.... He will keep his light alive, his eyes open. Death will come and go. The body will be gone, the mind will be gone, but this essential awareness will enter another womb. Hyakujo is saying, "That which knows birth is the unborn." That one which knows the death, does not die. How can it die and know death at the same time? One Sufi mystic, Omar Khayyam, has written a great book and became...

... for two reasons: if you die, you die. There is nothing to be afraid of. There will be nobody left behind, so there is no question of fear. If it is as the religions say, that you don't die, then there is no question of being afraid, death does not happen. In either case, fear is irrelevant. If you can die knowingly, that means the element that is passing through the tunnel of death, is separate from...

... death. The life principle is eternal. It takes many forms, thousands of lives to become a man. Up to now nobody has appeared who is a superman. Man, up to now, is the ultimate in the evolution of consciousness, but it is very superficial, very new. Underneath, there is deep unconsciousness. So when you die, that deep unconsciousness overfloods your consciousness and you die without knowing what is...

...-five centuries. He is still influencing the Chinese behavior. One day a young follower asked him, "You talk about life, you talk about how to style it, how to refine it, how to make it honest, how to make it truthful, but you never say anything about what will happen after death." Confucius said, "There is no need to talk about it. It is certain that you will die. Then, lying in your...

... few people are born unconsciously, and very few people die consciously. It is a natural arrangement of anaesthesia. Before you die your whole biology releases all that makes you absolutely unconscious. It is the greatest surgery; nature has made a prearrangement for it. Only a very deep meditator, who has reached to samadhi will be able to avoid this poisoning, this oncoming cloud of unconsciousness...

... known worldwide. Hundreds of translations have happened, but all are full of misunderstandings. They thought that he was only a poet talking about this world. He was a mystic, and all that he was talking about was symbolic. His book's name is RUBAIYAT. The rubaiyat is again a very special form of Persian poetry, just like a haiku. In one of his rubaiyat he says to his friends not to be afraid of death...

... happening. Everybody knows that you have died except you. And because the death is unconscious, your being born into a womb cannot be conscious. Both the ends have to be the same: if death is conscious, then birth will be conscious. If death is unconscious, then the birth is unconscious. You don't know anything about from where you are coming because you were not conscious about your birth. You are...

... certainly coming from somewhere. THAT WHICH KNOWS BIRTH IS THE UNBORN. This is a very pregnant sentence. That which knows birth is beyond birth. That which knows death is beyond death. It is only a witness. It goes on only watching - that the old body is gone and the new womb has been made available, that a new body has started growing. In deep hypnosis you can be reminded of your experiences in the nine...

... he can only be a buddha if seeds are sown. Right now is the time: the soil is soft and the child is absolutely available. Do you see the significance? It will change both the persons, the mother and the child. The child can become conscious only if in his past life he has meditated enough, has created enough meditative energy to fight with the darkness that death brings. One simply is lost in an...

... that you have been before and you will be after your death. The one that was before birth, and the one that will be after death is the same one. Its name is the buddha. Its name is the witness. It never dies and it never is born. The problem to understand is, Hyakujo says: THAT WHICH KNOWS BIRTH IS THE UNBORN - the knower of the birth is the unborn witness. WE CANNOT STRAY FROM BIRTH TO SPEAK OF THE...

... grave for eternity, you can think whatever you want to think. Why bother me? I will be thinking in my grave; you will be thinking in your grave." He simply laughed about the question, because to get entangled in a question like death or birth, immediately brings you to the point that these things are beyond thinking. You cannot think anything about birth or death. If you really want to know, you...

.... Meditation is an effort that the world you have known through the mind, disappears, and a new perception of no-mind arises in you. What you cannot see with the mind, you can see with the no-mind. Birth and death have no influence on the no-mind. It simply floats away above birth and death. It has seen many births and many deaths. It does not matter to it, it simply goes on reflecting whatsoever is...

... said, "This is not the point. Your father is dead and you have to take care of his kingdom." Basho said, "I was waiting for him to die. I wanted to see that everyone dies. Even my father has died. One day I will die and who will take care of this castle and the kingdom? Somebody will take care. Now I cannot remain here, because there is danger of dying any moment. Before I die, I have...

...: Question 1: OSHO, CAN YOU TELL ME, IF YOU KNOW, WHAT IS BEST FOR ME? IF YOU CAN, WHAT IS? Miguel Terc, THE best thing is never to be born, but that you have already missed. The second best thing is to die as soon as possible; that's a little bit difficult. I don't mean the physical death; that is not difficult. To commit suicide is the easiest thing in the world, the most cowardly. It needs no guts. But...

... are the four possibilities. Miguel, you ask me, "CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT IS BEST FOR ME?" These four things. But the basic note is the same, and that is: learn to die, because that is the only way to learn to live. Let the ego die and your life starts taking the flavor of the divine. Death becomes the door to the divine - death of the ego. And the fifth - which is not really the fifth but a...

... one concept: how to be free from this vicious circle of birth and death, how to go beyond birth and death, how not to be born, how to enter into eternity and never come back into the turmoil of time. The Christian, the Mohammedan, the Jew - their emphasis is on the second: to die as soon as possible, to surrender to God. Prayer is their way. Prayer means dying, dying and disappearing as a person...

... to compromise, he could have saved himself, but he was ready to die. He chose death. Why? - because in a very mysterious way death becomes a seal. So don't be worried, Curtis, about those fanatics. If they kill me they will be helping my work. Death is bound to come one day, and the best way is not to die in the bed. Almost ninety-nine percent of people do that. And people like me have been known...

... has always been a nuisance, I tell you." The old woman said, "Even in his life he was doing eccentric things. Now is this a way to die?" She was not worried about death! She came and shouted at the old man, "This is not right! And doing such a stupid thing, and creating trouble for your disciples! Is it right for you? Get up and be normal!" So the old man laughed, got up...

..., lay down on the bed and he said, "Okay, then I will die in a normal way" - and died! Don't take death too seriously! Nothing is serious, neither life nor death, because nothing matters in the ultimate sense. Life and death are just episodes in the eternity of time, just soap bubbles - life and death both. So Curtis, I can understand your apprehension, your love for me, but don't be worried...

...; Jesus must have come that way. A few have managed the second too: the second means to go on dying to all the yesterdays. The ego is nothing but the cumulative effect of all the yesterdays. If you can die to all the yesterdays, even to the moment that has passed and is no more, you remain without the ego. You are there in utter radiance, in great splendor, but there is no idea of 'I'. A pure amness...

... an ego? Ego is the center of the false mind. This is the second best. The third best is to love, because love is a sweet way to die, to disappear. The SWEETEST way to die is love. It helps you to drop the ego, and with no effort. And it helps you to drop the ego with such grace, with such joy, that if you cannot drop the ego through love then it will be very difficult to drop it at all. In love...

..., the other is available; the other is an excuse to drop the ego. And the beauty of the other, and the caressing warmth of the other, the protection, the shelter! - it is easy to die because love gives one courage, courage to do the impossible. And love gives one a kind of drunkenness. In that drunkenness it is easy to take the jump, the quantum leap. Love makes one mad. That madness is higher than...

... what you call sanity, because your sanity remains crawling in the dark holes of the earth, and love opens its wings towards the sun. Love dares, is adventurous. Love is ready to die, because in love one FEELS that even if one dies, one cannot die. Love gives the feel of immortality. And the path of love is full of flowers - the birds are singing, and the trees are green, and it is very sunny. The...

... combination of all these four, a symphony, an orchestra - I call it sannyas. It combines all that is beautiful in all the four, it is multi-dimensional. All these four are one-dimensional, sannyas is multi-dimensional. It teaches you how to be born and yet never to be born. It teaches you how to die and yet to live immensely. It teaches you how to fall in love and yet go on rising up. It teaches you how to...

