... because you desire; there is a great lust for life, you don't want to die. Because you don't want to die, any priest can exploit you. He can tell you, "Don't be worried, only the body dies; your soul will live forever. Your soul is immortal." And you are immediately ready to believe. Why? Without inquiring into such an important matter, you believe some stupid priest who knows nothing about it...

... people are afraid of death and desire life. The fear of death and the desire for life are two sides of the same coin. Buddha says: If you desire something then you have to believe. Why do you believe in God? Have you seen God? Have you experienced God? You can say Jesus saw God, but he may have been a deluded man. Either he himself lived in an illusion or he was deceiving you. Who knows? How can you be...

... through the wards of a state asylum, saw a patient huddled in a corner scratching himself incessantly. "Excuse me," said the doctor, "why do you scratch yourself like that?" "Because," replied the man, "I'm the only one who knows where I itch." There are things which can only be trusted if they become your personal experience. But you are afraid of death, you...

.... He was in bed and so ill that he was going to die any day. And he didn't live long after. He was forced to apologize. And Galileo must have been a man of great insight. He said, "Of course, if the Bible says and if all the prophets agree and if all the popes, who are infallible, if they say that the sun moves around the earth, I apologize, I am sorry." The pope was very happy, the court...

.... What security can there be here when death is going to take everything away? In this life there can be no security, on this shore there is no security; hence he does not bother about security. AND PLEASURE... because he knows pleasure always brings pain. He has seen it clearly, that pleasure is only a facade; behind it comes hidden pain. He can see through and through; hence he lets it go. And desire...

... OF MEDIOCRITY. IF YOU WILL OBSERVE IN THE SUTRAS THAT ALL BUDDHAS PREACH FOR TWO GROUPS, THE MEDIOCRE AND THE WISE, BUT IN THE EYES OF ZEN, A SAGE'S LIFE IS ONE OF MEDIOCRITY AND THE MEDIOCRE PERSON'S AS THE SAGE'S. THIS ONE LIFE HAS NO FORM AND IS EMPTY BY NATURE. IF YOU BECOME ATTACHED TO ANY FORM, YOU SHOULD REJECT IT. IF YOU SEE AN EGO, A SOUL, A BIRTH OR A DEATH, REJECT THEM ALL. QUESTION: WHY...

... becomes impossible for the mind to conceive that God is both simultaneously: light and darkness, life and death; that God is and is not, and he is both together simultaneously. The mind starts feeling crazy if you force it to think upon such matters. The mind simply recoils, it says, "This is nonsense!" One of the very keenest minds of the modern West is Arthur Koestler. He came to study Zen...

... whole existence. Here, day and night are one; here, summer and winter are one; here, life and death are one. Koestler should think a little bit more about life, too. Life is more like Zen than like anything else; Zen may be illogical because life is illogical. Logic is a manmade phenomenon. Logic is a frame imposed by us on existence. We try to sort things out, and existence is a beautiful chaos. We...

... REAL WISDOM. You can be a very wise dreamer, you can be very knowledgeable in your dreams, but a dreamer is a dreamer. You can dream of beautiful things - sweet dreams of golden palaces, of paradise - but they are all dreams. Whether you dream of heaven or hell, it is the same. Hell is a dream, heaven is a dream. In Western languages these are the only two possibilities after death: heaven or hell...

... THE WISE, BUT IN THE EYE OF ZEN, A SAGE'S LIFE IS ONE OF MEDIOCRITY AND THE MEDIOCRE PERSON'S AS THE SAGE'S. THIS ONE LIFE HAS NO FORM AND IS EMPTY BY NATURE. IF YOU BECOME ATTACHED TO ANY FORM, YOU SHOULD REJECT IT. IF YOU SEE AN EGO, A SOUL, A BIRTH OR A DEATH, REJECT THEM ALL. It is a very significant answer. Meditate over it. IT IS LIKE GOSSAMER. Our life is just our own ego playing all kinds of...

... no holier-than-thou nonsense. THIS ONE LIFE HAS NO FORM AND IS EMPTY BY NATURE. IF YOU BECOME ATTACHED TO ANY FORM, YOU SHOULD REJECT IT. IF YOU SEE AN EGO, A SOUL, A BIRTH OR A DEATH, REJECT THEM ALL. Bodhidharma says: Reject the very idea that "I am a buddha." Reject the very idea that "I am special, extraordinary, spiritual, holy," because these are all tricks of the ego. The...

