... market. It was the peak of the season, of the year. And one said to the other, "Have you heard that Sheik Fakhruddin, the clothier, died this morning?" The other said, "What! In the middle of the season?" Neither is life meaningful, nor death, only the season. His measurement is money, he measures a man with money; how much you have got, not who you are - that is meaningless. If you...

... disappear; death comes and your whole effort is nullified. Death negates the businessman. I would like to tell you that only the businessman dies, nobody else - but he constitutes ninety-nine percent of people. Only the businessman dies because only he accumulates things, and death can snatch things away. Death cannot take your love, death cannot take your prayer, death cannot take your meditation, death...

... cannot take away your God. But a businessman only becomes interested in God if there is some business to be done. Once it happened: The weather was bad and stormy, and an airplane was lost. The fog was so dense that everybody became afraid and fearful. A minister was aboard; except for him, everybody was weeping, crying, perspiring. The moment was dangerous - any moment, death. Even the pilot was...

... moment it would crash. So the minister said, "Okay, there is no time left now. So you just behave as if you are in a church." The businessman walked down the aisle and collected money from people. The type - even at the moment of death he knows only one way to behave in a church: to collect money. At the last moment money still remains the focus. This is the first thing to be understood, then...

... relationship; or you have purchased land and you have to go and collect the rent; or something else. God is always the last item on the list of a businessman. And he never comes to the last item - before that, death comes. God is the most useless phenomenon. People come to me and they ask, "Why meditate? What will we achieve out of it?" They are asking, "What profit? What are we going to...

..., Christians are more community-oriented, because they can share their food. And food is very basic in life because you depend on food, you will die without it. Sharing food with others means sharing your life. And Jesus raised it to the status of prayer: you should not eat alone, you should be together while eating. This is a transcendence of the animality in you. The last night, when he had to depart, he...

... collected his friends, disciples, and they had the last supper. Even before death you should go on sharing. And food is also a symbol of love. Have you observed why you love your mother? Why does so much love exist between the child and the mother? - because the mother is the first food: the child has eaten her, the mother has gone into him. And the child first becomes aware of the mother, not as a love...

... is already 'late'. She may not know that he is alive, because the newspapers suddenly forget about a man who is out of office. Now where is Nixon? Forgotten! Where is Giri? Forgotten, thrown into the dustbin, nobody bothers. Only when they die will there be a small piece in the newspapers. That's why everybody clings to the post, the work, nobody wants to retire, because once you retire where is...

...; they are not renouncing anything. They enjoy more intensely, that's all. They enjoy so totally that if they die this very moment there will be no complaint. They will say, "We lived, we enjoyed. Enough!" Even a single moment of the life of a sannyasin is a fulfillment. If he dies, he is happy. But a businessman - even millions of lives and he has not finished his work; the work is such that...

... it cannot be finished. There is an old story in the Upanishads: One king, Yayati, was dying and he was already a hundred years old. Death came and Yayati said, "Is it not possible that you take one of my sons?... because I have not lived yet. I was so much engaged in the works of the kingdom, I completely forgot that I have to leave this body. I have not lived - this is too cruel to take me...

... away, because the whole opportunity is lost. I was serving the people and the kingdom and I couldn't live. So be kind!" Death said, "Okay, you ask your children." Yayati had a hundred sons. He asked, but the older ones had already become cunning. Experience makes people cunning, calculating. They listened, but they would not budge from their places. The youngest - he was so young, just...

... sixteen - came near and he said, "Okay." Even Death felt sorry for the boy, because if an old man of one hundred had not lived, how could this boy of sixteen have lived? He had not even started! Death said, "You don't know, you are innocent. Your ninety-nine brothers, on the other hand, are silent. Some of them have already reached seventy, seventy-five. They are old, and their death is...

... it seems that life cannot be lived, so I will try through death. Allow me, and don't create a hindrance." This is what a sannyasin is saying: "If I couldn't live through the life of the ego, I will live through the death of the ego. So take me!" The son was taken and the father lived a hundred years more. Then Death came again. The father was again surprised. He said, "So soon...

...? ... Because I was thinking a hundred years is too long a period, there is no need to be worried. I have not lived yet. I tried, I planned, but now everything is ready and I was just starting to live, and you have come again. This is too much!" And this happened ten times: each time a son donated his life and the father lived. When he was one thousand, Death came and asked Yayati, "What is your...

... the house, or there was some business trouble, or something or other. Buddha came and went; the man could not go to see him. Thirty times in thirty years Buddha passed through that village. And then one day suddenly in the morning, when the man was going to open his shop, he heard that Buddha was going to die that day. Then he became aware of what he had been missing, but now it was too late. He ran...

... delaying my dissolution because I was hoping he might come now, hearing that I am going to die." Drop the businessman's mind! Otherwise, you have missed many buddhas before, you may miss again and again. And it becomes a routine for you to miss, it becomes habitual. Jesus is right: 'TRADESMEN AND MERCHANTS SHALL NOT ENTER THE PLACES OF MY FATHER.' That kingdom is not for them, because they are not...

... worthless, you have chosen that which intrinsically is going to die and you have rejected the immortal. You have chosen the body and rejected the internal, the inner, the consciousness. And whatsoever you choose, you move in that direction. Be mindful about it. Look at the situation, and don't start thinking about others: "That man is a businessman." Look at yourself, because out of one hundred...

... is asking, "YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED THE GOING, the death, BUT HOW ABOUT THE COMING, the birth?" Perhaps there has never been such a conversation. A dead man is standing before you and you are asking a question. But this happens every day here when you all go into death... I go on talking to dead people. I say, "Die more deeply," because you only die just a little. You keep very close...

...-DYING, AND WE DON'T DESIRE TO MEET EACH OTHER AGAIN.' " WHEN HOFUKU WAS ABOUT TO DIE HE SAID TO HIS MONKS, "FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS MY VITALITY HAS DECREASED. IT IS NOTHING; SIMPLY THE TIME HAS COME." A MONK SAID, "THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO DIE - IS THAT ALL RIGHT? TO CONTINUE LIVING - IS THAT ALL RIGHT?" HOFUKU ANSWERED, "IT IS THE WAY." THE MONK ASKED, "HOW...

.... SAY, 'WHERE THERE IS NOT ANY NO-BIRTH AND NO-DYING, AND WE DON'T DESIRE TO MEET EACH OTHER AGAIN.' " Dogo is very clear but only for those who have some experience of that which you cannot confine into the word 'life' or 'death', which you cannot confine into 'yes' or 'no', theism or atheism, which you simply say - through your silence, not through words. You indicate by your presence but not...

..., man or woman... it does not matter from what form you have come into the eternal. The moment you leave the form, you disappear into the formless. The question of meeting does not arise. WHEN HOFUKU WAS ABOUT TO DIE HE SAID TO HIS MONKS, "FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS MY VITALITY HAS DECREASED. IT IS NOTHING; SIMPLY THE TIME HAS COME." A MONK SAID, "THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO DIE - IS THAT...

... ALL RIGHT? TO CONTINUE LIVING - IS THAT ALL RIGHT?" HOFUKU ANSWERED, "IT IS THE WAY." Life comes, death comes; one is in one form, moves into another form and ultimately into the formless ocean of being - this is the way. THE MONK ASKED, "HOW CAN I STOP BEING FLUSTERED?" HOFUKU SAID, "IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS." WITH THIS, HE SAT IN THE ZAZEN STYLE AND PASSED...

... to the surface, so that if anything goes wrong, you can immediately come out. You just need Rupesh's drum and you are back. Die deeply, so that even if Rupesh drums on your head it will take a little time for you to come back. SOZAN SAID, "YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED THE GOING, BUT HOW ABOUT THE COMING?" SHIE DOJA SUDDENLY OPENED HIS EYES AND ASKED, "HOW ABOUT WHEN A SPIRITUAL NATURE DOES NOT...

... forget all about it, the negative and the positive, both. Don't look back, and disappear into the ocean. SHIE DOJA THEREUPON SAID, "BE HAPPY, BE WELL!" AND DIED, SITTING. Death seems to be a game to these people. It is a game: so is life. Don't take anything seriously. Life or death, both are just games and you are beyond both. You can participate on either side in the football match, but you...