... these four dimensions; it is the very crescendo, the cream of them all. Many religions have concentrated on the first, particularly the Indian religions; their emphasis is on how not to be born. Hence in India all the religious people go on praying, "God, help us NOT to be born again. We don't want to get back into this wheel of life and death." All Indian religions are basically rooted in...

... interested, if the question is not just for the question's sake, then be a participant. Fall en rapport with me. Put your mind aside - that's what I mean by death - put your ego aside. Enter into this buddhafield as a small child, innocent, knowing nothing. Function from the state of not-knowing - that's what I mean by death - function from the state of innocence, and tremendous are the possibilities: you...

... can also bloom, as other flowers are blooming in my garden. The second question: Question 2: OSHO, IS GOD REALLY DEAD? Shivananda, FRIEDRICH Nietzsche killed God, and Sigmund Freud buried the corpse. God's death is no longer new and no longer news either. Now the new idea is that death is God. And that's what I am teaching you here: forget about God; let us learn death, the art of dying. And if you...

... know how to die you will know what God is. The old God is certainly dead, and it is good that the old God is dead. The old God was getting heavier and heavier on the human heart. It was becoming like a rock. It was not helping growth, it was hindering. The old idea was very childish. It was created by the primitive people; it was their need, it was perfectly suitable for them. Just go five thousand...

... long as there will be any intelligence available anywhere, he will be remembered. Now to look back, retrospectively, it does not seem a bad thing that he was poisoned and killed. Anyway, he was going to die, he was an old man; he could have lived one year, two years, four years at the most. The court had asked Socrates, "If you leave Athens you can save your life, we can leave you free. But then...

... you will not be entitled to enter back into Athens." Socrates said, "No, I will not compromise just for life's sake - because sooner or later I am going to die, so why compromise for something which is going to happen anyway? So how does it make any difference? It is better to be killed than for it to be known later on that I compromised, that I was a coward." The court proposed...

... to find better ways of dying. A Zen Master was dying. In the last moment he opened his eyes and asked his disciples who had gathered - thousands of disciples; he was a great Master - he asked, "Can somebody suggest how to die? Because people just go on dying on the bed. I would like to try something new!" They were shocked! What kind of question was he asking? Who had ever heard of people...

... enquiring about how to die? People don't even ask how to live! People go on living without asking how to live, and here is a man who cannot even die without asking how to die. He wants to make it a little celebration, something special. Seeing that the disciples were silent, he himself suggested, "Have you ever heard about anybody dying in a sitting posture, Buddha - like, in PADMASAN?" One man...

... something soon, because death is coming close by! Have you ever heard," he asked, "of somebody dying standing on his head?" Now nobody had ever heard, nobody had ever even dreamt of anybody dying standing on his head, in SHIRSHASAN, the headstand. They said, "No, we have not heard, we have not even thought of it!" The old man said, "Then that's perfectly right!" He stood...

... to be done. But nobody had ever heard of anybody dying standing on his head, so there was no precedent: "Now what has to be done?" Somebody remembered that he had an old sister who was a nun; she lived in a monastery closeby; she was older than him. So they ran and they asked the old nun. She said. "I am coming. That old fool! Is this the way to die? I will teach him a lesson! And he...

.... Neither life nor death have any significance. The only thing that is significant is: while I am here if I can impart some truth to you, if I can impart something that I have seen, if I can impart my perspective to you, if I can help you to see a little bit of reality through my eyes. If I can help you just a few steps into the unknown, then you will be able to go on your own. Everything else is...

... irrelevant. And remember, even if I am gone and your love is immense for me, I will go on helping you. Connections are not disconnected by death. Death simply makes no difference for the lovers. Death does not exist for the lovers. If you have trust, if you have love for me, death doesn't mean anything at all; we will go on communing the same way. Everything will go on being the same, nothing will change...

... only because you are fearful of death. Then, under the garb of God, you are really asking for immortality, not to die ever, an eternal life. You know this life - that is your experience - now you want to make it eternal. So whenever we talk about God, the Divine, Liberation, mokhsa, don't be deceived by the words because the words may be hiding something totally different. And they are hiding it...

... no necessary reason why a man should die so soon, because the body has a built-in process to renew itself. It can continue renewing - but there are many things.... The body is born, as we have said always, because of some desire to live. Mm? Really, Freud is right. A second desire is needed to complete the circle. A desire must be hidden there to die. That death-desire helps you to die, and the...

... life-desire helps you to be reborn. That death-desire comes many times to everyone. Many times you become suddenly aware of it. Whenever something is frustrated, such as in the case of someone having lost a lover or beloved, suddenly the death-desire comes up and you want to die - not because you have become desireless, but because your most longed-for desire is now impossible. So you begin to desire...

... depends how much courage you have. Sometimes it happens that you have no courage to live and you have no courage to die, then you have to die slowly. Then a long-term suicide is chosen. Then one just goes on dropping by and by - dying, dying, dying. Then death is a long, delayed process - by degrees. This deathwish is also there, and there are many things, many implications in it. Bernard Shaw, in his...

...: if for Buddha life has become an impossibility, then how can death be possible? A person who cannot desire life, how can he desire death? If he has become so desireless that life is impossible, then death will also be impossible. So we never say that a Buddha dies. We say only that he enters a greater life. We never say that he dies. How is it that we die? We die because we live, because we are...

... age, of Ram's old age, of Buddha's old age, of Mahavir's old age. We have no pictures! It is not that they never became old - the body has to follow the common lot - but by not creating pictures of their old age we have just meant something more. Really, they were never old because they were so moving - so moving and so young. For such persons death is not an end. It is again a further movement. It...

..., then Buddha must die - how is he alive? The body has a momentum. If you are running and want to stop suddenly, you cannot stop. Your mind has stopped. you have decided to stop, but you will have to run a little more because of the momentum. You have been pedalling a bicycle, and now you have stopped pedalling, but the wheels have accumulated momentum. They will run on, and it will take a little more...

... time for the bicycle to stop completely. That's why I always say that if the bicycle is going uphill, then it will stop soon. If you have stopped pedalling and the bicycle is going uphill, then it will stop soon. It may even stop the same moment you stop pedalling. But if it is going downhill, it may go on much longer. So if Enlightenment happens before the age of thirty-five. the body may die soon...

.... If it happens after thirty-five then it is downhill, it may continue more. So a Shankara dies soon. He was just thirty-three, and he became Enlightened at the age of twenty - so it was rare! And he had to die. He couldn't complete the thirty-fifth year, he couldn't reach even to the middle. If the Enlightenment happens after thirty-five, then you are downhill, then the body can continue. With...

.... Everyone is just hopeful: "He will survive; there is no problem." But he himself is hopeless. He doesn't want to survive. Suddenly, inside, something has dropped from the body. Now medicine cannot help. He will die - and the seriously ill man will survive. Medicine can help him. Body and consciousness are related by desires. That's why, if a person dies without desire, then he will not be...

... reborn; because now there is no necessity, no causality to create a body again. I have seen one person who cannot go to sleep because he is fearful of death. Death may occur in sleep, then what can he do? So he is afraid; he cannot sleep. And I think his fear is valid, his fear has a significance - because he has no desire to live. He is not desireless! He just has no desire to live. Rather, he has a...

... desire to die, and if a person has a desire to die, he can die in sleep very easily. You can get up in the morning again, not only because the morning has come, but because you have something which forces you to get up. This person has nothing; nothing forces him to get up. So he cannot sleep because of the fear, and in the morning he doesn't feel at all like getting up. There is nothing! Still, I say...

