... actions." What matters ultimately and always is the man within, and not his actions. [Somebody had brought beautiful flowers for Osho.] The flowers are beautiful, but your plucking them was not a beautiful act. For whom beauty is equivalent to Love, it is impossible to sever the flowers from their plants. The plucking of flowers hastens their death; and nothing is uglier than taking life, even of a...

... our destination, nor are we prepared to alight. When death comes to rob us of life, we are caught unawares. And then, belatedly, we realise that we had forgotten about death; we had forgotten to prepare ourselves for dying. Question 3: SOMEONE QUESTIONED, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THIS ALERTNESS AND PREPAREDNESS? First thing to bear in mind is that life is a journey. We begin at one point and move...

... at thoughts impersonally, you sever connection with them. Whenever a thought or desire is born in you, watch its birth, see it grow before the mind's eye, and then observe its decline, and the final departure. Repeat this observation with the second thought that enters the mind; watch also its birth, and growth, decline and death. Thus, in a quiet and detached manner - -that is, as a witness...

... loss of 'I'. For, the gain is eternal peace, bliss and consciousness. Coming back to your question, I do not know if I have shown you an easy and convenient way to know the Truth; but easy or not, it is the way. Find out for yourself. Question 16: SOMEONE ASKED OSHO'S VIEWS ON DEATH AND DYING. There is nothing as sure as death. Where there is life, there is bound to be death. He who bears not this...

... fact in mind, wastes life, whereas he who knows this truth, obtains that which is immortal. I do not feel depressed at anybody's death, because there is no need to feel anything about it. However, it is a matter of sorrow, no doubt, if I see a life wasted. We have not to grieve after a dead body, but over a wasted life. You know, King Janak was called 'videh', i.e., without or beyond the body. Once...

... had purposely got the dishes prepared without salt! He sat down to lunch with the minister and fed him with all affection. The minister somehow ate the food, finished the lunch; but all absent-mindedly, for, with every minute that passed, he was coming closer to death! After the lunch, the king asked, 'My man! Was there anything lacking in the meal you had?' As though coming out of unconsciousness...

... or sleep, the young minister said, 'Sorry, Your Excellency! You fed me well, but I have no recollection of the taste of various dishes. The thought of dying this evening has deprived me of all other thoughts. Please excuse my absentmindedness.' King Janak laughed on hearing the minister's reply, and said, 'This was in answer to your question of a few days ago. Do not worry: you are not going to die...

... today. I had planned this strategy lo make you confront death. He who sees death close-by, becomes body-less despite having a body. And he who, by practice, loses awareness of the body, is not aware of death either. In such a state of consciousness, the individual attains that which is immortal. Question 17: SOMEONE ASKED OSHO TO EXPLAIN THE THINKING MECHANISM. First of all, let me tell you that most...

... and the immortal, between the unreal and the real. He who has lost this type of ability to think, wastes his life on the transitory; whereas, he who is able to think, seeks for the permanent and not the illusory. After all, what is transient has no real existence; only that which is permanent really exists. Life belongs to that which is eternal: death to that which is ephemeral. The non-thinking...

... have a bun!" Buddha says: THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY. SEEKING WEALTH, HE DESTROYS HIMSELF. THE FOOL IS HIS OWN ENEMY... for many reasons. First: he will die without being born. He will die as a seed. He will never bloom, he will never come to flowers and to fruits. He will never know what fulfillment is. His life will be a sheer wastage. His life will be a desert without any oasis. He will not...

... extrovert; he never looks in. He accumulates everything on the outside. His whole life is devoted to money, power, prestige, and then one day death comes, but then it is too late. When death comes, he realizes that all that he has been doing has been simply stupid because all is slipping out of his fingers. All that he has been doing was making sandcastles. Just a blow of death, and everything disappears...

... faster. As death comes closer he runs faster so that he can accumulate a little more wealth, a little more respect, respectability, so that he can become a president or a prime minister. But death destroys everything - your presidents, your prime ministers. You may be rich; death is not going to favor you. Before death, everybody is the same - rich or poor, knowledgeable or not knowledgeable, famous or...

... not famous. Buddha says: If you are putting your energies into such projects which can be destroyed by death, then you are destroying yourself. Attain something that is imperishable. Attain to something that death cannot snatch away from you. Realize something that will go beyond death with you. Realize something that even fire cannot burn, swords cannot cut, atom bombs, hydrogen bombs cannot...

