... shadow said, "It is for your benefit. I am your death, and tomorrow evening when the sun is setting I will come to meet you again. Just out of compassion I have come to tell you. You have been a good man. This is an exception -- I never tell people when they are going to die. So you have twelve hours -- if you want to do something, do it! This is your last day." He became so afraid that he...

... experience is the same. Spirituality means that you know that you are not only the body, that you are not only the mind; that body and mind will die because they were born. You were before your birth and you will be after your death -- and this experience comes while you are alive if you can enter into yourself in silence, in meditation. Spirituality is not a renunciation. It is not renouncing the world...

... that astrology has no truth. Astrology is man's weakness, because he cannot see the future and he wants to see it. He is always afraid to go astray. He wants to be certain that he is on the right path, yet the future is absolutely unknown, nothing can be predicted about it. But there are people who are always ready to exploit man's weaknesses. In life, only one thing is certain and that is death...

.... Everything else is uncertain, accidental. Man would have loved death to be uncertain and everything else to be certain. Astrology is his effort to make life a certainty. I am reminded of an old story. A great king dreamt that a black shadow was standing before him. Even in the dream he began trembling out of fear. He asked the shadow, "What is the point of making me so afraid in my sleep?" The...

... palace and this capital, as far away as possible." It appealed to the king. He left the astrologers to discuss and he escaped from the palace. When death is facing you, you don't feel thirsty, you don't feel hungry, you don't feel any need for rest. He wanted to go as far away as possible. He crossed the boundaries of his kingdom -- by the time the sun was setting he had reached hundreds of miles...

... shoulder. He looked back -- the old black shadow that he had seen in the dream was standing there, and said, "Your horse is really the best. Not only should you thank him, I also thank him, because I was very much worried. This is the place and this is the time where you have to die and I was worried how you would reach here. Your horse is a wonder: he brought you to the right point, at the right...

... time." Your whole life you are afraid of death. You keep yourself engaged, you don't want to recognize the fact that death is following like a shadow and nobody knows what is going to happen the next moment. People live in the world as if they are here forever and they know perfectly well that nobody is here forever. But these fearful people, fearful of death, of disease, of failure, become...

... astrologer. I said to the astrologer, "You can predict only for one year from today, and I will tell you in writing that whatever you predict I will do absolutely the opposite. Even to the point that if you say that I will live a long life, I will die. But I will not support any slavery." The man looked around at the people who had brought him and said, "Where have you brought me? This man...

.... So even the greatest psychologists of the West are far away from the Eastern mystics. The man who founded Western psychology, Sigmund Freud, was so much afraid of death that even the mention of the word "death" was enough to throw him into a coma; he would become unconscious, the paranoia of death was so great. It happened three times. He was so much afraid of ghosts that he would not...

... you see a tree, the way you see pillars, the way you see other people - they were trying to see the mind also as separate, and they succeeded. And the moment they succeeded in seeing the mind as separate, that was the death of the mind. In its place grows a clarity; intellect disappears, intelligence arises. One does not react anymore, one responds. Reaction is always based on your past experiences...

.... Your awareness cuts the connection, it becomes its death. The ancient scriptures of the East say that the master is a death - a very strange statement, but of immense meaning. The master is a death because meditation is the death of the mind, meditation is the death of the ego. Meditation is the death of your personality and the birth and the resurrection of your essential being. And to know that...

... fear arises in you as the fear that arises in a dewdrop which is slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. It is a kind of death; it will never be again a dewdrop. It is losing itself into the vastness of the ocean. But it is only in the beginning. Soon the realization turns into a totally different experience. When it happened to one of the mystics, one of the greatest mystics, Kabir, he wrote a...

... around. The gap is unbridgeable - the wife is in the world and he is in heaven - but the old habit ... The wife has even instructed him: "Don't stand in a crowd." And on the left certainly everybody was standing, so naturally he had to stand on the right. Habits die hard, and we have so many mundane habits that when you enter into the world of the sacred you will feel you are being robbed of...

