... on such a journey. People need to cling, to cling to others, in the name of love, family, religion, nation. They go on creating bigger and bigger collectivities, because they are afraid of being alone. Aloneness seems to be like a great death. Hence they go on clinging to everybody and anybody. If they cannot find anything beautiful to cling to, they will cling to the ugly. If they cannot find...

..., and very few people have been able to become Buddhas. Before one can become a Buddha, one has to pass through a death - of the mind, of the ego, of all that we think we are. We have to lose all that we think we possess, then only can we possess the eternal. [The witnessing self.] To know it is to know God. To know it is to be available to God's gifts. Not to know it is to be closed to God. Then your...

..., cannot even be green - what to say about flowers? It cannot even have foliage. It only dies... a slow death. Very few people live. The multitude only dies every day, more and more. The life of the so-called human being is nothing but a slow death. Only once in a while does a man live and know what life is. Before you can live you have to know what it is all about. Before you can live it at all you have...

... you are saved. They have the idea that if you go and die in Varanasi, you will go directly to heaven - just by dying in Varanasi! Kabir lived his whole life in Varanasi, and when he was on his death-bed he suddenly jumped out of bed and told his disciples, "We have to rush out of Varanasi!" Those disciples said, "But why? And you are so ill, and you are on the death-bed, and the...

... the earth, the city of Shiva, the ancient-most city, the holiest of the holy. There you die? - that's enough, your sins are no longer counted. Your very death in Varanasi is a purification - you are saved, you go immediately, direct, to heaven. Kabir said, "I will go to Maghar" - a small village near Kashi. And they said, "Out of all places, Maghar?" - because there is a...

... being. And the arguments can be very logical, and the arguments can be very convincing, yet if they are not authentic, they are all rubbish. The real thing is not the validity of the argument as argument, but the truth. Now this man could have seen the simple truth: "I am afraid to die, that's why I will do it." And that would have been a great religious act. To see the truth would have...

... physicians have said that it is only for a few hours that you will be alive, that you cannot be alive even for one day." He said, "That one day has to be used. Rush and run as far away from Varanasi as possible!" But they said, "Where? And why? People come to Varanasi to die." People go and live in Varanasi in their old age, just to die there, because that is the holiest spot on...

... tradition that says that if you die in Maghar you will be born a donkey. "Out of all places, Maghar? Have you gone mad? You must be mad! You are dying, you have lost all your senses!" They tried to hold him in Kashi but he wouldn't listen. He left Kashi and went to Maghar and died there. And when they asked, "But why Maghar?" he said, "If I die in Maghar and go to heaven then it...

... is something. If I die in Varanasi and go to heaven it is pointless. That heaven is not of worth. If I die in Maghar, where it is said that people dying in Maghar are born as donkeys, AND go to heaven, then it is something of my own, authentically my own. I depend only on myself." And dying, he said to his disciples, "Depend on yourself. Don't think that just because you follow Kabir, you...

..., feminine, is going to destroy it. But one day will come when the rock will be gone, will have become sands, and the water will continue to go on in the same way. Rocks die out of their own hardness. The ego is like a rock, humbleness is like a roseflower. The ego seems to be strong - is not - and the humbleness seems to be weak but is not. Don't be deceived by the appearances. The prostitute said, "...

... sane. But because insanity is so widespread, it is so normal that we don't become aware of it.... Once YOU become awakened then you are surprised how people are living, what they are doing to themselves and to others. Their whole life is nothing but sheer madness. Somebody is mad after money, somebody is mad after power, somebody is mad after fame - and all these things are futile. Death comes, and...

... the whole edifice that you have built with such labor collapses. Death comes and takes you away, and all that you have created has been in vain. The sane person is one who creates something which even death cannot destroy. Let this be the definition of the sane: one who knows something of immortality, deathlessness, eternity - he is sane, he is a buddha. To be a buddha simply means to be sane. One...

.... That was the last chance; one or two years more and there would have been no son at all. And his mother died immediately upon giving birth to Buddha; she was also getting old and this birth must have been too much. Buddhists have made a beautiful story out of it. They say that whenever a buddha is born his mother is bound to die. That's how people create stupid stories. There have been many buddhas...

.... Mahavira's mother did not die, but if you ask the Buddhists they will say, "That simply proves that Mahavira is not a buddha." Jesus' mother did not die, Lao Tzu's mother did not die - but to the prejudiced mind that simply proves that these were not buddhas. Whenever there is a buddha the mother has to die; that has become the definition. The real reason was: the mother was old, the father was...

