... most dangerous myth ever evolved by the priests and the politicians: that man is already on the earth. These millions of people on the earth are just possibilities; and unfortunately, the majority of them are never going to become actual; unfortunately, many of them will die as machines. What do I mean when I say man is a machine? I mean that man lives out of the past. Man lives out of a dead...

.... Death is coming closer. And because of death coming closer, either you become spiritual or you become more sexual. These are the only two defences: either you turn in search of truth, of the eternal, which will have no death, or you start drowning yourself in more erotic fantasies. And particularly intellectuals, those who have lived their whole lives through the head, are more victims at the age of...

... forty-five. Then the sexuality takes revenge. It has been denied; now death is coming closer. and then one never knows whether you will be here again or not, whether life will be there or not. Death is coming here and you have lived a life of the head. Sexuality erupts with a vengeance. Carl Gustav Jung fell in love with a young woman. Now, it was very much against his prestige. The wife was disturbed...

... not there. In fact, whenever a religion is REALLY there, youth is attracted; when truth is there, youth is attracted. When there are only lies left, doctrines, dogmas, creeds, then old people come. When youth is attracted, that means truth is young and youth is attracted. When truth is old, almost dead, then dead people are attracted. Old people are attracted only because of the fear of death. In...

... old age, even atheists become theists... afraid. When a young man is attracted towards something it is not because of the fear of death, because he does not know any death yet; it is because of tremendous love for life. And that is the difference between real religion and unreal religion. Unreal religion is fear-oriented; real religion is love-oriented. You must have heard, in all the languages of...

... fight. LIKE SALT SEA WATER THAT TURNS SWEET WHEN DRUNK UP BY THE CLOUDS... You cannot drink the salt sea water; it is so salty, it is all salt. You will die if you drink the salty sea water. But when a cloud comes and draws the water from the sea, it turns sweet - and then you can drink it. Saraha says: Samadhi is like a cloud, meditative energy is like a cloud, which turns your sexuality into higher...

... discontented. Whatsoever happens he remains the same, contented. Success or failure, life or death, friends or no friends, lovers or no lovers - it makes no difference. His tranquility, his stillness, is utterly absolute. He is centered. IF INEFFABLE, NEVER IS ONE UNSATISFIED... If that which cannot be said has happened, then there is only one way to know it and that way is to see the contentment. IF...

... on the canvas. It is the statue hidden in the stone which has not been carved out with the chisel. Bhajan is the visible statue. The stone has been cut, the chisel has done the work. Bhajan is the song which is being sung. A friend came to see Rabindranath when he was about to die, just two days before his death. He said, "Yours has been a very successful life. There is nothing to worry about...

... truth had become old by the time Shankara was born. Time does not forgive anyone and covers everything with dust. The thing which is new today will become old tomorrow, the newborn baby of today will become old tomorrow; today he is being welcomed into this world, tomorrow goodbye will be said to him when he dies. Just as men are born and die, in the same way religions are born and die. With time...

... because of fear. Death scares a man. A rope on the road always appears to be a snake. But this was just the opposite: Tulsidas thought the snake to be the rope. He caught hold of it and climbed! He did not realize it even by the touch; he must have been absolutely unconscious. Passion must have made him mad. Seeing his condition his wife said, "If you had loved God the way you love me, then by now...

... lose your temper. If anything valuable of yours breaks and you remember that this is only a dream, you will not be unhappy. If your wife or husband or son dies, then it will be difficult to remember that this is all a dream, but if you can do so then your agony will disappear. The person who has realized that this is a dream becomes a buddha, a jinna; neither death nor life is able to waver him...

... plants will also die. The two can be separated at the time of the harvest." But this thing did not appeal to the servants. They said that the field should be weeded out soon. The evil should be destroyed as early as possible. They decided to look out for the person who had done the mischief "Who could be an enemy of our master, who is a thorough gentleman?" They tried to find out but...