.... he is not desireless. He is just frustrated; all his desires have become frustrations. When all desires are frustrated, you create a new desire - a desire to die. Freud, in his old age, stumbled upon a new thing of which he had never dreamed. For his whole life he worked on "libido" - the desire to live. He based his whole structure of thinking on this force of libido - this sex, this...

... desire for life - and in the end he stumbled upon a second desire. The first desire he calls "Eros" and the second he calls "Thanatos". Thanatos means deathwish, a desire to die. Freud began to feel that if there is no desire to die, how can a man die? There must be hidden somewhere a desire to die; otherwise, biologists say that the body itself can continue - even forever. There is...

... death. This difference has to be noted, because many religious persons are really not religious - they are only desiring death, they are suicidal. It is very easy to change the desire from life to death. It is very easy, because life and death are not just two things - they are two aspects of one phenomenon, so you can change. So it happens that the persons who commit suicide are really those who are...

... later life, left city life and went to live in a small village. And someone asked him, "Why have you chosen this village?" He said. "I was just passing by the cemetery and I came upon a stone on which it was written:'This man died at the age of one hundred and ten - the death was untimely.' So I thought this village is worth living in. If people here think that one hundred and ten is...

... untimely, then it is good to be here." And, really, he lived very long. Psychologists say it is a fixation. If the whole country thinks that seventy is the maximum, then it becomes a fixed mind-attitude. If the country thinks that one hundred is the maximum, then one hundred will become the maximum. If the country begins to think as a whole, collectively, that there is no need to die so soon and...

... repeatedly known, it is so suggestive, that everyone knows that seventy, or eighty at the maximum, is going to be the limit. We die at eighty because we believe that eighty is the limit. If you can change the limit, there is no need to die so soon. Basically, there is no need for the body to die so soon. It is a self-regenerating process. It goes on regenerating, it can continue. This collective hypnosis...

... and the deathwish become conjoined, they both become one. But if life needs desires, then death also needs desires. That is why we never say that Krishna died - never! We say that he entered Samadhi. We never say Buddha died - mm? - it was Nirvana, deliverance. We never say that they died because, really, for them, how can death be possible when life has become impossible? Understand the implication...

...; he can die as if not dying. But if you want to continue, then some desire has to be there. Ramakrishna tried to be alive for some time just to give the message to a right person. He felt that if there was no desire left and no momentum either, then the body would just drop. So he cultivated, he created, he forced a desire to be there. He continuously tried that at least one desire must be alive...

... something, then I had to be rooted in the earth and it was very difficult - very difficult. So now I will take your keys with me, and these keys will be given to you only before your death - three days before." And Vivekananda remained without having the glimpse again. Then he couldn't achieve. This happening, what Ramakrishna had said, became the barrier. He couldn't cross the barrier. He crossed...

... only before his death - three days before. Life is desire - mm? - the life we know is desire. But there is another life which is desirelessness - the life we don't know. This life is through body; that life is through pure consciousness - direct, immediate. This life is through body, through mind, through instruments. That's why it is so dim and faint. It is not an immediate thing. When something...

..., but not by eyes. He must be heard, but not by ears. He must be embraced, but not by hands, not by the body. But how can it happen? We know only two things - life of desires and death of desires. We don't know another dimension - desireless life and desireless Liberation. But if we become aware of the very mechanism of desire, we can create a gap; and the moment the gap is created, life begins to...

... seed out and see what is happening. Just put it inside and wait. The energy will take its own course. The seed will die, and the energy will sprout and will begin to move. But don't be impatient. One has to wait. And the greater the seed, and the greater the possibility, the potentiality of the tree that is going to be, the more will be the waiting. But it comes. It comes! The deeper the waiting, the...

... go on deceiving themselves. But they don't want to understand desire, so they say, "If you say that desire is suffering, we will believe it. But belief will not be of any help. You can believe it, but you will go on desiring. Belief will not destroy your desiring. You will have to understand; and no one else can understand for you. It is like death: I cannot die for you; you will have to die...

... deeply rooted in the divine, will be rooted in the body. The body is death; the body is matter already dead, and we are rooted in the body. Be rooted in the divine source which is deathless. Be rooted in the divine which is life eternal. Only then you never die. Rooted in the body you will die again and again. Every moment you are dying; our so-called life is nothing but a long death. From the moment...

... ITSELF. TO SEE THE DIVINE EVERYWHERE, IN EVERY DIRECTION, AND IN EVERY THING IS RIGHT ATTITUDE; AND BEING FIRM IN THIS ATTITUDE BRINGS AN END TO CRAVING. DO NOT BE SLOTHFUL AND WAVERING IN YOUR FAITH IN THE SUPREME, BECAUSE THIS IS DEATH - SO SAY THE KNOWERS OF THE DIVINE. AS WATER WEEDS COVER UP THE WATER, EVEN AS THEY ARE REMOVED, SO DOES ILLUSION TAKE HOLD OF A WISE MAN IF HE SWERVES A BIT FROM HIS...

... to know it. Understanding is like love: I cannot love for you; you will have to love, you yourself will have to love - servants cannot do it for you. Howsoever rich you are, you cannot engage servants for your love. Love, death, understanding, freedom - These are the three deepest possibilities of the human being. They cannot be transferred to anyone. So don't BELIEVE that desire is suffering; try...

... have gone beyond it. THE ENDING OF DESIRE IS FREEDOM. AND THIS IS WHAT IS CALLED JIVAN MUKTI, OR FREEDOM IN LIFE ITSELF. And remember this: Don't wait for death to come and make you free. Death will not help you. Unless you become free in life, death is not going to help. But there are many who go on postponing.... Someone was asking me, "Why do you give sannyas to young people? Sannyas is for...

... old men." Sannyas is NOT for old men, I don't mean that if you are old, don't take sannyas. It is late, but never too late. Why do we think that religion is not for young people? - because we think religion is something related with death, something to do with old age when one becomes impotent, when one becomes powerless. When one cannot move in desire, then it is good to be desireless, then it...

... NOT BE SLOTHFUL AND WAVERING IN YOUR FAITH IN THE SUPREME, BECAUSE THIS IS DEATH - SO SAY THE KNOWERS OF THE DIVINE. A very beautiful definition of death.... Death is not what you call it. A man is dying - we call it death; it is not. Really, while you are living, if you are living without the divine around you and within you, that life is death. We are all dead in a way, because a life which is not...

... of birth we go on dying, and dying, and dying, and then we reach death. That death is just a culmination of a long process. The sutra says: DO NOT BE SLOTHFUL AND WAVERING IN YOUR FAITH IN THE SUPREME, BECAUSE THIS IS DEATH - SO SAY THE KNOWERS OF THE DIVINE. But how to be rooted, and how to attain the faith? Remember: Faith is not belief. This one moment more, this one point more to be understood...

... relationship. All the trips that the ego goes on are nothing but security measures. It is trying to protect itself against death. It is constantly apprehensive of death. Death is always by the corner, because the ego is a shadow. The reality is never afraid of death because the real cannot die. To come out of the ego is to end the dark night. Sannyas is surrender... surrendering the ego is what sannyas is...

... to die.] But it is not about your bodily death. It is just the ego coming closer and closer to the point where your understanding is going to dissolve it. It is a kind of death, because up to now you have remained identified with the ego so it feels as if you are going to die. You are not going to die - just the false you, the pseudo you, the personality. And it is good that the personality dies...

... death and a resurrection. But it happens to everybody: whenever it comes very close, the ego starts becoming shaky and the house starts crumbling, then one naturally feels, "I am going to die. Now what?" because one does not know anything else but the ego. The ego is our idea of ourselves, but we are not it - we are far more, far deeper, far greater. The ego is really just a cancerous growth...