.... Socrates was told by the judges that if he could stop talking about truth he could be forgiven, but then he had to make a promise to the court that he would never talk about truth. Socrates said, "I would rather die than stop talking about truth." The judges were puzzled. They said, "But why? Life is so precious." Socrates said, "Not more precious than truth. If I cannot speak...

... godliness. If you attain to this treasure, you will be surprised: when you reach to the other shore, when you go beyond this body, when death happens to this body, you will be received by all the treasures that you have accumulated. They will all rejoice. Buddha means that there is a treasure that goes with you to the ultimate, and there is a momentary treasure which is left behind. Those who are wise...

... accumulate that which will be theirs forever, and those who are foolish accumulate the momentary, which will be taken away from you - which is going to be taken away by death. Remember, each moment, what you are accumulating. Is it going to be taken away by death? Then it is not worth bothering about. If it is not going to be taken away by death, then even life can be sacrificed for it - because one day or...

...Death of the ego and the entrance into the mystery...

... Osho The Way of Tao Volume 1: Death of the ego and the entrance into the mystery Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho The Way of Tao Volume 1   Next > Death of the ego and the entrance into the mystery From: Osho Date: Fri, 23 July 1971 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Osho - The Way of Tao, Volume 1 Chapter #: 13 Location: pm in Immortal Study...

... and also the servants are afraid." "But what will you gain or lose by this defence?" I asked him. "Have you pondered on this! If you die today, the servants will enter your room no more. Your wife will no longer ask for sarees and your son will not feel your pockets. They will go and throw your body out of the house. As long as you are alive, insecurity is there. The moment you...

... are dead, you shall be secure. There is no better secured thing in this world than a corpse. Even death can do nothing to a dead man; no illness can trouble him. Nothing can be done to it - it is beyond all that you can do." The more protected we are, the more spikes we require. These spikes are our security arrangements. We are afraid, we feel besieged by foes on all sides and we feel we must...

... protect ourselves against them. Nasruddin began to drink heavily in order to escape his wife. His friends began to worry about him. They were afraid he might die. Whenever they pleaded with him he said, "I can only go home when I am drunk. My legs begin to tremble if I am sober and my mind is in a whirl preparing answers for questions that no one has ever asked but my wife would. When I am drunk I...

... enter with never a care. This is my defence." When things began to go out of hand, the friends thought they would have to do something or else he would die. So they decided that one of them would dress as a devil and sit on the tree and pounce on Nasruddin. He was bound to be frightened and would do anything the devil told him. So one night one of the friends dressed as a devil and lay in wait...

... returning home with a grain of sugar. Your foot falls on her and she is crushed to death. You are not even aware of it! All her plans, all her arrangements, snapped in a moment! God knows what all she must have dreamt about, what all she must have planned to do on returning home! Everything is destroyed. Now how can the ant get out from under your foot? Can she make any prearrangements? You think no end...

... save ourselves. We are ready to accept whatever comes. If death comes, it is welcome. In this acceptance you do not feel the need of anger or violence or hate or enmity or jealousy or malice any more. Then only can the spikes break. Lao Tzu says, "This our mind, our individuality has become a ganglion." It has become a complex - like tangled thread. From wherever you pull, it gets more...

... its nature to be entangled. It is not that the complexes are removed and the mind becomes clear. The mind itself is the complex. The only remedy that people like Lao Tzu offer to be free of these complexes is to break down the foundation, the basis of this mind, which is distinction: the distinction of yours and mine, light and darkness, friend and foe, life and death, body and soul, heaven and...

... Tzu says, "TEMPER THE BRIGHTNESS." Do something so that this sharp brightness within you, this violent, fierce and poisonous form of your being may get less and less and that it may become mild and quite. Let there be only lustre and flame, no light. Remember, fire and light are one and the same; but fire burns whereas light does not. Fire can bring death, light brings life. There is...

... reached - those who do not reach. Existence is so deep, so unfathomable that no one can assert that he has attained it completely. There is a story in the Upanishads that a father sent his five sons in search of Truth. They went. After years they returned. The father was on his death-bed. He asked them whether they had attained Truth. The first son says yes and begins to repeat the Vedas. The second one...

...;Do not think I am tired son. Please answer, I am waiting for your answer." The son still kept quiet. The father commanded him to speak. He did not, he even closed his eyes now. The father then said, "I can now die in peace. At last one of my sons has known and is therefore silent." Bodhidharma was preparing to return after working for ten years in China. He gathered his disciples and...

... doesn't matter. It: is the first and it is the last -- the alpha and the omega. The whole teaching of Zen consists of only one thing: how to take a jump into nothingness; how to come to the very end of your mind -- which is the end of the world; how to stand there on the cliff facing the abyss and not get frightened; how to gather courage and take the last jump. It is death. It is committing suicide...

