When Chuang Tzu was about to die,
his disciples began planning a grand funeral.

But Chuang Tzu said:
“I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin;
the sun and moon will be jade symbols
hanging by my side;
planets and constellations
will shine as jewels all around me,
and all beings will be present
as mourners at the wake.
What more is needed?
Everything is amply taken care of.”

The disciples said:
“We fear that the crows and kites
will eat our master.”

Chuang Tzu replied:
“Well, above ground I shall be eaten
by crows and kites,
and below ground by ants and worms.
In either case I shall be eaten –
so why are you favoring the birds?”
Mind makes everything a problem; otherwise life is simple, death is simple, there is no problem at all. But mind gives the deception that every moment is a problem and has to be solved. Once you take the first step of believing that everything is a problem, then nothing can be solved because the first step is absolutely wrong.
Mind cannot give you any solution, it is the mechanism which gives you problems. Even if you think you have solved a problem, thousands of new problems will arise out of the solution. This is what philosophy has been continually doing. Philosophy is the business of the mind. The moment mind looks at anything it looks with a question mark, it looks with the eyes of doubt.
Very simple is life, and very simple is death – but only if you can see without the mind. Once you bring the mind in, then everything is complex, then everything is a riddle, then everything is confusion. And mind tries to solve the confusion when really it is the source of all confusions, so more confusion is created. It is as if a small stream is flowing in the hills. Some carts have passed, and the stream is muddy, and you jump into the stream to clean it. You will only make it more muddy. It is better to wait on the bank. It is better to let the stream itself become tranquil again, to calm down until the dead leaves are gone, the mud has settled, and the stream is again crystal clear. Your help is not needed. You will only confuse it more.
So if you feel that there is a problem, please don’t poke your nose in it. Sit by the side. Don’t allow the mind to get involved, tell the mind to wait. And it is very difficult for the mind to wait – it is impatience incarnate.
If you tell the mind to wait, meditation happens. If you can persuade the mind to wait, you will be prayerful – because waiting means no thinking, it means just sitting on the bank not doing anything with the stream. What can you do? Whatsoever you do will make it more muddy; your very entering into the stream will create more problems. So wait.
All meditation is waiting. All prayerfulness is infinite patience. The whole of religion consists of not allowing the mind to create more problems for you. Every simple thing which even animals enjoy, which even trees enjoy, man cannot enjoy – because immediately it becomes a problem and how can you enjoy a problem?
You fall in love, and the mind immediately says: “What is love? Is this love or sex? Is this true or false? Where are you going? Can love be eternal or is it just momentary?” First decide everything, then take the step. But with the mind there is never any decision, it remains indecisive; indecision is its inherent nature. It says, “Don’t take the jump.” And when mind tells you these things, it seems very clever, it seems very intelligent, because you may go wrong. So don’t take the jump, don’t move, remain static.
But life is movement and life is trust. Love happens – one has to move into it. Where it leads is not the point. The goal is not the point. The very movement of your consciousness in love is a revelation. The other is not the point; the beloved or the lover is not the point. The point is that you can love, that it could happen to you; that your being opens in trust, without any doubt, without any questioning. This very opening is a fulfillment.
But the mind will say, “Wait, let me think and decide; one should not take any step in haste.” Then you can wait and wait. That’s how you have been missing life.
Every moment life knocks at your door, but you are thinking. You say to life, “Wait, I will open the door, but let me first decide.” It never happens. Your whole life will come and go, and you will be simply dragging, neither alive nor dead, and both are good because death has a life of its own.
So remember, the first thing: don’t allow the mind to interfere. Then you can be like trees, even greener. Then you can be like birds on the wing, and no bird can reach to heights which you can touch. Then you can be like fish which go to the very bottom of the sea – you can go to the very bottom of the ocean. Nothing is comparable to you. Human consciousness is the most evolved phenomenon, but you are missing. Even less-evolved states are enjoying more. A bird is a bird, a very much less-evolved being than you; a tree is almost not evolved at all, but enjoying more, flowering more. More fulfillment is happening all around it. Why are you missing?
Your mind has become a burden. You have not been using it; rather, on the contrary, you are being used by it. Don’t allow the mind to interfere with your life, then there will be a flow. Then you are unobstructed, then you are transparent, then each moment is bliss because you are not worried about it.

