"The plant is very small and the pond is very big, so there is no need to worry.' Then the expert suggested a solution which appeared almost absolutely right. He said, 'Wait, and when half the pond is covered with lilies, then cut the plant. Always keep it only half-covered so that you will enjoy the white flowers and your trout will not be in danger. Fifty-fifty – half the pond for the lilies, half for the trout.'

"The solution looked perfectly right, and one thousand days – there was enough time, so there was no need to worry. The man relaxed. He said, 'When the pond is half-covered, then I will cut the lilies.'

"The pond was half-covered – but it was half-covered on the nine hundred ninety-ninth day. Ordinarily you would think that it would be half-covered after five hundred days – no. The plant used to double itself, so half the pond would be covered on the nine hundred ninety-ninth day and only one day would be left. But that would not be sufficient time to cut the plant or to keep it to the half.

"And it happened. On the nine hundred ninety-ninth day the pond was half-covered and the man said – he was not feeling very well, a little sick – he said, 'There is no hurry. I have waited nine hundred ninety-nine days and there was no trouble. Now it is just a question of one more day. After one day I will do it.'

"The next morning the whole pond was covered and all the trout were dead.

"This is the puzzle of life. It is a dilemma; one has to choose. If you go on accumulating things and possessions, the plant is doubling on the pond. Every day your things go on growing and your life is suffocated. Life looks too long – seventy years, eighty years. There is no hurry. People think, 'When we reach to the mid-point we will change.'

"People always wait to get old for religion; people go on saying that religion is for old people. Go into the churches, into the temples, and you will find old people – just on the verge of death."