... him a very typical question asked by thousands of people: "Will you say something to me about what happens after death?" Confucius said, "All these thoughts about death you can contemplate in your grave after death. Right now, live!" There is a time to live, and there is a time to die. Don't mix them, otherwise you will miss both. Right now, live totally and intensely; and when...

... you die, then die totally. Don't die partially: that one eye dies, and one eye keeps looking around; one hand dies, and the other hand goes on searching for truth. When you die, die totally... and contemplate what death is. But right now, don't waste time in contemplating things which are far away: live this moment. The child knows how to live intensely and totally, and without any fear that he will...

... excuse. And then slowly, slowly it need not happen... the ego disappears; your soul is settled in its right place. It has been displaced by society, by a false substitute. The false must die for the truth, for the real to assert itself. The false was feeling weak, and the truth within you felt strong. Nourish that strength, and let that weak part of you starve, and let it die. The death of the ego is...

... should come out of your playfulness and joy. Your child should never be allowed to die. Nourish it, and don't be afraid that it will go out of control. Where can it go? And even if it goes out of control - so what? What can you do out of control? You can dance like a madman, laugh like a madman; you can jump and jog like a madman... people may think you are mad, but that is their problem. If you are...

... all about. The serious man is dead before his death. Long before his death, he remains almost like a corpse. Life is such a valuable opportunity, it should not be lost in seriousness. Keep seriousness for the grave. Let seriousness collapse into the grave; waiting for the last judgment day, be serious. But don't become a corpse before the grave. I am reminded of Confucius. One of his disciples asked...

... few moments, it was not controlled by the ego. For the first time, for a few moments, it had wings of its own, it was not in the chains and the bondage of the ego. So your soul felt strong and your ego felt weak. It is a good sign. The beginning of the death of the ego, the beginning of the end of the ego, and the beginning of your entry into the world of consciousness. But later on your ego must...

.... Sitting silently in your room, you will find a tremendous strength arising in you. And at the same time something is dying - something that is not you; something that has always been pretending to be yourself. The pretender has to die, the false has to disappear, so that the real can take its place. And once the real is in its own place, your whole life becomes authentic. Each act takes on a tremendous...

... heart failure because twice he had already suffered an attack and this time he was certain to die. Edmund Burke could not believe it, that just behind his house he could not be certain about a fact. The dead man was lying there, it was not fiction. But how the death had happened... perhaps it would never be decided. "And I am writing a book about thousands of years past, and trying to prove that...

... know that there is summer, that there are rains, that there is cold winter. "Never allow him to see any old man, any dead body. Even in his gardens, the dead leaves, dying flowers should be removed in the night so when he comes for a walk in the morning he never sees anything dying or dead. Because once he becomes aware of death, then the question can arise in his mind, that 'If things die, one...

...-Hillaj Mansoor. They are ready to die - because their knowing is of the heart, there is no question of its being wrong. There is no doubt anywhere, it is indubitable. To be with a master, you need to learn how to listen. Hearing is not enough. It is a mystery to open the doors for listening, because everywhere only hearing is needed. In the marketplace, in the universities, in the churches, only...

... right listening makes you wonder about everything around you: The whole existence becomes a mystery, a poetry, a song, a dance. Gone are the days of misery, anguish, tension, death. You have entered on the path of eternal benediction. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, THE OTHER NIGHT YOU TOLD THE STORY OF THE BUDDHA AND HIS DISCIPLE, ANANDA. ANANDA HAD THOUGHT THAT THE BUDDHA HAD GIVEN CONTRADICTORY ANSWERS...

... day I will have to die.'" The king said, "Everything will be done. I have the facilities, don't be worried." This advice was given by the so-called wise people. To me they are not wise, they are other-wise! It was because of their advice that he had to renounce the kingdom one day, because for twenty-nine years he was kept in such a controlled atmosphere - not a dead leaf, not a...

... before the first man did, that life is going to disappear into old age, old age is going to lead to death, and death to the funeral pyre. He became so concerned that he left the world, went into silence in search of something which is deathless, which is immortal. And he has found it - you can see it." Buddha had seen the most beautiful women, the most beautiful young people, but this was beauty...