... forsaken me?' A human trembling, a great anguish, facing death, facing annihilation. But he gathers courage. He understands what he is going to do. He was trying to escape into the world, he was trying to escape into the mind. His mind started functioning -- 'What are you doing to me?' It is a complaint against God. 'Have you forsaken me?' It seems that something is going against the expectations of...

... Jesus. He understood it. He was a man of tremendous intelligence. He looked into it. He must have laughed at his own stupidity. What has he said to God? And in a single moment the transformation.... He relaxed and he said, 'Thy kingdom cone. Thy will be done.' He relaxed. This is the step. He died and was born anew -- a new consciousness, a new being. When you die in the mind you are born into...

... consciousness. When you die in the body you are born into the universal body. When you die as the ego you are born as a God, as the God. When you die in your small territory, you simply become spread all over existence -- you become existence itself Now this step has to be understood and I would like to repeat : the end of the mind is the end of the world -- because Zen says the mind is the world. Ordinarily...

... every day it becomes bigger. The load goes on growing. The weight on your back goes on growing every single moment. It is not age that kills you, it is the weight. A man who lives in no-mind lives without death because he dies every moment. He never collects, he never looks back, he never looks ahead -- he is just here, he is just here with this cry of the cuckoo. He is just here. His being is in this...

... to you -- because you have lived with the mind so long and suddenly it has stopped. You will be in an emptiness. That emptiness is very, very scary. It is like death. You are disappearing, losing identity. It is very paralysing -- for a single moment. And that is the point where a Master is needed to push you. If he feels like kicking he will kick. If he feels like hitting he will hit.If he feels...

... beautiful girls dancing around Krishna, GOPIS -- sooner or later Krishna will be forgotten and you will fall in love with a GOPI. The world starts again. You are back home. The mind is very cunning and when it is a question of life and death to it -- and it IS a question of life and death when you are meditating -- the mind will try all possible ways to protect itself. It is a question of survival. so...

... not come. then the duality persists. It has found a new way of being. When only one is, you have come -- so abide by yourself. Says Hui Neng, 'My advice to you is, having nothing to do, take a rest. Even if that blue- eyed barbarian, Bodhidharma, should come here, he can only teach you to do nothing. Put on your clothes, cat your food, and move your bowels -- that's all. No death, no fear, because...

... there is nobody to die. No transmigration, no dread, because there is nobody to transmigrate. It is always here. There is nowhere to go.' When Hui Neng was dying somebody asked, 'Master, where are you going?' He opened his eyes and said, 'What kind of foolish question? Where can one go? There is nowhere to go. One is always here -- now.' Have you watched this quality of consciousness? You are always...

... here now. Have you watched this phenomenon? You cannot be anywhere else. Hui Neng said, 'Where can I go? There is nowhere to go in the first place and nobody to go anywhere. I am one with the all. There is no death to fear, no transmigration to dread, no nirvana to achieve and nobody's enlightenment to attain. Try to be just as ordinary as possible, having nothing to do.' This is the Zen approach...

... and given you the confidence that you have wings. Nobody has pushed you and of course in the beginning it will look as if he is your enemy, pushing you to your death: you will fall! But unless you are pushed, and you see that by fluttering your wings you remain in the air and you don't fall.... Then a great potential has become actual: the first vision of your own flying. Now it is no longer a dream...

... what treasures he has brought with his life. He wi!l die, and those treasures will remain unopened. He lived his whole life according to somebody else's dictates: he lived a borrowed life. He smiled because it was expected; he paid respect to people because that was what he was taught. He went to the church, to the synagogue, to the temple because his parents were going there, everybody else was...

... years... he reminded me again and again, That was our basic fault. That was the time we could have managed to make you something of worth. But your Nana and your Nani, those two old fellows destroyed you completely." And after my Nana's death, my Nani never went back to the village; she was so heartbroken. I have seen thousands of couples very intimately because I have been staying with so many...

... families, wandering around India, but I could never find anybody who could be compared with those two old people: they really loved each other. When my Nana died, my Nani - my maternal grandmother - wanted to die with him. It was a difficult task to prevent her. She wanted to sit on the funeral pyre with her husband. She said, "My life is gone - now what is the point of being alive?" Everybody...

... anybody who persuaded her - the family, the priests, the neighbors - they were also partners in the crime and they would also be punished according to whatsoever part they had played in it. So the institution slowly slowly disappeared; it had to disappear. But once in a while those one percent of women were always there for whom it didn't matter, because their lives were now a sentence unto death. Why...

