... day, another time they may be back again, in some other form, on some other tree. They will dance again; they will sing again; they will rejoice the moment. Existence knows only a circular change from birth to death, from death to birth, and it is an eternal process. Every birth implies death and every death implies birth. Every birth is preceded by a death and every death is succeeded by a birth...

.... Hence existence is not afraid. There is no fear anywhere except in the mind of man. Man seems to be the only sick species in the whole cosmos. Where is this sickness? It should really have been otherwise... man should have enjoyed more, loved more, lived more each moment. Whether it is of childhood or of youth or of old age, whether it is of birth or of death, it does not matter at all. You are...

... transcendental to all these small episodes. Thousands of births have happened to you, and thousands of deaths. And those who can see clearly can understand it even more deeply, as if it is happening every moment. Something in you dies every moment and something in you is born anew. Life and death are not so separate, not separated by seventy years. Life and death are just like two wings of a bird...

..., simultaneously happening. Neither can life exist without death, nor can death exist without life. Obviously they are not opposites; obviously they are complementaries. They need each other for their existence; they are interdependent. They are part of one cosmic whole. But because man is so unaware, so asleep, he is incapable of seeing a simple and obvious fact. Just a little awareness, not much, and you can...

... see you are changing every moment. And change means something is dying -- something is being reborn. Then birth and death become one; then childhood and its innocence become one with old age and its innocence. There is a difference, yet there is no opposition. The child's innocence is really poor, because it is almost synonymous with ignorance. The old man, ripe in age, who has passed through all...

... that is ahead of him; the other has left the hell behind him. Devageet, your question is the question of almost every human being. Knowingly or unknowingly, there is a trembling in the heart that you are becoming old, that after old age the deluge -- after old age, death. And for centuries you have been made so much afraid of death that the very idea has become deep-rooted in your unconscious; it has...

... gone deep in your blood, in your bones, in your marrow. The very word frightens you -- not that you know what death is, but just because of thousands of years of conditioning that death is the end of your life, you are afraid. I want you to be absolutely aware that death is not the end. In existence, nothing begins and nothing ends. Just look all around... the evening is not the end, nor is the...

... man to bridge the rift, to bring man back to the earth, to bring man back with the animals and with the birds and with the trees, and to declare an absolute unity with existence. That is the truth of our being. Once it is understood, you are neither worried about old age nor worried about death, because looking around you, you can be absolutely satisfied that nothing ever begins, it has been always...

... moment towards the graveyard. It is one of the greatest failures of all cultures and all civilizations in the world that they have not been able to provide a meaningful life, a creative existence for their old; that they have not been able to provide a subtle beauty and grace, not only to old age, but to death itself. And the problem becomes more complicated because the more you are afraid of death...

..., the more you will be afraid of life too. Each moment lived, death comes closer.... A man who is afraid of death cannot be in love with life, because it is life finally that takes you to the doors of death. How can you love life? It was for this reason that all the religions started renouncing life: renounce life because that is the only way to renounce death. If you don't live life, if you are...

... already finished with the job of living, loving, dancing, singing, then naturally you need not be afraid of death; you have died already. We have called these dead people saints; we have worshiped them. We have worshiped them because we knew we would also like to be like them, although we don't have that much courage. At least we can worship and show our intentions. If we had courage or one day if we...

... gather courage, we would also like to live like you: utterly dead. The saint cannot die because he has already died. He has renounced all the pleasures, all the joys; all that life offers he has rejected. He has returned the ticket to existence saying, "I am no more part of the show." He has closed his eyes. It happened once that a so-called saint was visiting me. I took him into the garden...

..., aware of tremendous beauty all around; has the courage to rejoice each moment of life and death together. Only a man who is so capable of rejoicing in life and death -- his song continues. It does not matter whether life is happening or death is happening, his song is not disturbed, his dance does not waver?" Only such an adventurous soul, only such a pilgrim of existence is religious. But in the...

... name of religion man has been given poor substitutes, false, phony, meaningless, just toys to play with. Worshiping statues, chanting man-made mantras, paying tributes to those who have been cowards and escapists and who were not able to live life because they were so afraid of death, and calling them saints, religion has distracted man from true and authentic religiousness. Devageet, you need not be...

... transcendence. You should rejoice, and I would like the whole world to understand the rejoicing that is our birthright in accepting with deep gratitude the old age and the final consummation of old age into death. If you are not graceful about it, if you cannot laugh at it, if you cannot disappear into the eternal leaving a laughter behind, you have not lived rightly. You have been dominated and directed by...

... statements that are not immediately understood, for they are contrary to our logic. It says, "If you want to be, save yourself." The saints say, "If you want to be, lose yourself. Did the saviour save even Himself?" Our logic says, "What if we die?" So we cling all the harder to life. But the saint says, "He who clutches harder to life, his death stands at the door long...

... hidden behind affection, how is one to express it? If there is cold fire, how is one to describe it? Where the opposites meet, expression becomes impossible. THOSE IN WHOSE HEART RAMA ABIDES NEVER DIE NOR CAN BE CHEATED. THERE LIVE MANY DEVOTEES OF MANY DIFFERENT WORLDS; KEEPING THE TRUE NAME IN THEIR HEARTS THEY ENJOY BLISS. There is no death for him in whom Rama abides, in whose heart God dwells and...

... whose heart is overfilled with him. Understand that death is only for you; there is no death for God. Waves are formed and destroyed, but the ocean is forever. As long as you identify with the waves you will die, for the wave considers itself as separate and is sure to die. Therefore, we are frightened of death. Your identity will die. You have made wrong connections. If you join yourself to God, to...

... Rama, then where is death? Therefore the wise man dies before death; he breaks all his connections, separating himself from all identities. He knows he is neither the body nor the mind; both these will die. He knows he is not the ego, which is also sure to die. It is destructible; it is a small form that has appeared like a wave. No matter how beautiful the wave may be, no matter how high it may rise...

..., when you die, your relatives will make a small bundle of your remains and throw you in the Ganges; that too is your body! How many ups and downs have you seen in between these two events? If you identify yourself with this body then you will tremble and fear death. Therefore a wise man dies before death - by his own hands. There is that incident in Nanak's life when his disciples found him at the...

