... AT THE DOOR WHAT SHOULD THE DISCIPLE DO? The question is from somebody very intellectual - perhaps a professor. It is a mind question. When the master is at the door it is too late! You cannot do anything. You cannot close the door in the face of the master, you cannot invite the master inside for the simple reason the ancient scriptures of the East say the master is death - and they mean it. To...

... allow the master in means you will have to die as an ego, as a personality, and that's all you know about yourself. Hence the fear, hence the question, what to do now? He is just at the door. One step more and you are finished. But there is no need to be worried. You will die as an ego but you will be reborn as the self, which is your reality. You will die as a personality but you will be born as an...

... used to say that the basic function of the master is just to give birth, but every birth has to be preceded by death. Once you understand it, once you have passed through such an experience of death and birth, then you will live each moment of your life dying to the past and being reborn anew in the present. Then each moment is a death and a rebirth, and that is the only real life. Then you don't...

... carry dead weight of so many years, of so many lives - an unnecessary burden which does not allow you to live lightly, lovingly, dancingly. If the master has come to the gate you are fortunate - let him come in just for once, because next time he will not come. Next time you will be doing the same yourself. You will know the key. That death, every death, opens doors for new and fresh life. If you want...

... to be alive intensely, you have to allow death to happen every moment and then you will know a totally new taste of vitality, of youth, of energy, of freshness. And with your freshness, the whole existence becomes fresh. With your youth, the whole existence becomes young. I have heard about one chief justice of the Supreme Court of America. When he retired he told his wife... and they had remained...

... together for almost sixty years. They had had their honeymoon in Paris. He said, "Before I die I have a great desire to go back to Paris to the same hotel, to the same room, to visit the same places that we visited when we had our honeymoon." The wife was also excited. They both went to Paris - the hotel was the same, the room was the same, the places they went to see were the same. But the old...

... beautiful, better. But you have forgotten one thing: this is not our honeymoon, and we have become sixty years older. It is our old eyes which are so full of dust and death that we cannot see the youth and the freshness and the beauty. Don't say Paris is no longer Paris, simply say that we are no longer the same." She was saying a great truth: the world is what you are. If you are frustrated, sad...

..., MA PREM VIDEH. SHE HAS ENTERED INTO A NEW WORLD FEELING QUITE DIFFERENT. BUT I AM A LITTLE CONFUSED. PLEASE WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL ME ABOUT IT? It is not only the experience of Veena who has died in becoming a sannyasin, and is born as Videh. This is the experience of millions of sannyasins around the world.... Initiation is death and life. Initiation is a discontinuity with the past. You had lived...

..., and you don't want to repeat it. You have repeated it enough, and the repetition has made you almost a robot. It does not give joy. Every morning it is the same, every evening it is the same - tomorrow will be simply another carbon copy of today. How can you feel like rejoicing? Every day is bringing you nearer to the end. Death will come and erase you just the way people go and write their names on...

... the beach, their signatures, and a wave comes and erases it all. Death comes and erases you completely as if you had never been here. Do you know how many people have been here? Each person is sitting on the corpses of at least ten persons. Every inch of the earth has been a graveyard. I am reminded of a very famous Sufi story.... One king was unable to sleep in the night. He was tossing and turning...

... your father was also searching for, your grandfather was also searching for. For generations you have been searching in this palace and you have not found anything. You are wasting your time, and your death is not far away. It is possible that a camel may get lost on a roof, but it is impossible to find contentment, blissfulness the way you are searching for them and in the place where you are...

... the city and finally have to leave and go to the eternal city. And I am always in trouble. People ask for the real city and I show them the real city, then they come with anger. You can go to the unreal city this way, but remember, that is an unreal city. Don't take it for granted that it is real. I also used to live there. I want to find the real home before death finds me." One becomes a...

... sannyasin to find the real home, to find something of eternity, to find something which death cannot destroy. Certainly, it cannot be the body - it is a caravanserai. It cannot be the mind - it changes constantly. Initiation into sannyas is the beginning of the search for something beyond mind. And one who takes initiation with a deep love, a great adventure, understanding that whatever way he has lived...