... say it because it was like a heavy weight on her heart. I said, "You should have told me before; if just by telling me that weight disappears, why should you keep it?" She said, "l felt so ashamed to mention it to you, but I cannot bear it any more, for the simple reason that if any day I die, I will die with this heavy weight, so it is better I should tell it." And what was the...

... father's condition was serious, so without drinking the tea she went to the hospital. He was going up and down the whole day, so she completely forgot about eating. By the evening my father was better. I went to see him nearabout three, and he was as good as one could hope - and that was a dangerous signal because it always happens before a man dies that he becomes absolutely okay. When death is coming...

..., somehow the whole life flame gathers together to face death as the last challenge. That's why before death people become almost cured. It is just like before a flame disappears from the candle: in that last moment before disappearing it burns really bright, and with full vigor, with intensity. Life is almost a flame. Even scientifically too it is a flame; that's why you need constant oxygen - oxygen is...

... good we both go." She said, "Stop this nonsense. Who has ever heard of a boy, seven years old...? It is not for you, it is for a woman whose husband has died." I said, "Your husband has died, my Nana has died, and my Nani is going to die - it is enough reason for me. And anyway, any day I will have to die, so why wait so long? Finish it quickly." She said, "I know you...

... the vice-chancellor, "You are a man of history, you must know that one emperor of Egypt issued an order - this is an historical fact - a pharaoh issued an order to the whole kingdom that nobody should enter his dreams. If anybody tried he would be sentenced to death. Naturally, nobody should interfere with his sleep. "Now, this was a troublesome thing. One of his courtiers appeared the...

... part of the court, of course he was not given the death sentence but just a few years' imprisonment." I said to the vice-chancellor, "You must remember that. Now this man will soon start ordering,'You have to dream this, you have to dream that'; and 'you should dream only up to this point and then all dreams stop.' I cannot put up with this kind of nonsense - students are free. There is no...

... have gathered. You don't know what you have been doing these many many lives. You don't know what you have found in your search and what remains incomplete. Every time death has come and rubbed out everything that you have done. There are many among you who have taken sannyas many times - every time death came and erased everything. And you don't have the ability to recall it. Understand it like this...

..., you had been creating something... you had been painting a picture, when death came and it remained incomplete. Death came and you forgot. You were born again. Then even if you get a message about that incomplete painting - even if that incomplete painting is put in front of you, you won't remember. Because in this life you had never even thought of yourself as a painter And if I tell you, "...

...;Finish the painting, it has been left incomplete, you had made it with great hopes, you had created it with a very deep thirst - now just go ahead and finish it. Death had come in between and it was left incomplete." You will say, "I don't know anything, you can have me take up the brush but I don't even know how to hold it. You can put the colors in front of me and I will paint but I don't...

... practicing outer discipline. They never reach even to inner discipline. Most yogis die still trying to master asanas - yoga postures. Where is concentration, where is meditation? There are so many yoga postures it seems impossible to ever complete the training in them. At the very most those who seek deeply reach to concentration. And the real happening can occur only in samadhi. And even samadhi Patanjali...

...; What is it you want to show? They say, "No, it's just we want to make a name for ourselves. We will be going but our name should remain behind!" What's the use of your name remaining? No one else is interested in your name. When you yourself are gone who is going to bother? When you couldn't be saved from death, will your name be saved from dying? You cannot be kept alive, how can this name...

... which is only an indication be saved? Who bothers about your name? And so what if your name does remain? It will be hidden away in some old books, it will be grieving there. Alexander's name, Napoleon's name - so what? But no, we have been taught these diseases since childhood. Since childhood we have been told, "Do something before you die. Don't die without doing anything. If you can, do...

... clothes - even if you didn't touch the flowers! Sannyas is showing a little courage to move with me, having a feeling to be with me. It is falling in love with me. The whole idea behind this love is that I am making arrangements for you to be free. Move with me, I want to give you the fragrance of liberation. I am a puppet of breath. I am tied to old age. And to death I am given over. But there is this...

... thing called love, you know! By him, I have been liberated. The club of time eternal, a weight impossible to bear, is balanced by one fun-filled childlike moment. What are you? I am a puppet of breath. I am tied to old age. And to death I am given over. Birth and death, this is all that you are. Breath comes in and goes out and in between there is a brief tale, a short drama. If there is anything here...

... that can take you beyond death and birth - But there is this thing called love, you know! By him, I have been liberated. If love happens between life and death... Sannyas means to fall in love with me, nothing more than this. This is enough, this is the definition. If you are in love with me and are ready to move with me a little way, then moving that little way will take you a great distance. And...