... beginning that people die, that people are old, that people are ugly. If the king Shuddhodhana had asked me, I would have said to him, "Keep him surrounded with old people coughing continuously, having tuberculosis, cancer. Open hospitals around him: find all the ugly women, and make them nurses. Train him - make a funeral pyre near the palace and announce in the capital that nobody is to be burned...

... anywhere else, everybody has to be burned here. So from the very beginning he would start seeing that people get old, then they die, then they are burned." He would have, by the time he was twenty-nine, grown enough shock absorbers; that's how we all have grown. Those so-called wise people gave great advice, but they had no understanding of psychology. Buddha himself had the same questions. For six...

..., this is not me because if it were me I would have kissed you. I am here on this side; that side is only a picture which is unchanging, which cannot kiss, which cannot come out of the frame, which will remain the same. I will grow old, I will die. This picture will remain there; it will not grow old and it will not die, because it is not alive." I told Professor S. S. Roy, "Your absolute...

..., somebody's mother is found to have cancer - there are opportunities and opportunities. They have to decide that death is not very far... and death gives you no information, no indication. It simply comes and takes you away. It does not even wait for you to complete your work - "Then why should I wait if death does not wait?" And sannyas is nothing but a struggle against death; it is a...

... confrontation against death. So those sympathizers, tomorrow or day after tomorrow, are going to take the drastic step of becoming sannyasins. And then there is a fourth grade: semi-sympathizers. They are in real difficulty. Their heart is with me, their mind is not. They are suffering and split, and if they don't decide something they are going to be schizophrenic. And most of them, rather than being...

... in freedom; they are really rare. Mostly we are born in shackles and we also die in shackles. Birth is inescapably linked with bondage, but if one can become free before he dies he will be fulfilled, he will be blessed. There is a third thing associated with the birth of Krishna, and it is fear of his death. There is a danger, a threat of his being killed. But does not everyone of us face the fear...

... of death? With birth, death comes as the inevitable possibility. One can die just a moment after one is born. And one's every moment after birth is beset with the danger of death. One can die any moment, and this moment comes darkly, uninvited. Death has only one necessary condition attached to it, and that is the condition of birth. How can one die without being born? And a moment-old child is as...

... eligible for death as a seventy year-old man. To die you don't need any other qualification than to be born. Soon after his birth Krishna is confronted with the danger of death, with the fear of death. But this is precisely the case with each one of us. What do we do after being born? We begin to die and we continue to die. We die each day, each hour of our lives. What we know as life is nothing but a...

.... There is nothing extraordinary about it. Another thing associated with Krishna's birth is that he was born in prison, in bondage. But who is not born in prison? Everyone is born in bondage. Maybe one is released from bondage before he dies, but it is not always necessary. By and large we are born in fetters and we die in fetters. The truth is that every birth binds us, limits us; entering a body is...

... tantamount to entering a prison. It is a confinement. So whenever and wherever a soul comes to be born it is always born in jail. It is unfortunate that this symbol has not been rightly understood. A highly poetic expression has been misinterpreted as an historical event. In fact, every birth takes place in prison; so also, every death - with a few exceptions - takes place in prison. Very few deaths happen...

... long and dreary journey towards death. It begins with birth and ends in death. That is all. There is yet another thing associated with Krishna's birth which is very significant. It is that Krishna is confronted with any number of deadly dangers to his life, and he escapes them all. Whoever comes to kill him gets killed himself. We can say that death dies when it confronts Krishna. It uses every means...

... to finish him and it fails utterly. This is very meaningful. It is not the same with all of us. Death can finish us in its very first attempt; we cannot escape its single onslaught. The truth is that we are as good as dead; a small stroke and we will be no more. We really don't know what life is; we don't know the life that defeats death. Krishna's story is a story of life's victory over death...

.... Death comes to him in countless forms and always goes back disappointed. We all know the many stories where death, in various guises, encircles Krishna and courts defeat after defeat at his hands. But we never care to go deeply into these stories and discover their truth. And there is a single truth underlying them all: it is that every day Krishna is triumphantly marching towards life and every day...

