... PREVIOUS LIFE? IS IT THAT ONLY A SOUL THAT LEAVES ITS BODY WITH AWARENESS COMES TO REMEMBER ITS PAST LIFE? Ordinarily when a person dies, it is only his physical body that dies, he and his mind do not die with the body. Ordinarily the mind of the dying person goes with him, and for a little while after death he retains all his memory of his previous life. It is like what happens with our dreams. After...

... short time. A person who dies with awareness, who remains fully conscious and aware at the time of his death, does not die really; he knows he is deathless. He is not dying, he is leaving his old body like we discard old clothes. And a person who attains to such a state of deep awareness is rare; he is free of all attachments and psychological memories. He has neither friends nor foes; he is free of...

...Life After Death and Rebirth...

... Osho Krishna The Man and his Philosophy: Life After Death and Rebirth Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho Krishna The Man and his Philosophy   Next > Life After Death and Rebirth From: Osho Date: Fri, 2 October 1970 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Osho - Krishna - The Man and His Philosophy Chapter #: 15 Location: pm in Archive Code: N.A...

... there never exceeds five hundred; it is fixed for good. It is only on the death of one of them that another lama is admitted in his place. But there is a basic difference between this and Arvind seeing visions of Krishna. In the case of his visions of Krishna, it is Arvind who takes the initiative and makes efforts to see them. The lamas don't have to do anything; Buddha himself appears before them...

.... That is why the lamas have very strict rules regarding the admission of every new member. Only on the death of a sitting member a new one is chosen to fill his place, and the way he is selected is very unusual. There are strange and very difficult rules that govern the selection of a person for lamahood. Not only his present life is investigated, even his past lives are looked into. To deserve this...

... arduous and complicated process. The whole country is informed by beat of the drums that if a child with specific signs is born in any family, the family concerned should inform the lamasery concerned about his birth. Similarly when the Dalai Lama dies, he leaves certain clues to find his successor. These clues are a well-guarded secret, and thousands of children born after his death are interviewed to...

... because in the latter part of your sleep you begin to wake up and you are only half asleep. You can remember the dreams fully or partly that visit you in your half-asleep and half-waking state. But even this memory does not last long; as hours pass it disappears. In the same way a man's bodiless soul remembers its previous life, its friends and relatives for a little while after his death. And this...

... memory is rather painful, because he cannot relate with them any more. It is for this reason that we do a few things. Soon after someone close to us meets his death, so that he is relieved of the memories of his past associations and attachments. Now it is not good to carry them, because they are very painful. Hindus cremate the dead bodies of their relatives soon after their death; they try not to...

... is dead. For a little while he feels stunned and bewildered to see that he is separated from his body, maybe, something has gone wrong somewhere. It happens because inside the body nothing really dies except that the soul leaves the body. Not a few, but the majority of souls feel utterly confused and confounded soon after their death. No one can figure out why his family members are weeping and...

... from their bodies. Soon after cremation or burial of a dead body the soul is gradually freed from its past memories and associations. It is like we gradually forget our dreams. It is on the reckoning of time taken by different kinds of souls that we have different death rites for our dead. Some people, particularly children take only three days to forget their past associations. Most others take...

... thirteen days; so some communities in the East have thirteen-day long death rites. There are a few souls - souls with very powerful memories - who take a year's time for this purpose. Because of them, some of our death rites are spread over a full year. Three to thirteen days are the general rule, and very few souls survive without bodies for a full year; most of them are reborn with new bodies within a...

... all cravings and desires. He is a class by himself; dying with awareness he will be born with awareness, unencumbered by his past. Just as one remembers his past for a while after death, so he does after his new birth too. A newborn child carries with him for a brief time the memories of his previous life as a spirit. But by and by this memory fades away and by the time he learns speaking it is...

... done some good work in this direction. A handful of intelligent people with a scientific bent have interested themselves is psychic research. They are not mystics, who have said for a long time that things like life-after- death and rebirth are facts which they have known from experience but cannot prove with arguments. The mystics say anyone can know these things if he goes through a certain...

... scientific persuasions they don't have any beliefs and prejudices of their own. They have done some real work on life-after-death and incarnation. Their findings are authentic. and they go a long way in support of reincarnation. Now there are scientific techniques to contact bodiless souls, and they have been contacted, and every care has been taken to eliminate the chances of deception and fraud in the...