... or to regret now." Both of them were friends since their childhood and now both of them were old. He said: "You can die peacefully. I did not attain anything in this life, I have wasted it so I will not die peacefully. You have sung so many songs!" Rabindranath has sung six thousand songs. No other poet in this world has sung so many songs. The poet Shelley is very famous in the West...

... but his songs number about three thousand, while Rabindranath's are six thousand, and all these six thousand songs can be put to music. The old friend said, "You were given the Nobel prize; honors have been showered on you, you can die peacefully. Of course I will die without peace but you can thank God while saying goodbye to the world." Rabindranath listened to what his friend was saying...

... you know where you are? This is the cremation ground." Nanak replied, "He who comes here has already died; death is no longer ahead. What you call your house is where you will die in due course. Then which one is to be feared? Is it where people die or where people never die? Besides, if some day you have to come here, it is most unseemly to come riding on four people's shoulders...

...; therefore I came myself." This incident is very significant. Nanak has no quarrel with what has to be. He accepts all that is. Death is to be. Death is welcome. Why trouble others? It is better to come on one's own. But we are always opposed to what will be. Our desire is for it to be different, but Nanak has no such desire. All is His wish! If He wills that Nanak should die, he accepts His wish...

.... It is your sense of doing that turns you away from God. The moment you give up this attitude you will stand face to face with Him, and all opposition ceases. What are your performances that you are so proud of? Neither birth nor death nor life itself is the outcome of your actions. Everything is done by Him, but somehow you acquire this attitude of the doer. And with your sense of doing, when you...

... struggle, and what will be the outcome? You will never arrive, you will only get tired. Observe the face of a worldly man after a whole life's labor - nothing but signs of fatigue. People are dead long before they die, so that at life's end they hanker for rest - at any cost! Why do you tire yourself so? When man gets old he becomes ugly. The animals of the jungle do not become ugly but remain as...

... beautiful as when young. So also the trees; though some are a thousand years old and near death, there is not a grain of difference in their beauty. With each year they grow a little more, and more and more people can rest under their shade. Their beauty increases with every year, and the pleasure of sitting under an old spreading tree is so much more than under a younger tree which has had so much less...

... come to your senses. You still hope to reach without Him. Your ego stands guard behind, telling you not to let a full life's toil go in vain. It is just as if a man builds a house on shaky foundations, perhaps on sand. When the house is nearing completion another man comes and tells him not to enter the house, because it is sure to fall and he may die. Then the mind says, "You have spent so much...

... world of happenings for the sage lively silently and departs in silence." And thus he departed-silently. All that the people know was, that Lao Tzu was and is no more. The happening of death did not take place in the sense that no one saw him die. His last words to some traveller were: "Now I have attained wisdom, therefore, my death shall produce no sound." When the Void walks, there...

... through their presence. This a very silent and serene happening. The sage moves about as if he were naught as if he does not exist. It is an interesting fact that nothing is known of Lao Tzu s death. No one knows when he died, where and how he died. There is however a popular story that the last man to see Lao Tzu, asked him where he was going. Lao Tzu replied, he was returning to where he came from...

.... The man said however, "But people will worry about you; where you have gone and what happened to you?" Lao Tzu said, "When I was born, I was ignorant. So there was a little noise about my birth. Now that I have attained wisdom, there shall be no sound about my death. "The happening of death will not take place, in a way, in my case. There shall be no account of my death in the...

...! What is the reason? It was understood by all because it was the level of the intelligence of the masses. Therefore it could not exist long. But when a Song is really created, tit takes years to decipher its meaning. Many a time, it is understood long after the poet's death. Soren Kierkegaard wrote books. During his life-time, no one heard of them. he was able to publish only one book of which only...

... return for he had no money. He would barter his paintings for a packet of cigarettes. Sixty years after his death when his genius was discovered people delved in to their junk-yards to take out his paintings. Some paintings were recovered from a tea-shop, some from a hotel where he must have had a meal. All these owners of his paintings became millionaires. Each painting drew a sum of five lacs of...