...; So Buddha always insisted that his disciples go to the burning ghat so they could observe it and begin to die consciously; then only do the practices come easier. For three months, day and night, the monk had to watch death. There was death and death and death.... Death was getting more and more intense. He would begin to see death everywhere, all around him. Everything would seem to be burning...

...." Our settlements are death grounds, and our burial grounds are the last of our habitations. A sage dies before death; an ignorant person clings to life, making every effort to survive even with his last breath. A wise man dies but once, but a fool dies several deaths. Until you learn this lesson you will have to die again and again. Death is an education. It is like a child failing in school who...

... part of your training and you have to pass through it. He who understands this breaks his identity with death. Nanak says that those with Rama in their hearts can neither die nor be cheated. And here you are! No matter how clever you are, how efficient, how cunning, you are bound to be cheated; for no one except yourself is cheating you. No one else can rob you; it is impossible, but you have become...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. POWER IS THE EXPRESSION IN THE REALM OF GRACE; EXCEPT THIS, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. IN IT ARE THE GREAT WARRIORS AND HEROES; THERE RAMA ABIDES IN HIS FULLNESS. AND IN ITS GLORY ALSO SEETA ABIDES, WHOSE FORM IS BEYOND WORDS. THOSE IN WHOSE HEART RAMA ABIDES NEVER DIE NOR CAN BE CHEATED. THERE LIVE MANY DEVOTEES OF MANY DIFFERENT WORLDS; KEEPING THE TRUE...

... find yourself exactly where you started at your birth; you haven't gained even a grain of sand. If you look at your hands, they are empty. The treasure chest may be full, but you must leave it behind; you are empty. All the dreams of fulfillment turned out to be untrue. No matter how much you acquire of this world, at death it falls away from you. And what falls away is never yours even though it...

..., for they seem to be saying the reverse of things: Die so that you can live; lose yourself in order to be worthy of attaining; or, be no more and the elixir of existence is yours. You keep saving yourself, therefore you are nothing. The more you hold onto yourself, the more miserable and wretched and meaningless you will be. The more you save yourself, the more shall you wonder. These are paradoxical...

... before his time!" Those who accepted death, welcomed it and went to encounter it found the nectar. They found that death was only a mask behind which the nectar was hidden. You run because of fear and deny yourself the nectar. When you embrace death you find the nectar. The characteristic of that aspect of life which is compassion and grace is power. The fourth book of Carlos Castaneda is called...

... burning grounds. He said, "I thought it better to come here on my own feet than on the shoulders of others, and if someday I have to come here it is best that I know the place well. There is no better place than this for meditation. Have no fear for me." And he sent his disciples back. He is saying that death is the meditation; there is no other. If you concentrate and meditate on death, by...

... and by death departs. The top layers of death vanish and the hidden nectar comes into view. The wave is lost but the ocean is found. Buddha would send his monks to the burial grounds. He told them: "Watch people burn. Observe the bones turning into ashes, the smoke rising from the skin, the flowers from the pyre. See the dead man's own people breaking his skull. Those whom he trusted all his...

... understand that it is not a living place but a dying place; every person there is awaiting death. Would you call death's waiting room a living place, a habitation? Would you call it a settlement where people go one by one and never return, where even the very colony one day will be no more? What people call the burning ground is a place where you settle once forever. Now that I would call a real habitation...

... is returned to the same grade. If he fails again and again he remains in the same grade until he learns. In the same way death is a great education. Until you learn to recognize the nectar you will have to come again and again. A singer was giving a performance. The hall resounded with applause and shouts of, "Encore! Encore!" He sang again. Again they shouted, "Encore!". This...

... went on eight times. His throat became sore, and he could no longer sing. He told the audience, "I am glad that you enjoyed it with such enthusiasm, but now I can sing no more." One man got up and shouted, "Who enjoyed your song? You are a rotten singer but until you sing correctly we won't leave you." The cycle of death and birth is God's request to you to sing properly. It is...

... make the arrangements: you establish wrong contacts and false relationships. And he who relates himself to the wrong, to the false, determinedly arranges to get himself cheated. If you hold onto the piece of flesh the kites are bound to swoop. THOSE IN WHOSE HEART RAMA ABIDES NEVER DIE NOR CAN BE CHEATED. THERE LIVE MANY DEVOTEES OF MANY DIFFERENT WORLDS; KEEPING THE TRUE NAME IN THEIR HEARTS THEY...

... bother what you do or what you do not do, whether you live or whether you die. Let the storm take you; there is no one to care. But for the devotee there is great assurance and solace in the feeling that 'someone is waiting for me'. When you return home you will not find it empty; when you return inwards to your own nature you will find God awaiting you. Not only will you find Him waiting, but you will...

... elder son remained at home. He worked hard and had doubled the remaining inheritance. He plowed the fields and tended the vineyards, working from morning to night. Then one day it occurred to the beggar son: "I shall die this way. I still have a home. My father is alive and I can count on his love. He gave me an opportunity to learn for myself what is right and what is wrong, so I am sure his...

... is attracted. This attraction was misunderstood by Sigmund Freud and he thought that there is a death-wish in man -- he called it THANATOS. He said, "Man has two basic, fundamental instincts: one is EROS -- a deep desire to live, to be alive for ever, a desire for immortality -- and the other is THANATOS, the desire to die, to be finished with it all." He misunderstood the whole point...

... because he was not a mystic; He knew only one face of death -- that it ends life -- he knew only one thing: that death is an end. He was not aware that death is also a beginning. Each end is always a beginning, because nothing ever ends totally, nothing can ever end. Everything continues, only forms change. Your form will die, but you have something formless in you too. Your body will not be there, but...

... I know now: whenever he has to leave life, he will leave with tremendous gratefulness, with a prayer on his lips, with a deep thank you in his heart. And that is the right way to die, and that is the right way to live too. In fact, because he has become so accepting of death he is alive, otherwise he would have been dead long before. Even the doctors are a little puzzled about him -- they can't...

