And after this third valley, where the knowledge of human nature and of the fine feelings which are called virtues is attained, the next step is annihilation. But what we call destruction or annihilation is nothing but change. Neither substance nor form nor spirit, nothing, is absolutely destroyed; it is only changed. But man sometimes does not like to change. He does not like it but he cannot live without it. There is not one single moment of our life when there is no change; whether we accept it or not the change is there.

Destruction or annihilation or death might seem a very different change, and yet there are a thousand deaths that we die in life. A great disappointment, the moment when our heart breaks, is worse than death. Often our experiences in life are worse than death, yet we go through them. At the time they seem unbearable; we think we cannot stand it, and yet we live. If after dying a thousand deaths we still live, there is nothing in the world to be afraid of. It is man's delusion, his own imagination which makes death dreadful to him. Can anyone kill life? If there is any death, it is that of death itself, for life will not die.

Someone went to a Sufi with a question; he said, "I have been puzzling for many, many years and reading books, and I have not been able to find a definite answer; tell me what happens after death?" The Sufi said, "Please ask this question of someone who will die. I am going to live."

The idea is that there is one sky which is our own being; in other words we can call it an accommodation. And what has taken possession of this accommodation? A deluded ego which says "I." It is deluded by this body and mind and it has called itself an individual. When a man has a ragged coat he says, "I am poor." In reality his coat is poor, not he. What this capacity or accommodation contains, is that which becomes his knowledge, his realization, and it is that which limits him; it forms that limitation which is the tragedy of every soul.

Now this capacity may either be filled with self or it may be filled with God. There is only room for one. Either we live with our limitation, or let God reign there in His unlimited Being. In other words, we take away the home which has always belonged to someone else and fill it with delusion and call it our own; and not only call it our own, but even call it our self. That is man's delusion, and all religious and philosophical teachings are given in order to rid man of this delusion which deprives him of his spiritual wealth. Spiritual wealth is the greatest wealth, spiritual happiness the only happiness; there is no other.

Once a person is able to disillusion himself, he arrives at the stage described in the fourth valley, the Valley of Non-Attachment, and he is afraid. He thinks, "How can I give my home to someone else, even if it is God? This is my body, my mind, my home, my individuality. How can I give it away, even to God?" But in reality it is not something upon which he can rely. It is delusion from beginning to end and subject to destruction. Does anything stand above destruction? Nothing. Then why be afraid to think for the moment that it is nothing? This natural fear arises because man is unaccustomed to face reality. He is so used to dreams that he is afraid of reality.

People are afraid of losing themselves, but they do not know that non-attachment is not losing one's self; it means losing illusion, and in reality it is only by losing this illusion that they can find themselves. One's soul has become lost in this illusion; and the process is to get out of it, to rise above it.