A man was advised by his psychoanalyst to go to the hills. He was always complaining and complaining about this and that, asking about this and that. He was never at ease with anything, never at home. He was advised to go for a rest.
The next day a telegram arrived for the psychoanalyst. In it the man said, “I am feeling very happy here. Why?”

You cannot even accept happiness without asking why. It is impossible for the mind to accept anything – the why is immediately there, and the why destroys everything. Hence so much insistence in all religions on faith. This is the meaning of faith – not allowing the mind to ask why.
Faith is not belief, it is not about believing in a certain theory – faith is believing in life itself. Faith is not about believing in the Bible or the Koran or the Gita. Faith is not belief – faith is a trust, a non-doubting trust. And only those who are faithful, those who are capable of trust, will be able to know what life is and what death is.
For us life is a problem, so death is bound to be a problem. We are constantly trying to solve it, and wasting time and energy in solving it. It is already solved. It has never been a problem. It is you who are creating the problem. Look at the stars, there is no problem; look at the trees, there is no problem. Look all around… If man were not there everything would be already solved. Where is the problem? The trees never ask who created the world – they simply enjoy it. What foolishness to ask who created the world. And what difference does it make who created the world: a, b, c or d, what difference does it make? And whether it was created or it is uncreated, what difference does it make? How will it affect you if a created the world, or b created the world, or nobody created the world? You will remain the same, life will remain the same. So why ask an unnecessary, irrelevant question and get entangled in it?
The rivers go on flowing never asking where they are going. They reach the sea. If they start asking, they might not; their energy might be lost on the way. They might become so afraid – where they are going, where is the goal, what is the purpose? They may become so obsessed with the problem that they might go mad. But they go on flowing, unworried where they are going, and they always reach the sea.
When trees and rivers can do this miracle, why can’t you do it? This is the whole of Chuang Tzu’s philosophy, his whole way of life: When everything is happening, why are you worried? Allow it to happen. If rivers can reach, man will reach. If trees reach, man will reach. When this whole existence is moving, you are part of it. Don’t become a whirlpool of thinking, otherwise you go round and round, round and round, and the flow is lost. Then there is no oceanic experience in the end.
Life is a riddle to you because you look through the mind; if you look through the no-mind, life is a mystery. Life is already dead if you look through the mind; and life never dies if you look through the no-mind. Mind cannot feel the alive. Mind can only touch the dead, the material. Life is so subtle and mind is so crude – an instrument not as subtle as life. And when you touch with that instrument it cannot catch the throbs of life. It misses. The throbbing is very subtle – you are the throbbing.
Chuang Tzu is on his deathbed, and when a man like Chuang Tzu is on his deathbed the disciples should be absolutely silent. This moment is not to be missed, because death is the peak. When Chuang Tzu dies, he dies at the peak. It happens rarely that consciousness reaches its absolute fulfillment. The disciples should be silent; they should watch what is happening; they should look deep into Chuang Tzu. They should not interfere with their minds, they should not start asking foolish questions. But the mind always starts asking. They are worried about the funeral and Chuang Tzu is still alive. But the mind is not alive, it is never alive; the mind is always thinking in terms of death. For the disciples the master is already dead. They are thinking about the funeral – what to do, what not to do. They are creating a problem which doesn’t exist at all because Chuang Tzu is still alive.
I have heard…

Three old men were sitting in a park, discussing the inevitable, death. One old man of seventy-three said, “When I die I would like to be buried with Abraham Lincoln, the greatest man, loved by all.”
Another said, “I would like to be buried with Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist, humanitarian, philosopher, lover of peace.”
Then they both looked at the third, who was ninety-three. He said, “I would like to be buried with Sophia Loren.”
They both felt annoyed, angry and they said, “But she is still alive.”
That old man said, “So am I!”

This old man must have been something rare. Ninety-three, and he said, “So am I!” Why should life be worried about death? Why should life think about death? When you are alive, where is the problem? But the mind creates the problem. Then you get puzzled.

