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may have come for that, but I cannot do it."
He said, "But I went to this shankaracharya and he consoled me. He said, 'Don't bother, don't be worried; your son is reborn in a high heaven!'"
I knew his son also, and that is impossible because he was a politician -- they all go to hell, they never go to heaven. And not only was he a politician, but a successful politician -- he was a minister of state, with all the cunning of a politician, with all the ambition of a politician. How can he go to heaven? And this old man was also a politician. Basically he was not disturbed because his son was dead; the basic thing was that his ambition was dead, because through that son he was achieving more and more and more and more. He himself had become old; he had worked continuously his whole life, but he was a little foolish, not very cunning, a little naive. He worked hard, he sacrificed his whole life, but he could not attain any post. And that was the deep hurt, it was a wound. And then through the son he had been trying, and the son had been achieving. Now that his son was dead his whole ambition was dead.
When I told him, "This is the reason you are suffering so much; it is not your son," he was very disturbed. He said, "I had come for consolation and you are disturbing me more. It may be," he said. "Whatsoever you say sounds true. It may be that my ambition has been hurt and it is not for the son that I am weeping -- it may be for the ambition. But don't say such hard things to me, I am in such pain right now. My son is dead and you are saying such hard things to me. And I went to this mahatma, and to that shankaracharya, and to this guru, and they all consoled me. They said, 'Don't worry, the soul is eternal; nobody ever dies. And your son -- he was no ordinary soul, he has reached a high heaven!'"
These are consolations, and if this old man goes on listening to these consolations he is missing a great opportunity. He is missing an opportunity in which he could face his ambition, which is his problem. He could have encountered the fact that all ambition is useless, futile, because you work and work and work, and then death takes everything.
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