... happy, Videh, that Veena is dead. Rejoice in the death of Veena, and rejoice in the birth of Videh. Question 4: BELOVED MASTER, I AM HAPPIER AS YOUR SANNYASIN COMPARED TO MY LIFE BEFORE SANNYAS. BUT I DON'T FEEL LIKE MEDITATING OR PRAYING. WITHOUT PRAYING AND MEDITATING THE CHANGES HAPPEN ANYWAY, AND I AM HAPPY AND CONTENTED. THIS SEED OF BEING SAD HAS TO GO. SHOULD I FORCE MYSELF TO MEDITATE, OR...

... was looking for a servant, and it is so difficult nowadays to find a servant. You have come on your own. Now where is your house?" What can people take away? Death is going to take it away at any moment. You have come into the world empty-handed, and you will go from the world empty-handed, so it does not matter. Between these two... What you have in your hands does not matter. What matters is...

... its full say. If there is nothing like religion, then out of the sixth the seventh is born automatically. You die here, you know only one way of being, you are again born in a womb - again an uninflated balloon - and you start the same circle, the same repetition, the same rut. This is what, in India, we call the samsara - the world. Each death brings you back to life again, and again you start the...

... same game! And the game has been played millions of times! And you go on playing, you go on playing... the same again and again. Those who are perceptive and intelligent, they become alert. They see the whole futility of it. What is the point? Why go on repeating like a wheel? Why this wheel of birth and death? Then there is another possibility and that is the Eastern possibility: either you die...

.... Separation brings danger. When you start feeling that "I am myself and nobody else!" then death starts hovering around you - because this is a false idea. You are not yourself: you are part of the whole. You are not an island. The ego gives the idea that you are an island. You are not an island; you are involved with the whole of existence. You are not separate, so how can there be death? That's...

... why a child is deathless - he can go and play with a snake. He has no concept of death, he s so utterly innocent. From where does this fearlessness of the child come? It comes because there is no division yet; he lives an undivided life, a life of unison, unity. That's why later on we go on thinking with nostalgia how beautiful those days, those few years, were. They continue to remain the golden...

... whole future. The character starts forming, the fundamentals start surfacing - what the boy is going to become. All possibilities are there, but a few possibilities start becoming actual, and a few possibilities, by and by, shrink and die away. Whether the child will become a musician or a poet or a painter or a politician or a mystic - adolescence is the age when you can judge. Before that it is...

... being. This is the fourth stage. The fifth stage is from fifty-six to one hundred and twelve, the ultimate expansion. Just on the verge, any moment, of exploding. You are ready, just a puff more and you will explode. No more inflation is possible. This is the time when a person starts hoping that now death should be coming, starts thinking about death. Not only starts thinking, but having a kind of...

... hope that "Death will come and relieve me of all this burden." Then the sixth stage: the balloon explodes. Out of the sixth there are two possibilities - the seventh stage has two possibilities - the Eastern and the Western. The Western possibility is: you di, and you are reborn again as an uninflated balloon in some womb. Death is the seventh possibility if Western psychology is allowed...

... - you explode and you are born; or you don't die - you don't explode. Seeing the whole absurdity of the ego, you yourself relax, you puncture it. That's what I call sannyas - you puncture the balloon. The air goes out of it, the balloon shrinks back; it becomes like it was when you were a child. This is the second childhood: you have become twice-born. Not in some other womb, not in some other life...

... has been fixed by the yogis down the ages as the natural limit of life. If we die before then something has gone wrong - either in the body or in the mind, or in the food, or in the society, something has gone wrong. We have not completed the natural course. So fifty-six is just the middle line. That's why Hindus say that after fifty you start thinking of sannyas, of renunciation. And by seventy...

... God again. They may not know about it, but their basic problem is there. And it HAS to be there. Life has two parts: birth and death. When you are young you are too full of birth, you are close to birth. You don't bother about death. When you start moving closer to death, one day you cross the boundary of birth and you enter into the boundary of death. Then you start thinking of death. And there is...

... no other way to solve the fear of death except through religion. And if you cannot solve it, it goes on shaking you, trembling you; it goes on gnawing your heart. It becomes a wound. You can avoid it, you may not look at it. You can remain occupied in a thousand and one things. You may not think about it consciously, but unconsciously the death is coming closer, and your whole life starts losing...

