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Main Index
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but a false satisfaction. A general observation about old men is that their innate childishness is intact. Only forms and methods have changed. Childishness persists.
Little things cause us irritation. Little things strengthen the ego, increasing our greed, our fears and desires. Everything remains the same as we grow older; there is no difference. So according to the Lao-Tzu point of view, we all die as children.
And here is Lao Tzu who is supposed to have been born old. He was sixty-two when he was born -- such is the legend. There are many such legends in the treasure-chest of the Orient which are very meaningful. The fact is, a Lao Tzu cannot be born unless he is mature.
Another story about him is that, no one knows when he died because he never died. Such a one never dies. The mortal thing that dies within us is the ego. We do not die; it is the ego created by us that dies. The pain of death is the pain of the dying ego. All that we have gathered together at the insistence of our ego, we see being snatched away from us at the time of death. All that we constructed breaks; all that we attained is lost.
One thing in all this is certain -- we have not created ourselves. Another thing that is certain is that we are not snatched away even by death.
Do you know who you were before you were born? No, because nothing is remembered except the ego, and the ego takes three to five years to develop. Therefore, the psychologists say that we cannot remember our lives before the age of three to five years. Why is this so? After all, we were present from birth to the age of three. It is because it takes three years for the ego to develop.
This brings us to an interesting fact -- children never hesitate to steal or tell lies. This does not mean they are thieves or liars. The actual fact is, the ego is still absent so the child cannot differentiate between 'mine' and 'thine'. What we look upon as theft is pure socialism to a child. The 'I' that creates differences between two people, is not developed as yet. What we look upon as theft is because of the ego. For a child, everything in this world is his; whatever he likes belongs to him.
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