... death is laying down its arms before him. Every conceivable means is used to destroy him and he frustrates them all and continues to live to the maximum. And then a day comes when death accepts defeat and surrenders to him. Krishna really represents life's triumph over death. But this truth has not been said so plainly as I am now saying it to you. And there is a reason for it. People in past ages had...

... begins more or less in the same way as Krishna's; there is not much difference. For this reason a good many people had this illusion - a few still cling to it - that Christ never happened, that it is really the story of Krishna carried to Jerusalem. There is great similarity between the stories of their births. Jesus too is born on a dark night; he too is born amid fear of death. Here King Kansa, his...

... the birth of a single individual, it is also the birth of everybody else. The darkness, prison and fear of death associated with Krishna's birth have their own significance. But the question is why we associate them with Krishna in particular. I don't mean to say that the story of his birth taking place inside a prison is not true. I don't mean to say that he was not born in bondage. I want to say...

... only this: it is not that relevant whether or not he was born in a prison, in bondage, what is relevant is that when a person of the stature of Krishna is made available to us we do include in his story the whole archetype of man's birth. Remember, the story of a great person runs counter to our own. The story of an ordinary person begins with his birth and ends with his death; it has a sequence of...

... events running from birth to death. But the story of a great one is written retrospectively for the simple reason that his greatness comes to be recognized much later and then his story is written. It takes years, nearly forty to fifty years, to recognize the greatness of a person like Krishna. Then a legend, a story begins to be formed around this glorious and unique person. And then we choose...

... Krishna's death, which is of the highest. Question 2: QUESTIONER: YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT KRISHNA IS MAKING A JOKE WHEN HE SAYS, "SURRENDER TO ME, ABANDONING ALL OTHER DUTIES," AND THAT "I WILL COME FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNRIGHTEOUS." HOWEVER, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT WHILE THE KRISHNA OF THE GEETA IS...

... disturbance, happiness and suffering, life and death, have opposite meanings, but in real life it is peace that turns into disturbance, happiness that turns into suffering, life that turns into death. Again, in real life, disorder turns into order, suffering into happiness and death into life. In real life light turns into darkness, morning turns into evening and day into night and vice versa. In real life...

... the highest; it cannot be otherwise. Sex should be connected with God. The earth should be connected with the heavens. Similarly, life is connected with death and matter is connected with consciousness. Even a rock is associated with God in some intimate way. It cannot be otherwise. Krishna is like a symbol of this sublime unity and harmony. And I say such a Krishna happened, really happened...

... based on their love for each other it will be a reflection of their love and nothing else. The day love seeks the shelter of law, it courts death. Love dies the day it is turned into a contracted, legalized marriage. When I tell a woman I am entitled to receive her love because she is my wife, I am not really asking for her love, I am asserting my legal right of ownership over her. Maybe in that...

... relationship is plagued by constant conflict and strife. It has to be so. Since there is an element of aggressiveness in every woman, she some times becomes aggressive - while the essential woman in her is ready to submit and surrender. So there are moments when she puts her head at the feet of her man and there are also moments when she would like to strangle him to death. These are the two sides of her...

... comes only when the old identity is in danger, the ground underneath is slipping. You are moving into something, you don't know what, and one feels panicky. Fear is always a good indication that something is going to happen through this method. Kundalini has touched your hara, and you have felt something like death around you; that's why you felt like disappearing, that's why the feeling of choking...

..., as if you are being killed, as if you are being crucified, hanged. But whenever death is so close by it is a great moment. If you can go into it you will know that you are immortal - that death happens and still you are. Maharishi Raman attained to enlightenment through death. He was only seventeen or eighteen and suddenly he felt he was dying. He was doing meditations; he must have unknowingly hit...

... accepted it. It was okay: if one was dying, one was dying. He relaxed into death; his body fell down. A crowd gathered and they thought that this boy was dead. And what was happening inside was of tremendous value, ultimate value. Ramana saw his body disappearing. That's where you came very close to. But he accepted and you rejected. Then he saw his mind disappearing - but he accepted it. And then a...

