... the small death, the tiny death. We die every night and disappear into the dark night. Then comes death - a bigger death than sleep. The body disappears but the mind remains and is born again. Then comes the ultimate death - samadhi - where body disappears and mind disappears and only the innermost core, consciousness, remains. That is the ultimate death. In the fourth valley you encounter the first...

.... If you do that you will be thrown back again to the conscious part of your mind. You will miss the mystery of darkness. Light is beautiful, but nothing compared with darkness. Darkness is more beautiful, more cooling, more deep. Darkness has depth; light is shallow. And unless you are able to welcome darkness you will not be able to welcome death. So the first teaching is that you have to accept...

... then you will be able to look back and see the reality. Only a Master can hold your hand in this dark night of the soul and make you confident, can say to you and convince you - 'Don't be worried. It only looks dark, it is not dark. It is the first meeting with God. You are coming closer.' There are three things to be understood: sleep, death and samadhi. Sleep is like death. In the East we say it is...

... glimpse of how the ultimate death is going to happen to you. If you reject it, if you defend yourself against it, if you create an armour, you will be thrown back to the third valley, and you will miss. And once you have missed the fourth you will always remain afraid to go again into it. My observation about people is that people who have entered into the fourth valley some time in their past lives...

... arises. Surrender has to become your climate. The fifth valley... the thundering valley. In the fifth valley you enter death. In the fourth you entered sleep, darkness; in the fifth you enter death. Or, if you like to use modern terminology for it: in the fourth you enter the personal unconscious; in the fifth you enter the collective unconscious. Great fear arises because you are losing your...

... individuality. In the fourth you were losing light, day, but you were there. In the fifth you are losing yourself - you don't feel as if you are, you are dispersing, you are melting. Your feeling that 'I am a centre' starts becoming vague, cloudy. With entry into death, entry into the collective unconscious, great fear arises, great anguish is felt - the greatest anguish that you will ever feel - because...

...' and when somebody does not recognise it, it gives pain. When you don't have any idea of being special - what Zen people call 'to become ordinary' - if you become ordinary, then this valley can be crossed. If you become nobody, then this valley can easily be crossed. So the negative part is clinging to the self and the positive part is relaxing into no-self, into nothingness - being ready to die...

..., willingly, joyously, voluntarily. Then comes the sixth valley - the abysmal valley. One disappears. In the fifth, one was disappearing; in the sixth, one is no more. One is a memory of the past, one disappears. In the fifth, one was entering into death; in the sixth, death has happened, one has died, one is no more. That's why it is called the 'abysmal valley'. It is the most painful, because it is the...

... the self have become irrelevant. A new idea of self arises. Death happens, one disappears. This is what Christians call crucifixion. Nothingness has arrived; one is just an empty sky. Hindus call it samadhi, Zen people call it satori. And the negative part complains. It will be good to remind you. At the crucifixion Jesus shows both attitudes. First he complains. He looks at the sky and says, 'Why...

... die - you are eternal. So, in fact there is no fear, no need to be afraid. Death is impossible, only the ego can die. So if you remain identified with the ego then the fear remains there. Once ego is dropped, death disappears and fear disappears, anxiety disappears, anguish disappears; and the energy that was involved in fear, anxiety, anguish is released. That same energy becomes your dance, your...

...Happiness: the death of the ego...

... Osho Dhammapada Volume 6: Happiness: the death of the ego Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho Dhammapada Volume 6   Next > Happiness: the death of the ego From: Osho Date: Fri, 30 October 1979 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6 Chapter #: 10 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title...

.... Happiness rises like a sun and the ego disappears, evaporates like a dewdrop on the grass leaf. Happiness is the death of the ego. If you want to remain a separate entity from existence as almost everybody is trying to do, you will be afraid of being blissful, cheerful. You will feel guilty in being blissful. You will feel suicidal because you are committing a suicide on the psychological level - the...

