... beautiful and you were going so deep - now you are back again. And the desire to die may have created your illness. If you start desiring death you will not be able to go again into that same depth because desire will disturb. These are the problems in meditation: when you go deep, a desire arises to go to the same depth again or even deeper. But now the desire is a new element. It was not there when you...

... able to enter deeply into meditation. Another trouble will be that your body will lose aliveness, resistance, because when one starts thinking of dying the body starts cooperating with that death desire. The body is such a great servant - it simply follows you. If you really think you want to die, immediately the body can stop working, because what is the point? The body is alive because you want to...

... be alive. It is your energy that the body lives by; it has no other energy. If you are withdrawing yourself and retiring and you think that there is no need.... This happens to retired people: they all die before their natural death. A person becomes retired. He may have been a president of a great corporation or a mayor or a prime minister, governor of this and that, or anybody, but he was...

.... Death is depth of life... it is a dimension of life. So when you want to die, don't think in terms of being anti-life or that you don't want to live, otherwise who will die? If you don't live, who is going to die? If life disappears, who is going to go deep in death? It is life that goes deep. Death is just depth to life. Life is just the surface of death, and death is just the depth of life. They are...

... the death experience. I just didn't want to come back. When I did come back, I felt a lot of frustration And then afterwards I had hepatitis. There were times I felt I just really wanted to be dead It was really strong.] Mm. It happens if you go into death meditation very deeply for the first time. The charm is so much and the pull is so great and the silence and the peace that comes is such that...

... one doesn't want to come back. . But one has to come back. And you are not ready yet to go deeper than you want. One can go only to a certain extent. When your capacity grows more you will be able to go deeper. And death is an endless abyss so one can go on and on. But you have tasted something of it; that very taste can create trouble. When you come back you feel frustrated because it was so...

... helpful to meditation. If you go into that death experience again you will not be able to go to the same depth because this desire will constantly be there. Death can be deep only when there is no desire. To be absolutely desireless is to be in nirvana, to be in total death. But now this desire has to be understood. Otherwise you will create two types of trouble. The trouble will be that you will not be...

... somebody in the world - maybe just a foreman, but fifty labourers were working under him. Now he is retired... suddenly life loses meaning. Nobody pays any attention to him. He has no power over anybody. A desire arises because what is the point? Why go on? Better to die and be finished with it all. Psychologists ay that life becomes shorter by at least ten years when a person is retired. If the person...

... was going to live to ninety years, he will live eighty years. And sometimes it has happened that if a great desire arises to die, you can simply stop breathing. Not that you will stop; the breathing will stop on its own. And my feeling is that that deep experience created the trouble. The stomach is the first organ that is affected. If you want to die, the stomach feels, 'It's okay. There is no need...

.... Why bother?' So this is bad for your health. And I am not worried about the body. Even if it is bad for health, and good for the inner journey, I will be ready - let it be so. But it is not good for the inner journey either. So you drop that desire. You will be able to go deeper, but forget about it. And death is not against life - don't take it that way. You are misinterpreting the whole thing...

... together just like the ocean - on the surface waves and deep down no waves at all, but both are together. So my suggestion is that you become more alive and more healthy. Be more vital so that next time you go into depth you can dive deeper, otherwise you will not be able. And desire will not help - only energy will help. So create more energy. If you really want to taste what death is, you are longing...

... - here you die, there you are born immediately. You leave one body - you have not even left it, and already you are entering into another womb. It does not make much difference. The real death is when you come face to face with your inner non-being, the abyss. One gets frightened, one wants to go away from it. One wants to keep it at the back, one wants to fill it. That's what people go on doing...

... unmoving axle, and at the very center of a cyclone there is silence. At the very core of life there is death. This is how things are, existence is through contradiction. Existence continuously contradicts itself, and out of contradiction is born the energy to live. Out of the tension between the contradictions is this whole play, the game. This is the dialectics - the thesis and the antithesis. And the...

.... Once seen in that light, life becomes enlightened. Then you are full of awareness. Then you know that there is nothing wrong in death - not only that, you know that without death life will not be possible at all. So life owes its all to death. Then death is not against life; it is not the enemy, it is the friend. Seeing this, the fear of death disappears. Seeing this, anguish disappears, anxiety...

... into this direction, into that. You have to rush, because if you don't rush you will stumble upon your nothingness... and there is fear. You are frightened of that - you don't want to see that you are not. Your being is non-being: you are not ready to look into it, to accept it. You are death living. Death is there, and at the very core of your being there is just emptiness - what Buddha calls anatta...

... is great rest. The seeker has disappeared, the desirer is no more, the becomer has not been found. So the foundation has disappeared - and the whole palace made of playing-cards simply shatters to the ground. Unless you come to know this inner non-being - anatta, non-existence, or death.... Zen people call it 'the great death'. It is no ordinary death. Ordinary death does not make much difference...