... politicians. And then they become old and then they die. Maybe it lasts only for a few weeks, but in those few weeks they have done everything! There are insects that will live only for a few hours, but in those few hours is condensed your whole life: boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and all the fights.... I have heard they go even to marriage counselors, they consult sexologists! One woman...

... which you have been seeking for lives together. But you can miss the gate if you are so miserly or so cowardly that you cannot take the jump into sannyas. Then what kind of love are you talking about? Love knows how to be committed, how to be involved. Love knows how to die and how to be reborn. Love is ready to pass through any fire because love knows, "Nothing can destroy me, not even fire can...

... AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH HIM TILL HIS DEATH. Friends, One of the would-be sannyasins, Graeme McIntyre, has left his body in deep meditation in this Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, amongst other meditators, in deep peace and silence. He had expressed his desire to become a sannyasin that very evening. Sannyas does not need to be an outward thing, just the longing for it is...

... also the right space in which to leave the body and go into the beyond, disappear into the ultimate existence. It is a moment of rejoicing. So tomorrow, when you say goodbye to him on a funeral pyre, rejoice, and dance, and celebrate. Such a death is rare. Very few human beings are so blessed. And when the funeral pyre's flames start moving upwards, remember why in this country for thousands of years...

... searching for that missing step in Peking, and he had found a fifty-thousand-year-old skeleton of a man. The pope asked him not to report it to the scientists: "Don't write it in any paper, and don't publish anything that you have found till your death." This is defense of truth. His researches, which have now been published after his death, show that the earth and the universe are not only six...

... death of Jesus Christ, three hundred years after, it was through voting that the Christian priests decided that he was a divine personality -- by voting. And who were these people who were voting? They knew nothing of divineness. This has never happened anywhere else. Mahavira was never elected as a tirthankara, Buddha was not elected by the masses as an awakened man. Poor Jesus not only suffered on...

... service for you for seventy, eighty, or a hundred years -- and you are not even grateful. All the religions treat the body as the enemy, so torture it. Torturing is virtue. Rejoicing in your body, in its health, in its youth, in its old age, rejoicing in your body even in death, is what I teach. Christianity is basically masochistic -- torture your body. The more you torture your body the greater saint...

... into paradise. So sacrifice is supported in the name of the eternal life that you will get after death. And suffering also is supported: it is only a question of a few moments; your life of seventy years is nothing but a few moments compared to the eternity of existence. Suffer patiently. Patience is one of the pillars of Christianity, and patience is against all rebellion, all revolution, all change...

... hundred and eighty. So science seems to be perfectly right: if sufficient care is taken, life can last three hundred years. Just think of Albert Einstein living three hundred years! Science would have benefited immensely; miracles would have happened. But fate is strange: by the time a man becomes experienced, death overtakes him and the experienced man is replaced by a baby, absolutely inexperienced...

.... Now you start from the beginning again -- ABC -- and by the time the baby reaches to the point where it can contribute something to humanity, to the world, to the beautification of it, death overtakes the man. But Christianity will not allow it. It does not allow birth control, even seeing clearly that if the population goes on growing the whole of humanity is going to suffer utter starvation, and...

... billions of people will die within the coming ten years. Without any third world war people will be dying on their own. But Christianity goes on insisting, because the Bible says, "Multiply. Have as many children as you can." And because God creates life, Christianity's argument is, "You should not stop the birth of a child." But do you see the contradiction? Killing is allowed...

..., sacrifice is allowed, because nothing is dying. You will have an eternal life in paradise. So what is the problem? -- if a child is stopped, he will have eternal life or may move to another womb. If the spirit does not die when you kill a man as a sacrifice, why should the spirit die by birth control methods? In fact, the spirit would not enter into the womb at all. But don't change anything, that is the...

... fundamental motto of Christianity -- and that means death to humanity, death to this beautiful planet. Christianity is the most out-of-date religion. All its assumptions are absurd. For example, the myth is that Mary was assumed into heaven alive, she never died. Jesus ascended into heaven and then he assumed Mary there. In life he was misbehaving with his mother -- calling her "that woman" -- and...

... of the road, you have to continue the discipline of meditation. Yakusan said, "THE EYES ARE ALRIGHT, ONLY THE DISCIPLINE IS LACKING." HEARING THIS, DOGO IMMEDIATELY LEFT THE MONASTERY IN PURSUIT OF HIS BROTHER. WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM THE FOLLOWING DAY, DOGO TOLD UNGAN WHAT YAKUSAN HAD SAID. THE TWO BROTHERS TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO YAKUSAN, AND REMAINED WITH HIM TILL HIS DEATH...