... there is no significance, no poetry, no song, no dance, no ecstasy in your life. No celebration at all. Celebrate, dance, let joy fill your heart, let it overflow. And if the ego dies, let it die. Help it to die because it is not you. You are something transcendental to body, mind, ego and all. You are part of God, part of eternity. Don't be worried, you cannot die. Even if you want to die, you cannot...

... physiology. It is not lust, you can't call it lust. It is as passionate as lust or more so, because very few people die for a woman and very few people die for a man. But this man died for his paintings. This is psychological; this is far better. But there is still a higher state: the spiritual love, the love of a Buddha, the love of a Jesus, the love of a Krishna. It is totally different. It is not even...

... stupidity than this; this is the most stupid act in the world that people go on doing - fighting with themselves. You cannot win, you cannot defeat. You will remain quarreling with yourself, you will destroy yourself in quarreling your whole life. You will die, and you will never know what life was. You will never know the glories of life, the grandeur of life and the tremendous gift that life was, and...

... king. And do you know what the guard did? The first thing that he did, he ordered the king to be killed, sentenced to death! The king said, "What are you doing?" He said, "You keep quiet! You are simply the guard and nothing more. It is my wish and now I am the king!" The king was killed, and the servant became the king forever. Servants have their own devious ways to become...

... continuously on. They say that the mind is such a magnificent mechanism that it starts working the moment you are born and it goes on working till you stand before an audience - then suddenly it stops, then something happens to it. Otherwise it continues till you die. And very few people need to stand before an audience, so the mind continues unhindered, and it keeps you utterly tired, exhausted, weary...

.... See that it is not you, create the distance; the greater the distance, the more is the capacity of turning it off. And one more miracle you will be coming across: when you turn the mind off, the mind too remains fresh and more intelligent; because it is also tiring. Just think: from the day you are born it starts and goes on working till you die. And one never knows, it may be even working when you...

... tranquillizer, it gives you a good sleep. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples: I am doing only two things in your life. First, if you really have come to me then you will never be able to sleep again, I will disturb your sleep permanently. And second, if you listen to me your life will be hard, arduous, but one thing I can promise: you will not die a dirty death, you will not die like a dog. Both are...

... tremendously significant. If your sleep is disturbed, only then will you not die like a dog. 'Dog' means the animal state, fast asleep, unconscious. You can die consciously, then you die a beautiful death because then, even while dying, you know that you are not dying. That's the beauty of it. Right now, even alive, you don't know you are alive. Even living, there is no life - you are simply dragging - it is...

... pain seemed unnecessary now that he was going to die; death was certain - he asked Gurdjieff 'What should I do?' And Gurdjieff said 'If you are tired, then I can wait a little longer. I have been waiting so many years for death. You can rest a little and then you can do it. I have been waiting so long, I can wait a little longer - there is no problem. If you are too tired, you can have a little rest...

... silent, attentive, self-forgetful, absorbed. If you cannot be absorbed into my word, into my presence, it will be difficult for you to be absorbed anywhere else. Listening to me, just listen, and let it be this very moment. An old rabbi used to say to his people 'Repent the day before you die.' 'But' they said to him 'Rabbi, we know not the day of our death.' 'Then' he answered 'repent today, repent...

.... Before birth it was not there, after death it will not be there again, so this momentary phenomenon is not of much value. There is no need to get obsessed by it; one can pass through it unconcerned, untouched by it. The emphasis of the West is on that which is seen, and the emphasis of the East is on that which is the seer. Either you focus on the object or you focus on yourself. When you focus on the...

... phony. And a man who has encountered life and its facts, and gone through its pleasure and pain, dark nights and beautiful days, and watched everything and has become a profound observer will die in a totally different way. He will die alert, aware. Just a few days ago I was reading the memoirs of the doctor who attended Gurdjieff when he died, and the doctor says 'I have attended so many people while...

... they were dying, but this death was tremendously exceptional.' And the doctor says 'I cannot think that anybody has ever died like that. The moment he was dying, he opened his eyes, sat in his bed, supported by many pillows, asked for his hat, put his hat on a very beautiful red hat - took his cigar in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other hand, smoked and sipped the coffee.' The doctor was watching...