... you forgot your inner nothingness. Now, the desire fulfilled, the car in the porch, the woman in your bed, the money in your bank-balance - again, excitement disappears. Again the emptiness is there, yawning within you, ready to eat you up. Again you have to create another desire, to escape from this yawning abyss, from this death that is waiting for you there. It can swallow you in a single moment...

... is not there in the hand. And the woman says, 'What are you thinking? Where have you gone?' Byron was a very honest man that way. He said, 'Sorry, but it seems the marriage is finished. That woman has taken all my heart. And I know that just a few hours before, I was hankering for you, I was ready to do anything. I was ready to die, if that was going to solve the thing. But suddenly, knowing that...

..., things become easier - easier and easier and easier. Because when things are hard, there is joy. When things become easy, your ego is not challenged, there is no more joy. As he comes to the top, finished. What is Sisyphus going to do now? The Indian gods would leave him there with his rock on the top of the mountain. What will he do? He will hit his head against the rock and die. The Greek myth does...

... alien, strange to it, you rejoice in it. And it is a blessing. The Western mind feels very very embarrassed with the idea - 'How can nothingness be a joy?' You have always been trying to BE; nothingness seems like death, annihilation. How can nothingness be a joy? That's why the Western philosophers think that Buddha is the greatest pessimist in the world. He is not; this is an interpretation. The...

... Western mind thinks, 'To move into a nothingness, what joy can be there?' But you don't understand. When you find you are not, there cannot be any anxiety. Now even death cannot make you afraid. You are already not, so death cannot destroy anything. You are free of death. When you find you are not, you are no more concerned with success or failure; there is nobody to succeed, nobody to fail. Equanimity...

... wrong. Then go to the priest again; then go on following the priest. A real master never gives you any idea of right and wrong, he simply gives you INSIGHT. Because in the afternoon I may not be with you.... Just the other day, Chinmaya was with me. He has become afraid of death. Good, very good. Doctors have told him that there is some danger for his life, so he is shaking, trembling, for three days...

... he has not been able to sleep. A rare opportunity - because death will come to everybody, but it never comes with such information beforehand. So he was there last night, and he is very much afraid. And I told him, 'Look into it: What do you have to lose? What have you gained in your life? The fear means that you have much in your life, and death will take it away. What have you got? If you look...

... deeply, and you find that you don't have anything, then what is the fear? You are not going to lose anything.' I told him to look into the fear of death and get into it as deeply as possible, don't avoid it. Everybody is telling him, 'Forget about it, it is nothing, don't be worried. Some medicine, some operation, something will be done.' Everybody is consoling him, he is consoling himself - finding...

... ways and rationalizations. I told him to look into the face of death. Death exists at the very center of our being; it is nothing AGAINST US. We are closer to death than we are close to life. Death is closer to us than life is, because life is the wheel revolving, and death is the hub. And I told him, 'You are fortunate that death is coming with a message, that death has a date with you. And you are...

... also fortunate because I am here, and I can help you to look into death.' While I was saying these things, I could see he was waiting for some consolation. He didn't want to hear these things, to look into death. He wanted me to say something to him, promise him something. I should say, 'Don't be worried, I will protect you.' He was waiting, in the comer of his eyes, for me to say something consoling...

.... But a master is not to console you, a master is to awake you. If death is coming, death is coming. Accept it, go into it, have a great insight into it. It may not come - because doctors are not reliable - but why miss this opportunity? It may not come - but if the idea has arisen, then why not go into it? and why not have a taste of it? If it doesn't come, good. If it comes, good - but you be ready...

... for it. You go into it, you go with deep acceptance and receptivity. And in that acceptance and receptivity, something will be revealed to you: your innermost core. And feeling in tune with this innermost core, all fear disappears. And I told him, 'You may not die this time - some day you will die. Next time I may not be here to tell you, next time I may not be here to console you. So if I really...

... love you, I will not console you - because next time what will you do when I am not here and you die? Then you will not be able to find a way.' Consolation is not the way. Insight - what Buddha calls VIPASSANA, looking into. A master gives you clarity to look into things. And when you look into things, the obvious is SO obvious that there is no question of choice. You don't choose then, your clarity...

... leads you - it becomes a lamp, it directs you. And this is what Buddha says, these were his last words when he was departing from the world. His monks started crying and weeping. He said, 'Stop all this nonsense! Listen to me: Be a light unto yourself. Remember, these are my last words. Be a light unto yourself: APPO DEEPO BHAVA.' What is this light? This clarity to see into things. If it is death...

..., see into death. If it is love, see into love. If it is life, see into life. If it is anger, see into anger. It is ONE thing: see into it. In the morning it is love, in the evening it may be death. In the afternoon it may be something else, in the night something else again. But if you have the capacity to see into things, you will be able to see the obvious. Once the obvious is known as the obvious...

.... And the intelligent mind is in tune with the river of life, flows with it. A preoccupied mind is playing games, and playing them very seriously. You can go into the marketplace and see people playing the game of money, and very seriously. And they will die and all the money will be left here - and while they were here they played the game so seriously. Go into a capital town and see how people are...