Socrates was dying, and the same thing happened as happened with Chuang Tzu. The disciples were worried about the funeral. They asked him, “What should we do?”
Socrates is reported to have said, “My enemies are giving poison to kill me and you are planning how to bury me – so who is my friend and who is my enemy? You are both concerned with my death, nobody seems to be concerned with my life.”

Mind is somehow death-obsessed. The disciples of Chuang Tzu were thinking what to do – and the master was dying, a great phenomenon was happening right then.
A buddha, Chuang Tzu, was reaching the ultimate peak there. It happens rarely, once or twice in millions of years. The flame was burning. His life had come to a point of absolute purity where it is divine, not human, where it is total, not partial, where the beginning and the end meet, where all the secrets are open and all the doors are open, where everything is unlocked. The whole mystery was there… And the disciples were thinking of the funeral – blind, absolutely blind, not seeing what was happening. Their eyes were closed.
But why does it happen? These disciples, do you think that they knew Chuang Tzu? How could they? If they were missing Chuang Tzu in his supreme glory, how can we believe that they didn’t miss him when he was working with them, working on them, moving with them, digging a hole in the garden, planting a seed, talking to them, just being present with them?
How can we think that they knew who this Chuang Tzu was? When his total glory was missed, it is impossible not to think that they had missed him always. They must have missed. When he was talking, then they must have been thinking: “What is he talking about? What does he mean?”
When an enlightened person speaks, meaning is not to be discovered by you; it is there, you have simply to listen to it. It is not to be discovered, it is not hidden, it is nothing to be interpreted. He is not talking in theories, he is giving you simple facts. If your eyes are open, you will see them; if your ears can hear, you will hear them. Nothing more is needed.
That’s why Jesus goes on saying again and again, “If you can hear, hear me.” If you can see, see. Nothing more is expected – just open eyes, open ears.
Buddha, Chuang Tzu or Jesus are not philosophers like Hegel, or Kant. If you read Hegel the meaning has to be discovered. It is very arduous, as if Hegel is making every effort to make it more and more difficult, weaving words around words, making everything riddle-like. So when you first encounter Hegel he will look superb, a very high peak, but the more you penetrate and the more you understand, the less of a man he becomes. The day you understand him, he is just useless.
The whole trick is that you cannot understand him, that’s why you feel he is so great. Because you cannot understand, your mind is baffled, because you cannot understand, your mind cannot comprehend, the thing seems to be very mysterious, incomprehensible. It is not, it is only verbal. He is trying to hide, he is not saying anything. Rather, he is saying many words without any substance.
So persons like Hegel are immediately appreciated, but as time passes appreciation of them disappears. Persons like Buddha are not immediately appreciated, but as time passes you appreciate them more. They are always before their time. Centuries pass, and then their greatness starts emerging, then their greatness starts appearing, then you can feel it. Because their truth is so simple, there is no garbage, there is no rubbish around it. It is so factual you can miss it if you think about it.
When you are listening to a Chuang Tzu, just listen. Nothing else but a passive receptivity, a welcome, is needed on your part. Everything is clear, but you can make it a mess, and then you can get confused by your own creation. These disciples must have missed Chuang Tzu – they are missing him again. They are worried about what is going to be done.
And this point has to be understood: a man of wisdom is always concerned with the being, and a man of ignorance is always concerned with questions of doing, what is to be done. Being is not a question to him.
Chuang Tzu is concerned with being; the disciples are concerned with doing. If death is coming then what is to be done? What should we do? The master is going to die, so what about the funeral? We must plan it.
We are mad about planning. We plan life, we plan death, and through planning the spontaneity is destroyed, the beauty is destroyed, the whole ecstasy is destroyed.
I have heard…

An atheist was dying. As he was an atheist, he didn’t believe in heaven or hell but still he thought it best to get properly dressed before dying. He didn’t know where he was going because he didn’t believe in anything, but still he was going somewhere, so before going one must get properly dressed.
He was a man of manners, etiquette, so he was dressed in the right dress for the evening, the tie, everything – and then he died. The rabbi was called to bless him. The rabbi said, “This man never believed, but look how he has planned! He did not believe, he had nowhere to go, but how beautifully dressed and ready!”