... one is destined to be. The rose bush will be miserable if no roses bloom on it. It will be very sad. When the roses bloom, it dances. It has come to this fulfillment. It has shared its fragrance with the world. It has offered its soul to God. It has sung its song. Now it can die... with joy, with celebration in the heart. Life has been a benediction. The target was not missed. But millions of people...

... live and die never knowing who they were meant to be. They are rose bushes without roses, hence they look so sad. They somehow drag; their lives are a kind of burden. They go on doing things because they have to do. They fulfill their duties but there is no festivity. They live mechanically, robotlike. To be a sannyasin means renouncing this mechanical way of living... a great search for the inner...

... seed, preparing ground for it, letting it die in the soil, watering, caring, waiting for the sprout to come with a prayerful heart. One day it happens and one is suddenly fulfilled. When the first flower comes into your being, God has been known. Then no proof is needed. Then one knows immediately "God is!" To be blissful is to know that God is. I teach the religion of bliss, of joy, of...

... is a deep, dark night and one is constantly afraid because the ego is always on the verge of dying. It knows it has to die. At the most it can only prolong a little bit more, but it is sitting on the volcano, because it is a falsity and a falsity cannot abide forever. Hence the fear of the ego... hence all the efforts of the ego to make itself secure, safe - through money, through power, through...

...; then the essence surfaces. It is the personality that is keeping the essence repressed. The personality functions like a heavy rock and the essence is a small stream. Once the rock is gone you will know a totally different kind of life. It is going to be a new life, it is going to be a new birth, so in a sense it is death, but it is not going to be a physical death; it is going to be a psychological...

... in our being. If it dies, you will be more healthy and more whole. Feel blessed and help this death, because if you become too afraid you will hinder it, you will not allow it to happen. You may start clinging, and that clinging will keep it alive. You can keep it alive. Many people are keeping their egos alive just by clinging. They go on feeding it, nourishing it; it is just on the deathbed but...

... person thinks that he is his clothes and one day you take his clothes off. He starts crying and weeping: "Don't kill me - I will die!" It is ridiculous. We know that he is not going to die - these are only clothes and he will be getting new clothes, that's why we are taking the old clothes. They are dirty and rotten and they don't fit and they make him look ridiculous. But he has lived with...

... MY MARK WHEN I GREW UP THAT I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LIVE SO LONG. IT IS BECAUSE I HAVE NO WIFE AND SONS IN MY OLD AGE AND THE TIME OF MY DEATH IS NEAR THAT I CAN BE SO HAPPY.' 'IT IS HUMAN TO WANT LONG LIFE, AND HATE DEATH - WHY SHOULD YOU BE HAPPY TO DIE?' 'DEATH IS A RETURN TO WHERE WE SET OUT FROM WHEN WE WERE BORN. SO HOW DO I KNOW THAT WHEN I DIE HERE I SHALL NOT BE BORN SOMEWHERE ELSE? HOW DO I...

... SHOULD YOU BE HAPPY TO DIE?' The basic things were missed. Only one thing had he taken out of the four - the last. But the last can be understood only if the three preceding it have been understood, otherwise not. If the first three have been understood.... 'A CHILD, YOU NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEHAVE; A MAN, YOU NEVER STROVE TO MAKE YOUR MARK. NO WIFE NOR SON IN YOUR OLD AGE, AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH...

... attention. But unless the three are understood, the fourth will be missed. LT IS HUMAN TO WANT LONG LIFE, AND HATE DEATH - WHEY SHOULD YOU HE HAPPY TO DIE?' It is not human - maybe it is manly, but not human. You have to understand these two words. In the dictionaries they are synonyms, but they are not in reality. Just as I told you 'loneliness' and 'aloneness' are synonyms in the dictionary but not in...

... afraid of death. 'Human'? No, it is not human to be afraid of death. A person who is on a pilgrimage - he is ready to die if that is needed to go on; he is ready to go beyond, he is ready to use the door of death to pass beyond. The man said 'IT IS HUMAN TO WANT A LONG LIFE...' No, it is not human to want long life. Yes, it is relevant as far as the concept of 'man' is concerned. Dogs are afraid of...

... 'DEATH IS A RETURN TO WHERE WE SET OUT FROM WHEN WE WERE BORN. SO HOW DO I KNOW THAT WHEN I DIE HERE I SHALL NOT BE BORN SOMEWHERE ELSE?' The same Socratic attitude: 'SO HOW DO I KNOW THAT WHEN I DIE HERE I SHALL NOT BE BORN SOMEWHERE ELSE? HOW DO I KNOW THAT LIFE AND DEATH ARE NOT AS GOOD AS EACH OTHER? HOW DO I KNOW THAT IT IS NOT A DELUSION TO CRAVE ANXIOUSLY FOR LIFE? HOW DO I KNOW THAT PRESENT...

... BEHAVE; A MAN YOU NEVER STROVE TO MAKE YOUR MARK. NO WIFE NOR SON IN YOUR OLD AGE, AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' 'MASTER WHAT HAPPINESS HAVE YOU HAD THAT YOU SHOULD SING AS YOU WALK PICKING UP THE GRAINS?' 'THE REASON FOR MY HAPPINESS ALL MEN SHARE' SAID LIN LEI SMILING 'BUT INSTEAD, THEY WORRY OVER THEM. IT IS BECAUSE I TOOK NO PAINS LEARNING TO BEHAVE WHEN I WAS YOUNG, AND NEVER STROVE TO MAKE...

... KNOW THAT LIFE AND DEATH ARE NOT AS GOOD AS EACH OTHER? HOW DO I KNOW THAT IT IS NOT A DELUSION TO CRAVE ANXIOUSLY FOR LIFE? HOW DO I KNOW THAT PRESENT DEATH WOULD NOT BE BETTER THAN MY PAST LIFE?' TZU KUNG LISTENED BUT DID NOT UNDERSTAND HIS MEANING. HE RETURNED AND TOLD CONFUCIUS. 'I KNEW HE WOULD BE WORTH TALKING TO' SAID CONFUCIUS 'AND SO HE IS, BUT HE IS A MAN WHO HAS FOUND IT, YET NOT FOUND ALL...

..., he is almost as dry as a bone, and there is nothing to hope for only death is to come. Singing, celebrating - for what? A man of a hundred years has no future: his life is spent, he is exhausted, any moment death will knock him down. For whom? For what? For what reason can a man sing like that? And at the age of a hundred years one has to go and do such a beggarly job... one has to pick up the...

... grains dropped by the reapers. That means nobody is there to look after the old man. He is left alone - no family it seems, no son, no daughters, no wife, no brothers; nobody to look after him. What is there to sing about? But if you have the song - the real song, the song that arises from your intrinsic core, your innermost centre - then it does not matter. You can go on singing even when death is...

... uncaused is going to be forever and forever, because there is nothing that can destroy it. Your body will die - it has been caused; the meeting of your father and mother has been the cause of it. Your body will die: one day it was caused. It has a certain energy, a certain life-span, then it will be finished. Every day you are dying, one day you will simply disappear into the grave. But is that all that...

... will always be so. Once you have come in contact with this eternal continuity inside your being, the substratum, then there is nothing to be miserable about. You are eternal, you are immortal, there is no death for you because there has never been any birth. You are uncreated, you cannot be destroyed. Whatsoever the outer circumstances, your inner light goes on burning bright and the song continues...

... would be logical. He should be weeping, that would be rational. But singing, picking up grains, a hundred years old, waiting for death - what more do you need to be sorrowful? He should be utterly miserable, that would be logical. This is illogical, but Taoists are illogical people. And I would like you to become illogical because only illogical people are fortunate enough to be happy. The logicians...

... NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEHAVE; A MAN, YOU NEVER STROVE TO MAKE YOUR MARK. NO WIFE NOR SON IN YOUR OLD AGE, AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' Try to understand each sentence. Each is pregnant with great meaning. 'A CHILD, YOU NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEHAVE...' Ordinarily, if you never learned how to behave as a child, you would be miserable your whole life. You would repent that you never went to school...

... blissful.' 'AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' Death, to the Taoist, is just returning home, the journey is over. Just as you go into a foreign land.... For example, when my sannyasins go back they go into a foreign land. Whenever they can come back - this is their home - they are happy. Death is coming back home, going to the origin, back to the source, returning from where we came. So the old man...

... said: 'AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' 'So what is there to regret? I am simply happy, just happy. Everything is simply fine - more one cannot expect.' 'A CHILD YOU NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEHAVE; A MAN I YOU NEVER STROVE TO MAKE YOUR MARK. NO WIFE NOR SON IN yOUR OLD AGE, AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' 'MASTER WHAT HAPPINESS HAVE YOU HAD THAT YOU SHOULD SING AS YOU WALK PICKING UP THE GRAINS...

... IS BECAUSE I TOOK NO PAINS LEARNING TO BEHAVE WHEN I WAS YOUNG, AND NEVER STROVE TO MAKE MY MARK WHEN I GREW UP THAT I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LIVE SO LONG. IT IS BECAUSE I HAVE NO WIFE AND SONS IN MY OLD AGE AND THE TIME OF MY DEATH IS NEAR THAT I CAN BE SO HAPPY.' This you will find in all the Oriental scriptures again and again: great repetition. The reason is that the truths are such that the Masters...

... say 'Leave it as it is.' Because these truths are such that, once, you may miss, twice, I hope that you may pay a little attention, thrice.... I have to go on repeating that is like hammering on your head. How long can you go on missing? It is a war between me and you. The old man repeated again, but again he was not understood. Tzu Kung said 'IT IS HUMAN TO WANT LONG LIFE, AND HATE DEATH - WHY...

... IS NEAR.' Just see: the first belongs to the childhood, the second to your youth, the third to your old age, then comes death. It is a very natural corollary, it is absolutely logical - you have to begin from the very beginning. But he had forgotten about the three. He had not listened to the three, he jumped on the fourth. He must have been afraid, a man who was afraid about death. That caught his...

... death, buffaloes are afraid of death, donkeys are afraid of death - so is man. But to be human, one is so thrilled with the possibility - one wants to know what death is. As one has lived one's life, one starts feeling 'Now I have known what life is, I would like to know what death is. Life has been known, it was beautiful. Now let us see what death is, let it be another adventure.' Socrates was human...

... there is no need to go on repeating it for ever and ever. Now something new - death is so new. I am enchanted, I am thrilled, the adventure is so great' said Socrates. 'I would like to see what death is now.' One of the disciples, Crito, said 'But Master, everybody is afraid of death.' Socrates said 'I don't know. I don't understand why people are afraid of death. If the atheists are right that one...

... again be disappearing if the atheists are right, so then what is the fear? There will be nobody to be afraid. Or maybe the theists are true and I will be there. If I am going to be there, then why be afraid?' Now this is a man who has lived a dynamic life, a life of growth, evolution. If you have lived a life of evolution, then death comes as a revolution, a sudden change to some unknown reality. Why...

... DEATH WOULD NOT HE BETTER THAN MY PAST LIFE?' 'HOW DO I KNOW...?' See the insistence. He is not saying 'I know', he is not claiming any knowledge. No wise man has ever claimed any knowledge. That's why Socrates says 'Maybe the atheists are true, maybe the theists are true, but that doesn't matter. Let any of them be true, I remain unperturbed.' The wisdom, the real wisdom is always agnostic. Remember...

..., theories, to protect themselves. The real wise man is vulnerable; he does not protect. He is open to rains. to winds, to the sun, to the moon, to life, to death, to darkness, to light - he is open to all. He has no protection; his vulnerability is total. Remember this man's agnosticism. A hundred-year-old man starts feeling afraid of death. One starts thinking 'The soul must be immortal.' One starts...

... imagining 'Now I will be received in paradise with great fanfare. God must be waiting, and a great marble palace must be ready for me.' One starts imagining things, one starts dreaming. But this man says 'How do I know?' He does not claim any knowledge. He simply says 'I don't know this way or that way. I am absolutely ignorant, I have not tasted death yet, so how do I know? Let me know! Why should I be...

... this old man has spoken such a profound philosophy in these four sentences: 'A CHILD, YOU NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEHAVE, A MAN, YOU NEVER STROVE TO MAKE YOUR MARK. NO WIFE NOR SON IN YOUR OLD AGE, AND THE TIME OF YOUR DEATH IS NEAR.' '... What is there to regret?' And, 'THE REASONS FOR MY HAPPINESS ALL MEN SHARE...' Because happiness is not something that you have to achieve, it is already there, it is...

... how to be alone, enjoy solitude that's what meditation is all about. And finally, remember that death is not a death, it is a new beginning. And, who knows? maybe it leads you into a higher life. If the cosmos has a rhythm in it, it must be so. It must be leading you into a higher life. You have learned so much, you have become more worthy, naturally death must lead you to a higher plane of being...

.... That seems to be simple: a man who has lived, loved, experienced, meditated, who has gone through so many things in life, has become e more worthy - he has to be given a higher life. If this existence has any compassion, then death is going to be a higher plenitude, a higher peak. Wait with thrill, with great adventure. Wait with tremendous joy, delight and celebration. Happiness is very natural: one...

... is to be centered at the third eye. But wherever you are centered, it comes, you begin to feel the prana flowing in. If you can feel the prana flowing in you, you can know when you are going to die. Six months before the day of your death you begin to know, if you can feel the invisible part of breath. Why do so many saints declare the day of their death? It is easy, because if you can see the...

... breath is empty. You have taken in the prana and the breath has become empty. The reverse happens when you are nearing death. The incoming breath comes prana-less, empty, because your body cannot suck prana from the cosmos. You are going to die; there is no need for it. The whole process has reversed. And when the breath goes out, it takes your prana out. One who has been able to see the invisible can...

... durations of death won't do; you need a great death. After that great death or great sleep, you are reborn with a totally new body. Once you can know dreamless sleep and can be aware in it, then there will be no fear of death. No one has ever died, no one can die - that is the only impossibility. Just a day before I was telling you that death is the only certainty, and now I say to you that death is...

... sleep. Then your sleep will look like death. There will be a discontinuity; you won't be able to remember who went to sleep. This is happening naturally. When you die and you are reborn, you cannot remember who died. You start again. With this technique, first you will become the master of your dreams - that is, dreaming will cease. Or if you want to dream you will be able to dream, but dreaming will...

... direct. Once you can direct your dreams you can direct everything, because dream is the very stuff of this world. This life is made out of the stuff of dreams. Once you can direct your dreams you can direct everything. This sutra says, OVER DEATH ITSELF. Then one can give a certain birth, a certain life to oneself. We are just victims. We do not know why we are born, why we die. Who directs us - and...

... suddenly happened, spontaneously. But he must have persisted with this in some past life, because nothing happens spontaneously. Everything has a causal link, a causality. Suddenly one night Raman felt - he was just young, fourteen or fifteen at the time - that he was going to die. And it was so certain in his mind that death had taken over. He couldn't move his body, he felt as if he was paralyzed. Then...

...: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT. PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS BE BORN ANEW. MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. THE KNOWER. EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. When one of the great Greek philosophers, Pythagoras, reached Egypt to enter a...