... are beyond the sides. For the moment you can play the game. SOZAN on the death of Doja, MADE A VERSE. Such beautiful people! Somebody is dying and you make a verse. THE ENLIGHTENED MIND IS A PERFECT AND FORMLESS BODY. DO NOT BELIEVE, UNREASONABLY, THAT IT IS FAR OFF OR NEAR! THOUGHTS OF DIFFERENCE BECLOUD THE ORIGINAL FORM. A MIND AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF CANNOT BE IN HARMONY WITH THE WAY. WHEN...

.... It is not a great work: it is very simple. Just a little courage, a little risk of losing the paper bag. At the most, what can happen? When Rupesh gives the drumbeat to come back again, at the most you may not come. I don't think that is much trouble. We will still celebrate. So go deeply without any fear. Before that, so you can die happily, a few laughs, because, one never knows, you may come...

... goes into deep silence. No movement. Become frozen just like stone statues. Close your eyes; enter in. Search behind the paper bags. Deeper, deeper, deeper - without fear. This is your own territory; it belongs to no one except you. In fact this is the only space that belongs to you. It is your eternity. To take you deeper, Rupesh, give a beat and everybody dies. (Drumbeat) Die completely. Don't be...

... illusion that is life man dies this way time and time again. But those willing to die to their desires discover that death itself dies for them. 61. Love. Where is truth? Do not search for it for when has truth ever been found through seeking? for in seeking, the seeker is present. So don't seek but lose yourself. He who loses himself finds truth. I don't say: seek and you will find. I say: he who loses...

... the death of all that you were up until yesterday, and what you are now - that too must keep dying every moment so that the new can be born and born and born again. Now you will not remain you even for a moment, you have to die and be reborn every moment - this is the only sadhana. Live like a river, not like a pond. The pond is a householder, the river, a sannyasin. 108. Love. The temple of God is...

... the sun and you will get it for sure, but you have to have the courage to burn! You can't reach the light without dying, for ego is darkness, and besides, the sun isn't anywhere outside but is born within when everything else there burns. When the self is alight - that is the light. The fear of dying is darkness, the jump into death is the light. Die, and know this! Disappear, and you will find it...

...? But the next moment he remembered and said: THY WILL BE DONE. That was enough: the cross became a throne and death a new life. In the moment of revolution between one statement and the next Christ descended into Jesus. Your suffering is intense and a new birth is at hand; be happy, be grateful, don't be afraid of death, be thankful, it is the tidings of a new birth and the old must die to give birth...

... is possible - forward and forward - and the journey is endless! There is no goal, no destination, only resting places - where the tents are dismantled as soon as they are pitched. But why this fear of anarchy? All systems are false - life is anarchic, insecure; he who seeks security dies before his death. Why this hurry to die? Death itself will take care of that for us so is it not proper that we...

... everything is whole, and organically whole. You cannot divide it or do it in part. Love is like that and meditation is also like that. Even death is like that. That is why I say: Death is not dead but organically one with life. You cannot die partially! - either you die or you do not die. Nor can you die gradually. Please remember this always when you are in meditation or in prayer or in worship. A very...

... darkness but because of our lust for living or because of our fear of death - which is to say the same thing in different terms. Do not look at death as opposite to life, because it is not. And live death moment to moment, do not postpone it for the end because that creates fear. Die each moment to the past, and then each moment you will be fresh, young and reborn. And then there is light always because...

... whether to leave these dreams or not, one just has to be aware of them. With this awareness, everything changes. The centre moves. A shift takes place from body to soul. And what is THERE? It cannot be told. It has never been told and it never will be! There is no other way but to know it for oneself. Death is known only through dying and truth is known only through diving deep within oneself. May God...

... A GOLDEN LID. The golden lid that hides truth is nothing but our mind. The mind has smothered us; we are in it, we identify with it, therefore the suffering comes, the bondage and the chain of rebirths. Rise above it, become aware that you are distinct from it - that alone brings bliss, that alone is freedom and the end of birth and death. We have to be what we truly are: this is the only sadhana...

... be satisfied by attaining God the state of satchitananda, the truth-awareness-bliss state of being. Hidden within one in the form of a seed is the very source of religious birth, therefore whilst religions may come ant go religion can never die. I am glad to know that you feel patient about your progress towards the light. Patience is the most important thing of all in spiritual life. How long one...

.... The first ends in death the second in deathlessness. The second is the real journey because it takes you somewhere. Those who take the first journey as it, waste their lives the real life begins the day you start the other journey. A really good beginning has taken place in your consciousness and I am filled with bliss to feel this. 26. Love. On my return home from the tour I looked for your letter...

... not exist apart from memory and nor does the future apart from castles in the air. What is, is always present, and if you start living unreservedly in the present you live in God. once you are free of past and future the mind turns empty and peaceful, its waves die down and what is left is limitless, endless. This is the ocean of truth - and may your river reach it! P.S. I shall probably go to...

... where there is no will there is no life. The seed's will becomes its power. and with this power its tiny roots sprout, enter the rock and spread out, until one day they break the rock. Life always wins over death. The living force within has never been defeated by the dead obstacles without - and never will be. 41. Love. Your letter was received with joy When the heart thirsts so much for truth, for...

..., everything happens by itself. You are coming to Nargol, aren't you? My regards to all. 47. Love. I was glad to receive your letter. Truth is unknown, and to know it one has to die to the known. Once the banks of the known are left behind one enters the ocean of the unknown. Be brave and take the jump! Into emptiness, the great emptiness! Because that's where God lives. Love to all, or to the only one! For...

... only THE ONE is. He alone is. He is in all. He is in all and in the emptiness also. 48. Love. I have your letter and your question. Wherever I is there is a barrier; In fact, the i-attitude is the one and only barrier, so sleeping, waking, sitting, walking - always be aware of it; see it, recognize it and remember it wherever and whenever it comes, for recognition spells its death. It is not the...

... for love is really the search for God, because love melts, and also destroys; because love only melts and only destroys. It is both birth and death. In it the self dies and THE ALL is born. So there is certainly pain - in the birth as well as in the death. Love is a deep anguish of birth as well as death. But the poetry flowering in you shows that you have begun to experience the joy that lies in...

... attain that life for which you have gone through so many lives. To come close to oneself is to be reborn - the principle of being twice born is just this. And remember, not even the pebbles lying on the road are just pebbles; they too await a new birth, for that second birth turns them into diamonds. P.S. To run after desires is to run after a mirage. It is a journey from one death to another. In the...

... his goal goes astray. Wherever the mind is free from all goals - there alone is God. 66. Love. I say: Die, so that you can live! When the seed destroys itself, it becomes the tree; when the drop loses itself, it becomes the ocean. But man - man refuses to lose himself. How then can God manifest in him? Man IS the seed, God is the tree. Man is the drop, God is the ocean. 67. Love. Leave the old track...

... - only the dead walk on trodden paths; life is the continuous quest for the new. Only he who has the flair to be new every moment truly lives. Die to the old every moment so that you are for ever new - this is the crux of the transformation of life. 68. Love. Truth is like the sky: eternal, everlasting, boundless. Is there a door to enter the sky? Then how can there be one to enter into truth? If our...

.... Your letter has been received. Why seek at all for a purpose? If you seek this you will never find it because it is eternally hidden in the seeker. Life is without purpose - life is its own purpose, therefore he who lives without purpose truly lives. Live! Isn't living itself enough? The desire to have more than just life is a result of not properly living - and that is why the fear of death grips...

... the human mind, for what is death to one who is really alive! Where living is intense and total there is no time to fear death - and there is no time for death, either. Do not think in the language of purpose - that language is diseased in itself. The sky exists without purpose. God is without purpose flowers bloom without purpose and stars shine without purpose - what has happened to poor man that...

...? - there is only light. Where is death? - there is only deathlessness. 78. Love. I have received your letter. As the earth thirsts for the rains after a hot summer so you are thirsting for God. This thirst becomes an invitation to the divine clouds - and the invitation has arrived. Just keep drowning yourself in meditation and His grace will definitely pour on you. If you are ready here - He is always...