Even if you feel that you are not going anywhere, you plan it, because the mind always wants to play with the future. It is very happy planning for the future, it is very unhappy living in the present. But planning for the future seems beautiful. Whenever you have time you start planning for the future, whether of this world or of that, but the future. And the mind enjoys planning. Planning is just fantasy, dreaming, daydreaming.
Persons like Chuang Tzu are concerned with being, not becoming. They are not concerned with doing, they are not concerned with the future. No planning is needed. Existence takes care of itself.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Look at these flowers, these lilies, so beautiful in their glory that even Solomon was not so beautiful.” And they don’t plan, and they don’t think for the future, and they are not worried about the next moment.
Why are the lilies so beautiful? Of what does their beauty consist? Where is it hidden? The lilies exist here and now. Why is the human face so sad and ugly? Because it is never here and now, it is always in the future. It is a ghostlike thing. How can you be real if you are not here and now? You can only be a ghost, either visiting the past or moving into the future.
Chuang Tzu was dying. At the moment of Chuang Tzu’s death the disciples should have been silent. That would have been the most respectful thing to do, the most loving thing to do. The master was dying. They never listened to his life, at least they could have listened to his death. They could not be silent while he was talking to them throughout his life; now he was going to give his last sermon through his death.
One should be watchful when a wise man dies because he dies in a different way. An ignorant man cannot die that way. You have your life and you have your death. If you have been foolish in your life, how can you be wise in your death? Death is the outcome, the total outcome, the conclusion. In death your whole life is involved, in essence your whole life is there, so a foolish man dies in a foolish way.
Life is unique, death is also unique. Nobody else can live your life and nobody else can die your death, only you. It is unique, it never happens again. Styles differ, not only in life but also in death. When Chuang Tzu dies, one has to be absolutely silent so that one does not miss it – because you can miss.
Life is a long affair, seventy, eighty, a hundred years. Death is in one moment. It is an atomic phenomenon, concentrated. It is more vital than life because life is spread out. Life can never be as intense as death can be, and life can never be as beautiful as death can be, because it is spread out. It is always lukewarm.
At the moment of death the whole of life has come to a boiling point. Everything evaporates from this world to the other, from the body to the bodiless. It is the greatest transformation that happens. One should be silent, one should be respectful, one should not be wavering, because it will happen in a single moment and you may miss it.
And the foolish disciples were talking about the funeral and thinking of making a grand thing out of it. And the grandest thing was happening, the greatest thing was happening, but they were thinking of the show. The mind always thinks of the exhibition – it is exhibitionistic.

Mulla Nasruddin died. Somebody informed his wife who was taking her afternoon tea – half the cup was finished. The man said, “Your husband is dead, he fell under a bus.” But Mulla Nasruddin’s wife continued sipping her tea.
The man said, “What! You have not even stopped drinking. Do you hear me? Your husband is dead, and you have not even said a single thing!”
The wife said, “Let me first finish my tea, and then – boy, will I give a scream! Just wait a little.”

The mind is exhibitionistic. She will give a scream, just give her a little chance to arrange, to plan.

I have heard about an actor whose wife died. He was crying his heart out, screaming, tears rolling down.
One man said, “I never thought that you loved your wife so much.”
The actor looked at the man and said, “This is nothing. You should have seen me when my first wife died.”

