... there is no birth and there is no death. Life continues; it only changes forms. Forms are born and forms die, but the essential life is to catch, or what airline? Will you go to Krishna Mohammed to ask about Air-India? Anyway he works no more for Air-India, he works for Air Rajneesh, but that is metaphorical - no aeroplanes here, no airlines. One just has to awaken. One just has to come back where...

... death. Life continues; it only changes forms. Forms are born and forms die, but the essential life is eternal. And you are that essential life - only clothes change, garments change, houses change - but the essential core goes on and on. Just the other day there was a question. Somebody asked 'Who are you? From where have you come? What is your purpose here? Are you the messiah?' I have not come from...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF; SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF: FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN; TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING UNMOVING, - THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE. ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE. THE HILLS ARE HIGH, THE VALLEYS DEEP WHEN ONE LIVES BENEATH AN OLD...

... have gathered. When the Western mind comes to me he always asks how to relate with people - that is his basic question - how to be more loving, caring, how to grow deeper into relationship. No Indian, no Easterner, ever asks this - that is not his question at all, his question is how to get out of relationship, how to forget all this misery - birth and death, and reincarnation, and the whole wheel...

.... The third kind has happened both in the East and the West very rarely. In the West monasteries have existed, and people have renounced the world and moved - in the East too. One who becomes interested in dreamless sleep... And it is greatly satisfying - no doubt about it, there is great pleasure in it, it is very tranquil, undisturbed, but it is a kind of death, not life. And there is fear that it...

... immediately left the camp. He became so angry; he could not conceive of card-playing as meditation. And all meditation is nothing but card-playing. Meditation means playfulness, meditation is not a serious phenomenon. But he had come seriously - he was getting very old, he was seventy-five and death was coming near, and he wanted to have some security beyond death. He had lived a very very successful life...

... what work is. Work is yet unknown to them; they have not fallen yet, they have not committed the original sin yet. The original sin IS seriousness. The moment you can regain, recover, reclaim, your childhood, you have become a religious person. HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF, SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF. FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO GO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. Yoka says FROM THE...

.... One just has to come back where one's body is. Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road. FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. There are two kinds of people in the world: one, who are very much interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now, that's a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth...

..., how can you avoid death? - birth implies it. It is the necessity of birth that brings death. There can be no beginning without the end; if the beginning is there the end is bound to be there - the end is implied in the beginning; the alpha contains the omega. Now, people are too interested in birth and life and, naturally, very much afraid of death. The more obsessed they become with life, the more...

... afraid they become of death. But life brings death, birth brings death, birth is a continuous movement towards death. You cannot avoid it so you live in a kind of trembling, in fear, in a kind of dread. Soren Kierkegaard used to say that man lives in dread. Man need not live in dread, he chooses to live in dread. If you ding to birth, you will be afraid of death. And there are people who are very...

... obsessed with death too - the other type, the religious type. They are not concerned with life, their whole concern is death: how to enter into the realms that are beyond death, heaven and paradise, and how to avoid hell, and all that. Their whole concern is death. A man once came to me and he asked 'I would like to know something about after-life.' I asked him 'Have you known anything about life? If you...

... don't know anything about life, how can you know anything about after-life?' He tried to explain - he thought I had not understood his question, he said 'I mean, what happens after death?' I said 'I would also like to say to you that my insistence is: first try to see what happens before death. You have not even looked into that which is happening already and you are concerned with what will happen...

... after death?. Your concern is abstract, philosophical, metaphysical.' You can spin and weave theories, you can get caught into your ideas and thoughts or into somebody else's ideas and thoughts. Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. The moment I awoke to reality, the moment I saw the fourth state of consciousness, TURIYA, I suddenly saw...

... one's body is. Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road. FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. There are two kinds of people in the world: one, who are very much interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now, that's a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth, how can you avoid death? - birth...

... implies it. It is the necessity of birth that brings death. There can be no beginning without the end; if the beginning is there the end is bound to be there - the end is implied in the beginning; the alpha contains the omega. Now, people are too interested in birth and life and, naturally, very much afraid of death. The more obsessed they become with life, the more afraid they become of death. But life...

... brings death, birth brings death, birth is a continuous movement towards death. You cannot avoid it so you live in a kind of trembling, in fear, in a kind of dread. Soren Kierkegaard used to say that man lives in dread. Man need not live in dread, he chooses to live in dread. If you cling to birth, you will be afraid of death. And there are people who are very obsessed with death too - the other type...

..., the religious type. They are not concerned with life, their whole concern is death: how to enter into the realms that are beyond death, heaven and paradise, and how to avoid hell, and all that. Their whole concern is death. A man once came to me and he asked 'I would like to know something about after-life.' I asked him 'Have you known anything about life ? If you don't know anything about life, how...

... can you know anything about after-life?' He tried to explain - he thought I had not understood his question, he said 'I mean, what happens after death?' I said 'I would also like to say to you that my insistence is: first try to see what happens before death. You have not even looked into that which is happening already and you are concerned with what will happen after death?. Your concern is...

... abstract, philosophical, metaphysical.' You can spin and weave theories, you can get caught into your ideas and thoughts or into somebody else's ideas and thoughts. Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. The moment I awoke to reality, the moment I saw the fourth state of consciousness, TURIYA, I suddenly saw there is no birth and there is no...

... is birth, there must also be death. The sage's THIS IS also THAT, his THAT IS also THIS. A state in which this and that no longer find their opposites is called 'the hinge of the Way'. Where THIS and THAT become one, where this world and that world become one, where matter and mind become one, that is called 'the hinge of the Way'. Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD... This is the road...

... he is talking about. The moment you recognize that all is one; death and life, THIS and THAT - all is one, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. Then I knew I never had any beginning and I will never have any end. Then I knew this whole belongs to me and I belong to this whole. And there is no need to make any distinctions, there is no need to make any categories that 'this is lower...

... to die within five minutes. The body will be dead and you will have just a pure awareness, a luminous awareness. Just something like a blue light, that's all. You will feel a blue light just near the third-eye centre, just a small blue flame. That is the purest form of life. And when that blue flame starts being felt there, just fall asleep. So your whole night will be transformed into a death...

... meditation, and in the morning you will feel so alive, more than you have ever felt - so young, so fresh, and so full of juice that you can give to the whole world. You will feel so blessed that you can bless the whole world. And this death meditation will make you aware that death is an illusion. It does not really happen - nobody has ever died and nobody can really die. Because we are too much attached...