... Hall Archive Code: 7904250 Short Title: FISH15 Audio Available: Yes Video Available: No Length: 101 mins The first question Question 1: OSHO, I AM AFRAID OF DEATH, YET AT THE SAME TIME IT HAS AN INCREDIBLE ATTRACTION FOR ME. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Prem Shreyas, DEATH IS THE GREATEST MYSTERY OF LIFE. Life has many mysteries, but there is nothing comparable to death. Death is the climax, the crescendo. One...

... is afraid of it because one will be lost, one will dissolve in it. One is afraid of it because of the ego -- the ego cannot survive death. It will be left on this shore when you start moving towards the other; it cannot go with you. And the ego is all that you know about yourself, hence the fear, great fear: "I will not exist in death." But there is great attraction too. The ego will be...

... lost, but not your reality. In fact, death will reveal to you your true identity; death will take away all your masks and will reveal your original face. Death will for the first time make it possible for you to encounter your innermost, interiormost subjectivity as it is, without any camouflage, without any pretense, without any pseudo personality. Hence, everybody is afraid of death and everybody...

... you have something in you, within your body, which is not part of your body. Your earthly part will drop into the earth, dust unto dust, but you have something of the sky in you, something of the beyond, which will take a new journey, a new pilgrimage. Death creates fear if you think of the ego, and death appeals to you, attracts you, if you think of your true self So vaguely one remains attracted...

... towards death; if you become clearly aware of it, it can become a transforming understanding, it can become a mutant force. Shreyas, try to understand both the fear and the attraction. And don't think that they are opposites -- they don't overlap, they are not opposites either; they don't interfere with each other. The fear is directed in one direction: the ego; and the attraction is directed into a...

... totally different dimension: the egoless self And the attraction is far more important than the fear. The meditator has to overcome fear. The meditator has to fall in love with death, the meditator has to invite death -- the meditator has not to wait for it, he has to call it because death is a friend to the meditator. And the meditator dies before the death of the body. And that is one of the most...

... beautiful experiences of life: the body goes on living, on the outside you go on moving the same as you were before, but inside the ego is no more, the ego has died. Now you are alive and dead together. You have become a meeting-point of life and death; you contain now the polar opposites and the richness is great when polar opposites are contained. And these are the greater polar opposites, death and...

... life. If you can contain both, you will become capable of containing God because God is both. His one face is life, his other face is death. Shreyas, this is something beautiful -- don't make a problem out of it. Meditate over it, make it a meditation, and you will be benefitted immensely. The second question Question 2: OSHO TODAY IN THE SAMADHI TANK I COULD HAVE SWORN I FELT YOUR PRESENCE FOR A FEW...

... matter: space, distance, make no difference. By giving you sannyas I am making you entitled to feel me wherever you are. Now all depends on you. My presence will be with you, surrounding you; in life, in death, I will be with you just by your side. But you may see, you may not see. You may remain unconscious. Frank, something beautiful has happened. Remain available to strange experiences in life, and...

..., Chinmaya. And I am happy to tell you that he is progressing, and progressing in a very different, more difficult situation than others. But he has evolved greatly. He is suffering from cancer. He knows death can come any day, but I am happy to say to you that it makes no difference any more to him. Life or death -- he will remain a witness. That much integrity has happened to him, that much centering has...

... happened to him. He was very much afraid in the beginning when he had come here -- very much afraid of death. Naturally -- anybody would be. It was expected. But, slowly slowly, being here with me, with my people, in this Buddhafield, he has learnt one thing: that we are not doers. Sometimes life happens, sometimes death happens -- we have to be witnesses of both. And we have to be thankful for both. So...

... are ready to give him a death certificate any day, but if he remains relaxed, meditative, happy, contented... and he is. It is difficult in his situation to be contented, but he is. Even breathing is difficult, but he has accepted everything. Bea, if your son lives he will be growing -- growing towards more spiritual maturity; if he dies he will be growing in his death too. He has found the path...

... spirituality, he is just stupid and nothing else. Being rich and not being aware of spirituality is stupidity. Being poor and not being aware of spirituality can be forgiven, but the rich person cannot be forgiven -- because he HAS -- can't he see that he has everything and yet he has nothing? Death will be coming and it will take all that he possesses. Doing is a means to having. When doing succeeds, you...

... real difference in your life, forget about the question -- it is meaningless. Ask me something which will help you to go deeper into meditation; ask me something which will bring enlightenment to you -- ask me something which will make you free from all imprisonments. Ask me something which will take you beyond all misery and death. Ask me something which will take you beyond all time and space, and...

... was before, but now there is nobody inside to suffer, to dream, to be anxious, nobody there to live or to die. Then one exists in God and God exists in one. The last question Question 10: OSHO, I KNOW THAT SEX REPRESSION IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL NEUROSIS, BUT THEN WHY DO I GO ON REPRESSING IT? Narayana, YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT to do it from the very beginning. It has become part of you, your conscience...

... centered, more and more in the moment, more and more aware, more and more alert, more and more capable of living. So who cares about death? We will enjoy it when we die. Death will also be a moment in life. Death is not the end of life, but only a moment of transformation, because nothing can die. You cannot destroy anything, it only changes shapes, forms. Now science is capable of destroying Hiroshima...

... move into the same space as death - because in meditation you are no more your physiology, no more your biology, no more your chemistry, no more your psychology. All those are left far away. You come to your innermost center where there is only pure awareness. That pure awareness will be with you when you die because that cannot be taken away. All these other things which can be taken away, we take...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: OSHO, WHAT IS RENUNCIATION? WHAT IS ITS PLACE IN YOUR RELIGION? THE idea of renunciation is one of the fundamentals of all pseudo-religions. Its phenomenology has to be understood very deeply. All the religions have been preaching a division between this world and that world which is beyond death - between the soul and the body. The body...

... belongs to this world, the soul belongs to that world; hence if you want to achieve the world beyond death, which is eternal.... and the happiness there is unending, the happiness here is not worth calling happiness; it is momentary, it is dream stuff. It comes, and even before you have been able to grasp it, it is gone. It is illusory, it is a kind of mirage in the desert. When you are far away you see...