... have clarity, space, open sky -- but don't stop there. You have to open your wings and fly into the eternity of existence. He immediately turned around, with Dogo, his brother, and they remained with Yakusan until his death. This will give you some taste of Zen. It is not an argument, it is not a conversion. It is seeing things through and through, straightforward. Basho wrote: THOUGH MY SHANKS ARE...

... smiled - a sweet smile that only ladies know how to do - and said, 'I am sorry. It seems I am turning existentialist.' Right now this is the situation. Existentialism has only been talking about vulgar things, the ill, pathological, negative - the dark side of life. It seems as if death is the object of meditation. But if you meditate long enough on death you will be surprised that in the very centre...

... of death arises life. Berdyaev says: 'Love in particular seemed to me to carry within itself the seed of anguish and I have frequently been amazed that people could experience the exaltation of love as sheer joy and happiness. Eros is in anguish for it is concerned with and deeply rooted in the mystery of time and eternity. It concerns time athirst for eternal fulfilment and yet never attaining it...

... alonenesses sitting together. And each making the other more aware of his own aloneness or her own aloneness. Love is a great experience. It makes you feel one absolute truth - that you are born alone, that you live alone, that you die alone. And there is no way to drown this aloneness in drugs - whether those drugs are manufactured by nature in the trees or by factories or in the body. There is no way to...

... become very smooth. And now the journey will be a joy, it will not be an anxiety. Alone, it will create anguish. And then at the ultimate point the Master is needed finally to give you a push - because at the ultimate point everybody hesitates. It is death. The Sufis call it the great death. It is no ordinary death - in ordinary death only the body dies. It is the great death. In this death even the...

... self dies, you are utterly annihilated. That's why Buddha called this state nirvana-the blowing out of the candle. You are utterly annihilated. But only out of that annihilation does something arise. A great Sufi Master, Master Farid Al-Din' Attar, relates the tale of the Phoenix. It is a symbolical, mythological tale of the ultimate utter death of the disciple. The Phoenix is a wonderful bird. It...

... experience of ecstasy. The Phoenix lives about a thousand years. It knows the time of its death, and when this knowledge is tearing at its heart is gathers a hundred trees, heaps them in one spot, and begins a fire. It then places itself in the middle of the fire. Through each of the holes in its beak it sounds a plaintive cry, out of the depth of its soul it utters its dying lament, and then begins to...

... tremble. At the sound of the music all the birds-gather. The wild beasts assemble to be present at the death of the Phoenix. At this time they all become aware of their own death. When the moment arrives for it to draw its last breath, the Phoenix spreads its tail and feathers and with these it kindles a fire which spreads swiftly to the wood-pile and begins to blaze. Soon the fire and bird become one...

..., but that eternal energy takes a new form, a birth. It is a resurrection. That is the last thing the Master has to do - to help you die, to help you disappear. Sufis say that without a Master there is no way, because without the Master it is almost an impossibility for a seeker to reach. The third question: Question 3: YOU SAID THAT LIFE IS A PILGRIMAGE WITHOUT A GOAL. IS THIS ONLY FOR THE...

... disappears but the song continues. The song cannot die because the song is out of God. The dancer cannot live eternally because the dancer is only out of your mind, just a fiction. The dance is the reality, the dancer is just a fiction - hence Sufis have developed many methods through dance: the whirling dervish, the turn. What happens in the turn? What happens for the whirling dervish when he goes on...

.... Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. PITIFUL ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT KNOW NIRVANA AND ITS ETERNAL FELICITY! HOW THEY GRIEVE AT LIFE, DEATH, AND MUTABILITY! SHAKA, AND AMIDA TOO, WERE ORIGINALLY HUMAN BEINGS; HAVE I NOT ALSO THE FORM OF A MAN? WONDERFUL, INDEED, THE LOTUS FLOWER OF THE LAW! HOWEVER MANY AGES MAY PASS, STILL THAT SAME COLOUR. THE CRESCENT MOON BECOMES FULL, AND WANES, AND NOTHING IS LEFT...

