... can be done! You are simply pretending. And this is a trick to save: "Now what can be done? I am so old." Even on the deathbed, at the last moment, the change can happen. Even when the person is dying, he can open his eye for a single MOMENT... and the change can happen. And he can drop the whole past before death comes in, and he can die utterly fresh. And he is dying in a new way - he is...

... there is a possibility to have a taste of death - because when a man is dying, he releases so much energy from the svadhisthan chakra... he has to release because he is dying. The whole repressed energy on the svadhisthan chakra will be released because he is dying; without releasing it he will not be able to die. So when a man dies or a woman dies, don't miss the opportunity. If you are close by to a...

... the other day he was saying, "I love you so much... I can die for you." Just cross the boundary! and you will know that you are a prisoner. Never cross the boundary, and you can live in blissful ignorance that everything is okay. It is attachment, it is possessiveness, that has destroyed your capacity to go to many flowers, to taste all the flowers. Just think of a bee only collecting...

.... A fifty-six-year-old, if he is going to be alive seventy years on the earth, has only fourteen years left - no more future, no more imagination, no more dreaming. There is not much space. Death is coming. The sixteen-year-old has a long future, much imagination, many dreams. The past is small but the future is big for the young; for the old, the past is big, the future is small - on the whole it...

... dying as a sannyasin. He is dying in deep meditation - and to die in deep meditation is not to die at all, because he will be dying with full awareness of the deathless. It can happen in a single moment! So please don't postpone. Don't say: "Had I best just live out the rest of this life in patience...?" No. You drop it right now - it is worthless! Why carry it? Why wait? And if you wait...

... know somebody has become poorer because of you. Whenever you have money, you know somewhere somebody will be starving - and your bank balance goes on becoming bigger and bigger. Some child will not get the medicine needed to survive. Some woman will not get the medicine; some poor man will die because he will not have food. How can you avoid these things? They will be there. The more money you have...

... live and die and they will never know what witnessing is - even for a single moment. You are happy, you are fortunate. But you are not feeling grateful. If you don't feel grateful, those flashes will disappear. Feel grateful - they will grow. With gratitude, everything grows. Feel happy that you are blessed - they will grow. With that positivity, things will grow. "And whatever witnessing...

... - that is the HARA, the death center. These two centers are very much damaged, because man has been afraid of sex and man has been afraid of death. So death has been avoided: Don't talk about death! Just forget about it! It does not exist. Even if sometimes it exists, don't notice it, don't take any note of it. Go on thinking that you are going to live for ever - avoid death! Tantra says: Don't avoid...

... sex and don't avoid death. That's why Saraha went to the cremation ground to meditate - not to avoid death. And he went with the arrowsmith woman to live a life of healthy, full sex, of optimum sex. On the cremation ground, living with a woman, these two centers had to be relaxed: death and sex. Once you accept death and you are not afraid of it, once you accept sex and you are not afraid of it...

..., your two lower centers are relaxed. And those are the two lower centers which have been damaged by the society, badly damaged. Once they are relieved... the other five centers are not damaged; there is no need to damage them because people don't live in those other five centers. These two centers are naturally available. Birth has happened: the sex center - muladhar. And death is going to happen...

...: svadhisthan the second center. These two things are there in everybody's life, so society has destroyed both centers and tried to manipulate man, dominate man, through these two things. Tantra says: Meditate while you make love, meditate while somebody dies - go, watch, see. Sit by the side of a dying man. Feel, participate in his death. Go in deep meditation with the dying man. And when a man is dying...

... dying man, sit silently, meditate silently. When the man dies, in a sudden burst the energy will be all over, and you can have a taste of death. And that will give you a great relaxation: Yes, death happens, but nobody dies. Yes, death happens, but in fact death never happens. While making love, meditate so that you can know that something of Samadhi penetrates into sexuality. And while meditating on...

... death, go deep into it so that you can see that something of the deathless enters into death. These two experiences will help you to go upwards very easily. The other five centers, fortunately, are not destroyed; they are perfectly in tune - just energy has to move through them. If these first two centers are helped, energy starts moving. So let death and love be your two objects of meditation. The...

..., only an opening is made. Life has to be achieved. Birth is just a beginning, not the end. But normally we stay at the point of birth. That is why death happens. If you stay at the point of birth you will die. If you can grow beyond birth you can grow beyond death. Remember this very deeply: death is not against life; death is against birth. Life is something else. In death only birth ends and in...

.... Your whole burden has been thrown upon him. That is why I say this is not only metaphysical. It is one of the deepest techniques to transform your total being. If he is doing everything, then why do you go on carrying yourself unnecessarily? He breathes and he is born and he dies. When you die, he will die - not you. Then why be afraid of death? You become unconcerned. This unconcern relieves you of...

... MIND, THE SPEECH OF THE SPEECH, THE PRANA OF THE PRANA, AND THE EYE OF THE EYE. WISE MEN SEPARATING THE ATMAN FROM THESE - SENSE FUNCTIONS - RISE OUT OF SENSE LIFE AND ATTAIN TO IMMORTALITY. Life is not there at its maximum when you are born; it is at its minimum. If you do stick at that, you will have a life which is just near death - just a borderline life. By birth, only an opportunity is given...