... lives to necromancy before leaving their bodies, had promised to their psychic societies that they would communicate with them after death, in a specific manner. And some of them did succeed in their efforts. They communicated some very valuable information regarding the life-after-death phenomenon to their societies, and this information goes a long way in the support of rebirth. A great deal of...

... if there is something other than matter in man, then with the passing away of his life or soul there should be some reduction in his body weight. But is it imperative that the element that goes out of one's body at death have weight? It can be weightless as well. Or it can have so little weight that it cannot be measured by any instruments available to us at the moment. For example, sun rays have a...

... before your death." Vivekananda was shocked and he burst into tears, crying, "Pray, don't deprive me of my SAMADHI." But Ramakrishna said firmly, "You have a great work to do; you are going to be my instrument and my messenger to the world. If you enter samadhi you will not be able to come back, and the great work will suffer. What I have known has to reach to every nook and corner...

... of the earth. Don't be selfish; give up your attachments, and don't hanker for your samadhi. You have to build a huge temple sheltering millions of thirsty seekers from all over the world. That's why I am taking away the key to your samadhi." This key remained with Ramakrishna. And Vivekananda had it back as promised, three days before his death. It was only three days before he left this...

... the day was comforting, full of light and warmth. One could look around and take care of himself against any danger. So darkness looked inimical and the sun seemed friendly. With darkness there was danger and death. With light there was hope; fear disappeared and everything was relatively safe. So human beings worshipped the sun as God. When fire was discovered, it heralded man's victory over...

... stampedes caused by his visit. Why this madness? The advent of the new fills man's heart with delight and joy, and he always celebrates the occasion with great fanfare. As we celebrate the birth of a child with song, music and feasting, so we welcome everything new and rejoice over it. That is how it should be. It will be a sad day when we cease to rejoice over the new; it will mean the death of all that...

... life. Question 2: QUESTIONER: KRISHNA SAYS A MAN OF WISDOM, WHO GIVES UP ATTACHMENT TO THE FRUIT OF ACTION, IS RELEASED FROM THE BONDAGE OF BIRTH AND DEATH AND BECOMES ONE WITH THE ULTIMATE. HOW IS IT THAT KRISHNA BELIEVES THAT LIFE IS A BONDAGE? YOU DON'T BELIEVE SO, YOU SAY THIS VERY LIFE IS FREEDOM, THIS VERY WORLD THE NIRVANA. PLEASE EXPLAIN. Krishna says a wise man gives up attachment to the...

... fruits of action and attains to freedom from the bondage of birth and death. The whole thing needs to be understood in depth. Firstly, Krishna does not talk about one's release from action itself, he emphasizes release from attachment to the fruits of action. He does not ask you to give up action and become inactive; he only urges you not to do something with a motive, with an eye on the results of the...

...; This is what we mean by the term "fruit of action." It is the same if you say that one attains to liberation if he gives up his attachment to the fruit of action. In my view, however, these interpreters have been very unjust to Krishna. They have betrayed him. When Krishna says "A wise man, who gives up attachment to the fruit of action is released from the bondage of birth and death...

... he will never live as long as he lives on hope for the future. His whole life will pass away unlived and unfulfilled. At the time of his death he will say with great remorse, "All my life I only desired to live, but I could not really live." And his greatest sorrow at the time of death will be that the future is no more, there is no hope of achieving result in the future. If there was a...

... future and a hope beyond death, he would have no regrets. That is why a dying man wants to know if there is life after death. In reality he wants to know if there is any chance of reaping a harvest of hopes in the future, because it was only hopes that he had sown in the soil of his life. He had wasted all his todays in the hope of a tomorrow that never came. And on the last day of his life he faces a...

...; His wife was surprised and asked, "How could you know it?" Mohammed answers, "Looking at your face tonight I can see you are not calm and peaceful as you always are. For sure there is some money in the house. Those who are worried become acquisitive and acquisitive people become worried. It is a vicious circle, So take out what you have saved and distribute it so that I can die in...

..., Krishna says, you will be released from the bondage that comes in the form of birth. Krishna does not say that birth is a bondage. He only says that one who is full of expectations, who is attached to the fruits of action is always in need of tomorrow, future, future life. One who lives in desires, in hopes and expectations anxiously seeks a new birth after his death; he cannot escape rebirth. And for...