... HOME. NO ONE NOW CARED WHAT BECAME OF HIS CASTLE. ONE CHILD STAMPED ON HIS OWN, ANOTHER PUSHED HIS OVER WITH BOTH HIS HANDS. THEN THEY TURNED AWAY AND WENT BACK, EACH TO HIS HOME. This does not happen, unfortunately, to everybody's life. Evening comes, but you go on clinging to the morning. Evening comes, even death comes - but you go on clinging to life and birth. Evening comes to everybody, but...

.... In Zen, 'going back home' means going inside your own being. Use the evening whenever it comes. It comes many times in a life - sometimes it comes as a failure, sometimes it comes as a frustration, sometimes it comes as a sadness, sometimes as depression. Use it. Sometimes as fear, anguish, sometimes as death, illness - but use it. Whenever evening comes, try to see that nothing belongs to you...

... accept it, we have to respect it. It is the way life is. Life cannot exist without death. Death is the way of life's existence. If death disappears, life will disappear, and one day that calamity could be possible: scientists may succeed one day. They can create a body, artificial, everything plastic... then you will not die! But what kind of life will that be when your hands are of plastic and your...

.... Persuade them and bring them too, and help my people there. Keep it (a box) with you and whenever you need me put it on your heart. And if you try to persuade those people and they don't listen, put the box on their head! You will see miracles happening! [A sannyasin says that recent death of his father, and also of some sannyasins, has brought up some fear in him. He asks if it is something to be...

... conquered.] We are all surrounded by death - always. Only once in a while certain accidents make us aware of it, otherwise, we live in death. Death is all over the place.... No, no, [it is] not to be conquered, just to be witnessed. The idea of conquering creates conflict, antagonism; then you are no more in tune with existence. Death is part of existence, we are not to conquer it. It is so. We have to...

... everything can be made in such a way that you can go on living. But what kind of life will it be? It will lose all significance. It will not have love! Death makes life possible. The way life is, is because of death. So death surrounds life like the ocean, and life exists like small islands in it. And they are beautiful because of the ocean; without the ocean they will disappear! So we are not to conquer...

... death. We are to love it, accept it, be a witness to it, and see the phenomenon that it is the other side of life. Once in a while you become aware, but otherwise it is always there: the plane crashes, some friend dies, and then a shock and in the shock your sleep is broken a little bit. Again you will fall asleep and you will forget all about the plane crash and the friend and the mother and the...

... father, and again you will move in the same somnambulistic pattern... But it is good to be reminded! - because that reminding can become a great experience. If you can now keep alert forever, then the death of a friend or the father or the mother or a beloved can become a blessing in disguise - if it can make you aware, if it can make you more of a witness. And one who can witness death can witness...

... everything, remember, because that is the last thing, the ultimate in witnessing. If you can witness death then there is nothing else which cannot be witnessed. You have encountered the ultimate fear, and in encountering it you have gone beyond it, in witnessing it you can start laughing about it. Then death is a joke. [A sannyasin says that when she closes her eyes, she sees two eyes; they seem to be...

... certain very distinct individually. In fact they are more individualistic than people who die naturally. They live their own way and they die their own way. Their death has their signature. They will not allow it to just happen. They like to give it a colour and a shape and a date. It happens many times that rare people commit suicide. [She says: He was rare.] So, nothing to be worried about. One should...

... she dies, she is dying in a good state. Just don't be worried. And this will be good for you also. If you can just remain silently in deep acceptance of whatsoever happens, this may prove your greatest moment in growth. There may not be another opportunity again, because it is difficult to find a woman to die so soon again. mm? So use it... use even death. Everything has to be turned into a skilful...

... our minds that there must have been some way.... It is possible that he could still be alive, because it was not a natural death. But in fact no death is unnatural. It is just our understanding that makes the distinction. It was natural for him to commit suicide. That was his way of dying. And as far as I can see into people - into their life and their death - people who commit suicide have a...

... be happy about it. He was a rare man, and he had his own way of death. He lived his life, he died his way - and it was natural for him. There are people for whom ordinary death is unnatural; it won't fit with them. It will be simply like an accident that they died on their bed just by accident. It won't fit with them. There are people for whom it is natural to put their lives aside and take the...

... jump and the plunge into the unknown. Because we cling too much to life., suicide looks like a sin. It is our clinging - because we are clingers, and if somebody commits suicide we condemn. But it is not necessarily that it is bad. The person may have taken a plunge into the unknown. He has known life, he is finished with it, now he wants to know what death is - and he wants to know it very...

... to become part of every country and every constitution, because a man has a fundamental right to live and to die. Nobody should be allowed to prevent anybody. If somebody wants to dissolve himself, it is perfectly okay. It is his way. If he wants not to live, then who are others to force him to live? Then it is an imprisonment. I can see you, and just through you, I can feel that he must have been...