... smile came over his face. The body disappeared, the mind disappeared and he was still there! Nothing had died! So he opened his eyes and laughed! He said to people, 'Death is impossible. I have seen the body disappearing, I have seen the mind disappearing but I was still there. I was the watcher; I was the witness of it all!' Since that moment death disappeared for him. He lived for many years after...

... that - fifty years - but he lived in a deathlessness. Then there was life, and eternal life. [Osho checks her energy.] Energy is there and really ready to explode. You will have to be a little more brave than you have been. And drop fear. That's what I am here for: to help you to go into the deepest danger. You can trust me that I will take care. You can afford to die. So when next time it starts...

... happening, simply go into it and you will find me there. At the last stage of death, you will see me. And kundalini is the method that you have to continue. Do other methods also, but kundalini is a must! [A sannyasin therapist has led his first group in the ashram and said he felt stuck because it was just a continuation of what he was doing in the West.] Then I think that for a few days you should not...

... attain to life. In fact, you are born to die, you are born to death. The father is dead. The man said, "Suffer me, Lord, to go and bury my father - a formality, but let me do it." JESUS SAID UNTO HIM - one of the most poignant, penetrating sayings of Jesus - LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD: BUT GO THOU AND PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD. It looks a little harsh, it does not show compassion. The...

...;Follow me." He must have seen death in his eyes, he must have felt death around him. Of course, it was bound to be so - the father was dead. But still the man could not contain himself. He had to come to see this man, Jesus. Maybe because of death Jesus became significant, maybe because of death he became aware that everybody is going to die. Maybe because of that he had come to Jesus in search of...

..., "When we reach to the mid-point, we will change." People always wait for religion until they get old. People go on saying that religion is for old people. Go into the churches, into the temples, and you will find old people - just on the verge of death. Their one foot is already in the grave: the nine hundred ninety-ninth day. The next morning, life is going to be suffocated. Then they start...

... to be taken away from you. You have to pay for all those things, with life. Whatsoever you possess, you lose life for it. It is not cheap; it is very costly. One day you have many possessions, but you are no longer there. Things are there; the owner, dead. Great piles of things... but the one who wanted to live through them; no more. People go on preparing for life - and they die before their...

... to become a Jesus. There is no other following. It is to risk your all and everything - for nothing. It is to risk all for nothing; it is to risk your life for a death. The resurrection may come or it may not come - who knows? You can never be certain about it and no guarantee can be given. It is just a hope: to sacrifice all that you have for just a hope. The man is not in his senses - what is he...

... on the road. He was passing by the village, his father was Lying dead, and he said, LORD, SUFFER ME FIRST TO GO AND BURY MY FATHER. This is a very symbolic situation: the father who has given birth to the body is dead, and another father is present who can give birth to the soul. The question is between the soul and the body, the question is between life and death. From a worldly father you don't...

... be worried about it. Let the dead bury the dead; you go and preach the kingdom of God." What manner of man is this Jesus? Some man's father is lying dead and he wants to make him a preacher of the king dom of God? Is this the moment to go and become a preacher of God? But it is symbolic. He's saying, "Don't be worried about death, be worried about God. And don't be worried about the...

... father who gave birth to your body; think about the father, go and preach about the father, who has given your soul to you." BUT GO THOU AND PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD. In a way. if you watch the death of anybody who has been very intimate to you - a father, a mother, a wife, a husband, a friend who has been very intimate to you and is dead - only in that moment is conversion towards God possible...

.... If you miss that moment, you will again be in the mess of the world. Death gives you a shock. Nothing can give you a shock like that - death is the greatest shock. If that shock does not make you awake then you are incurable, impossible. Jesus used that moment. He is one of the greatest artists who has ever walked on the earth, the greatest alchemist. The situation is death. The father is Lying...

... dead in the home, the family must be crying and weeping - this is no time to go and preach the kingdom of God. It looks absurd, looks harsh. Jesus looks too hard. He is not. It is because of his compassion that he says this. He knows that if this moment of death is missed - in burying the dead body - then there will be no possibility to awaken. Maybe that's why he turned to this man and said, "...