... such a person birth becomes a bondage; it can never become his freedom. Because such a person is not really interested in life and living, he is interested in his expectations, in the results he expects from it. For him birth is just an opportunity for achieving some results. And for such a person death is going to be very painful, because death will put an end to all the desires and demands he lived...

... for. Naturally when he is born again he will find his birth to be his bondage. Birth is bondage for one who does not know the life that is freedom. In fact desiring is bondage, craving and attachment to result is bondage. To live and know life totally is freedom. And for one who knows this life there is no birth and death. He is released from both birth and death. Krishna has said only the half...

... truth; it is a half-truth to say that one is released from the fetters of birth. To complete it, I say he is released from death as well. He is released from both birth and death. This does not mean that birth and death are bondage. In ignorance, for an ignorant person birth and death appear to be bondage; they bind him. For a wise man, one who knows the truth, birth and death cease to be, he is in...

... imprisonment, but we make it into one. The way we are, even death looks like captivity to us. The way we are, we turn life itself into a concentration camp. On the other hand, he who lives in the present, in the moment, who lives without expectations and attachments and does his work without hope for reward or fear of punishment, whose action is like inaction and whose inaction is like action, who turns his...

... whole life into a play - he turns even bondage into freedom. For such a person, action is freedom, love is freedom, living is freedom, life is freedom, and even death is freedom. For him everything is freedom. It all depends on the way we are; we carry both our slavery and freedom within us. If one begins to live without desire for the fruits of action, if he becomes responsible to himself and to...

... what we are psychologically and spiritually, our death becomes what we are in our mind and spirit. If we are free, our birth, our life, our death, everything becomes free. And similarly if we are in bondage, then everything we do or don't do binds us. Then action binds, love binds, life binds, even death binds. Then even God binds. In fact, we are our own makers. Question 3: QUESTIONER. YOU HAVE SAID...

... basic. And those who know how to die, only they know how to live. People who are afraid of dying become afraid of living. People who are too afraid of death and dying become incapable of living, because life has death as part of it. When Jesus says, "Pick up your cross and follow me," he is saying, "Be ready to die if you really want to attain to the eternal life." This is...

... your mother dies, you call it death and you suffer. You don't suffer because the mother has died. You suffer because you think it is death. If you understand life you will know that there is no death. Then the mother will die -- mothers will always die -- but you will not be suffering. She has simply changed an old body. In fact it is a moment to rejoice. Hmm?... she was having a cancer or...

... will follow your own intelligence. But if you are stupid you don't bother about learning: you simply follow me. That looks simple, less risky, less dangerous, more secure, safe, because you can always throw the responsibility on me; but if you choose a secure safety-way, you have chosen death. You have not chosen life. Life is dangerous and risky. Intelligence will always choose life -- at any cost...

... murder; and how can you put things right when for one murder the court decides for another murder? Maybe this man needs psychoanalytical treatment. Maybe this man needs to be sent to a monastery to meditate for two years. But not death -- because death.... If it is bad to commit murder, to commit murder in the name of justice is also bad; it cannot become good. But judges are very serious people...

... have become independent sooner if there had been no Gandhi and no Jinnah. And if there were no churches India would never have been dependent. If politicians disappear from the world, the world will be free. There will be no need to fight for it: it will be simply free. If priests disappear and serious churches, which look more like death than life, disappear and temples arise to dance, to enjoy, to...

.... Whenever something of the other world penetrates into your mind, the ego becomes afraid, panicky, scared. It looks like death. If that glimpse is to become a permanent life-style, your very being, then you have to bridge the distance, bridge the gap. You have to move. When you become pure consciousness then there is no falling out again. It is a point of no return. One only goes in; one never comes out...

... up his cross and follow me," because that is the only way to be resurrected. If you want a new life you will have to die. If you want to be resurrected you will have to carry your own cross. Be crucified in the material world and you will be resurrected in the spiritual. Die moment to moment to the past so that you are resurrected every moment into the present. Dying is an art, one of the most...

... word has fallen into the mud, but that word is like a diamond. It may be in the mud: it can be cleaned and washed. And if you understand me you will see that if you are really selfish, only then can you be unselfish. I teach you selfishness because I would like you to be unselfish. Question 8 HOW MUCH OF WHAT OCCURS EXTERNALLY, SUCH AS DEATH, BETRAYAL, ET CETERA, IS MY MIND? HOW AM I RESPONSIBLE FOR...