... meaning. In the middle of life a day comes when suddenly death becomes significant. The moment you recognize that death is significant, you have to recognize the religious dimension. Religion exists because of death. Materialism would be perfectly okay if there were no death; there would have been no need for religion. If there were only birth and no death, then materialism would have been all, then...

... Charvarka, Epicurus, Karl Marx - these people would have been the Buddhas. Then there is nothing else. If there is only birth, then who bothers? If you are going to live here forever, who bothers about the quality of life, or about something deeper? Then it is enough to go on enjoying! Then "Eat, drink, be merry" is the only sutra. No other Vedas, no other Bible, is needed. But death comes. And...

... because death comes, Buddha becomes important, Mahavir becomes important, Christ becomes important. They give you a vision that goes beyond death, that surpasses death, that conquers death. Religion is nothing but a door to settle terms with death. Mind cannot be REALLY healthy without the religious view of the world. It will be a lop-sided view. You are not only the body, so only to think in material...

..., "This is life," then immediately you create the idea of death: "The opposite must be death." But there is no life, no death. All is eternal. You were never born and you will never die. What you think is birth is just an episode in the eternal life, and so is death. In birth, nothing is born, only something unmanifest becomes manifest, something hidden becomes unhidden. In death...

... BETRAYS ALL BUDDHAS. ONE CLINGS TO LIFE ALTHOUGH THERE IS NOTHING TO BE CALLED LIFE; ANOTHER CLINGS TO DEATH ALTHOUGH THERE IS NOTHING TO BE CALLED DEATH. IN REALITY THERE IS NOTHING TO BE BORN, CONSEQUENTLY THERE IS NOTHING TO PERISH. "BY CLINGING ONE RECOGNIZES A THING OR AN IDEA. REALITY HAS NEITHER INSIDE, OUTSIDE, NOR MIDDLE PART. AN IGNORANT PERSON CREATES DELUSIONS AND SUFFERS FROM...

..., pictures and calendars - all the walls are covered. And so many tables and chairs! He was living as if afraid of emptiness. He was very afraid of death. It is said that even to mention the word death was enough for him to be shocked. Twice or thrice hc fainted because somebody started talking about death; actually fainted, fell from the chair to the ground. So afraid of death? That simply means he must...

... have been afraid of emptiness too, because death and emptiness are the same. Why do you accumulate so many things, why do you accumulate so many ideas? Just to go on feeling that you are full. People eat too much just to feel full, people are constantly moving from one crowd to another crowd. People are members of religions - that is, members of crowds - members of clubs, members of political parties...

... is better if you encounter it sooner. Death will reveal it to you, but then it will be too late - you may not be able to do anything. Death is bound to reveal it to you. All your accumulations will be of no help. Death will make you clearly aware that your hands are empty - not only your hands, your BEING is also empty. Death is a shock because it reveals your emptiness and destroys your illusions...

... of being full. The meditator comes upon this experience before death. That is the beginning of a transformation. You start knowing your emptiness, and the more you know it the more you are surprised: it is emptiness only in the sense that there is nothing of the outside world with which you are acquainted. Yes, in that sense it is empty, but as you go deeper into it, you start feeling that it is...

... know the beauty of emptiness, the cleanliness of emptiness, the utter purity of emptiness. When the emptiness flowers in you, you will know its plenitude too, its fullness too. You will be full of emptiness, and that is the only fullness which death cannot destroy. But for that one thing is needed: that you should not be ignorant. What does he mean by ignorance? These people who are asking him...

...; This is what I say is victory through surrender. Lose all if you want to possess all. This is true renunciation, a and true rejoicing too. And the ultimate paradox is that of rejoicing and renunciation. Die totally if you want to be resurrected. "IF ONE THINKS THAT HE IS RIGHT, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NOT PERFECT." Because to feel that "I am right" simply means you are still trying...

... the trouble of asking again and again? He says: "ALL BUDDHAS PREACH EMPTINESS. WHY? BECAUSE THEY WISH TO CRUSH THE CONCRETE IDEAS OF THE STUDENTS. IF A STUDENT EVEN CLINGS TO AN IDEA OF EMPTINESS, HE BETRAYS ALL BUDDHAS. ONE CLINGS TO LIFE ALTHOUGH THERE IS NOTHING TO BE CALLED LIFE; ANOTHER CLINGS TO DEATH ALTHOUGH THERE IS NOTHING TO BE CALLED DEATH. IN REALITY THERE IS NOTHING TO BE BORN...