... to the body, it seems like death; because we think the body is our life, we think it is terrible. And this is one of the greatest preparations for death. One day death will come: before it comes, you will be ready, you will be ready to die! When buddha was dying, he asked permission from his disciples. He said, 'Now I am ready to die. Within a few minutes I will disappear into myself. If you have...

....] So continue Kundalini in the morning, and in the night before going to sleep, start a death meditation. Just lie down, put the light off, and start feeling that you are dying. Relax the body and feel that you are dying, so you cannot even move the body - even if you want to move the hand, you cannot. Just go on feeling that you are dying - a four or five-minute feeling that you are dying, dying...

... turning in.' Then he sat in his posture, closed his eyes, and it is said that people could see that his body started dying. They could see that the body was becoming a corpse - and he was alive! The body turns into a corpse: that is the first phase, buddhists say, of death. In the second phase, his thoughts started disappearing. Those who were very very aware, those disciples who were real meditators...

... preparation. And then you can really die! Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

..., with awareness, consciousness, love and compassion. Your life first has to become a dance, worthy to be offered back to existence. Death is a small affair, a single moment thing. In a split second you will die, but life is eternal. But if you know the grace and the beauty and the joy and the splendor of life, you will die joyously, laughingly, because you know death is a fiction, the greatest fiction...

... continuum of existence. Maneesha has asked, BELOVED OSHO, WE MAKE LIFE A STRUGGLE AND DEATH A STRUGGLE. IS NOT GRACIOUSNESS SIMPLY THE ABILITY TO LIVE WHILE ALIVE, AND DIE WHEN DYING? Maneesha, unless you are awakened to your innermost self, this grace will not be available to you - to live gracefully while alive and to die gracefully while dying. The grace remains as a shadow of consciousness. The moment...

... A FAMILY." THE MONK SAID, "IS THERE RELATIVITY OR NO RELATIVITY?" TOZAN ANSWERED, "NONE." THE MONK ASKED, "WHERE WILL YOU LET ME GO?" "TO A RICE FIELD," ANSWERED TOZAN . THE MONK HEAVED A SIGH AND SAID, "GOODBYE," AND DIED SITTING THERE. TOZAN TAPPED HIM ON THE HEAD THREE TIMES WITH HIS STAFF AND SAID, "LIKE THIS, YOU KNEW HOW TO DIE, BUT...

... NOT HOW TO LIVE." WHEN SOZAN WAS ABOUT TO DIE, HE MADE A VERSE: MY ROAD IS BEYOND THE BLUE SKY; THE CLOUDS NEVER MAKE ANY COMMOTION. IN THIS WORLD THERE IS A TREE WITHOUT ANY ROOTS; ITS YELLOW LEAVES SEND BACK THE WIND. AFTER SAYING THIS, HE PASSED AWAY. Maneesha, before I enter into your tremendously significant anecdotes, I have to reply again to the old goat of Puri, the Shankaracharya. He...

... JOSHU, "WHAT IS THE BODY WITHOUT ILLNESS?" JOSHU SAID, "THE BODY MADE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS AND FIVE SKANDHAS." The questioner was asking, "Is there anything in the body that is without illness?" - because as far as the body is concerned, it is full of illnesses, and then old age and finally death. Joshu's answer was very subtle. He is saying that the body is made of...

... chemistry and physics, but there is someone behind watching this; that it is made of four elements and five skandhas; that the watching one is without illness, without birth and without death. ON ANOTHER OCCASION, UMMON ASKED A MONK, "WHAT ARE YOU?" HE REPLIED, "I'M THE HEAD OF THE INFIRMARY." "YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY SO!" SAID UMMON. "IS THERE ANYBODY NOT ILL?" "...

..., "TO A RICE FIELD." THE MONK HEAVED A SIGH AND SAID, "GOODBYE," AND DIED SITTING THERE. TOZAN TAPPED HIM ON THE HEAD ... That's what Sardar Gurudayal Singh has to do. TOZAN TAPPED HIM ON THE HEAD THREE TIMES WITH HIS STAFF AND SAID, "LIKE THIS, YOU KNEW HOW TO DIE, BUT NOT HOW TO LIVE." The real thing is the art of living. If you know how to live, you will automatically...

... know how to die. But knowing how to die is not enough, anybody can commit suicide. There are simple ways of leaving the body. Even without poison there have been methods in Yoga, in Tantra, in Zen, by which you can stop your heart and your breathing. This may be a miracle to some, but it is not the way of an intelligent man, it is not the way of the buddha. First you have to learn to live rightly...

... to be in the old dilapidated house, you leave it. But you can leave either consciously or unconsciously. If you leave unconsciously you won't know what has happened. You will open your eyes in some womb, not knowing where you came from or why you are here in this womb. You will be born, but you will not know why you are born. If you cannot die consciously you cannot be born consciously; they are...

... two poles of the same reality. A man who can die consciously, meditatively, moves either into another womb - if his consciousness is not yet total - or he moves into the formless sky; now he is no more in bondage. Except for unconsciousness there is no bondage anywhere. WHEN SOZAN WAS ABOUT TO DIE, HE MADE A VERSE: Now look at this strange kind of people; he is going to die and he is writing a poem...

...! In Zen it has become a tradition that before dying you should write a poem, just to show your insight for the coming generations, to show that you have not died unconsciously, that you knew death was coming. Without knowing that death is coming, how can you write the last verse? He wrote: MY ROAD IS BEYOND THE BLUE SKY; THE CLOUDS NEVER MAKE ANY COMMOTION. IN THIS WORLD THERE IS A TREE WITHOUT ANY...

... ROOTS; ITS YELLOW LEAVES SEND BACK THE WIND. AFTER SAYING THIS, HE PASSED AWAY. What a way to die, and what a way to live! Just today I received some information from Europe, that a famous astrologer, almost worshipped like a prophet, had declared years ago that at a certain date he would die. Now the date had come and he was in great difficulty. So he committed suicide. This is not the way of Zen...

... you are unconscious, you lose your grace, you lose your beauty; you lose everything that life is ready to give to you, because you are not ready to receive it. We will try dying gracefully again today, and then let us see how many come back gracefully. A few come too quickly, they were just waiting for Nivedano. A few remain longer, enjoying the beautiful death, and then get up and start moving...

... towards the canteen. Because here in Buddha Hall one is not supposed to die for ever. This is a place to live forever. If you want to die, you can move towards the canteen. Caruso and his buddy, Leonardo, two Italian crickets, meet in the garden. Caruso is walking with a limp, and Leonardo notices that he has a bandage on his prick. "What-a happened to you?" asks Leonardo. "Last-a night...

