The thirst for God, the desire for unitive knowledge, is not something foreign to our nature. This desire is already in the human heart; the only reason we fail to perceive it is because it is usually covered up with petty worries and egotistical ambitions. Once these are removed, the true desire, buried in the deepest recesses of the human mind, will shine forth of itself and, like a flame, will leap toward heaven, which is its true Home.
One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, "You are pretending." Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including that leaf. The Buddha said, "When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist." The day of our "death" is a day of our continuation in many other forms.