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Main Index
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is needed -- and a wholehearted effort. Nothing should be left: nothing should be left inside untouched. Everything should be sacrificed for awareness. Only then is the inner flame discovered. It is there. If one goes to find out the essential unity between all the religions that have existed or that may exist ever, then this single word "awareness" can be found.
Jesus tells a story: A master of a big house has gone out, and he has told his servants to be constantly alert -- because any moment he can come back. So for twenty-four hours they have to be alert. Any moment the master can come -- any moment! There is no fixed moment, no fixed day, no fixed date. If there is a fixed date, then you can sleep, then you can do whatsoever you like, and you can be alert only on that particular date because then the master is coming. But the master has said, "I will come at any moment. Day and night you have to be alert to receive me."
This is the parable of life. You cannot postpone. Any moment the Divine may just come; any moment the master may come. One has to be alert continuously. No date is fixed; nothing is known about when that sudden happening will be there. One can do only one thing: be alert and wait!
Rabindranath has written a poem, "The King of the Night." It is a very deep parable. There was a great temple with one hundred priests, and one day the chief priest dreamt that the Divine Guest was to come that night -- the Divine Guest for whom they had been waiting and waiting. For centuries the temple had been waiting for the King to come, the Divine King to come. The deity of the temple was to come! But the chief priest was in doubt: "It may be just a dream. And if it is just a dream, then everyone will laugh. But who knows? -- it may be true. It may be a true intimation."
The chief priest brooded that morning over whether to tell it to others or not. Then he became afraid. It may be time! So, then, in the afternoon, he told it. He gathered all the priests, closed all the doors of the temple, and said to them, "Do not go out and do not tell anyone! It may be just a dream; no one knows. But I have dreamt it, and the dream was so real.
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