... it Sannyas is a challenge to the world, a fundamental declaration of freedom. To live in freedom every moment is sannyas. Now, insecurity will be with you always, but that is a fact of life. The only certainty is death and life IS insecurity, and that is its joy and its beauty. To be locked in security is suicide, a living death effected by one's own hand. Such living-dead are everywhere, they have...

... a lark! Emperors go on begging and fish are thirsty in the ocean! 101. Love. Existence is a play of sun and shade of hope and despair of happiness and sorrow of life and death. So existence is duality a tension of opposite poles a music of contrary notes. To know it to recognize it to experience it as such is to go beyond it. This transcendence is the real sadhana, the real achievement. The key to...

... this transcendence is the witness state. Bid goodbye to the doer, live in the witness state. Watch the drama, don't drown in it, rather be drowned in observing - then happiness and sorrow birth and death remain just a play, they do not affect you they cannot affect you. All error, all ignorance, comes from identification. 102. Love. I received your letter. It is good to know that your mother's death...

... has made you consider your own. One has to go through the very awareness of death to reach deathlessness. The thrust of death goes deep but cunningly the mind goes on evading it. Don't evade it, don't console yourself - any kind of consolation is a suicide. Let yourself completely feel the wound of death: wake up and live with it! This will be hard but revolution always is. Death is, it is there...

... always, but we forget about it. Every day death is there, every moment. 103. Love. I received your letter. So many questions! To answer them I would have to write a book bigger than the MAHABHARATA! But even then you would not get your answers because some questions others can never answer - your answers lie deep within your own life. And some questions have no answers because they are wrong questions...

... whatever comes. Whatever God makes of you - accept it, and if He breaks you accept that too. just for dancing's sake; sing for singing's sake; then the whole life becomes divine and only then becomes prayer. To live so is to be free. 107. Love. My blessings on your new birth - sannyas is a new birth, in oneself, by oneself, of oneself. It is also a death, not an ordinary death but the great death. It is...

... cage immediately sympathized with him, asking: When did your bird die? He would answer: I never had a bird. Then they would say: So why the empty cage? Finally he got sick and tired of explaining and went and bought a bird. When I asked him about it he said: It was easier to buy the bird and lose the bet than to explain things to each and every one from morn till night. And also, seeing this empty...

.... Those who are condemned to die live their lives in darkness; only the deathless have their lives rooted in the light. Blessings to the children and regards to all. 116. Love. There is no greater power than trusting oneself - its fragrance is not of this world; peace, bliss and truth flow from this fragrance. He who trusts himself is in heaven and he who mistrusts himself holds the keys of hell in his...

...? So let go of yourself and die - how else will you find the SELF? 117. Note: Is missing... 118. Love. Truth is discovered not through swimming but through drowning. Swimming is a surface happening, drowning takes you to the depths without end. 119. Love. The search for meaning is disastrous; it has brought nothing but meaninglessness. To see that there is no meaning is to have the real meaning where...

... will always be the case and that which has become is bound to vanish. Becoming always leads to dissolution so do not try to save yourself. One who loses himself goes beyond life and death, and he who saves himself is lost. You are busy saving yourself and that is why you are afraid of breaking down. But what is there to save? And that which is worth saving is already saved. 121. Love. You long for...

.... That is why I say love is prayer - it is the first lesson in death. Regards to all. 122. Love. Do not look for a purpose in life but live, and live totally. Do not be serious and grave but turn life into a dance. Dance - like the waves on the sea! Blossom - like the flowers in spring! Sing - as the birds do continuously! All without purpose, for no reason; then purpose is there, and all mystery is...

... fully awake. 8. Do not swim, ?oat. 9. Die each moment so that you are renewed each mo 10.Stop seeking. That which is, is: STOP AND SEE. 124. Love. The news of the commune delights me. The tree's seed is sprouting, soon innumerable souls will shelter under its branches. Soon the people for whom I have come will gather - and you are going to be their hostess! So prepare yourself; that is, empty yourself...

... the clouds of war - plane upon plane loaded with death. Beasts, birds, worms and beetles - all that could flee, fled. Horses, donkeys, rats, sheep, dogs and cats, wolves - all ran for their lives and the paths and tracks were full of them. As they fled, this multitude saw two vultures sitting on a wall by the road. Brothers! they cried to them. Flee! At once! Man is on the warpath again. The...

... begins to happen - the awareness of what is possible turns it into a reality, like a seed stirred by a vision of its potential beginning to sprout. Time, effort, energy - pour it all into meditation because meditation is the gateless gate through which the self becomes aware of itself. 132. Love. Nothing in life is sure - except death, otherwise life is another name for insecurity. When this is...

... me a little of it, here and now. The disciple said: It is not always here. It comes all of a sudden, how can I produce it now? Bankei laughed again and said: Then it is not your true nature. That remains with you always and if your anger had been part of it you could have shown it to me. When you were born it was not with you, when you die it will not be with you. No, this anger is not you. There...

..., study, contemplation. Truth is within, in the emptiness within. In the state of no-mind, in the mind free of desires where only awareness is, there truth manifests itself. Truth simply is, it has not to be found, simply uncovered. The lid of gold covering it is the ego. Ego is darkness; die, and become light! Where the darkness of the ego is no more there, in that emptiness, truth is; and that is...

... truth, and that is bliss, and that is immortality. Do not seek it, just die and it is there. 143. Love. I am glad to receive your letter. Yes, this much suffering has to be gone through - it is the birth pangs of our own rebirth. And going back is not possible for where is the past to which to return? Time demolishes the steps we climb to reach the present. There is no going back - only going forward...

... learn to live? And the miracle is that death does not call on the one who learns how to live - and this alone is needed: doesn't the gardener silently wait after sowing the seed? Whenever you need me you will find me beside you. Regards to all there. 144. Love. Atheism is the first step towards theism, and a must. If you haven't been through the fire of atheism you'll never know the light of theism...

... - do not mistake this for death: sometimes it gets tired - don't mistake this for death either: some rest and sleep and it is strong and alive again. So stop bothering about it altogether for even this worry gives it strength. Surrender even this to God. Say to Him: Whatever it's like, good or bad, take care of it - and then just be a witness, simply watch the whole play. Watch the play of the mind...

... frustrated. Anticipate darkness with light and sorrow with happiness because such is the nature of things. Then you will never be frustrated. Say to life: What can you do to me? I want nothing! And say to death: What can you do to me? I have already died! Then you will be truly free because unless one is free of life one can never be free of death. And when one is free of both one knows that life which is...

... altogether different quality to life, the quality of let go. Then one is relaxed totally. And all flowering is in relaxation, and all benediction. Love. Fear cripples consciousness, and fear is the source of unconsciousness, that is why without transcending fear no one can attain to full consciousness. But what is fear? Fear is awareness of death without knowing what death is. Fear exists in the gap...

... between you and your death, and if there is no gap, no space, then there is no fear. Do not think of death as something outside you because it is not. And do not think of death as something in the future because it is not. Death is within you, because death is the other side of life. Life cannot exist without death; they both belong to the same energy as positive and negative poles. So do not identify...

... yourself with life - because you are both. The identification with life creates the gap. And death has nothing to do with the future - it is always here and now. Every moment, it is. And when one ceases to regard it as something outside oneself and, so to speak, draws it into his consciousness and assimilates the idea of it, one is completely changed. He is in all truth born again. And then there is no...

... world itself is a punishment enough, so really there is no need for hell at all. Once a man who had married three wives was brought before the king of the country for punishment. The king called in his counsellors and asked them to devise the worst possible punishment for the offender, even death itself. But they did not order his execution, ruling instead that it would be still worse for him to live...

..., Until all events have been studied and nothing happens that you cannot explain; And life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die. STOP AND SEE. DO NOT BE, AND SEE. Love. Live in the body intimately and deeply. Feel the body more and let the body feel more. It is astonishing how many people are almost completely unaware of themselves physically. The body is suppressed and...

