb could “think,” what else would it conclude but: “Tragedy—the poor child is gone!” Naturally so: from their side he is beyond them now; they do not know what has happened.

We think: a man went into death; tragedy. He is gone. We do not know where he went. Perhaps it is his new birth; perhaps he has gone to a new plane. We know nothing. How can we be decisive that what happened is a tragedy? And because we have assumed that death is tragedy, immense harm has followed: fear of death has been planted. The more frightened we are of death, the more difficult living becomes.

To live, a constant sense of fearlessness about death is needed. But if death is a “tragedy,” how can one be fearless? The belief betrays: “I am afraid of dying; I want only to go on living.” And the more a person fears death, the harder it is for him to live. His living can never be joyful. Only those can live joyfully who are ready to embrace death every moment. For whom death too is a joy—only they can make life a joy. Since we have assumed that death is a sad event, from childhood the word “death” enters the mind as fear. We tremble all life long. And the trembling is so much that we cannot live. To live, one needs a still mind; the mind that fears death can never be still. First it thinks, “What if I die?” Before starting work, “What if I lose? What if something goes wrong?” Thus he cannot love, because love is almost like dying. If there are two synonymous words, they are love and death. To love someone means almost to die—to become so empty and finished within. One who fears death never loves, because love demands total dissolution. He holds back: “I will die!”

The one who fears death never meditates either, for meditation too is a dying—an inner death—greater even than love. He cannot come near truth, because to stand near truth is to vanish. If you want to preserve yourself, stay near the untrue.

This is why untruth always seems protective. People lie because untruth protects; truth is dangerous—truth can sever you from the ground, topple your house, set it afire. Who knows what will happen!

Only the one who is ready to die is ready to stand with truth. Kabir says: “He who burns his own house, come with me.” That is the voice of truth. “Be ready to burn your own house—be ready to die—then come.” Without that courage, it is better to remain with untruth; it will protect your house, your property—everything.

My understanding is that even our small conclusions touch the deepest layers of our being and shape them. And before an event as immense as death, what conclusion can we take? We should stand silently. A wondrous event is happening—death. The utterly unknown is entering, of which we know nothing. Even then we pronounce judgment—and we err. If it became very clear in our minds, in the mind of the whole society, that we could end the fear of death, that the feeling “death is necessarily sad” could disappear, then the intensity of living would be born in us. Otherwise, it cannot.

Nietzsche said: only those live who live dangerously. To live dangerously does not mean strutting on a mountain with a sword. The man with a sword is not in danger; the sword is his safety-measure. To live dangerously means to be ready each moment to step into the unknown, because the unknown is the greatest danger.

Our fear of death is not because we know death is bad; it is because death is unknown—the greatest unknown in life. It is the one thing that cannot be known without dying; and we want to know first and then die. “If we’re certain what it is, we can die.” But without dying we cannot know. Thus death stands before us in the strangest posture all our lives—the greatest “danger”—because we must enter it without knowing.

So I say: do not take conclusions. When death happens, stand in deep silence and allow the event to enter your being completely. When someone close to us dies, those who are alive can receive great benefit: the event can touch them very deeply. It is almost as if you can have a little experience of your own dying through the death of one close to you—because a part of us has died. But we avoid it; we pass a judgment and “settle” the matter. With the judgment, the matter is finished; the event cannot enter us. Our old “knowledge” grows strong again—whereas the event could have toppled it, changed it, made it new. We don’t allow the opportunity.

Death is the most mysterious, the most unknown, and therefore the most divine event in the world. We should stand before it with utmost sacredness. If you can stand even before one death in this way, your whole life will change.

But we neither think nor inquire. We repeat our ready-made conclusions, and by repeating them we blunt the edge; the matter is finished. So I do not say—why call it a tragedy? Say only this much: two people were there, and after seven days they dissolved. We do not know where they dissolved, or what happened. Say only this much; there is no need to go even an inch further.

On the day Socrates was to be given the poison, his disciple Plato asked, “Are you not afraid of dying?” Socrates said, “Afraid? I am eager. That for which I have waited all my life is at hand. I am in complete awareness—few people get to taste death like this; I am neither ill nor unconscious. I am in my full intelligence, and death has come by destiny. I am eager to see—what is death?”