... there is no harm if you don't return. We will miss you, but you will give us another occasion for celebration! Before this knocking out happens, a few laughters just to prepare the way. Even if you have to die, die laughing. And one never knows ... everybody has to die. Someday somebody is going to die here, but here death will be a totally different phenomenon. It will be a conscious death. And to...

.... Perhaps just as a flame can jump to another unlit candle if you bring them close enough, intimate enough ... The master's work is to bring the disciple close enough to his inner flame, which is a fire. Because it is a fire, only the daring ones come very close to the master, because it is going to burn you completely and utterly. It is going to be your death -- and a resurrection. The old, ancient...

... Sanskrit scriptures say that the master is a death, but that is incomplete. The master is also the eternal life, beyond death. But of course, first comes the death. The disciple comes close to the master and dies into his fire, into his love, and is resurrected in a totally new being: fresh, innocent, and a child of eternity. That's what Tozan's first statement is. TOZAN SAID: THE TEACHING OF THUSNESS...

... die consciously is the greatest achievement in life because then you are never born again, you enter into the eternal sources of life. That's why I tell a few jokes for you to remember in your eternity. Once in a while you may meet another sannyasin. And you will be able to recognize sannyasins when they tell jokes; nobody else is going to tell jokes. You will meet dry-bone sannyasins, old-type, old...

... has agreed to sell me half of the elephants!" Ivan Ivanovitch is sitting at home in his apartment in Moscow, when he hears a loud knock at the door. "Who is it?" asks Ivan nervously. "It is the Angel of Death!" booms a voice. "Ah, thank god," says Ivan. "I thought it was the KGB." Paddy and Sean are out duck hunting. They creep down to the edge of Farmer...

... not need any physical posture. And if the man who is on the deathbed can go on doing it and die doing it, he will have his best experience of life, in death. And he will wake up in the new womb witnessing his breath. That continuity even goes on when your consciousness leaves one body and moves into another womb. Its riches are innumerable. (Tape side C) But every scientist compulsorily must be...

... interest in anything that is in the service of death, destructive. You cannot force a meditator to make atom bombs, nuclear weapons - impossible. It is possible today, because inside there is nobody to say no. It is possible today because the ambition is there, the great job is there, publicity is there, the Nobel prize is there - respectability is there and these are your considerations. If you want to...

... have touched the very heart of existence. And you know now life is eternal; death is only a change of form. But this life is not available to your crude instruments. It is too subtle, your instruments are too crude. It needs subtle instruments, and that's what meditations are. And once the experience is there, the clarity comes: what is mind, what is no-mind, what is consciousness and what is super...

... not help, it injures. So one thing - if it moves inwards, it becomes complete. Then the truth has both an inner heartbeat and an outer body. This is one side. On the other side, if science becomes whole, religions have to die. They don't have any function, because science can do far better than these old religions have been doing. So to me it is a double-edged sword; on the one hand it will destroy...

... man, it will be simply the science of the inner. No question of Christianity, no question of Hinduism. All those dodos can jump in any lake. And they will not die until science accepts the responsibility of going in. Because that field is left uncovered. Then it can be exploited by all kinds of conmen. That's what your so-called religious saints are: conmen, exploiting people for centuries. But once...

... optional, because in his hands are now life and death. And if he is not aware of his own life, how can he be in the service of the life that is all around? If he is aware of his own life, then he is aware of the life of plants, of the life of the mountains, of the life of animals, of other human beings. Then he cannot do anything against life. Now in such an advanced technological age we can produce...

... is possible that the earth may die and those stars will never come to know about it. By the time their rays reach it, it will have happened; it lived, it evolved, it destroyed itself. In such a vast universe, no scientist even suspects that there is, anywhere, consciousness. Now, to destroy this consciousness is simply the uttermost stupidity that man can do. Anything - communism, democracy...

... too. But rather than writing a petition to the Supreme Court, it would be more dignified for those twenty nuclear physicists to stop working. It is better to be beggars on the street and declare clearly to the American government: "We can only create nuclear energy in the service of life - we refuse to serve death." Just writing a petition won't help. Nothing else happened - the petition...