... real world is beyond death." Why beyond death? Because death will destroy all your biology, physiology, chemistry; everything that is material, death will take away. Only the spiritual will be left behind and the spiritual knows the eternal. The material, the physical knows only the momentary. It appeared very logical; the first part is true, but the second part is fictitious. Yes, it is true...

... that moments of happiness in this life are very fleeting, but that does not mean that there is another life beyond death where these moments become eternal. There is no evidence for it. At least these moments are there, are experienced by everyone. Howsoever small and fleeting, they exist. Nobody can deny their existence. You can say they are made of the same stuff as dreams are made of - but still...

... looks perfectly mathematical, economical. The religions started teaching that you sacrifice this life if you want to attain the permanent world of paradise that is beyond death. And it is very cheap, because what you are sacrificing are just momentary fleeting experiences that happen once in a while. If you collect all your moments of happiness in your seventy years of life, perhaps you may not get...

... those moments. There is more and more disillusionment, more and more disappointment. In the future there is only death and darkness, and in the past nothing but deception. The religions had a beautiful space through which to exploit you - and they did well all over the world. For thousands of years they have found the greatest business - greater than anybody else's: they have been selling you paradise...

... structure, the strategy of the priest, it is clear: they have renounced the most, naturally they are promised the most. Nobody knows whether they get anything after death or not, but the idea became so ingrained for the simple reason that it has a grain of truth in it: in this life everything is momentary. To me, nothing is wrong if it is momentary. In fact, because it is momentary it is so exciting, so...

... the sages should not perspire. But only if your body is made of plastic will you not perspire; otherwise, perspiration is absolutely necessary. And those girls will not get old, will not die. Nothing dies in paradise, nothing gets old, nothing changes; it must be an utterly boring place. Can you imagine the boredom - where everything remains the same every day? There is no need for any newspaper...

... sold things which nobody has seen, which nobody is ever going to see. Not a single witness exists. Nobody has returned from death and said, "Yes, there is eternal beauty, eternal joy, eternal silence, eternal peace." The business goes on because nobody can contradict it. If you contradict it, you are wrong, because the whole world believes in it. But there was a certain truth which they...

..., six months old, nine months old. Continuously, everything goes on changing. Death is a great transformation. You ask what is the place of renunciation in my religion. Before I answer you, there is one thing more to be noted: this idea of renunciation became so deeprooted in the whole of humanity that even the people who have denied the existence of life after death have also used the same logic. The...

... possible. The enemy scriptures quote Charvakas as saying, "Even if you have to borrow money, don't be worried, but drink, eat, be merry. Go on borrowing money, because after death neither are you there to pay, nor is there anybody else to ask you,'What about my money?' Everything is finished with death, so don't be bothered by these priests telling you that you will suffer for your karmas. You enjoy...

... religious people can enjoy it - because they have destroyed and crippled themselves and their capacity to enjoy - nor the communists, because they will not open their eyes. They have denied the existence of anything after death. They will keep their eyes closed to remain convinced that there is nothing; otherwise their whole life's philosophy is proved wrong. It is better to keep your eyes closed. That's...

... experience or they will simply die! Sitting on the bank of a river where champagne is flowing, they cannot drink because of their past habits, their whole life's training and discipline. And there is no description of any river which has water; in Mohammedan paradise all the rivers are wine. Why? When you can drink wine, why bother about water? So either they will die of thirst, or they will start drinking...

..., free, open, available to new experiences, to new explorations. So my people are not going to remain in one zone. They are going to use all the zones and enjoy all the sights of paradise; nobody can prevent them. You can have both worlds - so why cripple people? Make this life an experience, a school, a learning, a discipline, because something unknown is going to open up after death and you have to...

... be ready in every possible way. So don't miss any opportunity of living. Who knows what kind of life you are going to have after death? I do not give you a fixed idea, because if I give you a fixed idea, I am your enemy; I make you a fixed person, inflexible, rigid, dead. Be flexible, so you can move in any dimension that becomes available. In my religion there is no place for renunciation. The...

..., why cripple people, cut their life, destroy their naturalness, their spontaneity? Why not help them to have as many aspects to their life as possible, as many dimensions open to them as possible? My sannyasin is multidimensional. The whole of life is yours. Love it, live it to the fullest. That's the only way to get ready for death. Then you can live death too, to its fullest; and it is one of the...

... most beautiful experiences. There is nothing comparable to the death experience in life, except deep meditation. So those who know meditation, they know something of death - that's the only way to know before dying. If I am saying there is no more significant experience in life than death, I am saying it, not because I have died and come back to tell you, but because I know that in meditation you...

... away with our own hands in meditation. So meditation is an experience of death in life. And it is so beautiful, so indescribably beautiful that only one thing can be said about death: it must be that experience multiplied by millions. The experience of meditation multiplied by millions is the experience of death. And when you pass on you simply leave your form behind. You are absolutely intact, and...

... forget the death. Really this is no solution to the problem. Nothing has been solved. The next day someone else will die and the same problem will be there. Again someone will die and the same problem will be there. And deep down you know that you will have to die. You cannot escape death - and the fear is there. But you can go on postponing, and you can go on escaping through explanations. This won't...

... the surface. So remember, life problems cannot be solved by thinking. On the contrary, really, because of too much thinking you are missing all solutions, and more problems are created. For example, death. Death is not a problem created by thinking; you cannot solve it by thinking. Whatsoever you think, how can you solve it? You can console, and you can think that consolation is a solution - it is...

... not. You can deceive yourself; that's possible through thinking. You can create explanations, and through explanations you can think that you have solved it. You can escape the problem through thinking, but you cannot solve it. And see the distinction clearly. For example, death is there. Your beloved dies, or your friend, or your daughter - the death is there. Now what can you do? You can think...

... about it. You can think and you can say that the soul is immortal - because you have read it. In the Upanishads it is said that the soul is immortal, only the body dies. You don't know it at all, because if you really know, there is no problem - or is there a problem? If you really know that the soul is immortal, then death has not occurred; there is no problem at all. But the problem is there: death...