... actually. Actually your skin will get burned. You will have a burning sensation. What is happening? There is no fire, there is just an ordinary stone, cold. How? How does this burning happen? You are focused at the third eye center, your imagination is being given suggestions by the hypnotist, and they are being actualized. If the hypnotist says, "Now you are dead," you will die immediately...

.... It has a very deep meaning. And the meaning is, if you take it that everything is fixed for you, your life becomes a drama. If you are playing the role of Ram in the drama you cannot change it, everything is fixed, even your dialogue. If you say something to Sita it is just repeating something that is fixed. You cannot change it if life is taken as fixed. For example, you are going to die on a...

... this sixth technique, your whole life will be as if it is not happening to you, as if it is happening to someone else. The seventh technique: WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. More and more you are entering deeper layers. WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD... If you have known the...

... third eye then you know the intangible breath, the invisible prana in the center of the forehead, and then you know the showering - the energy, the light showers. AS THIS REACHES HEART... When the shower will reach your heart... AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. Take this technique in three parts. One, you must be able to feel the prana in breath - the...

... content of the breath, the prana flowing into you, the moment the process reverses you can feel it. Before you die, six months before you die, the process reverses: prana begins to flow out of you. Then the breath is not taking it in. Rather, on the contrary, the breath is taking it out - the same breath. You cannot feel it because you do not know the invisible part - you know only the visible, you know...

... know his day of death immediately. Six months before, the process reverses. This sutra is very, very significant: WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. While you are falling into sleep this technique has to be practiced - then only, not at any other time. While you are falling asleep, only then...

... this is the later, retrospective realization. You cannot realize in the dream that you are dreaming. If you realize it, then there are two layers: dream is there but you are awake, you are aware. For one who becomes aware in dreams, this sutra is wonderful. It says, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. If you can become aware of dreams, you can do two things. You can create dreams - one...

... of death. Death is deep sleep. If your sleep can become as deep as death, that means there will be no dreaming. Dreaming creates superficiality in sleep. You move on the surface because of the dreams; because of hanging on to the dreams, you move on the surface. When there is no dreaming you just drop into the sea, its depth is reached. Death is the same. That is why people in India have always...

... been saying that sleep is a short duration of death, and death is a long sleep - qualitatively they are the same. Sleep is a day-to-day death. Death is a life-to-life phenomenon, a life-to-life sleep. Every day you are tired. You fall into sleep and you regain your vitality, your aliveness in the morning; you are reborn. After a life of seventy or eighty years you are tired completely. Now such short...

... impossible. No one has ever died and no one can die - that is the only impossibility - because the universe is life. You are again and again reborn, but the sleep is so deep that you forget your old identity. Your mind is washed clean of the memories. Think of it in this way. Today you are going to sleep: it is just as if there were some mechanism - and soon we will have this - like that which can erase on...

... become voluntary. It will not be non-voluntary, it will not be forced upon you; you will not be a victim. Then the quality of your sleep will become just like that of death. Then you will know that death is sleep. That is why this sutra says: HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. you will know that death is just a long sleep - and helpful and beautiful because it gives you new life; it...

... gives you everything anew. Death ceases to be... with cessation of dreaming, death ceases to be. There is another meaning to gaining power over death, direction over death. If you can come to feel that death is just a sleep, you will be able to direct it. If you can direct your dreams, you can direct your death also. You can choose where you are to be born again, to whom, when, in what form; you will...

... become master of your birth also. Buddha died... I am not referring to his last life, but to his last-but-one life, before he became Buddha. Before dying he said, "I will be born to such and such parents; such will be my mother, such will be my father. But my mother will die immediately... when I am born my mother will die immediately. Before I am born my mother will have certain dreams." Not...

... a great soul - one who is going to be a buddha. But then your wife is going to be in danger, because whenever this buddha is born it is difficult for the mother to survive." The father asked, "Why?" The interpreters said, "We cannot say why, but this soul who is going to be born has made a statement that when he will be born again, the mother will die immediately." Later...

... on Buddha was asked, "Why did your mother die immediately?" He said, "Giving birth to a buddha is such a big event that everything else becomes futile afterwards. So the mother cannot exist. She will have to be born again to start anew. It is such a climax giving birth to a buddha, it is such a peak, that the mother cannot exist beyond it." So the mother died. And Buddha had...

... he felt a sudden choking, and he knew that now the heart was going to stop. He could not even cry and say to another, "I am going to die." Sometimes it happens in some nightmare - you cannot cry, you cannot move. Even when you become awake for a few moments you cannot do anything. That happened. He had absolute power over his consciousness, but no power over his body. He knew he was there...

..., that he was present, conscious, alert, but he felt he was going to die. And the knowledge became so certain that there was no other possibility, so he just gave up. He closed his eyes and remained there, just waiting to die; he waited there just to die. By and by the body became stiff. The body died, but then it became a problem. He knew that the body had died, but he was there and he knew it. He...

... knew that he was alive and that the body had died. Then he came back. In the morning the body became okay but the same man never returned - because he had known death. He had known a different realm, a different dimension of consciousness. He escaped from the house. That death experience changed him completely. He became one of the very few enlightened persons of this age. This is the technique. This...

... must necessarily woo death. I am reminded of an event that took place one evening. I was then in an out-of-the-way village. The earthen lamps had been lit towards the evening. As darkness had not yet set in, it appeared as if the lamp had no flicker at all. Had the lamp been sentient enough it could have realized at once that it did not have any light of its own. In the presence of the blazing midday...

... beyond! Turning round, it was realized that there was no ladder at all. The descent, the fall from that great height, more arduous and painful than the ascent, set in. It appeared that death was inevitable, and, to be sure, death it was. The shock of that death invariably wrecked my sleep, but the dream pointed to a great truth. Thenceforward our so-called life in its entirety began to appear as an...

... extension and continuation of that dream. Is there not in dreams something reminiscent of every mad rush in which mankind is involved? Do not all mad rushes terminate in death? Again, what does death mean? Does it not mean that there is no higher rung in the ladder? Death is the end of the rush of life. It concludes futurity. It means the impossibility of further possibilities. The racing, rushing mind...

... leads a person to great heights. What more can death be than a downfall from that height? Death inevitably steps in wherever there is a mad rush. No matter whether the rush is after wealth, or religion, after enjoyment or renunciation. Moreover, where there is rush there is dream; where there is no rush, or racing mind there is truth. Life too is only there, such a life as has no death. 6. Words...

... said, "The mind of man too is very old." In fact, being old is itself an evidence of its incapacity to grapple with the problems of life. Closure is death. It is a preparation for being entombed for ever. Yet, if you will, you can be in contact with the open sky by demolishing the wall that hides it. Is it not proper for what is within the walls to be in touch with what is without? Are the...

.... Somehow he goes on living, or, rather, dying. In regard to the existence of the self ke is not yet infused with deliberation. Deliberation on life, at the very outset, makes a man wake up to the truth of death. The possibility of death deepens into a crisis. And the crisis ushers in the auspicious beginning of a search after the self. The beginning of the quest in the direction of Truth is marked by a...

... crisis. A crisis also marks the moment of transit from death to immortality. That is exactly why I say, "Has a crisis in your life set in?" If not, how can the search after Truth be inaugurated? Man's consciousness must of necessity meet with a crisis. Crisis means meeting face to face the possibility of the cessation of the self. It is from this that the desire to attain supreme existence is...

... generated and a campaign for its acquisition is inaugurated. Never has anyone set forth on a quest after life without peeping into the eyes of death, nor can he do so. Life is a quest; but until death is faced, this quest does not become the quest of life. Until then man goes on searching for insignificant trifles and goes on dying in vain. While he is still involved in trifles, death comes to gather him...