... rupees. Today only 200 of his paintings are available. Vincent Van Gogh was a painter of the highest calibre in the history of man. But it is now that he is acclaimed. In his life-time he went hungry three days in a week. His brother sent him money from which he ate four days in a week and spent the three days allowance to buy painting requisites. He was on the verge of death by the time he was 32 for...

.... We shout ourselves hoarse and yet the message is not conveyed. Then how can we believe that anything can be conveyed without speech? When after so much talk, the message is not conveyed; the same message is repeated to the ends of our lives and still it does not go home! We make so many arrangements and yet we die the beggars we were. Lao Tzu says, "Make no arrangement, do not manage your...

.... But you are not conquering, you are losing ground. Each moment you are losing ground, because truth can only be known through the body! Truth is known by the consciousness but known THROUGH the body. One has to remain rooted in the body. God Himself is rooted in the world. Take a tree out of the soil and it will die. The life of the tree is intertwined with the life of the earth: it needs water, it...

... tree will be finished and the tree will die. Take yourself out of your body and you will die. Your body is your earth. Your body belongs to the earth, it has come from the earth, it is a small earth around you. It nourishes you, it is not your enemy. It is not in the hands of the Devil. There is no Devil: the Devil is a creation of the pathological mind, the Devil is the creation of the paranoid mind...

... motive. That motive is created by the mind. The mind cannot understand anything without the motive; mind is the motive. Even where no motive exists, the mind imposes a motive. Later on, sitting under a tree, relaxing, you will think, "I acted out of the fear motive. I was afraid of death, that's why I jumped." But this is wrong, this is absolutely wrong. There was no death, there was no fear...

.... You simply acted. The act came from intuition, not from thought and intellect. The house was on fire? - you simply rushed out. It was a natural phenomenon, it was a happening. People used to come to Buddha again and again, and they would say, "Yes, whatsoever you say is right, SEEMS right, seems rational, logical. We would also like to get out of this wheel of life and death, but you make...

... things impossible. You say, 'Just jump without any motive, because if you have any motive then you will remain in the vicious circle of life and death. Because all motives are spokes of the wheel, so you will be clinging. If you have any motive, any desire, any goal, any future, you will be creating again and again the same pattern. Just come out of it with no idea.'" People would say, "We...

... who is there to take care? I sleep in the day because the children are awake, my wife is awake, the neighbors are awake, the whole world is awake. If something happens to me it can be taken care of. If I die in the night, then...? If I stop breathing in the night, then...?" He was a madman. But that is exactly what is creating insomnia in the West. People think they cannot fall asleep, that...

... relaxing too much, in being in a let-go too much. It has become very lazy. People go on dying, starving - and they are happy with it, they are not worried about it, they trust God. They adjust to all kinds of ugly situations. They never change anything. They are good sleepers, and they have a certain calm and quietude about them, but their lives are almost like vegetating. Millions of people die every...

... will disappear, the crowd will become one. In that moment you will be one single individual. The word 'individual' means indivisible. You will be undivided, you will be a unity - not only a union but a unity. You will be utterly one. The death facing you has created the intensity. Or in love sometimes.... You fall in love and there is an intensity. All else becomes irrelevant, peripheral. Only the...

... hearing." And people were so mad! They simply took him away. They took him on top of a cliff, they wanted to throw him to his death. They were immensely offended. And Jesus belonged to that place. He was born there, he was brought up there - and that was the problem. People knew him perfectly well: "He is the son of that carpenter, Joseph, and his wife, Mary. And this carpenter's son...

... illness, disease and death as you are. I am human. Once I am gone people will not be offended by me. Then you can fabricate mythologies around me, you can create fictions. And the same people who are offended will become worshippers. This has always been so. Now they say Buddha was an incarnation of God, but what were they saying in his time? Now they say Jesus was a Messiah, half the earth worships him...