... freedom that is needed. Love gives freedom in life, and love gives freedom in death too. [A sannyasin, was at darshan tonight, after having heard that his wife of some years, was dangerously ill and hospitalised in germany.] ... don't be worried about [your wife]. She is in a good state. If she stays a little longer, good. If she goes, that too is good. But she has surrendered and is not fighting. If...

... situation. Buddhists call it 'upaya'. Everything, even when death happens, let it become an 'upaya', a situation to grow. It is happening whether you use it or not, so why not use it? Just accept it, and by your acceptance, she will also be helped. And I would have sent you (to where she is hospitalised) but it is meaningless. The better thing is to be here, but to be totally accepting. That will be...

... to die. Both are there. If the instinct to live is not supported, the other instinct becomes powerful. If the instinct to live is supported, if life is affirmed, then the other instinct disappears. It is the same energy - either it will flow through eros, or it will flow through thanatos. It depends on you. The religions of the world up to now have been death-oriented. And remember, when I say...

... to love life too much - because if people love life too much then people cannot be forced to go to wars. Who wants to die? There would be no army left in the world. People have to be forced against eros, they have to be forced against life, they have to be taught to love death, respect death and feel death as sacred - only then can there be armies. And great armies are needed. The politician is...

... against love, against life, because he needs soldiers for death, to die and to kill. The priest also wants people not to love life. If they love life they will not bother about the temples and the churches and the mosques. And if they really love life they will find God through life - the priest will not be needed. The priest is needed only when people have gone astray from life - only then can he...

... can be diverted very easily. Down the ages, religious people have been doing the same. He did it to the logical end. Ordinarily monks die slowly; they commit a slow suicide. He went fast and quickly. But there was a tendency, an atmosphere of death. They were practising death almost every month. Every month he would call the commune together and order them to die. And they were ready. They had said...

..., he ordered a third soldier - but before he could jump, the English diplomat caught hold of him and said, "Are you mad? What are you doing? Why are you so ready to leave your life?" And the man said, "Leave me alone! You call this life?" To be with Adolf Hitler is far worse - it is better to die. These people who committed suicide must have been living a worse life than death...

... Reverend Jones' commune?" This will be the last place in the world where it could happen, because I teach you love, I teach you life. My whole effort is to make your energy move through life totally - nothing is left. And if you move totally through life, death disappears. Even when you die, you will not see that death is happening to you - you will see only that you are changing your abode, you are...

... against it - because they are all death-oriented. And my love is unconditionally for life. I teach you to love and to live. Death is impossible here - what to say of suicide? Even death is impossible here. If you die the way I am teaching you, if you live the way I am teaching you, you will never know death. Even dying, you will know that the flame goes on burning forever. The last question: BELOVED...

... asked George Bernard Shaw, "Where would you like to go when you die - to heaven or to hell?" He said, "It all depends." The man said, "What do you mean, 'It all depends'?" He said, "If I am going to be the first in heaven, then to heaven. If I am going to be second there, no. Then it is better to be in hell but be first." He is joking, but he is telling a truth...

... authentic. You don't have any substance, you are just a shadow. And because of this shadow there is always fear of death, because any moment this shadow can disappear. Your bank can go bankrupt, and immediately you are gone, you are nobody. Your power can be lost, because there are other competitors pushing you. This whole life is a constant pushing and pulling, hence there is so much agony. Do you know...

...; remember that you are the master. Not to be attached to whatever position one has at any particular moment is the beginning of self- knowledge. One IS, one experiences aliveness, to the extent to which one can transcend particular positions and can assume other viewpoints. That's what I mean by remaining fluid, flowing. One should remain available to the present. Die to the past each moment, so that...

... insanity. But that is their fault, it is not the fault of the times. The times are beautiful, because the times of chaos are the times of revolution. It is possible now to get out of the wheel of life and death more easily than it has been possible for twenty-five centuries since Buddha. In Buddha's time, many people became enlightened; the society was in a turmoil. Again it is happening. Great times are...

... much competition, trees grow higher; they have to. That's why in the jungles of Africa, trees grow very high. The same trees in India won't grow that high; there is no need, the competition is not so much. In thick forests if the tree remains small it will die; it will be in the shadow of other trees. It has to reach the sun: it goes on and on moving upwards. Trees are intelligent in their own way...

... are suicidal people. And there is a death instinct in man - Sigmund Freud has called it "thanatos." Sigmund Freud's contribution to human growth is immense. In his early life he discovered the life-instinct - sex, eros. And then in his later life, when he was getting old, he discovered another thing - thanatos, against eros. There are two basic instincts in man: one is to live, another is...

... "religions" I don't include Buddhas. I don't include Bahauddin, Sanai, Attar, Mahavira, Jesus, Mohammed, no. But I include Mohammedanism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism. All the organized religions of the world have been death-oriented. And this is something unbelievable: all the original beings were life-oriented. Buddha is utterly life-oriented, but Buddhism is death...

