“In this world of forms and illusions created by our senses, according to our illusion a man either is or is not, either lives or dies, but in the true and formless world this is not so for all is otherwise than according to our knowledge and it is easier to answer in negatives than in affirmatives. And if you ask Does a man live beyond death, I answer No, not in any sense comprehensible to the mind of man which itself dies at death. And if you ask does a man altogether die at death, I answer No, for what dies is what belongs to this world of form and illusion, that is the false I, but beyond this is another world incomprehensible as yet to such as are not instructed and beyond all human categories, so that if I would I cannot tell you of it, but I would not, for the things are disturbing and do not aid the traveller on the only path which can bring him to their threshold. Therefore of that and of the origins I do not teach.” But this ego which the unenlightened believes to be himself, very certainly falls apart and dissolves at death, nor is there any place of continuance for it, and it is wholly extinct. And it so happened that one day a wandering monk, by name Vacchagotta, came to the Exalted One, and saluting him with friendly greetings he sat down beside him, and he asked: “How does the matter stand, venerated Gotama? In a man is there the Ego?” And the Exalted One was silent, and Vacchagotta asked again and yet again and still there was silence, and after awhile he rose and went away. But the beloved Ananda came to Him who has thus Attained, and said: “Why, sir, did you not answer the wandering monk Vacchagotta?” And, smiling, he looked in the face of the beloved Ananda. “If, Ananda, when he asked me, I had answered ‘The ego is,’ then that reply would have confirmed the teaching of those who believe in the permanence of that false ego which is a bundle of tendencies and consciousness and proudly calls itself I and the Soul; and if I had said the ego is not, this would have confirmed the teaching of those who say there is annihilation and nothing beyond death. For neither of these schools, nor yet Vacchagotta, know the distinction between the ego of which he asked me and the true Ego, for this last is eternal and beyond comprehension, and the false ego passes and is gone like a dream in the awakening of dawn. Therefore since Vacchagotta has not attained to the threshold of that knowledge, being prisoned in the world of appearances, what could I do but keep silence?” And the beloved Ananda laid his hand upon his mouth and retired, for with all his heart of love he had not yet attained to the full insight of the unreality of appearances, but where he could not understand he loved. And love is also the Way, as witness the monk Purna who was about to carry the light into a land of violent and perilous people. So the Perfected One sent for him, and asked: “And if, monk, these people abuse and injure you, what will be your thought?”