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he neither says yes nor does he say no! The mosquito called out louder and louder. At last a faint voice reached the elephant's ears -- "I, the king of mosquitoes. stayed within your ear out of great compassion. Can you hear me or not?"
The elephant replied: "Respected Sir, I do not know when you came How long you stayed, I do not know. You come and stay, do whatever you like, I have no knowledge of it!"
The Tibetan Fakir tells this story with a purpose.
Man comes into the world. He creates philosophies. Religious Paths, Truth, Principles and words. He shouts from all the four corners of the vast existence: "Listen ye all -- Ram is His name!" or, "Listen ye all -- Krishna is His name!" The skies are silent That Infinite Expanse has no knowledge of this. The elephant did finally hear the mosquito, for in spite of the great difference in size there is no qualitative difference between the two -- the elephant is a giant mosquito and the mosquito is a diminutive elephant. There is no qualitative difference to make communication impossible. It is possible, though with some difficulty. The mosquito will have to speak very loudly and the elephant will have to hear more intently. But this is not impossible.
But between Existence and the mind of man there is not even this little bit of connection -- or is there? It is not aware of the fact that we are born, though we proclaim it with feast and music to all the world; nor is it conscious of our death! We come and we go; we are like the line drawn over water -- no sooner are we formed than we are destroyed. But in this very short period between the line's formation and extinction, God knows how many words we create, how many Shastras and Organisations we create! We spread a whole web of our mind within such a short period.
Lao Tzu cuts this web. 'Not this, not this', is his way of telling. In fact, he who wants to talk in connection with the Absolute will have to say, that nothing can be said in connection with it. And then efforts will have to be made to express; and that effort can only be in the form of negation -- 'not this, not this'. The path that can be trodden? No, not that Path.
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