... to die on a certain day of a certain year, no power on earth can stop you: you will die in the moment decided upon. If your resolution is very profound and intense you can fulfill your promises even after death. For instance, the appearance of Jesus after death: it was a promise fulfilled. This has caused a lot of difficulty for Christians, because they do not know what happened afterwards and thus...

.... If I die the whole of my recollections and memories are lost with me. But now it is possible to save the whole mechanism of my memories at the time of my death just as we preserve eyes for transplanting. Tomorrow someone will be able to see with my eyes. And it is not that I alone can love with my heart - someone else may also love with my heart tomorrow. Now it is not possible to promise that...

... were to throw a stone with enough force for it to travel fifty miles; then I die soon after throwing the stone. But my death cannot interfere with the movement of the stone. It has the force I gave it to travel fifty miles, and it will do that whether I am there or not. The strength I exerted will keep the stone going. Buddha has given a momentum to these three bodies and they will live. He has also...

... an image in a temple, what can he gain? There are many things in this also to be understood. Behind the creation of images and idols lies a very scientific arrangement. Suppose I am about to die and there are a few people around me who love me, who have seen something in me, who have searched and found something in me. Now these people may ask me in what way they should remember me. So before I die...

... they are not sure whether Christ was resurrected or not. However, this was a promise by him to certain disciples which was fulfilled after death. In fact, places where certain living promises are still being fulfilled over thousands of years have slowly turned into tirths, holy places of pilgrimage. Then by and by the promises were forgotten. Only one thing remained in people's memories - that they...

... confirm it. Now only believe what your inner understanding tells you." Buddha never became a guru. At the time of his death, when he was asked for his final message, he said, "Be a light unto yourself. Do not go after others; do not follow others. Be a light unto yourself. This is my last message." Such a person as Buddha cannot be a guru. Such a person is a witness. Jesus has said many a...

... again. Buddha attained the seventh body and merged into the nirvana - then how is this possible? There is another way. Now you will have to know and understand a few things. When we die only the physical body drops; the rest of the six bodies remain with us. When a person reaches the fifth plane, the first four bodies drop away and only three remain - the fifth, the sixth and the seventh. In the fifth...

... efforts have been made to preserve his second, third and fourth bodies. Buddha does not exist any more; the soul that lived within was lost at the seventh plane. But before the soul was merged into the seventh, arrangements were made to see that these three bodies - the second, third and fourth - did not die. The momentum of Buddha's determination and promise was instilled into them. It is just as if I...

... in this state. Whoever he is he should at least be of a level of consciousness that is almost as high as was Buddha's. Only such a one will be able to absorb his three bodies; otherwise he will die. So the experiment was unsuccessful, because there were many difficulties in the process. Endeavors still go on. Even today there are small esoteric groups who are trying to bring down these three bodies...

... religion is, what prayer is. Chinta means awareness, contemplation; mani means diamond - a diamond of awareness. And that is the only diamond there is, because that is the only treasure. All else is just illusion, because death will take everything away - it is momentary. One can brag about one's riches, power, prestige, but then death comes and in one stroke all is destroyed. The whole edifice...

... disappears in a single moment and all the great castles that you had made in the air and for which you had sacrificed your whole life are gone forever. The only real wealth is that of awareness because death cannot take it away. And that is the only thing that death cannot take away, because one can be aware even while one is dying. Dying, one can remain aware. Hence in the East awareness is called the...

... feeling is that if you touch their feet and tell them that now you are no more the old person, if you tell them your new name and tell them that the old is gone, things will start happening. One thing leads to another. If you really want it to happen, it will happen. And it is worth trying, because there are millions of people who have not loved their parents, and when their parents die they suffer...

... only intoxicant that is capable of drowning you utterly. It is only through love that one can evaporate, and only when the ego evaporates does God become available. One has to die for God to be; less than that is not of much help. Jesus says, "Until you are born again...." That means that a death is a must. And only after that death will a new life start. And that new life will not be ego...

... greatest crises that man has ever faced. Either man will die and will not be able to survive this crisis or man will have a new orientation, will start living in a new way, with a new style, with a new context. Either man will not prove strong enough to go through this crisis of meaninglessness and will Commit suicide, or he will be able to bring a new meaning. The old is gone. The old was fictitious; it...

... always afraid... of drowning, of death, of getting lost. It is afraid of love for the same reason, because love is the beginning of prayer. It is afraid of prayer. And out of fear it denies. It says, "There is no God." It says, "There is no meaning in prayer." It says, "Meditation is all nonsense." Out of fear, all these denials. I don't say, "Believe in prayer,"...