As the mind is left – like a snake leaves its old skin and slips out of it – you have done the whole pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the finite to the infinite, from death to deathlessness.

You are asking, “In the story of the Buddha twice swatting an insect from his head, how did he know that he was not aware the first time?” When you have a headache, how do you know? Can you prove you have an headache? It is impossible. That does not mean that headaches don’t exist.

One of my teachers, a very beautiful man, an old Mohammedan and a very colorful man…he never married. Once I asked him, “Why did you never marry?”

He said, “I cannot afford my clothes, my beautiful house, and a wife too. Either I can afford a wife…but then there is no house. And I love to have a new suit of clothes every day. He had three hundred and sixty-five suits, so his choice of the same dress came only once in a year, and by that time people had almost forgotten that dress. He lived a very colorful life and was a very loving man.

Before beginning a class, as the school opened, he always introduced himself with the words, “There are a few things you have to remember with me: I don’t believe in headaches, in stomachaches, and things like that. Unless you can prove something, don’t say anything; just sit and do the work. Don’t ask for a holiday because you have a headache.”

He was very logical. Either prove…but how to prove a headache? I was wondering what to do with this man, because he is blocking all the avenues to escape from school! And I was rarely in the school; I always had something: a headache or a stomachache – which are very beautiful escapes; you don’t have to prove them, you have just to say and you are freed. It was going to be difficult with this man – but I found a way. He had created a mental problem; mind could not solve it. But existence is always available to help you.

Just in front of his small bungalow there were two beautiful mango trees. The mangoes were not ripe yet. Mangoes have to be taken away from the trees before they are ripe because the moment they are ripe, the parrots know before you know. And parrots love mangoes; in hundreds they come. Only an unripe mango is safe! And they were really very big mangoes.

I climbed the tree…because every evening he used to go for a walk. With his colorfulness, beautiful dress, a beautiful staff in his hand, with a beautiful cap…every day everything was new; he even had three hundred and sixty-five beautiful staffs, to go with each suit of clothes. I saw him going out and then I climbed the tree. He used to come back when the sun had almost set, but still there was not absolute darkness; there was still light. When he came under the tree, I hit him with a big mango. An unripe mango hits almost like a rock and he said, “Awk!”

I said to him, “Stop the noise. You will have to prove that you have some pain, some ache in your head.”

“You come down first,” he said. “Why did you do that?”