... disappearing in the distance, and then suddenly he tucked up his robes and started to sprint after them I had better go and see, he panted to himself, because it might he true after all. Love. To be religious is to be a yea-sayer: yes to everything - yes to life and yes to death, yes to light and yes to darkness. Total acceptance is religion. Says Nicolas De Cusa: Yes God! Yes God! Yes, yes and always yes...

... that way because it is only an instrument for safety and security; it detects death only and not life. So to be completely positive is to transcend mind. Some fakir was asked to talk to a group about the negative nature of the mind. He tacked up on the wall a large sheet of perfectly white paper. He made a black spot in the paper with a pencil. Then he asked each man to say what he saw. Each man...

... to take form in any way is to allow death in because form is a death sentence whilst existence itself is eternal life. Do not be identified with the form: this identification creates the fear of death - in fact, all fear. Remember the formless and you will know immortality because you will be that - then. Love. The attitude is everything. Negative attitudes negate life - they are good for dying but...

... insecurity - that is why the more secure one is the less alive one becomes. Death is complete security so never be in search of security because you are searching for death. To live totally and in ecstasy never demands security. Accept insecurity blissfully and when you accept it then you will know that it has a beauty of its own. Mulla Nasrudin's tomb was fronted by an immense wooden door, barred and...

... cannot be found - and the seeker can only be lost in the fire of total intensity of living. So live totally and live in the moment and moment to moment, because there is no other way to live totally, and no other way to dissolve the centre, the self, the ego. Love. The secret of meditation is the art of unlearning. Mind is learning; meditation is unlearning: that is - die constantly to your experience...

... only way to be alive is to be here and now - in the moment and totally in it. Living moment to moment I have found that ecstasy and bliss which is not of this world at all. The single moment lived totally transcends time itself. It becomes the gap between two moments of time, and if one can be in this gap then one is beyond death because time is death and timelessness is life. Life is not something...

... to moment life passes into death, because it is death. Covered, it appears as life, uncovered it is death. Remember this fact always. This is silent meditation. And when this remembering penetrates even in your dreams you will have a new door opened unto you. Through it in fact you will be altogether new. And ultimately reborn. Remembering death gives a new dimension to consciousness because to...

... remember death is not natural. On the contrary nature has arranged that one should not be aware of it because the moment one transcends death one transcends nature also. And one cannot transcend death unless one is totally aware of the fact. So be totally aware of death. And it is happening each moment within and without. It is present everywhere. And because it is so obvious one becomes absent to it...

.... Remember - and deepen the consciousness, because as the awareness of death goes deeper one becomes capable of feeling that which is deathless. Really, death is the door - the opening to the deathless. But be conscious of it. Be conscious and transcend. Be conscious and know that which is before birth and after death. And - you are that. Love. Be a stranger to yourself. See life as a river flowing through...

... death - and as death approached him he realized the goal of his whole life's efforts, and finally he gave his conclusion to those who were near him. It came in two short words: I WILL. Love. Do not believe in thinking because that is the greatest of all superstitions - but well hidden because it pretends to be anti-superstitious! Thinking is nothing but dust in a blind mind because you cannot think...

.... This is not possible with thought, but this is possible with no-thought. Love. EMPTINESS IS ALL - and to get hold of emptiness is to get all and be all. But it is very arduous to get hold of emptiness - because it is emptiness! And it hurts much - though it is emptiness, still it hurts much! Because to make way for it the ego has to die. But I am happy that you are dying because this is the only way...

... to be beyond death - I say: the only way. Remember this always. Sekkyo said once to one of his monks: Can you get hold of emptiness - I will try, said the monk; and he cupped his hands in the air. That is absurd, said Sekkyo. You have not got anything in there. Well, Master, said the monk, please show me the right way. Thereupon Sekkyo seized the monk's nose and gave it a great yank. Ouch! yelled...

... is. Becoming is longing for the future, being is to be in the present. Becoming is mental, being is existential. That is why becoming must cease for the being to reveal itself. Becoming is just like the smoke around the flame, or just like the outer covering around the seed, so please let the smoke go for the flame to explode in its complete glory and splendour, and let the seed die to its outer...

... that I have called you. nor the first life; I know you Bhakti, through so many births! And soon you will also remember many things. But not before the jump. Only your superficial persona is resisting, not you - and it is expected to resist always because the moment one take the plunge into the unknown it has to die naturally. So please do not identify yourself with it; be a witness to it, and you...

... will be in the jump. Oh, it is time enough now to die to the old ego and be reborn to the supreme self! Love. Logic is not all; neither is consistency; because even madness has its own methods, rationalizations and inner consistencies. A madman was throwing handfuls of crumbs around his house. What are you doing? someone asked him. Keeping the elephants away, he answered. But there are no elephants...

... been taken into blood circulation and so saturated his blood and his breath that one night before going to bed the old man went to blow out the candle and his breath caught fire and he was burned to death. The other man promptly called for a bible and took all oath that from that time forward he would never blow out another candle in his life! Yes, man learns by experience! Love. Do not imitate...

... have gone and the sky is clear but there is no cause-and-effect relationship. The sky has not even known the clouds! It has not been affected by them in any way whatsoever. Love. Life becomes more authentic in the encountering of death directly. But we always try to escape the fact of death, and thereby life becomes pseudo and phoney. Even death when authentic has a beauty of its own while pseudo...

...-life is just ugly. Meditate on death because there is no way to know life unless you stand face to face with death - and it is everywhere; wherever life is death is also; they are really two aspects of one and the same phenomenon, and when one comes to know this, he transcends both. Only in that transcendence is the total flowering of consciousness and the ecstasy of being. Love. Man adds everything...

... disease is serious, and of course death, and the exploiters of death: the priests! Life is playful and festive and therefore purposeless. It is not going anywhere, because there is nowhere to go. It is always here and here. It is always now and now. It is just abundant energy overflowing from here to here and from now to now, and once you know it and be it you are in that ecstasy which is the purpose of...

... deep is the river of meditation? Find out for yourself, he said, and offered to throw the questioner from the bridge. But unfortunately the man ran away from him in time and escaped! If you meet such a man who can throw you in the river be fortunate enough to be thrown so! And you have met such a man! Now be THROWN. Love. You possess only that which will not be lost in death; all else is illusion...

... - even the possessor, because that too will not be able to stand the final shipwreck. Then find out what is left. Turn in and meditate. Discard all that is vulnerable to death. Say: Not this, not that and go deep to the point where nothing more remains to be discarded - and the illumination. Love. Nothing great is ever accomplished without going mad, that is, without breaking through the ordinary level...

... discipline is enough. But what is the inner discipline? In one word: ACCEPTANCE - total acceptance. And acceptance can be only total because partial acceptance is just a contradiction in terms. If you live - live! If you die - die! If you suffer - suffer! And then there is no problem and no anxiety and no anguish - and what FREEDOM! A Zen Master was once asked: It is terribly hot, how shall we escape it...

.... Do not will anything, for in you there is strength greater than any strength of your own. But it works only when your will is at rest. Love. Be free at the centre; let the centre relax and die: be a circumference only - and this is the only renunciation I know. No man is free until he is free at the centre. When he lets go then he is free indeed - and then life is not anguish and then life is not...

... overwhelming army of Ashikaga Takanji and asked the Master: When a man is at the parting of the ways between life and death how should he behave? The Master answered: Cut off your dualism and let THE ONE SWORD stand serenely by itself against the sky! Love. The real thing is not to fight with your thoughts or desires or instincts because that is negative and the negative cannot help. The real thing is to...

... welcome it. And the more you dance the more you will die. And when you are dead completely you will be reborn. And the moment is near, very near - just by the corner. You have passed through the entrance-explosion and now be ready for the ultimate. Look at yourself once more as the river looks at itself before falling into the ocean, because after falling into the ocean there will be no one to look, and...

... stronger than us but because it is not. Now stand up and fight with the empty space of the room so that you can know and taste the whole stupidity of the human mind. And then sit down and laugh at yourself, and as the laughter dies down be silent and search within, and then you will come to know a deep mystery: the mystery that the void is not only without but within also! Love. Death is everywhere but...

