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12
Twelve Facets of Reality
come in the right way. I promise you I will meet you. And remember, as you love, I too love. When it is the right time, I will come.”
The dancer thought he was not in his right mind. And she went on.
Youth is like lightning, like a shadow, like the flow of water, ever-moving, so swift. Ten years passed. The dancer had overused her energy of youth and was now exhausted. She had not taken care of her body and was now suffering from a skin disease. She was trembling with fever and there were blisters on her skin. Nobody would even look at her, and the king drove her from the town. She was compelled to go out to a deserted village and live in a tiny hovel. There she was wasting away, crying and alone.
The time was right and a man came to see her there. He took her head in his lap. She was shivering with fever as he applied medicine to her sores, mouth, and head.
“Who are you?” she mumbled.
“I am Upagupta. Do you remember? I promised you. I love you. I have come to take care of you.” “Now I don't have anything to offer you,” she moaned.
“No,” he told her, “at that time you had something to offer which was transient, something which you yourself could not keep. Now you have something real to offer. I love that which is not going to go. Our relation is for that. It is the relation of soul.
"In the glamour and ego of the past years, you did not realize the changing nature of all that of your body, beauty, wealth, and your circle of partying friends. They were all there because there was that need. They were feeding it and now that need is over. My need is not that. Mine is the need of the soul."
Tears started rolling down the dancer's cheeks. She