... he said 'Has anybody any question? because now I am leaving.' He used to say to his disciples that one can die very consciously, and he died very consciously. Just twenty-four hours before he was removed to the hospital he insisted that he would not go to the hospital, and he asked the doctor 'What do you think? Can the hospital save me? If I cannot save myself then who can save me?' For twenty...

... weeks before to see the place, and he sat on the exact place where he was to be buried two weeks later. And then they all understood: death was so clear to him - when it was going to happen, where he was going to be buried - and that was a church he had never gone to in his whole life. It was not that he used to visit it; he had never gone. That was the first and the last time alive. Next time he was...

... Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: OSHO, HOW CAN THE IDEA OF MERITOCRACY BE PRACTICALLY REALIZED? ONE thing is absolutely certain: The days of the politicians are over. They have done too well their job of being destructive, violent. They have come to a point where humanity has to decide either to die remaining with the politicians, to commit a global...

... suicide, or to throw out the politicians and save humanity, civilization, culture, life. Nothing is favorable to the politician; and as each day passes his death comes closer. He himself is responsible. He improved the weapons which can bring death to the whole world to such a point that there is no way of going back. Either there will be an ultimate war - which means death to all and everything - or a...

... prizes, and this has degraded the value of the Nobel prize. It has not added any value to the politician; he still remains in the gutter, and he will remain in the gutter because that's where he belongs. He cannot live out of the gutter - he would die. And if you give him a Nobel prize he will drag the Nobel prize also into the gutter: of course wherever he lives he is going to take the Nobel prize...

... collection. But you are sixty-five, and you are still collecting." He said, "I am still collecting. I am going to collect as much as I can." I said, "You go on collecting, but death will be coming soon: this collection will remain here and you will be gone without ever having lived because your whole time was wasted in collecting stamps." People are collectors. I think there is...

... this indispensability to existence, you are going to do something stupid to feel worthy. But when existence overwhelms you, showers all its blessings on you, then the urge to collect garbage simply disappears. Then you live each moment and you die each moment. That is the time when meditation has come to its perfection: Living each moment, dying each moment. Dying to the memory that you have lived...

.... Dying to the moment that is just passing. It can leave its trace, its lining, its signature, its memories.... No, die to all that so you are again fresh, ready to mirror existence with a clear reflection. So if a person continues to study in the university, then he continues to go to the meditation institute for one hour every day; and before he gets his M.A., he gets his M.M. - that is, master of...

... is utopian, but the situation is such that within twenty years politicians will bring you to the brink of death. Then you will have to choose; and at that time, when you have to choose between death and meditation, I think you will choose meditation - you are not going to choose death. If at that time you have to choose between death and deprogramming, you will choose deprogramming: "Let the...

... Christian die, but I can live. Let the Jew die, I can live." And who bothers when it is a question of you or the Jew? If you can choose only one, either you or the Jew, I don't think you are going to choose the Jew; even Moses would not have done that. I trust him to have been at least that intelligent. Politicians have brought this great challenge to the whole of humanity. In a way we should be...

... continued. I asked Sunderlal, "Panditji, this is a miracle. You have killed everybody: twelve advocates, eight magistrates, two governments - and when is this case going to be finished?" He said, "Until I die this case is not going to be finished because there are legal problems. They cannot just finish it, they cannot just close the file. They have to come to a certain conclusion. Now it...

... should be honored." But what to do with the opinions of their predecessors? It does not matter to which government they belong; it is the same court and the same law. "And the complexities were such," he said, "that those judges have said, 'Unless you die we cannot close the file, the case will continue. We are not going to punish you - we cannot punish you. Even they could not...

... new kind of management has to be developed. It is a difficult job, arduous but not impossible - particularly in such a situation when death is the only alternative. Question 2: OSHO, WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT MEDITATION ACCORDING TO THE THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS? MEDITATION I have explained to you so it won't be difficult... just a little bit of new perspective. Concentration is concerned with the...