... THESE THINGS? You are not responsible for these things. If somebody dies you are not responsible for his death, but the way you interpret the death, for that you are responsible. When somebody betrays you, you are not responsible for his betrayal. How can you be? But you call it a betrayal; it may not be. It is your interpretation. and for the interpretation you are responsible. You call it death: if...

... tuberculosis, old age, and a thousand and one illnesses, and she was dragging. You call it death? I call it just dropping the old body to enter into a new. Why should I be suffering over it? I should be happy and rejoice in it. It depends on the interpretation, and the interpretation is your responsibility. Somebody betrays you: but who is saying that it is a betrayal? For instance, your lover, your husband...

... not in love?" Maybe the love was there in the beginning, then it disappeared. Then, you have been taught that love never disappears. That too is absolutely stupid. Everything that comes can disappear. Everything that is born can die. Everything that starts can stop. Remain true and alert. If the love has disappeared then to live with that woman is sin. Then if you sleep with that woman you are...

... needed -- almost the same. Man and woman are always in equal numbers. To somebody only girls are born. To somebody else only boys are born. But if you look at the whole earth, the total number of women is almost the same as the number of men. When children are born, for a hundred girls there are a hundred fifteen boys. Because nature knows boys are weaker; more will die. So by the time they come of age...

... for marriage, the number will be equal. Girls are more stubborn. Girls are stronger; they fall ill less. They have more tolerance of many things; they can tolerate hardships. It is just male ego which Goes on saying, "We are stronger." Muscular power may be Greater in man, but strength is not greater -- because fifteen boys per hundred fifteen die, and by the age of fourteen the number is...

... equal: a hundred girls to a hundred boys. Nature somehow manages. When there is a war: after the war more boys are born, less girls, because in war more men die. It seems really a tremendous phenomenon, unbelievable. How does it happen? In war -- the Second World War, the First World War -- both the wars have been watched, analyzed: more men are born after the war, the number increases, and less girls...

... mechanism: before you die you become unconscious. It is as if death used anesthesia; so does birth. Birth also happens in unconsciousness. Just think. One thing is certain: that you were born. You may not be so certain about your past lives - maybe it is just a theory - but one thing is absolutely certain: that you were born one day. At least this life is there. Do you remember anything of your birth? And...

... is all that that he knows; beyond the womb all is unknown. Death is painful, so is birth. Hence there is a natural mechanism: the child is born in an unconscious state and the old man dies in an unconscious state. Doctors, surgeons, have been using anesthetic processes only recently - chloroform, etcetera - but death and birth have been using them since eternity began. When you die, before the...

... conscious, you become almost unconscious. Death is one of the most painful processes. So, Pratima, you can die, but you will die unconsciously. Death will not wake you up, it will make you more unconscious. The only way to be awakened is to be in communion with someone who is already awakened. The only way - there is no other - is to be in the company of the awakened one, is to be in the commune of the...

... is needed for your survival and sex is needed for the survival of the race. Both are basically needed for survival. If everybody fasts and everybody becomes a celibate, there will be no need for atom bombs! There will be no third world war - people will die of their own accord. Sex and food are deeply joined: food keeps the individual alive and sex keeps the race alive. That is their similarity...

...: that is innocence. And everything else follows. And when everything else follows, it has a beauty of its own. Cultivated, it is plastic, synthetic, not natural. When it comes uncultivated, it is a grace, it is a benediction. The second question: BELOVED OSHO, Question 2: SOMETIMES IT FEELS AS IF PHYSICAL DEATH WOULD BE THE ONLY SHOCK POWERFUL ENOUGH TO WAKE ME UP, AND I FIND MYSELF WISHING FOR IT...

... - AS PERHAPS AN ESCAPE FROM OR AN END TO THIS GREY SLUMBER THAT SURROUNDS ME. WHAT CAN BREAK THIS DREAM WHEN THE DREAMER IS SO SLEEPY? Pratima, if you really want to commit suicide, follow the wise Irishman I have heard about. An Irishman wanted to commit suicide. He bought a bottle of aspirin, took two, and felt better! Death cannot wake you up, Pratima, because you have died many times before and...

... it has not awakened you yet. You are not new here - nobody is new. You are all ancient pilgrims, very ancient. You have seen Buddhas, Christs, Zarathustras, Lao Tzus. You have seen the whole evolution of human consciousness, you have been part of it. You have been here many times and death has happened again and again. It has not helped in any way. It can't help, because death has a natural...