His disciples said, “What are you saying? We are weeping and grieving.” He said, “You are mad. Only two things are possible—so far as we know. Either I will die absolutely. Then there is no cause for sorrow, because if I am not, there is no possibility of sorrow. Had I lived, I could have suffered, and then you could have been sad with me. But if I am not at all—then I am beyond sorrow, beyond existence. Rejoice: there will be no more suffering for Socrates.

“The second possibility: I will remain—I will go beyond death. Then also there is no reason for sorrow; whatever I went beyond was not truly me, otherwise I could not have remained. So in either case—Socrates remains, or he does not—be happy. And if there is a third possibility, we do not know it; it can only be known by dying. I am fortunate—I am dying, and I will have the chance to know. I am dying in complete awareness, in full understanding.”

When the poison was being prepared outside, Socrates lay down with his friends around him and kept sending word, “See—he is taking too long grinding the poison.” The man grinding it said, “You are mad! I am delaying so you may live a little longer. You are such a good man.” Socrates replied, “Foolish fellow! If we are not ready to welcome what is coming—if we cannot stand at its door in eager waiting—it will come and pass, and we will not know it. To know, open eyes are needed; an awaiting mind is needed.

“For a guest, we keep the door open. We do not even want to wait for the knock and lose a moment. We open the door in advance and keep our eyes on the doorway, lest the guest come and go and we miss the footfall. Only in such awaiting do we recognize. Otherwise, we do not.”

So for death too, a mind filled with waiting is needed. But if our idea of death is “bad,” how can this happen? We keep our back turned, eyes closed. We are dragged into death; we do not go into it. We pull this way, death pulls that way. We enter death with eyes shut and unconscious—then we miss.

My understanding: once a person goes into death knowingly, with waiting, he comes to know there is neither birth nor death. If he goes with a fully open heart, the matter is finished—he has passed the examination. But since we pass through with eyes closed, there is birth again and death again—because we must pass that test; we must know death. Without knowing death there is no way to know truth. And out of fear of death we also avoid, in life, all those experiences that are akin to death.

In my understanding, one who fears death can never be free of ego; he cannot. Ego is the point of resistance against death: “I must remain. Let everything perish, but not I.” But the one who accepts death sees that death is not the end of life—it is life’s fulfillment. Truly, a seed is sown, it becomes a plant, flowers bloom, and then the flowers wither and fall. That withering and falling is not coming from outside; it is the seed’s ultimate state, its last flowering. There it attains perfection—from where dispersal begins. Where the sprout emerged was the beginning, the expression; where flowers fall is the fullness, the consummation.

So death is not the end of life; it is life’s completeness. And one who is filled with opposition to this completeness—how will he live? He fears even his own fulfillment: “What if I become complete?” For that is what it means.

Therefore I say: why call it a tragedy? Do not. Say only: it is a mystery. Beyond that, we are not entitled to say anything.

No, I did not say that. You have misunderstood me again. If someone says, “Death has come—and it is good,” then he has made a judgment; that is not what I said.

I did not say—please, listen to me; no, no, listen to me—I did not say that it is a comedy; I said that it is not a tragedy. I have understood your point. Consider it in two or three parts. First, I did not say that because death came it was a good thing. I did not say that, not even by mistake. I only said that we are not entitled to decide whether it was good or bad. We know nothing about what happened.

Please understand this a little. I have understood what you are saying. What I said did not occur to you; otherwise this second point you make could not be said. As I said: the person who regards even death as the inevitable completion of life becomes free of the fear of death—one point. That does not mean he is filled with a desire to fall ill. Nor does it mean he becomes eager to commit suicide. Nor does it mean that if he falls ill he will not take medicine. It does not mean any of these things. It does not mean any of these things.

It only means that the man is not frightened of death. And when death comes he is ready to open his doors to it with joy. But illness is not death. Becoming lame is not death; losing one’s eyes is not death. These are only the cripplings of life. And the man who is ready to accept even death with his whole heart will, of course, accept life with his whole heart. I am saying: illness, lameness, lying bedridden—I am not saying these are not tragedies. Illness is a tragedy, because it neither lets you die nor lets you live. It allows no real choice.

