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so one day you will be dead. Death takes no exceptions -- that you are a great scholar or a prime minister. You will die, that much I can predict. Nothing else is predictable but that much can be predicted easily -- that you will die. And in your grave, silently, meditate on what death is."
Confucius was trembling. The king also asked him, "You have been to Lao Tzu -- what happened?"
Confucius said, "All that I was afraid of happened. He made me look so idiotic that even after forty-eight hours I am still trembling. I am still afraid of that man's face -- I had nightmares for two nights! That man is following me, and, it seems, will go on following me. And he had some eyes! They go just like swords into you." He said, "One thing I can say to you as your adviser: don't ever think of meeting this man. He is a dragon, he is not a man."
Mysticism is to know life, without knowledge standing in between you and living.
But you go on living a borrowed kind of life, as if somebody else is living. You are like a zombie, sleepwalking, a somnambulist. And this whole situation has been created by the religions.
The trouble is that people think that the religions have been a great blessing to the world; just the contrary -- they have been the greatest curse to humanity. They destroyed all that was living in you and replaced it with something dead.
Your question was a living phenomenon.
Your doubt was breathing, beating in your heart.
But they told you, "Don't doubt -- otherwise you will suffer."
My father used to tell me, "I am concerned about you. You use such words against religion, God, heaven, and other doctrines, that I am concerned; you may suffer for it."
I told him, "I am ready, but before that suffering happens, let me live my life, and I will not have any grudge, I will not complain. In fact, I should be concerned about you, because all this knowledge is hocuspocus; and you think this boat made of paper is going to take you to the further shore. I tell you, you will drown.
"I am from the very beginning trying to swim -- I am not depending on any paper boat. If I drown, okay, it was my own choice.
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