... house was taken away and then finally he was thrown into Siberia - just to live there and wait for death. And in Siberia he is not the only scientist; three other Nobel prize-winners are in the same situation. When the Nobel prize was given to them the government was unwilling and wanted them to refuse, and they did not refuse; they are also there. So there is a possibility that the new generation can...

... certainly be changed. The old generation can also be made aware that at least they should refuse to work in the service of death. And they should say to their government, "We are ready to work, we will change your nuclear energy towards creativity, rather than destruction." The intelligentsia has to create the atmosphere. Universities have to wake up. Every university has to fight, and every...

... intelligent person who is around the world doing any kind of creative work has to join hands and create such an atmosphere around the earth that the politicians start feeling ashamed of what they are doing, that they start feeling guilty. And it is not difficult. When it is a question of life and death, it can be done. Then everything is easy. And I have enough sannyasins around the world, whom I can make...

... else to do but to be a sheep." Nobody thinks about the fact that by reducing human beings to sheep you are not saving them, you are destroying them. You are destroying their integrity, you are destroying their self-respect and you are making them slaves. And the bargain is a promised paradise after death. Nobody comes back to say if these saviors are helping anybody or if they have just cheated...

... town to town, city to city, declaring, "I am the savior. Whoever wants to be saved, just come and follow me." People listened, nobody objected - because the man was saying, "If you have any doubt just come and follow me, and you will see that you are saved" - but everybody was busy. A life is such that it is never complete. A thousand and one things are always incomplete. If death...

... were to wait for you to complete your things, nobody would have ever died. But death simply comes, without giving even a week's notice. So you have to leave all things incomplete. But when it is a question of your choice, you would like first to clean the whole mess that you have made of your life - which you can never clean, because it is you who is the maker of it. Even by cleaning it you will be...

... of being a savior needs no qualifications. I tried, and I was successful because nobody followed. You destroyed my whole business - you killed me! You are such a stubborn fellow. I was thinking that you would go away after one year, two years, three years; but you are such an adamant person that six years have passed. Now it is certain - unless I die, you cannot leave. "So it is better to say...

... man? And every morning you are doing exercises and becoming stronger - the savior is going to die and the follower is becoming more and more strong." And he said, "I am becoming stronger so that in case you really want to save me I will be in the right shape. Entering into paradise tattered does not look right. In your situation, I would rather go to hell, not to heaven - just look at your...

... WAS LIKE DECIDING TO DIE AND GO ON SUFFERING, OR COME OUT OF IT. I LET YOU COME IN TOTALLY, AND BECAME DROWNED IN YOUR LOVE: THE CANCER DISAPPEARED. THE LAST SIX MONTHS, EVEN WHEN IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO SEE YOU, I FELT YOU VERY CLOSE TO ME. SOME FRIENDS OF MINE ARE SANNYASINS, AND WHEN I TELL THEM THIS, THEY SAY I AM RUNNING AWAY FROM REALITY. SOMETIMES I THINK, AND HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT WHAT I FEEL...

.... ARE THEY RIGHT? WHAT IS REALITY? Always listen to your own experience, because that is reality. You had cancer. And it often happens that cancer can become a great opportunity, because now death is certain. Now there is no question of holding yourself back - death is going to take you away anyway. And because death was so close, you remembered me more, you loved me more - because there was no more...

... - people go on from their cradle to the grave. It is a long journey, yet sleeping, they manage. They reach to the grave - or wherever they reach it turns out to be the grave. But a disease like cancer gives a totally new opportunity. You were not aware, so aware, so intensely aware of death; then suddenly you find you have cancer. Now all engagements of your life - the tickets that you have purchased for...

... the theater, for the football match, for the boxing match - simply become meaningless. You were preparing for an examination, now it is useless. You were getting ready to fight an election, it no longer makes any sense. Now death is so strong - and surrounds you - that everything in your life is nullified, is cancelled. I have been telling you continually to love, to be total. And for these few days...

... there was no other alternative - death was coming already, you loved totally. You allowed me to be within you, and the cancer disappeared. Not that I have done anything; you have done something. If you had listened to me before, the cancer would not have happened at all. If you had loved with such intensity and totality before, you would not have been available to cancer. Now, after the cancer has...