I call illness a tragedy because it weakens the capacity to live. In truth, it weakens even the capacity to die. A sick man cannot die with the same grace with which a healthy man dies. And the perfectly healthy man experiences a joy in dying that the sick man cannot taste even in dying. I am not saying a flower’s withering away... I am saying: there is a flower, a plant, and it is not given water—that is a tragedy; it is not given nourishment—that is a tragedy; a living man not getting food—that is a tragedy; his remaining ill—that is a tragedy.

For a living man to live in full health and for a living man to die in full health—am I saying he should not? I am not saying that. Nor am I saying that where two people have been swept away by a river you should not build a bridge there. I am not saying that. I am saying: build the bridge—and yet the bridge too can collapse and people can die. Concerning death, even after building the bridge we will still have to decide what stand we take, because people will die whether you build the bridge or not. Today they were swept away by the flood; tomorrow the bridge may break; or tomorrow a vehicle upon the bridge may crash into them. And even if we make every arrangement so that no one has to die from outside causes, then man will die from within.

Dying is not an accidental event such that one dies only by accident. How many die in accidents? Very few. We will prevent all accidents—and we should, because an accident does not allow one to live properly. Against death, however, you will not be able to erect any barrier. You can arrange that living happens properly; but for dying you must make one arrangement: what posture do we take toward death? That final arrangement we must make. Whether a man lives two hundred years or three hundred years—he will die.

The question is not how long we live before we die. Death is there, and we should have some attitude toward it—what is it? If the attitude is tragic, you will live in fear. And my point is: whoever is living in fear—you may not notice on the surface that “we have no fear of death; we are sitting here enjoying ourselves,” but I tell you: if the fear of death is inside, you are not even sitting properly here; within, a trembling continues. Because death can come any moment. The house can fall, an earthquake can occur, a flood can come. Anything can happen. Illness can come; cancer can come.

If there is a fundamental fear of death inside, it cripples your capacity to live; you live timidly. If there is absolutely no fear of death within, and we have accepted death just as we accept life, then you live in totality. Total living arises. Then you live any moment completely, because the one fear is finished. So there is no question about dying. Death is—and we are eager to know it too, eager to recognize it. It is also an unknown moment; we will know that too and live it.

We have set death in opposition to life, and then we suffer. Death is an essential part of life. And if we look carefully, being a child is a joy; being old is no less a joy. Old age has its own dignity, its own grandeur, which no child can ever have.

Rabindranath has said: When my father’s hair all turned white—utterly white—and he began to look as if he were standing where life ends and death will come—then the beauty I saw in him I had never seen in anyone. His white hair looked like snow on some Himalayan peak. He appeared so peaceful; his eyes had become so limpid; he was filled with such waiting for the unknown—some footfall... a footfall about to be heard, standing on a border line, on a threshold from which a new world was about to begin. He was so suffused with that feeling that the beauty I saw in him then I never saw again.

So Rabindranath wrote: If a man lives rightly and dies rightly, a perfect beauty is revealed in his life. It is not enough to live rightly; there must also be a right vision for dying. So I am not saying: “Don’t build a bridge there.” Build the bridge—and build many, build them well; that is necessary. But regardless of that, it still matters whether we take a stance about death or not. My point is: to assume death is a tragedy and something sorrowful is to poison life. Death too needs to be placed in its proper perspective: it is there, and it is an inevitable element.

And if it is there, and inevitable, then what stance shall we take? First, we know nothing about what happens beyond death. What happens after death? We know nothing. The seed breaks; the seed dies. If the seed could know death, it would be sad, “I am dying,” but a plant is born. It does not even know a plant has been born.

Then what you say also seems right on the surface: Socrates’ death is one thing—an old man dying. Two young people die and we feel “they died untimely; that is why it’s a tragedy.” But then we must ask: which deaths will we call untimely? To a man frightened of death, every death will seem untimely. For the one afraid of death, even at ninety he will not say, “This death is timely.” He will not say, “Now death is arriving on time.” Even then the desire to live is just as intense. We think, “He is old now,” but the desire to live within is as intense as ever. It has not changed. Because on the inner plane man never grows old. The body grows old; the consciousness within remains forever young. It never grows old. It keeps demanding youth. It still wants wealth, love, respect—everything. It still wants to live.