... relieved man of God, and Buddha relieved God of man. Buddha's approach is such that if Friedrich Nietzsche had been born in a Buddhist land, he could not have written that God is dead and that from now onward man is free. There would have been no need. Buddha helped God disappear without any bloodshed. Nietzsche had to kill. Nietzsche says: God is dead; and not that he has died a natural death - we HAD...

... be the universal. You will not be separate from existence, you will find yourself one with the whole. Now the sutras: PITIFUL ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT KNOW NIRVANA AND ITS ETERNAL FELICITY! HOW THEY GRIEVE AT LIFE, DEATH, AND MUTABILITY! PEOPLE SUFFER BECAUSE THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN their innermost no-self. Because they have forgotten their innermost presence, they have forgotten that they are one with...

... ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT KNOW NIRVANA AND ITS ETERNAL FELICITY! HOW THEY GRIEVE AT LIFE, DEATH, AND MUTABILITY! WHAT is PEOPLE'S GRIEF? What is their misery? Their misery is: they have created an ego. They HAD to create it - because they don't know their self, and one cannot live without a self. They don't know who they are, and one cannot live, cannot exist, without knowing who one is. So what to do...

... you, only then can your ego be supported. And the problem is that you cannot keep this ego when you are dying - because when you are dying, how can you support something? So when death comes, ego starts disappearing. You cannot pedal any more - how can you go on bicycling when you are dying? Hence the fear of death - because death will destroy your ego. Death cannot destroy YOu but death is going to...

... destroy your ego. Hence the fear of death. Everybody is afraid of death. And be mindful: not only are you afraid of death, you are afraid of life too. Ego is afraid of life too, because in deep life experiences also it dies. When you really fall in love... why do you call it 'fall'? You fall from the ego. When you fall in love, the ego is shattered. That's why the real egoist never loves anybody - he...

..., death, mutability. And the irony is that deep inside there is a space which is eternal, which never changes. There is a space in you which is timeless, is never affected by any changes in time, through time; remains transcendental, beyond. There is a space in you which is life, pure life, and knows nothing of death. There is a space in you which is pure love! And you are afraid of love and you are...

... afraid of life and you are afraid of death and you are afraid of change. This whole thing is happening because you have created a false substitute. The false substitute seems to be appealing because everybody is having it. People imitate. Have you just watched it? If your neighbour purchases a bigger car than you, suddenly you also need a bigger car. Just a moment before, there was no need; just a...

... LAW! HOWEVER MANY AGES MAY PASS, STILL THAT SAME COLOUR. And it is unchanging, it is timeless, it is eternal. Once you have seen that flowering inside, death disappears. Once you have seen that flowering inside, fear disappears. Once you have seen that flowering inside, your life becomes fragrant. Your life becomes a song, a celebration. Then life has benediction and beauty and beatitude. This inner...

... very famous man. We were discussing and he was saying: No, this is a science. I said: You do one thing; you predict one year for me and I will contradict it completely. If you say that I will not die, I will die; if you say that I will die, I will not die. You predict one year and then decide. He said: Okay, I will come back. He never came again. I inquired many times, because before that he often...

... OUT A MOUND: THIS IS YOUR FATHER'S TOMB. HE COULD NOT HELP WEEPING ALOUD. Your father will die someday, everybody has to die - and you will weep and you will cry. Are you certain he was your father? - or has somebody played a joke? How can you be certain that he was your father? That is the difference between belief and faith; A woman knows who the mother is - that is faith; and a father simply...

... and then you cry and weep, just thoughts and then you laugh and enjoy, just thoughts and you are happy, just thoughts and you are miserable. Somebody tells you: You are beautiful - and you are so happy; somebody says: You look ugly - and you are so unhappy. Just words! What are you doing? Become a little more alert, otherwise you will be very embarrassed. When death comes everybody is embarrassed...

.... The whole life has gone to the dogs. As far as I know, at the moment of death there is less a fear and more an embarrassment. The whole thing is gone! You were thinking that your wife would go with you, because she always said: I cannot live without you, and she is already planning to get remarried. Mulla Nasrudin's wife was dying and she said: Nasrudin, you must remember at least one thing. I know...

... you, for a wife, for a husband, for money, for prestige. You destroyed your whole life, the whole opportunity. One feels embarrassed at death. You may feel afraid of death right now, but when death comes, nothing can be done - one accepts it. But then the whole life seems to be absurd, meaningless. THE OLD MAN WAS VERY EMBARRASSED. WHEN HE REACHED YEN, AND REALLY SAW THE CAPITAL, AND THE SHRINE OF...