..., just like a river falling into the sea. So where is the choice? How can you offer? Your death will be a merging whether you choose it or not. Who are you? Where do you stand and where can the offering become possible? This sutra is very deep. This sutra says: MIND CONSTANTLY ARROWED TOWARDS THAT IS THE OFFERING. You cannot offer yourself, but you can offer your mind. That belongs to you and that is...

... you can achieve only conditionally - if you renounce the world. It is a basic condition. For Buddhists also it is a basic condition: "You must renounce everything; you must choose death! Death must be the goal, not life! You must struggle not to be born again! Life is not of any value: it is of non-value. It exists only because of your sins. It is a punishment, and you must somehow go out of it...

... was not born out of sex, that he was born out of a virgin girl: because if you are born out of sex you are born out of sin, and at least Jesus must not be born out of sin. So everyone is born in sin; mankind lives in sin. So a deep renunciation is needed to reach the Divine. Christianity is also death-oriented. That's why the cross became so meaningful. Otherwise, the cross should not be so...

... meaningful. It is a symbol of death. Hindus cannot conceive how the cross can become a symbol, and even Jesus became so significant and important because he was crucified. If you don't crucify Jesus and he is just ordinary, Christianity would not be born. Really, those who were death-oriented became attracted towards Christ because he was crucified. The death of Jesus became the most significant historic...

.... He will make no effort, because the That is present everywhere. You need not go anywhere and you need not think of conditions, that only in certain conditions He is possible. He is possible in every condition. He is unconditionally present. When you can conceive of the Divine as being unconditionally present, then it becomes the That of the Upanishads. Then even in poison It is; then even in death...

.... See life through death; see death through life: not as opposites, but as one - as two ends of one thing. This is what is meant by That. And the sutra says, "Mind constantly arrowed towards That is the offering." Mind must be flowing towards That constantly, continuously, without any gap. How can the mind flow if you make your God separate from the world? You will have to eat and then you...

... even worth discussing. The basic, relevant thing is that if you choose you become different, if you don't choose you are again different. And it depends on you! It depends on you whether you want an existence which is just a trembling and a fear, just an anguish and death, just a long suffering - or a bliss, a moment-to-moment opening into greater and greater bliss. So it is not a question of whether...

..., and this is the riddle: that you live in That, but you suffer. You are in That, but you suffer. Why? Because your mind is not in That. And, really, your mind suffers - not you. You have never suffered, you cannot suffer. You have never died, you cannot die. But your mind suffers, your mind dies and is born, and it dies and suffers and goes on suffering. This mind is an "overgrowth". Offer...

... enlightened person neither wants to live, nor wants to die. If life is there, he dances with life; if death is there, he dances with death. Each moment is accepted in its totality without any desire for things to be otherwise. But Jainas will not be able to see it. Now, Pritama, you can see it because you are no more a Catholic nun. You are gaining to a significant insight; you are coming out of that...

... reason that every pore of your skin breathes. There are millions of small breathing pores into your body; you are not only breathing by your nose. If your nose is allowed to breathe and your whole body is covered with a thick paint so that all your skin pores are closed, you will die within three hours. You will be allowed to breathe from the nose, still you will die within three hours, because your...

.... Even if people are to be forced, violently, to be Mohammedans, it is your sacred duty to do it, because you are doing it for their own sake. Even if they have to be tortured and killed, it is worth, because if they die without becoming Mohammedans they are bound to go to hell. Save them from falling into hell! And the same is the idea of the Christians, because Christ is the only begotten son of God...

... living a single moment more... If death comes, he welcomes; if death does not come, he cannot desire for it. And committing suicide simply means desiring for death; at least one desire is still there. But in a way this is the logical conclusion of the whole Jaina philosophy. It is life-negative, it is against life, it is anti-life. And this is the logical conclusion of it: renounce life, escape from...

..., is there any need to commit suicide? The fulfilled person accepts with joy whatsoever is happening. If life is happening, good; if death is happening, good. He lives in a dance, he dies in a dance. He cannot commit suicide. Suicide certainly shows that he is still incomplete. Something in him is still desiring, something in him still wants; what it wants is immaterial. But Jainism says if you...