... coming closer to him with his eyes fixed. Because the hunter was unable to escape, just unconsciously, without knowing what he was doing - of course he was frozen to death - the hunter's eyes also became unblinking, and he was watching every move of the lion, so he was looking into his eyes. And this is how it was discovered that if you look into the eyes of the lion just for a minute or two, the lion...

... associates, deputies, of death. Death is alone. Poor death needs a great bureaucracy, and she is doing the whole job all alone. So of course many people die when they are nearabout thirty years of age, and then they have to wait for forty, fifty years or sixty years, when their number comes up. What can death do? She has not yet cleaned out the old pending files, and you go on dying. But with my people...

... have to declare that we are a religion; otherwise, you cannot find such an irreligious commune in the whole world. What religion is there? - no God, no Holy Ghost, no Jesus Christ, no pope, no prayer, nobody concerned at all about death. Everybody is so much involved with life, who has time? In fact, even if death comes to my people, she will have to wait. My people are so involved in living that...

... even death will have to consider.... She can take people easily who have been dead for thirty, forty or fifty years. It is not a problem for death, there is no need to be concerned; they just have to be carried away. They have lived posthumous lives long enough. Perhaps death is too busy - must be. This planet and fifty thousand other planets have life; and no religion has said that there are even...

... death will be surprised. These are living people: So involved in life that they have not even bothered about death. She will have second thoughts before she can take you. She may think, "It is better to let me first finish the pending job, which is unending. These people can be taken later on; let them live a little more." What kind of religion is this? I have called it a religionless...

... impossible between husband and wife. Marriage is the death of love. Knowledge is like marriage. You are not really related to the known, but only in a delusion. It happened once that there was a certain painting hanging in the house of an old lady. She was very old, and when she died the house was sold. The new owners looked at the painting and could not figure out what it was: it looked almost stupid. It...

.... His mother was sick, old, almost on the verge of death, and he was massaging her feet. The story is.... It is a story, remember, I'm not talking about history; I am simply telling you a beautiful story. Vithoba, that is, Krishna, was very concerned because his devotee was really in deep pain. He had lost his father, he had lost his brother, he had lost his sister. The only person left was his mother...

..., whether you keep your door open or locked. But one thing is certain: Eknath was really an authentic man. When he was doing one thing, he was doing it totally. When God comes he says, "Stand there, don't bother me till I am finished with my work." To me this is the implication in my saying that if death comes to my sannyasins she will have to wait. My sannyasins can say to her, "Wait, I am...

... - because now nothing is left for you to know - you know all. The taste of your own consciousness is the taste of all consciousness, it is not different. But the priesthood cannot live on my attitudes and approaches. The priesthood will die out. It needs to die out, it is absolutely unnecessary. They have filled you with knowledge, and with it has come the idea of ignorance. They have filled you with such...

... continue to the very last. Inner bondages have also to be broken. And the strangest experience is: the moment you are finished with your inner world, with mom and dad, for the first time you can respect them and love them as human beings. You can feel sad and sorry for them because they have missed everything. What have they got? They came into life but they have not experienced life; and death is...

... don't know; birds and animals die, but they don't know. Only man knows that he has to die. That knowledge is also very cloudy, not clear -- and the same is so with life. The birds are alive, but they don't know that they are alive -- because how can you know life if you don't know death? How can you know that you are alive if you don't know that you are going to die? Both recognitions come together...

... energy into you. Each breath out is a short death. With each breath, you die and you are reborn. Each breath is a crucifixion and a resurrection. And when you watch it, you will come to know a beautiful feeling of trust. When you breathe out, there is no certainty that you wiil ever be able to breathe in again. What is the certainty? Who has guaranteed it? Who CAN guarantee that you will be able to...

... breathe in again? But somehow, a deep trust; you know that "I will breathe again". Otherwise breathing would become impossible. If you become so afraid that, "Who knows if I let my breath out, and if I go through this small death, what is the certainty that I will be able to breathe in again? If I can't breathe, then it is better not to breathe out", then you will die immediately. If...