..., CONSEQUENTLY, THERE IS NOTHING TO PERISH." These are all our ideas, our make-believes: life, death, love, hate, good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral, virtue, sin. These are all our ideas. We are trying to impose our ideas on the reality, on others, on our own selves. The really awakened person has no ideas. Nothing is 'good' for him, and nothing is 'bad'; things are as they are. He simply lives in...

..., the manifest again moves into the unmanifest, to rest, to rejuvenate itself, and it will come again when its season comes. It lies down as a seed and waits, and will be back again. Nothing is ever born, nothing ever dies. But if you discriminate between life and death, you will be crushed between your own ideas. Then you will cling to life - and you cannot cling, because life is continuously flowing...

.... Then clinging will become your misery, and you will be afraid of death - and you cannot avoid that either, because rest is a great need. After seventy, eighty, ninety years of continuous functioning the body needs rest, the brain cells need rest, the soul needs rest. But first you cling to life and become miserable because you cannot hold onto it - it goes on slipping out of your hands - then you...

... become afraid of death and you want to keep death away, you push it away in every possible way. You cannot push it away, you cannot stop it; it is part of nature. It is just like a wave rising in the ocean and falling back: nothing comes, nothing goes; it is the same ocean. And what is the difference whether the wave has risen or fallen back? The water remains the same. Don't cling to ideas. This long...

.... Yet those who want to stop it are those who have lived not at all. They will die a dog's death. I am not against dogs - please note it - I am just using a metaphor. And it must be significant, because in Hindi there is also the same metaphor. It is the only metaphor which is similar in both Hindi and English. In fact, not similar but the same: Kutte ki mout - "a dog's death." It is exactly...

... psychologist would not be wrong. One should live while one is alive; there is no need to think of death. And when death comes one should die, and die totally; then there is no need to look backwards. And every moment being total in living, in loving, in dying - that's how one comes to know. To know what? There is no what. One simply comes to know - not what, but that, the knower. "What" is the...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. There are six great religions in the world. They can be divided into two categories: one consists of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; they believe in only one life. You are just between birth and death. There is nothing beyond birth and death - life is all. Although they believe in heaven and hell and God, they are the earnings from one life, a single...

... wheel of life and death. Of course to them, the wheel always reminds them of the bullock cart. If they want to stop it I am in perfect agreement. But there are better wheels; one need not stop all of them. In fact the very idea not to be born again simply shows that you have not lived. It may seem contradictory to you, but let me say it: only one who has totally lived stops the wheel of life and death...

... few sentences here and there; not saying much, but enough to provoke, enough to trigger a process in the person who comes across it. That would have been a real notebook on meditation, but not on meditations.... There is no plural possible. The East, and particularly India, can be called by the psychologists not only obsessive about death, but really possessed by the idea of suicide. In a way the...

... object, "that" is one's subjectivity. The moment my grandfather died, my Nana was still laughing the last flicker of her laughter, then she controlled herself. She was certainly a woman who could control herself. But I was not impressed by her control, I was impressed by her laughter in the very face of death. Again and again I asked her, "Nani, can you tell me why you laughed so loudly...

... when death was so imminent? If even a child like me was aware of it, it is not possible that you were not aware." She said, "I was aware, that is why I laughed. I laughed at the poor man trying to stop the wheel unnecessarily, because neither birth nor death mean anything in the ultimate sense." I had to wait for the time when I could ask and argue with her. When I myself become...

... Gautam the Buddha Auditorium Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. BELOVED OSHO, KASSAN AND JOZAN WERE GOING ALONG, TALKING TOGETHER, WHEN JOZAN SAID, "IF, WITHIN LIFE-AND-DEATH, THERE WERE NO BUDDHA, THERE WOULD BE NO LIFE-AND- DEATH." KASSAN SAID, "IF THE BUDDHA WERE WITHIN LIFE-AND-DEATH, THERE WOULD BE NO DELUSION WITH REGARD TO...