On that plane, if we look closely, there is no difference between a twenty-year-old and a sixty-year-old. Only one difference can be—and that is what I am pointing to: the twenty-year-old has taken no stance toward death; he has not even thought about it. The sixty-year-old will have thought something about death; he will have formed some perspective. That alone may be the difference.

But in the kind of society I am speaking of—where we free every child from the fear of death and instill in him a sense of respect, reverence, and acceptance for the unknown—then a twenty-year-old youth will be as ready for death as an eighty-year-old is not yet ready. That readiness is entirely inner.

Then we weigh life by what we call its pleasures. We think: he would have earned, built a house, bought a car, had children—he would have lived; he did not do these things—hence the tragedy. Look closely: that a life has gone makes no difference to us; what disturbs us is that the things life would have done did not get done. And the strange thing is: those who do build houses, have children, accumulate wealth—what have they really accomplished by it? What happened through which they attained joy? And if a man did not earn, did not build, did not buy—what essential thing was missed? What was the essence that he lacked?

This too can be—and as I said, Rabindranath wrote a novel: a youth loves a young woman. The woman is frightened of marrying; the youth is eager to marry. The woman tells him: “You keep pressing me, but I am afraid. I am afraid because something still remains to be done; marriage still remains—and its quiver, its thrill, its thought and its dreams. If we marry tomorrow—then what?” Rabindranath makes her say: “I want to die while loving you—in that quiver, that thrill, that waiting. Marriage brings a full stop, a dead end. I want to die loving you.”

What we call a man’s “timely” death—our understanding is only that he did what he had to do; nothing remained. But you do not know: the one for whom nothing remained had died long ago. Life means: something always remains to be done. So the old man for whom much still remained was, in one sense, young; in the inner sense his death is always untimely. And a young man who feels, “I have done everything”—his death has no timing at all. And then, by what measures do we decide what counts as “doing”?

The truth is: if a man lives even a single moment in love, nothing remains to be done in this whole life. If he has a glimpse of truth even for a moment, nothing remains to be done. But we cannot measure that; there is no measuring rod for it—and as yet everything stands in the unknown.

Now, in my understanding, we always call an accident a tragedy. If the same child had fallen ill and died, it would not feel as tragic. But to me, in the moment of accident the experience of death—and of life—is far more intense than it ever is in illness. You will be surprised: if you are driving and an accident is about to happen—you must suddenly stop, death stands before you—the entire process of thought stops for a moment; thoughts vanish. In so intense a moment thoughts cannot remain. Such a terrifying moment stands before you—death is standing there—thoughts cease, dissolve. What yoga calls samadhi becomes available to anyone in the moment of accident. Such intensity, such a heightened sense of life arises as cannot be described.

Even now it is hard to decide who is more fortunate: the man who dies on a cot, or the man who loses his life in a deep accident. For what does he come to know in that depth? He is not left to tell us. But those who have returned from deep accidents—there have been such cases in history—and their experiences are astonishing. Dostoevsky had such an experience.

Dostoevsky was sentenced to death—he was a Russian writer, a revolutionary. Twelve of them were sentenced to be shot. Thirty days later, at six in the morning, they would be executed. In those days in Russia they did not hang; they shot. So for thirty days they had to await death. That is not common—usually we do not know when death will arrive, so we go on living. We have no idea that death is standing at the shore—and has arrived. But for these men death was scheduled; each hour passed and death drew nearer.

It comes for us in the same way, but we lack intense awareness.

Sleep vanished. Dostoevsky wrote: sleep disappeared. How could one sleep? If you sleep an hour, death comes an hour closer. Thirty days, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, seven, five, four—and death comes nearer. There are twelve prisoners; all will be shot at dawn on a given date. Everyone’s sleep has vanished. They are filled with strange tension, panic, restlessness.

But Dostoevsky’s notes are amazing. He writes: they were twelve men, twelve types; their personalities came to a full boil—they became what they were. There was no longer anything to hide or falsify. Hide from whom? The one who wanted to abuse began to abuse from morning—he abused. To whom to show civility now? What is there to hide? Let the one who wants to curse, curse. Three days more. After three days it will stop. Who now cares whether I am good or bad, what you say? Your opinion has no value now. It had value only as long as I would live. Now the matter is beyond reproach.