... birth and death are not separate, they are two aspects of the same coin. On one side it is birth, on another side it is death; on one side it is death, on another side it is birth. It is the same coin. Heads or tails, it makes no difference; it is the same coin. You see one person dying: here he is dying, somewhere else he has started being born. The moment he is dead here he will have entered another...

..., because who cares to go far away? Just in the neighborhood some foolish couple is ready to receive you. There was birth, but you were unconscious. Birth also happens in unconsciousness, because that too is a very painful process - it is a kind of death. You lived in the womb for nine motnhs, it was your life for nine months, and the nine months in the womb are not nine months for the child; for the...

... child it is almost an eternity, because he has no sense of time. And then suddenly one day the womb is ready to expel you. To the child it looks like death, he is dying. His world is disappearing, his way of life, to which he has become accustomed, is being taken away from him. All that he knows about life is going to be destroyed. Without the womb he cannot conceive what life there can be. The womb...

... exact moment of death you become unconscious, because it is going to be very painful. Just think. Your consciousness, which has become so attached to the body for seventy, eighty or ninety years.... You have become so identified with the body, you will cling, you will do everything that you can to remain in the body. Now again you are being thrown out of the body - and so many desires are unfulfilled...

... discovered it but sooner or later they will find it: that the body has chemical processes which are released at the time of death and the person becomes unconscious. Just as in anger certain chemicals are released in your blood and you become mad - a momentary kind of madness, your own glands do it... when you become sexually possessed it is your glands releasing certain secretions - and you are not...

..., there is nothing to worry about, but if you are are sick, there are only two things to worry about: either you get better or you die. If you get better, there is nothing to worry about, but if you die, there are only two things to worry about: either you go to heaven or you go to hell. If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about, but if you go to hell, you'll be so dam busy shaking hands with...

... tendencies! Death is not going to help. I am here, Pratima, to hammer, to shatter you. Just give me a little chance. Things are moving beautifully. Many are coming closer and closer to maturity, but unless you come to the hundred- degree point you can't evaporate. Even at ninety-nine degrees you are still water, hot water - and the heat becomes more and more painful before it reaches to a hundred degrees...

... certain impact of the master still continues that has to be effaced. The myth will do the work. Death has destroyed his body, myth will destroy his spirituality. He will become just a mythological figure, utterly impotent, useless. The myth is a process in which you change the master's historical reality into a fiction. Jesus as a historical person may be embarrassing. Jesus as a myth is beautiful...

... death also. I have known existence and the mystery of being; now I want to know nonexistence, the nonbeing." Science has no meaning in this area. Scientists like Freud will call this the death wish and say that this is not a healthy condition of the mind - that it is suicidal. According to Freud liberation and nirvana are not conducive to life and these concepts are a proof of your wish to die...

.... He says that you wish to die, that's why you are ill. The scientist is against the desire for death, because science is based on the will to live and on an expansion of life. The man who wishes to live is a healthy man, but a moment comes when the wish to die is equally healthy. If someone wishes to die before this moment comes it is definitely unhealthy. However, a moment does come in life when a...

... person wishes to die for the sake of death. One may say it is healthy to be awake and unhealthy to sleep, and gradually we are giving more place to day than to night. At first night started at six o'clock, now it begins at two a.m. We have given the night's time to the day. There are some modern thinkers who go so far as to feel that if night can be completely removed from man's life, a sizeable part...

... unpredictable. It is not that fire may burn when it chooses and not burn when it does not choose to, nor can water flow in whatever direction it pleases or boil at any temperature it fancies. The functions of matter are determined, but when we go within matter we find that ultimately it is undetermined. You can take it this way: if we want to find out how many people die in Bombay, this is possible. If there...

... are ten million people we can take the number of deaths in one year and find out approximately how many die per day, and this would be almost correct. If we calculate the mortality rate for this whole country of nine hundred million in the same way, the figure would be closer to the exact number. If we calculate the mortality rate for the whole world, the certainty of the figure will be even greater...

.... But if we want to find out when a single person will die our calculations will be most uncertain. The greater the crowd, the more material things become. The more individual the phenomenon, the more we find consciousness. In fact, a single piece of matter is a crowd of millions of atoms; therefore, we can predict about it. But if we penetrate within the atom and catch hold of the electron we find...