... LIFE-AND-DEATH." THEY ARGUED BACK AND FORTH, AND THERE WAS NO END TO IT. FINALLY, THEY DECIDED TO ASK DAIBAI. KASSAN SAID TO HIM, "OF THESE TWO OPINIONS, WHICH IS THE MORE FAMILIAR?" DAIBAI SAID, "ONE IS FAMILIAR, ONE IS DISTANT." "WHICH IS THE FAMILIAR ONE?" SAID KASSAN. "GO AWAY AND ASK ME AGAIN TOMORROW," RESPONDED DAIBAI. THE NEXT DAY KASSAN CAME AGAIN...

... awareness. KASSAN AND JOZAN WERE GOING ALONG, TALKING TOGETHER, WHEN JOZAN SAID, "IF, WITHIN LIFE-AND-DEATH, THERE WERE NO BUDDHA, THERE WOULD BE NO LIFE-AND- DEATH." A perfect statement. If in life and in death there was no consciousness, no buddhahood, there would be no life and no death. It is absolutely and categorically true. Our birth is the birth of the buddha and our life is the life of...

... a buddha, whether we remember it or not. And our death is going to be the death of a buddha. But remember: although on the screen it appears that there is a beginning and there is an end, existence has no framework; it is not a window, it is not enclosed by death and life. The buddha within you just comes like a breeze from eternity and moves through your heart, again into eternity. From the...

... cannot be greedy, you cannot have a lust for power. Once you know your own center, you reach to heights from where even the clouds are far below. You have touched the blueness of empty space. This traveler is called by Kassan and Jozan 'the Buddha'. KASSAN SAID, "IF THE BUDDHA WERE WITHIN LIFE-AND-DEATH, THERE WOULD BE NO DELUSION WITH REGARD TO LIFE-AND-DEATH." Right, but not perfect. There...

... is nothing wrong in it, but even to say THERE WOULD BE NO DELUSION WITH REGARD TO LIFE-AND-DEATH, is unnecessary. Awakening to your buddhahood, all that is false disappears, just like when you bring a lamp into a dark room - the darkness disappears. You don't say that the darkness has gone away, because nothing goes. The darkness was never there in fact; there was only an absence - the absence of...

... leaves. To go on deepening inwards, you will find the immortal element that passes from body to body, form to form, but is in itself eternal. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Come back. Sit down for a few moments, remembering the experience, because this experience has to become an undercurrent for twenty-four hours - day in, day out. Then there is no birth and no death; you have found the traveler, the eternal...

.... Sometimes the door is open - one should use the chance to get in.... [A sannyasin couple with their child are present. the woman says she is afraid of everything. Osho says: All fear is basically the fear of death. Once you accept that death is part of life, the fear disappears. If you simply start accepting whatsoever is the case, great love arises... not only that one loves life; one can even love death...

..., because death is the peak of life; it is the greatest orgasm. Do you enjoy your sleep or not? She nods a yes.... ] Death is the great sleep - mm? when you have just a small sleep, for few hours you disappear... and how beautiful it is in the morning! In death one goes into deep sleep for a longer period, and one comes out of it rejuvenated: a new life starts. If you accept death, death is not the end of...

... life but the beginning of a new life. Then the whole perspective changes. Start accepting it - it is great! And this time it will happen... this fear will go away. Good! [Her son is fast asleep on her lap - Osho looks at him.] Mm! fast asleep! This is how one should love death too! Now he is not afraid; sooner or later you will make him afraid: your fear will start entering him. So before he becomes...

... defend ourselves: we don't allow love to happen, we don't allow prayer to happen, we don't allow surrender to happen; we don't allow anything to happen. Our whole life structure is fear-oriented: just defend yourself and go on defending; one day death comes and one is finished. All defence leads to death. Nowhere else, and meanwhile one loses all possibilities of life. Life is for those who can remain...

... and that with which you are acquainted, there is no growth: there is only repetition... and a repetitive life is a dull and stupid life. Live dangerously, live non-repetitively - only then do you live! So here, become part of my family, forget the whole west. Relax, remain open and let things happen. The mind may come in many times to defend you; put the mind aside. Say that if death comes it is...

... Sutra, rather Upset the Sutra Yourself Chapter #: 22 Location: pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Anand Friederike. Anand means bliss; friederike means rule of peace. Your full name will mean rule of bliss and peace. Peace alone can become cold, can become unloving, can become a kind of death, can easily go negative...