... shoemaker as to how a pair of shoes should be made. See here, said the shoemaker, What's the idea of doing so much yapping You are past ninety and there is little chance of your living long enough to wear these shoes out. The old fellow looked sternly at the shoemaker and said: Apparently you are not aware that statistics prove that very few people die after ninety years of age! Love. Information is not...

... he transformed. This is your potentiality. This is everyone's potentiality. and for you the time is ripe. But the seed can remain a seed and die. The opportunity can be lost. You are free to be that which you are meant to be or to be that which you are not meant to be. Man is free to be or not to be - this is the glory and this is the burden. Freedom means responsibility, SO BE CAREFUL. If you can...

.... The hunter had used the cherry and the bottle and he still had them. This monkey-way of thinking is the mind-way also! And in the end when death, the hunter, comes everyone is found caught in his own bottle. Remember, before the hunter comes make sure your hand is out of the bottle! Love. A life without meditation is like a winter landscape with the sun hidden, the flowers frozen and the wind...

... noise like that? asked his wife Yes - I was inside it at the time, said the Mulla. Love. A monk asked Daishu Ekai, What is nirvana? The Master answered: Not to commit oneself to the vicious circle of birth and death or pleasure and pain is great nirvana, What then is the vicious circle of birth and death and pleasure and pain? The Master said: To desire nirvana! Now be silent and feel what is meant by...

... to desire nirvana, and remember that I am not saying think about it because to think is to miss it. FEEL IT. FEEL IT. FEEL IT. Love. In this world everything is upside down and anyone who is meditating will have to put everything right side up! One should not try to know life but to know death, and then the mysteries of life are revealed to him. One should not ask for any security and then there is...

... utter. Why the striking ? The Master laughed and said If I wait for you and your speech or your silence... it is too late and life cannot wait! Love. Goethe is said to have cried when dying: Light, light, more light! And Miguel Unamuno has responded with his: No - warmth, warmth, more warmth! For we die of cold and not of darkness! But I say to you that we die neither because of cold nor because of...

... your death has come. They avoid the subject; they go on giving you hope. They say, "Don't be worried, you will be saved," knowing perfectly well that the man is going to die. They are giving him a false consolation, not knowing that this is the moment when he should be made fully aware of death - so acutely and so impeccably aware that pure consciousness is experienced. That moment has...

... required is a little alertness. The man who was dying was aware - not much awareness is needed for this experience. At the moment of death your physical body and your spiritual body start separating. Ordinarily, they are so much involved with each other that you don't feel their separation. But at the moment of death, just before death happens, both the bodies start getting unidentified with each other...

... the energy in the room; it became silent, peaceful. But if you had learned the art of how to help a dying man, you would not have stopped where you stopped. A second thing was absolutely necessary to tell him because he was in a trusting state - everybody is, at the moment of death. It is life which creates problems and doubts and postponements, but death has no time to postpone. The man cannot say...

..., "I will try to see," or, "I will see tomorrow." He has to do it right now, this very moment, because even the next moment is not certain. Most probably he is not going to survive. And what is he going to lose by trusting? Death anyway, is going to take away everything. So the fear of trust is not there; time to think about it is not there. And a clarity is there that the physical...

... physical body; but now you have got identified with the psychological body. You are not even that; you are only awareness, a pure consciousness, a perceptivity...." If you could have helped the person to understand that he is neither this body nor that body, but something bodiless, formless, a pure consciousness, then his death would have been a totally different phenomenon. You saw the change of...

... energy; you would have seen another change of energy. You saw silence descending; you would have seen music also, a certain dancing energy also, a certain fragrance filling the whole space. And the man's face would have shown a new phenomenon - the aura of light. If he had taken the second step also, then his death would have been the last death. In the bardo they call it "the great death,"...

... silence, but something more alive, something belonging to eternity, to immortality. And all of you who were present there would have been overwhelmed with gratitude that this death has not been a time of mourning, but it has become a moment of celebration. If you can transform a death into a moment of celebration, you have helped your friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your wife, your...

... husband. You have given them the greatest gift that is possible in existence. And close to death it is very easy. The child is not even worried about life or death; he has no concern. The young man is too much involved in biological games, in ambitions, in becoming richer, in becoming powerful, in having more prestige; he has no time to think of eternal questions. But at the moment of death, just before...

... death is going to happen, you don't have any ambition. And whether you are rich or poor makes no difference; whether you are a criminal or a saint makes no difference. Death takes you beyond all discriminations of life and beyond all stupid games of life. But rather than helping people, people destroy that beautiful moment. It is the most precious in a man's whole life. Even if he has lived one...

... become a moment of great victory. Now there is no death for him, but only eternal life. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, WHEN YOU SAID THAT NOW IS THE TIME TO DROP THE DUALITY BETWEEN ME AND YOU, YOU GAVE ME WHAT I'VE YEARNED FOR FROM THE MOMENT I SAW YOU. I WANT TO WRITE THIS SO THAT IT IS MORE REAL, SO THAT I CAN KNOW MORE AND MORE THAT THIS IS MY TRUTH. BELOVED OSHO, I AM NOT SEPARATE FROM YOU. THERE IS NO...

... man could contain his question no longer, and demanded to know, "What is after death?" and God slew him where he stood. What else could God do? He slew him where he stood, immediately he killed him, because if you want to know what is after death, you have to die! Be very careful. You can be given explanations about things which belong to the world, to the objective world. For that you...

.... Only on the surface do you keep a certain facade; otherwise, inside there are layers and layers of fear. A man full of fear can only hate - hate is a natural outcome of fear. A man full of fear is also full of anger, and a man full of fear is more against life than for life. Death seems to be a restful state to the fear-filled man. The fearful man is suicidal, he is life-negative. Life seems to be...

... looked tremendously disturbed. And she was saying, "I have committed a sin - something unforgivable. This man entered into my room last night, and I was alone. And at the point of a revolver he made love to me. He gave me only two alternatives: 'Either die or make love to me.' I am ruined!" she was saying. "My whole life is ruined!" The mother superior said, "Don't get so...

.... Nothing can be said about it. When a disciple asked Jesus, "What is prayer?" Jesus fell on his knees and started praying. What else can you do? Prayer cannot be explained, nothing can be said about it, but it can be shown. What can you say about death, what can you say about life? Whatsoever you say will fall short; it cannot soar to the heights of life and death. Those are experiences. What...

... so- called human beings. He was very much afraid of death, too much afraid of death - so much so that even the word 'death' was not uttered in front of him by his disciples, because once or twice, just hearing the word 'death' he had fainted. Just the word 'death' was enough! He would faint, he would become unconscious, he would fall down from his chair. Freud brought sex into the light. He did a...

... great work:he destroyed one taboo, the taboo that had remained for centuries. Sex was a taboo subject, not to be talked about. He brought it into the light. He did a great pioneer work - he should be respected for it. But death was taboo to him; he could not even hear the word. There seems to be a connection. This is MY observation: that there have been two kinds of societies in the world - one...

... society which makes sex taboo, then it is not afraid of death; and the other society which drops the taboo against sex, then it immediately becomes afraid of death. We have not yet been able to create a society in which neither sex nor death are taboos. My sannyasin has to do that. Why does it happen so? For example, in India, sex is taboo - you should not talk about it - but death is not taboo. You can...

... talk about it; in fact, all the religious teachers talk about death. They make people so much afraid of death, talking again and again and again about it. They create so much fear in people that out of fear people start becoming religious. All Indian scriptures are full of the description of death. Death seems to be one of the most talked about subjects in India - not sex. Sex is taboo. Sex is life...

..., and if you choose death you cannot choose sex - either/or. Freud did a great service to humanity; he brought sex from the dark corners of the soul into the open world. But immediately death became taboo; he himself became afraid of death. They are polar opposites, and the total man will be able to understand both. And the total man, the whole man, is my definition of a holy man. He will be able to...

... talk about sex, observe, analyze, dissect, go into it, meditate - and he will be able to do the same with death. ...Because you are neither sex nor death: you are the witness of both. You are neither life nor death: you are a witness to both. This witnessing will bring you to the fourth - turiya. And only when you enter the fourth do all problems disappear, dissolve. Before that, problems remain. You...