Even when you show your anguish you are looking at others: what do they think about it? Why think of a grand funeral? Why grand? You make an exhibition out of death also. Is this really respectful? Or is death also something on the market, a commodity?
Our master has died, so there is a competition, and we must prove that he received the greatest funeral – no other master ever received one like it and no other will ever receive one like it again.
Even in death you are thinking of the ego. But disciples are like that, they follow. But they never really follow, because if they had followed Chuang Tzu then there would be no question about a grand funeral. They would have been humble in that moment. But the ego is assertive.
Whenever you say that your master is very great, just look within. You are saying, “I am very great, that’s why I follow this great man, I am a great follower.” Every follower claims that his master is the greatest – but not because of the master. How can you be a great follower if the master is not great? And if somebody says that this is not so, you get annoyed, irritated, you start arguing and fighting. It is a question of the survival of the ego.
Everywhere the ego asserts. It is cunning and very subtle. Even in death it will not leave you; even in death it will be there. The master is dying, and the disciples are thinking of the funeral. They have not followed the master at all – a master like Chuang Tzu whose whole teaching consists of being spontaneous.
When Chuang Tzu was about to die,
his disciples began planning a grand funeral.
He is not yet dead and they have started planning – because the question is not Chuang Tzu, the question is the egos of the disciples. They must do something grand, and everybody must come to know that never, never before has such a thing happened.
But you cannot deceive Chuang Tzu. Even when he is dying he will not leave you alone; even when he is dying he cannot be deceived; even when he is leaving, he will give you his heart, his wisdom; even at the last moment he will share whatsoever he has known and realized. Even his last moment is going to be a sharing.
But Chuang Tzu said:
“I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin;
the sun and moon will be jade symbols
hanging by my side;
planets and constellations
will shine as jewels all around me,
and all beings will be present
as mourners at the wake.”
What more is needed? Everything is simple, amply taken care of. What more is needed? What more can you do? What more can you do for a Chuang Tzu, for a buddha? Whatsoever you do will be nothing, whatsoever you plan is going to be trivial. It cannot be grand because the whole universe is ready to receive him. What more can you do?
Chuang Tzu said: “The sun and the moon and all the beings on earth and in heaven are ready to receive me. And all beings, the whole existence, will be the mourners. So you need not worry, you need not engage mourners.” You can engage mourners – now they are also available on the market. There are people – you pay them and they mourn. What type of humanity is coming into being? If a wife dies, a mother dies, and nobody is there to mourn, you have to engage professional mourners. They are available in Mumbai, Kolkata; in big cities they are available, and they do such a good job you cannot compete with them. Of course they are more efficient, they get daily practice, but what ugliness when you have to pay for it.
The whole thing has become false. Life is false, death is false, happiness is false. Even mourning is false. And this has to be; it has a logical meaning to it. If you have never been really happy with a person, how can you be really mournful when he dies? It is impossible. If you have not been happy with your wife, if you have never known any blissful moment with her, when she dies how can authentic tears come to your eyes? Deep down you will be happy, deep down you feel a freedom: “Now I am independent, now I can move according to my desires.” The wife was like an imprisonment.
I have heard…

A man was dying and his wife was consoling him, saying, “Don’t worry, sooner or later I will join you.”
The man said, “But don’t be unfaithful to me.” He must have been afraid. Why this fear at the last moment? This fear must have always been there.
The wife promised, “I will never be unfaithful to you.”
So the man said, “If you commit even a single act of unfaithfulness toward me I will turn in my grave. It will be very painful for me.”
Then after ten years the wife died. At the gate, Saint Peter asked her, “Who would you like to see first?”
She said, “My husband, of course.”
Saint Peter asked, “What is his name?”
So she said, “Abraham.”
But Saint Peter said, “It is difficult because there are millions of Abrahams, so give me some clue.” The wife thought. She said, “At the last moment he said that if I commit any act of unfaithfulness toward him he would turn in his grave.”
Saint Peter said, “No more is needed. You mean twirling Abraham, who is constantly twirling in his grave. For ten years he has not had a single moment of rest. And everybody knows about him. There is no problem, we will call him immediately.”

No faith, no trust, no love, no happiness, has ever happened out of your relationships. When death comes, how can you mourn? Your mourning will be false. If your life is false, your death is going to be false. And don’t think that you are the only false one – all around, those who are related to you are false. And we live in such a false world, it is simply amazing how we can continue.

One politician was out of work. He was an ex-minister. He was in search of work because politicians are always in difficulty when they are not in office. They cannot do anything other than politics, they don’t know anything else but politics. And they don’t have any qualifications either. Even for a puny job certain qualifications are needed – but for a minister none are needed. For a chief minister or a prime minister qualifications are not needed at all.
So this minister was in trouble. He met the manager of a circus, because he thought, “Politics is a great circus, and I must have learned a little, enough to be of some use in the circus.” So he said, “Can you find me a job? I am out of work, and in much trouble.”
The manager said, “You have come at the right moment. One of the bears has died, so we will give you a bear’s costume. You don’t have to do anything, just sit the whole day in the cage in the bear’s costume. Just sit and nobody is going to know the difference. You are not required to do anything, just sit from morning to evening so people know that the bear is there.”
The job looked good, so the politician accepted. He entered the cage, put on his costume, and sat down. He was just sitting there, when fifteen minutes later another bear was shoved in. He panicked and ran to the bars, started shaking them and cried out, “Help, let me out of here!”
Then suddenly he heard a voice. The other bear was speaking. He said, “Do you think you are the only politician out of work? I am an ex-minister too. Don’t be so afraid.”