... do. Death is an existential problem. You cannot solve it through thinking. You can create only fake solutions. What to do then? Then there is another dimension - the dimension of meditation; not of thinking, not of mentation. You just encounter the situation. Death has occurred. Your beloved is dead. Don't move in thinking. Don't bring the Upanishads and the Gita and the Bible. Don't ask the...

... Christs and Buddhas. Leave them alone. Death is there: face, encounter. Be with this situation totally. Don't think about it. What can you think? You can only repeat old rubbish. The death is such a new phenomenon, it is so unknown, that your knowledge is not going to help in any way. So put aside your mind. Be in a deep meditation with death. Don't do anything, because what can you do which can be of...

... any help? You don't know. So be in ignorance. Don't bring false knowledge, borrowed knowledge. Death is there; you be with it. Face death with total presence. Don't move in thinking, because then you are escaping from the situation, you are becoming absent from here. Don't think. Be present with the death. Sadness will be there, sorrow will be there, a heavy burden will be on you - let it be there...

.... It is part - part of life, and part of maturity, and part of the ultimate realization. Remain with it, totally present. This will be meditation, and you will come to a deep understanding of death. Then death itself becomes eternal life. But don't bring the mind and knowledge. Remain with death; then death will reveal itself to you, then you will know what death is. You will move into the inner...

... mansions of it. Then death will take you to the very center of life - because death is the very center of life. It is not against life; it is the very process of life. But mind brings the contradiction that life and death are opposites. Then you go on thinking, and because the root is false, the opposition is false, you can never come to any conclusion which can be true and real. Whenever there is a...

... lived problem, be with the problem without your mind - that's what I mean by meditation - and just being there with the problem will solve it. And if you have really been there, death will not occur to you again, because then you know what death is. We never do this - never with love, never with death, never with anything that is authentically real. We always move in thoughts, and thoughts are the...

... into two, and now you are working with the division. For example, as I was saying, life and death are one, but for the mind they are two and death is the enemy of life. It is not, because life cannot exist without death. If life cannot exist without death, how can death be the enemy? It is the basic situation. It makes life possible. Life grows in it; it is the soul. Without it life is impossible...

... verge of a nervous breakdown, because of the technique. So I said, 'The first thing is to leave this. Do anything whatsoever, but don't do this. You will go mad.' He was deadly serious about it. It was a life-and-death problem for him. It had to be achieved. And he said, 'Who knows how many days are left? Time is short, and I must achieve it in this life. I don't want to be born again. Life is much a...

... observed the fact that in life, everything is uncertain except death? It should be otherwise, but the only certainty that you have is a guarantee to die, that's all. This much can be said in the valley: you will die, that much is certain. Everything else is uncertain and accidental - it may happen, it may not happen. What type of life is this where only death is guaranteed? But it is so, because in...

... darkness only death can exist; in unconsciousness only death can exist. Unconsciousness is the path towards death. Whenever you want to be unconscious, you want to die. A deep urge to die is in you, otherwise you would start moving towards the height. Freud, in the last phase of his life, stumbled upon a very deep fact: he called it thanatos - the wish towards death. His whole life he was thinking around...

... - because unconsciousness is a temporary death. You cannot live without sleep even for a few days, because sleep is a sort of temporary death. You need it, you need it very deeply. If you cannot die every day for eight hours you will not be able to live the next day - because your whole life is such a mess, and 'to be' is not bliss; rather, 'not to be' seems to be blissful. So wherever you can lose...

... yourself you feel blissful. If you can lose yourself in a political movement, if you can become a Nazi and you can lose yourself in a crowd, you feel good because this is a death - you are no longer there, only the crowd exists. That's why dictators succeed - because of your wish to die. Dictators succeed even in the twentieth century, because they give you a chance to die so easily. That's why wars have...

... that a deep death- wish is hidden inside. Why is it there? You have to bring more light into yourself so that you can become aware of the corner where death is hidden and continuously eating you. It is not that suddenly one day you die - you die slowly for seventy years. Death is not a phenomenon that comes in the end, it starts with birth. Then every breath and every moment is simply nothing but a...

..., know well something has gone wrong. He still lives in the valley, he has not moved to the peak. Otherwise, he has a radiance, a lightness, a childlike enjoyment, unworried, unafraid - he is fortified in his consciousness. Why does consciousness fortify you? - because the more conscious you become, the more you know you cannot die, there is no death. Death exists only in the dark valley. And if you...

... the moment of death, then you become aware what life was and how you have missed it. It is said that only when people die do they come to know that they were alive - otherwise they miss. JESUS SAID: IF A BLIND MAN LEADS A BLIND MAN, BOTH OF THEM FALL INTO A PIT. So don't be shy! Go and tell others that there is a man who has eyes; otherwise people will be led astray, because people have a need to be...

... completely unconscious, that is the lowest point of existence. Rocks exist there, at the lowest rung of the ladder, because rocks are perfectly unconscious. They are not dead - they are alive, they grow; they are young, they become old, they die. They pass through all the phases you pass through, but they are not conscious - the lowest rung of the ladder. Sometimes you are like a rock: when you are fast...

... red letters it was written, "New spray guaranteed to kill flies IMMEDIATELY!" She read the sign and as she flew away, muttered to herself, "There is too much hatred in the world!" You live in the world of the valley. There, everything is guaranteed to kill immediately. You live in the valley of death - nothing else is guaranteed there, only death is guaranteed. Have you ever...

... libido - a theory which says that man exists as a will to live; but the more he penetrated into the will to live, the more uncertain he became. The more he started to understand the will to live, he found that deep down there is a will to die. It was very difficult for Freud because he was a linear thinker, one-dimensional, and he was an Aristotelean, a logician. This was very contradictory that behind...

... the libido - the lust to live, the will to live - there is a will to die, thanatos. He became very much disturbed. But that's what Buddha has always been saying, and that's what Jesus has been saying: that as you are, you are so useless, your whole life is so futile, just full of frustrations, that you would like to die. When you take something to become unconscious, the wish to die is there...