... prayer, the only worship. When you settle down in your center, your heart is beating in tune with the universe. This is the very meaning of life. To get deeper, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Relax, let go, die. Don't be worried. Let the body go on breathing, it will take care of itself, it knows its way. Concentrate your consciousness inwards. In this silent moment you become buddhas. Every day you become...

... buddhas and forget again. At least this time don't forget, because who knows whether tomorrow will come or not. Go as deep as you can, don't hold back. Fully conscious, even death is a dance; Without consciousness even life is worthless. In this silence have blossomed all the great roses, lotuses. In this silence have emerged great grace, love, freedom. This silence is the source of all great poetry...

... happens within, and all we are able to see is its symptoms on the outside. How can one know death by seeing others dying? We too have died many times but we have never been able to see ourselves dying, because we had become unconscious before dying. So you may see many persons dying, but you never come to believe that you too are going to die. Have you ever believed that you too will die? Many people...

... may start dying every day, the whole cemetery may become full of them, some epidemic may spread and you will see dead bodies everywhere - still one always feels that only others are dying. You never feel within that you are also going to die. Even if such an awareness of death comes it remains only on the surface, it never enters deep within. Why? Because we have never seen our own death, we have no...

... can happen tomorrow - with a little difference here and there. But what has never happened before, how can that happen tomorrow? This is why the mind is never able to believe in death. And when death in fact happens the mind is already unconscious. Thus the two great experiences of life, birth and death, we never experience. We take birth and we die, and if we are unable to experience these two...

... towards death. After birth we do not do anything else except die. We may be doing anything - the march towards death continues each moment. Evening comes after the morning and we have died for twelve more hours. Then morning will come again after this evening and we will have died for twelve more hours. Life goes on exhausting itself drop by drop; time goes on emptying itself away. So what we call life...

... is actually a long process of dying. After birth, whatsoever one may be doing, one is definitely doing one thing - that is dying, continuing to die. No sooner are you born than you have begun to die. In the very first breath taken by a child the arrangement for his last breath has been made. Now there is no way of avoiding death. One who is born will die sooner or later; the difference may be of...

... time, but death is certain. One who has seen life as a long process of death... I say has seen, not has understood. You can also understand, "So this is how it is?" - that you can also do But by that you will not be a jivanamukta. No, one who sees, one who becomes a witness to it, is one who has seen that every moment he is dying. One thing we never realize is that "I will die"...

...;; it is always the others who die. Secondly, even if we infer our death through the death of others, then too it is something that will happen in the future; for now it can be postponed. It is not happening now, today. Even a man lying on his death-bed does not think that his death is happening today, this moment. He too avoids, postpones - tomorrow. In avoiding we save ourselves. For us life is now...

... IS FROM ACTIONS IN THE PAST. THERE IS NO FRUIT ANYWHERE WITHOUT ACTION. JUST AS THE DREAM ACTIVITY CEASES UPON WAKING UP, SIMILARLY PAST ACTIONS ACCUMULATED OVER BILLIONS OF EONS DISSOLVE INSTANTLY UPON ONE'S KNOWING: "I AM BRAHMA." A few more indications about the inner state of a jivanamukta, the one liberated while living. The jivanamukta is one who has known death while still living...

.... As it is, death is known by all, but only at the time of dying. That too cannot be called the knowing of death because just in the moment of dying the mind becomes unconscious. So we never know our own death, we always only know the death of others. You have only seen others dying, you have never seen yourself dying. Thus our knowledge even about death is borrowed. When someone else dies what do we...

... learn from this? We know that he has lost his speech, his eyes cannot see, his pulse has ceased, and that his heart has stopped. We just know that the body mechanism has ceased to work, but we do not know anything about what happened to the one that was hidden behind the body mechanism, or whether there really was anything hidden behind or not, or whether that hidden being is saved or not. Death...

... experience of it, we have no remembrance of death. However much we may think backward in the past we never come to find that we have ever died before. So something that has never happened in the past, how can it happen in the future? All the calculations of mind are based on the past. Even when the mind thinks of the future it thinks only in the language of the past. What has happened yesterday, that alone...

... great events of birth and death then how can we experience and what can we experience of the life that flows in between the two? One who is unable to know the beginning of life, one who is unable to know the end of life, how can he ever know the middle of life? The stream that flows between birth and death is life. Neither we know the beginning nor the end; the middle is bound to remain unknown. There...

... may be some hazy dim knowing - like something heard from a faraway distance, or like a dream that was seen. But we have no direct contact with life. The meaning of jivanamukta is a person who has known death during life by waking up, by becoming conscious. This word jivanamukta is wonderful. It has many different meanings. One meaning can be: one who is liberated during life. Another meaning can be...

...: one who is liberated from life. The second meaning is deeper. Actually the first meaning is useful only after the second meaning is known. Only the one who is liberated from life can be liberated in life. Who will be liberated from life? Only he can be liberated from life who has known that the whole life is a process of death; one who has seen that that which we call life is only a long march...

... and death is far away in time. One who has seen that the whole of life is a process of death has also seen that death is not tomorrow but now, this very moment - "I am already dying in this very moment. How to see, how to realize this happening of my death this very moment?" If one is able to see, then one does not lust for life. Buddha has said that one who does not lust to live is a...

... jivanamukta. One who does not demand that he should get more life, one who does not desire to live more, one who has no lust to live more, one who will accept death gracefully if it comes now, one who will not ask death for even one moment more - "Wait, let me tidy up matters" - one who is ever ready to live every moment, that person is a jivanamukta. One whose lust to live is finished can be free...

... intellect that they appear as two. Intellect divides everything into two. The way intellect looks at things, nothing can remain undivided. Intellect is analysis, intellect is discrimination, intellect is division. This is why birth and death appear as two to us because of our seeing through the intellect; otherwise they are not two. Birth is a beginning, death is the end; they are two extreme ends of the...

... things, otherwise change from one to the other would be impossible. One who was alive a moment ago is dead now. So life and death cannot be two separate things, otherwise how can a living man be dead? How can life turn into death? It is our error that we divide everything into two. Our very way of seeing is such that things are divided into two. When one puts this way of seeing aside, when one removes...

... I could sow them next year. Now that I am awake I will just go on witnessing: seeds will sprout, flowers will come, fruits will grow, but I will not gather them. Those fruits will grow and fall off on their own accord and die. My relationship with them will snap. My relationship with them before was of having sown them - now I will not do that again. Thus no further relationship will be formed. So...