.... Thought waves from the earth, as well as the ripples of other happenings, go out to the infinite number of planets. If we were to go ahead of them and catch them they would still be alive in a sense. Man dies but his thoughts do not die that quickly. Man's life is very short; the life of thoughts is very long. Remember also, the thoughts we do not express live longer than those we express because they...

... more new research by man penetrates within, the more its hazards increase. For example, we can now increase the age of man as much as we like. It is no longer in the hands of nature; it is in the hands of science. So in Europe and America there are thousands of old people clamoring for the right to die of their own free will, but they are kept lingering on their deathbeds. They are given oxygen and...

... can be made to live for long periods. A ninety-year-old man begs to die, but the doctors say, "We cannot be a party to it; it is against the law." Even if an old man's son feels that his father is suffering too much and he should now be allowed to die, he cannot say so openly. There are machines to keep a dying man alive and the nearly dead are made to live on. Now this, in a way, is...

... hanging him. It will not be surprising if fifty years hence we punish a man by not allowing him to die. And this punishment will be worse than the first, because dying is a matter of a few seconds whereas living on can be for decades. So whenever there is a new discovery in the inner world of man there are two results: either mankind can suffer because of it or it can benefit. Whenever power comes, it...

... only upon life. Actually, our center of existence is life. We want to be less ill and more healthy; we want to live longer, more happily, more comfortably. The aim of science is to make life more deeply happy, satisfying, healthy and enjoyable. But the seventh body is the acceptance of death: it is the ultimate death. Here, the meditator goes beyond the search for life. He says, "I want to know...

... of his life can be rescued from going to waste. Where is the need to sleep? It should be done away with, they argue. But as there is a joy in waking, there is a joy in sleeping also. Just as the desire to awaken is natural and healthy, so also is the desire to sleep. If a man keeps alive his eagerness to live even up to his last breath he is not healthy, and if a man nurtures the desire to die from...

... his very birth that too is unnatural and unhealthy. If a child longs for death he is ill, abnormal, and he should be treated. If an old man longs for life, he too should be treated because he is ill also. Life and death are the two limbs of existence. If you accept only one you are bound to be crippled. Until the time comes when you accept the other this disability will remain. Both limbs are...

... important - being and nonbeing. He who embraces and accepts both being and nonbeing equally can be called perfectly healthy. He who says, "I have known what it is to be; now I wish to know what it is not to be," is not afraid of nonbeing. The seventh plane is only for people of courage - who having known life are eager to know death, who are keen to explore death, the state of extinction. They...

... are keen to know what it is not to be, what extinction is like, what is nonbeing. They have tasted life; now they want to taste death. At this point you should know that death descends from the seventh plane. What we normally know as death comes from the seventh plane and what we know as life comes from the first plane. Birth starts with the physical; birth means the beginning of the physical. This...

... is why the physical body first comes into being in the mother's womb and the other bodies follow later. So the first body is the beginning of life and the last body, the nirvanic body, is from where death comes. So he who clings onto the physical body is very much afraid of death, and he who is afraid of death will never ever know the seventh body. Thus, as we gradually become more and more...

... detached from the physical body, a time comes when we accept death also. Then only do we know. And he who knows death is liberated in the true sense of the word, because then life and death become two parts of the same thing and one is beyond both. So there is no hope of science reaching to the seventh body, though there is a possibility of its going up to the sixth. The doors of the fourth body have...

... he was educated in the West. His education was superb. When he was about six years old his father sent him out of India and forbade him to return until he was fully matured. Even on his deathbed, when others in the family talked of calling Aurobindo back, his father would not allow it. He said, "It is all right if I do not see him before my death. He must imbibe the Western culture completely...

... approximately between ninety- eight degrees and one hundred ten degrees. If it falls under ninety-eight degrees or goes over one hundred ten degrees we die. Our life flickers between ten to twelve degrees. Heat has a tremendous range. It can be lower than this twelve degree range, but we are not related to this. In the same way we have our limitations in everything. But we can know about things outside these...

... you are trying to give me a few more minutes, but there is no point. I am ready to go into the unknown. Life I have known enough. Don't delay; let me go into the unknown mysteries of death." He was one of the most sincere men in the sense that he never said anything about what happens beyond death. He always said, "First let me die. Unless I know, I cannot say anything about beyond death...