... looked at him intently as he made his way to the master's door. As he reached for the knob he glanced at the peering faces around him and imagined their envy and respect for him at being the only one to be called to the master's side during his final moments. He already imagined how after the master's death he would slowly emerge from the room as the new head of the system, a veritable Peter-of-the...

... pyre in mind, is bound to beat his breast and wail when the time comes, and cry at the injustice of death. "Why, oh why, must man die?" he asks. He never asks why man is born. We accept birth readily but look at death as tragedy and pain. Why does it seem evil that the floods come and innocent people die? If the guilty died, you would not mind. But who is guilty - the one who did not give...

... that we want to live. Life is such an obsession with us that we wish to live and never to die. Even if the body is rotting, putrefying, we want to live, but we will never accept death. Why? Because we look upon death as evil. What is evil in death? How does death trouble you? All your woes and troubles pertain to life. There is no illness, no law-suits, no riots, no robberies in death. These are the...

... waves of life. Death is supreme tranquillity. Then why do we fear death so much? And how do we know that those who die stand to lose? Do the dead come back to tell us in what difficulties they are? Perhaps they think that it was the innocents who were swept away by the flood and they wonder how they were picked out to deserve such a fate! It is just our way of looking at things. It is purely and...

... news of the death of a loved one. Go back to the navel. Then let the news go within you. "Then," Lao Tzu says, "No one's death will cause a blow to the mind." You may not have observed, or perhaps you have or may be you realised later on, recollecting the incident - that whenever you have been given news of great joy or sorrow, the first effect has always been on the navel. You...

... will fail to make you unhappy. Then your centre will stand apart from the happenings that take place on the periphery. Then you remain the witness only. Yoga says, "Practice the sadhana of witnessing." Lao Tzu says. "Remember the navel centre constantly and the witness state will result by itself." You will step outside of birth and death the day you become conscious of your navel...

... centre, because this centre arises before birth and is the only thing that remains after death, when all else is lost. So he who knows and recognises his navel centre, knows that there is no birth for him nor death. He becomes beyond birth and death. Keep constant remembrance. Seek the centre and keep incessant remembrance (SMARANA). The first thing is to find the centre, second is to keep on...

... - what can God do? But the surrender that can be withdrawn is no surrender; in fact, it was never a surrender. Lao Tzu's method is different. Lao Tzu says: "The day the centre is known and felt, you begin to understand and experience that the centre is the master that does not need your assistance. The breath comes and goes; sleep comes, then awakening; birth happens, then death. The current of...

... become fluid and able to flow once again? There are two or three smaller questions. One friend says: Question 5: "ACCORDING TO LAO TZU, GOOD AND EVIL IS LIKE NIGHT AND DAY, AND SINCE GOD HAS MADE MAN INDEPENDENT, HE CAN DO GOOD OR EVIL AS HE CHOOSES. BUT WHY IS IT THAT NATURE DOES EVIL? THE FLOODS COME AND INNOCENT PEOPLE GET DROWNED, OR A FIRE RAGES AND PEOPLE ARE BURNT TO DEATH. THERE ARE SO...

.... When I fall in love with someone I should know that this love can end some day. It is bound to end because that which joins, separates also. That which is formed also disintegrates. When I celebrate the birth of a son, I should also be ready for a funeral, because that is bound to follow. That which is born shall surely die. But he who has celebrated the birth of his son, and not kept the funeral...

... a criterion to judge, even then how can you look upon death as evil? All evil seems to be possible during life, but there is no evil in death. Have you seen a dead man committing a sin? If there is any evil, it is in life. In death, there is no evil. But our attachment to life is very great. Therefore we consider death a bad happening. In so doing, we only express our attachment to life. It proves...

... is death, he looks at death; when there is life, he looks at life. He knows death is a mystery and so is life and nothing is decisive. And because nothing is decisive, existence is a mystery. What is good? What is bad? It is not as easy as we think and say. When we give our decisions, we only betray our ignorance. Even in small things we at once pass our judgment: this is good, this is bad. What is...

... to commit a crime. Killing is only possible if we decide that a certain person is bad and is not fit to live. Therefore, the more evil we take a person to be, the easier it becomes to kill him. This is why the courts find it very easy to pass a death sentence. The courts gather all the evidence for and against a person and take a decision. No killer kills as easily as a magistrate. It is now clear...

... to the magistrate that this man must die, though God the creator was still keeping him alive, as yet He has taken no decision regarding him. The magistrate wears a black cloak and gathers a few ignorant people like him around himself and they get together and pass a sentence against this man. What was his crime? Perhaps he has killed a man. Now this is great! This man has killed someone, so he is a...

... bad man. And therefore, we decide to kill him! Courts pass death-sentences very easily, because the law has great power in its hand. The magistrate passes the order, goes home and sleeps leisurely. He in no way considers himself responsible for the death of this man. In the absence of responsibility man tends to be irresponsible. And irresponsibility is the greatest disaster. A magistrate is an...

... absolutely irresponsible person. He refers to his books, he hears statements, he examines the witnesses and arrives at his judgment: this man must die! He keeps himself absolutely aloof from the whole happening. He considers himself only the medium of justice and law - the law is all written down in books. So he is free to go home and enjoy his evening. He will tune in his radio, or play cards, or call...

... friends to dinner, and sleep happily with his wife. He is in no way concerned about this man's life and in no way holds himself responsible for his death. Voltaire says: "When a man commits a sin with the firm intention of doing good, it is the biggest sin he can commit." So if you want to do evil, you just have to get hold of some concrete moral reason to do so and then you can indulge in...

... certain kind of skin, that he will have certain kinds of diseases. He brings almost the whole program and even the details of the program: at what time he will die... Now, if this program can be changed, if it can be reprogrammed, if the cells can be arranged in a different way, if they can be told, "Live for a hundred years, not for seventy," then death can be postponed. And once we know how...

... to postpone it, it can be postponed ad infinitum. Then it will only be up to you to decide when you want to die. Just as people right now write their wills, their last testaments, saying what will happen to their property, to their money after their death, in the future when life can be prolonged, people will write their wills saying that "At this time, in this season, on a particular day, in...

... a particular place, I would like to die." Now there is a movement all around the world, particularly in the West - obviously, because in the East the problem is not death, the problem is birth... Here the question is how to stop birth, so we think of birth control. In the West the problem has moved to the other extreme. Now medicine has become capable of prolonging people's lives, the...

... nothing is wrong in it. In fact, life cannot be otherwise. Death is secure, life is insecure. Marriage is secure, love is insecure. Marriage is dead, love is alive. The more alive you are the more your life remains in insecurity, because the livelier person will be exploring the unknown, he will be adventurous. It is life's nature, its law, its very intrinsic soul. But the priest has exploited it. He...

... against Zarathustra, the priest was against Lao Tzu. What was their fault? Why was the priest against them? The priest was against them because they were cutting the very roots of his profession. They were telling people to be free of fear, they were helping people to be free of fear. They were telling people to live dangerously, to live like rebels, to die to the past and to live in the present. Buddha...

..., responsibility. Everybody seeks some kind of dependence so that one can throw all the responsibility onto the shoulders of the other. Buddha said, "Maybe my death will help - there will be nobody to depend upon. And one thing is certain: after being with me for forty-two years, now you cannot depend on anybody else. You will not find another Buddha, that is certain." And actually it happened like...

... that: Ananda became enlightened after Buddha's death within the small period of twenty-four hours. To Ananda Buddha said, the departing message: "Be a light unto yourself - appo dipo bhava." How can the priest forgive the Buddha? He is destroying his whole profession. The priest is a mediator between you and some unknown God that he talks about. He knows nothing about God - no priest has...

...; it still exists. So, homosexuals, please note it: if after death somebody asks you, "To which heaven do you want to go?" choose the Mohammedan heaven because it is gay. If you look, in all the religions you will find this strange logic: the same thing is provided. The priest knows perfectly well these are the two driving forces in man: fear and greed. And if you can use both you can...

... become a brahmin. A man trying to become a brahmin means a man trying to become the ultimate truth or to know the ultimate truth, which are both the same. To know is to be: to be is to know. Krishna says, "This is not for you. Swadharme nedhanam shreyah. It is good to die in your own religion. Per dharmo bavaha baha. Somebody else's religion is very dangerous. Beware of it! Your religion is to be...

