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Book Name: A Bird on the WingPrevious     Next
 

and rest on the bed and just look at the illness. Watch it, what it is. Don't try to analyze it, don't go into theories, just watch it, what it is. The whole body tired, feverish -- watch it. Suddenly, you will feel that you are surrounded by fever but there is a very cool point within you; the fever cannot touch it, cannot influence it. The whole body may be burning but that cool point cannot be touched.

I have heard about one Zen nun. She died, but before she died she asked her disciples, "What do you suggest? How should I die?" It is an old tradition in Zen that masters ask; they can die consciously, so they can ask. And they are so playful even about death, so humorous about it, joking, laughing, they enjoy devising methods how to die. So disciples may suggest, "Master, this will be good, if you die standing on your head." Or someone suggests, "Walking, because we have never seen anyone die walking." So this Zen nun asked," What do you suggest?"

They said, "It will be good if we prepare a fire, and you sit in it and die meditating."

She said, " This is beautiful, and never heard of before." So they prepared a funeral pyre, the nun made herself comfortable in it, sat in a Buddha posture, and then they lit the fire.

One man from the crowd asked, "How does it feel there? It is so hot that I cannot even come nearer to ask you- that's why I am shouting. How does it feel there?"

The nun laughed and said, "Only a fool can ask such a question -- How does it feel there? There it always feels cool, perfectly cool." She is talking of her inner being, her center. There it is always cool and only a foolish person can ask. It is obvious. When a person is ready to sit in a pyre meditating, and then the pyre is burnt and she is sitting silently, obviously it shows that this person must have achieved the innermost cool point which cannot be disturbed by any fire. Otherwise, it is not possible.

So when you are lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body burning, just watch it. Watching, you will recede towards the source. Watching, not doing anything.... What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass through it; it is

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