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"I want to become a sannyasin this evening." While meditating, he died. The evening never came.
People thought, for two and a half hours, that he was meditating. But when he did not move at all, somebody shook him and found that he was dead. But as far as I am concerned, because he was intending to become a sannyasin in the evening it is enough. He has become a sannyasin.
Sannyas is not something outward, it is something that arises in you, an urge, a deep longing. And he died in meditation -- what better initiation can there be? He died as a sannyasin. In utter silence, in absolute peace, he disappeared into the beyond.
Zen does not talk about past and future. Its whole concentration is in the now and here.
I always love to tell a small story....
A great atheist advocate had written in his sitting room, on the wall, in capital letters: GOD IS NOWHERE. Of course, everybody who came to see him had to read it; it was in such big letters, just in front of their eyes.
His first child was born, and one day he was playing with the child. The child was learning the language slowly, so he started reading the sentence on the wall. He could read, "God is nowhere," but "nowhere" was such a big word, the child could not manage to read it in one go. He cut it in two. He read, "GOD IS NOW HERE." The word `nowhere' has been cut into two pieces.
For the first time the father looked at the sentence, and he said, "My God! This child has made me aware. Now I can never read that sentence completely; I will always remember "Now Here."
It was a moment of transformation for the advocate. For the first time he started thinking, "Do I know really that God is nowhere? Have I explored the whole space? Have I explored my inner being?"
Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers. The only right person is an agnostic, who is neither theist nor atheist, who is simply in search of the truth. He has no belief system, no prejudice, no ideology already programmed.
I don't see much difference in the atheism of the Soviet Union and the theism of the Vatican. The theism of the Vatican is based on a belief.
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