... requires courage. In fact a Master is needed just to help you in that gap. When your whole mind says, "Go back, cling to the past. At least you used to know who you are. Now you are losing all identity. You are becoming more and more vague. You are becoming a mist, a cloud. Where are you going? Slowly, slowly you may disappear completely. This may be a death, and not a spiritual birth. Go back...

... milieu of spirituality around the earth, an atmosphere. That is totally different. But nobody is in favor that you should change, because with your change, so many people's investments will be at stake. You say, "I'M IN SUCH A VORTEX. NEVER IN LIFE HAVE I BEEN SO RIPPED APART..." You have never been with a Master. To be with a Master is to learn how to die. Yes, you will be ripped apart. And...

... the paradox is that only in this death will you be born, only this cross will help you to resurrect. You say, "... SO FLUID, SO BEAUTIFULLY INSECURE." I am happy, Amrita, that you are feeling the beauty of insecurity, because there is only one security, and that is of insecurity. All other securities are false, make-believes. There is only one security which is not a make-believe, and that...

.... You eat an apple from a tree - it was outer, then it becomes inner. Then one day you will die and you will fall into the earth and an apple tree will arise on you. And something of you will become the apple, and your grandchildren may eat it. We are all cannibals: we are eating each other. There is no other way to be here. When you eat an apple be respectful... you may be eating your grandfather or...

... there. I am that I am - nothing more can be said about it. And the last question: Question 5: RELIGION IS ETERNAL, YOU SAY, BUT THEN WHY DOES IT GO ON CHANGING? Religion is eternal - religion as the ultimate law of life and existence, as Tao, is eternal. Not as Christianity; Christianity can't be eternal. One day it was born, one day it will have to die. Many religions were born and they are gone...

... the eternal religion. It has taken a body and a shape and a form. Now no shape is eternal, no form is eternal; it will have to die. It is like a child is born to you. The soul is eternal, but this child will have to die. This child has two things in it - the soul, the eternal; and something temporal - the structure, the mechanism. The body cannot be eternal. It has arisen out of the earth, it will...

... interested in the eternal, he is interested in something else. He is ready to compromise with you. These people go on destroying religion. But in the natural course, every religion has to die. The changes that are brought by the rabbis and priests and the ministers are political changes, social changes. They are not religious. They only look at how they can go on holding their flock together. They are...

... to death - if you count life in breaths, there is one breath less. One is not going to die suddenly one day when one is seventy. One dies every day, goes on dying, then one day the whole process is complete and the pendulum swings to the polar opposite. So it is with love and hate. Logic divides. Logic says love is love, hate is hate, and the twain shall never meet. And the twain are always meeting...

..., and the twain shall never meet" - this is a logical statement, but utterly false. West is not West, and East is not East, and the twain have been meeting all along. All polarities are joined together, bridged. That's why you feel I am always talking against logic. Logic makes you feel as if things are divided, absolutely divided, unbridgeably divided. They are not. Birth changes into death...

... - how can they be divided? And the logical mind celebrates when a child is born and weeps when an old man dies. Now, this is logical. But birth and death are two aspects of the same reality - when one aspect arrives you celebrate, when another aspect arrives you cry and weep! How ridiculous! Either weep on both the occasions or celebrate on both the occasions. Or if you cannot do that then forget all...

... about celebration and weeping, just keep quiet. But DON'T make a division - because the day the child is born he starts dying; when you are celebrating he has already started towards death. What are you doing? If he is one day old, he has died one day; there is one day less in his life now. With the first breath of the child something has started dying. He has died one breath, he is one breath closer...

... die of the disease you have. Yours is the tenth case I've treated and all the others died. So you see, you're bound to get well." Now, this is logical stupidity. Life does not follow such rules, life has no obligation to follow them. But on the surface, logic always seems to be true. The diplomat was on his first official visit to the small country of Bubonga. At the official diplomatic party...