... sacrifice your life totally then the other world is yours, so at the ultimate moment it is better to commit suicide than to die naturally. Everything natural is wrong. Suicide has something religious in it - you commit it, you do it. The desire to live is a very natural desire. Everybody has it: animals have it, trees have it, birds have it - it is nothing special. But the desire to finish the life, to...

... point nine percent people are concerned, everything is accidental: their birth is accidental, their love is accidental, their death is accidental, and all that passes in between. Everything is accidental. That's why when you fall in love, the phrase "falling in love". It is not anything conscious in you. Suddenly you see a woman or a man and some instinctive force, some unconscious force...

..., and this point is approximately parallel to your physical heart. Kundalini is part of the etheric body, so whatever you achieve as progress on the path of kundalini does not die with your physical body; it goes with you. Whatever is achieved will remain with you because it is not a part of your physical body. If it were a part of your physical body, then with each death it would be lost and you...

... will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change. Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same. Eyes are expressive of the inner world. But kundalini is still deeper. No theoretical...

... whatever is needed. Your sleep is not voluntary, your birth is not voluntary, your death is not voluntary. These are nonvoluntary mechanisms. Kundalini is still deeper, deeper than your death, deeper than your birth, deeper than your blood, because kundalini is a circulation of your second body. Blood is the circulation of your physiological body; kundalini is the circulation of your etheric body. It is...

... body is completely exhausted, the moment the reservoir that has been accumulated for emergencies has been depleted - at that moment, one of two things is possible. If you do nothing, death may occur, but if you use this moment for meditation, the jump may occur. If you do not do anything, if you just go on fasting, death may occur. Then it will be a suicide. Mahavira, who experimented more deeply...

... with fasting than anyone else in the whole history of human evolution, is the only man who allowed his followers a spiritual suicide. He called it santhara: that on-the-verge point when both things are possible. In a single moment, you may either die or you can jump. If you use some technique, you can jump; then, Mahavira says, it is not a suicide, but a very great spiritual explosion. Mahavira was...

... are to push you to the verge where you can take the jump, but the jump itself can be taken only through a very simple, very nonmethodical method. If you can be aware at the very moment when fasting has led you to the precipice of death, if you can be aware at the moment when death is going to set in, if you can be aware, then there is no death. And not only is there no death this time, then there is...

... no death forever. You have jumped! When the moment is so intense that you know in one second it will be beyond you, when you know that should a second be lost you will not be able to come back again, be aware - and then jump. Awareness is the method. And because awareness is the method, zen people say that there is no method. Awareness is not a method at all. That is why Krishnamurti will go on...

... possible or death is possible. He has come to that point anyway. And with the others, the majority of people, just talking about awareness will not do. First, they must be trained. To be aware in ordinary situations will not do. And you cannot be aware in ordinary situations. The mind's stupidity has such a long history - the lethargy of it, the laziness of it, the unconsciousness of it, has been going...

.... In becoming conscious your actions automatically go through a transformation. The conscious man cannot do anything wrong, and the conscious man comes to know that, "There is no death for my consciousness. The body will die, the mind will die, but not my innermost being. I am eternal. AMRITASYA PUTRAH - I am the son of eternity, I belong to the eternal existence." Consciousness brings...

..., SOME IN THIS WORLD, THE GOOD IN HEAVEN. BUT THE PURE ARE NOT BORN AT ALL. NOWHERE! NOT IN THE SKY, NOR IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, NOR DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, CAN YOU HIDE FROM YOUR OWN MISCHIEF. NOT IN THE SKY, NOR IN THE MIDST OF THE OCEAN, NOR DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, NOWHERE CAN YOU HIDE FROM YOUR OWN DEATH. Life is not given ready-made - not to humanity at least. That is the dignity of human beings...

... means you will have to die to your knowledge - borrowed, imitative, mechanical - and you will have to be again innocent as you were when you were born the first time. But the first childhood is bound to be lost; nobody can protect it. It is in the nature of things that the first childhood will be lost. But the second childhood can be attained, and with the second childhood starts life. Before that you...