.... There is every possibility that it will be the peace of a cemetery - not of life but of death. Anand - bliss - alone, can become too much of an excitement. It is ecstasy. It can become feverish; it can create a delirium. One can easily become a victim of hallucinations. The bliss will be very loving and very warm, but the possibility is that one will go mad with that warmth, with that love. It can...

... truth. We need not be afraid of death. If God is, then there is no death. Only one of the two can exist: either death or God. If death is, then there is no God; if God is, then there can be no death. This is the ultimate choice. A few people choose God; millions have chosen death. No wonder they suffer, no wonder they are miserable. Becoming a sannyasin means: choose God; forget all about death. It is...

... VEDAS was the cause of the death of his son - this is absolutely unrelated. Why particularly his son? There were many brahmins in the ritual, but nobody else's son had died. And in fact, if there was to be any punishment, the young sudra should have died. If it is something as Hindus think, a book written by God, it would have looked logical that the sudra should die, because he broke God's law. The...

... - and seeing death, seeing beyond death, his consciousness must change. He cannot remain the same old person. But he remains the same old person, nothing changes. So what is the miracle? And sooner or later, one day he has to die. So at the most his death is postponed a few years, but he will live these few years in unconsciousness, in violence, in hatred, in jealousy. And he will accumulate more sin...

... clear to the woman that death is a natural phenomenon. It happens to everybody in every family.... "Even if my child again becomes alive, he will have to die again. Asking for his life is asking for another death, it is pointless. He cannot live forever." She came back almost a different woman and she told Buddha, "I could not find the mustard seeds. I was in such misery that I could...

... not understand your strategy. I could have got the idea when you told me, because I know it is impossible to find a family where people have not died. Your father must have died, your grandfather must have died... it is impossible to find a family which has had no encounter with death. But now, I come with an understanding - I don't want my son to be brought back to life, because he will have to die...

... I die, I want to know that my essential being is not going to die." Buddha said, "Now this seems to be reasonable. You are an intelligent woman." She was initiated and became one of the most important woman disciples of Gautam Buddha. Now, both cases are almost the same, but the way Gautam Buddha transforms the whole thing.... From death, he turns the mind of the woman towards...

... crucifixion is bound to wake you up, at least for a moment. And in that very moment will be the recognition - and a tremendous feeling of loss, because when the master was alive, you remained asleep. Now the master is no more, and because of his death... the shock is so much that it awakens you for a moment. But even that single moment is like when lightening suddenly happens on a dark night, and you see...

... himself. And Jesus was caught because of the information given by Judas. And I say that he must have done it against himself because as Jesus was crucified, suddenly he became aware of what he had done. Death is not a small matter. He had killed the man he loved, he had killed the man he worshipped. He was feeling so much repentance that within twenty-four hours he committed suicide. Christians don't...

... - maybe what life has not been able to do and perform, death succeeds in doing. And it succeeded - the shock not only made an impact on the disciples but on sympathizers, on curiosity mongers, on people who were absolutely neutral, on people who had never thought about Jesus Christ. The crucifixion made everyone give a thought to this strange young man. Where do you think so many Christians have come...

.... Thousands of Jews who had never paid any attention to Jesus became Christians, and the basic number came from Judea. Perhaps the strategy of crucifixion worked. And for a man like Jesus, life and death don't matter. What matters is that he has found something and he wants to share it - but it is so difficult to find somebody willing to share life's greatest blessings and benedictions. Sudha, it hurts but...

... I have to tell you the truth. And you have to understand: It is not being told to somebody else, it is being told to you, to each person individually. If you are not awake, then perhaps it is worth my being crucified. If that helps you to be more conscious, to be more loving, to be more alert, to be more integrated.... My life and my death are both for you. For a single purpose, I go on continuing...

... happened that a young son has died before the death of his father. So something very serious is involved in it, you have to find the reason." Rama asked, "Do you have any idea?" The brahmin said, "I know perfectly well what happened. I will tell my story, and then you can search and find out who caused the death of my son." He said, "We were doing a Vedic ritual...."...

... medicine and the doctors and the scientists are openly saying that there seems to be no possibility, at least in the near future, to find a medicine. So once you have AIDS, your death is certain within six months to two years, and you cannot do anything except wait. A disease like AIDS has come through homosexuality. It is the ultimate.... And the perversion is not condemned; on the contrary, in...

