Quoting Bill Viola (from Art Quotes)

For the Persian poet Rumi,
each human life is analogous to
a bowl floating on the surface of an infinite ocean.
As it moves along,
it is slowly filling with the water around it.
That's a metaphor for the acquisition of knowledge. Whenthe water in the bowl
finally reaches the same level as the
water outside, there is no longer any need
for the container,
and it drops away as the inner water merges with the
outside water. We call this the moment of death.

Bill Viola

Source:
http://www.artquotes.net