... always existed, and they will continue to exist because you are not changing in any way. Man is not transforming himself. Wars will exist because they are a deep will to die. You want to kill and you want to be killed. Life is such a burden that suicide seems to be the only solution. If you have not committed suicide up to now, don't think that you are truly a life-lover. No! You are simply afraid. You...

... become a global suicide, and now we have discovered it - the H-bomb. Why are scientists continuously working, devoting their whole lives to creating destructive things? - because that is the deepest desire in man: to die, somehow to die. It is not very conscious, because if it becomes conscious you will start transforming yourself. Many times you assert, "It would have been better if I had not...

... been born!" One Greek philosopher, Philo, is reported to have said, "The first blessing is not to have been born; the second blessing is to die as soon as possible." And he says these two are the only blessings. First, not to have been born - but no one is that fortunate because everybody is already born. So only the second is available - to die as soon as possible. Philo himself lived...

... to be ninety-seven. Somebody asked him, "But you have not committed suicide?" So he said, "I have just been tolerating life to give the message to others - the message that to die is the only solution." Suicide is a deep-rooted instinct. Immediately you feel anything going wrong you feel you want to commit suicide, to destroy yourself. A religious man is one who becomes alert...

... are fortified against death, you are fortified. The more conscious you are, the more you know you are the eternal, the divine. Right now you don't know who you are. This is the valley of ignorance, and there only death happens, nothing else; and you live trembling, shaking with fear. If you look within you will find only fear and nothing else, because around you there is only death, nothing else. So...

... this is natural: with death all around, fear inside is a natural counterpart. If you move to the heights, love will be within and eternity all around. There will be no fear - there cannot be, because you cannot be destroyed, you are indestructible. There is no possibility of your death, you are deathless. This is the fortification Jesus talks about. A CITY BEING BUILT ON A HIGH MOUNTAIN AND FORTIFIED...

... beginning. If you say, "Yes, Jesus is the son of God," then you have to transform yourself. Then you cannot remain with this yes, you have to move, you have to do something. If you say no, the problem is solved. Then whatsoever you are, wherever you are - in the valley, in darkness, in death - you are at ease. Jesus creates an unease in you; Buddha moves amidst you and he creates an unease, and...

... that which will resurrect will be the divine. That will be the divine! Once you are ready to die, moral/immoral, sinner or saint, are all irrelevant. Once you are ready to die, you have become capable. You open the door. You say to God, "Come in! " But remember, God comes from the same door from where death comes in. If you are afraid of death you will remain afraid of God. God and death...

... are becoming alive again; whenever you exhale, again death. Death, life, death, life: that's how you move. They are two wings or two legs, two aspects of you. If you really die with each exhalation - you relax and you surrender - then with each inhalation you will revive. And you will feel such freshness that even the dew in the morning will be jealous! You will feel freshness such as the stars in...

... the night feel. That is eternal life. One who has learned the secret of how to die moment to moment has learned the secret of how to live eternally. Now death is impossible. Death is possible only if you resist it. It is in your resistance that death exists. Resistance is ego, death exists because of the ego. If you surrender, death disappears. Surrender is the key. Jesus says: AND WHOSOEVER DOTH...

...; the child has no identity, the child does not know who he is. That is his greatness, that is his vastness. He is one with existence, he is not yet separated. He has no boundary, no finitude. A child has no character. That is his beauty, Character kills. The more character you have, the smaller you have become. Character is an armor around you, it defines you. And every definition is a death. Let me...

... repeat: every definition is a death; only the undefined is alive. The child has a body, but he has no form. In his consciousness no form yet exists. Even if you put a mirror before the child he will not recognize himself. He will look at the mirror, but he will not recognize that he is reflected there because he does not know yet who he is. That is his innocence. Then things start gathering around: the...

... name, which becomes an imprisonment; the form, the identity. The religion, the society, the color, the nation - they all become confinements. Now the child is shrinking, the vastness of the sky disappearing. Clouds are gathering and they go on suffocating your being. By the time you die, you were already dead long before. That is the meaning of these sutras: that if one is to attain to one's real...

... MY DISCIPLE. And until you die, you cannot follow. You have to die so that the new can be born in you. It can be born only when you are gone. It is not a question of transforming you, it is not a question of improving you, it is not a question of making something better of you. Howsoever better you are made, improved, modified, you will remain the same. Your ego can be more polished. It can even be...

... anything. I have left my family" - but the'I' will continue. And the'I' has to drop. Unless the'I' disappears, you will not be empty enough for the divine to enter. You will not have enough space for Him. That is the meaning of Jesus when he says: AND WHOSOEVER DOTH NOT BEAR HIS CROSS, AND COME AFTER ME, CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE. To be a disciple is to die in the master and to relive in the master. It...

... is to drop totally dead in the master so that his life flame can give you a new light and a new life. Until you die, nothing is possible. And that is the great fear. You would like to be improved, you would like to become better. Then don't come to a man like Jesus. He is not interested in bettering you, he is not interested in renovating the old house. He says, "We will demolish and we will...

... fundamentally wrong. The base is wrong, the whole foundation is wrong. And on that foundation, you will remain wrong. So I'm not interested in you becoming more religious, no. I'm not interested in you becoming more moral, no. I am not interested in you attaining a beautiful character, not at all. I am interested in you dying, so that a newness rushes in you. Only on your death is resurrection possible. And...

... are two names of one phenomenon. If you are afraid, you interpret God as death. If you accept, you interpret death as God. Death itself becomes the beloved. You wait. You wait as you would wait for your beloved. And death comes dancing! There is nothing like it. No longer can you conceive of anything which can transcend the beauty of it. Death becomes the beloved. Then death's garb is no more there...

.... God is revealed! This has to be done every moment, because every moment death knocks at your door. Every moment when you exhale, death knocks. Exhalation is death, inhalation is life. The first thing a child has to do is to inhale and the last thing the old man dying will do will be to exhale. With exhalation, death; with inhalation, life. And this is happening every moment. Whenever you inhale, you...

... small glimpse of that original face which you had be-fore birth, then death has disappeared. Attached to birth you are going to die - don't be attached to birth, then you need not be afraid of death. Watch birth and you will be able to watch death too. And the greatest experience of life is to die watching death. But you have to prepare for it. If you Cannot even watch a headache, if you cannot even...