...-oriented. Mohammed is life-oriented, but Mohammedanism is death-oriented. How does it happen? Just the other day, I was saying that truth transferred from one to another becomes a lie; it goes upside down. When Buddha says something, he means something totally different than that which is understood by the blind and unconscious people. Everything goes topsy-turvy. His life-affirmation becomes death...

... the original religious founders were life-affirmative. And all the religions that were born out of their teachings became death-oriented. Asceticism is falling in love with death. It is a pathology, it is not a path. But people respect it, because the ascetic seems so different from you. You love food, he hates food. you love a good bath, he hates to take a bath. Jaina monks don't take baths - not...

... a healthy life of rejoicing. That's why they are so much against me - because I would like you to live fully, totally, wholly. I would like you to accept life without denying yourself anything, without feeling in any way guilty. All guilt is a cunning strategy of the priests to divert your energy from life towards death. Why have people done it? There are reasons. The politician wants people not...

.... Otherwise life is so tremendously satisfying - who bothers? Who cares? Reverend Jones was able to kill nine hundred people, innocent people, for a simple reason: he was training them for death. You will be surprised to know that in Jonestown, lovemaking among the members of the sect was not allowed. Celibacy was enforced. There were hard strict rules: the people were not allowed to go outside the commune...

... yes so many times that when it was really asked they could not say no. It had become an inbuilt program. And their life was so ugly, that's why they were ready to die. I have always loved a certain story. An English diplomat went to see Adolf Hitler before the second world war. They were standing on the terrace of a three-storey building, talking. Just to show his power to the English diplomat...

... itself. This is the simple logic of it. And the ascetic attitude makes your life so ugly, so intolerable, that one starts thinking of death as a deliverance. I am against ascetic attitudes, because they are ill attitudes, unhealthy, unwholesome. I am all for eros, I am all for life - because life is the temple of God, the only temple. And eros is the only way God is expressed in the world. If you move...

... THAT BREATHES LIVES ON THE AIR, AND THE OTHER, UNSEEN, RESTS ABOVE REACH. BETWEEN THE TWO MOVES ANOTHER MAN AS A SECRET LINK. WORSHIP KNOWINGLY. IT IS A SPORT AMONGST THE THREE OF THEM. MY SEARCHING HEART, WHOM DO YOU SEEK? BETWEEN THE DOORS OF BIRTH AND DEATH, STANDS YET ANOTHER DOOR, WHOLLY INEXPLICABLE. HE WHO IS ABLE TO BE BORN AT THE DOOR OF DEATH, IS DEVOTED ETERNALLY.... DIE BEFORE DYING, DIE...

... is not going to help. Move into the unknown, wait for the unknown to knock at your door. You simply wait -- alert, expectant, ready to receive, with a feeling heart, and being playful. BETWEEN THE DOORS OF BIRTH AND DEATH, STANDS YET ANOTHER DOOR, WHOLLY INEXPLICABLE. HE WHO IS ABLE TO BE BORN AT THE DOOR OF DEATH, IS DEVOTED ETERNALLY.... DIE BEFORE DYING, DIE LIVING. A very significant secret...

.... The other death that will come in the end is not real, because you will survive it. You will be reborn again. As death follows birth, so birth follows death. They are two aspects of the same coin. But if you move into the door of love, then you die, and you die so totally that then there is no birth for you, and of course, no death. Love is the real death because the ego disappears completely. In...

... BORN AT THE DOOR OF DEATH, IS DEVOTED ETERNALLY.... That is what Bauls call the real door of death. DIE BEFORE DYING, DIE LIVING. If you can die before dying, that is, if you can pass through the door of love, if you can die living, then there is no death for you. Then you have become deathless, then you are immortal, then you are a God. Then you are no more part of the material world where bodies...

...Die Living...

... Osho The Beloved Vol 2: Die Living Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho The Beloved Vol 2   Next > Die Living From: Osho Date: Fri, 5 July 1976 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: The Beloved, Vol 2 Chapter #: 5 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: 7607050 Short Title: BELOV205 Audio Available: Yes Video Available: No Length: 97 mins THE MAN...

... realize that you ARE alone, and you have to be alone, and you have to face the reality as it is. These transitory teddy bears are just of your imagination; they are not going to help. If something is going to happen, it is going to happen; the teddy bear cannot protect you. If death is going to happen, it is going to happen. You go on calling to God, but protection cannot come to you. You are calling...

... completely secure and your happiness beyond death is guaranteed. 'Do' religion or greed religion is formal, ritualistic, ambitious, desire-oriented. It is full of desires. See the Mohammedan concept of paradise, or the Christian concept of paradise, or the Hindu concept of paradise. Degrees may be different, but this is a very strange thing: all that these people say one has to deny oneself in this life...

.... It is foolish; the whole concept is foolish. But people become religious out of greed. One thing is certain: that whatsoever you accumulate here will be taken away; death will take it away. So the greedy person wants to accumulate something which cannot be taken by death. But the accumulating idea, the desire to accumulate, remains there. Now he accumulates virtue. Virtue is the coin of the other...