.... But the moment his eyes face death, an unprecedented crisis is experienced. This shock is an impediment in his dreamy drowsiness. It becomes impossible to sleep any longer. This hour -- this hour of crisis -- wakens him to the possibilities of life. Then his consciousness becomes engaged in surmounting death. That is precisely why I say, go ahead and ferret out death. Better that you go in quest of...

... you think about mortality. Search for death and recognize it. Facing death squarely takes the soul to immortality. But we are frightened of death and begin to deliberate on immortality. Is not our deliberation on immortality evolved out of the fear of death? Can that mind succeed in the acquisition of immortality, the mind that is scared of death? Friend, there is no fear in death; death is in fear...

.... Death is unknown, unfamiliar. How then, can you fear it? How can you fear that of which you have no idea at all? One is afraid of missing and losing the known, the familiar. "Fear of death" is actually not "of death" but of losing what we know and recognize as life. This fear when solidified is transformed into death. That is why I say, "Search for death." This quest is...

... fruitful, because at the end of that it is not death that is obtained. What is obtained is immortality itself. 10. I am opposed to blind belief and superstition. In fact, every belief is blind. The power of discrimination cannot become keen and fiery, should there be beliefs. If a healthy child is made to walk on crutches rather than on his legs, his legs would not function properly when he grows old...

.... There is the possibility of what has been accepted as Truth turning out to be untruth and suspicion. For the same reason, the ego begins to proclaim the accepted Truth in order to stabilize its own belief. It is prepared even to die for its sake. It is afraid of even listening to anything controverting the accepted Truth because of the possibility at any time of such facts emerging as would make the...

... liberation; seek love. Because the search for liberation often leads to the fetters of egotism; on the other hand, the search for love cannot even start before the destruction of egotism. Search for love means getting ready to destroy egotism. And the destruction of egotism is itself liberation. The egotist dreams of acquiring the world. Afraid of death, it dreams of attaining salvation. He who does not...

... is why egotism is not afraid of renunciation, self-sacrifice, religion, perfect knowledge or even salvation. It is afraid of love. It can escape from renunciation, self-sacrifice or aspiration for salvation. But it is impossible for it to escape from love. Love is its death. Love is not its salvation, it is liberation from it. 14. I do not live in a different world. I live, in that world alone...

... by being different from and opposed to universal existence. The endeavour to become "l" is an attempt at opposing and struggle with the "All". The endeavour results in worry and distress. It leads to the fear of destruction and death. There is no wonder if misery steps in as the result of attaining what is untrue and impossible. But we can view the world from the point of...

.... Of course, it protects itself by worldly assets, status, position, and fame. But in a more subtle form, it protects itself by religion, polity, merit, ideal, salvation etc. It wishes to survive, flourish and prosper. But let us remember that the stronger it grows, the dimmer becomes the chance of that life of which it is but the sheath The ruthless hardness of egotism brings about the death of the...

... unborn soul in the womb itself. It is necessary that egotism should die for bringing about the birth of the soul. 17. What is it that I say? Words? No. No. Those who hear my words alone cannot understand what I talk about. Are we engaged in intellectual deliberations? No. No. We are not doing anything of the sort. In fact, we are not deliberating at all. Instead, we are seeking a situation in life, an...

... entangled with whatever it is inimical to. For the same reason, enmity can become a new form of slavery. But it is not independence. Independence is not attained by opposing untruth or running away from it. Independence lies in the knowledge of Truth. Truth and truth alone makes us liberated. 19. What is Truth? Any tenet? Any cult? Any association? Any scripture? Any word? No, because tenet is death and...

... born and disappear. What exists cannot have birth or death. It merely exists -- exists -- exists. Forget the "I". Leave it off. Wake up in the existence. Live in it. The "I" does not let you wake up in the existence. It does not let you live in it. It lingers either in the past or in its echo, the future, whereas life is the eternal present... always here and now. He who wakes up...

... moment. Freedom is in proportion to the will. 30. I die every day.... In fact, I die every moment. I have known this as the secret of life, of long life. He who bears the burden of the past becomes dead as the result of bearing the burden of the dead. 31. Even for the longest journey of life, it is enough if one has the courage to take one step, because no one can walk more than one step at a time...

.... Eastern psychology, the psychology of the Buddhas, starts by understanding the psychology of death. To understand sex is very primary; to understand death is the ultimate. And by understanding death you can die consciously. If you die consciously you will hot be born again - there will be no need. You have learned the lesson, you will not be thrown back again and again into the wheel of life and death...

... DISCIPLE PAI FENG, SAID 'ONLY HE AND I KNOW THAT YOU WERE NEVER BORN AND WILL NEVER DIE. IS IT HE WHO IS TRULY MISERABLE, IS IT WE WHO ARE TRULY HAPPY?' A very cryptic statement: a code which has to be decoded. 'ONLY HE AND I KNOW' said Lieh Tzu, pointing to the hundred-year-old skull, 'THAT YOU WERE NEVER BORN AND WILL NEVER DIE.' Why does he say 'ONLY HE AND r? The skull has died a non-voluntary death...

... known. It is not certain - he may not have known, he may have known. But it is certain that Lieh Tzu knows: his death is conscious. But he used the situation. A parable uses a situation. His disciple, Pai Feng, was sitting by his side, the skull was Lying there, and he pointed to the skull. 'ONLY HE AND I KNOW THAT YOU WERE NEVER BORN AND WILL NEVER DIE.' Who dies? And who is born? The ego is born and...

... the ego dies. Deep down, where ego is no more, you are never born and you never die. You are eternal, you are eternity, you are the very substratum, the very stuff that existence is made of - how can you die? But ego is born and ego dies. You are never born and you can never die, but how to know it? Would you like to wait until death comes? That is very risky, because if you live your whole life...

... unconsciously, there is not much possibility that you may become conscious when you die. It is not possible if your whole life has been a continuity of unconscious living, you will die unconsciously, you will not be able to know. You will die in a coma, you will not be able to observe and see what is happening. You were not even able to see life, how can you see death? Death is more subtle. If you really want...

... disappears death, because only ego can die - because ego was born. With ego, birth has disappeared, death has disappeared. With ego, your separation from existence has disappeared. This is the meaning of the crucifixion: ego is crucified. When Jesus is crucified, Christ is born - that is the meaning of resurrection. On one side crucifixion, on the other side resurrection. Die if you really want to be alive...

...Voluntary death...

... Osho Tao The Pathless Path Vol 1: Voluntary death Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho Tao The Pathless Path Vol 1   Next > Voluntary death From: Osho Date: Fri, 11 February 1977 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Osho - Tao - The Pathless Path, Vol 1 Chapter #: 1 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available...

...: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. WHEN LIEH TZU WAS EATING AT THE ROADSIDE ON A JOURNEY TO WEI, HE SAW A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD SKULL. PICKING A STALK HE POINTED TO THE SKULL AND, TURNING TO HIS DISCIPLE PAI FENG, SAID 'ONLY HE AND I KNOW THAT YOU WERE NEVER BORN AND WILL NEVER DIE. IS IT HE WHO IS TRULY MISERABLE, IS IT WE WHO ARE TRULY HAPPY?' I REJOICE in Lieh Tzu - he is one of the most perfect...

..., PANCHATANTRA. The parable is an Eastern invention, and of tremendous import. So the first thing to be understood about Lieh Tzu: he is not a theoretician, he will not give you any theory; he will simply give you parables. A theory can be dissected - its meaning is in it, it has no transcendence, the meaning is immanent. A parable cannot be dissected; dissect, and it will die. The meaning is transcendental it...