..., YOU SHOULD NOT SEE A THING. There will be no question of rejection. It is only a way of saying "Reject the ego." If you meditate, if you become silent, there is no ego to reject. You won't see a thing - neither life nor death, neither matter nor mind. All things will disappear. You will be an empty space, a mirror reflecting nothing. So don't be worried! First enter into meditation, have...

... a man can be full alone or a woman can be full alone, because man-woman is a unity. Action-passivity is a unity, day-night is a unity, life-and-death is a unity. Life cannot exist without death, and death of course cannot exist without life. And so on and so forth. So whenever I am talking about spontaneity, authenticity, love, I am not talking about men, I am not talking about women - I don't...

... to him than anybody else. Why? He was killed. If he had been born in India, Hindus would have simply neglected him. And that would have been a sure death. It is impossible to believe that which has not happened to you. So I know, if you trust me, that is a miracle. If you don't trust me, that is just natural. If you trust me you are showing great courage - you are adventurous, you are a dare-devil...

..., with absolute determination that if enlightenment does not happen now, he will not leave this place. He will not move, he will not open his eyes, he will not go begging. He will die, sitting in this place, if enlightenment does not happen. He staked all. And by the morning he became enlightened. This is the HINAYANA story, the path of the will. For six years he worked hard, but it was not total. The...

... ultimate culmination comes with total determination, with total will - that now he will die. Either it happens, or he will die - but he is not going to move from here. This utter determination is one story. The other story is the MAHAYANA story - the story of the lazy people, the story of those who follow the path of surrender, effortlessness. They say: After six years, the same night, he became...

... not so spiritualistic - because whenever somebody is spiritualistic he has a goal, the other-worldly goal. He wants to be special somewhere, if not in this life then in the next, if not here then after death if not on the earth then in paradise. The paradise is just the imagination of the people who live a goal-oriented life. They cannot be religious unless there is a goal beyond death. Once there...

... global suicide! They will starve and die. That is a very impractical idea for transforming the world into a religious kind of living. Zen is very pragmatic, practical. It says that is stupid; renouncing is simply unintelligent - transform! Be wherever you are, but be in a new way. And what is that new way? Be non-competitive. To be competitive is to be worldly. Remember the emphasis: it is not a...

... simply waiting when you should die, and immediately he will jump on your chair, he will sit there. He is just waiting; he is already half way. He is praying in his heart that, 'You old fool - die soon!' so that he can tell somebody else to sit on the smaller throne and he will introduce him as a very humble person. Neither you are humble nor he is humble. If he is humble by sitting on a smaller throne...

... to die and everybody dies. Buddha died, Mahavira died, Krishna died, Lao Tzu died, Jesus died, Mohammed died - everybody dies! Some foolish mahatma, some insane man still can attract people. That simply means people are mad. And this is not new - this type of people have always been around. One thing is good about these people: that while they are alive you cannot prove that they are wrong, and...

... when they are dead, what can you do? Sri Aurobindo used to say the same thing, that he has come to know the secret of physical immortality. When he died it was a shock, because he had thousands of followers. Few of my friends were there in his ashram and they reported to me that for twenty-four hours the news was not released outside the ashram because nobody could believe that Sri Aurobindo can die...

... last day of the conference in Bangkok, Thomas Merton spoke about Zen. And he also mentioned that he would love to go to Japan from Bangkok. That very night he was found dead. And without anybody being informed, his body was embalmed immediately, without any autopsy, without knowing the cause of his death. After you have embalmed a body there is no possibility of autopsy. There is every reason to...

...... the murderers must have been already there. And because he mentioned in his last speech to the conference that he was immensely interested in Zen, and he would like to go to Japan from there, this statement became his death. So it is not only Ayatollah Khomeini. There have been murders and murders, century after century, of people who wanted to get out of the slavery and seek and search the truth on...

... ascetic, and he could see what he had been doing to himself and what other Trappists were doing to themselves. It is sheer masochism - self-torture in the name of an ascetic way of life. It is not a way of life, it is a way of death! It is slow suicide, slow poisoning. But his statement will be detected by any man who has a direct experience of Zen. He says, "It is not a way of ascetic perfection...

... this life. After being murdered by the Christians... It is a well-known fact to the people who have known the direct experience, that your last thought before you die is going to be your first thought when you are born and you grow up. As you start having intelligence, your last thought of the past life is going to suddenly pop up. It has been hiding itself inside you. It is just like the last...

... exactly that thought in the morning as the first thought? The same happens with death, because death is nothing but a deeper sleep. The last thought, the last desire, is going to be your first thought, your first desire as you become mature enough to have thoughts. It will immediately come to your mind. In Tibet they have a special ceremony for dying people called bardo. The person is dying, and the...