... and be free for ever, gives them such great relief. There is no need to really murder, but that night they sleep better. And the wife thinks of committing suicide; sometimes she swallows sleeping-pills. Never too many - because who really wants to die? But even the idea that one is trying to commit suicide helps; for a few days, life flows more rhythmically. At least one has the feeling that one can...

... die and that will give freedom. What kind of a world have we created in which people think of murder and suicide continuously? What kind of nonsense have we done? Divorce seems to be simple. If you are happy with somebody, be with them. If you are not happy with somebody, TRY to create happiness, but if it seems impossible then drop out. At least that will be a friendly act; it will be compassionate...

... to the silence, you can move from the momentary to the eternal. You can move from life/death into that which knows neither life nor death - which is immortal. These moments that I am with you are not to impart any teaching to you - I have none. I am not a teacher, I am a master. A teacher teaches, a master makes it available. A teacher talks about truth, a master IS truth. A teacher gives you ideas...

... religious person is the greatest artist there is. All other artists are just finding substitutes and one day or other they will become frustrated. You have written many poems, then one day you realise,'What is the point? Why go on writing?' You have painted, then one day suddenly you realise,'What is the point? For whom? For what?' One day you will die and all will be left and will disappear. So what is...

... unless you create it you will not have any soul, you will exist empty and you will die empty. You will have to create it, that's why I say great intelligence is needed. This statement must have been made by someone who was very unhappy and yet so egoistic that he could not or would not recognise the fact that it is he who is creating his unhappiness. So he says, 'HAPPINESS IS NOT BEING SMART ENOUGH TO...

... friends with it.' That's how to be intelligent is so difficult and it costs so much. You have to put at stake whatsoever you have. It is a cross. In fact, you have to die to be intelligent because only when you are reborn will you be intelligent, not before it. And the cross has to be carried on one's own shoulders, nobody else can carry your cross. You will have to carry your cross to your own Golgotha...

..., who are you to decide if he is doing right or wrong? It is none of your concern. It is for him to think about. You should only think about whether what you are doing is for you to do. People go to absurd lengths in competition, and people go on dying every day. One day death possesses you, then you remember that your whole life was wasted with fighting others. And it was pointless. You should have...

...: Question 3: OSHO, I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH CHUANG TZU, WITH JOSHU, WITH MUMON, WITH BODHIDHARMA. HOW CAN I NOT FOLLOW THEM? I FEEL ALREADY THEY HAVE TRANSFORMED ME. HOW CAN I NOT BE THANKFUL? Let me tell you one anecdote first. When Rabbi Nor, Rabbi Moudekai's son, assumed the succession after his father's death, his disciples noted that there were a number of ways in which he conducted himself...

... is religious; duty is social. Love is spiritual; duty is moral. Love is of the transcendental; duty is legal. You serve your mother because you say,'This is my duty.' Better not serve her, leave her and let her die, but don't call it duty, it is ugly. If it is love, from where does this word 'duty' come in? Duty is something forced upon you; reluctantly you have to do it, it is a social obligation...

..., a commitment. It is because she is your mother that you have to do it -- not because of love. If you love her then you serve her, but then service has a fragrance. You are not burdened, deep down you are not thinking about when she is going to die, deep down you are not planning that when she dies you will be finished with this burden. You are flowing, flowing while you are serving her; you are...

.... Father Loran was delivering his Sunday sermon.'Someday' he said,'every man in this parish will die.' Suddenly the priest heard MacLean laughing in the third row, but he continued.'As I was saying, every man in this parish will die.' Again MacLean began chortling. Father Loran looked at him and said,'Why, why do you laugh when I say everyone in this parish will die someday?' 'Ha Ha!' exclaimed MacLean...

..., they never make any effort to succeed in anything -- their life is not life at all. They are dead before their death. They die many times before they really die. Their whole life is nothing but a gradual death. Live, and live intensely, and don't take it as a personal offence if somebody cannot love you -- there is no necessity. You were ready, you were available. If the other is not willing, that is...