... moment you recognize that you are always moving going somewhere- knowingly, unknowingly, willingly, unwillingly-but you are going...some great force is constantly working within you: God is evolving. He is constantly creating something within you, so it is not how to start it. The right question will be, how to recognize it. It is there, but recognition is not there. For example, trees die, but they...

.... They are alive, but they don't recognize that they are alive. Man recognizes, a little, that he is going to die, but that recognition remains very cloudy, hidden in deep smoke. And the same is true about life: you are alive, but you don't know exactly what being alive means. That too is cloudy, not clear. When I say recognition, I mean becoming alert to what this life energy is, that is already on...

... you stop breathing out, you will die. But a deep trust exists -- that trust is part of life. Nobody has taught you. When a child starts walking for the first time, tremendous trust exists in him that he will be able to walk. Nobody has taught him. He has just seen other people walk, that's all. But how can he come to a conclusion that "I will be able to walk"? He is so tiny. People are so...

... the age of fourteen, suddenly the energy is ripe. Watch...a child is born -- immediately, within three seconds the child has to breathe, otherwise he will die. Then breathing is to remain the whole of his life, because it has come at the first step of life. It cannot be transcended. Maybe before you die then, just three seconds before, it will stop, but not before it. Always remember: both ends of...

... paintings if you don't have any sense, artistic sense; you don't go there. But this is one of the problems about religion: people who don't have any sense of religiousness, they also become greedy about religion. And now he is getting old, and death is approaching. Now he wants to achieve something which he can carry beyond death. He is simply afraid. He has not lived his life -- and unless you have lived...

... your life, you cannot move into religion. Only one who lives his life truly, one day comes to the point where a new desire for life beyond arises. See the difference between the two. You can be afraid of death; then your desire will be false. If you have lived life and loved life, and loved it so much that you would now like to know the unknown life also -- it is not out of fear of death, it is out...

... would die, but he was not burned at all. And he became more and more radiant, because the trust.... One day they were going somewhere, they were to cross a river, and they told him, "You need not go in the boat. You have such great trust; you can walk on the river" -- and he walked. That was the first time the Master saw him. He was not aware that he had been told to jump into the valley and...

... says that there was a resurrection. Only the New Testament, the four disciples of Jesus, say that there was a resurrection. It is fictitious. If there was a resurrection, then what happened? If Jesus resurrected, then when did he die? Where did he die? Where lies his body? Christians don't have any answer for that. There was no resurrection. But because of the resurrection and the crucifixion, the...

... cross became the symbol of Christianity. I call it, therefore, Crossianity. It became death-oriented. It became anti-life. In fact, all the religions have been anti-life. They are all looking for a better life - after death. You know the Jewish and Christian story, why Adam and Eve were expelled from the paradise of God. What was their crime? For what were they punished? God had told them that they...

... yourself? Reverend Jim Jones can say it: it is a punishment. If it is an imprisonment, get out of it - any way! The way does not matter. And after life is the 'real' paradise. All these religions have been anti-life, against life. Then naturally they have been teaching you, some way or other, "Accept the misery, accept the suffering. Soon death will come and all will be over, and you will be in...

... numbers. How many Catholics, how many Christians, how many Mohammedans - that is going to decide who is going to rule the world. They are not interested in humanity. And they are all promising these people that in future, after life, you will be getting all that rich people are getting here. It's strange: all that the rich people are getting here is possible here for everybody. Why wait for death? And...

... what basis have you got, that after death you get these things? Has anybody returned and told? In India there is a place, Surat, and in that area is a Mohammedan sect. Its high priest lives there. It is a very rich sect, the Boharas. And the high priest has been exploiting those poor, rich Boharas for centuries. When a Bohara dies, he has to donate a large amount of money to the high priest. And the...

.... A man of education, a cultured man, should come out, should say to people, 'You have been deceived.'" There is no life after death, as you know life. And if there is any life you have to learn to live now, and you have to live it so totally and intensely that if there is any life after death you will be able to live there too. If there is not, there is no question. That should always be the...