The whole of life has become false, root and all, and how you exist in it is a sheer miracle – talking with a false face, talking to a false face, false happiness, false misery. And then you hope to find the truth! With false faces the truth can never be found. One has to realize his own true face and drop all the false masks.
Said Chuang Tzu: “I shall have heaven and earth for my coffin…” So why are you worried? And how can you manage a greater coffin than that? Let heaven and earth be my coffin – and they will be.
“…the sun and moon will be jade symbols hanging by my side…” So you need not burn candles around me; they will be momentary, and sooner or later they will not be there. Let sun and moon be the symbols of life around me. And they are: “…planets and constellations will shine as jewels all around me, and all beings will be present…”
This is something to be understood: …all beings will be present. It is also said of Buddha and Mahavira, but nobody believes it because it is impossible to believe. Even Jainas read it, but they don’t believe it. Buddhists read it, but suspicion enters their minds.
It is said that when Mahavira died all the beings were present there. Not only human beings – animals, the souls of the trees, angels, deities, all the beings from all the dimensions of existence were present there. And this should be so because a Mahavira is not only revealed to you; the glory is such, the height is such that all the dimensions of existence become acquainted with him. It is said that when Mahavira would speak angels, deities, animals, ghosts, all types of beings were there to listen to him, not only human beings. It looks like a story, a parable, but I tell you that this is a truth – because the higher you reach, the higher your being grows, and other dimensions of existence become available to you.
When one reaches the highest point – Jainas call it the point of arihanta, Buddhists call it the point of arhat, Chuang Tzu, the man of Tao calls it the point of the perfect Tao – then the whole existence listens.
Says Chuang Tzu: “…and all beings will be present as mourners at the wake.”
“What more is needed?”
And what more can you do? What more can you add to it? You need not do anything, and you need not worry.
“Everything is amply taken care of.”
This is the feeling of one who becomes silent: “Everything is amply taken care of.” Life and death, everything, you need not do anything – everything is already happening without you. You come into it unnecessarily and you create confusion, you create chaos. Without you everything is perfect – as it is, it is perfect. This is the attitude of a religious man: everything is perfect as it is. Nothing more can be done to it.
In the West, Leibnitz is reported to have said that this is the most-perfect world. He has been criticized because in the West you cannot assert such things. How is this world the most-perfect world? This seems to be the most imperfect, the most ugly, ill; there is inequality, suffering, poverty, illness, death, hatred, everything – and this Leibnitz says that this is the most perfect world.
Leibnitz has been criticized severely, but Chuang Tzu would have understood what he means. I understand what he means. When Leibnitz said, “This is the most-perfect world possible,” he was not making any comment on the political or economic situation. He was not making any comment on equality, inequality, socialism, communism, wars. He was not making any comment on it. The comment is not objective, the comment is not concerned with the without; the comment is concerned with the inner feeling – it comes from the very being. That everything is perfect means there is no need to worry.
“Everything is amply taken care of.” And you cannot make it better, you just cannot make it better. If you try you may make it worse, but you cannot make it better. It is very difficult for the scientific mind to understand that you cannot make it better, because the scientific mind depends on this idea – that things can get better. But what have you done?
For two thousand years since Aristotle, we have been trying in the West to make the world a better place. Has it become better in any way? Is man even a little happier? Is man even a little more blissful? Not at all. Things have become worse. The more we have been treating the patient, the more he is falling to his death. Nothing has been helpful. Man is not happier at all.
We may be having more things to be happy with, but the heart which can be happy is lost. You may have palaces, but the man who can be an emperor is here no longer, so palaces become graves. Your cities are more beautiful, richer, wealthier, but they are just like graveyards, no living person lives there. We have made a mistake in trying to make the world better. It is not better, it may be worse.
Look back: man was totally different, poorer but richer. It looks paradoxical; he was poorer, there was not enough food, not enough clothing, not enough shelter, but life was richer. He could dance, he could sing.
Your song is lost, your throat is choked by things; no song can come out of the heart. You cannot dance. At the most you can make some movements, but those movements are not dance, because dancing is not just a movement. When a movement becomes ecstatic then it is dance. When the movement is so total that there is no ego, then it is a dance.
And you must know that dancing came into the world as a technique of meditation. The beginning of dancing was not for dance, it was to achieve an ecstasy where the dancer was lost, only the dance remained – no ego, nobody manipulating, the body flowing spontaneously.
You can dance, but only in dead movements. You can manipulate the body; it may be good exercise, but it is not ecstasy. You still embrace each other, you still kiss, you still make all the movements of lovemaking, but love is not there, only the movements are there. You make them and you feel frustrated. You make them and you know nothing is happening. You do everything, and still a constant feeling of frustration follows you like a shadow.