...: between the doors of birth and death, stands yet another door... that door is what we call love. Have you watched? Between birth and death there is nothing else to happen but love. If you miss love between birth and death, you have missed the whole opportunity of life. You may gather knowledge and you may gather valuable stones, and you may gather money and prestige and power, but if you have missed...

... love, then you have missed the real door. The first door, the door of birth, is simply an opportunity to move through the second door, the door of love. Between birth and death is love. In fact, life exists only to give an opportunity to love and be loved. If that is missed, all is missed. If that is not missed, then even if you have missed all, nothing is missed. And this door of love is REAL death...

... ordinary death the body disappears, ego remains, and that carries you into new lives. That is the whole thread of rebirth. Once that thread is broken and the root is cut, you disappear from the world of matter, from the world of the visible into the world of the invisible, the beyond, the other shore. BETWEEN THE DOORS OF BIRTH AND DEATH, STANDS YET ANOTHER DOOR, WHOLLY INEXPLICABLE. HE WHO IS ABLE TO BE...

... night of the month. He who is able to make the full moon rise in the sky of the darkest night, has a right to claim the glory of the three worlds -- the heaven, the earth and the other spheres. "He who is able to make the full moon rise in the sky of the darkest night"...that is their description of love. A LOVER is capable of creating life out of death; he can do the miracle. He can make...

.... People talk about love; they may be talking just to deceive themselves. Their talk may be just a substitute to give them a feeling that they are lovers. But people are afraid of love. It gives fear, because love is death. Your ego has to be dropped completely, utterly effaced. It is suicide. Fear is natural, but if you are courageous enough and you can pass through it, if you can carry the cross of...

... person. Mind itself is the disease for us. Why? Why call mind itself the disease? We will have to approach it from a different dimension, then it will be easy. For us, the body is death; for the Eastern approach, the body is death. So you cannot create a perfectly healthy body; otherwise it will not die. You can create a certain balance, but the body as such, because it is going to die, is prone to be...

... two ends far away from each other. They are like two legs simultaneously walking - and they both belong to you. This very moment you are alive and dying both. Something is dying within you every moment. Within a span of seventy years, death will reach the goal. Every moment you will go on dying and dying and dying, and then you will die. The day you were born you started dying. The birthday is also...

... prone to death? Am I also going to die?" Look at the question. You may not have asked it. You may have asked who has died, why he has died, or you might have said that he looks too young and this is not the age to die. Those anxieties are not basic; they are not concerned with you. You may have felt sympathetic, you may have felt sad, but still that is just on the circumference - and you will...

... have forgotten within a few moments. Buddha turned the whole question toward himself and he asked, "Am I going to die?" The chariot driver said, "I cannot lie to you. Everyone is prone to death, everyone is going to die." Buddha said, "Then turn back the chariot. If I am going to die, then what is the use of life? You have created a deep anxiety in me. Unless this anxiety is...

.... There will be a transcendence. You will be out of your mind, because a dead body needs no mind. A dead body relaxes so much that the very process of the mind stops. You are there and the body is there, but the mind is absent. Remember, mind is needed for life, not for death. If suddenly you come to know that within an hour you will die, what will you do in that hour? One hour left, and it is certain...

... to define health in a negative way looks absurd, because then disease becomes the primary thing by which you define health. But health cannot be defined, because really, the body can never be really healthy. Every moment the body is only in a relative balance, because death is progressing with life; you are dying also. You are not simply alive, you are dying simultaneously. Death and life are not...

... the death-day. If you are dying continuously - and death is not something which will come from without, but something which will grow within - then the body can never be really healthy. How can it be? When it is dying every moment, how can it be really healthy? It can only be relatively healthy. So if you are normally healthy, it is enough. It is the same with the mind. The mind cannot be really...

... mysterious bridges. It bridges two quite contradictory things - matter and spirit. If you can, conceive the paradox. Usually you make a bridge over a river where both the banks are material. In this case, mind is the bridge between one bank which is material and the other which is non-material... between the visible and the invisible, between the dying and the non-dying, between life and death, between...

... it. All that was possible was possible for him. But suddenly he became anxiety-ridden - and that anxiety was a basic anxiety, a primary anxiety. He saw a dead man being carried away, and he asked his chariot driver what had happened to this man. The driver said, "This man is dead now. He has died." This was Buddha's first encounter with death, so he asked immediately, "Is everyone...

... to die, and you have something - X - within you which is deathless. These are two contradictions. It is as if you are standing in two boats which are moving in opposite directions. Then you will be in a deep conflict. That conflict is the conflict of the mind. The mind is between two opposites: - that is one thing. Secondly, mind is a process, not a thing. Mind is not a thing:,it is a process. The...

... ARE GRADUALLY BEING DEPRIVED OF STRENGTH OR OF KNOWLEDGE. AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. You can do it in an actual situation or you can imagine a situation. For example: lie down, relax, and feel as if your body is going to die. Close your eyes; start feeling that you are dying. Soon you will feel that your body is becoming heavy. Imagine: "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying."...