... birth only death begins. Life is something totally different. You have to attain it, achieve it, actualize it. It is given to you as a seed, just as a potentiality - something which can be but which is not already there. You have every chance of missing it. You can be alive because you are born, but that is not synonymous with really being in life. Life is your effort to actualize the potentiality...

.... Hence, the meaning of religion; otherwise there is no meaning in religion. If life begins with birth and ends in death, then there is no meaning for religion. Then religion is futile, nonsense. If life does not begin with birth, then religion has some meaning. Then it becomes the science of how to evolve life out of birth. And the more you move away from birth in life, the more you move away from...

... death also because death and birth are parallel, similar, the same - two ends of one process. If you move away from the one, you are simultaneously moving away from the other. Religion is a science to achieve life. Life is beyond death. Birth dies; life, never. To achieve this life you have to do something. Birth is given to you. Your parents have done something: they have loved each other, they have...

... and again that sex is the basic duality, and unless you transcend sex the Brahman cannot be achieved. All other dualities are just reflections and reflections of this basic duality. Birth and death - again a duality. They will disappear when you are neither male or female. When you have a consciousness which goes beyond both, birth and death disappear, matter and mind disappear, this world and that...

... functions and he is the functionary within. Knowing this, you are not against the senses. Knowing this, you simply change the emphasis. Then you are not obsessed with the senses; you are always looking for the inner core. And the rishis say that by knowing this transcendence they attain immortality. Remember, only YOU can die; life never dies. Because you are born, you will die; that is the natural end to...

... every birth. Life goes on... eternally moving; life never dies. Waves in it are born and they die, and the riverlike life moves and moves and moves. Once you come to feel the river within your wave, you are immortal. If you can realize him seeing through you, breathing through you, you are immortal. Only this shell, this vehicle of the body, will disappear. YOU will never disappear. You cannot...

... CANNOT REACH, YOU WILL SEE THE BODY OF REALITY IN WHICH THERE IS NOT A SINGLE THING -- THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU TO GET OUT OF BIRTH AND DEATH. WHAT I SAID BEFORE, THAT ONE CANNOT SEEK THE DHARMA, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO ATTAIN, WITH THE ATTITUDE THAT THERE is SOMETHING TO ATTAIN, IS JUST THIS PRINCIPLE. GENTLEMEN OF AFFAIRS MAKE THEIR LIVING WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THOUGHT AND JUDGMENT THEIR WHOLE LIVES...

... BODY AND YOUR LIFE. IF CORRECT MINDFULNESS IS PRESENT AT ALL TIMES, AND THE ATTITUDE OF FEAR FOR BIRTH AND DEATH DOESN'T WAVER, THEN, OVER LONG DAYS AND MONTHS, WHAT WAS UNFAMILIAR WILL NATURALLY BECOME FAMILIAR, AND WHAT WAS STALE WILL NATURALLY BECOME FRESH. BUT WHAT IS THE STALE? IT'S THE BRILLIANCE AND CLEVERNESS, THAT WHICH THINKS AND JUDGES. WHAT IS THE UNFAMILIAR? IT'S ENLIGHTENMENT, NIRVANA...

... become enlightened in this very life; the second of sambuddhas, who have already become enlightened; and the third of bodhisattvas, who will also become enlightened ... but perhaps they will take a little longer than the other two categories, but certainly before their death. Because I had included Maitreya's name, he was shocked. He wanted to keep it completely to himself, not to say anything about...

... memories because he has shown the path to you, too. He lived joyously, although he had nothing, and he died peacefully, blissfully. That's what attaining to one's destiny means. Those who live in misery and die in misery go on missing their destiny. They are failures, and because they have failed so many times, they become accustomed to failing again and again. But even if one person amongst you succeeds...

... single moment since he has met me has he missed entering into meditation as much as possible. His death was not an end to life, but the ultimate culmination of a tremendous trust and meditativeness. Where trust and meditation meet, one attains to one's potential in its whole glory and splendor. Now the sutras: ONLY IF THE PERSON TRULY POSSESSES THE FACULTY OF WISDOM AND WILL POWER WILL HE CONSENT TO...

... book by Friedrich Nietzsche. It was published after his death because even Nietzsche himself could not imagine how he would face the world when the book was published. It will be criticized, because will to power means a continuous struggle, violence -- for money, for power, for position. Life becomes a war field, no more a rejoicing. It is simply competition -- and a very terrific competition...

..., SUDDENLY, IN THE PLACE WHERE THOUGHT CANNOT REACH, YOU WILL SEE THE BODY OF REALITY IN WHICH THERE IS NOT A SINGLE THING -- THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU TO GET OUT OF BIRTH AND DEATH. Can you see the contradiction? First, Yung Chia's statement is of great importance. He is saying "The real nature of ignorance ..." What is the real nature of ignorance? Perhaps you have never thought about it. What...

... place where thought cannot reach ... you will see the body of reality in which there is not a single thing -- this is the place for you to get out of birth and death. One does not get out of birth and death; one simply becomes awakened, and one is out of death, out of birth. It is not a question of first becoming aware ... and then you have to do something to get out of the circle of birth and death...