... eating from the Tree of Knowledge. And the second fear is that if somebody becomes eternal... Just think: if death disappears from the world, religion, so-called religion, will disappear. Only something that I call religion can still exist; otherwise, Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians,Jainas, will all disappear. They all depend on death. Death gives them the opportunity. They make you afraid: "Death...

... is coming closer. Do something before death destroys you. Before death comes you have to practice certain austerities, create a certain character, a certain morality, fulfill certain commandments. Death is coming! And death may come any moment, so be quick. Don't waste time, don't wait for tomorrow. There may be no tomorrow at all, so if you want to do anything, do it now." And what do they...

... irreligious act. Of course the priest is afraid of disobedience. And he is afraid that if people become eternal... Just think: one day, if science manages to postpone death forever, all religions will disappear. They all exploit death. Because death is there, you start thinking about what will be after death; some arrangements have to be made for that great journey. And because nothing is known about that...

... great journey you have to depend on those people who pretend to know about that great journey. It is all pretension, because nobody has ever returned from death and nobody has ever said what exactly happens after death. Nobody knows, but there are pretenders, and priests are the pretenders. The story is tremendously significant: that two trees were prohibited. But ordinarily you hear only about one...

... question is: if the person wants to die, what to do? - because in the ancient law there is no provision for it, for euthanasia. If a man of one hundred years feels that he has lived enough, that he has known whatsoever life can give, that he has tasted all the bitterness and all the sweetness, that he has seen all that is worth seeing, experienced all that is worth experiencing, now he does not want to...

... cannot understand, and what he says they cannot understand. There is no communication. And for what to live now? So the question is: has he the right to tell the doctors, "Kill me"? Has he the right to mercy killing, to euthanasia? Can he take a big dose of sleeping pill and die legally? That has become a problem. There are now societies in the West which are propagating this: that every man...

... has the right to die. Nobody has heard it before, that every man has the right to die; we have heard that every man has the right to live. And up to now all the religions have condemned suicide; suicide is the greatest sin. Now suicide seems to be one of the greatest freedoms. The priest has always been afraid: if life can be prolonged, then he will be ignored. If life can be prolonged indefinitely...

... differ, but their weapons are the same. They use different poisons, labeled differently, in different languages, but they kill man's freedom, man's love, man's integrity, sincerity, authenticity. They reduce man to a commodity. And you say: NOW I AM FINDING IT HARD TO RECOVER FROM THAT IDEA... Naturally. The habits, particularly the old habits, die hard. Nirgrantha, I have given you this name - let me...

... priests. But old habits die hard... "Hey, Sol, how did your sister Rena make out on her driver's license test?" "She flunked. When the car stalled, from force of habit she jumped into the back seat!" People live almost mechanically. And the idea of a jealous God is just an unconscious shadow: it can keep you afraid your whole life, it can destroy all your juice, it can suck you, but...

.... Really, you are repeating it because of the fear. You don't know that the soul is immortal but you want to believe it so that your fear will be eliminated. "The soul is immortal, so I am not going to die." You can find some explanation, but it is only a temporary solution. Death is there, so the fear will still remain. If death is there, accept it. It is so; it is going to happen. Disease is...

... certainty. The only certainty really. It is going to happen! You were promised death the moment you accepted life. It's the other pole of birth, of the phenomenon of birth. It is going to happen. In fact, it started to happen at the very moment of your birth. You are bound to die, but if you accept it, there will be no fear. The moment you accept death totally, where is the fear? The fear comes because of...

... nonacceptance. "I should not die! How can I make certain that death will not come to me? It may come to everyone else, but I have to be an exception." This creates fear. The being knows perfectly well that your explanations will not do, that death will come. You know it perfectly well, you know it absolutely, you are certain of it. As far as the deeper sources of your life are concerned, you know...

... untouched. By 'life' I mean your total being and by 'intellect, I mean that part of your being that speculates. If you go deeply within, you will see that the thinking part of you is a very nonessential part of your being. Life goes on without any help from your mind. You are born: you grow, you become a youth, you fall in love, you die. Everything happens beyond the mind. The mind is not involved at all...

... problems. Take any problem. If you are in fear... Fear is a basic problem, more obvious in the West. What can the mind do about It? Fear is there because death is there. What can the mind do? Your problem may be that fear cripples you totally, it destroys you completely. It uproots you; life becomes impossible. You can only vegetate; the fear will not allow you to move. But what can the intellect do...

... about fear? It can only analyze it. Your intellect can analyze the problem: what fear is. But even if you know what fear is, it makes no difference. You know what the fear is about; that death is there, that you are going to come to an end. You exist always on a volcano; never for a single moment can you be at ease. Death is always there! Analysis cannot do anything at all about it. You can create...

... live it. Don't think about it. Feel it and live it. Tremble with it. Let your whole being tremble with the fear. Be in it don't escape from it, don't postpone it, don't try to theorize about it. Don't escape from it. Be in it. That is the best thing that you can do. Everyone has to face death; it is something that has to be faced sooner or later. No one can help you; you have to encounter it. It will...

... not help at all if you close your eyes and go on speculating about it. It will not help at all; it will just create new problems. Fear will still be there because death will still be there but now you will even be afraid to see it. A new fear has crept in. You will pretend that through your theory you have expelled the fear, but doubts will remain in the mind. The mind will begin to be afraid of...

... afraid. Don't fool yourself that the soul is immortal so there is no death. Death is there. You will never know that the soul is immortal unless you know death. I am not saying that the soul is not immortal. What I am saying is this: that you cannot fool your being like that. You can go on saying that the soul is immortal, you can go on repeating it continuously, but the fear will still be there...

... there - it is so. Old age is there - it is so. It is going to happen and You cannot do anything about it, you cannot prevent it. You will have to face it finally. The existential approach means to face life's problems. Once you face a problem, it is no longer there. Trying to escape from it is what creates the problem. For example, if you accept that death is there, it is going to happen... It is a...

... that death is going to come. It is not something that is coming to you; it is something that is developing in you, something that is growing in you. Your roots know it well. You are growing towards death, you are constantly growing towards it. Your birth was the first movement toward death. Your being knows well that death is going to happen. You can fool your conscious mind, you can create theories...

..., but the unconscious will know that you are going to die and the fear will still be there. Don't fight with the unconscious, don't fight with your being Accept what is in the unconscious. Let your conscious mind cooperate with the unconscious. Don't create a schizoid condition, don't be against yourself. You can't be. No one can be against himself; he can only think he is. In the end, the conscious...

... mind will know that the unconscious has won. To me, the existential approach is the only approach possible. Once you have begun to accept, mysteries begin to open up to you. For example, if you have begun to accept death as part and parcel of life, you will see that it is not that life ends with death. Death is the flowering of life: the peak, the ripening. Our minds create the problem. We like youth...

..., but we don t like old age. In fact, youth is nothing but the preparation for old age. We like life and we don't like death, but death is the flowering of life, the peak. The desire for things to be different from what they are is created by the intellect. If you are speculative, intellectual, theoretical, you can fool yoUrself, but you cannot deceive existence; you cannot deceive your own inner...

... cannot even say 'I' because 'I' is meaningful only in opposition to 'thou.' It is meaningless if there is no 'thou ' When the will has become absolute, the ego commits sUicide because it cannot remain without anyone to relate to. It is only in relationship to a thou, or in opposition to a thou, that it can exist. It cannot exist alone. You have come to a point where only the death of the ego is...

... - that 'I am not' - because if you are not, then you cannot even say that you are not. To say that 'I am not' is still to believe that 'I am. Otherwise who can assert that 'I am not?' Now you will no longer be able to say it. And when you cannot even say that 'I am not,' you are not. I will tell you a story. There was a great Sufi, Mulla Nasrudin. He was very afraid of death, as everyone is. One day...

..., he heard that someone had died. He came home trembling. He asked his wife, "Can you tell me how I will know when I am dead? What are the symptoms? How will I be able to know that death has come?" His wife said, "You are foolish. You will know. You will become cold..." One day soon after, Mulla was working on his farm. The day was very cold and his hands became cold. He thought...