... life. The first man was just an onlooker; the second man was ready. Death prepares you. If you can use death, if you can use pain and anguish, if you can use suffering, misery, that can become a step towards the divine. Shocked, this man must have been standing there almost as if he himself was dead. Thinking must have stopped. In such a shock you cannot afford thinking. If the shock is really total...

... intimate? Jesus must have watched: this man was ready. Let me tell you, unless you have experienced death, you are not ready. Life is very superficial; it is just on the periphery, just on the surface. Death is deep - it is as deep as God - so only from death is the conversion possible. Only in the moment of death do you change. Your outlook changes, your attitudes change, the old world becomes...

... irrelevant. Buddha was transformed by seeing a dead man.... Jesus must have looked - AND HE SAID UNTO ANOTHER, FOLLOW ME. Only one who has known death can follow Jesus. If you have known death, only then can you follow me. If you have known suffering and the cleansing that comes out of suffering, if you have known pain and the shock that is a by-product of pain, then and only then can you be with me...

.... Otherwise sooner or later you disperse because life goes on calling you back; there are a thousand and one things to be fulfilled yet. You will continually be going backwards. Only when death cuts the bridge, breaks all the ties with life, is there a possibility that you will turn - turn your back to the world and face God. That's why, in one sentence, Jesus says two things which on the surface look...

... their search for God. This is a temple of total ruin - kharabat. If you come close to me, remember, you are going to die. Mohammed has said, "Die before you die." That is a Sufi statement: die before you die. Death is coming, death will take you away, but that will not be a voluntary death. It will not be a surrender. You will be forced to die. A Sufi dies voluntarily; he dies in love. He...

... does not wait for death to come, love is enough to die for. And to die in love is beautiful because to die in love is to go beyond death. Listen to Mohammed: die before you die. If you can die here with me... I am a dead man. I have died. And all that I am teaching you is an art of dying so that you can move into the state of fana, you disappear. If you fulfill that condition of disappearing, God...

... immediately rewards you with baka - being descends in you - and that being is eternal. The door that you have to pass through is the door of love because only a lover is ready to die voluntarily. Nobody else can die voluntarily, only a lover, because the lover knows that death is not death, but the beginning of an eternal pilgrimage. We are not creating a Kaaba here for idiots to circle, not a mosque for...

... day you are in hate. One day you love the person and you are ready to die for the person, and another day you are ready to kill the same person. One moment you are so nice, so beautiful, another moment you are so nasty, so ugly to the same person. This is not ishq, ishq has depth. This is only circumference. This is just a mask; this is part of your personality. Ishq, passionate love for God, is not...

.... Inside are the drunk, from pre-eternity to the Judgement Day, gone from themselves. The Sufis call their assemblies "temples of total ruin" kharabat - because you have to die, you have to disappear. When Sufis really meet, there is nobody to meet. The Sufi assembly is utterly empty of persons. Only God is. It is a kharabat, a temple of ruin. Very revolutionary words of Bokhari: "This is...

... no Kaaba for idiots to circle." I also say the same about this assembly: this is no Kaaba for idiots to circle - hence idiots are very much angry with me"nor a mosque for the impolite to clamor in." This is not a place for the mob and the crowd. This is a place only for the chosen ones, only for those who are ready to die in their love, only for those who are ready to risk all in...

... been able to gather courage enough to die in love. Sufism will persuade you, will seduce you to die in love. A Sufi mystic says: l thought of You so often that I completely became You. Little by little You drew near and slowly but slowly I passed away. If you remember God.... And to remember God means to see God in the trees and the birds and the people and the animals. Wherever life is look for God...

... humankind, then the second part will come very late. The second part will be preparation for death. Just as the first part was preparation for life, the second part will be preparation for death -- how to die meditatively, silently, peacefully; how to meet death with a song and a dance and a welcome. The second part will be basically religious, just as the first part was basically scientific. The...

... condemned hypnotism, which is a science in itself and has to be revived again. It is the only way to take you to the whole area that you will pass through when you die. If you have passed that area many times death will not be anything to be feared. On the contrary, you will be tremendously excited. You have lived, you have lived so fully, you are contented with life; you would love to know what death is...

...Education for life -- and for death...