... of thought, it is presence of something unknown, mysterious, something very huge. Or, you can experience it in death, if you are alert. People ordinarily die in unconsciousness. Because of the fear of nothingness they become unconscious. If you die consciously... And you can die consciously only if you accept the phenomenon of death, and for that one has to learn for the whole life, prepare. One...

.... When somebody dies it is a great moment to meditate. I always think that each city needs a Death Center. When somebody is dying and his death is very, very imminent he should be moved to the Death Center. It should be a small temple where people who can go deep in meditation should sit around him, should help him to die, and should participate in his being when he disappears into nothing. When...

.... Things die; nothingness is immortal, eternal. If you are identified with anything, you will suffer death. But if you know that you are death, how can you suffer death? Then nothing can destroy you; nothingness is indestructible. A Buddhist parable narrates that the king of hell asked a newly arrived spirit whether during life he had met the three heavenly messengers. And when he answered, "No, my...

... absolutely, totally, it frees you from all dread, from all anguish, from all anxiety, it frees you from SAMSARA... because if you look partly then it creates fear that you are going to die, that you will become a nothing, that soon you will disappear. And naturally you feel nervous, shaken, uprooted. If you look at death totally, then you know you are death, you are made of it. So nothing is going to...

... that you carry about death - they are dangerous. They make you antagonistic to the greatest experience that you need to have. If you miss death you will be born again. Unless you have learned how to die, you will go on being born again and again and again. This is the wheel, samsara, the world. Once you have known the greatest orgasm, then there is no need; you disappear, and you remain in that...

...;What is truth?" Let it become a matter of life and death. And don't try to answer it, because you don't know the answer. Answers may be coming - the mind always tries to supply answers - but see the fact that you don't know, that's why you are asking. So how can your mind supply you an answer? The mind knows not, so tell the mind, "Keep quiet." If you know, then there is no need for...

... things happen. Don't try to manage, don't try to manipulate. Let the breeze pass, let the sunrays come, let life dance, and let death come and have its dance into you too. This is my meaning of sannyas: it is not something that you do, but when you drop all doing and you see the absurdity of doing. Who are you to do? You are just a wave in this ocean. One day you are, another day you will disappear...

... asks, "What effect does nothing produce?" and answers, "It begets dread." Nothing is an actual experience. Either you can experience it in deep meditation, or when death comes. Death and meditation are the two possibilities of experiencing it. Yes, sometimes you can experience it in love too. If you dissolve into somebody in deep love you can experience a kind of nothingness...

... has to love to be ready to die, and one has to meditate to be ready to die. Only a man who has loved and meditated will be able to die consciously. And once you die consciously then there is no need for you to come back, because you have learned the lesson of life. Then you disappear into the whole; that is nirvana. The logical positivists look very logical, but they miss something - because reality...

... inside your being, at the very core. At the very core of life, death exists. Death is the center of the cyclone. In love you come close to that, in meditation you come close to that, in physical death also you come close to that. In deep sleep, when dreams disappear, you come close to it. It is very life-giving, it is life-enhancing. A man who cannot sleep deeply will become ill, because it is only in...

... deep sleep, when he dies into his deepest depth, that he regains life, energy, vitality. In the morning he is again fresh and full of zest, gusto - vibrant, again vibrant. Learn to die! That is the greatest art to be learned, the greatest skill there is. Heidegger's standpoint comes very close to Buddha's, and his language is very modern, that's why I'm quoting him. He says: "Every being, so far...

... illusion: it only appears, it is not there. The solidity of it, the substantiality of it, is all illusion; nothing is substantial, all is flux and energy. Matter is nothing but energy. And when you go deeper into energy, energy is not a thing, it is a no-thing. Death is the point at which knowledge fails, and we become open to being - that has been the Buddhist experience down the ages. Buddha used to...

... send his disciples, when somebody had died, to see the body burning on the funeral pyre: "Meditate there, meditate on the nothingness of life." Death is the point at which knowledge fails, and when knowledge fails, mind fails. And when mind fails, there is a possibility of truth penetrating you. But people don't know. When somebody dies you don't know what to do, you are very embarrassed...

... somebody disappears into nothing great energy is released. The energy that was there, surrounding him, is released. If you are in a silent space around him, you will go on a great trip. No psychedelic can take you there. The man is naturally releasing great energy; if you can absorb that energy, you will also kind of die with him. And you will see the ultimate - the source and the goal, the beginning and...

..., which is no more, or you can answer out of the future, which you are not yet. But who are you right in this moment? A nobody, a nothingness. This nothingness is the very core, the heart - the heart of your being. Death is not the ax that cuts down the tree of life, it is the fruit that grows on it. Death is the very substance you are made of. Nothingness is your very being. Attain to this nothingness...

... either through love or meditation, and go on having glimpses of it. This is what Nagarjuna means by shunya. This is what Buddha transferred that day when he delivered the Flower Sermon. This is what Mahakashyapa understood when he laughed. He saw nothingness, and the purity of it, the innocence of it, the primal innocence of it, the radiance of it, the immortality of it - because nothingness cannot die...

... Lord, I did not," he asked whether he had ever seen an old man bent with age, or a poor and friendless sick man, or a dead man? Buddhists call these three 'the messengers of God': old age, sickness, death - three messengers of God. Why? - because only through these experiences in life do you become aware of death. And if you become aware of death and you start learning how to go into it, how to...

... welcome it, how to receive it, you are released from the bondage, from the wheel of life and death. Heidegger says, and so does S??ren Kierkegaard, that nothingness creates dread. That is only half of the story. Because these two people are just philosophers, that's why it creates dread. If you ask Buddha, Mahakashyapa, Nagarjuna, if you ask me, death looked at only partially creates dread; looked at...

... disappear, nothing is going to remain. Only nothingness is. Buddhism is not a pessimistic religion as has been thought by many people. Buddhism is the way to get rid of both optimism and pessimism, to get rid of duality. Start meditating on death. And whenever you feel death close by, go into it through the door of love, through the door of meditation, through the door of a man dying. And if some day you...

... are dying - and the day is going to come one day - receive it in joy, benediction. And if you can receive death in joy and benediction, you will attain to the greatest peak, because death is the crescendo of life. Hidden in it is the greatest orgasm, because hidden in it is the greatest freedom. Death is making love to God, or God making love to you. Death is cosmic, total orgasm. So drop all ideas...

... with one's birth, so we are all going to die. All that can be done is in how we die. Death cannot be avoided, nobody can avoid it; that is the only thing in life which is inevitable. So it is useless to think to avoid it. The only thing which can be done and which is of great significance is how to go through it, how to live it, how to live one's death. Live meditatively, live lovingly, take it as a...

