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the news and said, `Your great enemy is dead.'
Shocked, Voltaire said, `I will miss him tremendously.' He started crying and he said, 'He was a great man and it will be difficult to find a greater man than him. His intelligence was tremendously sharp and his whole life was a beautiful life.'
The man who had come to release the news could not believe these words, that Voltaire would say these words -- he was expecting that he would be happy. Seeing him shocked, Voltaire said, 'All these things are true, provided he is really dead. Provided he is really dead -- if he is still alive, then forget all this.'
When a person is dead he becomes good. We declare people good only when they are dead. Alive, they are not good; alive, they are not worth friendship; alive we fight. Dead ,we praise them to high pinacles.
I have heard...
A miserly man died. The widow went to the priest and asked him, `How much will it cost? -- you have to deliver a speech.'
He said,` There are speeches and speeches. The best will cost two hundred dollars.'
`Two hundred dollars?' the woman said. `My husband would not have allowed that much of a luxury. Isn't there a cheaper speech/'
Them man said, `There are hundred-dollars -- but then I will not be able to praise him much.'
The woman said, `Still come a little lower.'
And the priest said, `Fifty dollars is still too much.'
Then he said, `Okay, ten dollars -- but remember, then I will have to tell the truth.'
When a person dies, we start telling lies... beautiful lies. In India everybody dies and goes to heaven -- even politicians. Nobody seems to go to hell; hell must be absolutely empty. Death seems to be very important to us. We are death-obsessed. That's why Christians made too much fuss about the cross -- that became a symbol. A religion that is centered on the concept of the cross and death and crucifixion cannot be a religion of life-affirmation. Schweitzer is wrong. He should have read Kabir -- his whole being would have been benefitted tremendously.
Kabir is REALLY the religious person. His declaration about life is of tremendous trust. He does not
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