... the effort? You are fast asleep, you are dreaming -- who will get out of the dreams? You must have had dreams, once in a while, when you dream that you are awake. And only when you really become awake you find, "My God, that was only a dream, and I was thinking that I am awake." Awakening and getting out of the dreams have to be simultaneous. This life, this birth, this death, this whole...

... circle of events -- in which we go on and on moving from one life into another -- is only because we are spiritually asleep. Meditation wakes you up. It is simply a method of awakening, and the moment you are awake, you are out of the whole circle of birth and death. But Ta Hui is still talking about having "to get out of birth and death." You don't have to get out. Even if you want to get in...

... awakened, your whole being conscious, there is no question of getting out of birth and death. You are out of it. Now even if you want to get into it, it is not possible. A young boy, not more than seven years old, was arguing with his father: "You said yesterday, 'Always remember, nothing is impossible.' And you said this statement is from Napoleon Bonaparte. And I say to you that I have found one...

... cannot go back to your unconsciousness. There is just no way. Even if you want, even if you try, nothing is going to succeed. Just as you cannot go back in time, you cannot go back to yesterday, to the day before yesterday. You cannot go back into a state of unconsciousness. All your problems of life and death are of unconsciousness. So although these are very small mistakes, they show a great...

... mindfully, it means you are walking with consciousness. If I am moving my hand mindfully, it means I am moving it knowingly, not just like a robot. IF CORRECT MINDFULNESS IS PRESENT AT ALL TIMES, AND THE ATTITUDE OF FEAR FOR BIRTH AND DEATH DOESN'T WAVER, THEN, OVER LONG DAYS AND MONTHS, WHAT WAS UNFAMILIAR WILL NATURALLY BECOME FAMILIAR, AND WHAT WAS STALE WILL NATURALLY BECOME FRESH. What he is saying...

... awareness. So to say, if correct mindfulness is present at all times -- it is present at all times -- and the attitude of fear for birth and death does not waver ... is nonsense. A man of awareness has no problem of fear as far as birth and death are concerned. Once awareness has arisen, you are free from the fear of birth and death; there is no question of wavering. Wavering can arise only if it is just...

... OF THE WORLDLY LIFE. THIS DOESN'T SEEM TO BE THE MIDDLE PATH. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THIS? It will be difficult to understand because you are not aware of what is the other end of worldly life. The other end of life is always death. There have been teachers who said that suicide is the only path. And not only in the past; even now, in the present, there are thinkers who say that life is absurd. If life as...

... such is meaningless, then death becomes meaningful. Life and death are polar opposites, so the opposite to life is death. Try to understand it. And it will be helpful for you to find out the way for yourself. If death is the polar opposite of life, then mind can move to death very easily - and it happens. When someone commits suicide, have you ever observed that the person who commits suicide was...

.... Otherwise, life is not worth living." It is the opposite extreme of life, of this so-called life which we live. Buddha's was the middle path. Buddha said, neither death nor life. That is what sannyas means: neither attachment to life nor repulsion, but just being in the middle. So Buddha says that sannyas is to be just in the middle. Sannyas is not negation of life. Rather, sannyas is the negation of...

... both life and death. When you are concerned with neither life nor death, then you become a sannyasin. If you can see the polar opposites of life and death, then Buddha's initiation into sannyas is just an initiation in the middle path. So a sannyasin is not really against life. If he is, then he is not a sannyasin. Then really, he is a neurotic; he has gone to the other extreme. A sannyasin has a...

... very balanced consciousness - balanced just in the middle. "If life is misery," the mind says, "then move to the other end." But to Buddhists life is misery because you are at the extreme. That is the Buddhist idea: life is a misery because it is at one extreme, and death will also be a misery because it is another extreme. Bliss is just in the middle; bliss is balance. A...

... sannyasin is a balanced being - neither leaning to the right nor to the left, neither a leftist nor a rightist: just in the middle - silent, unmoving, not choosing this nor that, in a non-choice, remaining in the center. So do not choose death. CHOICE is misery. If you choose death you have chosen misery, if you choose life you have chosen misery, because life and death are two extremes. And remember...

..., they are two extremes of one thing. They are not really two, only one thing which has two poles: life and death. If you choose one, you will have to go against the other pole. That creates misery, because death is implied in life. You cannot choose life without choosing death. How can you? The moment you choose life, you have chosen death. That creates misery because as a result of your having chosen...

... life, death will be there. You have chosen happiness: simultaneously, without your knowing, you have chosen unhappiness, because that is part of it. If you have chosen love, then you have chosen hate. The other is intrinsic in it; it is hidden there. And one who chooses love will suffer, because then he will hate - and when he comes to hate he will suffer. Do not choose, be in the middle. In the...

... middle is the truth. At one end is death, at the other end is life. But this energy moving between these two, in the middle, is the truth. Do not choose, because choice means choice of one thing against another thing. To be in the middle means being choiceless. Then you will leave the whole thing. And when you have not chosen, you cannot be made miserable. Man is made miserable through choice. Do not...

... is that we have to protect ourselves. The world is vast and we are so small - a tiny leaf in the storm. How can we protect ourselves? And then there is always death. Each time somebody dies the remembrance strikes deep down in your being that sooner or later you are going to die. How can you protect yourself against death? - nobody has ever been able to. Life has a thousand and one insecurities...

