It was related in the Mahabaratha, some two thousand years ago, that when Tharmar, the eldest of the Pandavas, was questioned as to what was the most surprising thing in the world, he replied: ‘The most surprising in the world is that man knows he must die, but he lives as if he will never die.’ Sri Aurobindo, a Cambridge University First in Classics, later a militant freedom fighter and still later the sage of Pondicherry, commented two thousand years later that this feeling that impels a man to live as if he will never die, was but a shadow of his true immortality - an immortality which we may glimpse from time to time in our moments of inner quiet and peace, when our chattering monkey mind is silent. Deep in our most personal lies the most universal.

Home

The most surprising thing in the world...