... like day and night, birth and death, darkness and light. Zen is simply beyond any dual conceptions. Once you are beyond mind, you cannot have any duality, any trace of duality in you. You are neither rational nor irrational; you are simply here and now, without any label. All labels are gathered by the mind. You are no longer a man or a woman; you have never been born and you have never died. All...

... IN CHARGE OF THE BRIDGE, CAME OUT AND WARNED TANKA THAT HE HAD BETTER MOVE, BUT TANKA DIDN'T GET UP. Nobody can order a man of Zen. You can kill him, but you cannot order him. You can murder him, but you cannot command him. The man of Zen does not bother about death, because he knows his deathlessness. He does not care about who you are; lord or governor or emperor, it does not matter. You are just...

... experience. There is no way for Christianity to survive. It shows certainly that Christians are aware of their death which is coming closer and closer every moment. They know their God is dead and they are keeping that God on an artificial breathing system. They are looking all over the world to see if some props can be found so that God can look as if he is still alive. Hindus are not in such a search...

... gestures, in your day-to-day affairs. This is the first step. The second and third will follow in their own time. You have just to wait in deep trust. If the first has happened, the second is bound to happen. It is really the growth of the first. The third is the growth of the second, and the third is the final step. Once you have become enlightened, you are free from birth and death, you are free from...

... will be difficult in the beginning, you will feel much discomfort. With a premeditated answer there is less discomfort, you are more certain. Why are we not spontaneous? It is because of fear, the fear that the answer may be wrong. It's better to decide beforehand then you can be certain; but certainty always belongs to death. Remember, life is always uncertain. Everything dead is certain, life is...

... from you. Everybody bores everybody else because everything is dead, borrowed, stale, and stinks of death. It is not fresh. Look at children playing and you feel a freshness. For a moment you may even forget that you have become old. Listen to the birds, look at the trees or flowers and for a moment, forget. Here there is no mind. Flowers are flowering: just like the cook kicked they are kicking...

... death become a paradox because they can both be thought; for existence, when there is birth there is no death, when there is death there is no birth. For existence there is nothing paradoxical, but the mind can look at the past, the present and the future, and these are paradoxes. Yesterday you heard me; be finished with it. There is no more yesterday but the mind carries it. If you really heard me...

... yesterday you will not carry it, for if you carry it how can you hear me today? The smoke of yesterday will be a disturbance; there will be that smoke and you will only hear me through yesterday and you will miss. Yesterday should be dropped so you can be here and now. There is no paradox, but if you compare yesterday and today then it comes. If you compare birth and death, the paradox comes. Today and...

... THE WORLD, ONE MAY ASPIRE TO BE ONE HUNDRED. THUS, AND ONLY THUS, CAN A MAN BE FREE FROM THE BINDING INFLUENCE OF ACTION. UNILLUMINED INDEED ARE THOSE WORLDS CLOUDED BY THE BLINDING DARKNESS OF IGNORANCE. INTO THIS DEATH SINK ALL THOSE WHO SLAY THE SELF. AUM PURNAMADAH PURNAMIDAM PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE. AUM THAT IS THE WHOLE. THIS IS THE WHOLE. FROM...

... enquiry of the heart, it is not intellectual curiosity. It is NOT curiosity, it is far more important - it is a question of life and death. When one is tired of all questions and all answers, when one is fed up with all philosophy, only then one comes to a Master. When one has accumulated much information and still remains ignorant, and all that information does not create any light within his soul...

... were in the mother's womb, then you were born, then one day again you die and disappear into the womb of existence. The body goes on changing, continuously changing. The mind goes on changing. In the morning you are happy, in the afternoon you are angry, in the evening you are sad. Moods, emotions, feelings, go on changing; thoughts go on changing. The wheel goes on moving around you. This is the...

... thinking in terms of money - that if his wife has laughed with somebody else that means she will be not able to laugh with him any more; so much laughter is lost! Now he is a loser, and of course that creates anger. In fact, if the wife does not laugh with many people, does not enjoy friendship, is not loving, to many people, her love sources will die; she will not be able to love her husband either. She...

... when I am not with you, stop breathing!" And the husband insists also that, "When I am not at home you stop breathing, so that when we are together GREAT breathing happens!" But both will die! That's how we have killed love in the world, we have killed everything valuable, because our whole logic is stupid. It is good that the husband goes for a morning walk and breathes in the fresh...

... spiritualist is ignorant, because both are unaware of the whole. Only the one who knows the whole knows. INTO THIS DEATH SINK ALL THOSE WHO SLAY THE SELF. And by dividing your being into two, is like slaying your very being, murdering yourself, killing yourself Don't cripple yourself, don't paralyze yourself. Accept your totality and live it joyously. AUM PURNAMADAH Purnamidam PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE PURNASYA...

