because as the awareness of death goes deeper

one becomes capable of feeling that which is deathless.

Really, death is the door –

the opening to the deathless.

But be conscious of it.

Be conscious and transcend.

Be conscious and know that which is before birth and after death.

And – you are that.

221. Love.

Be a stranger to yourself.

See life as a river flowing through time.

Stand on the bank, neither curious nor concerned.

Glance or gaze at the driftwood of your past

floating in your memory –

just like the incidents one reads about in the paper.

Detached and indifferent remember that nothing matters.

Only exist –

and the explosion.

222. Love.

Always be positive, in each and every situation –

that helps meditative awareness very much.

Negative attitudes negate the whole effort.

Diogenes was looking for an honest man in New Delhi.

Any luck? asked a wayfarer.

Oh, pretty fair, sir, replied Diogenes.

I still have my lantern.

223. Love.

Philosophy cannot cure you of questions –

on the contrary, it can give you more.

I heard this at a chemist’s shop:

Did the patent medicine you purchased cure your aunt?

Good heavens, no.

On reading the wrapper around the bottle

she got two more diseases.

224. Love.

Mulla Nasruddin was carrying home some liver

which he had just bought.

In the other hand he held a recipe for liver pie

which a friend had given him.

Suddenly a buzzard swooped down and carried off the liver.

You fool! shouted Nasruddin.

Having the meat is all very well,

but what will you do without the recipe?

225. Love.

Man can only know what God is not.

To know what God is, is impossible

because that’s where the realm of being begins.

You cannot know God but you can be,

and in that dimension is the only knowing.

But that knowing

is altogether different from all our other knowing

because in that knowing there is no knower

and no known,

but only knowing.

That is why in that dimension knowing and being

are the same.

There is even no knowledge.

because knowledge is dead and therefore a thing.

Moreover, knowledge is always of the past,

and God is never in the past

or in the future.

God is now, always now;

and here, and always here.

Close your eyes and see.

Then open your eyes and see.

Then neither close your eyes nor open your eyes and see.

226. Love.

There was once a man

who was obsessed with the idea

that there was a secret knower in those

who achieved success.

To discover this secret

he devoted years to study and research:

ancient masonry, philosophy, astrology, psychology,

salesmanship, religious beliefs,

the various cults that have had their rise and fall.

All these he studied long and diligently,

but no conclusion was visible.

He struggled and struggled

but still there was no conclusion.

And then instead of success in his search

for the secret of success

came death – and as death approached him

he realized the goal of his whole life’s efforts,

and finally he gave his conclusion to those

who were near him.

It came in two short words: I will.

227. Love.

Do not believe in thinking

because that is the greatest of all superstitions –

but well hidden

because it pretends to be anti-superstitious!

Thinking is nothing but dust in a blind mind

because you cannot think that which is not known –