When Leibnitz says that this is the most-perfect world, what he is saying is what Chuang Tzu is saying: “Everything is amply taken care of.” You need not worry about life, you need not worry about death – the same source which takes care of life will take care of death. You need not think about a grand funeral. The same source which has given me birth will absorb me, and the same source is enough, we need not add anything to it.
The disciples listened but couldn’t understand, otherwise there would have been no need to say anything anymore. But the disciples still said:
“We fear that the crows and kites
will eat our master.”
If we don’t make any preparation, if we don’t plan, then crows and kites will eat our master.
Chuang Tzu replied:
“Well, above ground I shall be eaten
by crows and kites,
and below ground by ants and worms.
In either case I shall be eaten –
so why are you favoring the birds?”
So why make any choice? I have to be eaten anyhow, so why make a choice? Chuang Tzu says: Live choicelessly and die choicelessly. Why make a choice?
You try to manipulate life and then you try to manipulate death also. So people make wills and legal documents, so that when they are gone they will manipulate. Dead, but they will still manipulate. Manipulation seems to be so enchanting that even after death people go on manipulating. A father dies, and makes conditions in his will that the son will receive his inheritance only if he fulfills a condition, else the money will go to a charity fund. But these conditions have to be fulfilled – the dead man is dominating still.
There is a university in London. The man who built it made a will. He was the president of the college trust. The will read: “When I die, my body is not to be destroyed. It has to be maintained, and I will continue to sit in the chairman’s seat. And he still sits there. Whenever the trust meets, his dead body is sitting in the chairman’s place. He is still sitting at the head of the table, still dominating.
Your life is a manipulation of others, you would like your death to be a manipulation also. Chuang Tzu says there is no choice. If you leave my body on the ground, well, it will be eaten; if you bury it deep down it will be eaten. So why favor the birds or the worms? Let it be as it is going to happen. Let the source decide.
Decision gives you ego: I will decide. So let the source decide, let the ultimate decide how it wants to dispose of this body. It was never asked of me how the source had to construct this body, why should I decide how it has to be disposed of? And why fear that it should be eaten? It is good.
We are afraid of being eaten – why? This is something to be understood. Why are we so afraid of being eaten? All our lives we are eating, and we are destroying life through eating. Whatsoever you eat, you kill. You have to kill, because life can eat only life. There is no other way. So nobody can really be a vegetarian – nobody. Everybody is a non-vegetarian, because whatever you eat is life. You eat fruit, it is life; you eat vegetables, the vegetable has life; you eat wheat, rice, they are seeds for more life to sprout. Whatsoever you depend on has life.
Everything is a food for somebody else, so why protect yourself, why try to protect yourself from being eaten? Simple foolishness! You have been eating your whole life, now give it a chance to eat you, allow life to eat you.
That is why I say that the Parsis have the most scientific method of disposing of a dead body. Hindus burn it. This is bad, because you are burning food. If every tree burns its fruit, and every animal dies and other animals burn it, what will happen? They will all be Hindu but there will be nobody here. Why burn? You have been eating, now allow it, give life a chance to eat you. And be happy about it because food means you are being absorbed. There is nothing wrong. It means the existence has taken back, the river has fallen back into the ocean.
And this is the best way to be absorbed – to be eaten, so that whatsoever is useful in you is alive somewhere in somebody. Some tree, some bird, some animal, will be alive through your life. Be happy, your life has been distributed. Why take it as something wrong?
Mohammedans and Christians bury their dead in the ground in caskets, in coffins, to protect them. This is bad, this is just foolishness, because we cannot protect life, so how can we protect death? We cannot protect anything, nothing can be protected. Life is vulnerable, and you even try to make death invulnerable. You want to protect, to save.
The Parsis have the best method – they simply leave the body on the walls, then vultures and other birds come and eat it. Everybody is against the Parsis, even Parsis, because the whole thing looks so ugly. It is not ugly. When you are eating, is it ugly? Then why is a vulture ugly when he is eating? When you eat, then it is a dinner, and when a vulture is eating you then it is also a dinner. You have been eating others, let others eat you; be absorbed.
So Chuang Tzu says: “There is no choice, why favor this or that? Let life do whatsoever it chooses to do, I am not going to decide.” Really, Chuang Tzu lived a choiceless life so he was ready to die a choiceless death. And when you are choiceless, only then you are. When you have a choice, the mind is. The mind is the chooser; the being is always choiceless. The mind wants to do something; the being simply allows things to happen. Being is a let-go.
How can you be miserable if you don’t choose? How can you be miserable if you don’t ask for a particular result? How can you be miserable if you are not moving toward a particular goal? Nothing can make you miserable. Your mind asks for goals, for choices, for decisions – then misery comes in.
If you live choicelessly and allow life to happen, then you simply become a field. Life happens in you, but you are not the manager. You don’t manage it, you don’t control it. When you are not the controller all tensions dissolve; only then there is relaxation, then you are totally relaxed. That relaxation is the ultimate point, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
Whether it is life or it is death, you should not take any standpoint. That is the meaning. You should not take any standpoint. You should not say this is right and that is wrong. You should not divide. Let life be an undivided whole.
Chuang Tzu said: If you divide, by even one inch’s division, heaven and hell are set apart, and then they cannot be bridged.
It happened once…