... not been destroyed by death. By and by her tears dried - she started to understand what Buddha meant. By the time she had completed the circle of the whole town, she was a different woman. She went to Buddha and Buddha asked: Have you brought the mustard seeds? She started laughing and she said: You played a trick, now initiate me into SANNYAS. I have come to understand that life is death. My child...

... has died and you were really compassionate. Even if you had done a miracle and the child had become alive, it would not have led anywhere - the child would have had to die again. It would not have been a real miracle and it would have deceived me further. You have made me aware that whosoever is born is going to die. The child has died, the child's father has died; I also am going to die sooner or...

... THE BREATH OF ALL BREATH." I. 57. sadho bhai, jivat hi karo asa O FRIEND! HOPE FOR HIM WHILST YOU LIVE, KNOW WHILST YOU LIVE, UNDERSTAND WHILST YOU LIVE: FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES. IF YOUR BONDS BE NOT BROKEN WHILST LIVING, WHAT HOPE OF DELIVERANCE IN DEATH? IT IS BUT AN EMPTY DREAM, THAT THE SOUL SHALL HAVE UNION WITH HIM BECAUSE IT HAS PASSED FROM THE BODY. IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS...

... FOUND THEN, IF NOT, WE DO BUT GO TO DWELL IN THE CITY OF DEATH. IF YOU HAVE UNION NOW, YOU SHALL HAVE IT HEREAFTER. BATHE IN THE TRUTH, KNOW THE TRUE GURU, HAVE FAITH IN THE TRUE NAME! KABIR SAYS: "IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE QUEST WHICH HELPS I AM THE SLAVE OF THIS SPIRIT OF THE QUEST." HERE I GO AGAIN - I will sing the same old song. But yet it is not the same old song; it cannot be. Manu says...

... beautiful. It exists through the opposites. It is vast; it contains contradictions. It is new and old both. It is life and death both, together. So I say to you I will sing the same old song and yet it is not going to be the same. Listen attentively. Before we enter into the words of mystic poet Kabir, it will be good to know something about Kabir. Much is not known - fortunately - because when you know...

... his disciples. The Hindus were claiming his body, the Mohammedans were claiming his body, and there is a beautiful parable about it. Kabir had left a message about his death. He knew it was going to happen - people are foolish, they will claim the body and there is going to be conflict - so he had left a message: "If there is any conflict, just cover my body with a sheet and wait, and the...

... clothes - "There is no need. We will take care of you." But he will laugh and he will say, "It is better to continue as God has willed me. I have no desire to be anything else. Let me be whatsoever I am, whatsoever God wants me to be. If he wants me to be a weaver, that's why I am a weaver. I was born a weaver, and I will die as a weaver." He continued in his ordinary way. He will go...

... breathes in; when he breathes out, the whole of existence appears. It is one breath going in and out. When God breathes out, you are born; when he breathes in, you disappear in death. But you never leave God. The outgoing breath is as much his as the ingoing breath. And one has to understand this dynamism, this dialectics. Kabir is neither for the world nor for renunciation. And his assertions are very...

... you. But if you are false, then you are trying to deceive, and you cannot deceive existence. That is not possible. You can deceive only yourself. And you will go on piling up deceptions upon deceptions around you, and you will be choked, suffocated in your own deceptions - you will die under the burden of your own deceptions. "I AM NEITHER IN TEMPLE NOR IN MOSQUE: 1AM NEITHER IN KAABA NOR IN...

...; you will not think even for a single moment. You will drop dead. You will say, "Okay, I am ready to die, but I am not ready to lose you." This urgency is what makes a religious person. "IF THOU ART A TRUE SEEKER, THOU SHALT AT ONCE SEE ME." At once. Immediately. In a split second. ... THOU SHALT MEET ME IN A MOMENT OF TIME. KABIR SAYS: "O FRIEND! GOD IS THE BREATH OF ALL...

... with him. Sixty years continuously, your whole life.... Now you are eighty years old, any day death will come - you wasted your whole life for something which is not." He became a little worried about it. He said, "Yes, but nobody told me. You make me very afraid. Yes, that's true - sixty years." I told him, "Even six minutes of so much intensity would have been enough to know...

....'" "Now I can say...." This is the way of the mystics; this has always been their way. They believe in experience. Whatsoever Kabir says is based, rooted, in his experience. There are people who go on arguing, debating whether God is or not, whether the soul exists after death or not, whether there is heaven or hell or not. These are foolish things, stupid, a wastage of time. Kabir is...