... that you are going to die after one hour - exactly after one hour. What will you do? Your thinking will drop completely because the whole of thinking is concerned with either the past or the future. You were planning to purchase a house or to purchase a car, or you were planning to marry someone or divorce someone. You were thinking many things, and they were constantly on your mind. Now, with only...

... one hour more, there is no meaning in marriage and no meaning in divorce. Now you can leave all the planning to others, who are going to live. With death planning ceases, with death worrying ceases, because every worry is life-oriented. You have to live tomorrow; that is why there is worry. So all those who have been teaching meditation to the world have always been saying: do not think of tomorrow...

.... Jesus says to his disciples, "Do not think of the tomorrow," because if you think of the tomorrow you cannot go into meditation. Then you move into worries. But we are so fond of worries that not only do we think of the tomorrow, we think of the other life. So we plan not only for this life, we plan for the other life, beyond death, also. One day I was passing through a street and someone...

..., "If you want such a beautiful house and such a beautiful garden, believe in Jesus. Those who believe in him will get such houses free of cost in the kingdom of God." The mind goes on not only thinking of tomorrow, but thinking of beyond death, arranging and making reservations for the afterlife. Such a mind cannot be a religious mind. A religious mind cannot think of tomorrow. So those who...

...;There is no heaven and no afterlife." And he said, "There is no soul, and your death will be total and complete; nothing will survive." People thought he was an atheist. He was not, he was just trying to create a situation in which you can forget the tomorrow and can remain in this very moment, here and now. Then meditation follows very easily. So if you are thinking of death - not the...

... death which will come, or is to come later - fall down on the ground and lie dead. Relax and feel, "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying." And not only think it, feel it in every limb of the body, in every fib of the body. Let death creep in. It is one of the most beautiful meditations. When you feel that the body is a dead weight and you cannot move your hand, you cannot move your head and...

.... You can do it in many ways. Sometimes it is possible in actual situations... You are ill and you are feeling that there is no hope, you are going to die. This is a very useful situation. Use it for meditation. You can try it in other ways also. Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength. Lie down and feel as if the whole existence is sucking your strength out. You are being sucked from...

... peak when you are not. Those are rare peaks of love, but ordinarily you remain and the lover is there. When the lover becomes more important than you, you can die for him or her. If you can die for someone, there is love. The other has become the meaning of your life. Only if you can die for someone can you live for someone. If you cannot die for someone, you cannot live for someone. Life acquires a...

... meaning only through death. In love, the other has become important, but you are still there. In some higher peaks of communication you may disappear, but you will come back; this will be only for moments. So lovers have glimpses of devotion. That is why in India the beloved used to call her lover her god. Only in peaks does the other become divine, and the other becomes divine only when you are not...

... coming to terms with reality, throwing away dreams, and accepting the reality as it is. Buddha is mature. He accepts. It is so. For example, although there is death, an immature person goes on thinking that everyone may die but he is not going to die. An immature person goes on thinking that by the time he dies something will be discovered, some medical elixir, which means he will not die. An immature...

... person goes on thinking that it is not the rule to die. Of course, many have died, but in everything there are exceptions, and he goes on thinking that he is an exception. Whenever someone dies you feel sympathetic, you feel, "Poor man, he has died." But it never comes to your mind that his death is your death also. No, you by-=pass it. You just don't touch such delicate matters. You go on...

... frustrates, attachment frustrates, but they think life is frustrating - so they become attached to death. Now they start thinking about how to destroy themselves, how to commit suicide, how to die. But the attachment is there. Previously it was to life, now it is to death. So a person who is attached to life and a person who is attached to death are not different. Attachment is there and that attachment is...

..., India Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. The first question: Question 1: YOU SAID THAT LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY WITH DEATH. THEN WILL YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN BUDDHA'S LOVE. For an ignorant person love is always part of hate, it always goes with hate. For the ignorant mind hate and love are just two aspects of the same coin. For the ignorant mind love...

... making it secure - and it is never secure. It cannot be. Security is the quality of death; safety is the quality of death. Life is insecure, and love is not afraid of it. Love is not afraid of life, insecurity, because it is so grounded. If you are not grounded and you feel a cyclone coming, you will be afraid. But if you are grounded you will welcome the cyclone, it will become an adventure. If you...

... thinking that something or other will save you - some mantra, some miracle- maker guru. Something will happen and you will be saved. You are living in stories, children's stories. A mature person is one who looks at the fact and accepts that life and death are together. Death is not the end, it is the very peak of life. It is not something like an accident which happens to life, it is something which...

... grows in the very heart of life. It grows and comes to a peak. So he accepts and then there is no fear of death. He accepts that security is not possible. You can create a facade, you can have a bank balance, you can donate much money to have some security in heaven, you can do everything, but deep down you know nothing is really secure. The bank can cheat you, and no one knows that the priest is not...

