The Monk and the Mystic

I met a monk at dawn. I asked him, “When does a man die?” He smiled and replied, “The enlightened man is the human who dies before he dies.”
I met a mystic and asked him the same question. The mystic replied, “When was I ever born to die?”
I asked both of them, “What is the difference between a monk and mystic?” Both of them adopted stoic silence. Their silence conveyed to me “ Man looks through the lens of maya and creates a monk and a mystic. Both of us are one and the same and that same one is HIM.”

Tears of ecstasy cleared the ignorance and arrogance in me and I became both the monk and mystic.

Dr S Ramakrishnan
wisdomramki.com