"Nobody wants to be disturbed when he is having a beautiful dream. And people don't have anything else except dreams.

"All around there have been dream merchants who have been selling dreams to people and exploiting people, and in return they were not giving anything. All the religions, up to now have been dream sellers, exploiters of people's weaknesses. Yes, there are weaknesses. Every man who is born is going to die. You cannot hide the truth of death.

"How long can you make the cemeteries beautiful? Gardens, lawns, flowers, marble gravesbut you cannot hide the fact of death. You can see that in every country the cemetery is outside the city. It should really be exactly in the middle of the city, so everybody passing by comes to be reminded of death again and again – because that is the only thing that is certain. Everything else is just probable; may happen, may not happen. But death is not a probability.

"Death is the only certainty in your whole life.

"Whatsoever happens, death is going to be there. You cannot escape from it. You cannot go anywhere away from it. Death will meet you wherever you go.

"I am reminded of an ancient parable. A very great king dreamed that death was standing before him – a dark figure. He became frightened even in his dream. But he was a brave man; somehow he gathered his courage together and asked this strange figure, 'Who are you and what do you want?'

"The figure said, 'I am your death, and I have come to warn you: Don't forget the right place, and the right time to meet me.' Only this much he said, 'Don't forget the right place and the right time to meet me tomorrow.' And the shock of his statement was such that the dream was shattered, the king woke up. It was in the middle of the night but he immediately called his wise advisers, astrologers, dream-interpreters, future-predictors, all sorts of people; and he told his dream.

"They all started quarreling and discussing and arguing about what the dream meant. The old servant of the king, who had been almost like a father to him – he had raised him from his very childhood The king's mother died early, and his father was constantly going on faraway journeys, invading countries, conquering, expanding the empire."