... gift, and you will be surprised: death will reveal to you more than life has given. Your death can become your satori. And I have been very happy that you have been accepting things so easily, so relaxedly.... I am with you, and I am going to make this death far more valuable than life itself. There are people who live and live in vain; and there are people who die but who die in such an artistic way...

... possible through that acceptance. Even if death comes one has to accept it joyously, as a gift from god. That is the way we can transform even the nature of death; that's the way to transcend death. Death is going to come to everybody. It makes not much difference when; when is irrelevant. Today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow - time is not of any significance. Death comes, death has already come...

..., with such skill. with such awareness, that even death becomes a blessing. So if it comes, it comes; that is nothing to be worried about. Never pay a single thought to it.... Just enjoy and be happy. And because days are few one has to live very intensely and joyously. Others can afford... they will be living for a few more years so they can afford to waste life; You can't afford to. You have to live...

... arithmetic -- and your life can become a holy life. According to me, if you are living joyously, you are a holy man. Only one thing you have to do: die to the past so that you can be reborn in a fresh present and a free future. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, IS THERE ANOTHER WAY WITHOUT DEATH AND INSECURITY? There is no death in the first place. Death is an illusion. It is always somebody else who dies; you...

... never die. It means death has always been seen from the outside, it is the outsider's view. Those who have seen their inner world are unanimous in saying that there is no death. Because you don't know what constitutes your consciousness; it is not constituted of breathing, it is not constituted of heartbeats, it is not constituted of blood circulation. So when the doctor says that a man is dead, it is...

..., their overflowing energy, is enough meaning, is enough significance. They are still capable of love. They are still capable of a dance, a song, a celebration. Death has not overshadowed their lives yet. The moment a person starts asking, "What is the meaning of life?" it means he has become old -- it does not matter at what age. His question emphatically shows that he has lost touch with...

... rainbows have disappeared ... no sunrises at all. It seems the night is eternal. It seems that he must have dreamt about the days when he had seen the light; they were not real. Old age, when death is just standing close to you, creates the question, "What is the meaning of life?" But when you are alive, when death is far away beyond the horizon of your vision, who cares about the meaning of...

... an outsider's conclusion; all that he is saying is, "This man is no longer breathing, his pulse has stopped, his heart is not beating." Are these three things equivalent to death? They are not. Consciousness is not your body, nor your mind, nor your heart. So when a person dies, he dies for you, not for himself. For himself he simply changes the house, perhaps moves into a better...

... definition yet of what constitutes death. It can simply say that "This man is no longer breathing. His heart has stopped. His pulse is no longer functioning." To conclude that he is dead is going beyond what you are seeing. But because science does not have any idea of consciousness, the death of the body becomes the death of the being. Those who have known the being ... and it is not necessary...

... for it that you should die and then you know; you can just go inside. That's what I call meditation -- just go inside and find out what is your center, and at your center there is no breathing, there is no heartbeat, there is no thought, no mind, no heart, no body, and still you are. Once a person has experienced himself -- that he is not the body, not the mind, not the heart, but pure awareness...

... -- he knows there is no death for him, because he does not depend on the body. Awareness has no dependence on blood circulation. It does not depend on whether the heart beats or not, it does not depend on whether the mind functions or not. It is a totally different world; it is not constituted of any material thing, it is immaterial. So the first thing to understand is that there is no death -- it has...

... never been found. And if there is no death, what insecurity can there be? For an immortal life there can be no insecurity. Your immortality is not dependent on your bank balance; the beggar is as immortal as the emperor. As far as people's consciousnesses are concerned, that is the only world where true communism exists: they all have equal qualities, and they don't have anything that can be lost or...

... taken away. They don't have anything that can be destroyed, burned. There is no insecurity. All insecurity is a shadow of death. If you look deeply, then every insecure feeling is rooted in the fear of death. But I am saying to you that there is no death; hence there cannot be any insecurity. You are immortal beings, amritasya putrah. That's what the seers in the ancient East have said: You are the...

..., absolutely equal, eternal. There is no insecurity. There is no need for any other path -- and anyway, there is no other path. Life is the path which passes through the illusory gate of death. You can pass the gate consciously. If you are meditative enough, then you can go through death knowing perfectly that you are changing the house; you can enter another womb knowing perfectly that you are entering the...

... new apartment -- and it is always better, because life is always evolving. And if you can die consciously, then certainly your new life will be on a very high level, from the very beginning. And I don't see any insecurity. You come into the world without anything, so one thing is certain: nothing belongs to you. You come absolutely naked, but with illusions. That's why every child is born with...

... closed hands, fists, believing that he is bringing treasures -- and those fists are just empty. And everybody dies with open hands. Try to die with fists -- nobody has been successful up to now. Or try to be born with open hands -- nobody has been successful in that either. The child is born with fists, with illusions that he is bringing treasures into the world, but there is nothing in the fist...

... die, she is going to die. You will unnecessarily put me in trouble ... paying the fee to the doctor for the medicine, this and that. I am a religious man, and if she is not going to die she will recover without any doctor. The real doctor is God, nobody else. And I believe in God because he never asks for a fee or anything." The wife died. His friend said, "Look, just for a little money...

... you didn't call a doctor." He said, "Little money? Money is money; it is never a question of a little. And death comes to everybody." The friend was a little angry. He said, "This is too much. I am also a miser, but if my wife is dying at least I will call a pharmacist -- but I will call somebody. But you are really hard. What are you going to do with all this money?" He...

... said, "I am going to take it with me." The friend said, "Nobody has ever heard of it." He said, "But nobody has ever tried." That too was true. He said, "Just see. I have my own plan -- I will take everything with me." The friend said, "Just tell me your secret, because some day I will have to die also, and you are such a friend." He said, "...

... drowned -- so you have taken it. Try! Nobody has tried. If you don't succeed there is no harm, because everybody goes without it. If you succeed, then you will be the pioneer, the first one who reaches paradise with his whole bag of money. And all those saints will be looking with wide-open eyes -- `This man has done something!'" But the friend said, "That means you have to die." He said...

... belongs to you, because you bring nothing here and you can take nothing from here. Life is the only way. Death is the only illusion to be understood. If you can live fully, totally, understanding death as an illusion -- not because I am saying it, but by your own experience in deep meditation -- then live life fully, as totally as possible, without any fear. There is no insecurity, because even death is...

... ready to move out of the house. Somebody has a temperature of 98 degrees, the normal temperature for human beings, but somebody falls below 96 degrees, again ready for a move. Your existence is not very big, just between degrees. Sixteen degrees ... below is death, above is death; just a small slit in between, a small window of life. If we could have a thermometer for light and darkness, the situation...