... realistic; be existential. O FRIEND! HOPE FOR HIM WHILST YOU LIVE; KNOW WHILST YOU LIVE, UNDERSTAND WHILST YOU LIVE: FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES. Don't talk about what happens after death and don't think about a god who sits somewhere in a high throne in the skies: "... FOR IN LIFE DELIVERANCE ABIDES" - in life there is liberation. Life itself is a liberating experience. If you live totally...

..., it liberates. IF YOUR BONDS BE NOT BROKEN WHILST LIVING, WHAT HOPE OF DELIVERANCE IN DEATH? So be here-now! Do something right now! IT IS BUT AN EMPTY DREAM, THAT THE SOUL SHALL HAVE UNION WITH HIM BECAUSE IT HAS PASSED FROM THE BODY: IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS FOUND THEN, IF NOT, WE DO BUT GO TO DWELL IN THE CITY OF DEATH. "IF HE IS FOUND NOW, HE IS FOUND THEN.... " Now or never. Let this...

... message get roots into your hearts: now or never. God is now-here. Your clever mind tries to postpone. You say, "We will see; when death comes and when we go and encounter God, we will see. Right now there is no problem." No, the problem is right now. Are you living God right now or not? That is the problem. If you are not living him right now, you will never be able to live him, because he is...

... a dead structure around you. You will be flowing, you will live moment to moment with awareness, spontaneity. You will be response-able. Ordinarily, whatsoever you call moral is just repression and nothing else. I have heard about a lady who was a paragon of virtue on earth, but upon her death was dismayed to find herself in hell. She phoned St. Peter, who begged her to be patient, because heaven...

... now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter. BATHE IN THE TRUTH.... Now. Bathe in the truth now. It is showering. A handsome but bashful young man from the Bible Belt was recently hired by a firm of certified accountants. Shortly thereafter, he reported to the office manager, "I must tell you that some of the...

... MUCH AFRAID OF SEX, BECAUSE I AM AFRAID OF DEATH. I HAVE BEEN TOLD SINCE MY CHILDHOOD BY MY SOCIETY AND RELIGION THAT IT IS SEX THAT BRINGS DEATH. WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT IT? Suresh, can't you see a simple fact, that even your great saints die? Buddha and Christ and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu -- where are they?If it is through sex that death comes, then your celibates must be alive, they will never die...

... have yet to sing many songs, I have yet to paint many paintings, there is yet much in my heart which needs to bloom. Send me back, I am not perfect! Send me back." That was his last prayer; he died praying this way. It is one of the most beautiful prayers and one of the most beautiful ways to die. How can one thank God more than this? "Your world was beautiful, I loved your world; I was not...

...." Just as you blow out a candle and suddenly the light is gone, gone forever, has disappeared into nothingness -- that is nirvana. All the buddhas say whosoever becomes perfect moves into nirvana, goes into annihilation. Don't hanker for a perfect painting, Murti, otherwise the painter will die. And you have yet to sing many songs. And the painting cannot be perfect, the song and the dance cannot...

... town, wherever he would go, "Please don't ask these eleven questions." In those eleven questions, all important questions were included: God, soul, death, life, truth, everything important was included. Why? "Because," he would say, "they cannot be answered. Not that I don't know, but to bring them to words is impossible." There was an ancient mysterious wall which stood...

.... Then all the Catholic monks will live forever and will make the world so ugly. Then all the nuns will live forever -- the world will become a monastery, monks and nuns, monks and nuns. Everybody dies, death has nothing to do with sex. Death has something to do with birth, and birth has already happened, so death cannot be avoided now. One part has already happened and the second part cannot be...

... the foolish ideas that you have been taught. This has been done to many people in different ways. A thousand and one inhibitions and taboos have been created, and the best way to make you afraid of sex is to associate it with death. This is the simple, simple logic priests have discovered. And priests have been the most cunning people in the world. They must have discovered in the very beginning...

... that if you join sex with death, then you can make people afraid of sex. Once they are afraid of sex, they are afraid of intelligence, creativity, they are afraid of being, they are afraid of freedom, they are ready to become slaves. Death has nothing to do with sex. Sex or no sex, death is going to happen. In fact, if you can move deep into sex and transform its energy into love, and can move deep...