... born, born in God, and then life has light, it radiates. Then it is bright, then it is a noontide. And in darkness all kinds of fears exist; they are bound to exist. With the light happening, all fears disappear, all sadness disappears, all evil disappears. That's why evil has been painted as black, why death has been painted as black. The moment the flower of bliss opens in you, all death, all evil...

... nonsense that the ego has to be strengthened. They think by strengthening the ego, they are helping the individual. They are destroying, not helping him. The ego is the death of the real self. The death of the ego allows the real self to express itself. Surrender the ego and bliss is yours. Just by removing the ego, the bliss starts flowing. It is our very nature. We are made of the stuff called bliss...

..., nothing is safe. The man who is not aware that God protects, lives in a nightmare. Sannyas means the beginning of the resolution that 'q am already protected," that "God is my security," that "God is my safety," that "Even in death he will take care," that "I have nothing to fear," that "I can go in the dark because he is always with me; I am never alone...

... move has to be made very deliberately. Life is short and unless we make our efforts consciously we are bound to lose this small opportunity. The opportunity is small because life is fleeting every moment, going out of your hands, and death can happen any time. Tomorrow may never come, this may be the last day, so one has to be very alert and very total, only then is bliss possible. But it is possible...

... take away from you, not even death. It is through awareness and only through awareness that Jesus becomes a Christ, a Siddhartha Gautama becomes a Buddha. Whatsoever names they may have given to the path, their meaning is awareness. Jesus says again and again to his disciples: "Watch, beware." Beware means be aware, remain alert - and they go on falling asleep, even on the last night. He...

... a device. "The Master is going to die - can't you even be aware in such a situation, when your whole house is on fire?" Jesus goes into prayer, comes back again, thrice he comes back from his prayer, and all the disciples are fast asleep, snoring. Again and again he wakes them up, but they don't take the hint: they think that this is just his way. He has always been talking about, "...

...;Be aware, be alert, be watchful" - now this is a new trick, that this is the last night. But it was the last night. It is always the last night, because any moment death can destroy all the time that you have been hoping, thinking, you have. Buddha uses the word "mindfulness", sammasati, but he means the same, awareness. Watch each act, watch each thought, watch each feeling. The...

... drag on because an old idiot, Hippocrates, created the medical oath for doctors that they should always try to save the man? The man wants to die; he is hanging between life and death, and they go on trying every way to keep him alive. Who are you? Q: WILL YOU COMMIT SUICIDE ALSO, UNDER A CERTAIN CONDITION? A: If I feel like it, if I feel like now there is no work for me, I will. There is no problem...

... he declared, I came to know about it. Q: WELL, I'M QUITE AMAZED BY THAT HIGH RATE OF COINCIDENCE. A: It is not a coincidence. It happens in India every day. If people are told by astrologers that their children will die, it is good to let them be adopted that way they think they are going to deceive the stars and death, and everything. It is foolish, but it happens every day. And they kept it a...

... NO MORE NEED FOR ANY RELIGION ANYWHERE? A: Yes. Q: DOES THAT APPLY TO AFTER YOUR DEATH? A: I say it is the first and last religion for the simple reason that I don't consider old religions authentic religions. They were pseudo. They pretend to be religions, but they were not religions. Q: BECAUSE THEY WERE RELIGIONS FOR THE POOR? A: No. Because they were religions of superstition. Not a single...

... person. Q: NOT HERE, BUT THEY SEEM TO BE DISSATISFIED WITH WESTERN CIVILIZATION.... A: They are dissatisfied because they are intelligent people. Only buffalos don't get frustrated. Q: YOU FIND A NUMBER OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN YOUR OWN HOME COUNTRY, TOO. WHY DON'T YOU ATTRACT ANY OF THEM? A: I'm telling you, India is a dead country. And everything which is born has to die one day. Even civilizations...

... are born and they have to die. But it is very difficult for people to drop the corpses of the ancient past, their glory, their tradition. They go on carrying the corpses on their shoulders. They are very traditional, very orthodox, and completely closed to anything new. They have the idea that their scriptures have all the truth that is possible There is no need for them.... Q: WE HAVE THE...

...? WILL THERE BE AN ELECTION? A: I have nothing to do with it. The moment I die.... Q: HOW WILL HE BE CHOSEN? A: You have to understand me: I don't CARE. Q: SO YOU HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER FOR YOUR CHURCH? A: No responsibility whatsoever, because every responsibility makes them slaves. Then I am totalitarian. Q: ONCE YOU SAID WHEN YOU GO, "MANY OF YOU WILL GO WITH ME." WHAT DID THAT...

... KEEPS CROPPING UP IN THE BIBLE, AS WELL. YOU ARE STRONGLY FOR WHAT YOU CALL DEATH CONTROL -- EUTHANASIA, ISN'T THAT THE ENGLISH WORD? -- DEATH CONTROL. A MAN HAS THE RIGHT TO GO TO THE MEDICAL BOARD TO BE FREED FROM HIS BODY, THIS SORT OF THING. A Yes. Q: SO THAT'S WHY I'D LIKE TO KEEP TO THIS TOPIC. ALSO, YOUR FIRST ENLIGHTENMENT STARTED WITH A.... A: You are not keeping to any topic at all. I am...