... two are available to everybody. But the real growth begins when you start becoming aware of your potential of consciousness. Then you are moving from the individual to the universal, from the mortal to the immortal, from death to eternal life. Because all the mystics have said it, people became very satisfied with the statement, that "The only difference is that we are not aware. A Gautam...

... difference whether you wake up today or tomorrow. Right now sleep seem so beautiful, so why disturb it?" Gurdjieff was the first man to become aware that to tell the truth to the sleepy people is a dangerous thing. They need to be shaken, shocked -- and this is one of the greatest shocks, even to hear it: that you may not have any consciousness at all, that this death will be simply death, nothing...

... will be remaining out of it. You will be simply dying totally. You are nothing but body and mind. You don't have any eternal element in you. Because you have not produced it. It is not given by birth, that is Gurdjieff's point. To insist, that "You are not given from the birth. You have to work for it and work hard, and you have to attain it before death. Otherwise your death will be complete...

... death. So don't wait for another life!" And he really created panic in many intelligent people, because the man was of great power, of tremendous understanding. He knew what has to be done with a sleepy man better than anybody else. All these mystics were nice guys. He was not. They were simply saying what was true. It is not enough to say the truth. Unless you bring people to the truth, your...

... is your greatest creativity, greatest effort. So only very few people out of millions will be surviving death. Others will be dying like dogs, nothing will be surviving." He was emphatically trying to wake you up, that "Stop postponing. You don't have it. And postponement is dangerous. Tomorrow you may not be here, so today is all that you have got. Create it -- before death knocks on...

... food, that just to destroy it, it will take three to four billion dollars, to destroy it! It is not the cost of the food. To drown it in the ocean will take three to four billion dollars. And they are going to do it. They will not give it to Ethiopia, where thousands of people continue to die every day. They will not give it to Nepal. They will not give it to India, where millions of people are...

... waiting at any moment to starve and die. Why they will not give it to anyone? They don't feel any responsibility. Their whole problem is economic, not human. They don't want to lower the price of their goods. Otherwise their markets will collapse, and they cannot give those things free. And why they should give? This is the problem basically deep down, because giving it to Ethiopia is not in a state to...

... about it? Let them die. That makes the population of Christianity bigger than the Mohammedan. If Hindus start dying in India, why the Christians should give their food to them -- although it is surplus and they are going to throw it in the ocean. If the Hindus die in India, there is a possibility that the Christians in India will become the rulers. Now Christianity is the third greatest religion in...

... India. But they will not be the people to die in starvation, because they are well-supported by the Western Christian countries. The people who will be dying will be the Mohammedans and Hindus. There is a possibility that so many Hindus and Mohammedans will die that Christianity will become the major religion in India. And let them die, let them start to die, then it is easier to convert them. Just...

... total and so whole, that he can die totally, not in fragments. You live in fragments, so you die in fragments. One part dies, then another, then another, and you take many years to die. Then the whole thing becomes ugly. Death would be beautiful if people were alive. This inner monkey doesn't allow you to be alive, and this inner monkey will not allow you to die beautifully either. This constant...

... so that you remain occupied. You are so restless that your restlessness needs to be busy somehow or other. That is why, whatsoever is said against smoking, it cannot be stopped. Only in a meditative world can smoking stop - otherwise not. Even if there is danger of death, of cancer, of tuberculosis, it cannot be stopped, because it is not a question of just smoking, it is a question of how to...

... you, and you are sitting here alive?" Nasruddin looked straight at the man and said, "Ha ha, do you call this being alive?" Look at people's faces and you will understand what he meant. Do you call this being alive? So bored to death, dragging? Once a man said to Nasruddin,"I am very poor. Survival is impossible now, should we commit suicide? I have six children and a wife, my...

... when people are alive, they will die. And this is also a good business. These two businesses are good - bread, and shrouds for the dead." After a month the man came back. He looked even more desperate, very sad, and he said, "Nothing seems to work. I have put everything I have got into the business, as you suggested, but everything seems to be against me." Nasruddin said, "How can...

... that happen? People have to eat bread while they are alive, and when they die their relatives have to buy shrouds." The man said, "But you don't understand. In this village no one is alive and no one ever dies. They are simply dragging along." People are just dragging. You don't need to look at others' faces, just look in the mirror and you will find out what dragging means - neither...

