"Particularly on that day, he was very tired, perspiring. It was hard to breathe, carrying the load and himself.

"Suddenly, as a symbolic act, he threw the load. That moment comes to everybody's life, when one wants to throw the load. Not only that wood bundle on his head, it had become a symbolic act: he throws with it the whole life. He fell to the ground on his knees, looked at the sky and said, 'Ah, Death. You come to everybody, but why don't you come to me? What more suffering have I to see? What more burdens have I to carry still? Am I not punished enough? And what wrong have I committed?'

"He could not believe his eyes – suddenly, Death appeared. He could not believe. He looked around, very much shocked. Whatsoever he was saying, he had never meant it. And he had never heard of anything like this, that you call Death, and Death comes.

"And Death said, 'Did you call me?'

"The old man suddenly forgot all weariness, all tiredness, the whole life of dead routine. He jumped up and he said, 'Yesyes, I called you. Please, could you help me to put the load, the burden, back on my head? Seeing nobody here, I called you.'

"There are moments when you are tired of life. There are moments when you would like to die. But dying is an art; it has to be learned. And to be weary of life does not really mean that deep down the lust for life has disappeared. You may be weary of a particular life, but you are not weary of life as such. Everybody becomes tired of a particular life – the dead routine, the weary round, the same thing again and again, a repetition – but you are not weary of life itself. And if Death comes you will do the same as the woodcutter did. He behaved perfectly humanly. Don't laugh at him. Many times you have also thought to be finished with all this nonsense that goes on. For what to continue it? But if Death suddenly appears? You will not be ready.

"Only a yogi can be ready to die, because only a yogi knows that through a voluntary death, a willing death, the infinite life is attained."