... all over the world the coward ages of the past have decided for marriage instead of love, because if people were left open to love, very few people would be able to love. Most would die without love; they would live and drag out their lives without love. Because love is dangerous.... The moment you start moving towards somebody else you are coming close to colliding with another world. Who knows if...

..., always away from here. Only by doing so can I reach my destination.' 'And so you know your destination?' he asked. 'Yes,' I answered. 'Did not I say so? Away from here -- that's my destination.' 'You have no provisions with you, ' he said. 'I need none,' I said. 'The journey is so long that I must die of hunger if I don't get anything along the way. No provisions can save me because the journey is so...

... totally and attachment does not arise; love partially and attachment arises. Live totally and you are not afraid of death; live partially and you are afraid of death. But forget the word 'perfection'. It is one of the most criminal words. This word should be dropped from all the languages of the world, it should be dropped from the human mind. Nobody has ever been perfect and nobody can ever be. Can't...

... were, the world would be dead by now. Once something is perfect, death happens because there is no future, there is no way. Trees are still growing, babies are still born -- things continue. And he goes on improving. Can't you see the improvement? He goes on improving on everything. That's the meaning of evolution: things are being improved. Monkeys have become man -- that's an improvement. Then man...

... going to do anything in the future, no -- because again the same mind will be there and it will say tomorrow, tomorrow. You will die and you will not do anything, you will only think. And that thinking helps you to keep face: you don't feel lazy because you think so much of doing, doing great things always, dreaming about great things and not doing the small things that are really to be done right now...

..., poisoning you. Anger is either expressed, then it poisons your relationships with people, or it is repressed, then it poisons your own being. And slowly slowly, you find yourself in such a state in which many people would like to die; many people contemplate suicide for the simple reason that life is so painful and death seems to be a relief. Millions of people around the earth contemplate suicide - many...

... joyously, because it has been such a beautiful opportunity to grow, to mature, to become aware. It has been such a joy to create a few things and share those things with people; otherwise you live in sorrow and you die in sorrow. ANGER IS LIKE A CHARIOT CAREERING WILDLY. HE WHO CURBS HIS ANGER IS THE TRUE CHARIOTEER. OTHERS MERELY HOLD THE REINS. If you look at people or at yourself, you will find that...

...;Look mate, we are at the railway station," said the cabby. "Thanks," murmured the drunk, handing over a five-dollar bill. "And next time, don't drive so bloody fast." The taxi had not moved even an inch. Your life may remain exactly where it was when you were born. It may not move even an inch. Millions die exactly as they are born. No growth happens, no flowering comes to...

... love you, and I will love you forever." And these are all recorded things that he has been saying to every woman he meets. The moment he sees a woman something triggers in him and he starts talking poetically and saying, "I love you and I will die without you." I have heard of a psychoanalyst who was very much puzzled. He was in love with a woman, but the woman was a little strange...

... treasure and we don't have anything. People will not be thankful to you, in fact they will never be able to forgive you. They may crucify you, they may stone you to death. Hence Buddha reminds you again: remember, don't expect anything, otherwise anger will be natural. If you expect even gratefulness from people and they don't show any gratefulness - on the contrary, they show great ungratefulness - you...

... relaxation. Buddha taught his disciples how to relax. In the East, particularly, in the science of yoga, there is a special posture, SHAVASANA. This is the posture: lie down on the ground as if you are dead. Let the body slowly slowly die. Start from the feet. In fact, communicate with your body; say to the feet, "Die, please die." And then go on upwards. A psychoanalyst had told one of his...

... won't help. Hence Buddha does not say to relax, to go to sleep, because then you can wake up and you can call everybody else to wake up. He says, "Feel dead. Let the body die for the moment, as if you are just a corpse." You cannot do anything. An ant starts crawling on you; you can't do anything. And it is really a great experience, to feel like a corpse, and the ant crawling on your face...