... Osho The Great Pilgrimage From Here to Here: Education for life -- and for death Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho The Great Pilgrimage From Here to Here   Next > Education for life -- and for death From: Osho Date: Fri, 3 October 1987 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here Chapter #: 28 Location: pm in...

... miles long, and he has only two hours' lifespan. So if he does not reach within two hours, he will die. Such competition he will never again face in his life. The whole life will be competitive, but the beginning is the worst competition you can conceive: one million people rushing towards the female egg, and only one is going to win the race! The remainder are going to die. Rarely it happens that two...

... now starts the journey with the parents' full awareness of what he is going to become, to what school he should be sent, and what kind of education he should be given according to the genetic code. Then the world will be full of geniuses, talented people, healthy people. It is possible to avoid old age completely... a man can go on living youthfully up to the point of death. Now these are not...

... attentive that they forgot about pockets and they forgot that there may be thieves.... Finally the government came to the conclusion that this is not going to help. If people are picking poeple's pockets while another thief is being tortured, you cannot teach...! People have been sentenced to death in thousands, but it has not prevented murderers. The reason is that the murderer has a program in which he...

... education will be complete, but it has to be at both the ends -- the beginning and the end. Each university should have a double structure: one for the young people who are going to enter into life, and the other for the old people who are going to enter into the unknown world of death. The first part of education will be of many dimensions -- all sciences, all arts, all kinds of crafts. Somebody is a...

... enforcement; students have to be forced, bribed. Education can become so colorful, so actual, so real that you will not need to say to the students, "Be attentive!" They will be attentive automatically. And the same for the second part of education. All scientific technology can be used to give you experiences very close to death. You can be taught meditations, you can be taught relaxation, you...

... can be taught how to go deeper in your sleep. Hypnotism will play a great role in the second part of education, because you can be hypnotized so deeply that you can almost touch the territory of death. Hypnotism became condemned by the same people who are always condemning everything that can make man's life more easy, more pleasant, more juicy. The organized religions have been such poisoners. They...

...... a new challenge, a new beginning, entering into the universal, getting out of the imprisonment of the body, becoming just pure consciousness. Unless education can teach you both life and death it is not complete education. Unless education can make everybody dignified, self-respectful, neither inferior to anybody nor superior to anybody, it is not education. So I begin with genetic engineering. I...

... end up with meditation, enlightenment. Before death you must realize what tremendous beauty and splendor is contained within your consciousness. Then education covers your whole life, and gives you the most perfect possibility of your growth. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, THESE DAYS I FEEL LIKE A FRUITCAKE. ALSO I'M READING THE IDIOT BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY. DO YOU THINK THERE IS ANY CONNECTION? Vimal...

... all the treasure that one can imagine. But man's desire is inexhaustible. He said to death, "It is too early; I have not yet completed my experiences on the earth. You will have to give me at least one hundred years more." Death said, "I can give you one hundred years on one condition: if one of your sons is ready to die in your place. Because anyway I have to take somebody, I cannot...

..., somebody was seventy. They themselves were old, but nobody was willing to die. Just the youngest son, who was only seventeen, as yet unmarried, had just come from his gurukula, from his master's home - he came forward and he said, "You can take me. If this can give my father one hundred years I will be immensely happy." Even death felt tremendous compassion for the boy. Death said, "Can't...

... hundred years and is unsatisfied; my ninety-nine brothers have lived and yet none is ready to die. That is enough proof for me that in this life, satisfaction is not possible. At least give me this satisfaction, that I have given to my father what he has given to me; I give it back to him. It is useless, life." Unwillingly, death had to take him away. One hundred years passed and death was back...

..., and Yayati said, "My God, I forgot completely about the fact that after a hundred years you would be back again. Everything is incomplete." And this went on happening. When Yayati became one thousand years old... Ten times death came, and every time the youngest son sacrificed himself for the father. It has tremendous implications: The old mind is not ready to die; even if you give it one...

... will die like a beggar, not like an emperor. You will not embrace death, you will be dragged by death unwillingly, reluctantly. Here, if I say to you enlightenment is very difficult, you will put it down at the very bottom of your life. I have to say to people that it is very easy, it is easier than anything else in the world, it is the easiest thing. And once you have become interested in...