... insight of the reality you are. That reality has never been born. This body has been born, this body is going to die.... Another Zen master, Bokoju, was asked by a man... Bokoju was ill, old, just on the verge of death, and this stranger came and asked, "Master, where will you be when you are dead?" And Bokoju opened his eyes and said, "I will be in the grave! All my four limbs raised...

... call it black. We have always called death black. Man has always been afraid of the black, of the dark, of death. But it is the same reality! From one side it is 'black hole', from the other side it is 'white hole'. Buddha calls it SHUNYATA. There is every possibility that modern physics will come every day more and more close to Buddha. It has to come. It has to recognize Buddha's insight into...

... pleasure, let it be so. But you don't get identified with anything. BUT EVEN SHOULD IT NOT RAIN, YOU MUST TRAVEL WITH WET SLEEVES. But remember one thing: even if your life has been of convenience, comfort, pleasure, and there have not been great pains, great miseries, then too YOU MUST TRAVEL WITH WET SLEEVES. Why? Because still you will become old, still you will have to die one day. So one can live a...

... very pleasant life, but old age is coming, and death is coming. Death cannot be avoided; there is no way to escape from it; it is inevitable. So whether you lived a painful life or you lived a pleasant life will not make much difference when death comes. And death is coming. Death has come the day you were born. In the very idea of birth, death has entered in you. I have heard a very beautiful...

... anecdote about one of the most famous Zen masters, Bankei: Bankei had a terrible fear of death from his earliest age. When he was a small child, his mother created the fear of death in him. He says that at the age of three, his mother, as a punishment, constantly frightened him with death. Not only that: sometimes, because Bankei had committed something which was not right, she pretended that she had...

... become dead. She would lie down with closed eyes and stop her breath, and the small child would cry and weep around her and would call her, "Come back! And I will never do such a thing again." Only then would she start breathing. So from the very childhood the fear of death had entered into him. He was constantly afraid. Maybe that's why when he was young he became interested in Zen - because...

... Zen people say there is no death. He entered a monastery and way overdid the austerities. Whatsoever was said, he overdid it, out of the fear of death. He wanted to see that there is no death; he wanted to overcome death, he wanted to conquer it. He practised za-zen sitting for such long periods at a time that the places where he sat became covered with sores and boils. He became so ill, he nearly...

... lost his life! Then he withdrew for a few months to recuperate. It was during a feverish period of his convalescence that he had his first satori. And this consisted of an instantaneous realization that he could not die for the simple reason that he had NEVER BEEN BORN! The crux of the matter was that he had never been born. Now, Bankei knew as well as you know and everybody knows that his body...

... emerged from his mother's womb, that his body had been born. Yet he realized that HE had never been born. With the idea of birth, the idea of death arises. They go together, aspects of the same coin. Unless you get rid of the idea of birth, you will not get rid of the idea of death. That's why Zen people insist: Go deep into your being and see your face that you had before birth. If you can have one...

... watch a small pain in the stomach, if you cannot watch these small things, you will not be able to watch death. Buddhism says: Watch! Let every moment of life be-come an eXperience in watchfulness - pain, pleasure, every-thing; love, hate, everything; good, bad, everything. Go on watching. Let one taste spread on your being: the taste of watchfulness, and SAMATA arises out of it. One becomes utterly...

... balanced in the middle of the polarities. In that balancing... just like a tight-rope walker walks balanced on the tight-rope. He remains in the middle, does not lean to the left or to the right; or whenever he finds himself leaning to one side, he immediately balances him-self. Between pain and pleasure, day and night, birth and death, go on balancing... and then that very balancing will give you an...

.... I have always been a watcher. The body was born and I was watching. The body became young and I was watching. And the body became old and I was watching. And one day it will die and I will be watching. I am my watchfulness." This Buddha calls SAMASATI - right awareness. IF IT RAIN, LET IT RAIN; IF IT RAIN NOT, LET IT NOT RAIN; BUT EVEN SHOULD IT NOT RAIN, YOU MUST TRAVEL WITH WET SLEEVES. So...

... don't be deceived by your comfortable, convenient life - because death is coming to disrupt all, to destroy all. Prepare yourself! And the only preparation is balance. LOOK AT THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS! THEIR COLOUR AND SCENT FALL WITH THEM, ARE GONE FOR EVER, YET MINDLESS THE SPRING COMES AGAIN. LIFE REPEATS ITSELF MINDLESSLY - unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel. That's why...

... Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death - the wheel of time. It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death, death is followed by birth; love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love; success is followed by failure, failure is followed by success. Just sec! If you can watch just for a few days, you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern. One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good...

... in a wheel. To see it, to see it totally, to see it as it is, is Buddha's way of becoming aware. The vicious circle of birth and death has to be broken, but it can be broken only if you start looking into things which happen to you in a detached way, in a non-passionate way. What scientists call 'a detached observation' is really a Buddhist discovery. Scientists have been trying this only for three...

...: pain and pleasure both, birth and death both. All is mind. And once this has been seen absolutely, the conjurer disappears... and then what is left is truth. And that truth liberates. THE PUPPET-PLAYER HANGS THEM ROUND HIS NECK, NOT HIS HEART; HE CAN TAKE OUT A DEVIL, HE CAN TAKE OUT A BUDDHA. A tremendously important statement. You can become a Devil, you can become a Buddha - it is all mind game...

..., because how can you die if you are not born? Who can die? Who is there to die? And, of course, when you are not born and you cannot die, how can you become enlightened? Who is there to become enlightened? There is no one; there is nobody to become a Buddha. This is Buddhahood, this is enlightenment: seeing the fact that there is nobody, that the house is utterly empty, that there has lived nobody ever...

... known death - and then death is not the enemy, death is the friend. Then death is nothing but a deep sleep. Again there is a morning, again things will start. Then death is nothing but rest - a tremendous rest, needed rest. After the whole life of toil and tiredness, one needs a great rest in God. Death is going back to the source, just as in sleep. Every night you die a little death. You call it...