... poor man is less miserable than the rich man - the poor man at least has a hope. The rich man is living hopelessly. Now he knows that he has done all he could, and his life is as empty as ever - perhaps more empty. And death is coming closer; life is becoming every moment shorter and he has wasted it in accumulating money, power, prestige. He has wasted his life in being a saint, praying before man...

... cultural. It is because of the grown-ups. The child has no other way; he has to learn from people who are sick. And these sick people will not tolerate anybody who is not sick. Anybody who is healthy, anybody who is sane is going to be hated, is going to be poisoned, is going to be stoned to death, because the crowd has to choose between two things: either the single individual is right - then the whole...

... the younger generation is immensely impressed by you. It is the older generation..." But in the past, the older generation was always the majority, because out of ten children, nine used to die within two years after their birth. Now the situation has reversed: out of ten children only one child dies, nine go on living. It is for the first time that young people are the majority in the world...

.... Never in the past were the young people in the majority. They were always a minority group. The chief justice said, "You simply move out of the city." Socrates said, "That will be cowardly. As far as death is concerned, it is going to come sooner or later. I am already old enough. But I don't want the future generations to remember that Socrates moved out of Athens because of the fear...

... of death. Please forgive me, I cannot go out of Athens." The chief justice said, "Then the second simple thing will be that you stop teaching. Live in Athens, but don't talk about your truth. And don't talk about people being sincere and authentic." Socrates said, "You are asking me to do things which I cannot do. What is the purpose of my living if I cannot blossom into my...

.... Those who have said something are all lying, deceiving, cheating, because they are still alive and they don't know anything about death. Don't force me to be in the same company. I will say only that which is my experience." He told the man who was preparing the poison, "Be quick, because my disciples are waiting. Perhaps I can give them a few indications about death as it is experienced...

... say that your sources of life belong to eternity, they don't die with your bodies. They only change houses. You have been here always, and you will be here always. You are part, an essential part, inseparable part of this immensely beautiful dancing existence. Just be natural so that you can remain in tune with existence. So that you can dance in the rain and you can dance in the sun and you can...

... do. With the death of this body my rebellion cannot die. My revolution is going to continue even more intensely, because then it will have many more bodies, many more voices, many more hands to continue it. That day was significant, historically significant. I have always remembered that day with the day when Jesus argued with the rabbis in the temple. He was a little older than I was, perhaps...

..., every planet, every star is going to die one day. How are you going to escape from it? You will need a very speedy technology. This earth in just four thousand years will be dead. Whatsoever you do, nothing can save it. Every day it is getting closer to its death... and you are trying to move at thirty miles per hour! Try one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. That's the speed of light. The...

..., which can be issued by me to my sannyasins as a passport for universal brotherhood, as opposed to nations, races and religions. I am not against the Jaina attitude to suicide, but the method... their method is not to eat anything. It takes almost ninety days for the poor man to die. It is torture. You cannot improve on it. Not even Adolf Hitler could have conceived such a great idea. For Devageet's...

... their eyes, but unconsciously they also enjoy it, and without needing a ticket. I abhor it; I am averse to all such practices. The idea of committing santhara, suicide, by not eating or drinking is nothing but a very long process of self torture. I cannot support it. But I am absolutely in support of the idea of the freedom to die. I consider it a birthright, and sooner or later every constitution in...

... the world will contain it, will have to have it as the most basic birthright - the right to die. It is not a crime. But to torture anybody, including yourself, is a crime. With this, you will be able to understand that I was not being rude, I was asking a very relevant question. On that day I began a lifelong struggle against all kinds of stupidities, nonsense, superstitions - in short, religious...

... mystic attains to it, and suddenly, in his inner being there is only light, and nothing else. That is awakening. I am for the maximum. Live to the maximum in every possible way; even if you are deciding to die, die with maximum speed. Don't die like a coward - take a jump into the unknown. I am not against the idea of ending life. If one decides to end it, then of course it is his right. But I am...

... went to university. I never slept at my mother's house. Although my grandmother had moved to the same village as the rest of the family after my grandfather's death, I would sleep there for the simple reason that I could tell her so many mischiefs that I had done during the day. She would laugh and say, "Well done! Great! Good! That man deserved it. Did he really fall into the well just as you...

