How do we attain to this freedom? In the Sanskrit language there is very expressive word for freedom: Taran, which means "liberation", "swimming", or "floating." And it is such a beautiful idea that both these things, swimming and liberation, are alike in their nature.

How true it is, as the Eastern poets have always said, "Life is a Bhavasagara, an ocean into which all things are drawn, fall and are absorbed." It sweeps away all the plants and trees, animals and birds, and all that lie in the path of the flood; all are borne away into the ocean. Such is the force and power of the ocean.

Similarly, this life sweeps away all the trees and plants, animals and men. Everything that we see is here only for the moment, and then is swept away. There is always a certain period after which the things that seemed so enduring have all disappeared. Our ancestors, if they came back, would not recognize the country, the houses, the trees, the manners; everything would be different. All that was familiar to them has been swept away. That is the story of this life. That is why it is called Maya, the illusion created before us like a dream in the night. In the morning, it has all gone. All the happiness, unhappiness, pleasures, horrors, whatever we experience in the night, we perceive in the morning to have been a dream.

The whole of creation, when we come to think of it, is not in the end what we have thought it was: manners, customs, faces, everything changed. That is the condition of life. It is just like the sea. The tide comes, and it sweeps all before it, flowers, fruit, and all. Therefore life is pictured by the thinkers of the East as an ocean into which everything is swept.

The miracle of Christ walking on the water is understood by mystics as teaching a mystery. Walking on water expresses the same idea which in Sanskrit is called Taran -- to float or swim. To float or swim one must have one's head above water. The water which sweeps us away we avoid, to preserve that existence which our soul longs to save. Our body is alive as our mind is alive and as our soul is alive; and it does not want to be non-existent, but it desires to continue to exist. However unhappy or feeble a man may be, his life is too dear to him to sacrifice. Suicide is only possible under great stress of emotion. All work, all struggles are in order to live. All fights, all disagreements, all money-seeking, all comfort-seeking, are in order to live. All through life it is one struggle to live, yet the true life is not realized.

Christ, from first to last, teaches the reality of eternal life. His only lesson was "life." It is the desire of the soul to live; and that life is the real life. Man keeps imagining that his life is for eating delicious dishes, for making merry, or for being comfortable for the time being. But when the body has gone, how will he live? What will become of his comforts? When the mind is not there, how will he satisfy the mind? To live in the body or the mind is to live in vehicles upon which one becomes dependent but which must pass, and be no more.

Therefore the lesson that we must learn is how to swim, how to float, how to prevent ourselves from sinking in the flood of death or mortality. How shall we avoid that?

The answer is found when we understand that man is travelling in a boat; and the boat is heavily laden. The storm comes on, and the one who is rowing says to the man, "The storm is severe, your luggage is very heavy; the best thing will be for you to save your life by throwing one of your bundles into the water." The man says, "O, that bundle contains things I have collected all my life, and I cannot throw it out."" Well," says the boatman, "if you cannot throw it out you will drown." And when he has thrown out one bundle, perhaps the storm becomes greater, and maybe then the last bundle has to be thrown away as well. And he says, "O, this one I can never part with; it contains things I have collected all through my life; they are souvenirs, and you want me to throw them away; things from my grandfather and my great-grandfather, do you really want me to throw them away?" The other says, "If not, you also will go. If you want to save your life, throw that last bundle away too!'

That is what death does with mankind. It says, "You are so interested in your vehicle which you call your body", and so first of all he sends disease. The person who thinks so much of his body is always ill. That is the first step. He is very conscientious about his body, saying, "This is the one thing I must keep well preserved." He goes on thinking of it too much. And so he feels ill, and in the end he has to throw both bundles away, body and mind.

Others will say that they do not care for their body, but only for their mind. They take care of their own imaginations, their own standards of thinking, "What you say is wrong, what I say is right." They are occupied with thoughts, with pursuits, with arguments, saying, "Am I right? Are you? Is she?" And they are all the time in doubt and constant worry of mind; all the time occupied in a struggle about something which is really nothing. To the seer it matters nothing. And then the tide, death, comes, and they are swept away; the mind goes, the body goes, and the soul returns to its own source. This is a picture of mortality when mind departs from body with the impression of death.