... next time the desire will arise but it will not have any effect on you. You will simply drop it, because it does not work. Now you have to go the whole way, whatever it means. It may mean the death of the ego, of the personality; then you have to take the risk. If you had not come to me you would have continued to enjoy my words, because it was just borrowed knowledge for you. And here I want you to...

... death," that's another matter. But the truth is not to console you; truth is as it is. The truth is that death has two possibilities. If you die with longing, desiring, then it brings you back into another body, because without a body you cannot make any effort to fulfill your desires. Without the body you cannot eat food, you cannot make love; without the body you cannot become the prime...

... anymore, there will be no other births. Then where do you go? You don't fall asleep. In fact to attain to a state of seedless samadhi one has to be absolutely awake, one has to be a buddha, because the seeds of desire are burned only in the fire of awakening. So if you die without any desire, you die in utter awareness, you see death happening. And remember again, by "death" I mean you see the...

.... Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. The first question: Question 1: BELOVED MASTER, WHEN I AM DEAD, AM I REALLY DEAD? I WANT TO BE REALLY CONVINCED THAT DEATH IS ETERNAL SLEEP. Ram Jethmalani, death is the greatest illusion. It has never happened, it can't happen in the very nature of things. Yes, there is something which creates the illusion: death is a disconnection between the body and the soul but...

... only a disconnection; neither the body dies nor the soul. The body cannot die because it is already dead; it belongs to the world of matter. How can a dead thing die? And the soul cannot die because it belongs to the world of eternity, God - it is life itself. How can life die? Both are together in us. This connection becomes disconnected; the soul becomes unplugged from the body - that's all that...

... death is, what we call death. The body moves back to matter, to the earth; and the soul, if it still has desires, longings, starts seeking another womb, another opportunity to fulfill them. Or if the soul is finished with all desires, with all longings, then there is no longer any possibility of its coming back into a bodily form - then it moves into eternal consciousness. Moving into eternal...

... the universal consciousness, yet - and this is the paradox - - his individuality is not lost, his consciousness is not lost. So, Ram, I cannot say that death is eternal sleep - on the contrary, it is eternal awakening. Poets have been telling you down the ages: Death is eternal sleep - don't be afraid. They themselves know not, they are simply giving you consolation. But what can the difference be...

... between real death and eternal sleep? Have you ever thought about it? If sleep is eternal it is death. If it is never going to be broken then where is the difference? A corpse and an eternally asleep man are exactly the same. If the sleep is going to be forever and forever, it is death. The primitive people are far closer to the truth: they say that sleep is a small death. They are right, because for a...

... few hours you become completely oblivious to the world, to others, to yourself, to your body. You become completely disconnected for a few hours, then you are reconnected again. It is a small death. Sleep is a small death but not vice versa: death is not eternal sleep; if it were then what would the difference be, Ram? If you simply want to console yourself that, "I will be eternally asleep in...

..., that it is because of our unintelligence that we go on being victims of desires; if you have seen it through and through and you die with no projection in the mind, with no seed of desire, then all seeds are burned. It is because of this that Patanjali has called the ultimate state of samadhi, NIRBEEJ samadhi, seedless samadhi - if you can die with all the seeds burned, there will be no sprout...

... the body, the subtle part, the invisible part. If we are identified with the bodymind mechanism, then certainly this identification is going to die. Ram Jethmalani is bound to die, but there is something in Ram Jethmalani which is not going to die. You have to become aware of it. And the only way to become aware of it is to be more meditative, to be more of a witness. Start watching your body, start...

... watching your mind; don't get involved, remain aloof, distant, cool. Just as one sits on the bank of a river and watches the river flow by. You don't say, "I am the river." So it is with the body, watch it. Become more and more of a witness. And as witnessing grows and becomes integrated, you will be able to see Ram Jethmalani disappearing even before death. In meditation the ego dies, the ego...

... disappears. Once the ego has disappeared, once you have seen yourself as an egoless entity, then there is no death for you. We can say it in another way: it is the ego that creates the illusion of death. And ego itself is false, hence death too is false. We cling to the false, that's why we have to suffer from death. Sannyas means to become disidentified from the bodymind mechanism - becoming a witness, a...

... alive, in a sense you are dead. Ashtavakra, one of the greatest seers of this country, says: The sannyasin is one who is dead even while he is alive. But the person who is dead while he is alive will be alive when he is dead. You also ask me, "I want to be really convinced that death is eternal sleep." Ram, convictions can't help much, because conviction means somebody else silencing your...

... doubts, repressing your doubts, somebody else becoming an authority for you. Maybe logically he is more argumentative, maybe he has a great rational mind and he can convince you that there is no death, and you may be silenced and your doubts may be silenced. But even the doubts that have been silenced will come back again, sooner or later, because they have not disappeared - they have only been...

.... I have traveled the path: I can take your hand in my hand, I can take you, slowly slowly, to the highest peak of meditative experience. Your own experience will be a real transformation; then doubts can never come back again. And when YOU have known, you will be surprised that all the poets who have been telling you that death is sleep, deep sleep, eternal sleep, have been telling you lies...

...: there is no death. I am not saying to you, "Believe that there is no death." I am simply expressing, sharing my experience that there is no death. It is a challenge! It is not an effort to convince you, it is a challenge to come and explore. You are welcome. Think of me as your home! The second question: Question 2: BELOVED MASTER, I HAVE FELT A DEEP SADNESS ALL DAY LONG STEMMING FROM YOUR...

... understand rightly they will serve the future and not the past. They will help you to become more harmonious with yourself rather than become adjusted to an ill society which is just on its deathbed. That is where my work differs: I don't help you to become adjusted to society. This society is bound to die, it is doomed to die, and the sooner it happens, the better, because it has become ugly. To go on...

... protect somebody against death you have to protect him against life, because life leads to death. So don't live if you are afraid to die - this is simple logic - don't be alive if you are afraid to die; then cut all the dimensions where life exists. Then you can simply vegetate. Jesus cannot call a vegetative life blessed, nobody can say that a vegetative life is blessed. That is the greatest misfortune...

..., is going to die - it belongs to death; and something in you, your awareness, is not going to die, it is deathless, it belongs to life. That's why suffering can give you the key to life. JESUS SAID: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE. These are techniques: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE.... In you there is one who is a living one and one who...

... LONG AS YOU LIVE.... Whenever you have a moment of silence, close your eyes and look within so that your neck remains flexible; otherwise, at the moment of death you will be paralyzed. You would like to see the eternal life, but you will not be able to because you cannot turn back. ... LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE. And he is there within you, but you become fixed, you become...

