"I had a very strange dream. I had dreamt that I had died several times in this life. Oskar the Pilot died one day, then the handicaped Oscar was reborn. He is soon finished, and then Oscar, whom you are seeing, will be reborn; different than all the Oscars before, yet still the same. All of them taught me something. I will not be able to walk as before, I will walk differently through what I learned in the wheelchair and with the cruthes.

Are there many births and deaths in this life; in this so called only life? If 'yes' then we experience not one death but many. Many deaths from which we are reborn with every change in life. Every change is a death, which makes space for new lives, like our latest accepted change. But don't be mistaken, another change will take place."

Selected and translated from the film: "Stirb nicht ohne mir zu sagen wohin du gehst"

(Don't die without telling me where you are going)

. . . a constant battle of pain and pleasure, hope and frustration. And can that not come to an end? Should we not die?

Should we not die to everything of yesterday, to all our accumulations and hopes, to all the success that we have gathered?

Should we not die to all that and live again tomorrow, so that, like a new leaf, we are fresh, tender sensitive?

To a man who is constantly dying, there is no death. But the man who says, 'I am somebody and I must continue'- to him there is always death and the burning ghat; and that man knows no love.

Saying by J. Krishnamurthi

so much stupidity so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin a new. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to the thought of suicide in order to experience grace, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find the man in myself." He was aware of a great happiness mounting within him.

He felt he had thoroughly fasted and ejected a portion of sorrow, a portion of misery, during those past times. That he had consumed them up to the point of despair and death …(but it) had not overpowered him. The bird, the clear spring and voice within him was still alive that was why he rejoiced, that was why he laughed, that was why his face was radiant under his grey hair.

Selected from H.Hesse's novel "Siddhartha"

published by "simple wisdom" 42/1 asgiri vihara - kandy