... are engaged in doing right now will not be available for eternity, so let us finish them first." And they will go on putting enlightenment as the last item on their list. There is an old, ancient story in India about Kind Yayati. His death came; he was one hundred years old, he had done everything that you can do - conquered lands, had beautiful wives, had one hundred sons from those wives, had...

... you see your ninety-nine brothers? - nobody is willing. They are coming close to their own death. There is not much to lose for the one who is eighty years old - any day his own death is going to come. You are too young, you don't understand what you are doing. Think twice." He said, "I have thought about it. Exactly the same reasons that you are giving me... my father has lived one...

... thousand years to live, it clings to life. only the youngest is bold enough to go into death without entering into the ups and downs, days and nights, summers and winters of life. But after one thousand years when death came, Yayati said, "This time... things are still incomplete, but I have understood that they will remain always incomplete. You can take me. And I am ashamed that I did not...

.... Your only concern is that they should not come too close. Everybody is keeping everybody else at a distance, because to allow people to come too close means opening the doors of your emptiness. The ego does not exist. And you are so identified with the ego that the death of the ego, the disappearance of the ego feels as if it is your death. It is not so; on the contrary, when the ego is dead then you...

... essential part of egoism; it is the whole of it. Ego is cowardice. And to be without ego is to be fearless - because now nothing can be taken away from you; not even death can destroy anything in you. The only thing that could be destroyed by anybody was the ego. The ego is so fragile, so much always on the verge of death, that the people who are clinging to it are always trembling deep inside. Dropping...

... DEATH AND IT MEANS NEVER COMING BACK TO THIS LIFE AGAIN. MY MIND FREAKS OUT ABOUT THIS, AND I AM NOT SURE IF I WANT THIS OR NOT. THEN I ASK MYSELF, 'WELL, THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THIS CRAZY GUY?' THEN ALL I KNOW IS THAT YOU ARE IRRESISTABLE TO MY HEART AND THAT IS WHY I AM HERE. OSHO, WHAT IS HAPPENING? You have heard only half of the truth, and a half truth is far more dangerous than a full lie...

.... Enlightenment is ultimate death, but this is only half of the truth. It is also the beginning of an eternal life. You have not heard the other half. Perhaps the first half was so much a shock that you started thinking about it, and missed the other half. It is true: after enlightenment you will not be coming back to this life. But that does not mean that you will be dead; that means you will be having a real...

..., authentic, universal life. And what have you got in this life that you are so much afraid to lose? - very precious misery? What have you got except anxiety, pain, anguish, and a constant feeling that all is meaningless, that you are not living but simply moving towards the grave? Your living is nothing but a slow kind of death. You should write down what it is that you have got that makes you so much...

... something really nasty." The young boy said, "Really nasty? I cannot conceive of anybody thinking at the time of death... he was bothered about the neighbors. And he was planning... this is the plan: we have to cut his body in as many parts as possible and throw those parts in everybody's house and inform the police that these people have killed our father - not only killed, they have cut him...

... other children to drive you crazy? For what do you want to come back? Certainly not to repeat this life. You are hoping for some change, some possibility of change. But here, there are only differences of bags; the contents are the same. When I said enlightenment is ultimate death and you will not be coming back to this life, if you had understood the misery and the pain and the anguish and the...

.... There is tremendous possibility if you can get out of the rut of the wheel of life and death that you have been following since eternity: again and again doing the same thing, with a slight difference - maybe in the color, maybe in the shape - but the experience is basically the same. Just one life is enough for a man of intelligence to see that this is not worth repeating. When I was a student, one...

... whatever you want to make of it you can make of it. Medical science thinks man can live three hundred years: old age can be simply avoided, diseases can disappear, man can live young, healthy, for three and most probably they already have rested in that, no politician is interested in that. Their interest is in how to create death rays. And if death rays can be created, do you think it is inconceivable...