... trying to keep you.... Q: I HAVE TO ENTERTAIN MY READERS, NOT ONLY YOU. A: I am not concerned with your readers. I am concerned only with the truth that I can impart to you. Q: WHAT'S TRUTHFUL ABOUT DEATH CONTROL THEN? A: Once birth control is there, death control has to be there. It is just the logical consequence of birth control. If you try to control birth, you are only trying to control on one end...

.... What about the other end? You are preventing new children being born; it becomes absolutely necessary that people should not be just vegetating in hospitals. They want to die; if they want to die, this is their birthright. And all medical facilities should be provided to these people.... Q: I THINK I HAVE THE VERY POINT HERE. THE RAJNEESH TIMES QUOTED YOU JUST RECENTLY, SAYING, "I TEACH YOU TO...

... REALIZE SUICIDE SO THAT YOU CAN GO FOREVER." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? DOES THAT MEAN YOU ARE TEACHING SUICIDE AS PART OF YOUR RELIGION? IS IT DESIRABLE? A: I am simply saying that nothing is wrong with death. It is as beautiful as life. If you have lived, and you feel that now life has no more to give to you, and you feel that you are tired, exhausted and spent, then what is the point of forcing you to...

... QUESTION -- MAYBE NOT FOR YOU -- BUT IF DEATH CONTROL IS EXERTED, WHO SHOULD DO IT? A COMMITTEE OF DOCTORS? A LAWYER? A POLITICIAN? A: Politicians, certainly not. Legal experts have no business in deciding about life and death. But the medical profession should be freed from the Hippocratic oath; that their function is just to save, whatsoever the situation. They should be allowed... their function is to...

... consistently making them alert not to be influenced by me. I may be wrong. What that man has said IS HIS trust. Q: THERE IS A BOOK WRITTEN BY YOU. THE TITLE IS Dying for Enlightenment.... A: That's perfectly good. Q: JA, BUT DON'T YOU THINK THAT PEOPLE MIGHT FEEL ENCOURAGED BY SUCH A TITLE, AND WHAT IT CONTAINS? A: No. That dying means the death of your ego. Q: THE DEATH AND ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH DEATH. A...

...: Yes, that means the death of your ego... not the death of you. Q: ANOTHER THING YOU TRY TO DESTROY IS CONSCIENCE. A: Yes, the conscience that has been created by the society; because only that is the way to free his consciousness. And these are two different things, except in the French language. In the French language, there is only one word, CONSCIENCE for both consciousness and conscience. But...

... the community feels that something is wrong in him, he goes to the hospital. And in four years, nobody has resisted, nobody has been taken to the hospital forcibly. Q: YOU DO PERFORM YOUR OWN BIRTH... WELL, YOUR OWN MARRIAGE AND DEATH CEREMONIES. WOULD YOU PLEASE DESCRIBE THEM TO US? A: I do not perform anything, my people do everything. I am just a non-doer, just good for nothing. My people do...

... adoption I would die, and I should be given to somebody who does not belong to my family, does not even belong to my caste, to my religion... somebody utterly a stranger. Q: BUT SOMEBODY MUST HAVE KNOWN THAT ALL THE WAY. A: Only Swami Swarupananda and my father. Those two persons knew it all the way. My father is dead, now Swarupananda is the only person who knows, and who has all the documents. So when...

... people. There are at least 350 books that I have spoken and I have talked about these people, their methods, what happened in their lives, and what happened in their death. But these people, Mohammed, Moses, Jesus were themselves not enlightened. Jesus was a mental case, thinking that he is the only begotten son of God, thinking that he is the savior of the whole world, telling his people that he will...

... country should vote for it; the whole country should decide if they want to die starving. It is up to them. Q: WOULD YOU FAVOR STERILIZATION...? A: Not against anybody's will. Q: NOT AGAINST HIS WILL BUT, FOR INSTANCE, WOULD YOU TRY TO PERSUADE SOMEBODY HERE IN RAJNEESHPURAM BECAUSE THE FAMILY AND CHILDREN DO NOT FIT INTO THE FRAMEWORK OF THIS COMMUNITY? A: I never persuade. I simply explain the...

... love affair. For men, for women, it makes no difference. These people love me. Q: BUT NOT IN THE REAL SENSE OF THE WORD. A: In the real sense of the word. Q: NOT ONLY PHILOSOPHICALLY... I A: Not in the unreal sense of the word to which you are accustomed. Q: YOU SAID ONCE THAT DEATH WOULD BE A NEW DOOR OPENING WITH THE WHOLE LIFE CONDENSED, A NEW DIMENSION OPENING. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU ATTACK VERY...

... SHARPLY ANY CHRISTIAN OR ANY OTHER BELIEF OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NEW DIMENSION OPENING AFTER DEATH, AND LIFE AFTER DEATH? A: The difference is that I am not saying that you have to believe in it. I am saying it is my experience. I am not telling you either to believe or disbelieve. I am simply telling you my experience and continuously insisting side by side that you are...

... got that ceremony for her husband. Death, according to Christianity, is a taboo: you should not talk about it. Death is taboo ... And life is also taboo, you should not live it! Death you should not talk about, and life you should not live! They don't leave you any alternative -- neither can you live, nor can you die. They keep you hanging in the middle, half-dead, half-alive. This creates...