Dostoevsky saw: those who were “nice” people, who never uttered a swear word, began to hurl the crudest abuse. Those who were great chatterers suddenly became silent—what was the point of babbling? They used to talk day and night: “This should happen, the world should be like that,” always thinking—suddenly they fell quiet. Dostoevsky said to a friend, “You don’t talk these days?” He replied, “What’s the point? Talking is over. The days of speaking are gone. Whom to talk to? What to say? Nothing.” He fell utterly silent.

Strange transformations came over the twelve. Dostoevsky wrote: we had never known them like this. That man who talked so much—such silence emerged from within him, who could have imagined? That “pious” man who read the Bible began to hurl abuse—who could have imagined? What was inside came out; the outer shell flew away. And on the very day of execution, at five in the morning they were bathed, taken to a field, lined up. A trench was dug before them. The machine gun was set. In front there was a church; its clock hand began to move: five-thirty, five-forty-five, ten minutes, five minutes... And Dostoevsky writes: I felt such a thrill, as if I had become bodiless. As the hand approached six, there was no body.

And with a start I realized what Christ must have experienced on the cross—I knew. I did not need to read it in any book. I did not need to ask any saint. I knew. The hand came closer to six and I was so filled with gratitude to Christ that for the first time in my life I took his name: “Ah! What you must have known upon the cross!” Hanging on the cross he knew it. The hand approached six. A horseman came galloping—but he was not even seen. All eyes were fixed on the clock. Eyelids had stopped blinking. When the clock struck six, the bullets would fly and they would be finished. The horseman came with the czar’s message: their sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. But he arrived two minutes early, and the hand touched six; the clock struck six—two men fell. Two men fell, thinking the bullets had struck. One man died on the spot—without any bullet. And the other who fell went mad. He kept saying, “You don’t know—I was shot at six. I am dead.” For the rest of his life he insisted, “I am dead. Who says I am alive? On such-and-such day at six in the morning I was shot.” He lived another eighteen years, but no one could convince him that he was alive.

And Dostoevsky wrote: as for my life—what happened to me is hard to say. What I could not do with a thousand practices happened—I experienced it. After that experience, I am a different man. That day became a point, a climax—I knew what life is. And I knew life in the very moment when death surrounded me from all sides.

My understanding too is: the intensity of life deepens exactly as death around it becomes intense. The more intense death is, the more intense becomes the moment of life. And in a single moment one can taste the juice of eighty years. In a slack life one might live eight hundred years and not taste the juice of a single alive moment. It depends on intensity—how full the flame...

Roza Alexander used to say: “It is not a question of how long I live, but of living whole. Like a torch burning from all sides—from the front, the back, below, above—everywhere, totally, not an inch unlit. Like such a torch, just one moment is enough. There is no need to repeat it.”

But those who are afraid of death can never attain such intensity of life, because fear slackens life. Life becomes a sluggish movement, a slow crawl. I am not saying you should not take measures against death. But the emphasis will change. If we drop the fear of death and learn the art of living, we will not build a bridge so that no one is swept away; we will build the bridge so that those who are alive may cross well.

The emphasis will change: we will still build bridges, but for the living—to let them pass with grace and ease along that way. Not out of fear of death, to prevent anyone from dying. Because he who is to die will die even by the bridge collapsing. There will be other ways to die. Our emphasis should be to arrange that life becomes deeper; not to arrange that we can avoid death. That I am not saying.

My view is this: the negative thing you suggest—that out of fear of death, to avoid illness, it is wrong to open hospitals—is not right. We should certainly open hospitals. But for what? So that man can be healthier. Not to avoid illness—no. A healthy man will avoid illness anyway; that is secondary. The positive is: how can man live more and more—deeper, more blissfully, more meaningfully? For that we should make every arrangement. And in that arrangement our stance toward death must also be clear; otherwise the arrangement is incomplete. And as of now, all over the world we have not taken a clear stance about death; hence the difficulty. So I am not saying what is tragedy, what is sorrow, what is happiness. I am saying only this: let us decide quickly. Those decisions are not true about them; we will use those decisions about our own life.