... to imagine that life rays can be created? The same genius, the same scientist who can create death rays is capable of creating life rays. But nobody is asking for life rays. The demand is for death rays, and most probably they already have death rays in the Soviet Union and America both. Then there is no need to send a missile with nuclear bombs; death rays can just be directed towards a certain...

... spot and they will pass through people, killing them in such a way... they will not destroy anything else. Your furniture will be saved, your houses will be saved, your cars will be saved - they will only destroy life. A strange kind of world. If death rays are used, houses will be standing, cars will be there, trains will be there; only life will not be found anywhere. Is technology corrupting man...

...? No, I do not agree with that Gandhian idea. I hope that we will be able to create life rays, so that if life rays pass through a village the whole village becomes young, full of life. But religions will not like my idea, because even old people will start falling in love. Life rays? - no religion will be ready. Death rays are perfectly okay. Life rays passing through the Vatican... the pope falls...

... enter into the transcendental, the immortal. And machines can do miracles. You have heart attacks - so many people die of heart attacks - and now it is practically possible to exchange your hearts for plastic hearts. That does not mean that your love will become plastic, but the heart will become so strong that there is no possibility of its failure. Man's body can be improved in every possible way...

... say...? Perhaps they are right. But then there is no fear, because I will not be here, so who is there to be afraid? Or, the second alternative is as the spiritualists say: that I will not die - then why be worried about death? Only the non-essential will be gone, the essential will be still alive. It is worth risking the non-essential for the truth." Socrates is a very rational being, hence...

..., created. Once they are no more together it disappears, it evaporates. Nothing remains after death, there was nothing before birth. Life consists only of birth and death, and in between, so don't be bothered about the other world, and don't be bothered about hell and heaven." And Karl Marx said, "This is the opium for the people." Priests have been dope-dealers! Perhaps that's why they are...

... that the soul is a reality, because thousands of mystics have lived in such profound silence, peace, bliss... Their blissfulness, their silence, their tranquility, their unaffectedness in different situations - in life, in death, in success, in failure, they remain absolutely still, unaffected - that shows definitively that there is a center inside you, your interiority. And if it is explored you can...

... attain to some transcendence, you can attain to the beyond. You can remain calm and quiet in failure, in death even. It is enough proof that the soul exists, that it is not illusory as the materialists say. But the other part is missing, and the East has remained poor, starving. Its outside is ugly. It has found some inner secrets, but its outside is sick, its outside is almost not worth living. It has...

... existence directly, immediately. You are in contact with existence without anything in between you and existence. That is silence. And to be in tune with existence even for a single moment - is enough to make you aware of many things. One is that you, are deathless, and the person who is deathless cannot be forced to be a slave. He would rather like to die than to become a slave. He would rather like to...

... risk everything than to risk his freedom because death means nothing to him. When Socrates was given the opportunity that he can choose either death or remaining alive but not preaching his message to the people... If he remains alive, he can remain alive only on one condition: that he will not talk about his truth. Socrates laughed and rejected the whole thing immediately. He said, "There is no...

... need for me to be alive then. If I cannot say my truth, if I cannot live my truth, if I cannot convey my message, then what is the need for me to live? Then I would rather choose death." The magistrate was surprised, he could not believe. He said, "You need not answer right now. You can have time, you can think over it. Don't be in such a hurry! Life is precious - how can you be so easily...

... ready to die?" Socrates said, "There are only two possibilities. If I die, then these are the two possibilities: either I die completely or only the body is left behind and something of my essential core still lives. Both are perfectly good. If I die completely, there is nobody left to be afraid, to suffer, to be miserable. So why I should be afraid if I die completely as the materialists...

..., he gave these two alternatives. He knows perfectly well that he will not die. but his expression was always rational. His expression was not mystic, his expression was philosophical. And of course the magistrate had to agree with him. These are the only two alternatives: either you die or you don't die. In both the ways Socrates is right. My own feeling is Socrates knows perfectly well that he's...

... not going to die. It is impossible that he should not have known - such a tremendous intelligence, such an individuality, such purity, such penetrating insight - it is not possible that he would not have known the non-temporal, the timeless. The moment you understand that you are eternal, all fear disappears. And the society exists through exploiting your fear; hence, it teaches you from the school...