... death center -- you suddenly become aware that just as millions of people have been dying since centuries, "I cannot be an exception. I will have to die, if not today, then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But someday, that which is born always dies. I am born, I am going to die." Birth is the beginning of death. Birth contains death in itself. Birth is the seed, and death is the flower...

... schizophrenia. You are not allowed to be total in anything: in life, in death, in love -- only partially involved. A man who is partially involved is only partially alive. The deeper your involvement in existence, the deeper your life. When you are involved totally in life, in death, in love, in meditation, in any kind of thing that you want to do -- painting, music, poetry, dance -- unless you are totally...

... involved in it you will never know the maximum, the optimum pleasure, the optimum blissfulness. People are living only at the minimum, just surviving, or, to be absolutely truthful, just vegetating -- just waiting ... and waiting, and nothing happens in their life. No flowers blossom in their life, no festivals happen in their life. And their death is as ugly as their life was, because death is the...

... ultimate culmination of your life. If you have lived totally, death is not the end. Death is only an episode, a small episode in an eternal life. You have died many times, but because you have never lived totally, you became unconscious at the moment of death; the fear brought you into a coma. That's why you don't remember your past lives, because the coma stands as a barrier for the past lives and their...

... remembrance. And because you don't know your past lives, you cannot understand that there is going to be life after death, that life is eternal. Birth and death are mere episodes; thousands of times you have been into birth, into death. But when you are not allowed to live totally, when everywhere there is interference from religion ... One small boy in the school -- of course a Christian boy -- was asked...

... -- "Just married." See how fast they are going. And when they come back, just look at their faces -- punctured. Look at their suitcases. Just in seven days, what catastrophe has happened? I am against the family, and I am for the commune. Family dispersed, the church will die automatically. Nations will disappear automatically. Races will disappear automatically. The world can become one only...

... had to be buried in a special casket because the body was so decomposed, completely decomposed; there was no question of finding anything in it. In his last book, not published until twenty years after his death, Merton wrote, "I have a real sense that my own vocation demands a deepened and experiential study from within, as well as Japanese and particularly Zen experiences." He also wrote...

... -- every center has its own expression, and your life goes on changing. For example, if the energy moves from the sex center to the second center, the hara, you suddenly become aware of death. People are not aware, they think it always happens to somebody else; obviously, you always see somebody else dying, you have never seen yourself dying. Perhaps you are an exception. It happens to somebody else...

.... It takes seventy years from the cradle to the grave; it is a seventy-year-old tree. But your death is growing side by side with your life. Once you are at the sex center, your whole concentration is on the other sex -- if you are not a perverted Christian monk. If you are a Christian monk then your whole attention is either towards other men, or if other men are not available, then other animals...

... uninterested in sex. It is not celibacy, you have not taken any vow, your energy has simply moved higher. Its concern becomes death. In sex the concern was birth, because through sex is all reproduction. Moving from sex you have moved from birth to death, a small distance. Suddenly you become aware that "Death is coming and I am concerned only with trivia -- money, power, prestige, respectability. All...

... this will be gone when death comes. I am unnecessarily making the effort of creating a signature on the sands. A little breeze of wind, a little tidal wave, and the signature will be finished." Death comes as a tidal wave, and all your personality, all your respectability, prestige, are erased. One becomes aware that, "I have to find something which is beyond death." Once the energy...

... through the scriptures, what is the truth, whether there is life beyond death or not. As you move above to the fourth center, that is the heart, your whole life becomes a sharing of love. The third center has created the abundance of love. By reaching to the third center in meditation, you have become so overflowing with love, with compassion, and you want to share. It happens at the fourth center...

.... You cannot do anything, you cannot say anything. You are. It is pure isness. THE MOON IN THE PINE TREE; AND WITH THE CUCKOO, AH, HOW GLORIOUS! Question 1: The question from Maneesha: OUR BELOVED MASTER, ONE COULD IMAGINE THAT, BECAUSE CHRISTIANS ARE ANTI-LIFE, THEY WOULD CELEBRATE WHAT THEIR RELIGION TEACHES IS THE END OF LIFE. BUT EVEN DEATH -- AS WELL AS LIFE -- IS TABOO, ANOTHER REASON TO BE...

... MISERABLE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT? Maneesha, life and death are not separate. If you deny life, you will have to deny death. If you accept and rejoice in life, you will rejoice and celebrate in death. They are not separate things, but two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one side of a coin and throw away the other side, it is impossible. The coin has to have two sides. You can have both or you...

... can throw both. I have both. Christianity has thrown both. They have thrown life away, they have thrown death away. Both have become taboo. Neither can they rejoice in life, nor can they rejoice in death. I rejoice in life, I rejoice in death, because life and death are just small episodes in the eternal pilgrimage, the eternal caravan that goes from eternity to eternity. It is time for Sardar...

... death for you. There was no time before, so death could not exist. Not that Adam was not going to die, but death could not exist. Birds die, but they don't know anything about death; they simply live and they simply die. Not for a single moment are they worried about death. Animals live and die, but death is not a problem to them, they don't sit and brood about what death is and whether one survives...

... after death or not; death is not a problem. When time enters, death enters. Knowledge enters, time comes in, then death comes in - and the whole mess of problems.... Man has to become innocent again. He has to drop knowledge. But you can drop knowledge only when you come to know that all that is beautiful, true and good can happen without doing, otherwise you will not be able to drop knowledge. Lao...

