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that he wouldn't come out of his house at night; by dusk he would return home, trembling. Finally a sadhu took pity on him. He told him, "Stop worrying about it and take this charm. Always keep this charm tied to your wrist; then no ghost or spirit can bother you."
It worked. By tying the charm on his wrist his fear of ghosts disappeared. But now a new fear caught hold of him: What if the charm got lost? Naturally, that charm had protected him from ghosts... now he would cross the graveyard in the middle of the night with no fear. There had never been ghosts there -- it was only his own fear. The charm released him from that fear, but he was caught in a new fear, of losing the charm. He took the charm with him when he went to bathe, checking again and again to see that he had it. He was terrified now that while he slept at night someone would open the charm, someone would steal it. The charm became his life.
The fear continued in the same way -- if not of ghosts then of losing the charm. Now if someone substitutes something else for the charm, what difference will it make? -- this man is not going to change his fearfulness. It is not a question of ghosts, it is a question of fear. So you can push fear around from one place to another. Lots of people go on playing this kind of volleyball. Throwing the ball from here to there, from there to here, they just go on throwing and playing. And meanwhile life passes by.
Ashtavakra says practicing for samadhi is the cause of bondage. If you are to be free, then declare your freedom, don't go on getting ready. So I say, look at this revolutionary statement. This statement is rare, it is incomparable.
Ashtavakra says to declare your freedom here and now. Don't prepare for it. Don't say that first you must get ready, and then... because the preparations will enslave you. Then how to drop the preparations? One disease is dropped, another disease is taken up. This is just switching shoulders.
You have seen people carrying a body on a stretcher to the burning grounds: they go on switching shoulders. Tired of carrying the weight on one shoulder, they shift to the other shoulder. They get a few
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