... you become aware of a different dimension within you. The visible belongs to death, the invisible belongs to the deathless. Jesus says: YOU YOURSELVES, SEEK A PLACE FOR YOURSELVES IN REPOSE - seek a state of silence, repose, tranquility, balance, where you can become aware of the living one - LEST YOU BECOME A CORPSE AND BE EATEN. JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL...

... goal? Ordinarily, that one who is going to die is your goal. That's why you are always in anxiety, because you are building a house on sands. It is going to fall - even before it is built it will fall and become a ruin. You are always trembling because you are making your signature on water - before you have completed it, it is gone. Your anxiety is because you are concerned with the realm of death...

.... Conversion means the movement of attention from the death realm to the life realm. It is an about-turn: looking at the witness, becoming one with the witness, losing yourself into the witness, into awareness, and then you know that which is going to die will die. It makes no trouble, no problem, and you know you are not going to die so there is no fear. JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE...

...: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. THE FOURTEENTH SAYING JESUS SAID: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE. JESUS SAID: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE. THEY SAW A SAMARITAN CARRYING A LAMB ON HIS WAY TO JUDEA. HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: WHY DOES THIS MAN CARRY THE LAMB...

... WITH HIM? THEY SAID TO HIM: IN ORDER THAT HE MAY KILL IT AND EAT IT. HE SAID TO THEM: AS LONG AS IT IS ALIVE HE WILL NOT EAT IT, BUT ONLY IF HE HAS KILLED IT AND IT HAS BECOME A CORPSE. THEY SAID: OTHERWISE HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT. HE SAID TO THEM: YOU YOURSELVES, SEEK A PLACE FOR YOURSELVES IN REPOSE LEST YOU BECOME A CORPSE AND BE EATEN. JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE...

..., junk from the past. Either he is dead or deadly sick, on his deathbed. But if the whole is dead, how can the fragment be meaningful? If the whole is out-of-date, how can the part be new, fresh and young? If the whole tree is dead, then any leaf of the tree, if it thinks it is alive, is simply stupid. It may take a little more time for the leaf to die, but if the tree is dead the leaf has to die - it...

... - he will be an idiot. And you can never say that he is blessed. Only one who has never tried to live, who has been avoiding life, can remain without suffering. That's why, in very very rich families, only idiots are born, because they are protected so much. And when you protect somebody so much it is not protection against death, it is protection against life. But this is the problem: if you want to...

... commit mistakes at all, because he is never going to do anything. You only commit a mistake when you do something. You can go astray if you seek and search, if you walk on the path. If you are simply sitting at home, how can you go astray? If you don't do anything you will never commit a mistake, you will be a mistakeless man, but you will never move; by and by you will simply rot, vegetate and die...

... will is going to be wrong." Then he relaxed, then there was a letgo, the final surrender. At the moment of death, he accepted death also. In that acceptance, he became life eternal - the key was found. That's why he says: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE. Whenever you suffer, next time don't complain, don't create an anguish out of it. Rather, watch it, feel it, see it...

... mother's blood circulated in him, he had no independence, he was just part of her. For nine months he remained as part of the mother, organically joined, one. The mother's life was his life, the mother's death would have been his death. Even afterwards it goes on: a transfer of energy, a communication of energy exists. Whenever there is suffering, become aware; then the bridge is broken, then there is no...

..., accumulate it within and then close your eyes and meditate on it. Then the bridge will be broken. This is what Jesus means when he says: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED - this is the technique for suffering: use suffering as a method - HE HAS FOUND LIFE. Suffering belongs to the realm of death, awareness belongs to the realm of life. Break the bridge and you will know that something in you, around you...

... is already dead. In you two worlds meet, the world of matter and the world of spirit - you exist on the boundary. In you two realms meet, the realm of death and the realm of life - you exist in between. If you pay too much attention to that which belongs to death you will always remain afraid, suffering, fearful. If you pay attention to your center, which belongs to life, to eternal life, to...

... immortality, fear will disappear. Jesus says: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.... Don't miss, because at the moment of death it will be very, very difficult to look upon the living one. If for your whole life you have been attentive to the realm of death - the realm of things, the realm of matter and the world - if you have been attentive only to the realm of death, it will be difficult, almost...

... become accustomed and you will be able to see. There is no intense light, just diffused light, because it is not generated by a sun. It is just your natural light, not generated by anything else. It is your own light, your own inner aura - it is there. Whenever you can find time, don't waste it. And then you will find moments enough: just going to sleep, look in; the day is past, the world of death is...

... come back from the world of sleep. These moments are very good. In the evening you are tired of the world, you are fed up with the world, you are ready to look to something else. In the morning you have rested and the rest helps, you can look towards the inner. This is what Jesus says: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE. And he will be...

... body will disappear every day. Where is that body going? Every day you have to fill it with food - it is a byproduct of food. So when you die, what will happen to your body? The world will use it as food: the worms of the earth will eat you, or the birds of the sky will eat you. It just gives you a fear, you become apprehensive that, "I will be eaten." Because of this, all the world over...

... are the tree. Jesus says the same thing with a different symbol: TWO WILL REST ON A BED - YOU ARE THE BED - TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE. YOU ARE THE BED, TWO ARE THERE: ... THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE. Now the whole question is to whom the attention should be paid. Towards whom should you move, towards whom should your whole energy flow? Who should become your...

.... Whenever you can find a peaceful moment close your eyes, leave the body behind and the bodily affairs and the world of death; the market, the office, the wife, the children - leave them all. The first time you will not feel anything inside. Hume has said, "Many people have talked about going in and looking there. Whenever I look, I find nothing - just thoughts, desires, dreams, floating here and...

... blueness; between two dreams, two thoughts, sometimes there will be a glimpse of the sky behind. Just don't be in a hurry. That's why they say that if you hurry you will miss. There is one Zen saying which says, "Hurry slowly." That's right! Hurry, that's right, because you are going to die - in that sense hurry. But inside, if you are in too much of a hurry you will miss, because you will...

... extraordinary, then nothing will happen. If you are waiting, expecting that some enlightenment is going to happen, you will miss it. Don't expect. All expectations belong to the world of death, the dimension of time and space. No goal belongs to the inner. There is no way to it except by waiting, infinite patience. Jesus has said, "Watch and be patient." And one day, suddenly you are illumined. One...