... knows anything about tomorrow? There is a great old Chinese story. A king was very angry with his prime minister. He had done something or other, so the king ordered him to be sentenced to death. It was the tradition that if somebody was to be executed by the king's order, the king had to visit him one day before, to ask if he had some desire to be fulfilled. The last desire of the condemned man had...

... the prime minister started weeping and crying - tears rolling down. The king said: I would never have imagined that you, a man of such bravery, would be weeping and crying because you are going to be hanged tomorrow. Are you afraid of death? The prime minister said, That is not the point. Death I have never been afraid of, it is something else but - leave it aside, now there is no time to do it. The...

..., You are a fool, because I know very well you don't know anything like that. You invented a lie. If you were going to lie then why say one year? You should have asked for fifty years, twenty years at least! The one year will pass so soon, and this will be a nightmare, because the whole year we will be trembling, because soon again you have to die. The man said, Don't be afraid, one year is too long...

...! The king can die, I can die, at least the horse can die - you don't be worried! Don't you be worried, one year is long enough. LAO TZU SAYS: HE WHO LIGHTLY MAKES A PROMISE WILL FIND IT OFTEN HARD TO KEEP HIS FAITH. HE WHO MAKES LIGHT OF MANY THINGS WILL ENCOUNTER MANY DIFFICULTIES. HENCE EVEN THE SAGE REGARDS THINGS AS DIFFICULT, AND FOR THAT REASON NEVER MEETS WITH DIFFICULTIES. Lao Tzu is saying...

... should be free to ask the medical board, "I want to be freed from my body." He has every right, if he does not want to live anymore, because he has lived enough; he has done everything that he wanted to do. And now he wants not to die of cancer, or tuberculosis; he simply wants a relaxed death. Every hospital should have a special place for people, with a special staff, where people can come...

... think of a child who is unselfish, born unselfish. He will not be able to survive, he will die - because even to breathe is selfish, to eat is selfish, when there are millions of people who are hungry and you are eating, when there are millions of people who are unhealthy, sick, dying, and you are healthy. If a child is born without selfishness as an intrinsic part of his nature, he is not going to...

... this man. He looks down. The man says, "It's good that you have heard me. Everybody is so busy and there is so much noise that I was afraid I was going to die." The Buddhist monk said, "You are still going to die, because this is your past life's evil act: now you are getting the punishment. Get it and be finished! It is good. In the new life you will come out clean and there will be...

... are crying like a woman. Be a man!" The man said, "I am ready to be called a woman but first please save me! I am not manly. And you can say anything that you want to say afterwards - first pull me out." But the Taoist said, "We never interfere in anybody's business. We believe in the individual and his freedom. It is your freedom to fall in the well, it is your freedom to die in...

... the well. All that I can do is just suggest to you: you can die crying, weeping - that is foolish - or you can die like a wise man. Accept it, enjoy it, sing a song, and go. Anyway, everybody is going to die, so what is the point of saving you? I am going to die, everybody is going to die - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after tomorrow - so what is the point of bothering to save you?" And he...

... said, "Okay." After six or seven months he came back again to Calcutta and stayed there. The mother had to go out because some very close relative was just on the deathbed and she wanted to see him and be with him. So she told the swami, "I am going out. My husband is not at home - he always comes back late - and I don't want to take this child with me. The person is going to die...

..., perhaps within an hour or two, and I don't want the child to go through that agony of death there. And he will not sleep alone, he never has slept alone, so will you be kind enough to let him sleep with you on your bed?" The swami said, "There is no problem - he can sleep on my bed with me. And when you come back, you can take him to your bed." This was settled. In the middle of the night...

... - particularly in festivals they are not supposed to. At marriages they are not supposed to be present, because their very presence, their very shadow, is a calamity. And the widow is told that she has eaten her husband - it is because of her fate that the husband died. If he had not married her he would be alive; she is responsible for his death. The whole life she carries this burden, and now she has to...

... disappears. Rather than making the problems disappear, you help them to continue. Now the same thing is happening in the West, in other ways, in other directions. Medical science has evolved so much that the scientists say that there is no intrinsic necessity for the human body to die for at least three hundred years. And this is a very conservative estimate, three hundred years. They say for three hundred...

... years there is no intrinsic necessity for the human body to die. For three hundred years everybody can live fully... young. And if one can live three hundred years, can you think what the implications of it will be? Just think - Albert Einstein living three hundred years. What blessings would he not have showered on humanity! Such a mature mind! At the age of twenty-six he was able to present the...

..., a line of children - and then comes death. Science or philosophy or religion or anything higher needs more time, more luxury, more comfort. Now man can live three hundred years. And if man can live three hundred years, why not six hundred? Why not one thousand? Once man comes to live three hundred years it is absolutely certain we will find there are ways to make him live longer. Then he becomes...

... womb should not be your concern. Your concern should be that you get the best child possible. So I suggest artificial insemination and test-tube babies. And I also suggest euthanasia. Just as we are putting a barrier on birth, birth control, let me give you another word: death-control. After a certain age - for example, if you accept seventy as the average, or eighty or ninety as the average - a man...