... equivalent to God. There is no other God than this life. Of course, if after death you survive, you will know the art of living and you will continue. If you don't survive, there is no problem. So it is impossible in my commune, absolutely impossible, that anything like Jonestown can happen. But journalists go on searching for sensation. Their whole business depends on sensation. They exploit the lowest...

..., life and laughter; this commune, which does not believe in any heaven, in any hell; this commune, which does not believe in following, in believing, in faith - how is a Jonestown possible here? This is the only place where it is impossible. Anywhere else it can be possible, because death everywhere is worshipped, glorified, and the world beyond death is emphasized continuously: that you have to...

... sacrifice this life for that life which is to come after death. My emphasis is just the opposite: sacrifice that for this. Sacrifice everything for this moment. Rejoice this moment, and if you are capable of rejoicing this moment, you will be able to erase the suicidal instinct from your being completely. If you can rejoice in this life totally, you will not be bothered at all what happens after death...

... laughingstock. Sitting with closed eyes - if somebody sees me they will think, 'This old man has gone senile.'" I said, "It is up to you, but one thing you should remember: that your whole life you rushed after meaning, usefulness, utility. And now you have come close to death. The day you die, silence can go with you, money cannot; peace can go with you, power cannot. And if you are full of inner...

... light, your death can become the most ecstatic experience. You have lived the world, now try to prepare yourself for death - and in death, the coins of this world are useless." But he was adamant, and old habits die hard. And to listen to a small child and follow him was against his ego.... But when he was dying, out of the whole family he remembered me. I was eighty miles away in the university...

..., they will be living in a very mistaken idea - because I have come to know a source within me which cannot be killed. Only the body can be destroyed. But the body is going to die anyway - it is far more beautiful that it dies for something beautiful, that it dies in a creative way to bring something into the world, that it is not an ordinary death. I have lived an extraordinary life, and I would love...

... to die extraordinarily. So as far as I am concerned, to be persecuted from one country to another country, from one land to another land, from one mob to another mob, is just a game. Knowing perfectly well, so absolutely certain, that the truth is with me, it does not matter. Even if the whole world is against me it makes no difference. It is joyful and playful - from my side. I am enjoying the...

... whole drama, and I will enjoy it to my last breath - because there is nothing to lose. Whatever life can give, it has given to me. I want to taste death in the most beautiful way possible. And to be crucified for the sake of truth, for the sake of the future, for the sake of the evolution of human consciousness, is the only way one can conceive a beautiful death. Question 2: BELOVED OSHO, THIS NEW...

... die just from eating too much!" It is a security phenomenon which nature provides you with - to have some fat gathered around your bones in case you cannot get food. You can live for at least ninety days without food - you will become an absolute skeleton, but you can live for ninety days. Mind has created buffers to protect itself, because continuously, without your knowing, you are bombarded...

... happens. The moment the master is capable of creating trust, the disciple drops his defenses, drops his clothes, drops his knowledge. He becomes just a child again - innocent, alert, alive - a new beginning. The ordinary father and mother have given birth to your body - that is one life, which will end in death. Your father and mother are responsible for your birth and for your death. The master also...

... ordinary death only the body dies. If you go in, your mind dies. And one is afraid to die - your ego dies - and one is afraid to lose one's identity. And how much effort you have put to attain to a certain identity. One is a famous actor, another is a well-known politician. Somebody is very rich, somebody is very knowledgeable. You have put so much effort... and now I am telling you to come out of it...

... tremendous nothingness, a total nobodiness exists. Buddha calls it SHUNYA, nirvana. Everything has ceased: misery and joy, day and night, summer and winter, life and death, all are gone. The whole duality is transcended. Arup, feel blessed. Feel immensely fortunate if both disappear - although in the clinging it will look very crazy. First, to drop the mind looks very crazy. But then meditation is there to...

... conscious, and to become conscious needs great effort. Moreover, misery keeps you occupied so that you can avoid your inner hollowness. It keeps you engaged. If you are not miserable you will have to go in, and you are afraid because there is great emptiness. It is a kind of death to go in. The mystics have called it "the great death" - greater than the so-called ordinary death, because in the...