... aware of death, who has begun to remember death. He is one who knows that this world is a campground where we pitch a tent for a short while. When the knowledge of death dawns a transformation takes place. Except for man there is no religion, for among the birds and animals there is no knowledge of death. They also die, but they are not aware of that fact because consciousness is needed to see death...

... and Shiva are the names of the three faces. When the One descends into creation, He becomes three. Another very astonishing fact is that the meaning given to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva by the Hindus coincides with the meanings the scientists have given to electron, neutron and proton. In the whole process of creation, birth is necessary and also a giver of birth. Then the one who is born must die, so...

... death is necessary and also a giver of death. Then there is bound to be a period of time between birth and death, so there should be a protector or guardian, also. So Brahma is the birth factor, the creator, Vishnu is the protector, and Shiva the destroyer. Electron, neutron and proton have the same qualities: one of them protects, through another there is birth and the third brings about destruction...

..., dreams will be lost. As soon as dreams are lost, you go into meditation even in sleep; you reach samadhi. Begin with dreams and you find that the whole world is a dream. The world is a dream seen with open eyes because our habits die hard - we get involved in the things we see. This involvement is so intense that we forget ourselves, forget the observer. Our consciousness works in only one direction...

... birth to samsara, the world, so he is not considered worthy of worship. Shiva's temples are found everywhere. No other deity is worshipped as much as Shiva. In every village, in every lane you will find a Shiva temple. Under trees you will find stones that are revered as Shiva. This is because with Shiva the world comes to an end. He is the deity of death, and hence worthy of worship. Brahma gives...

... looks after the world; therefore, those who want to live in the world worship him. Shiva is the end. He is the supreme death. He is the deity of the sannyasins. Therefore there are so many temples of Shiva. The smallest village is not without its Shiva temple. And because it is the temple of the sannyasin it has to be made as cheaply as possible. You do not need great funds for a Shiva temple. find a...

... rounded stone and it becomes the Shivalinga, the symbol of Shiva. You do not even need flowers; a few leaves off the woodapple tree, that is all. Temples to Vishnu are elaborate affairs that a millionaire can afford, but who is to erect temples in honor of the lord of death? Certainly not those who cling to life and the world, so Shiva's temples had to be cheap constructions. These three deities are the...

... three threads of life: birth, life and death. Remember, birth has already taken place, so what need is there to worship Brahma? What has already happened is a closed chapter; there is nothing more to do about it. Life still is; therefore some are absorbed in the worship of Vishnu. But these are not very wise people, for life is ebbing away every moment. Unless the knowledge of death descends into your...

... life, sannyas cannot enter your life; you will remain a worldly man. What is the difference between a sannyasin and a worldly man? A sannyasin understands that all life ends in death; all being ultimately ends up in nonbeing; that which is formed also decays and disintegrates; that which is decorated becomes desolate one day; the house that is built falls one day. A sannyasin is one who has become...

...; this they do not have. Also, among human beings you are just an animal if you do not have a clear perception of death. As you become aware of the end, what you value in life changes. What was important until yesterday seems worthless today. What was meaningful up to now becomes meaningless as soon as awareness of death occurs. Many dreams were dreamt, many hopes were pinned on the rainbow of desires...

..., but when death knocks at the door these fall like a house of cards. Death gives the first knock the very day you are born. The day Brahma started his work, Shiva started his also, but we are not aware of it. If you do become conscious of this fact, the very awareness brings about a conversion within you: you turn back towards your source, your direction changes. Then you do not aim towards samsara...

... for you see nothing but death there. Instead you turn towards yourself, and to proceed towards one's own self is to walk in the direction of God. The shock of death reminds you of God. God is forgotten to him who does not remember death. Many times you have died, many times you have been born, but you are still oblivious of death. Remember death. Make it your focal point in life, for there is...

... nothing more certain than death. Everything else in life is uncertain. Keeping this certainty at your core, set out on the journey of life and you will find that you have begun to proceed from the many to the three. Nanak says that God directs the three according to His own will and order. Remember, whatever you do, good deeds or bad, sin or virtue, whether you go closer to God or further away, whether...

... or unsuccessful. At the time of death all events pass before a man like a dream. Did we really live, or was it only a dream? Those who have known say, "This is a dream dreamed with open eyes." It is a dream because it has no relation to that which is. This is an intermediary state of imagination; it is merely a thought. It makes no difference whether you saw it when asleep or when awake...

.... The characteristic of a dream is that it is here one moment and gone the next. At the time of death all is lost. Within this dream you see another dream that is called the ego. You consider yourself the doer, the author of the dreams. You are filled with conceit, which all the world can see; only you do not see it. Everyone else is in the same state, never seeing their own, but seeing everyone...

... stone-blind. It is a dream within a dream that I am. Samsara is maya. The object world is illusion. And within this illusion you have the feeling of I-ness. The dream also has a dream and that is the difficulty. The day you encounter death, the I is the first casualty. How will you stand with regard to death? How will you save yourself? If the breath stops what will you do? All your power, your...

... strength, fails before death. This is why we make such efforts not to remember death. If we do remember death our conceit cannot stand up. It falls limp when we confront ourselves helpless before death. Our arrogance cannot accept it. I - a helpless person? I, who am so strong, so powerful; how can I be helpless? So it is best to suppress the fact of death, and then the ego is not hurt! The wise man...

... remembers death. In the face of death one is always defeated, even the greatest conquerors: not Hitler nor Alexander nor Napoleon has won against death. Therefore we try to hide the fact of death. We hold on to the ego, which is false, and forget death, which is a reality. If you are determined to go towards the one, remember death, for death is a very great truth, and the powerful effect of this truth is...

...." He brought the skull home. The disciples pleaded with him and argued that it should be thrown away. Who keeps a skull in the house? Why don't we keep a skull in the house? We should give it a place of prominence. What better relic can there be? Nothing is more effective than a skull to remind you of death. Keep it on your dressing table so that you can see your face in the mirror and the skull...

... about by beggars and no one will care even to ask forgiveness, and I shall be unable to do anything about it. The skull is very much there in my head. I keep this skull so that even if you beat me on the head with a shoe, I shall not look at you but at the skull. Then I shall smile, for I know this was to happen one day. This was bound to be. How long shall I save my skull?" When death becomes an...

... absolute fact the ego is dissolved. Remembrance of death is like poison to the ego. As long as ego persists you cannot awaken. No sooner does death become visible, the ego breaks, because then you understand that all happens according to His will, that you are not the doer. BUT GOD DIRECTS THEM BY HIS WILL AND HIS ORDER. HE WATCHES THEM BUT THEY CANNOT SEE HIM; THAT IS THE WONDER OF WONDERS. Nanak says...