"Then suddenly you become aware that you are a crossroad. One line goes horizontal; in other words, mediocre, ordinary, meaningless and leading finally to death. The horizontal line is continuously moving towards the graveyard. I have told you the story, significant in many ways:

"A great king in his dreams saw a shadow and became afraid even in the dream. And he asked, 'What do you want?'

"The shadow said, 'I have not come to ask for anything. I have come just to inform you that this evening at the right place, when the sun is setting, you will breathe your last breath. Ordinarily I don't come to inform people, but you are a great emperor; it is just to pay respect to you.'

"The emperor became so afraid that he woke up, perspiring, could not think what to do. The only thing he could think of was to call all the wise men, astrologers, prophets and to find out the meaning of the dream. Dream analysis is thought to have originated with Sigmund Freud – that is not true. It originated with this emperor, one thousand years ago.

"In the middle of the night, all the prophets of his capital, all the wise men, all those who were concerned in some way with the future – dream readers…they were told the story. The story was simple. They had brought their scriptures and they started arguing with each other: 'This cannot be the meaning,' or, 'This is bound to be the meaning.'

"They wasted time; the sun started rising. The king had an old servant whom he treated just as a father – because his father had died very early. He was too young, and his father had given the guardianship to this servant and told him, 'Take care that he becomes my successor and does not lose the kingdom.'

"And the servant managed. Now he was very old, but he was not treated as a servant. He was almost as respected as a father. He came close to the emperor and said, 'I want to say two things to you. You have always listened to me. I am not a prophet and I am not an astrologer and I don't know what all this nonsense is that's going on."