Govinddasji’s son had died. He was deeply afflicted—so afflicted that every day he would come to me, crying, asking the same thing: “Tell me, where has my son gone?” I said, “Why worry about that? The boy has died—that is enough. Why worry beyond that?” But he was worried. Now, see the strange thing: he went to Delhi, met a Jain muni, and asked him. The monk closed his eyes and said, “He has become a god in such-and-such heaven.” He was very happy. He wired me: “Why didn’t you tell me? I am so happy—my son is enjoying heaven in such-and-such celestial realm.”

Ambitious mind. When the boy was here he hoped he would become the prime minister. Death itself did not bother him; the tragedy was that the boy died without becoming prime minister. The tragedy was not death; the tragedy was the ambitious mind—that the boy died without fulfilling it. So this news felt very reassuring: he has been born in heaven. From there he went to the Kumbh and asked a Hindu sannyasin, who said, “Who says that? He has become a ghost on the peepal tree near your village by Jabalpur.” From there he wrote me a letter: “This man has plunged me into great sorrow. What kind of sannyasin is this? A sannyasin is one who makes my son a god; what sort of wicked sannyasin says he has become a ghost!” When he came to Jabalpur he was tormented: “What happened? Did my son become a god or a ghost?” I said, “You have no real concern with the boy. You are seeking the gratification of your ambition. If he became a ghost—that is painful. ‘My son—a ghost?’ What has that to do with the boy? It is ‘my son’—how can ‘my son’ be a ghost? He should be a god. So the sannyasin who says ‘god’ is good; the one who says ‘ghost’ is bad.

“And I tell you: you have no concern with the boy; your concern is with your ego, your ambition. Even in your son’s death you want to fulfill your ambition.” Strange—on the day he died, when I went, he began showing me telegrams: “This is from the President; this from the Prime Minister. But so-and-so has not yet wired.”

The boy has died; tears are flowing. But on what level are our sorrows, on what level our understanding? What is tragedy? When we draw conclusions, they are not about him; they are about ourselves—our own calculations.

So when I am speaking, do not take me to be saying, “If he died, good.” I am not saying that. I am saying: you are saying “bad”—but try to understand this “bad” carefully: does it have any relation to that boy? We know nothing about him; there can be no relation. The relation is with us—with our ambitions: he would become this, he would do that—all that is shattered. All that ended. Our ambitions that had run ahead—suddenly collapsed.

All the relatives, friends, parents, siblings—everyone would have been thinking, “This will happen, that will happen”—all gone. It left us suspended midway. The boy died—was that a tragedy for him or not? That cannot be decided. But a tragedy happened to us. Emphatically: the tragedy happened to you. Whether it happened to him cannot be determined. And if we can see that the tragedy has happened to us, then we will think differently. The whole meaning changes. It will mean: in the future, do not bind ambitions to any child—there can be tragedy. That is what it will mean. Even now we all have children at home—do not bind, “They will become this, they will become that.” Don’t bind anything. There can be tragedy. Because they may end in the middle. Even if they don’t end, they can go wrong.

You wanted them to become saints; they may not—may become un-saintly. You wanted them to earn wealth; they may squander it. And I tell you—and this is surprising—I asked that gentleman, “If your son had lived and become a goon, a scoundrel, a drunkard, abducting women—would that have seemed a greater tragedy than now?” He said, “That would have been a greater tragedy.”

I said, “Then death is not the question; the question is your own gratification—how much it is fulfilled or not. How many times parents say, ‘It would have been better if you had died’! We never even think what they are saying. They are saying: ‘If you become what we want, your life has meaning. If not, better you did not exist.’ Because then neither your life nor ours has any meaning. We find no meaning there.”

Tragedy happens. It happens to you, to me, to us. What happened to the one who died—we do not know. Without dying we cannot know it; there is no way. Therefore taking a sorrowful or wrong stance about it is harmful. I am not saying, “Good that he died; so let us put children into cars and drown them in rivers.” I am not saying that. Nor am I saying, “Don’t build bridges.” But our entire perspective—our entire direction of thinking—should change. It should become clear.