... thought him to be the worst, sin incarnate. When they crucified Jesus, they didn't crucify him alone. On both his sides were criminals; three persons were crucified together. He was crucified like a criminal. Not only that, every year the viceroy of the country, the Roman viceroy, had the power to forgive one person, to release him from the death penalty. Four persons were to be crucified - Jesus and...

.... People are born and people die also. In reality every day is the same. Reality does not favor. But your mind... if it starts working, you will find.... People come to me - if they have decided that I am a bad man, almost always they find proofs. Nobody can prevent them; they will always find proofs. Life is vast. It is both summer and winter. It is both good and bad. It is both right and wrong. It is...

... - the very face more like death than like life. Crucified. Death worshipped, not life; very serious. Christians say that Jesus never laughed. It may not be true but Christians have that idea. How can God laugh when there is so much misery, when there is so much sin? How can God laugh when there is Vietnam and when there is Cambodia and when there is Israel and all types of wars and killing and murder...

... you know what existence is, never before it. The mind has to die. Until you die, God will not be possible for you. God is not an experience. He is never separate from you. You cannot look at him because he is hidden in the looker. You cannot confront him. Where will you confront him? He is hidden in you. I would like to tell you one story, a very old Hindu story. It is said, God created the world...

... having nervous breakdowns: "What is going to happen now? Even if Columbus is right and THE BIBLE is wrong and we are not going to fall off a flat earth, after three days the food will be finished. We will be dying, starving; and that looks far uglier than sudden death. We will die gradually." So they all gathered - when Columbus was going to sleep - on one ship in the night, and they thought...

... you, you can go; I will swim, you need not throw me. I will jump into the ocean myself, I will try to reach without you - but remember, all you ninety are going to die, and a cowardly death. Be a little brave, face the situation; come along with me. The earth is round. We have seen in these past days that there is no horizon - we are bound to reach land." This was a great challenge to their...

... silence following it. This is the law of nature: day follows night, life is followed by death, word follows wordlessness. On both sides.... Then it is not a discourse, not oratory; it is a way of reaching you, touching you at the very innermost center of your being. But if you are still bored, then just get up and get out, and get lost. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, YOU SAY A SKEPTIC CANNOT BE A DISCIPLE...

... articulate in arguments, the more he is unaware that life is not to argue, life is not to say no, because no means death. And just wasting your life destroying other people's arguments, what are you going to gain? You wasted your whole life. I am not teaching you skepticism, I am teaching you the art of doubt. Doubt does not say that it is not so. The doubt simply says, "I am ignorant. I have not...

... rootedness in myself. Yes, I walk like a drunkard because I am a drunkard. You have observed truly. Once you know the inner serenity, a gap between you and your body arises, a gap between you and your mind arises. That creates my bobbily walking. Nothing can be done about it. It is not a medical question, it is natural to anyone who is enlightened. Mostly enlightened people die immediately after...

... four years, and I am still a tourist. It seems I am going to die as a tourist. The government agencies who are responsible for deciding are in a difficulty. If they say no to me, I am going to fight the courts up to the Supreme Court. That will give me enough time - almost twenty years. So they are afraid to say no. Yes, of course, they cannot say. So they are in a dilemma, just waiting for some...

.... How did they manage to move those big stones, going higher and higher into the sky? They were not managed by cranes, they were managed by "God's chosen people," followed by the Egyptians with their whips, on their horses, continuously whipping the people who were carrying the stone. And when somebody has to choose between death and life, he is ready to do anything. What was God doing all...

... trees - is chosen by existence; otherwise, there is no reason why they should be there. They are, because existence wants them, needs them. Moses bluffed those poor slaves. And it is very easy. When you say to a poor man, "You will be rewarded immensely after death, it is just a question of a few years. Be patient and these rich people who are enjoying here only for a few days will suffer in hell...

... live much longer, and he died in Kashmir in India. A great coincidence: Moses died in India, Jesus died in India, Buddha died in India, Mahavira died in India, Krishna died in India. The founders of almost all the great religions of the world were either born in India or at least managed to die in India. Just to disconnect myself from all that rotten lot, I left India. It was not in my hands not to...

.... I have not given you any promises of a holy land. I have not given you any incentives after death. I have not given you any guarantee that if you are with me, soon you will be with God. I don't give you promissory notes, and I don't take any responsibility on your behalf, because I respect you. If I take the responsibility on myself, then you are slaves; then I am the leader and you are the led...