... under water. This is God's will." Accept the reality as it is and learn how to live in it with a yielding heart, with a surrendered ego. The last question: Question 4: YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT LIFE EXISTS WITH DEATH. THEN PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS THE NEED OF TRANSCENDENCE. This is the need. There is the need. Life exists with death... if you can understand this, you have transcended. You accept life...

..., you don't accept death. Or do you? You accept life but you reject death, and because of that you are always in trouble. You are in trouble because death is part of life. When you accept life, death is going to be there, but you reject death. When you reject death you have rejected life also because they are not two. So you will be in trouble. Either accept the whole, or reject the whole. That is...

... transcendence. And there are two ways of transcending. Either accept both, life and death together, or reject both, life and death together - then you have transcended. These are the two ways, the negative and the positive. The negative says, "Reject both." The positive says, "Accept both" but the emphasis is that BOTH should be there, whether accepted or rejected. When both are there they...

... negate each other, just like minus and plus. They negate each other, and when they are not, you have transcended. You are either attached to life or attached - sometimes - to death, but you never accept both. I have come across many people who are so dejected about life that they have started to think about committing suicide. First they are attached to life, then life frustrates - not that life...

... the problem. Accept both. Just think. What will happen if you accept both, life and death? Immediately a silence will come to the mind, because they negate each other. Life and death both disappear when you accept them - then you have transcended, you have gone beyond. Or reject both - it is the same thing. Transcendence means going beyond duality. Attachment means remaining within duality, attached...

... to one against the other. When you accept both or reject both, attachment falls. Your tie is unlocked. Suddenly you float into a third dimension of being, where neither life is nor death. That is nirvana, that is moksha - where both the dualities are not, but oneness, isness, is. And unless you transcend, you will always be in misery. You can change your attachment from this to that, but you will...

.... Wherever you are, it makes no difference. If you have a deep love for me, and if you can remember that love and surrender to me, I will be there working with you, within you. Remember this, and then you will never be lonely or alone. Secondly, when one penetrates deeply into meditation, fear grips you. Sometimes one encounters death, one feels that now one is going to die. One returns back, hurries back...

... again. Remember this. Many have missed many rare moments. Know well that death is going to be there. Not the death of you, but the death of the ego. But because you are identified with the ego you feel that "I am going to die." You are not going to die at all! You are immortal; you are deathless. There is no possibility; death is the only impossibility. You cannot die, so don't be afraid. If...

... you feel fear, you can remember me; and even in that moment of death, I will be there. You can feel reassured that I am there and you are not going to die; someone is there who will help you. Thirdly, meditation needs tremendous effort. You have to be doing it continuously. Make it a point to do it every day. If you can choose a certain hour, and do it in that particular hour every day, it will be...

... to the surface. That is bound to happen. Before you are reborn, you will have to pass through a death. But don't be afraid. If a moment comes in your meditation when you feel that now this is the last moment and you will not be able to come back again to the world, to the body, feel thankful, feel a deep gratitude, and welcome the moment. It is a rare moment that comes only when your meditation has...

... gone very deep. It is a good sign; welcome it. Don't be afraid of it because if you are afraid you can miss it; and once missed it may take a very long time to get that rare moment again. Sometimes even lives may pass before one comes to that rare moment again. Once the fear takes hold of you, you become deeply, unconsciously afraid, and you never come back to the point where death is encountered...

... show up separately and on different occasions we are deluded into the false belief that they are not connected. But if you go a little deeper you will find that meeting is itself a parting, that happiness is also grief and that even birth itself is death. Indeed there is hardly any difference between coming and going - or rather, there is no difference at all. It is the same in life. You have hardly...

... come when the process of going begins, and what appears to our minds to be staying on is merely a preparation for leaving. Really, what is the distance between birth and death? The distance between them can be endless. If life, if this distance between birth and death, becomes a pursuit for self-realization, this distance can have no end to it at all. If life becomes a sadhana, a journey to self...

...-realization, death can become moksha, liberation. While there is not much distance between birth and death, the span between moksha and death is infinite. That distance is as great as the one between body and soul, between a dream and the truth. That distance is much greater than all other distances put together. No two points are greater apart than moksha and death. The illusion that "I am the body...

..." is death; the realization that "I am the soul" is liberation, salvation, moksha. And your life is an opportunity for the realization of truth. If this opportunity for the realization of truth. If this opportunity is used properly and not wasted in vain, the distance between birth and death becomes infinite. As well, there can be a great distance between your coming here and your...

... sankalpa time ceases to exist and only eternity remains. Determination is the door to liberate you from time and unite you with eternity. let your determination be deep and intense. Let it pervade your every breath. Let it be in your memory, asleep or awake. Only through it can a new birth take place, a birth which knows no death. This is real birth. There is a birth, the birth of the physical body, that...

... inevitably ends in death but I deo not call this real birth. How can something that ends in death be the beginning of life? But there is another birth that does not end in death. It is the real birth. Its fulfillment is in immortality. It was for this birth I invited you here, and to this birth I have been calling you for the past few days. We gathered here for that very birth. But merely coming together...