... available. So if in our small surgery, from the very beginning, unconsciousness is absolutely necessary... death is the great surgery. Nothing can be greater: The whole body has to be taken away from the being which has become identified with it and clings to it. In unconsciousness it is possible to do it. Very few people die consciously, hence the fear; because very few people live consciously, hence the...

..., Uruguay. Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: BELOVED OSHO, YOU HAVE TALKED MUCH ABOUT DEATH AND DYING. I UNDERSTOOD YOU TO HAVE SAID THAT PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF DEATH ITSELF BECAUSE THEY CAN'T REALLY CONCEIVE THAT IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM. AM I FOOLING MYSELF WHEN I FEEL TREMENDOUSLY EXCITED AT THE THOUGHT OF DEATH? IT FEELS THAT...

... - IF THE EVENT WERE PREPARED FOR WITH ONE HAVING ATTAINED AS MUCH CONSCIOUSNESS AS POSSIBLE, WITH LOVING FRIENDS AROUND AND AN AESTHETIC ENVIRONMENT - IT COULD BE THE MOST AMAZING THING GOING. Death itself has no existence. What actually happens is the transformation of consciousness from one form into another form, or, finally and ultimately, into formlessness. The whole question is whether one can...

... die consciously, or the routine way - the unconscious way. Nature has made a provision that before dying the person becomes completely unconscious, goes into a coma, so he knows nothing. It is simply the greatest surgery possible. If the surgeon is going to remove a small part of the body, he has to make the patient unconscious; otherwise there is every possibility that the pain will be too much and...

... creating distance between you and your body, you and your mind. If the distance is enough, then you can remain aware and anything can happen to the body - you can watch it, as if it is happening to somebody else. Then it is really an amazing, exciting phenomenon, but not before that. To say it in other words: To die beautifully one has to live beautifully. To die amazingly and in excitement, in ecstasy...

..., one has to prepare one's whole life for ecstasy, excitement, amazement. Death is simply the culmination point, the crescendo of your life. It is not against life. It does not destroy life. That's why I said death does not exist as conceived. It really gives the body another chance to grow. And if you have grown fully then there is no need for another chance; then your being moves into the ultimate...

...; Death is a great excitement but only for those who are working towards it, to make it so. The key is that you have to remain conscious. I have heard that three friends - a surgeon, a politician, and a jurist, a magistrate - were just chitchatting on a morning walk. And talking of many things, they came to the point of whose profession was the oldest. The judge said, "Of course mine, because as...

... fear. Whatever you want your death to be, let first your life be exactly the same - because death is not separate from life, it is not an end to life, but only a change. Life continues, has continued, will always continue. But forms become useless, old, more a burden than a joy - it is better to give life a new, fresh form. Death is a blessing; it is not a curse. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, GURDJIEFF...

... most, and she was dying. And it was only a question of a few days - if he could manage to keep her alive her crystallization will happen. Otherwise one knows not into how many circles of birth and death she would have to move. And he was capable of keeping her alive, because in his system, transfer of energy is one of the basic methods. It can be used to the extreme - that the dying person can live...

... as much as the person who is transmitting his energy to him; if he transmits his whole energy he will die immediately, and the dying person can live long. Gurdjieff was not trying to sacrifice anybody, but everybody could contribute a little bit of energy to his wife. And it was only a question of a few more days of good health, so she can continue the work. She had almost reached, just a step more...

... to be renounced! - but here it is something else. He's trying to keep her in the body, not letting her die. In India I have seen the man - he was very much respected - Ganeshvarni. He was born a Hindu but became converted to Jainism. And whenever somebody becomes converted to some other religion he's very much respected in that religion. In his own religion nobody cared about him. But being...

... case. It shows he was attached, and he was waiting for her death. In fact, perhaps in his own mind he has murdered her many times; otherwise, why should he feel relief? "For twenty-two years that poor woman has been cleaning other people's houses and somehow managing to live. He has never cared about her. And he has become a great saint, but unconsciously those words 'what a relief' show that he...

... I wanted you to understand, that there are layers of energy in you. The first layer is the routine daily work. It is enough for your routine daily work. If you go beyond it, you will come to a point where you will feel exhausted, almost feeling that you will die if you continue; but that is the point to continue, because only then will the second layer start functioning. "It functions only...

... girl was only sixteen and the man died. And then I told them, "Now lock me in the room." They said, "We never knew that he would die so soon." I said, "One thing was simply clear: the difference of age was so much that he would die, and the girl will remain a widow almost half of her life. And now she will remain a widow her whole life. So now my proposal is that she should...

... accepted, inevitably and naturally. Pain is pain - a simple painful fact. Suffering however is only and always the refusal of pain, the claim that life should not be painful. It is the rejection of a fact, the denial of life and of the nature of things. Death is the mind that minds dying. Where there is no fear of death, who is there to die? Man is unique among creatures in his knowledge of death and in...

... his laughter. Wonderfully then, he can even make of death a new thing: he can die laughing. It is only man who knows laughter; no other animal laughs. It is only man who knows death; no other animal knows death - animals simply die, they are not conscious of the phenomenon of death. Man is aware of two things which no animal is: one is laughter, another is death. Then a new synthesis is possible. It...

... is only man who can die laughing - he can join the consciousness of death and the capacity to laugh. And if you can die laughing, only then will you give a valid proof that you must have lived laughing. Death is the final statement of your whole life - the conclusion, the concluding remark. How you have lived will be shown by your death, how you die. Can you die laughing? Then you were a grown-up...

... person. If you die crying, weeping, clinging, then you were a child. You were not grown-up, you were immature. If you die crying, weeping, clinging to life, that simply shows you have been avoiding death and you have been avoiding all pains, all kinds of pains. Growth is facing the reality, encountering the fact, whatsoever it is. And let me repeat: Pain is simply pain; there is no suffering in it...

... too unhappy; if joy is destroyed you will never be deep in pain. To avoid pain they avoid pleasure. To avoid death they avoid life. And the logic has something in it. Both grow together - if you want to have a life of ecstasy you will have to accept many agonies. If you want the peaks of the Himalayas then you will also have the valleys. But nothing is wrong with the valleys; your approach just has...

... live life has to accept and embrace death. They come together, they are two aspects of a single phenomenon. That's why growth is painful. You have to go into all those pains that you have been avoiding. It hurts. You have to go through all those wounds that somehow you have managed not to look at. But the deeper you go into pain, the deeper is your capacity to go into pleasure. If you can go into...

... when a child is born, if the mother accepts it there will be no pain. But the mother rejects it; the mother is afraid. She becomes tense, she tries to hold the child inside - which is not possible. The child is ready to go out into the world, the child is ready to leave the mother. He is ripe, the womb cannot contain him any more. If the womb contains him any more the mother will die and the child...

... will die. But the mother is afraid. She has heard that it is very painful to give birth to a child - birth pangs, birth pain - she is afraid. And out of fear she becomes tense and closed. Otherwise - in primitive societies those tribes still exist - childbirth is so simple, with no pain at all. On the contrary, you will be surprised, the greatest ecstasy happens to the woman in childbirth - not pain...

.... Eighteen years? Worth one paisa! It puzzles me - are you stupid or mad or something?' Remember, only one thing is going to help you: awareness - nothing else. Growth will remain painful if you don't accept life in all its ups and downs. The summer has to be accepted and the winter too. This is what I call meditation. Meditation is when you are emptied of all that is old and told and done to death. Then...

... world - if you suffer in life you will suffer after death too. In fact you will have become so skillful in suffering that even if you go to heaven you will find some ways and means to suffer. You may stand on your head and do sirshasan there. Nobody can prevent you from standing on your head, you can do it anywhere. You will find ways and means to torture yourself again. One becomes habituated if it...

... thorns - because they have to make stories out of it. They simply don't talk about the flower. Nobody is interested in the flower. You can see - all your novels, all your stories, all your poetries, all your fiction, all your movies, they have the same theme: Sex and Violence, Sex and Death. These are the two taboos in the world; man has not been able to accept sex and death. And because man has...