... sleep; it would be better to call it a little death. You disappear from the surface, you move into your innermost being. You are lost, you don't know who you are. You forget all about the world, and the relationship, and the people. You die a small death, a tiny death, but even that tiny death revives you. In the morning you are full of zest and juice again, again throbbing with life, again ready to...

...: N.A. The first question: Question 1: IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? THIS IS A WRONG QUESTION, basically meaningless. One should never jump ahead of oneself: there is every possibility that you will fall on your face. One should ask the basic question, one should begin at the beginning. My suggestion is: ask a more basic question. For example, you can ask, "Is there life after birth?" That...

... gradual death - and you are so unaware that you never know it, you never become aware of it. From birth to death, it is a long progression of death. It is very rare to come across an alive person. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Kabir - they are alive. And this is the miracle: that those who are alive never ask the question: "Is there life after death?" They know it. They know what life is, and in that...

... knowing, death has disappeared. Once you know what life is, death exists not. Death exists only because you don't know what life is, because you are yet unaware of life, its deathlessness. You have not touched life, hence the fear of death exists. Once you have known what life is, in that very moment, death has become nonexistential. Bring light into the dark room, and the darkness disappears; know life...

..., and death disappears. A person who is really alive simply laughs at the very possibility of death. Death is impossible; death cannot exist, in the very nature of things: that which is will remain, has remained always. That which is cannot disappear. But not theoretically; you have to come to this experience existentially. Ordinarily this question remains in the mind, whether you ask it or not: the...

... question, "What happens after death?" because nothing has happened before death, that's why the question. Because life has not happened even after birth, how can you believe and trust that life is going to happen even after death? It has not happened after birth, how can it happen after death? And one who knows life knows that death is another birth and nothing else. Death is another birth; a...

... new door opens. Death is the other side of the same door you call birth: from one side the door is known as death, from the other side the door is known as birth. Death brings another birth, another beginning, another journey - but this will be just speculation to you. This will not mean much unless you know what life is. That's why I say, ask the right question. A wrong question cannot be answered...

..., the second birth is the real birth: the spiritual birth. You have to come to know yourself, who you are. You have to ask this question: Who am I? And while life is there, why not enquire into life itself? Why bother about death? When it comes, you can face it and you can know it. Don't miss this opportunity of knowing life while life surrounds you. If you have known life, you will have certainly...

... jump into a thousand and one adventures, ready to take the challenge. By the evening you will be tired again. This is happening daily. You have not even known what sleep is; how can you know death? Death is a great sleep, a great rest after the whole life. It makes you anew, it makes you fresh, it resurrects you. The second question: Question 2: THE OWNER OF THE GRAND HOTEL WHERE I AM LIVING WOULD...

...; but something is still missing. Tomorrow morning, another try. Rabindranath had written six thousand poems, and when he was dying, an old friend said to him, "You can die peacefully and in deep content, because you are the greatest poet." Rabindranath opened his eyes and said, "Stop this nonsense! Right now I am telling God: What are you doing? I have been trying and trying, and I...

...-up, you work hard, you work for your whole life, and then in the end - like a carrot dangling - you will have your reward. In the end! And that end never comes. You work and work and work and you die working. One day you fall into your grave. In the East we don't have that work ethic. We say: Relax, enjoy, play, fool around, have fun, don't be serious. And the end is not in the end, and the end is...

... higher, there are waves which cannot go higher. But still they are the same - in the ocean they are the same. If you are aware only of your wavelike life, then you cannot go inside; then this becomes a disease. And if you are aware that you are a wave, then you must be afraid - you are bound to be afraid of death, of dying, because every wave has to die. You can see that every wave is dying - coming up...

... a welcoming attitude, in a receptivity. Whatsoever happens, one is ready - even death. Lust for life is the disease. This readiness, simple readiness to die, unties the lust for life. The third complexity is that of desires. We don't live in existence, we live in desires. Really, we don't live in the world at all, we live in desires. Our life is not here and now, it is always somewhere else where...

... towards the world, towards objects - not towards the subjectivity. That's why it is said to be a disease, a complex. The second is PRANA, life itself; rather than life, the lust for life. There is a deep fear - fear of death - and there is a deep lust to continue anyhow, to live anyhow. Life itself seems to be the end. Life cannot be the end itself; if life itself is the end, then one will have to exist...

... and down - so you are afraid. This fear comes because you have not known the oceanic existence which is yours; you have known only the wave existence which means life, which means PRANA. So, the rishi says the second bondage, the second complexity, the second division of diseases, is lust for life. What does it mean? It means if one is to go deeply into existence, one has to be ready to die. This...

... readiness to die is the basic quality of a religious mind. This is what constitutes the very essential core of being religious: this readiness to die. This doesn't mean a suicidal tendency. This doesn't mean any suicidal tendency, because really all those who commit suicide, commit suicide because of lust for life. This may look paradoxical - but never has a buddha committed suicide, never! Why? A person...

... who is not in the least lusting for life, desiring life, why is he not committing suicide? Buddha would say, "I am so indifferent to life, I cannot be so infatuated with death. How can I be so infatuated with death? To me, they both mean the same. If life is - okay. If death is - okay." A buddha okays everything. He cannot choose. Whenever someone commits suicide, really he is imposing...

... conditions on life. He is saying life must be like this; otherwise, I commit suicide. "I must get this woman, I must get this post, I must get this and that. If I am not getting, I can live only with my conditions. Then if there is no fulfillment of my conditions, I am ready to die." Really this readiness to die is not readiness to die. He is asking too much. He is asking too much of life, and...

... out of life; he is so filled with lust that he is even imposing conditions. This death is just a revenge, just a revenge towards life, because life could not fulfill his demands: "I will destroy life if life is not going to be what I desire it to be!" This is revenge, this is violence. So when I say readiness for death, it means no lust for life, so that whatsoever comes, one is always in...

... don't like God being made an object of desire. If I say God is, you will begin to desire: 'Then I must get, then I must reach.' And God is something which you cannot desire, and by desiring cannot get." People would ask him, "Is there existence beyond death?" And he would say, "No, there is no existence beyond death." Why? - simply because if there is existence beyond death...