... themselves on him and silence him. What is your thinking? What are you saying when you say 'I am thinking'? It is a 'hysterically incoherent monologue in which fragments of theology, science, sports, and assorted learning jostle in confusion'... until death comes and silences you. What is your whole thinking? What can you think? What is there to think? And through thinking how can one arrive at truth...

... with death. Why? There is something significant in the beginning. Tao says that if you understand death you will understand everything, because in death your boundaries will be blurred. In death, you will disappear. In death, ego will be dropped. In death, mind will be no longer there. In death, all that is non-essential will be dropped and only the essential will remain. If you can understand death...

... you will be able to understand what Tao is, what the pathless path is - because religion is also a way of dying, love is also a way of dying, prayer is also a way of dying. Meditation is voluntary death. Death is the greatest phenomenon. It is the culmination of life, the crescendo, the highest peak. You know only one peak, and that peak is of sex, and that is the lowest peak of the Himalayas. Yes...

..., it is a peak, but the lowest peak; death is the highest peak. Sex is birth: it is the beginning of the Himalayas, the lowest peak. Just at the beginning the highest is not possible. Slowly, slowly, the peaks rise higher and higher, finally they come to the peak. Death is the peak, sex is the beginning. Between sex and death is the whole story of life. Western psychology starts by understanding sex...

.... You have known, you have learned - there is no need for you to be sent again to the school; you have transcended. If you don't learn the meaning of death you will have to be thrown back. Life is a situation to learn what death is. This parable: WHEN LIEH TZU WAS EATING AL THE ROADSIDE ON A JOURNEY JO WEI, HE SAW A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD SKULL. PICKING A STALK HE POINTED TO THE SKULL AND, TURNING TO HIS...

..., and Lieh Tzu has died a voluntary death - both are dead in a way. Lieh Tzu has died through meditation. Lieh Tzu has died because he is no longer an ego, because he is no longer separate from the whole, because he IS no more. This is real death, deeper in fact than the death of the skull. It is not really certain whether the man who has died, and whose skull has lain there for a hundred years, has...

... to know. then start becoming alert, aware. Live consciously, learn consciousness, accumulate consciousness. Become a great flame of consciousness, then, when death comes. you will be able to witness it, you will be able to see it and you will know 'The body is dying, the ego is dying, but I am not dying because I am the witness.' That witness is the very core of existence. That witness is what...

... accustomed to sleep. we are snoring - metaphysically. It is difficult. but if you try. by and by a ray of alertness will enter in your being. It is possible - difficult, but possible - not impossible. And this is the most valuable thing in life. 'ONLY HE AND I KNOW THAT yOU WERE NEVER BORN AND WILL NEVER DIE.' I know you will never die, because you were never born, but you don't know it. My knowing is not...

... koan: the disciple has to meditate on it. The parable says nothing. it ends abruptly. Now the disciple has to work it out. Now he has to meditate, he has to be aware of death. of life. of love, of this and that. And he has to meditate on the fact: Who is really happy? Are you happy by being just alive? You are not; the whole world is so miserable. So one thing can be deduced, and can be deduced...

... death. The more you have planned, the greater the plans, then the greater the fear. Death is not really a fear that you will die, but a fear that you will die unfulfilled. It may not be possible to carry desires to their fulfillment, and death may come any time. If I am to die unfulfilled, of course, there is fear: "I am as yet unfulfilled. I have not known a moment of fulfillment, and death may...

... this purity be achieved and why are we impure? What is the reason? The Indian genius has always been thinking in terms of desire and desirelessness. Really, everything that we are can be reduced to desire; whatsoever we are is because of our desire. If we are miserable, if we are in bondage, if we are ignorant, if we are in darkness, if life is just a long death, it is because of desire. Why is there...

... old man, by and by, begins to forget the future - because now the future only means death and nothing else. So he never tries to look into the future: he begins to look back. A child is always looking forward, never back, because there is nothing to look back to. For an old man there is only death to look to in the future and nothing else. A young man is in the present, so a young man cannot...

... heart is here and now, open, with no defense. When I say with no defense, I mean that even if death comes, he is open. If you are not open for death, you will never be open for the Divine. If you are afraid of death, you will be afraid of the Divine. But this is strange, because whenever we are afraid of death we always go to the Divine to pray. So all those who are praying in mosques, in temples, in...

... churches, are really not praying: they are just afraid of death. They are making arrangements with the Divine in order that they should not be afraid. Their prayer is based on fear and their gods are just created out of fear. If the mind is innocent, you can be like a child playing with a snake. Now he is open for both: death can come and he is open; he can play with death. The Divine can come and he is...

... open; he can play with the Divine. Death and the Divine are, in a subtle way, one. If you are not open to death you will never be open for the Divine, and a person who is concerned with desires is always afraid of death. You must see the relationship: a person who is concerned with desires - is desirous, is out to get something - is always afraid of death. Why? Because desire is in the future and...

... death is also in the future, and it may be that death comes first and desire is not fulfilled. Remember this: desire is never in the present; death is also never in the present. No one has died in the present. Can you be fearful of death here and now? No, because either you are alive or dead. If you are alive here and now, there is no death; and if you are already dead, there is no fear. So you can...

... only fear death in the future. Desires have a planning for the future and death may disturb everything, so we are fearful of death. No animal is afraid of death because no animal has plannings for the future. There is no other reason than this: no plannings for the future. The future is not, so death is not! Why be afraid of death if there is no planning for the future? Nothing is to be disturbed by...

... come, so I have lived in vain. I have been a futility, just a uselessness. I have lived without any fulfillment, without any peak, without any moment of truth, beauty, peace, silence. I have just lived in futility, meaninglessness, and death may come any moment." Then death becomes a fear. If I am fulfilled, if I have known that which life can allow one to know, if I have felt what living really...

... is, if I have known a single moment of beauty and love and fulfillment, where is the fear of death? Where is the fear! Death can come. It cannot disturb anything, it cannot destroy anything. Death can only destroy the future. For me the future is now nothing. I am content this very moment. Then death cannot do anything. I can accept it; it may even prove to be a bliss. So one who is open to death...

... can be open to the divine. Openness means fearlessness. Innocence gives you openness, fearlessness, a vulnerability with no defense arrangements. That is invocation. And if you are just in that moment when even death can come to you - and you receive it, embrace it, welcome it - then you have invoked the Divine. Now death will never come: only the Divine will come. Even in death, death will not be...

... there now - only the Divine. Marpa, a Tibetan mystic, is dying. Everyone is weeping and Marpa shouts, "Stop! On such a moment of celebration, why are you weeping? I am going to meet the Divine - He is just here and now." And he laughs and he smiles and he sings the last song, and everyone goes on weeping because no one can see the Divine there - everyone is seeing death. Marpa says, "...

... us he has gone mad. Death is there and it seems that he has gone mad. Marpa is seeing something else. Marpa was really one of the most open flowerings of humankind. When Marpa comes to his teacher, the teacher says, "Faith is the key." So Marpa says, "Then give me something to try my faith. If faith is the key, then give me something to try my faith." They are sitting on a hill...

... and the teacher says, "Jump!" and Marpa jumps. Even the teacher thinks he will die. Many, many followers are there, and they think that he is just mad - that they will not even find a piece of his bones. They rush down, and Marpa is sitting there singing and dancing. The teacher asks, "What has happened?" It seems like a coincidence. The teacher thinks silently in his mind that...

... thought faith was the key, but now it will not work. So please don't order me again. Next time I will die, so don't order me again!" This is purity - childlike purity. In Tibet, Marpa is known as Marpa the Faithful - just childlike faith. So the story is told that Marpa became the teacher of his own teacher, and his teacher bowed down and said, "Now give me the key of faith because I don't...