..., get relaxed and be helped to die beautifully, without any disease, supported by the medical profession. If the medical board feels that the person is valuable - for example, somebody like Einstein or Bertrand Russell - if the medical board feels that the person is of immense importance, then he can be asked to live a little longer. Only a few people should be asked to be here a little longer because...

... they can be so much help to humanity, so much help to others. But if even those people don't want to live, that is their birthright. You can pray, ask, request. If they accept it, good. But if they say, "No, we are not interested any more," then certainly they have every right to die. Why should a person be forced to live when he does not want to live? And you make it a crime, you make the...

... man unnecessarily worried: he does not want to live but he has to live because suicide is a crime. He has to take poison, or he has to jump into the ocean or from a hill. This is not a good situation. And strange: if he dies, good; if he is caught then he will be sentenced to death. Great society! Great minds creating laws! He will be sentenced to death because he was trying to commit suicide. All...

... death; if you missed life itself in listening to the sermons in the churches, in reading the Bible, and all kinds of nonsense... if you have missed life itself, you will die in a coma. Before death comes you will become unconscious, so you will miss the experience of death. The people who are living consciously -- and that is my basic teaching, live consciously every moment. Even while making love...

..., remain conscious and a witness. It is a life... long growth if becoming alert. Then you can die consciously and you can experience death as the ultimate orgasm. It is far bigger than any sexual orgasm. In fact, the difference is not only of quantity, the difference is of quality. It is immeasurable. Living moment to moment, one learns how to die. beautifully, silently, joyously. One is going on another...

... belong to that crowd! I would rather like to be assassinated than to die on my bed. And to me there is no problem. I have experienced life. I have tasted all its joys. There is nothing that I have missed. If death come this moment, I will not ask even one more moment to complete my sentence. It is perfectly Okay. In existence, nothing is ever completed. Only in novels, stories begin and end. In life...

... weapons have made war absolutely obsolete. It is meaningless. The whole meaning of war is to win. Now there will be no winner and nobody defeated. The whole of life will be finished. So now war is against life and in favor of death. It is not a question if American democracy or Russian communism, it is a question of whether life has to exist on the earth or not. Thirty million people in your own country...

... not know about God, you do not know about what happens after death. Naturally, you start believing in somebody who pretends to know. Neither your popes know about it; nor Jesus Christ knew about it. Even on the cross, he shouted toward the sky: "God have You forsaken me?" He was a believer -- just illiterate, uneducated. And the people who were following him were also of the same grade...

... don't think anybody has been loved so much as I have been loved. Jesus has only twelve disciples -- I have one million; and out of one million, ninety percent are women. So it is really groovey. Q: ARE YOU AFRAID OF DEATH? A: Death it not the end of life, it is the culmination of life. It is one of the most beautiful experiences. If you have really loved then only will you experience the beauty of...

... adventure. Unknown -- I don't give them any ideas what is going to happen after death, because that is absolutely wrong, destroying. it is like if I loved a movie and I tell you the whole story of the movie, and then tell you that I have brought a ticket for you, go and see. I have destroyed it already; what is the point of seeing it? I give them the ticket, but I don't tell them what is going to happen...

... can destroy your soul? But I don't say to anybody believe in me. I say experiment; and right now you are alive, so don't bother about death. When it comes, it comes. Right now you experiment with life, and be ready: death can come any moment. And particularly in these days where politicians are preparing to destroy the whole humanity, and religions have contributed their contribution through AIDS...

... more dangerous than it has ever been. Tomorrow is more uncertain than it has ever been. So live today with intensity, with totality, with as much consciousness as possible. And I have here one hundred and twelve methods how to increase your consciousness. So if death comes tomorrow, there is no problem -- there will be only my people dying joyously with a smile on their face. Q: AT YOUR NEWS...

... CONFERENCE A COUPLE WEEKS AGO, YOU INVITED SOMEONE TO ASSASSINATE YOU. IS IT A JOKE? IS IT FEAR OF DEATH BY NATURAL CAUSES, OR IS IT JUST BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE LOGICAL WAY YOU COULD SEE THE END OF YOUR LIFE? A: Most probably, that will be the logical end of my life. It is a serious joke. And I would prefer it that way, rather than dying on the bed. Ninety-nine percent of people do that. I don't want to...

... just that: they are suppling you the answer. And borrowed answer is not going to help. Those borrowed answers have made the whole humanity miserable. They have taken their enquiry, they have taken everything away from the people and left them utterly poor. My people are multidimensionally rich. Q:SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM? YEARS FROM NOW WHEN YOU DIE, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RAJNEESHEES? A: They will...

... celebrate my death. Q: AND THEN GO TO THE FOUR WINDS, OR STAY TOGETHER...? A: That is for them to decide what to do. I am not to decide. Remember, that is the strategy of a politician: he want to even control people after his death. The religious leaders declare their successors, but what is the point in it? The point is dead over-ruling the living... When I am gone, I am gone. And it is a double thing to...

... be understood: when I am gone, I am gone to you -- you are gone to me. I will be doing whatsoever I want to do; you should do whatsoever you want to do. Nobody has to control. You cannot control me when I am dead. You cannot tell me what I should do after death. Neither will I say to anybody. I have made you love life, relish every moment. You know the secret. You will not miss me; you don't need...