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others no matter how improbable. One's own glorification, however absurd, is always acceptable; we never feel the flattery is going beyond limits. Everything appears within the bounds of reason both as far as praise of oneself is concerned or slander about another. One who takes pleasure in scandalising others, who has delighted in his own praise, who stands proudly facing the world in his hour of triumph and hides himself in times of failure, he who has always sought respect and honour and fled from ridicule and revilement -- such a man cannot let go of his ego all of a sudden at the time of death.
But one who has done the opposite of this -- who has doubted the scandal about others and refused to believe it, who has doubted the authenticity of the praise lavished on him and refused to believe it; who has stood his ground in the face of failure and drawn back in the hour of success; if such a characteristic persists throughout his life, freedom is possible at the hour of death. The doors of hell are perpetually closed for such a person because he has lost the very key that opens it. The gates of heaven are forever open to him. Heaven means that the doors of happiness remain wide open for him. Then wherever he is, however he is, he cannot be anything but happy. There is no way to take away his happiness. His eyes always catch the good and the beautiful in everything and he derives pleasure from it. He remains closed to the painful and ugly aspect of things. Such a person sees diamonds in Pebbles and flowers in thorns. He sees light in darkness. For him, death is the ultimate din of life.
Therefore, I say, life is not mathematics but all insoluble mystery. It is not arithmetic where two and two is always tour. A riddle never conforms to calculations. Many times the result turns out to be other than the calculated outcome; even contrary. All the same, riddles have their own rules that are very subtle -- and it is about these riddles that Lao Tzu speak If we wish to understand the workings of a riddle, we will have to first understand its subtle mathematics. Understand it in this way. When a hunter shoots an arrow at a bird that is flying in the air,
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