... hypnosis. You have been hypnotized and told that you are a Mohammedan, and the hypnosis is prolonged your whole life. It goes so deep that you may even be ready to die for it. People die for religion, for country, for flags; for many nonsenses they are ready to die. It seems as if their life has no meaning at all, as if they are ready to die for any excuse - any excuse will do. Your identity is arbitrary...

... people look happier than ever? Their faces are more lighted up, they smile more. Suddenly their life has zest, enthusiasm, energy. They are no more dragging; their life has meaning. War gives them meaning. The death and the danger surrounding them helps them to come alive. After each ten years a great world war is needed. If it is not happening now it is not because of humanity and its changed...

... unaware what is happening. It will be simply a chaos. And within ten minutes all life would have disappeared from the earth. Birds, animals, trees, men, women, all would be gone. What is the point if you cannot enjoy? The joy is when you see people in gas chambers evaporating. In Germany, the gas chambers were made in such a way that people could come and see in. The people who were going to die were...

... have to drop many stupid ideas that you have been carrying all along. You will have to drop all that you have been told and taught. You will have to drop all that you have been educated for. Your whole society is rooted, based, in the idea of making your life comfortable. Not true, but only comfortable, convenient, so that you can live conveniently and you can die conveniently. Your whole society is...

... trouble; you won't lose anything more. But this is our philosophy, our basic philosophy of life: Don't make trouble. So follow the tradition, follow the conventional. Be a conformist. Be a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. Go to the church. Don't make trouble. Don't stir the waters. Just keep yourself somehow alive, and die without making any trouble. Then you cannot come out of your misery. To come out of...

... there is light. Yes, there is light outside but that light is not going to enlighten you, that light is not going to help you at all. You need inner light, a light which has its source in your very being, a light which cannot be extinguished even by death, a light which is eternal. And you have it, the potential is there! You are born with it, but you are keeping it behind you; you never look at it...

... realm of light. And that light is true light, far truer than the light of the sun or the moon, because all the lights that are outside are temporal; they are only for the time being. Even the sun is going to die one day. Not only do small lamps exhaust their resources and die in the morning, even the sun with such an immense resource is dying every day. Sooner or later it will become a black hole; it...

... will die and no light will come from it. Howsoever long it lives it is not eternal. The inner light is eternal; it has no beginning, no end. It is synonymous with God. And I am not interested in telling you to drop your faults, to make yourself good, to improve your character - no, not at all. I am not interested in your character at all; I am interested only in your consciousness. Become more alert...

... are not interested in Christ, they are interested in the cross. Hence I don't call Christianity "Christianity," I call it "Crossianity." If Jesus had not been crucified there would have been no such thing as you find all over the world in the name of Christianity. These people became interested in death; this interest is morbid. They became interested in worshipping death. Jesus...

... is secondary, the cross became primary. Because he was crucified, because he suffered, he caught their attention. There are people who are always interested in suffering, in misery, in death. My interest is not death, my interest is life. I love life unconditionally. I celebrate death too, just because it is part of life - not as death but as part of life, as the finishing touch, as the crescendo...

..., as the ultimate flowering of life. If you have lived rightly, your death is a beautiful phenomenon. But my interest basically, intrinsically, is life. The mala represents life, the cross represents death. The mala represents a certain art of making life a garland. The beads are the moments. Each bead has to be perfect; each moment has to be lived in its perfection. And there is a thread running...

... a somebody; a man who has died long ago as a separate entity, who does not exist anymore as an 'I' but is only an open space. That is where you have to reach, that is where you have to arrive. That is your ultimate home. The mala is not a cross. Christianity worships death and that is where it has gone wrong. It has lost the joy of life, the laughter, the humor. It has lost contact with Jesus. It...

... of life, when death starts knocking on your doors, when one foot is already in the grave - then you should become a sannyasin. And here they see young people, so young they cannot believe their eyes. Why have these people become sannyasins? This is not the time for sannyas! I am trying to create a totally new concept of sannyas. Because they are against life... of course, if you are against life...