... said?" I would say, "Yes, but he didn't die." She said, "That's okay, but you managed to push him into the well?" There was a well in our neighborhood, without any protecting wall. At night anybody could fall into it. I used to lead people towards it, and the man who had fallen in was none other than the sweetmaker. My mother - my grandmother... I always forget because I...

... will be in the open. When you are in disagreement with the whole you will be imprisoned within the ego... and the ego is a very very small dark cell. Learn to be in agreement with the whole. [Osho suggests some groups for the new sannyasin.] You have to go through many processes, mm? Slowly, slowly you will die and you will be born. The harder part is death. Birth is very simple; it happens on its...

... can try but nobody has ever succeeded. The soul cannot die. The soul means life. But we are too much involved with the ego... so much so that we don't think that we are separate. When in deep meditation sometimes it happens that the ego feels death coming, one gets very much frightened and scared. But it was perfectly good. Nothing to be worried about, mm? You are not a person who can commit suicide...

... interested in it. The ego feels a kind of death through it. The ego cannot lose control because in losing control it will lose itself. The ego cannot lose tenseness because the tenseness is its very existence. If you are non-tense, if you are relaxed, the ego simply evaporates. It cannot exist in a relaxed state of consciousness; it is no more needed. It is your disease, and you have to be alert about it...

... own accord. So do everything that you can do to die, to disappear, and then suddenly one day, absolutely unawares, you are for the first time; the new, the utterly new is born into you. Nothing has to be done for that. We have only to make way for it, and that's what I mean by dying. So don't go on holding and don't go on controlling yourself; don't go on protecting yourself. Relax and be! [Osho...

... intensive group, he felt deeply depressed and ideas of suicide came to him. Now he is feeling better. Osho checks his energy.] It appeared like the idea for suicide, but it was not. A better expression for it would be to say it was a kind of ego suicide. The ego wanted to die in that moment, not you, but because you are so much identified with the ego you felt it as if you wanted to die. And that was a...

... good experience. It was really good, but when it comes for the first time it frightens. It will come again. When next time it comes simply be a witness to it. Don't get identified; don't start thinking that you want to die. Even if you want to die you cannot because you are eternal, you are immortal. Only the ego is born and the ego can die. In the real sense there is no way to commit suicide. You...

... Aristotle right. It is both. It doesn't worry about Aristotle. His logic says opposite things cannot coexist as one. What he says is right. How can a person be living and dead at the same time? But those who know the deep secret of life say that life and death are the two legs, left and right, of one and the same person. When you are living, you are at the same time also dying. You do not die on one day...

...; you are dying from the day on which you were born. At one end life is going on, and from the other end death is approaching. And you reach the end in seventy years. This is interesting to ponder over: can a dead person die? To die, a living person is required. That is to say, it is absolutely necessary, unavoidable, to be living in order to die. This condition cannot be disputed. If one is not...

... living, he cannot die. Now this becomes a totally contrary statement. It is an unavoidable condition to be living in order to die. Then this means that it is an unavoidable condition to be dying in order to live. The person who is not dying this moment, is also not living. Death and life are names of the same process. We are dying and living at the same time. We are being effaced and are becoming...

... the same. They go on saying, "How can birth and death be one?" But they are! The seeker of truth has to be daring enough to give up reasoning, even though it is the greatest daring. This sutra is beyond logic and hence it is great. As I told you, it is one of the greatest sutras uttered in the history of mankind. Now let us enter that great truth which is beyond logic. Don't try to reason...

... wastage. You have the money, and nothing has come. You have the power and the prestige and the respectability, and you remain empty - in fact, your whole life is gone, has gone down the drain. Now only death is waiting. Of course you will die as a successful man and there will be reports in the newspaper... but you never lived! You will die as a successful man, but you never lived truly, because life is...

... natural only about this. If you suffer from tuberculosis, will you take medicine or not? It will not be natural! The natural would be to die with tuberculosis. If you have diarrhea will you take medicine or not? The natural will be to suffer diarrhea and if death comes, let it come. With death we are not natural, and with birth we want to be natural. That is creating the whole trouble in the world - the...

... population goes on increasing. Either decide to be natural about both - birth and death, then it perfectly okay.... But about birth we want to be natural, and about death - we go on pushing death as far away as we can. Then the population goes on increasing, and the world becomes poorer and poorer, and uglier and uglier. I'm not saying anything - you simply decide, mm? If you feel good... whatsoever is...