"The purpose of it is not to entertain you, the purpose of it is to say something which there is no other way to say. Life cannot be put into a theory – it is so vast, it is so infinite.

"A theory by its very nature is closed. A theory has to be closed if it is a theory; it cannot be open-ended, otherwise it will be meaningless. A parable is open-ended: it says and yet it leaves much to be said, it only hints. And that which cannot be said can be shown. It is a finger pointing to the moon. Don't cling to the finger – that is irrelevant – look at the moon. These parables in themselves are beautiful, but that is not their purpose…they go beyond, they are transcendental. If you dissect the parable itself you will not come to much understanding.

"It is like the navel in the body of man. If you go to the surgeon and ask him what the purpose of the navel is in the body, and if he dissects the body, he will not find any purpose the navel seems almost useless. What is the purpose of the navel? It was purposeful when the child was in the womb: its purpose was that it related the child to the mother, it connected the child with the mother. But now the child is no longer in the womb – the mother may have died, the child has become old, now what is the purpose of the navel? It has a transcendental purpose; the purpose is not in itself. You will have to look everywhere, all around, to find the indication – where it indicates. It indicates that the man was once a child, that the child was once in the womb of a mother, that the child was connected with the mother. This is just a mark that the past has left.

"As the navel shows something about the past, a parable shows something about the future. It shows that there is a possibility of growing, of being connected with existence. Right now that is only a possibility, it is not actual. If you just dissect the parable it becomes an ordinary story."