..., "who is minding the store?" And now he is dying - the last moments! Even at the moment of death he is thinking of who is minding the store. From birth to death you go on living, groping in darkness with no light - and you could have created the light. You cannot find it in the scriptures; nobody can hand it to you. It is not purchased or sold; it is nontransferable. But you can create it...

... and every moment death is possible. Now I cannot remain in this sleepy state anymore." The old man shrugged his shoulders. He said, "You are saying just insane things!" When he had to leave Buddha in the forest and they said goodbye, the old man was crying and he said, "Listen to me - I am just like your father. Where are you going? Have you gone nuts? Such a beautiful palace...

... in the middle world, this world. But if you become one with the law, you are no longer separate - not even in tune, because in tune you are separate. If you become one with the law: if you drop your ego and mind totally; if you become immersed in the eternal law; if you become the ocean, your dewdrop disappears in the ocean and becomes it, then you are born no more. Then there is no birth, no death...

.... Then this whole wheel of birth and death stops. Then you are one with the cosmos, then you are God. This is the ultimate that has to be attained, this is the ultimate that man is capable of attaining, but also capable of missing. Unless great effort is made with great skill and intelligence, you will not be able to attain it. NOWHERE! NOT IN THE SKY, NOR IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA, NOR DEEP IN THE...

... shadow, it will torture you wherever you go. It is better not to do it - but you can avoid doing it only if you become conscious, otherwise you are bound to do it. NOT IN THE SKY, NOR IN THE MIDST OF THE OCEAN, NOR DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, NOWHERE CAN YOU HIDE FROM YOUR OWN DEATH. Mischief is bound to bring its own punishment just as certainly as birth is bound to bring its own death. You cannot avoid...

... death, you cannot avoid the outcome of your deeds. So don't think in these terms, because all that time wasted in avoiding, hiding, is simply wasted. All that energy can be put into one effort: of becoming aware, of becoming meditative. That is going to help. A man was going to the Ganges. He went to Ramakrishna, he was a follower of Ramakrishna. He asked Ramakrishna, "Paramahansadeva, I am going...

... in pipes to your home, so every day, early morning or evening, you take a bath. Evening will be better, so the whole day's sins are finished and you are as pure as a lotus flower. Buddha says nothing can help you. There is nowhere to hide from two things: the result of your deeds and death. They are going to happen. Then what should we do? Become conscious, and in becoming conscious both disappear...

... always incomplete, fragmentary, cannot create a harmony. You will die a chaos - that's why you will die always afraid of death. And when death knocks at your door you will tremble - because the life harmony has not yet been achieved, and death has come. You have not lived life, and death has come. You are as yet incomplete, in fact unborn, and death has come. You tremble. A man who has lived his life...

..., one who has lived his day, always accepts death beautifully, because there is nothing left to be done any more. He has done all, he has lived all and he moved in all directions. All that life could give he had accumulated in him. He has accumulated the honey of life, now he is ready to die. There is nothing else. Do you know? - for one spoonful of honey a bee has to visit five thousand flowers - for...

... honey and when you die you die blissfully, ecstatically. You lived. There is no complaint in your heart, no grudge. And I tell you that if you have lived all moments in their totality, in awareness, at the moment of death you can bless all - your friends and your enemies. Yes, your enemies also, because without them you would not have been able to reach to this crescendo. They were part, part of a...

... Buddhist Master who taught his disciples for almost eighty years. When he was a hundred and twenty he said one day, "Now, I am going to die after seven days." So thousands of his disciples gathered for his last darshan, to see him for the last time. The old man, before closing his eyes and dissolving withinwards, asked them, "Does somebody want to accompany me? If somebody wants nirvana...

... know, but to go astray is also part of life. Nobody can always be right, and people who try always to be right die almost absolute failures. Don't be bothered that you may go astray, if life leads you astray, go! Go happily! The energy that leads you astray will bring you back. That sojourn may be a part of the final growth. This is my experience: that in the end one finds that everything fits...