... alive nor dead. Life is so beautiful, death is also beautiful - dragging is ugly. But why do you look so burdened? The constant chattering of the mind dissipates energy. Constant chattering of the mind is a constant leakage in your being. Energy is dissipated. You never have enough energy to make you feel alive, young, fresh, and if you are not young and fresh and alive your death is also going to be...

... a very dull affair. One who lives intensely, dies intensely, and when death is intense, it has a beauty of its own. One who lives totally, dies totally, and wherever totality is there is beauty. Death is ugly, not because of death but because you have never lived rightly. If you have never been alive, you have not earned a beautiful death. It has to be earned. One has to live in such a way, so...

... consciousness can look at the whole, from birth to death - and then the total is always seven. That is why wise men never try to change the arrangement. That is why in the East no revolution has ever happened - because revolution means changing the arrangement. Look what happened in Soviet Russia. In 1917 the greatest revolution happened on earth. The arrangement was changed. I don't think Lenin, Stalin or...

... don't think that there is any hope. You will have to die. There is no treatment for this illness, it has gone beyond cure." The patient was a tailor, he went home. Two weeks later the doctor was passing and he saw the tailor working, healthy and full of energy. So he said, "What, are you still alive? You should have been dead long ago. I have consulted the books and this is impossible. How...

... do you manage to be alive?" The tailor said, "You told me that within a week I would have to die, so I thought: Then why not live? Just a week left.... And potato pancakes are my weakness, so I left your surgery, went straight to the cafe, ate thirty-two potato pancakes and immediately I felt a great surge of energy. And now I am absolutely okay!" Right away the doctor noted down in...

... his diary that thirty-two potato pancakes is a sure cure for severe cases of pneumonia. The next patient by chance also had pneumonia. He was a shoemaker. The doctor said, "Don't worry. Now the cure has been discovered. Immediately go and eat thirty-two potato pancakes, not less than thirty-two, and you will be okay; otherwise, you will die within a week." After a week, the doctor knocked...

... fragmentary? If you are divided in parts the total cannot be reflected in you. When I speak of meditation I mean a mind which is no longer divided, in which all fragments have disappeared. The mind is undivided, whole, one. This one mind looks deeply to the very end. It looks from death to birth, it looks from birth to death. Both the polarities are before it. And out of this look, out of this penetrating...

... - spiritual things can be postponed, but this world cannot be postponed. Life is long enough, we can meditate later on." In India people say that meditation is only for the old. Once they are on the verge of death then they can meditate, it is not for young people. Meditation is the last thing on the list; do it when you have done everything else. But remember that the time never comes when you have...

... prostitute died. She lived just in front of the monk's temple. She was also a very famous prostitute, as famous as the monk. They were two polarities living next to each other and they died on the same day. The angel of death came and took the monk to heaven; other angels of death came and took the prostitute to hell. When the angels reached heaven the doors were closed and the man in charge said, "...

... all choosing. Just looking at the whole thing you start laughing. There is nothing to choose. The total remains the same. In the end, by the evening, the total will be the same. Then you won't be bothered whether in the morning you are an emperor or a beggar. You are happy, because by evening everything has come to the same, everything has been leveled. Death equalizes. In death nobody is an emperor...

... and nobody is a beggar. Death reveals the total; it is always seven. The two arrangements were the same. Remember, the amount of chestnuts didn't change. But in one case the monkeys were displeased and in the other case they were satisfied. THE KEEPER WAS WILLING TO CHANGE HIS PERSONAL ARRANGEMENT IN ORDER TO MEET OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS. HE LOST NOTHING BY IT. A man of understanding always looks at...

... efforts. In order to meet objective conditions the trainer changed his personal arrangement. He looked at the monkeys and their minds, he didn't feel offended - he was a monkey trainer, not a monkey. He looked and he must have laughed within, because he knew the total. And he yielded. Only a wise man yields. A foolish man always resists. Foolish people say it is better to die than to bend, better to...

... break than to bend. Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu always say: When there is a strong wind the foolish egoistic trees resist and die, and the wise grass bends. The storm goes by and again the grass stands straight, laughing and enjoying. The grass is objective, the big tree is subjective. The big tree thinks so much of himself: "I am somebody, who can bend me? Who can force me to yield?" The big...