I knew a young man. He used to come to me and he was always worried about one thing. He wanted to get married, but whatsoever girl he will bring to the home, his mother would not approve. It had become almost impossible. So I told him, “Try to find a girl who is almost like your mother: face, figure, the way she walks, her clothes. Just find a mirror image, a reflection of your mother.”
He searched and searched and finally found a girl. He came to me and said, “You were right, my mother instantly liked her. She is just like my mother; not only does she dress like my mother, she walks, talks, she even cooks like my mother.”
So I asked him, “Then what happened?”
He said, “Nothing, because my father hates her.”

The polarity – if one part of your mind loves one thing, you can immediately find another part of the mind hating it. If you choose one thing, just look behind – the other part which hates is hiding there. Whenever you choose, it is not only the world that is divided, you are also divided through your choice. You are not whole. And when you are not whole, you cannot allow life to happen. And all benediction comes in life as grace, as a gift; it is not achieved through effort.
So don’t choose religion against the world, don’t choose goodness against badness, don’t choose grace against sin, don’t try to be a good man against the bad man, don’t make any distinction between the Devil and God, this is what Chuang Tzu says. He says: Don’t choose between life and death. Don’t choose between this type of death and that type of death. Choose not, remain whole, and whenever you are whole, there is a meeting with the whole, because only like meets like.
It has been continually said by mystics for centuries: As above, so below. I would like to add one thing more to it: As within, so without. If you are whole within, the whole without happens to you immediately. If you are divided within, the whole without is divided.
It is you who is eternal, who becomes the whole universe, you become projected, it is you – and whenever you choose you will be divided. Choice means division, choice means conflict, for this, against that.
Don’t choose. Remain a choiceless witness and then nothing is lacking. Then this existence is the most-perfect existence possible. Nothing can be more beautiful, nothing can be more blissful. It is there, all around you, waiting for you. Whenever you become aware it will be revealed to you. But if your mind goes on working inside, dividing, choosing, creating conflicts, it will never happen to you.
You have been missing it for lives. Don’t miss it anymore.
Enough for today.

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