... into love and transform its energy into prayer, you will come to know that there is no death. That is the only way to know something of immortality. Two men were talking and it came out that one of them was a Mormon. "How many wives do you have?" "Only one." "How many wives does your father have?" "Only one," he replied. "But my grandfather had sixty-five...

... seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome. But something was going to happen - something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection - but something of tremendous import was around...

... millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist. Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that's why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die - and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths. Sometimes the body died...

... suffers tremendous pain - the birth pangs. I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was - maybe it is going to be my death - but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those...

... into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together... the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say 'the creator and the creation meet.' It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations...

... sun - so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever. Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love... Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is...

..., sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained. That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously. Now this sutra. THE BUDDHA SAID: LOOK UP TO HEAVEN AND DOWN ON EARTH AND THEY WILL...

... death procession. People are standing in a death queue. Look around - everything rushing towards death. Everything is fleeting, momentary, fluxlike; nothing seems to be of eternal value, nothing seems to abide, nothing seems to hold, nothing seems to remain. Everything just goes on and on and on, and goes on changing. What else is a dream? Buddha says this life, this world that you live in, that you...

.... And it seems absolutely rational and logical to have both the laws, because each law has to be counterbalanced by another law in the opposite direction. If there is light there is darkness, if there is life there is death, if there is gravitation there must be levitation that pulls you up. There must be ways where a person is pulled up. There are stories... especially the story about Mohammed - that...

... cannot play with death, you cannot mock death, you cannot fool death. How can you live in a false way if you cannot even die in a false way? If you cannot die in a false way, it is almost impossible to live in a false way. You create more misery around you, nothing is solved through it; everything becomes more and more a riddle. The more you try to solve, the more insanity is created, because within...

... there. You will feel as if your past was just a dream that you dreamed, it was never you; the identity is broken. Hence, Jesus is like a fire. If you come near a Jesus be ready to die, because Jesus cannot mean anything other than death to you. And rebirth is possible only if you die. If you are afraid to die, escape from a man like Jesus. Don't go near him - he is dangerous, he is like an abyss: you...

... HIDDEN THINGS SHALL BE REVEALED TO HIM. Man is born a slave, and remains a slave all his life - a slave of desires, lust, a slave of the body, or of the mind, but all the same, slavery continues. From the moment you are born to the moment you die, it is a long struggle against slavery. And religion consists of being free. Religion is freedom, freedom from all slavery. But man goes on playing with...

... will feel dizzy and fall into him. Jesus said: WHOEVER IS NEAR TO ME, IS NEAR TO THE FIRE... near to death, near to dying; the old disappearing, the baser metal dissolving. And immediately he says another thing. If you can tolerate the heat, the fire of a Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, then the second thing will immediately become possible for you. WHOEVER IS NEAR TO ME IS NEAR TO THE FIRE, AND WHOEVER...

... outside then it cannot remain forever, it can be only momentary. Ecstasy and bliss can remain permanently with you, eternally with you, non-temporally with you, only when you have come to realize them as your being - then nobody can take them. But that being needs a crystallization, needs a purification, it needs an alchemical transformation. The old must go for the new to come, the past must die for...

.... You come to the priest to be consoled because life is such a misery. The priest is therapeutic, he is a consoler. He listens to you and he says to you, "Don't be afraid. Just pray and God will do everything." He says to you, "Don't be afraid, God is compassionate. Your sins will be forgiven." If you are afraid of death, he says, "Don't be afraid, the soul is eternal, there...

... is no death to it." If you feel too guilty, he gives you means and ways to feel guilt-free. He says, "Donate some money to the temple, donate some money to the church. Donation is good, because that is how you negate your sins, through donation. Do something good: make a hospital, a school, go and serve the masses, the poor, the downtrodden, the ill." These are the ways to console...

... with the master, because then there is no conflict. Then there is no ego, the 'ego-trip' is finished, you have dropped out of it. And when you are not, that's what the surrender means: when you say, "I am not, you are, and lead me wheresoever.... I am not going to decide, you decide. I will simply follow like a shadow, I will be blind in my trust. Even if you say, 'Jump and die!' I will jump and...

... die. No longer will there be 'no' coming from me; my yes is final and total and absolute." This absolute yes is surrender. What does it mean? It means now the ego cannot persist in you, there is no meaning to it and there is no feeding it. If this can be done, then even in a single instant, when you are not, the doors are open and Jesus has entered you, the light of the Buddha has penetrated...